by Lisa Turner
She’d been Rosalyn Taylor then, the Taylor lineage just as august as the Lees’ but not nearly as wealthy. The Taylors had been plantation owners until they moved to Memphis two generations earlier and began parceling off their land. The hunting lodge and fifty acres east of the levee was all that was left. When she and Saunders were teenagers, the Lees and the Taylors would spend summers at their Mississippi homes and share Thanksgiving turkeys shot on the property. They attended the same church and voted Republican. The families had taken it for granted that she and Saunders would eventually unite the clans.
She’d never loved Saunders. She wasn’t capable of it. Love never found a way of entering her. Saunders knew this and accepted her as she was. Producing children was expected although she knew she’d have no talent for raising them. Martin and Caroline recognized her shortcomings early. She’d quit pretending with them a long time ago.
But in between training bras and her boring marriage, she’d had Jackson Able.
She would go with a carload of girlfriends to the drive-in on Friday nights. Partway through the movie she would slip out of the car, slip off her panties, and find Jackson’s blue Impala waiting at the end of a back row. He would be ready for her. His hands cupped her bottom as they pounded themselves into noisy climax, relying on the movie soundtrack to cover their passion. She would return to her girlfriends, redolent with sex, the idiots buying the story that she had gone for popcorn and run into friends. She thought if she were careful, she wouldn’t have to give up sex with Jackson for a year or two.
In July, Dressed to Kill was the second feature of the evening. By the time she’d found Jackson’s car, the opening credits had rolled and naked Angie Dickinson was pleasuring herself in a steamy shower scene. Jackson went crazy. He pulled her onto his lap and took her roughly. When he was done, he’d pressed his hand against the small of her back and breathed into her hair. He’d said, Let’s get married. We’ll figure out the rest later.
She’d known how his mind worked. If she said no, he would shove every dirty thing they’d done in Saunders’s face. Saunders would have no choice but to walk away. Jackson thought he’d trapped himself a rich girl who would be a ticket into the society that had been closed to him.
She’d buttoned her blouse and told him if he shot his mouth off within a mile of Saunders she would turn him in for stealing electronics out of the back of a delivery truck. He’d given her a Walkman and Betacam, both still in their boxes with barcodes, so she had proof of the theft. He kicked her out of the car without her panties and skirt. She had to walk back to her girlfriend’s car half naked. They laughed in her face, saying they had known all along she’d been sneaking off to hump the white trash stud.
Those bitches were all wearing size eighteen now. They had to pretend their husbands weren’t cheating alcoholics and that they liked being saddled with a pack of grandkids every weekend. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they do grind.
On the porch, the night wind blew off the lawn bringing with it the scent of cedar trees. She should go back inside to Saunders. Without Caroline to take care of him, she would have to move him back to Memphis. A developer had made an offer for the property. She’d let the house go and keep the leased acreage for income. Losing the place would take the heart right out of Saunders, if it hadn’t already been broken by Caroline’s murder.
She started inside, thinking about Jackson Able’s son. He’d said it was unhealthy to run down his family. He didn’t know the meaning of unhealthy. But he was about to find out.
Chapter 20
He’d sped away from Airlee, six miles gone before he let off the gas and cruised to a stop on a logging road deep in the forest. Shutting off the engine, he rolled down the window and inhaled the night air. Around him pulsed the memories of primordial swamps filled in and covered over by silt from the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers. Panthers, bears, and wildcats once moved among the ancient trees. The Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes had ruled the forests. Break the levees, let the winter floods run wild, and the taming of the Mississippi Delta would be undone. “Wild” wins in the end.
In the silence he heard Saunders’s cry of grief. The sound would visit his dreams, the place where he had no defense. Everyone touched by murder becomes its casualty. The longer a case drags on, the deeper the wound. He could feel the killer ahead of him, around the corner, out of sight, doing away with evidence. He clicked on the dome light and took out his memo book to complete the notes he’d started earlier.
