"Yes ma'am," I said.

"And he was shooting at you?"

"Like it was the Fourth of July," Fearless said.

I glanced at my friend then. It was an unspoken rule we had that he would stay quiet when I was asking questions. He never understood the verbal nuances of complex discussions. I wondered why he wanted to be a part of our talk.

"What did he want with me?" Winifred asked.

"Milo sent him out lookin' for the man BB was workin' with. You know-Kit Mitch.e.l.l. Somewhere out there he found out that he could make more money on his own. It's my bet that he figured the money would come from you but he didn't know your name. Fearless and me was just crows in the road."

"I, I, I'm sorry," she said.

"Sorry's all good and well," I replied. "But what I would like to know is what's goin' on?"

Miss Fine stood up. She walked toward a large rosebush until her face was in among the leaves.

She said something that only the flowers heard.

"What?" I asked.

"It was just a piece of colored crystal," she said, turning back to us. "Green. An emerald surrounded by white sapphires. Have you ever seen a white sapphire, Mr. Minton?"

"I can't say that I have."

"They look like diamonds only the glow is softer. They're beautiful. In the old days they used to give them for weddings. It meant good fortune and a happy life. My father got me a necklace with a single emerald surrounded by those sapphires."

"He must'a been rich as you," Fearless said.

"No. Not really. He had a farm. It was pretty large. But he sold a quarter of his acreage when he saw that pendant in a New Orleans jewelry store window." Winifred was far away in a dream of days gone by. "He loved me and he was superst.i.tious too. He believed that if he made a sacrifice and gave me that gift that I would have a blessed life. He never saw that the real blessing was his love."

"So BB stole your father's dowry?"

"He got Oscar to hire this Kit Mitch.e.l.l. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l worked for three weeks and then he left-at our request. A few days after that, Oscar realized that the pendant was missing."

"And so," I said, "they intended to use that to make you give up on the property."

"I can't see how," she said. "I loved my father, not that piece of crystal. It's worth no more than ten or twelve thousand dollars. Maybe because BB knew the story he thought that I would be swayed. But I can a.s.sure you that nothing would make me give up on my Compton properties."

"Do you know a man named Brown?" I asked then.

"What is his first name?"

"I don't know. He calls himself Brown, and when he wanted someone to call him he gave out Oscar's number."

"Maybe he worked here," she said. "I wouldn't know."

"How about Oscar? Would he know?"

"Ask him."

"Why are you looking for your nephew?" It was my last attempt to decipher this straight-faced woman.

"When I found out that Bartholomew had suggested this Kit Mitch.e.l.l for the job, I a.s.sumed that he would know where to find my necklace. That's why I need to talk to Bartholomew, to tell him to have my property returned."

"How would BB know where you kept the necklace?"

"He and my niece, Leora, used to play with it when they were children. They both knew where all my jewelry was."

"So what you want is the necklace and not your nephew at all."

"That's right. But I want to speak to Bartholomew, to tell him that I no longer consider him a member of our family."

"Uh-huh. So if me and Fearless get the necklace and make it so you have your chat with BB, then we're clear?"

"Certainly, Mr. Minton."

"BB seemed to think that you would be willing to commit violence against him if he didn't return your property," I said as a primer for further discussion.

"That is ridiculous," Winifred L. Fine said. "Violence is the last resort of the desperate."

"Okay," I said. "Let us go out there and see what we can see."

I touched Fearless's arm to indicate that it was time for our departure.

"One more thing," Winifred Fine said. "What about the man who shot at you? Is he still after me?"

"Don't you worry about him, ma'am," Fearless said. "He came down with a chest cold and now he's laid up for the season."

30.

FEARLESS DROVE US DOWN the dirt road toward the street. the dirt road toward the street.

"Where to now, Paris?" he asked me.

"I don't know. We could wait for BB to call us and then ask him how a twelve-thousand-dollar piece of jewelry's gonna be fifty thousand, or maybe what the Wexler kids had to do with it."

"You think he'd tell us that?"

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe if we threatened to drag him out here if he didn't."

