Bone Appetit by Carolyn - Sarah Booth 10 Haines

Author:Carolyn - Sarah Booth 10 Haines [Haines, Carolyn - Sarah Booth 10]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-01-14T19:16:21+00:00

Tinkie sat in an overstuffed chair in our room at the Alluvian. She’d thrown over our morning cooking class, too worried about Babs to concentrate on the difference between coddle and poach. “Babs hasn’t regained consciousness, so Chief Jansen can’t question her. He suspects she’s been poisoned.” Worry etched lines in her forehead. “He’s called in Doc Sawyer.”

Doc was Sunflower County’s emergency room physician. For a country doctor who’d tended my family—and most of the county—he’d developed a highly respected reputation for diagnosing strange maladies and poisons. Babs had to be very sick to call him in.

“Is Babs going to make it?” I’d taken a liking to the tall redhead.

“No one can say, but the chief thinks she was meant to die. He thinks we have a serial killer on the loose. I’m afraid he thinks it’s Hedy. He just doesn’t have enough evidence to make a charge stick. Yet.”

Easing onto the arm of Tinkie’s chair, I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Where is Hedy now?”

“In her room. She’s taking this hard.”

“Last night she and Babs went out together?”

“They went to a blues club in Clarksdale. Hedy said they had a few drinks, listened to the band, and came home. She left Babs in the car in the hotel parking lot listening to the end of a song. She said Babs was fine, a little tipsy. She wanted to smoke a cigarette and finish her song.”

“Do you believe Hedy?”

“Of course.” She stood up. “You don’t?”

“I do, but it’s strange that whenever something bad happens, Hedy is right on the scene.”

Tinkie put her hands on her hips. “That’s not true. Brook Oniada. Everyone saw her. She was on a stage with all the finalists.”

Once Tinkie believed in a person, she stuck through thick and thin.

“How do you account for the fact that Hedy was the last person to see Janet Menton alive and Babs in good health?” I asked.

“It’s Marcus. He’s engineering this. He has the money and the resources to make this happen. All Hedy wants is a chance to know her daughter. Marcus took advantage of her—twice! Once to get her pregnant, and then to get her to sign away her rights to Vivian. He used the most low-down tactics. Who can say he won’t kill to get what he wants? Maybe he planned the whole thing. Maybe he deliberately got Hedy pregnant. Now he has a child and no wife to tie him down.” Her hands clenched into fists. “Hedy has been sitting outside his home for two years, Sarah Booth. Whenever she gets off work for two days in a row, she comes up here and prays to get one tiny glimpse of her baby. Marcus won’t even give her a picture of Vivian.”

Tinkie’s scenario was possible, but I couldn’t buy into it totally, despite her passion. I didn’t doubt Marcus was a bastard through and through. Spoiled, undisciplined, lazy—those attributes applied. Murderer? I didn’t know him well enough.

“Clive and Marcus are good friends. Dawn told you so,” Tinkie said.

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