“Coleman, I need to be serious. Do people really kill each other over a breach of promise?” It sounded archaic. Like something a nineteenth-century woman might do if her honor and reputation had been destroyed.
“People value things differently, Sarah Booth. You know that. You’ve always been your own woman. Your parents taught you that, and Aunt Loulane polished it off. It doesn’t mean you don’t get hurt, but a man will never be able to crush you, no matter what he might do. Other women see their only value as the wife of the man they’re married to. If that man leaves or betrays them, it could push that type of person into murder.”
There was a mighty big compliment in his words. And also a deeper understanding of who Coleman was as a man and as a lover. He’d never been drawn to the vulnerable girls, the ones who wanted a man to shape and complete their world. Plenty of those had chased him because he was strong and able to bring a sense of safety and stability. In the South, and maybe a lot of other places, a certain type of woman had been raised to hunt for the alpha male, the breadwinner and responsibility shoulderer. It wasn’t that I didn’t crave those things. It was just that I realized after my parents died that it was up to me to create my own safety net, my own stability. No one could truly give me that—because when it came from anyone else, they could also take it away. It wasn’t a fair burden to put on another person. The era of women being taken care of by their men had died back in the 1950s. Some people just hadn’t snapped on that fact yet.
“I guess I need to understand Patrice Pepperdine a lot better if I’m going to understand Erik.”
“It’s possible that she assumed they were going to marry. If she was a little unhinged or a tad narcissistic, she’d believe her fantasy was reality, and she’d blame Erik for tearing it apart.”
He was talking about another whole kettle of fish. “You sound like that comes from personal experience.”
“When you were in New York I dated a woman from Jackson for over a year. We had a lot of fun. I wasn’t the sheriff yet and I had a lot more freedom to travel and enjoy the pleasure life offers.”
I couldn’t help the instant jealousy that swept over me, even though this was the past and I’d been intricately involved with an actor, Graf Milieu, while Coleman had been busy with his female friend. I didn’t ask her name—I didn’t want to know. Because then I’d be tempted to look her up, to judge her as a competitor, and that was not the way I wanted to spend the coming days and weeks. “Obviously, this took a bad turn. As you know, I’m no stranger to bad romantic turns.”
Coleman’s laugh was more poignant than merry. “How well we both know this. I cared for her. I enjoyed her company, but I didn’t love her. Not in the way that I hoped to one day love a partner.”
The jealousy faded as quickly as it had come. “There are so many different ways to love people, aren’t there?”
“Maybe this Patrice really, truly gave Erik her heart, and he didn’t recognize it. That would tend to make a woman very angry.”
“Again, talking from experience?”
“Yes, and rueful experience at that. I hurt someone badly. I never meant for that to happen. I was so thick-skulled I didn’t even know it was happening. I just assumed she felt exactly as I felt—that we were having a whale of a good time but that it really was just for a time. Not forever. I think back and I should have seen the signs, Sarah Booth. And that makes me worry that I’m misreading you, too.”
It was fish or cut bait time. Part of being a grown-up was stepping up to the plate when the pitcher threw a ball. “I want more than just a passing good time. I want a shot at something permanent. Is that the reading you’re getting from me?”
“It is,” Coleman said, “and boy am I relieved, because that’s exactly what I want, too.”
I looked out the window of my B&B room at the beautiful gardens and thought of Snow White for some crazy reason. I could hear the birds outside chirping, going about their business of building nests and preparing for the cycle of new life. Any minute now the bluebird of happiness would perch on the windowsill and the Seven Dwarfs would come marching down the garden trail singing “Heigh-Ho.”
“When are you coming home?” Coleman asked, this time with real longing in his voice.
“As soon as I can, Big Guy.”
“Stop it.”
“How about Big Mon, like Cletus calls Dave Robicheaux.” The James Lee Burke mysteries were some of his favorite books.
“Don’t call me that. It’s a sacrilege.”
“Dead-Eye Pete?”
“When I get my hands on you, I’m going to make you pay.”
“Marshal Dillon?” That would get him going.
“Should I call you Festus or Miss Kitty?”
“Okay, let me think.” It was a nickname for him I was after. “Okay, I’ve got the perfect nickname. Mr. Law and Order.”
“That’s worse, Sarah Booth.”
“Walking Tall.”
“That’s the worst one yet. Don’t dare call me that. Or I’ll call you My Little Private Instigator.”
I laughed. “I don’t mind that. I’d like to instigate some changes in your blood flow.”
“Sarah Booth, you are a naughty minx.”
Now that was one step too far. “No. No Naughty Minx.” I searched for a new label. “How about I call you My Sweet Little Six-Shooter. People can draw the implication they choose.”
“No.” But he was laughing. “Keep it up and I’ll have to come down there and handcuff you.”
“And that’s when the fun would begin. Just remember, turnabout is fair play.”
I heard someone outside my door in the hall, and it was past time to wake Tinkie. We still had some ground to cover. “Call me tonight, please.” We were as bad as teenagers.
“Will do, Miss Snoop.”
“Now I like that one. Keep it.” I severed the connection before he could come up with something worse.
