A Dangerous Road: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  But that would hurt Laura, and despite the growing anger I was feeling, hurting Laura was the last thing I wanted to do.

  Scarlett. Her real name was Scarlett. In her birth announcement, which was sandwiched into the odds and ends Porter had collected, the Ratledges had named her to honor Margaret Mitchell and the Gone With the Wind hoopla. Mrs. Ratledge had expressed in the society page her joy that her daughter had arrived early enough so that she and her husband could attend the festivities.

  These people were not ones I would want as parents. But then neither were the Hathaways. Laura had a choice between bad and worse, in my opinion. And at the moment, my opinion counted for a lot.

  I got into Memphis in the late afternoon. The light was diffuse, growing dark, and in the shadows, the city looked terrible. The curbs were piled with garbage, and I noted the farther into town I got, the worse the smell got. The scent of rot hung over the place like a miasma. I hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten until I had gone away.

  I went to my office first. Beale looked like a Third World city. Windows were boarded up. Large signs covered doorways, saying that businesses were closed. Wilson Drug was a ruined hulk on the corner of Fourth, and the air still smelled like smoke.

  The streets were littered with trash. I crossed over a large pile of it against the curb and nearly slipped on some filthy water on the sidewalk beyond. Memphis was cold and dark and unwelcoming, but it felt more like home than Atlanta ever would.

  I carried the accordion file inside and locked it in my safe. My office was just as I had left it, with the Hathaway’s notes and papers scattered on my floor. Laura hadn’t asked for them back when I made her go to Chicago. Perhaps my odd behavior hadn’t bothered her. It had bothered me at the time. Now it seemed justified.

  If I had gone with her to Atlanta, who knew what would have happened.

  I sat at my desk and turned on the lamp. I shoved a pile of papers aside and dialed Laura’s number before I had a chance to stop myself.

  It rang once. I put my finger over the disconnect button. Twice. My finger itched. Three times. I was about to press the button when Laura’s voice came on the line.

  “Hello?”

  My traitorous heart leapt at the sound. I swallowed, the queasiness from Atlanta rising again.

  “Hello?” she asked again.

  “Laura,” I said.

  “Smokey.” She sounded relieved. “I’ve been worried about you. I didn’t hear, and didn’t hear, and didn’t hear, and I thought maybe something bad happened to you.”

  Something bad had happened to me, but it had been a long time in the past. It only felt as if it were happening now. “I’m fine,” I said.

  “I haven’t found too much here, although there are some connections of my father’s that are somewhat shady. I got an old friend to tell me about them, and he hinted that those newspaper articles were right. It seems that my father did make a percentage of his early money doing things he shouldn’t have.”

  She was talking too fast, and it struck me then that she was nervous.

  “Still, I talked to his old secretary, and I should get his letters—or some of the carbons anyway—tomorrow. Then I was hoping to go through their house one last time. I have to put it up for sale anyway, and I thought maybe there might be some hidden storage places that I didn’t know of. I was thinking maybe you could come up here and help me. What do you think, Smokey?”

  “I think we need to talk,” I said. She was talking too fast; I was talking too slow. I felt as if my entire body were underwater. “I went to Atlanta Saturday, Laura.”

  “You found something.” Then I heard what was really going on. She was afraid. She was afraid of what I had found, afraid she wouldn’t like it.

  Well she wouldn’t. At least parts of it. The knowledge that she had another family, ready-made, might appeal to her.

  “Smokey?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I found something.”

  There was a long silence as I gathered my thoughts. I picked up a pen and held it between my fingers, twirling it.

  “What did you find?” Her voice was nearly a whisper.

  All the way back, I had been thinking of this conversation, playing it over and over in my mind. Sometimes, in my imagination, I took the coward’s way out. I told her, starkly, what had happened and its consequences, following up her disbelief by mailing her the accordion file. Other times, I thought that too cruel. I thought telling her in person would be better. Those scenes I couldn’t play. I tried to imagine myself holding her, reassuring her, but I couldn’t see that. I couldn’t really imagine the words ever leaving my mouth.

  “Smokey, please.”

  “I’m sorry, Laura,” I said. “I can’t bring myself to tell you over the phone.”

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yes. No. I don’t know,” I said. “Come to Memphis. Then you can evaluate the information for yourself.”

  “Why don’t you come here?”

  “No,” I said. “You’re going to want to see what I have, and then maybe go to Atlanta yourself. Come here, Laura. I’ll be waiting.”

  And then I pressed the disconnect button and kept my finger on it, as if holding it down would break the connection forever. The silence astounded me. Maybe not telling her was the coward’s way out. I closed my eyes, imagining her now, her disorientation, her worry.

  The phone rang, startling me. I gripped the receiver harder, knowing it was her, knowing that she wanted me to tell her something, anything, that she wanted it to be all right.

  I let it ring three times, and then I realized I couldn’t let the conversation end this way any more than she could. I let go of the disconnect button.

  “Yeah?”

  “Smokey.” It sounded as if she had started crying. “What is it? What did they do?”

