Bonefire of the Vanities Read online

  “Oh, dear me.” He was actually flustered. He all but wrung his hands as he told Cece to wait while he hurried to the door.

  “Well, lookie there, a butler,” a female voice said. “Now, this is exactly the high-class place my letter promised. I’m Gretchen Waller and this here is my songwriting partner and a fine singer, Miss Lola Monee. We’re here because we have special talents and the world needs our help.”

  I’d listened to plenty of country accents in my day, but Gretchen Waller was country with a healthy dash of cornpone. I hadn’t heard such dialect since Hee Haw went off the air.

  “Miss Waller, Miss Monee, welcome to Heart’s Desire. Please come in. I’ll send the help to collect your luggage. The Rose Suite is all ready for you. Let me show you where it is so you can refresh yourselves.”

  They trudged up the stairs behind Palk, and I sprinted into the room for a word with Cece.

  “Lord, that man might break in two if he limbered up a little,” Cece said. “I’ll bet you and Tinkie are making his life a living hell.”

  “We’re trying!” I hugged her tight.

  She pulled a manila envelope from her briefcase. “This is delicious! I don’t know what’s really going on here at Heart’s Desire, but I’ll damn well figure it out. I smell a Pulitzer in my future.”

  “Did you get anything on the Addlesons and Amaryllis?”

  “It’s in the report. The Addlesons are very wealthy. Amaryllis is a cipher. Sherry and Brandy have progressed from madams in a brothel to hobnobbing with some of the wealthiest people in the nation. It’s a damn dazzling performance.”

  “Sherry Westin may be dangerous. She has real hypnotic power.” I wasn’t speaking lightly. “Cece, your friend Bert Steele, is he reliable?”

  Cece frowned. “Bert’s a good guy and extremely talented, but it’s odd how he was on my mind because he’d just called me about the Black and Orange Ball. I didn’t think about it at first, but he sent you guys to the neighborhood of the Pleasure Zone, where you stumbled on videos conveniently put out on the curb. On those DVDs was an image that may or may not be Marjorie’s drowned daughter. That’s a lot of happenstance. I need a face-to-face with Bert.”

  Hearing the string of coincidences from Cece’s lips gave me pause. “You think Bert is involved somehow?” Had Tinkie and I been played from the get-go?

  “I won’t blacken a good man’s name without evidence, but let me say I’m investigating it. Long ago, there was talk Bert had fallen in love with Sherry. I heard he had a prize-winning photo of something at the Pleasure Zone, and he never turned it in. To protect Sherry.”

  “What kind of photo?”

  She shook her head. “Rumors were rampant. Sherry and a presidential candidate, Sherry and a dead man. It could have been anything in between. But while the details changed, the gossip that Bert gave up a major career moment because he had feelings for Sherry never died down.”

  “Did you get anything on the woman who bought the Pleasure Zone?” She’d seemed so friendly. Maybe a little too friendly to a stranger. I’d bought into it without giving it a thought.

  “Her name is Annabelle Ralston, retired banking official. She’s married to a mystery writer, John Defrane. From California. They lived for five years in Los Angeles, where he consulted on a TV show, and returned to New Orleans about four years ago. Pretty humdrum on the surface, but I’ll keep looking.”

  “Is there any way to tell if Sherry is a real medium or not?”

  Cece hesitated. “What I found was conflicting information. More than a few people honestly believe she helped them by contacting dead friends and relatives. The stories were truly spooky, Sarah Booth.”

  “Could they have been planted by the Westin women?”

  “There’s the rub. There’s no way to verify any of it. The reports are what people allegedly ‘saw,’ but there are no photographs, no videos. No proof. Speaking of videos, I asked a guy over at Ole Miss to examine the DVD Tammy showed me. My film expert said the image could have been manipulated by someone who knew what he was doing. But he pointed out it could also be real. He simply couldn’t tell.”

  Palk’s footsteps descended the stairs. I scooted back to my hiding spot with the manila envelope clutched to my chest.

