"Sarah Booth?"

I recognized the cultured tones of Avery Bellcase. "Yes, sir."

"Have you made any headway?"

I had nothing solid to report. "Sir, I'm trying."

"If you can find the cause for Oscar's illness, I'll forgive the mortgage on Dahlia House. I'll pay it off myself."

"That's a very generous offer, Mr. Bellcase, but unnecessary. I'll do what ever I can to help Tinkie and Oscar. Tinkie is like a sister to me. Even Oscar has grown on me over the past year." Money couldn't motivate me like friendship did.

"Tinkie is my only child. To see her suffer . . ." His voice broke and he faltered into silence.

"She's my best friend. I know exactly how you feel."

There was a pause before he spoke again. "Doc Sawyer is worried about her. He's urged me to entice her from the hospital, even for short breaks. She won't listen to me."

"She's headstrong." I couldn't help a tiny smile as I said the words that Tinkie so often applied to me. "I'll talk to her tomorrow."

"She'll do things for you that she'd never consider if I asked."

"That's not true, Mr. Bellcase. Tinkie adores you. In all things, you're the person she relies on for wisdom and advice and the right action to take. You'd be surprised how often she quotes you."

"I knew your mother and father, Sarah Booth. Elizabeth was like a wild wind blowing through this town. She stirred things up and unsettled folks. James Franklin, well, he never felt a need to try to bridle her. He fell in love with her outspoken wildness, and he honored it. I so admired that about him. He let Libby be who she was. And they let you grow in that same way."

Even though he'd called my mother Libby, a nickname few people used, I thought he was getting ready to lower the boom on me. I dropped into defensive mode as he continued.

"In recent years, I've tried to give that same type of freedom and support to Tinkie. Her mother and I, we made her conform when she was younger. Her marriage to Oscar was appropriate and fiscally sound. Love grows in soil well fertilized and tended. It's the way things are done in families like ours. Until recently, I'd begun to wonder if perhaps we'd pushed Tinkie into a loveless union."

"Tinkie dotes on Oscar." I swallowed the emotion that had lodged in my throat. "They truly love each other."

"Not at first. Tinkie did what she was told. Oscar was a good match for her, a man who provided security, good judgment, a family history that excluded mental illness, alcoholism, and deviancy. Those things were all important when I thought of my daughter marrying and beginning a family."

I couldn't believe Mr. Bellcase was confessing this arranged marriage to me. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it. "Tinkie would be lost without Oscar, and vice versa."

"Why are they still childless?" he asked.

Holy moly. I wasn't going near that topic. "When Oscar is well, perhaps you should ask them."

There was another hesitation. "You're a good friend to my daughter, Sarah Booth. Just don't get her hurt working on your cases."

"I'll do my best, but the truth is, I can't protect her from the things that hurt the worst. Nor can you."

He sighed. "That much I've learned. Have a safe night, and try to get my baby out in the sunshine tomorrow. Take her for a ride through the cotton fields and over to the river. Let her see the land. It may help her."

"Yes, sir. I'll do my best." I put the phone down. The conversation had exhausted me. Instead of surfing the Net, I unplugged and went to bed.

I awoke to the strains of a sprightly tune sung in a sultry contralto. I didn't recognize the song, but I sure as h.e.l.l knew who the singer was. Jitty! And Sweetie Pie was howling along with her. A duet designed to drive me mad. I checked the clock beside my bed. Three a.m.

Throwing back the covers, I padded downstairs. The piano, an old baby grand, was in the music room, a place I hadn't even dusted since I'd been home. When I pushed open the door, I stopped in my tracks.

Jitty sat at the piano wearing an exquisite ball gown of midnight blue cut like a 1930s movie star's: sweetheart neckline, tight torso, and all. With her hair piled on her head and diamonds glittering around her neck and hanging from her ears, she was stunning. Believe me, I was stunned.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" I walked to the piano. "You can't play. You're noncorporeal. You can't press the keys."

She swiveled on the bench and stood up. Sweetie gave one last, mournful howl and settled down to sleep. Seemed everyone in the house could fall asleep on command except me. I was the poor schmuck who'd sail forth into the new day with bags under my eyes.

"You're exhausted," Jitty said.

She looked magnificent, and it only added fuel to my fury. "I might look better if I could sleep through the night. Why the serenade at three a.m.?"

"That was one of your mama's favorite songs," she said. "She and your father used to sing it together. James Franklin sang the part Sweetie Pie had."

