Officer Elvis Read online

  “What about Mosley?” asked Darla. “I could partner with him.” Fifty-five-year-old Quentin Mosley was a first-rate detective, with close to thirty years’ experience. Quent, as he was called, knew his stuff. Plus, he and Darla actually got along.

  “As fate would have it, your fellow officer, Detective Quent, is on restricted duty for the foreseeable future,” said Shelby.

  “Meaning?” asked Darla.

  “He is experiencing the scourge of late middle age,” said Shelby. If there was a colorful, albeit obscure phrase to describe a facet of the human condition, Shelby usually went for it.

  “Can you just tell me directly?” asked Darla.

  “Benign enlargement of the prostate, I believe, is the medical term,” said Shelby. “The good thing is, ole Quent don’t have cancer. That said, he can’t be more than twenty feet or so from the men’s room, seeing as how the poor man’s bladder is subject to requiring emptying on a moment’s notice. This, as you will no doubt agree, is a serious handicap when attempting to serve and protect the citizens of our great state. I suppose we could see if Quent would agree to wearing those adult diapers so he could ride around in your little Prius car with you. However, you’d be the one who would have to ask, being as how I’ve never been comfortable discussing matters of the genital areas with my subordinates.”

  “I’ll pass,” said Darla.

  “What about Rita Gibbons?” said Shelby.

  “The one that dresses like a country-western singer?” asked Darla.

  “So okay, maybe Miss Rita has a little trailer park in her upbringing. In Mississippi that passes for street smarts. Something you usually tell me my detectives could use more of,” said Shelby.

  “I heard she got demoted to desk duty after she totaled a departmental SUV chasing that guy who shot up a black church down on the coast.”

  “Pushed our auto insurance rates up was the reason she was exiled,” said Shelby. “Director Haverty insisted. But she caught her man. Miss Rita may be a half a licorice stick short in the judgment area, but she ain’t afraid of the devil. Anyway, she’s served her time in the office as my administrative assistant and deserves a chance to get back in the field.”

  “Sorry, Shelby,” said Darla, “but I don’t need somebody who’s spent the last six months fetching your pocket tobacco and running over to Louisiana to buy you lottery tickets.”

  “Doing her duty, Miss Rita was, but it’s your call,” said Shelby.

  “Can we move to the part where you brief me?” said Darla.

  “Brief is right,” said Shelby. “There’s precious little to go on. Forensics is still out in the field. There are enough scattered remains for a positive ID, but so far the only part of Tommy Reylander’s person they’ve found intact was his white ostrich high-tops. Explain that.”

  “What about the parking lot surveillance tape at the nursing home?” asked Darla. “Are they sending it over?”

  “Nothing to send,” said Shelby. “Somebody, Sheriff Holcomb assumes it was the assailant, knocked out the parking lot camera sometime during Tommy’s performance. The security guard at the front desk noticed that the screen had gone dark and wrote it up in her report. That’s all she was required to do.”

  “Anything in the witness statements?” asked Darla.

  Shelby opened a file on his computer and put on his reading glasses. “Sheriff Holcomb emailed this earlier.” Shelby shook his head as he read, paraphrasing to Darla. “Most of the staff and residents in the nursing home witnessed the explosion. Plus Edwina Nothauzer—Tommy’s girlfriend, the one that dresses like Priscilla Presley—she saw it, too.”

  “She dresses like Priscilla Presley?” asked Darla.

  “The young Priscilla,” said Shelby. “With the helmet hair.”

  “You’re knowledgeable about Priscilla Presley’s fashion habits from era to era?” asked Darla.

  He shot her a dirty look. “Please, may we continue?”

  “How did Ms. Nothauzer handle seeing Tommy getting blown to pieces?” asked Darla.

  Shelby scanned the email. “She was ‘semi-mortified,’ according to the report.”

  “Semi?” said Darla.

  Shelby, still reading and paraphrasing: “The witnesses, the entire staff and the resident population, were approximately a hundred fifty yards from the explosion, up on the porch of the nursing home. They were all looking right at Tommy’s Caddy when the event took place. Everybody saw it the same way—it didn’t start with a fire. Just a big ole Hollywood kind of explosion.” He nodded at Darla. “I’m guessing you seen the very same thing in action movies a hundred times.”

