Bone to Be Wild Read online

  “I’ve had offers from investors, but I haven’t wanted to go that route. Now I may have to.”

  I sipped my drink. “How bad would that be?”

  He shrugged. “Depends on the investor. A silent partner wouldn’t be awful, but if it were someone who wanted to control the club, it would be hard to swallow. That’s the problem I ran into with Wilton Frasbaum, the former band manager. Things were great at first. He booked us into the clubs I wanted to play. He made sure the word got out. He did a great job.”

  “And then?”

  “And then he started trying to shape the band into something else. He wanted us to blend free improvisational jazz into the playlist. You can push the line a little, but we aren’t jazz. We’re a blues band. Wilton had a nasty temper and a tendency to want to punish anyone who went against him. It ended really badly. He made threats. I never took them seriously, until now.”

  “I did a bit of checking into his background. I’ll push it harder.”

  “It could have been so much worse if Wilton had had a financial stake in the band. He would have destroyed us. That’s why I’m hesitant to take an investor.”

  I remembered Yancy Bellow’s investment offer. “Do you have anyone you’d consider?”

  “Not off hand. I turned down some Chicago interest. I may have to revisit them.”

  “What about Yancy?”

  “I don’t know enough about him to say one way or the other. I have to assume the offer grew from his love of the blues.” He rubbed an eyebrow. “The best solution will be to figure out who killed Koby and put the bastard in jail. Then the club can open, and I won’t have to concede to any investor demands. I know what the club can be. It will be a success as long as I can hang on to my dream.”

  “Coleman is on the case, and Tinkie and I will do our best. Give us a few days to turn something up.”

  “Sarah Booth, maybe it would be best if you let the law handle this.”

  I didn’t have the heart to be affronted. Scott didn’t doubt my abilities. He knew I’d suffered great consequences from my last case. Everyone in Sunflower County knew it. No point pretending I was tough and invincible. I was wounded, and Scott was acting as a friend. “I can’t hide away in Dahlia House for fear someone is going to injure me or someone I care about.”

  “Everything you planned has turned upside down. I don’t want to be the person responsible for more upheaval.”

  I leaned against him. “If Graf had not been shot, we would still have confronted the issue of his daughter. That was unavoidable.”

  “And had Graf not been shot, it may have unfolded in a completely different way.”

  “Maybe. But maybe not. That’s something we won’t ever know.”

  A hoot owl cried from near the barn. In the side pasture, Reveler snorted and Miss Scrapiron answered. Hooves pounded as the horses took off in a game of chase. The crisp November weather infected them with spirit, and they needed to be ridden. I stood up. “Let’s go for a moonlight ride. Really. I’m on the case. You’re hurting from the loss of a friend. I’m trying to put my life back in order. There are so many things wrong right now, but a ride through the cotton fields would be good for both of us and for Sweetie Pie.”

  “You’re a persuasive woman.” Scott stood. “I’m not the most polished horseman.”

  “Doesn’t matter a lick. Just sitting on Lucifer is going to change your attitude. I promise.”

  We had the horses groomed and tacked up in a matter of minutes, and we set out down the driveway with Sweetie Pie following at our heels. Reveler was eager for a run, but he contained himself as we turned down the road. I’d decided to ride on the Brewer property because the corn and soybeans had already been harvested. Riding the edges of a field didn’t bother the crop, but I wanted the cleared field, not the waist-high cotton where someone with a gun could hide. My nerves were edgy and an army could lie in wait in the cotton and never be seen.

  Traffic on the road in front of Dahlia House was nonexistent, especially at midnight. We clip-clopped on the right-of-way. The air was brisk, and I let my body relax in the rhythm of Reveler’s long stride.

  “This is good,” Scott said, apparently feeling the same tension release. “I could grow accustomed to this.”

  “I’m glad you’re with me.”

  “And you with me. I don’t want to think about Koby. Not tonight. Tomorrow, when the sun is shining, I’ll have to confront the horror of his death. I can’t do it now.”

  “Tomorrow is soon enough, Scott.”