We were approaching Baloona Creek when a woman dressed in a long formal gown and carrying a small brown bag ran in front of Ambrosia's car. Fearless. .h.i.t the brakes and swerved to miss her. When she came up to the window I couldn't speak for a moment because of the shock of almost running Rose Fine down.

"You okay?" Fearless asked.

"Yeah," I said before realizing that he was talking to the crazy woman.

"Help me get away from here," she cried desperately.

"Hop in," Fearless said.

He jumped out and ushered her in through the rear door. Then he got back in the driver's seat and drove off as if he were a chauffeur and I was his a.s.sistant.

"Fearless?"

"Yeah, Paris?"

"What are we doin'?"

"I don't know. Where you wanna go, Miss Fine?"

"Anyplace not near that house, young man," she said. "Anywhere I can get away from them crazy people."

Fearless nodded slightly and continued on. I guess he figured that no matter which way he drove he'd be meeting her request.

"Miss Fine," I said.

"Yes, young man."

"I'm Paris. And I'd like to know why you want to run away from your own home."

"Because it's all gonna come out now. All of it. Winifred won't be able to stop the walls of Jericho. No she won't. But she's just willful enough to believe that she can."

"What's going to happen?"

"Everything we have will be squandered, stolen, and burned in h.e.l.l," she said. "Too many secrets, too many lies."

"What kind of secrets?" I asked.

"I was a prisoner in there. No money and no car. And now not even no love."

I had very little confidence in the mad-eyed woman's ability to understand or communicate the truth. I had no idea what Fearless planned to do with her. But there we were, so I played the game as if I were privy to the rules.

"Who was Bartholomew's mother?" I asked.

"That would be Ethel," Rose said. She was staring out of the window, smiling at the pa.s.sing strawberry farms as if they were strange new sights in a distant land.

"She's the one that started the beauty business?"

"No," Rose said, turning her cracked grin on me. "Our mother started the beauty product company. She named it after Ethel because Ethel was her firstborn and her favored girl. Ethel was the oldest, then came me, and then Winnie."

"And so you all owned the business equally?"

"Oh yes," Rose said. "Mama made sure that we were always equal. She had her favorites, but blood is blood."

"And Ethel was the favorite child?"

"Oh no," Rose a.s.sured me. "It's always a boy that has his mother's heart."

"You have a brother?"

"Of course we do. I thought you knew. Oscar is our brother."

"The butler?" Fearless asked.

"It's his own fault," she said, reciting a well-rehea.r.s.ed speech. "When he was a young man he insisted to be paid for his part of the beauty supply company. We bought him out and he lost it all inside of three years. Winnie told him if he wanted to come back he had to work for us."

"She made him a butler?"

"That was his idea," Rose said. "Yes sir. He didn't want to have anything else to do with the outside world. No business, no meetin's, no bein' in charge'a anything responsible. All he wanted was to work at home and hide away from how stupid he was. We didn't want him to be our servant, but Winnie said that he had to work if he wanted to eat our food."

"I know that," Fearless intoned.

"Why did you run away?" I asked, hoping the question would catch her by surprise.

"Because you had a car and kind eyes."

"You mean you've been waiting for a chance to get out of there?"

"Oscar thinks he's slick," Rose answered, "with all his sneakin' and overhearin'. But if you have a hidey-hole or a spare phone in the nook, then the spy might just be spied on. Yes sir."

"What did Oscar say to make you want to run away?"

"I'll never tell."

"What about a man named Brown?" I asked, switching tracks as fast as she.

"What about him?" Rose had no love lost there.

"Is he some other relation?"

"Oh no. No no no no. Brown is somethin' else altogether."

"And what is that, Miss Fine?"

The elder woman in the fine evening gown sat back and sighed. "I don't think I want to answer any more questions, young man."

"That's okay, ma'am," Fearless said. "You just sit back and I'll take you someplace where you can figure out what you want to do now that you're looking for a new home."

That stopped any more inquiries for a while. But I didn't mind. Fearless was probably right. Rose Fine didn't have a strong grip on reality, and too many questions might have pushed her out of orbit completely.

The elder Fine sister stretched out on the backseat and was snoring quicker than Fearless Jones.