Them Bones Page 6

  “Can you find out for me?”

  I definitely didn’t want Claire Odom as a client, not when it meant poking into Tammy’s past. “I can’t do that, Claire. I’ve already got one client, and I’m just beginning. I’m not sure I’m going to be good at this.”

  “You could do it as part of what you’re already working on,” she said, focusing on the baby that now slept in her arms. “For Dahlia, so she can know who her people are.”

  “Part of what I’m working on?” I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “I believe Hamilton Garrett is my father.” Claire looked up at me. “I think that’s why Mama is so upset. I think that’s why she’s dreaming of white sheets and blood.”

  7

  Claire and Dahlia were gone before I recovered enough from the shock of her revelation to truly analyze what she’d said. There was no doubt that somewhere in the Odom line Africans and Caucasians had made the two-backed beast. Claire was exquisite, and exotic. But so was Tammy.

  What was almost as interesting as Claire’s heritage was my own density and callousness. I’d hardly given Claire’s father a thought. Tammy had never been linked to any man. She was a girl, like many others I knew, who bore a daughter and who had no connection to the man who contributed a few million sperm to the process. Why hadn’t I wondered more about this?

  I knew the answer; I had assumed that even if she told me the name, I wouldn’t know him.

  So who was the father of her child?

  Hamilton Garrett the Fifth didn’t seem like the right answer, because he’d been spirited away to Europe. That didn’t make a liaison between Tammy and Hamilton impossible—Hamilton could have made a return sweep through Sunflower County. But how would Tammy have met him? It was all a bit far-fetched.

  For the first time, it occurred to me how alone Tammy must have been, a high school student, pregnant, knowing that her entire life had changed because of the child growing in her belly. She’d lived with her elderly grandmother, a responsibility rather than a protector.

  Before the baby, Tammy was the best basketball forward the Zinnia Panthers fielded. She had hoped for a scholarship and even a chance to play on the Olympic team. It was her only possible ticket out of Zinnia, and she lost it with Claire. She had accepted that loss with a stoicism that, with brilliant hindsight, now amazed me.

  I thought about paying Tammy another visit, but it was only a passing fancy. If she intended to reveal the past to anyone, it would be Claire, not me and my client, Tinkie.

  But who was the father?

  In light of Claire’s supposition, I had to wonder two things: Had Tammy heard something specific from Hamilton regarding his return to Sunflower County; and were Tammy’s predictions for Tinkie motivated by fact or some form of devilment?

  The Daddy’s Girls were not kind to those outside their clique. Tammy’s pregnancy, when it became obvious, had been the source of several comments and jokes, but it had not even rippled the surface of the world where the Daddy’s Girls lived. Some of the girls had been catty and cruel, but Tinkie had not been active in that number. Still, obliviousness can be a form of torture to those who live in exile.

  “Your hands already look like a scrubwoman’s. Soakin’ ’em in that hot water’s only making ’em worse.”

  Jitty had slipped into the kitchen. “I don’t suppose you’re offering to help?” I asked.

  “Stay clear of the past, Sarah Booth. There’s nothing you can do to change it.”

  “I was just thinking how the past shifts. It’s one way when you’re there, and completely different when you remember it.”

  “Thinkin’ is a dangerous thing for women in your family. It leads to those deep, down, and dirty blue funks, and you know where those can take a woman.” Jitty walked to the kitchen window and looked out into the clear afternoon. Beyond the sycamore trees was a stand of cedars that marked the Delaney cemetery.

  I didn’t want to think about my dead relatives, so I asked her, “Who do you think is the father of Claire’s child?” Jitty knew as much as I did. Maybe more.

  “Someone handsome. Claire is a looker.”

  That was true, but nonspecific.

  “I can’t remember ever seeing Tammy talk to a boy.” As far as I knew, she’d gone home to tend her grandmother every day after school. The truth was, Tammy could have been carrying on with Brad Pitt and I wouldn’t have had a clue. Our friendship was a daytime thing. Her evenings, I had assumed, were spent with Granny.

