"Hey! You! Stay away from that. That's private property! " A woman came out from behind a big azalea bush holding a sign that read "Free Scott Hampton."
It was only as she drew closer that I recognized her. Sort of. She bore a distinct resemblance to Stuart Ann Shanahan, known throughout high school and college as Nandy. But this was a Nandy I'd never seen before. This was Nandy after a long season in hell. She came toward me like a pit bull on the attack, then stopped. Recognition lit her heavily lined and mascaraed eyes.
"So, it's Sarah Booth Delaney, Zinnia's answer to Mickey Spillane. It's about time you were out of bed and working. You have to make them believe Scott's innocent."
I heard the words, but I was focused on the earring that had somehow crept from her shell-shaped ear to her eyebrow. A blue stone had been expertly cut into the shape of a record album—a blues album. How unbearably cute! And how incredibly expensive.
Helped by a shaft of sunlight, I saw a matching ring in her navel, exposed by her designer jeans cut to hang perfectly on her prominent hipbones. Topping off the effect were pumiced and manicured toes painted what looked like that nearly impossible-to-find shade of Snow White red.
"Nandy?" I wasn't certain it was really her. My last sighting of Nandy had involved a chiffon gown and tiara when she was crowned Sweetheart of Sigma Chi at Ole Miss.
"You were expecting Lord Darnley?"
I'd read enough historicals to catch her reference to the murdered husband of Mary, Queen of Scotts, and I also knew her family's obsessive fixation with the beheaded queen. They'd named their sprawling Delta holdings Holyrood. I ignored the Darnley remark and zeroed in on the pertinent issue. "What are you doing here?"
"Since no one else seems to care, I decided to start the protest movement. Scott is more than a musician, he's a god." She thrust the sign at an elderly gentleman who was headed into the courthouse. "They have Scott in jail. Can you believe it? They've locked him up like a common criminal."
"He's charged with murder," I pointed out, still trying to adjust to this new Nandy.
"What a crock of shit." She wiped at some perspiration beneath her eye and smudged thick black mascara over to her temple. She wasn't wearing waterproof cosmetics!
"How do you know Scott?" I asked.
"I'm head of his fan club. The Blizzard Heads."
"I see." But I didn't. Nandy had preferred the soulful sounds of Barry Manilow. I'd gone through her CDs in college once, and she'd even had a couple of Perry Como's, as well as three albums of bagpipe music.
"The pigs won't let me even visit him in jail. Can you do something about that?"
"Would you turn that music off?" Aside from the fact that the lyrics were incriminating to Scott, I was positive the idea of a Blizzard Head broad playing loud music and holding a protest sign on the courthouse lawn was not helping Hampton's case.
"I'm not going to stop playing Scott's music, and I'm not going to eat until they let him out." Her lips thinned into a straight line that I remembered well from college. Nandy got what Nandy wanted—or else. But in the past, she'd never been one to deprive herself of anything.
"Nandy, the music isn't helping."
She ignored me. "Can you believe Coleman Peters is sheriff now?" she continued. "He was nothing but a stupid jock all through high school. Did he even go to college? Maybe some trade school. Something like Troughville State, where all the best pigs are trained."
I was wasting precious time. "I'll talk to you later." I stepped past her and started up the stairs. Nandy had transformed her exterior, but there'd been no corresponding renovation of her soul.
Her fingers clutched my upper arm in a grip of surprising strength. "Are you going to talk to Scott?" The look in her eyes told me a lot more than I wanted to know. Even though she obviously knew I was working on his case, she was jealous of the fact that I could talk to him.
I could have eased her mind by telling her he didn't want to talk to me, but I didn't. "I'm going to talk to the sheriff."
"Tell him he'd better let me see Scott."
I didn't say anything for several seconds. Nandy had gone from asking for my help to demanding that I deliver her messages. "For Scott's sake, turn off the music," I said, hurrying up the steps and inside the courthouse.
Coleman was at the counter, and the dispatcher's chair was empty. Little Bo-Peep had gone to round up sheep. Or with any luck, she'd gone for a shearing herself.
