by Sean Black
The area was quiet. No one would see them. Or her.
Ty was right to have his suspicions. But sources, informants, whatever you wanted to call them, were nervy for a reason. They had something to fear.
But what if it was a trap? Without Ty as back-up she would stand little or no chance. And his arrest seemed more than coincidental.
She took the note, feeling the texture of the paper between her fingers. She placed it on the passenger seat. She reached down to the ignition.
No, she told herself. Ty was right. It was too risky to meet someone like this on her own.
She put the note back into her bag, took the Honda’s key, opened the driver’s door, got out and secured the car.
* * *
The front door was unlocked. Cressida pushed it open, stepped into the hallway, and slipped off the heels she’d been wearing. She picked them up and walked over to the living room where the lights were still on.
Adelson Shaw was half sitting, half sprawled in an armchair. On the table next to him was the same bottle of Blanton’s bourbon. Now it was a half to three-quarters empty. While they’d been out at the mayor’s house, he’d kept working his way through it.
It took him a second to register her presence. He looked at her with red-rimmed eyes that gave him the appearance of a tearful drunk. He reached over and grabbed the glass that was sitting next to the bottle. He raised it high above his head in a toast. “Ah, beautiful lady, care to join me for a nightcap?”
Cressida didn’t respond. She was already feeling the awkwardness of the situation.
“Where’s your male companion?” said Adelson, hauling himself into a more upright position in the chair.
For a couple of reasons she didn’t want to share the story of being pulled over and Ty being arrested for DUI. First, she didn’t want Adelson to think that she was going to be spending the night alone in his house. Not while he was in this condition, anyway. He already had the hint of a leer to go along with his goofy drunken expression. She was confident she could handle the situation if he tried anything, but she didn’t want to have to sleep with a chair wedged against her bedroom door.
“He’ll be along in a little while.”
He patted the arm of the chair he was sitting in. “Come on, sit down, have a drink with me. You must need one after an evening with that old dragon.”
“It’s been a long night. I’m going to turn in.”
“Oh, come on,” he slurred. “Indulge an old man. I don’t get that much company, these days.”
She thought about it. If he was this drunk there was every chance she might get something out of him. He seemed in a talkative mood, and he clearly wasn’t a fan of Mimsy, whom Cressida was sure knew more than she was letting on about the murder.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll have a drink with you, but there’s one condition.”
“Just name it, lovely lady.”
“We’re truthful with each other.”
“I’ve never been known not to be,” said Adelson, his eyes darkening. “Why do you think I ended up alone?”
Cressida walked over to the drinks cabinet by the window. She picked up two fresh crystal glasses, and walked back to the table. She poured two decent measures, handed one to Adelson, then took the bottle back to the drinks cabinet and put it away.
“You’re probably right,” said Adelson, downcast. “I’ve had too much already.”
She recognized the drunk’s swift change in mood from her own upbringing with a father who self-medicated his emotional pain with booze and whatever else he could lay his hands on. Happy to sad to angry to self-pitying, he could work through them all in a matter of minutes, without anyone saying or doing anything to prompt them.
She made sure to sit on the couch, maintaining a good distance from her drunken host. This he seemed to pick up on.
“Oh, relax. I’m too old to try anything, especially after so much of this,” he said, raising the glass of burnished amber liquid. “I couldn’t raise a smile right now, never mind anything else.”
She ignored the comment. “Mimsy mentioned you at dinner.”
“Oh, yeah? What did the Queen of Darling have to say about me? Nothing complimentary, I know that much.”
“You guys were an item.”
“Is that a statement or a question?”
Cressida took a moment to answer. “It was an assumption, given how she spoke about you.”
Adelson took a sip and raised his glass. “You may be the first honest journalist I’ve met.”
“I’m correct, though.”
Adelson straightened up further in his chair. “Thereby hangs a tail.”
His expression grew serious, as he seemed to shake off the drunken haze, like a dog coming in from a downpour. “If you’ll pardon the pun,” he added.
Inwardly Cressida grimaced at his attempt at humor. Hang. Lynching. It wasn’t funny. Not to her.
“You want to tell me?” she said eyeing her bag, which she’d tucked next to her on the couch.
24
Sue Ann could feel Curious George’s eyes on her as she drove along the side of the main enclosure and up to the house. As she came to a stop she couldn’t see RJ’s truck. It wasn’t in its usual spot.
On the drive back all she’d been able to think about was Mimsy telling her to tell RJ not to feed the ’gators. It was equal parts unsettling and infuriating. She’d about had her fill of Miss Mary Elizabeth Murray for one lifetime. Just because she had a little more money than most folks around here, which was hardly difficult, she thought she could order them around.
She fumbled for her house keys. There was splash of water from the enclosure. If she had her way RJ would get rid of the ’gators. They’d fill in the pools with concrete and build a fence around the property to make sure the beasts never came back.
Don’t feed them.
The hell with Mimsy Murray.