  “The way I see it, don’t matter who Claire’s father is. That’s not your concern. What Tinkie wants to know is about his white family. She’s not interested in the colored branch, if there is one.”

  “Only because she doesn’t know it exists,” I pointed out.

  “Why complicate a simple job?” Jitty nodded slowly as agreement lit my eyes. “No need to tell Tinkie everything you dig up. I think you should make a trip to Knob Hill.”

  “The house is empty.”

  “You could interview the help. Surely they had folks workin’ for them. Gardeners, maids, mammies. Folks with that kind of money gone have somebody to do the daily chores.”

  It was a good idea, but I hated to give Jitty the credit. She was already too bossy. I checked my watch. It was after three, a good time for a visit. The tryptamines from the turkey would be kicking in and folks might be more receptive to a probing visit from a stranger.

  “I think I’ll take a drive.” I picked up my keys and sauntered to the door.

  “Don’t go out that door!”

  Jitty wanted her pound of flesh—to make me admit I was taking her suggestion. I jerked open the door, intent on evading her. Harold Erkwell blocked my escape.

  “Sarah Booth,” he said, his voice smooth and refined. “I was wondering if you might join me for a bit of fresh air. I thought we’d go for a drive.”

  Harold. I had an appointment with him. I suddenly remembered an old story about a man named Daniel Webster. It did not have a happy ending.

  The reprieve from my financial woes was utterly temporary. I couldn’t afford to alienate Harold completely. An intelligent woman knows that the management of the male is an art, but damn, manipulation was so time-consuming, and I had important things to do.

  “That sounds lovely,” I said, smiling. As Aunt LouLane said, “A girl can catch more flies with sugar than vinegar,” and once they’re caught you can smash them flat with ease.

  Harold offered his arm and I pulled the door closed after me, ignoring Jitty’s smirk.

  He opened the door of his Lexus and seated me. I had to admire his impeccable manners. I had gone to college with girls who disdained manners. What fools they were. Manners are the cocoon that softens the journey from youth to maturity. Many a bad moment can be soothed with the balm of courtesy. I could appreciate Harold for his gracious behavior, if nothing else.

  I didn’t question where he wished to take me. It’s better to give men the illusion of control. There is nothing more exciting to a man with power than a Pliant Woman, a PW. There is nothing worse than a Willful Woman, or WW.

  During the time when women could not own property or vote, men amassed the bulk of their power. Though women, especially in the South, did the organization and day-to-day running of the large tracts of land and plantation houses, the men owned them.

  In the Old South of bone corsets and come-hither glances, femininity was taken to a pinnacle that has never been achieved before or since. The softness, the pliability, the art of flirtation and pleasuring, were taught with a vigor that would make a marine think twice. Babes in arms were initiated into the illusionary cult of helpless PW.

  And beneath the guise of the PW beat the heart of the WW. This was the woman who ruled, yet made her spouse believe that he held the reins of power.

  As a result of all of this pliant femininity, that highest form of manners—chivalry—was born. The Southern male yang to the feminine yin.

  Harold was a superior specimen of the old
school, and it was the one thing about him that I truly admired. There is something mesmerizing about velvet-lined power, whether it comes from a steel magnolia or a Southern gentleman.

  “How was your holiday dinner?” he asked as he drove between the bone-bleached trunks of the sycamores.

  “Delicious.” He was still sore that I had chosen not to eat with him. Declining an invitation is WW, not PW. Men ask, women accept—with a gasp of pleasure or at least a smile.

  He turned left out of the drive, toward open country and away from Zinnia. Harold owned one of Zinnia’s large, old houses in town, where he frequently entertained in great style. I was a little disappointed we were headed in the opposite direction because I enjoyed visiting his home. Harold had exquisite taste. His library was a treasure trove, and the walls of his home were hung with the work of the masters and an interesting assortment of new artists that Harold championed and supported. Because of his single status and his tasteful selection of furnishings, there had been talk of his sexual persuasion. But that was simply the talk of disgruntled women, or their mothers. Harold was considered quite a catch, and when they didn’t land him, they turned nasty.

