Game of Bones Read online

  Her words hit me hard. “There’s a part of this case we’ve really overlooked, Tinkie. Cece said that some of the students believed there was an apparition, a spirit or ghost, who was protecting the dig site. And now Cece has seen something unnatural at the Winterville Mound. Something that looked like a dead woman. We need to dig deeper into Kawania Laveau.”

  “You think that girl cursed the dig and all of this is part of some hoodoo?” Tinkie scoffed. “And you got after me for wanting to buy into the Harrington sisters as witches.”

  “What about the henna tattoos on the murder victims? The same design was on the knife handle that Cece found. It means something.” I grasped her arm. “I’m serious. There’s something occult at work here.”

  “Posh and shortbread. Budgie looked up those tattoos. They don’t really have a sinister meaning—they don’t have any historic meaning he could find. And they aren’t permanent. I don’t think they’re occult, but I agree that they mean something to the killer. Even if it’s just to psyche the rest of us out.”

  “Or perhaps the meaning is to the people who wear the tattoo. Maybe the killer didn’t put the tattoos on the victims. Maybe they did it themselves.”

  “Like a secret cult?”

  I nodded, my mind racing. “Look, it could be nothing but we need to follow up on this. And we need to check out Cece’s suspicions.” I told her quickly what Cece had relayed to me. “Some cases we don’t have anyone with a motive. This case we have half a dozen people with all kinds of motives. It’s frustrating. I guess our first job is to track Kawania down as soon as we get back from Greenville.”

  “Right. Maybe I should ask DeWayne to pick her up.”

  I nodded. “Good plan. They can bring her in for questioning and we can just happen into the SO with the information from Greenville. I think Budgie and DeWayne will let us question her as long as we make it clear it’s informal.”

  Tinkie got on the phone and set about putting the plan in action. I pressed the pedal down hard and the little Roadster shot down the highway. Thirty minutes later we were walking into the Greenville sheriff’s office.

  Twenty minutes after that, once DeWayne had cleared the release of the information to us, we had the paperwork and were headed home. Tinkie read while I drove.

  “The deputies or forensic team didn’t find any evidence of another person at the Winterville Mound. There were traces of you, Coleman, Elton, Cece, and Peter.” Tinkie flipped through the files. “No sign of anyone else in the woods. They weren’t aware of the knife at the site. Cece had already removed it.”

  “Someone else was up there. There had to be another party. Who left the knife? And the rifle?”

  “You’re right about that, Sarah Booth. Either the shooter is brilliant at covering evidence or the police work was sloppy. I suspect the former—someone knows a lot about how not to leave trace evidence behind.”

  “Hafner would know forensic procedure as well as anyone.” I said it and waited. Tinkie didn’t attempt to defend him.

  I continued, “I’ll bet Cooley Marsh knows a lot about guns. Maybe Delane. Hafner is the most plausible suspect, though.” It would take a strong man to hoist Dr. Wells up in the manner her body had been left. And Bella had been carried into the basement of the old house—likely killed somewhere else, based on the lack of blood at the scene. We were talking a physically strong man. There were other possibilities, but we also had to face the fact we might be working for the killer.

  “That’s pretty much what the Washington County deputies came to determine.” Tinkie closed the file. “They want to talk to Hafner. I also found out that Delane Goggans did a stint in the military. She wasn’t in combat, but she has basic gun training. The Washington County deputies were thorough.”

  “Coleman needs to hear all of this. He has to stay in bed, but he can reason through it with us. Yes, we are on Hafner’s payroll, but we have no obligation to defend a killer. Especially not one who shot at me and almost killed Coleman.”

  “I completely agree. In this instance, our goal is the same as Coleman’s. If Hafner is innocent, we’ll do everything we can to prove that. But we can’t protect a killer. A fact is a fact. Coleman needs to know.”

  “Before we go back to Dahlia House, let’s chat with Delane. If Hafner’s run off and left her holding the bag, she might be willing to talk.”

