Harley Jean Davidson 03 - Evil Elvis

by Virginia Brown

  That left the way open for Williams to introduce Hughes, which he did. Just as Harley had hoped, her suspicion was confirmed. Nana, the very image of Southern gentility and grace, smiled sweetly and bobbed her head just like an old darling would do. The fraud.

  “So very nice to meet you, Mr. Williams. My granddaughter has told me all about you.”

  Since she’d done nothing of the kind, Harley stepped in quickly. “I was very impressed with your photos I saw on the website—wait a moment. Preston Hughes? Aren’t you always one of the winners in the big Elvis competition every year?”

  Hughes nodded briefly. “Never the big winner. Not yet. I’d hoped to correct that this year.” The look he gave Williams was scorching.

  Williams began to sweat, beads popping up on his forehead and bald crown. “As I’ve explained to Mr. Hughes, I have nothing to do with event rules and regulations. Those are left up to the contest organizers.”

  “Regardless of long friendships,” Hughes said softly, and Williams looked distressed.

  Interesting. Harley ruled out Williams as a definite suspect, but now her suspicion of Hughes was stronger than ever. He looked absolutely furious. The tension was so thick between the men that Harley poised to grab Nana and run before fists started flying. And before Nana showed them Smitty.

  “Good friendships are like spring flowers,” Nana piped up brightly, “needing lots of rain to bloom.”

  Both men looked at her. Harley wondered how many pills she’d missed.

  Reaching out, Nana patted Hughes on the arm. “You’ll see, young man. There’s not much in this world that matters more than family and good friends. A quarrel shouldn’t change that.”

  Hughes took a deep breath, and some of his tension visibly eased. “Maybe you’re right. It’s just that this is something I’ve wanted for so long that I’ve been willing to do almost anything to get it. I won’t give up until I win.”

  He gave a short nod at Harley and Nana, a glance at Williams, and walked to his car in the driveway.

  When they were back in her car, Harley looked at Nana. “You were great. A reminder of their friendship kept them from fighting. That was really sweet.”

  Nana snorted. “It was all crap. But whatever works, I always say.”

  “An excellent philosophy.” Harley started the car and headed for Whispering Pines. She’d had just about all the fun she could handle today.

  Williams lived on Shady Grove not far from the Racquet Club. The neighborhood had big, older homes, stately trees, and an air of comfortable if not lavish living. It wasn’t too far from the Eaton home. Harley took Mendenhall south. The street turned into Mt. Moriah when it crossed Poplar, confusing new residents and even longtime Memphians not used to the area. The Half-Shell seafood restaurant was on the southeast corner, not far from a health food store and cat rescue. The Tobacco Shop on the southwest side sold newspapers from all over America and across the Atlantic, and a few from across the Pacific.

  “Where are we going?” Nana asked when they got close to Park Avenue. “I feel like some pizza.”

  Damn. “I thought you’d be tired by now so I’m taking you back to the home.”

  “Retirement community. I’m retired, not crazy, dammit.”

  “Sorry. Retirement community. Don’t they serve pizza at Whispering Pines? We can order takeout.”

  “Got my mouth all set for Memphis City Pizza. It’s on the corner of Park across from the Eastgate Shopping Center. Isabel took me there once.”

  While Harley was trying to imagine Grandmother Eaton sitting in a pizza place with a pitcher of beer and a pepperoni slice, something bumped them from the rear. It knocked her little Toyota forward and she barely missed hitting the car in front of her.

  “What the hell?” She looked over at her grandmother. “Nana, are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. That’s what seat belts are for.”

  Harley started to pull the brake and turn off the ignition to get out and assess the damage and maybe swap licenses with whoever hit her, when another bump shoved them forward so that she hit the car in front. Dammit! She looked in the rearview mirror. The car behind was black and had tinted windows, so she couldn’t see who was inside. Weren’t tinted windows supposed to be illegal now?

  Before she had time to dwell on that, another hard hit from behind threatened to make a sandwich out of her car, and wouldn’t do too much for the passengers inside, either.

  Nana, holding on to the dash with both hands, looked at her. “That guy’s deliberately hitting us!”

  “I think you’re right.” Harley focused on getting away. Her heart thudded so hard against her ribs it hurt.

  “Where are the cops when you need them?” Nana grumbled. “Probably at that doughnut shop we just passed.”

  Harley only half-listened. The black car revved its engine and she braced for another hit. They were hemmed in by traffic on both sides. The vehicle in front was a big Ford truck that had a trailer hitch sticking out on the back. If the cars in the turning lane moved, she could make a dash for the tire place on the corner. Fortunately, she already had plenty of experience dodging cars on Poplar.

  Then a loud explosion blew out her back windshield. Instinct made her duck and grab for Nana to push her down in the seat. The Toyota engine whined.

  “Dammit, you’re messing up my aim,” Nana said crossly, and Harley looked at her. She had her gun in both hands and was taking aim again.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, give me that!” Harley grabbed for the weapon just as it went off again. This time, the bullet took out their attacker’s windshield. It was safety glass and cracked all the way across. It looked like crushed ice and when she looked, she couldn’t make out the driver at all.

