Ham Bones (27 page)

Her smile was sad. "Me, too"

That scared me. Jitty hadn't been her normal sassy self
since this whole thing had started. She'd been melancholy, and that was my modus operandi. "Am I going to
prison?"

"You know I don't tell the future. That's the province
of your friend, Madame Tomeeka"

"The last vision Tammy had wasn't a good one. Renata reached from the world beyond and grabbed me "" I
thought again of Graf and how he'd said almost the same
words-that Renata had reached from the grave to punish
him.

"This woman has a long reach for a corpse"

That was a statement I couldn't argue with. No matter
that I'd bested her on the stage-my talent was at last acknowledged. Renata was still the superior ... enemy. The
word surprised me. I'd considered Renata an adversary, a bitch, a dangerous acquaintance. Never an enemy. Until
now.

"There is reason in all things, Sarah Booth. You may
not see it right this minute, but one thing will shift into
focus, and you'll see the truth"

"What makes a person an enemy?" I couldn't let go of
the idea.

"Jealousy, competitiveness, revenge, covetousness"
Jitty said each word with care. "Back when Alice was
alive, she had a young friend by the name of Bethelyn
Carlisle James. Her cousin was someone you might have
heard of, Jesse James"

I remembered this old story, but I fluffed my pillows to
listen again. It had been years since anyone had told me a
bedtime story, and I was ready to listen. "The legendary
outlaw, Jesse James"

"That was him, but it's not a simple story, and what
I'm goin' to talk about really has nothin' to do with outlaws. Only in-laws." Jitty crooked a leg up on the bed, and
the thin winter light struck her skin, rendering it the most
perfect shade of golden mocha I'd ever seen.

"Bethelyn had a younger sister, didn't she?" I knew
the story, but Jitty always added a detail that I'd forgotten.

"Her name was Karalyn. She was a year younger, a
child born too soon, before her mother had fully recovered from the birth of Bethelyn." Jitty's eyes had gone unfocused as she walked the dirt roads of the past.

"Celestine James died a month after giving birth to
Karalyn, and Luther was destroyed. He loved his wife
more than anything else in his life. More than his children. But it was his good fortune that Bethelyn grew into
the spittin' image of her mother. It was truly uncanny.
Some said that the spirit of Celestine James had lingered in the old plantation and slipped into the body of her eldest daughter while the girl slept."

I didn't bother to point out the irony of a ghost telling
me a ghost story. I listened with rapt attention.

"Luther loved Bethelyn beyond reason. She had the
finest ball gowns for the parties of the day, and two maids
to attend to her grooming and toilette. Alice, who was the
same age, told me later that Bethelyn never let the attention spoil her. She tried to be a mother to Karalyn, who
would have no part of it. Abandoned and neglected by her
father, Karalyn grew to hate her older sister and view her
as the source of all of her unhappiness."

"Couldn't Luther see what he was doing?"

"He was blinded by love for a woman long gone. By
trying to recreate the past and have his beloved Celestine,
he never really knew Bethelyn, and worse, he drove Karalyn away."

"Do you ever tell stories that aren't sad?" I suddenly
didn't want to hear any more. I'd asked the question about
enemies. The answer Jitty was giving me was making me
very uncomfortable, because I couldn't help but draw a
parallel between Luther James and Graf Milieu. Both
men found themselves caught between two women, and
Luther had paid a terrible price.

"Stories aren't interestin' if they don't have drama"
Jitty's smile was fleeting. "This all happened back in
1855, six years before the war. Alice and Bethelyn were
just teenagers in a world doomed to die a brutal death.
Those were days of grand parties and weekend-long barbecues. I'd been born on the Caldwell Plantation, Mossy
Oak. The Caldwells had a son, Jacob, they hoped to
match up with Bethelyn for marriage. Talk was that it was
a true love match-that the couple had fallen deeply in love. Alice was excited for her friend, and she was thrilled
to be goin' to one of her first grown-up parties, a barbecue to be followed that evening by a ball with musicians
from New Orleans. It was quite a do.

"As I said, Alice and Bethelyn were good friends, and
they'd traveled down to Mossy Oak together, gigglin' and
carryin' on the whole way."