"You went out to Playin' the Bones. You're on the case." Coleman wasn't asking.
"I took a look around."
"You're making a mistake, Sarah Booth." His voice was terse. "You don't need this, and neither do I."
"What, exactly, do you need, Coleman?" I heard the heat in my own voice.
"I don't know," he said, and he turned his profile to me.
Neither of us were talking about the case. But it was the only thing I could, legitimately, talk to him about.
"Any new developments with Hampton? What about that noose? Any idea who hung it?"
Coleman shook his head. "They were smart enough to use an old rope, so we can't trace it back to where it was purchased from. There's really nothing forensically that we can determine. We're trying to find witnesses."
"Do you have any suspects?" I pressed.
"When I make a charge, you'll be the first to know."
"What about the evidence against Scott? Anything new?"
"The coroner puts the time of death at between two and four o'clock in the morning. Hampton claims he left the bar at midnight."
"Maybe he did." I was at a real disadvantage since my client wouldn't talk to me.
"I have a witness that says otherwise." He put his palms on the counter.
"A reliable witness?"
"A strange witness." He turned back to face me, putting both hands on the counter as if to steady himself. "Nandy Shanahan."
"Nandy?" I couldn't hide my shock. "She's out there on the courthouse lawn raising hell because he's in jail. She's president of his fan club."
"Right. The Blizzard Heads." Coleman looked at his fingers instead of at me. "She signed a statement that she saw Scott come out of the club at exactly two-twenty that morning." He looked at me. "Unfortunately for you, that makes Hampton a liar and the man I believe committed Ivory's murder."
I sighed. "You believe Nandy?"
"Do you believe Hampton?" he countered.
"He hasn't really talked to me," I confessed. This case was looking more and more like a quagmire.
"You'd better get something out of him. Linc's going to push this as hard as he can. He's having visions of the governor's office, and Scott Hampton is going to be his step stool to jump there."
What he was saying was true. Lincoln Bangs, the Sunflower County district attorney, was a very ambitious man. It was an unfortunate fact of life that the route to the governor's office, in any state, was often littered with bodies, the guilty and the innocent.
Coleman pushed off the counter. "So how was your date?"
I wasn't prepared for that question but I stepped right up to the plate. "Bridge Ladnier is a very interesting man."
"I'm sure he is. And successful." Coleman's hand had gone to his gun belt. He fiddled with his holster. "He belongs in places like The Club, by birthright as well as bank account." There was a flatness in Coleman's eyes I'd never seen. "I'm glad you finally found a social peer, Sarah Booth. You deserve that and a whole lot more."
He walked into his office and closed the door.
8
Deputy Dewayne Dattilo let me back into the jail. My greeting there was almost as warm as the one I'd gotten from Coleman. Scott reclined on his bunk, one leg crossed over a knee, and watched me as if I were some odious reptile.
"We need to talk." I wasn't in the mood for his attitude.
"You need to leave." His foot began to beat a rhythm as he tuned me out completely.
"Listen, Hampton, your ridiculous bad-boy posturing is wasted on me." I was angry and he wa
s stupid. "James Dean died a long time ago. You might think you're a rebel without a cause, but you're really just a racist rich boy with a little talent and a long history of making seriously bad life decisions." I took a deep breath. "So cut the crap. Coleman has an eyewitness that puts you at the scene of the murder at the time Ivory Keys was killed."
He sat up suddenly, and in half a second he was across the cell and standing before me. He moved in so close I could feel his breath on my fingers where they gripped the bars.
"I know about the witness," he said, each word a hard, fast little bullet of anger. "Stuart Ann Shanahan. That crazy bitch wanted to visit me here."
"You admit you know her, then?"
"I know her. She's the girl who's been stalking me for the past six months. It's a bit ironic that my biggest fan would put the nail in my coffin, isn't it?"
"Stalking? She's president of your fan club."
