Splintered Bones (11 page)

8

It was still early on Wednesday morning when the ringing
telephone pulled me out of a foggy dream about a golden-eyed cat batting a puppet head around the floor of a
New York
apartment. Both red telephones on the desk of Private Investigator Kinky Friedman were ringing.

And so was mine. It was a long flight home from Kinky-land to my bedroom.

I fumbled the phone to my ear and heard Cece talking a mile a minute. "--and bring Danish. Hurry!" Click. She'd hung up.

It was time to get up, so I dressed. On my way out, I tapped lightly at Kip's door. There was no answer, so I cracked it open. She was flung across the bed, one hand dangling on the floor, her back lifting softly and rhythmically with her breathing.

Who and what was this child? Lee owed me some answers.

I hurried out of the house and to the bakery, per Cece's specific order. With a white bag of cheese Danish in hand, I entered the newspaper office.

"Bribing Cece again?" Garvel LaMott asked with a sneer.

Garvel had been the high-school tattletale. He was the police beat reporter for the paper, and he had shoes that ate his white socks, exposing pasty ankles with scattered black hairs.

I ignored him and entered Cece's private office without knocking. Only when I closed the door did she look up to see who'd arrived. She was so eager to tell her news she ignored the bag of Danish. "I tracked down an old girlfriend of Kemper's, circa 1970's, over in
Louisiana
."

"And?" I put the bag on top of a pile of papers on her desk.

"She wasn't surprised to discover someone had killed him. She said the reason Kemper made such stupid decisions was because he thought with his penis and there wasn't a lot there to work with."

"
Aye-yi-yi-yi,"
I said, laughing. "I hope you print that. Remember, you can't slander the dead."

"Don't tempt me." Cece's teeth were large, even, and dazzlingly white. She was showing a lot of them.

"Anything else from the
Bayou
State
?" No one had ever met Kemper's family. Lee had brought him home from
Lafayette
,
Louisiana
, an unknown entity.

Cece snagged a Danish, took a large bite, and then daintily wiped the corners of her mouth with one elegant finger. "Odd that you should ask. Leshia and Henri Fuquar live in St. Martinsville, about thirty minutes from
Lafayette
. According to his ex-girlfriend, they disowned Kemper when he was sixteen. They had him emancipated and cut him loose. Prior to that, they'd petitioned the Church for an exorcism."

"You've got to be kidding." She was, but not completely.

"The exorcism was my personal touch, but Kemper made quite an impression on his hometown. His ex-girlfriend said he set a teacher's car on fire at the high school. He ran with a tough crowd, displaying all the traits of a true sociopath. She said he showed no remorse for any of his acts. The phrase she used was 'bad seed.' "

The term "bad seed" was like a tumbler of ice water down my spine. I knew from my studies that some mental disorders were genetically transmitted. Or at least the tendencies for them. "Did you speak with his parents?"

"I called twice. They won't talk to me." She pushed a sheet of paper across her desk to me. "They said their son died years ago, and the man using his name has no relationship to them. You might have better luck."

I went around the desk and gave Cece a big hug. "You go, girl," I said. "This is the kind of stuff that may actually help Lee if she insists on the defense that Kemper just needed to be killed."

"There is one other small thing." Cece extricated herself from my hug, licked some white icing off her fingertip, then looked me dead in the eye. "Your date for the ball. Tinkie went to a lot of trouble to get you invited. The Chesterfield Hunt Ball is very formal. It would be better if it were someone who could ride, but that's asking the impossible."

"Cece!" I was shocked at her lack of faith in me.

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way. It's just that there aren't any suitable men around. Except Harold, and he's going with that witch Carol Beth." She leaned forward, perfect eyebrows arched in animation. "Can you believe her, showing up to take Lee's horses before Kemper is cold in the ground? She should be at the top of your list of suspects."

"If Kemper got in her way, she'd hammer him," I agreed. "She always believed that whatever she wanted was there to be plucked." I didn't have a single good memory of Carol Beth. "Men, money, jobs, cars, whatever. She pointed and her daddy had it delivered to her door."

