Bones of Holly: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery

1

Jingle Bell Rock pours from a local jewelry store on the Main Street of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. I walk with my friend and business partner, Tinkie, who pushes her daughter Maylin in a super-duper stroller. We pause to admire the diamonds, emeralds, and beautiful designs on display in the storefront. The window is decorated with a real cedar and holly garland that carries the scent of so many Christmases past. No store-bought decorations can ever replace the power of the real thing.

Oh, Sarah Booth, look at the square-cut emerald. Isn’t that your birthstone?

Tinkie loves beautiful jewelry, and I stop beside her to admire the ring. It is beautiful, but jewelry doesn’t do it for me, Tinkie.

I know. You’d rather have a hoe or wheelbarrow. Dear goodness, you are a bad role model for all the feminine women who enjoy the finer things in life.

I laugh with her. Tinkie is the perfect society lady and the perfect mother, facts which also sometimes cause people to underestimate her intelligence. But we aren’t here in this beautiful Mississippi coastal town for work. This trip is part of our Christmas celebrations.

Bay St. Louis, a small town on the high ground of the Bay of St. Louis, was nearly wiped from the map during Hurricane Katrina. But it has come back strong, retaining the quaint and eclectic flavor that made it such a destination spot for artists, writers, designers, and those who love the coastal way of life. Booze, gambling, and easy women, while not always legal, were always available down the entire coastline from New Orleans to Alabama. Unlike so much of the rest of Mississippi, the coast has always been a live and let live kind of place.

Tinkie had found us the perfect place to stay for our visit. She was a master of locating unique accommodations, and the Bay Moon Inn, operated by two eccentric and very likable sisters, Martha and Ellie, was absolutely marvelous.

We move on down the street, admiring antiques, chic dress shops, restaurants with mouthwatering menus posted on chalkboards, and bars where cleaning crews are setting up for the afternoon. Christmas decorations are everywhere—and the tradition of creating Christmas scenes in storefront windows is still alive here. I love it.

The baby’s stroller has a slight creak in one wheel. It’s an amusing fact to me and Maylin but one that is driving my partner in Delaney Detective Agency, Tinkie Bellcase Richmond, to a near breakdown.

If that stroller doesn’t stop creaking like that, I’m going to buy some lighter fluid and matches and put it out of its misery. Tinkie kicks the protesting wheel, though not very hard. Precious cargo rides in that stroller.

Oil can! I pretend to freeze in place and eke the two words out of a frozen mouth. Oil can! I slap my leg at the knee and take a precarious step, acting as if my joints are frozen by rust. Oil can! The Wizard of Oz is my all-time favorite movie.

You are a wart on Satan’s buttocks. Tinkie glares at me, but Maylin giggles. The baby is not even two months old but she is very advanced. Or so the wags of my hometown, Zinnia, Mississippi, tell me. Maylin, the long-awaited offspring of Zinnia’s most prominent family, Oscar and Tinkie Richmond, is the darling of the town. And I, for one, couldn’t be happier. Maylin is a miracle baby, coming when every doctor in the Southeast said that Tinkie could never have a child.

Sarah Booth, stop acting like the rusted tin man and do something about that wheel.

Like I can magically conjure up some oil? I ask, but I had noticed a quaint hardware store on the corner we just passed. Tinkie, Maylin, Oscar, and their nanny Pauline, are all in town along with my fellow, Sheriff Coleman Peters, and me, to judge the local library’s annual Christmas tree decorating contest. Later we’ll be joined by friends and loved ones for what has become our annual Christmas trip to a small Mississippi town. Tinkie, Oscar, Pauline, and Maylin came down in one car, and Coleman and I traveled down in the Roadster, my mother’s antique convertible, which I refuse to give up for any reason.

Coleman and Oscar nearly ran over themselves heading to the casinos that have proliferated all down the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Legalized gambling has changed the sleepy fishing villages of Biloxi and Gulfport into major tourist destinations. Not normally gamblers, Coleman and Oscar were eager for a few games of chance, and Tinkie and I were glad to see them go. We have last-minute shopping to finish.

I’ll get some oil for that wheel. I point back to the hardware store. Then I point in the other direction. There’s a pottery place if you want to wait for me there. I grin to hide my true motive. I will get the oil, but I also want to pick up a battery-operated drill for Oscar. Tinkie has him putting together all kinds of baby stuff and Oscar has never been handy. The drill should help him out a lot.

Pottery! Tinkie’s eyes go wide. I need to find something for Millie. Something unique. That would be perfect.

Meet you there in fifteen. And don’t kick the stroller again. If you knock the wheel off, you’ll have to papoose that baby everywhere you go.

