Buried Bones (13 page)
Authors: Carolyn Haines
"Do you need anything else?" she asked.
Her accent surprised me. European. German or Swedish. I hadn't noticed it at
"That will be all, Tilda." Grace said. "Are you packed?"
"Yes," she answered, casting me a nervous look.
"I won't delay you for long," I said to her. "Do you teach also?" She was about to flee the room, and for some reason I wanted to detain her.
"Oh, no," she said, blushing. "I only have my bachelor's. In printmaking. I couldn't possibly teach."
"Tilda is too busy to have a job." Grace clasped his hands in front of his belt. "She has all the talent in the world, but there just doesn't seem to be time to use any of it."
Although I'd suspected as much, I was shocked by the cruelty. I waited for her to make some response.
"I'll make sure there's nothing in the refrigerator that will spoil while we're gone." She slid from the room, a shadow.
"If you have something specific you need, you'd better tell me." He checked his watch again. "We're going to be late."
"Why did you renege on the contract with
"
"
"I'm always interested in breach of contract."
"He signed a release, relieving me and the school of any legal repercussions."
"Charming," I said. "And smart. How much did it cost?"
For the first time Grace smiled. "That's none of your business. In fact, I can't see where any of this is your business. I have to be going. It was lovely of you to visit, Miss Delaney. Come again soon."
It was a tacky maneuver, but one I wasn't ashamed to employ. I let the coffee cup slip from my fingers and crash to the floor.
I grabbed a napkin and pressed it against the wound. When I looked at Joseph Grace, he was staring at the broken cup and the blood with pure horror.
The scene of
The sound of the accident brought Tilda on the ready. "Are you okay?" she asked, taking my hand and examining it. "Just a nick. See, it's already stopped bleeding."
"I'm fine," I agreed, kneeling beside her as she blotted the coffee. "I'm very sorry."
"Tilda can manage," Grace said impatiently.
"I wouldn't dream of leaving such a mess." I smiled at him.
"I have some calls to make." He stormed out of the room, a tiny field marshal thwarted.
"Have you been in
"Nearly thirty years," she said. "I was eighteen when I met Joseph. He was studying in
"It must have been a difficult change to come here."
She shook her head. "Regret is for the foolish." Her smile was tentative. "It was a decision I made long ago."
I put the shards of the coffee cup on the tray. "Are you going to visit your children?" The doll-laden tree made me think perhaps it was done up for their grandchildren.
"We are childless," she said, and her gaze dropped to the floor. "Not even the best doctors here could help us."
Tilda had no way to understand that her affliction would be the highest form of womanhood if she'd been born into the circle of Southern gentility. An accident of birth had turned an asset into personal shame.
She pressed her thin body down on the towel she was using to blot the carpet, allowing the task to absorb her so completely there was almost no one left. I touched her shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk with you Christmas Eve. At
Her blue gaze met mine. "I don't like such parties."
To my further amazement, large tears welled up in her eyes and one slipped down her cheek before she could turn away. "
I rocked back on my heels, thinking fast how not to spook her away from what I wanted to know. "You knew
"Oh, yes. He introduced me to Joseph. He did not expect that we would marry." She slowly got to her feet, lifting the tray as she did so. "I have to go. Joseph doesn't like to wait."
"Did
"To me? No. I was always on the fringes of
There was nothing to do but leave--with more of a mystery than when I'd arrived.
"Tilda?" I hesitated. "Who would want
Her blue eyes were clear and unflinching when she finally looked into my eyes. "The book he was working on, his biography. It would damage many people, my husband among them. But others, too.
She walked past me, and when I turned to watch her I saw what she'd seen the whole time--Joseph Grace's shadow as he stood outside the door and eavesdropped on us.
8
The one thing I'd learned from my last case was that at a certain point in any investigation, everyone is a suspect. One of the things I'd learned from my undergraduate years in psychology was that given the proper motive, a person is capable of anything. My problem with this case was that it seemed the list of suspects and motives was endless.
The theft of the manuscript indicated that
The only other component necessary for a crime was opportunity. And from what I could tell about
Unless, of course, he had simply died from a severe cut on his hand that was accidentally inflicted. Accidents are the most common cause of death in the
The possibilities of the case perked and bubbled in my brain as I drove home. It was a relief to see the bare sycamores that marked my drive--at last I could get out of the car and away from my fruitless speculations.
