Crossed Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Yeah, go away,” one man said, waving his hands like he was shooing chickens.

  “Emanuel.” Ida Mae cut him short as she walked up. She put a hand on his arm. “Go inside. These people are my friends, and they're welcome here.”

  “They didn't know my father.”

  Ida Mae withdrew her hand but held her gaze steady on his. “Neither did you, son. And you had many opportunities.”

  “You're just like my father. You always side with the enemy.”

  “Emanuel, this isn't the time or place—” Ida Mae started.

  Emanuel turned abruptly and stomped up the steps, his cohorts right on his heels. The church door was flung back against the cement-block wall.

  “Forgive my son,” Ida Mae said, and I knew it was a phrase she'd had a lot of practice saying. “He's hurting and he's mad at himself because it hurts. He'd convinced himself he didn't love his father. I'm sure the river of feelings that washed over him has caught him up in a wild current. He's scared.”

  “Scott Hampton's inside,” I said. Emanuel had been merely rude to us. What would he do to the man accused of killing his father?

  “Thank you. I'll—”

  The sound of a loud chopper cut the still August morning. It was abrupt and explosive, and I knew that the rider had been laying in wait somewhere nearby. A second engine fired and the two motorcycles came flying out of the cotton field not twenty-five yards to the south of the church.

  “Yee-hah!” Spider cried as he pulled the bike onto its rear tire and walked it across the front of the church not ten yards from Ida Mae.

  “The only good jigaboo is a dead jigaboo!” Ray-Ban yelled as he repeated Spider's performance.

  I saw the deputies coming from all directions. They had not drawn their firearms, but their hands were ready, fingers splayed just above the gun butts.

  The two bikers wheeled around, headed back our way. Spider punched something on his bike and the strains of “Dixie” began to play.

  Beside me, Ida Mae drew herself up tall. Every person who'd come to the funeral stood rooted to the spot, eyes on Ida Mae, faces showing horror, embarrassment, and sorrow.

  Ida Mae took a deep breath. “. . . land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten, look away, look away, look away, Dixieland.”

  Rich and filled with sorrow instead of the jaunty march of soldiers, Ida Mae's voice saturated the summer morning.

  “I wish I was in Dixie, hooray, hooray, in Dixieland I'll take my stand, to live and die in Dixie. Away, away, away down South in Dixie.”

  The officers had caught up with Spider and Ray-Ban. In ten seconds the bikers were restrained, the motorcycles' engines turned off, and the music stopped. Cece started the applause, and it spread over the gathering.

  Ida Mae ignored everyone. She walked up to Spider and stared him dead in the face. “I know what you're trying to do, and it won't work. That's not your song, son. It's a song that belongs to everyone who lived through hard times in a land they loved. You can play it and you can try to defile it, but it doesn't belong to you, and your stink won't rub off on it.”

  She turned away from him and walked into the church just as Coleman came walking out. They exchanged a few whispered words.

  “What should we do with them?” a deputy asked Coleman.

  His mouth a tight line, he stared at Spider as he spoke. “Take them in, charge them, have the bikes towed.”

  “We ain't done nothin'!” Spider said. “No law against riding our motorcycles and playin' songs. That old black bitch wasn't hurt.” He tried unsuccessfully to shake free of the two deputies who held him. “I can ride around this church till hell freezes over if I want. You got an innocent man locked up for a crime he didn't commit. Until you let Scott go, we're gonna be a wart on your backside, Sheriff.”

  The right corner of Coleman's mouth took a downward slant, and I couldn't tell if he was going to laugh or was angry. “Take them on,” he said to the deputies.

  “You can't do that!” Spider put a hand on his handlebars, but it didn't stay even a split second when the deputy stepped closer.

  “Watch me,” Coleman said. “You boys can reclaim your bikes at the sheriff's office. Tomorrow or the next day.”

  I started up the steps to speak to Coleman, but he was already walking into the church.

  “I've got to get this film back to the newspaper,” Cece whispered in my ear. “I can make the afternoon paper if I hurry.”

  “What about the service?” Tinkie asked. She was clutching Chablis to her as if the bikers wanted to dognap the little fluffball, which wasn't as far-fetched as it might sound.

