Greedy Bones Part 11

Absently, Tinkie began to eat, her total concentration on the numbers.

When she lifted her gaze, there was defeat in her face. "The figures all track, according to what you said was in the wills. There's no hint of misappropriation of funds."

"Well, d.a.m.n." I'd hoped to pin something on Luther.

"Gregory didn't have a lot of time to blow through the insurance money after Lana's death. The check for half a million from the insurance company went into his account. Gregory made biannual payments to this Sonja Kessler prior to his death, and Luther continued them. There must have been an agreement between father and son."

"Sonja Kessler is next on my to-do list."

"She may be a good lead." Tinkie glanced at the snack machines and small food court as if aware for the first time of her surroundings.

Worry and fear, which had abated for the few moments she puzzled out the financial statements, settled back onto her features. "I have to go." She stood up as if she'd been given an electric jolt. "Oscar's all alone."

"No, your father is with him," I reminded her. "Mr. Bellcase is watching over Oscar and the others, too." Tinkie was convinced that if Oscar was left alone for even a minute, the Angel of Death would slip down the corridor and s.n.a.t.c.h him away.

"I need to be with Oscar."

I gently circled her wrist with my hand and held her. "Eat a little more. For me."

She sat on the edge of her chair and picked up another piece of bagel. "For you, Sarah Booth." She stuffed it into her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and stood. Oscar was all she had on her mind.

"I'm going to Chicago," I told her. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Sarah Booth, you may just be chasing your tail." Tinkie pointed at the papers still scattered on the table. "What if this illness has nothing to do with the Carlisle family?"

"Do you know something, Tinkie?" Oscar hadn't regained consciousness, hadn't spoken to anyone, but I'd learned the hard way not to discount the things that Tinkie could discern by listening to her heart.

She chewed the tip of her thumb, hesitating. "It's occurred to me that someone may have followed Oscar out there. Someone he was meeting. Someone who might have hurt him."

The words were like blows of a hammer. "I don't believe that." If Tinkie was accusing Oscar of a tete-a-tete with another woman, I didn't believe it at all.

"I've neglected him lately." Tears welled and slipped down her cheeks.

"Bulls.h.i.t." I could not let her believe this.

"I've focused on myself, my dreams, my wants."

Guilt is an invasive virus. Once it breaks into a person's mind, it spreads and infects everything. "That's total c.r.a.p, Tinkie. Don't do this to yourself."

"What if it's true?"

"Both Harold and Margene told you that Luther called and asked Oscar to sell the plantation. A legitimate business call sent him to that land. It wasn't some chance to have a fling in an abandoned house."

The silent tears let me know I wasn't making any progress.

"Oscar is totally in love with you, Tinkie. He was proud of your accomplishments as a private investigator. Even your father said so."

Her head tilted slightly as if her hearing was bad. "Daddy said that?"

Oh, thank goodness I remembered. "Mr. Bellcase has spoken to me twice. Both times he warned me against getting you hurt, and both times he told me how proud of you he is. And how proud Oscar is."

Tinkie's tiny hands swiped at the tears. "You don't think he was meeting a woman at the Carlisle place?"

"I'd bet my life he wasn't." My heart was hammering so hard, my stomach felt upset. The Danishes I'd gobbled in Harold's office had turned to lead.

The tears were gone and Tinkie's blue eyes were sharp and clear. "Do you think he could have been meeting someone else, a buyer?"

"From all accounts, he went alone, examined the property, and returned to the bank without incident. There's no indication anyone else was near."

She stood up. "Keep searching, Sarah Booth. I know Coleman and the CDC are working hard, but you're my best hope."

Lucky for me there were several direct flights to Chicago from Memphis, and I caught an afternoon plane that put me in the Windy City before sunset. Before I'd driven to Memphis, I'd called Graf to update him, and simply to hear his voice. I'd also let Cece and Millie know my destination. Sonja Kessler sounded like a paramour, but that didn't mean she wasn't a dangerous person.

I'd booked a room at a downtown hotel near the Park-side Drive address. Best I could tell by a bit of Internet research, Parkside Drive was in an older, established neighborhood.

One of the hardest winters on record had buried Chicago in snow after snow, but spring was everywhere I looked as I entered the downtown.

The Atria Hotel was old-world charm mixed with modern conveniences. My room was lovely and serene--and terribly empty. I thought of Graf and how much I missed him. My fingers circled my cell phone, and the temptation to call was almost irresistible. But I didn't. He'd told me his shooting schedule, and he was probably in the middle of his horse back chase.

I left my small bag on the bed and hurried back downstairs, where the doorman flagged a taxi.

"2424 Parkside Drive," I told the young woman behind the wheel. Her dark gaze caught mine in the rearview mirror, but she didn't comment. The cab eased into busy traffic.

While newer neighborhoods suffer from the McMansion Syndrome--huge homes set side by side on tiny lots--Parkside was a paradise of gracious homes, each nestled among ancient trees and hedges on several acres.

"Do you know anything about this neighborhood?" I asked the driver.

"Chicago businessmen built these homes in the early 1900s. During the school year the families lived here, then moved to the lake for the summers."

"Who owns them now?" I asked.

"People who want to preserve the historic downtown, people with that sort of consciousness. And money. It takes a lot of cash to keep up an old house. Maintenance . . ." She made a motion of doling out money. "And heating."

"It's so beautiful here."

"Yeah, money can generally buy a nice view and good neighbors."

The address we sought had a circular driveway lined with towering plants, maybe rhododendron. The cabby stopped at the door. "Shall I wait?" she asked.

"I don't look like the type who'll stay long?"

"No bag, don't know the neighborhood--those things tell me you're looking for something. Either you'll find it quickly and leave, or you'll just leave."