Gracie Ella Adams—Saunders Lee’s sister and Caroline Lee’s aunt. Mental breakdown after disappearance of son. Delusional during interview. Knew about Caroline’s pregnancy. Did Caroline visit or call her aunt the night of the murder? Accusation made against Rosalyn Lee—You killed my Caroline. Meaning what?? Unreliable witness.
He thought about Rosalyn Lee’s behavior. She’d been like a rattlesnake striking anything that moves. She could stir up a stink with Director Davis over his conversation with Saunders if she wanted to. He rolled up the window and started the engine. He’d have to deal with that later.
Ten miles down the road his mobile rang. It was Blue.
“We just loaded Mr. Lee in an ambulance.”
“What happened?”
“Slurred speech. His left arm went weak. It’s happened before. The docs will run a CT to find out if it’s a TIA or a stroke. They’ll keep him overnight.”
“Anything I can do?” A stupid question. Stay away from a sick old man whose daughter has been murdered.
“Find the son of a bitch who killed Caroline, okay? I’ll let you know if the test shows anything significant.”
They hung up. A text popped up from Frankie:
5:03 pm. Call me.
That had been two hours ago. Cell service was spotty. He started to call then decided he needed time to think. Thirty minutes later on Highway 61 and his mobile rang again. He grabbed it expecting an update from Blue. It was Frankie.
“Did you get my text?”
“A little while ago. I’m driving.”
“Can you pull off? It’s important.”
She sounded excited. A sign on a pole flashed Pal’s Gas in the sky farther down the highway. He put the phone on speaker and took the winding access road to the aging truck stop and parked by the front door. A heavyset man came out carrying a case of Tecate hooked under one arm with a Chihuahua riding on top of the box.
Billy leaned forward and rested his forearms on the top of the steering wheel. “What’s up?”
“I searched Caroline’s office and found what looks like a draft of a letter. It starts out ‘My Dearest Raj.’”
He sat up. “Whoa.”
“It’s handwritten on a page torn off a legal pad. She crossed out lines, added words. Here’s the gist. There’d been a lot of good things between them in the past. She wants the fighting to stop. She was contacting him against the advice of her attorney who recommended she file a protective order. She would prefer they work things out.”
“That opens a lot of doors.”
“She wrote several versions of the next lines: ‘I wasn’t truthful about the reason I called off the wedding. I apologize for not telling you in person. I was embarrassed to tell you. I have something important to tell you.’ In the margin she wrote ‘couldn’t admit and ashamed to admit.’ She crossed out both of those phrases.”
“Sounds like another man in the picture,” he said.
“Not definitively, but I agree.”
“Have you seen the ME report?”
“Yes,” she said. “The baby. That’s a real twist. I wondered if she knew she was pregnant when she called off the ceremony. If Sharma was the father she might have been trying to draw him in with this letter.”
“Or these notes could’ve turned into a phone call,” he said.
“I don’t think so. She’s a letter writer. Her assistant said she broke up with Sharma by letter. From the sound of it, she never told him why she walked.”
; Caroline breaking up by letter was no surprise. She’d left a note for him on the counter at the diner. Sorry. I can’t do this anymore. She’d returned to Memphis for her fall school term and never came to see him at the diner again.
“Do you know if a letter went out to Sharma?” he asked.
“Her assistant said nothing has been mailed to him since the breakup, but Caroline dropped off her personal mail on her way home, so it’s possible. Wish we could get a sample of Sharma’s DNA. We’d know if it was his child,” she said.
“That won’t happen.”
A semi parked behind him released its airbrakes with a pop and a whoosh.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“A truck stop off Highway 61. A friend who manages the Lee’s plantation had information for me, so I drove down.”
He briefed her on Caroline’s wedding plans, his talk with Gracie Ella Adams, and Rosalyn’s blowup. He didn’t mention her threat to call Davis. He was tired and had a taste for a burger and a cold Tecate.
“We’ll go over all of it tomorrow.” He put the car into reverse. Two kids appeared out of nowhere, running from behind the semi. He slammed on his brakes.