I saw the first dog when I was halfway down the drive. It was a small creature that looked like a cross between a greyhound and a Brillo pad. He was sitting patiently beneath a tree and watching the front porch with such intensity that he never acknowledged the passing of my car. As I pulled around the house, I saw six more, a motley crew of shaggy and slick, big and little, black and white, and all in-between dogs. They were simply sitting, watching the back door.
I'd never seen so many dogs in one place. I got out of the car with some trepidation only to discover that whatever they were interested in, it wasn't me. The doggy portal that Harold had sent a carpenter to install in the kitchen door burst open and Sweetie Pie bounded down the steps in one single leap.
"Sweetie," I called out, glad for the welcome. She shot past me and headed for the pack. It took all of fifteen seconds for me to realize what was going to happen.
"No!" I rushed for the garden hose and made all efforts to run the dogs away, but Sweetie had no intention of allowing her suitors to depart. Dropping the hose, I went for the phone.
Harold, at least, had the decency to be at his desk at the bank. "I thought you had Sweetie Pie spayed," I accused, breathless. Outside the kitchen window, every dog was having his day.
"She was," he said.
"It wasn't successful." I turned my back on the orgy.
"I've never heard of such," Harold said, and there was the hint of laughter in his voice. "How can you tell?"
Had I not been well trained by Aunt Loulane, I would have given him the graphic details of how I could tell. "She's in heat," I said. "Trust me. I recognize the condition."
"Yes, I suspect you do."
I felt a sudden throbbing in my thumb, and for a split second I was no longer in my kitchen in Dahlia House but beneath the oaks at Harold's. I felt his mouth close over my thumb and the corresponding surge of desire. "You have to do something," I said, and my voice sounded rough to my own ears.
"I like a woman who makes her demands clear," he said.
"The dog, Harold," I said, striving for a tone of affronted dignity.
"Oh," he gave a silky chuckle. "Take her back up to Dr. Matthews. I'll speak with him."
"I don't want puppies."
"And you shall not have them. You have my word. Baxter removed her uterus, Sarah Booth. She can't have puppies."
"Right." I put down the phone and confronted the scene in the yard. Sweetie Pie had no intention of listening to any advice I had to give, so I decided to make a pot of coffee and wait until passions cooled. It had been a long, hard day.
I didn't hear Jitty until she pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. "That dog is creatin' a spectacle right there in the yard. I tol' you it was a mistake. Folks see all that goin' on in the yard and they gone be talkin'."
"So what? She's spayed." I was banking on Harold's seed of hope. She did have a scar on her abdomen.
"Somethin's wrong with her." Jitty's eyes widened, emphasizing the golden brown shantung of her sleeveless tunic. I gave her a closer inspection. Her attire was chic for a woman of the fifties, and it showed off her lean arms to advantage. For the first time I noticed she was wearing pants. Tight pants. Clamdiggers. And little flat black shoes that were very cool. It was a striking outfit--more movies and Bacall than tepid television. Though I thought Jitty's interest in the decade of bomb shelters and Ike was repugnant, I wouldn't mind borrowing those clothes.
"Nice outfit. What happened to the whalebone corset, pointy bra, and cinched waist?"
"I'm going out this evening," she said. "Business. Even in the fifties a businesswoman is allowed to look good."
"Right, all ten of y'all." I sighed. I would be left alone with a dog in heat and the holiday blues. I'd have no recourse except to plug in the Christmas lights and play Mother's old albums. I was in a Garfunkel funk.
Jitty smirked. "Don't go feelin' sorry for yourself, Sarah Booth. You took the dog against my advice." She leaned closer, her dark eyes dancing with mischief. "Ask that veterinarian man to check that hound for a Delaney womb. That must be the problem. She's been here three days and already developing the tendencies that kept this bloodline running for five generations." She gave a hearty laugh and evaporated before I could think of an insult to hurl back at her.
Sweetie and I sat on the porch as dusk fell over Dahlia House. Dr. Baxter Matthews had determined another surgery would be necessary to diagnose Sweetie's sudden enchantment with reproductive activities, but we'd decided to wait until the new year. So now I held her on a leash as she softly bayed under her breath at the dozen dogs who waited patiently in the yard. She sang to them in the softest of doggy tones, a siren lure to the panting pack. Only the firecrackers I kept throwing out in the yard dampened the ardor of her new friends.