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    Clacking Bones: Sarah Booth Delaney Short Mystery
    Clacking Bones: Sarah Booth Delaney Short Mystery
    Clacking Bones: Sarah Booth Delaney Short Mystery
    Ebook73 pages1 hour

    Clacking Bones: Sarah Booth Delaney Short Mystery

    By Carolyn Haines

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    About this ebook

    EVEN THE DEAD WANT REVENGE! Cliburn Plantation is a ruin. Cursed by a voodoo priestess because of the cruelty of Ezekiel Cliburn, it's home to the ghosts of Haitian mourners, slaves, river pirates, and tragedy. When Jitty, the resident ghost of Dahlia House and Sarah Booth Delaney's nemesis and friend, asks for help, Sarah Booth takes on the nether world in this creepy Halloween tale. Jitty's husband, who was killed in the Civil War, has disappeared from the Great Beyond. He's on a mission of revenge that will get him banished from the heavenly world, unless Sarah Booth can stop him.

     

    On All Hallow's Eve, when the veil between living and dead is thinnest, Sarah Booth travels to the old plantation to halt a showdown between Coker and the last living heir of the Cliburn family. When Coker and Thom Cliburn face off on the dusty road that fronts the slave quarters of the old plantation, can Sarah Booth save Jitty's man? Can she survive an encounter no living person should ever see?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKaliOka Press
    Release dateSep 10, 2018
    ISBN9781386047513
    Clacking Bones: Sarah Booth Delaney Short Mystery
    Author

    Carolyn Haines

    Carolyn Haines is the USA Today bestselling author of the Sarah Booth Delaney mystery series and a number of other books in mystery and crime, including the Pluto's Snitch paranormal-historical mystery series, and Trouble, the black cat detective romantic suspense books. She is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Distinguished Writing, the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence, and the Mississippi Writers Guild Lifetime Achievement Award. She is a former journalist, bartender, photographer, farmhand, and college professor and lives on a farm where she works with rescue cats, dogs, and horses.

    Read more from Carolyn Haines

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      Book preview

      Clacking Bones - Carolyn Haines

      Clacking Bones

      Clacking Bones

      A Sarah Booth Delaney Short Mystery

      Carolyn Haines

      KaliOka Press

      Copyright © 2018 by Carolyn Haines

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

      Cover design by Cissy Hartley

      Formatted by Priya Bhakta

      For Ritter Ames, who inspired me to write a Halloween story

      Contents

      Clacking Bones

      A Gift of Bones

      About the Author

      Also by Carolyn Haines

      Clacking Bones

      A Sarah Booth Delaney Halloween Tale

      Standing before the tri-paned mirror in my bedroom, I had one thought. Get back, Satan!

      The paisley Capri leggings I’d purchased with such high expectations had gone demonic on me. They warped and stretched in a way that made me fear my thighs might explode at any minute.

      And Cece was to blame. All I’d wanted was to look fetching while sporting the leggings, boots, and tunic look that my friend carried off so well. Cece Dee Falcon, the society editor at our local newspaper, the Zinnia Dispatch, had tempted me with the joys of Lycra, spandex, and brightly colored patterns. She wore such an ensemble and looked like a million dollars.

      She was an agent of Satan.

      What the mirror showed me was not a chic, svelte fashionista, but the high cost of a long, hot summer of frozen margaritas and choco-licious mudslides. Before I could rethink my instantaneous decision, I slipped some gym shorts over the leggings, laced up my sneakers, sprinted down the stairs and out the front door of Dahlia House, and into the brisk October morning.

      The only course of action open to me was to flog my wayward body back onto the path of righteousness and caloric accountability. I would begin immediately—before my subconscious had a chance to talk me out of exercise.

      I rocketed down the long driveway beneath the branches of the bare sycamore trees. I was strong, confident, assuming control of my body. Halfway to the road, I felt the burn. Yes! No pain, no gain. I recited the mantra in my head and pushed on.

      At the road, I did a victory dance and turned around to head home. I was ten steps into the journey when my butt muscles seized and began to twitch. And jerk. And spasm.

      The return trip was not going to happen because I couldn’t catch my breath, had a stitch in my side, and I thought my heart was going to explode. I collapsed into a pile of dead sycamore leaves, gasping.

      My body was in revolt. I was going to die, just like Great-great-great Uncle Leonard Delaney when he ran down the driveway chasing a carpetbagger who’d dared to make an offer on Dahlia House and the land. Uncle Leonard had become so overwrought at the varmint who meant to steal his property, he’d unloaded both barrels of a shotgun at the skunk and then keeled over dead. Uncle Leonard died in pursuit of revenge. My sin was vanity. I saw it clearly now.

      Would Sweetie Pie, my loyal hound, lead the search party to my body? Would someone find me before the flies arrived? Would the worms crawl in and worms crawl out?

      I made a bargain with God. I wouldn’t jog again. Ever. I would not be a slave to vanity and body shaming. I would go into the house, find a hammer, smash the mirror, and burn the leggings in the fireplace. Whatever in the world possessed me to order them in the first place? If this was punishment for a lapse in fashion judgment, I had paid the price.

      It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta da-ah-ah-ah.

      What the hell? I sat up in the leaves to find the elegant Delta songbird, Bobbie Gentry, standing in the driveway playing her guitar and singing Ode to Billy Joe, the ballad that made her famous.

      What are you doing here? I asked. Bobbie hadn’t aged a bit since 1967 when her Delta tune was a huge hit and she became a sensation. She still looked great in a mini-dress and her long hair lifted gracefully on the late October breeze.

      I need your help. I want to hire the Delaney Detective Agency, she said.

      I couldn’t believe it. Bobbie Gentry had come home to the Delta to ask me for help. This was a private investigator career moment if ever there was one.

      Sure. I tried to jump to my feet but every muscle that I’d abused let me know payback was going to be hell. I hobbled upright.

      Are you okay? Bobbie asked. You look like you’ve got some joint issues.

      I’m fine. Just a cramp. I had to squeeze the words past gritted teeth. What can I do for you, Bobbie?

      It’s a missing…person case. I heard you were pretty good with those.

      "I’ve had some success. Come with

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