“So you just been waiting this whole time?” Peter asked.
“Since midnight,” Rick said. “I figured you’d get off work around then and come home.”
“I usually do,” Peter said. “But I got lucky last night.” He smiled, knowing that it wasn’t entirely a lie. He had gotten lucky. Just not the kind of lucky he was implying.
Rick chuckled. “I figured as much, but I was afraid to leave for fear of missing you. And if you’re about to go out of town—”
“Well, I don’t know how I can be of help,” Peter started, putting the key into the lock. “But I can at least fix you a cup of coffee for your trouble.”
“Thank you,” Rick said, sighing with relief. “That would be great.”
27
“I knew Andy a long time,” Peter said, handing Rick a cup of scalding black coffee. Rick took it and blinked his eyes to get his bearings. After seven hours cooped up in the Saturn, his mind drifting in and out of consciousness, Rick was glad to be anywhere but the front seat of his car. He felt sluggish and tired, but he knew he had to snap out of it. Burns was an important witness. “And I’ve known Bo my whole life,” Peter continued.
“Bo said he represented you a few years ago.”
Peter chuckled. “Yeah. Possession of marijuana and a DUI. Since it was my second DUI charge, I could have gone to jail. But Bo tried the case and won.”
“I thought Helen Lewis hadn’t lost a case as DA,” Rick said, feeling a pang of hope in his heart.
“Wasn’t Helen,” Peter said. “It was one of her assistants. Though I was stoned out of my mind that night, I had only blown a .09, which is just barely drunk. I did the field sobriety tests better than the officer, which really wasn’t fair because I work all day about half-cocked. I walk straighter after a few joints and a couple beers than I do stone sober.” He laughed and sipped from his coffee. Rick did the same, beginning to feel the caffeine kicking in. “Bo said we had a chance, and sure enough he won it.” Peter shook his head. “Bo’s a good lawyer now, I’m goin’ tell you.”
“Bo said in lieu of payment for his work, you agreed to give him information.”
Peter nodded. “And I have. I gave him some information on a stripper last year that was involved in one of his cases in Alabama.”
“Wilma Newton,” Rick said.
“That’s right.”
“That was actually my case,” Rick said. “Bo was lending a hand because Wilma was a key witness and she lived and worked here in Pulaski.” He paused. “Whatever happened to Wilma?” Rick asked. “I haven’t seen her since—”
“Wilma’s . . . not with us anymore,” Peter said. “Look, I’d rather not talk about that. Everyone at the club liked Wilma. It . . . was a sad situation.”
Jesus, Rick thought. He wanted to press Peter for more information, but he stopped himself. Stay focused. That’s not why we’re here.
“Did you see Andy Walton on the night he died?”
Peter nodded. “I did. Andy was a regular at the club, so I saw him a good bit.”
“And he also saw a dancer named Darla Ford the night of the murder. Is that correct?”
“Yeah, Darla. Her stage name was Nikita.”
“Was?” Rick asked. “What . . . ?”
“Shit,” Peter said, standing up and refilling his cup. “Is, I mean. Her stage name is Nikita.”
“Is she not there anymore?” Rick asked, and Peter closed his eyes.
“Ask me something else, OK, kid?” Peter said, his agitation evident.
“How long had Andy been seeing Darla?”
Peter sat back down and sighed, shrugging his shoulders. “A year maybe. Ten months?” He shrugged. “A while I guess.”
“What happened the night of the murder?”
“Just what I said in my statement to the police. Andy came to the club around eleven that night. Had a beer with me and then went upstairs with Darla to the VIP room.”
“How long did Mr. Walton stay in the VIP room with Ms. Ford?”
“Hour or so,” Peter said. “Give or take fifteen either way.”
Rick sipped his coffee. Despite his fatigue, he was alert now, hanging on every word. “What would . . . go on up in that room? Would . . . ?”
“You want to know if he was fucking her?” Peter said, his lips curving into a grin. Rick noticed a small gap in the man’s teeth.
Rick also smiled, playing along. “Well . . . was he?”
“The on-the-record answer to that is, of course, no.”
“And off the record?”
