"Shush," she said, cocking her head in an age-old attitude of listening. "If you ain't got the blues now, you're gonna," she said as she vanished into thin air.
"Jitty!" I hissed. I hated it when she delivered one of those enigmatic one-liners and then disappeared. "Jitty, you're cheating. You can't just say something like that and take off." But she could. Jitty could not be summoned or dismissed. If she'd ever been servile, she'd long forgotten the basic deportment.
"Sarah Booth?" The voice that called out held some concern. "Who are you talkin' to?"
I recognized John Bell Washington's voice instantly. He was a blues guitarist I'd met on my last case, thanks to the cyber-intervention of a teenager. Nonetheless, J. B. was a nice guy who'd risked a lot to help me.
"I'm over here in the swing," I called out to him, rising to give him a hug as he came up the steps to the secluded shade of the small side porch. J. B. was every woman's dilemma—handsome and frequently unemployed. The work schedule for a blues guitarist was strictly seasonal. J. B. had another major talent as a masseur when he chose to work the day shift, which wasn't often as long as his mama supported his desire to play music.
He walked around the corner of the porch toward me, a puzzled look on his handsome face. "Who were you talkin' to?" he asked again.
"Myself, I guess." I blushed becomingly. For all that I'd disavowed the tactics of a Daddy's Girl, there were a few harmless maneuvers that I deployed when necessary.
The blush effectively derailed his curiosity. At a momentary loss, he thrust a newspaper toward me. "What do you think of this?"
Luckily, women of the Delta in the Daddy's Girl ilk aren't expected to read newspapers. In fact, being even moderately well-informed is a deadly sin and can lead to freethinking. I took the paper from his hand and read it with open curiosity. It wasn't easy to miss the article he wanted me to see. It was outlined in bold black ink.
"Blues Blizzard Scott Hampton Arrested for Brutal Murder." I scanned the story, which was a thumbnail sketch of race, music, and hot tempers that had plagued the nation since the sixties.
The dead man was one Ivory Keys, an acclaimed piano player who owned the most popular nightclub in Kudzu, a thriving, mostly black community on the west side of Sunflower County. Needless to say, Ivory was black. Scott Hampton, heir to the Michigan auto-manufacturing family, was white. Of interest was the fact that both men had served time in the Michigan State Penitentiary, their sentences overlapping slightly in the nineties.
Ivory Keys had been brutally stabbed in his own nightclub, Playin' the Bones, where Scott was the featured talent of the wildly popular club band. Keys had hired the white musician when he got out of prison after serving his time on a cocaine charge. Apparently, Keys and Hampton had had a rather unusual relationship dating back to their prison days.
The murder weapon and money, thought to have been stolen from the club, were found in Hampton's possession. He was in Sunflower County jail charged with first-degree murder.
"Do you know him?" I asked slowly.
"I knew them both. A better man than Ivory Keys never walked this earth."
"And Hampton?"
J. B.'s face showed his ambivalence. "He's one of the most talented guitarists I've ever known. Maybe better than Stevie Ray Vaughan."
"What's he doing stuck in Kudzu, Mississippi, then?"
"If I had to name one reason, I'd say attitude. He's got a chip on his shoulder larger than the Rock of Gibraltar. And he's always eager for someone to try and knock it off."
"Drugs?" I asked. After all, he'd been in the Big House once for possession. Many a crime had been fueled by a snoot full of white powder.
J. B. shook his head. "I heard he was clean. That was one of Ivory's demands before he gave Scott the job. No drugs."
"And Scott lived up to his promise, until he plunged a knife into Ivory's back." I sounded skeptical because I was. The picture of Scott Hampton in the newspaper showed an arrogant, angry man, with light eyes and pale hair expertly cut to look oh-so-disheveled. I could easily read the "spoiled rich kid" smirk. I was familiar enough with it on the faces of the young men my age from the Delta: the sons of Buddy Clubbers, who'd grown up to believe the entire world was their oyster. These were the men who were paving the rich Delta soil to create strip malls and other eyesores called progress.
"It may not be that simple," J. B. said.
