Paper son, p.7
Paper Son, page 7
So much for friendly. He was right about the tourists, though. Animated German was being spoken by the couple in the next booth, and four camera-draped young Japanese men with interesting haircuts were working through a pile of fried chicken.
Okay, to business. “You grew up in Clarksdale?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They sure could do a frosty ma’am in Mississippi. “And you went to school with Jefferson?”
“High school. Concord Academy.”
“Ms. Leblanc said you were friends.” She hadn’t, but I thought it might cut through some hostile jockeying if I put the idea out.
Reeves didn’t deny it. “We were tight back in the day, because of the situation we found ourselves in.”
“What situation?”
“Concord Academy.” I must have looked blank, because he asked, “Do you know anything about the Mississippi school system? The academies?”
I didn’t, but Bill did. “When the Supreme Court ordered public schools desegregated,” he said, his eyes on Reeves but speaking to me, “Mississippi white people’s way around it was to start private ‘academies.’”
“This was legal?” I asked.
“This was Mississippi,” said Reeves. “Anyone could apply, and the tuition was low, but it was obvious who’d get in and who wouldn’t. And hard to prove why.”
“But the academy you and Jefferson went to was a different kind?”
“No, ma’am. A few years before we were set to start high school, black families started filing challenges to the system. The academies didn’t want a court fight in case the whole house of cards crashed down. Better to each let in half a dozen or so of the ‘right class’ of colored folk. They’d look innocent, and how much pollution could we really cause, so few of us? My father’s a doctor and my mother’s a pharmacist, so there I was, the right class. And Jefferson, of course he’s colored folk of a different color.”
I sipped my tea, getting used to this information and the way it was delivered. I’d never in my life heard anyone say “colored folk” out loud, not even with the cold irony tingeing the voice of Tolson Reeves.
“So you and Jefferson stuck together because you were . . . outsiders?”
Reeves’s eyes held a sardonic glint. It amused him that I was having trouble saying it. “There were only six of us colored folk that first year. Me, him, and four black girls. You wanted to know someone had your back.”
“There was trouble?” Bill asked.
Reeves shrugged. “I was a big guy. I could handle it.”
“And Jefferson?”
“Could be I saved him from a beatdown once or twice in those first weeks.”
“Well, as his cousin, I appreciate that,” I said. “Did things change after those first weeks? Or that was how it was, the whole time?”
“No, ma’am, it wasn’t. Soon as the school year started, they had football tryouts. I made the team.”
“Not an easy thing for a freshman,” Bill said. “Anywhere.”
Reeves nodded. “Any team has holes, in defense or offense. I was a two-way player in Pop Warner and I’d studied the Concord team. Been to their games, read their clippings. They had holes both ways. I went out for the positions where the holes were.”
“Shrewd,” I said.
“This is Mississippi.” He sipped his coffee. “I knew what it would be like at Concord, and I knew what my best chance was. Pop Warner on my side of town, we had a tougher style of play than the white kids did.” He smiled.
“So you were a star,” said Bill.
“I wasn’t bad.”
“And once they saw that, they backed off, and backed off Jefferson because he was a friend of yours?”
“Pretty much.”
“Just like that?” I asked. “Football trumps racism?”
Tolson Reeves allowed himself another tight smile. “Ma’am, in Mississippi, the only thing football doesn’t trump is deer season.”
He picked up his sandwich, and I tried my salad. The kale was fresh and the goat cheese was delicious. I wondered if they were local.
“Are you and Jefferson still close?”
He looked me in the eye. “If what you’re fishing for is, do I know where to find him, no, ma’am, I don’t.”
“No, we don’t mean that,” said Bill smoothly, though I sort of had. “It’s just, if we had a better picture of him, we might know what direction to look in.”
Reeves shifted his gaze to Bill and didn’t answer.
“Listen,” I said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but Jefferson Tam’s been accused of murder. He’s your friend, and that may not matter to you, but he’s my cousin. I want to find him, or at least to know as much as possible so that when the law finds him, I’ll be ready. Can you help?”
