Sarah Booth Delaney

by Sarah Booth Delaney 01-06 (lit)

  The contrast between the two old men was a measure of extremes—Lawrence so generous and filled with life; Jebediah drowning in his own venom. "I don't believe anything you've said, except that you probably did kill your own son." I stood up slowly, not trusting my rubbery legs. "I'll remember this day. I'll mark it as the day I encountered true evil."

  My legs shook, but I made it to the doorway.

  "You think so much of all those artistic types. Ask Rosalyn Bell what she has to hide." He laughed. "Ask her how much money a dance teacher in Zinnia makes. When you get the right answers, maybe you'll quit poking around in the past before you get hurt."

  I walked straight down the hallway. The front door was open, and I walked through it. Stepping onto the porch, I sensed someone beside me. Deloris stared at me, unflinching, from a swing.

  "Don't bother calling the police. They won't do anything." She rose to her feet, a motion fluid and controlled, just like her voice. "Everyone thinks he's crazy, because of the cancer, but he's not. He's just mean. And he's dying and terrified." Her smile was contented. "It'll be over in a matter of months. The fear will kill him if the cancer doesn't."

  "He's your father." A wind had blown up, skittering dead pecan leaves across the freshly painted boards of the porch.

  "I am the daughter of his blood." Her lips drew tighter, revealing perfect white teeth. "I am exactly what he deserves."

  She walked back inside and closed the door in my face.

  19

  Instead of going straight to Lula, I took a detour, needing the solitude of a drive. A steady rain had begun to drench the empty cotton fields that stretched on either side of the road, and when I rolled the window down to get a better look at a shotgun-blasted road sign, the odor of the rich, rain-soaked soil wafted up to me. Nothing in my life had ever smelled so much like wealth. Not money, but wealth. It was something that not everyone understood.

  I'd gone miles out of my way to drive along one of the older highways, a little-used thoroughfare that hugged the tall levee that restrained the Mississippi River. Three stories high, the levee is a man-made swell that rises out of the Delta and from a distance looks like a green and shimmering wave. At the base it's maybe a hundred feet wide. At the top, thirty. The old road I traveled, Highway 1, runs straight north and south, parallel to, yet separated by several miles from, 61 Highway, the route the blacks took during the great migration to the Northern cities back in the twenties and thirties. 61 Highway, always styled in that fashion, is also the long, dusty road blues musicians took to the North, where the sexy, sad, and dangerous songs they created were recognized and recorded as an original new sound, the Chicago Sound.

  61 Highway is a four-lane now, a quick ride north to Memphis and Chicago. My narrow little road was much closer to the river, much closer to the past. I followed it through four-way stops that marked what had once been a small community. Now the dormant kudzu vine, waiting patiently for the warmth of spring, clung to the old bricks of a deserted service station, a small grocery. With the first encouragement of sun, the vines will quickly claim the crumbling bricks, burying them beneath the lush green leaves. In a matter of years, the past will be covered from sight by a vine that, to the outsider, looks strangely beautiful. I know differently.

  I turned left on a dirt road and drove on top of the levee. The other side, the western side, is a wilderness of breaks, ponds, and woodlands—a hunter's paradise.

  On the eastern side of the levee, cattle grazed and old shotgun shanties eroded in the shadow of the huge man-made bank. Only a few yards distant were the cotton fields, wide open so the crop dusters can spray with ease.

  In 1927, the old levee broke. Hundreds of thousands of acres flooded. Hundreds of people and thousands of animals drowned as the river the Indians had named Father of Waters swept over that flat, flat land. The Corps of Engineers built the new, improved levee, and the wild spirit of the river was contained. For the moment.

  Like all things regarding nature, the levee is a solution with a price. Without the flooding, the rich soil of the Delta is not replenished.

