Part 18 (1/2)

”I called her studio in Jackson and left word for her to call me. She wasn't at work, but the receptionist said she'd return my call as soon as she arrived.”

In the background I could hear Bonnie Louise saying something. While river rescue wasn't likely a part of the CDC mission statement, I knew a body search would accept any and all volunteers. The Mississippi River didn't like to give up her conquests.

Coleman came back on the telephone. ”I have to go, Sarah Booth.”

”I'm in West Point. I'll stay on--” Janks took that moment to execute a sharp left turn across traffic. There was no way I could follow him.

”Coleman?” I turned left at the next block, hoping to catch up with Janks. ”Coleman?”

There was no answer from the sheriff, and Janks had vanished.

Disappearing acts were getting to be old hat--and I didn't care for them. Perhaps Janks had realized he had a tail and deliberately dumped me, or maybe h.e.l.l had opened and swallowed him whole. What ever, he'd vanished.

Cursing did no good. Conjuring Janks wasn't in my power. A fifteen-minute cross-search of the town told me Janks had slipped by me. My only lead to Cece, tenuous though it was, had been severed.

I parked in front of the busiest shop in town, a place called Bits and Pieces. As I watched customers come and go, I tried Cece's phone. No answer. At home, on her cell, or at the newspaper.

Since I was in West Point, I decided to make my drive count.

I hurried inside the shop to see if anyone there knew the Entrekin family. Luck was on my side. The store owner, Bill East, not only knew the Entrekins but had gone to school with Lana. His fondness for her was easy to see.

”Gregory Carlisle was a handsome and wealthy man,” Bill said as he organized a rack of wind chimes made from melted gla.s.s bottles. ”Almost everyone in town thought Lana had made the catch of the century.”

”Except you?”

He shrugged. ”Folks say money can't buy happiness. I happen to believe that. Before Lana married, we talked a good bit. She wasn't totally convinced but felt she could make a go of the marriage and of living in the Delta.”

”Did you see Lana after she married and moved away?”

He straightened a box of pens on the counter. ”About two weeks before she died, she came home. Her parents were already dead, but she stayed at her old family home. I think she was homesick.”

”Did she say that?”

He shook his head. ”Not in those words.”

”But you talked with her?”

”In town, on the street. Nothing personal. Just friendly conversation. I saw her one evening, at a party. My wife and I talked to her for half an hour. She waited outside until I went out to smoke a cigarette.”

”And?”

”She was unhappy.” He paced the narrow aisle filled with unusual relics, antiques, and original artwork. ”She talked about our high school days for a few minutes and then she left.”

”Do you remember what she said?”

”Nothing that made sense. She said the Carlisle name was more than just land and money but that it had never been her name. Not really.”

”That was it?” No earth-shattering revelations that would clearly identify Lana's killer--if she was killed.

”She seemed sad. I offered to call one of her children, but she said no, she'd head back to Sunflower County in a day or two. And she did.”

”Why did she come back to West Point?” I asked.

”I found out later, it was to buy a burial plot. A single plot, beneath an old magnolia tree at the foot of a hill in the West Point cemetery.”

”She's not buried beside her parents?”

”No, she's alone.”

He drew me a map of the town and showed me how to get to the cemetery, and then he shook my hand and bade me farewell.

17.

Before I left West Point, I drove by the cemetery where Lana Entrekin Carlisle had been laid to rest. The last of the fog was lifting in wisps, revealing a well-shaped magnolia tree, the leaves a green so dense, they looked black against the bright gra.s.s. Beneath the tree was a single headstone.

As I approached, I saw that someone had left fresh flowers on the grave. Violets. Their deep purple contrasted with the silvery granite of the stone, and I gently picked them up.

Violets are delicate and wilt shortly after they're cut. I had a vague memory of gathering the shy blooms with my Grandmother Booth as we walked along one of the wooded trails behind her home. We'd always wait until we turned toward home to pick the wild blossoms that grew in clumps protected by leaves and shadows. Holding them for the short walk home took a toll on them.

The flowers in my hand were unwilted. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to find fresh violets--not exactly the easiest plant to locate.

Movement in my peripheral vision made me swing around. Jimmy Janks sprinted from behind an oak tree and hauled a.s.s across the cemetery. He jumped gravestones like hurdles.

”Hey!” I took off after him, dropping the flowers and my purse. ”Janks! Stop!”

He ignored me. I put on a burst of speed, hopping the graves behind him, amazed that my old track instincts kicked in. Aunt Loulane would never approve of such disrespect for the dead, but I had to catch the fleeing developer.

”Janks! Where's Cece?” He was drawing away from me, and I was tiring.

He looked back over his shoulder once, then vaulted the wrought-iron fence that encircled the cemetery. By the time I climbed the fence, he was driving away.

I'd lost him.

Again.

I caught my breath before I went back to retrieve my purse, forcing the images of a dead body floating in dark river water out of my head.

As a matter of respect, I gathered up the violets and returned them to Lana's grave. Her stone marker was simple and plain. ”Lana Entrekin Carlisle,” the dates of her birth and death, and one small quote: ”Home Forever.” A pain touched my chest at those words.

No matter how many questions I had, Lana couldn't answer them. As I started up the slope toward my car, I saw a woman kneeling in the Saint Augustine gra.s.s, tending a grave.

Once the introductions were exchanged and I explained my pell-mell rush across hallowed ground, I realized that Lucille Armstrong was a sharp-eyed observer of human nature. She'd not only seen Jimmy Janks, she'd watched him.

”He put the violets on the grave,” she said, ”then stood there. I think he might have been talking.”

She was too far away to hear the conversation, but she was astute at reading body language.