"And hell has swimming pools and ice-cold beer." He glared at me. "That girl is a stalker. She's broken into my house three times. She sits on my bike when I park it somewhere. She's always jumping out of shrubs and bushes, trying to get me to fuck her. And she tails me like a hound after a raccoon. I told the sheriff not to let her near me."
I nodded while I thought it through. "What you say about Nandy may be true, but she's put you at the murder scene, nonetheless."
"Who's going to believe a crazy bitch like her?" He challenged me with his eyes.
I kept my tone factual. "Most of Sunflower County. Stuart Ann is from a well-to-do family. Most jurors, if it comes down to it, will take her word over an ex-con drug addict's." I meant to make him angry, and I was rewarded by the snap in his eyes. Yet he held his tongue and his temper. That impressed me.
"We might balance Nandy out with some background about your family." I'd done my homework. "Your mother is head of the United Way Drive each year, and your father single-handedly started the drive to build a new shelter for abused women. That should count for something."
"Leave my family out of this," Scott said in a way that let me know he'd divorced them long before they cut the umbilical on him.
"How old are you?" I asked.
He hesitated. "Thirty-five. How old are you?"
His question caught me off guard, as did the curiosity in his gaze. He was really looking at me. "A woman never reveals her age." I didn't want Scott to have a lot of personal information about me.
"Did you give Ida Mae back her money?" he demanded.
I was tired of his attempts to wrest control of the conversation from me. I was helping him. "If you're so worried about Ida Mae and her money, why don't you call your own family for help? They're loaded."
His laugh was bitter. "They gave up on me a long time ago. The only reason they'd trouble themselves to come down to Mississippi would be to tell me they told me so."
His past wasn't my problem. His future was. "Then it looks like you have no choice but to accept Ida Mae's largesse." I leaned toward the bars. "So I suggest you get cooperative and quit wasting that old woman's money and my time. And you'd better pray she doesn't hear any of that music you wrote and sang in the early nineties. I don't think Ida Mae would be a big fan of the Brown Shirts."
My words were like a slap. He recoiled but he didn't lash out. I was again impressed. I'd heard Scott had a bad temper, but so far, he'd been able to control it. That indicated he might be able to avoid the classic "crime of passion," where a man's temper overrode his reason and his self-preservation. On the one hand, that was a good thing. On the other hand, that might put Ivory's murder as premeditated.
"I don't want anyone's help. Least of all Ida Mae's." He rubbed both eyebrows with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.
"Guilty conscience?" I jabbed.
He stared at me. "No. I don't have anything to be guilty about. I didn't kill Ivory."
I was watching him closely when he spoke. "And you didn't lie about what time you left the club?"
He turned so suddenly that I stepped back from the bars. At my reaction, something flashed across his face. Surprise, or shock, I couldn't be certain. The hand he'd raised dropped to his side, as all of the energy seemed to drain from him.
"I wasn't going to hit you."
I didn't deny that was what I'd thought. "Did you lie to Coleman about the time you left the club?"
"Yes," he admitted. "What would you have done? I was the last person to see Ivory alive, except for his killer. I was with him until nearly two in the morning. We were arguing. We argued a lot." He shrugged one shoulder in more of a jerk than a gesture.
"Argued about what? Money?"
He shook his head, a strand of hair falling over his forehead. "Never about money."
"About what?"
"Things." He gave me a searching look. "We talked about lots of things."
"And you argued about. . . ?"
"We argued about music. Nobody would understand but another musician."
"Try me," I said, wondering if one of those musical things they argued about was the two-year contract that tied him to Ivory and the club.
"There are things that can be done to make money in a club. Things that are just good business."
I was intrigued. The anger had dropped out of Scott's face, and he spoke with unintentional passion. "Such as?"
"In a club, entertainment is the draw. The money comes off liquor sales. I wanted Ivory to bring in more acts, different things like hip-hop and rap. Something to draw in the younger folks. He wouldn't even consider it. He said that stuff wasn't music and he didn't want any part of it. For Ivory, it was the blues or nothing. He was hardheaded as a mule, but he was a man of principle."
