Paper son, p.22
Paper Son, page 22
“Actually,” I said, “it does matter, because that’s what started us connecting you up with the Fergusons to begin with. But we’ll tell you about that later. Keep going.”
“What do you—” he started, but this was the time for his story, not ours. I shook my head.
“Yeah, okay.” He went on. “They stashed me in Johnny’s cousin Keith’s house. These are Keith’s clothes.” Jefferson raised his arms. “Keith said he couldn’t stand to look at the jail jumpsuit, it reminded him of a spell he did himself.”
“Did they—Keith and Howie—know why you were there? Did Fisheye?”
“Fisheye doesn’t know anything. I gather he’s against the whole online-gambling thing in the first place. And he’d be mad if he knew I was in Burcell, because the law was looking for me. Keith and Howie know about the algorithms but not about Tolson and Anna Rae. That’s Johnny’s private thing. What I was really afraid of was that after I finished the algorithms, he’d turn me in to the sheriff and go after Tolson anyway. But I couldn’t think what to do about that.”
“So you stayed and worked. But now you’re here. What changed?”
“Keith’s wife got a phone call. She sounded upset, so I listened in. After she hung up, she called a lawyer. She told him they all got arrested—Johnny, Keith, Howie, and Fisheye—for, quote, ‘beating up some colored boy.’ She said she wanted Keith to have his own lawyer, not for them all to have the same one, because the colored boy was the sheriff’s nephew, so this could be real trouble. I don’t know why they went after Tolson now, but obviously I can’t protect him anymore.” He shook his head slowly. “I guess I didn’t do all that good a job. I hope he’s okay.”
I said, “He is.” Jefferson and Pete both opened their mouths to speak, so I told them, “That’s the fight we found.” I gestured to my mud and Bill’s bandage. “We’ll tell you later. But it wasn’t your fault.” Except, I thought, you weren’t in Oxford to provide cover, which is why they got spotted, but this might not have been the time to mention that. “Tolson will be fine. So then what?”
“I slipped out the back and a few houses down, I grabbed some kid’s bike. I pulled up my hood and prayed I could make it here without being seen. When I got to the creek, I ditched the bike, snuck along through the brush, and came here.” Since it was about twelve miles from Burcell to Pete’s house, and that was if you used the roads, it was kind of unnecessary when Jefferson added, “I’m exhausted.”
“Good,” said Pete. “You can stop talking. I want these two to tell me whose dirt they’ve been rolling around in.”
It was a fair question. Bill and I took turns filling the Tams in on our visit to Rupert’s and the subsequent excitement. The tea, the cookies, and all of us were pretty much done by the time the story was over.
41
We took a break from the confessional so three of the four of us could get cleaned up. I grabbed my robe and headed for the bathroom while Jefferson and Bill went to the basement. Pete collected everyone’s clothes to stick in the washer in the utility room.
I was glad for the water, the soap, and the chance to think. I didn’t like the way I’d snapped at Bill before; all he’d been doing, really, was asking me to keep a lid on it until Jefferson explained himself. If I didn’t believe Jefferson, I could bark at him then.
The problem, of course, was how deeply I wanted to believe Jefferson. I wanted him to have not killed his father so I could tell my mother she was right. It would be even better if his tale of selfless cyberheroism was true. That would make my mother strut like a rooster. But, except for Pete’s gut, we had no way of knowing. Maybe Jefferson really had been blackmailed into making the algorithms and surprised when he was broken out of jail. Or maybe he’d been a partner in the plan all along and was changing his story now that the Fergusons were in deep doo-doo.
What Fisheye and company had tried to do to Tolson argued for Jefferson’s story. And Johnny, now that I thought about it, had been grim-faced as he drove past us on the way out of Burcell, as opposed to the eager anticipation I saw on his cousins. He might have been seeing his golden goose about to be cooked for dinner, with himself as part of the kitchen staff. After all, he couldn’t very well stop them by telling his father he’d known for a while about his sister’s interracial affair and was using it for leverage on a scheme Fisheye had already vetoed. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have been hard for Jefferson, full partner, to concoct his story once he learned Fisheye and the others had found out about Tolson and Anna Rae.
