Booty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery Read online

  She tried the call, and to my amazement it went through. Cece answered immediately, and Tinkie put the phone on speaker.

  “Where are you, dah-links? Oscar is beside himself. He said you called earlier, but he hasn’t been able to get through since then.”

  We summed up our situation, keeping it as positive as possible.

  “The ball starts at ten Saturday evening. We’ll be dancing at midnight on Halloween.” Cece’s voice held only a little panic. “You’ll be here, won’t you?”

  “Wild horses couldn’t keep us away.”

  “No, but a case might. Or a storm. I know it’s only Friday, but you say you’re coming, and then you never leave the island.” Cece was nobody’s fool.

  “We have to find Angela. Our cell phones don’t work all the time, and the landlines are down or something has gone wrong.”

  “What can I do?” Cece asked.

  In the midst of the most lavish ball of the New Orleans season, Cece had time to help her friends.

  “I snapped a photo of a drawing on a wall of the old stockade at Fort Gaines. If I can message it to you via the phone, could you research what it might be? There’s something written in French, and we need the translation, too.” It was a big request with everything else Cece had going on.

  “Dah-link! I always have time for a riddle. Send away.”

  “We’ll be on the way to New Orleans as soon as we can,” Tinkie said. “Tell Oscar not to worry. We’re fine. Once we locate our missing client, we’ll leave.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Cece said. “Be careful, ladies. Folks go a little crazy when a storm is coming in. Something about a drop in the barometric pressure.”

  “No, that’s supposed to bring on labor in humans and colic in horses,” I corrected her. “Nothing about crazy. You’re thinking of a full moon.”

  “You’ve never been on the coast during a hurricane,” Cece said. “Drop in barometric pressure or fear-induced insanity, I can’t say for sure. But I’m telling you, people start to act like there’s no consequence to their behavior. The crazies come out of the woodwork. So watch yourselves.”

  “Will do,” Tinkie assured her. She pinched me until I yelped an agreement.

  “If you aren’t here by five o’clock, I’m calling out the National Guard.”

  It wasn’t an empty threat. Cece would do it. “We’ll be there. And we’ll be safe.”

  It was a big promise, but one I intended to keep.

  * * *

  The marina held an air of abandonment. Most of the boat slips were empty. Wise sailors had set sail away from the storm. Only a few boat owners worked frantically to lash their crafts to the wharf with extra ropes. I understood the concept of tying the boat so it couldn’t bang into the dock or other boats, but the way the water was already rolling, I wondered if any of the beautiful vessels would survive. This was just the precursor of the storm. Unless Margene weakened drastically or changed directions, the worst was yet to come.

  A car pulled in right beside us, and, to my surprise, Phyllis Norris got out and ducked into the backseat of the Cadillac. “Have you seen Angela? I’ve called and called. I’m worried sick. I thought she was moving her dad’s boat, and I kept a crew at the sea lab shifting valuables to safer areas. But they finished, and I had to let them leave the island. I never heard from her, and I haven’t been able to raise her with a phone call. She was supposed to move the boat yesterday.”

  “We’re looking for her, too,” I said. The Miss Adventure bobbed and tugged at her tie-lines. “Where have you searched?”

  “She doesn’t answer her door or her phone. I hope she didn’t fall overboard.”

  I didn’t want to tell her what we’d discovered in Angela’s kitchen. There was no point worrying her more than she already was. And she’d added another layer of anxiety—I hadn’t even considered a boating accident. “We thought we’d talk to Arley. Maybe he’s heard from her, though earlier he was surprised she didn’t move the boat upriver like she’d planned.”

  “I just don’t know about Angela.” Phyllis was frustrated. “She’s so headstrong. She could be anywhere. Maybe on the way to Atmore to visit Larry.”

  “I don’t think she’d abandon the boat.”

  “In some ways, it would be better for Angela if the boat sank. She’d be free of the cost and the past. And I believe John has a handsome insurance policy on it.”

  “Which wouldn’t pay out at all if it was discovered Angela made no effort to secure the boat with a hurricane coming,” Tinkie said. My partner knew more about business than most people. “And fat lot of good an insurance payment will do Angela if she’s hurt.”