Inside the house she called to RJ. He didn’t answer.
She walked into the kitchen, got herself a glass of water and drank it. Then she went down the hall and into the bedroom.
“RJ, I need to talk to you about something,” she said, putting her hand on the bed.
It was empty. She sat on the edge and smoothed her hand across the covers.
“RJ!” she called again. She switched on the light. The bed was made up, the same as it had been when she had left that morning. She pushed open the bathroom door. Empty.
Back in the kitchen, she grabbed the phone from the wall and called his cell phone, hoping he would answer, or be somewhere that had signal.
Mercifully, he picked up.
“RJ, where the heck are you?”
“Oh, hey, Sue Ann.”
“Don’t hey-Sue-Ann me. I came home thinking you’d be in bed and you’re nowhere to be seen.”
“Yeah, I had to go out. Guess I should have left you a note but it was kind of a last-minute thing.”
“What was?” A knot was forming in the pit of her stomach. With the phone pressed to her ear, she heard RJ take a deep breath. “RJ?” she said.
“I’m meeting with that reporter.”
“You’re what? Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?”
“No. I’d say I’ve gotten it back.”
She took a breath, fighting to compose herself. “What are you going to tell her?”
“I’m going to tell her the truth. It’s about time someone did.”
Sue Ann felt the floor giving way underneath her. She sank down, her back to the wall, until she was sitting on the kitchen floor. Outside, she heard Curious George making that growling sound he did sometimes when he wanted to get to one of the female ’gators, but they were in a separate pen.
“The truth?” she said to her husband.
“Yes. Like I should have done a long time ago.”
Sue Ann couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d thought about coming clean, but she knew she’d never be able to do it. It was just a pleasant little
fantasy, imagining the look on Mimsy’s face when she realized that someone had stood up to her and she’d have to face everyone knowing the kind of hateful person she was.
“And why didn’t you? I’ll tell you why, shall I? Because you tell the truth and you’re going to prison, and what would I do then?” she said, her voice cracking. She was close to tears.
“I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe I could be like a witness for the prosecution. Make some kind of a deal. Only go to prison for a few years instead of for ever. We could pick up again when I got out.”
Sue Ann reached up with her free hand and massaged her temple. She could feel a migraine coming on. It blossomed in the middle of her skull. “Do a deal? You need a fancy lawyer for that kind of thing, and we don’t have any money, RJ. Or are you forgetting that? We can barely pay our bills as it is. I can’t lose you.”
“And I can’t live like this. I thought maybe I could. I want to. I know it would be easier. I know that. But I can’t,” he said, his voice shrill and raised.
“Listen to me, this reporter, she’ll leave. Everything will go back to how it was. You talking to her can only make things worse. I don’t like any of this any more than you do, but you can’t do this.”
Now, sitting on the bare floor, Sue Ann knew she couldn’t stand up to Mimsy. If RJ did this and Mimsy found out, Mimsy would be hiring a fancy Miami attorney, and RJ would be taking the fall. Then what would she do? End her life alone, with Mimsy Murray still around to make her miserable.
She had to stop her husband. But how?
She would make one last plea. “RJ, I’m telling you not to do this. Come on home now. We can talk about it.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can . . .”
He hung up. Frantically, she called him back. This time he didn’t answer.
Sue Ann sat in the darkness, thinking long and hard about what to do. RJ wasn’t going to be stopped, and once he had opened his mouth to that reporter the consequences would cascade through their lives.
She continued to turn it over in her mind. She kept returning to the same conclusion. There was only one way to stop him.
Finally, and aware that the clock was ticking, she picked up the phone, and dialed another number. She couldn’t call Mimsy. And it wasn’t like she could call the cops because they’d ask too many questions. It had to be someone who knew about most of it already and would understand her dilemma. And someone who’d be able to stop him.
It took a while for Lyle to answer, but finally he picked up.
25
“How much do you know about Mary Elizabeth?” Adelson asked, his bloodshot eyes staring at Cressida over the tumbler of bourbon.
Cressida figured that if he really was to tell her what had happened to Carole Chabon she should match his truthfulness. In her short career she had found that people responded in kind if she spoke the truth.
“I know her family has lived here for generations. That originally they were slave owners. That they were involved with the Klan.”
Adelson gave an approving nod. “Very good. You’ve done your homework.”
“It’s part of the gig, Mr. Shaw.”
“Didn’t I already ask you to call me Adelson?” He took a sip of bourbon. “Oh, yes, the Klan. Do you know that the original Klan started out as a joke?”
“No,” she lied. She wanted him to believe she knew less than she did. And she wanted him to get into a flow. The more people spoke, and the more receptive the audience, the more likely it was that they would keep talking until they said something she didn’t know.
In that respect, being a reporter was like being a lawyer taking a deposition, or a detective interviewing a suspect. Create the right atmosphere in a room and people would tell you all manner of things that they probably shouldn’t.
