Smarty Bones (19 page)

“I didn’t see a connection between the Lady in Red and local Sunflower County families in your article.”

He harrumphed. “I didn’t include them because I intended to work with the Richmond and Falcon families. Their cooperation would have streamlined my research. That was to be phase two of my work.”

So, he meant to deceive Oscar and Cece into helping him and then lower the boom on them in print. Nice.

“So how did Olive find out about local connections? I mean, the Lady in Red could have been anybody. And still could. There was a Tilda Richmond, but there’s no proof she’s the woman Olive exhumed.”

“I made the connection. I heard the story of this red-haired firebrand who swept into Washington and was accepted into the inner circle of political figures. A woman. At a time when women weren’t given credit for thinking. Olive called to congratulate me on the article in the
Aggregate
. We chatted for a long time, and I was lulled into complacency. I mentioned the local connection.”

The fuzzy picture sharpened. Webber was blowing hard about his project and had let too much slip. Olive jumped on it. “When you were talking with her, were you aware of her interest in the Lady in Red?”

“Academia is a small world. I’ve been familiar with Dr. Twist for a time. She told me she was researching slavery in the Northeast. Something about the power of the female slave in nonagricultural households. Turns out that was just a smoke screen. Twist knows damn good and well her entire premise is built on my research. She’s poached my work and now she’s stolen the body right out of the cemetery.”

I wasn’t familiar enough with academic standards to know if Webber had a legitimate legal claim or was just whining. But I would be pissed if I was working on a case and another private dick jumped into the middle of it.

“What do you know about Twist?” I’d read her CV and several articles she’d written. None of it had impressed me, but she worked in a different world.

“She’s a carnivore. She eats historians for breakfast and picks her teeth with their bones. She’s hated at her hoity-toity university. When she showed up down here, I made a few calls. Let’s just say none of her colleagues would cry if she disappeared.”

I was enjoying this academic boil-busting. It almost made me like Olive. Almost, but not quite.

“Is she a respected academic?”

“A long time ago she wrote a paper focusing on the journals of New England women during the Civil War. It was very well received, uncovering new material about the way small communities worked together while the men were at war. The details were remarkable.” He frowned. “I wonder whom she stole that from?” His eyes widened. “She could have made it all up!”

“Is there a formal method to complain about what she’s done?”

“None that would make a difference, I’m afraid.”

“You have a motive for murder, Dr. Webber.” Certainly he knew this already.

“You’re right. I might have gleefully offed Twist, but I had nothing against Boswell.” He draped an arm over his chair back. “I told you Boswell came to me, begging for a job. Olive treated him like an indentured servant, which is pretty ironic since she’s trying to paint the Richmond and Falcon families as slaveholders who killed a relative because she supported freedom for the slaves.”

“Olive thinks the Lady in Red was murdered by her own family because she was an abolitionist? But I thought she was an assassin of the South’s number one enemy.”

“The problem of working with legends and folklore, Ms. Delaney, is that truth is distorted by family interest. The woman—Tilda Richmond, if Olive’s estimations are correct—was viewed as a traitor and a whore. Olive intends to prove the Richmond and Falcon families conspired to poison her and bury her in a grave where she’d never be found.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. She was lovingly interred. The coffin was handmade to fit her. If her relatives had murdered her, wouldn’t they have just dragged her into a cotton field and buried her?”

Webber leaned back and resumed in his most professorial tone. “Olive’s theory is that the families were forced into the murder. Remember, my dear, the war had destroyed the South. Brother fought against brother. Families were betrayed by loved ones. If Tilda Richmond was Lincoln’s lover, she would have been viewed as the ultimate whore and turncoat. If she came back to Mississippi, then she would have been considered a spy. The Richmonds and Falcons likely
had
to kill her, or else they would be suspect, too. And I hate to say it, but if Olive can verify this, she’s going to have a runaway bestseller on her hands. I don’t know where she found Secretary of War Stanton’s private letters, but if they can be authenticated, this will propel Twist into national prominence.”

I didn’t care about Twist’s future. “So you’re pretty much saying the entire county was in on the murder of a young woman—because she didn’t agree with their politics.”