“Let’s talk now,” she said. “I want to think about this overnight.”
“Not now, Frankie.”
“This is business. I’m not a girlfriend you can put off.”
He started to fire back then remembered Frankie’s persistence was one of the reasons he’d wanted her for his partner.
“It’s been a long day,” he said, hearing the drag in his voice.
She paused. Her tone softened. “Okay, drive safe. I’ll be in early.”
He hung up. Drive safe. He felt like he’d been driving on the wrong side of the road all day. One more call to make. He dialed Jerry Vanderman and left a message about the existence of a letter. Ten miles from Memphis his mobile rang.
“What’s this about a letter?” Vanderman asked.
“It’s in Ms. Lee’s handwriting. Starts out ‘My Dearest Raj.’”
“I’m in criminal court in the morning. I’ll come by after. My client has a right—”
“He has no rights unless he’s been charged. If he cooperates, he can see the letter.” He heard muffled profanity from Vanderman. The phone went dead.
He slapped his palm on the steering wheel. Damn that felt good. He clicked on a Trace Adkins CD, the best company a man can have on the road.
Chapter 21
Forty-five minutes after leaving the truck stop, Billy was driving up Riverside Drive. He had a quarter tank of gas left, which was more than he had going for himself. A Green Beetle burger and a cold Tecate were on his mind. One thing he liked about downtown, plenty of late-night joints where his nerves could uncoil and he could half listen to the jukebox. The Beetle had exactly what he needed tonight.
The Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman Orchestras used to play at Hotel Chisca down the street from the Green Beetle. The hotel was now a renovated apartment building after standing for years as a decaying hulk. After their shows the Miller and Goodman band members would head for the Green Beetle, which was then an illegal speakeasy during Prohibition. Later it became a hangout for B.B. King, Hank Williams, Sam the Sham, and Elvis.
He walked through the tavern’s double doors smelling the resin of the aged pine paneling and the grease coming from the fryers in the kitchen. He signaled the bartender nicknamed “Fish” for his usual. Fish nodded, a man in his forties with the hangdog looks of the old detective on the Barney Miller TV show. A handsome, young guy would’ve been out of place in the Beetle.
He ordered a burger and took a seat at a table even with the bar with his back against the wall. It never hurt to have your guard up. Memphian Machine Gun Kelly got mad one time and shot up the place leaving bullet holes in the paneling.
Fish came from behind the bar with his beer and slapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Detective. Catch any killers lately?”
Billy closed his eyes. The crowd was slim and focused on their own conversations, but he felt his anonymity was shot.
“Thanks for the beer. We’re working on it,” he said.
“Listen,” Fish said. “I read in the CA about Roscoe Hanson getting trapped on the roof of a car by a damned bison with a dead woman in the driver’s seat. So I says to Mamie”—he jerked a thumb at the server—“that’s the Roscoe who used to wash dishes in the back. Not long after that he walks in bragging how he’d fought off this giant bull. Son of a bitch had his arm wrapped in a bandage. I’m looking at his arm and thinking the bull probably came out all right.
“Anyway, Roscoe keeps slinging the shit and buying drinks for anyone who’ll listen. The guy was dead broke most of the time he worked here. Tonight he flashes a roll of fifties when he pays the tab, shit-eating grin on his face. Go figure.”
A flood of adrenaline hit Billy so hard he had to set his beer down. A fry cook four months out of Turney and living in a trailer on his sister’s property, why the hell was that dirtbag flush with cash?
Billy dropped a five on the table for the beer. “You know where the bastard went?” he asked Fish.
A guy who looked like he’d been sitting at the bar so long he was built into it leaned over to Billy. “I heard him say he was heading for Earnestine and Hazel’s. He’s probably shooting off his mouth like he was doing here.”
