Them Bones (29 page)

"If you don't let the past go, it'll destroy you," I said, repeating the things that Tammy and Jitty and Tinkie had tried to make me understand. "Please,
Hamilton . . ." Memories of the night we'd shared seemed to fill the car. "Come back to Dahlia House with me."

"Aren't you afraid I'll get up in the middle of the night and murder you?" he asked in that arrogant tone that implied he was capable of anything.

"You wouldn't kill me. There's no profit in it."

My cynicism made him laugh, and once again I felt the surge of raw desire. There was something wounded and fierce in him that I could not help but respond to. I had found in
Hamilton an opponent worthy of my own passions, and I did not want to let him go.

His hands moved from my shoulders to my collarbones, inching slowly lower. I made no effort to touch him; I waited. His hands slipped inside my coat, finally sliding over my breasts. His breathing had become short and fast, like mine. And yet we could not look away from each other.

"Sarah Booth--" His fingers brushed back up and stopped on my shoulders. "I've tried not to care for you or about what happens to you. I've tried to frighten you away, but none of it has worked. Now I'm asking you. Will you go someplace safe and stay there? Go to the
Peabody in
Memphis . I have a room. Wait for me there."

"I can't walk out of this now," I answered. "I won't."

He opened the door and was out in the night before I could stop him. To my surprise, he dropped down beside the car. It took me a moment to register what he'd done. By the time I got out and ran around to check the tire that he'd slashed, he'd disappeared between the rain-drenched buildings of downtown Zinnia.

27

I had no option--I started walking toward Cece's house. Before I made it a block, the sky opened. In thirty seconds, I was soaked. My leather jacket grew heavy and made disturbing sounds as I slogged forward. The cold water did nothing to cool my temper. I had great plans for Hamilton Garrett the Fifth, and all of them involved pain and suffering.

A set of high beams bounced off the plate glass window of Steppin' Out, and I took a chance that it wasn't Gordon Walters out patrolling for me. I put on a smile, stuck out a thumb, and stood, hair plastered against my skull. In the weird reflection of the big glass window I looked like a bad cartoon character. To my amazement, the car slowed.

It was a big Caddy, and as the passenger window slid down, a cacophony of barking greeted me.

"Chablis!" I cried, recognizing the big bark of the little dog.

"Is this some new weight-loss regimen?" Tinkie asked as she leaned toward me. "You look like something out of a John Carpenter movie."

"I had car trouble," I said, surprised that Tinkie knew anything about horror films. I was learning there were many sides to Tinkie Bellcase Richmond.

"Hop in." She unlocked the door. "I told you to buy American. Those foreign cars aren't reliable."

I was too cold to argue the politics of the car industry, so I slid into the car, turned a heater vent directly on me, and eased back in the leather seats. We made a quick detour by Cece's house to drop the key in her mailbox.

"I was headed to your house to tell you about Sylvia," Tinkie said, her foot pressing the gas pedal to the floor. The Caddy purred through the night, gobbling the asphalt while it surrounded me with leather and luxury. There was something to be said for American products.

"What about Sylvia?" My teeth had almost stopped chattering, but it would be a long time before my heart recovered from
Hamilton 's betrayal.

"She's gone."

"She's gone from Glen Oaks?" I was hoping I'd heard wrong. But I hadn't, and I also remembered that Millie was not at home.

Lightning forked in the sky, and a peal of thunder seemed to split the heavens. With a sound like a fist slamming the hood of the car, the rain came down in a wall. 1 picked up a trembling Chablis and cuddled her in my arms.

"I love storms," Tinkie said. "I just love the wild energy. Oscar hates them. He's afraid. He's gone to the hunting camp over on the river to talk business and shoot a few ducks. You know, I'd like to hear of one goddamn deal they did without having to kill some animal as part of the ritual." She chattered on as she flew over the wet road in an easterly direction.

"Turn around," 1 suddenly demanded.

"Excuse me," she said. "You can add a 'please' onto that request."

"Please turn around. Quick," I said. "We have to go to Tam--Madame Tomeeka's."

Tinkie's huff evaporated. "Well, why didn't you say so," she said, mollified. "No wonder you're acting so pushy. I know what it's like to need a reading." She shot a look at me. "I didn't think you believed in Madame Tomeeka."