I wonder who’d help me carry her? Tinkie asks, all big, blue-eyed innocence—because she knows I love toting that little dumpling around. Maylin is all smiles and curiosity. Seeing the world from what I perceive as her view gives everything a new glow.

Tinkie, Maylin, and the creaking wheel head to the pottery gallery while I dash back to the hardware emporium to grab some oil and the drill. There’s a commotion in the alley between the hardware store and a boutique, and I stop to see what’s what. Moving down the alley is a woman in stilettos and a midnight blue sequined gown with a matching cap on top of carefully set chestnut waves. Whoever she is, she is from another era. Or at least dressed for another time.

Hey! My curiosity must be fed. Hey, hold up!

She turns to look at me and I realize I know her. Not personally, but she’s famous. She’s Clara Bow. I knew about her film career that started in silent films and continued into talkies. Her early life was tragic, and film success didn’t erase the hardships she’d endured, but when she was in front of a camera, she had it. She projected a magical life filled with joy and happiness. Hey, wait up! She turns right at the end of the alley and disappears.

What is a long-dead movie star doing in a Bay St. Louis alley? I take off to find out.

Clara! I catch up with her behind the store, and I realize I know her better than I thought. Clara is actually Jitty, my resident haint. She’s followed me from Dahlia House in Zinnia down to the Gulf Coast. What are you doing here, Jitty? I know she won’t tell me, but I ask anyway.

Louella Parsons says I have a dangerous pair of eyes.

She does. Her eyes, highlighted with heavy kohl, are mesmerizing. And sad. Are you okay?

She nods. Better than okay most days. Drink the cup of joy, Sarah Booth. Pass up the cup of misery whenever you can.

It’s grand advice, but it chills me to think she’s talking about something specific. She won’t tell me the truth, so I ask another question. Are you Christmas shopping for the Great Beyond?

No, I’m bird-dogging you to make sure you don’t wreck Christmas with some of your shenanigans.

Now that is the kind of smart-ass answer that lightens my heart. Kind of hard to be a gumshoe in stilettos.

Jitty does a little turn, cocks a hip, and strikes a pose. I see the spark of life that makes Clara Bow famous.

I don’t have time for this foolishness. I am amused, but Tinkie has become impatient since Maylin’s birth. Her hormones are all aflutter, and unless she’s super-heating her credit card she will be tapping her foot waiting for me. Go home to Dahlia House, Jitty. I’ll be there soon. I have to judge the tree contest and then do a little celebrating with my friends.

That good-lookin’ lawman comin’ home with you? Clara is slowly morphing into Jitty. The beautiful ball gown disappears, replaced by tights and a bright red thermal shirt with a decorated Christmas tree on the front. Yet again, she is wearing my clothes without even a word of apology.

Yes, he is. Coleman is here with me for some fun but we’ll be home in time to celebrate Christmas at Dahlia House. Jitty adores Coleman. Now skedaddle so I can get my chore done before Tinkie comes looking for me.

Your wish is my command. Jitty crosses her arms and does a fast nod, à la Barbara Eden, and poof! She is gone. I hurry back to the front door, grab a salesman, and find oil and the exact drill I’d envisioned for Oscar.

With the creaky wheel oiled and the packages Tinkie purchased set to be delivered to the Bay Moon Inn where we are staying, Tinkie and I set out for the local independent bookstore, Bay Books. The town has holiday charm. Old-fashioned Christmas lights and tinsel—the multicolored kind that laced along power and telephone lines—bring back memories of Zinnia when my parents were alive. Each Christmas we’d ridden around town in the convertible, bundled under coats and blankets, to see the beautiful decorations in town and at some of the country houses. There were no blow-up cartoon characters. Just colored lights, tinsel, and greenery cut from the woods. Bay St. Louis had harkened back to those times and I loved it.

We had a map of the downtown merchants, so we knew exactly where we were going, but it didn’t really matter. Each little shop we passed offered tantalizing possibilities for gifts. I had only Cece left to buy for, and I wanted something that spoke to her. I just wasn’t certain what that might be yet. She was the hardest of all my friends to find the right gift for.

Coleman is very interested in the latest Jack Reacher book, I said, pointing down the street at Bay Books. I’ll pick that up as a stocking stuffer for him.

And there’s a great book on gardening I read about that I want to get for Millie, Tinkie said. The bookstore is a terrific idea.

Did you read the email from the library? I asked her. I knew she hadn’t. Tinkie loved the telephone, not email. She had me to do the email reading.

Did I miss something?

Only that the other two judges for the Christmas tree decorating contest are local authors. Sandra O’Day and Janet Malone.

