Sarah Booth Delaney

by Sarah Booth Delaney 01-06 (lit)

  "The Garrett estate, is it still intact?"

  "Intact and with the addition of some European holdings. Extensive holdings."

  "Will Hamilton ever come home again?"

  Cece laughed out loud. "One can never tell, but that's a question for Madame Tomeeka."

  "I'll be sure and ask her next time I see her." Which would be in pretty short order. I dropped my coffee cup in the trash, noticing again the ornate mirror that reflected several small statuettes. Cece had taken a number of journalism awards. I wondered if she still dreamed of working on a major daily.

  "What about Dahlia House?" she asked, the spider finally vibrating her web. "1 heard rumors that you were putting it up for sale."

  "Not this week." I fluttered a hand in the air, hoping to indicate that I was having a creative flash. "My muse is muttering and I need to get to my typewriter."

  "I will get the galleys on this book before anyone else?" she asked.

  "Absolutely," I promised, beating a trail out into the Zinnia sunshine. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and I had a turkey to buy.

  5

  There are only two grocery stores in Zinnia, the older Piggly Wiggly and the newer Winn Dixie. Winn Dixie has the more modern selections, but I know the aisles of The Pig by heart. I know Wanda, Peggy, and Lucy, the checkout girls, and Arlene, who runs the bakery/deli. Even though The Pig is too close to the Bank of Zinnia for comfort, I decided that tradition demanded that I get my bird from the place where Delaneys had bought turkeys for the past twenty years.

  I kept a sharp eye out for Harold. I was certain he'd heard of my large deposit by now. He'd want to know where I'd gotten ten grand. I hadn't yet come up with a lie that satisfied me completely. As I pushed my cart along the worn tile, I tried to think of what to tell Harold. It would be hard not to be smug. I picked up two cans of green beans and ran through the recipe for the casserole. I also needed sweet potatoes, brown sugar, and marshmallows. The items in my cart were disgustingly delicious. No tofu or romaine lettuce for Thanksgiving.

  The mountain of fresh cranberries in the middle of the produce stopped me cold, poleaxed by a memory of my mother placing a leaded crystal dish on the table. The contents were ruby red and dancing with candlelight. It was the last touch of the holiday meal, the signal that we could unfold our napkins and eat. I saw clearly the expression of delight on my father's face, the glint of the Delaney silver in the candles.

  The memory was so real that it left me breathless. I made myself remember that those times were long ago. Tradition can mimic the past, but it can't make it real. I picked up a bag and felt the light, firm berries.

  "I hear you're the one who rescued my wife's dog."

  I'd been looking for Harold, not Oscar Richmond. I clutched the cranberries as if they were rosary beads as I turned to face him. "Hey, Oscar," I said wittily.

  "I'll give you five thousand dollars if you make that yipping fleabag disappear permanently."

  I hadn't realized Oscar was capable of making a joke. "Ha, ha." I laughed. "Tinkie wouldn't find that amusing."

  "It's not a joke." Well, that explained it. He picked up the canned green beans from my cart. "Couple of these in a sack, snatch the dog, head for the Tibbeyama River. It wouldn't take long."

  "You aren't kidding!" Chablis deserved a better father.

  "I hate that animal." He glared at me. "Tinkie said you're working for her mother."

  It had occurred to me that the powers at the bank would know that a check on Mrs. Bellcase's account had been written, but I hadn't expected a frontal assault from Oscar. "Yes," I said.

  "What are you doing for Mother Bellcase?"

  "You'll have to get the details from her." Heaven knew what Tinkie might have told him. "I'll be by the bank after Thanksgiving to take care of some of my outstanding debts," I said, maneuvering the cart to make an escape.

  "Ten grand is just a drop in the bucket on what you owe," Oscar said. He sighed. "It'll keep the wolf from the door for a month or two, but you're going to need a lot more money if you intend to try to keep Dahlia House."

  It was true. Even if I got the other ten thousand from Tinkie, that wouldn't effect a real rescue, only a little time.

  "Consider selling the property, Sarah Booth." Oscar returned the green beans to my cart. "You don't need that big old house. You could get along just fine in an apartment. We've got a buyer interested in your property, someone who doesn't care about the condition of the house. They're more interested in the land."

