Bones of a Feather: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery Read online

  “After years of dreaming about confronting my mother, this is what I get.” He gave a snort of disgust.

  “It would help if I knew which tunnel they left Tinkie in.” According to the maps, the tunnels led directly to the river, but branches forked off and led to numerous cul-de-sacs where Barthelme had undoubtedly stored his stolen goods, including slaves. The old river pirate had constructed an amazingly complex grid of underground routes. Tinkie could be anywhere.

  I left Barclay checking the bonds on the sisters. At the front door of Briarcliff, I realized that while we’d been inside, the fury of the weather gods had been unleashed. The threatening storm had broken, and the wind howled up from the cliffs. Rain fell in sheets while lightning popped all around, as if Briarcliff were a rod. The place was evil, down to the bedrock.

  I jogged to the rose garden, where the trapdoor to the tunnels could be found beneath a mulch bed. Jerome had known about the tunnels all along. And he’d known that Monica was the horsewoman. He’d pretended ignorance, but a fourteen-hundred-pound horse living on the estate could not have escaped him. How much else had he known?

  Jerome was the Leverts’ confederate. It had to be him. Maybe I could bargain with him for Tinkie’s whereabouts. I took shelter in an old gardening shed filled with tools and pots and the tender shoots of new plants. Jerome’s number was in Monica’s cell phone. I dialed and waited. To my surprise he answered, but then Monica’s number would have shown up on his caller ID.

  “Is Eleanor okay?” were his first words. Which meant he was in on the whole kidnapping scam. And how much else? The murder of Millicent? The attack on John Hightower? The Levert girls had woven quite a web of deceit, and Jerome was trapped in the center of it.

  “Depends on what you consider okay,” I said evenly. “Eleanor is alive and unharmed, but she’s going to jail, Jerome. And you might be, too.”

  A curse came out on a whisper. “I told the sisters this wouldn’t work.”

  “What wouldn’t work?” I wanted him to say it.

  “The insurance scam. The fake kidnapping. I knew it would backfire. I tried to stop them.”

  So he wasn’t a willing participant, as he told it, but he’d known what the sisters were up to. “They’ve taken Tinkie hostage and are holding her in the underground tunnels. Where is she?”

  “There’s no good to come from a twisted deed.” His voice sounded thin and tired. “Try the main tunnel until you come to a right-hand turn. It leads to an opening about a hundred yards upriver. There’s a room Barthelme used as a holding area for the slaves he stole. It’s safe enough, unless there’s a big storm. The only danger is the river rising.”

  Around me it sounded as if the battle for the future of the universe were being waged. Water poured from the roof in a gusher. “What happens in a bad storm?”

  “The water comes in from a flaw in the Natchez drainage system. The storage room will fill up with water. I told Monica the tunnel structure had been weakened, but she wouldn’t listen to me. It could be very dangerous down there.”

  I felt like a fist had slammed into my gut. “Who else was involved with the sisters’ plan?” I had to know who I might come up against.

  “That’s beyond my ken. I swear it. I told Eleanor I wanted no details, nothing to do with her schemes. Monica needed my help with the horse—the feeding and the care. I couldn’t let the poor beastie go without food and water and she had no interest in him except for her midnight rides. I knew she was up to no good, but I didn’t really understand until … it was too late to stop them.”

  Thunder cracked overhead so loudly I almost dropped the phone. With each moment, Tinkie’s prison could be filling with water. I didn’t have time to drag information from Jerome.

  “Pray my partner is unharmed,” I told him, “because if anything happens to Tinkie, I’ll make sure Eleanor and Monica get the gas chamber.”

  I closed the phone and put it in my pocket. The deluge had washed the mulch off the handles of the trapdoor to the tunnels. No wonder Jerome was always puttering around this part of the rose garden. He had to keep the trapdoor concealed.

  I pulled it open and stepped down a ladder. Rain pelted me until I pulled the trap shut and plunged into total darkness. Turning on the flashlight, I found myself in a narrow passage that went straight down for ten feet, then opened into a tunnel high enough for me to walk upright.

