The farm where Will and Carla Falcon lived sprawled across forty acres of freshly turned land. Will farmed as a hobby, growing row crops that Carla put up and pickled and sold at local markets during the summer months. Will’s primary job was as a data analyst for a financial company. He fit the stereotype to a tee. Nerdy glasses, inkblot on the pocket of his long-sleeved plaid shirt, rumpled khakis, and hair askew. Carla, who was thin and bitter, did all the talking.
“We haven’t seen Eve in years. She has nothing to do with us. Whatever she’s done is her own problem.” Carla blocked the door like a ninety-pound woman of steel. “Go away.”
When she tried to slam the door in Tinkie’s and my face, I’d finally had enough. I grabbed the door and stepped into the entrance of the house. “We came to talk about Eve. She’s been kidnapped and we’re trying to help her.”
“Kidnapped?” Carla looked completely blank, as if she’d never heard the word. “Who would take Eve? She’s useless. Are they asking a ransom?” She snorted. “Good luck with that.”
Standing beside me, Tinkie grew angrier and angrier. I could practically feel her swelling with fury. Any minute she was going to bust. And it would not be pretty.
“Do you know where Eve was living?” I pushed ahead with my questions.
“She dropped out of high school and took off. I heard she was in Memphis with a bunch of those horrid people wearing black clothes and piercing their lips and nipples.” Carla was almost as angry as Tinkie. I was standing next to two time bombs.
“Do you have relatives in Memphis? Anyone she might have contacted?”
“No. She is the devil’s spawn. As far as I’m concerned, whoever has her can keep her and good riddance.”
“Ma’am, she is your daughter. Your pregnant daughter.” Tinkie was standing on her tiptoes to get in Carla’s face. I put a hand on her shoulder and felt coiled steel. She was ready to spring.
“What would you know about it?” Carla said. “She was a disappointment from the day she came into this house. She’s a little slut with the morals of a cat in heat. Right, Will?”
Will was staring out the door as if he was listening and watching an entirely different scene unfolding. He didn’t respond to Carla’s question, but that didn’t slow her down with her complaints against Eve. “We gave her every chance, and she blew every single one.”
“Like Cece, she’s just a terrible disappointment to your family?” Tinkie’s fists were clenched. I was prepared to tackle her if she took a swing. “You judge people harshly, but can you stand up to such rigorous scrutiny?”
“I obey God. I fear no man’s judgment because I will be judged by the Lord himself, and he will find me righteous.”
“But not very loving,” Tinkie said.
I had to get my partner out of there before she did something that would land her in the hoosegow. And likely sued for a ton of money.
“You get out of my house.” Carla pointed at the door, her bony little finger shaking. “Out!”
“Gladly,” Tinkie said, marching out the door and down the steps so fast I had to run to catch up with her. Will followed me outside.
“We’ll check in at Memphis. See if we can pick up her trail.”
“She was good with numbers,” Will said. “And smart. Eve is smart. She’d be a good bookkeeper or maybe—”
Before he could finish, Carla screamed for him to come back inside. As soon as he cleared the jamb, Carla slammed the door.
Tinkie spun like a dervish. Digging into her purse, she pulled out a long, wicked nail file. Before I knew what was happening, she ran across the yard to the Falcons’ nice new car and began to stab the front tire with her nail file. “Take that!” She stabbed as hard as she could.
I got to her in time to pull her back before she punctured the tire. I didn’t think it was possible with a nail file anyway, but I didn’t want to take any chances of having her arrested for destruction of property.
“I should have stabbed her in the throat!”
I couldn’t argue that, but I also had to calm Tinkie down. “Look, let’s find Eve and then worry about beating up Carla Falcon.”
“You promise we can beat her up?”
I considered. “Yeah. I promise. I’ll help.” In the months of our work as detectives, our roles had slightly reversed. Normally I was the emotional one, and Tinkie was the responsible, calm, ladylike partner. Now she was almost frothing at the mouth.
I managed to get Tinkie in my car. While I drove, Tinkie put her phone on speaker and called Cece. “Carla is a piece of work,” Tinkie said. “What kind of job do you think Eve might have taken?”
“She was good with numbers.” Cece confirmed what Will Falcon said.