  I dropped the mutilated cranberries into my cart and gripped the handle. "If they don't want Dahlia House, why do they want the property? No one in his right mind wants to farm."

  "They're thinking it's a perfect location for a shopping center. And I agree. Zinnia has to grow or die, and as much as I hate it, the trend is toward shopping centers. The bank is even thinking about putting in a branch."

  For a blazing second, I saw Dahlia House razed and a strip mall erected on the spot. I thought the vision would leave me permanently blinded. Oscar mistook my stunned silence for interest.

  "I wasn't supposed to tell you about this, but you should know. You can make a good profit, settle your debts, and start over. I heard through the grapevine that you were writing a book. Not my idea of a career plan, but, hey, you've never been the type of girl who did things the easy way. You Delaneys always climbed the mountain when it would have been easier to drive up the road."

  Oscar's gossip connection was enviable, but I couldn't stand in the produce aisle with him another minute. "I have to go."

  "The reason I'm telling you this is because I think you ought to keep the money you just deposited. Don't pay off any of your debts. We can structure the sale of Dahlia House so that the buyer assumes the indebtedness."

  In his own sick way, he was trying to do me a favor. "Thanks, Oscar. I'll think about it."

  I hurried toward the section where the turkeys awaited their Thanksgiving fate. I had lost my zeal for cooking, but the requirements of the holiday kept me moving forward. I'd been worried before, but now I was beyond that. The bank had an interested buyer. That would eliminate any leniency I might have hoped for.

  I looked at the cold, plastic-coated bodies of the dead turkeys, but I saw Dahlia House crumbling under the blades of heavy equipment. I saw the long line of Delaneys standing beneath the leafless branches of the sycamores as they watched their family home leveled. They did not condemn me. They had lived through war and Reconstruction. They had lost and gained, loved and died. But I was the last. Dahlia House was my heritage, and I would not lose it while I had breath in my body.

  I dropped a twenty-pound turkey in the cart, my act of defiance. "I will never go hungry again," I vowed, aware too late that Arlene in the bakery was watching me with pity.

  I left the turkey on the drain board of the sink with Jitty mumbling incantations about salmonella and Ebola. I ignored her. Ever since the Delaneys had bought frozen turkeys, we'd thawed them on the drain board. I didn't have five days to bring the dead bird gently to room temperature.

  "Twenty pounds! You gone be eatin' turkey for the next six months." Jitty gave the bird a dirty look and flipped her dangly earrings. "Martha Stewart says—"

  "Martha Stewart be damned," I answered. Jitty adored Martha Stewart. She watched every show, bemoaning the fact that I hadn't made a wreath for the door from the scuppernong vines at my very fingertips in the arbor behind the house. She pointed out that I was blind to the decorating variables of magnolia leaves. I had no imagination for making use of the sycamore balls or pyracantha berries or dried hydrangeas that could be spray-painted to great effect—I was decoratively challenged.

  I left Jitty giving a holiday rundown of all of Martha Stewart's turkey-day decor and drove straight to the small, barely paved road that marked the transition from white neighborhood to black.

  Although modern times had caught up even with Zinnia, there was still a cultural distinctiveness to the Grove. I crossed the r
ailroad tracks that served as the unofficial line of demarcation. Many of the tarpaper shanties of my mother's youth had been replaced with brick homes. There was city plumbing and streetlights, just like the white residential sections. The difference came from the fact that in these yards, children played. Several of the older homes with porches contained chairs. People were sitting in those chairs, talking. They paused and watched my progress along the street, thinking another white woman with more money than brains was going to Tammy Odom's, aka Madame Tomeeka's. I wondered again what Tammy's neighbors actually thought of her. Did they frequent her for advice on love and money?

  I pulled into the bare yard and parked under the big oak that sheltered the small wooden house. I also wondered what Tammy did with all the money she took in from the Daddy's Girls, and the younger set of white girls who didn't fully understand that there was no point worrying about the future—their fates had been sealed at birth.