  Lined with handmade bricks, the tunnel had likely been made by slaves. How many lives had been lost in the endeavor to give Barthelme Levert easy access to the river and his nefarious deeds?

  When I hit level ground, I jogged. Moisture seeped along the walls and my footsteps echoed. The place was creepy, and I could only imagine Tinkie alone and thinking she would die of starvation. Or drown. Her suffering was unbearable.

  Moving through the tunnels I lost all sense of time and direction, except that I was heading down, sometimes steeply. The river couldn’t be too far away, but I’d lost all sensory connection to the outside world. If the storm continued above me, I had no way of knowing.

  I moved as quickly as I could, finally coming to the Y in the tunnels that Jerome had spoken of. I followed his directions while my mind pondered the question I had to answer. Who was the Leverts’ partner?

  I thought back over the phone calls. The caller had been male with a nicely modulated voice and clear diction. The speaker was Southern. It could have been anyone in Natchez or the surrounding area. There was absolutely nothing distinctive about the caller, which in itself should have been a clue.

  In the distance a noise I couldn’t identify made me hesitate. It was best described as a sloshing sound. When it registered what it could be, I gave up jogging and hit a flat-out sprint.

  “Tinkie!” The echo in the tunnel mocked me. “Tinkie!”

  The sound of a large fish flopping in the shallows drifted from the darkness.

  Cursing silently, I ran forward into water that covered my feet and then my calves. The flashlight illuminated a scene from my worst nightmare. Water covered the bottom of the tunnel and lapped hungrily at the walls. What seemed to be an opening gaped to the right, and I slogged toward it and the sound of something big struggling in the rising water.

  When I made it to the opening, I saw Tinkie. She was tied to a chair, which had fallen over. She struggled to keep her head out of the water, but she kept going under.

  I dove for her and hauled the chair to an upright position. She was gagged, and I removed the nasty bandanna that had been tied around her mouth.

  After a bit of coughing and hacking, she finally said, “It’s Eleanor. She’s the one.”

  “I know.” I worked furiously at the knots that bound her, aware that the water in the room had risen at least two inches in the few moments I’d been there. The rope was swollen and refused to give.

  “The water is getting higher.” Tinkie spoke calmly, but the quiver in her voice told me of her fear. “Can we get out?”

  “We will.” My thumbnail tore back to the bed as I tried to work the knots.

  “Leave me,” she said. The water was up to her waist.

  “When pigs fly.” I had to find something sharp, and then I remembered Monica’s cell phone. Screw it. I pulled it from my pocket and used the wall to crush it. From the twisted remains, I found a sharp edge and sawed at Tinkie’s bonds. Precious seconds slipped away, but the rope gave. We both had to hold our breath as we bent to free her legs. Luckily the knots on her right leg gave and I shredded the rope holding her left.

  “Let’s get out of here.” She held on to me in the darkness.

  Which way led to safety? To the right was the river. To the left the passage I’d come down. I couldn’t be certain how high the river might be—the whole entrance to the tunnel could be underwater. But to head back up the tunnel meant we could be trapped in a cave-in if the structure collapsed.

  “Which way?” she asked, trusting me to know the answer to our fate.

  “Left,” I said. At
least I knew high ground was in that direction.

  Holding hands and casting the wavering flashlight beam ahead of us, we waded in water up to my waist and her chest. Any moment now, the batteries were going to give out.

  Behind us something large splashed. All I could think of was an alligator. “Can you run?” I asked Tinkie.

  “Try and stop me.”

  Still holding hands we charged through the water. All around us was the sound of sloshing, splashing, the creepy echo of water in a confined space. Even though I tried to ignore it, someone, or something, was pursuing us from the direction of the river. If not some river creatures, then it had to be Monica and Eleanor’s partner, the man who’d worked with them.

  “Run faster!” I tugged Tinkie along behind me. It wasn’t that she couldn’t run, but her legs were a foot shorter and the water was now up to her neck. We both panted from exertion as the water hobbled us.