  We rode for a moment in silence before he spoke again. “I didn’t know Koby all that well, but I liked what I knew. We hooked up with him playing in Austin. It was like the hand of fate. He’d just been hired at the bar, and he came up and started talking.”

  Scott was torn up by Koby’s death, and letting him talk was the best thing I could do.

  “He was this big, friendly guy who could flirt and tease the ladies. He ran the bar like the captain of a ship. Watching him work, I knew he’d be a terrific asset. When I offered the job, he didn’t hesitate. If I hadn’t brought him to Mississippi with the band, he’d be alive.”

  “He came here because he wanted to, Scott. Playing the if game only piles guilt on top of sorrow. If he hadn’t come to Mississippi, if a crazy person hadn’t had a loaded weapon, if it had been raining. There’s no way to know how changing one tiny thing could yield a different result.” Boy, had I learned hard lessons from personal experience.

  “Do you think Koby was the target or was he just convenient? The person who happened to go out the back door just when the shooter was waiting.”

  “I don’t know. That’s a question Coleman will also want answered.”

  We were about to cross the road to the Brewer field when Sweetie bristled and began to growl. The night was velvety black and my vision limited, but I didn’t sense anything that might cause my hound concern.

  “Sarah Booth. There’s a vehicle parked on the verge up ahead.”

  Before I could respond, headlights not thirty feet away blinded me. Reveler was startled too, and sidestepped away from the vehicle into the center of the road. I heard what sounded like the breach of a shotgun snapping shut.

  A really bad feeling rippled down my spine. “Run!” I yelled to Scott, letting Reveler jump the shallow ditch and race into the soft dirt of the field. Lucifer’s big hooves pounded behind me.

  I turned back and glanced at the vehicle as it roared to life and peeled out down the road. It was a truck, and a dark-colored one. That was all I had time to see. I was focused on saving my neck as the horses raced toward the tree line. When I checked, Scott was leaning down into Lucifer’s mane, and he seemed to be managing the ride just fine. I let Reveler run until we reached the far side of the field. When I finally pulled up, breathless, Scott was right beside me.

  “It was the same truck, wasn’t it?”

  I already had my cell phone out and was ringing Coleman’s number. “Yeah. I think so. I can’t positively ID it, but I would be willing to bet. Maybe Coleman and the highway patrol can stop it.”

  “Those killers were watching Dahlia House,” Scott said.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. It could have been kids parking and we startled them.” I didn’t believe it, but panicking Scott wouldn’t help anything.

  “I may have brought more danger to you, Sarah Booth.”

  “Or vice versa.” I signaled him to be quiet but I left the phone on speaker as Coleman answered. When I relayed what had happened, Coleman assured me the state troopers were sending several units to help block the roads. They already had an APB out on the truck. The officers would center the search close to Dahlia House, narrowing the perimeter.

  “Did you see anyone in the truck?” Coleman asked.

  “The driver blinded us with the headlights, and then we ran. I was afraid they had a gun—I thought I heard a breach snapping into place. I thought they would try to shoot us.” I paused. “It could have
been the same truck, but I can’t say for certain.”

  “Getting away was smart, Sarah Booth. If that truck tries to leave Sunflower County, we’ll get it. Are you and Scott okay?”

  “We are.”

  “Might I suggest you go home and stay in the house? Sarah Booth, you shouldn’t be alone.” Worry colored his voice. “I’m trusting Scott to be a gentleman.”

  “You have my word, Coleman. Now isn’t the time for rivalries,” Scott said. “I’ll watch out for her. For both of us.”

  * * *

  I’d thought it would be tricky, putting Scott in a guest room, because we’d once shared my bed. But it wasn’t. He made everything so easy. He kissed my forehead and closed the door to his room, resolving any awkwardness. When I was piled up in bed, I threw a little pity party for myself. Three weeks earlier, I’d been planning my beach wedding and my future with Graf. I’d visualized our children, our life together, the moments, small and large, that we would share. I’d seen us in the rocking chairs on the front porch of Dahlia House, aging together.