  “And Kawania should be at the courthouse waiting for us.” Tinkie was all business now. We were closing in on the bad guys.

  “Tinkie, would you feel okay questioning Delane if I take the files out to Coleman first? I can meet you at the courthouse to talk to Kawania.” I was having a difficult time with my worry about Coleman and the sense that I needed to be there for him. We were just learning the boundaries of our relationship—the hows and whys of dependence and independence. Coleman would hate it if he thought I shirked my work to be at his side. But I hated the idea that he might feel sick and was alone.

  “Good thing we got copies of those files,” Tinkie said. “Drop me off at my car and I’ll find Delane. Then we’ll tackle Kawania together.”

  “Call me?”

  “You bet I will. As soon as I break her.”

  “Thanks, partner.”

  I pulled up at the back of the hospital, where she’d parked, and let her out with one copy of the files we’d obtained from Washington County. I’d made another set of files for Delaney Detective Agency use, and those I’d take for Coleman to read. It would keep his finger on the pulse of the case. I knew how hard it was to be forced to sit out an active investigation. This would keep him mentally engaged while I kept him physically restrained.

  DeWayne had taken Sweetie Pie and Pluto home when he took Coleman, and I drove straight to Dahlia House with the goal of feeding my horses and checking on my man. I hoped Tinkie’s passel of man-tenders had finished and left. I needed some quiet time with Coleman.

  The horses were waiting on me when I got home, and I made sure they were all eating with their customary gusto before I went inside. The house was indeed quiet. Not even a sound from the critters. I hoped they were all napping in my bedroom.

  I entered through the back door. It was still afternoon, and a steady clack, clack, clack came from somewhere on the first floor of Dahlia House. I paused at the stove, filling the coffeepot and turning it on for an afternoon cup. Fatigue tugged at me. I’d been so exhausted in Memphis I’d fallen asleep in a stranger’s home. Now all I wanted to do was crawl in bed with Coleman and snuggle against him.

  There was no time for sleep or snuggling. In another few hours, the Crow Moon would climb the sky. Danger would be everywhere. Right now, I had to figure out what the strange noise was in my home. I followed the sound to the offices of the detective agency and stopped in my tracks. A woman with long black hair sat behind my desk, typing on a machine that had to date back to the early 1900s. She typed slowly and carefully, ringing the platen back at the end of each line.

  “Who are you?” I asked softly. I didn’t want to startle her; she was completely absorbed in what she was writing.

  “I have several names,” she said. “My professional name is Mourning Dove.”

  I knew the name—though the connection was tentative and I couldn’t quite bring it forward from my memory. She was a Native American woman, one with grace and great poise. That was easy because I could see those things. She wore her long, thick hair in loose braids, and her clothes were made from deerskin decorated with beads and drawings.

  “What are you writing?” I asked her.

  “It will be published as Cogewea, the Half-Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range.”

  “You’re a writer.” I’d never read or studied her work, but I knew of it. “You considered yourself a woman caught between two worlds, the one you knew as a Native American woman and the other world—the one you knew as a student of English schools where you were educated. That’s what you wrote about.”

  She nodded. “I was born speakin
g Salish, but I easily learned English. Essentially I am a woman without a country because I belong fully to neither. It is said I walk between the worlds.”

  “And you are respected in both.” I couldn’t pull up a lot of detail about this woman’s history, but I knew enough to pay her a sincere compliment.

  “It is flattering to be recognized, but there’s a danger there, Sarah Booth. You know this because you also walk in two worlds.”

  Again, the word danger. I pushed past it, hoping to avoid another dire warning. “What do you mean?” I asked. “My world is here in Sunflower County.”

  She turned away from the typewriter and faced me fully. “You live in the past, too. That is your anchor, the place you always return to. It is a haven, but it can also be a trap.”

  “The past can be a trap for anyone,” I conceded, “but me no more than others.” I took a different tack. “You published several books, as I recall. Tell me about your life.” It was an invitation to melancholia, because I knew without any certain facts that her life had been hard. The arrival of the white man into the Native world brought mostly suffering and loss to the Native Americans.

