by Gary Gusick
“I think our viewers will all know who the other gentleman in the room is,” Darla said, her eyes catching Hailburn’s. “Isn’t that right, Elvis?”
Hailburn gave a small nod.
That’s right, thought Darla. Just sit tight. “Okay, Carl,” said Darla, her voice casual, as if she’d done interviews like this a thousand times. “Why don’t you just look right in the camera and tell our audience what you’ve got to say?”
Riggins had doubtless prepared a speech and rehearsed it over and over again, but he stared at the camera lens like he was unsure where to begin. He didn’t reach for his Glock this time, but his right thumb, the thumb poised on the syringe, began to tap up and down on the plunger.
“Don’t worry about goofing up, Carl,” said Darla. “We can fix everything in post. Just take a deep breath or two and begin.”
Riggins nodded, almost like he was thanking her for her help. He took a couple of breaths and seemed to settle himself.
“Okay, then,” he said, and clearing his throat. “The individual that wrote and recorded the song ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ is Carl Perkins, that is me. And this man here”—he looked down at Hailburn—“my onetime friend, Elvis Aaron Presley, was so jealous he went on the TV and sang ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ like it was his own. He’s not the King of Rock and Roll. I am, Carl Perkins. And now he’s going to be punished for his crimes on national TV.”
Hailburn’s eyes filled with panic.
“But first, he’s going to admit his crime and apologize to me for the wrongs he did.”
Darla felt Rita leaning up against her back. She pushed her right elbow back against Rita’s rib cage. This was their prearranged signal.
“Hold on, Mr. Perkins,” said Rita. “Not yet. The D2 is jammed.”
“What are you talking about?” said Riggins, his thumb on the head of the syringe.
“Stand by, Carl,” Darla said. This was the critical moment. She turned back to Rita like Riggins and Hailburn weren’t there. “Jesus Christ, Judy, I told you to have Steve get that damn D2 fixed or replace it.”
“I forgot,” said Rita.
“What’s going on here?” asked Riggins, his voice edgy, his thumb twitchy.
Hailburn’s eyes bulged.
“I’m sorry, Carl.” Darla turned back to Riggins and shook her head. “This is the kind of help they give me.”
“It’s okay, Mr. Perkins, really,” said Rita. “We just need to replace the tape. There’s another pack in my bag. Could you get it for me, Miss Towns? I don’t want to screw up the focus.”
Darla sighed. “You want me operate the camera, too?” she said sarcastically. Without hesitating, she bent down like she was reaching into Rita’s bag. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Riggins take a deep breath, and ease his thumb an inch away from the plunger.
Darla came up with the .380 Taurus pointed at Riggins’s forehead. “Drop the needle or I’ll shoot.”
Riggins didn’t hesitate. “Long live the real King,” he said, and inserted the needle into Hailburn’s neck.
Darla fired, making a small hole in the middle of Riggins’s forehead. A drop of blood trickled out. The exiting bullet blew off the rear of Riggins’s skull, splattering blood and tissue off the wall and onto Hailburn, Darla, and Rita. Riggins’s body slumped back against the wall.
Riggins’s death was instantaneous. He’d lost his grip on the plunger before he had the chance to inject the syringe’s fluid into Hailburn.
The sound of the gunshot still ringing in her ears, Darla carefully removed the needle from Hailburn’s neck. He began to cry, his body heaving. Rita pulled a knife from her bag and cut him free from the duct tape. He pulled back, frightened, perhaps not sure exactly what had happened.
“It’s all right,” Rita said. “I’m a cop.” He looked up and saw her smiling at him. His body shuddered and he collapsed into a heap.
“We’re okay!” Darla, yelled, as the first two SWAT team members came running from the bedroom.
“I’m a fan, too,” Rita said to Hailburn, slapping his cheeks.
Chapter 28
The Mess You Leave Behind
DARLA’S OFFICE, A WEEK AFTER THE INCIDENT
DARLA AND RITA, BOTH WOMEN WEARING A SOUR EXPRESSION
The media frenzy, the tweets, the hashtags, the Instagrams, the blogs, most of it had finally died down. Darla’s desk was still piled high with letters from Elvis fans from all over the country. Flower arrangements, plants, and gifts of one sort or another were still arriving. Shelby had recommended both women for a commendation.