  “Actually we don’t see a lot of action flicks at our house,” said Darla.

  “I forgot, you and your husband are more into the artsy-fartsy genre,” said Shelby, picking up his makeshift spittoon to shoot yet another stream of tobacco juice into it.

  “Any other injuries reported?” asked Darla.

  “Nothing of a physical nature,” said Shelby, continuing his way through the email. “Many of the residents had their anxiety medication doubled last night. Apparently a couple of the old-timers forgot that Elvis had met his maker in—what was it, 1977? They thought they were witnessing Elvis’s actual demise. One of the old ladies became so exercised she had to be strapped into bed for her own protection.”

  Shelby’s smartphone tinged, a text message. Shelby read the message, fingered his device rather clumsily for a few seconds, turned it to its side, and then stared at the screen, shaking his head. He handed the phone across his desk to Darla. “See for yourself,” he said.

  Up on the screen a camera was panning across a parking lot, revealing a line of parallel-parked cars, each car with its side marred with numerous small bits of pink shrapnel.

  “Looks like the cars all got polka dots, don’t it?” said Shelby. “Tiny bits of Tommy’s Caddy. Posted on YouTube ten minutes ago under Pink Peltings. Earlier, I got a call from a patrolman over on the reservoir. You remember those rhinestones on that gaudy Elvis costume that was Tommy’s favorite?”

  “The white silk outfit with the cape?” Darla asked. “The one he wore for a court appearance that time and Judge Winthrop balled him out and sent Tommy home to change?”

  “It was the same Elvis suit he wore last night,” said Shelby. “A couple of bubbas were out fishing for bass on the reservoir at sunrise this morning and came across various teeny-tiny bits of the aforementioned costume floating on the river. They mistook the rhinestones for diamonds on the water. Believed it was the hand of the Almighty. One of the fishermen thought they was witnessing the fulfillment of some sort of end-of-days Bible prophecy and was thinking about going home and putting on his Sunday best while he waited for the Rapture.”

  “Have Tommy’s next of kin been notified?” asked Darla, returning to the less magical aspects of the case.

  “Tommy’s mama and daddy were killed a few years back during Katrina, when a tree fell on their trailer,” said Shelby. “There ain’t any brothers or sisters. His uncle, our former mayor, was sent to the Lord’s glory a couple of years back. As best we can tell there’s a cousin who lives in a small town somewhere in Arkansas.”

  “Is there a will? Insurance? Did Tommy own anything of value?” Darla asked. It was the usual place to start.

  “Tommy’s attorney, L. N. McClure, called the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department. Like every other reasonable citizen in Jackson, he assumed they’d be handling the case. They copied me. McClure’s got a will and some insurance papers on file at his office. He’ll be in this morning if you want to check.”

  “And the girlfriend?” said Darla.

  “I haven’t had the pleasure, but apparently Miss Edwina was the love of Tommy’s life. Not like she’d had a lot of competition for the position. She’s a good-looking woman, though, according to the gossip mill—which usually gets those things right.”

  “Did they live together?” asked Darla.

  “In mortal sin, which i
s punishable by the eternal fires of hell,” said Shelby, “or so I hear in church, every now and then, when my guilty conscience gets the best of me and I am forced to attend.” He checked the phone’s screen again. “They have an apartment together over in Ridgeland. It’s a recent arrangement, I believe.”

  “I’ll need access to Tommy’s computer files,” said Darla.

  “We both know there ain’t much in them.” Shelby hit the speed dial on his desk phone. “Miss Rita,” he said, “you’re on speaker. How’d you like to assist the famous Detective Darla Cavannah?”

  “Will I need a weapon?” Rita said. She sounded excited.

  “What I need,” said Shelby, grinding his words a little, “is for you to have Tommy’s case files emailed to the detective.”

  “In other words, more of the same?” said Rita.