Reeves looked out the window. A pedestrian or two on either side of the street, a single car rolling through in each direction on the light change; not a lot of action, but maybe that was from my NYC point of view. This could be a big day in Clarksdale.
“Right before Thanksgiving,” Reeves said, “Jefferson blew back into town and we went for a beer.”
“So you are still friends.”
He didn’t answer that. “The next day, Jefferson dropped into the office and asked could he borrow my car. His was in the shop and he had some business to take care of. I said sure and gave him the keys.”
“And what happened?” I prompted, when he paused. “He had an accident?”
“No, ma’am, he returned the car a few hours later, not a scratch on it, a six-pack on the passenger seat as a thank-you.”
“Then—”
“Montel Bradley, the sheriff? He’s my mother’s cousin. He called me that night. I was up in Oxford. I’m doing my law school at night at Ole Miss. He wanted to know what the hell I was doing in Burcell that afternoon. I told him I wasn’t there, and he said don’t even, a deputy spotted my car parked on Cottonwood. I said I’d loaned the car to a friend and he said, uh-huh, sure, then I’d better tell my friend he needed to stay away from that place and he wasn’t going to tell me again. So I just said thanks, sorry, appreciate him looking out for me. But you can see what happened. That was Jefferson down there.”
“Okay,” I said. “I follow, except for the part about ‘Burcell.’ Where’s that, and why shouldn’t you go there?”
“Pretty little town.” Reeves sipped coffee. “Prosperous. Sleepy-looking. Eight or so miles from here. White town, so less likely I’d be down there anyway, unless I was going on through to Oldman’s Brake. But if I was, I would’ve kept moving. My car just sitting there, that’s bad news and that’s what Uncle Montel was warning me against, me going for a legal career and all. It angered me that Jefferson didn’t think of it.” Reeves put his coffee down. “See, ma’am, in Burcell, everyone in that pretty little town, one way and another, is in the business of cooking meth.”
12
The knowledge Tolson Reeves had just dropped was not the sort of thing I’d been hoping to hear.
“Everyone?” I asked. “There’s no other reason Jefferson might have had for going to Burcell? He has a friend there, or something?”
“There’s one guy there we went to school with. Johnny Ferguson. Nasty piece of work. Jefferson and I both tried to keep clear of him. Though if Johnny went up in your face, you had to man up and deal with it, because he wasn’t going to stop. I’ll tell you this—if Jefferson went to Burcell to see Johnny, it’s sure as hell not because they’re friends.”
“What about Oldman’s Brake?” Bill asked. “You said you might have been going on through to there. Couldn’t Jefferson have been, too, and he stopped for something in Burcell?”
Tolson shook his head. “First off, who lives in Oldman’s Brake is a bunch of black families. No law against Jefferson going, but I never heard he knew anyone there. And stopped for what? There’s nothing in Burcell but cookers and tweakers.”
“Cookers, in context, I get it,” I said. “What’s a tweaker?”
Reeves had just bit into his sandwich, so Bill said, “Drugs have different effects. Heroin knocks you out, grass spaces you out. Meth makes you hyperfocused, hyperalert. What you do in that state is called ‘tweaking.’ It’s great for detail work. Like model airplane building. Or identity theft.”
“Lovely. And really, there’s nothing else in Burcell? No gas station, no grocery store?”
Reeves shook his head. “Only thing open’s a bar, for your meth-buying convenience. That’s for the retail trade, but retail’s just a side business in Burcell. Most of what they cook gets hauled off to Memphis. These backcountry good ol’ boys, they don’t have a talent for distribution. That’s handled by professionals.”
“And the sheriff knows this? Why hasn’t he stopped them?”
