A Little Death in Dixie, page 2
The practice of law had been his vehicle into Memphis’ inner circle. He’d moved from a partnership in the old money firm of Broad, Lathin, and Friedman, and later his judgeship led to membership in the exclusive fraternity of power brokers in the city. Everyone agreed he knew the law; not one of his judicial rulings had been overturned. But he had his own sense of right and wrong, even if not everyone would agree with it. He knew a renegade mare and a homophile were wrong. They didn’t belong in his world. He knew winners were right and losers were wrong.
He stopped Colette in the middle of the arena and pressed his hand to her chest—still hot but she’d quit blowing and no longer trembled.
For Buck, horses, croquet, and the law were three disciplines in which success depended on assessment of an opponent’s skill. He’d misjudged Collette’s desire to win. He hoped he hadn’t made a similar mistake with a female opponent in a different game. Too much was at stake. Each move had to be weighed against what he would gain, and what he would lose.
The key to his future rested in the hands of one burnt-out cop.
Chapter Three
Saturday, 10:10 a.m.
Extremes mark the face of Memphis: Fortunes made from King Cotton, death from yellow fever, poverty, racism; and music that burns and bleeds from the soul. Sweltering heat cooled by trillions of gallons of sweet water gushing from aquifers beneath the city.
Mr. Tuggle’s neat bungalow echoed those extremes, standing out in the decayed, north-Memphis neighborhood that once had been supported by a tire manufacturing plant. The plant closed in 1979. The jobs never came back. Grown men sat on their front steps in the middle of the day with malt liquor bottles dangling between their fingers while their roofs leaked, their porches sagged, and their women lost hope.
In contrast, the victim’s house had fresh paint, an edged lawn, and lush beds of hydrangeas spilling over at the front porch. Billy recognized the house was greatly loved and ruled by an iron hand, as he’d witnessed in Mississippi towns where antebellum homes were groomed by their owners as if the pride of the South depended on the health of their azaleas. This house smacked of the same presumption.
Billy called over a patrolman to stand with Tuggle’s body and followed Lou to the freshly swept porch with its two aluminum lawn chairs flanking the door. A cardboard fan, picturing a vibrantly colored Jesus cradling a lamb in his arms, lay in one chair seat. Lou’s flare-up in the yard puzzled him. Paul Anderson said he should expect bouts of temper from someone as depressed as Lou. The warning helped but not much.
A young cop with his fresh crew cut and shined shoes smoked a cigarette by the front door. He took a last drag, dropped the butt on the porch, mashed it, and reached to open the screen door for Lou. Billy waited for the eruption.
“Don’t they teach you any damned thing at that academy?” Lou bellowed. He picked up the cigarette butt. “Never smoke at a crime scene unless you want to be one of the suspects. And who was it raised you to trash other people’s property . . . a pack of dogs?”
“Yes, sir. No, sir.”
“Pick one, son.”
“I forgot about the cigarette. It’s my first day. And my dad raised me, sir.”
“All right, we got that straight. What’s your name?”
“Patrolman Dwight Rad.”
“You know what a first officer looks like, Rad?”
“Like my partner, Officer Washington.”
“Get him.”
Patrolman Rad disappeared through the doorway. Moments later a black female officer returned. Officer Byhalia Washington stood close to six feet tall, had biceps like a man and a pair of impressively large but unequally distributed hooters. This imbalance, however, didn’t appear to affect her self-confidence. She swaggered toward them with her right hand out to shake Lou’s hand, and then informed them of all transpiring events since her arrival. She concluded with a description of their single witness.
“Ida Smith, a female neighbor, found Mr. Tuggle around 8:45 a.m. and called 911 from her own house,” Officer Washington said. “She was collecting for The Sickle Cell Anemia Fund and nearly tripped over the body. She’s a screamer. I calmed her down and put her in the back den with a patrolman to cool off.”
“Has Mrs. Tuggle added anything?” Lou said.
