Greedy Bones Part 20

Dahlia House was out of the way, but I ran by to pick up the dogs. Tinkie needed the comfort of her hound, even if her canine was a dustmop that looked more like a stuffed toy than a real dog. Chablis was tiny, cute, and had the heart of a lioness. She could give Tinkie what I could not--the sense that her family was still complete.

"I'll be back with the dogs in a flash," I told Tinkie as I hopped out of the roadster. Tinkie didn't look as if she had the strength to climb the stairs to Dahlia House.

I entered the front door and stopped. Cigar smoke curled in the light from the front windows.

Someone had been smoking in my home. And cigars! I didn't know anyone who smoked those things.

"Put your hands in the air." The voice was cold and menacing. I complied, my mind jumping backward to Cece and her beating and ahead to Tinkie and what a weakened target she would be if I failed to handle this.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Turn around."

I was reluctant to face my attacker. Most criminals preferred not to leave eyewitnesses alive.

"Do it. Now."

I moved slowly. The man standing in the shadows of the parlor wore a pin-striped suit, a hat, and held a machine gun. Though his fedora concealed his features, I could see a thin mustache that emphasized the narrowness of his lips. He was slender, and the c.o.c.k of his hat told me he was bold.

I'd never seen him before.

"Where are the dogs?" Concern for Sweetie Pie and Chablis made me step forward.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," he said. Beneath the harshness of his words was something else, an echo of another statement . . . another voice.

I studied him, noting the slender frame and the tiny little curl of a smile.

"d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l and back, Jitty. You scared me." I dropped my hands. "Now I need to change my pants. I hope you're happy."

Instead of the chuckle I expected, Jitty only tipped up the brim of her hat, revealing her luminous eyes. There was sadness there, not humor.

"Did you know John Dillinger was a hero to a lot of people in America? They cheered him on in his robberies."

Now it was a history quiz? "Give me a break." I filtered through the little bit I knew of 1930s gangsters. "He was viewed as a Robin Hood of hard times. He robbed banks and shot cops. Except to my knowledge he never gave a dime to the poor."

Jitty shrugged. "J. Edgar Hoover wore a dress."

I rolled my eyes. "What is this about? Tinkie is in the car. Cece has been severely beaten. Coleman is fishing a dead man out of the Mississippi. Oscar is still sick--what's your obsession with outlaws gunned down by the FBI?"

"Times were different when John Dillinger was on the loose."

"Your point is?" I had good cause to act brusque. The chance to make things right was slipping away from me hour by hour.

"Wanted posters of Dillinger were everywhere, but hardly anybody recognized him on the street. Folks didn't expect to see a bank robber pa.s.sin' by on the sidewalk. No television to show his mug. No Internet. No cell phones. None of the things that make life so dang complicated today."

Doggie toenails scrabbled on the hardwood floor as Sweetie and Chablis launched themselves through the swinging kitchen door and rushed me. I patted and stroked, but Jitty was trying to tell me something. Jitty never actually helped me with a case, but sometimes she helped me with a much bigger problem--me.

"Okay, Dillinger remained on the loose for a long time. I'll give you that. And some folks did protect him. Willingly." That summed up my knowledge of the outlaw.

Jitty stubbed out her cigar in a leaded-gla.s.s ashtray. Had I committed such a violation of Delaney antiques, she would have badgered me for weeks. "The FBI shot and killed Dillinger in front of the Biograph Theater in Chicago. It was a Sunday, July 22, 1934."

Jitty had lived--or haunted--through most of this; far be it from me to argue with her. "Fascinating. But why should I care right now?"

"The FBI knew Dillinger would be in that theater."

Something niggled at the back of my brain. A betrayal. A huge one. "A woman called the FBI, right?"

"Bingo!" Jitty laid the old-fashioned tommy gun on the table beside the sofa. The prop department in the Great Beyond could obviously furnish anything.

She continued talking. "Ana c.u.mpanas, her married name was Ana Sage, was the madam of a brothel. She's the one fingered Dillinger to the FBI. She told them the theater, the time, the film, and she even went to the movie with Dillinger and his latest girlfriend."

A factoid floated to the surface of my brain. "She wore a red dress. That's how the feds identified him."