I liked her s.p.u.n.k. "Wait for me," I said.

She pulled a paperback from the front seat and settled back to read.

I walked to the leaded-gla.s.s entry and rang the bell. Instead of a butler, a tall, slender woman opened the door.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Sonja Kessler?"

"Yes." She looked beyond me at the taxi in the drive. "Who are you?"

"Sarah Booth Delaney, private investigator. I'm here about your interest in the Carlisle family."

I thought at first she'd stopped breathing. Her blue gaze, as large and clear as Tinkie's, held on my face but registered no emotion.

"I can't talk with you," she said at last. "I have plans for this evening." She began to shut the door.

I wedged my foot in the crack, wincing as the heavy door pressed against it. "Talk to me now, or Sheriff Cole-man Peters will be here tomorrow."

That shook her up. She viewed me through the three-inch gap. "Why are you doing this?" she asked. "The past is dead and gone. There's no changing it. Just let it lie."

"I don't think so."

She stepped back, and I pressed my advantage by pushing the door open, revealing a beautifully decorated foyer. I followed her down a hallway into a small library where she'd obviously been working on some papers.

She was younger than I'd a.s.sumed. Much younger. A beautiful woman who must have begun her affair with Gregory Carlisle during her teens. Perhaps that was reason enough to pay her. A Delta planter and a teenage lover--the stories would have gotten ugly.

"Why have you come here?" She gathered the papers.

"The Carlisle estate has made payments to you for years. Why?"

She paused. "It's not what you think."

"Really?"

"Gregory was my father. He paid me not to come to Mississippi." She stacked the papers into a neat bundle. "Would you like a soda or some tea?"

11.

The tea was strong and not sweet, just the way I liked it. Sonja was direct. "Once Gregory accepted that I was his daughter, he offered a yearly sum of money. Not a fortune, but enough. On his death I received a hundred thousand additional." Sonja's smile was pensive and she distractedly rattled the ice in her tea gla.s.s. "Hush money, some people would call it. Since I never knew Gregory, I took the money and let the rest go. I viewed it as a windfall."

The library's mahogany shelves were filled with books, sculptures, and other artwork. Persian carpets covered the oak floor. It was a room of expensive comfort. Sonja may not have had the family name, but she'd acquired the Carlisle lifestyle, or as close as she could come in a city instead of on a plantation.

"My mother was a singer," she said. From the mantel she picked up a photograph in a heavy silver frame and handed it to me. The woman at the piano was a cla.s.sic Nordic type. Sonja, with her peaches-and-cream complexion, favored her mom.

"She's lovely."

"Mother didn't have good judgment when it came to men." She hesitated. "She fell in love easily and always with someone inaccessible. Then again, it's worked out for me." She put the picture back. "So you've tracked me down and discovered that I'm the b.a.s.t.a.r.d daughter of Gregory and a Chicago torch singer." Her chin lifted. "So what? Luther knows. The only person this will harm is Erin."

She knew her siblings' names, though she claimed no interest in them. "And you care about Erin?"

Pacing the room, she settled in front of the fireplace. "I don't know her. We're the same age. I've always found that to be ironic."

Irony was one way of describing it. "What's your contact with the Carlisle family?"

"I receive the money. I've invested wisely." She crossed the room again and I was struck by her confident carriage. She found a remote control on a side table and ignited a gas log in the fireplace. "I won't ask you to keep what you've found a secret. You'll do what ever you feel you must. It'll only hurt Erin."

Again, she expressed concern for Erin, a woman she'd never met--a half sister who'd grown up in the family from which Sonja had been excluded. "I'm not interested in dredging up the Carlisle history, Ms. Kessler."

"What did you hope to gain by coming here? Blackmail?"

"I'm searching for some link to the plantation that might explain a serious illness in Sunflower County. Best indications are that it's confined to the Carlisle land."

"I've never been there. I know nothing of the estate except for a few remarks Mother made when I was a child."

"Do you remember them?"

She looked out the curtained French doors of the library. Dusk was fading and night falling fast. "Mother said my father was wealthy, that he owned a large tract of land where it was like stepping into the past."

"And you were never tempted to go?"

"Never. I focus on things I can attain, not those beyond my reach."

A healthy philosophy, if it was true. "Before you were acknowledged by Gregory as an heir--"

"I made a good living as a retail buyer. Unlike my father, I'm very good at managing money."

"And you've had no contact with Luther Carlisle about the land? He wants to sell it. You haven't attempted to claim any portion of it?"

"I wasn't named in the will. Luther has made it clear that I have no interests in Mississippi."

"You might have legal standing." I wasn't certain about paternity and inheritance laws, but a sharp lawyer could have made a case for her. "Why didn't you come forward?"

"Once Gregory acknowledged me, I didn't try to make contact with him. I didn't want to cause trouble. I don't now. I'm more than comfortable, and arguing can't change a childhood of growing up without a father or siblings."

"True." But it was also true of human nature that most people wanted all they could get. "Do you have DNA proof?"

"Gregory insisted."

"And you've been perfectly happy not to know your father's family or any of your Carlisle relatives?"

"I didn't miss out on anything, Ms. Delaney. I had a mother who loved me."

Outside the French doors the lawn's perfect lighting showed the exceptional landscaping. Sonja had security and beauty at her fingertips, but in that one moment, I understood the loss that had touched her. "In that regard, you're luckier than a lot of people. When did your mother die?"

"I was seventeen. She was accidentally struck by a car while crossing a street." If she felt pity for herself, she didn't show it. She glanced at her wrist.w.a.tch and frowned. "I'm sorry, but I'm meeting a friend and I'm running late."

"Thank you, Ms. Kessler. I'll be in touch if I need more information."