Hallowed Bones (3 page)

"There were sleeping pills in her blood," I said, surprised at the harshness of my own tone. "That doesn't sound like a mistake. Someone put them in her baby bottle."

"The police must have mixed up the blood," Doreen said, undisturbed by my tone. "Rebekah wasn't drugged."

I was about to say something else when Tinkie stomped my foot so hard I thought her stiletto heel had gone through muscle, bone, and tendon. I stumbled back into the cell across the aisle, grasping the bars for support.

"What if this isn't a mistake?" Tinkie asked very gently. "What if someone did... something to Rebekah? Is there someone who might have wanted to hurt your baby? Or you?"

Doreen blinked. "No. No one would want to hurt either of us."

"What about the father?" I inserted.

"He has nothing to do with this. Nothing."

"We'll still need to talk to him," I said.

"No, I don't think so," Doreen answered with a hint of polished steel. "You'll have to take my word on it. He isn't involved."

"Tell us about your ministry," Tinkie said, giving me a "backoff" look. "I understand you're a preacher."

"Not a preacher," Doreen said. "More like a teacher. I try to show people how to live in peace and freedom. With themselves and others. The first step toward harmony is always made with ourselves."

"I understand you can work miracles?" I said, wary of Tinkie's right heel. She'd obviously taken a liking to Doreen Mallory and was ready to defend her.

Doreen's smile was amused. "Everyone can work miracles, Ms. Delaney. I'm no exception."

"But you have healed people?"

She considered it. "No, I can't really claim that I've healed people. On some occasions, I've shown people how to leave illness behind."

"Sort of like checking your coat at the door?" I asked, stepping away from Tinkie before she stomped me again.

"Yes, sort of like that," Doreen said, not the least offended by my flippancy. "If you believe the weather outside is warm, you don't need your coat. Illness is sort of like that. If you don't believe you need it, you can leave it behind."

"Science of mind?" I asked.

"Nothing that formal. This is very simple. It has to do with thought and energy," Doreen answered, and I got the feeling she was trying to explain herself to me in a way that I'd grasp. "May I ask you a question?"

"Me?" I was surprised, but nodded. "Sure."

"Why do you invest so much of your energy in the past, Ms. Delaney?"

When Doreen Mallory turned her green gaze on me, I felt totally naked. And exposed. "I'm not really the issue here," I said, deflecting the question. "What do you call yourself?"

"Doreen Mallory," she said, not bothering to hide her amusement at my discomfort. "As I'm sure you know, it isn't my birth name. There was an older nun at the convent who cared for me most of the time. Her name had been Mallory before she took her vows."

"I was asking what title you applied to yourself. Reverend, doctor, what?"

"I have no title and need none. Just Doreen is fine. Can you tell me about my mother?"

"What do you want to know?" I hedged. I didn't believe Doreen was a miracle worker, but I didn't see the need to tell her that her mother had been considered the town crazy.

Doreen's calm gaze never faltered. "I only found out a few weeks ago where I really came from. I thought perhaps my birth mother would have some answers about Robert's syndrome, which is a genetic condition. The nuns finally broke down and told me enough about how I came to live at Rosebriar that I was able to piece things together and find Lillith. It was too late, though; she was already dead."

It was the first hint of a chip in her perfect composure. Her daughter's many medical problems had sent her looking for answers into a past that, if Lillith Lucas was truly her mother, could hold only unpleasant surprises for her. But at least she'd made an attempt. That made me feel a little better about her.

"We didn't know Lillith well," Tinkie, ever the diplomat, answered. She didn't say that we were all terrified of Lillith because she had the fire of madness in her eyes and a tangle of gray hair that looked like Spanish moss. "The only thing we really knew about Lillith was that she was a religious woman. Some might say obsessed with religion."

"Everyone considered her crazy, didn't they?" Doreen asked.

Tinkie stepped closer to the bars and studied Doreen's face. "Yes. I'm sorry, but most folks in town thought she was a little mad. We kids were afraid of her. She waited for us on street corners, yelling Bible verses at us. We avoided her whenever possible. To be honest, I don't ever remember looking her in the face."

Doreen's hands went to the bars. Her slender fingers circled them. "Sheriff Peters told me a little about her. And that woman in his office said Lillith was insane. She told me she burned to death. And she said Lillith was nothing more than a whore who used religion to intimidate people out of their money."

"I wouldn't give you a plugged nickel for anything Rinda Stonecypher said." It aggravated me that Rinda could be so unnecessarily cruel.

"No one in town knew my mother had a child?" Doreen asked.

I shook my head. "None of us," Tinkie said. "Of course, grown-ups didn't talk about stuff like that in front of us kids, but we would have heard it somewhere. I'd have to say that somehow Lillith kept your birth a secret."

"She must have felt very alone and isolated," Doreen said.

"Lillith was obsessed with sex. That's mostly what she preached against. We never considered that she was having sex, much less that she'd had a baby."

Doreen smiled. "So often it's the demons we rail against in others who have us by the neck."

"Do you believe in demons? In possession?" I asked, wondering if she might have killed her baby in some attempt to cast out the evil demons of medical illness.

"No, not the kind you're thinking of. Rebekah wasn't possessed by Satan. To me, she was beautiful. I felt her spirit. She was truly a gift from God, even with all of her problems. She came to show me something wonderful, and then she returned to paradise."

For one split second, I caught the power of peace that Doreen Mallory offered. To honestly believe that your baby's death was part of a plan, part of something other than horrible bad luck and the normal grind of human suffering--that would be nothing short of miraculous.

But only a madwoman could really believe such a thing. As I stared into Doreen's calm green eyes, I wondered exactly who lived there.

"Coleman said you were at
Pine
Level
Cemetery
when he picked you up," Tinkie said.