  They kidnapped you and left no ransom note. They stole you, Laura, and let my parents take the blame. What else do you want to know? You want to know what it was like growing up with that sort of fear hanging over your head, with nightmares of hiding in a closet while your parents were dragged out of the house to their deaths? You want to know why I can’t talk to you anymore, Laura? Do you really want to know?

  I cleared my throat. “Remember I told you that you might not like what we find?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I found the connection between your family and mine,” I said. “It’s not pretty. I’m sorry I’m being so harsh, Laura. I’m still in shock myself.”

  “Did they kill your parents?” she whispered.

  “Not directly,” I said.

  “Oh, God.” This time she was the one who was silent. “What information do you have?”

  “Proof. Of what your parents did. What happened afterwards. Why my parents were killed. Maybe I should tell you now, Laura. Maybe that would be better.”

  “Just the bare bones,” she said. “I don’t think I can live with not knowing. Not now that you know. Please tell me, Smokey, or else I’ll make something terrible up.”

  I closed my eyes. “Your real name is Scarlett Leigh Ratledge,” I said. “You were kidnapped from your parents’ home when you were 6 weeks old. Earl Hathaway, whose real name was Ray Hunt, was working as a gardener for your real parents until the late fall, when he was dismissed for unspecified reasons. His wife couldn’t have children. She was, by all accounts, a nice woman who believed that a child would somehow elevate her.”

  I heard Laura’s breathing on the other end, harsh and ragged.

  “Either to get revenge on the Ratledges one evening or to appease his wife, or maybe both, Ray Hunt snuck into the Ratledges’ house. He stole some heirloom silver, a coin collection, some jewelry that was in family safe with a flimsy lock, and you. Apparently you didn’t cry as he carried you out of that house. And then he and his wife disappeared. The jewelry was pawned in Memphis. The silver was probably melted down. The coin collection turned up nearly ten years later in Detroit. And you
were gone for good.”

  “This is true?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  “Yes,” I said. “Although no one knew it, not for a fact. They all thought you were dead.”

  “And your family? How does your family fit in?”

  “My mother was the Ratledge’s housekeeper. She was baby-sitting that night. She heard nothing. She put you down about eight o’clock and didn’t check on you again when she left at midnight. The Ratledges apparently didn’t check when they got home, either. Nice people. When they discovered you missing, they thought my mother had killed you and had hidden the body.”

  “But the thefts—”

  “Weren’t discovered for a week. Everyone was preoccupied with the loss of the baby. Of you.”

  “And your parents were murdered.” She took a deep, shuddery breath. “Oh, Smokey.”

  I opened my eyes. I didn’t want her sympathy or compassion. I didn’t want any of it. I wanted to be angry at her. I wanted her to go into hysterics, to fail to believe me, to scream at me so that I could scream back.

  Maybe that was why I wanted her here, so that we could fight like I had never fought with anyone before, and we could end it all. Only we couldn’t end it. We were tied together forever in ways I didn’t want to think about.

  “What kind of evidence do you have?” Now it sounded like the story was started to sink in.

  “Newspaper articles, photographs, speculation.”

  “And it confirms what you say?”

  “Yes. You’ll see.”

  “But if no one knew that the baby was kidnapped, then how do you know it’s me?”

  “I have a photo of Ray Hunt, who looks enough like Earl Hathaway to convict him. I talked to his sister, who confirms that he disappeared in December of 1939. I have word of a detective who was hired to search for you by the Grand. He found nothing once your parents left Atlanta. They covered their tracks well, even then.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “It’s not the clincher,” I said. “The clincher is a photograph I have of your real mother who looks just like you, only dressed in a 1930s style.”

  “But if there was a kidnapping, what about the note?”

  “There was no note. I don’t know if your parents planned a note, and then your mother talked your father out of it so that she could keep you, or if you were taken for her all along. That part of this died with your parents.”

  “You sound so strange,” she said. “Distant, angry.”

  I wrapped the phone cord around my hand. “Your parents wanted to give me money for my parents’ lives, Laura. Ten thousand dollars apiece.”

  “They were probably trying to make amends—”

  “How would you like it, Laura, if someone had caused your parents to die horribly when you were ten years old, and then years later gave you twenty thousand dollars and said, ‘Here. This should make things better.’?”

  “But they didn’t give you a reason.”

  “No note,” I said sarcastically.

  “Smokey.”

  “Don’t defend them, Laura. Not after what they did to us both.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. I wished I could see her face. I didn’t know if she was shocked at me, at what I said, or at what it really meant. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Wait for you,” I said. And then I thought I understood what she was really asking. “Don’t worry. I haven’t told anyone about this. Not the Ratledges, not the press. No one. Just you.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Don’t thank me,” I said. “This was something I should have known years ago.”

  She paused for a moment, and if I hadn’t heard the faint edge of her breathing I would have thought she had hung up. “Maybe,” she said, her voice soft, “maybe you should just send me that file.”

  “I thought of it,” I said. “More than once. But I promised it would go back to its rightful owner. Besides, you left a lot of your parents’ things in my office. I want them out of here.”

  “I see,” she said as if she didn’t see at all. “Is this how it’s going to be between us now, Smokey?”

  “I don’t see how it can be any other way.”

