Buried Bones Page 28

  “You what?” they both said in unison.

  “Read it. Out loud.” By diverting attention to the note, which I handed off to Harold, I hoped to keep Coleman from arresting me.

  Harold hesitated, then did as I asked. When he finished he lowered the page and stared at me. He knew what Lawrence meant. It was plain on his face.

  “What does that mean—tears of stone on Brianna’s past?” Coleman demanded.

  Harold walked to his bunk and simply stood there.

  “Harold, tell us,” I pleaded. “I found a page of the manuscript. It’s awful. Madame will be destroyed. So will your aunt Lenore. We have to find that book and … and …” I stopped, because not even I could suggest what needed to be done.

  “It’s too late for Lenore. It was too late for her years ago.” Harold faced us. “The irony of this is that Lawrence began his biography with the idea of helping her. The book was part of his big plan.”

  For a man who mostly communicated in binary language, Harold was certainly being oblique. Coleman’s glower told me that Harold wasn’t helping his case for freedom.

  I jumped in with both feet. “I read the last page of the biography, and I’m here to tell you it’s cold, hard, cruel, life-destroying fact. It isn’t designed to help anyone at all. Now where’s this place where tears of stone fall? We have to get there before Brianna.”

  Harold came up to the bars and wrapped his hands around them, one still clutching the note I’d given him. He leaned his forehead against the metal. “Sheriff, what do you want to know?”

  Coleman spread his feet for balance and looked Harold squarely in the face. “How did that rat poison come to have your fingerprints on it?”

  For a moment I thought Harold wasn’t going to answer. Then his distinctive voice began. “I found the poison in a linen closet the night of Lawrence’s party. He wasn’t feeling well and called me over to help set up for the party. I was looking for napkins and found the poison instead. I suspected that Madame had been poisoning the mice in the cottage, and I knew it would infuriate Lawrence. He disapproved of all poisons. To prevent a serious fight between Madame and Lawrence, I took it.”

  “When did you take it?”

  “That night. I put it in my briefcase in my car.”

  “And how did it get back in Lawrence’s house?” Coleman asked quickly.

  I knew the answer to that. “Brianna stole it out of Harold’s briefcase and took it back to the cottage to frame him.” From the look on Harold’s face, I knew that I was right. “The only problem is that she implicated Madame, too.”

  Harold talked over me. “Someone took it. I have no proof it was Brianna.”

  “Stop defending her, Harold.” It tore me up to see that he was still in love with Brianna, still trying to find an out for her, a way for her to avoid punishment.

  Harold’s eyes flashed fire. “Be careful, Sarah Booth. You don’t know what you’re treading on. This isn’t as tidy as you’d like to make it.”

  “I don’t care,” I answered hotly. The image of Madame, so deflated and old. The memory of Cece’s voice, her fear that a difficult past would rise up to haunt her. The burden of that was on my shoulders. “There are other people getting hurt here, not just your precious Brianna.”

  Coleman ignored the escalating anger between us. “Do you know where the manuscript is?” he asked Harold.

  “Yes, I believe I do.”

  Coleman held up the cell key. “Where is it?”

  “Greenwood,” Harold said. “At my aunt Lenore’s grave.”

  “Coleman, please.” I put my hands on his strong forearm. “Let him out. We’ll go get the manuscript and bring it back. You have my word.”

  Coleman stared at me. “We had a deal.”

  “You bet. Brianna’s at Lawrence’s cottage.” It gave me great pleasure to rat her out. “She called Willem and I traced it via caller ID.”

  Harold’s hands reached through the bars and caught my arms in a grip that conveyed passion and anger. “It isn’t Brianna. Brianna is my cousin, Sarah Booth. She’s Lenore’s daughter.”

  The tension of the moment was shattered by the ringing telephone.

  “Let him out, Coleman,” I said, trying to detain the sheriff. Coleman ignored me and went into this office. I wanted to say something to Harold, but I didn’t know what. I couldn’t even look at him.

