“Keep going.”
“And this mirror was broken on the floor and I picked it up and said, ‘Someone is going to have seven years of bad luck.’ That’s another reason I think it’s Ella. Then these two photographs fell out of the back of the broken mirror. They were both of the same man, but in each photo he was with a different woman and little girl.”
“And you didn’t give them to me?”
Heaven shook her head, trying to think of a good defense. Finally, she just moved on with her story. “I had the photos blown up, hoping someone would recognize the people. Julia Marcus did. Well, not everyone; she recognized the man. It was Boots Turner in both pics. She didn’t know either woman or child. But I think one was Evelyn and one was Ella.”
“Is that all?” Bonnie was steaming like Heaven knew she would be.
“Well, almost. I showed the photos to Boots.”
Finally, Bonnie blew up. “You did what? You went to confront a suspect by yourself?”
“Murray was right behind me. Well, actually Murray was in the same hotel. No one’s going to hurt you at the Ritz, for God’s sake. Let me tell you the rest. And I’ll take a tongue-lashing, but does it have to be today? I’m on my last leg.”
“Please continue.”
“Boots says that he can’t be the father of either of the little girls because he can’t have children, something about the mumps when he was little. And Murray says that men don’t lie about stuff like that anymore because of the good DNA testing.”
“Did Boots say he knew the mothers?”
“Yes, he said he had a relationship with them both, but the girls were already born. They were small, though, so if Boots were around, he might be their first memory.”
“But if they thought Boots was their daddy, and he’d never been around since, they must have cooked up some way to confront him this weekend. Together.”
“I guess that eliminates Ella as a suspect in Evelyn’s death,” Heaven said with a hint of disappointment.
Bonnie shook her head. “I don’t think so. It sounds like a plan that could go bad in a minute—sibling jealousy, revenge, and some kind of a scam. Every one of those can lead to murder.”
“Bonnie, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this sooner, I really am. Now I’m going to grill about a thousand oysters. I promised the Cajun cookers,” Heaven said, and headed across the street. Bonnie turned around and around. She didn’t know where to start.
Boots stood at the side of the bed, bent down and gently shook the arm of the woman sleeping in his bed. “Ella, it’s past noon, time to get up. How you feelin’?”
Ella Jackson moaned and raised herself up. “I feel like I been rode hard and put away wet.” She’d slept in the clothes she walked away from the hospital in. Now she got up and looked at the mirror. “Now, this is a scary-lookin’ child. I’m gonna need some time in that shower to make things right.”
Boots led her gently into the living room of his suite. “First you’re gonna have a nice breakfast. I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a little of everything—French toast, an omelette, bacon, and orange juice and coffee. I’m going to jump into the shower while you eat, then you can have the bathroom.”
“Thanks, Pops,” Ella said sourly.
“I’m not your father, Ella. I wish I could solve that mystery for you. I know it must be hard, not knowin’.”
“Then why did you let me in here last night, sleepin’ on the couch so I could have the bed, and why are you treating me so nice now?”
“Well, child, you must not have felt safe going to your own place. Whoever did this to you may not be done.”
Ella didn’t answer. She tucked into the French toast silently. Boots started to say something else, but went to take his shower instead. He wanted to help this girl, he surely did. But she had so much anger and sadness.
Ella waited until the water was going full force in the bathroom. Then she got up with a little stagger, grabbed the table for a second, then went over to the suitcases that Boots had stacked in the corner. “Let’s just see what the hell we’ve got here, Pops,” Ella said as she threw the cases on the bed and opened them. She had no idea what she was looking for, a scrap of paper with her name on it, a newspaper clipping, a birth certificate. She found a wad of cash and slipped it into her jeans pocket. “Thanks, daddy-o,” she murmured as she continued the search.
Then her hand hit the cold metal of the .357 that Boots had stuck into the suitcase. She pulled it out, looked in the side pocket, and found the clips. By the time Boots Turner came out of the bathroom in a clean white tee-shirt and a crisp pair of navy blue pleated trousers, Ella Jackson was standing where he could see her right away. “Smart of you to bring this big old gun, Pops. You never know when some nut will invade your bedroom. Now, get your shoes on. We got to go to the big grand finale down at Eighteenth and Vine.”