“Not a word. She was sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea when we got here. Wouldn’t answer the door, so we let ourselves in the back. She’s dressed up, wearing her pearls. The house is spotless. I thought it was shock, so I had an EMT check her out. He said her pulse is a little thready, but she’s fine.”
“Where’s Mrs. Tuggle now?” Billy said.
“Her name is Lady Tuggle. Miz Lady, they call her. She’s in the kitchen with Rad, waiting to talk with you gentlemen.”
“We’ve met young Rad,” Lou said.
The screen door slammed. They all looked up to see the rookie standing on the porch.
“What are you doing?” Washington said.
“Mrs. Tuggle had to go to the bathroom,” Rad said. “I wanted to check in.”
“Oh, good God.” Officer Washington barreled past Rad.
Lou beat the six-foot female freight train through the door, and Rad’s face blanched as the reality of what he’d done hit him.
“Sit down,” Billy said as he followed Washington. “Put your head between your knees.”
“And kiss my ass good-bye,” Rad said and collapsed on top of the Jesus fan.
Billy hoped Miz Lady hadn’t guzzled drain cleaner or hanged herself from the showerhead with her panty hose. He didn’t know the woman, but when murder’s involved people get desperate. A simple case can turn sour at any time.
The sturdy shoulders of Byhalia Washington blocked his view as he entered the front hall. She stood rooted at a doorway that opened into a dining room. He followed her gaze past the dining table to the buffet on the opposite wall. A gallery light over the buffet illuminated a large sepia-toned photo of a family grouping.
Lou and an elderly black woman stood facing each other near one end of the buffet. Miz Lady’s hand had disappeared into an open drawer. In slow motion she withdrew a .38 pistol. Slowly, she placed the barrel in her mouth.
“Hold on now,” Lou said.
She cocked the hammer. Officer Washington drew her Glock.
Lou raised his hands, palms forward. “Now, lady . . . I mean Miz Lady, no sense hurting yourself.” His voice cracked.
Miz Lady stood erect for a woman her age. Her blue dress hung loose down her thin chest, her nails sparkled pink against the electrician’s tape wrapped around the gun’s butt. She wore stockings on this hot morning and white heels. From the look of things, Billy figured she’d hit her husband on the back of the head, cleaned the house, bathed and dressed. And now she was ready to meet her Maker.
For a cop, this was as dangerous as it gets.
“Let’s put the gun down and talk,” Lou said. “I’ll hold it for you.”
Miz Lady’s eyes widened, and the gun trembled as Lou took a step forward. Billy felt Officer Washington tense beside him.
“Okay.” Lou began the familiar talk-down. “You keep the gun and I’ll stay here.”
Resolve glinted in the woman’s eyes, but she was listening.
“My name’s Lou. Accidents happen. There’s no one to blame here, really. Men can be an aggravation. They retire, they get under foot, they spoil a woman’s routine. It’s understandable.”
That’s right, Billy thought. Stay with the program. He noticed the hammer ease up, and he took a breath.
“Your man wouldn’t listen. Sometimes men do the wrong things,” Lou said.
Lady Tuggle nodded. The gun barrel slid lower in her mouth.
“Men,” Lou said, warming to his subject, “good men do bad things. Especially as they get older. Something weakens inside a man. They let their families down. You understand that don’t you, Miz Lady? They disappoint the ones they’ve promised to look after.”
Wherever Lou was going with this, it seemed to be working. The gun barrel slid from Lady Tuggle’s mouth. Lou extended his hand. The .38 seemed to hesitate of its own accord, and then she clasped the grip in both hands and leveled it at Lou’s chest.
“Uh, ummh,” rumbled Byhalia Washington, “that done it.”
“I warned him.” Miz Lady’s voice sounded clear, calm. “He kept on, every morning. Doing his business off the porch. I keep a decent house. My momma didn’t raise me to live like trash.”
Lou’s body stiffened. “You need to put the gun down.”
The woman’s chin went up. “Preacher Allen said mens are the Devil’s fallen creatures. Stealing, murdering, hurting girl chirrun. Far as I’m concerned, all you mens can go to Hell.”
