Rock-a-Bye Bones (7 page)

Was she so crazed and vengeful that she'd risk prison just to hurt me again?

I wished I could think the answer was no, but I knew it was possible. Probable. She would risk her freedom to hurt me. That was not a comforting thought.

On the way to the store, I called Madame Tomeeka, a woman with such talents that she drew customers from Memphis and New Orleans. I had tremendous respect for Tammy, but I was also wary. Tammy's dreams had foretold danger for me and Tinkie more than once. While some believed that forewarned was forearmed, I accepted that her dreams made me anxious.

Still, anxious was better than poleaxed.

“Tammy, I need your help. When you get back from Memphis, I want to have a séance.”

“I'm not in Memphis.”

I was stunned that Tinkie had out and out lied to me. Maybe she'd been mistaken about where Tammy was. I chatted with my psychic friend, and ten minutes later, I'd arranged for a gathering at Dahlia House to allow Tammy to attempt to figure out where baby Libby's natural mother might be. Tinkie, Millie, and Cece were all on the guest list. And when I called Millie, she offered to bring a homemade chicken potpie and bread pudding. Plans set, my focus returned to the job at hand.

In the distance I saw the lonely convenience store with two gas pumps and an awning that looked like a tornado had had its way with it. It wasn't a place that inspired a desire to stop, but it was the only place to buy a few groceries, gasoline, and maybe a soft drink within a twenty-mile radius. Nothing but the two-lane highway and barren cotton fields could be seen in any direction. Desolate would be an accurate description.

I pulled around to the north and left Sweetie and Pluto in the car while I entered. I prowled the interior, assessing the clerk behind the counter. He was a young man, probably just out of high school. Tall and thin, he looked to be more the artistic type than a jock. High school had probably been an unhappy experience for him.

He stood at the cash register, reading a copy of
Madame Bovary
. Definitely a bookworm. When I put a soda on the counter, he looked up with a lazy smile. “Will that be all?”

I paid for the drink and opened it, taking a sip. “I've been hired to find Pleasant Smith.”

He went deathly pale, not exactly what I'd expected. “I haven't seen her in a month,” he almost whispered.

“Were you working here when she came in for some milk?”

He nodded, his hands shaking a little as he put the novel down on the counter.

“Can you tell me what happened while she was in the store? Maybe she said something that would indicate where she was headed.”

“She was going home. She'd come to buy milk for her cousin, the baby her mama keeps.”

“So she purchased the milk. Anything else?”

He thought for a minute. “No, she didn't buy anything else. She picked up some guitar strings I'd ordered for her.”

“You'd ordered?”

He blushed a deep red. “She broke her D string, so I ordered a new set for her. As a present. She could really play that guitar. You should hear some of the songs she wrote. She's gonna be a star.”

He lost all self-consciousness when he spoke of Pleasant's talent. The boy clearly cared for her, whether she knew it or not. “Did she get the strings?”

“Yeah.” Glumness settled over his features. “She didn't get to use them, though. She disappeared. Her guitar is still at her mama's trailer.”

“Where was her car found?”

“Abandoned on Highway 12. I told her not to trust that old beater. She was a pretty good mechanic, when it came right down to it. She kept the piece of crap running, but it broke down all the time. She should've had a better car.”

“How far from here?”

He pointed toward the farm road that disappeared into the distant vista of brown fields. “That's Highway 12, the quickest way back to Fodder Gin Road, so that's the way she went. Her cousin was hungry, and there wasn't any milk in the house. She barely had enough change to pay for the milk.”

A young pregnant girl who'd spent her last change on a gallon of milk didn't register with me as a likely candidate to run away. “Tell me about Pleasant. You knew her.”

“I did. She's a good girl. Somebody took her and they're still hanging on to her.” His face pinched up in frustration. “She'd never have taken off like that. Not expecting a baby and all. She'd talked all her plans out with her mama and they'd figured out how Pleasant could catch up on her studies next semester. She had a great chance at getting a scholarship from Delta State. She wanted to study the music business. She would never have run out on her dream of being a songwriter and performer.”

