Rick surfed for a little longer before logging off. He went to the kitchen, ate the last two tamales, then brushed his teeth and headed for bed. Lollie was curled up in the fetal position, clutching her pillow. Rick remembered an expert from a talk show who said people who slept this way were shy and sensitive but were likely to exhibit a tough exterior. As he thrashed around to get comfortable, she mumbled something he couldn’t understand. Then he drifted off.
20
RICK WOKE UP the next morning with Lollie’s arm draped over him. She snuggled closer and said, “Sorry I fell asleep so fast last night. Was the sex hot?”
“Off the scale.”
“Thanks for not waking me.”
Rick smiled. “I put the ‘gentle’ back in ‘gentleman.’ ” A moment later he said, “And by the way, you didn’t snore.”
“Told you.”
“Not so smug. Last time was a different story. Maybe you only do it after three martinis.”
“Maybe,” she said. “We can experiment later.” She threw back the covers. “Right now we’ve got a murder to solve.”
“Two, actually.”
“Three if you count Hamp Doogan.”
They got up, showered, grabbed Crusty, then hit the road. On the way to Shipley’s, Rick recounted what the Paramount Records expert had said in his e-mail. “Which means Reverend Johnson and Buddy Cotton are telling different stories,” he said.
Lollie made a note of that and slipped it into the case file. “Though it could just as easily mean that one or both of them are senile or might just be screwing with us.”
“Yeah,” Rick said, “take your pick on that one. But it also means that if the three of them ever did record together, it was either at a local club or at Henry LeFleur’s radio station. So if the tapes exist, maybe he’s got them or knows where they are.”
“Which would make him a potential target for whoever killed my grandfather.”
Rick looked at her, surprised. “That’s true, hadn’t thought of that. You want to use him for bait? Just stake him out and wait to see if the killer shows up?”
“Nah, I suppose we ought to be neighborly and give him a heads-up on that,” Lollie said. “Might buy us some goodwill with the guy.”
“Goodwill? You think he won’t just answer our questions?”
Lollie gazed at him as she would a child in one of her classes. “Such an innocent,” she said. “Look, I don’t think it’s too much of a stereotype to say that lawmen of his time and place weren’t always the most savory of characters, right? Power corrupting and all that. We know he took kickbacks on illegal liquor sales, so it’s not unreasonable to assume he might have some other skeletons in his little sheriff’s closet. And if that’s true, he might not take kindly to a lot of questions that, however inadvertently, might poke into some of those areas, whatever they might be. All I’m saying is that we should talk about how we’re going to approach him, don’t you think?”
Rick didn’t respond. Somewhere around “illegal liquor sales” his eyes had narrowed to slits as he noodled a thought.
“Hey,” Lollie said. “Light’s green.” The car behind them honked, snapping Rick back to attention. After a moment he said, “Sometimes I’m astounded by how slow I am.”
She gave him a patronizing pat on the arm. “You’re not slow, Ricky, you just learn … differently from others, that’s all.” She pointed above his head and said, “So, what’s the hundred-watt bulb you got going on?”
“A stroke of genius,” Rick said.
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “You can feel the muscles in the neck of this idea, it’s so good.” He dropped into his radio voice. “This Saturday night, an historical blues event.” He did a drumroll on the steering wheel, causing Crusty to look up. “It’s been fifty years since they played together, but now, for one night, they’re back. The Blind, Crippled, and Crazy reunion concert,” Rick said. “Live, on WVBR-FM.”
The merit of the idea registered immediately on Lollie’s face. “That is good,” she said just as Crusty hopped into her lap. “Except, didn’t you tell me Crippled Willie gave up playing the devil’s music?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And we don’t even know where to find Crazy Earl.”
“Not yet, but—”
“And even if we got them together to play, how does any of that help us catch the killer?”
Rick’s mouth curved into a sly smile. He held a finger in the air and said, “We announce that we’ve found the long-lost tapes and that we’re going to broadcast them as part of the reunion show.” He looked at Lollie, waiting for her to figure out the ending.
