Paper son, p.26
Paper Son, page 26
In my cousin Pete’s living room in Clarksdale, Mississippi, I stared at my cousin-by-marriage, Frank Roberson, who’d killed my cousin, Pete’s nephew, Tremaine McAdoo. If what Frank was saying was true, Tremaine had killed his own cousin and mine, another of Pete’s nephews, Leland Tam.
Mississippians put stock in family, Frank had said the day we’d met. A man can’t disavow his kin.
Chinese families can be messy. This, though, was chaos on an order I’d never seen.
Maybe because he was raised in the South so he was less thrown by this, or maybe because it wasn’t his family, or maybe to give Pete and me time to absorb what we’d heard, Bill started asking practical questions.
“Where’s the gun now?”
“In the Mississippi.”
“Tremaine’s letter and photo?”
“I have them.”
“With you?”
“No.”
“It was you who broke into the store after Leland was killed?”
“Yes. I didn’t know if Leland had a photo, too. I couldn’t take the chance.”
“Did he?”
“Yes. But it seemed he’d just gotten it. It was in an envelope with a letter from Lentitia McAdoo. She asked Leland to forgive her for all the hate she’d held, and hoped the photo would explain why, because his granddaddy was her daddy who’d denied her. There was one addressed to you, too, Pete,” Frank added.
“Me? What are you saying, Leland had a— Oh.” Pete looked around. “That’s what he called me about, up in Tunica. He got a strange letter, asked did I get one, too. I said to be my guest, come look. He must’ve taken it because he wasn’t so sure he wanted me to see it. And it’s what he meant when he told Duverne he had something of old Miz McAdoo’s. Damn.” Pete let out a long sigh. Suddenly he sat up. “The scrapbooks!” he yelped. “You took the damn family scrapbooks!”
“They’re safe, Pete. That’s where the letters were, tucked into one. It’s been worrying me, how to return them.”
“Well, slap my face. That’s why you asked to see what photos I had, when you and Reynold came here?”
“I had to make sure you didn’t have another one.”
“I see.” Pete took off his cap again to run his hand over his scalp. “But seriously, son, did you have to slice up all the blessed furniture?”
“I’m sorry, Pete. I’m new at this.”
Pete grinned. “Not that anyone’s going to miss that broke-down old couch, tell you the truth.”
Frank smiled. Pete’s grin widened.
Family.
And that was the issue.
“Assuming all this is true, Frank,” I asked, “what are you going to do?”
“I know.” He rubbed his face, suddenly looking exhausted. “Now that I know who killed Leland, I can’t let the law keep thinking it was Jefferson. But how do I explain how I came to be in Tremaine McAdoo’s kitchen getting shot at, or why Tremaine killed Leland, without ruining Reynold’s career? And why would anyone believe me? I’m family to Jefferson. Why wouldn’t I lie to get him out of trouble?”
“Still,” I said.
“And where the hell even is he? Why did he run? Why did he make it so much harder?”
I had my own questions about where Jefferson was at the moment, but none of anyone’s questions were about to be answered.
49
Pete’s alarm system, HB next door, suddenly started barking up a racket. Pete went to peek through the blinds. He just had time to mutter, “Hell and damnation!” before knuckles rapped hard on the door. Pete opened it a few inches. “Good to see you, but we’re busy right now. Could you—?”
“Nope. Sorry.” Deputy Tom Thomson strong-armed the door and pushed past Pete into the room. “Evening, folks.”
Pete peered out the door and then shut it. “Where’s your other half?”
“I’m here on my own, Captain Pete.”
“Thank God for little favors. But I don’t recall inviting you over.”
Thomson looked around the room. “Didn’t realize y’all were throwing a party or I’d have brought a cake. I know the New York detectives here, but would you care to introduce me to this gent?”
“Not particularly.”
“Frank Roberson.” Frank stood and offered his hand. “From Congressman Tam’s staff. Pleased to meet you. You are?”
“Tom Thomson, Coahoma County sheriff’s deputy. I’m here to pick up Jefferson Tam.”
“Jefferson?” Pete sputtered. “What fool sent you here?”