Janet Malone! Tinkie virtually squealed. I’d forgotten that she could hold her own with any sorority girl squealer when she chose to. The one who writes those scandalous, sexy thrillers?

That’s the one. And Sandra O’Day is equally famous for nonfiction.

And they’re both always throwing hissy fits and bad-mouthing each other. Tinkie was thrilled. This is going to be the cat’s meow.

We crossed the road, aiming for Bay Books. The smell of fresh baking bread, though, stopped Tinkie and me in our tracks.

Yum! Tinkie sniffed the air like my wonderful hound dog, Sweetie Pie, who was at Dahlia House being tended by Deputy DeWayne Dattilo, along with the three horses, Chablis—Tinkie’s little dust mop dog—and Pluto and Gumbo, the cats. An animal lover, DeWayne always volunteered to help with the critters if we had to travel.

Let’s get our books and we can stop in that bakery. We need a treat for when the men get back from the casino. Something to soak up the alcohol you know they’re drinking, I said.

Good idea.

We set off again just as the front door of the bookstore flew open. A pretty woman with chestnut hair stumbled backward out of the store, tripped on the curb, and fell in the street. Before she could stand up, at least seven hardcover books were hurled out the door and aimed right at her.

You plagiarizing hussy! The woman gained her feet and I recognized Janet Malone. Her face was white with fury. She picked up several books and threw them back in the door at whoever was chucking books at her. She put a lot of muscle behind the throws. Inside, someone cried out in pain.

Ladies! Ladies! The bookseller, a young man, moved to stand in the door to stop the torrent of books flying back and forth. Please, ladies. Someone is going to get hurt.

A fat book whacked him in the back of the head, and he abandoned the doorway and his attempt to stop the mayhem.

I’m going to kick your ass all the way to the bay, Janet said as she stomped toward the front door, dodging another half dozen books. You’ve taken this too far.

Who’s inside the store? Tinkie asked. Do you think it’s Sandra O’Day?

I’m afraid so.

Let’s go inside. Tinkie pushed the stroller forward. Maylin was kicking her little feet as if she, too, was excited by the fight.

Maylin could get hurt. I restrained her with a hand on her shoulder.

Nonsense. Maylin and I can slip in and hide in the stacks. We’ll be perfectly safe. Tinkie shook me off. Get your camera out. Video this. Cece and Millie will dance at your wedding if you get this on video.

She was right about that. I pulled out my phone and started filming as we approached the store.

You’re a has-been, yelled Sandra O’Day, who had taken a position behind a huge table filled with her books. You can’t even write a decent plot anymore. If your characters didn’t jump in the sack every three minutes, your book would be only blank pages.

And if you jumped in the sack on occasion, you might not be such a pinch-lipped spinster, Janet replied. My characters and I know how to live life fully. You’re just a dried-up, angry old prune.

You get your characters from Jerry Springer’s show, Sandra replied. You have an affinity for sluts and harlots.

And you can only write about dead people because the dead can’t sue for libel. Janet could give as good as she took.

What you call living is pathetic. Sandra put her hands on her hips.

I’m surprised you haven’t been charged with violating a corpse, as dead as the people in your books are.

Holy cow, Tinkie whispered to me. They hate each other. This feud hasn’t been exaggerated.

But Cece and Millie are going to love it. I wasn’t making any secret that I was videoing the writers, who didn’t seem to mind at all.

Should we introduce ourselves as their fellow judges? Tinkie asked.

Not me. I don’t want to be hit in the head with a flying book today. And if you go over there, leave Maylin with me.

Get out of this store, Sandra demanded of Janet. Leave now and I won’t press charges.

Go right ahead. You’re the one who pushed me down in the street and threw books at me, Janet said. Call the cops. Please.

Ladies, the bookseller said, I did call the cops. I’ll be sending a bill for the damages to the books to you, Ms. O’Day. And you, Ms. Malone, please stop antagonizing Ms. O’Day. My store can’t afford for someone to really be hurt here. I’d have to close the doors permanently.

Oh, no, we’d never hold you responsible, Janet said. But your point is taken. I’m leaving now.

Coward! O’Day called after her. The cops are on the way and you know you’ll be arrested so you run for the hills like the coward you are!

Janet Malone brushed past us without even a glance. She was out the door and down the street as a local police officer pulled up to the curb. A cute young man, spiffy in his uniform, came into the store. Tinkie and I discreetly eased outside and headed away. I doubted any charges would be filed, but I didn’t want to end up testifying against one or both of my fellow judges.

Let’s go back to the inn, Tinkie said. Maylin is hungry. We can order delivery from that wonderful restaurant nearby and take a nap.

