Hallowed Bones (13 page)

"How can you be so sure of this when you don't believe Doreen healed Trina?"

It was a good question, but I had a good answer. "Because I know you. You aren't sick." I squeezed her hard. "You're healthy as a horse. I feel the health in you."

The smile that crossed her face was real. "You know what? I believe you, Sarah Booth. I trust you. I'm not going to worry about this anymore. Thank you." She stood on tiptoe and kissed my cheek. "Now, don't mention it again or I'll have to hurt you."

I felt the flutter of a butterfly on my skin and a chill to the bone inside. Like my faith, my words were hollow.

Although we walked
around the entire Square, we saw no one who looked like a Starla. When I mentioned dinner, Tinkie merely made the sign of the cross at me. By sheer will, she'd banished our previous conversation.

"Spandex will give only so much, Sarah Booth. I have to skip dinner tonight if I want to be able to go to Brennan's for breakfast tomorrow and still fit into my ball gown. And I do want that breakfast. I've booked us a table at seven o'clock."

"Fine," I agreed. I would have agreed to walk on nails for Tinkie at that moment.

Her blue eyes turned assessing. "You haven't mentioned your gown or even finding shoes for it. You are planning on attending, aren't you? Cece says she has a huge surprise for you."

"Oh, joy! I can't wait. Cece's last surprise was a book.
Thinking Your Sex Life Back to Life.
It had interesting tidbits such as 'Lie on your back in a dark room and visualize your phantom lover arriving. You are helpless to move and he begins to touch your thighs. You are begging for his touch.' I was mortified."

Tinkie laughed. "She meant well."

"I disagree. Cece meant to devil me, and that's exactly what she did. The book wasn't the worst of it. She kept making anonymous phone calls from my 'phantom lover.' "

Tinkie was laughing harder, and it made my heart lift. Tinkie had the best laugh in the world. "Anyway, I burned the book and threatened Cece with vocal-cord removal if she didn't quit calling."

"Cece can push a joke to the limit." Tinkie wiped her eyes. "So, did you get a gown?"

"I'm working on it," I assured her.

"I don't like the sound of that." She frowned. "You promised me you'd go to this ball and that you'd have a suitable gown."

"I'll bet you a hundred dollars that my gown will be stupendous." I tried not to gloat.

Tinkie's eyes tilted up at the corners. "My, oh, my. A hundred dollars. You must have something pretty spectacular up your sleeve, Sarah Booth. And you had to work quickly, too. I bought my dress at Isadora's Boutique in
Memphis
and paid them an extra two hundred to have my alterations done in time for the Black and Orange Ball. They're shipping the dress to me Thursday. But you haven't even been shopping, as far as I know."

A smirk tried to creep over my face, but I fought it. "I promise my gown will be extraordinary. Now will you accept the bet or not?"

"Who's going to be the judge of your gown?" she asked, her voice lilting with amusement.

"What about Oscar?"

"He's a terrible judge of style. No, he won't do at all."

"Cece?"

She shook her head. "Cece might be prejudiced."

"A panel of three strangers?"

Tinkie nodded slowly. "Now that's an idea. Can I pick the strangers?"

I knew she was loading the dice on me, but I didn't care. "Sure. You pick them."

She held out her hand and we shook, woman to woman, before she flagged down a cab. Her face was trusting and happy as she waved to me from the back of a taxi, bound for the financial reports that had so caught her fancy. I wondered if Oscar, the banker, was putting something in Tinkie's food to make her more financially responsible. If so, I wanted some of it.

I had an hour to kill before it was time to meet Michael. The sun was setting and I walked back through the Square, crossed the street, and climbed the steps to the levee that kept the Mississippi River from flooding the Quarter and a good portion of
New Orleans
.

Instead of eating, I decided to do a little power walking. The sun was setting and the air growing chill. It was perfect for some brisk exercise. From the top of the levee, I could see the entire river filled with boats, barges, and all types of craft. I paused for a moment, seeking something I couldn't find.

The character of the
Mississippi
changes as it meanders farther south. I felt no kinship with the broad, lazy stretch of water that seemed a highway for commerce without the romance of the river I knew.

Upstream, the
Mississippi
was a part of my heritage, the source of riches and heartache on a much more personal level. In
New Orleans
, she looked old and tired and dirty and tamed. It made me a little sad as I walked past teenagers drinking beer and homeless men looking for a place to settle for the night. To my astonishment, I realized I was homesick. I missed Dahlia House and Jitty.

There were other things I missed, too. Things I didn't dare dwell on. I increased my pace and walked behind the old Jax Brewery, now a tiny shopping mall with cool stores and eateries. In the distance were the high-rise hotels and businesses of
Canal Street
. I turned and retraced my steps, fighting off the gluttonous desire for another beignet and more coffee.

Instead, I crossed
Decatur
and wandered around the Square. Darkness had sent the artists and tarot readers home, but the Square was a long way from empty. The teens had come out, complete with tattoos, nose and eyebrow rings, studs in their tongues, and hair long and multicolored. Instead of seeing them as the rebels they envisioned themselves to be, I felt a pang of deep sadness for them. They were lost children. But I reminded myself that every generation had lost children, and many of them found themselves a good life.

I began to slow my walking as I looked up at the numbers on the doors on
St. Peter Street
. A large cluster of street kids were standing at the door I wanted to enter.

"Hey, let her pass," one young man with a three-toned Mohawk said, elbowing some of his cohorts out of my way. "She's tryin' to get through, so push over!"

