Booty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery (20 page)

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Tinkie offered to drive back to New Orleans and give Graf space, but I asked her to stay. I opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses. Tinkie plopped in front of the television.

“Hurricane Margene has reached Category Three status and as predicted has taken a sharp northerly turn.” The weatherman stood before a map of the Gulf Coast. The red cone of probable landfall for the hurricane had been narrowed. Mobile Bay was still dead center.

The meteorologist went into lengthy descriptions of millibars and longitude and latitude and other things I didn’t understand. My mind had frozen at the image of the red cone and the little multicolored spaghetti lines that showed landfall of Margene from Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to the Florida panhandle.

“We anticipate the storm will stall and lose power, probably reaching landfall over the weekend as a Cat One. This will be a rainmaker. While the winds will be down, the chance of tornadoes increases as the warm wall of the hurricane collides with a cold front sweeping down from the north.”

Farming was important in Zinnia, and I often listened to the weather. While I didn’t farm, I did lease farmland and had horses that required a good supply of winter hay. Lightning, too, was a worry. Tornadoes were rare, but always possible when a storm cell passed through. Ice storms were the big threat in the Delta. Heavy ice brought down power lines and left folks freezing and without lights or heat for days.

The rotating wall of wind and water that was a hurricane, though, was a totally different kind of storm. Sitting in a cottage on stilts not fifty yards from the Gulf, I had a new respect for the power of hurricanes.

“This puts the finish on it,” Tinkie said. “Start packing.”

I stood mutely watching the TV screen. It was almost Halloween. Such a late-season hurricane was rare, yet it was happening. My week at the beach had proved a disaster on every front possible.

“Are we leaving?”

We both turned to see Graf standing in the doorway. He’d been for a jog, and he was windswept and breathing hard.

“The storm could be dangerous,” I said.

“Do you really think it’ll come here?”

“It’s still several days out. The forecasters say it could turn or dissipate.”

“What’s the time frame?”

“Landfall over the weekend.”

“Let’s grill some shrimp for dinner and decide in the morning,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of time to leave.”

Before I answered, a loud knock at the door made me jump. I opened it to find Randy Chavis wearing his brown deputy uniform staring at me. “Ms. Delaney.” He looked beyond me. “Mrs. Richmond, I need to ask you both some questions. We can do it here, or I can take you downtown.”

“Questions about?”

“A valuable artifact has been stolen from the Mobile Maritime Museum, and the last people to show any interest in it was you two.”

So, someone had stolen the spyglass. A coincidence? Not likely. But it begged the question as to who else would be interested in the artifact that John Trotter had set his heart to reclaim.

“And you want to question us because you think we took something?” Tinkie asked, hot under the collar at the mere suggestion she was a thief. “What are we supposed to have stolen?”

“A telescope.” Chavis watched Tinkie for any indication of guilt.

“Why would we steal a piece of junk like that?” Tinkie asked. “We looked at it, and frankly I didn’t see any value in it.”

Chavis tilted his head in an obvious assessment of Tinkie. “The curator at the museum seems to believe you might have taken it. He said you displayed unusual interest in that one item. Funny you were there and now it’s missing.”

“Funny how it was in the locked case when we left the museum.” I started to close the door, but Chavis stopped me with his hand.

“Do you mind if I search the premises?”

“Do you have a search warrant?” Tinkie asked.

He didn’t answer, but he stepped back from the door. “It would go easier if you cooperated,” he warned. “I can come back with a search warrant, but if you don’t have the telescope, why not let me search? Don’t make it hard on yourself.”

“Since we did nothing wrong, there’s nothing to go hard on us about,” Tinkie answered. She could buy and sell the entire museum if she wanted.

“What’s so valuable about that telescope?” I asked. “It’s antique, but it’s just an old spyglass.”

“Historical value. Armand Couteau is a local legend, and it’s reputedly his.”

Graf came to stand behind me. “Officer, unless you have a search warrant, I think you should leave. These ladies resent being called thieves.”

“And who are you?” Chavis asked.

“I’m their friend. Unless you have proof that these women have broken the law, you need to leave.”

“Don’t leave Mobile County,” he said as he backed up.