With each conversation about Ivory, I garnered another fragment of who he was. The picture that was coming to life was of a man who bent into the wind.
"In a way, Ivory was the luckiest man I ever knew," Scott said, almost as if he were talking to himself. "He had such a strong belief in his music. No matter what went wrong or how hard he got set back, he never lost his belief. It must be wonderful to believe in something—anything—that much."
Scott's words struck home with me. Once, long ago, I'd believed in a lot of things. "So on the night Ivory was killed, what time did you leave the club?"
"I'm not certain. Sometime around two o'clock. I knew someone killed him not long after I left, so I lied about the time I left the club because I knew I'd be the primary suspect. I'm an ex-con. So you tell me, Miss Private Investigator, what would you have done in the same circumstances?"
I had not always walked hand in hand with the truth, even when the stakes weren't nearly as high as they were for Scott. But my decisions weren't on trial; my life wasn't at stake. I didn't have to admit to anything. "You've only made yourself look more guilty."
"And you think I don't know that? I may be an ex-con, but I'm not an idiot."
That was true. "Look, I see where you might have felt it was smarter to lie about the time. We can explain that to Coleman and—"
"The high sheriff has already convicted me."
"Scott, you need to get this once and for all. This isn't about your martyr complex. The evidence has put you in jail, not the sheriff. Coleman's a fair man."
His shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly. "I was guilty of everything I was convicted of in Detroit. Everything and more. I never pretended to be innocent. But I didn't kill Ivory."
There comes a moment between two people when trust is either established or destroyed. Against all common sense, I found that I believed what Scott was saying. I didn't have a hope he could convince a jury of his innocence, but if music was his talent, charisma was his charm. He'd won me to his side.
"Who would want Ivory dead?" I asked, striving for a professional tone that hid all personal emotion.
He didn't answer immediately. He weighed what my question meant. When he finally spoke, his voice was calmer. "I don't know."
"Whoever killed Ivory went to a lot of trouble to make it look l
ike you did it. The place was robbed and nearly three thousand in bloodstained money was found in the saddlebag of your bike. They'll know if it's Ivory's money before much longer." I didn't have to add that if the blood tests came back positive, it would be harder than ever to prove Scott's innocence.
"If I'd killed Ivory and robbed the place, would I have been so stupid as to leave the money in my saddlebag?"
It was a good point, but it led me to another. "So who would want you back in prison, or the gas chamber, badly enough to kill a man?"
Scott's mouth thinned. It wasn't a pretty sight. "A whole lot of people, Miss Delaney. I missed the Dale Carnegie seminar on how to win friends. I'm more adept at making enemies."
He did seem to have a knack for pissing people off. "My suggestion to you is to put your thinking cap on and come up with some names, Mr. Hampton. I can't help you unless you're willing to help yourself."
He didn't get a chance to respond. The door to the jail opened and Deputy Dattilo walked toward us, keys jangling on his belt.
"You've got visitors, Hampton," he said, making it clear he didn't like it. "Fifteen minutes."
Behind Dattilo, two men entered the narrow hall between the cells. They walked abreast, laughing and punching each other as they approached.
The light in the jail wasn't the best, but I caught the image these men wanted to project. They wore tight jeans, leather jackets, bandanas tied around their heads, gold hoop earrings in one ear, and one man had on dark sunglasses.
"Hey, man!" The one without sunglasses brushed past Dattilo and stepped in front of me. "We'll have you outta here in no time flat. These yokels can't keep you locked up."
Scott, too, seemed to have forgotten that the deputy and I were in the vicinity. He reached through the bars and grasped the biker's hand. That's when I noticed the tattoo on the newcomer's hard-muscled arm. It was exactly the same as the one Scott had on his arm. Crossed bones and a skull.
The one with the sunglasses stepped up for the secret handshake. "They won't get away with this," he said. He held out a wadded-up paper sack. "We brought you some beer, but the law-and-order man wouldn't let us bring it in here. He confiscated it. I guess they don't pay him enough to buy his own."
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