  In a moment Coleman was back. He went to the cell door and opened it, waving Harold out. “I’m trusting the two of you,” he said. “Find the manuscript and bring it back. I have some doubts about doing this, but I don’t have a choice. I’ve got to get Brianna and my deputy’s got to go up to Moon Lake.”

  “Moon Lake?” Harold and I said in unison.

  “They identified the body of a drowned man up there. It’s that college dean, Joseph Grace. Folks up there are beginning to think it’s a murder instead of a drowning.”

  Our journey across the Delta was mostly silent. For company I had my own thoughts and judgments—and a healthy dash of regret—and Harold had his.

  I was still gnawing on the fact that Brianna was Harold’s cousin. Over the past week I’d spent a lot of time trying not to imagine what they might be doing to each other. Now it was as if I’d been creating a pornographic film in my mind.

  Cousins!

  It was like some bad parody of the South. All I needed was August humidity, kudzu, a run-down plantation, and a heroine of virginal innocence. Hell, I had all of it—except the virginal innocence. Which I wasn’t certain was actually a necessary ingredient anyway. Faulkner managed without it.

  “It was good of you to come to the jail to get me out,” Harold said, breaking the hour-long silence between us. It was a nice opening, but the only thing it accomplished was throwing wide the door of my anger.

  “Why didn’t you tell me she was your cousin? Everyone in town thinks you’re sleeping with her, Harold. They know you’ve been staying at her house.”

  He kept his gaze on the flat, straight stretch of road that was bordered by fallow cotton fields. “I’m not responsible for the conclusions to which people jump. Lawrence charged me with an obligation, and I had to see it through. As well as I could.”

  He was so damn proper. Even his diction. Anger buzzed in my head. “How long have you known about her?” Scenes flipped through my mind. Brianna at his reception after Lawrence’s funeral, Brianna at the door, goading me. I truly wanted to throttle him.

  “Lawrence told me the night he died. I was as shocked as anyone. I have such a vivid memory of Aunt Lenore. How could I miss the fact that she was pregnant?”

  “How did the Rathbones manage to adopt her? I mean she looks just like—” I swung my gaze at him. He didn’t respond, just kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. “Layton Rathbone is her father. He and Lenore were lovers long ago. She never got over him.”

  “You’ve got the mind of a true romantic, Sarah Booth. For some reason that comforts me.”

  The whole thing was suddenly so clear. The ultimate betrayal to Lenore. “It was after Layton and his wife agreed to take the child that your aunt hanged herself. From the wrought iron fence of the church cemetery.”

  “Lenore had spent her life dreaming of the day when Layton would come for her. Lawrence never said, but I believe Lenore deliberately got pregnant, hoping to force the issue. She would either be an unwed woman or the wife of a divorced man. She hoped an honorable marriage would be her family’s choice. She never considered that they’d hide her until delivery and then give the child away.”

  “Why didn’t he marry her?”

  “Layton was married. Divorce wasn’t a possibility. Passion or love didn’t exist as a real issue for my grandparents. Duty and propriety were the boundaries that marked their days. They would not tolerate a divorced man as a son-in-law.” Most of this was said by rote, as if he’d memorized it. But his voice changed toward the end. “Lately, I’ve begun to suspect that he wouldn’t have married her had he been sing
le.”

  We were arriving at the city limits of Greenwood, a town of three rivers with conflicting currents. My anger had dissipated, my heart softened by the plight of Lenore Erkwell. To have loved that deeply. A portion of me envied her that passion, but another, saner part of me couldn’t ignore her suffering.

  “It’s hard to believe that Lenore’s parents would have sacrificed her happiness for the sake of propriety,” I finally said. My parents would have accepted Sam the Sham, if he’d been the man I loved.

  Harold laughed softly. “Spoken like a girl who had her parents’ unconditional love and approval. You had a rare and wondrous childhood, Sarah Booth. Never forget that, and never believe that others shared it. Especially not Brianna. I know you believe her to be a criminal, but can you imagine what it must have been like, growing up with a mother who took every opportunity to show that she didn’t love you? And never knowing why.”

  Harold was pushing his luck. I would not feel sorry for Brianna Rathbone. No way. “She didn’t know about this?”