“Her brains out. Every time he came in.” He fiddled with the handle of his coffee cup. “You have to understand. Andy Walton was a self-confessed ‘man of the flesh.’ He wasn’t getting any at home, so . . .”
“How often did he come in?”
“Two . . . maybe three times a week.”
“Always the same pattern?”
“Pretty much. He’d shoot the bull with me for a beer or two, and then head up the stairs with Darla.”
“Did he ever say anything to you about his health?”
“No,” Peter said, gazing down at the floor. “But Darla . . .”
“What?” Rick pressed, sensing he was getting somewhere.
“A couple weeks before Andy was killed, Darla was crying as she left the club. I asked her what was wrong, and she said something was about to happen. Something big. She couldn’t tell me what it was, but she said Mr. Walton was going to take care of her.”
“Did Andy ever tell you he thought someone might want to kill him?”
Peter shook his head. “No. He never said nothing to me. We mostly just shot the bull. He liked to come to the club and blow off steam. He spent the majority of his time with Darla.”
“Mr. Burns, where is Darla? We’ve tried to meet with her, and no one at the club seems to know where she is.”
Peter stood and emptied the remains of his coffee in the sink. “She’s gone.”
“What do you mean?” Rick asked.
“Just what I said. She’s gone.” Peter sighed. “Look, what was your name again?”
“Rick Drake.”
“OK, Rick, you got a business card?”
Rick fiddled in his wallet and then handed Peter a card.
Peter examined it. “Look, I got no dog in this hunt. I’d like to help Bo because he saved my ass from jail. But I was awful fond of Andy Walton. He was a friend and a great customer. If Bo killed him, then Bo deserves what’s coming to him.”
“Mr. Burns, with all due respect, Andy Walton was the Imperial Wizard of the Tennessee Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” Rick said, his exasperation and fatigue palpable. “He and his brethren in the Klan murdered Bo’s father forty-five years ago.”
Peter shrugged, unmoved by Rick’s show of emotion. “He was never charged, was he?”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” Rick said. “I don’t understand the people in this town. Bo helped you. If it wasn’t for Bocephus Haynes, you’d be rotting away in a jail cell. Bo helped a lot of people in this town. Why is everyone so quick to throw him under the bus? What about Andy Walton’s sins, for God’s sake?”
“Are you finished?” Peter said, yawning.
“You just don’t care, do you?” Rick asked, putting his hands on his hips and glaring at the bartender. “Nobody . . . seems to care.”
“Nobody’s got time for it, boy. People in Pulaski trying to make a buck just like any other place. Stuff like this just makes it harder. You know how many businesses will close down over the next year because of Bo’s trial? Ask me how much in tips I’ve made in the last week since Andy’s murder.” When Rick didn’t say anything, Peter stuck a finger in his chest. “I haven’t made shit. And you know what? I’m sure I ain’t the only one. I bet sales are down across the board. Here’s what you need to know. Win, lose, or draw. Guilty or innocent. It don’t make a damn. People just want it to go away. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“Mr. Burns, it is imp
erative that I speak with Darla Ford. Can you tell me how—?”
“I’ll call you, OK?”
Rick started to protest, but Peter held a hand up. “That’s the best I can do,” Peter said. ‘Now I’d like you to leave.”
He walked to the door and opened it, gesturing with a hand for Rick to go.
At the door Rick again wanted to protest, but there was nothing else he could think to say. “Best number is the mobile,” he managed.
28
Fifteen minutes later Rick and Ray Ray were sitting at a back table at the Bluebird Café.
“I bet he calls,” Ray Ray said, crossing his legs and taking a sip from his own mug. “I don’t know Burns like Bo does, but based on him letting you in the apartment, I bet he will call.”
Rick shook his head. “I doubt it. Not after I got on my soapbox about Andy being in the Klan and lynching Bo’s father. I . . . think that pissed him off pretty good.”
“Fuck him,” Ray Ray said, taking a bite of bacon. “You’re too sensitive, kid. Peter Burns isn’t. He just told you like it is.”
“You think he’s right about the town just wanting it to go away?”
