by Ace Atkins
That’s the way it works. Most of the time you have to go to the office yourself. You have to be polite to those paper sluggers and, if you are lucky, they’ll crawl down into the cave or depths of hell or wherever those physical records are stored, and bring you back an answer. I’ve had tons of academics spin these great tales about conspiracies behind public records and how bureaucrats want to keep everything secret. Most of the time that’s bullshit. When searching for old files, your biggest enemy is apathy.
As I waited down at Davis Bail Bonds on Poplar, I hoped Ulysses was having luck getting what we needed released. I picked at a paper container of health food he’d bought for me. Some tofu squares in brown rice, broccoli, and cooked carrots. I hunted for a bottle of Crystal. Maybe some pepper. Nothing.
It was about 2:00 P.M. when he finally got back. He slid out of his leather coat, hung it on a mahogany rack, and turned down the jazz playing overhead before plunking down the thick stack of papers he carried under his arm.
I picked it up. About half a phone book.
U made some coffee and returned some phone calls while I took the stack into his lobby and flipped through the pages. He called out from his office: “Be careful with those pictures. I have to return them in the morning. Rest was a copy.”
James, Mary/Porter, Eddie
December 17, 1968
The first pages consisted of a detailed report from the Shelby County Medical Examiner. Eddie Porter had multiple injuries. Blunt trauma to the back of the head. Four of his front teeth broken loose. Two found in his stomach. Single gunshot to the base of the skull.
Mary James had died much more cleanly, if there was such a thing. She suffered four knife wounds to her face and a single gunshot that began underneath her jaw and ended up in her brain.
Both died from a .38 caliber bullet.
The crime scene photos, a set of ten, had that same washed-out, grainy-color look of those old Polaroids from the early ‘sixties. Grandpa in weird black glasses. Mother with a beehive. Of course, these were larger, eight by tens, with some of the most disturbing images I’d ever seen.
I’d seen men killed. But staring into the warped angle in which pregnant Mary James lay, clutching her belly with eyes open, made me turn my head and flip the page quickly. These were too personal. I shuffled through the rest. The back of James’s head. Broken plates on the floor and a plane ticket in a pool of blood.
Two sets of bloody shoe prints. Blood smears in an old kitchen. I swallowed as if my own spit were contaminated.
But I was careful to look thoroughly at each page. Take the time. U brought me some coffee in a mug stamped with logo for his company and I leafed through charts and diagrams of angles that the shooter or shooters used. Everything I saw implied two men.
EVIDENCE LIST:
32 scene photographs
1 brick
1 plane ticket
1 kitchen knife
1 woven rug
2 chairs
1 Formica table
fingerprint samples (doors and windows)
1 wallet
personal papers from James’s home
I flipped through the stack quickly looking for copies of what would appear to be letters or notes but only saw more neatly typed pages. What did interest me was the detective log. As with most, they were written by one of a team of two detectives and carried time and place of interviews, what happened, as well as what they personally observed.
1400 hours
December 18, 1968.
Bluff City Records offices, College Street
Interviewed suspect Clyde James at the offices of a local Negro music company. The white owner, Robert Lee Cook, was present as well as a secretery and family of Mr. James. James appeared agitated and shook during the interview. We asked why he wasn’t home last night and how he did not discover the bodies. At this point, Mr. Cook interrupted and stated the Mr. James was with him at a party and several witnesses were available to collaborate the story. Mr. James nodded confirmation of his whereabouts. When asked where did he sleep, Mr. James refused to answer. Once again, Mr. Cook tried to intervene, at which point Detective Tyler asked that he and his secretary leave the room. Mr. Cook advised Mr. James not to speak without a lawyer. Mr. James nodded. Upon exiting the offices, Mr. james told us he saw two white males fleeing the home in a green station wagon with wood paneling. We asked when he saw this, Mr. James once again refused to answer. Mr. Cook gave us the name of Bill Hammond, a local attorney. We took the card.
I read on. More interviews. A deposition with Cook where he told a long story about his Christmas party that included sweaty details about the women who attended and intricate facts about appetizers that made me hunger for more than tofu. I thought about Payne’s BBQ and looked at my watch before ripping through a few more pages.
Another with Clyde James.
0830
December 20, 1968
433 Rosewood Ave.
Second interview with suspect. We had hoped this meeting would lead to an admission, but it seemed that Mr. James only wanted to further his story about the two white males. We were called by Mr. James earlier in the morning and told that he wished for a confidential talk. We agreed and met Mr. James at his residence. No others were present. Captain Leek was notified. Mr. James elaborated that Mr. Cook was being untruthful on our meeting on Dec. 18. MR. James stated he was at home at the time of the killings and that he fled the home for several hours walking the streets due to the death of his wife and friend. When asked why he did not seek medical attention for them, he stated they were both clearly dead. He continued that he witnessed one male known to him and another he had met on one occasion walk into the home with weapons. He stated he watched the men from the inside of a abandoned car in his yard. He stated he saw the men enter the home and that he heard screams from his wife. Mr. James was asked why he did not intervene and he stated he was unable to, presumably for his own safey. Mr. James stated the second victim, Mr. Edward Porter, entered the home a short time later and then heard two gunshots. The two men fled the home. Mr. James checked on the victim’s condition. Seeing they were deceased he began to walk from the home and shortly thereafter became intoxicated with a man unknown to him. Mr. James identified the first male as that of Levi Ransom. He stated Mr. Ransom was an associate of Mr. Cook and was a frequent visitor to the Negro record shop. The second man was described as a juvenile and at another time witnessed to be in the company or Mr. Ransom. Mr. James only recalled the juvenile as that of Judas. No other details. We left the house at 1030 and discussed Mr. Ransom with Captain Leek. Mr. Ransom is known to have committed several offenses in Shelby County and is believed to have served time at Brushy Mountain.