  I stopped the car on top of the levee and listened to the rain pounding on the roof. The weather reflected my thoughts, and it was with grim satisfaction that I realized that I needed a dose of Denise LaSalle. Or Muddy Waters. Or B.B. King. To truly enjoy the pleasures of a good depression, you have to keep one finger on the pulse of vital life, which is exactly the point of the blues. I found a tape and slotted it into the player. Robert Johnson, one of the most mysterious of the bluesmen, sang about trading his soul to the devil at the crossroads for a talent to play the guitar. There were plenty of people who believed that the young singer and guitar player had done just that.

  After Jebediah Archer, I, too, believed that a man might sell his soul for power. This case had taught me that some people sold their souls for a lot less satisfaction than being able to play the blues.

  At any rate, I'd spent enough time searching the rainy Delta landscape for answers that would not be found in the fallow cotton fields. I'd needed the time to absorb what had transpired in Clarksdale. Now I had to move on.

  The grand mystery of who killed Hosea Archer was solved. Hosea's father, a man with enough power to escape prosecution, had set up a bust and then taken the opportunity to destroy the child he'd created. Instead of outrage, I felt a sickening pity. Jebediah had lived longer than anyone ought. And he'd lived in a hell of his own creation. That he had undoubtedly destroyed everyone whose life had intimately touched his went without saying. But his punishment was meted out minute by minute, day by day. Nothing I could do to him would be worse. I eased down on the gas and negotiated the steep, muddy road down the levee and made it back to pavement.

  The truth struck with deadly force. Harold had known all of this, as had Tinkie's father. How, I didn't know. It was part of doing business in a small town and a poor state, the secrets and weaknesses of those who had money and those who needed it. This kind of knowledge was part of the power, the world of men. Women were excluded. Being the fragile flowers of the South, we needed protection from harsh reality.

  This was a train of thought as depressing as the rain. I realized I'd been sitting at an intersection for at least ten minutes, the only vehicle for as far as the eye could see. Way across the cotton field to my right was a tiny white church. It seemed to have sprouted from the field, unprotected in the vast expanse of land. From a distance, it looked abandoned, and I'd passed enough of these churches to know that if I drove to it, the cement block structure, painted white, would bear a name like Mt. Zion Free Church or Mt. Sinai Tabernacle. For a land that didn't contain a hillock for a hundred miles, the namers of churches were big on Mounts.

  I'd lost my taste for Lula and the long-buried secrets of the Crescent casino. Back in 1991, Mississippi voted in legalized gambling. Big developers out of Nevada and New Jersey docked riverboats in Tunica and wiped out any chance that a small, independent operation like the Crescent might still exist. The new state law required that all dens of gambling be "on the water." Which meant that a land-based operation such as the Crescent, if it had somehow managed to survive, was still not legal. Going to Lula was bound to be a pointless exercise, but I had to take a look. My job was far from finished.

  I turned the car eastward, away from the river, and headed inland toward the huge old Mississippi River oxbow lake that was shaped like a crescent moon.

  The narrow asphalt road clung to the outer rim of the lake, a beautiful drive and movingly solitary, except for the small clusters of civilization where homes had been built on the water. As I drove along, stretches of steel gray water flashed through the trunks of cypress and tupelo gum. The rain had slackened a bit but was still falling, and a mist was forming in the center of the lake.

  It was going to be an evening for ghosts, and I regretted my decision to drive to Lula all over again. Senator Archer had spooked me. He'd made me understand the past was a dangerous place.

  My destinati
on was less than four miles away, though, and I'd be damned if I was going to turn back now. I drove on, passing a few tiny dining establishments and finally coming upon a grand old building that faced the lake with a series of wraparound porches on three levels. I'd never seen a building look so much like a beached riverboat. There was no question that this was the old Crescent casino, though it now bore the name of Quarter Moon Lodge.

  Even in the fading afternoon light it was clear that the lodge had seen better days. The paint was peeling and the parking lot was almost empty. This was not a holiday hot spot.

  New Year's Eve was less than forty-eight hours away, a thought that sent my depression level down another ten degrees. I'd make this quick—a cursory questioning of the current owners.

  The young woman behind the counter looked startled to see me. I noticed the glass of wine and burning cigarette, and the open magazine. Vanity Fair. She was keeping up with the outside world even if she was stuck on the back side of nowhere.

