Hallowed Bones (34 page)

She began a soft chant that was the most peaceful sound in the world. It wrapped itself around me and held me safely.

When Doreen spoke again, I was floating in a pool of golden light. I opened my eyes and looked at the people in the class. They were all ages, all types. Yet it seemed the sunshine outside the window had penetrated them. For that one moment, they looked blissful.

Doreen thanked the class and dismissed them. I waited for her at the back door. "Did you meditate?" she asked.

"I did. It was strangely... peaceful."

"I could recommend some books."

"Yours?"

"No, actually there are plenty of people who've done a lot of research into meditation and the connection between mind, body, and spirit. That isn't my field. I just like to meditate."

"It's a little passive."

She laughed out loud. "Sarah Booth, you have the most peculiar ideas sometimes."

"Doreen, have you talked with your lawyer lately?"

She looked up at the skylight as we walked through the Center. "He says he's won cases with less to work with."

He probably had, but he wasn't telling her about the ones he'd lost. "I haven't found anything really helpful to you."

"You have to keep looking, Sarah Booth. You and Tinkie. No one else really cares whether I'm innocent or not. No one else cares who killed my baby."

"I really had my hopes pinned on Pearline, but she didn't kill Rebekah."

"No, she didn't."

"Is it possible the medication could have been put in the formula accidentally?"

"No, I was careful about Rebekah's medications. So was Pearline. Besides, we didn't have any barbiturates in the apartment. I don't use prescription drugs."

I nodded. "You told me that none of the men suspected they could be the father."

"That's right. I never let on to any of them when I got pregnant. And I made it clear to all that I was sleeping with other people."

"And none of the three had access to your apartment?"

"I never gave anyone a key."

I nodded. "We're going to have to narrow this field. We need that DNA test and we need it now."

"I'll call LeMont and see what he says," she volunteered.

"It's a start."

"What's a start?" Michael asked, coming around a corner. He wore a dove-gray suit with a black tie and white shirt. He managed to look both conservative and individual. It was a neat trick.

"The work on the archetype tapes," Doreen answered smoothly. "I was telling Sarah Booth that I had another taping session this afternoon."

"Is there a conflict?" Michael asked.

Doreen had always been so open with Michael, I couldn't help but wonder why she'd chosen not to discuss the DNA with him. But I was glad. It was awkward for a suspect to know every move we made.

"No conflict," I said, smiling. "Tinkie and I are having our tea leaves read."

Michael laughed. "You want to dabble but you're afraid of the real thing, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why not just ask Doreen to read your tarot cards?" he suggested.

Doreen shook her head. "Don't push so hard, Michael. The tearoom is perfect for what Tinkie needs." She walked away.

"I'm concerned," Michael said when she was out of earshot. "Have you found anything to help her case?"

"As a matter of fact, we have," I said, deciding on the big bluff. It was sometimes effective in poker. "I'm just not at liberty to discuss it with you now."

I turned and began to walk away when I felt his hand on my shoulder.

"Doreen is the heart of this operation. Can you clear her?" There was something close to anger in his eyes.

"I can't make any promises. I can only tell you that Tinkie and I are on top of things."

28

Madame Rochelle's Tearoom was a quaint little place with
half a dozen dainty tables and a warren of back rooms where various psychics foretold the future with cards, palm reading, and patterns of tea leaves.

Tinkie and I ordered some green tea and sipped while we waited our turn.

"I don't think this is a good idea," I said for the third time. "When we get home, we can go see Tammy." I pressed a little harder. "Remember, we have to be home Thursday for your doctor's appointment."

"I haven't forgotten," Tinkie said, her smile patient. "Dr. Graham is far too handsome to disappoint."

I could only admire her courage. I knew how upset and frightened she'd been only a few days before. Now she was able to kid around about her fetish for handsome doctors.

"You promised me," I reminded her.

"I'll make my appointment," she said. She touched my hand on the table. "Only good friends care enough to bully like you do, Sarah Booth."

"I don't care if you call it manipulation, bullying, or mothering, as long as you make that appointment." I sipped the hot tea, knowing exactly why coffee had become the traditional drink in my household. I didn't know anyone who drank tea on a daily basis, and couldn't imagine why anyone would.

A slender woman with dark eyes came over to our table. "Gwendolyn will see you," she said to Tinkie. Tinkie had picked her because the name had appealed to her love of Arthurian legend.

"Come on, Sarah Booth," she said. "You have to go with me." We followed our guide back through several narrow hallways to a curtained cubicle. She drew aside the orange cloth and ushered us in.

My first glimpse of Gwendolyn made me stop in my tracks. She had hair that must have been five feet long. It hung in a braid that fell over one shoulder and swept the floor by her feet. She wore purple, layers of fabric that held no discernible shape, but beneath it all she was slender. Her blue eyes were oddly shaped, almost like teardrops, and she didn't blink as she waited for us to sit.

"What is it you wish to know?" she asked with a hint of an accent.

"Are you from
Germany
?" I asked.

"You can remain with your friend but you must be quiet," she said firmly.

Tinkie put a finger to her lips and winked at me. "I want to know about my future," she said. "Am I going to have a child?"

Gwendolyn assessed Tinkie's slim figure, her perfect hair and makeup. She reached across her small table and picked up Tinkie's hand. Instead of reading it, she held it.

"I see a girl," she said. "Blonde, with a big smile."

"A girl," Tinkie said with such a rush of emotion that I felt a stab of pain. I hadn't realized how much Tinkie wanted a child.

"She's swinging... in a garden."