  “Garvel can stay here. This is a national story and the competition is too keen.” She nodded at a young redhead who was scribbling furiously in a notepad as television cameras panned the reporter and the church. “Entertainment Today,” Cece whispered.

  I heard the strains of an organ, and I nodded at Tinkie that it was time to go inside. Together we walked into the church and took a seat in the back.

  Throughout the service, my attention strayed from Scott to Coleman. One sat beside Ida Mae and the other stood against the wall, not twenty feet from where I sat. Emanuel was sitting all the way across the church from his mother and Scott. If looks could kill, Scott would be skewered and charbroiled.

  The service went without incident. Glowing tributes to Ivory were paid by friends and relations. To my surprise, neither Ida Mae nor Emanuel spoke. The church was crowded to overflowing, and many of those attending were strangers. Judging from the expensive and unconventional attire, several were prominent in the music field. Their attention was on Scott. But his was on Ida Mae and on the plain pine coffin that dominated the front of the small church.

  It was a brief service, and I was relieved to walk outside into the bright humidity. Tinkie and I stood out of the way as Coleman led Scott to a patrol car. He would not be allowed to go to the cemetery.

  “Let's go home,” Tinkie said.

  “Sure.” I was worn out.

  “What's next?” Tinkie asked. She unpinned the hat from Chablis and the little Yorkie gave her chin a slurpy lick of appreciation.

  “I don't know,” I said, getting behind the wheel. “I honestly don't know.”

  14

  I dropped Tinkie and Chablis at Hilltop, and I went on to town. I stopped at the bakery and bought sandwiches, oatmeal-raisin cookies, and two large cups of fresh coffee. Doc Sawyer was my next target, and I wasn't going to risk the stuff in his coffeepot again. Perhaps he was conducting an experiment on bionic caffeine. The same brew had been in that pot for at least nine months.

  Main Street was bustling as I drove through town. Traditionally, Saturday was market day, and the fruit stand at the end of town was jammed. Hand-painted signs advertised boiled peanuts, satsumas, the last of the season's Vidalia onions, tomatoes from Joe Cramer's farm, early turnips, and a vibrant selection of the first fall mums. Pickup trucks were parked in a jumble as people wandered among the produce and plants.

  I had my attention on a display of plump scuppernongs when out of the corner of my eye, I saw Connie Peters. And Coleman. He was holding two pots of yellow mums, walking about five paces behind his wife. I kept driving until I turned into the hospital parking lot.

  Doc Sawyer was in his office, and he frowned as I walked in.

  “You look like you need a good dose of castor oil,” he said, eyes lighting up as he saw the bakery bags in my hands. “What'd you bring?”

  “Nothing for you.” I was fond of Doc, but I didn't like his diagnosis.

  “You look peaked,” he said, refining his earlier statement. “What's wrong? You got a stomachache?”

  “No.” I didn't want to pursue this line of questioning. It wasn't what I'd eaten but what I'd seen that had upset me. “Turkey or ham? Coffee or coffee?” I held out both bags.

  Doc cast a glance at the coffeepot in the corner as if I might have hurt its feelings. That coffee had been around long enough that
it might have developed feelings. “Ham,” he said, taking the bag with the sandwiches.

  I sat down in the chair in front of his desk, and he took a seat behind it. I was busy unwrapping my sandwich when he spoke again.

  “How are you, Sarah Booth? Really?”

  I pushed the tomato back inside the bread and licked my finger before I answered. “There are days when I feel like I'm about thirteen. Emotionally.” Doc had tended my broken collarbone and removed my tonsils. He knew a lot of my foibles.

  “Arrested adolescence,” he said with a nod of his head. “A man must be involved.”

  I didn't deny it. Instead I took a big bite of the sandwich.

  “Your appetite's still good, so I guess it isn't fatal.” He chuckled as I threw him a black look. “I can't imagine a man who wouldn't throw himself down at your feet, Sarah Booth. What's this fool's name?”

  I shook my head. While Doc knew many of my secrets, he wasn't the repository for Coleman's. “You're right, it isn't fatal, so let's forget about it.”