  Tammy's yard was empty of cars. Good. I wouldn't have to wait. I went up the steps and knocked on the screen door. The day was balmy and I could hear a radio in the back of the house crooning Johnny Mathis.

  In a moment Tammy appeared in my line of vision. She held her hands up like a surgeon. It was too dark to see what was on them, but I knew I'd interrupted her cooking.

  "Got a minute?" I asked.

  "Come on in." She disappeared and I went through the shotgun house to the kitchen in the back. She was mixing up cornbread for her dressing.

  "Expecting your whole family?" I asked. She had a daughter, Claire, seventeen and a true beauty, who no longer lived in Zinnia.

  "Maybe." She pulled a hot black skillet from the oven and poured the cornbread batter into it. There was the sizzling sound and smell of batter hitting bacon grease. She shoved the skillet back in the oven for the cornbread to bake.

  "How is Claire?" Tammy had sent her daughter to Mound Bayou to have her baby. There was trouble between them, but I could only guess why. Teenage pregnancy was epidemic in Zinnia. As Tammy knew, it was a hard row to hoe.

  "Fine. Had a little girl." Tammy's face gave away nothing.

  "What did she name her?"

  "Dahlia," she said, and there was the first hint of a smile. "Claire remembers the time she spent with you, Sarah."

  "I remember it, too," I said, smiling back.

  "You didn't come to ask about Claire," she said, picking up a knife and chopping onions and celery with such speed that her hands seemed a blur.

  "No, I need your help."

  Tammy's hands never stopped. "You don't believe I can see the future. You're not here for a reading."

  "Tinkie Richmond believes."

  "Uh-huh," she said, scraping the chopped vegetables into a skillet on the stovetop. She picked up a bell pepper.

  "You told her someone from her past was returning. Someone dark."

  "I remember what I said." Tammy never slowed her chopping.

  "Tinkie has a way of . . . interpreting things to her satisfaction. I want to get this straight."

  "Go on, ask what it is you want."

  "Do you know if Hamilton Garrett plans to return to Sunflower County?"

  Tammy's hands faltered. The knife nicked the end of her finger and blood shot onto the cutting board. I made a grab for a towel, but she turned away from me and went to the sink. She stuck the wound under the running water, creating a pink cascade along the white porcelain.

  "I can't believe I'm so clumsy," she said, blotting the wound with a clean dish towel. She rifled through a drawer and produced a Band-Aid.

  I could see only her profile, but it was enough. "What's your connection to Hamilton Garrett?" I asked as she bandaged her finger.

  Tammy's dark eyes held a warning when she did turn to face me. "I told Tinkie Bellcase what I saw in the cards. A dark man returns. I didn't say anything about Hamilton Garrett." She dared me to take it further.

  "Tinkie assumes it's Hamilton."

  "She assumes plenty. I could make you a list. Not everything revolves around Tinkie Bellcase and her silly fantasies. A dark man doesn't necessarily mean tall, dark, and handsome. Dark can mean bad, evil." She put more pressure on the cut finger.

  I hadn't realized that Tammy truly disliked Tinkie. Tammy's bitterness toward the Daddy's Girls was understandable, but Tinkie was no worse than the others. "She's hired me to find out the truth about the Garrett family."

  My words stopped Tammy cold. "That's a job you'd be better off without."

  "I need the money. If I don't do this, I'll lose Dahlia House next week."

  Financial troubles were something Tammy knew about. She also knew desperation. I remember when she got pregnant. She was a few years older than me, a fine athlete and a smart girl with real scholarship potential. Claire had put an end to all of that.

  Tammy picked up the knife. She stared at it a moment before she started chopping again. "I can't help you, Sarah."

  "Tinkie aside, do you remember anything about the Garretts?"

  "They had a nasty habit of dying unexpectedly."

  "Other than that?"

  She dumped the peppers into the frying pan and turned it on. In a moment there was the teasing smell of sauteing onions and garlic. "That family has suffered," she said. "They were cursed."

  I was never certain how much Tammy believed of what she told the people who came to her, but there was no doubt that she believed some of it. "The entire family? Like a genetic thing?" I tried not to sound flip.

