Ham Bones (33 page)

"Since you weren't up here earlier, he cut them loose
about ten o'clock. Look, he didn't really have any
grounds to hold them. He interviewed them and he cut
them loose." Dewayne spoke to the microphone.

"We had no idea he was going to let them go "" Tinkie
leaned against the counter and glared at Dewayne. "He
could have called us ""

"Coleman's not obligated to call you" Dewayne's jaw
was setting into a stubborn position. One thing about
Coleman's deputies-they were loyal to a fault.

"Why did he do that?" My question was asked softly,
and both Dewayne and Tinkie looked at me as if I'd declared that I was going to fly.

"Because he talked to them and had no reason to hold them longer." Dewayne rose and came to the counter. If
he'd been chagrined before, now he was testy. "So that's
that. You can yell at me all you want, but it won't change
a thing." He directed that at Tinkie.

She'd managed to gain some control. "I'm sorry, Dewayne. This isn't your fault. But what in the world possessed Coleman? Why would he do that when he knew
we were counting on talking to Graf and Gabriel?"

"You'll have to ask him that" Dewayne wasn't going
to take any more of our questions. "Now I've got work to
do" He picked up his hat and a set of keys to a cruiser
and headed out the back door.

"You can't leave the sheriff's office unattended," Tinkie said.

"Watch me" He closed the door on his retreating back.

"Well, I never" Tinkie looked at me. "Why would
Coleman do this?"

"Because they had nothing useful to add" A better
question, from my point of view, was where had Graf
gone? Had Coleman dropped the charges on him about the
wreck where Robert Morgan had been killed or was Graf
still tied to Sunflower County by a bail bond, like I was?

"I wonder where Coleman is," Tinkie said.

I wasn't going to lie and say I didn't care. But I also wasn't
going to speculate and spend my time thinking about him.
Either he was on the case or not. Nothing I thought or said
or did would make a difference.

"When Doc did the autopsy on Renata, he said he
hadn't found any unusual substances like Botox in her
system" There were things that just didn't add up, and
my brain kept going back to Renata, the doctors she'd visited, and her plans to move to Tahiti.

"That's right. Except for being dead, she seemed fine"

I rolled my eyes at Tinkie. "Very clever." But something she'd said stopped me. I pulled out my cell phone
and dialed Doc Sawyer.

"Doc, can you talk to me and Tinkie? Right away."

"Are you two tailing the sheriff, or do you want to talk
to me about something serious?"

"Coleman is there?" Was he really on the case?

"He was. Been gone about two minutes. Left here in a
hurry, too"

"We're on our way."

We jogged back to Main Street, where we'd left our
cars. The roadster was closest, so we took that, buzzing
through a quiet downtown on the way to the hospital.

We turned to go to the hospital when I noticed a silver
Porsche on our tail. The car zoomed up close, giving me a
clear view of Graf behind the wheel.

He hadn't left town. Whether it was because he was
still on bond or because he was waiting for me, I didn't
know. But the fact was, he was here. Despite all my internal monologue about how Graf wasn't a man to pin my
hopes on, I felt my spirits lift. While everyone involved
with the play was now undoubtedly gone, Graf had remained behind.

"Snap out of it," Tinkie said grumpily. "I see him, and
it means nothing except he's as desperate as you are to
clear his name"

My answer was to pull into a parking slot and get out.
Graf parked beside us. When he stood, tall and handsome
in the noon sunlight, I walked over and gave him a hug.

"Why are you following us?" Tinkie asked.

"I went to Dahlia House, but no one was home. I tried
the sheriff's department and no one was there" He
shrugged. "Like a good junior detective, I found your
cars on Main Street and waited."

"That's the how. What I asked is why." Tinkie gave no
quarter.

"Coleman dropped the charges against me. I'm free to
go. I told him the truth, that I intended to get ahead of
Robert Morgan and force him to stop. But I didn't cause
the wreck. I did leave the scene. Because I was scared.
But I turned myself in at the Jackson, Mississippi, Police
Department. He believed me and cut me loose." His arm
dropped over my shoulders. "But I'm not leaving Zinnia
without Sarah Booth. So why I'm here has to do with
helping to prove her innocence. I'm available to do whatever you need done"

"What about Hollywood and Federico Marquez? You
had a screen test scheduled. You-"

He pulled me against his chest. "We have a special
magic, Sarah Booth. I'm not going without you. Sure, I
could be a leading man on my own, but with you at my
side, I can be a star."

I saw Tinkie roll her eyes, but that wasn't my reaction.
I heard the self-serving portion of Graf's statement. But I
also heard the fact that he was putting his bright career on
hold to help me. Perhaps it was partly for selfish reasons.
I didn't care. He was standing tall beside me, and I so
needed that.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"You're not going anywhere" Tinkie put her hands on
her tiny hips and tapped her alligator shoe on the asphalt.

I was caught between the two of them, a position I'd
felt for the last two weeks. I sighed. "Graf, do you know
where Gabriel went?"

"To get his things from The Gardens. He was picking
up Kristine and Giblet and they were going to leave after
lunch."

"Could you find them and ask Gabriel if he'd be willing to talk to me?"

"Sure" He didn't hesitate or question my reasons. He
opened the door of the Porsche and got in. "Do you have
a cell number?" He whipped out his phone, ready to install my pertinent data for instant communication.

I give him my number and, for good measure, Tinkie's.
As we watched him drive away, she turned to me. "I still
don't trust him."

"Tinkie, the only person I trust is you" I wasn't normally a touchy-huggy kind of person, but I put my arm
around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. "Don't
worry about Graf."