“You see the Time magazine story?” asked Rita, holding the latest issue turned to a feature on the incident, with a photo of Carl Perkins next to Riggins dressed as Perkins. On the next page was a photo of Darla and Rita.
“Feels funny seeing your picture in print, doesn’t it?” said Darla.
“I thought I’d like it, but I don’t,” said Rita. “Everywhere I go, somebody is saying they saw me on TV and everything. My friends tell me if I were on Twitter, I’d be trending. I’m not ready to trend yet.”
“At least you got back into fieldwork,” said Darla.
“I got you to thank for that.”
“You held up your end of things pretty well,” said Darla. She gave Rita a smile, but not a very good one. “I’m sorry. I really am happy for you. I’m just not having a good day.”
“It’s the killing part, ain’t it?” asked Rita. “What you said the other day, how you feel like you know what after you shoot somebody.”
“That’s part of it.”
A minute of silence passed, Darla staring out the office window.
“Come on. What’s going on upstairs?” Rita asked.
“I got ants on my brain,” said Darla.
“That ain’t the way I heard the saying.”
“Before I came to Mississippi,” said Darla, “back in Philadelphia. I’d just made detective. I was working narcotics. They partnered me up with this savvy old-school detective. He’d been on the street close to twenty years. We’d just taken down a major dealer, and impounded his two-hundred-thousand-dollar bank. There was a firefight during the bust. My partner took out the dealer’s second in command. I got winged, but nothing major. We both get put up for a commendation. Just like with you and me. Only I was having trouble sleeping. Late at night I called my partner, the lead detective, at home. Before I could tell him why I called, he said, ‘There are four shit parts to being a cop. The first is the paperwork. Which every cop hates. The second shit thing is most of the time you don’t solve the case. The third is that people get killed, sometimes good people. The fourth is, and this is why you’re calling me. It’s the stuff you leave behind, the questions that didn’t get answered.’ ” Darla looked at Rita. “And in this case there’s a lot of stuff.”
“Like what?” asked Rita.
“It’s stuff that I turned up before you were on the case,” said Darla. “Conway, for instance.”
“That ole lech,” said Rita. “I heard he offered you a job as a stripper a few years back.”
“I went to his strip joint to question him. He thought I was applying for a job,” said Darla. “I think it was my .380 Taurus he was impressed with. But that’s another story.”
“Shelby told me all about it,” said Rita.
“Tommy closes down the Adonis Club and Conway acts like he couldn’t care less,” said Darla. “Then I find out Conway’s got enough money for beachfront property on Maui.”
“Well, I ain’t what you’d call a businesswoman,” said Rita, “but I don’t see how a titty bar in Jackson makes that much.”
“The money is coming from a place called Trace Enterprises,” said Darla.
“Never heard of them,” said Rita.
“So far, neither has anybody else.”
“Interesting,” said Rita.
“Next comes the infamous Hardy Lang, the onetime meth king. Tommy accidentally stumbled on Hardy’s meth lab and effected a bust
. The case is still pending, but for unexplained reasons, Hinds County Hardy turns into Hardy the catfish king.”
“I heard Hardy had hung up his football cleats,” said Rita.
“Which brings us to ETA International,” said Darla, “an Elvis Tribute Artist talent agency and their local Thug in Charge, J. B. Caulder.”
“Everybody knows Tommy stole Jerry Bob’s girl,” said Rita, “back when they was in high school.”
Darla looked at Rita surprised. “How’d you know?”
“It’s a Jackson thing. Everybody knows.”
“Fast-forward eighteen years,” said Darla, “and Jerry Bob, now J. B. Caulder, is playing phone tag with Tommy, only he’s doing all the tagging. He makes nine calls to Tommy on the day of Tommy’s murder. Then I find out that the Dixie Mafia owns ETA International. Then ole Hardy, and Conway, and Caulder and Caulder’s bodyguard show up for a cameo in Tupelo.”
“Ants running around your brain. Now I see what you mean.”