“Call the big accounting firms and the banks in Memphis, please,” I requested. Cece had a computer and a phone at her desk at the Zinnia Dispatch. “It’s like a needle in a haystack but if we can find where she worked, we’ll have a hot trail, I hope. Carla and Will were useless.”
“Worse than useless I suspect,” Cece said. “Will has no backbone and Carla has no heart. Anyway, I talked with Zeedie Adams, one of Eve’s childhood friends. She said Eve had gotten her GED and had gone into banking. She worked as a loan officer at a branch of the Bank of the Deep South in Cleveland, Mississippi.”
“Thanks.” That was a big help. “Did Zeedie know anything else?”
“No,” Cece said. “They haven’t spoken in a while. She ran across Eve in Memphis, where Eve was training at the bank and going to night classes.”
“Then Zeedie doesn’t have a clue who the baby’s father might be?” Tinkie asked.
“No.”
“Thanks, Cece.” Tinkie hung up and when we came to a juncture of two county roads, I took a left to head for Cleveland. It was as good a place as any to start looking.
“I didn’t ask Cece about the ransom money,” Tinkie said. “Oscar has agreed to give her as much as she needs, but I didn’t want to put her on the spot.”
I reached across the seat and patted Tinkie’s shoulder. “You and Oscar are the most generous and kind friends.”
“You would do the same.”
I had to chuckle at that. I lived on a month-to-month basis of paying house repairs, taxes, and bills. It would be a miracle if I ever had ten grand I could give away, much less more than a hundred thousand. “Hopefully we’ll figure out who has Eve and rescue her without having to give them a dime. Their payoff will be a long prison term.”
We rode through the flat Delta in silence for a while, passing wrought-iron archways to plantations decorated with magnolia and cedar garlands, colored lights, and in a few instances the blow-up Christmas characters that Tinkie loathed. She called them cartoon Christmas.
“They’re an example of what’s wrong with our society. Folks buy some crappy decoration at the store and stick it in the yard and think that’s a good thing. Decorating is supposed to be family and friends gathering, good times, making memories. What kind of a memory can you make by taking two minutes to stick a bloated, ugly Santa on the grass and turn on something to fill him with air?”
I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—argue with her. I preferred tradition to convenience myself.
“Those ugly things are almost as bad as people who keep their outdoor Christmas lights up year-round. There are just certain holiday things that a Daddy’s Girl cannot stoop to do.”
“Toss the DG rule book at them, Tinkie.” I wasn’t kidding, though I was teasing her.
We arrived at our destination to find that Cleveland had a city tree on the verge at the entrance to town. An old-fashioned tree. I loved the colorful ornaments and baubles that had been used to adorn it. In fact, I loved the holiday season, and this year, I had very warm thoughts of Coleman Peters. The mistletoe had been a wonderful jump-start to a fine holiday tradition that we’d started on our own.
“Thinking of Coleman, are you?” Tinkie asked. She was watching me closely.
“Of course not.”
“Liar!” Tinkie smiled at last. She was over her fury at the Falcons and low-class decorators.
“Okay, so yeah. I was thinking about where I might attach a bow to—”
“TMI!” She held up a hand. “I don’t want to know what you do with bows or handcuffs or anything else.”
“Oh, so now you’re too delicate to get the details you’re always clamoring for.”
“I’d rather tease Coleman. He’s an easier target. He gets all red in the face and flustered.”
“He does.” I had to laugh with her. For two grown-ups, we acted like high school kids caught kissing under the bleachers.
“It’s good to see you happy, Sarah Booth.” Tinkie had grown suddenly serious.
“I am happy.” It was something of a revelation I realized as I pulled into the bank parking lot.
“I know it’s hard to trust in happiness.” Tinkie waited for me to stop the car. “You’ve lost so many people that you loved. Your parents, Aunt Loulane, even Graf, though he’s still alive. It’s hard to trust that happiness will stay, but Coleman won’t abandon you.”
The truth of her words was an arrow in my heart. I hadn’t consciously worried about Coleman “leaving,” but it was there, burrowed deep in my subconscious. What if something happened to Coleman? I couldn’t take another loss. Tinkie saw it long before I did.
