"He's a total ass," I said, recalling his insolence and contempt. I had no desire to acknowledge his sexual appeal or admit that he frightened me a little.
Tinkie lifted an eyebrow and I could see her brain buzzing. "So how are we going to approach this?" she asked.
I grinned. Tinkie was in. "With great caution. I don't know that there's anything we can do. The evidence points to Hampton as the killer. But I told Mrs. Keys we'd try."
"Yes, we'll try, but there is one condition." Tinkie gave me a look that said she knew she had me.
"What?"
"An old school chum of Oscar's will be in town tonight. Go out to dinner with him."
"A banker?" I had nothing against bankers.
"Former banker. Independent investor now. I think you might find him interesting."
Tinkie was being coy, but she failed to realize that I happened to really like blind dates. Gambling, as far as slot machines, cards, or bingo, had never been one of my vices. But the old roulette wheel of romance piqued my interest. My theory was that a blind date could go either way, but no matter the outcome, I never ended up empty-handed. Either I had a good date or a good story to tell.
"Sounds perfect. What time, where, what to wear?"
My capitulation surprised Tinkie. "Tonight. The Club. I'll get back to you with the details. Aren't you even going to ask who it is?"
"Surprise me," I said as I walked to the door. "Now for your part, I want you to pump Oscar about the financial status of Ivory Keys and Playin' the Bones. Find out everything Oscar knows." I didn't give her a chance to ask another question. I whistled up my hound and left.
I'd given Tinkie her assignment. Oscar, her husband, was on the board of directors of Zinnia National Bank. In a small town like Zinnia, bank officials knew all the data. And Tinkie had incredibly effective ways of making Oscar talk. He didn't just talk, he gushed. By afternoon, I'd know whether Playin' the Bones was in the red or black and what the financial future had looked like for Ivory and Scott.
For my part, I went home to my computer. As much as I hated learning technology, I'd found the Web to be a place of many free facts. Even so, I wasn't prepared for the surfeit of information on Scott Hampton.
Especially not the kind of information I found.
While Scott dominated a lot of the blues Web sites, he was also listed on five neo-Nazi sites. Call me naive, but I was shocked at the violence and racism rampant in those sites. I had just opened the third Aryan Nation site when I was brought up short. A skull-and-crossbones tattoo, an exact replica of the one on Scott's arm, was perfectly rendered on the screen.
The organization was the Bonesmen. An elite branch of the Aryan Brotherhood formed totally of convicted felons. The Bonesmen were one of the most violent of all prison gangs. Their listed enemies included blacks, Jews, Indians, both native and eastern, Asians, Hispanics, and Eskimos. They pretty much covered everyone who wasn't "white."
And guess who their poster boy was—Scott Hampton.
There were several links to music sites, and dreading what I'd find, I clicked through. Scott had an impressive body of work in the blues, but there was another side to his musical career. The titles of these songs, all produced by White Victory Studio, made my stomach knot with dread. The "N" word was in abundant supply, most frequently coupled with a violent verb or a sexual slur. Downloading the songs would take a while, so I went to the kitchen to rummage through the refrigerator.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd cleaned out the fridge, so I called Sweetie Pie in for help. If she sniffed at anything with disdain, we threw it away. After half an hour, the cupboard was looking bare, while the garbage was growing into a mountain. I was eyeing a container of what appeared to be macaroni and cheese. That was impossible. I hadn't made macaroni and cheese since I'd returned home to Dahlia House. I poked the container with a meat fork, seeing if anything moved inside.
"Fine time to clean the refrigerator."
Startled, I banged my head on the refrigerator door opening. Jitty was standing right behind me, crowding in close. I backed out and stood up straight.
"You've been harping at me for weeks to clean out the refrigerator. Now that I'm doing it, you don't like it."
Having a nagging ghost on your heels twenty-four-seven can make a girl cross.
"You ought to have your head in that closet, pickin' out a dress to wear tonight. Or findin' one that fits."
