Buried Bones Page 29

  “Go home,” I said gently, putting a hand on his arm.

  He caught my fingers and held them. “Lawrence loved Lenore his entire life. I’m sure there were other loves, but none like her.”

  “And Madame loved Lawrence.” I sighed at the bitterness that came of drinking from the cup of love. “Good night, Harold.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

  His hand caught my wrist and stayed me. “Do you think we’re always destined to make the wrong choices with our hearts?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was talking about the past or the present. We were both guilty of bad choices. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

  “You’ve been a better friend to me than I deserve, Sarah Booth.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Harold. Very wrong.”

  “You thought me guilty and yet you kept trying to protect me. Why?”

  “I thought you were guilty of caring about Brianna. I feared you might have done something to help her cover her tracks. Protecting the person you love isn’t a sin in my eyes.”

  His hands slipped along my wrist to my hand. He brought the palm up to his face and held it against his cheek. “Thank you, Sarah Booth. When we’ve recovered from all of this, I want to have a serious talk with you.”

  I got out of the car and stepped back. Coleman didn’t change positions as Harold drove away, and I walked up the cement steps as he watched me.

  “How much of a lead has she got?”

  “I wasn’t even within sniffing distance.”

  “I really didn’t know.”

  He opened the door and held it as I walked inside the courthouse. The hallway was still warm, a welcome respite from the freezing night outside.

  “Where do you think she is?” I asked.

  “The house was ransacked. It depends on whether she got what she was hunting for or not. Any guesses as to what she was after?”

  “Scrapbooks, documents, photographs, anything that might give her material for her book. We found Lawrence’s autobiography, and it was confined to 1940 to 1979, his years in Paris. Harold will keep it safe,” I assured him. “The page I found, that must be something of Brianna’s concoction. I’m pretty sure she was looking for more secret stuff in Lawrence’s cottage. At any rate, Harold thinks he can stop publication.”

  Coleman snorted, which about summed up my opinion. “We’ll get her. Eventually. I put on a fresh pot of coffee, come on in and have a cup.” He held open the door to the sheriff’s office and I followed him inside.

  “I have to photograph the dance at The Club, but I have time for one cup.” It seemed that a cup of coffee with Coleman was becoming a tradition at the conclusion of my cases.

  “I found the system of delivery for the poison. Or I should say Doc Sawyer did.”

  I almost didn’t want to know. “Tell me.”

  “A bottle of Jim Beam. I guess she figured it was the surest way to dose him, especially since he must have given his cat some food that she’d tried the poison in. I suppose everybody in town knew he had his five o’clock bourbon and branch.”

  “And if someone else had a drink of it?”

  “One or two drinks wouldn’t hurt. It was the cumulative effect.”

  I braced against the counter and closed my eyes for one brief second. It was all too sad.

  Coleman’s hand was warm on the back of my neck. His strong fingers kneaded the tight muscles for just a moment. “This is no time to quit. Better get yourself home, get into a dress, and go do your job. Cece gives you too many opportunities to meddle for you to let her down.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk, you silver-tongued devil.” I accepted the cup of coffee.

  Coleman laughed out loud, a resonating laugh that made me smile. The telephone shrilled loudly, and he answered it.

  “You’ve got a phone call,” he said. “It’s your partner, Tinkie. She says it’s urgent.”

  I picked up the black receiver. “Tinkie, what’s going on?”

  There was a sob at the other end. “Oh, Sarah Booth, I’m so sorry.”

  There are moments when time is telescoped. Those words mean only one thing—tragedy. I instantly knew that I’d lost someone dear to me, even if I didn’t know who.

  “I went by Dahlia House to see if you were back, and I found her in the drive. There was blood, so much blood.”

  “Who?”

  “Sweetie Pie. She’s at Dr. Matthews’s. He’s had to perform surgery. He said he’d wait at his office for you to get home.”

  Coleman’s face registered concern as I hung up the phone, still unable to draw a deep breath.

  “It’s my dog. She’s been hurt. Dr. Matthews has her.”

  “Want me to take you?” Coleman offered.

