Paper son, p.15
Paper Son, page 15
“Two,” I said.
“Two what? I get two points for my psychic genius?”
“Two someones who might know. You only get a half a point.” I leaned on the car, took out my phone, and called Frank Roberson.
“Cousin Lydia!” he answered, which told me he’d been as efficient in entering numbers into his phone as I had. “Great to hear from you so soon.” Voices murmured in the background, and I wondered if he was at a campaign event.
“Is this a good time? I have a question.”
“Setting up for a rally, but go ahead.”
“Thanks, I’ll be quick. Jefferson Tam’s lawyer just told us there’s a lifer on Parchman who wants to talk to Reynold.”
“Yes, the staffer who took the call passed it to me. I told the attorney we’d need more information before we’d consider it. Actually, between us, I’m not sure what would make us ever consider it, but certainly not a blank-check request.”
“You don’t think it’s strange? Especially with Leland’s murder and all?”
“Well, the request came the day before Leland was killed, so it’s a little hard to see how they could be connected. And no, this kind of thing isn’t so unusual. All kinds of people want to talk to politicians all the time. Part of my job is to keep them away.”
“What would a convict want?”
“I imagine he thinks he has information about something—maybe a fellow prisoner—and if he gives it to Reynold, Reynold can help him get some kind of a better deal.”
“How?”
“No way, really. A congressman doesn’t have that kind of influence at a state prison. But he may not have thought it through. It may be more of a power thing. Dragging a congressman down to Parchman—you can imagine how that makes a guy look to the other convicts.”
“Has it happened to Reynold before, this kind of request?”
“Lots of strange people, but not convicts before. I’ve heard of it from other peoples’ staffers, though.”
“So you have no idea what this was about?”
“None. I have to tell you, the couple of times I’ve heard about, it never came to anything. Once, a guy had real information, but there was no reason to involve a congressman. He ended up talking to the prosecutor. If there’s anything here at all, it’s probably something like that.”
“Okay, thanks. If you hear any more about it, would you let me know?”
“I don’t expect to, but will do.”
“Good luck with your rally. Tell Reynold hi.”
I slipped the phone back into my bag and told Bill what Frank Roberson had said.
“You think he’s right?” Bill toed out the cigarette he’d been working on.
“Could you please put more skepticism into your voice?”
“I think that’s all I have.”
“Well, as it happens, I agree with you. It’s not that I don’t believe in coincidences, but this is a particularly odd one. I’d love to know what it’s about.”
“Well, then, you’re thinking: let’s get in the car.”
That was exactly what I was thinking, though as to Bill’s psychic abilities I remained in doubt. Leaving yet another parking meter with time on it, we headed out to see if we could find the other someone, Tremaine McAdoo, at home in Oldman’s Brake.
26
“What’s a brake?”
We’d left Clarksdale and were traveling a flat road between stubbly fields. By June, according to Bill, this would all be waist-high cotton, green and white under broad blue skies. Now, though, the occasional bare tree was the only thing mediating between gray clouds and dull brown earth.
“Canebrake,” Bill said. “The South has a native grass, called cane. It’s kind of like bamboo.”
“You’re just saying that because I’m Asian.”
“It grows up to eight feet high. A thick stand of it is called a brake.”
“Because . . . ?”
“It stops you from going through it.” Bill turned the car off the asphalt onto a smaller, bumpier track. As we drove, brush and scrub trees began to crowd the road.
“That’s a little anticlimactic. Speaking of going through, you realize we’re going to go right through Burcell?”
“We’re coming up on it now.”
“And we did want to speak to Johnny Ferguson.”
“I say we try Tremaine McAdoo first and Johnny second.”
“Agreed. But as we pass through town, keep an eye out for stray young Chinese men.”
