Mississippi King

by Celia Aaron

  “What’s funny?” Logan cocked his head at me.

  “Oh, nothing.” I followed him to the front steps. “How’s the house look?”

  “No signs of forced entry. Everything’s clear. Garvey doing okay?” He pulled on a pair of gloves and handed me a set.

  “About as well as could be expected. Lina still hasn’t opened her eyes yet.” I headed up the steps and grabbed the key from my pocket. “Front door looks fine.”

  The wide oak doors had glass transom windows along the top, and two large brass knockers in the center of each. Going inside seemed like some sort of transgression, like I was pushing through the veil of my daydreams and entering the reality of the house. Would I be disappointed?

  “Weren’t we supposed to wait for Benton King?” Logan eyed the door.

  “I told him when we’d be here. If he doesn’t show up, that’s on him. We can’t sit around and wait while the case goes cold.”

  “You’re the boss.” He snapped the wristband of his glove. “The doctor is in.”

  The door opened with a low creak, and beyond lay a sunny foyer with dark wood floors and a chandelier hanging two stories overhead. I’d always imagined marble and overwrought woodwork, but instead the house was a bit simpler. Wood moldings and light gray walls matched with plain, and somewhat worn décor gave the house a casual air.

  Logan peered into a sitting room off to the right. “I’ll start here.”

  “Let’s work from the front rooms to the back and then head upstairs.” I turned left and entered what seemed to be another sitting room along the front of the house, a piano in one corner and elegant—if uncomfortable-looking—furniture flanking a fireplace. A portrait hung on the back wall, and I paused to study it. A young Benton, his back straight and his unmistakable stoic gaze already dominating his young face, sat at the piano, his fingers poised on the keys. On the rug behind him, a boyish Porter played with a toddler girl with long dark hair.

  Apparently, Benton King had always been a serious type. The portrait gave me some insight into his mannerisms and what I’d initially perceived as coldness. His refusal to turn over the files from his father’s office made more sense as I studied the lines and curves of the painting. Benton played by the rules, and it seemed he always had.

  I swept the rest of the room, flipping through the music books inside the piano bench and going through a writing table. Finding only pens and empty notepads, I closed the drawers and returned to the main hallway. “Logan?”

  “In the dining room.” His voice floated to me from a doorway down the hall on the right. “Do you have any idea how much this bourbon is worth?”

  Peeking in the doorway, I found him standing with a bottle held up to the light. “Focus. We aren’t here to raid the liquor cabinet.”

  “Speak for yourself.” He smirked and replaced the bottle inside a wide buffet to the side of an even wider dining room table.

  Sunlight filtered through high windows that gave a clear view of the side yard and a massive magnolia tree, its creamy blooms browned and withered. I continued down the hall and found the kitchen. Though well-maintained, the kitchen had a vintage flare, the double ovens on the wall a light blue with a matching refrigerator. Each room I visited readjusted my vision of the house. Instead of the grand mansion with stainless steel everything, granite everything else, and perfection around every corner, it was a well lived in home, not the showplace of my imagination.

  I went through each drawer in the kitchen, methodically checking for any scrap of information that would assist in our investigation, not that I expected to find a smoking gun among the forks and whisks. Once satisfied, I moved on to the main living area at the back of the house. Logan and I searched together, combing through a wide bookcase along the wall, the magazine rack next to a well-worn recliner, and a chest full of keepsakes that included baby pictures of all three children, Porter’s letterman jacket, a stack of awards with Benton’s name on them, and Charlotte’s diplomas.

  “Nothing.” I sighed as we re-entered the hall. “I’ll take the office down here. You head upstairs.”

  “Alone?”

  I arched a brow. “Scared, Detective?”

  “Damn right.” He faked a shiver. “Why do I get the feeling I’m about to discover a sex dungeon with tons of kinky costumes?” He waggled his fingers. “I’m going to be real glad that I’m wearing these gloves.”

  “There is something wrong with you.” I fought my smile.

  “I’m just saying. If I get up there and find some mannequins in BDSM gear or a suit made of human flesh, I want you to know that I already called it.”

  I pushed open the windowed French doors to Mr. King’s office. “Just don’t steal anything for your own collection. That’s all I ask.”

  His grumbling faded as he headed for the stairs.

  The office was neat with leather couches and chairs in front of a wide, dark desk. The smell reminded me of the library, which made sense given that the walls were lined with books, most of them legal reporters full of cases. The desk had a few neat stacks of paper, a laptop, and a photo of Randall King’s Dancing with the Stars win from last year. He smiled in the picture, his arm around Lina Garvey’s waist, her sparkling dancer’s outfit glittering in the flash. I’d forgotten she’d won that year, and I brushed away the comparison of the Lina in the photo versus the broken girl I’d found at the bottom of a ravine a month ago. An accident. One that hit too close to home and had Chief Garvey spending more time at the hospital than he did at the station.

  Sighing, I pulled the curtains back from two windows, letting light flood the room. Starting with the documents on top of the desk, I flipped through each piece of paper and thumbed through the books scattered on the edge of his desktop day planner. Bills, junk mail, and receipts from a recent trip to Tupelo constituted the majority of items.

