Rock-a-Bye Bones (2 page)

“Do that. It'll be worth watching, since you can't use a phone.” My illusions of being the master chef were taking a serious drubbing. Thank god for Millie. She could bake a pie with a snap of her fingers. I could call her if I got desperate.

“Is this a bad time to discuss what I've come to talk about?” Jitty asked.

“Depends on what you want to discuss.” The fact that she
asked
didn't bode well. “If it's about sperm or ovaries, this is definitely not a good time.”

“Which man you gone put at the head of that holiday table, Sarah Booth? Being the hostess, seems to me like you've got yourself in a pickle. You'll be at the foot of the table by the kitchen door, but who's gonna sit at the head, which implies a whole lot. The man you put there is the one leading the pack for your affections.”

She had a point, and I had a solution. “Harold will sit at the head of the table.” I hadn't given it a lot of thought, but this was the perfect seating arrangement. Harold Erkwell had once asked for my hand—and put a four-carat diamond on my ring finger. At the time, I didn't know him well, and his tactics seemed a bit ham-fisted. Since I'd been home, though, Harold and I had developed an abiding friendship. And he was, hands down, the best party giver in six states. “Harold is always the host. Coleman and Scott can each sit on a side.” I was very pleased with my resolution.

“You can't keep all those men dangling like meat in a processing plant. They keep hangin', there's gonna be an awful stink.”

“Jitty! That is a truly awful visual. I may have to scour my brain with Comet to clean it out.”

Her soft, low chuckle told me how pleased she was. When I looked at her again, she'd removed the wimple and was shaking out her dark Afro. “That headgear gets hot.”

“Not as hot as the pit of hell, which is where you're destined for impersonating a nun.”

She only laughed. “Thanksgiving is hot on our heels. You should throw out all that mess you made and order everything from Millie's.”

She had a point, but I wasn't defeated yet. “I'll give it one more try. Most girls learn to cook from their mothers, but I never really had that chance.”

Jitty instantly softened. “Aunt Loulane tried, Sarah Booth, but you didn't want to learn from her. You missed your mother, and Loulane was wise enough to know she could never fill those shoes.”

“Yes, she was very wise, and to this day I remember most of her adages. As she used to say, ‘Time heals all wounds and brings wisdom to those who seek.'” Aunt Loulane had a saying for every occasion. While I'd hated hearing them when I was a teenager, now I used them with relish.

“Why don't you give me a hand with the cooking?” I asked Jitty. “Surely during the time when you were alive with great-great-great-grandma Alice you were a good cook.”

“I'm drawin' a blank—”

“Jitty, give me some tips on pie crust.”

“Can't do it, Sarah Booth. It's time for vespers.” And with that she was gone. And I'd learned something new about the ghost who shared my home. She didn't like to cook. She was, for all of her one hundred and fifty years, a thoroughly modern ghost.

My failure with the pie undeniable, I sacked up the sad remains and took them out to the road for trash collection early the next morning. I stamped down the driveway, my breath fogging in the crisp air. Above me, the stars kept the black night company. The acres of land belonging to Dahlia House spread on either side of the long drive, and I stopped when a startled herd of deer broke in front of me and leaped the pasture fence. In a moment they were absorbed by the darkness.

When I'd left the trash, I jogged back toward the house and my warm bed. Before I made a second assault on pie production, I needed a trip to the Pig, as we called the local Piggly Wiggly grocery, to buy more flour and butter and two cans of pumpkin already processed to perfect pie consistency. And perhaps I would call Millie in the morning and see if she could give me some tips.

I washed the dishes, prepared the coffeemaker to turn itself on at six a.m., and went to bed. I had plenty of time to master the art of pie baking. Even if I didn't, my friends would step up. I had many blessings to count, and as I walked through the dining room, I started on my list.

I caught a glimpse of a terrifying specter in the mirror above the sideboard and let out a squawk of fright before I realized it was only me. The new growth of my hair, which gave me the appearance of Woodstock, the bird in the Snoopy cartoons, was standing straight on end and coated in flour. Even though Tinkie had taken me to “her girl” at the most expensive salon in the Delta, my hair was still a terrible mess. I'd caught it on fire in the last case we'd worked, and I was very lucky that it was only hair that burned. It could have been so much worse.

