Crossed Bones Page 8

  “You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me.” She stood so still. I'd never seen Jitty so static.

  “What if he is innocent and I just walk away?”

  “Is he that big a part of your future?” Jitty countered.

  I started to repeat to her what Bridge had said, about how Scott could be my ticket to big-time cases.

  She held up a hand and stopped me. “This isn't about future cases or the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Watch yourself, Sarah Booth. A person can recover from hard work, but there are some mistakes that can't never be undone. Don't let Scott Hampton be that for you.” She walked through the front door and was gone.

  The courtroom was jam-packed when I got there. Scott was seated at the defense table, to the left. Beside him was a young man I recognized as a court-appointed attorney. As I recalled, he'd gotten his law degree two months before.

  True to her vow, Nandy was still outside the west-wing door, boom box blaring. She'd made more signs, all of them proclaiming Scott's innocence. One had declared his godhood, but I'd surreptitiously yanked that one out of the ground and hidden it in the camellia bushes. Nandy was not helping matters at all, and I had begun to seriously wonder about her motives. I intended to point out to Coleman that if she'd seen Scott at the club, she was there, too, and was therefore also a suspect.

  Ida Mae Keys was in the fourth row behind Scott, seated alone. I slipped in beside her. She nodded once to acknowledge me, then turned her attention to the front of the room as the judge entered.

  Coleman stepped into the room through a side door that led to the jury deliberation room. Tinkie was right on his heels, and they both stopped beside the door. Coleman's gaze found me immediately, but I could read nothing on his face.

  He bent down to Tinkie, who was giving him an earful about something. His gaze shifted to Ida Mae, brushed over me, and then returned to my partner.

  Judge Clarence Hartwell gaveled the room to order. He was a middle-aged man who was popular in town. He'd been a football coach at the high school and was known for his rapid—as in reactionary—judicial decisions. For the first time since I'd known him, he was wearing a robe. On closer examination, I saw it belonged to the First Baptist Church choir.

  Lincoln Bangs was at the prosecution table, dressed in a suit that must have cost an arm and a leg. No doubt he had a date with the television crews that were setting up on the lawn. Judge Hartwell had ordered them out of the courthouse. There were several reporters I didn't know sitting across the room beside Cece Dee Falcon and Garvel LaMott from the Zinnia Dispatch. I was only a little surprised to see Cece on the case. High society was normally her beat, but I guess she'd managed to stretch her territory to include high celebrity.

  Lincoln gave a brief summary of the evidence against Scott, including the fact that they now had a blood match between the stains on the money found in Scott's saddlebags and Ivory. It was devastating news that drew the intended gasp from the audience.

  The young man, who was obviously Scott's lawyer, stood up and stated that the evidence was circumstantial. Linc countered with the fact that Scott had no ties to the community and a criminal record. Judge Hartwell set the bail at five hundred thousand dollars. It was over in less than ten minutes.

  The bailiff came to lead Scott back to the jail, but Ida Mae was quicker. She was out of her seat and at the defense table in a matter of seconds. She put one hand on Scott's shoulder and squeezed. The face he turned to her was cold.

  “Stay out of this, Ida Mae,” he said.

  “I can't.” Her reply was carved in stone.

  “I don't want your help.” Scott walked away from her, following the bailiff out of the room as a hubbub of noise broke around him. Ida Mae came back to me, ignoring the reporters that sprang in her wake. Her cool fingers touched my wrist. “I want that boy out of jail,” she said. “He thinks he can run me off with that bad attitude, but it won't work. I saw Scott sit with my husband and argue about Ivory's reputation in the black community and how he was damaging it by hiring a white, ex-racist ex-con. Scott loved my husband. I won't abandon him now.”

  “I'm not so sure he wants out of jail,” I said. “It might be best if he stayed put.” The image of a bloodthirsty lynch mob and the bitter ironies implied by such were racing through my mind.

  “Mrs. Keys! Mrs. Keys!” A reporter who was wearing a name badge from Rolling Stone magazine came up to us. “I'd like to schedule some time to talk,” he said.