  Doc sipped his coffee, nodding. “This is good.”

  “Yeah, it's fresh,” I hinted.

  “I heard Tinkie had fixed you up with a blind date.”

  Drat Tinkie's hide! I didn't like everyone in town looking at me like some kind of social charity case. While I enjoyed blind dates, most folks looked on them as a last-ditch effort to have a social life.

  “Don't look like a thundercloud. Cece told me about it in the strictest confidence. She hinted that blood tests might be in order. Is that why you're here?”

  “Hold on a minute,” I said, almost spilling my coffee as I leaned forward. “No one's said a thing about a wedding.”

  Doc grinned, pleased at his ability to get a reaction out of me. “So why are you here?”

  “Ivory Keys.”

  The smile slipped from Doc's face. “That was a terrible thing. I meant to get out to the funeral this morning but I got tied up with Kelly Webster. Her son broke his leg. Fell out of a pear tree in Mrs. Hedgepeth's yard. I thought I would have to treat her for apoplexy. She was mad as a hornet.”

  If Doc was trying to divert me, it wasn't going to work. “Coleman told me Ivory died between two and four in the morning. Can you tell me anything else?”

  “Stabbed three times, one piercing the heart.”

  “Was he beaten before he was stabbed?”

  He gave me a long look. “He was.”

  “What else can you tell me?” Doc was being unusually reticent. Normally I didn't have to pry information out of him.

  “What did Coleman tell you?”

  I knew then that there was something significant I hadn't been told. Coleman was doing his job, but I still felt the white-hot tingle of fresh anger. We'd always been square with each other. Or at least he'd always been square with me. Until now. “Coleman didn't tell me anything. That's why I'm here, Doc. Ida Mae Keys has paid me to find out the truth. I owe it to her to do that, and I can't when everyone is keeping secrets from me.”

  Doc chewed the last bite of his sandwich and reached for a cookie. “Coleman has his reasons, Sarah Booth.”

  “No doubt. But if Scott Hampton is guilty, that's what I'll find out.”

  “I never realized private investigators were bound by the truth,” Doc said, not bothering to hide his skepticism.

  “Ida Mae believes Scott is innocent. If I can't prove that, I'll tell her so.”

  Doc wadded up his sandwich wrapper and tossed it in the trash. When he leaned forward at his desk, light from the window caught the fine white hair that fluffed out around his head. “There was a symbol cut into Ivory's back.” He turned slightly away, tossing the lid to his coffee in the trash.

  “What kind of symbol?” My heart rate had jumped.

  He got up and went over to his file cabinet and pulled out a folder. “I remember when you were a child, Sarah Booth. Your daddy would have shot me for showing you something like this.”

  I didn't say anything as I took the photographs he offered.

  Ivory Keys was lying on his stomach on the floor of the nightclub. His shirt had been ripped down the back and flung to either side. The symbol of crossed bones had been cut into the flesh between his shoulder blades.

  “He was dead when this happened, wasn't he?” I worked hard to keep my voice level. In my past cases I'd seen death, but not this kind of gruesome disfigurement.

  “Yes, the cuts were made postmortem.”

  I looked at the dozen photographs, which showed the body from different angles. The design was crude, but there was no way the symbol could be mistaken. It looked a lot like part of the tattoo that was on the arms of Scott Hampton and his “brothers.” When I handed the photographs back, I couldn't meet Doc's gaze.

  “Your father would be very angry with me.”

  I looked up at him. “No, he wouldn't, Doc. He would know that he couldn't protect me forever. Whoever did that to Mr. Keys deserves to be punished.”

  “Are you going to take Ida Mae's money?”

  If Ivory had written his killer's name with his own blood, it probably couldn't have been clearer. But I had to wonder if the evidence wasn't just a little too convenient. “I won't take her money unless I believe Scott Hampton is innocent.”

  He walked around the desk and put his hand on my shoulder. “You've got a good heart, Sarah Booth. Don't let it, or the rest of you, go to waste.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” I threw my trash in the garbage. I had one more question to ask. “Based on your experience, what does the way Ivory was murdered tell you?” I held his gaze with mine, willing him to answer. It wasn't a scientific question; I was asking him to move into the realm of opinion and he was resisting. “Just tell me what you think.”