  I shook my head, the tears threatening with relentless pressure. “I’ll be fine,” I assured him as I hurried out.

  The lights were on in the vet’s office, and Dr. Matthews was at the front desk filling out blood work forms when I went in. His smile was one of the best things I’d ever seen.

  “Well, what you’ve got is a hound who’s a medical miracle,” he said, rising slowly to his feet.

  “She’s alive?” I hadn’t dared to believe she might be okay.

  “Alive and recovering. With remarkable alacrity.”

  “What happened?” I followed behind him as he led the way to the sick bay. Even as he opened the door I heard the familiar beat of her metronome tail.

  “I can’t be certain.” He hesitated as he examined me. “It was a puncture wound in the abdomen, Sarah Booth. She must have fallen on something sharp, though how she managed that I can’t figure out. It was a deep wound.”

  The caution of his tone registered. “You don’t think she was hurt deliberately, do you?”

  “It’s impossible to tell but I wouldn’t let her roam.”

  “She’ll stay in the house,” I promised before I was caught in the moment of seeing my dog, a thick white bandage around her middle. She slowly got to her feet and gave me the softest, sweetest, yodeling bark.

  “Sweetie!” I rushed to the kennel and opened the door. She was a little unsteady on her feet, but her tongue was as warm and effusive as ever. “Oh, Sweetie.” I hadn’t realized how much I’d grown to care about that dog.

  “She’s going to be okay, Sarah Booth. In fact, you can take her home. Just keep an eye on her and make sure she drinks plenty of water and goes to the bathroom.”

  “No permanent damage?”

  “It was pure luck, but nothing vital was severed. And while I was making the repairs, I also took a look around. I have to say that Sweetie is a remarkable creature.”

  “How so?” I fondled her silky ears and urged her to come out of the kennel.

  “I spayed her myself, and as I said, I removed a uterus and two ovaries. But when I opened her up, there they were. Two ovaries, just as pink and healthy as I’ve ever seen. Lucky for you the uterus didn’t regenerate or you’d be a grandma a dozen times over.”

  “They grew back?” I looked up at his face to make sure he wasn’t pulling my leg. “My tonsils did that once.”

  “The only thing I can figure is that they somehow regenerated. It’s a case that deserves major study. I’ve already sent the tissue off to a lab for evaluation.”

  “It’s a sign.” If there had ever been any doubt, there was none now. “Delaney womb,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” It would be impossible to explain. But Sweetie Pie was a Delaney. And it was time to take her home.

  “Thanks, Dr. Matthews. Whatever I owe you, I’ll get straight.”

  “No charge, Sarah Booth. But I am writing that dog up for a medical journal. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Feel free.” When I stood, Sweetie Pie came out of the kennel. She was still a little woozy, but otherwise just fine.

  “Bring her back in ten days to get the stitches out.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “And Happy New Year, Sarah B
ooth. I think we can both make it home in time for a glass of champagne and a kiss.”

  I drove home slowly so Sweetie Pie could take a little air. The brisk cold seemed to revitalize her, and when we arrived at Dahlia House, she greeted her male admirers with a gentle woof.

  “Not tonight,” I told her, taking care to snap on a leash and make sure we got safely inside. I still had to photograph the dance for Cece, but I was certain I could do my journalistic duties and be home in less than two hours.

  Once we were inside I took her into the kitchen and made her a cozy nest. She was restless, pacing the kitchen and whining at first the back door and then the dining room door. If I hadn’t given my word to Cece, I’d move my pillows downstairs, collapse into them, and call it a year.

  I made sure the doggy door was shut, and I latched the swinging door to the kitchen. Sweetie was feeling better, but she didn’t need to be running around the house. As I made it up the stairs, her whining increased sharply. Then came the scratching. And finally barking at the top of her lungs. She wasn’t happy about being detained, but it was for her own good.

  Thank goodness I’d picked out my wardrobe. I hurried up to my room, wondering why Jitty wasn’t around. She probably had a haint party to celebrate the new year. Her social life was far more active than mine.