“There are no guarantees, Sarah Booth. I remember the Christmas we were in ninth grade and you had a crush on Bobbie Ladd. You wouldn’t even admit it to yourself. Your aunt Loulane tried to talk to you, but you shut her down. She said something that day that stuck with me.”
“What?” I had to ask around a lump in my throat.
“Remember she made us cocoa with the green and red Christmas marshmallows in it and we were sitting in the parlor looking at the beautiful tree that her beau had cut and brought in.”
I remembered that tree and the day very well. I’d worn my favorite red-and-white-candy-cane-striped sweater to school. Bobbie’s friends had teased me about what those horizontal stripes accented. I’d been mortified, but they were only teasing me to get a rise. I could almost smell the gingerbread cookies Aunt Loulane had baked and put on a plate for us to have with our cocoa. And I knew a few things about Tinkie, too. “You’d just kissed Frank Basco. It was all over school.”
“Yes.” Tinkie laughed. “I thought I was very brazen. We both had braces so we were afraid to do more than touch our lips together, but we said it was a passionate kiss.”
“What did Aunt Loulane say?” I wanted to hear her say it.
“She said that you could go the rest of your life afraid to love anyone, or you could be brave and hurl yourself at love. I remember those exact words. ‘Hurl yourself at love.’” She sighed. “She’s right, Sarah Booth. That’s what you have to do. Hurl yourself. Don’t hold back. Just leap at it with all the faith you can muster.”
A tear slipped down my left check, but I brushed it away before Tinkie could see it. The holidays made me sentimental. “Aunt Loulane had a marriage proposal that she didn’t accept so she could take care of me. She didn’t want to uproot me from Dahlia House.”
“She was a remarkable woman. And she knew every wise old saying that had ever been created.”
“And didn’t hold back with any of them.” We both laughed and I opened the car door. “Let’s find Eve.”
* * *
Allspice candles burned in a lovely floral display in the bank’s lobby and the scent of Christmas wafted out to us as we walked through the front door. A young male teller was open, and we went to Danny Clay’s station. I noted the heavy name holder that told folks who he was.
“Hi, we’re looking for Eve Falcon,” I said.
“You and everyone in the bank. She hasn’t shown up for work for the past three days.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Is she sick?”
He shrugged. “Who knows.”
“You don’t seem too worried,” Tinkie said.
“Eve is the golden girl. She can do whatever she wants and never gets in trouble. So, she doesn’t come to work. Who cares? She’ll still get the next promotion.”
“Check your teeth,” Tinkie said. “There are fragments of sour grapes caught in them.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Which only made Danny Clay angrier. “Maybe she’s off with the boss. They seem to need a lot of time together.”
Now he was making a serious accusation. “Danny, are you saying that Eve and the bank president are having an affair?”
When I put it in bald terms, he backed down. “They’re mighty chummy, and Eve gets all the promotions. I have a bachelor’s degree in banking, and guess who gets promoted to loan officer. The girl with a GED and the nice rack. Not to mention that she’s incubating someone’s bastard.”
Danny Clay was an insecure and bitter young man. “I see that you feel left behind. Could it be because you’re an asshat?” Tinkie asked.
His only response was a glare.
“Danny, I need to know. Do you know for a fact that Eve and the bank president are involved? Or are you just spreading rumors?”
“I don’t have proof, but everyone knows. Ask the other tellers.” He waved at several women who’d overheard the conversation. They all turned and edged away. They were not nearly the fool Danny Clay appeared to be.
I glanced at the big door to a private office. FREDDY TEDDY BELVUE was the name on the door. Whoever had christened the bank president had a cruel sense of humor. “Where is Mr. Belvue?” I asked.
“Playing golf. Where he is every single morning of every workday.”
Danny was carrying a bucket load of spleen. “I’m going to ask him if he’s having an affair with Eve, and I’m going to say you told me it was true.”
“Like I care.” He stood up from his stool. “I’ve had it with this place. Eve sleeps her way to the top and I get in trouble for pointing it out.”
“You’ll get sued for slander if what you’re saying isn’t true.”