  “I apologize for the interruption. Mrs. Westin will be with you shortly,” Palk said. “Sherry can’t join you. She has a migraine and is indisposed.”

  In other words, she was hiding out in the Westins’ third-floor lair. Sherry spent most of her time there while Brandy ran the show.

  Within a few moments, Brandy was seated across from Cece. My journalist friend played it soft and casual, chatting here and there, circling and circling in a fashion that lulled Brandy. By the time Cece got to the meat of the interview, I was shifting from foot to foot.

  “Tell me about your past, Mrs. Westin,” she said. “Let’s start with Mr. Westin. Where might he be?”

  Brandy’s laugh rang with the sound of a good-time woman with no complaints. “I ran that bastard off the minute I found out I was pregnant.”

  “So Westin is a married name?”

  “It is not. It’s my name. I grew up in the Jackson area. Don’t bother looking for grubs under rocks there. Everyone in my family is dead. Natural causes.”

  Cece didn’t miss a beat. “Who is Brandy’s father?”

  “That information will die with me. He never knew I was pregnant and he won’t ever know. Hell, he never even knew my last name, a deliberate oversight on my part. I don’t want him sucking at Sherry for the rest of her life. The man is a parasite. The only good thing he ever did was donate sperm, and that wasn’t a conscious act.”

  I had to admire her forthrightness and unwillingness to give up her future for the illusion of a marriage. Except we couldn’t trust anything she said.

  “How did you discover Sherry has the ability to contact spirits?”

  I perked up at this question.

  “I moved to the country outside Jackson as soon as Sherry was born. It was isolated and she didn’t have playmates, so at first I thought she was making up imaginary friends. But I figured out pretty quickly it was more than a lonely little girl with a big imagination. Her ‘friends’ knew things. Things Sherry couldn’t have known. They warned her about impending problems and steered her toward solutions no child should know.”

  “For example?” Cece said.

  “We moved to a subdivision with a school nearby when she started first grade. One day, she told one of her playmates to stay away from the road in front of our house. It was a quiet street and a small neighborhood with no through traffic. I heard this myself. Two weeks later, Katie was struck by a car and killed. She was playing hopscotch in the street, a game the children played all the time.”

  Chills marched along my arms.

  Brandy continued in her matter-of-fact tone that only made her statements more powerful. “We were all upset by the tragedy, but when I tried to talk to Sherry, she was distraught. She blamed herself, saying she should have stopped Katie from being in the street. She said the woman told her to keep all the children out of the street. When I asked her what woman, she described her in great detail. No one like that lived in our neighborhood.”

  Cece cleared her throat. “I see. And you take this to mean Sherry had a communication from a spirit?”

  “What would you call it? Premonition?” Brandy’s full-bodied laugh rang out. “What, exactly, is a premonition? The dictionary defines it as the warning of an event to come. So who warns? Would you find it easier to believe Sherry can see into the future? Is she a clairvoyant instead of a medium?”

  Madam Tomeeka had dreams that foretold future events, or at least hinted at them if we could interpret the symbolism properly. Some dreams revealed the past. But I’d never thought to question where these dreams came from. Were they communications from departed people?

  “How often does Sherry see spirits of the dead?”

  “Let’s just say she’s never alone
. It wears on her. Makes her puny. Gives her migraines.”

  “Has she ever been evaluated by a psychiatrist? Or would that interfere with the income stream?”

  “I think this interview is over. I don’t mind answering questions, but I won’t tolerate insinuations my daughter is mentally ill and I’m using her for monetary gain.”

  “The little girl who was struck by a car. What was her name?”

  “Katie Baggins. Evergreen Street, Clinton, Mississippi.”

  Brandy knew Cece meant to probe the facts and she was giving her all the pertinent details. Which meant either the story was true or Brandy was smart enough to have verified the little girl’s death and woven it into the story of Sherry’s gift.

  “And how will your daughter’s abilities help your clients contribute to the world?”

  Brandy seemed to give up on the idea of booting Cece out. Judging from her response, she wanted to answer this question.