That was it. I grabbed the container in question and tossed it at the garbage can. "I can wear everything in my closet," I said. "I'm tired of your cracks about my size."
"Your mama never gained an inch in her waist. She did a lot of walkin'. Some would have called it marchin', I suppose."
Jitty was wearing a navy, polka-dot skimmer, conservatively cut just above the knee. The dress was out of current character, but not nearly as much as the anger in her eyes.
"What's wrong with you?" Jitty would give me no peace until I heard her out.
"Your mama wouldn't be proud of what you're doin'."
I didn't even have to ask what. I knew. "I'm doin' what I'm doin' for Ida Mae Keys. She believes Scott Hampton is innocent, and she believes it enough to write a check for five grand."
"It's wrong. That man is bad, and he belongs in jail. Killin' Ivory Keys was a bad, bad thing. And don't go taking that innocent-till-proven-guilty attitude. You think he did it, too."
I sat down at the table. Jitty wasn't saying anything I didn't think. "What if he's innocent?"
Jitty paced the kitchen. "He's not innocent. He's a racist and a dope head. More than likely, he's a murderer. Coleman thinks he's guilty."
"Everyone thinks he's guilty, except Ida Mae Keys," I pointed out. "Right now, she's the one that counts."
"She's grievin' and tryin' hard to hang on to what little bit of her husband is left: his dream. That don't make it right for her to spend her money on that bad man. Don't make it right for you to take it."
I was going to hear this argument from a lot of people.
I might as well hone my defenses on Jitty. "I'm only looking into the case. I won't take Ida Mae's money if it looks like I can't help."
"Help how? Help get that trash back out on the street?"
That, indeed, was the crux.
"Go listen to some of his music. Not the blues, but that other stuff," Jitty pressed. "Then you tell me he needs to be set loose on society."
Jitty's eyes were black chips of anger. I closed the refrigerator door and walked back upstairs to the computer. Three songs later, I lay down on my bed. My head was pounding and my stomach churned. Based on the recordings of White Victory Studio, Scott Hampton was one of the worst musicians I'd ever heard. His early rap songs were backed up by a band called the Brown Shirts, and the sick, racist rants never even came close to what I considered music. He was a vile man with a vile message. No matter how he'd reconfigured himself for public consumption in Sunflower County, Mississippi, he had once promoted hatred, racism, and violence with a passion that sickened me.
I had really stepped in it now.
I took A long, hot bath and tried to think my way out of the predicament I found myself in. In my last case, I'd gone up against a mountain of circumstantial evidence and a signed confession from Lee McBride. But Lee was a person I'd known my entire life. She was someone I respected and knew to be good.
Based on my further Internet research on Scott Hampton, I learned he'd been on a quest for self-destruction for several years before he'd been arrested. He hated everyone and everything that wasn't white and male.
I'd found several sites that gave a brief history of the man. He was born into the very wealthy Hampton family of Detroit, Michigan. His grandfather had owned twenty Dodge dealerships in the area, and his father had increased that to thirty-one. Hampton Dodge was the name for Dodge vehicles in Michigan.
Scott was an only child, heir to fabulous wealth. But he'd squandered his initial inheritance. At the age of twenty-one he'd come into a mil
lion-dollar trust, and he'd taken the money and left.
Two years later, he was in serious trouble with the law. By the time he was twenty-five, he'd been convicted twice for possession of cocaine. By twenty-eight, he was arrested and convicted of possession with intent to sell. He was on the road to the Michigan Big House.
Six years later, he was out of prison and in Sunflower County, Mississippi, playing blues in a black man's highend juke joint. In the past twelve months—since coming to Mississippi—Scott Hampton had cut two albums. The first was his rendition of Mississippi blues classics, drawn from the music of B. B. King, Mississippi John Hurt, Muddy Waters, and the mysterious Robert Johnson, who died of drinking whiskey poisoned by a jealous lover. The second album was compiled of original music written and performed by Hampton. Both had received critical acclaim. Scott was building a solid reputation, and I couldn't help but wonder how, based on the awful rap music I'd downloaded. It was a conversion that ranked close to a miracle.