He leaned into the window. “Eve was a little slut when she trained at the Memphis bank. We were hired at the same time. She got off at three so she could take her GED classes. I was going to college, and I couldn’t catch a break on scheduling. It took me six years to get through school because of it. She only had to bat her eyelashes and she got an amended schedule. And then when she showed up pregnant and unmarried, no one said a thing. How is that right?”
“Maybe she does a better job than you do,” I said softly. “And maybe she doesn’t whine all the time.”
“Right. Well you should try being a white male in the banking business.”
“Oh my god,” Tinkie said, putting the back of her hand to her forehead. “I am going to swoon. Poor, poor you.” She brightened. “I have it. You should try stand-up comedy. Instead of the blue-collar comedy act, you could be the entitled white male privilege comedy act.”
“Tinkie!” I needed a muzzle for my partner. This case had her wound up and she wasn’t holding back.
“Maybe if I slept with the boss, I’d get the advantages, too,” Danny said. “Even better, if I got pregnant and then could blackmail my way to a promotion, I’d be on Easy Street.”
I looked past Danny out the bank window and saw a Jaguar tearing out of the parking lot. While Danny Dufus had been diverting our attention, the bank president had made a clean get-away. He’d been in the bank all along.
“Dammit.” Now I wanted to punch the teller as bad as Tinkie did. “Let’s go.”
We left the bank and were getting into the car when the bank’s back door opened and a young woman ran over to us.
“Eve wasn’t like that. Not what Danny was saying. He hates her because she’s smart and works hard. She wasn’t sleeping her way into promotions.”
“And you are?” I asked.
“Dawn Hasiotis. Eve and I are friends.”
“Do you know who the father of her child is?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Eve was already pregnant when she moved down here from Memphis. I got the impression it was one reason she left the Memphis area. She’s never mentioned anyone she was romantically involved with. I was concerned that maybe she was … raped or something.”
“She isn’t involved with Freddy Teddy Belvue?” Tinkie asked.
Dawn looked at the parking lot. “I don’t know anything for a fact, but she isn’t that kind of person. Life happens to people. Especially people like us, who don’t have family or resources to fall back on. Eve’s been on her own since she was sixteen. Me since I was seventeen. Things don’t ever come easy to someone without an education and with no safety net.”
“I can understand that,” Tinkie said. “Thanks for talking to us.”
“Mr. Belvue is probably playing golf. He comes in every morning and leaves. You know, so much business is done on the golf course.” Her sarcasm made me smile.
“So I’ve heard.”
“I’m worried about Eve,” she said. “She always comes to work. She’s reliable. And when she didn’t show up and didn’t call, I knew something was wrong. Has something terrible happened to her?”
“We only know she’s missing,” I said. “Her cousin hired us to find her. So if you see her, give us a call.” I handed her one of the nifty business cards Tinkie had printed for Delaney Detective Agency.
“She’d be at work if she could,” Dawn said, her eyes misting over. “She’s responsible like that.” She glanced at the door. “I have to go. My break is over.” She took off jogging across the parking lot and disappeared into the bank.
“It’s clear Eve has one enemy here at the bank,” I said.
“I suppose Danny Clay is on the suspect list, but he’s such a loudmouth. And not all that bright,” Tinkie said. “He’s the type who blames everyone because he isn’t top dog.”
We got in the car and I turned the heater up to full blast. It was a cold day even though the sun was shining. Clouds were building to the north, and the weather forecasters were gleeful at the 20 percent chance of a white Christmas for the Delta. It would take a miracle to get Christmas snow in upper Mississippi, but the thought was tantalizing.
“The best golf course is at The Club. Let’s see if we can run Teddy Freddy Belvue to ground there.”
“Good idea, but it’s Freddy Teddy. His name is Frederick Theodore,” Tinkie said. “We can grab lunch if you want.”
My answer was the loud rumble of a hungry stomach and an eye roll at the man’s name.
* * *
Tinkie and Oscar were premium members of The Club, and as such Tinkie easily sweet-talked the manager into loaning us a golf cart. We set out around the course to track down Belvue. His Jag was in the parking lot, so we knew he had to be on the links.
