Booty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery (37 page)

“Most of it. She has a few other charities. And she promised Delaney Detective Agency a very hefty fee.” Tinkie gave me a high five. “We can invest in some needed equipment and have a nest egg for the lean times.”

“Does Oscar know about the whole boat and near-death-in-a-hurricane episode?” Cece asked.

“No, and I don’t see a reason to tell him.” Tinkie bounced onto the bed. “No point stirring up hornets with a short stick, as Aunt Loulane would say. Now enough shoptalk—let’s focus on the ball. This is so exciting, Cece! You’ve done a marvelous job yet again.”

“And Sarah Booth’s surprise still awaits.” Cece and Tinkie giggled like schoolgirls.

“I’ve ordered room service for Sweetie, Pluto, and Chablis.” Tinkie always took care of the small details.

“Pluto hasn’t eaten since Graf … left.” The damned cat was making me crazy.

“Yes, he’s down in the dumps.” Tinkie scratched him under the chin. “It’s a good thing Chablis was here to rouse Sweetie’s spirits.”

“And the case is wrapped up?” Cece was impressed.

“Benson confessed to everything and identified Phyllis Norris as John’s killer. He also gave a statement that she shot Lydia Clampett and her brother Remy Renault. There are a lot of legal twists and turns Wofford will have to take, but his name will be cleared. That’s what Angela wanted more than any treasure.” Angela had saved the man of her dreams, and I had lost mine.

“A case wrapped up in minimal time. We are celebrating tonight. Remember, Cece has promised you a surprise.”

“I can’t wait.” I forced out the words with a smile, which earned me a hug from my two best friends.

“Always game,” Cece said. “But I promise, this will lift your spirits. In fact, Madame Tomeeka and Millie are in charge of your surprise. They’re making sure … all needs are met.”

Despite the fact that my heart was dragging behind me, they’d piqued my curiosity. “I believe it’s showtime. Let’s get downstairs so I can find out what you’ve been holding out on me.”

The clock on the dressing table of the elegant room chimed the hour. It was ten o’clock on Halloween. The Black and Orange Ball had officially begun.

“I have to receive my guests.” Cece fluttered out the door.

“Ready?” Tinkie asked.

I really wasn’t. “Let me use the lady’s room. You go ahead. Oscar is waiting for you.”

Tinkie was far too smart for me, but she was also compassionate. “You’ll come down, won’t you?”

“I promise. I just don’t want to walk in right this minute. There’s always such a procession.” And I had expected to do this as Graf’s bride.

“I know. The high-society ladies like to be seen.” She kissed my cheek. “If you aren’t down in half an hour, I’m going to drag you, and I promise I will make a huge scene.”

“I wouldn’t disappoint my friends. I just need a moment to gather myself.”

“Thirty minutes.” She walked out the door, her gown trailing behind her.

Sweetie gave a low moan, and I went to the bed and stroked her silky ears. Pluto rubbed against me, and I gave him the black portion of my gown to hide any kitty hairs he might leave behind. “We’ll be okay,” I promised them. “It’s hard, but we can survive.”

Sweetie licked my hand, her eyes sadder than I could ever remember.

“Survival isn’t an option. It’s a command performance.”

I recognized the voice from
National Velvet, Butterfield Eight, Cleopatra,
and a host of other movies. Liz Taylor stood in the center of the room. She looked as if she’d stepped off the 1958 film set of Tennessee Williams’s wonderful play
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Except she wore black.

She was in mourning. Another widow.

“You can give it a rest,” I told her. “Graf isn’t dead, but he might as well be. He’s just as gone.”

“I’m dead, and I’m not gone.”

She had a point. “Why did I have to go through all of this? I could have walked away from Graf back in the beginning. I could have spared myself all of this pain. What’s the point of loving someone only to lose them?”

Liz’s beautiful violet eyes shone with tears. “Widowed at twenty-six.”

“And married eight times.” I knew my scandal stats, but I also had deep compassion for the glamorous movie star. She’d loved—and lost—more than once, yet she’d never stopped trying. “Why is it so hard to love someone?”

“Love requires vulnerability. That’s an uncomfortable place for most of us. We end up there, and then we begin to fight it.”

“You make it sound so hopeless.”

“Humans are complex.” Her long eyelashes fluttered against her cheek. When she looked at me again, the sadness was palpable. “Never forget that he loves you, Sarah Booth. He does. But he can’t hold on to you and himself at the same time. Not right now.”

“He has a child.” That hurt. I couldn’t deny it. At last I’d admitted that I wanted a child with Graf. Now that we weren’t together, it wouldn’t happen. Yet he had a daughter.

“A child with another woman.” Liz put it on the line. “Hard to forget that.”

