Smarty Bones (8 page)

I didn’t think heart palpitations in the Daughters of the Supreme Confederacy would really be viewed as a dangerous situation, but who was I to discount the weight of a clique of heritage ladies? “The judge needs to hear this.”

“And so does Oscar Richmond,” she said.

“I’m not sure I follow.” Graf rose from the sofa and refilled her glass.

“Then you haven’t heard?” Frances sipped the sherry.

“No, ma’am. What have we missed? Sarah Booth and I were … rehearsing some movie parts this afternoon.”

I’d thought I heard the phone ring, but to be honest, I hadn’t paid a lot of attention. I’d been very, very busy with other things. “What happened?”

“Tinkie was supposed to call and tell you that Buford Richmond, Oscar’s ne’er-do-well cousin, showed up at The Gardens this afternoon and got into it with Dr. Twist. Some harsh things were said, mostly about her feet.” Her eyes widened. “Have you noticed how huge her feet are?”

Olive’s tootsies didn’t interest me. “What did Buford say?” Oscar’s cousin was a loose cannon. He was a survivalist nut who’d once bought every roll of toilet tissue in the Piggly Wiggly and refused to share. Several folks in town who’d run out of Charmin had wanted to string him up. He said he was storing the tissue and soap for “the coming apocalypse.”

“Well, he heard Dr. Twist intends to connect the Richmond and Falcon families with a conspiracy, and that’s all it took. He had a gun, actually an old derringer—and he threatened to blow Olive’s ‘mud flappers from here to eternity.’”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Buford acting like an idiot would be fuel to the flame of Olive’s prejudice against Southerners. “I wish the townspeople had whipped some sense into him when he hoarded the toilet paper.”

“It gets worse. I can’t believe you haven’t heard anything about all of this. It was a real scene.” Frances gave me the stink eye. “What were you doing all afternoon?” She watched the blush rise up my cheeks and then she looked at Graf, who to my amusement also blushed. “I see,” Frances said.

“What else happened?” I tried to put the conversation back on track.

“Jeremiah Falcon showed up looking every inch the buffoon. He had on the blue seersucker suit with the white panama hat, acting all lord of the manor.”

Cece’s brother, Jeremiah, was a good ten or fifteen years older than she was. He fancied himself a planter, except he’d never done an honest day’s work in his life. Well, at least in the last twenty years. He lived in the Falcon family home, Magnolia Grove, and survived off the fortune his parents had amassed and he’d cheated Cece out of.

“Jeremiah never comes to town. He’s virtually a recluse. How did he hear about Olive?”

Frances considered. “I guess Buford called him. Those two have been thick as thieves since grade school. They had the potential to do amazing things, and both have squandered their lives.”

That they were in cahoots didn’t surprise me, but it did concern me. Every kook in town had come out of the woodwork. “Does Cece know?” Jeremiah had been a total jackass about her sexual reassignment and was instrumental in getting Cece disinherited. He’d done everything in his power to make sure his sister, who was smart and talented and kind, had been left out in the cold.

“She knows by now. Everyone in town knows, except you.”

“I’ll call her right away.”

“People will be hurt by Olive Twist. She’s doing a lot more than digging up graves. She’s resurrecting a lot of pain and hurt. And your friends are the ones who will suffer, Sarah Booth.”

I could clearly see that. “Gather the Daughters of the Supreme Confederacy and get them all to call Judge Colbert down in Holmes County to stop the exhumation. We each have as much standing to stop it as Olive has to request it.”

Graf interrupted. “If Olive presents a case the Lady in Red was murdered, that could weigh in her favor.”

He was right. But my immediate worry was Cece. She’d been wounded by her family’s reaction to her sexual reassignment. They’d told her they would rather see her dead than a “thing.” Sometimes words hurt more than a bullet. “I need to talk to Cece.”

“I’ll discuss this further with Frances,” Graf said. “You check on Cece.”

My love for Graf was a constant, but his offer to chat with Frances, a woman he’d just met, so I could attend to Cece sent my love spiking off the charts. “Thank you.”

He kissed me lightly on the lips. “Sarah Booth and I will be married in the spring,” he told Frances. “I’m the luckiest man alive.”

She beamed at both of us. “I think Libby would approve of your choice, Sarah Booth. He puts me in mind of James Franklin, your daddy.”

“Me, too.” I could barely get the words out past the lump in my throat. I grabbed my car keys from the table and whistled up my hound. Sweetie loved to ride in my convertible, and I had reason to believe she could comfort Cece in a way I could not.