Lou’s head jerked up. “Pull that trigger and see firsthand what God thinks of murders. Go on, shoot!”
“I’ll do it. I will.”
“Go on then.”
Lou’s gaze focused on the gun, and his body began to weave. The gun barrel followed. He was provoking her to shoot him. They all knew it.
Washington raised her Glock to shoulder level and trained it on Miz Lady’s chest. She had every right, even a duty, to shoot, but it might not save Lou. Washington glanced at Billy. Her expression said, Do something or I will.
The dining table stood between Miz Lady and Billy. He’d never get to her before she pulled the trigger. Only option left was to break the spell.
He exhaled, slipped his hands in his pockets and strolled into the room as if he were a guest. He approached the framed photograph on the wall. For a moment he studied the photo, and then stepped back in surprise.
“Isn’t this the Caledonia Free Will Baptist Church outside of Pontotoc, Mississippi? Pastor Bean is still in the pulpit after forty years, I believe.” He bent forward, looking at the photo. “Miz Lady, is this your wedding party?”
“Leave it,” Lou breathed, his voice still heated.
“Is it, Miz Lady?” He could tell she was listening, but he couldn’t see Lou’s face or the gun.
“That’s my wedding day.”
“Is your momma in the white hat or is she the lady with the lace collar standing down the steps?”
“Momma’s in the hat. Aunt Jet wore the lace collar. She carried my veil down from New York.” Her voice warmed with emotion.
“Is that so. Are you wearing your momma’s wedding dress?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Momma didn’t have a dress. She saved every cent for school to make a lawyer when she met Daddy. He said he’d pay her way through school if she’d marry him.”
“Do I see your daddy here?”
“Next to Walter. My husband.” She said the name coldly.
“Where?” Billy assumed the gun was still trained on Lou. If he grabbed her, Lou was sure to take a bullet in the chest. Out the corner of his eye he saw Miz Lady back toward the picture.
“The bald man with the belly. That’s Daddy.”
Billy angled his head for a better look at the woman. She had turned the revolver on him and was glaring at the photo. The gun quivered in her hand. He should be nervous, but all he could see was this trapped woman making a final grab for self-respect.
“Daddy beat Momma so bad he broke something in her head. She couldn’t read after that. She couldn’t go to school, so she took in wash. Momma wanted me to have what she never got. Then Walter starts . . . he wouldn’t listen. Damn you, Walter!”
In one motion she swung the gun around and fired.
Chapter Four
Saturday, 11:35 a.m.
The giant A&W Root Beer mug shimmered over the rooftop of a roadside stand. The sign’s brown paint, chipped by the weather, left silver patches gleaming in the sun. Broken neon tubing dangled. The mug rocked against sagging guy wires. The sign was a lot like Memphis: seductive, old, with hints of grandeur and an aura of risk.
Mercy Snow made a hard left into the gravel parking lot. Root beer floats were her absolute favorite. If she got a float to go, she would stay on schedule, but if it spilled in the car, she would ruin her new outfit and be late to lunch, not to mention this place was a total dive and a possible health hazard. Handbills glued to the walls flapped in the breeze. Mud peppered the front window. She gripped the steering wheel. Memories of root beer thickened to the freezing point with a scoop of ice cream made her swallow. Oh, why not? She’d lost twenty-seven pounds off her 5’9” frame and had worked hard to change her entire life. She deserved a treat.
This morning she’d dressed in slacks and a sweater the shade of periwinkle her mother once said “Complements your green eyes, and you know, dear, you need all the help you can get.” She’d feathered on concealers the way the makeup artist had shown her and parted her blond hair on the side to drape her face and camouflage her left cheek. She’d studied her made-over image. Mercy Snow—award winning pastry chef, bakery owner, and successful entrepreneur who was about to return to the bosom of her family. Unlike Atlanta, where the New outweighed the Old ten to one, family meant everything in returning to Memphis—to her mother, sister and brother-in-law. But home also meant a hurt so deep Mercy couldn’t put words to it.
