Murder in the Choir (The Jazz Phillips Mystery Series)

by Joel B Reed

  I fished out a picture of Posey and showed it to him. He nodded. “That’s him. I never seed him all dress up before, but that’s him.”

  Ten minutes later, we not only had a name, but a family history and a visit to the county records confirmed this. Daniel Lee Tatum was registered as born on March 15, 1948, at home to one Dora Lee Tatum. What was odd is that the birth was registered by his grandfather Posey, the same one who first registered Edward, but the name of the father of Dora Lee’s child was listed as unknown.

  The custodian gave us directions to where the family lived, and Mason and I headed there after our visit to the courthouse. Since the family place was in Hempstead county, I thought we might find more cooperation and we did. When I stopped for directions at a rural station, the owner turned out to be one of Daniel’s cousins, and he was quite helpful.

  “He ain’t in trouble, is he?” the cousin asked us. I told him Daniel was not and that we just needed some information from him. “He one of the best,” his cousin assured us. “Ain’t nothing he won’t do for you.” He went on to give us two examples of Daniel’s shining character in great detail. “And sing?” he added before we could break away. “That man voice like a angel.”

  That got my attention and I could see this was true with Mason, too. “Did he sing in the choir?” I asked.

  “Did him sing in the choir? That child am the choir, ever since him a titty baby.” He shook his head sadly. “Then that accident took he voice.”

  It turned out that the accident almost took Daniel’s life when he was just out of his teens. A piece of equipment at the furniture factory where he worked had kicked back a board, striking him in the throat and almost shattering his larynx. Daniel survived but was left with a terrible scar on his throat and only a harsh rasp for a voice.

  When I asked if he had seen Daniel recently, the cousin told me it had been a couple of months. “It strange,” he said. “He come by all the time, once, twice a week. Then he tell me he going t’work up round Hope. I ain’t seen him since.”

  Neither had any of the other relatives we talked to that afternoon. One of them did mention Daniel told her something about finding family “up north” where he was headed, but she didn’t have specifics. No one thought anything of it since they all knew there were cousins around Nashville. Yet, none of them could remember meeting any of those cousins, and everyone I talked to was quite surprised to learn they were kin to Smiley Jones. All of them had heard of him and knew his music, but none were aware they were family.

  I found a pay phone and called the CID crime lab in Little Rock, hoping to catch Weaver and mention the scar. Who I got was Casey himself who had just finished the autopsy on the body found in the truck. When I asked him about a possible scar on the victim’s throat, he told me the larynx looked like it had been almost crushed years before. I gave him Daniel’s name and told him where to look for possible dental records.

  James Mason nodded when I was done. He had been listening to my end of the conversation. “So Posey is still alive,” he said. “We better let Willie know.” He used the same phone to call the Agency, but I noticed he slipped a small black device over the mouthpiece. It looked like a cradle for the handset, but was thin and narrow. “Scrambler,” he told me, seeing my look. “Makes any line secure.”

  When he was done talking, Mason handed the phone to me. “Sam wants to talk to you,” he said.

  “Hello, Jazz,” McKee greeted me. “Sounds like you and James are kicking ass and taking names down there.” I laughed and he went on. “Listen, I want to ask you a big favor. Edward Posey is really bad news, and I think he’s gone to ground. I don’t think there’s much more you can do. The favor I’d like to ask is for you to back off now and let us take care of him.”

  What McKee was asking made good sense, and I was surprised to find myself digging in my heels. “I don’t know,” I replied. “Let me think about it.”

  “Do you understand where I’m coming from?” McKee asked. “This guy is one of the best, and I don’t want him coming after you. I promise we’ll get him. It may take a while, but we’ll find him and we’ll bring him in.”

  “Dead or alive?” I asked, wanting to call the words back as soon as I uttered them. There was dead silence from the other end. “Sorry,” I hurried on. “You didn’t deserve that.”

  “Sounds like it’s getting personal,” McKee observed.

  I was surprised to find just how right he was. “Yeah,” I replied. “I guess it is. I think it happened when he took a shot at Robert.”

  McKee was wise enough to wait. “You’re right,” I said. “You have the resources and I don’t. I’ll square it with DiRado. The Bureau shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I gathered as much,” McKee answered dryly. “I read their press release yesterday. The good news is they can’t jump back in now without stepping on their dicks.”

