Bonefire of the Vanities Page 9

  “She thinks Chasley deliberately killed his sister.”

  Doc stopped, his eyebrows arching. “I see. That explains a lot. No wonder she’s lost the will to live. But why now? Mariam has been dead for years.” His eyebrows drew together. “When the little girl drowned, I sent her several notes and flowers, but I didn’t visit her. I should have. I wasn’t a very good friend. So this is the hold the Westins have on her. She believes they’ll tell her if Chasley is a murderer.”

  “She’s being manipulated, Doc.” I told him about the video. “Will you help us?”

  He sighed. “Against my better judgment. I’ll send word to Cece. And Coleman. I’m sure our sheriff can find a reason to pay a visit to Heart’s Desire.”

  “Ask him to bring me a cell phone,” I said. I figured not even Palk would have the balls to try to take a sheriff’s cell phone.

  “And how will she relay the information she gathers to you?” Doc asked.

  “She needs to interview the Westin women. If she can get inside, she can find a way to leave us a packet with the information. Also, I think Madam Tomeeka needs to bring Marjorie her cat. She misses Pluto. I think the feline would help her attitude a lot.” The cat would give Marjorie a reason to live.

  “Okay.” Doc wasn’t 100 percent convinced, but he was going to help us.

  He checked his patient one more time and spent ten minutes lecturing her on the importance of remaining calm. “A stroke could leave you paralyzed. At the mercy of those two.” He gestured at us. “I urge you to go home and leave this place, but if you won’t, then you’re to mind Mrs. Richmond.”

  What about me? I wanted to ask, but I knew better. Tinkie was more practical, and she had a way of making Marjorie behave without coming across as bossy.

  When Marjorie had given her word, he motioned me to the door. “Watch yourselves. Something’s not right here. I don’t know what the Westins are up to, but it doesn’t bode well for Marjorie. She’s completely vulnerable to whatever foolishness they show her at one of those séances.”

  “As soon as we convince Marjorie to vacate, we’ll blow this popsicle stand,” I promised him.

  He left and I heard him speaking with someone, presumably Brandy, outside the door. In a few moments, Brandy knocked. Marjorie was dozing on the chaise.

  “I need a word with Marjorie. Now.” Brandy tried to brush past me, but I blocked her.

  “No can do,” I said. “She’s resting. Doctor’s orders.”

  “I believe you and Mrs. Jones have upset Mrs. Littlefield. I’ll speak with her tomorrow about dismissing you both.” Brandy studied the suite as if she thought I might be harboring illegal drugs, aliens, or Chippendales dancers.

  “Good luck with that,” I said. “And just so you know, her cat, Pluto, will be arriving. Let the guards know that Tammy Odom will drive the cat here.”

  “We don’t allow pets.”

  “Fine by me.” I motioned to Tinkie. “Get the bags. We’re going home. Mrs. Littlefield won’t stay without her cat. I’ve researched other mediums who can bring Mrs. Littlefield the closure she seeks. You and Sherry aren’t the only game in town.”

  Tinkie shot me a look of concern, but I ignored her. I’d decided to play hardball with Brandy. It was time for some pushback.

  Brandy’s lip curled in distaste. “Keep the creature in her suite of rooms, and I will have the area professionally cleaned and billed to Marjorie’s account when she departs.” She walked to the door and pivoted. “I don’t know who you two are, but I intend to find out. You aren’t maids.”

  “I’m not a maid, I’m a paid companion,” Tinkie said.

  I couldn’t believe it. She’d elevated herself from maid to Mistress of Manderley in one sentence.

  Brandy was unimpressed. “Chasley has expressed concerns about you two. He believes you intend to worm your way into his mother’s confidence and then rob her blind.”

  “Chasley would know all about such scams, wouldn’t he?” I smiled slow and wide. “I’m glad to know he’s been talking with you, Ms. Westin.” It was a dangerous game I played. Behind me, I could feel Tinkie tense.

  “Have a good evening.” Brandy stepped into the hall. “Make sure to lock the door behind you, Miss Booth. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to any of my guests.” Her tone made it clear she wished us the exact opposite.