I wasn’t nursing a growing baby or taking care of one, but a nap sounded delightful anyway. We have to be at the library at four to tour the trees. There are a lot of them and we should make preliminary notes on the ones we like best. There are all kinds of categories so this is going to be challenging.

The walk back to the inn was wonderful. A mini-parade of high school kids, dressed as Santa’s helpers, drove slowly down the street with Christmas music playing on the car radios as the kids tossed candy at us. Tinkie and I caught several Christmas-wrapped chocolates that we put in the stroller for later.

I love this little town, Tinkie said. I could live here.

Me, too. And you’re going to love the library. I was there several years ago. They have the most wonderful children’s room. It’s the perfect place for an imagination to grow. And the librarian, Mary Perkins, is so much fun. She has a library cat, Weezie. Maylin will adore it.

Tinkie nodded and yawned simultaneously. Can’t wait. Food and nap first though.

We turned down the tree-shaded lane that led to our rooms. I pulled my key from my pocket. Since the Cadillac wasn’t in the parking lot, I figured Coleman and Oscar were still at the casino. Speaking of the devil, my phone chimed and I checked the message to find a picture of Coleman and Oscar with a pile of winnings at a twenty-one table.

Cash it in and come take a nap with me, I wrote back after showing Tinkie the photo.

On the way, Coleman replied.

I’ll order lunches for Oscar and Coleman, too, I told Tinkie as I helped her get the stroller into the lovely room. And by the time they’re delivered, the boys should be here.

A plan is conceived and born. Tinkie yawned again as she lifted Maylin from the stroller. The little baby was ready for food.

See you in about an hour. I discreetly left them to their privacy. Tinkie was still a little shy, and I was ravenous.

2

While I waited for the food to be delivered, I sent the video I’d taken of the literary catfight to Cece. As expected, I immediately got a call from my journalist friend.

You are a goddess, dahling! Cece laughed. This is the best video! And those two women are your fellow judges? They’re going to want to kill you when they realize you’ve filmed them for publication.

I don’t think so. They don’t seem to mind everyone in town knowing that they hate each other.

The insults are just so … delicious!

Cece was pleased and I was elated. Glad I could help.

I’ve done a little research on O’Day and Malone, Cece said. Interested?

Always. Cece had sources in the media that I envied at times.

"O’Day grew up in Waveland, Mississippi, the oldest child of a middle-class family. She started writing for her high school newspaper, worked a few years as an investigative reporter for the New Orleans Times Picayune, and then got her first book contract on a book about David Duke, failed presidential candidate and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Critics called the book fearless and groundbreaking."

She sounds like a serious journalist. That didn’t jibe with the display I’d seen earlier that morning at the bookstore. Sandra O’Day seemed more than half a bubble off.

She was a highly respected journalist in her twenties. And she’s critically regarded in the nonfiction world. Her book on Duke and the KKK was followed two weeks later by Janet’s wom-jep thriller.

Wom-jep? Had Cece suddenly started speaking in tongues?

Woman in jeopardy. About a journalist that infiltrates the KKK training camps in the swamps of Louisiana and frees several young girls who have been sold into sexual slavery. Of course she falls in love with one of the Klansmen and she’s in a real dilemma until she figures out that he’s an undercover FBI agent and not a racist lout.

I thought about it. Same material, very different story.

Exactly, Cece said. This is when the celebrated feud started. Sandra went on national television and accused Janet of tapping her phones and stealing her research. It was a big hullabaloo. Sandra and Janet both went on the David Letterman show and had a catfight.

What did Janet say about the accusation that she was a … plagiarist? I wasn’t certain plagiarism was the correct charge. Stealing research sources and historical information wasn’t exactly what I viewed as plagiarism.

She denied it, of course. And she responded that Sandra was trying to whitewash, so to speak, her family’s role in the KKK.

Oh, brother. Game on.

Exactly. From there it’s only gotten worse.

So what is Malone’s background? I was very curious.

Born in Waveland, Mississippi, to a middle-class family. Father an accountant, mother a housewife. She was often disciplined at school for skipping class and hiding out at the library reading ‘torrid potboilers,’ as the school psychologist labeled the books.

Exactly what she’s writing today.

I don’t think that’s fair. Malone’s books are much, much better than potboilers. There’s a level of character development and also social conscience. Both women are fine writers. It’s just uncanny how they end up writing about the same material.

Does Malone always copy O’Day?