Doreen nodded. "I went to visit my mother. I needed to talk to her."

"Doreen, you know she's dead." Tinkie was very gentle.

"Exactly what is death?" Doreen countered. "Her physical body has been shed, but that doesn't mean her spirit, her energy, is gone."

"Oh, so she's just hanging out at Pine Level?" I asked.

"It was the only place I knew to go. I don't have any idea where she lived in
Sunflower
County
. I wanted to feel close to her. Sometimes the easiest way to do that is to go somewhere familiar to a spirit."

"Did you talk to her?" Tinkie asked.

"I was just beginning, when this older woman came up to put some flowers on a grave. I chatted with her instead. She told me a good bit about my mother. I think perhaps Lillith sent her to me."

Doreen had a neat way of turning events in her favor. She wanted to talk to her dead mother, but a live person showed up. Very convenient.

The door between the jail and the sheriff's office opened and Coleman ushered in a short woman in a flowing aqua habit. Coleman took in the scene before he closed the door, giving us our privacy.

The sister hurried toward us, worry etching a line between her eyebrows. "Michael is taking care of everything, but your followers are worried. The sisters have been praying nonstop. The sheriff says he can't set bond, that it's in the hands of the
New Orleans
justice system--as if there were such a thing!" The small woman almost hummed with angst and energy.

"Sister Mary Magdalen," Doreen said. "You shouldn't have come all this way. I'm fine."

Though we were standing only a few feet from her, Tinkie and I didn't register on the nun. She had eyes only for Doreen. "I look at you behind those bars and I feel an awful fear." Her eyes were large, her face pale.

"Fear isn't necessary," Doreen said. "As you can see, I'm perfectly fine. The sheriff was quite the gentleman."

"We hired a detective. We have to get you out of jail." The sister looked around with dismay. "I can't believe this is happening. I told you not to come here. The past holds no answers for you. There's only trouble here. I told Sister Mary Grace not to tell you about any of this. I--"

Doreen broke the riptide of the sister's words with an introduction of Tinkie and me.

"I'm sorry," Sister Mary Magdalen said breathlessly. She struggled to regain her composure. "It's just hard to see Doreen in a place like this. She wouldn't hurt a fly. Really. For them to say that she killed her baby is preposterous. She's a healer, not a killer." She flung a tear from her cheek with a gesture of frustration. "As if the loss of that dear child wasn't enough to bear. Now this!"

Doreen reached through the bars and lightly grasped the sister's shoulder. "I'm fine, Sister. It's a misunderstanding. Ms. Richmond and Ms. Delaney will straighten it all out for us. You can't get excited like this. It isn't good for you."

Sister Mary Magdalen took a deep breath, her gaze locked with Doreen's. Age lifted from her face. "Of course," she said. "Things will be just fine. I gave myself over to worry for a little bit there." She took another breath and smiled at us. "Okay, now what are we going to do to help Doreen?"

4

TlNKIE AND I PONDERED A STRATEGY TO HELP DOREEN AS WE LEFT
the courthouse and drove to the health department to see if there was an actual birth certificate for Lillith Lucas's daughter. It wasn't particularly relevant to our case, but I just wanted some confirmation that Lillith Lucas had indeed had a daughter.

It was a perfect fall day, the light clear and golden, with just a bit of a nip. Tinkie snuggled deeper into her sweater since I refused to roll up the window of her car. For the four months of summer my hair had been a ball of frizz. Now I gloried in the feel of the wind lifting it off my neck. The fairy godmother of low humidity had turned dross into silk.

"She didn't do it," Tinkie said as we parked in the shade of a pecan tree. The nuts had begun to fall and several crackled beneath the tires. Three squirrels gave us murderous looks.

"How can you be so certain?" I was puzzled by Tinkie's defense of a woman she hardly knew. Tinkie wasn't a pushover. Most people had to earn her trust.

"I just know," she said. "Female intuition."

"Because
you
could never hurt an infant," I pointed out. "We always find it hard to believe someone could do something we wouldn't. But someone killed that baby."

"Maybe it
was
a mistake," she said, getting out of the car. She looked over the top at me, her face as serious as I'd ever seen it. "Mistakes happen. I mean, it's been three weeks since the baby died. There could have been a mix-up in the lab or something. The blood they tested might not even belong to Doreen's baby."

I didn't argue. Instead I took the five cement steps into the cinder-block-walled health department. At the door I was ambushed by a wave of memories. I'd come here as a child, a preschooler getting lined up for first grade. Vaccinations were mandatory, even though my mother had staged a first-class protest against the shots. She wasn't certain if the vaccinations were safe or even necessary, but she was damn positive that anything mandatory couldn't be a good thing. She protested and I ran. Nonetheless, they got me. Three employees had cornered me on the scuffed yellow linoleum and held me while the nurse pumped me full of immunities. It was a nightmare memory.

Walking into the smell of disinfectant and alcohol, I was glad Tinkie was beside me. I could tell that she was having a case of negative deja vu as well. The reception desk was empty, so we walked down the silent corridor. In my memory, the clinic was always jammed with screaming, terrified children. Now there was no one around. Except the white-clad figure that stepped out to block our path.

Penny McAdams had not changed a whit in the twenty-something years since I'd been dragged into her office kicking and screaming. She wore the same white nurse's uniform and batwing hat. Her shoes were white and soundless on white-hosed feet and legs. She eyed me with a cold recognition.

"Sarah Booth Delaney," she said, nodding to herself. "I remember you. You kicked me in the shins once. Your mama should have tanned your hide, but she didn't. She took your part in acting like a spoiled brat."

"That was a long time ago," I said, wondering if I should apologize, but not feeling sincere about it.