Hallowed Bones (24 page)

"You never knew Doreen?" Coleman asked.

"Lillith was peculiar." Coot sipped his coffee. "She was private in a way that I see now was unbalanced. At the time, it was just convenient. I suspected she was pregnant, but she said she was going to see her mama for a few months. She was gone seven. When she came back there wasn't a sign of a baby. She left like that sometimes. Could be gone a week or several months. I didn't think much about it at the time. You know, I just didn't let it register. Lillith and I were together for the good times."

"Where did her mother live?" I asked.

"
Natchez
. I regret now I wasn't more attentive. If Doreen is my child, I want to try and make it up to her. I would have married Lillith. Ever since I heard about Doreen, I can't help but think about what life might have been like. We could have made a family."

Coot obviously wasn't aware that there had been three children. I didn't see where it was necessary to pour salt into his wound.

"Tell us about the night Lillith died," Coleman suggested.

"Well, it was a cold night. Musta been December or somewhere along there." He lowered his gaze. "My mind slips sometimes. I forget things. It makes me ashamed."

"It's okay, Coot," Coleman said. "We all forget. This happened a long time ago."

Coot looked up, his dark green eyes so intense that I was mesmerized. "It was a long time ago, but I dream it every night. I smell the smoke and I wake up choking. I see the flames between me and the bedroom, and I see Lillith standing in them, frozen, unable to move, the flames licking up to her waist. I see myself running out the front door. Running outside and saving myself. Saving myself and leaving her."

He got up and went to a cabinet to get a bottle of Wild Turkey. "I didn't want to be drunk when you got here, but I've got to have a shot right now."

"It's okay," Coleman said. "This isn't an interrogation, Coot. You're helping us." He paused. "And maybe helping yourself. There was nothing you could have done to save Lillith. The coroner said she died of smoke inhalation before the flames got to her."

"I saw her. She was standing in the flames."

Coleman got up and got two more glasses. He poured both of us a shot. "All these years you've been carrying a burden of guilt that wasn't necessary. Your mind played a trick on you. Lillith was dead." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a coroner's report. "I made this copy for you."

Coot took it and read it slowly. "She was really dead? I just imagined I saw her?"

"She was really dead."

"I shoulda come forward and said I was there with her. But I couldn't. Folks didn't know Lillith like I did. They thought she was crazy and wild, consumed with that religion of hers. She was that, but she was kind and loving. Sometimes we'd go to the river for a picnic and I'd lie in the grass with my head in her lap. She'd stroke my hair and I'd forget everything that troubled me. She was a wonderful woman when she wasn't raving."

The woman he revealed fascinated me. I'd known Lillith only as a lunatic.

"Why was she the way she was?" That was an answer I might be able to take to Doreen.

"I can't say. She'd be taken in spells. They'd come on her and she'd say she had to preach. She said God was telling her to spread the Word."

"She didn't just preach. She terrorized us about sex. And yet she was sleeping with you." I needed to understand the paradox of her personality.

"When she got on one of her holy spells, she'd run me out, chasing me with pans of hot water or knives. She'd tell me I was Beelzebub, come to tempt her. She'd say that I had taught her to like wallowing in wickedness and that we'd both burn in the fires of hell. Then she'd grab that Bible and go to town to preach."

"How could you endure that?" I asked.

"Most of the time she was a woman who enjoyed loving." He shook his head. "Heck, she could turn me inside out. Lillith didn't go no half-measures. She could wring a man out. Once I had a taste of her, I couldn't quit."

"But she believed it was wrong. Sinful."

He shrugged a shoulder. "We'd go along for weeks, then she'd have one of her holy fits. She'd run me off, but in a few days, she'd drive up to my house with homemade biscuits and sausage. She'd be back to normal, hungry for loving."

I wanted to ask him why he never got her psychiatric help, but I remembered the era when all this took place. People didn't pop into their therapist's office on their lunch hours. Mental illness was feared worse than venereal disease.

"Tell us everything that happened the night of the fire," Coleman said, pulling us back on track.

"Lillith and I had a fight. So I was sleeping on the sofa."

"What did you fight about?" I asked.

"We were both getting old. We'd been lovers for nearly thirty years. She wasn't troubled by her spells as much as she was by some bad dreams. I was still working and I wanted to marry, make sure she had insurance, get her some medical attention, that kind of thing. She didn't want to marry. She said she couldn't sanction a relationship that was born in sin. She said God would frown on two sinners asking for his blessing.

"I got in a huff and slept on the sofa. Like I said, it was a cold night. I stoked up the fireplace real good, put some big logs on, and then I went to sleep. The next thing I knew, the house was on fire."

"You don't recall hearing anything unusual?" Coleman asked.

Coot's brow furrowed. "Maybe, now that you mention it. Lillith was talking to herself. That wasn't normal. If she got a spell, she went straight to
Main Street
, no matter the time of day or night. She didn't waste time talking to herself."

"What did she say?" I asked, praying he'd remember.

"Spawn of Satan," Coot said without hesitation. "That's all I remember. I just went back to sleep. We'd both been drinking quite a bit."

"Coot, do you think Lillith could have been talking to someone else?" Coleman asked.

"I don't know. Maybe." I could see the thought troubled him.

"Was there anyone who hated Lillith?"

"She aggravated a lot of people, but I can't think of anyone who would hurt her. If she wasn't in one of her spells, she kept to herself. Lillith never did anyone a lick of harm."