Tinkie had looked up Belvue on the internet so we could recognize him, and we found him at the third hole. He was playing with another man. Tinkie stopped the golf cart thirty yards back so as not to interfere as they teed off, and then we hurried to catch up with him before he started chasing his ball that had gone into the rough.
“I’m in the middle of a game,” he said as soon as he saw us. “Mrs. Richmond, I know you know better.”
So he knew Tinkie. That was telling. “And we’re in the middle of a case that involves one of your employees. Eve Falcon is missing.”
“Eve? Missing? How so?” He put the head of his club on the ground and leaned on it.
“Her family is looking for her and she can’t be found.”
“Have you checked hospitals? She was about to give birth.”
“We have,” I said.
“That’s what I know. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.” He got into the cart and motioned for his golfing partner to pull away.
“Mr. Belvue, are you the father of Eve’s baby?” I had to stop him, and it worked. He got out of the cart and came toward me, still holding a club.
“What are you saying?”
“Are you sexually involved with Eve Falcon?”
“I will have you in court on slander charges. How dare you accuse me of such a thing! I do not sleep with my employees.”
Righteous indignation mixed with an inability to meet my gaze told me Freddy Teddy Belvue was a liar, and not a very good one. I’d be willing to bet he was sleeping with someone who answered to him.
“If you’re involved with Eve, just say so.” Tinkie had picked up on his deception, too.
“I don’t have to answer to you. Get off this golf course. You aren’t playing. You’re violating The Club’s rules, and you know better, Mrs. Richmond.” He ignored me.
“I haven’t violated any rules.”
“I’m going to report you to your husband.”
Oh, boy, that was a bad misstep on Freddy Teddy’s part. Tinkie didn’t cotton to being treated as Oscar’s property.
“You can tell Oscar whatever you desire. And I’ll make a call to the Institute of Certified Bankers and the American Bankers Association. I think they’d love to hear about what’s happening at the Bank of the Deep South in Cleveland, Mississippi.”
Tinkie had pulled out the big guns.
Freddy Teddy slid his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. “We have vandals on the golf course at the third hole. Please send security to escort them off the property.”
Tinkie signaled me into the golf cart, and before I could say anything, we were flying across the green. “Oscar will kill me if I make a scene at The Club.” She was driving that electric cart like a NASCAR entry.
“A little late in the game for that concern.”
“If we don’t get caught, we don’t pay the penalty.”
And she was right about that. I had a little truth, too. “They can’t catch us if we’re dead.” I grabbed hold of the sidebar and hung on for dear life.
When we screeched into the cart barn at the country club, Tinkie barely let the buggy stop before she was out and running toward Belvue’s Jag in the parking lot. I’d never seen anyone with such short legs run so fast wearing high-heel boots. It brought to mind a fact I’d learned about alligators—they could run sixty miles per hour on six-inch legs for a short distance. I pursued Tinkie for all I was worth.
I caught her just as she pulled out her nail file and went after the tires on the Jaguar.
“Stop it! Now!” I pulled her to her feet. “What is wrong with you?” I took the file from her and put it in my back pocket. “You’ve been irrational all day today. What the heck, Tinkie?”
“I’m completely rational. I’m just sick of mean, bullying people.”
“You cannot slash their car tires. Especially not with a nail file. It won’t work.”
“Sugar in the gas tank? I could get some packets from The Club.”
“No. No property damage. I’m serious. And no, you can’t physically attack Belvue. You know this; why are you acting like you don’t?”
“I’ve had every privilege that a white female can have. The best schools, the best clothes, the best extracurricular activities. I was loved and coddled. The only thing that could have been better would have been to be a boy. Then I would have owned the world.”
“You’ve been really lucky, Tinkie.”
“I have and I know it. But people like Freddy Teddy Belvue have had all the advantages, and they aren’t even aware. It pisses me off. I was thinking about what Dawn the bank teller said. And I was thinking about what Eve has surely confronted as a single woman trying to hold down her job, advance her career, and have a baby. That little prick Danny Clay believes he’s entitled to the promotion Eve got simply because he’s a man. Qualifications be damned. With all of my advantages I don’t know that I could manage what Eve has on her plate. And she had none of my good fortune. It just makes me really mad.”
