Buried Bones (11 page)

"Who?" She looked at me like I was crazy.

"Rosalyn Bell." I had stepped off the path and into deep cow-poo. Millie wasn't the kind of woman who would agree to call anyone madame, not even a ballet teacher.

"I hope to goodness she and your psychic buddy,
Madame
Tomeeka, don't get into a hair pulling over which one is the grandest." Millie refilled the coffee cups. "At any rate, I do remember the first time
Lawrence
came home from Europe when one of those professors from over at
Oxford
had this big to-do. It was like a Lawrence Day where the town celebrated him. There was a parade with a band and baton-twirling dancers." Her face softened into a smile as she sank into her memories.

"The first time he came home?"

"Yeah. I was little. I went with Aunt Bev. She was the only one in the family who read. She came over from
Greenwood
with copies of some of his books. Pissed her husband off." She laughed. "Somewhere they'd gotten an elephant for
Lawrence
to ride. It was hot, and I remember the elephant left tracks in the asphalt at the elementary school. That's where they'd set up for the big barbecue and party.

"After the parade
Lawrence
sat on a rug under this red and white striped umbrella with his legs crossed like a sultan and wrote in the books people brought by."

Again she shook her head. "It was a day that would leave an impression on any kid."

"Did anything special happen?" I was more curious than hopeful that Millie could shed light on
Lawrence
's past.

"He bent down and looked right at me and said, 'Someone should use your eyes to design a china pattern.' I didn't understand, but Aunt Bev told me it was a compliment."

"This would have been in the late fifties?" I was trying to pinpoint the time frame.

She nodded. "I was seven or eight. I remember my dress, a powder-puff blue organza with five starched petticoats."

"What, exactly, was the event?"

"
Lawrence
had come home, to write and bring prestige to the State of
Mississippi
." She intoned the last with great dignity before her expression changed to one of lively mischief. "He didn't stay a week. There was some big falling out with the university man. They were supposed to have a job for
Lawrence
, and when he went over to start teaching, none of it had actually come through. I don't know where the fault lay, but the upshot was that
Lawrence
went right back to
Paris
, but not before he created a big stink in the newspaper. It was a scandal, but I don't remember the details."

The word "motive" was flashing behind my eyelids like a neon Christmas wreath. "Would your Aunt Bev?"

"She might. She spent a summer with
Lawrence
and some others up at some lake." Millie's blue eyes focused sharply on me. "What are you up to, Sarah Booth. Is this a new case? Something about
Lawrence
?"

I didn't show a single emotion. "As you know, my work is confidential. Even if I had something to tell you, I couldn't."

She squeezed my hand. "Call Aunt Bev. She lives over in
Greenwood
. Call her." She wrote the telephone number on a napkin for me. "Tell her I said I loved her."

I put the money for my breakfast on the counter. "Thanks, Millie."

"Thanks aren't necessary, but I sure would like to know what you're working on."

"I'll tell you before I tell anyone else," I promised.

"Well, if you need backup." She put one hand on a hip.

"I'll keep that in mind." And I would. Millie had proven herself tough and reliable when she'd been kidnapped by Veronica Garrett and Pasco Walters. I could go a lot farther and do a lot worse, as Jitty would say.

Since I was already downtown, I stopped by the bakery, selected the largest and cheesiest Danish, and headed for the newspaper. Cece was too young to remember the scandal, but she could give me access to the newspaper files.

Several reporters who had once ignored my very existence perked up as I walked through the room.

"Working a case, Sarah Booth?" Garvel LaMott called out.

"Your mama," I said with a fake smile. I'd gone to high school with Garvel and he had been quite the successful snoop, sniffing out cigarettes in the bathroom and Wild Turkey in the book lockers. Unfortunately, he was also a tattletale. I hurried into Cece's office--the only private one--and closed the door.

"Sarah Booth, dahling, you look . . . robust."

"I see my tenure as your own personal Florence Nightingale did nothing to reduce your venom. Thanks instead of insults might be in order," I said with annoyance, dropping the pastry sack on her desk. Robust was not exactly the same as calling me Peggy-porker or Little Miss Ham Hocks, but it was close enough.

"Touchy about our weight, are we?" Cece stood up and ran her hands down her svelte hips. One advantage of having been a man was that she would never suffer from middle-age spread.

"What is this royal plural crap? And that dah-ling." I drawled it out. "You stole that from
Lawrence
."

She sat back down and studied me. "I didn't steal it. He gave it to me." A single tear dribbled out the corner of her eye and she batted it away. I noticed that for all of her perfectly applied makeup, she was still a little pale.

I sank into a chair, ignoring the fact that it was stacked with old newspapers. "Are you really okay?"

"It was just an anxiety attack. It's just so awful about
Lawrence
," she said, accosting another tear before it could leave track marks. "When I came back from
Sweden
, after the surgery, he came to see me. My own parents wouldn't speak to me but this famous writer appeared at my door with an armful of paper whites and daffodils that he'd stolen from mean ole Mrs. Hedgepeth's sidewalk." She started laughing. "He took every single one of her flowers, and he made me put them in a vase in the window so she could see them."

We were both laughing. "You didn't know him before that?"