"Actually, it was orange, but in the lights of the theater's marquee, it looked red. He was shot in a nearby alley. Some folks dispute as to whether he ever even pulled his gun."

"Okay, so how does all of this apply to me?"

"Ana believed she'd be deported to Romania if she failed to deliver Dillinger to the FBI. She came over from Romania and had some run-ins with the Indiana law. The FBI supposedly promised her the deportation action against her would be dropped."

This was going to have a bad ending.

Jitty brought out a cigar from the inside pocket of her elegant suit jacket and twirled it between her fingers. "She was deported in late April 1936. The only thing she got out of her betrayal was a portion of the reward money for Dillinger. Five grand."

"So the moral of the story is never trust a madam in a red dress." I had hoped to make her laugh, but not so.

She started to fade, but I could still hear her. "Think about it, Sarah Booth. Trust is the issue."

"Jitty, what are you telling me? Should I trust or not? Will I be betrayed by someone in a red dress?"

Even though I listened for nearly a full minute, there was no answer. Like Elvis, Jitty had left the building.

I was left with one more puzzle to study on top of the pile I already had.

Tinkie cuddled Chablis to her chest as we rode through the cool April evening. Sweetie Pie sat in the backseat and occasionally leaned over to slurp Tinkie's neck or cheek. The top was down on the roadster, and the wind whipped a bit of color into Tinkie's face, but the fine lines and wrinkles that hadn't been there a week before testified to the stress she was under.

Though the plan had been to go to the court house, by the time I got into town, Tinkie had fallen asleep.

I shook her shoulder lightly. "Tink, I'm taking you home." Besides, I wanted to check out Cece before she saw the damage done to our friend.

When she didn't argue, I knew how exhausted she was. "If I find something, I'll fetch you," I promised her. "The best thing you can do is sleep."

She was so far gone, she didn't acknowledge me. With Chablis and Sweetie keeping me company, I drove to the big house on the hill that Tinkie called home.

By the time Tinkie was settled on the sofa with Sweetie Pie beside her and Chablis curled in the nook of her arm, she was sound asleep. A quick call to the sheriff's office garnered the information that Cece had arrived at the hospital. From Dewayne's voice, I could tell things were dire.

Fighting images of what I was likely to discover, I parked in the hospital lot beside the Sunflower County sheriff's car. As I marched toward the door, I struggled to weave some plausible story from all that had happened. But there was no connective tissue--that I could see. Turning the pieces every which way, I couldn't make them lock together.

While the Carlisle land was presumed to be the source of the disease or infection or mold that had leveled Oscar, Gordon, and the two realtors, no one had proven it.

The boll weevils--and the strange genetically altered cotton--were an added twist. Was this some form of agri-terrorism? But why Mississippi and why a crop like cotton with no application for use in weapons or the drug trade?

Jimmy Janks was a viable contender for prime suspect, but he wasn't alone. Luther and Erin Carlisle, despite Erin saying she wouldn't sell the land for development, both stood to profit if the plantation was sold for premium development dollars.

And thrown in the middle of the Carlisle family intrigues was Sonya Kessler. Was she truly a half sister willing to sit outside the warmth of the fire while Luther and Erin divided the spoils?

Also connected to the Carlisle land was Lester Ballard, shot to death and his body dumped in the Mississippi. He'd been supposed to meet with Janks.

Add to that the attack on Cece--while allegedly on a date with Janks--and none of it made sense.

Speaking of Janks, what was his connection to Lana Carlisle? Why would he visit her grave across the state in West Point?

Like a web spreading wider and wider, the facts had one central source--the Carlisle plantation. In some way, everyone connected back there.

"Trust is the issue."

Jitty's latest impersonation nagged at me as I pushed open the door and stepped into the familiar hospital smell.

A nurse told me Cece's room number. Hand on the k.n.o.b, I gathered my courage and opened the door. At first, I thought I might faint. The Delaney fort.i.tude gained control, and I closed the door softly behind me.

An oxygen tube fed into her nose and other machines beeped and blinked. Her face was a ma.s.s of bruises, and she'd need reconstructive surgery on her nose, which was smashed beyond recognition.

As I approached the bed, she lifted a hand. I grasped it gently, and her fingers curled around mine.

