“Not necessarily. She apparently hasn’t been fingerprinted since she was Laura Lee. Even if she is still a working girl, she may be working for a high-end escort service that keeps its girls out of trouble.”
Our wines came. I tasted mine. It would have gone perfectly with the Brunswick stew. Or road kill.
“And there is another possibility,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“She’s not a hooker anymore. Just a bored housewife on Staten Island having an affair.”
“Either way, it’s a long way from Broadway. And you think she may be involved in a murder.”
“I think I have to find her.”
“How on earth will you do that?”
“I’m hoping she got into that dance school she mentioned in her letter. They could have some sort of record. Even if she didn’t make it, there may be an application.”
“But you don’t have a name. Wouldn’t she use her new stage name?”
“Not on the application necessarily. It’s obvious she didn’t want her old acquaintances tracking her down. But she might not care if the people in New York knew her real name at the beginning, especially if she was looking to get into a school or needed a job. After a while, her stage name would just take over.”
Mimi Faulkner looked doubtful.
“You’ll be trying to find a needle in a haystack. I’ve been to New York a few times. I can’t believe how many people live there. I get lost going around the block.”
“I’ve had pretty good luck with haystacks recently. And I don’t have much choice. It would help if I had a photo of Laura Lee. There must be one in the school yearbook. And if any of her friends are still around, I’d like to talk to them. She might have kept in touch. It’s hard to cut all ties, no matter what she wrote to you.”
Before I left New York I’d checked online to see if the Statesboro High School yearbooks were on Classmates.com or any other websites devoted to America’s apparently insatiable appetite for nostalgia. There were only three Statesboro yearbooks online: 1950, 1953 and 1972.
Mimi shook her head.
“Laura Lee wouldn’t be in any graduate photos. And she didn’t have any close girl friends that I know of. I told you, a lot of the girls barely tolerated her.”
“What about a boyfriend?”
“She had a lot of boyfriends, of the under-the-bleachers variety.”
“Other pictures? The yearbook would contain a lot of photos, from clubs, activities and such. She may be in one of those. Can you get it for me, Mimi?”
“I’ll try. The school is closed, of course, but I know the librarian. I’ll give her a call. But I doubt if there are any pictures with Laura Lee in them. She was only in the school a year and a half or so.”
I gave her my cell number.
“While you’re at it, could you find out what photography studio took the yearbook photos. She may have been there long enough for them to take one, even if it wasn’t used. The studio may have negatives.”
“God, you are thorough.” She jotted down something in her notebook, which she had filled up during our lunch. “I have to use this stuff in one of my books.”
At that point one of the women who had stopped by earlier passed us on her way out.
“My word, Mimi,” she said. “What are you scribblin’ down so enthusiastically?”
“Sex tips,” I said.
The woman looked startled and Mimi flushed, then they both laughed.
“Well, darlin’,” the woman said, looking at me, “I’m free for lunch, anytime.”
Outside on the verandah, Mimi promised to call as soon as she heard anything.
“Sex tips,” she said. “You are a hoot.”
Following her directions, I hooted over to the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office, which was in a two-story red brick building just off the town square. I parked my rental near a statue of a Confederate soldier that was apparently a favorite with local birds. Sic transit gloria mundi. Inside the sheriff’s department, which looked like just about every police station I’d ever been in, I spoke to the same deputy who had tried to be so helpful on the phone earlier. The door to the sheriff’s office was closed. A sign next to it on the wall said “Burton R. Blossom, Sheriff.”
“My, but you’re serious about this, aren’t you,” she said. “Comin’ all the way here. You been a cop?”
“I’ve been just about everything, sweetheart,” I said, using my best W.C. Fields accent.
“You’ve never been an actor,” she said. “Your W.C. needs a lot of work. Sheriff Blossom is over at Lulu’s, coffee shop across the square. You just missed him. He’ll be a while. You might want to just go over there.”
“I don’t want to disturb him on his break.”
“It’s no break. He goes there to be disturbed. Meet and greet, pick up on gossip. Besides, if you bug him, you’ll know it soon enough.”
I thanked her and walked across the square. Lulu’s stood out, since it was one of the few establishments that seemed to be doing much business. There were “Vacant,” Going Out of Business Sale” and “For Lease” signs in every third storefront window.
CHAPTER 23 – SAUSAGE BISCUITS
Sheriff Blossom also stood out. He was big and square in a linebacker sort of way and filled out his uniform impressively. And he was the only African-American in the joint. He was sitting at a table with two white men in overalls. They, and everyone in the place, looked at me with suspicion when I walked in. I wanted to tell them that I had nothing to do with the bird crap on the statue. Instead I went over to the sheriff and introduced myself.
“Give me a minute,” he said.
I went to the counter and ordered a cup of coffee. The men at Blossom’s table got up and left and he waved me over.
“Sit,” he said. “Let me see your I.D.”
I took my license out of my wallet and showed him.