“The idea was that the white robes would make them look like ghosts. They pretended to be dead Confederate soldiers come back to haunt freed slaves. They never thought anyone would take them seriously. But when they did, when they saw the fear their appearance created, and the power that fear gave them, well, it became something else entirely.”
“Was that why Mimsy got involved? For the power?”
“That, and family tradition, although she caught the wave a little late. By the time she was a young woman, the Klan wasn’t the force it had been. Do you know that in 1924 the Klan had more than two million members in this country?”
Cressida feigned surprise. Many historians estimated that there might have been as many as four million, which was a solid chunk of the white population in many states. Many representatives and more than a few senators in Congress relied upon the Klan vote to keep them in a job, Democrats as well as Republicans.
“Was that what drove her to kill Carole Chabon?” Cressida asked.
Adelson held up his empty glass. “You don’t really think Mimsy would have gotten close enough to a black woman to put a noose around her neck, do you? Perish the thought.”
Cressida got up, took his glass and began to refill it. “She had me to dinner at her house, and I’m a black woman.”
The same lascivious expression she’d seen earlier filled Adelson’s features. “And a very fine black woman you are,” he said. “But extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures . . .”
She handed him the glass, making sure to back off as soon as he took it.
“Thank you, my dear. No, don’t get me wrong, it was Mimsy’s idea. She was the one who got people excited enough to hunt down that poor girl and do what they did, but she didn’t do it herself.”
Cressida wanted to ask who did. She wanted names. But something told her that wasn’t the right question. Not now, anyway. “You weren’t involved, were you?”
Adelson took a sip of bourbon. “Goes down easy,” he said. “What do you think?”
“No, I don’t believe you were involved in killing Carole. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say you tried to stop it.”
“You’re a good judge of character, Ms. King, I’ll give you that. Did you know that when it happened Mary Elizabeth and I had just gotten engaged?”
Cressida shook her head. “I thought the two of you might have been involved but, no, I didn’t know you were engaged to be married.”
“We had an affection for each other, but it was mostly our family’s idea. You know, the most eligible young woman in town and the future town dentist. A nice, solid respectable white couple, with a decent income and a big house. There was even talk of me maybe running for office.”
“But you weren’t into it?” said Cressida, reading his tone. He was talking like a man who’d been sentenced to life incarceration rather than someone looking forward to marriage with the woman he loved.
“As I said, I liked Mary Elizabeth. She was pretty, and she could be fun when she was away from her family. But she was also very traditional. There wasn’t any spark between us. No excitement.”
“Do you mean sexually?”
“You really are from New York, aren’t you?”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I was what a lady like her would call ‘a tough dog to keep on the porch’.”
“You had affairs?”
Adelson’s posture stiffened. “I wasn’t married so they were hardly affairs.”
“Okay then, while you were engaged?”
“A man has his needs. There was no way Mimsy and I were doing anything before we got married. She wouldn’t even entertain the idea. And I suspected that when our wedding night came around it would be with the lights out, and she’d approach it as a duty.”
“No spark?” said Cressida, checking that was what he’d meant.
“Quite so.”
“And what does this have to do with Carole Chabon?”
Adelson smiled at her. His eyes held hers, and she knew exactly what it had to do with Carole. This was Adelson’s confession she was hearing, and it went in a straight line from his fondness for bl
ack women to his fear of being trapped in a sexless marriage and all the way, she suspected, to Carole Chabon hanging from a tree.
“Mimsy discovered you with Carole, and that was why she was killed?” she said.
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” said Adelson Shaw.
26
The small Florida Highway Patrol barracks house was a forty-minute ride from Darling, a squat single-story red-brick building.
The trooper who’d arrested him for DUI slid the phone across the desk to Ty. “Go ahead,” he told him.
Ty had one hand cuffed to the metal desk they were sitting at, and one hand free. Not that he was complaining. The trooper had been as good as his word, making sure Ty was booked as soon as they arrived at the barracks, and that he could make his call as soon as it was done.
Now he got up from his desk, and wandered over to the coffee pot. “You want one?” he asked Ty.
“Thank you. Black, no cream, no sugar,” said Ty.
He punched in Lock’s number, silently praying he’d pick up, and that it wouldn’t just default to voicemail. A second or so later his prayer was answered.
Lock obviously hadn’t recognized the number because he answered with his full name and business voice.
“This is Ryan Lock.”
“It’s Ty. I have a problem.”
“I guessed.”
“How’d you know it was me?” said Ty, a little taken aback.
“Florida number, but not yours. I figured it had to have something to do with you. And no one calls anyone after midnight unless it’s a booty call, or they’re in trouble. Seeing as I’m here with Carmen, I could discount the first option. So what’s up?”
Ty brought Lock up to speed as quickly and efficiently as he could. He wasn’t sure if there was a mandatory time limit for his call, and he wasn’t about to risk exceeding it.
When he’d finished explaining about having his drink spiked at the dinner and being pulled over and arrested for DUI, Lock said, “I’m on the next plane.”