"Who would she call a spawn of Satan?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Someone she thought of as a sinner, I guess. I never heard her say that before." He was frowning when he spoke again. "One of the volunteer firemen found a burned can. Like a gasoline can. They assumed it was used for the lawn mower. But I've been thinking on it. Lillith didn't have a lawn mower. I brought mine over to use to cut her grass. And I brought my own gas can, too. Someone else brought that gas can to her house."

Coleman and
I rode for a while in silence. We were both digesting Coot's story. Coleman had left a card with the number of a substance abuse counselor on Coot's table. Only time would tell if he would use it.

"What do you think?" I asked Coleman.

"I wish I could examine the fire scene."

"If we're exchanging wishes, I wish I could see into the future." But the minute the words were out of my mouth, I knew they weren't true. Doreen was right about one thing she'd said-- the present was the place to be. The past and the future held only turmoil.

"Coot was a good deputy when he was on the force. His liaison with Lillith cost him a lot. Folks thought the worst of him because he never married, never seemed to care for anyone. Yet he stuck by Lillith until she died."

Coleman stared out at a particularly bleak cotton field that had been mauled by a combine. Once upon a time, we would have heard the voices of men and women singing in the rows. Now there was only the drone of machinery.

"Something else was strange," I said as I pulled into the parking lot of Playin' the Bones, where Coleman had left his truck. "Doreen's brother is dead. He drowned."

"There's a lot of death around that woman," Coleman said. "I'll check more on that fire. It does sound suspicious. The coroner's report showed she died of smoke inhalation. It could have been an accident or she could have been knocked unconscious before someone started the fire. That would make it murder." He leaned over and brushed his lips on my cheek. "You be careful, Sarah Booth."

He got out of the car and walked to his truck. I felt a loss so keen that I wanted to stop him. But I didn't. He was doing the right thing.

I couldn't face going home to Jitty's scrutiny. I knew there was something wrong with me, and I knew she'd point it out. I'd just left
Hamilton
's bed, yet I was grieving for the loss of Coleman.

I drove to Mollie's house. When she let me in the front door, I stopped dead in my tracks. The dress, fitted to the dressmaker's mannequin, stood in the front room. If Cinderella's fairy godmother had been standing there with her magic wand, I wouldn't have been surprised. Mollie had worked a miracle. Seeing the dress on another form allowed me to see how magnificent it was.

"It's finished," Mollie said. "You can take it with you."

"You must have hemmed all night long," I said.

"My hands feel wonderful. It was a pleasure to use my needle again." She held her hands out as if she were admiring a ring, but her fingers were ringless except for a plain gold wedding band. The deforming knots of arthritis were gone.

"What can I do to thank you, Mollie?"

"I'll send you a bill for the dress and material. What you can really do is save Doreen Mallory. That woman's been touched by God. She couldn't have killed her baby."

"I'll do my best," I said, helping her bag the dress, the mask, and the black-sequined wrap she'd concocted.

The dress was too beautiful to simply ignore, so I drove to Madame Tomeeka's to show her. Tammy would appreciate the ball gown, and I owed her a visit. I didn't want her to worry about me.

I carried the dress to her front door and knocked. She opened the door and pulled me inside.

"Put it on," she said, showing me to a bedroom. "I don't want to see it on a hanger. I want to see it on you." She closed the door.

I slipped out of my clothes and into the dress, feeling very much like a princess. The dress could make Humpty-Dumpty feel beautiful. I walked into her front room and did a twirl to her applause.

"Girl, you're going to make every man at the Black and Orange Ball swoon with desire."

"
Hamilton
'll be there," I said, grinning like a fool.

"I know." She didn't grin back.

"What's wrong?" I'd restored
Hamilton
's reputation when I solved the case. He hadn't killed his mother.

"Put your clothes on and come drink some coffee with me," Tammy said. She went to the kitchen while I pulled on my jeans. I found her there, the coffee and a storm cloud on her forehead brewing.

"I've been dreaming about you," she said.

"I know."

"Well, I know what the dream means now."

"The lion and the wolf?" I was curious but not disturbed.

"You were between them, petting both, caring for both. But it can't last. They're predators, and you must choose one or the other." She poured us both a cup of coffee.

I was confused. "They're dream creatures."

"Dream images represent real things," Tammy said. "I knew as soon as I heard that
Hamilton
was back in the States that he was the wolf. And the lion is--"

"Coleman." I understood.

"What I'm afraid of, Sarah Booth, is that once you choose, the other will destroy you."

"Neither of them is like that. They wouldn't hurt me."

"Not intentionally. But the longer you drag it out, the harder it's going to be. On you and on them."

She came to me and hugged me. "I had a dream about your parents, too."

"I could use a little good news."

"They were dancing in the parlor like they used to do. Your mother looked up at your father and he bent and kissed her lips. She said, 'I love you.' They were so happy. Then she turned and looked at me, and they vanished."

"And what wisdom am I supposed to take from that?"

"Love is eternal, Sarah Booth. Trust your heart."

"It would seem that my heart is a greedy organ."

Tammy gave my arm a squeeze. "I've known you for a long, long time and I wouldn't agree with that." She checked her watch. "My client will be here any minute."

"And I need to get back on the road." I did. I knew Doreen would be waiting for me on pins and needles. "Thanks, Tammy."

"Be careful, Sarah Booth."

I didn't bother going back by Dahlia House. I headed south. I called Lee on my cell phone to make sure she and Kip could still tend to my critters. Once she agreed, I drove with a vengeance.

Getting the dress to my room without Tinkie seeing it was going to be a challenge, but I wanted it to be a surprise. I slunk through the lobby and tiptoed down the hallway to my room. When I opened the door, the aroma of the star-gazer lilies made me close my eyes and smile. The ball was going to be wonderful.