The real chances of seeing Jefferson Tam, if he was in fact hiding out in Burcell, were slim to none, and while we rolled slowly through town, no Asians appeared. Very few of anybody appeared, in fact, though those who did—a man on his porch and a woman carrying groceries into her house—turned to watch us pass. The road took us by the bar Tolson Reeves had mentioned. It was called Rupert’s, it had an unlit Bud sign in the dusty window, and it may have been open, but if so, you couldn’t tell. Burcell was pretty, as Reeves had said, with neatly painted wooden houses, Christmas lights in the windows, flowerpots by the doors. We saw one or two trailers, though even those looked well-kept, and the occasional derelict car up on blocks in a side yard, but you see those in New Jersey, too.
“Small,” I said as we left the last house behind, about ninety seconds after we’d driven by the first. “Doesn’t even look as though it has any streets besides the main one.”
“There’ll be houses down some unpaved twists and turns, but yes, I think that’s pretty much it.”
“Did you notice that some of the yards had Mallory signs, and none of them had Tam signs?”
“I did.”
“This is Mississippi?”
“The Mississipiest.”
Potholed asphalt gave way to rutted, gravelly dirt. The brush and trees thickened until I felt like the track we were driving was barely tolerated by the woods, subject to being choked off whenever the plant life felt like it. The scent of damp earth rolled in our open windows. Bill deftly avoided a few craters, steered around a wide curve, and I found myself blinking as a clearing released a flood of light from the gray sky. We’d arrived at Oldman’s Brake. At least, I hoped that’s where we were, because the road had ended.
Bill turned off the car and we sat facing a group of wooden houses. Scattered with what looked like no particular organization, they covered the muddy flat between the end of the road and a dense stand of eight-foot-high grass, no doubt the famous cane. A few cars and pickup trucks rested on the flat beside us.
Muddy, grassless paths between the mostly one-story houses connected them or swerved around them. Some houses had porches. Some were shacks. Some were painted, some had once been painted, and some had never been painted, insulation patching their flanks. Two houses were strung with Christmas lights, and through the window of a third I could see a decorated tree. The cool air smelled of damp and faintly of coffee, and it rustled with the sound of wind in the cane.
“That’s the levee.” Bill pointed to the slope on our left as we got out of the car. I realized I’d never given much thought to what a levee actually was.
“Basically it’s a hill? Man-made?”
“Right. If the river rises it’s supposed to keep the land from flooding.”
“That big flood in twenty-seven—they didn’t have levees then?”
“They didn’t hold. These are higher. Still, if the river tops the levee here, Oldman’s Brake is in for a bad time.”
I thought about what that bad time would look like: people standing on the levee, maybe in the pouring rain, or in the deceitful sunshine because the rain was upstream, watching the water just keep rising. Running down, grabbing family photos, throwing armfuls of clothes into their cars, their pickup trucks, racing away. Or hoping the levee would hold, until it was too late, then climbing out the windows onto their roofs to pray. And what had it been like in 1927, when cars and weather forecasts were fewer, the levees lower, and the flood epic?
I shook my head. We had business here.
I was about to wonder out loud how to go about finding Tremaine McAdoo when the answer—and the source of the coffee aroma—offered itself. A screen door creaked and Big Bone Stafford, mug in hand, appeared on the front porch of one of the painted houses.
“Hey! Pete’s detectives! What are y’all doing down here?” He frowned. “Don’t tell me y’all was just now in Burcell.”
“No, sir,” I said. We walked across the lumpy ground to stand before his porch. “We passed through but didn’t stop, just like you said.”
“Don’t recall saying y’all should come down to Oldman’s Brake, but I didn’t say stay away, neither, I guess. Y’all got more questions? Want some coffee?”
“We’ll take a rain check on the coffee, thanks,” I said, though Bill will sit and drink anyone’s coffee at any time of night or day. “And we do have questions, but they’re not for you. We’re looking for Tremaine McAdoo.”
“Tremaine?” He raised his eyebrows. “Y’all are thinking Tremaine got something to do with Leland and Jefferson?”
“We’re not sure. We just want to talk to him.”
Big Bone sipped his coffee. “Well, if Jefferson’s hanging around Burcell, I don’t suppose it’s a particularly long step to Tremaine. That’s his place over there.” He took another sip, then rested his cup on the porch railing and lumbered down. “I best come with y’all. Tremaine ain’t the friendliest of gents.”