There was a portrait of Alice in the music room wearing a magnificent midnight-blue gown. She was fifteen,
little more than a child, but considered a woman in her
own right at that time. The dress had been made especially for her to wear to the Caldwell Plantation ball, and
somewhere in the attic, the dress was wrapped and stored
in a cedar trunk.

"Bethelyn and Alice got to the party. I remember when
Alice stepped out of the carriage, I knew I had to be in
her life. She was something special, Sarah Booth. She
had a light about her that came from within. And Bethelyn
looked as if she'd been released from prison. She was free
of her father and her sister. Karalyn was arriving later, with
Luther. Karalyn was fourteen, too young to attend the
party, but she'd wrangled Luther into letting her go to the
barbecue, if not the ball."

The way Jitty told the story, I could see it all unfolding. The girls arriving with trunks and maids. It had been
March, as I recalled the story, when spring touches the
South with such kindness and grace. The dogwoods
would have bloomed white against green lawns and towering masses of bright purple and pink azaleas mingled
with the long branches of bridal wreath creating private
alcoves where an ingenious couple could meet for a kiss.

Jitty's voice spun the spell. "The barbecue was almost
over when Karalyn and Luther arrived. No one took much notice of the younger girl. It wasn't until the women
headed into the house to take a nap in the afternoon that
Luther noticed Karalyn was missing. Also missing was
Jacob Caldwell"

"No one took the absences seriously. At first" I picked
up the thread of the story. "Luther searched the yard,
moving on to the stables, then the cow barns. By then he
was worried. If not in physical danger, Karalyn risked her
reputation if she was off with Jacob, her sister's intended."

"Those times, a girl's virtue was her most prized possession." Jitty threw me a look that said a lot about my
tarnished virtue. "Luther went back to the house and got
all the men to help, and the servants. Because I loved to
fish and spent a lot of time along the creek, they sent me
to hunt there"

Jitty's hands were folded in her lap, but as she recalled
the details of the story, I could see how it still unsettled
her, even after all these years. Her fingers laced and held,
as if she could grip the past and change it.

"I found him first. Jacob. He was facedown in the creek.
He'd been struck in the back of the head with a tree limb,
and I remember how his hair waved so gently in the water
and a stream of blood flowed out behind him like a kite
tail. Lord, I started screamin' and draggin' at his body, tryin'
to pull him up the bank and make him breathe. Mr. Luther
came up and helped. There was nothin' to be done, Sarah
Booth. He was gone"

I closed my eyes, but I couldn't stop the images.

"Mr. Caldwell found Karalyn. She'd hanged herself in
one of the beautiful oak trees beside the creek. She had a
note pinned to her dress. It said, `You can't have everything, Bethelyn. You don't get to have it all."'

"And that's the story of how two sisters became mortal
enemies." It was a bitter tale, and I saw Jitty's point
there is a seed of unreason in the bond of enemies.

"Jealousy can twist a person's mind, Sarah Booth"
Jitty rose to her feet.

"What happened to Bethelyn?" I knew the short answer-she'd never married but had tended her father until
his early death from a heart attack only five years later.
She sold the Jameses' land in Mississippi and moved to
Missouri to join up with the rest of the James family.
"Did she ever recover?"

"She wrote Alice, a lot before the war, then a few letters after the South was defeated. That's when her cousin
came home from soldierin' and got caught up in his life
as an outlaw. When she died of typhus, she was writing
the story of Jesse James's life. Alice believed that Bethelyn rode with the James gang on some of their raids."

"Did anyone have an easy life during those times?"

Jitty walked to the doorway and turned back. "Not
then. Not now. Close your eyes and try to nap. Life's gone
come knockin' on the front door before you know it."

This time when she left, she walked out the open door
like a regular person would do.

I had two hours before I had to be at the courthouse. I
shut my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

Getting to the courthouse on time proved a bit more
difficult than I'd anticipated. The entire block around the
courthouse was a circus. Media lined the street. Some
enterprising fool had set up a funnel cake booth, and I could
smell the sugary confection cooking.

Word had spread about Robert Morgan's fiery deathanother twist in the tabloid special of "the diva murder." I
ignored all the questions and was immensely glad when
Cece appeared at my side. One look from her and the
other reporters crept back. I was clearly her story, and
they'd better not dare to try to get a piece of me.