"You're home now, Cece. We'll take care of you." If I'd ever doubted the power of those words, I didn't any longer. Cece was home, and so was I. To be anywhere else in the world would have been wrong.

Cece kept the pressure on my fingers until I patted her hand and withdrew mine. I brushed her blood-crusted hair from her forehead and tried not to flinch at the battered contours of her face.

"Has Coleman questioned you?" I asked.

"I don't remember much."

"Do you see your attacker?"

"No." The word was whispered.

"Did Janks do this?"

"I don't know. He took me home and left." A tear leaked down the side of her face. I wiped it away, feeling a surge of rage so hot and pure that I was afraid I'd burn her skin.

"Why did you go to Jackson?"

"To see Erin."

"Erin Carlisle?"

"Yes." Her voice was like wind shifting dead leaves.

Images started to flutter through my head. Cece had been found in the parking lot of the strip mall where Erin's studio was located.

"Erin was with you in the parking lot?"

"Yes."

"Was she there when you were attacked?"

She hesitated. "We were walking across the lot to her studio. I don't know what happened to her."

"I'll be right back," I said before I raced out of the room.

I skidded around the corner on the slick linoleum tile and almost slammed into Doc Sawyer.

"Whoa, there, Sarah Booth. Coleman's looking for you," he said.

"Where is he?"

"Down in the cafeteria with Mrs. Bellcase. They went for a cup of coffee."

"Thanks." I wheeled and ran to the cafeteria. Sure, running wasn't allowed in hospitals. A foolish rule when it was Death they should have been trying to govern.

When I pushed through the swinging doors of the cafeteria, Mrs. Bellcase stood alone, a cup of coffee in her hand. Dazed, she failed to hear my approach.

"Where's Coleman?" I asked.

"He got a call . . ." She staggered a step, and I caught her and helped her to a table. Tinkie's entire family balanced on the thin edge of exhaustion. Instead of sitting down, she started toward the door. "Oscar needs me."

"Did Coleman say where he was going?"

Judging by the look on her face, she'd forgotten all about Coleman. "No, he didn't. Wait. He found a relative of Gordon's in South Dakota. He said she's coming here to be with Gordon. He doesn't have anyone else."

"You need some rest," I told her gently. Bossing Tinkie's mama didn't strike me as smart. I opted for suggesting. "Can I call someone to relieve you?"

"No." She squared her shoulders. "Sorry, Sarah Booth, my energy level plummeted for a minute. I'm fine, and Tammy Odom has offered to sit a while. She'll be here soon." She gathered herself. "Coleman never said where he was going, but he got a call that seemed urgent. I know he's terribly worried about Gordon. His temperature spiked to 105. The two women appear to be improving a tiny bit, but the men . . ."

"I'm glad Coleman found Gordon's cousin." Gordon's father had been the sheriff of Sunflower County at one time--a very corrupt man. Gordon had endured and overcome that family reputation to become Coleman's trusted right hand. I'd once suspected him of murder, but he'd earned my respect and my thanks, and it tore at me to see him so ill and helpless and alone.

While I was tempted to stop by the isolation ward and mojo up some kick-a.s.s energy for the patients, I had other fish to fry. Erin Carlisle might be in danger, and both Tinkie and Cece needed my attention. But first Jimmy Janks. Coleman and Dewayne had searched Janks's office and come up with nothing criminal, but there were things about Janks that didn't add up.

Toke Lambert reclined on a wicker chaise lounge on the front porch of his home in a gated community. Each house on the cul-de-sac was a McMansion, an architectural statement that had become the equivalent of the brick ranch houses of the 1970s. Like the general American population, the style of houses had gone from functional to opulent and obese. Toke's house had to be at least eight thousand square feet.

"h.e.l.lo, Toke," I said as I plowed through the lush centipede gra.s.s of his manicured lawn. "Looks like life is treating you well."

He waved a hand as if to dismiss his surroundings. "You know, Sarah Booth, it's all about management skills. Some of us have it, some don't."

I'd never cared for Toke, and he knew it. The pleasantries were over. "What do you know about Jimmy Janks?"

"He's wanting to develop the Carlisle land. Or at least he was before all this ruckus started." He picked up a frosted gla.s.s and sipped.

"How did you meet Janks?"