  “All right.” Her voice was shaking. “I’ll be down there as soon as I can get a flight. And I’ll make sure I have the rest of your money.”

  She hung up before I could protest. I placed the receiver in its cradle, then rested my head on the back of my arm. I had fired the first shot, and Laura just showed she could keep up with me. Things were going to get nasty, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  * * *

  I didn’t want to go home. The idea of walking through my house, paid off with the money I received from Laura’s parents, was anathema to me. And Laura had been there. If I closed my eyes, I could see her in my bed, her body tangled in the sheets. They probably still smelled of her, of us, of sex.

  I couldn’t go there.

  I kept my head on my arm for a long minute, and then I sat up. I had chosen this path. I could have lied to her. I could have said I found nothing. Strangely, though, I hadn’t thought of that option until just now, when it was too late.

  She had sounded so shocked, so shaken, and I had been so cold. It was as if there were a part of me that believed she needed to pay for my parents’ death, for the situation her parents—her adoptive parents—had put me in. It wasn’t logical, it wasn’t rational, but it was there.

  I had been alone with this too long. I needed to talk to someone who wasn’t involved. My foster parents had done their best after the last few days, but they were trying to deal with their son, not with the man that I had become. They had waited for that day for years, and when it finally came, they handled it well but they saw me as a boy—probably would always see me as a boy—and that had felt good at first, but it didn’t feel good now.

  Without really thinking about it, I grabbed the receiver from its cradle and dialed Henry. If I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him about what I found, what I learned, at least I could talk to him about Jimmy.

  Henry’s secretary answered. She had a sweet, elderly, befuddled voice that fit with the woman I had seen in the church office.

  I introduced myself and asked for Henry.

  “Oh, Mr. Dalton,” she said. “He’s visiting the family.”

  “What family?” I asked.

  “Larry Payne’s,” she said as if I should have known. “The boy that got killed. His funeral was today.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “He’ll be back in an hour or so. You want me to let him know you called?”

  “Yes,” I said. I was answering by rote.

  “There’s one more thing, Mr. Dalton,” she said. “Reverend Davis said that if you should call, I should tell you to contact Jimmy. He said you’d know what that meant.”

  Jimmy. I felt cold. I had forgotten to tell Jimmy I was leaving. “I’ll do that right now,” I said.

  I hung up and got my coat and went to the car. I couldn’t do anything about Laura, but I could see Jimmy. He was probably worried. We hadn’t spoken since the night of the riot.

  The drive to the Nelsons’ was short. The bicycle was gone from the yard, as were all the toys. I doubted Selina Nelson had let her children outside all weekend.

  Not that I could have blamed her. Memphis had become a scary place.

  I walked onto the creaky porch and knocked on the peeling paint of the front door. It took a moment for it to open. Selina smiled when she saw me.

  “Smokey,” she said and sounded relieved. “Jimmy’s been worried about you.”

  “I just found out,” I said. “Can I see him?”

  She nodded and pulled open the screen door. I stepped inside. The usual mess of toys covered the floor. This time, the toddler was sleeping in a playpen and the three-year-old girl was sitting on a booster chair in the kitchen, banging a spoon on the table.

  “Jimmy’s upstairs,” she said. “I’ll take you to him.
”

  The stairs were made of flimsy pressboard that sagged in the middle. They creaked beneath my weight. As she led me up them, Selina picked up a stuffed rabbit, an errant jack, and a bag of marbles. She shoved them all in the pocket of her apron.

  The upstairs had once been an attic, but an amateur carpenter had built walls a third of the way inside. The walls separated three sleeping areas, but there was no fourth wall on any of them, and no doors. One of the rooms, on the farthest side, had a blanket strung over the opening. The others simply opened onto the sleeping area. It was warm up here now, but I suspected it had been cold on Friday, and I knew I didn’t want to be in these rooms in the heat of the summer.

  There were two beds in the room directly in front of us, one made military style, and the other a tangle of sheets and blankets. Clothing was on one side of the floor, near the messy bed, and on the dresser that seemed to straddle the invisible line between the occupants were perfume bottles and hair spray and an earring tree. Girls.

  Jimmy was in the next room over. He sat on a bed next to the window. The curtains were closed, but I knew that window overlooked the street. He had seen me coming.

  “Jimmy,” Selina said. “You have a visitor.”

  Jimmy kept his back to us. “Don’t want to see no one,” he said, his voice soft.

  “It’s Smokey,” she said. “You’ve been—”

  I put a hand on her arm. I knew that he had watched me walk to the front door. He knew I was here.

  “Jimmy,” I said. “I came to see how you were doing.”

  “Jus’ fine,” he said.

  He had never been this sullen with me, not ever. I glanced at Selina. “Do you mind if I talk to him alone for a few minutes?”

  She shook her head. She went back down the stairs, and I waited until I could no longer hear her footsteps before I said, “So, you’re mad at me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going to Atlanta. In the heat of the moment Friday, I just forgot.”

  Jimmy crossed his arms. “You didn’t do nothing about Joe.”

  He had asked me, when we brought him here weeks ago, for help with Joe. I hadn’t promised to do anything, but apparently Jimmy had heard it that way.