  Ahead I caught a dark shadow in the flashlight beam. I slammed to a halt until the beam picked out the features of Barclay Levert. His sculpted chest—the only part of him not underwater—glistened, and he smiled when he saw us.

  “You found her,” he said.

  “Someone is after us.” I waved for him to help Tinkie. “We have to run.”

  He took Tinkie’s hand and pulled her to him. There was a click, and I swung the light to discover he held the barrel of a gun to Tinkie’s head.

  “Barclay?” I sounded like a complete fool, and felt even stupider. Tink and I were dead. Monica and Eleanor’s partner held my partner at gunpoint. “You bastard.” I flung the words at him.

  “A mild understatement, Sarah Booth. I admire your eloquence.” His arm shifted around Tinkie’s neck and chest as he almost cradled her against him.

  “You were working with the sisters all along.” I couldn’t believe it—didn’t want to believe it. “But it wasn’t your voice on the ransom calls.”

  “Monica had a voice synthesizer,” Tinkie said. For a woman with a gun barrel pressed against her temple, she was amazingly calm. “That way we never suspected Barclay. It was a very clever setup, and they meant to use us from the very beginning.”

  “This is going to work out so much better,” Barclay said. “Both of you will drown here in the tunnels. Eleanor can tell Gunny and your friends from Zinnia that you came down here searching for … whatever. And never came back up. You’ve already called your sheriff friend and told him exactly what we needed him to know. You saw Monica fall and drown, only it was a mannequin, but they’ll never know. Her body will be lost in the river.”

  “And you’ll take the insurance money and the necklace and all of the Levert holdings and divide the spoils between the three of you.” How could I have been so stupid as to believe Barclay’s story of abandonment. He was a sprout from the Barthelme root. The whole mess of them were crooks, scoundrels, and accomplished actors. “But why the whole kidnapping ruse? Langley Insurance paid out. You had the four million and the necklace. There wasn’t a need—” Oh, but there was. I saw it then. A double scam. “How much is Monica insured for?”

  Barclay laughed aloud with delight. “I wanted to see your expression when you finally caught hold of the breadth of our plan.”

  “How much?”

  “Another four million. Double that if she dies of violent means.”

  “And you needed Tinkie and me to set up the kidnapping and make it real.”

  “Several of your conversations have been recorded. As the grieving son, I’ll turn them over to the police. Aunt Eleanor will verify that you three decided to handle the abduction on your own, and that it went awry. The kidnapper threw Monica’s body in the river, took the insurance money, and left. Monica is dead. Both of you are dead.” He waved the gun to indicate I should move down the tunnel into deeper water. “The loose ends are all tied up.”

  “You’re worse than the sisters.”

  “Not hardly.”

  “When Coleman gets here, he’ll figure it out. He isn’t gullible or dumb. You’ll never get away with this.”

  “A risk we’re willing to take. Too bad you won’t be around to see if we get away with it.” He pushed Tinkie toward me so hard that we both splashed backward into the water. “Start swimming. I doubt you’ll be able to get out of the tunnel now, but you can try.”

  “You’re crazy. We aren’t going to make it easy for you.”

  “I can always knock you out and hold you under.” He waved the gun down the dark corridor. “At least swimming you have a chance.”

  The batteries in my flashlight had been steadily weakening. Darkness would work better for us than him. I threw the light at Barclay’s head as hard as I could. Score one for me! It hit with a dull thunk and he cried out in pain. I grasped Tinkie’s hand. “Dive!” I whispered, and we both arced below the cold water as he pumped bullets into the water around us.

  * * *

  When we surfaced, we were treading water. I could feel the top of the passageway. The whole place was filling with water. And I couldn’t see a damn thing.

  We had to swim back to the place where Barclay waited or we would drown. We couldn’t risk trying to swim out to the river. I tapped Tinkie’s shoulder. We had to stay close so as not to lose each other in the darkness. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait.” She whispered. “Look.”

  I couldn’t tell where she indicated, but I spun in the water, praying I didn’t lose my sense of direction. I saw it then. A light. It bobbed slightly, moving along the wall. And it came from the direction of the river.