"Coleman has run that pack of wolves out of the courthouse several times. He's put two photographers in jail, but it
hasn't dimmed their bloodlust." Cece looked at them admiringly.

Right. And the blood they lusted for was mine. Suspect
numero uno. "Why don't you become my press agent?" I
asked her.

"That's the most insulting thing you've ever said to
me!" she huffed. "I'm a journalist."

"When did journalists move from omnivores to pure
carnivores?"

"Very funny." She slammed the courthouse door in the
faces of a herd of her fellow reporters. I watched in
amusement as she slid the lock home. "Hurry up, Sarah
Booth. It'll take them a couple of minutes to run around
to the other doors. We can be in Coleman's office by
then"

Glad of the reprieve from the flashguns popping in my
face, I followed her into the main sheriff's office and
straight past Dewayne to Coleman's inner office. He was
on the telephone and didn't look up.

"Brenda, I can't come and sit with Connie. Either
you'll have to do it or get another family member."

There was a long silence. Coleman looked down at his
desk and rubbed the deep furrows in his forehead with his
left hand.

"I'm sorry. My number one suspect in a murder case was killed this morning. I'm a little busy. If Connie's able
to use the telephone, she's able to stay by herself. She can
call one of you to help her." He replaced the receiver on
the hook even as I could hear Connie's sister, Brenda,
talking angrily.

Coleman looked at Cece and a strange message
seemed to pass between them. At last he turned to me. "I
should put you in jail."

If Connie had a tumor, Coleman was a freaking
schizophrenic. Dr. Jekyll-slash-Mr. Hyde. He was all
kissy and loving one minute, and the next he was the
Iceman. I wasn't about to apologize or explain. I gave
him look for look.

"Where's Tinkie?" he asked.

There was a sharp knock at the door, and Tinkie came
in. She looked refreshed and glamorous. I felt like an old
gym suit. "Looks like a happy crowd," she drawled as she
closed the door.

"Tinkie, you and Sarah Booth have some explaining to
do" Coleman looked only at her.

"I guess I'm here to play secretary and record the minutes?" Cece asked.

"You're here as a journalist," Coleman said. "The
story about Robert Morgan is going to get out, and I'd
just as soon that it comes out correctly."

"I think that's a compliment," I said to Cece.

"What the hell were the two of you doing in Memphis?" Coleman asked Tinkie.

"Memphis?" Cece gave me a disapproving look. "Your
bond-"

"Hush," I snapped.

"It was my idea," Tinkie said. "And I needed Sarah
Booth's help. We got a call from Graf that he was meeting Robert Morgan in the Peabody. I wanted Sarah Booth to
positively identify Morgan as the man who'd sold her lipstick at La Burnisco. She did. We were tailing him home
and he took off doing about 200 miles per hour. A farm
truck pulled back on the road. Morgan lost control and
flipped. End of story."

Cece was scribbling madly as Tinkie talked. I thought
Tinkie had done a brilliant job. Just the facts, ma'am.

"Why was Graf meeting Morgan?" Coleman, who was
nobody's fool, asked.

"You'll have to ask Graf. The important issue is that
Sarah Booth identified Morgan. He'd dressed in a disguise and sold her the lipstick. He's a pharmacist with access to all kinds of drugs and poisons. Now Sarah Booth
isn't the main suspect" Tinkie took a deep breath.

"No, Sarah Booth isn't the main suspect any longer,"
Coleman answered slowly. "She's the only living suspect. I'm cutting the theatre company loose today. I can't
hold them any longer. Watley left yesterday, all excited
about an offer he had to get to New York to investigate.
Bobbe Renshaw is packing, and Kristine Rolofson is
heading out to Los Angeles with her dog and Gabriel
Trovaioli."

"You're letting all of them leave?" A terrible pang in
my stomach made me hug myself. Coleman's blue gaze
told me he was dead serious. All the other suspects were
leaving. "Even Graf?"

"Graf has already left town, Sarah Booth" Coleman's
tone was gentler, but he was still angry. "He blew through
Sunflower County without stopping, headed south."