by Scott Pratt
Caroline looked hard into the green eyes for a long moment.
“So you’re going to make your own way. Like you have for the past twenty years?”
“Oh, now, that hurt. Please tell me you didn’t come all the way down here just to insult me.”
“I came all the way down here to try to talk some sense into that thick head of yours. If you don’t come stay with us, where are you going to go? What are you going to do?”
“I have friends.”
“What kind of friends? Dealers and users? You need to stay away from those people.”
“Yeah?” The green eyes flashed, but Caroline held her gaze. “What I don’t need is a lecture from my brother’s wife. Why are you doing this, anyway? Why isn’t Joe here?”
Caroline leaned forward on her elbows. “I’m doing this because I care about you. We both care about you. We just want to try to help. And Joe isn’t here because he can’t stand to see you in this place again. It tears him up.”
“Seeing me in here tears him up? He ought to try living in here for a while. It’d give him some compassion for his clients.”
“He has plenty of compassion for his clients, especially you. He’s done everything he could possibly do for you, including sending you money every month.”
“I’ll be sure to send him a thank-you note when I get out.”
“Why do you have to be so cynical, Sarah? Why can’t you believe that somebody could care enough about you to want to help? That’s all it is. There aren’t any strings attached.”
“No strings? What if I feel like getting high tomorrow night?”
“I said there weren’t any strings. But there will be rules. If any of us sees one sign of drugs or booze, you’re out the door.”
Sarah smiled. “And there it is. We’ll love you Sarah unless you do what you’ve always done. If you do that, we won’t love you any more.”
“We’ll still love you. We just won’t help you destroy yourself.”
“No thanks.” Sarah rose from the chair and moved to the wall to push the button that summoned the guard.
“So that’s it? No thanks?”
“That’s it.”
“Fine.” Caroline got up from her chair and moved to the opposite door. Both women stood in uncomfortable silence, facing away from each other, until the guard appeared.
“The offer stays open,” Caroline said as Sarah walked out of the room. “All you have to do is show up.”
April 12
11:15 a.m.
Agent Landers knew there’d be some added pressure to make an arrest because the dead guy was a preacher. Not that there wouldn’t have been pressure to find out who killed him if he’d been a plumber or a bartender. But preachers still had a special place in the hearts and minds of most upper east Tennesseans. Killing a man of God was an insult to the Almighty Himself.
The Purple Pig was a small, popular burger and beer joint about a mile from East Tennessee State University. It was like one of those English pubs-same people, sitting in the same places, telling the same old jokes, drinking the same kind of beer. Landers ate lunch there two or three times a month. Every now and then he’d stop in and have a beer after work. He went to high school with the owners, and he knew several of the regulars and the waitresses. Especially the waitresses. Landers had phone numbers for all of them, even the ones who were married. “Skilled with the ladies,” was how he referred to himself.
He parked his Ford in the lot, picked up the photo of Tester, and jogged up to the door. He could smell the grease as soon as he got out of the car. The Pig wasn’t open for breakfast, but there were cars in the lot. He knew the employees were prepping for the lunch rush, so he knocked on the locked front door. Patti Gillespie opened it. Patti was a cute little brunette, barely over five feet tall. She and her brother Sonny owned the place. Landers had banged a drunken Patti once in the girls bathroom during a basketball game back in high school. He’d wanted to know what a small girl felt like.
“I need to talk to you,” Landers said, and she led him inside. He plunked down on the first bar stool he came to. The place was dark and smelled of stale cigarette smoke and animal fat. A mirror ran the length of a long wall opposite the bar. Landers checked himself out as Patti walked around the bar and back toward him. He liked what he saw.
“What’s the difference between a sperm cell and a TBI agent?” she said. Patti loved to bust his chops.
“Go ahead, slay me,” Landers said. “What’s the difference between a sperm cell and a TBI agent?”
“A sperm cell has a one in a million chance of becoming a human being. Can I get you something to drink?”