  “I worked mostly as a migrant worker, picking the fruits and vegetables in the Upper Columbia River Plateau region. Before the whites came, my life was simple and nomadic. For many years, we had no contact with the white world. But then the tide of settling whites washed over us and my world was forever changed.”

  “Why a laborer and writer? You had skills. You could have had an easier life.” I cast about for what job an educated woman might have in those days. The options were nil unless that woman was born into money. For a Native American woman, there were no real options at all.

  “I put the stories of my people on the page so they would last forever. My final two books were published many years after I was dead. My voice still speaks for those who take the time to read them. My people will be forever alive in my words. I am remembered as Mourning Dove, but my name is Christine Quintasket.”

  She’d paid a high price for keeping her people and culture alive in stories. She died at fifty, as I recalled, a young woman by my standards. “Do you regret your choices?”

  “I never married and had no children. In the end, we all die alone but perhaps a child would have been a better legacy than a book.”

  I gave her a hard stare. “Okay, Jitty. Stop it.”

  The beautiful Native woman morphed into my equally beautiful haint. “Just sayin’, Sarah Booth. You can solve all the cases in the state of Mississippi, but who’s gonna love you when you’re old and wandering around the house here, gibberin’ like a happy possum.”

  “You are incorrigible.”

  “And you are childless. We’re both in a world of hurt.”

  “I can’t believe you’d use a Native American woman to advance your agenda of brood mare and offspring. That’s dirty pool.”

  “And that’s why you love me. I’m the one who keeps you focused on the prize. And in case you’ve forgotten, the prize is that man upstairs in your bed. That man who’s been shot and wounded and needs the loving touch of his woman. I can’t believe you left him, injured and in the grips of death.” Jitty shook off the deerskin dress and long braids and stretched. She was wearing my yoga pants and top. I noted the high arch of her bare foot. She was toned even down to her toes.

  “You know damn good and well he wasn’t alone. Tinkie sent over the beauty salon posse. Coleman has been pummeled and pampered to a fare-thee-well. I’ve only been gone a couple of hours. He’s asleep.” Since I hadn’t heard from Coleman—I assumed he was asleep. That was a good thing. He needed rest to heal, and if he was asleep, he was healing.

  “I can wake him up.”

  “Don’t you dare.” I would wring Jitty’s neck. “I have some files for Coleman, and then I need to make some calls.”

  “Better check on that man.”

  There was something in Jitty’s voice that warned me. I gripped the files I held and raced through Dahlia House and up the stairs to my bedroom to find the bed empty. There was no trace of Coleman.

  26

  Once I was able to catch my breath, I looked around my room. Coleman had been there. The bed was mussed and there were medicine vials, massage oil, and water on the bedside table. Evidence of a haircut and a shave proved the beauty salon gals had done their job per Tinkie’s orders.

  Medicine bottles indicated that DeWayne had taken Coleman by the pharmacy to get his prescriptions filled and then had brought him to Dahlia House, as Doc had ordered. But where had Coleman gone? When did he leave? He didn’t have keys to my car or his truck. I had both sets. He couldn’t have left on his own.

  I checked the bathroom and then the guest rooms along the second floor. No evidence of anyone or anything out of order. I realized then that Sweetie Pie and Pluto were also missing. It was by chance I passed a window and looked out to see a tall silhouette walking past the barn with a dog and a cat in tow. Coleman! He was on the property; he’d gone for a walk. I was going to break his legs.

  “Coleman!” I raised the window and called down to him. “You should be in bed.”

  He motioned me to come down, and I did. No point arguing from upstairs.

  When I was right in front of him, he motioned me closer for a hug. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “You should be in bed.”

  “I have been. I needed to move.”

  “Doc said if you got to ripping and snorting you’d reopen that wound.”

  Coleman nodded. “I’m taking it easy. I’m just strolling. And thinking. Sarah Booth, do you think it was actually Frank Hafner up on top of that mound last night?”

