Bone Appétit (19 page)

“What’s shaking, Tinkie?” I asked.

“Can you come back to Greenwood, Sarah Booth?” Worry gave her voice a brittle edge. “I know this is a bad time. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Babs Lafitte.”

“What about Babs?” I had a strong mental image of her flinging wigs and mannequin heads all around her hotel room.

“She’s in a coma.”

“What happened?”

“She was poisoned last night. And the last person she was with was Hedy. After the barbecue, they went out together.”

“Someone is framing Hedy,” I said. Even the most incompetent murderer could figure out how not to be the last person seen with three victims.

“And doing a damn good job of it. When can you come back here?”

I had Tinkie’s car. I glanced at Graf, who watched me with no expression whatsoever. “Can you ride to Greenwood with me?” I asked him. “I have to return Tinkie’s car.”

“And dig into this case a little deeper,” he said in a flat tone.

“Another contestant has been injured,” I admitted.

“Don’t you think this killer means business? I don’t want you to be next.”

I understood his fear. I did. But I also knew I couldn’t be ruled by it. “Graf, please don’t. You knew I was a private investigator when we met.”

“But I didn’t realize I was going to love you so much. I didn’t know you’d be hurt so badly you’d lose our baby and almost die. I didn’t know any of this when we met.”

I pushed my anger aside and found the compassion just beneath it. I knew what it was like to fear losing a loved one. “What Tinkie and I are doing isn’t dangerous. I promise.”

He went to the sink. I waited a full minute.

“Tinkie, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said into the phone before I hung up. “Graf, I have to get her car back to her. How long can you stay?”

“My flight leaves Memphis at noon,” he said. “Go on to Greenwood. It’s almost time for me to leave for the airport, anyway. My rental car is hidden in the barn. I’ll drop Sweetie off at Oscar’s on the way.”

The trip back to Greenwood was much longer than the drive home had been last night. My heart was heavy and my thoughts turned to a silky Delta night and another vehicle traveling through the cotton fields spread on either side of the road. If I could go back in time and order my parents never to leave the property, I would willingly make them prisoners at Dahlia House to prevent the pain of their loss. I understood Graf’s desire to protect his heart. I also knew I’d grow to hate and resent him if he persisted in trying to keep me swaddled in a protective cocoon. How to balance Graf’s needs against my own?

The jangle of silver bracelets warned me that Jitty was
about to make an appearance. Arriving in a moving vehicle was another neat trick from the Great Beyond I had a hankering to learn.

Instead of her latest chef outfit, Jitty arrived in full-blown glam: red evening gown that revealed perfect décolletage, dangling diamond earrings, and long, curling blond tresses. “What? Couldn’t take the heat, so you got out of the kitchen?”

“Very clever,” she said, “for a woman who’s leavin’ hot action and a good man behind.”

I didn’t need Jitty to harangue me. I chanced a long look at her. “You remind me of someone . . . a television interviewer for one of the celebrity gossip shows.”

“And also a former star of the Canadian television show
Cooking with Love
.”

“Good lord.”

“Three contestants cook for a mystery date. The guy picks one of the three dishes, the one he likes the best, and he dates the gal who cooked it.”

“If you quote Aunt Loulane and say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, I’m going to stop the car and kick some noncorporeal butt.”

“You shoulda served that man lasagna. It’s a manly dish. French toast is a Tinkie dish. Lady food don’t meet the needs of a hungry man, and I sure think Graf had to be hungry after last night. He musta worked up an appetite.”

“Stop it!” I couldn’t even entertain the idea that Jitty was spying on me. “I do not want to think of you as a voyeur. I’ll never have sex again if I think you’re watching.”

Her laughter was rich and musical. “I don’t have to watch. All I had to do was look at your face when you got up this morning. It was like the dark cloud of Mordor had lifted and the sun was shining at last. Graf worked a knot in your spine and then jerked it loose, didn’t he?”

“That is none of your business.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell. Is that your policy?”

“Jitty, I’m removing the televisions from Dahlia House. You have way too much time on your hands if you’re digging up Canadian television shows and military slogans. Now why are you deviling me today of all days? I’ve got a comatose contestant in Greenwood and an angry fiancé in Zinnia. I don’t need your bitching in between.”

