Smarty Bones (35 page)

I had no choice but to do as she directed. I laid the Glock beside the photograph. “So poisoning Boswell was an accident?”

“Forget Jimmy. Don’t you dare say his name.”

“I never knew you’d married.”

Anger whipped across her face and I thought for sure she’d plug me. “You aren’t much of a detective, Sarah Booth Delaney. You never bothered to check into me. I was just a woman who planted flowers and ran a bed-and-breakfast. I wasn’t worth your attention. I outsmarted you and the whole town. No one ever knew a true thing about me—except your mother. Not a single one of you cared what I dreamed about or who I loved.”

“My mother?”

“Don’t play innocent. She told you. You’ve made it clear you look down on me.”

“Told me what?” She’d tackled my brain with a sideways swipe. “What are you talking about? My mother’s been dead for twenty years. I was only twelve when she died. What should she have told me?”

“She swore she’d keep my secret, but I knew she’d tell. You’ve laughed behind my back for the last time.”

Gertrude held a gun, but no one called my mother a liar. “My mother’s word was gold.”

“All these years, I’ve watched you sneering down your nose at me.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

My denial incited her to hotter anger. “You knew I’d gotten in trouble and had to give my baby away. Libby Delaney promised me she’d take my sins to the grave with her, but she blabbed it to you.”

“My mother never spoke a word of it.”

“Your mother made the arrangements and paid the fees for me to leave town, have the baby, take some secretarial courses, and come back to Zinnia as if I’d been away at school. She promised never to tell. That I could come back home and pick up my life without anyone the wiser. She lied. She told you. I remember how close you two were. Thick as thieves.”

“My mother kept her word.” Pity warred with fury. “You didn’t know her very well, Gertrude. She never told me your secret. The only person looking down on you is yourself. What happened to your child?”

“He was adopted by a family in Vicksburg.”

“Jimmy Boswell was your son.” Never in a million years would I have thought I’d feel sorry for Gertrude. She’d always been mean as a snake. But I saw a different view of her—a woman who got in trouble in a town where everyone knew her business. Fear of public ridicule had driven her to give up her son. Now she had to blame someone, and it was me and my dead mother.

“Well aren’t you Miss Smarty Pants. It took you long enough to put it together. I gave up my son because I wouldn’t have him grow up in a town that would never forget he was a bastard. I did the loving thing for Jimmy.”

I did the quick calculations in my head, but came up without a name. “Who was Jimmy’s father?” I glanced at the photo again, and I knew. How could I have missed it? There was the aristocratic nose; the serious, wide blue eyes; the tousled dark blond curls. “Jeremiah Falcon. He got you pregnant and refused to acknowledge the child.”

“He did no such thing.” She drew herself up. “I never told him. He had his hands full. He gave up everything that mattered to him—his love of drawing and painting, his dreams—so he could become what his parents demanded. You have no idea what it did to him. He had the soul of an artist, and they didn’t recognize the value. He had to cut out the best part of him to please them. He was just a young man with a dream of creating masterpieces and they wouldn’t let him have even that. Had he shown up with me, a mature woman from the wrong side of town, his sacrifices would have been for nothing.”

“You seduced a teenager?” I’d seriously underestimated Gertrude.

Her laugh was bitter. “Things aren’t so simple, Sarah Booth. I was older, but far less experienced. Jeremiah had seen more of the world in his short life than I had. He was young in age, but older than me in the ways of the world. We fell in love. As wrong as it might have been, I didn’t take advantage of him. Your mother understood. Or at least she pretended to. She convinced me to give Jimmy up to a good home. She helped me start a new life. She promised I would forget about my baby, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Gertrude. I liked Boswell.”

“And if you’d known he was my boy, what would you have thought?”

“The same.”

“Liar!”

I wasn’t lying, but I decided to lay it on even thicker. Gertrude was completely unhinged. To save Graf, I would gladly play along with her. “Boswell was a gentle young man, and I wondered why he tolerated Twist’s abuse. I understand now—he was on a mission. You should be proud of him. A fallen soldier.”

Poor Jimmy Boswell had been born into insanity and he’d never had a chance. The son of Gertrude and Jeremiah, an unfortunate DNA donor team. He’d gotten all the way to Maine in a graduate program, but he’d never broken the tether to the craziness of his family and the past.

“Why are you being so nice?” she snapped.

I shrugged. She blocked the doorway, and she had a clear shot at me and Graf. I couldn’t afford to piss her off. Or rush her. I just had to keep her talking until Coleman arrived.