"I have a garden with a swing," Tinkie said. "Is she alone? Are there other children?"

Gwendolyn's face had gone strangely slack. She squeezed Tinkie's hand and released it. "There is only the one child." She hesitated. "Sometimes decisions can't be undone," she said gently.

"What?" Tinkie said, paling. "What are you saying?"

"Only that we all make choices and take certain paths. Sometimes we can't go back and take a different path."

I looked from one to the other. I had no clue what Gwendolyn was talking about, but whatever it was, she was upsetting Tinkie. My friend dashed tears from her face with angry fists.

"Why are you saying this?"

"I can only tell you what I see," Gwendolyn said. "Your child is alone, but she isn't unhappy. She says to tell you that she understands."

Tinkie stood up so fast that she knocked the psychic's small table over. "I don't know who you are, but you're a very cruel woman."

"No, I'm not," Gwendolyn said. "Think back on this and remember. She understood."

Tinkie slammed out of the small room, with me hot on her heels. I caught up with her on the street and withdrew the hand I'd lifted to grasp her shoulder. One look at her face told me to stow my questions.

It took her eight blocks in high heels before she'd slow enough for me to catch my breath. "You were right, Sarah Booth. We shouldn't have gone there," she said. "Don't ever mention it to me again. I'm going back to the hotel to take a nap unless you need me to do something."

Hamilton
wasn't at
his apartment or answering his cell phone, and I was left with the ugly reality that LeMont had to be dealt with. It was time to fish or cut bait. As soon as I thought the phrase, I cringed. I was becoming some kind of adage addict. I couldn't go half an hour without spouting--or thinking--some old truism.

LeMont answered my call on the second ring.

"I'll meet you at Napoleon's, as long as you're buying," he said.

"Whatever." I still wasn't certain how to play LeMont. He was the joker in the deck. Was he a legitimate police detective or a henchman for the Clays? I didn't know what to make of him, and he wasn't an easy man to read.

The restaurant he'd chosen was as old as anything in the city; Napoleon Bonaparte had once dined there, or at least ordered out. Since I arrived first, I chose the darkest corner and waited. LeMont breezed through the door and I caught a glimpse of how handsome he could be if he allowed it.

I motioned him back to the corner. "We need to talk," he said as he waved the waiter over and gave his drink order.

I wasn't going to argue with that.

"I'm a good detective. I do my job and I do it properly."

Now that was a debatable point, but I didn't say anything.

"My father worked for Henri Boudet. They grew up in the swamps together. Dad was killed when I was fourteen. Mr. Boudet sent money to my mother every week so my family could survive. There were ten of us kids. He put six of us through college, including me."

I hadn't known for certain what the connection between LeMont and Ellisea was, but I hadn't expected this heart-tugging confession of the good deeds of Henri Boudet. "I have to tell you, LeMont, that may be the only good thing I've ever heard about Boudet."

He took the drink the waiter deposited in front of him and swallowed half of it. "He's a bad man. And a powerful one. When he whispers, every politician in this town bends down to listen. But he isn't totally evil. He was good to me and my family."

"So you owe Henri Boudet?"

LeMont shook his head. "I don't owe Henri anything. I don't. And I made that clear to him. But he asked me to look out for Ellisea, as a favor. That I do. I try to keep her safe and out of trouble."

"Sounds like a full-time job."

"It can be. Ellisea is self-destructive. She's... dangerous, but mostly to herself."

"Tell that to Cece."

"Your friend provoked her. Once provoked, Ellisea is like a snake. She doesn't care who she bites, she just strikes."

"How far would you go to protect Ellisea?"

The question pissed him off, but he checked his temper. "Not far enough to jeopardize a case, if that's what you're thinking. I try to keep Ellisea's name out of the paper when she gets in scrapes. When the senator's out of town, I sometimes tail her to make sure she's safe. That's as far as it goes."

He sounded so sincere. But Ted Bundy must have seemed like a nice guy to the girls he picked up--until he killed them.

"Is Ellisea capable of killing a baby if she thought it might jeopardize her husband's career?"

He finished his drink. "Yes, she's capable of that. But she didn't do it. The senator isn't the father. The DNA tests came back. None of those men are the father."

29

DOREEN WASN'T AT THE CENTER AND SHE WASN'T AT HER HOME. But Starla was there, and I accepted the cup of hot tea she offered as I sat shivering in the failing light of the courtyard. I had time to kill until I could find Doreen and wring her neck.

"I've gone over and over this whole thing," Starla said. "I just can't make sense of any of it."

She didn't know the half of it. "I wish I could say that I had some solid leads." With paternity ruled out as a motive, I didn't even have a suspect.

"If Doreen had wanted to kill Rebekah, she could have skipped some of her medication, or simply suffocated her. Why would she put medicine in a bottle that would show up in a blood test? They do tests in every autopsy now. Everyone knows that."

I put down my cup of tea. Starla had hit on something important. "Whoever killed Rebekah knew the murder would be detected," I said.

"The one thing that's bothered me the most is how Doreen could sleep through someone getting into her apartment and drugging her baby," Starla said.

"Not if someone had drugged her, too." Damn! I was a day late and a dollar short. I should have thought of this in the beginning. Doreen's blood had never been tested and now it was too late. If there were any barbiturates in her system from the night Rebekah was murdered, they were long gone.

Starla's eyes widened. "Now that makes sense." She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "If I were you, I'd be looking for someone who meant to hurt Doreen. I don't think someone killed Rebekah to get her out of the way, I think they meant to make Doreen suffer."