  “Good point.” Phyllis sighed. “I just want Angela to live a little. She should give up hunting for the treasure and simply build a solid life with a husband and children. She’s a fabulous writer. She could hire on at a bigger paper or maybe write a book. This quest for the Esmeralda treasure is stealing her life from her.”

  Everyone thought Angela was motivated by finding the treasure, even Phyllis. “Angela’s quest isn’t about the treasure. It’s about justice.”

  Phyllis laughed. “She believes that. She does. I get it. When I talk to her, she’s dedicated to saving Larry Wofford. I’ll give you that. But even though she won’t admit it to herself, Angela wants that treasure. She believes it’s her due.”

  I’d never seen that in Angela. “I believe she’s in love with Wofford.”

  “She has all the classic symptoms,” Tinkie said.

  “Oh, she is. But she’s still after the treasure. Someone stole Couteau’s spyglass, the one thing her father desperately wanted back when he claimed he’d figured out the key to Couteau’s treasure. That spyglass has nothing to do with freeing Wofford. But it could be involved in finding the treasure. Ladies, I love Angela. I do. And I loved her father. But this treasure quest has become an obsession. It took over John’s life, and now I see the same thing happening to Angela. She’s been here on the island over a year, and she has no steady job, no steady income, and not one single person in her life. Tell me how that’s healthy or a good life.” She brushed an angry tear from her cheek.

  “Angela can be obsessive.” A point I had no choice but to concede. “But I don’t think it’s about money.”

  Phyllis laughed. “It isn’t money. Never money. It’s winning. It’s doing the impossible, finding the thing that’s eluded so many others, proving her father right for the years he spent doing the same thing.” She sighed, her anger spent. “We could have had a wonderful life together. I loved him so much. But he loved the idea of the treasure more than me or his daughter. When I finally accepted that, I had no choice but to walk away.”

  She grabbed my shoulder in a tight grip. “If you find Angela, please call me and let me know she’s safe.”

  “Our cell phones are iffy.” I didn’t want to make a promise I couldn’t keep.

  “I’ll be at the lab.” She opened the door, but a gust of wind snapped it closed again. “I’m behaving selfishly. You should leave the island. Maybe Angela had sense enough to seek refuge in Mobile.”

  None of us spoke, but we were all thinking the same thing. Angela was too damned hardheaded to leave Dauphin Island and the boat. Voluntarily, at any rate.

  “We will let you know.”

  “And I will do the same.” Phyllis slipped out of the car. In a moment, the headlights of her car burned dimly in the gloomy morning and then disappeared.

  21

  Sitting in the car with Tinkie, I felt trapped by a force of nature, held against my will in the grip of the approaching hurricane. I couldn’t leave until I found Angela and Graf, and I didn’t want to stay. It felt as if the heavy sky was sinking down on top of me, pressing me into the earth.

  Tinkie gripped the steering wheel and stared out at where the Miss Adventure lurched and struggled in the active seas. “Let me run in and see if Arley has heard from her. If not, we have to call the sheriff, Sarah Booth. There was bl
ood in her house. We can’t ignore the idea she’s been hurt.”

  She was right. We should have called immediately when we found the blood. But we hadn’t. Because I didn’t trust Randy Chavis to really search for her or try to help her. Suspicions be damned, we had to notify the authorities that we suspected foul play.

  “While you grill Arley, I’ll take a look in the boat. Maybe she’s below deck.” I didn’t add that if she was, she was probably hurt. Or dead.

  “It’s too dangerous. The way the boats are bobbing around on the wind and waves, you might fall into the water trying to board. Then the boat could crush you between the hull and the pilings.”

  “Wow, you’re just Worst-Case-Scenario Wanda today. I’ll be fine. Just ask Arley what he knows.” We looked at each other, and I said, “One, two, three—” We threw our doors open and dashed in different directions as a warm rain began to fall.

  Once I hit the slick boards of the pier, I almost fell. A gust of treacherous wind slammed into my body like a physical punch. The blast stopped as quickly as it started, which made me stumble forward. Rain stung my face and made it impossible to see. I used my arm to shield my eyes.