  Tinkie and I pressed ourselves against the cold, clammy bricks of the passage. The baked clay was slick beneath my hands and I wondered how much longer the tunnel could withstand the ravages of time and water.

  Very slowly the light drew closer.

  “William Wallace, if you’ve ever helped an old Scot, show me where those lasses are,” the voice grumbled into the darkness.

  “Jerome!” Tinkie started forward as if she meant to swim toward him.

  I stopped her. “We can’t trust him.”

  “Then we’ll take his boat.” She shook me off and struck out for the light. I was only two seconds behind her.

  When we came up beside the small skiff, Jerome caught us in the beam of his light. “Get in. Hurry!” he said. “The water’s rising faster than I’ve ever seen. If we’re to escape the way I came in, we only have moments.”

  I helped boost Tinkie into the bottom of the small boat and I managed to haul myself in after. Jerome applied muscle to the paddle and we shot toward the river.

  “Stay low,” he said. “It’s going to be a tight squeeze to get out of here.”

  “Why did you come to save us?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t let you girls come to harm. Monica is a bad person, and she’s corrupted Eleanor. Stealing money was bad enough. Murder? Well, I couldn’t just let it happen. When I realized how bad the storm was, I knew you’d be in danger. So I came.”

  “You left Briarcliff. Where have you been?”

  “Here and there, trying to decide what to do. I meant to go back to Skye. I should have gone years ago. But I couldn’t stand back and see anyone else get hurt.”

  I heard the pain in his voice and realized he still loved Eleanor. Despite all she’d done and what she’d become, he loved her.

  “Can we get out this way?” Tinkie asked.

  “Pray,” Jerome said.

  And I did as he plunged the paddle into the river. Luckily the water in the passage had no current and he was able to move the boat rapidly toward what sounded like thunder. It was the storm! I could hear it. I found a second paddle in the bottom of the boat and with every ounce of muscle I had in my back and arms, I applied the wood. When the boat shot out of the tunnel with only a foot of clearance, I wanted to shout with joy. Even the pouring rain was wonderful as it struck my face.

  “My truck is upriver,” Jerome said.

  I knew we couldn’t paddle the boat against the current
, but we could beach it and walk. I put my last reserve into pumping the boat to the shore. “We have to get to Briarcliff.”

  I had the terrible sense that Coleman might be walking into a trap.

  26

  Briarcliff, lit by flashes of lighting, could not have looked more like something from Baron von Frankenstein’s story. Jerome idled the truck at the base of the driveway while we considered our options. Jerome was determined to see this through. And protect Eleanor as best he could. He would put his life on the line for her, even knowing who and what she was.

  The three of us sat in the cab of the truck looking up at that mansion, a place built on human suffering. Jerome spoke softly, the brogue of his native Scotland clear. “It’s hard to believe, but Eleanor was once a tender girl. The badness is in the blood—she wasn’t strong enough to fight it. Once, she was sweet and innocent, like a fragile rose, but the Levert heritage was stronger than her nature. Even knowing that a gentle creature has turned evil, I still love her. I canna help myself anymore than she can.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  He only nodded. “You should call the law. If your friends are up there, they could be in real danger.”

  And he was right about that. Except we had no cell phone, and I wasn’t about to waste time driving to town to make a report. Besides, I still wasn’t positive Gunny wasn’t playing for the wrong side. Just because we’d learned Barclay was a deceiving bastard through and through didn’t mean there weren’t others on Team Levert.

  “What are we going to do?” Tinkie asked.

  “They have our dogs in there.” I should never have left the pups, but I knew the tunnels would be dangerous. I hadn’t counted on Barclay betraying me.

  “Chablis!” Tinkie opened the truck door as if she meant to run to the house. Jerome grabbed her before I had a chance.

  “Let me drive up there. They won’t suspect me.” His tone was urgent. “You get in the back of the truck. I’ll park and once I’m inside, you can check out the house.”

  It was the only feasible plan. “Be careful, Jerome. Don’t think because Eleanor cares for you, or once cared for you, she won’t kill you.”