  “Can you also have someone at the Hinds County sheriff’s office pull Tommy’s cellphone records for the last six months?” asked Darla. “And I’d like to have his office computer sent to my office.”

  “You getting this, Rita?” asked Shelby.

  “Loud and clear,” said Rita. “I’ll get right on it, unless you’re needing a tobacco run?” The line went dead. Rita hadn’t waited for his answer.

  “Reminds me a little of you,” said Shelby. “The part where she disses me.”

  “Does the file show if Tommy had been working on anything of consequence in the last year or two?” Darla asked. “I’ve made a point of not following his career.”

  “Sheriff Holcomb kept Officer Elvis in vice most of the time, same as I did—monitoring bingo games and strip club operators. Making sure the titty bar owners aren’t violating county code. Stuff where Tommy couldn’t get himself into any real trouble. According to Tommy’s sheet, his only major bust in the last two years had to do with one Hardwick L. Lang.”

  “Hardy Lang? Hinds County Hardy?”

  “The one and only,” said Shelby.

  Hardy Lang was reputed to be the largest meth dealer in the Jackson metro. His meth crystals were sold on the street in specially made resealable plastic bags, with the initials HCH stamped on both sides.

  “I heard his product was off the market, but I thought it was the state narcs that busted him,” said Darla.

  “True on both counts,” said Shelby. “The Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics shut down Hardy’s lab about six months ago. The way I heard it, the lab was in a trailer, parked out in god-awful nowhere, in the middle of a pine forest up near Tupelo. It was on land Hardy owned, allegedly for the purpose of hunting. The story goes Hardy was in the trailer at the time the state narcs busted the lab. The lab reeked of that ammonia and vinegar kind of smell, the way meth labs do, but it was clean. Hardy apparently had just shipped the product. He had a gram bag in his pocket for personal use and on the counter was a carton of those Baggies he uses. The DA has Hardy on possession but is trying to get him on intent to distribute. Meantime, Hardy’s out on bail. The case won’t come to trial for God knows how long. Interesting, though, his product is off the market. No little empty HCH-stamped bags turning up in the usual places. Understand Hardy’s been busted before, but his product was always back on the street the next day. But now, for some unknown reason, Hinds County Hardy is in repose.”

  “How does Tommy fit into all this?” asked Darla.

  “Believe it or don’t, it was Tommy that uncovered the lab, with Hardy in it. Tommy’s version is that his discovery was the result of dogged but brilliant police work. The general opinion of the law enforcement community is that it was more of the blind squirrel finding the nut situation. Who knows the real answer? However, and this is another interesting aspect: According to the arresting narcs, during the arrest Hardy was supposed to have said to Tommy—this is a quote now from the report—‘You put me out of my business, and I’ll put you out of my misery.’ ”

  “Nice turn of phrase,” said Darla.

  “The narcs didn’t think much about it at the time, Hardy being a man of an intemperate nature and prone to the practice of verbal intimidation. As I recall, Hardy threatened to relieve me of my manhood on a couple of different occasions. Anyway, as fate would have it, six months after the bust, Hinds County Hardy is out of the meth business, and Officer Elvis is dead. Still, it’s near impossible to believe that after a twenty-year reign as the Jackson drug king, Hinds County Hardy would get taken down by Tommy Reylander.” Shelby removed his glasses and sat back in his chair. “That’s all she wrote,” he said.

  “There’s got to be more in Tommy’s file,” said Darla.

  “As you well remember from your days in the sheriff’s department, Tommy didn’t make a lot of enemies among the most vicious wing of the criminal element. He never posed much of a threat to anyone. He wasn’t smart enough for that.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll talk to McClure, the girlfriend, and Hardy. It’s a start.” She stood up, stretched her long limbs, loosening her torso, and headed for the door. Darla paused and looked back at Shelby. “We needed to do this.”

  “That damn unwritten law,” said Shelby.

  Chapter 3

  Knowing When to Fold ’Em

  It was standard procedure for the investigator in a homicide case to meet with the deceased’s attorney to review the will and any other legal matters that might be relevant.