“I’ve come to help you with this problem.”

For a moment, I almost believed her. Then I remembered she was Jitty. “And how will you do this?”

“History, Sarah Booth. I’m here to remind you of history.”

Protesting would do no good. Jitty would have her say. “Okay, is there a specific period we’re going to examine? Marie Antoinette? Anne Boleyn? Mary, Queen of Scots? Oops, didn’t they all lose their heads over what boiled down to a romantic interest?”

“Just go right on sassin’ and prancin’. Life’s gonna slap you upside the head with the facts if you don’t listen to me. And it was a power issue with those ladies, not romance.”

I’d really gotten under Jitty’s skin. Her accent was thickening like lumpy gravy. “Okay, say what you came to say.” We were on the outskirts of Greenwood. In another twenty minutes I’d be pulling into the Alluvian parking lot. Technically, I supposed Jitty could follow me into the hotel, but she wasn’t that kind of ghost. She was more subtle and had more class.

“When Coker and your great-great-grandpa went off to war, Miss Alice and I were devastated. Maybe your great-great-grandpa had to go. He was a landowner, a man folks in the region looked up to. He felt it was his duty to fight for his state. But Coker? My husband was a slave, like me. If he was gonna fight, he mighta thought about joinin’ the other side.”

I took a right off the highway. Traffic had picked up, and while I paid attention to my driving, I also listened to Jitty.

“When he tole me he was goin’ off to the war, he might as well have taken a knife and stabbed me in the heart. The pain. I thought I would die right there. He’d chosen his master over his wife, and it was a choice he didn’t have to make.”

“Why did he?” I knew the outcome of this story. Both men died. Alice and Jitty struggled to feed themselves and cling to the Delaney property. They’d lived hard lives filled with loss and sacrifice. And as Jitty pointed out, neither man
had
to go to war. Both had chosen. One for his ideals, and one out of loyalty to a man he loved.

Jitty’s frown softened as the memory grabbed hold of her. Not even the dead were immune to the power of the past, it seemed. “I remember to this day what Coker told me. He said stayin’ with me was what his body told him to do. But going with Mr. Delaney was what his spirit said was right. Both men expected to come home. You know how young men are, never thinkin’ fate has anything in store except life and work and pleasure. Had they known the outcome, they woulda chose different. I know that.”

“How long did you hate Coker?”

Jitty laughed. “A while. Grubbin’ for potatoes in the dead neighbor’s garden or tryin’ to catch a near-starved chicken to pen it up for eggs. At times, despair slipped under my skin and bitterness tainted my blood. But underneath the pain was the fact I loved Coker because of the man he was. And that man followed Mr. Delaney off to war to help protect him. Coker thought Alice and I were safe. He never thought Union troops would get this far or the Yanks would try to starve us to death. I guess he never
thought about what war really is. ’Til he got in the thick of it, and by then it was too late to get out.”

“So are you saying Graf will forgive me if I pursue this case?”

Jitty pushed back her blond curls. “If he understands the reasons why you have to do it, I think he will.”

That was the most straightforward answer I’d ever gotten from Jitty. Surprisingly enough, it made me feel better. “Thanks, Jitty.”

“Cook him up a big pan of lasagna, just to be on the safe side. Never hurts to have a carb blackout on your side when it comes down to the wire.”

I turned to thank her, but the front seat was empty. The smallest wisp of vapor disappeared into the air-conditioning vent. She was getting better and better at these show-stopping disappearing acts.

Tinkie sat in an overstuffed chair in our room at the Alluvian. She’d thrown over our morning cooking class, too worried about Babs to concentrate on the difference between coddle and poach. “Babs hasn’t regained consciousness, so Chief Jansen can’t question her. He suspects she’s been poisoned.” Worry etched lines in her forehead. “He’s called in Doc Sawyer.”

Doc was Sunflower County’s emergency room physician. For a country doctor who’d tended my family—and most of the county—he’d developed a highly respected reputation for diagnosing strange maladies and poisons. Babs had to be very sick to call him in.

“Is Babs going to make it?” I’d taken a liking to the tall redhead.

“No one can say, but the chief thinks she was meant to
die. He thinks we have a serial killer on the loose. I’m afraid he thinks it’s Hedy. He just doesn’t have enough evidence to make a charge stick. Yet.”