The noise came at the door again. This time with a creepy footstep, kind of a step and shuffle. Step and shuffle. I instantly thought of someone dragging a dead body. It’s just the way my mind works.
I popped out of the chair and picked up a heavy candlestick from a small desk. It had heft and would be easy to swing. My gun was in the trunk of my car. I’d never considered that while I was on a girls’ weekend I might need protection.
The step, shuffle came again, and then a bang on my door. I grasped the knob and prepared to open it.
16
I took a gulp of air, twisted the knob, and threw the door open. A young woman stood in the hallway. I took in her mohawk haircut, the black Goth makeup, the ring in her nose, the heavy boots, and her black clothing. Her sleeveless tank top revealed a lot of ink. What really caught my attention was the tattoo needle in her hand and the little generator she was dragging.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
“I want justice. And revenge. And I want to make cheating, lying men suffer.” She had a slight accent I couldn’t place.
That set me back on my heels. “There’s not a man in my room.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like that comes as a surprise to me.” She brushed past me and stepped into my room. She looked around, finally taking in my T-shirt and sweat shorts that I usually slept in. “In that getup, if a man showed up he’d run for the hills.”
I knew her, of course. “Jitty, dammit, you scared me.”
“You think you didn’t give me a start? Girl, look in the mirror. You look like you just got evicted from skid row.”
“I didn’t realize I was going to have to try to impress Lisbeth Salander in the middle of a beautiful spring afternoon.” I’d finally figured out who Jitty was pretending to be. “Have you looked in the mirror? You’d scare the pants off a man—and not in a good way.”
“The better to ink him up good. Did that lawman you’re playing hot sheets with happen to leave any handcuffs? I might need them for an apprehension. I heard there was a marriage-contract breake
r on the loose.”
“If you’re referring to Erik, we don’t know that he proposed to Patrice Pepperdine and then reneged. She could have lied to her friends. Keep in mind, we don’t know anything.”
Jitty made a little gesture of dismissal with her hand, as if she were flicking off a fly. “He’s a man. He’s guilty.”
This was certainly a different song than Jitty normally sang. Most often she was throwing shade at me for any number of things. I was the problem; Coleman was her golden boy.
“Okay, Lisbeth, what brings you to Lucedale, Mississippi?” Since I was the only person who could see her, I didn’t have to worry that the residents of George County would stroke out if they saw her outfit.
“I’m here to protect you and the girls.”
Now that was an interesting twist. “Do we need protection?”
Her features morphed from the pale Goth of the main character of the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, back to the beautiful and healthier-looking ghost of Dahlia House. “You need to be careful. Your mama would skin me if I let anything happen to you.”
I knew that Jitty, my parents, Aunt Loulane, and even Great-great-great Grandma Alice all conspired to torment me—but also to keep me safe. They were busy in the Great Beyond. “Why is my mama worried about me?” There was something else going on with Jitty. She never told me anything about what happened to people after they died. There were rules. Plenty of rules. I was a rule-breaker for the most part, but not when it came to the Great Beyond and Jitty. If I lost her, I would have no family at all. So I played by the rules.
“Libby is looking out for you. James Franklin, too. All of them. You better not disappoint them.”
When she threw the whole thing back on me, I felt a lot better. This was how our conversations usually went. I was always the one at fault. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
“What tidbits of wisdom you spout. Try this one on for size. ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’”
I recognized the William Faulkner quote. It troubled me as much now as it had when I first heard it in a literature class at Ole Miss. Faulkner had loved his bottle but the man had a lot of wisdom and could turn a phrase. “Is something bad about to happen?” She wouldn’t tell me but I had to try.
“Something bad is always about to happen, Sarah Booth. It’s the nature of life.”
She was suddenly back to Lisbeth, and her words were so sad and poignant that I stepped closer to her. “What is it? Tell me.”
She shook her head. “Keep an eye on your friends.”
I nodded. “Are they in danger from the killer?” Tinkie was asleep, but Cece was out of pocket. “Should I be worried?”
“Stay alert. And do what you have to do to stay safe.”
With that, she spun around so I could see her back, and the dragon’s tail winding down her left arm. The design seemed to take life. The figure of the dragon circled her, looking over her shoulder and puffing out a long, hot lick of flame and a belch of smoke. And then she was gone.
The door to my bedroom opened and Tinkie stood there. “Are you okay?”
I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t trust my voice. I nodded.
“Who were you talking to?” She looked around the room, searching for my conversational companion.
I was tired of lying to Tinkie. “Lisbeth Salander. She stopped by to warn me that danger was around us.”
Tinkie made a sour face and gave me a look. “You’re always talking to someone and when I ask, you blow me off with crazy things like you’re talking to characters out of a book. One day I’m going to find out who it is you chitchat with when you’re alone.”
“I hope you do.” I meant it, too. I would give a lot to share Jitty with Tinkie. They would hit it off and probably gang up on me, but it would be so worth it. The fly in this particular ointment was the possibility that if I told anyone about Jitty, she would be recalled by those who ran the Great Beyond. I might never see her again. That I couldn’t risk.