"It's just strange that he'd hang around when the whole
world is waiting for him to explode from the silver screen"

I know." Graf's taillights disappeared. "He isn't our
biggest worry, though"

"Who is?"

"Renata."

"I realize she's set up an elaborate frame, but she is,
after all, dead"

"She may be dead, but she's still clinging to this world.
Today, I'm going to put the stake through her heart"

oc had Renata's file open on his desk when we got to
his office. "Before you ask, I'll tell you exactly what
I told Coleman. In fact, he asked me to tell you" He let
that sink in while he adjusted his glasses and perused
some papers. "A preliminary autopsy showed Renata to
be a healthy female of the age of thirty-seven. There was
no cancer, no life-threatening disease."

"The toxicology showed no drugs in Renata's system?" I asked.

"None. The only thing unusual I found was some elevated levels of CoQ10"

"The health food stuff?" I'd never have taken Renata
for an advocate of eat right, feel right. She was carnivore
down to the bone.

"CoQ10 is being evaluated in a number of studies."
Doc shrugged. "I'm not up on my research like I should
be, but the journal articles I've read show promise in a lot
of different areas. Stroke, Alzheimer's, mental acuity Renata may have been taking it as a boost to memory, or
it could be something else. There's no way to tell, because
it's an over-the-counter product, and we have no one to
ask about the dosage or why she was taking it."

"Memory?" That triggered a thought. Graf had said
Renata was having trouble remembering her lines, even
though she'd done the play a thousand times. "Like absentmindedness or what?"

"CoQ10 is beneficial to memory, or so some studies
show. A lot of people without any serious medical conditions take it to improve their memories."

Tinkie shook her head and pointed to Doc's coffeepot
in the corner. "Maybe you should figure a way to get your
coffee into a gel cap and use it for health enhancement.
Heck, looking at you, I think that stuff may be the fountain of youth"

"Was Renata showing any signs of illness? Anything
at all? Clogged arteries, anything?" There had to be something.

"Her liver showed a few irregularities, but nothing life
threatening or even indicative of permanent damage. Of
course I didn't do a genetic screen or anything like that"
Doc rubbed his chin. "She was poisoned, so it was obvious what the cause of death was. Maybe I should order
some additional tests"

"This is all so vague" I wanted to kick the wall. I
needed to find answers, but Doc couldn't get the answers
I needed from a corpse. Dr. Samen's records might hold
some useful information, but I didn't know how to get
them. Renata had to be involved in something worth
dying over. I just had to figure out what.

"Doc, I know Coleman requested Renata's medical
records from Dr. Samen in Hollywood. If he gets them,
he'll probably ask you to interpret."

"If he's a smart man, he will. Coleman couldn't read a
medical chart if his life depended on it." He looked over
his glasses at me. "And neither could you."

"Will you call us?"

"I will. If Coleman says so" He cleared his throat.
"You haven't even asked me to snoop into the charts
about Connie Peters. That's not like you, Sarah Booth"

I stood up. "And I won't. I can't keep going back and
forth like that, Doc. I never believed Connie was sick.
Coleman continues to believe whatever lies she tells.
That's his choice. I'm finished."

Doe rose and came over to me. His arm went around
my shoulders, and he gave me a hug that brought tears to
my eyes. "Sarah Booth, I don't know a finer man than
Coleman Peters. But he is a man with obligations."

"Coleman loves her." Tinkie rose slowly, looking from
Doc to me. "That should count for something. He truly
loves her."

"I realize that" Doc put his other arm around Tinkie
and drew her close. "In a perfect world, Tinkie, love would
transcend all other things. Evil would bow before love.
Death and disease would flee in its presence. But love isn't
enough. Not nearly enough. I've watched Sarah Booth
pass up several good men while she waited for Coleman
to set his house in order. I'm with her. She's waited long
enough"

Tinkie was smitten silent. "Thanks, Doc," I said, working hard to control the quaver in my voice.

"I'm only telling you what I think your folks would
say. There comes a time when walking away is the only
answer that makes sense"

I kissed his cheek. I'd taken that first step in ending
what now seemed like a lifetime of love. In high school,
I'd always noticed Coleman, the football hero, the kid who worked after-school jobs to get his college degree in
horticulture, the young adult everyone respected. We'd
never dated, because Connie had always been on Coleman's arm. And she was still there, one way or another.

I couldn't look at Tinkie. I had to walk out the door
and keep walking before I dissolved in tears. My hand
was on the knob when she spoke.

"You both make it sound so cut-and-dried." Tinkie refused to let it die.

"If it were cut-and-dried, I'd be Coleman's date and not
his prime murder suspect" I took a deep breath. "Now let
it go. I have to, so please let it go"

I walked quickly out the door, down the corridor, and
into the winter day. The sun had been replaced by clouds
that scudded north, as if the troubles from down on the
Gulf Coast had blown Renata into our midst and now
promised more bad news.

"Sarah Booth! Sarah Booth!" Tinkie called out to me
as she ran to catch up. "You don't mean that. You aren't
giving up on Coleman, are you?"

How to explain this? It was difficult to think of a way
to say it. "Coleman is who he is, Tinkie. That's why I love
him. Because he takes his vows seriously and does what's
right instead of what's easy. But I can't be the part of his
life that's wrong anymore. I have to find a place where
I'm what's right. For me and the person I fall in love
with."

She grabbed my hand and slowed me so that I faced
her. "Is that Hollywood and Graf?"

I didn't know. I had no answer for her, because a broken heart doesn't mend with the promise of a screen test.
"I'm not in love with Graf."

"Could you be?"

"I was, once. But that was a million years ago" I forced a smile. "I was a different person then with different dreams and ambitions."