“Water.” Graf’s voice was weak.

“There’s water on his tray,” Gertrude said. “Give it to him. I took no pleasure in hurting him. He shouldn’t have tried to get away.”

“Why did you kidnap Graf?” She might hate me, but kidnapping Graf was a surefire ticket to having half the county on a search-and-rescue mission. She wouldn’t risk that kind of scrutiny just to hurt me.

“He overheard me arguing with Buford.”

“You introduced Jimmy to Buford and Jeremiah so he could have some contact with his father, even if he never knew Jeremiah was his dad.”

“Jeremiah respected Jimmy’s intellect. They were like father and son in that way. I didn’t want Jimmy to go to Maine but he won a scholarship to Camelton. He met Twist and read her publications. When he became aware of her interest in the Lady in Red, he told me and I told Jeremiah. It was agreed he should offer to work for Twist.”

The entire avalanche of disaster had been set in motion months before now. “And Twist happened to show up just when the Heritage Pride Heroes and their little political cell had put a plan in motion to subvert the judicial elections.”

“Jeremiah thought of the plan. It’s brilliant. No one pays attention to electing a judge. It was perfect. And Buford, with his investment background, was able to raise the funds.”

“Sarah Booth, water, please.” Graf sounded so feeble. Where was Coleman?

I opened the water bottle and handed it to Graf. His eyes were fevered, and the tiny movement of reaching for the water made him wince with pain. “I love you,” I said.

“Fine lot of good your love will do him. Can he be a leading man with a crippled leg?” Gertrude asked.

That was it. Mocking Graf’s injury was too much. “Who are you, freaking Annie Wilkes?” I’d intended to be nice but I couldn’t take any more. She was like a Stephen King character.

“Shame on you, Sarah Booth. Didn’t your mama ever tell you that your mouth would be the death of you? Now the real you comes out. You think you’re better than me, superior.”

“Screw you, you crazy bitch.” She’d pushed me over the edge, but I wasn’t alone in the house. Not by a long shot. While I’d been arguing with her, Sweetie had slipped up behind her, perfectly situated to trip the old bat. And Pluto waited, examining his claws.

I lunged at Gertrude, and Sweetie swung her rump to hit the innkeeper just behind the knees. She sprawled backwards. The gun fired and hit the ceiling. I dove at her and in a matter of seconds, I was sitting on top of her with my knees pinning her arms and her gun in my hand. For good measure Pluto dug into her scalp with all four claws.

“Get that devil cat off me. He’s tearing my head off.” She ripped and snorted, but she couldn’t budge us.

“Hold her, Sarah Booth. I’ll get the rope.” Graf grabbed his damaged leg and tried to move it. At his agonized cry I wanted to beat Gertrude damn near to death.

“It’s okay, Graf. Listen.” In the distance, sirens could be heard. “I have her. Just don’t move.” He was hurt so badly, but he was worried about me.

“Thank goodness.” He fell back on the bed.

“Bring them here quick, Sweetie. If Timmy was ever in the well, it’s now.”

Sweetie ran down the lane, barking at the rescue vehicles and leading them to the cottage. It was only a few minutes, but it seemed like hours before Coleman swept into the room followed by DeWayne, Doc, Tinkie, Cece, and Oscar.

Coleman made short work of cuffing Gertrude and putting her in the back of a patrol car. Doc went straight to Graf. I knelt on the floor beside the bed and smoothed his dark hair from his forehead. He was burning up with fever. The wound was infected. His focus drifted in and out.

Doc drew the covers back and revealed the mess that had once been Graf’s handsome leg. “No.” It was one word that slipped from me.

After an injection for pain, Doc started an IV of antibiotics. The bullet wound was above the knee. The flesh was purple and swollen around the jagged entry.

“The good news is she missed the joint,” Doc said, but I could tell by the tone of his voice that Graf’s injury was severe.

The EMTs pushed me out of the room. Tinkie and Cece flanked me and Oscar stood behind, a hand on my shoulder. “Doc will patch him up,” he said.

“Sure,” Cece added. “Good as new.”

“You’ll be dancing on your honeymoon before you know it,” Tinkie threw in.

The EMTs moved Graf onto a gurney and loaded him into the ambulance before I could ask a single question. “I want to ride with him,” I said.

“Take Sweetie and Pluto home,” Doc said. “Take a bath, have a drink. Relax a minute. He’s going straight into surgery as soon as he gets to Jackson. I gave him enough painkiller, he won’t be waking up for a while.”

