Buried Bones (38 page)

"Jebediah Archer paid for your silence. And
Lawrence
's, too?"

"Oh, no.
Lawrence
never took a penny. He left the country and went to fight against the Axis powers. He and Ramone Gilliard were very active in the underground.
Lawrence
did some very brave things that no one will ever know."

"But the senator paid you."

"Yes, and he's continued to pay me all this time, a small monthly allowance. It's how I've managed to live."

Very slowly I sat down on the top step. Words were inadequate, and I had sense enough to know it. So I'd learned the big secret of Madame's past, of why she'd come home to Zinnia, of why she'd never married. I suddenly thought of Jitty and the safety and repression of the decade she'd decided to embrace. What must it truly have been like for women in the forties and fifties? What had Madame and others like her suffered because they wanted to dance on a stage, to revel in movement and beauty? What would she suffer now?

She reached her hand out for the page, and I gave it to her, watching as she read it yet again. "I simply can't believe he did this," she said. "Not
Lawrence
. You have no idea how he took care of me that summer, how he nursed me back from the brink of insanity." She shook her head, lowering the page to her lap. "And then Lenore. My God. We were wild. Young and wild and completely unaware how the decisions we made then would affect us in the years to come."

"What about Lenore?" I had to ask though the words tasted of ash as they passed my lips. I didn't want to hear more secrets. I didn't want the burden of knowing.

"She was having an affair with a married man. A prominent man. She was desperately in love."

"Who?"

Madame looked past me out into the street. She must have seen the Thunderbird coming, but she made no motion to indicate she saw it. "Sarah Booth, there are secrets I won't reveal. If they're in that book, then
Lawrence
must accept the blame for telling them. I'm an old woman, and though I'd prefer to avoid the label of blackmailer, I have only a limited number of days left to endure such censure. Long ago I gave my word. That has to mean something."

The crunch of the tires made me turn around. Willem Arquillo got out of the Thunderbird and walked toward us. This time his million-dollar smile was missing.

"Let me offer apologies for what I'm about to do," Willem said in that lovely voice. "I need the key to the storage vault, Miss Bell. Please give it to me now."

"It's too late, Willem," I answered for her. "Harold knows the Pleshettes are fakes." For someone who was solving a mystery, I found no satisfaction in delivering the coup de grace.

Willem's posture loosened, and he sat heavily on the front porch. "I know you might not believe this, but I meant to get them back before he died. I needed the money. My mother's care, the doctors ... I was careless with my own success.
Lawrence
never looked at his collection, never showed them to anyone. So I painted the frauds and made the switch. I've got money now. I can buy them back and replace them as I always meant to do."

"You followed me to
Moon
Lake
because you thought I had the key to the art storage vault."

He didn't deny it. "I'm sorry, Sarah Booth. Give me credit that I left you, untouched. I could not deceive you to that extent."

What should I say, thanks? I swallowed the bitter taste of disappointment.

"Have a seat, Willem," Madame said, holding out the page to him. "You might as well give it up.
Lawrence
obviously finished his book and spared no one. He's known for years about the switched paintings. He told me. But he always knew you meant to make it right, and he wanted to give you the chance. That's why he invited you to Zinnia for the holidays. He was hoping you'd recover the real paintings and make the switch. That was his intention, before he was killed."

Willem held the page but didn't read it. He looked over it at Madame. "He knew?"

She nodded. "He just never let on. He understood, I think. And until this morning, I always believed that he forgave you. Forgave all of us our sins."

I'd hardly known
Lawrence
, but I was finding it difficult to imagine how he'd sat down and written things that would destroy everyone he'd seemed to care about. Willem read the page and then slowly lowered it to his side.

"What did he write about me and my family?"

Silence stretched before I answered. "I found only that one page. The rest of the book is still missing."

Willem leaned back against the pillar that supported Madame's porch roof. He tapped his beautiful head against it several times before he spoke. "There is a saying about writers. When you sleep with one you put your most intimate life on the page. I never would have believed it of
Lawrence
."

"Maybe the book is truly lost," Madame said.

"Brianna has it. I'm sure of it. She called to rub it in."

If possible, Willem's shoulders slumped a little more. "It's pointless now. I'll be revealed for a thief and the worst kind of betrayer.
Lawrence
trusted me to buy the paintings for him, to spend his money on quality work. And I cheated him. I cheated my friend."

I faced Willem. "Did you kill him?" I asked.

Willem's dark brows slammed together. "How can you ask that? I'm a thief, not a killer."

I stood up and looked at Madame. "Did you? The bag of rat poison had your prints on it."

She made a sound in her throat, a soft yielding. "No," she said. "I didn't kill
Lawrence
. I did buy the rat poison. There were mice in the cottage, and
Lawrence
didn't approve of poisoning things. It was a health issue, but who will believe me? Coleman confirmed that Harold and I are the prime suspects." She gathered herself and her lips turned up in a crooked smile. "Ironic, isn't it? The woman I tried so hard to stop now has the book and the best possible method of publicizing it. Not only is
Lawrence
dead. He was murdered. And the woman who loved him for the past five decades will go to prison for it."

The injustice was almost more than I could bear. "We have
to
find Brianna," I said, rising to my feet. "Willem, you said she called. Where was she?"

"She didn't say." Willem was morose.

"I'll be back," I promised as I stepped around Willem's long legs.

"Where are you going?" Madame asked.

"I know just the person to help me with Brianna's phone call. Keep thinking and I'll be in touch."

Johnny Albritton was watching a ball game in his den when I knocked on his front door. If he was surprised to see me, he didn't show it. Based on the way he pushed the screen door open and invited me in, it would seem that I stopped by all the time.