I was glad for his help, but didn't totally approve of his method, which was to clout anyone who didn't immediately move.

"Where's Doreen?" a teenager asked as she grabbed my arm. "Is she okay?"

I debated telling a fib, but didn't. "She's in jail. She's been charged with murder, and I'm a private investigator hired to help her."

"What'd she do?" the girl asked, stunned.

"She's accused of killing her baby."

An eerie silence fell on the kids. "Naw, not Doreen," one boy said, shaking lime-green dreadlocks. "Not her. She wouldn't hurt her kid. She wouldn't hurt anyone." He turned to a muscular teenager. "It's the cops. They do this shit all the time. They don't like Doreen 'cause she helps people like us, so now they're fuckin' with her."

Murder in the first degree was a very serious form of harassment, but I held my tongue.

"I shoulda known when that detective fella kept hangin' around, that he was up to hurtin' Doreen. He kept askin' questions, wantin' to know who saw this or that."

"LeMont questioned you?" I hadn't seen that report. I obviously needed to see the entire case file.

"He talked to some of us."

"What kind of questions was he asking?"

"Wanted to know if we'd seen anyone hangin' around Doreen's apartment."

"And have you?" I asked.

Dreadlocks shook his head. "Naw. You gonna get Doreen out of this?"

"I'm working on it."

"We need to get some money together. If we get enough, they'll drop the charges. They just want a payoff. That's how it works around here."

"Is there anyone else who might want to harm Doreen?" I asked, focusing on the young girl who'd touched my arm.

"Doreen shocked people. She didn't believe what they believed. That upset some people, and they called her names." She blinked rapidly. "But no one would have hurt Rebekah. She was already so sick."

Michael's voice came from behind me. "Melissa."

At the sound of her name, the young girl turned. In a moment she was in Michael's arms, crying. "This is so terrible." The last word was a wail.

The kids around us had grown quiet. Michael handed me a key to open the gate, and we all filed inside. In a moment he had the kids organized into delivery teams. They headed to the soup kitchen that Alec Hathoway ran, to take hot plates of food around the neighborhood to the elderly and sick. Even Melissa had dried her tears and joined in the work.

Michael and I were left in the shell of a building that was in the process of a total renovation. Doreen was spending a lot of money on the Center.

"This is our meditation room, and here is where we're putting Doreen's offices and her consultation rooms."

I walked through the building, very aware of him. But strangely enough, he didn't seem to be aware of himself. At least not in a physical way. Not a hint of sexuality colored his posture or his speech. The intensity I'd first reacted to was still there, but it seemed genderless.

"Michael," I said once I'd seen the entire building. "I need to ask you some questions. Is there a place we can sit down?"

He led me to his private offices. During the day, the Center would be a busy place, employing at least twenty-five full-time people. He didn't bother closing the door. We were alone.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Tell me about how you came to work for Doreen."

He nodded, his gaze on the top of his desk. "I was working for a C.P.A. firm on Canal. I got in the habit of buying a sandwich and eating it in the Square during lunchtime. That's when I saw Doreen reading cards and talking with people. I guess I was curious at first, in that nasty sort of way. You know, here was this woman suckering in a whole crowd of people. I wandered over to hear what line she was handing them."

His grin was charming. It could have graced the pages of any upscale men's magazine.

"But there was something about Doreen. I made it a point of listening to her every day. She'd read for a person and then talk a little about the power of their own bodies and what it meant to be truly alive and involved in living."

"You began to believe she was a healer?"

He held up a hand to slow my questions. "Doreen has never claimed to be a healer."

"But she does heal people. I heard about Trina Zebrowski." I'd hoped to trip him up with Trina's name, but he only smiled.

"Trina will tell you that Doreen healed her, but Trina healed herself."

"Are you Rebekah's father?" I asked. Once again, my surprise change of topic netted no results.

"No. Doreen and I were lovers, but Rebekah wasn't my baby. She assured me of that."

"Whose baby was she?"

He stared at me. "That's a question you should ask Doreen."

"I did. She said you were a possible father."

"I never understood why Doreen wanted to have a baby," he said. "When we were together, I assumed she was using some sort of protection. I should have asked, but in this day and age..." he shrugged, meaning that most experienced women took care of the problem of birth control without discussion.

"Are you still intimate with Doreen?"

"She hasn't been intimate with anyone since Rebekah was born. Actually, since a few months before that. She told me that she was changing her life. She was caught up in the miracle of motherhood."

"And how did that make you feel?"

His smile was charming. "The bedroom really isn't the place to practice therapy."

"You knew?" I was surprised.

"I never let on to Doreen. She's so sincere with everything she does. And she did help me a lot. Before Doreen, I had a terrible time with intimacy. I had... scars from my early childhood."

As curious as I was about his early childhood scars, I wanted to stay closer to the murder. "When did you become involved with Trina?"

He gave me an appreciative glance before he spoke. "I'm glad to see you're good at what you do, though it is a little disconcerting to have it focused at me. I've been involved with Trina since last May."

"Where were you on the night of October first?" I asked.

"The night Rebekah was killed? I was with Trina." He paused only a few beats. "At my apartment."

"You're certain you were at your apartment?"

"Absolutely certain. Trina doesn't know that Doreen and I were lovers. It would have been mean-spirited to stay at Trina's. Why put that dynamic into action? Doreen and I were through, but Trina would never have understood what passed between us."

"I'm not sure that I understand it," I said.

"You'll have to ask her to explain it to you." He shrugged. "She wanted me to believe that I could be loved. That's what she said she wanted to give me."