“Can they save his leg?” I asked.

“I’ve never lied to you, Sarah Booth. It’s a nasty wound. The bone is a mess. He’s gone a day without medical care. This is serious.”

I was crying. “You could lie to me just this once and it would be fine.”

“We’ll take her home.” Tinkie’s arm cinched my waist, navigating me to the door. “Once she’s showered, we’ll drive down to Jackson.”

“No.” I broke free and ran to the ambulance. I couldn’t leave Graf. I had to be with him.

Doc grabbed me and held on tight. “You’ll need a vehicle, some clothes, his personal items. Gather them up.” He shook me lightly to make sure it sank in. “We aren’t equipped for reconstructive surgery here in Zinnia. It’s more than I can handle.”

If Doc wasn’t willing to work on Graf, he was in bad shape.

“I’m sending him to the smartest orthopedic group in the state. That’s the best chance of saving his leg,” Doc said. “Now, step back and let the ambulance go.”

Before the whirling red lights disappeared in the trees, I turned to Coleman. “Where’re Olive and Webber?”

“On their way to Memphis, but they’ll be picked up. Don’t worry, every road between here and the Tennessee line has an officer sitting on it. Thanks to you, we recovered the Lady in Red. She’ll be returned to Lexington for interment in the Odd Fellows Cemetery. Olive and Webber will spend time in jail. Probably worse to them, they’ll lose their academic credibility.”

Fury was like a snake in my head. “And make a million dollars off their book. Graf will lose everything important to him.”

“Not true.” Coleman touched my cheek and whispered in my ear. “He’ll still have you. There’s nothing in the world more important.” He tilted my chin up with a gentle finger. “They can perform miracles in medicine now. Be strong for him, Sarah Booth. Now I’m taking Gertrude to jail. And I’ve called in the election fraud unit. They’ll investigate Jeremiah and Buford and that crowd. The feds may be brought in, depending on what the financial records show about election tampering.”

Tinkie and Cece stepped up like bodyguards. “Time to leave.”

“I want to talk to Gertrude. Alone.” If I couldn’t be with Graf, I could finish it with Gertrude.

They eased me toward Graf’s Range Rover. “Not going to happen. Not today. Maybe later. Right now, Graf is all you need to think about. Gertrude isn’t going anywhere.”

“She poisoned her own son.” I tried to make it fit into a world I could comprehend.

“She meant to kill Olive,” Cece said. “That’s enough to drive anyone nuts. But she’s been crazy for years. Our mistake was assuming she was harmless.”

Cece had no clue Boswell was her nephew. She, too, had suffered a loss through no fault of her own. I would tell her, when we had a moment to sit and have a drink.

“Cece, I’m sorry about Jeremiah.”

Cece gave her one-shouldered shrug. “Legal fees will likely force the sale of the ancestral home, dah-link, but it’s been gone a long time. It was never really mine. For a while, it was my cocoon, a place to be while I changed and metamorphosed. But it was never my home, not the place I was destined to live. Now I’m truly free of the web of the past.”

“I love you, Cece.” Tinkie blew her a kiss. “And you, too, Sarah Booth.”

“All of this, and we were never paid a dime. Olive confessed she never intended to pay us,” I said, because I couldn’t bear to talk about Graf or the loss of Magnolia Grove or the death of a young man warped by foolish hatred.

*   *   *

I locked the bathroom door against Tinkie and Cece, not because I didn’t appreciate their loving concern, but I was suffocating from fear and grief. I turned on the shower and stepped under the stinging spray with my clothes on. As the water pounded me, I slowly undressed.

“Sarah Booth, are you okay?” Tinkie tapped on the door.

“I’m good. Please, I just want to stay here, in the water, for a moment.”

“I could hand you a towel.”

“I don’t intend to drown myself.” I almost smiled. Tinkie knew me too well. “I’ll finish cleaning up and then we’ll drive to Jackson.” It was pointless to believe I could escape her a second time. Besides, I didn’t want to. Tinkie and Cece were my rocks. I couldn’t face this without them.

I finished the shower, put on makeup, jeans, sandals, and a cotton shirt in Graf’s favorite color, green, to match my eyes. I threw my belongings in a bag and then packed his toiletries and clean clothes. He wouldn’t want to wear a hospital gown. He’d hate that, especially when he started rehab. He wouldn’t want his back door flapping. I found loose shorts, T-shirts, and a robe.