Bone Appétit (26 page)

Tinkie might have been on the case, but she wasn’t in our room. She hadn’t returned from her appointment with
Evangeline Phelps. I decided to grab a glass of the peach tea the Alluvian served in the lobby. I’d give Oscar a call to make sure Sweetie Pie was behaving and rehydrate simultaneously.

The sweating tea glass in my hand, I did a double take as I headed for the elevators. Across the courtyard, Marcus Wellington sat at a table in the hotel restaurant—and he wasn’t alone. Belinda Buck sat opposite him.

Marcus picked up the check, rose, and slid Belinda’s chair away from the table—a perfect gentleman. They were laughing as they disappeared from sight. I waited, downing one glass of tea and pouring a second. They didn’t come through the lobby.

My discovery wasn’t ground shattering, just another little fact to add to the pile.

As soon as I was in the room I kicked my shoes off and dialed Oscar.

“Sweetie’s depressed,” he said. I could visualize his eyes narrowing as he decided how much to tell me. “I didn’t want to worry you, but ever since that Danny dog went back to New York, Sweetie has been in a terrible slump. She turned down chunks of steak this morning. I swear, Sarah Booth, I’m worried about her. She hasn’t swallowed a morsel since Graf dropped her off.”

“Try some buttermilk and corn bread. Nothin’ like a little home cooking.”

It wasn’t Oscar who spoke but a silver-haired woman wearing a long red tunic top and white pants. This stranger had invaded my privacy. It took me a moment to realize Jitty had transformed herself into a Southern cooking icon—Paula Deen.

Waving Jitty away with one hand, I took the telephone and hid in the bathroom. Of course Jitty could float through a wall, but she might allow me to finish my conversation
with Oscar. Or she might not. It depended on how determined she was to make me miserable.

“For Sweetie to turn down steak, she must be in a real slump. I have to attend an event right now, Oscar, but I’ll come home tonight. If nothing else, I can bring Sweetie Pie here with me. Dogs aren’t allowed in the hotel, but I’ll work something out.”

“That might be for the best,” he agreed. “It hurts me to see her like this. Not even Chablis can perk her up. I’m simply at a loss. I’ve tried every treat I know and she refuses to eat.”

“Who would have thought Sweetie could fall so hard for a dog she’d known for just two days?” It sounded like a perfect case of Delaney womb taking total control, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Oscar.

“Love is strange, Sarah Booth.” He cleared his throat. “Will Tinkie accompany you home?”

Sweetie wasn’t the only one at Hilltop feeling blue and lonely. “I’ll bet wild horses couldn’t keep her away.” I had a sudden inspiration. “Or you could come to Greenwood and have a romantic evening with your wife. I’ll watch Chablis and Sweetie Pie in Zinnia while you entertain Tinkie in Alluvian bliss.”

“It’s a deal.” Oscar jumped on that like a hungry rooster pecking a doodlebug.

“I’ll call you when we’re done with the pageant event.” I smiled at playing the matchmaker for Tinkie. She missed Oscar, though she would never complain. A surprise “date night” was just what the doctor ordered.

Speaking of doctors, I needed to float my theory of “top dog gets killed” by Doc Sawyer. He might be able to tell me more about the poisons used so far—they seemed so disparate. Tinkie and I had come up with two different motives: for the killer to control the outcome of the competition, or
for the killer to frame Hedy for murder. My suspicions about Marcus had me leaning toward the latter.

Hedy, if she were truly a practitioner of the dark arts, would know plants and poisons. But a load of information was available on the Internet. Anyone with reasonable smarts could learn about a poison and how to administer it. Anna Lock had a lot more than reasonable smarts. She was highly educated.

“Sarah Booth Delaney, come out here and see what I’ve got cookin’.” Jitty’s voice carried clearly into the bathroom.

I had plenty to do, but first I had to see what Jitty was whipping up in her latest emulative incarnation of a master chef.

I opened the door a crack. At first the room appeared empty and I thought maybe she’d returned to Zinnia. No such luck. She was sitting on the end of my bed, waiting.

“Come out, Sarah Booth.” Her voice had a long drawl, only slightly different from her normal cadence, but she had the Paula Deen haircut down to a T. Were it not for her lovely mocha skin and dark eyes, she could have passed for the cooking queen.

“What now?” I asked. Though she was pretending to be a chef, Jitty was clearly on a mission directed only at me.