As I scrubbed red Mississippi dirt from my skin and hair, I reflected that the truth might come out soon, if the Fergusons were even now jockeying for position in the prosecution steeplechase. Which, if they all had separate lawyers, they well might be. It would be interesting to see how deep Ferguson family feeling ran when long jail terms were on the table.
But even if every word Jefferson said was true, that still left us with the original problem: who’d killed Leland? When all this Ferguson dust cleared, Jefferson would still be the chief suspect in that crime. If I were a Ferguson in the sellout scramble, I’d try to use Jefferson’s whereabouts as a bargaining chip. If I were Bert Lucknell and that happened, and a raid on Burcell didn’t pan out, Pete’s would be the next place I’d come. If I were me, I wouldn’t give too much for the chances of anyone in this house once Lucknell arrived.
I dried off and, with Bill’s objection to my bathrobe in mind, put on brown corduroys and a white cotton sweater before I headed back to the living room. The guys were there already, Bill in jeans, dark blue T-shirt, and a spiffy new white bandage. Jefferson wore clothes that had to be Pete’s. They fit him fairly well, both of them being in the slight-Tam, not lanky-Tam, mold; but the chinos and striped shirt that looked so sharp on Pete gave Jefferson the air of a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant hoping to come across as “American.” Odd, I thought. Here was Jefferson, born in Clarksdale, wearing his uncle’s clothes and looking like he’s pretending to be what he actually is. Somewhere in there was a comment on paper sons, but I had other things on my mind.
“So,” I said to Jefferson as I sat again, “to get all the details straight: the Fergusons broke you out of jail, but to work on the algorithms you needed your laptop. You told them where you’d hidden it and they went to the store for it, but they couldn’t get past Pete’s new alarm locks before the Down Home Club guys chased them away. Before they broke you out, they had tried to come for it, too, the night after—after Leland died, but they didn’t know where it was, so they tore the store apart looking.”
Jefferson looked confused. “The first part’s right but the second’s wrong. Someone tore the store apart?”
“Made a helluva mess,” said Pete.
“Why?”
“Looking for something.”
“Well, if it was before I was busted out, it wasn’t the Fergusons. They only went there after I was in Burcell, when I told them I needed my own laptop, so I didn’t have to reconstruct what I’d done on the one they had. That was Lucky Culligan’s. Remember, Uncle Pete, I helped him set it up?”
“It was a Ferguson lifted Lucky Culligan’s laptop?”
“Johnny himself. He stole it out of Lucky’s car because he’d heard him bragging about how he was going to beat the other whales on the online sports books.”
“The other whales? Lucky thought he was a whale?” Pete sounded incredulous.
“He’d bought some of the team-picking algorithms. Anybody can. Johnny thought if he had Lucky’s laptop, he could figure it out. Hah. Anyway, you’re right, they couldn’t get into the store. So I’ve been trying to reconstruct what I had, using Lucky’s machine.” He gave us a slight smile. “Got pretty close, too. A couple more days, I’d have had it.”
Pete frowned. “Jefferson, I gotta say, you were doing some pretty shady work for meth cookers on a stolen laptop. Least you could do is feel bad about it.”
“You can skip the finger-shaking-uncle routine,” I said to Pete. “Anyone can see you’re as proud of Jefferson as he is of himself. But I’d like to bring you guys’ attention to another matter, if no one minds? Forget the whole sports-book thing. If Jefferson didn’t kill Leland, who did? And if the Fergusons didn’t turn the store over the night Leland was killed, who did, and what were they looking for?”
Everyone was silent.
“I mean,” I added reluctantly, “I guess it’s possible it was really just a burglary, someone grabbing the chance because the place was empty.”
“No way.” Pete shook his head. “Like you said before, why make such a mess? Nope. Someone was looking for something.”
“Did Leland keep a lot of cash in the store?” Bill asked. “Or were there rumors that he did?”