You either had them or you didn’t, and Heaven had them. Waitress ears and eyes, that is. Waitress ears gave you the ability to hold a conversation in front of you and hear way off to the side that someone needed cream for their coffee or wanted to order dessert. Waitress eyes allow you to smile at the table you’re serving and see the guy waving for his check practically behind your back. Heaven’s waitress eyes snapped on when she saw Boots Turner coming across the street. She was talking to Jim Dittmar at the time, but she kept Boots in her sights so she could try to figure out what he was up to. Heaven, stuck behind the grill, was down to her last two hundred oysters. She put the ones that had popped open on a big platter, then dribbled a little more hot sauce and butter on them before she took them over to the serving table. “Here. These are heavy. Take this one over to the serving area and get me two empty platters. I’m almost finished, thank God.”
“Yes, Counselor,” Jim Dittmar answered happily, and grabbed the oysters. He had taken Louis and his father to the airport and seen their plane take off. Bob Daultman was still here, of course, but he was busy in the truck and hadn’t bothered Jim all afternoon. It was almost as if he had his life back.
Heaven stood as close to Boots Turner as she could get and not leave the grill. He was talking to Nolan Wilkins. “I need your help over at the Ruby, man,” Boots said.
Nolan, relieved because the day had gone so well, smiled and held out his hand to shake Boots’s. He hadn’t noticed the worried look. “Where’ve you been, Boots? You would have loved hearing Ray Charles sing with the Mighty Clouds of Joy. It was down.”
“Today was Lefty’s day. I wasn’t even going to stop here before I went to the airport,” Boots said gruffly, glancing over at Lefty and Sam Scott, who were sitting at a table surrounded by Lefty’s fans. “But I had to.”
“What do you mean, you had to?” Nolan asked.
“Nolan, man, please just come over to the Ruby with me. I think I left something, and I really need your help.”
Heaven could see Nolan’s face from where she was standing. She could see him trying to figure out why it was so important to Boots that he, Nolan, helped him instead of a janitor or some other attendant at the theater. Then she heard Nolan, out of politeness to the old guy, say, “Sure, Boots. Let’s go, man.” The two men took off across the street arm in arm.
Heaven started splashing hot sauce on her last batch of oysters as fast as she could. When Jim Dittmar came back, his hands full of empty platters, she started barking orders. “Just give these two more minutes, then plate them up. I have to run across the street for just a minute. I’ll be right back.” She took off running before Jim had a chance to argue.
“Heaven, what’s up?” he yelled after her. She didn’t look back.
The theater was dark, but the doors were unlocked. Heaven supposed they had left the Ruby open so anyone could poke their head in for a look-see. The crowd was on the other side of the street, filing into the jazz and baseball museums in a steady stream. There was a line to get into the baseball film.
Heaven crept into the Ruby, wondering what in the world Boots
and Nolan were up to. She went into the theater and started toward the front. Two spotlights were making pools of light on the stage. Nolan was standing in one, Boots in the other. Heaven waited in the back, in the dark. What was going on?
“I am sorry, man,” Boots was saying. “But if I hadn’t gone and got you, she would have started shooting outside where all the folks are.”
“Shut up, Pops!” a disembodied voice yelled. A gunshot hit the stage near Boots Turner. He jumped, and so did Nolan Wilkins.
“Ella, how did you ever get the idea I was your daddy? I know it didn’t come from your mother. She wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Evelyn had these letters you wrote her momma. You said you were real proud of me, how I’d become important in the food business.” Ella fired again, making both men jump. Boots was mopping his forehead. Heaven knew his heart was pounding.
The shots were coming from above the stage.
“Why would you be talking about me to Evelyn’s momma? You asked about Evelyn, too, and there were the photographs,” the voice said.
“We were friends. Us old folks still write letters, talk about what’s going on with our friends. Did you know your two mommas knew each other when they were young? I met them both at a big dance hall down in Oklahoma somewhere near Salisaw,” Boots offered. Heaven could tell he was trying to engage Ella in her past, the real past, not the fantasy that she and Evelyn had created.