“I just found a recipe for Paula Deen’s fried chicken, and it’s exactly the way Miss Alice and I made it. Fancy that. Just goes to show good things don’t change. ’Course we didn’t have ’lectric or gas stoves. We did it all on the woodstove. ‘Moderate heat’ was a little harder to judge back them.”

“You didn’t cook. And neither did Alice. Who really cooked before the war?” I was certain I’d heard talk, but I couldn’t remember.

“Lena was the head cook, back when the plantation was runnin’. Now that woman could spread a table. We
had fresh vegetables, grown right there in the Dahlia House gardens, most all year round. Lots of weeks we did fine without meat of any kind. Just those tender greens and tomatoes so full of flavor you could almost taste ’em when Lena sliced ’em up.”

Jitty’s face softened, and for a moment I saw the loneliness of the passage of time. It occurred to me that perhaps Jitty had sacrificed the chance to be with Coker, her husband, in the Great Beyond so she could stay and look out for me. The thought was humbling. “Who grew the vegetables?” I asked.

“Coker did that. He had a talent for makin’ the land give up bounty. It gave him real pleasure to watch the process, to go from puttin’ a seed in rich dirt and watchin’ it grow into somethin’ to put on the table. Cotton was the money crop, but Coker’s garden kept everyone fat and full. I can almost hear him callin’ me outside to see an especially fine stand of beans or lacy mustard greens.”

For a moment both of us were pulled into the past. Jitty went to a place I’d never been, and I was at the dinner table with my parents as they chatted about their day. My mother loved working in her vegetable garden, and she too had been a talented farmer. In my memory movie, my mother served my father’s plate with fresh vegetables she’d grown, picked, and cooked. Her hand brushed across his. The look they shared was filled with happy secrets.

“Talkin’ ’bout Coker and the garden won’t solve what’s gnawin’ at you.” Jitty drew me back to the present.

“What’s wrong?” Jitty wouldn’t leave until she’d had her say.

“You are.” Jitty put it on the line, no apologies.

“What have I done now?”

“You’re stirrin’ ever’ pot in Mississippi ’cept the one that’s burnin’.”

I didn’t follow her. “I’m setting up dates for Tinkie, tending my lovelorn hound, chasing down a serial murderer, and trying to keep a young beauty contestant alive. What else do you want me to take on?” No matter what I did, Jitty was never satisfied.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna say this.”

I saw it coming then like a big train with a cowcatcher rushing down the tracks at me. “You had better not!” I pointed a finger at her. “You had better not tell me to go to Hollywood. You had better not say those words to me after all the guilt I had to carry about leaving Zinnia.”

Jitty stood. “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. You’d best tend to your bubblin’ pot, girlie. That’s what I’m telling you.”

“A watched pot never boils.” I could throw around a few famous axioms. “Graf doesn’t need me to watch him make a movie. He needs me to be who I am, Sarah Booth Delaney, private investigator. That’s the woman he fell in love with, not some unemployed female who could follow him around and be his shadow.” I was panting with emotion by the time I finished.

“I’m not here to devil you, I’m here to help.” Jitty reclined on my bed. “Graf loves you, Sarah Booth, but if you think he’s gonna sit on hold in a place like Los Angeles, you’re mighty wrong.”

“What are you saying, exactly?” A sick feeling stabbed my gut.

“A man needs a certain amount of your focus. Even your mama, hardheaded as she was, understood this. She didn’t leave James Franklin runnin’ loose in places like Hollywood or even Memphis.
Think
, girl.”

The possibility of Graf being unfaithful had never crossed my mind. I felt like a fool. But the idea I had to nursemaid him every second to keep his attention focused on me didn’t
sit well, either. “If he’s so damn fickle he can’t understand what I’m going through, then—”

“Hold on there, Missy, I’m servin’ you up some good advice, not aggravation. Could be Graf sees you’ve made a choice to investigate cases and risk your life rather than be at his side. You might try walkin’ a few steps in his shoes.”

I sank into the plush chair. “And he might try walking in mine. I can’t go back to Hollywood and act right now. I’m too raw. I’m doing what I need to do to heal.”

“I’m not tryin’ to put a scare into you or make you worry or fuss at you. But Graf lost something in that cotton field, too. You weren’t the only one got hurt. And it seems to me he’s way down your priority list. Chances are, it might seem that way to him, too.”