  I dialed Tinkie, to thank her and also to reassure her that Sweetie was fine. Thank goodness she’d stopped by the house. Otherwise my pooch might have bled to death. I got the answering machine and left my message, reminding her that I’d see her at The Club at eleven.

  The bathtub looked inviting, but I opted for a quick shower. Even as I stepped beneath the spray I heard Sweetie barking. She was sincerely unhappy.

  The hot water, followed by a splash of cold, gave me the energy to finish up the night. I didn’t have the heart to think about my case. I’d found the murderer, but she was still on the loose. And if Harold was right, she was probably somewhere in Europe. She had money, looks, and Lawrence’s journals and notes. And there didn’t seem to be a thing I could do about any of it.

  I hadn’t bothered to turn on the heat in my bedroom—a good motivator to dress fast. I slipped into the black velvet gown with the three tiny little straps from shoulder to derriere and felt a hit of satisfaction. The zipper sailed up as smooth as silk. Once I’d donned my glittery stockings and sexy black heels, I took a moment to admire the results. Too bad I hadn’t had time to get my hair done. But I pulled up the curls with a few rhinestone combs and set to work on makeup. Even though I was working and didn’t have a date, I wanted to look my best.

  Makeup is a woman’s best defense against lack of sleep, fatigue, stress, and the other evils of aging. I had a deft hand with base and eyeliner. It took only a few moments to change from tired and pasty to cool beige with highlighted lashes. I bent toward the mirror to apply my Show Girl Red lipstick. A movement in a corner of the room made me pause.

  It was almost as if I were dreaming. Lean and lithe, Brianna Rathbone stepped out of the shadows and toward me. In her hand was a short-bladed knife stained a brownish red.

  “Sarah Booth, this isn’t what you think.”

  It had the vague ring of something Harold had kept saying—“you don’t understand.” I wondered if speech patterns were genetic. On a more important level, I wondered if she was going to hurt me. A tube of lipstick is not a good defense weapon. I lowered it slowly to the dressing table, aware of Sweetie’s frantic barking in the kitchen. She’d been trying to warn me all along.

  As Brianna came closer, I realized that Sweetie Pie hadn’t fallen on something sharp. She’d been stabbed. The crazy woman slowly headed my way had stabbed my dog. Any lingering doubt that she might try to hurt me vanished.

  “Don’t make any sudden moves,” Brianna said, her voice so soft it was hardly more than a whisper. “I’m not alone.”

  Right. She was not only mean, she was crazy. My gaze dropped to the knife. Yeah, and that was just a big, old, sharp letter opener.

  “All I want is Lawrence’s manuscript. I know you and Harold found it. Give me those things and we’ll leave.”

  She was within ten feet of me, and I could clearly see the manic light in her eyes.

  “Your mistake was killing Lawrence. Leaving might not be as easy as you think.” I slowly stepped away from the dressing table. If there was a chance of dashing out of the room, I was taking it. It was eleven o’clock. No one would even think to get worried about me for another hour. It was up to me to figure out an escape route and to use it.

  “I didn’t kill the old pack rat. But it doesn’t matter. He’s dead. That’s that.”

  Give her credit, she’d learned to tidy up her past, at least in her own mind. I had to keep her talking. “It matters to me, and a lot of other people. You poisoned him.”

  “Just enough to make him sick. I wanted him weak. I had to make him dependent on me. Yes, I was giving him blood thinner in his bourbon, and it was working just fine. He thought he was dying, that he was slipping into senility and infirmity. I’d come over and have a drink or two with him and wait. When he slipped into a nap, I had free rein to go through his papers. I was going to make us both rich and famous. I didn’t have a thing to do with the idiot cutting himself.”

  “You can’t begin to understand what you’ve done.” I was sincerely at a loss. Lawrence was dead, and Brianna’s take on the matter was that it was an inconvenience to her. That she’d been a contributing factor to murder—that she’d framed Harold and Madame—didn’t even register. But it did make me wonder if she was crazier even than I thought. Or less guilty. If Brianna hadn’t cut Lawrence’s hand, who had? I had to probe.

  “Everyone he knew was terrified of what secrets he might reveal. Did you find any of them, Brianna?” I inched a little closer to the door.