“Been doing a little thinking, Captain Pete.” Thomson folded his thick arms. “Those Ferguson boys, they’re spinning all kinds of tales back there in the lockup. Not so easy to tell true from false, and anyhow each of ’em’s innocent as a lamb, anything bad went on must’ve been the others doing it. Now, ain’t none of them Einsteins, but my money was on Howie to break down first, him being dumber than dirt. So I leaned on him some, after Bert went home to his dinner. Might be I told him some things that wasn’t true, might be he told me the same, but he finally got himself so confused he said he wished Johnny had just up and said about Anna Rae and that Reeves fellow instead of trying to get all fancy with Jefferson and all. ’Course I jumped on that and he spilled the beans.
“I went on down to Burcell and talked to Keith’s wife. She told me Jefferson was there, but he’s gone now. She claims she doesn’t know why or when or where. I didn’t buy a nickel’s worth of it, but I let it go and wandered around Burcell, asking this and that. Ain’t no one seen a Chinese fellow, but it seems some kid’s fancy new bike is missing and his ma is all up in my face, how can the law just be letting thieves walk the streets of Burcell and did I think it was this Chinaman did it? Now, folks, when you think about it, who’s gonna steal a bike in Burcell? Fisheye, he don’t hold with that kind of thing, and that’s enough for anyone down there. I asked the lady if someone might have borrowed it, some cousin or friend, and she said the kid asked around and no one had it.
“So I started considering, and what came to me was this. Was I a fugitive, trying to get out of Burcell, I might run off with a bike, and ride like hell for the river”—Thomson cocked his finger like a gun toward Pete’s back window—“and ditch the bike and walk my way along the bank. If I did all that, I’d be mighty tired by the time the river brought me into Clarksdale, to my uncle Pete’s backyard.” He slid the finger-gun toward the coffee table, and said, “Pete, could I trouble you for some of that sweet tea?”
Pete snorted, but he went to the kitchen and came back with a glass.
“I took myself to the first place between Burcell and here where the road drops close to the river. And damn if there ain’t a bike there! Nice fancy one, too. Thanks, Pete, much obliged.” Thomson poured from the pitcher. “Got that bike in the trunk of my car right now, gonna have it printed and such by the crime lab boys. Also went and checked the riverbank. Lots of broken reeds all along it, like someone’s been bushwhacking down there.” He took a long swig and said, “Now, Pete, here’s the situation. I’m going to take the boy in. Y’all—all y’all, including the detectives and the congressman’s boy here—got a fugitive from the law stowed away someplace. That ain’t legal in the state of Mississippi.”
“Now just a—”
“Come on, Pete. We got no time for this. I can take y’all in, or I can take Jefferson in and we can pretend I found him down by the river and y’all didn’t know a thing about it. Which’ll it be?”
I could guess what Pete was going to say but he didn’t get a chance to say it. Four things happened in quick succession.
HB erupted in frenzied yowling.
Sirens screamed as blue and red flashing lights slid behind the blinds and stopped in front of the house.
The front door shook with loud pounding.
And Jefferson Tam, coming through the back door, appeared in the kitchen.
50
Bill, Frank, and I shot to our feet. Frank wore an expression of wonderment and worry. Of course: he didn’t know Jefferson, and he didn’t know Jefferson was here. The sirens stopped, but the lights still pulsed. The pounding went on, and so did HB’s wild barking.
“They’re here for me, Uncle Pete,” Jefferson said, walking into the living room. “I saw them drive up. I can’t let you get in trouble like that. I’ll tell them you didn’t know—” He stopped when he saw Frank Roberson and Tom Thomson. “Oh God.”
“Well, now, look who’s here.” Thomson grinned and took the handcuffs from his belt.
A too-familiar voice from outside shouted, “Open this door or we’re gonna break it down. I got a warrant, Pete.”
“Oh, shut up, Bert!” Pete yelled. He took a quick look around the living room, shook his head, and opened the front door to Bert Lucknell.
Lucknell’s gun was drawn. Striding in, he swung it up.
My heart froze. “No!” I shouted.
It took me a second to realize he wasn’t pointing it at Jefferson.
Though he was pointing it in that direction. At the man who’d just finished clicking the handcuffs on Jefferson.
