Hallowed Bones (8 page)

"Good question."

Cece eyed the Danish that I'd only taken two bites out of.

"Help yourself. Can we go to the records?"

"Of course, dahling. One should always take up activities that might make one blind just to help a friend."

Cece's fears were far overstated. I knew she wouldn't stay in the microfiche room and help me hunt. But she did get me started, and by
noon
, I'd found three references to Lillith Lucas. Two were notices of a tent revival where she was a featured preacher, and the third was a 1963 arrest for public drunkenness. That was it.

I left the newspaper a little disappointed, wondering what I'd hoped to find. None of this bore directly on Doreen, but somehow, I sensed a connection. Doreen had come to
Sunflower
County
to search out her past--to talk to her dead mama. There was a link here, I just wasn't sure what it was.

I was tempted to stop in at Millie's for lunch, but I went home instead. I called Tinkie and filled her in on what had happened, and she filled me in on the fact that she'd arranged for rooms for us at the Monteleone Hotel in the historic French Quarter of New Orleans for the next several days. She explained that the bank kept several suites of rooms at the hotel for official bank business, but we could use them. Tinkie came through in the most unexpected ways.

"What's got you grinnin' like a 'coon in the chicken house?" Jitty asked from behind me.

I sat down at my desk and took in her latest outfit.

In contrast to my khakis and olive-green cotton pullover, Jitty wore a bejeweled gown that shimmered with iridescence when she walked. It was a sack design and it looked as if she'd somehow bound her chest to fit into the boyish silhouette. Nonetheless, she was stunning.

"I'm going to
New Orleans
for a few days. Remind me to call Lee and ask her if she'll feed Reveler and Sweetie Pie." Lee was a fellow horse-lover who adored her daughter Kip and all creatures with four legs.

"I love
New Orleans
," Jitty said. "That's the town that invented sin and then turned it into an art form. There's not a single vice, from eatin' to drinkin' to shoppin' to sexy late afternoons, that ain't been improved on in
New Orleans
. When do we leave?"

"We?" It had never occurred to me that Jitty would follow me to the
Crescent
City
. Jitty was of Dahlia House. This was the only place I'd known her.

"I been to
New Orleans
. I went with
Alice
when she first married and Dahlia House was being built. We bought furniture and dishes, and they all had to be brought back up the
Mississippi River
and then carted overland in a wagon. I sat with all that china, cradling it in my arms like it was a sick baby."

I'd heard all the family stories of how Great-great-grandma Alice and the slave who'd been hired to be her nanny and who had become her best friend had seen to the design and decor of Dahlia House. Only a few years later, they'd watched as their home was nearly destroyed by a war that cost them both their husbands and the futures they'd dreamed of.

Jitty was a ghost with a mind of her own, but she wasn't going to
New Orleans
with me.

"Where we stayin'?" she asked.

"The Monteleone."

She nodded approval. "That's a hotel for nice women. They'll take care of you there. Knowin' you, I was afraid you'd stay in some fly-by-night flophouse. Tinkie musta found the rooms."

I gave her a sour frown. "Why don't you haunt Tinkie, since you think she's so much more refined?"

Jitty grinned. " 'Cause you the one who needs me. You're mine, Sarah Booth. Like it or not, you and I are bound together."

"Where are you headed?" I wanted to change the topic.

"A little speakeasy that just opened up." She grinned.

I never could tell when Jitty was pulling my leg or when she was serious. Her remarks and adventures were almost always thematic--aimed at telling me something I needed to know.

"You take so much for granted, Sarah Booth. You can pack to go to
New Orleans
without a husband or a father. There was a time that wasn't so for women."

"I know." Jitty had a point. I had inherited a lot of rights and privileges because someone else paid the price for me to have them.

"It'll do you good to get away from Zinnia. You keep seeing that sheriff every day, that fire you stomped out is gonna recombust."

I didn't bother to deny it. Seeing Coleman every day was like living in a candy store. The temptation was ever present and always hard to resist.

"Let me call Lee and make arrangements for the pets," I said, picking up the phone. It hadn't even rung yet, but there was someone on the other end. A very excited someone.

"Guess what, dahling?" Cece said, her drawl put to the test by her eagerness.

"What?"

"You're going to the famous Black and Orange Ball!"

We both squealed. Then I frowned. "What's the Black and
Orange
Ball?" I asked.

"Only the most fabulous Halloween ball in the entire world. It's held every year at the Bogata home in the Garden District. It is
the
ball of the year. And we're all going. Me, you, and Tinkie. Since you're going to be in
New Orleans
anyway, you simply have to say yes."

"How did you arrange this?" I asked. Cece must have pulled some mighty big strings.

"I simply said I couldn't attend because I had guests. The hostess graciously extended the invitation to you and Tinkie. And Oscar," she added without a lot of enthusiasm. "I wish it was just us girls."

"Oscar can dance with us," I said. He was a terrific dancer for a man who looked as stiff as cardboard.

"Now, you have to have a gown. It has to be black and orange only. Understand?"

"A new gown?" I was torn between economic pettiness and joy at the prospect of a ball gown.

"Black and orange. I've seen photos of some of the dresses and they are incredible. We only have a short time to pull this together. Tinkie is going to
Memphis
with me this afternoon to shop. Do you want to come along?"

I did, but I had a far better idea--and one I wasn't sharing. When it comes to having the best ball gown for a big society event, a girl can become quite competitive, even with her best friends.