  She hefted the knife and widened her stance. “You’re not going anywhere, so just relax. Lawrence really was an old pack rat, wasn’t he?” She shook her head. “So many, many secrets. There was no way I was going to confine the book to his Paris years. What stupidity. Sam Rayburn was correct. It’s the broad scope of an artist’s life that shows his development. I wasn’t going to cheat my readers.”

  Brianna had crossed the line into The Twilight Zone. Somehow, she’d begun to believe that she was a writer. She’d even begun to talk like one, and it gave me another avenue of buying time. “Where did you get the idea of using Lawrence? It was his life, not yours. Why would you think—” And then I knew. Joseph Grace. A chill ran up my nearly naked back.

  “Of course I don’t have the literary ability of Lawrence.”

  “That’s probably the most profound understatement of your career.” I decided to goad. I’d calculated the dimensions of the room and my only chance to make it to the door was to get her to move toward me. I already knew she had a bad temper; she shouldn’t be hard to bait.

  “I don’t need writing talent. Joseph is helping me. In fact, he’s waiting for me at the Jackson airport. He designed that little page you found in Harold’s briefcase. Pretty effective, wasn’t it?” She laughed. “Joseph’s interested in the project as a literary work, but his participation isn’t completely voluntary. He has to help, unless he wants me to tell about his little peccadilloes with his students. He’s so close to retirement, and so attached to the state tit. Wouldn’t it be a shame if he got canned now for sexual misconduct?”

  There were things about Brianna I could learn to admire. Like her use of the present tense when she was speaking of a dead man. It was to my advantage, though, that she didn’t know Joseph Grace was dead! And I had no intention of clueing her in. But I still had a few buttons I could push.

  “Lawrence was murdered, Brianna. His hand was deliberately cut. And the poison you were giving him was the agent that made him bleed quickly. That makes you an accomplice to murder, at the least.” I had her attention. Fully. “If Grace killed Lawrence, you don’t have to take the fall for it. Just let me call Coleman. He’ll come ove
r and you can explain. We’ll find Grace and arrest him. You can clear all of this up.”

  For a split second, I thought she might listen to me. Then she shook her head. “You are sincerely stupid. You made that up. You’ve always been a liar, Sarah Booth. I want that manuscript and the rest of his journals, and then I’m leaving. I can’t afford to leave that stuff lying around.”

  I’d known rational thought wasn’t going to work. Brianna was crazy like a fox, and like a cornered fox, she wasn’t going to give up without biting off a few chicken heads.

  Time for a new tactic. “Maybe we should have a drink.” I checked my watch. “It’s almost New Year’s. I hate to bring this up, but I’m late for a party. In about five minutes, someone will come here looking for me. Stabbing the dog was a big mistake, Brianna. Coleman is keeping an eye on me and my house, and he’s looking for you.” God, I wish I’d called Coleman.

  “Chill out, Sarah Booth. You aren’t going anywhere and neither am I, until I get what I came for. I didn’t stab your ugly hound. She tried to attack us. There was no help for it.” She motioned to the chair by the dressing table for me to sit.

  Once I was seated, I knew it would take even more precious seconds to get to the door, but I had no choice. Sweetie’s barking had become more frantic, and I heard her body slam against the door.

  “Daddy doesn’t like dogs in the house, Sarah Booth. Dogs weren’t meant to live inside. People don’t live with animals. That’s what Daddy says. If that hound doesn’t shut up, he’ll kill her. He has no patience for such behavior.”

  I was trapped in my bedroom with a Daddy’s Girl holding the bloody knife she’d used to stab my dog and babbling about her daddy’s likes and dislikes. It reminded me of a sorority party/slasher movie. It was exit time. Brianna was taller, but I was probably stronger. I gathered myself. Sweetie’s frantic barking increased in tempo, and then I heard something else. Footsteps coming up the stairs.

  Somehow, I knew it wasn’t the cavalry.

  It was now or never—I darted past Brianna, through the doorway, and onto the stairs, hoping like hell I could get up enough speed to bowl over whoever it was on the stairs.