  Try as I might to change the mental movie reel in my head, I couldn’t. I went to the bathroom and got a wad of toilet tissue to mop up the tears. I hadn’t allowed myself any time to grieve the loss of my dreams, and now I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t want to wake Scott, but I also couldn’t shut down my emotions.

  Walking to my bedroom window, I looked out on the barn and the moon-silvered pastures where the horses grazed. That I shared the beauty of the view with no one else made the tears slide down my cheeks faster.

  The things that had happened were done. I didn’t cling to false hope. I wasn’t the kind of person who could ignore the obvious and spin fancies of what might have been. That was a complete waste of time and energy. But I also couldn’t close the door on Graf without a proper farewell. Even if I only said it to an empty room.

  I had loved Graf twice. The first time I was an idealistic young woman with big dreams of a Broadway career. When I’d left New York to come home to Dahlia House, I’d left my career dreams and the man I loved. That had taken a toll. But when Graf came back to Mississippi, to me, I loved him as much as I had in New York and a little more—because he’d come back to me.

  And now he was gone. Without any indication he would leave. Intellectually, I knew the abrupt departure hurt him as much as me. He hadn’t planned to find his daughter and be confronted with building a life for her. But the truth was he’d gone off to build a new life with his child, and I was left in the shambles of the old life he’d left behind.

  “Self-pity is an ugly habit, Sarah Booth Delaney.” I could easily imagine my aunt Loulane’s voice in my head. Folks lived through hard times. That’s what people did. Especially Delaneys. They kept on living and doing the daily chores. They kept their lives moving forward. They didn’t let a broken romance send them into an emotional tailspin. Graf was alive. He wasn’t dead or maimed. He had merely taken a path divergent from mine. At any moment, I could call him and he would talk to me. It would never be the same, but there were no truly closed doors. Not like those that death slammed shut. I blotted my cheeks one more time and resolved to buck up.

  A light touch on the ivories made we whirl around to face a full-bodied woman standing at the foot of my bed. A noncorporeal pianist—and instrument—played the intro to the tune about how the blues walk in when a good man walks out. The words to “Bedroom Blues” suited me to a tee, and Sippie Wallace was the woman to belt them out.

  I wiped my last tears away and stared at her. She had a full, round face and a large gap between her teeth. I recognized her from old black-and-white photos. Sippie Wallace was known as the Texas Nightingale. She hailed out of Arkansas, but Texas claimed her. She had a voice that came from deep in her gut.

  “I feel you, Sippie,” I said. Some folks might be taken aback by the appearance of a dead blues singer in their bedroom in the middle of the night. I was just glad for the company.

  “You don’t get over a busted love in a few days.” Sippie approached me. Her dress rustled as she walked.

  “Tell me about it.” I wasn’t intending to be melodramatic, and I would heal. But each loss changed me. Some days I wondered if I was flexible enough to survive much more.

  “Life is a lonesome journey, Sarah Booth Delaney. Especially for women. Men?” She waved one hand in dismissal. “They suffer loss and heartbreak, but they need to be loved. They find a new lover. The hard part for a woman who’s been hurt is that she can survive alone. It may not be how she wants it, but she can. You can. You can step back into life and travel the road by yourself.”

  “Jitty?” I knew the pep talk was coming from my haint. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  The transformation from plump songbird to slender ghost came in the blink of an eye. “Because you have to know your strengths, Sarah Booth. Miss Alice, your great-great-great grandma and I, we didn’t have a choice. We had to be strong for the young’uns. Who are you gonna be strong for?”

  An important question. I couldn’t hide in my bedroom and mope. A man—a good man to hear Scott tell it—had been gunned down in cold blood. And it had happened when I was on the case. There was no time for self-pity, or pity’s partner in crime, self-recrimination. I had to get up and find the person who killed Koby Shaver. I had to climb to my feet and reclaim my life. For my friends. And for myself.

  Jitty’s smile was a thousand watts. “Now you’re onto the right answer, Sarah Booth. Just remember, it’s okay to sing the blues sometimes, but you got to pull yourself up and live. Tuck yourself into bed and let me sing you a lullaby like Miss Libby used to do.”