  Other drivers honked, yelled, ran red lights and up on curbs, and the black car took off around a Taurus and headed down Park. Even if she’d wanted to follow him with Nana in the car holding a pistol that had probably belonged to Al Capone, her car bucked, groaned, and died. It was probably best. What would she do if she caught him?

  Nana looked over at her. “If he didn’t have that tinted glass, I’d have got him. I can shoot a squirrel at twenty yards.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  Nana looked pleased.

  Chapter Eleven

  Something kept tickling her nose. She couldn’t breathe. A steady weight pressed down on her chest, and Harley came straight up in the bed gasping for air and ready to fight her assailant.

  Sam, dislodged and disgruntled, held on to the quilt with claws firmly attached. He yowled a complaint that registered in Harley’s sleep-fogged brain and she peered at him blearily. “Don’t you ever sleep late?”

  Apparently not. Sam leaped to the floor and stalked toward the closed door, then looked at her over his shoulder and gave another loud yowl. Food and doody time. Yawning, Harley gave in and staggered into Nana’s small kitchenette that consisted of a refrigerator, microwave, and one of those heavy-duty coffee pots that looked like it came from the fifties. After letting Sam out onto the screened porch and feeding him, she started toward the coffee pot, determined to figure out how to work it.

  To her surprise—and relief—it was plugged in and the coffee brewed. Nice. That meant Nana was already up. So where was she? There was no sign of her in any of the rooms. It wasn’t that big of a place, just two bedrooms, a large bath, the living room and kitchenette. Maybe she was already out visiting or having an early breakfast. Or doing a hit for the Mob. Yesterday hadn’t been that much fun. Especially when Bobby showed up. Apparently he’d heard about it on his police radio and decided to add to the joy. At least they hadn’t been charged with anything, though Nana was pretty upset that they’d taken her gun. There was an ordinance against firing weapons in the city limits it seemed, though that didn’t seem to slow the gang-bangers much. Nana said it was age discrimination and she was going to sue.

  Harley had gone to bed with a headache and the intention of sleeping until
noon.

  But it was nice outside this early, she had to admit when she took a cup of coffee out onto the porch to sit in one of the lounge chairs and watch Sam watch birds. The tip of his tail twitched in perfect harmony with the odd little noises he made. A lovely, fresh breeze came in through the screens, smelling of recently mowed grass. Leaning back, she just enjoyed the fragrant coffee and tranquility for a moment, letting her mind drift.

  As it seemed to do lately, it eventually drifted toward death and murder. She’d become a ghoul. How interesting. She wondered exactly when this change in her personality had shifted from just being a little out of synch to being completely bizarre. It must have been sudden. Maybe finding Mrs. Trumble dead in her own dining room had put her over the edge. Whatever it was, she had no idea how to get rid of it. Might as well do the best she could until it went away.

  So she began to try to piece together the fragments of information into some kind of pattern. It was like constructing the quilt on Nana’s guestroom bed. Sooner or later, all those random scraps of details should come together into something recognizable.

  For the moment, Williams was at the bottom of her suspect list. Hughes was at the top. He had motive, means, and opportunity. He was furious about being disqualified from being an Elvis competitor this year, he’d know the other contestants and be able to dress up and blend in with them, and he lived and worked in Memphis so would have opportunity. Also, he fit pretty closely with the descriptions from tourists and drivers, and even though she couldn’t say with certainty it was him, he could be the extra Elvis on her van, too. And the guy who’d hit her car yesterday.

  There was something else, a vague memory of something familiar ... it had importance, she just knew, but what was it? Someone had said something familiar that passed her at the time, but triggered a warning bell. Damn. What was it?

  “You look lost in thought,” Nana said, opening the door onto the porch and stepping out. “Unfamiliar territory?”

  “Well, aren’t you just precious this morning.” Harley tilted her head back to look at Nana. “What is that getup you’re wearing?”

  “My jogging outfit. Like it?”

  Nana turned like a runway model, holding out the edge of her flowered skirt that was so transparent no one could miss the flesh-colored leotards beneath, nor what looked like knee-length drawers. A light gray sweatshirt, rolled down white tube socks, a sweatband around her forehead, and expensive running shoes completed the picture.

  “It’s adorable. Why not wear jogging pants, though?”

  “A lady of my age just doesn’t do that. It isn’t seemly.”

  Harley looked at her. Apparently, wearing flesh-colored leotards and carrying a loaded .38 was considered seemly. She shook her head. “I’d hate to see the men’s dress code here.”

  “Don’t be a smartass.” Nana sat in the chair next to Harley. “Breakfast is at seven-thirty. Want to join us?”

  “Isn’t there a late breakfast?”

  “Only for the slugs. You’re young. Deal with it. We’ve got work to do.”