“Holy Cow! A real New York City private dee-teck-tive. My deputy told me about your call. Now you’re down here in the flesh. Just what I need. A Yankee hotshot muckin’ around askin’ a lot of questions.”
I laughed out loud.
“What’s so damn humorous, gumshoe?”
“Jesus Christ, Blossom. You sound like Bull Connor. You’re black, for crissakes!”
“My, you really are a detective.” He smiled. “Hey, I’m just funnin’ with you. Want a sausage biscuit?”
I had tried, with little success, not to notice the basket of biscuits on the table.
“Thanks. But I just had lunch.”
“What the hell does that have to do with Lulu’s sausage biscuits?”
“Good point,” I said, picking up a biscuit. “I think the Brunswick stew missed an artery.”
We both ordered more coffee and felt each other out for a bit. I commented on the pearl-handled revolver in his hand-stitched leather holster.
“Not regulation, but since I write the regulations I sometimes make an exception. What are you carrying there, on your right hip, under your jacket?”
Man had sharp eyes. I never saw him look.
“Taurus, .38, five- shot.”
“Georgia isn’t reciprocal with New York for concealed weapons.”
“You going to arrest me?’
“You going to shoot anyone?”
“Other than whoever made these sausages?”
“Yeah.”
“Not planning to. I might have trouble finding anyone else to shoot around here. What’s the story on downtown? This place looks to be one of the only going concerns.”
“Statesboro used to be a sleepy little place. Then the college expanded. Became a Division II football powerhouse. Give Florida State a run for their money every year. Beat Villanova for the Division II national championship last year.”
“You look like you played. Middle linebacker?”
“Outside right.” I still had it. “We played a three-four. Anyway, population exploded and they put in the goddamn bypass. Sucked everything t
oward the school and the restaurants the kids use. Killed downtown. There was even talk of a new civic center near the college, new sheriff’s office, too. Kind of died down in this recession, but it’ll happen eventually.”
“How long have you been sheriff?’
“Goin’ on 15 years in the department. Started as a deputy, of course, got elected first time five years ago. Just got reelected.”
“Not bad.”
“You’re wondering how does a black guy like me become the law in a town like this.”
“I was.”
“You Yankees kill me. Hell, I was born here. Local boy makes good. The football and my degree didn’t hurt in gettin’ elected, I’ll tell you. But my family knew everyone anyway, white and black. My daddy ran a restaurant on West Jones Avenue that served the best barbecue in the county. Hell, I get more votes from the native white folks here than from the newcomers who moved down here to work in the university and the factories we stole from up north. Non-union, you know. It’s the Northerners who harbor prejudices. You won’t catch any of those liberal college professors eatin’ sausage biscuits here at Lulu’s.”
“A pity,” I said.
Blossom nodded.
“Betty says she told you over the phone all we know about this girl you’re lookin’ for.”
“Which was pretty much nothing,” I said.
“So why are you down here.”
I held up a biscuit.
“Local cuisine.”
Blossom laughed.
“Sure. So what’s the real reason.”
I saw no harm in telling him about the case, or whatever the hell it was. He was no shit- kicker cop. Around town as long as he was, he might know something useful.
“Man, you are a piece of work,” he said when I finished. “That’s the goddamnist thing I ever heard. What are you people up there on Long Island smokin’?”
“Staten Island.”
“Whatever. You all must be nuttier than a Claxton fruitcake.”
“So, what can you do for me?”
“Nothing much. I was around here back then, of course. All the black folks knew the old man, Virgil Litton. Real piece of crap. Racist bastard. We’ve been politically correct for years but Virgil still used ‘nigger’ as a noun, verb and adjective, sometimes all in the same sentence. Was drunk a lot, except when he was drunker. Suspected of stealing from homes he worked in. Nobody cried when he left town, includin’ his wife and kid. There was some talk of abuse, but no charges were ever filed. They were probably afraid. Heard they were decent people.”
“One of the teachers at the high school called them white trash.”
Blossom shook his head.
“Guilt by association. Plus, you got an element in town that looks down on anybody without a big lawn. Much different where you live?”
“No.”
Blossom stood. So did I.
“I don’t like your chances, Rhode. But I do like your perseverance. Let’s go over to the City Hall. I’ll tell the clerks you’re helpin’ me out on a case. I don’t think there’s anythin’ to find, but it will make it easier not to find it.”
As Sheriff Blossom predicted, the records at City Hall proved virtually worthless. I probably could have traced some Statesboro families back to their slaveholding days, but the Littons were itinerants, and after she left Laura Lee had covered her tracks like a mole in a John le Carré spy novel. Her parents had been renters and a check of legal judgments from the period showed that when Laura Lee’s father was handling the finances he’d been taken to court numerous times for stiffing various landlords. Once he was out of the picture, Laura Lee and her mom somehow scraped by. Blossom’s recommendation gave me the run of the place, so I even redid my earlier Internet search, using City Hall computers. All I confirmed was that there are thousands of people named Litton in the United States. And none of them were named Laura Lee or Virgil. I found the names of people who lived on Porcupine Road at the same time as the Littons, but none of them still lived in Statesboro.