“We’ve seen him,” I reminded Big Bone.
“Well, then.”
We walked together toward a house backing onto the cane. No Christmas decorations here. Curtains in the open windows swayed in the breeze. The pale blue paint, though a few years old, had been applied with care. “Watched those boys grow up here,” Big Bone said. “Trevor, might’ve been some good in him once, but big brother Tremaine, that boy was always a difficulty.”
“Is this where their mother lived? The lady who died recently?”
“This’s it. Sons stopped with her, too, and Lunetta from when she come down from Chicago to when she have her stroke. Now she at a nursing home. Tremaine don’t even go see her, from what I can tell. I go from time to time, bring her a box of fudge, sit with her, just so she don’t feel all alone in this world.”
A door banged as a man carrying a lunch box stepped out of a house. Big Bone Stafford waved to him. The man returned the wave and walked over to us.
“Big Bone.”
“Hardison.”
The overall-dressed man nodded to me and Bill. “How y’all doing? Friends of Big Bone’s?”
“Lydia Chin,” said Big Bone. “Cousin of Pete Tam, over to Clarksdale. And Bill Smith. Hardison Lambert.”
“Pleasure, sir.” Bill shook Lambert’s hand. I echoed the sentiment and did the same.
“Y’all friends of Tremaine, too?”
“Actually, we were hoping to have a word with him,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
Lambert squinted at Bill. “Guy came yesterday to see Tremaine. Thought it might be you. But you bigger than him.”
“A guy came yesterday?” Bill asked.
Lambert nodded. “White feller, ain’t seen him down here before. He go on over to Tremaine’s place. Us down here”—he nodded to Big Bone—“we keep a eye out. Well, y’all have a good day now.” He turned to leave.
“Wait,” I said. “If you have a minute.”
Lambert turned back.
“This man. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
Lambert shook his head. “No, ma’am. He have his hoodie up, and big old sunglasses. Plus, it starting to get dark. No, can’t say as I would.”
“So,” I said, “he might have been Chinese?”
Lambert looked at me and smiled. “I suppose he might’ve. Never thought of that. Don’t get many white folks down here. Don’t know as we ever had us a Chinese before. Until you, ma’am,” he added courteously. “Alls I can say is, the feller ain’t black, and he ain’t as big as you.” That last was directed at Bill.
Bill asked, “Did you see what he was driving?”
“White four-door, or maybe tan. That time of day, hard to tell. Not local, though. Alabama plates.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry to delay you.”
Lambert nodded and continued to his car.
Big Bone eyed me. “You’re not thinking your cousin Jefferson come here to see Tremaine?”
“I hope not. But I’d like to be sure.”
“If Tremaine’s in the drug business, couldn’t it have been a customer?” Bill asked Big Bone.
“Better not be. That’s what Hardison meant, we keep a eye out. Tremaine don’t conduct business down here. Been asked politely.”
Big Bone didn’t crack a smile. I was sorry I’d missed that community meeting.
We reached the blue house. Big Bone stopped and called, “Yo! Tremaine! Got some folks here want to talk to you!”
No sound but the wind scraping through the cane.
“Tremaine!”
Big Bone walked up onto the porch and pounded on the door.
“Tremaine!”
Still no response.
“I suppose we have no reason to expect him to be here,” I said.
Big Bone thumbed toward the flat. “That his pickup right there.” I remembered the truck peeling out from the Down Home Club. Big Bone tried the door knob. It didn’t turn.
“Hmmph.” Big Bone left the porch, and we followed him around the house, where he pulled on the handle of a rear door. “Tremaine!” The door opened with no argument.
Big Bone took one step inside and stopped, his bulk filling the doorway. “Oh, shit,” he breathed, and for the first time in Mississippi, a man didn’t apologize to me for swearing.
He backed out. I saw Tremaine McAdoo lying beside an overturned chair on the kitchen floor. A messy red hole in his chest explained the congealing pool of blood under him. His wide eyes looked surprised, as if being shot hadn’t been what he’d expected.