  “You've already said it, Sarah Booth. The man who did this was cruel. Sadistic. Ivory was severely beaten. Then he was killed and brutalized.”

  “You're certain it was a man?”

  Doc's mouth lifted at one corner, acknowledging my tactics. “It took a strong person to thrust a knife that deep. Three times.” He demonstrated the motion, using a lot of shoulder. “Whoever did this was very angry.”

  “Angry at Ivory?” This was, at least, a lead—if I could find someone other than Scott who was known to argue with Ivory. Emanuel popped to the front of my mind.

  “Maybe not angry at Ivory personally.”

  I knew then that Doc recognized the significance of the crossed bones. “Angry at Ivory for what he represented.”

  He nodded. “A strong woman could have done it, but I'll wager you that the killer is a man. A strong man.” He paused. “A young man.”

  Those last three words hung between us. I'd asked for his opinion. I nodded. “Thanks, Doc.”

  Leaving the air-conditioned hospital, I stepped into the August afternoon. I might as well have booked time in a sauna. Sweat popped up on my forehead, and my auburn hair frizzed. As I walked across the parking lot to my car, I could feel the heat of the asphalt through the soles of my shoes.

  Damn. It was summertime. And the cotton was high. But the living wasn't easy. Not by a long shot.

  Coleman was the man I needed to see next, but I knew better than to go looking. The last I saw of him, he was snuggled in the bosom of domesticity. Well, that was a good place to hide, but I'd find him eventually. I was furious with him for withholding the fact that Ivory's body had been used as a canvas. It was a vital piece of evidence. Against Scott.

  Or maybe not. Both Spider and Ray-Ban wore the same insignia.

  I considered driving back out to Bilbo Lane to ask Spider and Ray-Ban a few questions, but my safety and the fact that it would be a wasted effort convinced me not to go.

  Saturday night loomed ahead of me. Another dateless evening. Sunday through Thursday, being a dateless wonder wasn't so bad, but come Friday and Saturday, it was another story.

  Instead of moping around Dahlia House and listening to Jitty point out my faults, I decided to drive out to Kudzu and talk to Ida
Mae. I was sure she knew about the symbol cut into her husband—and if she didn't know, she needed to—yet she continued to support Scott. I needed to know why.

  Driving through the cotton fields that surrounded Kudzu, I felt the past crowding around me. It was in those fields that so much wrong had occurred. Yet the land was innocent. It nurtured any seed pushed deep into its loamy fecundity. The thigh-high cotton plants were testimony of that.

  The rows and rows of green plants flashed past the car window, creating an optical illusion. The land and the cotton were the same, only the humans had changed. This harvest, there would be no bowed backs and bleeding hands pulling the tough boles. Combines would harvest the cotton. The huge mechanical tractors would crawl over the land, doing the work of thousands of laborers.

  The plain steeple of Blessed Zion Independent Church rose out of the cotton. I was nearly at the intersection. Playin' the Bones was on my right. The navy BMW parked in front of the club gave me pause, and I swung into the parking lot.

  The sound of my tires crunching the gravel brought Emanuel Keys to the door, and the expression on his face let me know I was trespassing. I killed the motor and got out of the roadster.

  “Mr. Keys, I'm Sarah Booth—”

  “I know who you are. You're the one taking my mother's money for a lost cause.”

  Emanuel was a handsome man who took pride in his appearance. His trousers were sharply creased, his white shirt immaculate, French cuffs fastened by onyx-and-gold cuff links, designer sunglasses in his hand. Looking at him, though, I saw nothing of either his mother or his father. Though he had his father's high cheekbones and his mother's nose and lips, his expression denied any kinship with his parents.

  “I give you my word that I won't take Ida Mae's money unless I can do what she wants me to do.” I didn't feel that I had to defend myself, but I wanted to make it clear to this man that I was not the parasite he wanted to believe me to be.

  “Why waste your time, then? Scott Hampton killed my father. The sooner he's tried and convicted, the sooner my mother can begin to put this behind her.”