Still chuckling at my fright, I went to my room and promptly keeled over in bed. I'd entered a dreamless state of deep slumber when I heard the doorbell ring. I looked at my phone on the bedside table—three o'clock in the morning. It had to be a dream. Though I heard the chime again, and even Sweetie set up a bark, my attempts at baking had exhausted me. I rolled over, pulled the pillow over my head, and refused to get up.

The creak of a squeaky wheel finally drove me to wakefulness. When I found out who was interrupting my sleep, I was going to have a hissy fit all over them.

Creak, creak, creak!
I opened one eye to catch a glimpse of a woman in a black minidress pushing one of the huge old baby prams with the folding leather top.

The only thing I could think was
Rosemary's Baby
and I leaped from the bed to land on the far side of the room. “Get out!” I hissed. I'd watched the movie with my mother and a group of my friends when I was in sixth grade, and the image of that black perambulator sent a primal chill through me. “Get out!”

“It's just a baby.” The woman pushed the carriage slowly toward me. “Just an innocent baby.”

A shaft of moonlight came through the window and I saw Mia Farrow's shorn head—that looked too much like my own. “You have to get out of here.” I gauged the distance to the doorway and wondered if I could leap over the bed and make it to the door before she got me—I had no doubt her intention was to do terrible things to me.

“Remember, Sarah Booth, it's only a baby.”

At last the Mia image faded to reveal Jitty. I didn't always like her antics, but she'd never before awakened me in the dead of night while impersonating an actress who played the role of a woman who gave birth to the Antichrist.

“You have taken this one step too far,” I said through gritted teeth. “Not only did you wake me out of a dead sleep, you scared me into next year. I've missed Thanksgiving and Christmas and all I have to show for it is my stubbed and bleeding toe.” I had smashed my toe on the bed frame, which didn't help my mood.

“Answer the damn doorbell, Sarah Booth. I wouldn't have to resort to extraordinary measures if you didn't sleep like you'd fallen into a forever coma.”

“What doorbell?”

“The one that rang about two minutes ago. And rang again. And—”

Before she could finish, the bell rang nine times in rapid succession. “What the hell?” I found a pair of jeans, pulled them on, then trotted barefoot down the stairs to the front door. Before I opened it, I turned on the light and stared into the empty night. There was no one on the porch.

“Screw that,” I said, flipping off the light.

“At least open the door,” Jitty said. She was suddenly right behind me.

“There's no one—”

“Sarah Booth, please open the door. Right this red-hot minute.”

Jitty seldom said please so I opened the door fast. I was in the process of slamming it closed again when what I'd seen registered on me. A white wicker bassinet had been pushed close against the front door. A pale pink blanket covered the basket, hiding whatever was hidden inside. More ominous was the pool of blood that seeped from the basket and slowly crossed the bitter cold boards of the porch.

Before I could do anything, a vehicle's engine fired and a dark-colored Ford pickup, older model, sped away from Dahlia House at breakneck speed.

 

2

“Call 911!” I commanded Jitty as I pushed back the blanket to reveal the still face of an infant. The newborn had been wiped clean, but the blood of birth still smudged its features. I couldn't tell if the child was bleeding, or even if it was breathing. My bare feet seemed to have frozen to the gray porch boards, but I managed to pick up the bassinet and haul it inside. I ran to the kitchen, where the oven I'd heated earlier still warmed the room. Hands shaking, I lifted the blankets and examined the infant, who began to squirm and cry.

“She's okay,” I said aloud, as if to reassure myself. “Jitty, she's okay.”

Still wearing the black guise of Rosemary, Jitty leaned against the wall. “See why I had to wake you up? The doorbell rang several times, but you just hid under your pillow.”

I had a vague recollection of the doorbell, but I didn't have time to argue. I picked up the phone and called the Sunflower County sheriff's office. While the baby wasn't bleeding, someone surely was, and the pool of blood on the front porch told me that whoever had delivered the baby to my doorstep was badly injured. I wondered if the mother of the infant was bleeding out.