  “Sherry communicates with the dead. Often, these departed spirits desire to see their loved ones and family do well, move forward, protect themselves from the tragedies looming ahead of us. They are also conscious of events from a unique perspective. If they have information or warnings to reveal, they can do so through Sherry. She’s counseled very wealthy men and women. Her financial advice record is eighty-seven percent. I defy you to beat those odds anywhere. By pooling the resources of the people who come to Heart’s Desire, we can have a major impact on the market, and thus on the world.”

  “And you’d control a considerable amount of money. I’ve noticed your clientele doesn’t include poor geniuses. Only multimillionaires. Poor, smart people don’t have anything to offer?”

  “Grow up,” Brandy spoke sharply. “In this country, wealth is power. Not brains. Not good intentions. Money. You want to see more money spent on education or health care for children? Don’t send a smart do-gooder to Congress. Send a man with a bag of money. That’s how things get done these days.”

  Brandy stood up. “I intend to use money for influence. I admit it. If I had to trade in horse turds, I’d be trolling for the biggest horses that produced the biggest turds. I’m a realist, Cece Dee Falcon. And I’m not ashamed of it. Here at Heart’s Desire, we will make an impact, and we’ll do whatever is necessary to make it happen.”

  “Have you had any impact on national politics?” Cece asked, totally unmoved by Brandy’s speech.

  “We are funding campaigns for KinderCare for working mothers, and the Heart’s Desire fund is sponsoring a national initiative to improve teaching. In the area of policy, Sherry has helped with important decisions. Some of our clients have direct connections to the people who control world politics.”

  “Is there a place I can verify those claims?” Cece asked.

  “Sure. Call Donald Rumsfeld. Or maybe Steve Wynn. Do you really think the concept for Facebook just occurred to Mark Zuckerberg? He had a little help from some departed geniuses.” Smug would be a perfect description of her.

  Her claims were not only outrageous, but they also couldn’t be disproved. And she knew it.

  “The world can be changed for the better with social networking. Revolutions are sparked by people’s ability to communicate.” Brandy’s voice grew quieter but more powerful. “Here at Heart’s Desire, we are going to change the landscape of this planet for the better. My clients have the money, the power, and the intelligence to reshape the policies destroying this planet.”

  The inclusion of a social consciousness was unexpected. I would have given a lot to see Cece’s face.

  Footsteps on the parquet floor warned me trouble approached. I stuffed the manila envelope in my pants, pulled my shirt over it, and left my hiding spot. Once in the open, I raced toward the stairs.

  “Miss Booth!” Palk’s voice rang out.

  Caught like a rat in a trap. I executed an about-face with military perfection. “Sir?”

  “Your laundry is finished. Please take it up to Mrs. Littlefield and replenish her sheets and towels. The vacuum cleaners and supplies are in the hall closet three doors down from Mrs. Littlefield’s room. I expect you to make use of them.”

  “Sir, yes, sir.” I gave him a crisp salute and went for the sheets.

  * * *

  In the dimness of the basement, I retrieved the envelope and pulled out the contents. Cece had done a remarkable job on a bio of Roger Addleson, a man accused of owning the most destructive coal mining company in the nation. If these were the movers and shakers reshaping international policy, I figured the planet was in dire straits.

  Addleson advocated mountaintop removal to access coal. Addleson Coal owned numerous mines, including one where fourteen miners had died in a collapse. That same year Addleson Coal abandoned the mine where the tragedy occurred and opened another to the protests of several environmental groups. The company generated record first-quarter profits. Addleson’s business practices, while bad for the miners and environment, were very good for his company. He was listed in Forbes’s top twenty wealthiest people.

  Shimmer, on the other hand, married well. She was born Birdie Mae Black, the daughter of a Newby, Kentucky, Pentecostal minister. She’d legally changed her name, and for that I couldn’t blame her. I could just imagine the schoolchildren cawing and flapping their arms behind her back. But Shimmer? Lord. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as my aunt Loulane would have said.

  Shimmer’s story was more straightforward. She was a dancer in Las Vegas, performing under the stage name Shimmer Black. She married Roger and began to fulfill her dream of establishing her own perfume line.