  "Is the owner around?" I asked, giving my professional smile.

  "Maybe." She took a drag off her cigarette. "Who wants to know?"

  I explained that I was interested in the history of the lodge. Her attitude didn't bother me—she was sharp-eyed and alert.

  "What are you doing, writing a book?" she asked.

  It was the lie that launched my career, and I smiled wide as I embraced it once again.

  "Must be an epidemic going around. Johnny said some other fella stopped by yesterday while I was buying groceries. Anyway, enough shit's happened around here, you could write a series." She stabbed out her cigarette and pulled another from the pack. "It's a good thing this place has a past, otherwise it would be a fucking pit of limbo. Nothing happens here now." She waved me into a seat at the counter.

  Behind her the swinging door inched open and a young boy's head peered through. "Mama?"

  "Finish your sandwich, Johnny," she said. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

  "Cecil wants to know if he should stay to cook or go home."

  The boy was about eight or nine, a handsome child with straight dark hair that was cut just above beautiful eyebrows, exactly like his mother's.

  The woman gave me a look. "Are you eating or just talking?"

  "Eating," I said, suddenly realizing that I'd missed a meal—a true sign of depression—and that I wanted to talk to this woman. "I'd like a glass of wine, too, please."

  She reached under the counter and produced a wineglass and a bottle. "Unless you want to go in the dining room and eat all by yourself, you can stay here, and I'll tell you all about the grand and notorious past of my current establishment and how I came to live in this backwater."

  "I'm happy to be here," I said, scooching my chair up closer to the counter so I could lean on my elbows.

  "Cecil makes an excellent grilled catfish with sauteed squash, peppers, and andouille sausage."

  "Perfect," I agreed.

  "Tell him the catfish, Johnny. Make it two." She grinned at me. She was probably about my age, but when I'd first seen her she'd looked younger. "What evil wind blew you in here?" she asked. "Mostly we get the geriatric set trying to dredge up memories of the past."

  "My book." I shrugged nonchalantly.

  She nodded. "A lot of writers used to hang out here. Tennessee Williams, that guy who just died, something Ambrose. Lots of actors, too. Some pretty famous ones in the past. We still get a few, during duck season." She looked around at the empty place. "If I can hang on another couple of weeks, I can make it another duck season."

  "How'd you end up here?"

  "Family inheritance." Her laughter was good-humored. "Can you believe it? I was living the good life in Kansas City, working as a graphic designer in a big advertising agency. Then my great-aunt somebody dies, and I inherit this place. I'd never even been here, but it sounded so romantic. I was hooked quicker than a bream on a cricket."

  Listening to her talk I'd had an opportunity to look around the front desk area. It was exactly as Millie's aunt Bev had described it. I wondered if the buttons that would alert gamblers to a raid were still under the counter.

  We sipped our wine and Edy Lavert told me about her family and the lodge. The gambling rooms and bedrooms had been preserved, as had most of the rest of the establishment. The kitchen had been remodeled in the seventies.

  It wasn't hard to steer her to the summer of 1940, and by the time I did, the catfish had arrived. One taste of the delicate fish and I was in no hurry. I ate at the counter and she sat across from me. We finished the first bottle of wine and started on the second. Edy was obviously delighted to have a peer to talk to.

  "What's so special about 1940?" she asked.

  "Part of my book takes place then."

  "There are some scrapbooks upstairs. Want me to get them?"

  I could have fallen out of my chair. "That would be perfect."

  We'd finished the main course and were waiting on bread pudding for dessert. "Come on," she said. "Take a look around."

  I needed no second invitation. We climbed the stairs to the second level, which featured a huge wraparound room, all golden wood that glowed in the circles of illumination cast by the antique lamps she turned on to light our way.

  "Back when the casino was in full swing, the band would set up at this end," she pointed, "and the dance floor was here. I think the front was open, but somewhere along the line it was walled in. I guess when air-conditioning came along."