“A Pepsi, and I have a photograph I want you to look at. Do you mind?”
“Are you doing real police work?”
“I am.”
“Hey, Lottie,” Patti called toward the kitchen. “Special Agent Phillip Landers here is doing real police work in my little old bar. He wants me to help him. What should I do?”
“Deny everything,” a voice called back. “Ask for a lawyer.”
“She doesn’t like you,” Patti said. “She says you have a small penis.”
“You know better than that,” Landers said with a wink.
“I was drunk, jerkoff. I don’t remember your penis.”
Landers slid the photo of Tester onto the bar. “Any chance this guy was in here yesterday evening?”
Patti nodded. “Came in about six, sat right over there in that booth.” She pointed behind Landers. “I waited on him. Ordered a cheeseburger and fries. Drank two Blue Ribbons. Nobody drinks Blue Ribbon any more. I remember thinking he wouldn’t have looked too bad if he lost some weight and shaved those goofy sideburns.”
“I don’t think he’ll be shaving any time soon. He’s dead.”
Patti gasped. “You kidding me?”
“Dead as dirt. Got himself killed last night. Any chance he hooked up with somebody in here? Did you see him leave?”
“Sonny was working the register when he left. He didn’t leave with anybody, but he asked Sonny about the Mouse’s Tail.”
“Really? Tell me more.”
“He was a little creepy, you know? A little too cocky for his own good with that big belly and that cheap suit. When he paid his bill he asked Sonny where he could find some adult entertainment, a place where they showed it all. Sonny told me about it after he left. He thought it was funny. He said the only way that dude would get any was to pay for it.”
“Mouse’s Tail, huh? Thanks, Patti. After all these years, I’m finally gonna put you on my Christmas card list.”
“Whoa, now, wait just one minute,” Patti said. “I need details. Tell me something juicy.”
“Sorry, can’t do it right now. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it on the news.”
“Just like a man. Always wanting something for nothing.”
Landers turned to leave without offering to pay. “Thanks for the Pepsi,” he said, “and thanks for the information. I’ll come back and tell you about it later.”
“I’m holding you to that,” she said. Landers looked in the mirror as he started out the door and saw Patti blow him a kiss. “That man has a fine butt, Lottie,” he heard her say.
“Screw him,” Lottie said. “He’s a fag.”
Lottie was pretty good, but once Landers did her a few times, he dumped her. He had to. There were a lot of other women out there who wanted to be with him. He figured he owed it to all of them to stay unattached.
April 12
11:45 a.m.
A horny preacher. A man after Landers’s own heart.
Landers called Jimmy Brown, told him about the lead and that he was going out to the Mouse’s Tail. Brown said they’d found one witness, the night clerk at the motel, who said she thought she saw a woman go up toward Tester’s room around midnight. The forensics van had showed up. Maybe they’d find something.
Brown said Tester was an evangelist, a traveling preacher from Newport, whic
h was located in Cocke County about sixty miles to the southwest of Johnson City. Newport was infamous in the law enforcement community for three things: chop shops, marijuana production, and especially cock fighting. Landers had also heard some of the preachers down there were snake-handlers, religious extremists who proved their faith by waving copperheads and rattlesnakes around while they delivered their sermons. He wondered whether the dead rev liked to play with slimy serpents.
He pulled into the parking lot at the Mouse’s Tail just before noon and circled the building. There was only one vehicle in the back, a black BMW convertible. A redheaded woman was just getting out. She was wearing black leather pants and a tight cheetah print top and was having a hard time walking through the gravel in her three-inch spiked heels. The outfit was definitely on the outrageous side, but her body was good enough to pull it off.
Landers pulled up beside the BMW, got out, introduced himself, and showed the woman his identification. She shook his hand and said her name was Erlene Barlowe. She owned the place. Said her husband passed away a while back and she took over after he died. She had a pretty face and was wearing a push-up bra that pushed up plenty. But she had to be at least fifty, so Landers figured the bright red hair was bottle-fed.