“I think he told you the God’s honest truth. Pulaski, Tennessee has a history that the town can’t seem to escape. It’s like the damn town hall has a big scarlet R on it for ‘racist,’ because of the Klan being born here.” Ray Ray scoffed. “When Bo’s trial is discussed by the national media, what you’ll hear over and over again until you’re sick to death of it is ‘Pulaski, Tennessee, birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan.’ The broadcaster will be hyping the trial, and they’ll be showing images on the screen of houses in Giles County that sport the Confederate flag on the front porch and dozens of other pictures of Klansmen marching on the square. It won’t matter whether Bo is acquitted or found guilty. Whether he walks free or is lethally injected, Pulaski will take another hit. The shine on that scarlet R will be back. We can turn plaques around and shut the town down for a day, but we can’t change the national spin.” He paused and took a sip of coffee. “Burns shot you straight.” Then Ray Ray smiled his Joker grin. “I still think he calls you back.”
“I hope so,” Rick said, not feeling as confident. “He’s our only way to get to Darla Ford.”
“Maybe not. She might have been close to some of the other girls out there. I’ll head out to the Sundowners tonight and take another look.”
“Ray Ray . . .” Rick eyed his new partner suspiciously across the table.
“Business only, I promise. We have to find her, right?”
Rick nodded. “We have to find her.”
“Then I’m going.”
“I’ll go too,” Rick said.
“No, God, hell no. I’ve known Larry Tucker for years, and it’s not like I’ve been a stranger to the Sundowners. I’ll blend in better. Like I was telling Helen at the prelim”—he gave his Joker grin and sipped from the mug—“I’m a sneaky bastard.”
“All right then,” Rick said, leaning back as a waitress placed a steaming plate of blueberry pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs in front of him. “But be careful. With what happened to the Professor . . .” He trailed off.
Ray Ray patted the front pocket of his pants. “Ray Ray always packs a nine-millimeter friend with him.” Then, pausing to put a huge bite of pancake in his mouth, he asked, “Have you heard from Tommy?”
Rick shook his head and swallowed a mouthful of eggs. “I tried to call him after the prelim yesterday but got no answer.”
“He took a hell of a beating,” Ray Ray said.
“He’s also just coming off some cancer treatments,” Rick added, and Ray Ray wrinkled up his face. “Yeah,” Rick continued. “Bladder cancer. The treatments have worked. He’s been cancer-free for a year, but he had just been scoped a couple days before he got down here.”
“Jesus,” Ray Ray said. “So—”
“He may be out of commission for a while,” Rick completed the thought, feeling a sense of dread and anxiety come over him.
Ray Ray looked down at his food. Then he chuckled, and the grin was back. “He’ll be back sooner than you think.”
“You played for Coach Bryant with the Professor, didn’t you?” Rick asked.
Ray Ray nodded. “Graduated in 1960, the year before the first national champion,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You know, us boys on that team—Tommy, Lee Roy, Billy, Benny, Darwin, Pat . . .” He shook his head. “Hell, all of us. We’re different. We’ve had our struggles in life like everyone does, but we don’t quit.” He paused, shaking his head again. “You go through what we went through, you . . . can’t. It’s just not possible. Those boys that went with the Man to Junction when he was at A&M get all the publicity. And they was tough as nails, don’t get me wrong. Beebs was one of our assistants. I know. But . . . us boys in Tuscaloosa in ’58, ’59, ’60, and ’61 . . . we didn’t have no choice but to win. Coach demanded it. He willed it to happen. You’d look in that man’s eyes and hear his voice coming at you from up on that tower, and by God you had to whip the man in front of you. I was a receiver, and I didn’t just catch the ball when it came my way, I swallowed the damn thing. I was so focused I could see the laces on the ball.” He dug his fork into the plate of eggs and pointed it at Rick. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to quit in my life, and before I could do it, before I could walk away or stop what I was trying to do or . . .” He paused, blinking his eyes, and the hand holding the fork began to shake. “Or pull the trigger, I’d always hear that goddamn gravelly voice in my head. ‘Get up, Pickalew. Get up, goddamnit.’” Ray Ray wiped his eyes and slammed his right hand down on the table, causing the ice in the water glasses to rattle and Rick to jump back from the table. “Sorry,” Ray Ray said.