Her scarred face no longer controlled her life. It was about time she acted like it.
Her stomach rumbled. She checked her face in the rearview mirror and arranged her hair. Screw denial, she thought, got out of the car and headed for the door.
Stale air hit her in the face. Napkins and straws littered the floor. She took a stool, angling her left side away from the teenage-aged girl behind the counter whose nametag read “Trudy.”
“Root beer float, please.”
The girl’s gaze flattened with boredom. “One or two scoops?”
“One. Two. No, make it one.”
Trudy rolled her eyes. She wore the clichéd Goth uniform: black nail polish, heavy black eyeliner, streaks of iridescent eye shadow, and a stud in her nostril. Her root beer-colored uniform strained at her breasts and hips. Trudy’s eyes sparked with interest when she picked up on Mercy’s scar. Mercy caught the girl’s smirk as she turned her back to make the float.
People had two unspoken reactions to the scar: “you poor thing” or “better you than me.” She had endured stares and clumsy remarks for eighteen of her twenty-five years, but today Trudy’s smirk didn’t bother her. Nothing was going to ruin her homecoming.
The girl took a plastic mug off the shelf, blew into it, and wiped the rim with her apron. Deciding it was best to not watch Trudy make the float, Mercy pivoted on the stool to look at the traffic on the highway.
A young woman in a striped halter top and cut-offs sat at a table next to the grimy window. Two little girls in bathing suits and bare feet sat with her. Their wet hair lay plastered against their backs. Mercy wondered if they were cold in the air conditioning. The girls fiddled with their drinks while their mother popped her chewing gum and stared out at the road.
“Drink up,” she commanded the girls.
The older child hauled herself up on both elbows to suck on her straw. She tilted the drippy end out of the mug and blew root beer across the table onto her sister.
“Quit that,” the mother said and slapped the girl’s hand.
The older girl slumped back in her seat, kicking at her sister’s chair. Mercy watched the smaller girl eyeing her sister. It could’ve been her eighteen years ago. She remembered her first substantive lesson in life: big sisters play dirty.
Be careful, little girl.
The older girl scooted closer to her float, filled the straw, lifted the end, and blew root beer in her sister’s face. The smaller girl wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Damn it. Stop that,” the mother said.
The smaller girl climbed off her chair, picked up her float with both hands, and dumped it in her sister’s lap.
A guilty thrill shot through Mercy.
“That’s it,” the mother said. “I told you what I’d do if you messed with me today.” She stood, yanked the smaller child around and smacked the back of her bare legs. The girl didn’t make a sound.
Mercy winced at every blow. “Stop it,” she screamed inside.
The spanking went on, a replay of her own childhood.
“Stop it,” Mercy said out loud this time.
The mother’s head jerked up. “Mind your own business,” she snapped, but she let go of the child’s arm.
Relief flooded Mercy, and she realized she was close to tears.
“You want your float or what?” Trudy said behind her.
Mercy wheeled around to see the girl’s nasty grin.
“Make it to go,” she said. She threw money on the counter and grabbed the cup. She didn’t want to take the drink with her, but she couldn’t look at the child’s bewildered face any longer.
At the table the older girl wailed while her mother mopped her lap with napkins. The small girl stared numbly at the floor. Mercy wanted to grab her and run. Instead she escaped to the parking lot, carrying only the root beer float.
The engine cranked, and she pulled onto the highway, aching with a hurt she didn’t want to explore. She had to put the child out of her mind and think about this weekend.
The timing was perfect. She’d just signed with a national food chain for her bakery to distribute two of her signature pies. The summons to Memphis had arrived as she’d hit the top of her game.
Her mother and sister expected her at one for luncheon by the pool. That’s how her sister, Sophia, had phrased it when they spoke—luncheon by the pool. Sophia’s time in rehab had done wonders for her diction. Not a slip. Not a slur. No lapses into hysterical rage. Her sister’s invitation had been chillingly normal.