  “She still doesn’t.”

  “What?” I was astounded.

  “I didn’t tell her. I couldn’t.”

  He wouldn’t have to. “She’ll find out soon enough if she reads that manuscript. Judging from the page I read, Lawrence pulls out all the stops.”

  “Lawrence would never do anything to hurt Brianna. Or anyone else.” Lawrence slowed the car to the point that he could really look at me. “This is important, Sarah Booth. Lawrence’s last promise to Lenore was that he’d keep an eye on Brianna. He meant to take this secret to the grave. That’s one of the last things he said to me.”

  “I’m afraid you’re wrong about that.”

  “The biography only concerns his years in Paris. Nothing else is mentioned. It was because Brianna kept pressing him to include his earlier years that he began to have second thoughts about his deal with her. Rosalyn made him see that Brianna’s idea of a good book involved scandal and titillation. That was never what Lawrence intended. When he caught Brianna repeatedly going through his private papers, he knew he had to withdraw from the book deal. He truly had too many secrets to hide, too many damaging things.”

  Harold was right about that, but he was wrong about Lawrence’s decision not to include them. I’d seen it with my own eyes.

  “The night Lawrence died, he and Brianna got into a terrific argument. She had a legally binding contract, but Lawrence didn’t give a damn. She couldn’t finish the book without him, and he had nothing to lose. Nothing except his art collection, which is why he told all of this to me. He wanted to donate everything to a museum, and he wanted it done immediately—before Brianna filed suit against him for breach of contract. She’d already contacted her father. Once Layton got the gist of the book and what was happening, he came back to Zinnia. I think Lawrence had hoped to find an ally in him.”

  “Layton wanted the past revealed?” What man would want his sexual sins spread out on the pages of a book, especially a book written by his daughter?

  Harold shrugged. “Layton had never been able to deny Brianna anything. Not even when he should have. I doubt, too, that he had any idea how much of the past Brianna had been able to ferret out. Lawrence knew she’d uncovered some things, but not her lineage. And there was the matter of finances. Even a Buddy Clubber gets tired of pouring money down his daughter. Brianna had some serious financial woes.”

  “No kidding,” I said. I didn’t mention the little loan he’d engineered for her. It could wait until she was behind bars. And I still wasn’t buying that Lawrence was a complete innocent in the biography, but now wasn’t the time to bicker. We were both wounded enough, and the ultimate proof would be the manuscript itself.

  “There’s the cemetery.” Harold pointed toward a sloping meadow shaded by beautiful live oaks and marked by elaborate gravestones. Cemeteries weren’t exactly my favorite place. I had one in the backyard where I often imagined my dead relatives spinning in their graves at my behavior. It wasn’t large, but some of the graves were very old, and as I gazed at it, I was touched with a sense of serenity.

  “It’s lovely,” I said.

  “My family is buried here. Unlike the landed gentry, we didn’t have family plots.”

  “And you get perpetual maintenance. But if you miss the lawn care, you can come to Dahlia House and pull weeds.”

  “I might take you up on that.” Harold parked the car and we got out. The sun’s last grip on the sky was a vivid swirl of pink and purple and mauve, mingled with a dash of gold and blue. Against the sky the gravestones took on a solemn trust. There were angels and lambs and cherubs, all looking out with stony eyes. Suddenly I was awash in sadness. This is where love took Lenore Erkwell.

  “Sarah Booth,” Harold said gently as he took my elbow and turned me to face him, “she’s been dead a long, long time.”

  “I know. That makes it even sadder.”

  The tears were cold on my cheeks and Harold gently wiped them away. “I should have known where the manuscript was hidden by the line of poetry he quoted me. It was Poe. ‘The Raven.’ The poem for a lost love, Lenore.”

  A Daddy’s Girl would have dissolved in tears and allowed Harold the masculine privilege of comforting her. That was the only thought that saved me. I was no DG, and Harold had no obligation to shore up my womanly emotions. Straightening my back, I gave him a smile. “Let’s find that book. I’m freezing.”

  To my surprise his lips brushed my cheek, a whisper of warmth on my cool skin. “It’s your independence that really makes me admire you.”