Tinkie was a champion of the underdog and, speaking of dogs, we needed to head back to Zinnia and check on Sweetie Pie and Tinkie’s little Yorkie, Chablis. All of the animals got along fine, but Pluto the cat was big enough to eat Chablis.
I steered her toward my car and I just about had her seated when someone tapped my shoulder. I turned to confront a man I couldn’t place but knew.
“Ms. Delaney,” he said, “Mrs. Richmond. Could I buy you ladies a holiday poinsettia?”
“No, thank you. Poinsettias are poisonous to cats.”
He laughed and Tinkie joined him. “We’d love a drink, Cameron. He’s offering us an adult holiday beverage. Sarah Booth, this is Cameron Phillips. He’s one of the vice presidents at the bank.”
I placed him as soon as I heard his name. “Thanks, Mr. Phillips.”
Tinkie took the arm he offered and fell into step with him. “I’m assuming you saw my little tantrum in the parking lot and that you’ll be discreet?”
“Of course. I happen to know Freddy Teddy Belvue, and I’ve wanted to slash his tires a number of times.”
We were already in the stewpot. Might as well have a libation. I dropped in behind them and headed into The Club. I’d wanted to see the Christmas decorations. Cece had done a spread on them in the newspaper.
We walked into The Club and I stopped. The place was beautiful. They’d opted to decorate as an old-fashioned Christmas and had pulled out the stops with a lovely tree, hand-strung popcorn and cranberry garlands, and antique Christmas toys, from dolls to a sled and old cruiser bicycles. It was an instant taste of my past.
“This is wonderful.”
“It is,” Tinkie said. “The theme was Oscar’s idea. Sometimes that man surprises even me.”
When we were seated and on our second poinsettia—champagne and cranberry juice—Cameron leaned forward. “What has that moron Freddy Teddy Belvue done now?”
“Nothing we can prove,” Tinkie wisely answered. “What’s his reputation with female employees?”
“That he likes them. A lot.”
I wondered why Cameron was so free with his gossip. Bankers, like doctors and lawyers, often stuck together.
“Belvue screwed me out of a business deal last year that I’d worked on for months. It was a big project for the bank, and he lied and snatched it out from under me and Oscar. I’d like to get a little payback if I can.”
Ah, revenge. Always a great motive. “Is there a specific girl you can point us to?” I asked. We needed exact details, not gossip.
“In fact, there is.” He pulled out a checkbook and tore off half a check to write down a name. “Jodie O’Neill. She lives in Greenville now. I think she’s working at a local credit union. She’ll tell you the truth.”
“Thanks, Cameron.” Tinkie gave him a big smile. “Thanks a lot. I’ll be sure and tell Oscar I ran into you.”
“Just so you know, Oscar is not a fan of Freddy Teddy.” Cameron grinned. “He accused Oscar of marrying the boss’s daughter just to get ahead. There’s plenty of bad blood there.”
“Thank you, Cameron.” I wasn’t sure I really thanked him for that because now Tinkie was really out for blood. “You have a good holiday.” I maneuvered Tinkie out of The Club and into the parking lot. “Drat, I left my cell phone at his table. I’ll be right back.”
I rushed inside and picked up my phone, thanking Cameron for the drinks again as I left. When I got back to the parking lot, Tinkie was gone. I looked around and finally heard a strange huffing sound, like someone who needed the Heimlich maneuver in a bad way. I followed the sound around three cars and found Tinkie on her knees, stabbing the tires on Belvue’s Jag with her nail file. She’d somehow managed to pick it out of my pocket without me even suspecting. She was giving it everything she had, but the thin file couldn’t puncture the rubber. I pulled her to her feet.
“Stop that. It won’t work and you look silly.”
“Belvue is a bastard.”
“Yep.” I pointed to my car. “He is. Let’s go.”
“What if he impregnated Cece’s cousin?”
“Then he’ll pay child support until the baby is twenty-one.” I had to be practical or Tinkie would really lose her temper.
“What if Eve and the baby are dead?”
I stopped. “We can’t think like that. We have to find that girl and her infant. And we have to do it now. We don’t have time to poke at car tires. We’ve got serious work to do. Cece is counting on us.”
Tinkie nodded. “You’re right. Let’s find Eve.”