  Jitty had the most impressive gift of imitation. She chose one of my mother’s favorites, the old 1944 standard, “Dream.” Just for me, she’d set aside the hard licks of the blues for a song about hope. As I fell asleep, I could only hope my dreams would be happy ones and that one day they would come true.

  * * *

  I was up early the next morning and had the coffee brewing and horses fed by the time Scott got up.

  We sat down over an omelet and I asked him questions. Before we were too far into it, Tinkie arrived. To my shock, she wore a cute plaid shirt, tailored, of course, form-fitting jeans, and boots with fleece tops. She looked like Paul Bunyan’s very stylish wife. “Going to a tree cutting or log rolling?” I teased her.

  She merely sniffed. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. So far, who’s on the suspect list?”

  “It’s a mighty short list,” I admitted. “The ex–band manager, from the angle of someone wanting to hurt Scott or the band, but it seems really unlikely a guy living in Europe would take out a hit on a newly hired bartender. This is closer to home, I think. We don’t know a lot about Koby’s background. Maybe he had enemies. Maybe it’s someone with a personal grudge against Scott.” I couldn’t forget Gertrude. “Or me. Gertrude Strom would hurt the band or the club because Scott’s my friend.”

  “I agree with your line of thinking.” Scott cut a bite of omelet but didn’t eat it. “Koby enjoyed flirting, but he wasn’t the kind to mess with a man’s girl or make enemies.”

  I’d seen Koby’s principles in action. He had come on to me strong, but the minute Jaytee had hinted Scott was interested, he’d backed away.

  Tinkie shot Scott a look of apology. “We have to check all of the band members and any employees of the club. I’m sorry. I know this is aggravation on top of injury.”

  Scott pushed his half-eaten breakfast away. “I know. I understand. I don’t like it, but I get it. Everyone is a suspect.” His gaze caught and held mine. “They’ll all check out clean, though. I know these guys. They’re musicians and they’re completely devoted to the band and the success of the club. Why would any of them do something like this? It could destroy their future security.”

  “It may not come from them, Scott, but from someone in their past. Some folks drag trouble behind him like a ball and chain.”

  “And there are the old
standbys. Greed, envy, lust, revenge, did I say greed?” Tinkie pushed Scott’s plate toward him. “Finish eating. It’s going to be a long morning, and you need to take care of yourself.”

  “What about local people?” I asked. “Has anyone talked against the club?”

  Tinkie got up and poured herself some coffee. When she was seated again, she pulled a notepad from the pocket of her jeans. “I made a few calls this morning before I got dressed. I have a list of people who have been outspoken in their opposition to the club. I think it’s a waste of time, but we have to check it out.”

  I scooted my chair so I could read from her notes. “Reverend Jebediah Farley, Angela Bowers, Johnny “Frisco” Evans—who the hell is that?”

  “Frisco just moved here from Memphis. Word is, he wanted to buy the club and turn it into a country bar. Angela Bowers wanted to see Playin’ the Bones turned into a ballroom kind of place, and it’s hard to figure Farley’s angle. Apparently he wanted to shut the place down in an attempt to eradicate sin.”

  “My aching…” I left the thought unfinished. “So why didn’t one of them buy it?”

  Tinkie shifted uncomfortably. “Frisco’s the only one with enough money or credit. He tried. It’s just that Scott’s offer was taken and his wasn’t.”

  Something was off here, but Tinkie’s expression warned me not to push too hard.

  “I had the better offer, right?” Scott asked.

  Tinkie stared deep into her coffee cup. “The owner took the offer he liked best.”

  Scott was now alarmed. “What do you mean?”

  Tinkie sighed. “There’s nothing illegal. The owner wanted it to remain a blues club, not country. So he took your offer.”

  “Was Johnny Evans’s offer higher?” I asked.

  “It was apples and oranges, as I understand it. Scott had the financial paperwork in place. The owner took the offer he liked. It was at his discretion. But Frisco, as he prefers to be called, was more than a little upset.”