  “What makes you ask that?”

  “It wasn’t Peter. I saw him at the hospital. He came and talked to me. While it isn’t evidence, I believe what he said. Unless you know otherwise.”

  “Cece agrees with the facts as Peter stated them to me. They were lured to the mound with the promise of evidence to clear Peter. They both say Peter went up while Cece took a phone call from Cissy Hartley, who was nearby, by the way. After that, their stories deviate. Cece said she tried to find Peter on top of the mound, but she couldn’t. She did find that knife.”

  “Which isn’t the murder weapon.”

  That was a bombshell. “What about the blood?”

  “Chicken blood. I believe Cece is correct. Someone was working hard to set Peter up as the killer. Someone who knew about the tattoos on the dead women—a fact we never disclosed to the public. And someone who knew the type of blade used to kill those women. I think it was the killer who left the knife up there.” Coleman was puzzling through the facts. “And who’s on the loose with knowledge and time to do all of it? Frank Hafner.”

  “There’s something else.” I knew this would send him into orbit. He frowned with impatience. I wasn’t helping Cece’s case. “Cece thinks she caught a glimpse of Sandra Wells in the woods around Winterville Mound.”

  “What?” He thought he had misheard me, so I repeated the information.

  “Does she really believe that?”

  I hesitated. “She saw something. It scared her, and that’s one reason she left with Cissy and her driver. I don’t know what Cece saw, but it seriously unnerved her.”

  “You’re not thinking it was Sandra Wells? She’s dead. You saw her body.”

  “It couldn’t have been Sandra.” Not even a serial killer could change the laws of matter and reanimate dead flesh. “Maybe someone costumed to look like her?”

  Coleman put an arm around me. “I don’t know what’s going on. We know Peter didn’t shoot at us—he was long gone with his friend Calvarese. DeWayne checked it out and everything Peter said is true. We can safely say Peter wasn’t involved.”

  “Can you tie Hafner into it?” I asked.

  “He said he was leaving town. Convenient alibi, that, and he isn’t in Michigan. Budgie checked.”

  I owed Coleman what I’d learned. “Frank’s an expert m
arksman. Holds the highest NRA ranking. Delane also has military training and therefore can handle a rifle. There was no evidence at the crime scene, so whoever was up there knew how to leave without a trace.” I couldn’t make the facts add up to anything. “Tinkie is talking to Delane right now. DeWayne is holding Kawania at the sheriff’s office for questioning. There’s some kind of voodoo or cult element in this, whether it’s for real or part of the game to confound us. Coleman, I admit it. I’m confused about all of the motives in this case.”

  “You’re right. The case doesn’t make any sense.” Coleman motioned me toward the front of the house. I walked beside him, aware that attempting to boss him inside was going to have the opposite effect. “We’re missing something, Sarah Booth. Something important. We’ve been distracted by the ritualistic elements of the murder, the location, strangers in town. This has hit a lot of hot buttons that don’t appear to have anything to do with the real case. What if Sandra’s and the private investigator’s murders aren’t connected?”

  We slowly climbed the steps and Coleman settled into one of the front porch rockers. His thick jacket was around his shoulders because he couldn’t move his arm sufficiently to put it on.

  “They’re connected. I just feel that.”

  “I agree, but we have no evidence to support it. Only the tattoos and the exsanguination.” Coleman snapped his fingers. “Text Tinkie and see if she can find out if Delane Goggans has a tattoo.” Coleman handed me his cell phone. “Please. Do it quickly.”

  I obliged. He had a theory and the only way to tell if it was a good one was to dig at it. Tinkie had a tricky chore, since the tattoos on the two bodies were located on the chest in a place not likely to be seen in the dead of winter. But Sister Grace’s tattoo had been on her arm, so maybe … “I’ve thought that maybe the tattoos had more to do with the people who had them than the murderer.”

  “We have to turn over every possibility.” He motioned me onto his lap. “We’ll crack this thing, Sarah Booth. I’m not down for the count.”