  At last I gained the boat, and what had been a simple job of stepping from the dock to the deck was now a feat of agility, balance, and courage. The boat’s deck rose and fell on the swells, and the vessel strained against the tie-lines.

  “Angela! Angela!” I called, but the wind tore her name from my lips and sent it inland. She couldn’t hear me.

  The wind slacked off, and I saw my opportunity and jumped to the deck and managed to keep my feet. Stumbling forward, I went belowdecks to search for her. I entered the dark interior of the boat with a great deal of trepidation.

  “Angela!” Her name echoed off the burnished teak walls. The boat, now steady and calm, made me think the storm had finally blown over. But that couldn’t be true. Margene’s eye was still miles offshore and wouldn’t make landfall for another twenty-four hours.

  “Angela!” I pushed forward past the galley, the head, and toward the master bedroom, where John Trotter had been murdered, moving forward by feeling in front of me. I didn’t have a flashlight, and visibility was almost nonexistent. Slowly, I slid the bedroom door open and looked into the gloomy room. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Curtains had been drawn, and the light seeping in was muddy.

  The room was empty. I checked the storage areas, the head, and the small kitchen. Angela wasn’t aboard. I exhaled. I’d been holding my breath, expecting the worst.

  I climbed back to the deck and made the jump to the dock before the wind picked up again. Tinkie returned, and we sought shelter in the car. The days had been crisp and autumnal, but now the humidity was like a soggy blanket. Unseasonably warm and sticky. Not a good omen.

  “Angela hasn’t been seen since yesterday, when she left the marina to call friends to help her move the boat,” Tinkie said as she walked up. Her normally perfect hairdo was beaten down by rain. Water dripped from the ends of her curls. If she looked bad, I knew I looked even worse.

  “She’s not on the boat, either. Not a sign she was ever there.”

  “Then where the hell is she?” Tinkie was aggravated. “Arley has been trying to call her all morning, too. He can’t move the boat without her, and he says this is no place for a boat that size to be moored with a storm coming in. He’s frantic.”

  “She wouldn’t voluntarily act like this, Tinkie. She’s a responsible person. She’s either injured or someone is holding her captive.”

  She’d just finished speaking when my cell phone rang. I answered it, praying it would be Angela.

  “I just had a fascinating talk with Zeke Chavis,” Coleman said in his baritone drawl.

  I clicked the phone to speaker. “Tinkie’s with me. Go ahead.”

  “You’ve stepped in a hornet’s nest, Sarah Booth. I’m worried that someone is in danger of being seriously hurt.”

  “That may have already happened,” I replied.

  He was suddenly all business. “What’s wrong?”

  Tinkie filled him in on Angela’s disappearance but assured him we were unharmed. “Except for Angela, everything is fine, so far. We’re just worried about the storm and all the complications it brings.”

  “Everything fine with you, Sarah Booth?” he asked.

  “Tinkie’s correct. Our client is missing. The hurricane is breathing down our necks, and I don’t trust the local law enough to call them in to help search for Angela.”

  “Come back to Sunflower County. You can’t do anything else there until the storm passes. Come home.”

  If only I were Dorothy and could click my heels three times and go back to childhood. The ultimate fantasy. “I’ll be in Zinnia soon enough. So tell me about Zeke.”

  “I was shocked when he agreed to speak with me. He doesn’t admit to anything except his low opinion of the former Alabama governor. Barr apparently reneged on half the agreed-upon payment.”

  Tinkie’s snort was her answer.

  “Why am I not surprised?” I said. Criminals. If a man would murder his wife, why would he pay a debt? Especially one accrued in the commission of a murder. What was Zeke’s option? Report him to the law for failure to pay?

  “Intelligent people don’t go into a life of crime,” Coleman said. “Zeke is smart enough to be wary of Barr, though. He said the governor had a very long reach. He likened him to a rabid dog and said he would bite anyone who got close enough.”

  “Did he know anything about John Trotter? Would Barr have killed John Trotter to settle a score against Angela for the newspaper stories she wrote?”