“Well, if you put it that way, yes. Community pressure. Think of it, Ms. Delaney. The South had lost everything. Every family contributed a father, husband, or brother. Some lost multiple family members. The women and children were starving, their homes and crops burned to the ground. People have this idea that war is honorable, but don’t believe it for a minute. Women with infants were left to starve. It would have been kinder to put a bullet in their brains.” Webber waxed eloquent.

“Everyone suffered. No one disputes that. But to think people would be bullied into killing a family member because her politics were embarrassing, that’s just plain nuts.” Jeremiah popped into my mind and with him came a dawning awareness. It wasn’t such a stretch to consider Cece putting him in an unmarked grave. Luckily Webber couldn’t read my mind.

“By our standards today, perhaps. But put yourself in a country torn apart by a bloody war that was fought to preserve a way of life in the South. Whether the cause was right or wrong, the men who fought gave everything. To find a viper at their own breast … it would have been unthinkable. It’s possible everyone in the Richmond and Falcon families would have been hanged as traitors. I presume the families did the only thing they could do for survival.”

“How are both families involved? I mean, she was either a Richmond or a Falcon. Why does Olive want to involve both Sunflower County families?”

His smile was smug. “I’ve done a little research myself in the last few days. There’s a common factor between them. Tilda Richmond—and I am certain the Lady in Red was a Richmond—was betrothed to a Falcon. She ran away from home rather than marry him. He was humiliated, especially in light of the fact that she took Abe Lincoln as her lover. And just think how delicious—if she was an assassin, she couldn’t confess that and save herself. Either way, she was doomed.”

My head was already swimming in boys in gray and blue uniforms doing their best to kill each other. “This is too much.”

“In a very roundabout way, it makes perfect sense. Olive believes a member of both families was involved in Tilda Richmond’s murder and secret burial. A Falcon, because of the rejection of marriage, and a Richmond, to save the family’s honor, and possibly lives.”

“This gets worse and worse.”

“From your perspective, but not from that of a historian.”

“The past aside, my concern is the murder of a young man. One who had no dog in this fight. Boswell had nothing to gain, yet he’s dead.”

“Boswell wasn’t an innocent. I told you about the tapes he made of Olive.” Webber rolled his eyes. “He’s got her dead to rights, and those tapes, released at the right time, could have torpedoed a book deal. They cast doubt on her credibility and her sanity.”

“Did Boswell show you the tapes he mentioned? Do you have any evidence they existed?”

“Unfortunately, he was murdered before he could show them to me.”

I stood up. “Where were you the night before Boswell died?”

“You know very well I was at The Gardens B and B. Just as you were. And your partner, and Twist, and about twenty other people. I heard Olive’s room was firebombed. Find any fingerprints?”

“The investigation moves forward. That’s all I can say.” I didn’t want to admit that every lead had been a dead end so far.

“Which means you’ve got zilch. If I were truly a suspect, Sheriff Peters would have me behind bars.” His teeth sparkled white. “You’re here on a fishing expedition.” He leaned closer. “And you haven’t gotten so much as a bite.”

He might get a punch in the nose. He grated on my last nerve.

“Oh, this trip hasn’t been a total waste of my time.” I gave him my sly and superior expression. “You reveal a lot more than you realize, Dr. Webber.” I decided to give him the pretend-psychic treatment. “You’re attracted to Olive, yet she doesn’t reciprocate. That’s why you excoriate her conduct. You accuse her of stealing what you’ve put out for public consumption, which tells me you’re jealous of the fact she took this thread farther than you thought to do. You’re used to opening doors with your charm, and right now it isn’t working for you. You’ve been left without another play.”

Heat jumped into his cheeks, but he held on to his smile. I had to give him credit for that. “Always an interesting tactic, Ms. Delaney. Attack on a personal level when you have nothing else.”

“One you’re all too familiar with, I see.” I walked to the door. “My visit was unofficial. I wonder how the board of trustees of the university will react when Coleman comes a’calling.”

Before he could answer, I walked out the door and closed it behind me. I felt the secretary’s gaze drilling into my spine.

She looked down at her desk, pretending she hadn’t been staring. I knew better. “Mrs. Blackmon,” I said, reading the nameplate on her desk, “do you file travel vouchers for the professors?”

