Smarty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery - Hardcover

1
 
 
Heat and humidity commingle to form a thick haze over the cotton fields, muting the lush green plants to monochromatic grays. The haunting vista captures my heart, and I stop my labors and lean for a moment on my broom. I’ve only swept half the front porch of Dahlia House—not exactly hard work—yet sticky sweat trickles down my spine. The autumnal equinox has come and gone, and in another week the calendar will flip. October will arrive and break September’s stifling heat. The cotton bolls will split and mechanical harvesters will comb the fields like huge insects that produce boxcar-sized bales of long-fiber cotton. Fall has officially arrived around the nation, but it is still hot as hell in Zinnia, Mississippi.
Gazing out over the fields, I’m flooded with memories and emotions. This is Delaney land, my land, the heritage handed down from generations of farmers and planters who grew cotton and built wealth, and then lost the money—but not the land. Never the land. When my father plied his law degree, Dahlia House shone like a crown in the sun. My mother was the prized jewel; everything around her sparkled.
The tragedy of a perfect childhood is that it ends. Adulthood brings worries and responsibilities. Perfection fades. I remember a conversation I had, not long ago, with Sunflower County sheriff Coleman Peters. He told me the best any grown-up could hope for was a sixty-forty decision, meaning that whatever choice was made, it would be, at best, sixty percent right. He’s a wise man.
My childhood was a hundred percent marvelous. I had it all: parents who loved me and our community, land that produced amazing crops, an environment that encouraged me to dream big and go for it, a heritage of honor and courage. I also live with the daily knowledge that it all disappeared one night as my parents drove home from a political gathering in Jackson. On a dead-straight Delta road, Daddy flipped the car. Both of my parents died instantly.
The cause of the wreck has always been a mystery. Most folks think a deer or a dog ran out of the cotton fields and my father swerved to avoid hitting it and lost control. Some people have been insensitive enough to posit the idea that my father fell asleep at the wheel. Even though the autopsy proved otherwise, some folks insist my parents had been drinking.
The truth is, there is no truth. I’ve gone to that lonely stretch of road more times than I can count. It’s straight and flat, bordered on both sides by cotton fields. Few roads intersect it. The night of the wreck was clear, the stars out in abundance. I remember, because I sat on the front porch with Aunt Loulane for an hour or so after dinner, talking about my studies, waiting for my folks to come home and fill me in on their adventures.
At twelve years old, I thought I should be allowed to stay home alone, but Mother insisted Aunt Loulane come and “keep me company.” A good thing, too. The news that your world has exploded shouldn’t be heard alone.
I inhale deeply and slowly to release the anger and frustration roiling in my chest. I cling to the memories of my parents in the good moments, the times of laughter and joy. Trips back to the night of their deaths do nothing but upset me. I’ve gone over it a million times. I’ve read the accident reports, viewed the photos of the Volvo my father preferred to drive because it was safer than a convertible. Twenty-two years have passed, and the grief is as close as my own skin. Some wounds never heal, but as Aunt Loulane would say, we learn to carry the pain and keep walking.
I pick up the broom. Work is my solace. Perhaps my abilities as a private investigator come from the puzzle of my parents’ death. Why did they wreck? What happened to make my father lose control of the car? No one has ever answered those questions to my satisfaction. For more than two decades, I’ve chewed on what I know to be the facts. Still, to misquote Mick Jagger, I can get no satisfaction.
A noise on the side of the house makes me think Jitty is about to put in an appearance. She’s a self-centered ghost, but she also has a keen ability to ferret out those times when the past looms larger than the present for me. The idea of a confrontation with my own personal Civil War–era ghost perks up my spirits. Jitty is feisty, opinionated, and the yin to my yang. I wouldn’t go so far as to call her the voice of reason, but sometimes she makes a good point.
Hurrying around the corner of the house, I stop. Jitty isn’t in evidence. My horses graze peacefully in the pasture beside the barn, and my hound, Sweetie Pie, and the newest member of the Delaney household, Pluto, a fat black cat I semi-acquired from my last case, are digging for a mole. My dead relatives rest without interruption in the family cemetery behind the house. That I’m rooted to this place in a way many people don’t understand slams hard into me.