“I could love Katlyn. I told him I could, and I meant it.”

“Yes, that’s true.” She turned her profile to me. “You have a generous heart. But there was a time when you couldn’t open it for Graf.”

“In the beginning—”

“Everything in life is timing, Sarah Booth. Whether it’s a great movie role or a love affair. Seems to me you’ve had your share of crossroads where you picked one path over another. Just like me.”

“That may be true, but it doesn’t make this any easier.”

“Everything ends. Even the most remarkable childhood.” The first hint of Jitty began to peak through the Liz disguise. “A great heart can’t stop loving.”

I tried to pinpoint which play or film her line was from, but I had to concede that it was strictly from Jitty’s heart.

Liz morphed into my wonderful haint. “Now get your butt down to that party. There’s a surprise waitin’ for you if you’d only be smart enough to enjoy it.”

“But—”

It was too late. Jitty disappeared just as the door of the hotel room opened. A tall, handsome man stood in the doorway, his blond hair cut to perfection. There was something familiar about him. And then I saw his electric-blue eyes. He hadn’t touched me, but the riff of a blues tune raced up my spine.

“Sarah Booth, Tinkie said I would find you here.”

“Scott?” I couldn’t believe it. Scott Hampton was a phenomenal blues musician and a man I’d fallen hard for—and walked away from—in my past. “What are you doing here?”

“Playing the ball. Cece hired me.”

“How did she find you? Last I heard, you were touring in Europe.”

His grin reminded me of all the reasons I’d fallen for him. “I bought that blues club in Zinnia. Playin’ the Bones. I’m tired of the road. Tired of living like a nomad. That time we spent together was the closest to feeling at home I’ve ever come. I figured I’d give Sunflower County a chance, see if my roots would grow there.”

He could have knocked me over with a feather. “I’m glad.” And I was.

“Cece and Tinkie filled me in on the pirate’s booty. You’re building up quite the successful career as a private investigator.”

And I was sure they’d filled him in on plenty of other things as well. “Yes, I’ve been busy.”

He indicated the bottle of Jack Daniels beside the ice bucket. “Let me make you a drink, and then we should repair to the ballroom. Cece will skin me if I’m not there to perform on time. And you too. They sent me to fetch you.”

Bless their little hearts.

Sweetie saved me from responding. She went to Scott and licked his hand. She remembered him. Even Pluto checked him out and gave him a pass. Chablis slept on. Her reunion with Sweetie and Pluto had exhausted her.

Scott made a stiff Jack on the rocks for each of us. “To good times in Sunflower County.”

We clinked glasses, and I drank. The burn went all the way to my toes.

“Now let’s show these New Orleanians how to party.” He offered his arm.

Together, we left the hotel room and arrived at the ball. My friends crowded close, and Scott left us to set up for his performance.

I looked at Cece, Harold, Millie, Tinkie, Doc, Madame Tomeeka, and Oscar. My friends clustered around me, protective and loving. My heart was broken, but I wasn’t going to die. That much was clear. I would survive, as Jitty had pointed out. And maybe, sometime in the future, I would love again.

ALSO BY CAROLYN HAINES

SARAH BOOTH DELANEY MYSTERIES

Smarty Bones

Bonefire of the Vanities

Bones of a Feather

Bone Appétit

Greedy Bones

Wishbones

Ham Bones

Bones to Pick

Hallowed Bones

Crossed Bones

Splintered Bones

Buried Bones

Them Bones

NOVELS

Revenant

Fever Moon

Penumbra

Judas Burning

Touched

Summer of the Redeemers

Summer of Fear

NONFICTION

My Mother’s Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story

AS R. B. CHESTERTON

The Darkling

The Seeker

About the Author

CAROLYN HAINES is the author of the Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries. She is the recipient of both the Harper Lee Distinguished Writing Award and the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence. Born and raised in Mississippi, she now lives in Semmes, Alabama, on a farm with more dogs, cats, and horses than she can possibly keep track of.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

BOOTY BONES.
Copyright © 2014 by Carolyn Haines. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein

Cover illustration by Hiro Kimura

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Haines, Carolyn.

    Booty bones: a Sarah Booth Delaney mystery / Carolyn Haines.—First edition.

            p. cm.

    ISBN 978-1-250-04613-0 (hardcover)

    ISBN 978-1-4668-4629-6 (e-book)

  1.  Delaney, Sarah Booth (Fictitious character)—Fiction.   2.  Women private investigators—Mississippi—Fiction.   3.  Murder—Investigation—Fiction.   4.  Mississippi—Fiction.   5.  Mystery fiction.   I.  Title.

    PS3558.A329B68 2014

    813'.54—dc23

2014008158

e-ISBN 9781466846296

First Edition: May 2014