“Take your time, Sarah Booth. Pluto and I will feed the horses.”

“You are a saint.” I blew a kiss and ran out the front door.

I tried calling Cece on my cell phone as I drove toward her house. When she didn’t answer I tried Harold, Oscar’s right-hand man at the bank and a member of Delta high society. He might be a good ally in figuring out how to handle Jeremiah and minimizing the damage to Cece.

Harold answered instantly. “What can I do for my favorite girl detective?”

I gave him a rundown on what was happening.

“I’ll meet you at Cece’s house.”

“Thanks.” I hung up and called the newspaper just to be sure she wasn’t working late. No dice. The receptionist told me Cece had left around noon and hadn’t been back.

I wasn’t worried. Not really. Concerned. A little. When the phone rang, I was relieved the ID showed Tinkie. But the relief was short-lived.

“Oscar’s disappeared.” Tinkie was close to tears, judging by her voice. “He isn’t at Hill Top, or the bank, or The Club. It’s just not like him to disappear. This whole thing with the Lady in Red and Buford acting a fool has upset him more than he lets on. Cece, too.”

“You don’t think Cece has gone hunting Jeremiah, do you?”

“I hope not.”

I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know Tinkie and I envisioned the same bloodbath. Cece had fought Jeremiah in the courts over the Falcon estate, and she’d failed. The last words she’d spoken to her brother included the phrases “rot in hell” and “too dead for backtalk.” If they clashed, I didn’t trust Jeremiah not to hurt her.

“Do you know where Jeremiah might be?”

“Jeremiah doesn’t socialize much, but I heard Buford was holding court in the bar at The Gardens. If Jeremiah is with Buford Richmond, they’ll be knocking back the whiskey. The two egg each other on. Normally, Jeremiah is standoffish and aloof, but he’s changed lately. Buford, too. I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t like it. I hope Oscar hasn’t gone there to try and talk sense into Buford. That’s a waste of breath.”

Testosterone and liquor were never a good combination. Especially not when mixed with rampant ignorance, a sense of superiority and entitlement, and guns. Buford had an arsenal, including illegal automatic weapons. Everyone in town knew Jeremiah carried a derringer in his boot. A boot he didn’t have enough sense to pour piss out of when he was in his cups.

“I’ll go to Cece’s and then work my way to The Gardens.” I would rather take a beating than return to Gertrude’s den, but Cece was my friend. Jeremiah and Buford were both crazy enough to shoot her if she got in their faces.

“I’m sorry, Sarah Booth, I can’t go with you. I have to find Oscar.”

“No apologies, Tinkie. If I run across him, I’ll call.”

*   *   *

Harold was waiting at Cece’s when I pulled into the drive. “She’s not here,” he said. “I peeped in every window. She isn’t home.”

“The Gardens.”

“Okay.” He knew my history with Gertrude. A wicked smile lit his face as he petted Sweetie in the backseat of my car. “Can I bring Roscoe? He’s here with me.”

Roscoe was a demon with four legs. That his vet file labeled him “canine” didn’t mean a thing. A DNA test would prove he was a descendant of Beelzebub. “Sure.” If I could give Gertrude Strom a stroke by taking Sweetie, it wouldn’t hurt to have Roscoe along, too. “Maybe Roscoe will pee on Gertrude’s foot. I don’t know why she hates me so much. It’s almost as if she thinks I’ve plotted against her.”

“I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, Sarah Booth.” Harold held the car door open for Roscoe, who flew across the porch making a noise somewhere between grumbling and snorting. He was a vile little customer.

The dogs loved my old roadster convertible, and we set out for The Gardens just as the sun slipped behind the tree line. When I turned into the lane, shaded by beautiful oaks and brilliant with blossoming shrubs and beds of flowers, I had to stop the car and take it in. The peachy light of sunset saturated the golds, russets, and purples of the mums. As we idled in the drive, shadows overtook the day.

“I love dusk,” Harold said. “The soil seems to absorb the sun’s light. The day is over; the night begins.”

“I love it, too, but it’s a sad time for me.” I couldn’t say exactly why, but the day’s ending brought the past closer. As light slipped from the sky, memories took on the texture of reality. Many of my remembrances were sad, moments lost in time. “I prefer sunrise. New potential.”

“When the night is burned away by the golden orb. You’ve had enough shadows in your life, Sarah Booth. You deserve to bask in the sun.” Harold patted my shoulder. “You’re a good friend. We don’t tell you often enough.”

“As are you. I’m blessed with good friends.” I pressed gently on the gas and put the car in motion. “Gertrude will be angry about the dogs.”