“I do.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard to show she was too busy to chat.

“May I see those for Dr. Webber?”

“I can’t release that data.” She stopped typing. “Even if I’d like to.”

“Thanks.” I hadn’t seen his expense sheets, but I’d discovered something else. The history department secretary was not a fan of the professor.

*   *   *

Tinkie was waiting for me on the porch at Dahlia House when I got home. She was sipping a bourbon, neat, when I climbed the steps. This was not the proper drink for a Daddy’s Girl on a hot September afternoon. It was a declaration of intent to tie one on.

“You’re violating Rule 3,394 of the Daddy’s Girl Handbook.” I hoped to squeeze a laugh out of her.

“I’m sure I’ll break a lot more rules before Olive Twist leaves town. Dead or alive.” She tossed back the bourbon and clapped the highball glass to the wood floor.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I settled down beside her. I gazed out over the fields we both loved. Tinkie was on the edge of either a temper tantrum or a crying jag. I hoped for the former because the latter made me feel helpless.

“Oscar is in a snit,” she said. “Coleman came and talked to him about the note Jimmy Boswell slipped in his pocket.”

“And?”

“They went in the library and closed the door so I couldn’t hear. After the sheriff left, Oscar wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Coleman doesn’t seriously think Oscar had anything to do with Boswell’s poisoning?”

Tinkie’s lower lip protruded slightly. It wasn’t a pout, which indicated the dreaded tears were a distinct possibility. “Oscar refuses to say anything. It must be bad.”

I’d warned the big nudnik about holding out on Tinkie. His wife wouldn’t judge him on events from two centuries ago. He was a fool not to confide his worries to her. “I talked with Webber. He believes members of the Richmond and Falcon families murdered the Lady in Red. Family honor and survival.”

“You paint them like the mafia.”

She wasn’t far off the mark. “According to Webber, Tilda Richmond, whether she is the Lady in Red or not, was betrothed to a Falcon.”

Tinkie’s eyes widened. “And she dumped him?”

“Yep. I guess she didn’t read the Daddy’s Girl Handbook.”

Tinkie swatted my arm, but her enthusiasm was restored. I bumped her shoulder with mine. “And what about you? How are you?”

“I can understand why Oscar would want to leave this bit of family history behind. Those awful men who kill their daughters if they defy tradition … it’s a form of the basest ignorance. No one wants that personal history, but blood isn’t destiny or identity. Speaking of which, the DNA results on the Lady in Red should be back soon.”

“Olive must have paid a pretty penny for such a fast track.”

“Obviously she thinks it’ll pay out big. It was bad enough listening to her bestseller brags. Now she’s moved on to movie options. She thinks Keira Knightley should play her.” Tinkie swung her legs like a kid. I realized she was wearing cutoff jeans, tennis shoes, and a tank top—far more my wardrobe choices than her normal polished style.

“Frances Malone called me, too.” Tinkie sat up straighter. “She’s bonding Jeremiah and Buford out of jail.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake. They’ll go after Olive.”

“That’s exactly what she’s hoping.” She bit her bottom lip. “There’s a bloodthirsty streak in Frances I never suspected. She really wants Olive gone—or dead. She said if she’d never come here, none of this would be happening. I’m tired of this stupidity. I want Olive to leave town and everyone to stop hurting each other. Jeremiah and Buford are capable of tragic stupidity.”

“Can Oscar stop Buford’s release?”

“He tried. Too late. They were only charged with creating a public disturbance. Oscar didn’t have time to get a judge to rule on sending them to an institution. Now they’ve gone underground. Cece talked to Coleman about arresting them on spewing hate, but he can’t. Not until they do something in Sunflower County, and it has to be something more than flinging a few tomatoes.”

I stood and gave her my hand to pull up. She rose to her feet, glass in hand. We walked into the cool foyer of Dahlia House, our footsteps echoing. The house was empty.

“Where’s Graf?” I asked.

“I haven’t seen him. I went in and mixed a drink, but I figured he was with you.”

“Let’s head to the office and see what we can determine about who Jimmy Boswell really was. If he offered compromising video to Webber and then tried to sell information to Oscar, he might be more than just a mistreated research assistant.”