  “I've got one thing to say, and that's all. Scott Hampton didn't kill my husband. He's an innocent man, and Miss Delaney is going to prove it.”

  I was still recovering from the shock of that bold statement when the reporter leaned in closer. “Your son tells me that Hampton is guilty and that he's got some hold on you. He says it's voodoo.”

  I could see the insult in Ida Mae's eyes. “Some hold on me like voodoo.” She was furious. “I'm a Christian woman and voodoo holds no sway with me. My son is mistaken, as he is in so many things.”

  “Emanuel Keys said Hampton deceived both you and Mr. Keys.”

  “My son said these things about me and his father?” It was asked gently, but even the reporter caught the hint of anger.

  “That's what he said. If you'd like to refute his statements . . .”

  “It's Emanuel who's deceived,” Ida Mae said. “He's let hatred and ugliness eat away his soul.”

  She turned abruptly and walked out of the courtroom, ignoring the other reporters that ran after her. I looked up to find that Coleman had gone, and Tinkie was talking with great animation to Cece.

  I walked over to them, catching Tinkie's baleful glare.

  “That Emanuel Keys is the rudest man I have ever met,” Tinkie fumed. “Next time you want some information from him, you can go get it yourself.”

  Cece's perfect white teeth were revealed in a Big Bad Wolf smile. She shifted her weight from one hip to another in a way that made several courtroom spectators glance up and then down her shapely legs.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I finally tracked him down yesterday evening. When I asked a few questions, he told me to mind my own business. Then he called me a parasite, a bloodsucker who lived off the misery of the poor. And then he told me to tell Oscar that he was looking into filing a lawsuit against the bank.”

  “A lawsuit?” That was even more than I'd imagined.

  “A class action suit. He said that Oscar and my father used race as a qualifying factor in giving out loans.” Tinkie's tiny fists were clenched at her sides, and she stomped one Gucci-clad foot for emphasis. “The nerve of that man.”

  “I don't think his mama likes him any better than you do,” I allowed.

  “I told you this case was going to rip the community apart. I told you, but nothing would do but that you put us right in the middle of it.”

  “Tinkie, you and I both know Emanuel doesn't have any grounds for a lawsuit.” I intended to soothe her.

  “To hell with the lawsuit!” She was speaking so loudly that several people had stopped talking to watch us. “He can sue till he's blue in the face, for all I care.”

  “Tinkie!” I put a hand on her arm. “Calm down.” She was genuinely upset, and tears glistened in her eyes.

  “I don't want to calm down,” she said. “Oscar's worked hard to give everyone in this county as much of a break as he could. Black, white, it doesn't matter to him. Dammit.” She wiped at a tear that slipped down one cheek. “I hate this, Sarah Booth. I just hate it.”

  She turned away from Cece and me and left the courtroom by the door she'd entered. She could at least avoid the reporters that way.

  I looked at Cece. “Let's go get her. I hate to see Tinkie this upset.”

  “Let her go,” Cece said, shaking her head. “She'll calm down in a bit.”

  “I wouldn't have sent her to talk to Emanuel if I'd had any idea he would upset her so.”

  “It's not just Emanuel.”

  I waite
d for her to explain, but since I didn't have her favorite bribe—a cheese Danish—I wondered if she'd be cooperative.

  “Margene threatened to quit today.”

  “Margene!” I couldn't believe it. No wonder Tinkie was so upset. “Why?”

  “Margene said she wasn't going to work for anyone who defended the man who killed Ivory Keys.” Cece had a way of laying it out on the line when she wanted to.

  “But—” I sighed. “Scott hasn't been found guilty yet.”

  “Not by a jury, but if it was left to the community, he'd be swinging from that magnolia tree out on the lawn,” she said.

  Her words eerily brought back the memory of the noose swinging from the tree. Someone had already made that point quite clearly. “Look, Margene loves Tinkie and Oscar. She loves Chablis. She won't quit.”

  Cece waited patiently for the truth to penetrate.

  “Will she?” I asked.

  “Yes. She may not want to, and she may regret it, but she will. Sarah Booth, you have to remember that Ivory was the most successful black man in this county. He stood for a lot of things to a lot of people.”