The hint of doubt in his voice hooked me. "So you believe he's innocent?" I asked.
"What I believe isn't important. What Mrs. Keys believes is. And she believes Scott is innocent. She wants to hire you to find the real killer."
I motioned J. B. into the house. I'd already suffered a lapse as a hostess by not offering a cool libation. I was about to remedy that, as well as replenish my own drink.
When we were in the dim interior of Dahlia House's parlor, I poured the bourbon over ice and handed him his glass.
"To music," he said, and we both drank.
"Now let me get this straight. The widow of Ivory Keys wants to hire me to prove Scott Hampton, the man who was found with the murder weapon in his possession, not to mention some three thousand dollars in possibly stolen money, is innocent."
J. B. reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfolded it and handed it to me. It was a check for five thousand dollars signed by Ida Mae Keys.
"I told her your fee was ten thousand, and she said she'd pay the rest when you got Scott out of jail."
2
Freshly bathed, mascaraed. and unfortunately enacting Truman Capote's description of ladies melting like marshmallows in the summer heat, I drove to the Sunflower County Courthouse with the roadster's a.c. on full throttle. A phone call to Ida Mae Keys had confirmed the singular fact that she wanted Scott Hampton out of jail and proven innocent. Ida Mae refused to expound on her reasons and had abruptly gotten off the phone, stating point-blank that she had no need to meet with me, just get on with the job.
Her check was safely tucked away in the old pie safe at Dahlia House, since I'd determined not to deposit it until I talked to Coleman. In my past P.I. conduct, I'd slipped across the fine line of ethics a few times, but I wasn't going to take money from an elderly black woman whose husband had just been killed if I couldn't help her.
Coleman Peters, Sunflower County sheriff, was the logical place to start. Besides, Coleman and I had something personal to finish. Although neither of us had acted on it, a strong emotional bond had formed between us. I'd come to rely on his honesty and good sense. There was more, though. Coleman didn't waffle. Not in what he thought or felt. He was rock solid, and that was sweet nectar.
Coleman was freshly separated from his wife, an event I had not played a role in. Actively not played a role in. For the last twelve weeks, while my shoulder was healing, I'd done my best to stay out of his way. He'd come out to Dahlia House several times to check on me, but I had not put myself in his path. He had decisions to make that no one else had a right to interfere in.
As I parked beneath a pecan tree beside the First Baptist Church of Zinnia, I scanned the courthouse lawn. Memories came, unbidden, of childhood summer days when my father hauled my bicycle to the courthouse in the trunk of his car. While he worked as a judge, I was free to ride the streets of Zinnia. It had seemed such a big place then, with so many exciting possibilities to explore. Unlimited potential. Only ten years ago, I'd still felt that way about myself. But my stint in New York had taught me some hard realities. Dreaming wasn't enough. There were a lot of other elements in the equation of grabbing success and happiness.
As I crossed the street, I was thinking about what Jitty had said earlier about dreams. Somewhere along the way, had I become afraid to dream? It was a question to ponder.
The heat was intense and I was glad to step inside the courthouse. When my father had served as circuit court judge, there had been no air-conditioning in the building. Though I often took the troglodyte, no-progress stance and rejected modern improveme
nts, air-conditioning was a true miracle. I stood for a moment under a vent, hoping to dry up the rivulet of sweat that had begun to slip down my spine and into my underpants. Melted was exactly how I felt.
The sheriff's office door was open, and a sound bite of conversation caught my attention.
"He's guilty as sin," the dispatcher said in a country twang veneered with sophistication. "He sits in the jail cell, feet propped on the bars, cool as a cucumber. If he feels anything, it sure ain't, I mean, isn't, remorse."
"He's hard," Deputy Dewayne Dattilo agreed. Dattilo was a new addition to the force, as was the dispatcher.
"He can play the guitar. I heard him a few times when I was out dancin'. He could make a girl's bones melt, if you know what I mean." The dispatcher's voice carried grudging admiration, topped off with a portion of sexual hunger. "He had the women squirmin' in their seats, or those of them who could stay seated. And that one crazy gal, man, she all but jumped on his leg."