I spent the night at a Holiday Inn Express and much of the next day trying to find anyone who remembered the family. No one did. I might have had some luck if there were people still living in their old neighborhood, but their old neighborhood was now a six-lane highway.
Mimi Faulkner called me. She said she hadn’t yet found anyone to let her into the high school to look at yearbooks. But she gave me the name and location of the photography studio that took the photos. It was in a mall next to a Food Lion. I had high hopes, which were soon dashed.
“I bought the business three years ago,” the owner said. “Worst mistake of my life.”
A woman sorting envelopes at the counter looked over and said, “You got that right.” She had to be his wife.
“Everything is digital now,” the man said. “We sent out letters to everyone in the files asking if they wanted to buy the old school shots. Thought I’d make a little money.”
The woman said, “Brilliant.”
He ignored her.
“But hardly anyone responded,” he said. “Everyone’s got 12-megabit cameras now, minimum. And the newest cell phones take better pictures than some of the old SLR’s. People have more photos of themselves and their kids than they know what to do with. So I threw all the extra photos out. Took up too much room.”
I heard the woman grunt. It’s not a womanly sound.
“Maybe you can sell him some empty space,” she said. “We’re havin’ a special this week.”
It seemed like an opportune time to leave, so I did. It also seemed like I had used up all my haystack luck in my previous case. I called Mimi Faulkner back and told her I’d struck out and was heading home. She said she’d call me if she found anything. I drove to Savannah and caught a late flight. Unless I got lucky with the dance school lead or the yearbook, I would tell Konrad Olsen there wasn’t anything else I could do.
I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.
CHAPTER 24 – BREAK A LEG
The Gotham Theatre of Dance is located in a six-story building on West 53rd Street in the Clinton section of Manhattan, appropriately close to the Broadway shows to which most of its students presumably aspire. The Gotham itself occupies the top two floors of the building. I arrived at 9 A.M. sharp and the place was humming with activity. There were four large studios and all were filled with young dancers, mostly women, with a smattering of men. I assumed the classes would thin out as the lunch hour approached and the hopefuls scattered to their day jobs serving tables. Then the studios would slowly refill in the afternoon before emptying again for the dinner hours.
I paused before one glass-enclosed studio. With a few exceptions the dancers in it were tall, athletic and leggy. The women filled out their colorful leotards and shorts nicely as they danced, stretched or exercised. I wondered how long it would be before my raw animal magnetism disrupted the class and I was mobbed. None of the women appeared to notice me, but a couple of the men smiled. I moved on.
I found the Gotham’s administrative office. In the reception area a middle-aged woman with beady eyes and white hair cropped so severely it could have been a helmet looked up from her desk without smiling. I felt like saluting but instead asked to see whoever was in charge.
“Why?”
Her voice matched her appearance; it sounded like a dueling banjo.
“I want to take a class. I’m auditioning as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and have to practice my tap.”
“Death of a Salesman isn’t a musical.”
“It’s not? I’m going to kill my agent.”
If anything, her lack of a smile became more pronounced. She squinted at me. Being surrounded by hundreds of women – hell, men – who were better looking then she was undoubtedly made her bitter.
“I don’t have time for this. And Mr. Darragh is very busy. So, why don’t you buzz off?”
The door behind her was closed. I could hear a woman’s laughter.
I took out
one of my cards and dropped it in front of her.
“Listen, Nurse Ratchet. I’m a private cop investigating a homicide. Tell Mr. Darragh to speed up the blow job he’s getting from that ingénue in there. I haven’t got all day.”
“Well, I never!”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
I plopped down in a chair next to the wall and picked up a copy of Variety. She sputtered for a moment and then picked up the phone. A few minutes later the door opened. A tall man in a three-piece suit ushered a pretty young thing out. She turned and pecked him on the cheek.
“So long, Irma,” the girl said to the wardress at the desk. As she breezed passed me she gave me a thousand-watt smile.
“Break a leg,” I said.
“Come on in,” the man said to me.
I didn’t look at “Irma” as I followed him through the door.
“Barry Darragh,” the man said as we shook. “Pull up a chair.”
“Nice looking girl,” I said, handing him my card.
“Thank you. Takes after her mother.”
“Her mother?”
The guy was a real pervert.
“Yes, that was Stephanie. My oldest. In for the summer. She goes to Wellesley.”
There was a picture on the bureau behind his desk. A woman and three daughters, all in similar blue dresses sitting on a beach, obviously professionally posed. Stephanie was clearly visible. Nice going, Rhode.
“Lovely family,” I said lamely, nodding at the photo.
He smiled, studying my card.
“You have more identification than this? Anyone can gin up a card.”
I took out my wallet and showed him my license. He nodded.
“So, what’s this about a homicide?”
“I’m trying to find a girl, a woman now, who may have attended, or at least applied, here five or six years ago. Her name was Laura Lee Litton and she came from Statesboro, Georgia.”
“She the one murdered?”
LAURA LEE (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 2) Page 13