Some might say my connection to Dahlia House is Southern in nature, or perhaps part of my Irish heritage. I say that folks who don’t cherish the place of their birth, the residence of their family, the home and land where memories are created and linger, and the final resting place of cherished family, have never known what it means to love. While I love my fiancé, the most talented Graf Milieu, I need the expanse of land that spreads before me.
Instead of calling Jitty, I return to the porch and my chore. It’s nice to have the time to do a little something for the grand old lady, Dahlia House. I’ve contracted a painter to fix her up with a new coat of white as soon as the weather cools and the humidity drops. Other repairs will require carpentry skills and more money. Thank goodness our last Delaney Detective Agency client—despite a bit of confusion over who hired whom—paid us. My partner, Tinkie Bellcase Richmond, doesn’t need the cashola, but I sure do.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead and wonder how Graf is handling his golf game in the torrid zone. He’s spent enough time in Mississippi to understand the danger of heatstroke, but for a lot of the summer, his film work had kept him in balmy Los Angeles. Graf Milieu is a name destined to glow in neon on movie house marquees. My man is not only handsome and smart, he’s talented.
Sweetie Pie’s mournful howl alerts me to impending company. A car I don’t recognize—a brand-new silver town car—tears down the driveway. Leaning on my broom, I wait to see who will alight. In the old days, company often showed up on the porch for an afternoon cup of coffee or a highball. Those days, when my mother, Libby Delaney, dispensed advice and help to anyone who darkened the door, hold great fondness for me. I learned much about human nature listening to people talk at our kitchen table.
Times have changed, though, and I wondered if the driver of the car was a new client for the PI agency.
To my surprise, one of my mother’s friends got out from the driver’s side. Frances Malone wore a smart yellow sundress with a matching jacket, a black-and-white-striped straw hat with a yellow ribbon, and yellow sling-back shoes. There wasn’t a speck of dust or a single dog hair anywhere on her. She looked like she was going to a fashion luncheon.
“Mrs. Malone,” I said, propping the broom against the column and walking down the steps to meet her. Over the last few years at home, I’d run into her in town and at the grocery, but she hadn’t paid a visit to Dahlia House in years—at least since before I left for college, and that was better than a dozen years ago. Frances was a Delta society lady, but she had also been my mother’s friend. “What brings you to Dahlia House?”
“I need your help,” Frances said. “I’m desperate, Sarah Booth. You have no idea how awful this woman is, and what she intends to do. She has to be stopped. You have to stop her.”
I put a steadying hand on her elbow and guided her up the steps to one of the rockers. “Take a seat, Ms. Frances. May I get you some lemonade?”
“Water would be nice, Sarah Booth.” She calmed a little and assessed me. “You look so much like your mother.” She blinked quickly. “There’s not a day goes by that I don’t miss Libby Delaney.”
“Me, too.” I patted her shoulder. A memory of Frances sitting at the kitchen table drinking a mimosa on a Sunday morning came back to me. Mama had been at the stove making her famous French toast, and Frances recounted some foolishness at The Club, Zinnia’s bastion of culture and golf. I’d walked into the kitchen from outside, struck by the beauty of the two laughing women.
“Libby would know what to do,” Frances said, her agitation returning. “She’d know how to fix this monster.”
I hustled to get some water before I asked any questions. I’d never seen Frances so rattled. Whatever was happening had to be pretty awful.
When I returned, I found Pluto sitting in her lap purring. After she’d sipped the water and her respiratory rate had slowed, I pulled up another rocker. “What’s going on?”
“It’s just too awful.” She shielded her eyes with a hand.
“You have to tell me, if you want me to help.” I wasn’t certain it was as serious as Frances thought, but I needed the facts.
“A woman has come to town. A scholar from New England. Dear me, I think I’m going to be sick. She’s driven me to public vomiting! It’s the final humiliation.”
“Calm down, Ms. Frances.” I put a steadying hand on her arm. “I’ll help you, but I’m confused. An academic is here, and this is a bad thing?” Surely this would be right up Frances’s alley. She and her friends loved learning and education. While Ole Miss was thought t...