“You bastard,” Ella screamed. “You left my momma for her momma, or vise versa.” Two more shots rang out, this time one landed near Nolan, who had been beginning to ease out of the spotlight. He jumped back into the middle of the pool of light.
Boots looked up, and Heaven tracked where he was looking—the catwalk over the stage. Heaven crept down the side aisle, careful to stay in the dark.
“I did not, Ella,” Boots protested. “I met your mother, then six months later, when we were touring in Oklahoma again, she had a boyfriend, a man you must remember because Harry and your mother got married.”
“A damn Indian bastard,” Ella shouted.
“Yes, well, I know it didn’t work out, child. But that was why I met Evelyn’s mom. It was innocent.”
“Ha!” Ella replied with another shot, which pinged off a stage light. Heaven was afraid one of these wild shots was going to ricochet and actually hit someone. “And you, Nolan, you killed my sister, you bastard.”
Nolan Wilkins’s face crumbled. “It was an accident.”
Heaven started walking faster. Nolan knew better than to confess while he was in the target zone.
“Talk, sucker,” Ella yelled.
Nolan tried to look up and another shot whistled across the stage. He put his arms up over his head, trying to protect himself. “She called and told me the florist was coming to the meeting to tell the committee about her kickbacks. She said she better be able to keep her job if I knew what was good for me. She pushed me up against the wall and grabbed my hand and put it up under her dress,” Nolan’s voice broke into a sob.
Heaven slipped off her shoes and crept up the steps on the same side of the stage she thought Ella was on. She figured it would be harder for Ella to spot her if she came up behind her. Silently, she searched for the ladder to the catwalk and spotted it downstage. Boots Turner spotted her and she put her finger up to her lips to hush him. Boots turned toward Nolan and away from Heaven. “Son, maybe you shouldn’t try to talk about this now,” Boots said in a soothing voice.
“Talk,” Ella yelled. “Talk or you’ll die.”
Heaven started up the ladder.
Nolan continued, his voice shaking. “I had to wash my hands. They had her . . . her perfume on them. I grabbed a rag from under the sink. I washed and washed. Then someone called my name out in the lobby. I must have left the water running; the rag was on the edge of the sink. It must have fallen in and the water got stopped up and ran over,”
“Ella, it sounds like the boy didn’t mean to hurt Evelyn. And that girl, she wasn’t your sister. You’ve got to get over that idea.”
“Shut up, Pops. Nolan, tell pops here. No matter that you might have stopped up that sink by accident. You tried to kill me for real, you bastard.”
Nolan glanced up and continued. “Ella saw me with Evelyn at the theater, before she died. Ella laughed and said it was worth free rent for her restaurant. I couldn’t do that. I told her we had to talk about it in private, away from her restaurant and her crew, on Friday night. We met outside. I just felt so desperate. I grabbed the first thing I saw and slammed her. Then Heaven came around the corner and I hit her. I went back to the theater and, if someone hadn’t found them in ten minutes, I swear I would have called 911 myself.” Nolan hung his head, knowing how gutless he sounded.
“You bastard. Take this,” Ella said, and this time she shot him in the arm. He collapsed, howling with pain and holding his arm. Blood spattered everywhere.
Heaven was on the ladder two steps away from the catwalk, peeking over the top. She looked around desperately for something to hit Ella with. A thick rope was looped around the catwalk. It had a big knot on the end, a knot about the size of a softball. Heaven slipped the rope from the catwalk and dashed up the last two steps. With one hand, she grabbed the ladder for balance. With the other she swung the rope back as hard as she could.
“What do you think you’re doing, Ella? It must be thirty feet high up here. Get down right now,” Heaven demanded like a schoolteacher. She let go of the rope, and it swung slowly in an arc toward Ella. Ella tried to swat it, but instead of the rope knocking the gun out of her hand, as Heaven had hoped, Ella lost her balance. She just crumpled and slipped over the edge, but managed to hold on to the catwalk with one hand. In the other hand was the gun, which seemed to be discharging automatically. Heaven peeked down. She could see no one. Nolan had obviously crawled out of the spotlight, and Boots had disappeared.