“Back off, Tom,” Lucknell said. “And put those hands in the air or I swear I’ll drop you right here.”
Funny how a room can spin and be completely motionless at the same time. No one moved, no one spoke. HB’s nonstop barking was the only sound.
Pete didn’t seem any more on top of things than I was, but he could at least talk. “Bert, what in the hell is going on here?”
“Damn good question,” Tom Thomson said. “Bert, I don’t appreciate that gun up in my face. Maybe I didn’t get me a warrant, and so I’m sorry, but I came here to pick up this fugitive we been hunting all over creation for the last few days.”
“Uh-huh. And I do happen to have a warrant, and I came here to pick up the Fergusons’ pipeline to law enforcement I been hunting for more than a year.”
I drew in a sharp breath.
“Bert, you lost your mind?” Thomson tightened his grip on Jefferson’s arm.
“Not hardly. Had my eye on you for a while now, Tom, but wasn’t nothing I could prove. Then suddenly I got me a jailhouse full of Fergusons. I asked each of ’em, who’s y’all’s inside guy? But Fisheye and Johnny are too smart to answer, and Keith and Howie are too dumb to know.” Lucknell shook his head. “So then, I think to myself, well, maybe it’s Tom and maybe it ain’t, but if it is, maybe he’ll do something interesting right now. ’Cause if it was me, I’d want to up my credit on the good-guy side of the ledger by, say, grabbing me a fugitive who was hiding someplace I knew all along. Then maybe folks would buy my innocent act when the Fergusons start fingering me. I been trailing you all afternoon. You went down to Burcell soon’s I said good night, but that didn’t prove nothing. We been collecting Fergusons, so maybe you was headed out on some business related to that. But then from there you came straight here.”
“Because Howie said Jefferson was hiding out in Burcell. When he was gone from there, it wasn’t hard to figure where he must’ve come.”
“And when did Howie say this?”
“I talked to him back at the jail.”
“You did nothing of the kind, Tom. I got them cells bugged.” Lucknell winked at me. “And the interview rooms, well, you know everything goes on in them is recorded. You never asked nobody nothing, not even a by-your-leave. And yet, seems like you knew just where to go. Now, I can’t think of too many people who’d go to Burcell to look for Jefferson Tam—except maybe the guy who supplied the paperwork to spring him.”
“That thinking, it’s none of it right, Bert.”
“Yeah, well, I guess that’s possible. When Johnny and Fisheye see the light and sell out whoever they got on the inside, could be it’ll turn out to be someone I never even thought of. In that case, I’ll buy you a steak dinner. In the meantime, I’d be obliged if you’d let go that boy, lift up them hands, and come with me.”
Thomson opened his mouth as if to keep the argument going, but after a moment all he said was, “I’m sorry, Bert, I can’t do that.”
“Tom, I got four deputies out front—and one of them’s Beth Ann, fresh from the pistol range—and more out back. And plus, Sheriff Bradley’s hopping mad, on account of these Fergusons was fixing to lynch his kin. I come here without mentioning it to him because right now he’d shoot you soon as look at you, for signing on with them. This ain’t no time to be doing something stupid.”
“If Sheriff Bradley had thought to make me a detective, or just given me another partner, instead of sticking me in a car with a potty-mouth tub of lard—”
“I asked for you, Tom. Said I wanted a talented officer with me. Best way I could think of to keep an eye on you. Now, let’s go.”
Thomson yanked Jefferson between himself and Lucknell’s gun. He pulled his own pistol and pressed the barrel against Jefferson’s head. Lucknell didn’t move. Thomson looked at Bill. “Where’s your car keys?”
“Right here.” Bill, one hand raised, slowly slipped the other into his pocket and slid the keys out.
“Give them to her,” he said, indicating me. As though the thought had just occurred to him, he added, “You can drive, right?”
“Of course I can.” I took the keys from Bill.
“Good. You go first, hands up. I’m coming right after with the boy here. Bert, put that gun down there by that good sweet tea. Uh-huh. Anyone else armed?” Headshakes all around. “Now, Bert, tell them deputies to stand down. This is no bluff. I’d prefer to end my days here and now rather than spend even one in a Mississippi prison.”