  7

  Marjorie was comatose by the time Tinkie and I shut the door—and locked it. We found pillows and blankets and made a bed on the foldout sofa in the sitting room. Before I could say Jack Sprat, Tinkie was stretched out, her eyelids fluttering, a victim of total exhaustion.

  I, unfortunately, was wide awake. For at least an hour I sat at the window staring into the star-studded night. Heart’s Desire was isolated. There was no question.

  My imagination worked overtime, populating my brain with questions. Were the Westin women luring in the rich and doing away with them? Gruesome images of corpses walled into the house or buried in the woods popped into my mind. Too much bad television, I chided myself.

  I checked on Tinkie and Marjorie. They were sound asleep. I had to get a grip on my thoughts and emotions and rest as well. I’d be worse than useless in the morning if I didn’t.

  Just as I was about to step out of my khakis, I heard something outside the door. I froze, listening. I couldn’t be certain, but it sounded like someone tiptoeing up and down the hall. Someone creeping. Was it Brandy, spying on us? Or another guest? This might be a great opportunity to “chat.”

  Moving stealthily like a cat, I cracked the door enough to peer out. My range was limited, but I didn’t want to open the door wider. So I listened.

  Footsteps.

  Slipping out the door, I stood a moment in the darkened hallway and let my eyes adjust to the interior darkness. The hallway was empty in both directions. Yet I’d definitely heard a noise. At the landing, I checked the floor below me. Again, I found only emptiness.

  “Oh, my goodness, another body in Cabot Cove.”

  The voice behind me was cultured and musical—enough so that I didn’t jump out of my skin. I spun to find Jitty, pushing a bicycle and wearing pearls, right behind me.

  “You are a menace! Dammit! You could have scared me so badly, I fell down the stairs and broke my neck. And then where would you be with no Delaney heir?” It’s hard to be emphatic in a whisper, but I managed.

  “Even as a child you were prone to exaggeration.” She fingered the pearls.

  “What are you doing here pretending to be Angela Lansbury acting like Jessica Fletcher?” First Nancy Drew, now the sleuth of Cabot Cove! I could see nothing but trouble in my future. Jitty, when lurking on the grounds of Dahlia House, gave me plenty of grief. Now she was on the loose and in the guise of female detectives—this could only bode ill.

  “We need a good television show like Murder, She Wrote. All of that CSI stuff—” She waved a hand in dismissal and I wondered how long she’d practiced that move in front of a mirror. She had Lansbury’s mannerisms down to a T, even the swanlike arch of her neck. I was impressed despite myself.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought you might need a bit of help.”

  Jitty never helped me with cases. My instant response was wariness. “Help, how?”

  “Don’t you want to know about the spirits hanging out at Heart’s Desire?”

  “Yes.” I couldn’t believe it. Jitty meant to be helpful. Normally, she harangued me about personal matters. “Are there spirits? What did I see tonight in the session? Was it … spirits? Can Sherry really communicate with the dead?” I wanted just a moment of time with my mother or father.

  Jitty leaned against the staircase railing. “You know you’re sensitive to the spirit world, don’t you?”

  The question was so matter-of-fact that I straightened my shoulders and faced her squarely. “That isn’t true. I see you, but you’re a family haint. You’re part of Dahlia House.” I didn’t want to commune with other ghosts
. No, sir. Absolutely not. Seeing dead people was not a talent I cared to develop.

  “Rejecting a gift can bring consequences.” Jitty’s eyebrows rose, and I thought of the amateur sleuth she impersonated.

  “I’m not rejecting it, I’m studying on it.”

  She laughed, and it was pure Jitty. “How many times did your aunt Loulane say she was ‘studyin’ on’ an issue? She generally meant no.”

  I couldn’t argue Jitty’s point. “I don’t think I’m sensitive and I don’t think Sherry is a medium.”

  “Automatic writing is easy to emulate,” Jitty said. “Lots of tricks of the trade for spiritualists who aren’t on the up-and-up.”

  I slapped my forehead. “I need to check out that séance room.”

  “Wait until tomorrow. Then find a good excuse to be down there. Brandy Westin isn’t keen on having you in the house, and if you traipse off snoopin’ tonight, you might set off an alarm.”