Rick didn’t know what to say. He was taken back by the intensity resonating from across the table. And for the first time he was glad that Ray Ray Pickalew was on the team.
“Anyway,” Ray Ray continued, scraping his teeth on his fork as he wolfed down a bite of eggs. “Tommy may be down right now, but he’ll be back. Us boys . . .” He gave a quick jerk of his head. “We just don’t know any different.”
29
Hazel Green, Alabama is a small town just a few miles south of the Alabama-Tennessee border. In 1967, led by a rugged all-state center named Rickey Clark and a skinny sophomore shooting guard named Stanley Stafford, the Hazel Green Trojans won the 2A Alabama state basketball championship. Most folks in Hazel Green of a certain age will tell you they remember two things about high school sports during the ’50s and ’60s. They remember Stanley Stafford hitting a jump shot at the buzzer to win the state championship in ’67.
And they remember when Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant came to Trojan Field in 1959 to see Tom McMurtrie play football.
It had been homecoming in late October. The Trojans were playing Sparkman in an important game in the race for the county championship. The air was crisp and cool, and many of the crowd had paper cups filled with hot chocolate. There had been rumors all week that Coach Bryant might come to the game, so the stands were packed an hour before kickoff, everyone turning their heads this way and that to see if the great man would actually visit.
He arrived midway through the first quarter. The referees literally stopped play as they got word that the Bear was on the premises. Coach Bryant rode in a black Cadillac marked by two state trooper sedans in front and one behind. The motorcade pulled to the front of the stadium, and according to Principal Ebb Hanson, the Bear was out of the back seat before the wheels had stopped rolling. Principal Hanson shook Coach Bryant’s hand and escorted him into the stadium as fans from both sides of the field rose and clapped. The Hazel Green band even broke into a rendition of “Yeah, Alabama.” The black-and-white pictures taken of the event show Coach Bryant in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie, with a black overcoat to keep off the cold. His head was covered with his trademark houndstooth fedora.
Principal Hanson led Coach Bryant into the sta
dium, flanked on the sides and in the back by four uniformed state troopers. Eventually, the Bear and his entourage were seated in the home stands on the fifty-yard line.
Coach Bryant, pursuant to his request, sat right between Sut and Rene McMurtrie, the parents of the boy he had come to see. Tom, watching from the field, heard one referee whisper to the other, “Sweet Jesus, look how big the son of a bitch is,” as the Bear shook Tom’s father’s hand and kissed his momma on the cheek.
The Trojans actually lost the game 17–14, but no one ever talks about that. They only talk about Coach Bryant’s entrance to the stadium, and the eight minutes of the first half that he watched.
Eight minutes in which Tom McMurtrie sacked the quarterback three times, had two tackles behind the line of scrimmage, caused a fumble, intercepted a pass, and blocked a field goal. Though his daddy couldn’t understand much of what Coach Bryant had said, given the noise in the stadium and the Bear’s gravel-like voice, Sut had told Tom later that he did hear the word “stud” several times. “Besides,” Sut had said, rolling his eyes, “he spent most of his time listening to your momma.”
Sure enough, a Huntsville Times cub reporter had gotten a great snapshot of the three together and put it on the front page of the sports section, which Sut said summed up the experience better than words could ever do. In the picture Sut is sitting bolt upright, arms folded, eyes focused intently on the game. Coach Bryant, smiling pleasantly, is leaning toward Tom’s mother, Rene, who is pointing at the field and telling the Bear something.
The next afternoon, seated at the kitchen table of the McMurtrie home, Coach Bryant offered Tom a scholarship to play football for the University of Alabama.
Sitting now in the same chair that his father had sat in those many years ago, Tom leaned his elbows on the table and held the framed newspaper photograph in his hand. Tracing his finger over the three faces—his daddy, Coach Bryant, and his momma—he knew that these three people had probably had the most influence on who and what he had become in life. Sometimes, like last year in the courtroom in Henshaw, he could still hear their voices. Encouraging him. Still teaching him lessons long past the grave.
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