Bones of a Feather - Carolyn Haines [86]
I must have looked worried, because Barclay’s demeanor changed. “What did she mean?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. But something niggled in my brain.
“Will you tell me when you figure it out?”
“If you promise not to tell the police about Millicent. I’ll call them as soon as Monica is safely home. And you have to tell me about the horse in the stables.” I could drive a hard bargain when it suited me.
“That’s easy. I don’t know a thing about a horse.”
* * *
Half an hour later, Tinkie’s Cadillac pulled up at Briarcliff, followed shortly by Eleanor in her Mercedes. Barclay and I rose from the chairs we’d moved outside beneath a bower of Seven Sisters roses. When Eleanor saw Barclay, she frowned. She strode ahead of Tinkie, who carried Chablis and had to navigate on three-inch heels. Somewhere along the way she’d managed a wardrobe change.
“What are you doing here?” Eleanor demanded of Barclay. She glanced back at her car, and I knew she’d brought the money for the ransom. No wonder Barclay made her anxious.
“He knows about Millicent,” I said. “We found evidence in the woods.”
“But no body?” Tinkie, like me, found that very strange.
“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing we can do for her. Eleven more hours.” Eleanor spoke softly. “When Monica is safe, I’ll turn over heaven and earth to find out what happened to Millicent. You have my word.”
“If I’d had my way, I would have called the police,” Barclay said, and there was a hint of a threat in his voice.
Eleanor’s rigid posture seemed to sag in defeat. “Call them. I can’t hold all of you off. I’m so sorry for Millicent. This is just too much for me.” She staggered toward the house, leaving us standing in the perfumed August afternoon.
“Give him your cell phone, please,” I said to Tinkie. “I broke his.”
Tinkie fished hers out of her purse and was about to hand it to Barclay when I stopped her. “Before we do something we can’t take back, why don’t we talk to John Hightower?”
“Why should we talk to that nerd?” Barclay asked.
“His camera recorded the photograph of Millicent’s body. He was attacked in the woods, but he made it out safely, abandoning Millicent to her murderer. Don’t you find that a little odd?”
“More than a little,” Tinkie said. “And where is Jerome? He’s vanished and no one seems to care.”
Barclay cleared his throat. “I saw him.”
“You saw Jerome?” Tinkie spoke before I could.
“He came by the Eola on his way out of town. He said he was leaving Natchez. Forever.”
“Did he say why?” I found this hard to accept. “He’s deeply in love with Eleanor, and she needs him now.”
Barclay gave a disdainful snort. “That’s the rub, Sarah Booth. The Levert sisters don’t need anyone except each other. Jerome finally understood this. Eleanor wouldn’t confide in him and she wouldn’t trust him. Thirty years of that kind of treatment was enough.”
He had a point. “There was a lot of mischief on the estate last night. Hightower was thrashed by an unidentified assailant. Someone went through the woods like a savage. They knocked Sweetie Pie unconscious.” When I said her name, Sweetie rose from her doggie nap and stood, stretching. Roscoe joined her. He stood on his hind legs and tried to sniff Chablis’s cute little tail as Tinkie held the dog in her arms.
“She is out of your league,” Tinkie said, turning away to block the devilish-looking dog. “If she weren’t already spayed, I’d take her to the vet this instant rather than risk propagating whatever genetic code that evil dog carries.”
Chablis had other thoughts. She jumped to the ground and the three dogs sprinted toward the house.
The interruption had given me time to think. “Hightower knows more than he’s saying. He must have been onto the romance between Jerome