  She motioned to the wall behind us where a series of closed doors caught my eye. There were name plates on the doors, and I walked closer. Jungle Room, Flapper Room, Yukon Room. I stopped there. "In 1940 a young man was murdered in this room," I said.

  "Yeah, a senator's son." She nodded as if she'd finally caught on to the real thread of my interest. "That was the summer the nest of troublemakers worked here."

  "Troublemakers?"

  She laughed out loud at my reaction. "The way the story came down to me was that Tennessee was always busy writing, but that Ambrose, he was always stirring up trouble with the wealthy guests, talking politics and civil dissent. It must have been something. From what I've been able to tell about Mississippi politics, these kids must have been extremely unusual. One time they did a benefit show to collect money for the starving children in Europe."

  She led me to a framed photograph on the wall that clearly showed Lawrence and Madame in costume performing before a hand-lettered banner that said "Dimes for War Children."

  "That crowd was way ahead of its time. A foreshadowing of the sixties."

  The photograph captured Lawrence as alive and vibrant as I remembered him. Madame was stunning, a curvaceous package of verve and bounce. Several things clicked into place. Jebediah Archer's spleen was still bitter on my tongue. He'd avoided calling them communists, but he'd hinted strongly. And Lawrence had left the United States after the summer he spent here—the summer France fell and Europe was ground into hamburger.

  When Lawrence had tried to come home and work at Ole Miss, he'd left without putting up much of a fight. His life had been threatened and no one had bothered to investigate. Now I knew why. He'd been tarred with the red brush—and Senator Jebediah Archer had either wielded that brush or put it in the hand of Joseph Grace. Anger isolated me from my surroundings, but in a few seconds it burned away. Edy was still talking.

  "Ambrose was the ringleader. Hell, you know communism was more of an intellectual calling than political. From what I've been able to tell, only a handful of people in the entire state had a clue what communism or any other political philosophy might be."

  She was correct. Up until the eighties, the South had voted straight-line Democratic. No questions asked; no ideology discussed. Deputy Dawg could have been on the ballot and he would have been voted in if he was a Democrat.

  Edy walked to a coffee table filled with old scrapbooks. She dug through them, pulling one from near the bottom. "You'll like this," she said. "I've had a lot of free time to go
through these things. I guess in the back of my mind I've been trying to decide what to do with all of this stuff when I have to sell the place."

  "These could be valuable." I took the book she offered, sat down in a chair, and began to turn the pages.

  The Crescent casino captured in the black and white photographs was a place of glamour and luxury. "Is that—?"

  "Clark Gable, yes." Edy laughed, flopping into a chair.

  We both looked up at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. The little boy peeked around the corner. "There's a car out front, Mama."

  "Are they coming in?"

  He shook his head.

  "You want some bread pudding?" she asked him.

  His smile was answer enough.

  "Would you be a big boy and ask Cecil to serve us up here, with some coffee? Tell him to bring some for all of us and we'll talk. If he doesn't have to go straight home, he can join us, too." The look she gave me was direct, completely devoid of self-pity. "He's the best chef in this part of the state. Cecil's become like family to us, but he won't be able to stay on much longer."

  "What about the man?" the little boy asked.

  "What man, darling?"

  "The one out front in the car. Can he have bread pudding with us?"

  "If he comes inside he can," she answered.

  I gave her a questioning look.

  "There's a buzzer on the door. It'll ring up here. A lot of times people stop in the parking lot to look at the lake. We have the best view."

  I turned my attention back to the scrapbook. It was a fascinating glimpse into the past. There were photos of Madame dancing and Beverly McGrath, a beautiful young woman singing to handsome movie stars. An excellent photograph of Lawrence and Tennessee Williams had them in conference at a table, the sunlight filtering in an open window behind them as they focused on whatever plans were in front of them.

  There was a vaguely familiar photo of Lawrence, his bright eyes alive as he held a string of trout. The background of the picture had been cut out, but I remembered it had contained a clench. My gut told me I had stumbled on something significant. "What happened?"