Billy parked in the lot next to Central Station across the street from Earnestine and Hazel’s. Hard to believe the history of the place was even more infamous than the Green Beetle. It began as a pharmacy then became a bar with an upstairs brothel that serviced WWII soldiers traveling through Memphis by train. Musicians—some of the founding fathers of the blues, R & B, and rock and roll—used to come to E & H daily for plate lunches of pig’s knuckles, collard greens, and cornbread. They treated the place like home. Ghosts of prostitutes and overdosed heroin addicts are said to haunt the rooms upstairs. They play the piano and scare the fool out of the staff, everyone except Karen the manager. Karen knows the ghosts are on her side.
Walking across the street to the bar, Billy was picturing the crime scene all over again—Hanson’s truck, the gate, the Camaro’s tracks in the mud. No weapon, no residue on Hanson’s hands. What had he missed? Had there been someone else at the scene, a shooter who carried off the gun and left Hanson stranded?
A crowd was standing on the sidewalk at the door, which meant the front of the E & H house was packed. The 5 Spot Cafe backed up to the bar, so he entered by their side door and walked down the hall to the bar’s rear entrance. It took two seconds to spot Hanson. He was shooting pool under the incandescent light hanging over the bar’s lone pool table, bent over the side rail with his cue jacked up to shoot over another ball. He had on a red shirt with pearl snaps down the front and jeans cut so tight they gripped his crotch. He took his shot. The balls clicked and rolled down the cushions. He whooped and shuffled his cowboy boots in a sideways scoot that took him to the other end of the table.
Billy knew the player Hanson was shooting against, a guy named Spuds, a frequent flier for narcotic busts who was currently out on bond. Cops called him Spuds because his shaved skull looked like a Mr. Potato Head with the white plastic teeth glued in the middle of his face and a gold earring hanging off the side. Spuds put the heat on and cleaned up the table. The eight ball dropped in the pocket. He shoved out his dentures with his tongue and waggled them at Hanson.
“Rack ’em up,” Hanson bellowed. “You’re deader than fried chicken.”
“Even up first,” Spuds growled.
Hanson stowed the cue under his bandaged arm and threw a handful of bills on the table.
The sight of the money set Billy off. He pushed through the bystanders and grabbed Hanson’s bandaged arm.
Hanson pulled away. “Hey, asshole!” His face beamed with a chemical shine, his pupils dilated to the size of black pennies. He focused on Billy and licked his lips, amped on crank or bennies.
A salty taste hit the back of
Billy’s throat. “You’re coming with me, shithead.”
Hanson swiveled toward two fat guys slouched on the vinyl sofa against the wall. “Here’s the cop I told you about tried to bust me for killing that woman. Had to kick me loose.” He turned back, grinning. “I made you look like a dick. Suck on this, Detective.”
He stuck out his middle finger and jerked it up and down. Then he puffed out his cheeks like a blowfish. One of the guys on the sofa laughed, tipped up his beer, missed his mouth and poured it down his chest.
Billy grabbed Hanson’s finger and bent it back. Hanson yelled and yanked it away.
“You’re shooting pool with a convicted felon,” Billy said. “Get moving or you’re back at Turney Center faster than you can fart.”
Hanson was ripped, but he wasn’t stupid. He dropped his cue on the table. Billy shoved him toward the door, staying behind him, jabbing stiff fingers in his back all the way down the hall. They crossed the street with the Arcade Restaurant’s neon sign burning in the night. A chilled dampness hung in the air.
Ten feet from the car the drugs floating in Hanson’s brain took over. He dropped to a crouch and swung around, his fist catching Billy in the ribs.
That was all the excuse Billy needed.
He spun Hanson back around and hiked up the bandaged arm behind him. Then he drove him face forward into the car’s rear fender and smashed his head onto the trunk. Hanson’s legs collapsed from under him.
“Let up, let up,” he begged, voice muffled against the flat of the trunk.
A man and woman passing by on the sidewalk hurried on.
Billy grabbed him by the back of the belt, turned him around, and threw him against the side of the car. “Where’d you get the cash?”
Hanson coughed. His breath smelled like gasoline. “The fuck you care?”
Billy backhanded him. Hanson’s head snapped to the right, spittle flying from his mouth. “What do you think, asshole? You’re connected to a murder.”