“There’s a storm coming.” Tinkie put her hands on her hips. “Surely you don’t expect us to sit here and wait for a tidal surge to sweep us out to sea.”

“Don’t leave Mobile County,” Chavis said with a grin that told me he viewed himself as the victor in this round. “If you don’t want to stay on the island, there are hotels inland.”

Graf’s jaw was clenched. He was angry, but I couldn’t tell if it was directed at the deputy or me. As soon as Chavis drove away, Graf walked down the stairs without another word. Tinkie and I remained at the open door, looking out. Neither of us had to point out that Graf identified himself as our friend, not as my fiancé.

“Tinkie, I was wrong to ask you to stay here in this mess. You should pack and head to New Orleans,” I said.

“Not a chance.” She slammed the door. “Let’s pay a visit to the hussy down the beach.”

My smile was wan, but it was there. “I think we should focus on finding out who stole that spyglass. And I think maybe I know who did.”

She arched her eyebrows. “Who?”

“There are two possibilities, the way I see it. One is Angela Trotter. She knew her father’s attachment, and she’s been angry for several years that Prevatt wouldn’t return it to John.”

“And the other?”

“John’s killer. Who else? Do you really think the telescope has any value as an antique?”

Tinkie shrugged. “Things are worth whatever people will pay. So if we can’t go intimidate Marion Silber, what should we do?”

“Find Angela. If I’m going to help her, I need to do it now. I won’t be here much longer, and I seriously doubt I’ll come back. My life is too unsettled.”

“If that storm comes ashore here, there may not be anything to come back to.” Tinkie hit the last word hard. “I think you should load up the animals and go home to Zinnia. If Graf wants to stay, that’s his decision.”

My partner was well and truly over the conduct of my fiancé—a fiancé in name only. “I can’t leave him. Not just pack up and take the SUV and leave him behind with a hurricane coming. I can’t do it.”

Her anger evaporated, replaced with empathy. “I know.” She crossed her arms. “If we’re going to stay, let’s look into those politicians Angela made life miserable for. Remember our motives. Greed, revenge. Maybe not sex, but the first two. Framing another person for murder takes money or smarts or both. If they aren’t involved, we need to rule them out.”

Tinkie understood the trappings of power far better than I did. She and Oscar wielded clout. In the Delta, the bank was the source of the greatest influence. Oscar could stop a loan and destroy a farmer. Farming vast tracts of land required access to fluid cash for equipment, fertilizers, and labor. To his credit, Oscar operated with ethics and not personal gain. Tinkie had learned this at her father’s knee. Avery Bellcase owned the bank in Zinnia and ran it before Oscar married into the family and took over the daily management.

I refreshed her memory about the county commissioner, Rick Roundtree, and his development schemes on Dauphin Island, foiled by Angela. And about the former governor Jameson Barr, who’d left a sloppy paper trail when he hired a hit man to kill his wife. He was in prison, along with the paid gunman. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t struck back at Angela by hiring someone to kill her father. He obviously had no problem paying someone else to do his dirty work.

“And it could be someone in the prosecutor’s office,” Tinkie said, tapping her chin with a finger. “Let’s start with island development, and I know just who to ask.”

17

Cece Dee Falcon had taught me two approaches to politicians. If one had the evidence in hand, then a frontal assault was the best option, bulldozing them into either a confession or a dead-out run. Since we had only supposition, we were left with the second approach—deception.

With a few phone calls, Tinkie found the county commissioner hard at work drinking coffee at a small diner not too far from the island. I parked outside, and for ten minutes we watched him through the plate-glass window. He was a hail-fellow-well-met kind of guy, waving his hand and yukking it up with all the locals. But it was impossible to miss the shrewdness in his eyes or the way he laughed and assessed his audience simultaneously.

I took a seat at the counter and ordered coffee and a slice of fresh coconut pie. Tinkie slid into the booth across from Richard Roundtree. “Would you gentlemen give a lady a moment alone with the county commissioner?” she said to the men who’d surrounded Roundtree, hoping no doubt for some scraps to fall from the taxpayer trough. If she’d batted her eyelashes any harder, she would have taken flight.

