Bones to Pick (35 page)

Tinkie walked to the other side of the bed and picked up his left hand. She squeezed it tightly. "Coleman Peters, you'd better get well. I won't have any malingering on the job. Folks around
Sunflower
County
need you, and I know one particular private investigator who can't make it without you." She kissed his hand and put it back on the bed.

"I never thought I'd see Coleman so . . . still."

"He said the same thing about you, Sarah Booth, when you were shot. He was hovering over you just like you're doing with him. You probably don't remember it, but you were pale, too. You looked so thin lying on that emergency room table. We were all afraid you'd die, but you pulled out of it just fine, and so will he."

I'd never appreciated Tinkie's optimism more than now. "Thank you, Tinkie."

"Coleman will thank me, too, when he comes to." She picked up her purchases. "I'm going to take these on to Room 43. Why don't you stay here with him until they move him? Then we'll decide what we should do about going home."

"Sounds good to me."

I sat on the foot of his bed and watched the nurses come back and forth to check him. They told me there was no fresh bleeding, which was a good sign. They changed out the blood transfusion bag and gave him another one. Drop by drop, they were replacing what had leaked out of him. Surely it would soon make a difference, and his color would improve.

An hour later, two orderlies came to wheel Coleman to his room. His condition had not improved at all, but the nurses who'd checked him said it wasn't uncommon. He'd been heavily sedated for the surgery.

I wasn't soothed, but I could only follow his gurney past a nurses' station and closed doors. The doctor was standing in the hallway with Tinkie, and there was an intimacy between them that reminded me of Tinkie's former flirtations with handsome men of the medical profession.

They looked up at me and both smiled. "Coleman is holding his own, Sarah Booth. That's good. Very good. Each hour that passes gives him a better chance."

"Your husband is a strong, healthy man," the doctor said, and for the first time I noticed his name, Larry Martin. He patted my shoulder. "He may stay sedated until tomorrow. Now would be a good time for you to go home and get some rest. We'll take good care of him."

Dr. Martin pulled a prescription pad from his pocket, jotted a few words, tore off the sheet, and handed it to me. "Mrs. Richmond has told me a little of what transpired. I've written you a script for a few light sedatives. Have it filled and try to sleep. Believe me, when Sheriff Peters does wake up, you're going to need all of your patience to deal with him. He doesn't strike me as the kind of man who'll be easy to manage while he recovers."

I took the prescription and put it in my pocket.

"Thank you, Larry," Tinkie said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "I really owe you."

She took my arm and propelled me down the corridor before I could protest. In truth, I was suddenly exhausted. I'd had almost no sleep the night before, and the day had been a horror-movie blur.

"I should stay." It was a feeble protest at best.

"I'll take you home. Tomorrow you can come back and entertain him."

"Are you sure there's going to be a tomorrow?" Tinkie wouldn't fib to me about this.

"Larry was concerned right after the surgery, but Coleman has had two pints of blood, and he's holding his own. It's looking much, much better." She pushed through the doors to the parking lot. "I called the sheriff's office with a progress report. Gordon told me the deaths of Belinda Loper, Betty Reynolds, and Karla Jenkins have been reopened based on our investigation. A reporter from the
Memphis
Commercial Appeal
wants to interview us."

"I don't want to talk to anyone." I sank into the passenger seat of my car. Tinkie had the keys and refused to yield them.

"That's today. Wait until tomorrow. I think a photograph of the two of us at Coleman's bedside would play well. We'll have more cases than we can shake a stick at."

"You are the optimist, aren't you?" Something was up with Tinkie. She was her old bubbly self. "Did that doctor give you some kind of happy drugs?" "Absolutely not."

"Then what's wrong with you? You're positively perky." "Sarah Booth, I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, after you've had a chance to rest up."

26

I sat in the barn, listening to Reveler munch his grain. For the first time since Coleman had been shot, I felt my heart settle to its normal position. Sweetie Pie curled at my feet in the hay, and I leaned back against a bale and closed my eyes, inhaling the lingering scent of summer that had been baled in the dried grass. The hospital would call me as soon as Coleman regained consciousness. The doctors and nurses were still under the misimpression that I was his wife, so they swore they'd call. All I could do was wait. And hope that everything would be okay.

"Not everyone you love is going to die."

There was the rustle of silk, and I didn't have to look to know that Jitty had joined me. Never before had she left Dahlia House to venture to the barn. Jitty, with her elegant wardrobe and otherworldly beauty, was not interested in farm life.

"Slow night at court?" I asked, keeping my eyes closed.

"The intrigues of society pale beside the needs of family."

I sat up and looked at Jitty shimmering in the dim barn light. Her gown was truly spectacular, a pale champagne with gold stitching. "I'm okay," I assured her. "You look ready for an audience with the king. Why don't you go on about your business? I'm truly fine."

"Pride is the most dangerous of all the sins, Sarah Booth."

She'd called my bluff, so there was no point lying. Jitty knew me too well, and she could hear the hurt in my voice. "Okay, I'm as fine as I can be with Coleman lying in a hospital bed."

The ball gown rustled provocatively. "Let's take a walk."

Jitty had never been one for voluntary exercise. I rose slowly, forcing Sweetie to stretch and yawn. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

She may have left the court behind, but she was still mysterious. I supposed it was the prerogative of a ghost. I followed her out of the barn and into the chill night. I noticed the Christmas garland I'd used to decorate the banister of the back steps. The holiday was only a couple of weeks away, and I hadn't bought the first gift.