  Brandy wanted a reason to jettison me and Tinkie, and I had no intention of pushing her hot buttons. “Jitty, are you positive Mariam didn’t communicate with Sherry? That the whole thing was pretend?”

  She took a step closer to me. “What is real, Sarah Booth? Am I real? Reality is perception, and each person’s world is real to them.”

  She had me there, and on that note she started to dissipate. “You came a long way just to hand me another riddle.” I was aggravated by the way she’d pop in and out and leave me more confused.

  “Riddles are seldom about the answer.” Her voice faded to a whisper and she was gone with a tiny snap and crackle.

  * * *

  The day broke with a golden sunrise and temperatures in the eighties. The humidity was almost tangible. It was going to be a scorcher. Which exactly matched my temper. Sleeping on the sofa with Tinkie wasn’t necessarily a hardship—if I’d been able to catch some shut-eye. Instead, I’d spent the entire night running through riddles and scenarios and ending up nowhere.

  “You look like hell,” Tinkie said as she yawned and stretched.

  “Fine for you to say. You were so busy sawing logs, you missed the fact I was up all night.”

  “Guilty conscience?” she teased.

  “Overactive brain.” I discovered Marjorie was awake and ready for coffee.

  Tinkie hurried from the suite in her pajamas before I could stop her. Palk would have a major heart attack when he viewed her purple Barney slippers scuffling across the parquet floor. Apoplectic would be his next condition. Tinkie could handle him, though.

  Marjorie seemed better today. Doc’s visit and whatever he gave her to calm her blood pressure had been effective. She caught the hem of my shirt as I walked by. “Sarah Booth, we really must talk. I know you don’t want to, but I insist.”

  Marjorie threw back the blanket and sat up. “Do you think that was my daughter last night?”

  I’d hoped to avoid this conversation, but it was inevitable. I sat down beside her. “I don’t know. Automatic writing is easy to fake.”

  “But how would Sherry know I blamed myself for Mariam’s death?” Her smile was so damn wistful, a lump rose in my throat. I knew what it was to miss someone who would never return. And Marjorie’s loss was coupled with a terrible guilt. Justified or not, she felt it.

  She stood up. For all of the fact she’d begun to act like an eighty-year-old woman on the brink of death, she was in great shape. Petite, agile, she walked easily across the room, and from behind, she could pass for forty or younger.

  After she’d brushed her teeth, she returned to the chaise and sat beside me. “I’m not a fool and I’m not a sentimentalist. I want the truth about Chasley. I’ve pretended for a long time my life was worth living. Inside, though, there is this terrible pain.” A hand went to her heart. “The weight of guilt is too heavy. If I can’t resolve this, I don’t want to live.”

  “You aren’t a fool, but you are acting out of pain. You’re vulnerable to unscrupulous people.”

  When she smiled, her light brown eyes filled with an inner spark. “I don’t believe any of this foolishness about being part of an elite mind bank gathering at Heart’s Desire to lead the world. All I have to do is invest a lot of money. Don’t worry. I’ve sat in on their planning sessions, because it’s expected. But I have no intention of squandering money. I don’t want to control the globe. I can’t even manage my own life.”

  “I’m relieved.” And I wasn’t fibbing. The appeal to ego is difficult to resist. Great leaders had been brought to the brink of ruin by yes-men. Only the truly strongest personalities could resist the insidious delight of ego-stroking.

  “Sherry and Brandy are very special women.”

  Here was a chance. “You know they ran a brothel in New Orleans.”

  “I do.” She didn’t flinch. “Brandy and Sherry had a lot of pull in New Orleans in their day. I knew them in the ’90s. When I was married to the arms dealer. I often sent clients to them for entertainment. Men who enjoy big and powerful guns often enjoy pliant women.”

  Marjorie was certainly not provincial in her outlook on the flesh trade. My respect for her notched up. “Do you really believe the Westins can help you connect with Mariam? She’s been gone over thirty years.”

  She smoothed the coverlet she’d thrown over the chaise. “I know it sounds ridiculous. At times I realize I’m grasping at straws.” She patted my hand. “You’re young, Sarah Booth. Each year you live will bring choices, and some of those will lead to disaster. The day I sent Mariam out the door with Chasley—” She turned away to compose herself.