“Where do you want me to start? For one, they fit out labs in trailers or else broken-down shacks. Hard to spot. And it’s not like the citizens would just sit on their porches and let deputies comb the back forty. They’d be out with deer rifles, demanding search warrants. They know their rights, you better believe it. Two, this is one of the poorest counties in the poorest state in the Union. I wouldn’t want to say law enforcement is turning a blind eye, but to get picked up for doing something that brings income into Coahoma County, you’d have to be about as big and stupid as it’s possible to be. And three, every now and then, they do decide a raid’s a good idea, but by the time they go swooping in, everything’s cleaned up and gone.”
Bill asked, “You think the Burcell labs have someone in law enforcement protecting them?”
Tolson shrugged. “Or just, someone with a brother or cousin or poppa in law enforcement was drinking out at Po’ Monkey’s with someone with a brother or cousin or poppa in Burcell, and after a pint of moonshine, who knows what got said?”
I asked, “Did you talk to Jefferson about his going there? Did you ask him why?”
“I called and told him how pissed off I was—begging your pardon, ma’am—and no way he’d catch me doing him any more favors. I said I hadn’t told Uncle Montel it was him, but if something came of it, I’d have to, so if I was Jefferson, I’d make sure from now on to be squeaky-clean.”
“What did he say?”
“What you’d expect. It wasn’t like that, he couldn’t tell me about it, but it was nothing to worry about. I told him when the sheriff starts calling me, that’s something to worry about. I said I didn’t want to know what was going on, but maybe it was a good time for him to get out of town. Then I hung up.”
“Did you speak to him again before he was arrested for Leland’s murder?”
“No, ma’am, nor since, either. Damn fool should have taken my advice.”
13
Tolson Reeves was through with us, so we thanked him and headed back to H. Tam and Sons. When we got there, Pete was sitting on the porch. The door wore a shiny new lock. “Too depressing in there,” he declared. “Plus, it smells. I’ll come clean it up tomorrow. Can’t take it right now.”
“Is anything missing?”
“If it is, I don’t know what, except what cash was in the till.”
“Empty?” Bill asked.
“Down to the pennies. Though truth is, it’s just as likely a representative of the law cleaned it out while they tromped around ‘investigating.’” Captain Pete clearly knew all about air quotes. “Actually,” he added, “I’d prefer if it was that. It would mean when these no-accounts came to trash Leland’s store, least they didn’t get away with money. Hell with them.”
It was clear from the way he thrust out his jaw how upset he was and how hard he was trying not show it. I gave him a squeeze. “We’ll help you clean up tomorrow, Pete.”
“You just go about finding Jefferson and proving he didn’t kill Leland. That’s the best help you can give.”
“What did the police say about this?”
“‘Store’s been vandalized, Pete.’”
“Seriously?”
“You got to admire the fine way they got with the obvious, don’t you? Good news was, it was the Clarksdale PD, not the sheriff, so it wasn’t Bert Lucknell. Guess a little wanton destruction’s not important enough for a big detective.”
“Where’s your backup group?”
“Henry and them? Gone home. Before, Henry drove over to the Ace Hardware, got those kinds of locks with sirens in them. When Leland was living behind the store, he didn’t need those, but now . . . ”
Yes, I thought, now.
We drove back to Pete’s place, where HB next door barked up a storm until Pete thanked him. Pete set about making iced tea, and I laid out a platter of cookies from an impressive selection in the cabinets. “I have a sweet tooth, I guess,” Pete admitted. I made a mental note to tell my mother to send him a tin of her egg tarts. Bill walked down toward the creek for a smoke.
I brought my cookie platter into the living room in time to see a car pull up to the curb. Nothing showy, just a quietly stylish black sedan. HB started up again. Bill came in through the kitchen door as Pete was opening the front one.
The buzz-cut, broad-shouldered driver stood to the left on the tiny porch, leaving a lanky, softly smiling man front and center. This had to be Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Reynold Tam. My cousin.
Pete had been right about his looks: under his tortoiseshell glasses, and with his bronze skin and the curl in his salt-and-pepper hair, it was hard to tell his half-Chineseness right off the bat. Though the bronze might have been not from the sun of the American South, but from the genes of a southern Chinese. We Guangdong peasants are too dark to fit the moon-skinned northern Chinese standard of beauty.