She pointed at him. “And the killer will come to get them. That’s not bad,” she said. “Of course it puts our lives in grave danger, but otherwise …”
Rick delivered a look of mock irritation. “See now, that’s the problem with people these days, always looking for no-muss, no-fuss solutions. One minute you’re complaining about not making any progress, the next you’re whining about your life being in grave danger. There’s just no keepin’ you happy.” Rick pulled into the Shipley’s parking lot. “Whaddya want?”
“Chocolate glazed will keep me happy,” she said. “And a large coffee.”
After securing what had become their traditional breakfast, they hit the road north. Crusty was in Lollie’s lap, licking sugar from her fingers, when Rick gestured at the case file. “Look in there and find Buddy’s and Willie’s phone numbers.” He handed her his cell phone. “We need to call and invite them to do the reunion show.”
Lollie called, but neither man answered. She left a message and asked them to call back. She looked at the note with Henry LeFleur’s address and said, “Where the hell is Moorhead?”
Rick slipped into his best Rhett Butler accent and said, “Why, Scarlett, it’s where the Southern crosses the Dog.”
She looked at him, batting her eyelashes. “Oh, tell me, Rhett,” she said. “Do tell me.”
“Blues legend,” he said plainly. “You know who W.C. Handy was?” Lollie shook her head. “Started as a musician in minstrel shows at the turn of the century. Ended up being called the father of the blues.”
“I thought that was Robert Johnson.”
“Different kind of father,” Rick said. “Handy came first. He was at a train station up in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1903, and there was a man sitting there playing his guitar, using a knife to slide up and down the neck while singing about where the Southern crossed the Dog. Handy said it was the weirdest music he’d ever heard, but it stuck with him and he started incorporating the blue notes he’d heard into the songs he wrote and published. One of which he called ‘Yellow Dog Blues.’”
“That’s fascinating,” Lollie said. “All that and you still haven’t answered the question.”
“I’m not surprised,” Rick said. “I was just hoping I could remember that story from that plaque I read at the blues museum. What was the question? Oh, railroad lines. The Southern was an east-west line and the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley line, which was called the Dawg, ran north-south and crossed in Moorhead. That’s what the guy in Tutwiler was singing about a hundred years ago.” Lollie kept staring at him until he said, “It’s between Greenwood and Greenville on Highway 82.”
“See? How hard was that?”
TWO HOURS AND a sugar rush later, Rick, Lollie, and Crusty turned onto the twenty-acre LeFleur estate. At the end of the long driveway was a vaguely gaudy neoclassical revival that suggested the family had more money than taste. Rick parked in the shade and left Crusty sleeping on the dashboard.
A black woman of indeterminate age and disposition, wearing a crisp maid’s uniform, answered the door. Rick gave her a nod and said, “Hi, we’re here to—”
The woman held up a hand to interrupt. “It’s right in here.” She stepped back inside and picked up a large box filled with clothes that she tried to hand to Rick. “Miss LeFleur said she�
��s sorry, but they changed her plane in Memphis to earlier or she’d’ve brought these.”
Rick took the box and said, “I think there’s a misunderstanding. We’re here—”
“You ain’t the Junior League people?” “No, we’re here to see Mr. LeFleur.”
“Oh.” She took the box back. “They supposed to come pick these up today.”
“Is Mr. LeFleur here?”
“He’s in the garden.” The woman saw no point in letting them through the house, tracking in all that dirt, since they were just going right back outside, so she leaned out the door a bit and pointed. “Go on around that way,” she said. “You’ll see him.”
It was a sunny, blue day and hot enough to bust open peas on the vine. And there, stooped in the middle of a large vegetable garden, was seventy-five-year-old Henry LeFleur pinching the suckers from his tomato plants. He had on a pair of brown gardening gloves, baggy trousers, a sleeveless shirt, and a baseball cap with the National Cotton Council logo on it. An old blue tick hound sat at the end of a row contentedly licking himself.