“And this is where it gets strange,” said Darla. “Conway and ETA International are both represented by the same third-rate attorney, L. N. McClure. I mean, how many attorneys would you say there are in metro Jackson?”
“Jackson is the state capital,” said Rita. “A few thousand at least.”
“I mean, what are the odds?” said Darla.
“Your partner, the one that you called that time, what did he do when the ants started crawling around his brain?”
“He drank a lot,” said Darla.
“And how’d that work out for him?”
“He died of cirrhosis of the liver a couple of years later,” said Darla, “just before he was getting ready to retire.”
“So…plan B,” said Rita.
“All these disparate facts tie together. I just don’t see the connection. And I can’t let this stuff go.”
“I’d like to help you, Detective,” said Rita, “but I ain’t what you’d call a genius in that department.”
“Neither am I,” said Darla. “But we both know someone who is.”
Chapter 29
Convergence
THE NEXT MORNING
DARLA, RITA, SHELBY, HENRY JENDLIN, AND UTHER
MISSISSIPPI OFFICE, FBI
EVERYBODY SEATED AROUND THE CONFERENCE ROOM TABLE
“Go ahead Uther. It’s your show,” said Jendlin.
Uther had his iPad out, tucked under his arm like he was a schoolboy on his way to class.
“Good morning, Major Mitchell, Detective Cavannah, and Detective Gibbons,” said Uther. He looked over the top of his glasses to make eye contact with Rita. That’s a first, thought Darla.
“Is my attendance here absolutely necessary, Mr. Uther?” asked Shelby, looking up at the NO TOBACCO OF ANY KIND sign. “What I’m saying is, if this involves posts or tweets or clouds or other social media goings-on—maybe you could leave me the CliffsNotes to read at my leisure.”
“Hang with us, Shelby,” said Jendlin. “I promise, Uther will make it worth your while.”
“Not my place to question the state director of the FBI,” said Shelby.
Uther cleared his throat. “Yesterday, Detective Cavannah tasked me with finding a point of convergence between Detective Reylander, his paramour Edwina Nothauzer, aka Cill, Conway Boudreaux, Hardy Lang, J. B. Caulder, and Attorney L. N. McClure. This was a daunting task, even though in Mississippi everybody seems to be related in some way to everybody else.”
“What did you find, son?” asked Shelby.
“To begin at the beginning,” said Uther, “it might be appropriate to ask if anyone present is familiar with a Miss Virginia Causeway?”
A few seconds of silence, and Rita said, “Should we be?”
“Miss Causeway is the sister of Arnold T. Causeway.”
“Bad Ass Arnie,” said Shelby, “as he’s known to friend and foe alike.”
“Bad Ass Arnie is the Mississippi head of the Dixie Mafia,” Darla said to Rita.
“Precisely,” said Uther. “The FBI maintains a revolving database on all relatives and associates of known racketeers. Miss Virginia is a twenty-nine-year-old female, whose file, up until recently, has shown very little activity that would be of the slightest interest to our agency. She has, I am sorry to say, a rather severe form of Down syndrome, which would account for the lack of data in her file. However, three months ago Miss Virginia applied for and was granted a Social Security number, red-flagging her file. A month later, she became the principal stockholder of a newly formed company called the North Mississippi Capital Ventures Group. She owns ninety-nine percent of the stock.”
“Let me guess,” said Darla. “She was declared competent first.”
“Very good, Detective, as always,” said Uther.
“So Bad Ass Arnie Causeway has used his sister’s name to create a privately held investment firm, where he can filter money without it being legally traceable to him,” said Darla.
“Mr. Jendlin said you would understand immediately,” said Uther.
Jendlin smiled.
“Here then is the second part of our equation,” said Uther. “One month ago, North Mississippi Capital Ventures Group made a thirty-million-dollar cash investment to a newly formed corporation, Trace Enterprises, LLC.”
“Where Conway gets his money,” said Darla. “You found them? Way to go, Uther.”
