by Gary Gusick
“Look, Shelby,” said Jendlin. “The FBI is in the middle of an investigation of the Dixie Mafia, which could take months. As of now—technically, as far as their fracking efforts—they haven’t broken any laws. But if someone can hang Tommy’s murder on them, or even if they were trying to strong-arm someone, we could get access to all their files. Basically, we could get them out of the fracking business in Mississippi.”
Darla and Rita glanced at Shelby. “You’re looking at me like you need my permission to buy a prom dress,” he said to them. “They killed your partner, Darla. It’s the damn unwritten law.”
“Has Tommy’s estate closed?” asked Darla.
“Nothing has been recorded,” said Uther. “The land belongs to the trust. As the guardian of the trust, Ms. Nothauzer is empowered to conduct business on behalf of it. She could lease the mineral rights on Tommy’s land and make a fortune. But she hasn’t. If the trust has conveyed the mineral rights, it would have been recorded with the county and the state,” said Uther. “And that hasn’t happened yet.”
“So we can assume Cill has refused to play ball with the Dixie Mafia,” said Darla. “Meaning she’s a target, too.”
“If Ms. Nothauzer were to die, control of Tommy’s land trust and its mineral rights would fall to Tommy’s attorney, McClure,” said Uther.
Darla got the Ridgeland police on her phone. Their station house was a half mile from Tommy’s apartment. “This is Detective Cavannah at the MBI. I want you to send a two-man patrol car over to Detective Reylander’s old apartment and pick up Ms. Edwina Nothauzer and place her in protective custody.”
Things were moving quickly. The others in the conference room were on their feet, gathering their things to leave.
“I trust everything was satisfactory?” said Uther, looking across the table at his boss.
Jendlin, who was on the phone, put his hand over the speaker. “You did it again, Uther.”
“Yeah,” said Rita, going over to Uther and shaking his hand. “You certainly did.”
Uther rocked back and forth on his heels.
Darla was at the door and called back to Rita. “You’re coming with me, Detective.”
“Maybe I’ll see you later, Mr. Pendragon Johnson,” said Rita. “Where are we going, Detective?”
“Over to the courthouse to get a warrant.”
“What are we going to do with it?”
“Bust up a card game,” said Darla.
Chapter 30
Darla Raises the Ante
Armed with a search warrant, Darla and Rita made the two-block trip to McClure’s office on foot.
The office was locked. When McClure didn’t answer her knock, Darla handed Rita her pick. “You know how to use one of these?” she asked.
“I got the bad habit of losing my house keys,” said Rita. “I’m more or less versed in the art.”
She had the dead bolt open in a matter of seconds.
The overhead light in the office was on. A dozen manila folders were scattered across L.N.’s desk, along with a half-filled cup of sweet tea, the better part of an oyster po’boy, and an unopened clear plastic container of banana cream pie.
McClure’s computer was still on—the screen displaying a POV shot of a poker table, with a game in progress. “Big Boy International Tournament,” it said across the bottom of the screen. The words “Mississippi Mac is taking a break” flashed in front of L.N.’s virtual hand.
“Looks like ole McClure has flown the coop,” said Rita.
“Look closer,” said Darla, pointing to a large pine armoire in the corner, with its doors slightly ajar.
Darla walked over to the armoire and opened the doors, to reveal one L. N. McClure in a blue seersucker suit, holding an old-fashioned bulging briefcase and sweating profusely.
“Detective Rita Gibbons, meet L. N. McClure, Esquire,” said Darla.
“Howdy, Esquire,” said Rita.
McClure stepped out of the armoire as if his presence inside were nothing out of the ordinary. “How do you do, Detective?” he said, nodding at Rita and taking his place in the chair behind his desk, making sure the bulging briefcase remained at his side. “Since you have violated the sanctity of my office, I’m going to assume you have a search warrant,” he said to Darla.
Darla held the warrant in front of McClure’s eyes. “We can start by having you open that briefcase, or Rita can pick the lock, if you’d rather.”