How had a talentless rapper—and even I could judge he was talentless—become a master of the blues? What had happened to Scott Hampton during his prison term and his year in Kudzu?
An article published in a national blues magazine out of Helena, Arkansas, charged Hampton with following in the footsteps of Tommy Johnson. Johnson was one of several blues musicians said to have traded his soul to the devil for musical skill. I knew the legend, and had even traveled to several crossroads in north Mississippi where Johnson and Satan might have negotiated the bargain.
As the story went, Johnson had played the local juke joints with no apparent talent. And then he'd disappeared from the Mississippi scene for a while. When he returned, walking through the dark Delta night to the light and laughter of a club, he'd climbed up on the stage and delivered the blues with such power that his audience was stunned.
It wasn't hard to draw the same conclusion about Hampton. He'd come out of prison with a talent that no one could explain.
A cool breeze whispered across my skin, and I looked up to see if Jitty had entered the bedroom. But I was alone, and it was only the legend of a bargain made between an ambitious musician and a dark stranger on a hot summer night that was giving me the chills.
Before I turned off the computer, I went to an on-line music store and ordered both of Scott Hampton's latest CDs. I'd heard his old stuff. Now I wanted to judge his talent with the blues. I clicked next day freight. Before I made any decisions, I wanted to listen to the music that had made women melt and men forget their prejudices.
5
Since I'd cleaned the refrigerator and nothing remained inside it except a questionable hunk of cheese wrapped in green cellophane—I hoped the cellophane was green—I decided to drive to Millie's Cafe and "do" a late lunch.
Although she was in her fifties, Millie was my thumb on the pulse of Sunflower County nightlife. Or at least the nightlife outside The Club, which was where the Daddy's Girls and their fathers and future husbands, the Buddy Clubbers, partook of liquor, dance, character assassination, and general bitchiness.
My stomach growled a warning that a serious caloric disaster was in the offing as I drove through Zinnia's main street, called, appropriately, Main Street, and parked the Mercedes in the crowded lot at the cafe. I was thinking of several of my stick-thin contemporaries who frequently claimed that they "just flat forgot to eat lunch."
My own body was far better organized. In the thirty-four years of my life, it had never forgotten a single meal.
Millie hailed me with a shout and a wave as she whipped through the cafe pouring iced tea and coffee. She could handle both at once, a pot in one hand and a pitcher in the other. She served only sweet tea and regular coffee. She didn't mess around with unsweetened tea or decaf.
I took a seat at the counter, put in an order for fried chicken, turnip greens, fried green tomatoes, fried okra, and corn bread.
"Why not change the turnip greens to French fries and make it a totally brown meal?" Millie teased.
"I'll put some catsup on the plate and balance the entire thing out," I assured her.
She plopped an iced tea down in front of me. "I'll be back."
She was, within ten minutes. The main lunch rush was ending, and the place was clearing out.
"What can you tell me about Playin' the Bones?" I asked as I stabbed several crisp okra morsels.
"A year ago, it was closing down. That man who was murdered, Ivory Keys, was a great pianist, but he couldn't get a singer. The club band was good, but they didn't have the necessary youth appeal to bring the thirty-somethings into the club. Then Scott Hampton started playin'." She arched her eyebrows. "I heard him last Memorial Day." Her mouth opened slightly as she was caught in some memory. "Wow. That's all I can say."
"Hot?"
"Honey, he had every woman in that place ready to play nasty right there on the stage."
"What about his music?"
"If you closed your eyes, you wouldn't know he was a white boy from the North. During part of the show he was using an old bottleneck slide, and I swear, it could have been Mississippi John Hurt or Sun House. He could make that guitar talk sweet and promise a lot of pleasure."
"As well as pain," I said, almost under my breath.