“Gertrude is angry at you no matter what you do. Want me to ask her why she has such a burn-on for you?”

I laughed as we found a parking spot. “Nope.” I turned to the backseat. “Sweetie, Roscoe, stay in the car.” Sweetie sometimes obeyed, but I had no expectations for Roscoe except trouble.

“There’s Cece’s car,” Harold said. “And the ancient Jaguar Jeremiah inherited from the Falcon estate. He probably drives it twelve miles a week. What a sad and lonely creature he is. I’ve often wondered why he never married. He’s not bad-looking. When he was younger, he was quite the local heartthrob.”

“It’s hard for me to remember anything except how awful he was to Cece. Speaking of which, let’s find them before Cece gets arrested.”

We hurried down the flower-lined pathway just as the solar lights came on. I thought of Peter Pan and Wendy when Harold grabbed my hand. We ran like children rushing to recess.

Gertrude was not at her normal sentinel post at the front desk. Harold and I giggled as we slipped down the hallway to the bar. When we were fifty yards away, I heard the harbinger of war to come.

“You’re a stupid bastard without an ethical bone in your body,” Cece yelled.

I could make a good guess whom she was talking to.

“And you’re a freak of nature,” Jeremiah tossed back.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered. No time for fancy curse phrases now.

Harold doubled down on speed, and I was hot on his heels. He hurled himself through the bar’s doorway and threw a punch so perfectly devastating, Jeremiah was lifted off his feet. He fell back on a table and crashed it.

I patted his back. “Mike Tyson in disguise.” Cece stood beside me as stunned as I.

“I can brawl when it’s necessary.” Harold straightened his jacket. “A gentleman seldom finds himself in circumstances requiring fisticuffs. This time it couldn’t be avoided.”

“I’ll sue you for everything you’re worth.” Jeremiah sprawled on the debris of the table. “You rush to the defense of that he-she. You have a taste for trash.”

Harold drew back his foot, and Cece and I both rushed forward to step between him and Jeremiah.

I hadn’t seen Jeremiah in years, and his appearance was shocking. The classic Falcon good looks had eroded from anger and drink. Sure enough, he wore the same tired trademark seersucker suit. Stains littered the front of his jacket. His panama hat lay on the floor beside him. Even in the wreckage of what was left of him, I saw something that reminded me of Cecil’s older and very sophisticated brother. He let bigotry and ugliness eat him from the inside out.

“Get out of here,” Cece said.

“I have as much right to be here as you do. Maybe more, since I’m a genuine person.”

Harold cocked a fist, but I stepped up to Jeremiah’s ear and whispered, “If you say another hurtful word to my friend, I will figure out the thing that makes your life a living misery and then I’ll make certain it happens.”

“You can’t threaten me.” He straightened his spine. “No one threatens Jeremiah Falcon.” A trace of lord of the manor still clung to him.

“Yeah, leave him alone.” Buford Richmond, Tinkie’s cousin by marriage, pushed between us. When the fighting started, he’d ducked behind the bar. Buford, shorter and rounder, was a physical contrast to Jeremiah. The things they shared in common included lack of ambition, lack of love, and a lack of joy.

“Buford, if you say another stupid word, Oscar will shut down your allowance. You dishonor the Richmond name with this behavior.” Harold didn’t raise his voice. “Now, the two of you pack up and head for home. If either of you needs a driver, I’ll have someone take you home safely.”

I saw the movement of Buford’s hand as he brought a gun from his waistband just as Cece stepped in front of Harold. She meant to block the bullet with her own body.

Before anyone could do anything, Sweetie Pie came flying through the air in what would pass for a doggy-Olympic event. Her teeth clamped on Buford’s gun hand just as Roscoe sank his fangs into Buford’s calf. Buford hit the floor screaming. For good measure, Roscoe whipped around and bit Jeremiah on the inner thigh, dangerously close to his family jewels. His scream rivaled a banshee’s.

To my mortification, Cece and I burst into laughter. Harold picked up the gun Buford had dropped. Jeremiah tried to gain his feet, but Harold put a foot on his blood-soaked leg. The slightest pressure brought another howl. “Stay down. I think we need to call the sheriff.”

“Well, well, if it isn’t what Faulkner might describe as a good down-home family reunion.” Olive Twist stood in the doorway. She wore a dress Little Miss Muffet might wear for tuffet sitting. For a woman whose body would love the slinky look of couture fashion, Dr. Twist was hopeless in her choice of dowdy.