  "All of them, yes. In the blood. Cursed with power and reckless abandon. The combination never brings anything but pain. And especially Hamilton. He had the mark of the curse on his hand," she said. She lifted her face to the ceiling, and I wondered if she was praying. "I saw it there, and I knew that he couldn't escape it."

  "What kind of mark?" She was making me feel creepy, but only just the tiniest bit. Healthy skepticism is also a Delaney trait—and this from a woman who lives with a ghost.

  "The star of Saturn and the girdle of Venus, a thumb firm and mounded, like his mother's. He bore the mark of great sexual power."

  I felt the hair along my neck begin to stand. But of course, Cece and Madame Tomeeka were thick as thieves. They would each exacerbate the other's theories. I rolled my eyes at my own gullible subconscious. I was as bad as the rest of them.

  "My dance card is a little boring. Is this sexual powerhouse headed back to Zinnia?" I asked.

  Tammy looked at me long and hard. "If he does come back, you don't want to dance with him. Tragedy follows his footsteps."

  "Then he is coming home." I was shocked. I'd actually thought the whole "Hamilton returns" thing was something Tammy had fabricated to drain Tinkie's pockets.

  Tammy's dark eyes were empty of all emotion. "It's the holidays. Folks like to be at home." She shrugged. "Even Garretts."

  I decided to probe the past. "I heard Hamilton cut the brake line to his mother's car. Do you think he's capable of that?"

  "You want me to tell you a secret?" she said, staring at me with those dead eyes that made my skeptical Delaney hide do a little goose dance. The kitchen was suddenly too hot, and the cooking onion and garlic were overpowering. I needed to step outside into the fresh air and clear my head.

  Tammy leaned across the table and lifted my hand in hers. "I don't need my cards to see your future, Sarah. Stay away from Hamilton Garrett, his affairs, and all of his associates. You want to save your home, but you risk your very soul. Let the dead lie buried."

  6

  "Mrs. Kepler! Mrs. Kepler! Please open the door." I stood outside the library in the falling dusk and stared through the glass at the older woman who primly stacked the books. It was nearly five o'clock, and the library was officially closed. Mrs. Kepler had never broken a rule in her entire life. But I wasn't about to slink quietly into the approaching night.

  My turkey was soaking in a sink of hot water—a definite salmonella no-no, according to Jitty. The pumpkin pie was cooling on the porch, and all was ready for the
feast. I had been up to my elbows in giblets when it occurred to me that the library would have all the back issues of The Zinnia Dispatch.

  "Mrs. Kepler, please! It's an emergency!" I pounded louder. I could see that I was getting under her skin. Her face was pinking up and she turned her shoulder to me. "Let me in!" I pounded until I thought the bones in my fists would shatter.

  She put her books down on the counter and came toward the door, her face the proper reflection of disdain, annoyance, and a pinch of sadness.

  "Sarah Booth, whatever are you trying to do?" she asked as she opened the door a crack. "This conduct is unacceptable."

  "I need to look at the back issues of the Dispatch." I tried to hustle past her but she was having none of that. She was old, but she wasn't about to be bullied.

  "It's Wednesday; the library always closes at noon on Wednesday. And it's a holiday to boot. If I weren't so far behind I wouldn't be up here working late. And I don't need interruptions." She reached out a hand and felt my forehead. "Your mother would be appalled by your behavior. Are you ill?"

  "Sick with desperation," I said. There was no other way. I was going to have to throw myself on her mercy. "Please, I need to find out something tonight."

  "Come back Friday," she said gently. "I was just finishing up, and I want to go home."

  "Please, Mrs. Kepler," I begged. "Please, this is very important. It won't take longer than half an hour."

  "Why, Sarah Booth," she said, frowning. "Rules are rules. You know that. Though Elizabeth Marie was a little unorthodox, your aunt LouLane knew the importance of orderly conduct."

  "I know if you don't let me see those newspapers, I'll do something desperate."

  "Sarah!" Her hand went to her throat. "What are you saying?"

  I'd actually meant something like push her aside, but she mistook my meaning. I drew my hand across my throat and grimaced. "It's life or death. Mine," I whispered.

  It was the whisper that did it. She stepped aside. "You can look until I'm ready to leave."