  “Ivory was successful since Scott Hampton came to play in his club,” I said with some force. “Before that, he was sucking wind big-time.”

  She nodded. “Scott was the draw. But Ivory was the man they loved. He was a man that everyone could look up to.”

  I couldn't deny that. I didn't want to. “Ida Mae believes Scott is innocent. Didn't you see her just ten minutes ago?”

  Cece nodded. “I saw her, and I intend to use that in my story. But most folks think Ida Mae has been taken in by Scott.”

  I saw the fine hand of Emanuel Keys in that rumor. And I wondered what kind of son would paint his parents as stupid and deluded just to win points.

  “What, so people think Scott put a spell on Ida Mae?”

  Cece's eyes narrowed. “That's exactly what they're saying. Rumor is that Scott sold his soul to Satan to learn to play the guitar like he does. And now he's used his power to convince Ida Mae he's innocent.”

  I took a long, slow breath. With rumors like that floating around town, things could only get worse.

  10

  If Ida Mae was going to get Scott out of jail, she was going to have to come up with ten percent of the bond—a cool fifty thousand, cash. That was good only if a bond agent would stand in the remainder. According to the facts Tinkie had pumped from Oscar, there was money in the Keys bank account, but the mortgage on Playin' the Bones was steep, and it would come due every month whether the club was open or not. I didn't think Ida Mae had the scratch to just drop fifty large. Not on top of the five she'd given me, which was once again sitting in the pie safe at Dahlia House.

  Since I didn't want to think about Tinkie, or Scott, or Coleman, I was thinking dollars as I left the courtroom. The blare of the loud music stopped me in my tracks. Then I heard the bullhorn.

  “Scott Hampton is an innocent man. Let's hear it now. Free Scott! Free Scott! Free Scott!” Nandy Shanahan's voice roared through the amplifying system, but as closely as I listened, I didn't hear a crowd joining in. No big surprise there.

  I walked out to the south side of the courthouse, which was nearest the jail. Nandy had moved her headquarters there in the hopes of gaining a glimpse of Scott. Maybe she was a stalker. Heck, anyone who'd been brought up in a household devoted to a headless queen would be bound to have some emotional scars. One of the rumors from high school was that Mr. Shanahan had taken every photograph of everyone in his household and had them digitally altered to reflect the Stuart nose. Holyrood—the real one in Edinburgh, not the fake one in Zinnia—boasted a gallery of portraits with that very same nose. The portraitists had been ordered to paint the Stuart nose on everyone, to physically reflect their claim to royal blood.

  Nandy lifted the bullhorn and turned sideways. I caught a profile, curious to see if she'd done anything with a scalpel to her own schnozzola. Though she'd poked holes in numerous body parts, she'd left her stubby little nose alone.

  She was pacing the steps with her bullhorn, exhorting the crowd of six white farmers to take action to save Scott. The only action she got was when one of the men leaned over to spit tobacco on the grass.

  “Okay, now all together. Free Scott! Free Scott! Free Scott!” She worked the megaphone. None of the farmers responded. They simply stared at her like they might a two-headed chicken. As she lowered the bullhorn and glared at the men, I recognized the sign of an impending emotional storm. She shot laser beams with her eyes at them and they passively stared back at her.

  “I told you to chant with me.” She put her hands on her hips and shook back her two-toned hair. “I know you cretins can't read, but surely you can talk.”

  “We can talk,” the one wearing a long-sleeved shirt and overalls said. “The trouble is, you talk too much. Ivory Keys was a good man. He was murdered and robbed, and the person who did it is going to pay. Right now, that guitar man you seem so intent on savin' looks like the murderer to me.” He grinned, but it wasn't humorous. “I'd leave that boy in jail if I were you. Bad things might happen if he was out and roamin' around.”

  The men all laughed and turned away, walking toward Main Street where they'd gather for lunch at Millie's or the competing diner, Arlene's.

  “Redneck creeps,” Nandy said. She pulled a tube of expensive skin lotion from her pocket and began to rub it into her hands. “Assholes.” There was a five-second pause. “Cow fuckers!” she yelled at their backs.