  We drove through the countryside in an afternoon of slanting sun and brown fields littered with the bolls of cotton that the mechanical pickers had missed. That tattered look the fields had reminded me of the great wealth and great poverty that was the Mississippi Delta. A land of extremes, in almost every way.

  “Sarah Booth, you said you’d have an answer for me,” Harold said.

  I tried once again to pinpoint my objection to Harold. He was handsome, rich, and powerful, and he always treated me with graciousness. It could be worse. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to yield to him. And it certainly wasn’t because I was too moral to trade my physical favors for his financial ones. Every relationship is one form of bartering or another. This was an honest, forthright deal.

  “Why do you want me, Harold?” Perhaps if I understood, I would be better able to accept him.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, glancing at me with some puzzlement. “You’re an attractive woman, but there are plenty of good-looking women, and I normally prefer blondes.”

  I gave him a sideways glance. “And your point is?”

  “You’re attractive, Sarah Booth, but there are women who are beautiful and not so difficult. Tell me something. Have you ever had a successful relationship with a man?”

  His question startled me before it made me mad. What exactly was the definition of successful? “Are you asking me why I’m not married?” I parried.

  “In part. Let’s start with that.”

  “It’s too much work.” That was the one answer guaranteed to fry him.

  “So your idea of a successful relationship is short-term, with no work involved?”

  I didn’t like the way he was handling all of this, but so far he was simply restating what I’d said. Or almost what I’d said. “Pretty much,” I answered. “Where is this headed, Harold?”

  He turned the car down a dirt lane and pulled over beside Opal Lake. The water caught the slanting rays of sunlight and sparkled like the semiprecious stone for which it was named. It had been a long time since I’d been to Opal Lake, the place where teenagers went parking. But I wasn’t a teenager and it was still broad daylight.

  “I have a proposal for you,” he said. “A formal one.”

  I wondered if he had a contract in the breast pocket of his coat. Basically, I knew the terms—I would be Harold’s mistress and he would help me refinance Dahlia House. From a cold, practical standpoint, it was a good deal for both of us.

  “I can’t sleep with you as some kind of business proposition,” I said, not meeting his gaze. This was hard for me. Harold was the ace in the hole, the thing I could fall back on. And I was cutting myself free of him. “I just can’t do it, Harold. In the long run, I’d feel so bad about it that it would be worse than losing Dahlia House.”

  “Would it be so bad to sleep with me?” he asked.

  “No.” That was an honest answer. “It would be so bad to do it because you’re blackmailing me.” Aha! That was the nub of my resistance. Coercion didn’t sit well with me. I looked up into his smile. His happiness concerned me. “What?”

  “That’s what attracts me, the defiance, the refusal to be coerced. I find that extremely exciting.”

  And indeed he did. I could tell by the flush of color on his cheeks and the increase in his respiration. The solitude of Opal Lake struck me anew. It would be a long time before the teenagers came out to park.

  “You’d find it very annoying after a short while,” I said, edging back against the padded leather door of the car. Behind me the automatic lock clicked as Harold pressed the button on his control panel. His smile widened.

  “Oh, I doubt that.” His right arm moved to the top of my seat and I realized he wore leather gloves. Leather is appropriate for a man like Harold, but the gloves bothered me.

  “Harold, you would find me very, very unamusing. Trust me.” I was now finding myself very, very concerned. My major at Ole Miss had been psychology, and my fascination had been aberrant behavior. It was not over the top to find control freaks who eventually sought the ultimate level of power—life or death.

  The fingers of his right hand flexed in the leather gloves, a slow cre-ee-ea-k of material not a foot from my head.