"What's shakin', Sarah Booth?" He sipped a beer and gave me his attention.

"I need a favor. A big one. Can you trace a call?"

"Local or long distance?"

"I don't know." I forged ahead. "The call was made to Willem Arquillo. He's staying at Ruth Anne's bed-and-breakfast."

He nodded as if he were considering and I felt my hopes begin to rise. "Have you asked Ruth Anne?" he asked.

"Do I have to have her permission? It wasn't a call to her."

"No. But she's got caller ID. Maybe if she hasn't erased it you could just check her box. Might tell you right off where the call came from. Of course that won't work if it's a cell phone or out of an area that doesn't have caller ID."

I didn't have time to waste, but I went to him and took his hand. "Thanks, Johnny."

"You'll get the hang of this PI business. Don't give up. And don't watch those television shows. They get it all wrong." He walked me to the door, his gaze already straying back to the television.

Ruth Anne Welsh had gone to Zinnia High but we'd traveled in different circles, not to mention different grades. She was a bit younger.

She was in the kitchen cooking something that smelled heavenly, a gumbo of some sort. She eyed me skeptically while I told her what I wanted. I thought I'd won her over until she put one hand on her hip and balked.

"I'm sorry, Sarah Booth, but this sounds too much like an invasion of privacy. How do I know that Mr. Arquillo said you could do this? How do I know it's even his calls you're really interested in."

"Because I said so?"

She rolled her eyes. "That's exactly the sort of thing Tinkie Bellcase would say."

"You know Tinkie?" I felt a pulse of hope.

"She talked to her husband and helped me get the loan for this bed-and-breakfast. After Howard left me with two kids and no means of support, nobody in this damn town would give me a job or a chance. I'd done some catering for Mrs. Bellcase, and she went right down to the bank and stood at her husband's desk and told him exactly how he was going to give me the loan."

"God bless Tinkie," I said, already moving toward the door. "I'll have Tinkie come over and explain this to you," I promised.

"Now I'd believe Mrs. Bellcase. You just send her on. I'd like to send some of this duck gumbo home with her anyway. It was always one of her favorites."

I started to ask to borrow her phone and give Tinkie a call right on the spot, but then I remembered something. I checked the wall clock in Ruth Anne's kitchen and saw it was nearly two o'clock. Lunch was over. Tinkie had sacrificed herself on the altar of her marriage in an attempt to discover where Harold Erkwell had gone--and he was sitting at Coleman's office. I'd neglected to call my partner and save her.

"You got indigestion?" Ruth Anne asked. "You can't see my phone, but I will give you an AlkaSeltzer."

"Not yet, but I'm going to have a terrible earache," I said as I headed back to my car.

I felt like a worm. Most of the rules and regulations of a Daddy's Girl I'd been able to put behind me, but there was one supreme rule that I'd always revered-- one Daddy's Girl never left another in a bad situation out of carelessness. It didn't matter that I was used to working alone; or that Tinkie was married to Oscar and a little nooner probably would work to Tinkie's advantage in the long run; or that I had no way of knowing Harold would call me from Memphis.

Rationalizing would not make this right. I had done a bad thing.

So I decided to go home and call Tinkie from there and do what I could to repair the damage--and see if I could get her to go to Ruth Anne's. I had to get that phone number.

My home was like a beacon of safety as I left the main road and cruised onto the drive. I'd been home almost a year and still the sense of perfect wonder that came over me as I turned down the drive was as fresh and magical as it had been when I was a child. Home. It was a word that filled me with good and solid emotions.

I coasted by the front of the house, going slow to avoid the milling crowd of dogs. Sweetie Pie had her own fan club going. I wondered if it was her gentle baying that won such devotion from her boys. My genial thoughts skidded to a halt as I saw a flash of black, russet, and tan streak down the front porch steps. She hesitated just long enough for me to recognize the fabulous square-heeled, strappy, extra-sexy shoes I was planning on wearing to the ball.

I jammed the car in park and dove over the side as I went in hot pursuit of dog and shoe.

"This is it, Sweetie Pie. You're going to the gas chamber," I yelled after her as I crawled on all fours under the house. She had the height advantage on me and disappeared in the darkness. She'd gone to that nest she was building. For a dog without ovaries or a uterus, Sweetie had a real thing about preparing for puppies.

Rocks bruising my knees and cobwebs clinging to my head, I scrabbled after my dog. When I finally got to her, I reached into the darkness for my shoe. I found it--and a host of other things. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but I pulled out two more shoes, not mine, a plastic shovel, a roller skate, a wool coat, three towels, and a tin pie pan.

"This has got to end," I told her as I clutched her stash to my chest and hobbled toward the light.

It wasn't until I was outside that I recognized my black wool coat. Now I remembered hanging it on a tree limb when I was playing fetch with Sweetie. No wonder I couldn't find it. Now I wasn't certain that I wanted to. It looked pretty disreputable. Not even the cleaners were going
to
be able to save it. But the pockets were intact. Reaching into the left one I found Madame's check and another scrap of paper.

Walking up the steps I unfolded it, wondering where it had come from. It was a bad habit of mine to stuff things in my pockets. Usually I found them in the washing machine. Lipstick, gum, things that weren't meant to be washed.

The handwriting stopped me, a beautiful, flowing copperplate. An old school kind of writing. The first word, which was Harold's name, stopped me in my tracks.
"Harold, I hate to be mysterious (actually, I love it) but this manuscript is the best I've ever written. Take care of Brianna, and be wary. Should anything
happen to me, you'll be able to find the book where tears of stone fall on Brianna's past. Be sure that it's published. Many thanks,
Lawrence
."