No. That’s the thing. Sometimes Malone will have a new book out about something like the mafia in New Orleans, and only a few weeks later, O’Day will publish a nonfiction about the mafia’s possible role in the Kennedy assassination. It’s like they share the same psychic wavelength. It’s one of the more fascinating things about them. And look how they both moved to Bay St. Louis. Surely that’s more than a bit odd. But each one denies knowing the other was coming here. They arrived on the same day!

Sandra tackled the mob connection to Kennedy’s assassination? I was still stuck on that point.

She did. She and her assistant, Daryl Marcus, received death threats.

What’s the story on Daryl Marcus?

Oh, that’s intriguing, too. Some say he’s in love with Sandra and others say he’s a family relative, like a cousin or something. His devotion to her is legendary. He helps with all of her research and manages her promotion and press matters. He also orchestrates her social media, which is brilliant. He’s the one thing Sandra has that Janet can’t match. He lives in the old Buntman mansion with her but both deny any romantic attraction.

Cece was an endless source of juicy gossip. I couldn’t wait to see Daryl and Sandra together to see if my love detector went off.

When Sandra was working on the New Orleans mob book, Daryl was framed for a burglary at Janet’s house, arrested, and held in jail until Sandra got him out. Word on the street was that Janet filed the false accusation. But some think it was set up by the mafia to send a message to Sandra to back off.

I’d dealt with cults, killers, crazies, and crackpots, but not the mafia. Those critics were correct about O’Day. She is fearless to tackle the mob. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about connected gangsters in New Orleans and how ruthless they are.

There’s also the Dixie Mafia, which once ruled the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Cece pointed out. When the casinos came in with the big Vegas money behind them, the local guys got squeezed a lot. My sources tell me there are still some skirmishes going on in that area. I heard a rumor Sandra was dabbling in that world. If you go poking around, be careful.

I loved the old stories of strip bars and backroom high-stakes poker games that were part of the Gulf Coast history. There was a type of forbidden glamour that came with the times. Those days of showgirls and fancy yachts had all seemed so romantic—and so distant from my adolescence in Zinnia, where my dad was a respected attorney and judge. As an adult, though, I realized how powerfully corrupting money could be. And how dangerous. For the women trapped in the dancing or call girl trade, it was anything but glamorous.

Any clue as to how the writers seem to know what each other is doing?

Cece hesitated. Since you told me about O’Day and Malone judging with you, I’ve been researching their pasts. Their relationship has been a hotbed of accusation and drama. They both accused each other of setting up spy cameras and tapping phones. Sandra even went so far as to request the FBI investigate Malone, a fact that didn’t endear her to Janet.

It’s almost as if fate pits them against each other.

Lots of writers believe that certain ideas are like energy in the air. The same story concept will hit several people at the same time. There’s no way to tell which one will win out, and Sandra and Janet write very different types of books. It may start from the same source but it ends up very differently.

I’ve heard the same thing about the fashion industry. And I’d heard it from Cece, but I didn’t bother to toss her that bone. Suddenly the concept of minidresses is on the wind and everyone starts designing and selling them. Or ripped jeans. Or crop tops.

Or yoga pants.

I didn’t say anything. Yoga pants were a particular aggravation to Cece because so many people who shouldn’t, wore them in public. Uh-huh.

Yesterday I saw Charmaine Appleton in the tightest Lycra I’ve ever seen. When she walked away it was like watching two possums in a wrestling match in her pants. I thought my eyes were going to bleed.

I didn’t want to laugh but I couldn’t help myself. Don’t ever change, Cece.

Oh, I have no intention of becoming polite or proper. Don’t worry.

I have to go. Food delivery is here. I’d seen the car pull into the parking lot and a young man with several large bags exit the vehicle. If you find anything I should know, text me.

Keep sending the videos. We’ll gain another hundred thousand followers with content like that. You’ll have the perfect opportunity to get another scoop at the big party tonight at Sandra O’Day’s mansion. I hear it is quite the showplace. Formerly owned by the movie star Helene Buntman and built by Al Capone. Get a lot of interior photos, please.

Will do. I hung up, paid for the food, and knocked on Tinkie’s door. Just as she answered with Maylin in her arms, Coleman and Oscar pulled into the lot.

We ate lunch at a wrought iron table beside a lovely pool with frogs and mermaids squirting water in sparkling arcs. The sound of the falling water was relaxing, and Tinkie and I filled Oscar and Coleman in on our day and the catfight. When we were done, we urged Tinkie and Oscar to take a nap. Coleman helped me clean up the table, and then we went to our room.

How much did you win? I asked.

I got three thousand and some change, and Oscar won about four thousand.

That’s amazing, I said. I didn’t like gambling—it was just tedious to me—and when I tried, I never won. I’d probably enjoy it more if I ever won anything. "I’m