“What can I do for you, honey?” she said after a little small talk.
“What time do you open?” Landers was disappointed that the place was closed, since he wanted to talk to some of the employees. Actually, he was hoping to get to see some of her employees in action. He’d heard the Mouse’s Tail was a pretty steamy place, but he’d never been in there. When Landers wanted to go to a strip club, he went to Myrtle Beach or Atlanta. As much as he liked to look at live, naked women, he knew the TBI would probably fire him if they heard he was hanging out at the local titty bar. Those kinds of places were notorious for drugs.
“Five,” the woman said. “We’re open five to two, six days a week. Closed on Sundays.” Her voice was kind of southern belleish, not exactly what he expected to hear from a woman who looked like her, with a syrupy Tennessee drawl. Landers thought it was nice that the titty bar observed the Sabbath.
“So you were open last night?”
“Wednesday’s usually a pretty good night for us. It’s hump day, you know.”
She had a little smile on her face when she said “hump day.” Landers wondered how much humping went on in there on hump day.
“Was it crowded last night?”
“Wasn’t anything special, sugar. Do you mind if I ask why you’re asking?”
As she talked, Landers noticed her mouth. Nice teeth, and candy apple red liptstick. Looked like a color you’d paint a ’56 Chevy.
“Just doing my job, Ms. Barlowe,” he said. “Obviously, I wouldn’t be here unless I was working some kind of an investigation.”
“I understand completely,” she said, “but I’m sure you can understand that I’m concerned when a police officer, even one as handsome as yourself, shows up at my place of business asking questions. Maybe I could help you a little more if you’d let me in on what you’re investigating.”
Landers stepped back over to his car, reached in, and picked the photograph of Tester up off the front seat.
“Were you here last night?” he said.
“I’m here every night, sweetie.”
“Recognize this guy?” Landers handed the photo to her. She looked at it for a few seconds, then shook her head and handed it back.
“I don’t believe I do.”
“I think he was here last night.”
“Really? What would make you think that?”
“Just some information I picked up. He was killed last night.”
She gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh, my goodness. That’s terrible!”
Landers held the photo up in front of her face again. “You’re absolutely certain you didn’t see him in your club last night?”
“Well, now, I don’t believe I could say for certain. Lots and lots of men come and go. I don’t notice all of them.”
“I’m going to need to interview the employees who were working last night and as many of your customers as I can.”
“Well, I swan,” she said. “You’ll scare my girls to death. And the customers? Honey, they’d run from you like scared rabbits. Most of them don’t even want their wives to know they’ve been here, let alone the police. If you were to come in here and start asking them about a murder, why, I just don’t know what would happen to my business.”
“I didn’t say anything about a murder.”
The phony smile she was wearing stayed frozen on her face, but her eyes tightened the slightest bit. At that moment, Landers knew she realized she’d fallen face first into a pile of dung. It didn’t surprise Landers. Any woman who dressed like that had to be stupid.
“I thought you said the man was killed,” she said.
“I did, but I didn’t say he was murdered. I didn’t say anything about how he was killed. He might have been run over by a train or gotten killed in a car wreck. He could have jumped off a building or blown his brains out. What makes you think he was murdered?”
“I don’t claim to know a whole lot, honey, but I didn’t think the TBI got involved with car wrecks. I thought they only sent you boys in for the bad stuff.”
Nice try. She knew something, and now that she’d screwed up, she was trying to back-pedal. Landers decided to try to get her out of her element and into his, get her to a place where she’d be less comfortable.
“Ms. Barlowe, let’s you and I go down to my office where we can sit down, have a cup of coffee, and talk. You can give me a list of your employees and the names of as many customers from last night as you can remember, and I’ll have you back here in a couple of hours.”
The smile vanished.