I cuddled Chablis up to my face and kept my silence, willing Tinkie to hurry. I didn't have to tell her my real reason.

Chances were good that someone else was destined to die before the night was over.

There was an old beat-up truck at Tammy's, and I silently cursed our luck. The prospect of waiting didn't bother Tinkie at all. With Chablis snuggled in her shirt, she ran across the yard and dashed up to the front door, flinging raindrops from her face with a giggle.

Tammy met us, and I had the distinct feeling she was going to turn us away, until James Levert stepped up behind her.

"Let them in," he said gently and then faded back into the darkness of the house. Tammy unlatched the screen and indicated that we were to follow her.

We bypassed the living room and the room where she'd been sewing little Dahlia's dresses, and ended up in the kitchen. Coffee was brewing, as if she'd anticipated our visit. I settled into the chair she indicated. The shotgun leaning against the china cupboard in the corner was not obvious, but it was handy. I looked up to find James Levert staring at me.

"It's a bad night," he said in that soft, well-spoken voice. "Lucky you young ladies decided to come in out of it, though this isn't the best place to be."

I nodded at the gun. "Is there something I should know?"

"Tammy's been helping to lay a trap. The problem is, if it don't snap shut tight then there might be trouble."

The gun was within easy reach, and he was sitting so that he could clearly see the back and front doors in the narrow house.

"Tammy," I said. I needed to speak with her alone.

She ignored me, pouring the coffee into the cups.

"Tammy, Sylvia Garrett has disappeared from Glen Oaks," I said softly. The stream of black coffee wavered, spilling out of one cup, but she didn't stop pouring. When she'd filled all the cups, she began to place them, two by two, on the table. She put mine in front of me.

"You need a towel," she said, disappearing through a doorway and returning with a cheerful red-and-yellow-striped bundle that she handed to me.

"Tammy, I need a word with you," I said, standing. I held the towel to my chest.

"It was bound to come to this eventually," she said, and her face fell into lines of weariness. "Sylvia shut away in Glen Oaks, those men digging in the cornfields, thinking that Mr. James or Delo had that money. All of these years they've kept looking, kept accusing. They couldn't accept that the money was actually gone. But Grandma told them that ground soaked in blood yields a strange harvest. I tried to keep you out of it, Sarah Booth."

I glanced at Tinkie just as Chablis popped out of her jacket and gave a friendly bark.

Tinkie didn't have a clue, but I had begun to develop a theory, and it involved James Levert. "Why did Guy Garrett, a man who didn't hunt, choose a dove field as a place to transact business?" I asked him.

His old eyes lingered on me, and he nodded almost imperceptibly. "I was supposed to meet Mr. Garrett in that dove field. He was going to give me the money, which we would use to fight the development of the Grove. It was a slick plan. We'd use their own money to defeat them."

It was a dangerous plan, but I had a new appreciation for the kind of man Guy Garrett must have been.

"Your father was in on it," James said. His eyes behind his glasses were sharply focused. "He and Mr. Garrett didn't like the way the developers were trying to cheat folks out of their land. It was dirty and underhanded. Mr. Garrett, he came up with this idea where he'd take their million-dollar payoff and pretend he was going to vote for the rezoning. But he was giving the money to us, so we could hire lawyers and fight the rezoning. Then Mr. Garrett was going to pretend he'd never received the money. There were no witnesses, except the men who paid him off. They really couldn't complain, at least not to the law."

I remembered my recent talk with Jitty, the way she'd reminded me of Guy Garrett visiting our home. He had come to talk about thwarting the development plan. I glanced at Tinkie and saw the honest confusion on her face. There wasn't time to explain this right now.

I refocused on James Levert. "After Mr. Garrett's death, the development was dropped. Why?"

"That's something I never understood," James admitted. "They could have pushed it through. We didn't have the resources to fight it after your father died and Mr. Garrett was killed. But the whole thing was dropped."

Even Chablis was watching James with fascination. "When you went to meet Mr. Garrett and get the money, he was dead."

James nodded slowly. By his expression I could tell he was remembering the clear October day and the way Hamilton Garrett was lying in the corn stubble. "And the money was gone," he said. "There wasn't a soul in sight, so I headed straight for the woods. I went and told Delo, but he said it would be best to wait until someone else discovered the body."