“You look kind of sad, Sarah Booth. What’s wrong?” Tinkie put her hand on my arm. “I worry about you sometimes. You take on a lot of burdens for your friends.”
“I’m fine. I was just thinking of that famous Faulkner quote about the past not being dead.”
Her hand slipped up my arm and over my shoulders as she pulled me into a hug. “I do believe you’ll see all your family members again. Since I found out I was pregnant, I’ve really been thinking about what I believe and don’t believe. Humans need something to believe in, Sarah Booth. Which is why we’re here at the miniature Holy Land. I love the stories and parables about Jesus. There are so many wonderful belief systems. I want my child to have a connection to something bigger than herself. Or himself.” She grinned because she knew I was dying to figure out the gender of her baby.
“If you teach her—or him—to be curious, the child will find his own path.”
She kissed my cheek. “You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for.” She yawned and stretched. “I’m hungry.”
“That’s just not possible.” At lunch she’d eaten the amount of food she generally consumed in three days.
“It is possible. Let’s see if Donna has any coffee and something sweet. Maybe she’ll have some of those egg custard mini-pies. They are so good.”
“Oscar is going to have to put a lock on the refrigerator, Tink. You seem to have lost your willpower.”
“I’ve got cells multiplying at a rate of speed that would make your head spin. You realize that in months, I’ll give birth to a unique human being. I think about that and I am gobsmacked. This baby, I can feel it growing. I imagine how it’s developing, cell by cell, and I want it to have plenty of fuel so that he or she comes out big and fine and healthy.”
“You never do anything by half measures, Tinkie. Let’s see what Donna has to snack on.” Arm in arm we walked down to the dining area where Donna already had a pot of coffee on. Donna Dickerson was just the person to ask about Erik’s tangled romantic past.
She brought us steaming cups of java and ramekins of apricot custard. Tinkie was growing a child, but I was merely growing a spare tire. If I didn’t get her home to Oscar, I was not going to fit behind the wheel of the Roadster. Still, the custard was so delicious, I couldn’t pass it up.
“Sit with us,” I invited Donna. “I have a few questions.”
She took a seat. She pushed a second ramekin toward Tinkie, but didn’t offer a comment.
“Was Erik ever engaged to Patrice Pepperdine?” I asked.
Donna tilted back in her chair. “Now that’s a question I don’t know the answer to. There were some rumors that Patrice was up at the drugstore a lot, taking Erik special dishes she cooked. She was … hovering. I only know this because a few of my friends commented. Erik is quite a catch, and folks could see that Patrice was spreading her net for him. How far it got, I don’t know.”
“What’s the gossip?” Tinkie asked. She sipped her coffee.
“Gossip is that he dumped her. But I’m not sure I believe that.”
“Why not?” I ate another mouthful of the custard and let it melt in my mouth. Delicious.
“I don’t see Patrice as someone Erik would be interested in. She was after him, but that doesn’t mean it was reciprocated.”
“They were dance partners, but it could have been more. It’s possible he led her to think he would marry her.”
Donna shook her head. “Engagements are broken all the time. That’s life. Would she have been vindictive enough to try to ruin his reputation?”
“Patrice was not a nice person. You would think someone who was as physically beautiful as she was would have been happier.” She frowned. “I can’t remember a time when she seemed to take pleasure in the day. She was always a sour person. Remember, though, I wasn’t around her a lot. Maybe she had reason to be sour. There’s something else you should know. Maybe twenty years ago, a man set up a dance studio in town. You know, lessons
with his skilled employees. Some of the churches opposed it, but the studio opened. Except the whole setup was a con, and several people were played for a lot of money. Several people were humiliated by being duped by the dance master. People have long memories, and I can see why Erik would simply prefer to keep his private life private.” Donna shook her head. “I don’t know if any of that applies to what’s going on with Erik. I stay out here at the inn and mind my own business. I’ve got plenty to do here with the cooking and gardening. And this makes me happy.”
“Donna, what do you know about Snaith?” Tinkie asked.
“I know enough to steer clear of him. Those remedies he concocts and sells—I wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole. The shame of it was that I heard he was a good doctor, but Slay ruined him financially and he lost his license. Snaith, like any doctor in a small community, was looked up to, so this has been a hard fall for him. He had cause to kill Slay but that doesn’t mean he did it.”
My only other suspect, so far, was Cosmo, but mainly because he was so close to the site where the bodies had been dumped and he had expertise in poisons and herbicides. “Do you think Cosmo Constantine is capable of murder?”
“I don’t know anything for a fact, but I will tell you that I saw Cosmo and Patrice get into an argument in the local grocery store. I mentioned it to Glory when she was here. The incident occurred right after Erik’s camellia bush was poisoned. Cosmo is weird, especially about plants, and I heard him threaten Patrice. He said she was a murderer and that she deserved to die just like that bush.”
Tinkie and I exchanged looks. Patrice had died of the same herbicide. And Cosmo did have a beef with Daniel Reynolds.
“Thanks, Donna. For the wonderful stay and your help.”
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