“Not that I ever heard,” said Pete, and Jefferson shook his head. “Listen, I get that you detectives are trying to cover the bases, but if Leland was so upset about some picture that he said it with his dying words, don’t you suppose it might be the picture that’s at the bottom of this?”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s look at that. Leland said, ‘He has the picture.’ He was telling Jefferson someone, most likely the killer, has some really important picture. Of what, we don’t know, but maybe whoever broke in that night was also looking for it. Someone who didn’t know the killer already had it.”
“Or it was the killer, coming back to make sure there weren’t more copies,” said Bill. “At least at the store.”
“If it matters so much,” I said, “it must be pretty explosive. So then, did Leland actually have another copy, and did the searcher find it?”
“And,” Pete said, “was Leland killed because of it? Or was that an accident?”
“Callie Leblanc made it pretty clear it was an accident during the struggle,” Bill said. “Maybe they were fighting over the picture.”
“Callie Leblanc?” Jefferson, after all this talk about Leland’s death, was beginning to look a little ashen. “You talked to her?”
“She’s not happy with you,” I told him.
“No, I guess not. Will she still be my lawyer, after . . . ?” He trailed off.
“We’re not going to worry about that right now,” Pete said firmly, planting both hands on his knees. “First, we’re going to figure out this business. You’ll stay here with me until we do.” He glared, daring me to object, but I couldn’t think of a better idea. “Don’t worry.” Pete softened. “I got hiding places and such.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I hope so. But this picture. Do you guys have any idea—?” I stopped, because Pete and Jefferson were both shaking their heads. “Well, what was important enough to Leland that it would be on his mind at the end?”
After a few moments, Jefferson said, “Family. That’s what Daddy cared about most.”
“And,” Pete said, “that’s what I haven’t found. Leland’s scrapbooks, the family pictures, all of that. They haven’t turned up.”
42
“Scrapbooks,” I said. “That would make sense, if we’re talking about a picture so important Leland would say it twice with his last breath. Except who’d keep a picture that explosive in a scrapbook?”
“Maybe he didn’t,” said Pete. “Maybe whoever it was just wanted to make sure.”
“Pete, could we have a look at your scrapbook again?”
Pete was ahead of me, already pulling it out of the drawer. We all bent over it, examining each photo: the parents, stocky H. Tam and his pretty wife, both looking dignified and formal in the first photo, relaxed and smiling in the last. The three boys, lanky Paul, pudgy Jonas, sprightly little Pete. Bikes, baseball bats, the store, Paul’s long arm sticking out of his car. We looked, discussed, and examined, but in the end, we had no blinding insights.
“Okay,” Pete announced, “lunch. No one can think on an empty belly. Bologna-and-cheese sandwiches okay with everyone?”
Bologna’s never okay with me. But it wasn’t like we could go out as long as we were harboring a fugitive, so I negotiated to plain cheese. Jefferson went into the kitchen to help Pete slap the sandwiches together, and Bill went out for a smoke. I went with him. Maybe some fresh air would help.
“Do we believe him?” I asked as we crunched the dry grass down the backyard slope.
“He’s your cousin.”
“Which doesn’t mean I have any better sense of him than you do.”
“No, I think it means the opposite. You distrust how much you want to trust him, so you trust him less than you feel you can.”
“You’re making my eyes cross.”
“Yes, I believe him. For one thing, he could’ve tried to just plain run, leave the state entirely, but he didn’t. For another, he doesn’t seem in any hurry to use the algorithms himself, not even to finish them, now that the Ferguson pressure is off. And plus, there’s Pete’s gut.”
“Oh, great. I’m not trusting my gut and you’re trusting Pete’s.” We reached the edge of the marsh and I watched the water inch downstream. “But really, someone killed Leland over a picture? What could it possibly show?”
“Something to do with H. Tam being a paper son? Proving, I don’t know, that the family doesn’t really own the store?”
“Would someone really kill for Clarksdale real estate? It looks like there are plenty of storefronts you could pick up for a dollar, and better located ones, too. And the paper son thing doesn’t even worry Frank about Reynold’s campaign. So how explosive could it be?”
A gust of wind rattled the bare trees. We’d been down here with Frank Roberson, who’d looked over the brown water and the waving branches and said, “This is home.”