Uther looked Darla’s way and nodded his head. “To continue: The aforementioned Trace Enterprises began purchasing multiple landholdings in a specific unincorporated area of northeast Mississippi at prices that would be regarded as considerably greater than current market value. Immediately following said purchases, Trace Enterprises leased all mineral rights on each parcel for the next hundred years to a subsidiary company called Trace Explorations.”
“They’re frackers,” said Darla. “That’s what this is all about.”
“Did you say what I thought you said?” asked Rita.
“Gas exploration,” said Henry Jendlin, clearing the matter up. “The short of it is, the Dixie Mafia is involved is getting into the gas exploration business in Mississippi, where there’s supposed to be hundreds of millions to be made off the mineral rights. They’re trying to outmaneuver the oil and gas companies. And it looks like they’re succeeding.”
“And this is where we have a prime example of criminal convergence,” said Uther, looking pleased with himself. “Tommy Reylander, the esteemed Continental Conway Boudreaux, and Hardy Lang all held land in northeast Mississippi. Records indicate that both Mr. Boudreaux and Mr. Lang sold their land to Trace Enterprises, along with, of course, any and all mineral rights, which, unbeknownst to the landowners, might well be worth hundreds of millions over the course of the next ten years.”
“That’s how Conway was getting his money. He sold his land to Trace Enterprises,” said Darla, “but it was really the mineral rights they were after.”
“Convergence,” Uther said, smiling.
“The same with Hardy Lang,” said Darla. “I remember Hardy saying he was going to live off the fat of the land.”
“When one puts the puzzle together the right way, all the pieces fit,” said Uther.
“Wow,” said Darla. “So even if Conway and Hardy may have got a little suspicious as to why they were getting such a good deal, when they found out the Dixie Mafia was behind the purchase, they knew better than to refuse.”
“The oil and gas companies are tough negotiators and they may have done some underhanded things, but they’ve got nothing on the Dixie mob,” said Jendlin.
“And Tommy’s land was adjacent to Hardy’s,” said Darla.
“Detective Reylander’s parcel is, in fact, wedged between Mr. Lang’s and Mr. Boudreaux’s,” said Uther, “and according to the mineral surveys we’ve acquired, Detective Reylander’s land had by far the richest gas deposits in the state.”
“Tommy’s land was in a trust and it couldn’t be sold,” said Darla. “But he could have leased the mineral rights and
made himself a very rich man.”
“He could have, but didn’t,” said Jendlin.
“Tommy thought it was sacred ground,” said Darla. “The man that sold the land to him told him Elvis used to go hunting there.”
“Following my theory of criminal convergence, I should add that North Mississippi Capital Ventures Group also has the controlling interest in”—Uther paused for effect—“ETA International. Which should not come as a total surprise, as organized crime has a history of involvement with the entertainment industry.”
“Lulu said J. B. Caulder was part of the Dixie Mafia,” said Darla.
“Double convergence,” said Uther. Rita beamed at him.
“Which explains all those calls from ETA International to Tommy,” said Darla. “J. B. Caulder wasn’t interested in Tommy’s singing, he was interested in his land, specifically the mineral rights. He was the Dixie Mafia’s front man.”
“And here is the final piece,” said Uther, “the individual who connects all these entities.”
“That wouldn’t be that lawyer fellow, L. N. McClure, would it?” asked Rita.
“Superb deduction, Detective Gibbons,” said Uther. “L. N. McClure, Esquire, represents Mr. Boudreaux, Mr. Lang, ETA International, of course, and Mr. Reylander’s estate.”
Darla shook her head in disbelief. “As crazy as it sounds, the timing of Tommy’s murder and the murder of the other tribute artists might simply have been an incredible coincidence. Tommy wasn’t killed for his singing; he was killed because he wouldn’t sell the mineral rights to his land.”
“Which would make sense,” said Rita, “because I never did see how even an insane man like that ole Riggins would be likely to confuse Tommy with Elvis.”
“Tommy refused to play ball and the Dixie Mafia put out a contract on him,” said Darla. “They ordered Caulder and his goon to do the hit.”
“And Caulder was happy to oblige,” said Rita, “since Tommy stole Caulder’s sweetheart in high school.”
“One way or another, high school romance plays a role in most high crimes in the Great State,” said Shelby.