Bones to Pick (19 page)

"Don't you think they're going to eventually notice a shelf is missing from their library?" Tinkie asked.

"In this case, it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission." I put the shelf in Tinkie's backseat and signaled for her to take off.

14

The courthouse was empty, except for the sheriff's office. Gordon Walters glared at us as I handed him the shelf and the three notes we'd found at Quentin's cottage.

"Sarah Booth, what if there were fingerprints? Now you've pawed all over the dang things."

He was tired and worried, but it had been a long day for me and Tinkie, too. "You wouldn't have the evidence at all if it weren't for us. You could at least act grateful."

Gordon ignored me and turned to Tinkie. "Oscar is fit to be tied. He's called up here four times, and he said you'd turned your cell phone off."

Tinkie bristled. "Oscar doesn't own me. I can come and go as I choose, and I'm not attached to him by a telecommunications leash."

"If he acted the same way, you'd be singing a different tune." Gordon slipped on a pair of heavy blue latex evidence gloves and examined the notes for the second time. Once he was done with them, he turned his attention to the shelf. "I'll get all this dusted for prints. Sarah Booth, I'm sure yours are on file."

"They are," I conceded. "Will you call us?"

He considered. "Yes. I owe you that much. But I think we're running down a rabbit trail with all of this. Even if Quentin was receiving threatening notes, why would someone kill Mrs. Betty Reynolds over in
Rosedale
?"

"I don't think he meant to kill Mrs. Reynolds. I think the trap was set for Genevieve."

"Because--" He arched his eyebrows.

"Because she was working on that book. She was the digger. She found the dirt and then got the documentation so that Quentin could print it."

"That's stretching it a tad, ladies. You're basing everything on the premise that Quentin was killed because of the book. My take on the murder is that it was a crime of passion. Allison Tatum and Quentin McGee had a lovers' spat. In a fit of fury, Allison killed her."

Gordon's skepticism was about to drive me over the edge. "Are the dowels cut or not?"

He examined the shelf again. "I can't say for certain."

"But an expert will be able to tell if they broke or were cut?"

He nodded.

"And you promise to call us as soon as you hear?"

He nodded again.

"Thanks," we said together as we walked out of the sheriff's office and into the empty hallway of the courthouse. Our footsteps echoed as we headed toward the doors and stepped out into the clear November night. A million stars winked down at us.

"I don't want to encourage your feelings, Sarah Booth, but I wish Coleman would come back." Tinkie sat on the top step.

I sat beside her. "I miss him. A lot."

"I know you do."

The step was cold and it was late. Oscar was already worried. I wondered why Tinkie was lingering.

"Oscar has told me if I don't go to the doctor and get my lump biopsied, he's going to divorce me."

She'd put me between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, I completely agreed with Oscar. Tinkie needed to get medical attention for the lump that she'd found in her breast almost four weeks earlier. Seeking a biopsy seemed the responsible, adult thing to do. But on the other hand, Tinkie had a right to determine her own fate. It was her body, and she should have the final say. She shouldn't be blackmailed into doing anything.

'You know Oscar won't really divorce you." I tentatively put an arm around her. When she didn't pull back, I gave her a squeeze. "Oscar couldn't make it without you."

'That's why he's going to divorce me. He said he won't hang around to watch me die a slow and awful death when I could avoid it. He said I have until the end of the week, or he's going to file the papers."

I didn't know what to say. But it's the job of a friend to try. "Tinkie, what would it hurt to have the biopsy?"

She turned to me, tears hanging off her bottom lashes. "I believe I'm fine. If I question that belief, maybe I won't be."

"If you're fine, you're fine. The test will only confirm that."

She sighed. "It's an issue of faith, Sarah Booth. It's between me and God. I don't need a doctor to tell me, and I won't have a needle jammed into my breast to prove what I already know. I've had more than enough of doctors."

I sat quietly beneath the stars for a little while. "Is there something else going on here, Tink?"

"Like what?" Her tone was angry.

"Are you trying to make Oscar squirm?"

"Why would I do such a thing?"

Again, there was anger in her tone. "I don't know, so you'll have to tell me." There was a reason she wouldn't go to the doctor, and why she wasn't eager to get home. She and Oscar had the marriage I envied. Oscar doted on her, and she adored him. Something was very wrong and had been when we went to
New Orleans
.

"Spill it. What's going on?"

When she looked at me, I was completely unprepared for the anguish in her face. "I want a child."

"Tinkie!" I put my hands on her shoulders.

"I went to the doctor last week. There's some scarring in my fallopian tubes. He confirmed what the fortuneteller in
New Orleans
told me."

"Wait a minute," I said, recalling the conversation she'd had with the reader in the tearoom. "She said she saw a child, a girl. She was swinging. I remember this clearly."

"And she said the girl was happy, that she forgave me."

"Forgave you?" I didn't remember this part.

Tinkie wiped the tears from her face and looked at me. "When Oscar and I first married, I got pregnant. He didn't want a child then. He said we should wait, that we should plan for a child, for a future. He convinced me that I should abort our baby." Her throat began to work, and she stopped talking.

"I'm so sorry." I felt the inadequacy of anything I might say. Tinkie sat in the cold, wrapped in guilt and regret, and there was nothing I could do to help my friend.

"I've begun to dream about her, Sarah Booth. She's nine now. The perfect age, don't you think? I've gotten her horseback riding lessons from Lee and dance lessons from Madame."

Tinkie was scaring me. "Nine is a good age. But she's a dream. A fantasy."

"Maybe everything else is a fantasy. Did you ever consider that?"

"Oscar loves you, Tinkie. That's solid and real. He had no reason to believe you wouldn't have another baby. It was a decision the two of you made together."

She shook her head. "It was his decision. Not mine. I wanted her. I wanted Madeline."