  “I thought I told you to wait for me.” Benton strode in the doorway.

  I jumped but tried to play it off as I flipped through some more mail. “You weren’t here, and I had the key and permission to search.” I shrugged. “So I searched.”

  “Find anything?” He sank down on the nearest couch and folded his hands in his lap. He’d ditched his suit coat, and was dressed in his black pants, light blue button-up shirt, and dark blue tie. I wondered if this was as casual as he got.

  “Not yet.” I opened the desk’s top drawer and found several common office items—pens, stapler, scissors, paperclips. Nothing of interest. “Does anyone else have frequent access to this house or this room?”

  “Other than my siblings and I, the only person who comes in here is Mrs. Denny, the cleaning lady.” He let out a long breath and rubbed his eyes, the first intentional sign he’d given that his father’s death was weighing on him. “Unless he has visitors. Sometimes Judge Ingles will stop by, Mayor Baker, Letty Cline, or the Reynolds.”

  “Your dad was quite popular.”

  “He was.” The ‘s’ sound lingered, as if he were tasting the past tense and finding it sour.

  A fledgling burst of pity rose in my breast. I paused my search and met his gaze. “I really am sorry about your father. I didn’t know him, but I did know of him. He seemed like a nice man who did a lot of good for Azalea.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.” He shook his head. “None of this makes any sense. Dad didn’t have any enemies. And no one would have known about the safe unless they worked at the firm, or possibly a client who saw him open it years ago. Not to mention, I have no idea what could’ve been in it.” He seemed to be talking it out to himself instead of me.

  My detective mode kicked back on, and I asked, “But it’s possible that there was something of value in the safe that you didn’t know about?”

  He threw his hands up. “Sure, but I can’t imagine what. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have the Maltese Falcon tucked away in there. And like I said, all the firm money is in an account down at First Mississippian.”

  “The Maltese Falcon? I
didn’t peg you as a detective novel sort.”

  “I’m not, but I enjoy old movies, especially noir.” The corner of his lips almost snuck up into a smirk. “Femme fatales and adventure, what’s not to love?”

  “I see.” I realized that Benton King had a lot of layers underneath his unyielding exterior. As far as my investigation was concerned, I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  Returning my focus to the desk, I closed the top drawer and checked the ones on the left side and then the right. After finding more of the same—bills and random documents—I closed the final drawer. As I pressed it all the way shut, something struck me as off. I pulled it out and examined the unused letterhead and envelopes inside. Nothing amiss. Pulling out the drawer above it, I discovered the difference. The top drawer was a few inches deeper. Not enough to notice unless you were truly paying attention.

  The bottom drawer had a false back.

  6

  Benton

  She ducked behind the desk and made a “hmm” noise.

  “What is it?” I’d been in this office, sitting in this very spot, thousands of times. Some of my earliest memories were of playing on the floor in front of my father’s desk. If Detective Matthews crawled beneath the worn mahogany, she’d probably find crayon marks and dinosaur stickers, relics that only had special meaning for me.

  “This bottom drawer has a false back.” She pushed the desk chair away, and it rolled languidly until it hit the nearest bookcase.

  “There’s a small wooden lever at the very top of the drawer. Press down and pull out, and it will open right up.”

  She popped her head up from behind the desk. “You know about it? You could’ve said something.”

  “Maybe I was testing your detecting skills.” Honestly, I’d forgotten about it. Perhaps some of my toy soldiers were still in there, patiently waiting for their chance at battle and glory. It was an easy hiding spot.

  She grumbled and disappeared again before popping up with a handful of papers, each of them folded in a nice bundle with a shoestring keeping them together. “Have you ever seen these before?”

  I leaned forward. “No. I had no idea they were in there.” I’d given her permission to search the house because I was certain she wouldn’t find anything. I’d been here too many times to let something important slip past me. The bundle of letters proved me wrong.

  Setting them on the desk, she rolled the chair back over and sat. With nimble, gloved fingers, she untied the package and pulled the first letter from the top of the stack.

  I stood and walked over to her side to get a better look, curiosity like a persistent scratch in the back of my throat.

  She gave me a long look. “Logan is upstairs.”

  Distrust thickened the air between us. Was she afraid of me? The idea struck me as nearly comical, but for the hard look on her soft face.

  “What do you think I’m going to do? Strangle you in my father’s office and have Porter cover up the crime for me?” Now that I thought about it, maybe she had a point to be suspicious.

  “You might try.” She patted the gun on her hip. “But there would only be one murder victim in this house, and it wouldn’t be me.”

  Damn. I didn’t blame her. In fact, I rather liked her directness. “Now that I know where I stand, can we please see what the letters are about?”

  With one more wary glance, she returned her attention to the letter in her hand. The envelope had my father’s name and address printed in even handwriting, but there was no return address. She slid her fingernail under the flap and flipped it open, then pulled out a handwritten letter on a piece of lined notebook paper.

  Moving closer, I read over her shoulder.