Bill said, “Stay back,” and took one long careful stride into the kitchen. A fly rose lazily from the blood puddle as Bill checked for a pulse in Tremaine’s neck. I knew someone had to do it and I felt guiltily glad it didn’t have to be me.
Bill stood. “No. He’s cold. You use 911 here?”
Big Bone Stafford nodded, his eyes on Tremaine’s motionless form. “How about I call it in, and y’all go back on out of Oldman’s Brake like y’all was never here.”
“Thank you,” I said, watching the fly circle and resettle. “But I think not. People already saw us and we’d only end up in trouble—and getting you in trouble.”
He shrugged his huge shoulders. “Been in trouble before.”
“It’s not our job to get you in any more. Pete would be mad. Though I appreciate the offer. And anyway, it’s not like we have anything to hide.”
Big Bone turned to me. “Ma’am, around here, folks with nothing to hide hide things all the time. Honesty often ain’t the best policy in the state of Mississippi.”
“I hear you,” I said. “But no.”
Bill took out his phone and called it in. I took out my phone, too, and called Pete. I filled him in on what had happened and told him we’d be a while.
27
The three of us walked to the flat, keeping to the grass to avoid pathways the killer might have used. Leaning on our car waiting for the law to arrive, Big Bone Stafford asked again what we’d wanted with Tremaine.
I said, “It was just that we’d heard he didn’t get along with Leland Tam.”
“That mean y’all are thinking he have something to do with killing him?”
“He might have,” Bill said. “But also, it’s my experience that when someone doesn’t like you, they take an interest in your killing, even if they’re not involved. Maybe Tremaine had a theory he would’ve been willing to share.”
I caught Bill’s eye. That would be our story, then. It had the great advantage of being true, and it would keep Tremaine’s brother, Trevor, and his interest in my cousin Reynold, out of it until we had more of an idea what that actually meant.
“That feller that come yesterday,” Big Bone said. “Gonna have to tell the law about him.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know we are.”
We heard the sirens before we saw the sheriff’s department car come tearing around the curve, kicking up muck and clumps of grass. The driver rocked to a stop right up by where we stood, and I found myself wondering if a car that heavy, driven with such a lead foot, might ever find itself stuck in the mud.
“Ain’t we lucky,” Big Bone Stafford muttered under his breath when Bert Lucknell and Tom Thomson clambered out. “Y’all met these gents?”
“Yes, thanks,” I said. “Hello, Detective. Deputy.”
Lucknell tramped up to stand in front of us, Thomson in his wake. The detective did a slow survey of us all. “So,” he said, fixing on me, “coming out here to Oldman’s Brake, this is the way you’re proposing to get to know your relatives?”
“My cousin Pete suggested we talk to Tremaine McAdoo,” I said. “Sir.”
“How about that, Tom? Excepting for us, seems this little lady does everything her elders and betters tell her to do. Talk to Tremaine about what?”
“He had a problem with Leland Tam. We wanted to know what it was.”
“That so? And what was it?”
“We didn’t get to ask. He was dead when we found him.”
“Uh-huh.” He turned his attention to Stafford, looking him up and down. “Big Bone, you know these people?”
“They come to my show last night. I saw they was here, so I come out to say hello.”
“You there when they found Tremaine?” Lucknell managed to make found sarcastic.
“Yessir.”
“Good. Lead me to him.”
“Blue house, that one right there. He lying just inside the kitchen door round to the back.”
Lucknell stared at Big Bone. “I’d be obliged for the company. Now, while we go take a look, why don’t y’all wait right there in the car. Dangerous out here. Tom, keep a close eye on them. Don’t want anything to happen.”
Lucknell waited for Big Bone to start in the direction of the McAdoo place. Big Bone scowled, but he headed over. Tom Thomson opened the door of the cruiser for me and Bill. The sirens had drawn people to the doors and porches of Oldman’s Brake, and our ignominious entry into the car was watched by a half-dozen pairs of eyes. Tom Thomson swept his gaze across them all. Some met his look and some turned away, but no one came over to see, or called out to ask, what was going on.