“Boots, go get help,” Heaven yelled, hoping he was hiding somewhere. “Ella, drop that gun and hold on with both hands. I can’t help you if you’re waving that damn gun around.”
Ella held the gun high in the air and tried to point it in Heaven’s direction. When she pulled the trigger nothing happened.
“Now that you’ve used all your fucking bullets, drop that stupid gun,” Heaven yelled. A second later she heard a clatter on the stage.
Heaven was holding on to the ladder, but she would have to let go to get to Ella. She decided to crawl, so she extended herself, dropped to her knees, and let go, grabbing the catwalk tightly. She started crawling slowly toward Ella, trying not to look down. She could hear Nolan whimpering somewhere on the stage below.
“Ella, say something to me. When you stop yelling I get worried.”
Ella’s voice sounded scared. She no longer seemed bigger than life. “Heaven, I think I’ve fucked up, girl. I can’t hold on much longer.”
Heaven crawled a little faster. “You better hang on; you’ve got me up here, and I don’t have very good balance. If I fall to my death, I’ll haunt you forever.” Heaven stopped, laid down on the catwalk, grabbed Ella’s arm, and peeked over the side. “Jesus, what happened to you? Wait, I know what happened to you. But that shaved patch on your head is a bad look.”
“Only you would take this time to insult me, Heaven. I’m going to fall, baby.”
“No, you won’t fall! Do this. I can’t stand and pull you up. You have to swing your legs and then I’ll pull your body up. Now swing, damn it!”
Ella threw her leg as high as she could. Heaven heard noise at the entrance to the theater. She hoped it wouldn’t spook Ella. “Now, Ella, the other leg. Don’t pay any attention to them.” Ella threw her other leg and now was hanging upside down, like a kid on a jungle gym. Heaven pulled and tugged on the other woman. “Help! Somebody, help me. I can’t do this alone.”
Bonnie Weber appeared on the catwalk at the other side of the stage and started crawling toward Heaven. “I’m coming, just hold your horses. Ella, slip your elbows through t
he scaffolding so you can get some weight off your hands. Heaven, just stay as flat as possible.”
Heaven looked down and saw Mona, Sam Scott, Lefty, and of course Jim Dittmar. “The fire department is right outside, Heaven. They’re coming in with the big net, just in case you fall,” Mona said, trying to be helpful.
By this time, Bonnie had reached the two women. “H, help me haul her butt up here,” Bonnie said while she reached down and grabbed Ella’s arm, jerking on her like she was a sack of potatoes. The firemen were below, holding a large trampoline-style net they used as a last resort in fires. In a moment it was inflated, and it looked like the kind of mattresses stunt men used. Bonnie Weber looked down. “Okay, on second thought, this will be easier. Bye, Ella.” She unwound Ella’s fingers from the catwalk scaffolding, and the woman fell like a stone, only to bounce a couple of times below. Heaven and Bonnie looked down. “Last one down buys the wine,” Bonnie said.
Heaven looked down and called, “Hey, get her out of the way. We’re flying down.” Police officers and firemen grabbed Ella. The medics were already working on Nolan.
Bonnie held out her hand. They were just able to touch fingers, so Bonnie scooted closer, to Heaven so they could hold hands. She held a thumbs-up and started counting. “On three. One, two, three.” The two women rolled off the catwalk and down onto the inflatable mattress.
Everyone applauded.
Jim Dittmar followed Heaven into her darkened home. “Thank you for doing this, but don’t think we’re going to have sex or anything just because I practically died today,” Heaven said as she flipped on the light in the big kitchen.
Jim smiled, ignoring Heaven’s wisecracks, and opened the refrigerator. “Not bad for someone in the business. I’ve observed over the years that the refrigerators of restaurant people are usually empty or just full of booze. We’ve got a whole turkey breast, minus one or two slices, some Swiss cheese, a head of roasted garlic, some Brie. Any bread to make a sandwich with?”
The Cornbread Killer Page 21