  With that he began to move through the graves until we came to a strange figure, a woman’s torso, head, and arms with a swan’s wings and lower body. Granite tears seemed to slip down the woman’s lovely cheeks. “How remarkable,” I said. The stone was a work of art, a masterpiece. “You know it looks like those statues that were in the Sunflower Hotel. They were from Greek mythology, my father said.”

  “Yes, and this one, too. Leda and the Swan. Do you remember?”

  “Zeus came to her as a lover in the guise of a swan. Leda was hideously punished by Hera, Zeus’s wife.” I did remember. “And the sculptor?”

  “Lawrence. He made it for her himself.”

  The earth felt as if it had turned slightly, tilting to the right. I knew it was only the emotional power of what I’d just discovered. “Lawrence was in love with Lenore, wasn’t he?” Bitter, bitter the twists and turns of life.

  “He loved my aunt all of his life.” Harold put his hand on the face of the statue. “Once she met Layton, I don’t think she ever had a clue about Lawrence. He was too much of a man to tell her.” His palm rested on the angel’s face, as if he might bring warmth to the coldness for just a few brief seconds. “That’s why he decided to champion Brianna. He followed her career, helping out whenever he could with phone calls to his friends. When he wouldn’t pull a string to help himself, he called in favors for her. And when it was clear her modeling was over, he decided to help her. She was about to lose everything. He came up with the plan to let her take credit for the book and launch a new career.”

  “She can’t write,” I pointed out.

  Harold shook his head. “Lawrence had nothing else to offer her. He wanted so badly for her to contain something of Lenore, some glimmer of her personality. As did I.”

  The last warm colors of day were fading from the horizon. There was a finality to the sky that was as potent as the conclusion of the lives of these people I’d come to care about. It gave me no pleasure at all to say what had to be said.

  “She killed him, Harold. You know that.”

  “I fear she did.”

  He bent to the statue, to the granite foundation that looked as solid as the rest of it. It took a bit of effort, but he removed a slab and pulled out a plastic-wrapped bundle.

  He handed it to me and in the last rays of the December day, I peeled back the plastic to the title page. The Romantic: The Life of a Writer, Artist, and
Spy by Lawrence Ambrose and Brianna Rathbone.

  Harold’s voice held pride. “Lawrence’s work will be revived. His novels will be reprinted.”

  His hand reached out and touched the manuscript that I held, the fingers moving across the title as if he were feeling the words, connecting somehow with the man who wrote it.

  I shivered in the darkness and clutched the manuscript to my chest. “We should have gone after her with Coleman. She’s probably skipped the country by now.”

  Harold put his arm around me and led me back to the car. “In a way, I hope she is gone. Nothing we do to Brianna will bring Lawrence back.”

  All along Harold had underestimated Brianna’s capacity for self-preservation. She still had Lawrence’s notes and journals. Instead of anger I felt only regret—and a terrible thought. Brianna couldn’t write, but someone could. Whoever had written that last manuscript page had been adept with language. More than adept, very skilled.

  And Dean Joseph Grace was very dead. Drowned in Moon Lake.

  For Harold, there was no good ending. But there was justice, and Brianna Rathbone had a judgment coming her way.

  27

  Driving up to the courthouse where I’d left my car, Harold and I both saw Coleman standing outside, a big, solid man framed in an overhead light. To the west, a full moon hung behind the courthouse rotunda. It was huge and pale, a winter moon to mark the ending of a year.

  Brianna had escaped. I could read it in Coleman’s posture, and I knew that Harold, by stonewalling in the jail for so long, had deliberately given her the time to flee. He was determined not to believe the worst of her, no matter what the evidence showed.

  “Go home, Harold,” I told him as I opened the door of his Lexus. “Don’t tempt fate by getting in Coleman’s face.”

  “Can you understand that Lawrence wouldn’t want her put in prison?”

  It didn’t matter if he was protecting her because he thought that was what Lawrence would want him to do, or because she was blood. Coleman wasn’t going to be happy with either reason. It would take a while for me to sort through my feelings on the subject.