When the dispatcher said she'd call Coleman and send him to Dahlia House, I called Doc Sawyer and then my partner in Delaney Detective Agency. Until help arrived, I bundled the infant in a blanket I warmed by the oven and pulled her into my arms and held her close. The small sounds of fretfulness stopped, and the baby was instantly asleep.

“She likes you,” Jitty said, as if it were a miracle.

“I saved her from freezing. Why shouldn't she like me?”

“That maternal instinct is kickin' in.” Jitty tugged at her black mini-dress. “Time for a wardrobe change, and company is at the door.” In a little sprinkle of black confetti that disappeared before it hit the ground, she was gone.

Before I could turn around, I heard Coleman Peters, the sheriff of Sunflower County and a man I had unresolved feelings for, call to me from the front door. “Sarah Booth, what's all the blood at the door? Are you okay?”

“In the kitchen,” I answered.

He strode toward me, his footsteps loud on the hardwood floors. When he pushed open the swinging door into the kitchen, he stopped dead in his tracks. “Where'd you get a baby?”

The tone of the question was wrong. “As if I couldn't have one myself? There's nothing wrong with my reproductive organs.”

“Hard to do without having sex, and that hasn't happened for a while,” he said drolly. “I know. I'm keeping score, as best I can.”

I wanted to smack him, but I was holding the infant. “She was left on the front porch. Someone took off in a dark pickup, like maybe a 1990 model Ford, single cab, long wheel base.” I'd come to know my pickups because I'd been shopping for a used truck. A 1990 model was a little too used, but I liked the design.

“Someone just abandoned her?”

“I'd tell you in sign language, but I'm holding a baby.” I was aggravated and didn't try to hide it.

“I didn't realize just holding an infant could send a body into hormonal fluctuation, but you're sounding a might testy, Sarah Booth.”

“Indeed she is.” Tinkie pushed through the swinging door and stopped beside Coleman. Instead of saying anything else, she merely held out her arms to the infant. “Give her to me.”

“How do you know it's a her?” I asked.

“The blanket is pink. Don't you know anything about babies?” Tinkie advanced and I put the baby in her arms. “Oh, my word, look at that hair! She's got enough hair for a dozen babies.”

“Is she okay?” Coleman asked. “There was a lot of blood on the porch.”

“She's fine, and Doc Sawyer is on the way. But someone is seriously hurt. We need to find the person in the truck before she dies.” I paced the kitchen. Who else would leave a newborn but the mother?

“Good point. I'll call the SO and put out an APB on the truck.” He kept staring at the baby as if he'd never seen one before. She was exceptionally pretty with that mop of red hair and pale complexion.

“Who would leave a baby at
your
door?” Tinkie asked.

“Is that some slur against my maternal abilities?”

Tinkie's laughter was like a delicate chime. “You are so sensitive! Of course not, but Dahlia House isn't exactly on the beaten path. Why would a person drive all the way down your long driveway to leave a baby on the front porch? There are plenty of houses closer to the road.”

She made a certain kind of logic. “Maybe they didn't want to be seen.”

“Or maybe this baby was left here especially for you,” Coleman said. “Sarah Booth, you haven't been buying babies on the black market, have you?”

“Have plenty of fun at my expense,” I said, pretending to still be aggravated. “What we need to focus on is finding the bleeding person. What if the mother is really hurt?”

All humor was gone from Coleman's voice as he put an arm around me. “We'll find the mother, Sarah Booth. Now I'll call child services and we'll get this young lady into a foster home until—”

“No!” Tinkie and I said together.

“You can't do that.” Tinkie had instinctively turned to shield the baby. “Sarah Booth and I will take care of her until we find the mother. It shouldn't take long. She simply can't go into the system.”

Coleman frowned. “I can't just let you take her. I have to turn her over to child services.”

“If you do that, it could take months for the mother to get her back. These first few days are so important for the bonding process,” I said. I didn't have a lot of experience, but I'd read articles. And I could lay a line of bullshit when necessary. “Failure to bond can be a very serious psychological issue. It could damage her permanently.”