James didn't have to say why. Delo would have been the perfect scapegoat. He would have gone to Parchman, and no questions would ever have been asked.

"So, who got the money?" I asked.

"That's a question that's floated around for twenty years," James said. "I think it was the reason that the development plan fell apart." He allowed himself a tight smile. "They all suspected each other. Mr. Isaac, the two
Memphis men, the rest of
the investors, every one of them thought the other had killed Mr. Garrett and made off with the money. Then it got started that Delo had it hidden, and they watched him all the time. That's how they knew you were out there talking to him. They thought the money was in the cornfield, so they'd go out there on nights with a full moon and dig. As far as I know, no one ever found the money, but everyone still believes it's around here somewhere." He sighed. "Now Miss Sylvia's gone and made it worse, making up more tales about hidden money, running around like a crazy woman in the night."

The idea of all of that money lying around somewhere must have driven the men who'd hatched the plan wild, but I didn't believe any of them had killed
Hamilton the Fourth. "I'm pretty certain that Pasco Walters killed Guy Garrett," I said into the silent room. I looked at Tammy, hoping to reassure her that I wouldn't reveal her secret.
Pasco 's actions deserved censure, but it wasn't my place to act as judge and jury.

Only Tinkie seemed surprised. "The sheriff? I always thought he was nice."

"
Pasco and Veronica were lovers," I explained. "They killed Guy to get him out of the way, and so Veronica could inherit his money."

"The Garretts had been married twenty years. They had two children!" Tinkie said, looking from one to another of us. "Twenty years, and he didn't have a clue who she really was."

"I think he knew who she was, but I think he loved her anyway," I said, understanding exactly how that could happen to a person with an average-to-high IQ.

"Who killed Veronica?" Tinkie asked, watching me.

"It could have been
Pasco ," I said. "I'm not certain."

"Was
Pasco murdered or was it just my lucky day?" Tammy asked with an edge to her voice.

"I don't know that, either." I had some questions of my own. "Mr. Levert, are you certain Mr. Garrett had that money?"

"He had it. The plan was that he would take his position by that old stump once he got the money from Mr. Carter and his associates. The stump was close to the fringe of trees, and I was hiding in the woods. Once Mr. Guy had the money, I was supposed to run over to him, take the money, and disappear back in the trees. The money was supposed to vanish. Mr. Garrett would say he never got it. It would look like some of the developers were double-crossing each other."

Before anyone could say anything, Chablis leaped from Tinkie's arms with a ferocious growl. Tinkie made a grab for her, and it was the only thing that saved her life.

The shotgun blast came through the window and over her bent head. Within seconds Tinkie, James, Tammy, and I dove under the table.

"Is that what you've been waiting for?" I asked James.

"It's what I've been afraid of," he said. "Folks who've killed once don't think twice about doing it again."

I would have liked a better explanation, but there wasn't time. I aimed for the kitchen door and went rolling and tumbling out onto the back porch and into the rain.

I don't know what I expected to see, but it wasn't the big
Lincoln . The car reversed out of the driveway, tires whining. It was Millie's car, and the driver was a blond woman.

It was a habit of all Daddy's Girls--the assumption that no one would dare take their vehicle--and as I ran through the dark and mud toward Tinkie's car, I knew the keys would be in the ignition. I slid into the driver's seat and felt something wet and hairy scoot by my leg. Chablis popped up on the front seat beside me with a chipper little bark.

I started the car and took off, mud spinning from the wheels in two long jets. The
Lincoln was out of sight, but as I made the corner, I saw the red taillights as it sped toward the highway.

As I drove I tried
to
untangle how Millie had become so caught up in such violence. I'd figured her as a suspect in Veronica's death. Not really a cold-blooded, drive-by killer, but more as one woman who decided to get even with the woman who killed her love.

I halfway expected her to go to the cafe, but she kept straight through town, headed south. Watching the car ahead of me, I realized Millie was drawing farther and farther away. Once she cleared town, she'd put the pedal down. I floored the accelerator in the Caddy and found that I was hitting a hundred and ten on the wet, slick road. A fine drizzle continued to fall, and on either side of me the black night swallowed the flat outreach of the Delta soil.