"She's gonna be trouble," Dewayne said, and not without a little eagerness.
I entered and was greeted with wary curiosity from one and dislike from the other.
"Is Coleman in?" It was a courtesy question. I could see him at his desk in his office.
"I'll see." The dispatcher, known as Bo-Peep because of her overpermed, blondeened hair, went into Coleman's office and closed the door. I couldn't help but notice that she had a great figure and a walk that was all invitation. Coleman had hired her while I was at Dahlia House healing. She'd worked as a temp last winter. In those brief two weeks we'd developed a mutual animosity club. Now she was on the payroll full time, permanent.
Within minutes she came out and swayed over to the counter. "The sheriff says he can see you," she said. Leaning closer, she whispered, sotto voce, "He's gone back to his wife, though, so don't get your hopes up."
I brushed past her, determined not to show the shock I felt. Once in Coleman's office, I closed the door, composing myself as I turned around to face him. His blue eyes held sadness, matched by the long line of his mouth.
"Ida Mae Keys has hired me to prove Scott Hampton is innocent," I said, wanting to immediately put the visit on the footing of officialdom.
Coleman shook his head. "I like that old woman, and I hate to see her waste her money and your time. You've got a perfect record for solving cases, Sarah Booth. This is one you might want to walk away from. The evidence we have is circumstantial, but it's pretty damning."
"Fill me in." Concise, professional, that was the tone I had to maintain. I focused on the lines at the corners of his mouth that hadn't been there two months before. He might be back with Connie, but he wasn't a happy man.
"Murder weapon found in his possession. Just over three thousand dollars, which we believe was stolen from the club, also in his possession." Coleman sounded more tired than convinced.
"What was the murder weapon?"
"Prison-type shank. Handmade."
"Where'd you find it?"
"In the saddlebag of Hampton's motorcycle. The bike was parked outside his house. He's renting a place on Bilbo Lane
, way out in the sticks."
"Anyone could have put the money in the bag," I pointed out.
"He had a bad attitude when we went out to talk to him. He refused to talk to us, and we had to get a search warrant. Let me just say that he didn't show a tremendous amount of regret or remorse when we told him Ivory was dead."
Scott Hampton seemed to be his own worst enemy. "And you've determined, beyond all doubt, that the shank belongs to Hampton. Again, I'll point out that someone could have put it in the saddlebags of his bike."
"Someone could have, but we don't believe that to be true."
"Prints?"
"None. It was wiped."
"How many times was Keys stabbed, and where?" Coleman knew I could get all of this information from Doc Sawyer, the man who would perform the autopsy.
He sighed. "Stabbed in the chest. Three times."
"Anything else?"
"He didn't die instantly." He hesitated. "And that's all I'm going to say about the actual crime."
He'd been fair in giving me as much as he felt he could. I felt a flurry of anger as I realized how much I'd come to count on Coleman's fairness.
"So robbery is the motive?" I snapped back into professional mode.
"Ivory had Hampton tied up in an ironclad contract at Playin' the Bones for the next two years. Hampton has developed quite a reputation, and he'd gotten some big offers from other clubs. His career could have been on the rise, except he was legally tied to Keys."
"So you think he killed his benefactor for the money or to escape his contract?" I'd learned a few things in my brief stint as a P.I. Murder generally had one very specific motive. I wanted to know which one Coleman was going to try to prove when it came to a trial.
"We're still investigating."
"What about bond?" Ida Mae said she wanted Scott out as soon as possible.
"Friday. Judge Hartwell." His mouth hardened into a thin line as he said the name. Hartwell was only a justice court judge, but he had a reputation for rash and prejudicial behavior. "It's going to be high." He put the pencil down and placed his hands on the desk. "Let this one pass, Sarah Booth. It's going to get ugly. A lot of old scabs are going to be ripped off here."
His advice was meant as a kindness, but I wasn't in the mood to accept the crumbs of his generosity. The least he could have done was tell me himself that he was going back to his wife.
"Can I see Hampton?"
Coleman's eyebrows lifted at my tone. "Sure." He picked up a pencil and twirled it in his fingers, but his gaze held mine. "Is there something bothering you?"