McClure hoisted the case up to his desk, took out a small key from his front pocket, unlocked the case, and pulled back the strap to reveal several stacks of bundled hundred-dollar bills.
“Got a big no-limit tournament coming up, L.N.?” asked Rita.
“Or maybe you were simply planning a hasty departure from Mississippi?” said Darla.
“Do you require me to empty my pockets, too?” said McClure, being his snotty best.
Darla signaled to Rita and both women took a seat in the chairs across from McClure’s desk.
McClure sat upright, folding his hands on his desk. “If this is to be the good cop-bad cop routine, I think I already know who the bad cop is going to be,” he said.
“We need information about some of your associates,” said Rita.
“I have associations with many different people,” said McClure.
“Conway Boudreaux, Hardy Lang, J. B. Caulder, Arnie Causeway, Edwina Nothauzer, and my former partner Tommy Reylander,” said Darla.
“Not to appear impertinent,” said L.N., “but I trust both you and your protégé understand the nature of the client-attorney relationship.”
Darla’s cell rang. She looked at the caller ID. “Cavannah,” she said.
“This is Officer Forrester of Ridgeland Police. My partner and I were sent to pick up Edwina Nothauzer for protective custody. She wasn’t there. The front door lock was busted. Looks like with a crowbar. I tried her cell. It went to voice message. Somebody talking like Elvis and thanking me very much for the call. Ms. Nothauzer’s car is not in the lot. I’ve checked with the apartment manager and the neighbors. One of the neighbors said they saw her drive away from the apartment complex this morning. They said it looked like she was in a big hurry.”
“Good work, Officer.” After he hung up, Darla continued to speak into the phone as if he were still on the line. “Has the body been moved yet? All right, we’ll want to order an autopsy. I’ll be there shortly. Thanks.” She turned her attention back to McClure. “Where were we? Oh yeah, you were talking about client-attorney privilege.”
“What body?” McClure asked, his voice not quite as confident.
“How much do you know about criminal law?” asked Darla.
“I’ve never served as counsel in a criminal matter,” McClure said. “Has something happened?”
Darla glanced at Rita, who was keeping a poker face. Good girl, thought Darla.
“Did you get someone to take the bar exam for you?” Darla asked McClure. “We’re talking about complicity in capital murder. If you have reason to believe that an attempt was made or is about to be made on someone’s life, as an officer of the court you’re required to report it, client-attorney privilege notwithstanding.”
“What’s happened?” said McClure. “Is it Cill?”
“We’re talking ten to twenty, easy,” said Darla.
“More if you get the wrong judge,” said Rita.
“Put on top of that, Tommy’s murder…” said Darla.
“Hold on. Believe me, Detective, I had no idea Caulder was going to kill Tommy. I swear.” McClure was sounding desperate. “What happened to Cill?” he blurted. “I called her this morning and told her to leave town, that it wasn’t safe for her here. She had to get out of Mississippi.” McClure stared shaking. “Now she’s dead? Oh my God.” He shifted his gaze between the two women, looking for a sympathetic face. When he didn’t find one, he put his head in his hands and started to cry.
Darla offered him a tissue as he sobbed, but when Rita leaned over to pat h
is back Darla waved her off. It was hard to know if McClure’s tears were being shed for Cill, whom he thought to be dead, or were simply in response to his own situation.
It didn’t take long for him to return to his senses. “I need to see a lawyer.”
“Go ahead, make the call,” said Darla. “But if you know where Cill was headed, you might not want to waste any more time before telling us. It would help your cause immensely if we can get to her before she’s killed.”
L.N. glared at Darla. “You were bluffing,” he said.
“I sensed weakness and I pushed back,” said Darla. “Texas Hold’em 101.”
“And you mucked your hand,” said Rita.
“Let’s hope you don’t have to give up your day job, L.N.,” said Darla. “I don’t think you have the nerve for poker.”
“Shit,” he said. “Tricked by a couple of women.”