“Holy shit,” I yelled to U.
“Read on, brother,” he called back and kept talking to someone on the phone. For the first time, I noticed the slight buzz coming from the big neon sign in his window and the stale smell of his sofa. A funky, rotten smell of recidivist rednecks.
There was an interview with Ransom at a pool hall off Beale Street and the detectives noted that he owned the place. I imagined the pool hall smelling like the sofa and filled with testosterone and nicotine. Ransom denied knowing Cook or Porter or even being in Memphis that day. Ransom said, “I don’t hang out with niggers.” He was asked about this kid Judas and was described as shaking his head throughout the interview. I could tell the detective didn’t give two shits for Ransom by the way he listed a long complicated criminal history after the interview.
My hands were now only filled with a few remaining sheets of paper and I read as fast as I could, searching for more answers. My heart thudded in my chest as I cruised through the interview with the would-be accomplice. It was short. Only two pages. I guessed juveniles weren’t part of the public-record thing, because the boy’s name and address had been crossed through with a fat black marker.
I took another sip of cold coffee. I wanted a cigarette but instead searched in my coat for
a pack of gum. I paced the office for a few minutes.
“So that’s it?” I asked, blowing a bubble from the Bazooka.
U shrugged.
“Ransom. . . . What happened to the rest? They never even arrested anyone? Man, this can’t be the whole file.”
“Look at that first page. Two-twenty-one. Look at your page count at the bottom. They match. I’ve done this a few more times than you, professor.”
I put on my coat and tossed him his leather trench.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Find that detective.”
U shook his head and said, “That mother is probably dead.”
“Let’s find out.”
He tossed me back his coat and walked back into his office and started banging the hell out of his computer keys. I poured some more coffee, downed a little more tofu, and waited.
Chapter 53
U FOUND HIM. He’d found that old bastard, Detective Raymond L. Jenkins, with a computer service called AutoTrack in less than fifteen minutes. I was familiar with the service, my occasional girlfriend had used it in Chicago while we were looking for witnesses to help a blues singer named Ruby Walker get out of prison. Too bad only reporters, cops, and those who worked on the fringes of law enforcement could access it. It would make my life a hell of a lot easier when I was tracking down long-lost singers. But I only asked for favors when I really needed them.
We decided not to call ahead even though there was a possibility that this wasn’t even the same man. His age would be about right and U said he found weapons permits that he expected for a retired cop. Besides, he was only a few miles away in the Cooper-Young district in Midtown.
“Strange neighborhood for an old cop,” I said, looking at all the meticulously renovated houses, many proudly flying their rainbow flags from porches.
“Not really,” U said, taking a turn through a small business district of antique shops, coffee houses, and art galleries. “Probably just holding out for the right buyer.” He took a zigzagged pattern through several narrow streets lined with cottages and bungalows painted bright blues and yellows, and wound his way down around a curve to a dead end.
The house didn’t really seem to belong with the others. Two-story narrow brick. Seafoam green paint and a cast-iron balcony littered with drying socks and Sansabelt slacks. An upstairs window had been sealed with plywood. The bottom windows had been covered in security bars despite the neighborhood looking like a postcard for the chamber of commerce.
The front door was open and we heard hammering as soon as we got out of U’s truck and walked over a reddish dirt lawn.
More hammering. The tinny sounds of a small AM radio. The smell of freshly cut wood.
“Mr. Jenkins?” I called out.
More hammering.
U walked ahead. The walls were mildewed and covered in a splotched gray-green mold. In a narrow hallway, some of the mold had overgrown family photos taken decades ago of a bristle-haired patriarch, his angular, red-haired wife, and three boys. Some unframed shots had been tacked to the wall with toothpicks and seemed like they’d been added by someone other than the person who’d made the family collage. My breath caught in my throat as I saw images of an old woman in a coffin, the same green mold obscuring part of the faded photograph.
I heard U talking to a man down the hall and I followed, the words becoming more distinct and clear as I entered a room that had been stripped of wallpaper and carpet. A half-completed bookshelf stood by a back wall.
Tree branches obscured the view from one dirty window behind Raymond L. Jenkins.
“This is Detective Jenkins,” U said, nodding to the older man who was looking at U like he’d just been approached by a wandering Bible salesman with a glass eye.