“That’s where you’re headed, Tom, believe me.”
“Maybe. But I got a pile of that fine Ferguson cash and I got hostages here. I know the protocol. I suggest once we’re gone, you call Dispatch and say to clear the roads, because I see even one headlight behind me, I’ll figure the chase is on and I’ll get rid of the baggage here so’s I can travel light.”
After another staring moment, Lucknell opened the door and boomed, “Hold y’all’s fire! Hostages coming out!”
“Thanks, Bert,” said Thomson. “I’d say what a pleasure it’s been working together, but it ain’t. Now, y’all”—he spoke to Lucknell, Bill, Pete, and Frank—“sit y’all’s asses on the floor with your hands on your heads. That’s right. Now everyone pray Beth Ann and them don’t have itchy fingers, because it won’t be me goes down first.”
He looked at me. Hands up, I walked slowly out the door. Attenuated silhouettes stood in the glare of headlights. I couldn’t tell where their guns pointed. The street was silent. Even HB had stopped, as though waiting for something to happen.
And it did.
A car alarm screamed, with blaring horn and flashing lights. HB yowled. In that second of distraction, I turned and yanked Jefferson’s arm, hoping if Thomson fired at least his gun wouldn’t be at Jefferson’s head. But he didn’t fire. He crashed hard to the ground, brought down by a flying back-of-the-knee tackle that, had this been a football game, would’ve gotten Frank Roberson thrown out of it.
51
The Coahoma County Jail, already well-stocked with Fergusons, just about burst at the seams when all of us were brought in and stuffed into various corners. Tom Thomson had been arrested back at Pete’s, Beth Ann McGee hauling him to his feet and giving him a sad headshake as she cuffed him. Lucknell ordered everyone else swept up and brought in. We all went meekly, even Pete.
At the jail, Jefferson was rearrested, for the original homicide and for escaping custody. Pete, Bill, and I weren’t arrested, but Bert Lucknell made it clear that could happen at any moment, and therefore he would recommend cooperating. Starting with, until we were questioned, shutting up.
Frank, though, being the hero of the hour and, equally important, Reynold Tam’s son-in-law, was offered Lucknell’s thanks and the opportunity to head home.
“No,” Frank said. “I appreciate it, but really, I’m the one you need.”
“Needed you back at the house, that’s for sure,” Lucknell said. “Got to remember that car alarm trick.” He scratched his head. “Concerning the tackle, though, I honestly can’t say’s I recall you showing that much quickness on the field back in the day.”
“If you remember my football career at all, you’re one in a million, Detective. May I call my wife before I give my statement?”
“Sir, in all seriousness, you don’t have to—”
“Yes. I do.”
I was escorted into an interview room new to me. That gave me a whole new set of scratches, paint chips, and ceiling stains to catalog before Lucknell finally issued through the door.
“Well,” he said, settling in a worn chair and dropping his hat on the table. “Here I was thinking that tripping over Yankee amateurs every step I took was complicating my life. But now it seems I owe y’all a debt of gratitude.”
“Glad to help.”
“Oh, it ain’t that I think helping was on y’all’s mind. Probably if Jefferson had turned up sooner, y’all would’ve rushed him up to New York. As it is, y’all were hiding him and I could lock up all y’all, including Captain Pete, for that.” I started to protest. Lucknell waved my words away. “But I had my eye on Tom. When he said we should wait on the road out of Oxford because one of his snitches said y’all was up there, I had to ask myself, why would Tom ask a snitch in Oxford to look out for y’all? And why would y’all go there except to take a look at Jefferson Tam’s apartment, where there ain’t nothing to find? But if it so happened that Tom was in the Fergusons’ pocket, and if for some reason y’all was bothering Anna Rae, then the call likely wasn’t from no snitch, but either Anna Rae, or maybe Fisheye. Now that I got a warrant for Tom’s phone, we’ll know soon enough.”
“I see. Detective,” I said, to head off any additional lengthy explanations and get to the questions that were bothering me, “what happens now? To Jefferson, but also, to Frank and Pete?”
Lucknell nodded. “Worrying about kin, that’s admirable.” He smiled. “Fishing for information about what they told me and what I told them is maybe a touch less admirable.”