Instead of heading to the house, Jitty turned beside the barn, directing me toward the back pasture. My curiosity was piqued, and I fell in step beside her. It would do no good to beg her for information. Jitty had all the time in the world and wouldn't be hurried.

We followed along the fence, our way lighted by millions of stars and a half-moon strong enough to cast shadows. It was a beautiful, crisp night, and I inhaled the cold air.

"When your mama was worried or tired or unsettled, she'd come out here," Jitty said. "She had a special place where she said she could think more clearly."

I hadn't thought of that in a long time. My mother was a great one for tramping over the land when she was upset. She often said the land was where she found the things that were important, and that a walk over the property cleared her head. My mother had loved Dahlia House and all the land surrounding it with deep passion. When I'd first come home from
New York City
, I'd almost lost the property to the bank. I'd understood then how much my mother cared for this place, because I felt that love, that connection, as real as blood. Now, strolling beside Jitty, I felt it again.

Walking among the moon shadows cast by the trees, I put aside my fear and felt the comfort of the land. Here was where I belonged. When all else failed, this land was still here, alive and growing, sustaining.

"I knew you'd feel better out here," Jitty said.

"How did you know?"

"It's always worked this way for the Delaney women."

Now that was an interesting twist. The land had been in my father's family, yet it was my mother who'd fallen under its spell. "Only the women?"

She shook her head. "Not only, but most deeply. When things were at their worst during the War Between the States, there were times when
Alice
wanted to quit. She could have gone back to
Charleston
,
West Virginia
, where she had a sister. But she couldn't leave this place. She'd dreamt the dream of the land, and she couldn't leave."

"Is that why you're here, Jitty?"

"This was never my land." She chuckled softly. "No, I stayed for
Alice
. I loved her like a sister. And now I stay for you."

As we walked side by side, I considered the gift of her presence. She nagged and tormented and prodded, but I'd come to count on her being at Dahlia House. In a sense, she was my family.

"Thank you," I said.

"Keep walking. There's something for you to see."

We passed the family cemetery, the stones cold and gray in the winter night. This is where I thought we'd stop, but we didn't. We walked in silence until we came to a grove of old oaks, limbs spreading out to touch the ground. Acorns crunched underfoot, and the air was cold and pure.

I'd played here as a young child, drawing lines in the dirt to outline my "house," and building roads and dirt towns to gallop my plastic horses over and through. Sometimes, I'd leave my toys, and when I came back the next day, they would be moved, as if some other child had played with them.

"This is the fairy spot." I smiled as I said the words.

"I thought you might remember," Jitty said.

"I loved it when Mama brought me here. In the cool shade."

"This was one of her favorite places on the entire plantation. She found a lot of comfort here."

"She'd let me play while she sat on that tree limb." I pointed, and for a moment I almost saw her, dark hair tied back in a scarf, red lips smiling when I told her about the fairies. She never felt the need to refute my stories, had never tried to make me toe the line of acceptable beliefs. She'd always encouraged me to play and dream. My smile matched the ghost of hers.

"It's a very special place," Jitty said. "There's not a lot of difference between fairies and ghosts."

"Your point is well-taken." I took a seat in the crook of a swooping limb. "Why did you bring me out here?"

"Your mama was a remarkable woman."

"She was, but we didn't have to come out here to agree on that." Jitty normally preferred to have our discussions in the comfort of the house.

"She's never left you, Sarah Booth."

The lump in my throat was instant. "Oh, but she did. She and Daddy both." I'd been twelve when a car accident had claimed their lives.

Jitty shook her head, beautiful pearl earrings dancing in the moonlight. "No, she's here with you now. Both of your parents are here."

The tears I'd bottled up for so long began to fall. "I want them to be alive." And then I realized the genius of Jitty's walk. "I want Coleman to live. I can't bear it if anything happens to him." I was sobbing outright.

"Whatever happens with Coleman, you'll be okay."

I was instantly furious. "That's not good enough. I'm tired of losing everyone I love. I'm tired of death. I'm sick of the pain. Coleman would be in his office, tending to business, if he hadn't tried to save me."

Jitty sighed. "Loving someone means allowing him to be who he is, Sarah Booth. Coleman did what he wanted to do. It's not your place to judge him or yourself."

"Coleman can be whoever he wants, as long as he's alive." I would give him up. I would let him go, if only he wouldn't die.

There was sadness in her voice. "Death is only an extreme form of change."

"Call it by any name you wish, but it is an ending, a conclusion to being here with me. My parents are gone. Coleman is seriously wounded. He could die, and then he'll be gone from me."

Jitty walked slowly through the clearing, turned, and came back to me. "He's going to be okay."

There was something in the way she said it that chilled me. "Okay? What does that mean?"

"He'll survive the gunshot."

"Survive?" Jitty was playing coy at a game I didn't understand.

"He'll recover from the wound."

I felt the pressure of additional tears. "Are you sure?"

She nodded.

"Thank goodness." Relief swept over me like a gentle wind. "Thank goodness."

"The bullet didn't strike you, Sarah Booth, but you were wounded nonetheless. Keep that in mind. You have to heal as much as Coleman does."

"I'll be fine as long as he's okay."

Jitty only stared at me a long moment and shook her head. "Coleman will not die."

We started back toward the lights of Dahlia House, walking side by side. I could tell by the furrow in her brow that she was worried. "I'm okay," I assured her.

We made it to the barn in silence. "You are the hard-headedest woman I've ever met," she said at last.