  “You had no idea anything bad would happen. You can’t blame yourself. No mother can be with a child every moment. A child would suffocate.”

  When she met my gaze, she was completely calm. “I knew something was wrong with Chasley. I knew it. But my husband needed my help. We were on the brink of pushing his business into a global concern, and it was so important to him, to his ego.” Her voice lowered. “I sent Mariam out of the house because I didn’t want to be bothered with her for an afternoon. I had to meet with the florist and the caterers. I had to prepare for a party.” The last word was spoken with such savage fury, I recoiled before I could stop myself.

  “You were helping your husband. I’m sure Mariam wanted to go to the docks with Chasley. The whole thing had to be an accident.”

  Tinkie entered with a tray of coffee, juice, and toast. She had service for three, and I wondered how Palk had reacted to this latest mutiny of his authority, but I didn’t interrupt Marjorie to ask.

  Marjorie took the cup Tinkie offered. “I’ve fought every day to believe Mariam’s death was unavoidable. An accident. A terrible tragedy. Chasley said she fell off the dock and he tried to save her, but he wasn’t even wet. The police brought him home and he said, ‘Mother, Mariam fell in the river and drowned.’” She paused, seemingly lost in the memory. “His clothes were dry. He was always such a neat boy. His pants were still creased. He told me and then went up to his room. It was as if he told me he’d lost his raincoat.”

  The scene as she described it was surely a ticket to her nightly hell. Could Chasley, even as a boy of fifteen, be so totally deadened that he had no reaction to his sister’s death—a death he’d likely witnessed? If not more.

  “What did the police report say about Mariam’s death?” Tinkie asked.

  “It was ruled accidental,” Marjorie said. “To be honest, I don’t think they investigated. Mariam was ten. She fell into the river, and she couldn’t get out. Chasley said he ran to the warehouses for help, but he couldn’t find anyone. He found a pay phone and called 911.”

  The story sounded plausible. He was, after all, a boy of fifteen. “But you felt Chasley should have done more?”

  “He was on the swim team of his high school. He was an excellent swimmer. Why didn’t he jump in and try to save his sister?”

  Tinkie’s troubled expression reflected my own. It was a good question, but how many fifteen-year-olds would have the presence of
mind to jump into the Mississippi River to save another child?

  “What did Chasley say?” I asked gently.

  “By the time he returned to the docks and thought to try to swim out to help her, he couldn’t see her. He called and called, but she never answered. They found her body downriver.”

  “Could Mariam swim?” Tinkie asked.

  Tears fell from Marjorie’s eyes, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away. “No, she’d never learned. She was terrified of water. I tried three summers in a row to enroll her in swimming lessons, but she hated it. So I didn’t make her learn. Yet I let her go to the docks with her brother because I had a party to plan. A party.”

  Tinkie put her arms around Marjorie and simply held her. I sat like a bump on a log, unable to say or do anything to alleviate Marjorie’s pain.

  A knock broke the silence in the room. When I answered it, I found Palk standing at attention.

  “Please have the dirty linens to the laundry by nine,” he said.

  “And the laundry is where?”

  “The washing machines are in the basement. Stella comes in at six and washes, dries, and irons the sheets.”

  “And what about Mrs. Littlefield’s personal items?”

  His smile was malicious. “Those are your province, Miss Booth. Since you are here eating the food, you will attend to all your mistress’s needs.”

  “Absolutely. And since you didn’t ask, she’s feeling much better today.” I closed the door.

  “That man has a broomstick up his behind,” Tinkie said.

  To my surprise, Marjorie laughed. “He is overbearing,” she agreed. “I had a lovely butler when I was married to my third husband. He was gracious to everyone, and managed the household with kindness. After he retired, I made sure he was well taken care of.”

  The topic had turned away from talk of Mariam, and I was glad. Marjorie’s complexion was pink and rosy, but I worried about her. “I think you should join the others for lunch today,” I suggested. “It isn’t good to stay here in your room. And later, I hope Madam Tomeeka will show up with Pluto.”