Jenkins was in his seventies, a palish white and just as grizzled as you’d expect. His teeth were stained with nicotine and his later years had made his nose and ears so extremely pronounced they almost gave him a rodentlike appearance. Small pale-blue eyes. He wore boxer shorts with red hearts and a white dress shirt with the sleeves cut out. Navy-blue dress socks and sandals.
The old man took a deep breath, wiped his forehead with an oily rag, and sat down on an overturned bucket. We stood. I could tell U didn’t want to soil his four-hundred-dollar jacket. He stepped back a little giving me the go ahead to lead. I knew why. He’d known the subject in about five seconds.
“Detective Jenkins,” I said. “I’m looking into an old case of yours. It was a double murder in nineteen sixty-eight. Woman’s name was Mary James, she was pregnant at the time, and the man was a musician, name was Eddie Porter. Both were shot in the back of the head.”
I felt myself rambling, probably because Jenkins wasn’t showing any normal signs of listening. No nodding. No quizzical look. Didn’t even seem to be paying attention. He seemed more focused on a hole in the sock of his left foot.
“Do you remember?”
He pulled his foot to his body, examined the sock, and placed his foot back on the floor.
He shook his head, looked over at U, and grinned. He stayed silent. Somewhere down the street someone was mowing the yard. Jenkins’s face was covered in white whiskers and he’d spilled grape jelly across the front of his shirt.
“Would you look at the case file if we brought it by?”
“Y’all don’t have the right.”
“Excuse me?”
He grinned to himself again, full of self-important knowledge that someone still needed him after all these years.
“Y’all don’t work for the department. Why do you care?”
“One of the suspects is a friend.”
He nodded, then his face crossed with great aggravation with the growing sound of a lawn mower cutting too close to his yard. He stood, cranked open the window, and craned his old head outside. “Damn fudge packers. Taken over this whole street. Suppose to raise property values but all they do is leave little typed notes for me about my yard in my mailbox. I don’t know why those deviants don’t go back and hide like they should.”
I watched his face heat with anger as he sat back down on the bucket, his eyes flashed once again with a realization of what we were discussing.
He looked at the decaying walls covered in glue and loose bits of wallpaper and the sagging ceiling and sighed. “I’m sorry, don’t remember the case.”
“Can we bring by that case file? Maybe it’ll jar your memory, sir.”
“I don’t think it needs to be of your concern,” he said, and suddenly jumped up and hobbled from the room. “Good day.”
U crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Nice man. Think I’ll call him Grandpa.”
I followed Jenkins into a family room. White sofa. White coffee table. White walls. Even white carpet. But the crispness of the room had long since faded. All the white had become a little more yellowed. The carpet mostly a muddy brown.
Jenkins turned on a ‘sixties console television and began watching a Spanish soap opera.
“I need some help, sir,” I said. “I can be back in five minutes with that file. Maybe you can just remember a little piece.”
About ten seconds later, he turned and looked at me. Full attention now. His rat nose flaring. “Son, I kept every one of my case files. I know every one of ’em like I know my own name. Don’t talk to me like I’m some sad old man.”
“I need five minutes.”
“I need to be left alone.”
I didn’t move. I watched him slump into a well-worn seat surrounded by opened cans of cheap beer and packs of saltine crackers and Vienna sausages.
He didn’t look back. Only spoke: “You playin’ with some mighty powerful people, son. And I don’t think you’ve brought enough chips to the game.”
I opened my mouth to speak. But he was done. His eyes had glazed back over reflecting with the colorful lights playing on the screen before him and living with the decayed memories of a life he’d known a long time ago.
&nbs
p; I planned on coming back with the file. Fuck him, I thought. I could break him down. Shit, probably only needed some decent food and a six-pack. But as U and I walked out the open door, I saw a basket hanging from the wall. A familiar logo stuffed among the bills caught my attention.
A Confederate flag. Three strong stamped letters: SOS.
Chapter 54
HIDDEN PLANS, SECRET AGENDAS. All kinds of things that Jon didn’t care squat about. He’d driven back to Tunica last night, kind of liked livin’ in that penthouse that Mr. Ransom set up. People even brought him some tinfoil to cover up the windows so he could sleep till noon. He’d prefer to sleep through the day, though. That way the sunlight wouldn’t taint his soul, he thought, stiffenin’ the jacket of his denim suit and loosenin’ the yellow scarf around his neck. Dang thing still smelled like magnolias. Ain’t that funny?
He danced a little ole move on the elevator he’d learned from Elvis: That’s the Way It Is, and ended the dance in a karate down-block. “Kiya,” he yelled as the door opened to the lobby and he almost near knocked an ole woman in her snout.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said. He hustled by her, slippin’ another Benzedrine onto his tongue, feelin’ the medicine dissolve. He rubbed his hands together like he was gonna be eatin’ a big feast as he stepped into the wide parking lot lookin’ for Ransom’s sweet ride.
In the cold, he slipped into the man’s truck, adjusted his gold metal shades, and slunked down into his seat. His legs jumpin’ and quiverin’ off the floor. He plunked another stick of gum into his mouth as Ransom wheeled out onto Highway 61 and headed back to Tunica proper. But before they hit the little ole brick town, he ducked onto a rutted road into Nigraville.