“Reynold,” I said. “He’s family, too. Maybe this has something to do with him. Although Leland hardly knew him. Reynold hadn’t been down here in years, until the day before yesterday.”
“Your mother’s never been down here. She doesn’t know any of these people and the one she’s in contact with—Pete—she doesn’t approve of. But when he called and told her family was in trouble, she sent family to straighten it out.”
I looked at him. “Sometimes,” I said, “you’re really smart.”
He shrugged. “Tell your mother.”
“She knows. It’s not your brains she’s worried about. I’m calling Frank.”
“Cousin Lydia,” Frank said cheerfully after the second ring. “How’s it going?”
“Hi, Frank. Got a minute?”
“Sure. How can I help?”
I didn’t want to mention Jefferson, so I told him we had new information that a witness had turned up who claimed he’d heard Leland’s dying words.
“A picture?” Frank sounded skeptical. “Of what?”
“We have no idea. We were hoping you could think of something.”
“Well, I never met Leland—never met any of the Delta Tams before. I can’t think what kind of picture that could possibly be.”
“We were thinking maybe it had to do with Reynold.”
“Reynold? How?”
“If Leland was trying to protect family, well, Reynold’s family.”
“But they hardly knew each other.”
“Still.”
Frank sighed. “You’re right. Family’s family.”
Except, I realized, in cases like Frank’s own father, who’d written off his one-eighth Chinese grandchildren, and with them, his son.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know that’s a sore point.”
“My daddy, you’re thinking of? That’s all right. I have a new family now. But as to what this picture might be, or what it might have to do with Reynold, I have to tell you I’m drawing a total blank.”
“That’s too bad. It might strike some chord with Reynold, though. I’ll call him next.”
“He’s right here. I’ll just give him my phone.”
Cousin Reynold was delighted to hear from me, according to Cousin Reynold, but he could offer no more insight into what the picture might be than his son-in-law had. “I wish I could help. I’ll give it some thought. Is there any word on young Jefferson?”
“The law hasn’t found him yet.” Putting it that way kept me from having to lie to my relations. “If anything comes to mind about this picture, could you let me know right away?”
“Of course. Good luck. I hope we’ll see you again soon.”
Frank took his phone back, echoed Reynold’s hope, and we hung up.
“Damn.”
Bill peered at me over imaginary glasses.
“What?” I demanded.
“Aren’t you going to apologize? For using a bad word? Everyone else around here does.”
“That word wasn’t nearly as bad as the one I wanted to use. What’s our next move?”
Our next move, apparently, was to stand still, feeling the cool but still soft Mississippi breeze and watching a few yellow leaves drift into the water. Birds sang songs unfamiliar to me, and two squirrels, smaller than the ones up north, scrabbled around a cottonwood tree.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, what?”
“There’s still something we don’t know.”
“I’d say there are a lot of things we don’t know.”
“Yes, and this one may be a dead end, but—Trevor McAdoo, down at Parchman. We still don’t know what he wanted with Reynold. And since Reynold’s family . . .”
“It’s a stretch,” Bill said. “But it’s worth following up.”
“Especially since we don’t seem to have much of anything else to follow up. Go ahead, call the prison and lay that brotherhood of Southern white guys thing on thick.”
Bill took out his phone, but before he could start, Pete appeared at the kitchen window and hollered, “Lunch!”
Before we sat down, Bill called Parchman Farm. As it turned out, the call was as unsatisfying as my American cheese on white bread. He poured on the charm, which can be considerable—one of the things my mother distrusts about him—but without result. The gist, as reported by Bill as we started on the sandwiches, chips, and sweet tea, was that Trevor McAdoo was a troublemaker who’d lately been particularly pleased with himself and disruptive. This had landed him in solitary—again—and he was going to damn well stay there until his stretch was up—another four days—unless the governor, the president, or God himself decreed otherwise. Did Bill want to make an appointment to come down then? If Trevor McAdoo would see him, of course. He might choose not to. Because he wasn’t an easy prisoner. He was a troublemaker who’d lately—