“Did you go to high school with her?”

He nodded slowly. “I did. She kept to herself. The other girls were jealous because she was so pretty and she had talent. She got the lead in the school plays when she tried out. The band director used some of her songs. She'd met this Nashville agent who was gonna make it happen for her.” When he looked up at me, he was angry. “She wouldn't run out on all of that. She wouldn't run out on—” He broke it off and didn't continue.

“What's your name?” I asked.

“Frankie Graham.”

I made a note and then asked. “The store here. It's called the Three Bs. Why?”

“Booze, bacon, and barbecue. The owners think those are the three necessities of life.”

“Frankie, were you more than friends with Pleasant?” I'd be willing to bet he was in love with her.

His head dipped low. “I tried to take care of her. I helped her with the car and gave her my cell phone when she needed to make calls about her songs.” He looked up. “I wanted to be more than that, but Pleasant had a ticket out of the poverty and the desperation all around her. She didn't need me hanging on and dragging her down.”

The doors of the store burst open and two large men, red-faced with alcohol and bluster, pushed in.

“Well if it isn't Candyass Frankie.” A tall blond boy with rippling muscles reached across me and picked up Frankie's book. “So you're reading about a madam. The whorehouse kind? That's the only piece of ass you'll ever get around here, Stringbean.”

The other boy reached into the cooler and pulled out a six-pack of beer. He came to the counter. “Come have a beer with us, Frankie. We'll show you how to grow a pair.” They looked at each other and laughed.

“Don't make the little wussy cry,” the blond said.

Frankie rang up the beer without comment.

The bell on the door signaled another customer—this was a flurry of activity for a store stuck in the middle of nowhere. A pretty young girl sashayed past the two young men and put a twenty on the counter.

“Pump one,” she said.

“Oh, baby, I'd like to give you my number one pump,” the blond boy said. The other slapped his back, almost choking on laughter.

“Word around the high school is that your nozzle is so small I wouldn't feel it,” the girl said with complete aplomb.

Bada-bing! If I'd had her self-assurance in high school, it would have been a less miserable experience. She prissed out the door, her perfect sun-streaked blond curls bouncing behind her.

The two boys went to the door to look out. In the moment of privacy, I asked Frankie, “Cheerleader?”

He nodded. “Her boyfriend will beat the snot out of these guys, and it wouldn't be a bad idea. They were tormenting Pleasant the last time she was in the store. She gave it right back to them.”

I snapped a photo of each guy while they were busy guffawing and man-patting each other's backs for the bawdy comments. Frankie might not have been the last person to see Pleasant before she vanished.

“Hey, pencil dick,” the beefy brunette said as he flicked a finger under Frankie's nose, “I don't have the money to pay for the beer. I'll bring it back. Later.”

Frankie picked up the six-pack and put it under the counter. “That's against store rules.”

“And you're gonna take my beer?” the young man asked.

“Yes.” Frankie was scared but determined.

“You sure you want to try that?” The beefy boy reached into his pocket and brought out a switchblade. “I might gut you or I might slice your car tires.”

“You can't have the beer. I'd have to pay for it and I don't have any money.” Frankie wasn't brave, but he was fiscally responsible. He wasn't going into debt for beer.

“Weasel face, you'd better—”

I dialed 911 and when DeWayne answered, I spoke loudly. “Deputy Dattilo, there's a robbery in progress at Three Bs Grocery on Highway 12. Could you send several patrol cars, please? One suspect is brandishing a knife.”

That was all it took. The two young men hit the door, leaving the beer. Tires smoked as they churned out of the lot.

“Sarah Booth! Sarah Booth!” DeWayne squawked at me. “I don't have jurisdiction in Bolivar County.”

“I know,” I said. “It was a scare tactic, and it worked. But those boys are headed east on Highway 12. They may dip into Sunflower County and they need to be picked up. They were in the store the day Pleasant went missing, and they're real macho assholes. I'd like for you or Coleman to question them. You know, as in really
question
them.”