This was not an exaggeration. Our senior year, Mr. Farley had a hunter-green Jaguar XKE driven through the marble hallway of their home, Magnolia Lane, and parked in front of Carol Beth's bedroom door.

"She's got enough money to buy any horse she wants. Why is she determined to take Lee's horses?" Cece asked.

It was a brilliant question. Even if what Lillian and everyone else said about Avenger was one-hundred-percent true, there were still other fine horses. Some of which were for sale.

"If I find out anything new, you'll be the first to know," I promised Cece.

"Where are you headed today?" she asked.

"To see Lee." I studied the slip of paper Cece had given me. It was just a phone number.

"Better wait until after lunch. Coleman or someone has arranged for her to speak with a psychiatrist."

My gaze snapped up to hers. "Lee?"

She nodded. "Insanity, of the temporary sort, might not be a bad plea for her."

"Lee's not crazy. She's just stubborn."

"Sometimes, Sarah Booth, stubborn just slides right into crazy. You should know."

O
n my last
drive out to Swift Level, I'd failed to notice the beauty of the land. The cotton fields were freshly planted, the brown earth furrowed in long rows that merged in the distance. The smell of the newly turned soil was distinctive. Fertile. The men who farmed it said it smelled like money.

I drove the fifteen miles without passing another car. County Road 11 was narrow and straight, like so many of the Delta roads. Swift Level came up on the horizon like a diorama.

As I turned down the lane, a herd of magnificent horses came running toward the fence. There were at least a dozen of them, and they ran with the grace and spirit of young athletes. As they neared the fence they turned, a choreographed movement of such startling beauty that I stopped the car and watched them continue in the other direction, weaving a pattern that looked deliberately designed, yet was a perfect expression of freedom. Horse dancing. Whatever else Lee had done, she had bred something of beauty.

I parked in front of the house. The plants on the front porch still bloomed perkily, but they hadn't been headed or watered. I made a mental note to do that before I left. There was no one in the house, so I went down to the barn, alert for Bud Lynch. The man could move like a shadow, and I didn't want him sneaking up on me again.

The black truck with four rear tires was still parked at the barn. As soon as I entered the main barn where the office was located, I recognized Carol Beth's demanding tones. She was back at Swift Level and engaged in a shouting match with the trainer.

"You're hired help," Carol Beth fumed.

"That's right. You hired me, and I delivered. At the time, you weren't complaining about my services. In fact, you were mighty complimentary." That little statement was followed by a purely male chuckle, smug and amused.

"You goddamn son of a bitch."

"That's not what you were calling me--"

"You are a dead man. Do you hear me? I'll see to it that you never work again. You won't be able to get a job riding ponies at a fair by the time I finish with you. My husband--"

"Now,
Mrs.
Bishop, I wouldn't do anything rash. There're a lot of angles to consider here. I can give as good as I get, as you well know. I don't think your husband would enjoy the details of our . . . partnership."

I walked into the office doorway and saw them faced off at each other. Carol Beth had aged well, which meant she hadn't really aged at all. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her body encased in skintight riding breeches, a sleeveless white shirt and the de rigueur black boots, she looked as if she might still be the haughty seventeen-year-old who'd refused to date a single
Zinnia
High School
boy. Not only did she refuse to date them, she told them why. She had her sights set higher than
Sunflower
County
. She wanted out of
Mississippi
, and she managed it, too. She graduated with honors from Ole Miss, and two days later married a
Virginia
lawyer. From all tales, she was the creme de la creme of
Richmond
society and the darling of the Bridgeport Hunt there.

Neither of them saw me, so I had a chance to examine the tableau that presented itself. Lynch lounged in the office chair at the desk, and Carol Beth stood two feet away from him, her chest moving rapidly with anger. Her mahogany hair caught window light, and it seemed to glow like the finest old furniture. Her dark gaze was focused on Lynch, and I expected his bones to melt at any moment.

"You bastard. You can't threaten me."

"Oh, I can."

She took a step forward. She was close enough to kiss him. "I will ruin you."

"You can try," he said with a slow drawl and an easy smile.

"You are insufferable."

"You're a greedy bitch. Greedy and completely unprincipled. Don't push me too hard."