I closed my eyes. She'd named a dream child, and she was choosing a fantasy over her own husband. I had to think. "What I'd like is for you to go to another doctor. Get a second opinion." I squeezed her shoulders. "I remember when you used to love to go to the doctor, if he was handsome. I'm sure we can use the Internet to find a terrific-looking fertility specialist."

"I'm going to let Oscar divorce me."

I was at my wit's end. I didn't know what to say. "I'm going to be really honest with you. I think you should go to a surgeon and get that lump checked, if it's even still there. Then, you need to go to a fertility doctor. They're doing miraculous things, Tinkie, but you have to be healthy to have a shot at having a child."

She stood up. "I have to get home."

It was where she needed to go, but I wasn't certain her heart was in the right place about going. "Oscar does love you."

She started down the steps and looked up at me. "Almost as much as he loves himself. Come on and I'll drop you at Dahlia House."

I stood on the porch and watched Tinkie pull away. We'd been together all day. In fact, we'd been together a tremendous amount ever since she'd seen that fortuneteller in
New Orleans
. Yet I'd never picked up on her distress. I was real observant.

Sighing, I turned to enter my home. A large box tied with a rainbow-hued ribbon was propped against the front door. Humphrey had struck again. I picked up the box and took it to my office, where I could check my phone messages, and hopefully, avoid Jitty. She was always throwing Tinkie and Oscar in my face as the perfect couple. She should have warned me that Tinkie was as haunted as I.

My voice mailbox was empty, and there was no sign of the haint, so I opened the gift box, trying hard not to wonder why Coleman hadn't even let me know he was coming to town.

Inside the layers of tissue were a white blouse with dropdown breast pockets and a blue pinafore that was barely long enough to cover possible, as Aunt Loulane had called her hinder region. At the bottom of the box was a pair of white-sequined thongs. And a note.
If you'll play Dorothy, I'll send you over the rainbow.
Even though I was appalled, I couldn't help but laugh. Humphrey was nothing if not persistent.

I felt a cool breeze and turned to find Jitty drifting my way. To my surprise, she was wearing what looked to be my gray sweats and my black "Bad to the Bone" T-shirt. "Night off from court?" I asked.

"I couldn't find my maid to lace my corset." She pointed to the box. "Give the man an A for attempt."

"How about a D for deviant." I put the lid back on the box. I would have to return it tomorrow. But I didn't want to talk about Humphrey and his gifts. I had something serious to discuss with Jitty. "Why didn't you tell me Tinkie is haunted?"

When there was no immediate answer, I turned to confront Jitty. Her brow was furrowed and her gaze distant. Some other scene played out in her mind.

"It's a different thing." She sank down in Tinkie's chair. "A long time ago, when your great-great-grandmother was alive and we were young, she almost made a choice to live in a dream."

The stories of Alice Delaney were legend in the family, and I could have quoted this one by heart, but I loved to hear Jitty tell it. "What happened?"

'The war was on, and both our men were gone. We didn't know they wouldn't come back to us. I guess it's a good thing we didn't, or we would've just quit." She looked at me. "Miss Alice lost a baby. The hardships were too much. She just couldn't carry all the way through, and it likta killed her."

Though I knew the story, I hadn't grasped the similarities. "What did she do?"

"For a while the fever took her." She looked out the window to the drive. "The crops had died in the heat. We were hungry, and nothin' to eat. Miss Alice would hold her arms like an infant was there. She'd tell me to hold the baby. She left me for a time and lived in a place where she had her baby."

"What did you do?"

"Little John was two. He was so afraid. His mama would look at him and see right through him. So one day I took him and stood him right in front of her. I told her that her baby was right there, needin' her. I told him to touch her face and tell her to come back to him. And she did. I made Miss Alice see that the reality of her son was greater than the dream of a lost child."

"I don't know if I can do that." I shook my head. "I'm in my office, having a conversation with a ghost. Who am I to say she can't have dreams about her child?"

"You have me because you need me. I'm here for you."

To dispute Jitty would have only hurt her feelings. "And Tinkie? Maybe she needs her daughter."

"She's haunted by guilt. She dreams about a child who doesn't exist, who never existed. She's being seduced by a fantasy, and there's a real danger there."

Jitty was scaring me, but it wasn't deliberate. "What's the danger?"

"That her fantasy will grow more appealing than her reality. That's the danger of all fantasies, but most especially those spun from the threads of guilt."

"What should I do?"

"Remind her of the good in her life. Make her see what's real is always the best choice. Stand right in front of her, and make her see how much you need her."

"And what about Oscar?"

"The past is done, Sarah Booth. It's as much a dream as the future. There's only the here and now. Once she sees that, she'll be okay." She started to waver. "That's something you need to understand, too. Could be the two of you will teach each other."

"Don't go." I didn't want to be alone.

"Feed the hound and the horse. You'll be just fine."

She was gone. I stood up and walked outside to feed Reveler and to whistle up my hound. Sweetie Pie and I were going to take a ride to the Dairy Queen. I was in desperate need of a chocolate shake and some time behind the wheel. I also wanted to stop by the local pharmacy and drop off the photo diskettes I'd found at Quentin's house. In all of my concern for Tinkie, I'd almost forgotten about the case.

While the one-hour processing of the diskettes took place, I got an ice cream for Sweetie and a double chocolate shake for me and drove around with my hound to look at the Christmas lights.

This had always been one of my childhood highlights. I'd sit in the front seat, between Mama and Daddy, and let the multihued lights blend and whirl in a fantasy of color and bliss. Now, the trend of the more sophisticated white lights had taken over. "Icicles" hung from eaves all over town. It was beautiful, but I missed the red, green, blue, and yellow lights of my childhood. In fact, I missed all of my childhood. And mostly, I missed my family.