“Where’s Edwina Nothauzer headed?” asked Darla. “Unless you want to end up an accessory.”
He held his hands in the air like he was surrendering. “The afternoon after Tommy was killed, I received a call from J. B. Caulder. Now that Tommy was out of the way, he said his associates—you know who that means—still intended to lease the mineral rights on Tommy’s land and were willing to pay quite dearly for them. I called Cill with the offer, but she refused.”
“Because of Elvis,” said Rita.
“I knew J.B.’s people wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I stalled them, hoping I could eventually turn Cill around. I told J.B. she needed time to get over Tommy’s death and it would look bad if they tried to move too fast.
“J.B. called me again this morning. He said the FBI had been poking around their leasing operation, and his associates wanted to get the deal done with Cill. J.B. told me to get ahold of her. They upped their original offer to three million. J.B. made it clear he was to have her signature or the papers or else. I called Cill and explained to her exactly who she was dealing with. I told her, in no uncertain terms, to take the money.”
“Your commission would be what?” asked Darla.
“A mere six percent,” said McClure.
“So a hundred eighty thousand dollars,” said Rita. “No wonder you wanted her to take their offer.”
“I knew what might happen to her if she didn’t. The same thing that happened to Tommy,” said McClure.
“And how did you think things would go for you?” asked Rita.
“Why do you think I was leaving Jackson? I told Cill as straight as I could that she was taking her life into her own hands if she turned down the offer. I said to her, ‘Woman, you better run.’ ”
“Did you call Caulder?” asked Darla.
“Of course not. And I wasn’t about to wait around the office for their call.”
“The Dixie Mafia will be sending Caulder and his security goon after Cill,” said Darla. “Is that the way you figure it?”
“She’s had a few hours’ head start,” said McClure. “It was the best I could do for her.”
Darla picked up her phone. “This is Detective Cavannah from the MBI. I’ll need a state chopper on the pad at Jackson International.” She paused, listening to the person on the other end. “No, now. The Yankee version of now, meaning right now.”
As Darla and Rita were about to leave, McClure said, “I’d like to make a formal request to be placed into protective custody.”
“Spoken like a true lawyer,” said Darla. She turned to Rita. “You know where Cill’s headed, right?”
“To where she thinks the spirit of Officer Elvis can watch over her,” said Rita.
Chapter 31
Top of the World
On their way to the helipad, Rita drove the Prius while Darla phoned the northern branch of MBI and requested three two-man teams to assist in their search.
The helicopter ride took less than an hour. At Darla’s request, the pilot made three passes over the land, hoping to spot Cill or her vehicle. No such luck. A late afternoon fog obscured most of the property.
The chopper set down on a clearing at what the GPS showed to be the southern edge of Tommy’s land. Three highway patrol SUVs rushed to the scene as Darla and Rita were climbing out of the chopper.
Like most of the surrounding acreage, Tommy’s property was mostly Southern pine. The GPS indicated that there was a five-acre pond more or less in the center of the plot, with what looked to be a small cabin at the water’s far end. A logging road led up to the cabin, making it accessible only by an all-terrain vehicle or by foot.
Darla had four of the six troopers fan out across the property, following proper search procedure from south to north. Tommy had marked the boundaries with flags that had—what else?—black, stenciled images of Elvis on both sides.
The remaining two troopers followed Darla and Rita as they made their way down the logging road to the pond and then around to its opposite side to the cabin.
Darla stopped the team at the edge of the clearing twenty feet from the structure. “Cill,” she called out, “are you in there?”
No reply.
“Ms. Nothauzer, it’s Darla Cavannah. I need to hear you.”
Nothing.
Darla signaled the troopers to circle the cabin, left to right.
“I’ll take the front,” she told Rita.
“What am I supposed to do?” asked Rita.
“Cover me, if it comes to that.” Darla made a dash to the porch, her .380 drawn, half-expecting fire.