Jitty knew good and well that any reference to my parents would pull me out of a bad mood. "Why now? Why three in the morning? Why are you so dressed up? When did you learn to play the piano?"

Jitty's chuckle was as soft as a b.u.t.terfly kiss. "You're the one havin' this dream, missy. Don't go askin' me the answers to things curled up and writhin' around inside your head. Man alive, Freud could have a field day with what's goin' on between your ears."

Sweetie Pie's low moaning howl--much like a blues singer telling about the pain of life--kicked in about then. I realized the music room was dusted and alight with candles. I was dreaming. I'd set the scene with Jitty dressed as a torch singer from the thirties, the piano, and my hound. I'd heard my parents sing that song, my mother's lovely voice and my father's untuned baritone.

"This is a dream, but what does it mean?" I asked Jitty.

"Only you can answer that, Sarah Booth. It's your subconscious at work."

I remembered the name of the song. "My Blue Heaven." My mother had loved it. The lyrics came back to me.

"When whippoorwills call, and evening is nigh, I hurry to my . . . blue . . . heaven." I sang the words softly. "A turn to the right, a little white light, will lead me to my . . . blue . . . heaven." I could almost see my parents laughing as they fox-trotted around the room deftly avoiding sofas and chairs.

My attention was drawn to the sheers pulled across French doors that led to a small, secluded patio. Long ago, when the music room was where young folks gathered to sing popular tunes, the patio had been a trysting place for couples to spoon, as Aunt Loulane had called it. Even into the 1960s, when a phonograph and records were the music to love by, Dahlia House's music room had been a gathering place for high schoolers to spin the latest discs, dance, and smooch on the patio.

My parents had shared more than one pa.s.sionate embrace out there in the falling twilight. As the memories and sensations flooded over me, I thought I heard my mother's soft whisper.

"Mama?" Framed against the sheers was a silhouette of a man and a woman. "Daddy?" My feet were held in thick concrete. I could barely struggle toward the door.

I turned to Jitty for help, but the piano bench was empty, the piano closed and covered with dust.

The more I tried to move, the more I became stuck. My parents were just outside, and I couldn't get to them. For twenty-two years I'd hoped for this moment--for a word or an embrace--and I couldn't reach them.

"Mama!"

I felt something warm and wet on my face, and I fought to consciousness with Sweetie Pie licking me.

The bedroom was empty, except for my hound. My body was wrapped in the sheet like a shroud, so tight I couldn't wiggle an arm or a leg. For a long moment I simply lay there, panting and exhausted by my nocturnal struggles.

"Jitty!" I called. "Jitty!"

There was the slightest shimmer of air and she appeared at the foot of the bed. Her attire was a far contrast to the glamour of my dream. She was still wearing her Depression Garb, her face worn and tired.

"You'd best have a reason for givin' me double-duty tonight," she said. "Torch singer is a million miles from the place I'm in right now."

"Mama and Daddy were there."

She started to say something and stopped.

"They were. You know it."

"Sarah Booth, I tole you before, they're watchin' over you. Have been since the day they died."

"What did the dream mean?"

"I'm only a ghost. I don't have answers like that."

I freed a leg from the sheets and sat up. It was three-thirty, and there wasn't any point in going back to bed: I wouldn't sleep. I couldn't call Graf, because it was 1:30 in the land of celluloid. While working as a P.I., I could get by looking like a run-over sack of suet, but Graf had to look great.

I stood up and stretched.

"Where you think you're goin'?" Jitty asked.

"Maybe for a moonlight horse back ride." It was the best idea I'd had in ages. I thought of the rides I'd shared with Graf in Costa Rica. "I wish Graf was here. I miss him a lot." More than I'd antic.i.p.ated.

"Call that man and tell him to hop the next plane home. He needs to be with you."

I laughed. "That's provincial. I'm a full-grown woman. To have a relationship with Graf and still help my friends, I can't call him every time I have a bad dream."

"Don't you dare go ridin' off into those cotton fields."

Jitty was seriously troubled, and I found it hard to accept. "I've ridden at night for the past year. What's the problem?"

"Folks weren't keelin' over from some strange sickness until just a week ago. You don't know what's in those fields."

"If it's something bad, Jitty, it can walk right in the front door. In case you haven't noticed, cotton is growing not a hundred yards from Dahlia House."

She turned away. "I noticed. And for the first time I can remember, I'm hopin' the crop fails. I don't want that stuff near you, Sarah Booth."

"Jitty!" I was appalled. No Mississippian would ever wish a cotton failure. Never more than an adequate student of history and economics, even I knew the devastation of such a thing. Jitty had lived through the Civil War and the boll weevil--she should know better.