Henry and the dog noticed the two strangers at the same time. The dog didn’t seem to mind, just returned to what he was doing. Henry, on the other hand, eyed them contentiously but didn’t speak. After a moment he turned to the house and hollered, “Annie Mae!”
The woman in the maid’s uniform materialized at the back door with aggravation in her voice. “Yassuh?”
He gestured at Rick and Lollie. “Who’s this?”
“Didn’t say. Come to see you.” She shook her head just a bit, then turned to disappear into the shadows.
Rick waved as they approached, but Henry didn’t see it. He was still looking at the back door, shaking his own head. “Twenty years,” he said to himself, “and still don’t know how to bring a guest through the house.” He stood his hoe up on end and turned suspicious eyes on his visitors. “Who’re you?” It seemed as much a threat as it did a question.
“Mr. LeFleur, my name’s Rick Shannon. This is Lollie Woolfolk.”
Henry tipped the hoe in her direction. “Sunflower County Woolfolk?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“So you’re kin to Robert Tucker.”
“Yes, sir. He was my grandfather.”
Henry doffed his cap and gave a courteous nod. “I hear he passed on just recent. I’s sorry to hear that.” Lollie nodded back and thanked him. “We had some dealings long time ago,” Henry said. “He was a good man, toted his own skillet.”
“Yes, sir, thank you,” she said. “Actually, he’s one of the reasons we came to see you.”
“Issat right?” He cocked his head up at the sun. They were sweating like racehorses as the humidity weighed down on them like extra gravity. Henry stepped out of the tomatoes while pointing toward the back patio. “Let’s talk in the shade, why don’t we?” He hollered, “Annie Mae! Bring us some tea!” The dog got to his feet and trotted toward his master. Henry gave him a rub on the head when he caught up.
“I work at WVBR-FM in Vicksburg,” Rick said. “I understand you used to be in radio.”
“ ‘At’s right, owned a station for a while with my daddy. Even did my own show, playing the great symphonies. Trying to provide a little culture, you know?” Henry paused when they reached the patio. He worked the gloves off and gestured at the patio furniture. “Here, make yourself at home,” he said. They sat at a large wrought-iron, glass-topped table in the shade of a pair of canvas umbrellas. Henry took off his cap and wiped his liver-spotted head with a handkerchief. “Wha’ cha wanna see me about?” He leaned forward and made a funny face. “You wanna hire me as a disc jockey?” He winked at Lollie, then rubbed his dog’s head as if to bring him in on the joke.
“Well, no, sir,” Lollie said with a polite chuckle. “We’re doing research for a radio show we’re producing. And we started looking into an old rumor about a recording session my grandfather might have been involved with when he worked at your radio station.”
Annie Mae came out with a pitcher and three glasses already filled with ice and sweet tea. She set them on the table and said, “ ’Sat all, Mistah LeFleur?”
“Yeah, thank you, Annie Mae.” Henry pushed a glass toward Lollie and said, “I think I know what you’re talkin’ about and I’m afraid you gone off on a wild-goose chase.” He took a long drink of his tea and then put the cold glass against his leathery forehead. “You talkin’ ’bout them three old jigs, uhhh …” He snapped his fingers once or twice, causing the dog to look up. “… Blind what’s-his-name and them boys, right?”
Rick helped him with the other names and told him the story he’d heard from Smitty Chisholm as well as what he’d learned from the blues fan with the Paramount Records Web site. “Since they didn’t record in Wisconsin,” Rick said, “we figured that narrowed it down to a juke joint or your radio station, so we came to see you hoping you might be able to put us on the right track.”
This brought a satisfied smile to Henry’s face. “Well, I don’t know ’bout that,” he said. “What in particular you lookin’ to find out? I mean, you ain’t exactly the first folks come along lookin’ to find them tapes, which, I’m here to tell you, is just old fairy tale.”
“You’re probably right,” Rick said. “But you remember Lamar Suggs?”
“Yeah, and I heard he’d passed on too, just recent.” He looked up to the sky and said, “What’s that old sayin’? ‘People dyin’ today ain’t never died before.’ ” Henry shook his head, half sad. “Gettin’ on that time in my life when eva-body I know’s got the dwindles.”