"No, I have something I have to do. Then I have to pack. You girls have fun."

"What are you up to, Sarah Booth?"

Cece was nobody's fool. She knew I had an ace up my sleeve.

"Cece, I'm in the middle of a case," I said, trying to sound mildly injured. "I'm working."

"If you come up at the last minute with some excuse that you don't have a gown, Tinkie and I are going to wrap you in black garbage bags, tie an orange bow on you, and drag you to this ball anyway."

"I get the picture," I said, smiling. I had a far better plan than garbage bags.

Mollie Jacks was
the finest seamstress in the state of
Mississippi
, or she had been until arthritis crippled her hands. But her husband, Bernard, had told me that Mollie still sewed for a few special people, and I didn't have to guess how much of a thrill she'd get out of designing a gown for a fancy
New Orleans
ball. My trip to Mollie's would also kill two birds with one stone. She lived right behind
Pine
Level
Cemetery
. I wanted to stop off at Lillith Lucas's grave. Call it gut instinct or total foolishness, I just couldn't let the Lillith thing go.

I headed out of town, the top down on the roadster, enjoying the golden breeze in my hair. October was my favorite month. In years past, my mother's birthday had always been a big occasion. My father would throw her a huge party, complete with PA system and a pulpit. It was her day to get on a soapbox about anything she wanted. Her friends came every year to hear the speech she worked on for weeks. No one could ever predict the topic. Mama always pulled the rug out from under folks.

My mind was in the past and I almost passed up the tree-shaded turn into the cemetery. I made a sharp right and pulled beneath the oaks. In the distance the old headstones were marbled with age. As a little girl, I'd loved to take rubbings from the stones. The sayings were wonderful. "She has risen into the light of heaven, our beloved mother." Or "The Lord has guided our best friend and husband into the land of plenty."

I parked and walked, wondering if I should have called a caretaker to try and figure out where Lillith might be buried. My gaze wandered over the monuments and stones, many of them ornate and lovely. I was drawn to a stone depicting a woman surrounded by flames. The cold marble seemed alive, the flames licking at her gown. Yet she looked up to heaven.

A jar of freshly picked lilies centered the grave.

Lillith Lucas
March 4, 1942-December
18, 1992

There was the standard quote from the Bible about God's rich and unfailing love, and then something more interesting. I read the words carved in the stone with a chill. "Born of fire, she perished in flame."

"Lillith," I whispered, "what secrets are you hiding?"

Movement at the back of the cemetery caught my eye and I saw Mollie slowly stand up. She'd been kneeling at a grave. Was it coincidence or synchronicity that had brought the woman I needed to see into the cemetery at the same time I was there?

"Mollie!" I called to her.

She turned and a smile lit her face. "Why, Sarah Booth, for just a minute there I thought your dear mama was calling me from heaven. You sound that much like her."

I took her arm and helped her walk under the shade of a big cedar at the back of the cemetery. It was a crisp October day, but the sun was still warm.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her.

"Same as you, visiting the dead," she said easily. "Did you see those pretty lilies I left at Lillith's grave? I met her daughter here."

"Yes, the flowers are beautiful." I was surprised. "You left them for Lillith?"

"More for that daughter of hers. I never much cared for Lillith. She was a woman tormented by her own hot blood. But I sure did take to her daughter. Doreen. She's got a gift."

"Where did you meet Doreen?" I was a little lost.

"I was here Thursday, putting some flowers on Bernard's mother's grave," Mollie continued. "Yesterday was her birthday and I always try to come and put out something bright for her. Anyway, I saw Doreen at the grave and we talked awhile. She had a lot of questions about her mama. Most of them I didn't answer, even when I could." She shook her head. "No point speaking ill of the dead, and Doreen seemed to have a lot to carry already. She lost her little girl."

"I know. It was a terrible thing." I didn't think Mollie knew that Doreen had been arrested for the murder of her child, and I wasn't going to tell her.

"What are you doing at Lillith's grave?" Mollie asked.

"Trying to sort out the past. How long has that gravestone been there?"

"Oh, about three years. Something like that. One day Bernard and I came out to visit our kin and the stone was there. Nobody knew a thing about where it came from or how it got put up. It was just there."

"Did you walk over here?" I asked, looking around for her car.

"I sure did. I got up this morning feeling fit as a fiddle." She smiled. "I'm going to drive into town and see about buying some material. I got the urge to sew again."

"Really?" I couldn't hide my excitement. "I was going to ask if you could make me a gown for the Black and Orange Ball in New Orleans Halloween night, but I wanted to make sure your hands were feeling okay."

"My hands are--" Mollie held them out, the fingers straight and lovely. She flexed them. "My fingers are just fine. Better than fine." She grasped my hands with hers. "Doreen held my hands, Sarah Booth. She held them tight and she prayed over them. When she let go, the arthritis was gone."

8

Throughout the night, I'd dreamed of ball gowns, pumpkin
carriages, and a fairy godmother who looked exactly like Mollie. Anticipation woke me. By
six o'clock
Monday morning, I was dressed, packed, and eager for all the pleasures
New Orleans
promised.

Tinkie and I chose to drive south on Highway 61 and we rolled onto
Louisiana
soil not too far from Angola Penitentiary. The river formed the fourth boundary of the huge prison farm, and local lore had it that not a single inmate had ever been able to swim across to freedom. Those who tried had been sucked down by the powerful current.