“Honey, did I mention to you that my late husband, God rest his soul, used to be the sheriff of McNairy County? I was his personal secretary for almost a year before he resigned, and then we got married about a year after that. It was a long time ago, but I remember a few things about the law. Now I don’t mean to be rude to you, sugar, but one of the things I remember is that unless you have some kind of warrant or unless you arrest me, I don’t believe I even have to talk to you. I’ve tried to be nice up to this point, but you’ve made it clear that you think I’ve done something wrong. So you know what? I think I’m just going to go on inside and get to work now, okay? You have yourself a wonderful day.”
She turned around and sashayed off. It was the only word to describe the way her hips swayed as she headed into the Mouse’s Tail on her spike heels. Landers stood there watching her for a minute, then turned and got back into his car.
Most people cringe when they talk to TBI agents, and almost all of them cooperate unless they have something to hide. This woman had something to hide. Landers decided to stick a flashlight up her skirt until he found out what it was.
April 12
12:10 p.m.
I went up to see my mother after Johnny Wayne was carted off. It was lunchtime, and walking down the hall in the long-term-care wing at the nursing home was like running a wheelchair gauntlet. I knocked gently on the door and walked in. She was awake. It seemed she was always awake. The doctors told me that Alzheimer’s, as it progresses, interferes with sleep patterns. She was sitting up in bed, watching Sportscenter. Baseball season had started, which meant her beloved Atlanta Braves were back on the field.
“Hi, Ma. How’re you feeling today?”
“Like I’ve been hit by a train.”
“Good. At least you’re with us.”
The disease was steadily running its course. One day I’d walk in and she’d say “Hi, Joe,” and we’d talk for a little while, and the next day she wouldn’t even know my name. It was painful to watch. She was only sixty years old, and she’d always been strong and vital. But her skin had lost its elasticity and was the color of bleached bone. Her weight had dropped to ninety pounds, and she seemed to have shrunk by at lea
st two inches. Her cheeks were hollow, her hazel eyes dull, and her hair gray and stringy. Her teeth were in a jar on the bedside table. As I sat down in the chair next to her bed, I knew it wouldn’t be long before she wouldn’t be able to talk at all.
Ma was born in 1947 in a small town called Erwin, Tennessee, which is in the Appalachians not far from the North Carolina border and is surrounded by the Cherokee National Forest. She fell in love with a football star from nearby Johnson City and married him in 1964, a month after they graduated from high school. She had Sarah in 1966 and me in 1967, after my father was drafted and went off to Vietnam. I never laid eyes on my father; he was shipped home in a body bag by the time I was born.
Ma provided for my sister and me as best she could by working as a bookkeeper for a small roofing company and taking in other people’s laundry. She didn’t talk much, and when she did, it was usually a bitter tirade against Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. She never dated another man and hardly ever left the house. Her only real requirement of me was: “Get an education, Joey.”
“Sarah’s getting out of jail today,” I said. “I hope she’s going to stay at my house for a while. Caroline was supposed to go down and talk to her sometime this morning.”
Her eyes dropped at the mention of Sarah and she began to shake her head.
“My own flesh and blood in jail,” she said. “Tell me where I went wrong.”
“No sense in beating yourself up over it. She is what she is. It isn’t your fault.”
“You better lock up your valuables, Joey. She’ll haul the whole house off if you give her the chance.”
“Sarah wouldn’t steal from me, Ma.” In fact, Sarah had stolen from me in the past, but I’d never told Ma about it.
“Well, she stole from me, plenty of times.”
“Maybe she’s changed. You looked sad when I came in. What’s the matter?”
“I was thinking about Raymond.” She reached for a tissue beside the bed and dabbed at her eyes. Raymond was Ma’s younger brother. He drowned at the age of seventeen. “Such a waste.”
“No it wasn’t,” I said before I realized what was coming out of my mouth. ”Don’t spend any tears on him, Ma. That’s a waste.”