Never in a million years would I have figured Jitty would counsel me to go to Hollywood. Never. That she did scared me badly. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“I know phone calls ain’t no substitute for a tender touch or a moment of holdin’ someone. I know the comfort two people can give each other is maybe the only thing that eases the pain of this world a tiny bit. I know if you leave that man out there too long, hurtin’ like he is, chances are good he’s gonna find comfort somewhere.”

“Is Graf . . . interested in someone else?”

“I don’t know and I wouldn’t say if I did. But he’s a man with a clear path to stardom. How many women you think want a piece of that action, even if he wasn’t handsome and well mannered. You could go a far piece and do a lot worse.”

Aunt Loulane’s words haunted me when they fell from Jitty’s lips. “I have to finish this case. I can’t just walk off and leave Tinkie with a client who may or may not end up in jail, and seven contestants, six of whom may be dead by the end of the competition. And Sweetie Pie is having some
kind of crisis.” The man and the dog I loved the most were suffering and I wasn’t there for them.

Jitty shook her head. “Wrong choice.”

“I have an obligation to Tinkie. And to Hedy. And to Sweetie.”

Jitty’s lips were a thin line. “Then I’d be on the horn telling him that. I’d try a little harder to make it sound like it’s a choice you regret.” Jitty’s form vanished before the last words were spoken. Normally she did a slow fade, but this time there was a loud popping sound, and the only thing left was the smell of ozone.

Once Jitty was out of the way, I got Chief Jansen on the phone. Doc Sawyer had returned to Zinnia. Not a problem. I’d see him when I was home with Sweetie and Chablis. The thought of my loyal hound, so willing to accept me the way I was without judging me and finding me short, made me want to skip the cooking event and head to Dahlia House right now.

Not possible. I had a client to clear and a partner to back up.

Hedy had allayed some of Jansen’s suspicions, but she was still “a person of interest.” I had another couple to add to his list.

“Could you check into Anna Lock?” I asked.

“Why should I look into her?”

Coleman would have asked the same question. “She’s a person of interest for me. She’s the nanny Marcus hired to care for Hedy’s daughter.”

“The child also belongs to Marcus,” Jansen said.

“Anna Lock is a professional nanny. She worked for a prominent New Orleans famly, the Bronsills, moved to the French Quarter, had some kind of breakdown, then disappeared
for several years. Now she’s back in the nanny business. If you could do a background check on her, it would save me a lot of time.”

“I’m not making any promises.”

“I didn’t expect you would.” But I also thought if Jansen caught a whiff of anything rotten, he’d pursue it. I only had to put him downwind of Anna Lock.

“What makes you interested in this nanny?” he asked.

“She fits the description of a woman who followed Hedy and Babs from the blues club.”

“It’s your job to prove Miss Blackledge innocent, but why would a nanny for the Wellington family kill pageant contenders?”

“Hedy has a right to see her child. She sighed the papers giving Marcus total custody under duress. A sure way to keep Hedy from Vivian would be to frame her for murder and put her behind bars.” I wished Jansen and I were speaking in person. “Anna Lock has some tentative connections to a New Orleans botanica and she’s loyal to Marcus.”

“That’s a long stretch, even for a private investigator.”

“No longer than thinking Hedy would kill pageant contestants for a title and crown.”

“If you want to do Miss Blackledge a favor, tell her to stay with someone at all times. If there’s any more trouble, she’d better have an airtight alibi.”

That wasn’t bad advice. “Thanks, Chief.”

“Yeah, thank me when we have a killer behind bars.”

Tinkie wore a bejeweled slack suit and killer heels. Her feet had recovered from her walk to the barn, and while she’d bemoan her fashion choices, she wasn’t about to change her ways. As we sauntered across the street to the cooking
school, where top chefs from across the nation had gathered to prepare their special dishes, I couldn’t help but admire my partner. I was tempted to tell her Oscar would soon be at her side, or even better, in her bed, but I kept mum.

She’d purchased additional lenses for her camera and was fast becoming a damn good news photographer. At the door of the cooking school, she slowed me with a hand on my forearm. “It’s hard to believe one of these young women would murder to get a title.”

Several of the participants, visible through the front window, mingled in the lobby of the school. Karrie Kompton hung on Clive’s arm, batting her eyelashes at him. To his credit, he kept as much distance as he could between them. Crystal Belle Wadell, Karrie’s former roommate, chatted with Belinda Buck. Mrs. Phelps, the pageant coordinator, flitted from one side of the room to the next, tending to last-minute details.