Them Bones by Carolyn Haines

alien. "I wasn't certain you'd be open."
    "I cooked, I ate, I washed the dishes, and then I discovered I was bored. It's slow, but a few folks have come in." She lit a cigarette. "Most of them thirsty."
    Millie is older than I am, a single mother whose children are grown, married, and producing offspring of their own. There are no womb disorders in the Roberts family. I could understand that opening the cafe was preferable to staying home alone.
    She put the fizzing soda in front of me and reclaimed her seat. I saw that she was reading a story about a sighting of Princess Di atGraceland . The photo that accompanied the story showed a ghostly figure that resembled the late Princess of Wales--and about ten million other slender blond women--peering through the musical gates ofGraceland .
    "Do you think she's really dead?" Millie asked, pointing at Di.
    I hadn't thought about it as up for debate. "I guess."
    "Some folks think she and Dodi only wanted to live their lives in peace. They think she's living on an island off the coast ofGreece ."
    It was one way of interpreting the facts. "Sounds like a nice ending to an unpleasant life," I said. I'd seen the handwriting on the wall in that marriage when Di had to do the virgin check and Charles didn't.
    "The way I've got it figured is that Charles and the queen went along with it because that way they'd get Diana out of their hair. I mean, she's dead; she can't keep upstaging Charles. And all she ever really wanted was to be loved. So she gets that and peace."
    It was a pretty neat bundle, I had to admit. "I hope you're right."
    "Me, too," she said, but her voice had lost its conviction. Millie enjoyed creating fantasies, but that didn't mean she was stupid enough to believe them.
    "Speaking of tragic families, I saw lights on at Knob Hill tonight." In the commerce of gossip, you have to learn to trade. I'd just plopped the Hope diamond of red-hot news on the table. Millie's face lit up like she was standing at a Tiffany's counter.
    "Lights? On Thanksgiving night?" Then the wheels turned. "What were you doing at Knob Hill?"
    "Driving by," I said, waving a hand to dismiss my errand as insignificant. "That house has been closed for nearly twenty years, as best I can remember."
    Millie nodded. "Hamilton the Fifth has been home a few times, or that's what I've been told. He hasn't put in an appearance in Zinnia." Her voice had taken on a careful edge.
    I nodded and sipped my drink. The fizz was very comforting. Without a qualm, I stole a line from Cece. "His whole life has been like a Greek tragedy."
    Millie shot me a strange look but picked up her cigarette. "Yeah, it would make a great miniseries on television. If anyone ever really got to the bottom of it."
    Pay dirt. "You mean you don't think it happened like--"
    "Guy Garrett wasn't a hunter. He couldn't hurt a fly." She got up and went behind the counter. She picked up a stack of menus and tapped them into a neat pile, laid them down, and began to wrap flatware in paper napkins. She kept her back to me.
    I put a few things together fast--Millie's hungry look as I mentioned Knob Hill, her careful tone, and her use of Hamilton Garrett the Fourth's nickname.
    "I was a kid when all of that happened." I kept it casual. "How awful forHamilton the Fifth to lose his father and then his mother. I wonder if he likedEurope ."
    "He didn't have much of a choice." Millie put the flatware aside and turned to pick up her cigarette, which was mostly a big, long ash. She thumped it and put it out. "There wasn't anybody on the Garrett side of the family left to take him. And his mama's people wouldn't take him."
    "Why not?"
    She stared at me as if she could discern the true reason for my curiosity. "Tragedy has a way of marking a person," she said slowly. "Folks don't want it in their homes. There was enough money forHamilton to go somewhere far away, to finish growing up in a place where he wasn't viewed as a victim or a murderer. He made the smart