  Darla walked across the street from the MBI office and down Walsh Street to the dowdy two-story 1970s duplex that housed the office of L. N. McClure, Tommy’s attorney.

  Darla had never met him, but McClure was known around the state capital as a legal handyman—a competent but unambitious attorney. In Jackson, that usually meant the attorney augmented his professional income with family money. McClure carried out the small but necessary legal activities of modern life—wills, deeds of trust, land transfers, simple contracts. Rumor had it, his free time, of which there was a great deal, was taken up with online poker and Jack Daniel’s.

  The sign on the second story office door read L. N. MCCLURE, LLC, ATTORNEY AT LAW and under that it read LICENSED REAL ESTATE BROKER.

  Darla opened the office door, thinking it led to a reception room. Instead, she found herself standing in McClure’s private office, a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot room with a set of law books lining the back shelf and two semicomfortable-looking chairs positioned in front of McClure’s L-shaped desk/computer station.

  McClure sat at his desk facing away from her, eyes on the computer screen. Seemingly unaware of her presence, he was engaged in a hand of Texas Hold’em.

  Darla cleared her throat. When that didn’t get McClure’s attention, she whistled.

  He pressed the pause button on his Hold’em game and wheeled around to face her. “My, my,” he said, looking her up and down. “Most impressive.”

  McClure had a thick head of what Darla guessed used to be red hair, but was now completely white. His features were what family and friends might have described as cherubic when he was child. Now he just looked fat-faced. He wore a seersucker suit and a bow tie, the kind you had to tie yourself. In Mississippi that meant you probably went to an Ivy League school, or at the very least Vanderbilt or the University of Virginia. Also that you came from money and didn’t mind being thought of as effete.

  Darla guessed that if she hung around long enough McClure would allude to his family background. That’s what people in Jackson did if they had a family background worthy of mention. Somewhere in the conversation, it would somehow surface. My granddaddy was mayor of Hattiesburg, or He owned the fourth-largest cotton plantation in Carroll County. Generally it was something far grander than the reduced circumstances the speaker found himself in at the moment.

  It was the other way around in Philadelphia, where Darla came from. Mostly when people mentioned their ancestors it was to talk about humble beginnings. My grandfather was a grammar school janitor, or My grandmother waited tables in the cafeteria down the street from Wanamaker’s—the idea being that your family was on the ascent, not th
e decline.

  Darla handed McClure a card, which he looked at and pocketed. “Oh, I see,” he said. “The MBI is to assume the burden. Tommy would be most happy.” He made a time-out sign with his hands. “Bear with me, if you will. I just flopped a top pair and I’m about to lay a trap. The hand should be finished in another minute or two.” He turned back to the computer and resumed play.

  Darla eased into one of the chairs in front of McClure’s desk and waited. A few seconds later she heard McClure mutter: “How extraordinary. He check-raised me on fourth street.” Darla lifted herself out of the chair and peered over McClure’s shoulder. The river card was turned up, the ten of diamonds, to go with McClure’s hole cards, a pair of tens, giving him three tens. Without hesitating, McClure went all in. His online opponent, identified onscreen as Texas Lexus, called him and turned over two diamonds to make a flush.

  McClure pushed back, swiveling in his chair to face Darla. He shook his head. “Two diamonds came up on the flop, but Texas Lexus was representing the bottom pair. By the time we got to the river, I was pot committed,” he said. “I suppose it happens to the best of us. You ever play no-limit, Detective?” he asked.

  “No,” Darla said. Gambling was a subject she didn’t care to discuss.

  “Of course, online is merely for the purpose of practice,” said McClure. “The serious wagering is still at the casinos.”

  “I’m aware of that,” said Darla. Her first husband, Hugh Cavannah, had taken up no-limit Texas Hold’em following his injury-forced retirement from the NFL. Hugh had gambled away most of the family money before he lost his life in a car crash on his way home from a Vicksburg casino. Most people in Jackson thought it was suicide, brought on by depression due to the premature ending of his spectacular football career and his many gambling debts. Three years and a marriage later, Darla still blamed herself for being too busy with her career to know what was going on with Hugh.