"Not a thing." The wall of pride had erected itself with amazing speed. We had never spoken of our feelings for each other, so there were no words to take back.
"I've been meaning to come out to see you," he said.
His gaze fell to the blotter on his desk. He seemed fascinated by the scribbling there.
I could have helped him out, but I wasn't in a charitable frame of mind.
"Connie and I are gonna give it one more try," he said, finally looking at me.
"I hope it works out." Thunderation, what did he think I would say?
For a split second, he registered surprised regret. Then he caught himself and nodded. "I'll have Dewayne take you back to see Hampton." He stood up and walked past me.
I could have put out my hand and touched his arm. The smallest gesture would have stopped him. But I had no right to make that move, and I let him walk past me without a word.
Scott Hampton was everything I expected. His face, undeniably handsome, seemed fixed in a permanent sneer. His blond hair was gelled back, a la Elvis, giving him a strange dated appearance that was at odds with his eyes, which said he was a man of the moment.
"Mrs. Keys has hired me to prove you didn't kill her husband." I didn't bother to hide the doubt in my tone. Scott Hampton sat on his bunk, rocking slightly to a beat I couldn't hear. He didn't inspire compassion or confidence.
"Tell her to save her money." He stood up and walked to the bars.
I had not been aware of the full measure of his sexuality until he moved. He was a jungle cat, a predator. It was in his walk, in the way he held me with his eyes. He was a dangerous man, and he liked knowing that I knew it. The first hint of a smile touched his lips.
I held his gaze until mine slid down his body, exactly as he wanted it to. The tattoo on his left arm caught my interest. The skull and crossbones looked professionally done, though the black ink spoke of decoration acquired in prison.
"I can't help you if you won't help yourself," I said, finding the words from a million old television shows.
"I don't want your help," he countered as he lounged against the bars of the cell. "Give Ida Mae back her money and leave me alone."
"For some reason, she wants to believe you're innocent," I told him. "Maybe she's crazy, but that's what she believ
es."
"Do you make a living taking advantage of old folks or is this a special case?"
I felt as if he'd slapped me. "Listen, Hampton, if it were up to me, I'd just as soon walk away from this. The sheriff is pretty certain you're going to Parchman prison for a good, long stretch. You may have done time in Michigan, but that's kindergarten compared to Parchman."
"So I've heard. Do they still work the inmates in the cotton fields? I might come in handy, singing the blues. Back to the roots of the music, you might say."
I was suddenly tired. Scott Hampton was a man who buzzed with electricity. He sucked at my energy level. "This may be a joke to you, but I'm not working for you. You can help me or not. Either way it's up to Mrs. Keys. I'm going to tell her that I think you're a waste of time, but she decides what happens next."
"Make her decide to drop this thing," Scott said, his voice even but his eyes sending all kinds of warnings. He tried to hold my gaze, but a breeze outside the jail caught the branches of an old magnolia tree that stood not far from the statue of Johnny Reb, the bronze image that memorialized all the men who'd given their lives to noble ideals enforced with foolish violence. My gaze locked on the rope that swung so lazily from the graceful branches of the tree, a hangman's noose on the end.
Scott knew that I saw it and a sound, almost animal, came from him. "Keep Ida Mae out of this. Give her back her money," he ordered.
"Who put up the noose?" I asked him, my voice only a little shaky. The South is filled with symbols—neon crosses, snakes and their handlers, bedsheets, flags, magnolias, and mockingbirds. But there is none more potent than the noose. Someone had sent Scott a very explicit message, and he knew it.
"Stay out of it," he said.
"Did you see them?"
"No."
"Have you told the sheriff?"
"No." He grinned, daring me to ask more.
"Coleman will find out who did this," I said. It didn't matter what Coleman thought about Scott Hampton personally. Someone had broken the law, and in doing so had stirred up the horror and hatred of the past. Someone would pay for that.
"My best advice to you, Ms. Sarah Booth Delaney, is that you keep your nose out of this, and don't take Ida Mae's money. She doesn't have much and she's going to need what she has to survive this."
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