  Oh no. Harley narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, you’ve focused on Hughes as your prime suspect, haven’t you? Don’t deny it. I saw that look in your eyes yesterday when he said winning was something he’d wanted for so long, he’d be willing to do almost anything to get it. Rang a bell for you, didn’t it?”

  “Damn. How did you do that? I’ve been sitting here trying to think of what it was that’s been bothering me, and you just spit it out. That’s it, though. You’re right. The Elvis in the taxi at the concert said almost the same exact thing to the taxi driver. I thought I recognized him, so it must have been Hughes. He was the one on my van. I’m certain of it. Almost certain. And he was probably the one who tried to shove us off the road yesterday.”

  Nana nodded in satisfaction. “So chickie, let’s go!”

  * * * *

  “This wasn’t what I had in mind,” Nana said resentfully when they stood in the West Precinct waiting on Bobby to get off the phone. “I thought we’d do a little snooping on our own.”

  “That leads to scary things. It’s better this way. Trust me.”

  Nana snorted. “And here I thought you had pioneer spirit. You’re taking the easy way out.”

  “I prefer to think of it as the safe way out. It’s a little unnerving being held hostage at gunpoint.”

  “What’s wrong with being unnerved a time or two? Good for the blood. Gets it running.”

  Before Harley could give her opinion on running blood and all the reasons being unnerved couldn’t possibly be good for a person, Bobby hung up the phone and beckoned for them.

  Nana, looking like an old darling again in a print dress with lace collar, her hose rolled up and held by garters barely visible beneath the long skirt, and wearing plain, sensible shoes on her feet, took the first chair and settled into it with her white wicker purse in her lap. Minus Smitty.

  “Did you find out anything about the car yesterday?” Harley asked Bobby when she sat down in the chair opposite his desk. “Did anyone get his plate number?”

  “The car didn’t have any plates. We’re looking for it.” He looked over at Nana. “And how are you today, Mrs. McMullen?” he asked in a loud voice.

  “Pretty pissed off at the moment. And it was my late husband who was deaf, not me. Do I get my gun back today?”

  “I’m afraid not. We’re checking things out,” Bobby said in a more normal tone.

  “My lawyer says you can’t keep it. I have a permit.”

  “Then I’m sure it’ll be given back to you soon.”

  “So why haven’t you caught this killer yet? Seems to me you should be glad of a little help instead of telling my granddaughter to stay out of it.”

  Bobby blinked. Harley smiled. Apparently he’d forgotten about Nana McMullen and how blunt she could be.

  Bobby leaned forward and said, “This is a police matter, Mrs. McMullen. While we’re always glad of citizens’ cooperation and information, any kind of interference in an ongoing investigation is discouraged.”

  “Good Lord. Do you always talk like you’ve got a stick up your ass? I remember you, you know. You were a skinny little Italian kid with a swagger and more tricks than David Copperfield. And I remember that Fourth of July picnic when you used a toy bow and arrow to shoot a string of lit firecrackers up into the trees so that a flock of nesting blackbirds flew out and crapped all over our barbecue, too. Then there was a time you put a blacksnake in the Anderson’s swimming pool, and the time—”

  “Yes, you’ve got an excellent memory, it seems,” Bobby interrupted while scowling at the officer sitting behind the next desk who was laughing so hard he kept snorting through his nose. “But we have rules. And laws. They’re designed to keep Memphis citizens safe. If everyone went around investigating carjackings, robberies, and murders, there’d be chaos. And mayhem. It needs to be left to the police.”

  Nana looked like she was ready to say something guaranteed to put Bobby in a bad mood, so Harley quickly said, “I have information about Preston Hughes that might interest you.”

  Bobby’s expression immediately changed to his cop-face. Harley couldn’t tell if the name was familiar to him or not. “What information?” he asked.

  She gave him the yellow sheet of legal paper with her pros and cons written on it. She’d updated it to include Hughes’s comments to the taxi driver. He scanned it and nodded. “Thanks.”

  Harley stared at him. “Thanks? That’s it?”

  “What, you expected flowers?”

  “Something more flowery, maybe. Like, This will help, or Thanks for taking the time to make sure I got this information.”

  Bobby stood up. All she ever saw him in these days were suits, when once he’d been the tee shirt and scruffy Levi’s type. Oddly enough, both styles looked good on him. Not only could she understand her friend Cami’s attraction to him, occasionally she remembered their brief flin
g with a fond smile. Not today, however. Today, she remembered with satisfaction the time she’d beat him to a pulp when she was fifteen because he’d pushed Eric down. No one shoved her little brother around except her. That was the cardinal rule. Of course, if she’d known Mr. Baroni would give Bobby another whipping when he got home, maybe she wouldn’t have done it. That didn’t seem quite fair.

  Bobby said, “Okay, thanks for taking the time to make sure I got this information. If it leads to an arrest, I’ll make sure you get the Crimestoppers cash. Is that better?”

  Feeling slightly guilty when she recalled causing Bobby trouble a long time ago, she said, “Much better. Only give the cash to Nana. She’s really the one who remembered what he said.”