  “Zeke insisted he had nothing to do with Trotter’s murder, but he did say Barr was capable of such an act of revenge. Apparently, the ex-governor has no boundaries.”

  The matter-of-fact tone in Coleman’s voice alerted me. “You believe Zeke, don’t you?”

  “It’s impossible to tell, Sarah Booth, but my gut reaction was that he was telling the truth. He had an alibi for the time of Trotter’s murder. I followed up and called his alibi witnesses. Three men corroborated his statement. He spent the evening in Shazam’s Bar in Tillman’s Corner, a community on the outskirts of Mobile.”

  “They remembered from over a year ago?” Tinkie asked the question before I could.

  “As you would expect, they remembered drinking with Zeke on numerous occasions, but the night John Trotter was killed there was an incident.”

  “What kind of incident?” I asked.

  “Zeke tried to do a male-stripper routine, and his friends duct-taped him in a chair. They all got drunk and forgot to untape him. The thing is, when they remembered, they were all afraid to cut him loose. So he stayed in that chair all night.”

  I took a deep breath. A night no one was likely to forget. “Okay, but did he know anyone else Barr might hire for wet work?”

  “He’s not a professional hit man, just a good ole boy willing to kill for two grand. Barr might have gotten away with killing his wife if he’d paid for a real pro.”

  “That’s a comforting thought,” Tinkie said.

  Coleman chuckled. “I hear you, Tinkie. But Zeke said something else you might be interested in.”

  “Which was?”

  “He said his cousin is a good guy and a dedicated cop.”

  “A great recommendation from a murderer.” I spoke before I thought.

  Coleman sighed. “You’ve been hanging around DeWayne too much. He said the same thing.”

  Coleman’s number-one deputy, DeWayne Dattilo, and I shared a bit of cynicism when it came to the word of a murderer. “You honestly believe Zeke?” I asked. “You’re as big a skeptic as I am, but you believe Zeke’s story. And his assessment of his cousin.”

  “On the first count, his alibi is sound. On the second part, I do believe him. He said Randy had taken a lot of grief because of him. They were close at one time, and he said he didn’t want his cousin tarred with his dirty brush. Apparentl
y, Randy had a moment when he realized the path he was on would lead to a jail cell. He changed.”

  “They were both juvenile delinquents.” I clarified the issue. “I don’t think Zeke’s word is good for much.”

  “I did some checking on Randy. I know a few deputies on the Mobile County force.”

  “And?” Tinkie had been watching the Miss Adventure lurch and roll. She signaled we were leaving the marina. She’d obviously come up with a lead to follow, and who was I to stand in her way?

  Coleman’s answer was a surprise. “Randy is well thought of. As I mentioned earlier, several of his fellow officers feel he should have made detective. They say Randy aced the test for promotion but someone changed answers on his test. My sources believe he was set up by an enemy within the department.”

  “And did they opine why a patrolman who was passed over for promotion was allowed to act as lead investigator on a homicide?”

  “They did. Actually. And the consensus of opinion was that Randy was singled out to fail. No one expected Larry Wofford would be convicted. The common belief among the deputies I spoke with is that John Trotter’s murder was meant to remain unsolved. Randy would be left holding a high-profile case with no killer apprehended. He would be labeled an ineffectual investigator.”

  Tinkie gave me a quick frown. “That makes a certain kind of crazy logic.”

  “No, it doesn’t make any sense.” My stubborn streak jumped into play. “Randy is the sheriff’s right-hand man. Why would Benson want to hang Randy out to dry?”

  “That’s exactly the question I asked—and got a resounding silence,” Coleman said. “Maybe there’s another person involved in this you haven’t sniffed out. Someone willing to sacrifice Chavis and Wofford.”

  I considered for a moment, but I couldn’t take that bit of information and make it fit. “What do you make of it, Coleman?”

  “Come home, Sarah Booth, and we’ll talk it through and I’ll try to help. Or drive over to New Orleans for the ball. Just get off that spit of sand in the middle of dangerous water. Next week, when the weather has settled down, I’ll drive with you and Tinkie to the prison. You can talk to Zeke yourselves.”