Neither Coleman nor DeWayne would slap a prisoner around, but if given the chance, I'd do it to those two.

“I'll be on the lookout, and I'll call Hoss.”

“Good luck with that,” I said. Hoss had not impressed me as a man of action.

“Coleman asked me to deliver a message, Sarah Booth.”

“What's shakin'?”

“There was a triple homicide at Gokee Plantation.”

That news was like a gut kick. “Not Hector and MaryBeth?” The Gokees had been friends of my parents. They were salt of the earth.

“No, no, the Gokees are just fine. Three unidentified males. They were shot execution-style in one of the farm sheds.”

This wasn't good news. I'd only recently learned that the private airstrips found on a lot of plantations had become part of drug and gun trafficking. The landowners were often ignorant of any activity. Isolated equipment and farm sheds tucked away in agricultural land that seldom saw traffic had become the perfect place for thugs to hide drugs and guns as they made their way to various distribution points.

“Those people are very dangerous. Is Coleman okay?”

“He's working with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the feds, and Memphis officers who have a lead on Tennessee gang involvement. He's okay, Sarah Booth, just buried in work. We need more officers.”

DeWayne wasn't kidding. Crime was hopping in Sunflower County, and Coleman was short staffed in the best of times. “I'll call him later.”

“I'm headed your way. If I see those two clowns, I'll bring them in and soften them up for you.”

“Thanks, DeWayne.” He made me smile.

When I hung up, I found Frankie staring out the window at the empty landscape. “I keep believing her old junker of a car will pull up and she'll get out. I'll bet she's had the baby by now.”

“What happened to her car?” I asked.

“I found it on the side of the road, fixed it, and drove it to her trailer. I'm sure it's still there. Charity can't make it run, and no one has the money to really get it fixed.”

“Was there anything in the car that might indicate what happened to Pleasant?”

He shook his head. “The milk was still in the front seat. That's what was so strange. Like she got out of the car and started walking, leaving behind the very thing she'd come to buy.”

“She wasn't walking.” I had a clear picture of what happened. “Someone picked her up. Someone who meant to keep her.”

But who would abduct an eight-month pregnant teenager? And what had they done with her if they'd left the baby at Dahlia House?

“Frankie, do you know a man named Luther? He was asking about Pleasant yesterday.”

“Pleasant knew a lot of guys. She was so pretty, and boys were always tagging along behind her. I don't recall that name.”

“He gave Pleasant a ride to Delta State.”

His eyebrows rose. “She wouldn't tell me who she was riding with. She let on like it was another girl.”

“If you hear from Pleasant, call me.” I gave Frankie a card. “Or if you think of anything else.”

“I will.” He didn't look hopeful. “You know, I should have closed the store and followed her home. I had a bad feeling. I did.”

“Hindsight's twenty-twenty, Frankie. You can't think like that. If someone meant to grab her up, they would have gotten her on the way to school or somewhere else. Do you happen to know the name of her agent in the music business?”

“She told me, but it didn't register. I should have paid more attention.” He began to tidy the counter in an effort to keep his hands busy.

“Who's the father of the baby? That could save me a lot of time, Frankie.”

He looked totally miserable. “I don't know. I never asked. I didn't want to know.”

“Sometimes the father of an unwanted child just wants to make it go away.”

It was an ugly, dark thought to leave him with, but if he knew anything, I had to force it out of him. “You said she used your phone to make some calls? May I see?”

He handed the phone over. “There's nothing there. She deleted all traces. I've already looked.”

He spoke the truth. There were no Nashville numbers in the call log. Coleman could maybe send the phone off to a tech lab, if he found it necessary. I gave him the phone back. “Call me if you think of anything.” And I was out the door. I'd head home along Highway 12, which ran straight through the cotton fields.

It was on a road much like this one that my parents died in a single-car accident. No one had been able to explain how it happened or why, and the brief conversation with Betty McGowin tugged at me. What had happened that long ago night?