1
“Jingle Bell Rock” pours from a local jewelry store on the Main Street of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. I walk with my friend and business partner, Tinkie, who pushes her daughter Maylin in a super-duper stroller. We pause to admire the diamonds, emeralds, and beautiful designs on display in the storefront. The window is decorated with a real cedar and holly garland that carries the scent of so many Christmases past. No store-bought decorations can ever replace the power of the real thing.
“Oh, Sarah Booth, look at the square-cut emerald. Isn’t that your birthstone?”
Tinkie loves beautiful jewelry, and I stop beside her to admire the ring. “It is beautiful, but jewelry doesn’t do it for me, Tinkie.”
“I know. You’d rather have a hoe or wheelbarrow. Dear goodness, you are a bad role model for all the feminine women who enjoy the finer things in life.”
I laugh with her. Tinkie is the perfect society lady and the perfect mother, facts which also sometimes cause people to underestimate her intelligence. But we aren’t here in this beautiful Mississippi coastal town for work. This trip is part of our Christmas celebrations.
Bay St. Louis, a small town on the high ground of the Bay of St. Louis, was nearly wiped from the map during Hurricane Katrina. But it has come back strong, retaining the quaint and eclectic flavor that made it such a destination spot for artists, writers, designers, and those who love the coastal way of life. Booze, gambling, and easy women, while not always legal, were always available down the entire coastline from New Orleans to Alabama. Unlike so much of the rest of Mississippi, the coast has always been a “live and let live” kind of place.
Tinkie had found us the perfect place to stay for our visit. She was a master of locating unique accommodations, and the Bay Moon Inn, operated by two eccentric and very likable sisters, Martha and Ellie, was absolutely marvelous.
We move on down the street, admiring antiques, chic dress shops, restaurants with mouthwatering menus posted on chalkboards, and bars where cleaning crews are setting up for the afternoon. Christmas decorations are everywhere—and the tradition of creating Christmas scenes in storefront windows is still alive here. I love it.
The baby’s stroller has a slight creak in one wheel. It’s an amusing fact to me and Maylin but one that is driving my partner in Delaney Detective Agency, Tinkie Bellcase Richmond, to a near breakdown.
“If that stroller doesn’t stop creaking like that, I’m going to buy some lighter fluid and matches and put it out of its misery.” Tinkie kicks the protesting wheel, though not very hard. Precious cargo rides in that stroller.
“Oil can!” I pretend to freeze in place and eke the two words out of a frozen mouth. “Oil can!” I slap my leg at the knee and take a precarious step, acting as if my joints are frozen by rust. “Oil can!” The Wizard of Oz is my all-time favorite movie.
“You are a wart on Satan’s buttocks.” Tinkie glares at me, but Maylin giggles. The baby is not even two months old but she is very advanced. Or so the wags of my hometown, Zinnia, Mississippi, tell me. Maylin, the long-awaited offspring of Zinnia’s most prominent family, Oscar and Tinkie Richmond, is the darling of the town. And I, for one, couldn’t be happier. Maylin is a miracle baby, coming when every doctor in the Southeast said that Tinkie could never have a child.
“Sarah Booth, stop acting like the rusted tin man and do something about that wheel.”
“Like I can magically conjure up some oil?” I ask, but I had noticed a quaint hardware store on the corner we just passed. Tinkie, Maylin, Oscar, and their nanny Pauline, are all in town along with my fellow, Sheriff Coleman Peters, and me, to judge the local library’s annual Christmas tree decorating contest. Later we’ll be joined by friends and loved ones for what has become our annual Christmas trip to a small Mississippi town. Tinkie, Oscar, Pauline, and Maylin came down in one car, and Coleman and I traveled down in the Roadster, my mother’s antique convertible, which I refuse to give up for any reason.
Coleman and Oscar nearly ran over themselves heading to the casinos that have proliferated all down the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Legalized gambling has changed the sleepy fishing villages of Biloxi and Gulfport into major tourist destinations. Not normally gamblers, Coleman and Oscar were eager for a few games of chance, and Tinkie and I were glad to see them go. We have last-minute shopping to finish.
“I’ll get some oil for that wheel.” I point back to the hardware store. Then I point in the other direction. “There’s a pottery place if you want to wait for me there.” I grin to hide my true motive. I will get the oil, but I also want to pick up a battery-operated drill for Oscar. Tinkie has him putting together all kinds of baby stuff and Oscar has never been handy. The drill should help him out a lot.
“Pottery!” Tinkie’s eyes go wide. “I need to find something for Millie. Something unique. That would be perfect.”
“Meet you there in fifteen. And don’t kick the stroller again. If you knock the wheel off, you’ll have to papoose that baby everywhere you go.”
“I wonder who’d help me carry her?” Tinkie asks, all big, blue-eyed innocence—because she knows I love toting that little dumpling around. Maylin is all smiles and curiosity. Seeing the world from what I perceive as her view gives everything a new glow.
Tinkie, Maylin, and the creaking wheel head to the pottery gallery while I dash back to the hardware emporium to grab some oil and the drill. There’s a commotion in the alley between the hardware store and a boutique, and I stop to see what’s what. Moving down the alley is a woman in stilettos and a midnight blue sequined gown with a matching cap on top of carefully set chestnut waves. Whoever she is, she is from another era. Or at least dressed for another time.
“Hey!” My curiosity must be fed. “Hey, hold up!”
She turns to look at me and I realize I know her. Not personally, but she’s famous. She’s Clara Bow. I knew about her film career that started in silent films and continued into talkies. Her early life was tragic, and film success didn’t erase the hardships she’d endured, but when she was in front of a camera, she had it. She projected a magical life filled with joy and happiness. “Hey, wait up!” She turns right at the end of the alley and disappears.
What is a long-dead movie star doing in a Bay St. Louis alley? I take off to find out.
“Clara!” I catch up with her behind the store, and I realize I know her better than I thought. Clara is actually Jitty, my resident haint. She’s followed me from Dahlia House in Zinnia down to the Gulf Coast. “What are you doing here, Jitty?” I know she won’t tell me, but I ask anyway.
“Louella Parsons says I have a dangerous pair of eyes.”
She does. Her eyes, highlighted with heavy kohl, are mesmerizing. And sad. “Are you okay?”
She nods. “Better than okay most days. Drink the cup of joy, Sarah Booth. Pass up the cup of misery whenever you can.”
It’s grand advice, but it chills me to think she’s talking about something specific. She won’t tell me the truth, so I ask another question. “Are you Christmas shopping for the Great Beyond?”
“No, I’m bird-dogging you to make sure you don’t wreck Christmas with some of your shenanigans.”
Now that is the kind of smart-ass answer that lightens my heart. “Kind of hard to be a gumshoe in stilettos.”
Jitty does a little turn, cocks a hip, and strikes a pose. I see the spark of life that makes Clara Bow famous.
“I don’t have time for this foolishness.” I am amused, but Tinkie has become impatient since Maylin’s birth. Her hormones are all aflutter, and unless she’s super-heating her credit card she will be tapping her foot waiting for me. “Go home to Dahlia House, Jitty. I’ll be there soon. I have to judge the tree contest and then do a little celebrating with my friends.”
“That good-lookin’ lawman comin’ home with you?” Clara is slowly morphing into Jitty. The beautiful ball gown disappears, replaced by tights and a bright red thermal shirt with a decorated Christmas tree on the front. Yet again, she is wearing my clothes without even a word of apology.
Copyright © 2022 by Carolyn Haines