Easing onto the arm of Tinkie’s chair, I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Where is Hedy now?”

“In her room. She’s taking this hard.”

“Last night she and Babs went out together?”

“They went to a blues club in Clarksdale. Hedy said they had a few drinks, listened to the band, and came home. She left Babs in the car in the hotel parking lot listening to the end of a song. She said Babs was fine, a little tipsy. She wanted to smoke a cigarette and finish her song.”

“Do you believe Hedy?”

“Of course.” She stood up. “You don’t?”

“I do, but it’s strange that whenever something bad happens, Hedy is right on the scene.”

Tinkie put her hands on her hips. “That’s not true. Brook Oniada. Everyone saw her. She was on a stage with
all
the finalists.”

Once Tinkie believed in a person, she stuck through thick and thin.

“How do you account for the fact that Hedy was the last person to see Janet Menton alive and Babs in good health?” I asked.

“It’s Marcus. He’s engineering this. He has the money and the resources to make this happen. All Hedy wants is a chance to know her daughter. Marcus took advantage of her—twice! Once to get her pregnant, and then to get her to sign away her rights to Vivian. He used the most low-down tactics. Who can say he won’t kill to get what he wants? Maybe he planned the whole thing. Maybe he deliberately got Hedy pregnant. Now he has a child and no wife to tie him down.” Her hands clenched into fists. “Hedy has been
sitting outside his home for two years, Sarah Booth. Whenever she gets off work for two days in a row, she comes up here and prays to get one tiny glimpse of her baby. Marcus won’t even give her a picture of Vivian.”

Tinkie’s scenario was possible, but I couldn’t buy into it totally, despite her passion. I didn’t doubt Marcus was a bastard through and through. Spoiled, undisciplined, lazy—those attributes applied. Murderer? I didn’t know him well enough.

“Clive and Marcus are good friends. Dawn told you so,” Tinkie said. “Clive could be helping Marcus. Why is Clive even a judge? For the past ten years women have been trying to get him off a horse and in the sack, but he’d rather ride than date. Why now, suddenly, is he judging a beauty contest?”

“You should go to law school.” I tossed her a pair of jeans. She was still in a silk pajama set. “Get dressed. We need to get busy.”

As she pulled on her pants, I continued. “Is the killer deliberately framing Hedy, and if so, how does he or she know Hedy will be the last one to see them? Are the girls dying to frame Hedy specifically, or is she just the most unlucky person I’ve ever run across?”

“That’s a flaw in my theory.” Tinkie went to the chest of drawers to find a top.

“If he called Hedy the night Janet died, he could have lured her out of the room. Once she was gone, he could have sneaked the poison to Janet in the pastries,” I said. It was possible. As far as I knew, Jansen had been unable to trace the pastries to any of the contestants. Maybe because they were baked in the Wellington kitchen.

“Marcus would have to tail Hedy. He’d have to be right on top of her. Remember the picture with Marcus lurking
in the background. He’s been here since the contest started. If he isn’t doing it personally, he has resources to hire someone.”

“If you’re right, Tinkie, we have to do everything possible to get that child from his care.” The idea that Marcus was a cold-blooded killer made me want to jump into action.

Tinkie nodded. “Based on what he did to Hedy, Marcus is capable of anything.”

“But what if it is a serial killer who targets only beauty contestants?” I asked. Experience had taught me not to jump on one solution and push all others aside.

“Yeah, someone born so ugly, he or she hates pretty women.” Tinkie barely suppressed her sarcasm.

“I’m serious,” I said. “There are serial killers who kill hookers or soccer moms or . . . clowns. Why couldn’t one have a death wish for beauty pageant contestants?”

Tinkie’s head popped through the pullover. “You’re right. I stand corrected. We can’t settle on a single theory yet. We don’t have enough evidence.” She pulled on socks and boots. “Maybe the killer really is one of the contestants murdering off the other competitors.”

We looked at each other. “Karrie Kompton,” we said together.

“But it’s almost too obvious—one contestant killing off her competition. Surely Chief Jansen is all over that.”

“There are other possible motives,” I conceded. “We’re going to have to pick a theory and go with it.” That was the hard part. If we started down the wrong path, we’d waste precious time, and possibly precious lives.