  Randall,

  I’m warning you. This is the last time I’m going to ask for what you owe me. If you don’t pay up, I’m going to go to the judge and get this settled once and for all. I’ll give you one more week. I’ve waited long enough for you to do right by me, and I refuse to waste any more time begging you to do the right thing. I know your reputation in town makes you think that you can push me around. But when they find out what a son of a bitch you are, I think they’ll stop bowing down. And I’ll make sure they all find out. Let me know your answer.

  M

  She turned and looked up at me, a question in her eyes. Her hair smelled like some sort of berry shampoo. “Who’s M?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but I can guess. Winston Morris.”

  “You told me that your father didn’t have any enemies.” She waved the letter before plucking the next one from the stack. “But you know about a Winston Morris who’s been sending threats. Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” Ire colored her words, the sound like glass breaking.

  “I know Winston Morris, but I didn’t know he was threatening my father. That’s news to me.” I leaned down so I could see her eyes. “I swear. I didn’t know.”

  After a few awkward moments of staring, she gave me a slight nod, then flipped open the next letter, which held more vitriol and threats. The next three were the same. “Tell me everything you know about Winston Morris.” She narrowed her eyes. “And don’t leave a thing out. Start with how he’s related to your firm, King and Morris.”

  “Caught that, did you?”

  “I already have one smartass in my orbit,” she deadpanned. “He doesn’t need any competition.”

  As if on cue, a thump sounded from upstairs.

  I retreated to my seat on the couch, putting some necessary space between detective Matthews and myself. Her hair smelled ridiculously good, and it was clouding my brain.

  “Winston Morris is the last of the Morris line. As you’ve noticed, the law firm is named King and Morris. Ever since the firm was established, the King and Morris families were close and worked together. Until Winston. He went to law school with me, both of us in the same class at the University of Mississippi.” I paused, trying to figure out the least offensive way to explain. “While he was there, he got involved in some questionable activities that culminated in his dismissal from law school.”

  “Questionable activities?”

  I shifted and drummed my fingers on my thigh. “He and some of his fraternity brothers—all lowlifes as far as I’m concerned—were caught defacing university property and hanging nooses in the trees near black fraternities.”

  Revulsion flared across her face, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d felt the same when I heard about what Winston had done. “At that time, Winston’s father had already left the firm because of his Alzheimer’s, though we kept him on as a partner—just an honorary roll since he was lucid less than half the time—and intended to hire Winston as soon as he graduated from law school.”

  “I take it that didn’t happen?” She rifled through some more papers as I spoke.

  “Not a chance. When Winston’s father discovered what his son had done, he agreed with my father that Winston was no longer welcome at the firm. They wound up the Morris side of the business and put the money from his share in trust for Winston’s mother and sisters. Winston raised a stink about it at the time, claiming his father was too far gone to make decisions about his money, but Judge Ingles sided with Winston’s father and issued a court order to that effect. After that, Winston left town.”

  “Where is he now?” She tapped the stack of letters. “These were sent local, looks like.”

  “There have been rumors that he’s holed up in a cabin on the far edge of his family property.”

  “So, you’re telling me the racist Unabomber had beef with your father and lives nearby?”

  “He had beef ten years ago maybe. Sure. But we haven’t heard a peep from him in all that time.” I stared at the stack of letters. “Or at least I thought we hadn’t heard a peep.”

  Logan appeared in the doorway, his expression souring as he spotted me. “I heard voices.”

  “How close are you to being done upstairs?” she asked.

  “There is a spar
e bedroom full of papers and all sorts of stuff. It’s going to be a while.” He wiped a fine sheen of sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm. “Doesn’t help that it’s hot as hell up there.”

  She pointed to the stack of envelopes. “I’ve got a lead. Randall King had been receiving threatening letters from Winston Morris.”

  “That guy? I didn’t know he was still around.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “You know him?”

  Logan rolled his shoulders. “We had a little run-in several years ago. He saw me at the bar making time with some pretty little blonde thing. Things got…heated. I asked him to step outside.” He paused and shot a furtive glance at me, perhaps trying to decide how much to share in mixed company.

  She waved a hand. “You’ve never met a fight you didn’t like. I get the gist.”

  He nodded, a satisfied smile creeping across his lips. “Never saw him at the bar after that night.”

  Walking over to him, she grabbed an evidence bag that he’d stuffed in the waistband of his jeans. Placing the letters inside, she said, “I need to get out to his place and question him.”

  He let out a relieved sigh. “Thank god. It’s a sauna up there. I’m ready to go.”

  “Not a chance. You two have history. All bad. I can’t have you turning him off the second we roll up. Stay here, and keep going through the upstairs. Call me if you find anything big.”

  Logan peeled a glove off his hand. “Now wait just a minute. This guy is some grade-A level psycho. You shouldn’t be going out there by yourself. He and I may have some history, but that doesn’t mean I can’t—”

  “That’s exactly what it means, Logan. What if he confesses to me? Any good defense attorney would be able to get it thrown out simply based on your presence. If you beat his ass a few years ago, that’s plenty of reason for a judge to find his current confession coerced. I can’t risk it.”

  I found myself nodding along with her reasoning. Though I doubted Winston would be foolish enough to confess to anything, she was right to plan ahead.