"You've got to take care of yourself, Sarah Booth."

"I do, Jitty, but I have to live."

She kept her back to me. "The stakes are higher than you know."

I found a pair of jeans and slipped into them, along with socks and my boots. "It's a good thing I don't know how high these stakes are, because I almost can't hold up to the burden I'm carrying now."

I whistled up my hound and clattered down the stairs into the soft glow of a nearly full moon. Reveler and Miss Sc.r.a.piron were at the fence. Both whickered softly when they saw me. Again I felt the pain of missing Graf, but I refused to let it ruin what promised to be a wonderful ride. If I'd learned anything in the thirty-four years of my life, it was that happiness came from living each moment to the fullest. If I could manage that difficult task, I could be the partner for a dynamic man like Graf.

It took only a few moments to saddle Reveler. Miss Sc.r.a.piron trotted beside us until we reached the end of the pasture fence. She returned to her grazing while Reveler and I set out across the moonlit fields at a trot.

The night was cool, and the tiny cotton plants shivered silver in a light breeze. The moon gave plenty of light, and I knew the land, each dip and contour. This was Delaney land, much of it cleared by mules and sweat.

I'd seen the ghosts of slaves in these fields on foggy nights, heard the singing and the row calls that were so much a part of the tradition of the blues songs that I loved.

On hot days I'd watched the huge machines crawl across the acres harvesting the cotton. While my father had earned his living as a lawyer, he'd also farmed. Sometimes he'd let me ride in the cab of the pickers with him. Sometimes he'd even let me steer.

The rows, loaded with white bolls, would fall to the picker. Behind us we left brown stalks and a few tufts of white that the machine had missed. Cotton was the lifeblood of the Delta. What would happen if an infestation of boll weevils destroyed the crop? With a country already teetering on economic crisis, such a catastrophe could put Mississippi back into a time warp of poverty and hunger.

When I finally came out of my dire thoughts of economic ruin, I found I'd ridden miles from home. Across a big field was the cottage that a handsome young blues-man had rented. Another page of my past rose up to haunt me on this strange night.

This was also the location where Coleman and I had first kissed.

The house he rented wasn't far. I checked my watch. It was nearly five in the morning. He'd be up in another half hour. I'd surprise him by riding up and having a cup of breakfast coffee. I needed to ask him a few things about the case.

Fifteen minutes later, Reveler and I walked down Coleman's dirt driveway. I wondered what happened to the house he'd shared with Connie. Knowing Coleman, he'd signed it over to Connie without a backward look.

Just as I slid out of the saddle, Coleman stepped onto the front porch of the wooden cottage. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, and he held a mug of steaming coffee. When he saw me, a smile spread across his face before he reined his expression in.

My stomach fluttered, and a delicate curl of nausea teased me, but I walked to the porch leading Reveler.

"Are you investigating on horse back now?" he asked.

"I couldn't sleep, so I went for a ride. I guess Reveler and I rode a little farther than I antic.i.p.ated."

"Coffee?"

"I'd love some." I removed the bridle and let Reveler graze in Coleman's front yard while we sat on the porch and drank our java.

"Have you made any progress in the case?" I asked.

Coleman gazed to the east, where day was breaking. "Bonnie Louise believes someone deliberately loosed some kind of bacteria at the Carlisle plantation."

"Does she have any evidence of that?" I kept my voice neutral.

"She's examined some of the weevils at the Carlisle place. They're a mutant strain. Something she's never seen, and boll weevils are her specialty. She and Peyton believe the weevils and genetically altered cotton are connected. I've been trying to reach Lester Ballard for days. I gather he's so deep in the South American jungle no one can contact him."

"Have you talked to Luther?"

"I have. He doesn't have a clue. Or if he does, he isn't saying."

I brought him up-to-date with Erin Carlisle and the research I'd done into her family's past.

"So she thinks Luther may have done something to destroy the value of the land agriculturally."

"Maybe."

"Bonnie took some weevils to Starkville to the university. There's a scientist affiliated with the school who specializes in insects and he's agreed to help. Her concern is that these weevils have such a short gestation period." He rubbed his jaw and I saw he hadn't shaved. "It could be a serious problem for the farmers here. Everywhere cotton is grown. The good news is that this is confined to the altered cotton. The weevils, the destruction of the cotton, even the illness."

"Has she pinpointed whether the weevils are related to what's wrong with Oscar and Gordon?"

He shook his head. "No one can make that link."