The front door was partially open. She gave it a push and the door swung all the way open. Marks, Caulder’s ponytailed bodyguard, lay flat on his back on the floor, a six-inch hunting knife clutched in his right hand. On the tip of the knife there was a smear of blood. Darla bent down to check him out: He was alive but unconscious and had a baseball-sized black and blue knot on his forehead. A standard-issue Glock lay on the floor a few feet away. Darla lifted the Glock by the corner and sniffed the barrel. The gun hadn’t been fired. Surveying the room, she saw a twelve-inch cast iron skillet upside down on the floor just a few feet from the rear door.
He came in through the door, thought Darla, picturing the event. Cill stood to the side, and cracked him in the head as he entered. That’s probably when he dropped the gun. Darla checked his body for other cuts or bruises but didn’t see any. She figured the blood on the knife was Cill’s. Darla scanned the floor for any other signs of blood but couldn’t find any. Wherever she was right now, Cill was cut.
“You all right in there?” said Rita from the outside.
“All clear to come in,” Darla answered back.
Darla removed a set of cuffs, rolled Caulder’s bodyguard over, and snapped one of the bracelets on his right wrist. “Give me a hand,” Darla said as the first trooper entered the cabin through the back. They dragged the bodyguard across the room, where Darla cuffed him to a cast iron bed. “He’s going to need medical attention eventually,” she said, “but he’s okay where he is for now.”
“Where’s Miss Cill?” asked Rita.
“Gone, and she’s bleeding,” said Darla. “My guess is that Caulder and his bodyguard came up here figuring, like us, they’d find Cill. They split up. When the bodyguard came through the front door, Cill knocked him unconscious and took off, but not before he cut her. Caulder is probably still looking for her, if he hasn’t caught her yet. With luck, we’ll find her first.”
Rita picked up the cast iron skillet and examined it. “Ain’t nothing better for frying catfish,” she said. “I guess it makes for a pretty good bludgeon, too.”
“Let’s go,” said Darla.
They split into pairs, Darla and Rita in one, and the two troopers in the other. The troopers took the area to the right side of the cabin leading away from the pond, toward the road at the far entrance to the property. The women followed a similar trajectory starting from the left side.
It was slow going. The section of the forest Rita and Darla covered was hilly, especially thick, and devoid of paths. A half hour
later, the women had covered most of their area without any sign of Cill or Caulder.
Darla’s phone vibrated and she picked up the call. “We found an SUV in the northeast quadrant,” one of the troopers told her. “We checked the tags and it’s registered to ETA International. It’s unlocked. There’s a gun rack inside. It’s empty.”
As soon as she hung up, she got another call. She checked the screen. An unknown caller. “Cavannah,” she answered. Someone whispered, but Darla couldn’t make out what was being said. “You’re going to have to speak up.”
“This any better?” asked the voice, but Darla also thought she could hear the same voice coming from somewhere nearby in the woods.
“This better be you, Cill,” said Darla.
“I think I can see a tree stand,” said Rita, pointing up ahead at Tommy’s hunting perch.
Darla saw the tree stand, too, twenty yards directly ahead. It looked to be forty or so feet high, twice the height of the usual tree stand. Up top, there was Cill sitting.
“You said as to how I was to call you if I had anything to report,” she said.
“This definitely qualifies as having something to report,” said Darla.
Cill began waving.
“We got eyes on you,” said Darla on the phone.
“That police way of saying things,” said Cill, frantically gesturing for help. “I always liked it when Tommy talked like that.”
“Stop waving,” said Darla. “There very well might be someone out there with a gun.”
Darla and Rita sprinted to the base of the tree, a towering pine.
Darla looked up and counted the metal rungs inserted in the tree for steps. “How come Tommy built this thing so damn high?” she asked Cill.
“Tommy said as how this was the only place where he felt like his real self,” Cill said from above. “Most people don’t know this, but my Tommy was a mite bit sensitive about his height.”
“Where’s the cut?” asked Darla, straining her neck looking up.
“On my left side.”