  They turned around in unison to stare at her. These were men who were slow to anger, but Nandy was beginning to wear on them.

  One of them stepped forward. “Ma'am, that's no way to talk. You sound cheap.”

  “You wouldn't know cheap—”

  I'd seen the black Mustang round the corner. It was a model from the eighties, and it showed its age. A slender black arm came out of the passenger side and lobbed a rotten tomato that landed at Nandy's feet, the red pulp spattering on both her and the farmer.

  “Come on, you white assholes,” one of the blacks in the car taunted. “Come on!”

  Another tomato sailed through the air, landing a foot from the farmer, the pulp flying up from the hot sidewalk.

  The farmer turned slowly and stared at the car. “There's only so much of that a man will take,” he called out. “You boys go on home before things get out of hand.”

  “Boys! We aren't boys!” the youth jeered back.

  “No, you're total asswipes,” Nandy screamed out. “Get out of that car and come fight like men.” She laughed at them. “Cowards!”

  The door of the courthouse swung open and Dewayne and Gordon came spilling out. The black Mustang peeled rubber as it drove away.

  “You okay, Sam?” Gordon asked the farmer.

  “Sure enough, but if someone doesn't get a handle on this, there's going to be trouble. Tomato washes out. Blood is a little harder.”

  “I'll have those young men rounded up and brought in,” Gordon promised him. “I know who they are.”

  The deputies and farmers parted, going their own way. I was left alone with the source of trouble.

  “Nandy.” I tapped her shoulder and stepped back when she whirled around so rapidly I thought she might slam into me.

  “What the hell do you want?” she snapped.

  “They set bond at five hundred thousand.” I was hoping to enter the conversation with a tidbit of fact that would serve as a white flag. Such was not to be the case.

  “Oh, big news! Like I haven't heard that thirty times already. Where are you going to get the money to get him out, that's what I want to know.”

  “Maybe your folks would loan it to him.” I pretended it was really a possibility.

  “They hate him,” Nandy said with more than a little anger. “They blame him for the breakup of my marriage.”

  “You were married?” I hadn't heard a word about it, but then I hadn't kept up with the upper-crust gals. In fact, I could
n't remember Nandy seriously dating anyone in college. “Do I know him?”

  “Yes and no. Yes I was married and no you never met him. Thank goodness.” She rolled her eyes. “It was another brilliant maneuver by my father.”

  “Did you marry a local boy?” How had Cece failed to fill me in on this important issue? Nandy had been married. That probably left me as the only spinster in my entire peer group. All of this time, in the back of my mind, I'd had Nandy as my safety net. Now the cheese stood alone.

  “Not local. From Edinburgh. Robert Pennington McBruce. Father almost died and went to heaven when he heard the name. Robert could have been a toad with warts. It wouldn't have mattered. It was arranged exactly like a royal couple. Letters, dowries, assurances of religious practices, and even a clause that the children would be raised Catholic.” She pulled at the ring in her eyebrow, stretching the skin out until I wanted to slap her hands away. “He might have been a McBruce, but he wasn't anything like the Highland lord I imagined when we became betrothed.”

  I felt my eyes widening. “You were engaged to him before you met him?”

  She gave me a withering glance. “Of course. Our parents arranged it. The agreement was airtight and perfect.”

  I needed a crash helmet, but I was going to ask anyway. “So why did you leave him?”

  “He had a little dick and he whimpered in his sleep.”

  “Nandy!”

  “Don't go all wide-eyed like a gigged frog, Sarah Booth.” She gave me a contemptuous smile. “If Robert hadn't been such a little sniveling toad, it would have worked out fine.”

  “You're divorced?” The question I wanted to ask was if Robert was still breathing. Nandy had always taken the most efficient route to getting what she wanted. Robert might well be planted somewhere.

  “Of course not! Divorce isn't acknowledged in the church. I simply walked out. Robert whines about it whenever he can track me down, but he doesn't have the balls to stop me.”

  Now I had a much better understanding of the Nandy transformation. She was pissed as hell at her folks, and she was getting even.