  “Sarah Booth, I have to admit, you fascinate me. But there are things about you that worry me.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, giving him a jolly grin. “More than you can count. I’m just not worth the trouble.”

  “Who is it that you’re always talking to?”

  His question threw me off balance. “Talking to?” I realized that it had to be Jitty, but when had he been listening? I remembered him standing in the bridal wreath. Was it possible that he’d actually been stalking me? Some detective I was turning out to be. I had a madman in my yard and didn’t even notice.

  “Every time I come up to the door, I hear you chattering away. And from your tone of voice, I know you think someone is answering you.”

  His hand inched closer to my throat. I could not push back against the door any harder.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “Myself?”

  He smiled. “All of the Delaneys are buried at Dahlia House, aren’t they?”

  I swallowed. Mention of burial and cemeteries did not seem like a good thing. I nodded slowly. “Most of the big old plantations have their own cemeteries.”

  “Which one of your dead relatives are you talking to?”

  Jitty wasn’t actually a relative, but she was family. “Someone who is very close to me.” I tried to sound sad.

  “Don’t you think it a little odd for a thirty-three-year-old woman to be talking to dead folks? You’ve cut yourself off from the girls you grew up with.”

  Right. I didn’t have money to indulge in The Club, or the tennis matches, or the charity events. “Things have changed for me, Harold. My life is different.”

  “You don’t have the money to keep up with them.”

  He’d hit the nail on the head. “That’s one way of looking at it. Another is that I’m not like them.” Even as I said it, I realized it was true. They had married and settled, they had accepted a way of life from which I had slipped away.

  “You could go back. You were born and bred for it.”

  “Could I?” I was asking myself as much as him.

  His hand slipped over and grasped my shoulder so suddenly that I gasped. His left hand moved toward me in a fist. Suddenly the glove opened and in the middle of his palm was a small velvet box.

  “Take it,” he said.

  My hand trembled as I reached for it. Without being told, I snapped open the lid and gazed down at the diamond. It was at least four carats, but not ostentatious. Incredible. I had never seen a jewel so beautiful. “It’s lovely,” I said.

  “Marry me, Sarah Booth. I thought I wanted a casual relationship
, but now I realize that I must have you as my wife. I want you to have my children, to be a part of my future.”

  I held the ring in my right hand and looked into his eyes. They were the lightest blue I’d ever seen. It was impossible to tell what emotion lay hidden behind them. Conquest, love, something else.

  “I can’t,” I said, handing it back.

  “Can’t or won’t?” He didn’t sound upset.

  “I know it’s going to sound crazy, but I haven’t married because I haven’t fallen in love.” Even to me it sounded ridiculous. One thing that Daddy’s Girls knew from birth was that love was a fickle consort—security was the basis of a lasting relationship. “I’ll marry when I meet the right person.”

  Harold’s smile widened again. “I knew you’d say that.” He turned the key in the ignition and the Lexus purred into life. “It’s the perfect answer, Sarah Booth. It only makes me more determined.”

  Great. That was exactly what I’d intended. “Harold, I don’t think this is a situation where determination can make a difference.”

  He turned the car around and drove slowly back to the road. I was relieved to be on blacktop where there were other cars passing.

  “Is there someone else?” he asked.

  “No.” That was honest.

  “Good, because if there was, I might be driven to desperation.” He reached across the seat and put his hand over mine, squeezing it lightly. “I look at this as a challenge. You’ll marry me, Sarah Booth, and sooner than you think.”

  8

  Knob Hill was an impressive sight, especially silhouetted against the magnificence of a clear Delta sunset. Behind the three-story plantation, the sky burned fiery pink, deepening into coral, mauve, and, near the horizon, a purple of intense richness. Spreading out on either side of the house were the cotton fields, a deep burnt umber in the dying light.

  The detail of the house was lost in shadows as I drove along the curving drive that climbed to the top of the hill and ended at the front door. But I could see more than enough.