  According to the numbers Cece dug up, Shimmer Ltd. was financially sound. At least on paper. Roger had dropped a bundle on perfume consultants, marketers, packagers. If the perfume caught on, Shimmer might well be a wealthy woman in her own right. Shimmer had no previous marriages and no children. She was twenty years younger than Roger.

  Amaryllis Dill was a bit more interesting. She was a Washington, D.C., dance teacher. She’d been in the Martha Graham troupe for a time, then retired and moved to D.C. to teach. Her clientele were the daughters of the wealthiest and most powerful men and women in the world. While her Dun & Bradstreet might not be rated as high as others, she certainly had money, and more important, she had the ear of wealthy and powerful men. And if she was here, one of those men had loads of money and power. One thing I could say for Brandy—she drew people of influence to her.

  The only other thing in the packet was information on Heart’s Desire. The house was constructed by Alexander March, a sculptor thought to be mad. He’d drawn up the blueprint and lived there alone for a decade, creating metal and wood sculptures erected in public spaces all over the world, including the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco, Peru; Rynek Główny in Poland; Plaza Hidalgo in Mexico City; and London’s Trafalgar Square.

  From all accounts, March lived quietly, until the FBI showed up in 1990 looking for Regan Bland, March’s agent who had been missing for two weeks. Bland was tracked to the Jackson, Mississippi, airport, and a car rental counter. She’d told her associates she meant to “have it out” with March, who’d failed to appear at a contract negotiation with New York City officials and lost a million-dollar commission.

  Regan was never found. She was last seen at the car rental counter at the Jackson airport terminal. The 1990 BMW she’d leased was abandoned off Highway 55 between Jackson and Greenwood. Her bags were in the trunk, but there was no sign of her and no evidence of foul play. The car keys were in the ignition.

  When the police questioned March, he told them she’d probably been abducted by aliens. He said she’d had one past encounter with visitors from another solar system and was sterile because of it, which accounted for her bitchy moods and erratic behavior.

  But local rumor was that she and March had a big fight, and he’d killed her. The stories varied, but the most popular involved a knife, because March was also a woodworker. Speculation maintained that no body was found because he cooked he
r and ate her. It was believed that her ghost haunted him and drove him to suicide. He hanged himself from an apple tree on the west lawn.

  Regan’s skeletal remains were purportedly buried on the grounds. Before the Westins bought the property, built the wall, and installed the gate and guards, local teens invaded the house for make-out sessions and horror dares. Reports of Regan’s and March’s spirits abounded. Whether the stories were true or not, the house and property remained empty for nearly twenty years. Sherry and Brandy bought it for a song from the New Orleans bank.

  Cece’s report captured my attention so completely that I heard a strange ticking in the wall behind me before I actually registered it. Lowering the pages, I realized I was cold. Cold as in suddenly freezing. Only a moment before, I’d been warm and damp. Now, when I exhaled, I could see my breath.

  I glanced down the hall, knowing whatever I saw would scar me for life.

  The door to the laundry room—and Stella’s no-nonsense presence—was only twenty-odd feet away, but staying in the basement wasn’t an option. My actions weren’t rational. I simply reacted. Up the stairs I flew. The sheets would have to wait until Tinkie was with me.

  At the main floor, I heard Gretchen and Lola chattering away.

  “This place is something else,” Gretchen said. I deduced from their voices that they were in the dining room. “I hope that nosy reporter doesn’t mess things up for us.” She spoke more softly. The acoustics in the dining room filtered her voice right to me.

  “Hush!” Lola warned Gretchen. “We’re here to connect with the spirit of Kitty Wells and move our career to the next level. That’s all anyone should know about us.”

  “Right,” Gretchen said. “I hope they don’t ask us to perform. If they learn my muse has abandoned me—”

  “Shut it!” Lola said. “Loose lips sink ships.”

  Holy cow! A country songwriter who spouted maxims like my aunt Loulane. I didn’t know if I could stand it. Even better, the duo had an ulterior motive, not to mention I’d appreciate a séance with Kitty Wells.