“Actually, Mr. Suggs didn’t dwindle so much as he was murdered,” Rick said. “Found him with a fork stuck in his back.” He gestured at Lollie. “Mr. Woolfolk was murdered too.”
Henry turned on Rick, firm and irritated. “Now, son, don’t you think I know that? I was a sheriff around here for a long time and I still got feelers out, so I know what goes on. They was killed by crackheads, what I heard. I was just trying to show some respect for Miss Woolfolk’s feelings. Something you might wanna think about.”
“Of course. I apologize,” Rick said, turning to Lollie to appease Mr. LeFleur’s apparent old-world sensibility. “The reason I bring up Mr. Suggs is that I went to talk to him about the tapes and happened to be the one who found him after he’d been attacked. Before he died he said something about Blind, Crippled, and Crazy that makes us think whoever killed him and Mr. Woolfolk believes the tapes are more than a fairy tale.”
Henry took a deep, philosophical breath and let it out before saying, “You know, I recall a man down in Humphreys County one time, killed his mother-in-law ’cause he believed she was a large raccoon up in his attic. Of course, believing that didn’t make it so.” He tilted his head to one side and said, “Trust me, they ain’t no tapes.” He looked at Rick to see if he wanted to argue.
Lollie sensed the start of a pissing contest, so she said, “That’s a real good point, Mr. LeFleur. And you’re probably right, but we figure as long as we’re going to do this show, it’d be nice if we could settle the issue once and for all, even if we prove they never existed. Now—”
Rick held up a hand to interrupt. He said, “The point is that it doesn’t matter if the tapes are real or not, Mr. LeFleur, as long as someone believes they are. Mr. Suggs and Mr. Woolfolk are just as dead, and if whoever killed them connects the dots to you owning the radio station, they might come calling. I thought you should know that, that’s all.”
Henry responded with a nod and a smirk. He leaned sideways in his chair and reached into his pocket. He said, “Well, if they manage to get past ole Annie Mae, and that .22 she keeps in her apron …” Henry smiled as he laid a chrome .38 on the tabletop. “I’m more’n happy to see ’em.”
“Oh, I doubt it’ll come to that,” Lollie said, adding a nervous laugh. She leaned over and scratched the dog behind the ears as she said, “The way we understand it, Cotton, Jefferson, and Tate were playing at a juke joint the same n
ight a man named Pigfoot Morgan was arrested for killing a man.”
“That’s right,” Henry said. “Piece of trash name of Hamp Doogan.”
“What can you tell us about that night?”
21
HENRY LAUGHED AND said, “I can tell you one thing for certain, it was a long damn time ago.” He laughed again and gestured at the pitcher of tea. “Help yourself to more, if you’d like.” He sat back, as if to think about it for a minute, before he gave a nod to the west and said, “Now I can’t say what all was going on over in Leland that night other’n they was having one of them skin balls like they did. I was north of town patrolling on old Highway 61 when I come across these three jigs standing over a man’s body in the middle of the road. Now that’s not good any time of day or night, so I stopped to see what was what, and sure enough, the man was dead. Shot. Several times, as I recall, like somebody’s mad, real hot blooded, you know how they get.”
Henry glanced at the underside of the umbrella and said, “I believe it was right about then Lamar Suggs come along, headin’ to or comin’ back from Memphis, one. I forget which way he was going. But he stopped to see if I needed any help, which I didn’t, so he went on about his business. Now, since none of them jigs had a gun on ’em and they weren’t trying to get away, I figure it weren’t none of them who’d done the killin’. So I asked about the car I’d seen fleeing north. Long story short, they got around to admittin’ it was Pigfoot Morgan had killed Doogan.”
“They say why?”
Henry shook his head. “Just said he’d done it and run off when he seen me coming, left them just standing there, which didn’t seem to please them a whole lot, as you can understand. Anyway, we got us arrest warrant out and finally caught him up near Friar’s Point, trying to get across the river.”
Highway 61 Resurfaced (v5) Page 20