"As well as pain," she agreed. "That's life, Sarah Booth. Life and the blues."
"So what's the gossip around town regarding the murder?"
She glanced around the cafe to make sure all of her customers were chowing down. Leaning closer, she spoke softly. "There's a lot of high emotion around Ivory's death. Folks loved Scott's music, but they didn't much cotton to the man himself."
I waited for more, though I fully understood what Millie was talking about. With his arrogance and seemingly permanent sneer, Scott could rub a saint the wrong way.
"Ivory Keys set a great store by Scott. They shared some prison experience that bonded them together. I've heard two or three versions of the jail story," she shrugged, "but the bottom line was that Scott and Ivory were like blood kin. They both had a love of music and a dream of a different kind of future."
"Do you really believe that?" Millie was nobody's fool. She was a fine judge of character.
"It would break Ivory's heart to see what's happening now. I heard this morning some of the roughnecks up around Blue Eve community are planning on some retaliation for the noose at the courthouse. The fool thing is they all think Scott is guilty, too, but they're angry that blacks would have the audacity to threaten a white man with hanging." She shook her head.
That news troubled me, too. Hatred spread like gas fumes and it was just as volatile. "Do you have any names?"
"No. They're all too cowardly to step forward and say this in public. It's all secret meetings, anonymous threats." Her mouth showed her distaste.
"So why do you think Scott would kill his friend and benefactor?" I got back to the issue I had to resolve.
"That's a good question." Millie patted my arm as she picked up the coffeepot and made a quick circuit of the remaining crowd. She could pour with one hand and scoop up a ticket and payment with the other. After a dash to the cash register and a few moments to lay out change along the countertop, she was back.
"Some folks believe Scott is just a bad seed," she said, one corner of her mouth quirking up. "I can't say as I subscribe to that way of thinking. There's a lot of difference between drugs and murder."
"Coleman might say that one leads to the other," I pointed out.
"Coleman might say that, but even he doesn't believe it. Scott was involved with coke, but I really believe he gave it up." She gave me a hard look. "If everyone around here that dabbled in a little coke went right to murder, you'd be surprised at who was killin' whom in Sunflower County. The membership roster at The Club would be a lot shorter than you might expect."
I knew better than to ask for any names. Millie often helped me on my cases, but she wasn't a gossip. If cocaine use became pertinent to my case, she'd spill the beans. But not one second before
. I decided on a different tactic.
"Scott has an extremely racist past. And he wasn't much of a guitar player until he came out of prison." I pulled Millie's pen out from behind her ear and began to draw the skull-and-crossbones symbol on the back of my ticket.
"So I've heard." She made a face. "His rap music was pure-D-raunch."
"Nasty," I agreed, working on the design. I was surprised that Millie knew as much about Scott as she did, but I shouldn't have been. Millie had a far more active social life than I did, and lately she'd been dating an antiques shop owner from Greenwood. They'd been to Memphis dancing and to Nashville to hear Lucinda Williams, but the blues was still her favorite.
"Folks can change," she said. "That's a fact."
"They can. And sometimes they can pretend to."
"True enough." She looked at me, worried. "You're working for Scott Hampton, and you don't believe in him at all. Why'd you take the case?"
"How'd you know I took it?"
"Cece called me."
I rolled my eyes. Cece Dee Falcon was the society editor for the Zinnia Dispatch. Formerly Cecil, Cece had spent her family fortune on a trip to Sweden and a change of gender. She was the best journalist I'd ever met, and she knew the dirt on everyone in town, including who was wearing panty girdles under summer sundresses and who'd had liposuction to avoid the horror of binding underwear.
"Cece's at the jail right this minute trying to get an exclusive interview with Scott. Some big music magazines are there, too. Coleman isn't in a good frame of mind." Millie cleared the counter as she talked.
"I can imagine." I tried not to visualize Coleman behind his desk, blue eyes seeking to catch my gaze. I'm going back to Connie. We're going to give it another try.
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