"Of course I knew who he was. I'd read all of his books. I learned to cook with his recipes. But I'd never met him until that moment. I was shocked." The laughter was gone and the tears were dangerously close to the surface again, but she continued.

"When I was well, he dropped by with some net gloves and a black hat that he said Audrey Hepburn had worn in a movie. He told me they'd bring me luck and always, whenever anyone tried to hurt me, to visualize myself wearing them and to use the royal plural. And he said he wanted me to use his trademark 'dahling' so that it would continue after he died."

"You never said a word about any of this," I accused.

Cece spied the pastry bag on the corner of her desk. She snagged it, opened it, and peered inside. "I never had a reason to say anything. Until now. No one ever accused me of
stealing
a character trait. Until now."

"Okay, so I'm fat
and
bitchy. What's your point?"

"No point. I just like to keep you in line."

"Practice sex alone," I whispered, leaning forward.

Cece laughed, biting into the Danish with a show of her former good appetite. "So are you looking for a writing assignment or working something else?" She took another large bite of the pastry. "You can talk until I finish eating, then I have to work. Deadline at eleven."

It was ten-thirty, so I had to talk fast. "Do you remember any gossip about
Lawrence
coming home from
Paris
in the fifties?"

"The time Ole Miss didn't have the teaching job for him?"

"That would be it."

"Check the files.
Lawrence
never said anything to me about it, but I've heard stories. There was something in the paper, some sort of literary feud going on. I don't really remember." She took the last bite. "You know where the files are. Tell Glenda that you're looking up something for me."

"Thanks," I leaned across the desk, "dahling."

Her eyes narrowed in calculation. "There was something about a death threat. Some dark secret, a hidden past." Her forehead furrowed. "Let me know what you find. I'm doing a story for Sunday's paper on
Lawrence
. I've heard rumors that some people believe
Lawrence
was murdered. Is this a new case, Sarah Booth?" Curiosity glinted in her eyes.

I smiled and shrugged. Cece was crazy as a run-over dog if she thought I'd stoke those fires.

She swallowed the last of the pastry. Her gaze dropped and I could tell she was about to cry again.

"He seemed very fond of you," I said, failing utterly at comfort.

"He called last night to check on me, after you'd fallen asleep. I think he genuinely cared."

"What time did he call?" I asked as innocently as I could.

Her gaze lifted in a smooth motion--radar. "You
are
working on a case." Her eyebrows arched. "I can't say exactly, but it was after midnight because he said something about it being Christmas. And I'll tell you something else. He said the party was over, but I don't think he was alone."

7

The last time I had to go searching in the morgue of
The Zinnia Dispatch
I'd been lucky. My quest had taken me back into the late seventies and early eighties and the information was still in bound volumes. When I put my request before Glenda, the morgue librarian, she pointed me in the direction of the spools of microfiche. The year I sought was 1958, summer. With Millie's hints about elephants and umbrellas it didn't take long to discover that the Barnum and Bailey Circus was in town in June, hence the availability of an elephant in the Mississippi Delta. Although the circus was the headline news for the day,
Lawrence
's arrival home was bottom of the fold, front page.

The whiz of the printed page made me dizzy as I rolled the film through the viewer. It was a week later, June 15, 1958, that the vitriol began to spew. The first salvo was on the editorial page, where
Lawrence
had written a letter. It was a masterpiece of wit and whiplash. The gist was that he'd been promised a job, which upon his arrival had been withheld because of his lack of "formal" education. My favorite part of the letter went "as if the gatekeepers of the hallowed halls of learning could recognize a truly educated man. These academic pretenders give evolution a bad name. Indeed, the monkeys in the jungle are howling disclaimers of any kinship to these rogues."

I was laughing out loud. Dean Joseph Grace made the response for the school almost a week later, pointing out that
Lawrence
had led them to believe he held a degree. I read his rebuttal, hearing in my mind the pompous drone that had drilled my ear like a woodpecker at the dinner party. "When it became obvious that
Lawrence
was not formally educated," Grace wrote, "the decision not to offer the position was unavoidable. The criteria for excellence in teachers at Ole Miss could not be lowered, not even for such a fine writer."

Right. Somewhere between the offer and
Lawrence
's return to Zinnia, someone had decided to slam the door in his face. Degrees had nothing to do with it. I made a note to check the policy at Ole Miss.

It was in the next issue of the paper that
Lawrence
volleyed back with a front-page interview in which he challenged the university dean to a public display of knowledge--a match--to be performed in the
Zinnia
High School
auditorium with the whole town in attendance to judge who was the most learned man.
Lawrence
said that if Grace bested him, he would drop the issue and never speak of it again.

A brilliant and sneaky gambit! I loved it.

Grace declined, saying that it was beneath the dignity of a full professor to indulge in public displays. Yes, indeed, the trump card for cowards--a claim to dignity.

It was almost too delicious but ultimately useless. So
far
there was no hint of dark secrets. The two men had obviously patched up the dispute because the dean had been a guest in
Lawrence
's home. I'd observed them closely, and there had been no open animosity that I could detect.

No sooner had I thought that than I turned to the next issue of the paper and saw the banner headline. "Author Threatened By Vile Caller."

There was a photograph of a very handsome
Lawrence
coming out of the courthouse. Though debonair,
Lawrence
was clearly shaken. I read the story with interest.