“Uncle Pete,” said Reynold Tam. “It’s been too long.” He held out a bouquet of white irises. “I was so sorry to hear about Leland.”
Captain Pete’s thank you carried no hint of recrimination, no sense of whose fault that too long might have been. He took the flowers, stood back, and looked Reynold Tam up and down. “Well,” he said, with that cheek-creasing grin. “Tams sure do age well, don’t we?”
The Tam he was addressing, according to what Pete had told us, had just turned sixty, his father, Pete’s brother Paul, being Pete’s elder by twelve years. Reynold Tam did look good, straight-shouldered, in a gray suit, white shirt, blue tie. He smiled at us all with the kind of openness and interest in other people that makes a person attractive, and marks the best bartenders, hairdressers, and politicians.
“This,” said Pete with a bit of a flourish, “is our cousin Lydia Chin. From New York. And her partner, Bill Smith. They’re private investigators.”
“Private investigators? My goodness.” Reynold Tam’s smile lit his eyes as he took my outstretched hand. “Cousin Lydia. What a lovely surprise! You’ll have to tell me how we’re related. Mr. Smith, a pleasure. I’d like you folks to meet Frank Roberson. He’s my chief aide, and also happens to be my son-in-law.” Reynold Tam winked.
Roberson, who looked to be in his early thirties, also wore a suit and tie. “Pleased to meet you.” Both men had that Mississippi drawl, though Roberson’s was more pronounced. “I just wish the circumstances were more pleasant.”
“Mr. Tam’s son-in-law?” I said as we shook hands. “Then you’re my cousin, too. By marriage, anyway.”
“Cousin Lydia, you have to call me Reynold,” said my cousin Reynold. “And yes, my Megan was smart enough to marry Frank, so he’s family, too.”
“Now look what a position you put me in.” Frank Roberson grinned. “If I agree Megan’s a bright lady, I sound all swellheaded. If I honestly say marrying me wasn’t so smart, I’m insulting my wife.”
“Sounds like a no-win, so I suggest you just come in and sit down,” Pete said.
They came in, but Frank Roberson and Reynold Tam both remained standing until I sat. When they seated themselves, neither made a move toward the worn armchair. I gave them good-manners points.
Pete laid the bouquet on the kitchen counter and brought in iced tea and glasses on a tray. “Cousin Lydia, if you’d look after these gentlemen while I locate a vase, I’d be obliged.”
I poured out as my mother taught me: guests first, in descending order of age; family the same, meaning Pete, then Bill; and lastly me. I was hoping that by the time I got to myself the pitcher would be empty, but no such luck.
Pete came back into the room and set the flowers on the coffee table in their located vase. He sat and raised his glass. “Well. To the Tams, and reunions.”
We lifted our glasses. Reynold sipped and said, “Uncle Pete, you look just like the last time I saw you.”
“Considering when that was, I think all that means is, I was an old man young. But you’re doing well, I know that. Hearing your name everywhere. People say you’ve got a real shot.”
“Surely hope you’re right. Just have to get past my primary.”
“That going to be a problem?”
“My opponent hopes so.” Reynold smiled at Roberson, who gave a genial shrug. He said nothing, but the slight lift in his eyebrows was reassuring: bring it on.
“But we’re not here to talk about politics,” Reynold said.
In his smile, and in the smile Pete gave him in return, I saw something that made me put down my tea—not that that was a sacrifice—and say to Bill and Frank Roberson, “Let’s take a walk down to the creek, check out the local flora and fauna.”
“Fauna includes rattlesnakes.” Pete grinned, but though it was obvious what I was doing, neither he nor Reynold objected.
“It’s winter,” I said to Bill and Frank Roberson as the door closed behind us. “Aren’t the rattlesnakes hibernating with the alligators?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure they are,” said Roberson. His tone of voice matched the smile Bill was trying to hide. Well, what did they want from me? The only alligators we had in New York were the ones in the sewers.