Chairs scraped, and a few men chuckled as they moved to another table, leaving Tinkie a clear field. We didn’t have any of the recording equipment we sometimes used, but Tinkie’s cell phone was set to document the conversation. It wouldn’t be high-quality, but it might save our bacon at a later date.

“I won’t waste your time trying to pretty up my story,” Tinkie said, blinking back tears. “I’m Tinkie Bellcase Richmond of the banking Bellcases of Zinnia, Mississippi, and my husband is cheating on me, lowlife bastard that he is. While my pride has taken a beating, I won’t let my net worth be diminished.” She blotted a few tears with a paper napkin from the table. “My daddy controls the bank and all of our money. When I told Daddy what Oscar was up to, we had a nice long chat, and he told me to look into some investment properties. I want to invest in coastal development and tie up every liquid dollar we have, which I figure is close to ten million. My daddy, Avery Bellcase, told me to see
you
. He said you were the man for Dauphin Island development.”

I doubted the name Avery Bellcase meant much to Roundtree, but it was the way Tinkie said it, leaving no doubt her daddy was a man of means and one to take seriously. It was a thing of beauty to watch my partner work.

“And what, exactly, can I do for you, Mrs. Richmond?”

“I want to build a resort. Something with permanent condos and also luxury hotel rooms. I want to thwart my soon-to-be-ex husband from getting a penny, but at the same time, I want to grow my investment. No reason I can’t do both. So what’s the political climate on the island for a development like that?”

“You are a blunt woman,” he said. The smile never made it from his lips to his eyes. His brain was feverishly at work, calculating the money he could make. Dollar signs reflected in his pale blue gaze. “I presume you have the full financial backing of your … daddy?”

“Of course. We just need to move forward quickly, before my husband catches wind of this and puts a stop to it. Once the deal is struck and the money tied up, Oscar will be history. He won’t get one red cent of my daddy’s fortune.”

“I like a woman with brains and beauty.” Roundtree signaled the waitress for fresh coffee for himself and a cup for Tinkie. “What’s my role?”

“You’d be the liaison between the contractors, the landowners, and me. Project manager. I can’t be down here watching over the building of the resort, so that would be your job. And you would be handsomely paid. Maybe even a partial interest if we can find a satisfactory meeting of the minds. There’s one little thing we need to settle. I understand there’s a newspaper reporter on the island who successfully stopped your last bid to develop this little paradise. Will she be a problem now?”

He brushed it aside with a flick of his fingers. “She made some trouble. Then she got involved in her own world of sh … I mean issues. I think she’s retired from the news business.”

“You
think
or you
know
?”

“Before we proceed, I’ll know. She left the local paper, but I’ll make sure she hasn’t been picked up by an Internet news organization. I’ll have every risk assessed.” He smiled his sharky grin. He never stopped swimming forward, gobbling everything in his path.

“Is there anyone else who might give us trouble?”

“The majority of the island residents would like development. The right kind. They don’t want to see Gulf Shores revisited here. Too much high-rise and not enough community, if you get my drift. The mayor and council will have to be brought on board in the right way. And I won’t lie to you: there are a handful of biologists and environmentalists who will fight this tooth and nail. There’s a citizens committee headed by Tom Brennan. They’re opposed to development. Nothing new, I assure you. It’s always a fight to bring progress. But there are ways to deal with them.”

“And you can manage them, right? I mean that’s where I see your
real
value.”

“I can.”

“And you will be richly rewarded for doing so.”

I shifted uncomfortably. He was such a cold-blooded predator I was afraid he might bite off Tinkie’s arm in a moment of unfettered greed.

“But of course.”

“And you will take whatever steps are necessary to hold up your end of the bargain?” The hard look in Tinkie’s eyes made me do a double-take. Had I not known her true heart, I would have thought her capable of anything.

He looked troubled. “What do you mean? I don’t mind greasing the skids with some bribery, but what are you implying?”

“I heard you were a man who took prompt action. When that reporter woman got in the way, bad things happened to her.”

Roundtree’s jovial demeanor evaporated. There was nothing left but the sleek outline of the shark. “I’m afraid I don’t catch your drift. Are you accusing me of something?”