  “Assuming they’re long enough,” I quipped and McKee laughed. “Let me talk to Dee, and I’ll head back to Ft. Smith tomorrow.”

  I handed the handset back to Mason. He talked with McKee for a moment before hanging up. He shook his head. “Damn. Just when it was getting fun. I guess we head for Nashville now.”

  I dug out my tape recorder and asked Mason to drive, dictating my report to the CID on our way home. It didn’t take that long and when I was done, Mason asked who would transcribe it for me. I told him my laptop was loaded with a good voice recognition program that would prepare a word processing document for me to edit. He asked what software I used, and when I answered, he told me about several improvements McKee’s brother had made tweaking that specific program. This led us to other things, and I was surprised how quickly we arrived in Nashville.

  “Thanks, Jazz,” Mason said, offering me a hand as he got out of the car. “I’ve really enjoyed working with you. I learned a lot.”

  “The pleasure was mine,” I told him. “Maybe we’ll run across each other if I do some work for McKee.”

  I called the CID office hoping to catch Dee there, but it was Weaver who took my call. He told me Dee’s wife was doing better, but Dee was spending most of his days at the hospital. “There is one thing I need to tell you before I forget,” Weaver said. “You know the DNA profile the Pentagon sent us? They sent us two profiles, not one.”

  “What?” I was confused. “You mean they sent us two copies?”

  “No, they sent us two completely different profiles. I thought it was two copies of the same profile when I first glanced at them, but it wasn’t. When we compared the second profile to what we got from the can and the snuff, it wasn’t even close. About the only common factor was that it was from a male. I would guess generic European for the source, but not African.”

  I thought about this for a moment. “Why did they send us two profiles? Any ideas about that?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I thought about it on the way to work this morning. It was an easy enough mistake. When they did the lab work, the technicians probably filed the results without a narrative report. Anyone who works with the things would spot the difference right away, just like I did when I did more than glance at them. Unless the guy who put them in the package was familiar with DNA profiles, he could think they were all part of one profile since he found them in the same folder.”

  “Or maybe they’re playing with our heads,” I said.

  “There is that,” Weaver admitted. “I can’t see why, but then, this whole thing is crazy. I guess they’d have their reasons.”

  “Any thoughts why there might be two men’s blood on the same tags?” I asked. I had several ideas about that, but I wanted to hear what Weaver had to say.

  “The only thing I can figure is that Posey was next to someone who got hit and caught some blood splatter. Either that, or someone switched dog tags.”

  “I like that last one,” I told him. “That sounds like our man. It’s exactly the same thing he did with the truck crash. He used a dead man to give himself a new identity and a new life.
”

  “There’s always the possibility you mentioned before,” Weaver said. “This may be Captain Smith’s way of throwing us off track by making sure we can’t preserve a chain of evidence.”

  “Who knows?” I answered, suddenly feeling very old. “The clearer it becomes who did it, the more clouded the reasons why. I don’t think we’ll ever know the whole story behind Edward Posey, and I don’t know if I really care. I don’t see much more I can do. Tell Dee I’m headed that way tomorrow to see him and to turn in my report. I think it’s time to go fishing.”

  The next call I made was to Nellie. I told her I was headed home by way of Little Rock and that made her happy. The road from Nashville to Hot Springs is much safer than the roads through the mountains, and twenty-five miles out of Hot Springs I could pick up the interstate. It’s not as pretty a drive, but it is nice, and it’s far more relaxing.

  * * *

  There’s not much more to tell. I headed home and got in some late fall fishing before it got too cold. The fish weren’t biting that well, but I didn’t mind. The name of the game for me is fishing, not catching, and I didn’t miss cleaning my catch. Then it was time to do some serious duck hunting, and I punctured the sky with a couple of boxes of shells without hitting a single bird. That was fine with me, too, though I don’t think I missed on purpose. Or maybe I did. I find cleaning ducks worse than cleaning fish, and I had a good time just getting out early enough to get chilled to the bone, then coming in for a cup of strong, hot coffee and a big waffle breakfast. Being a duck hunter is prima facie evidence of utter insanity.

  There were also a couple of trips Nellie took with me to Washington to do consulting with McKee, and we had a wonderful time being tourists. McKee is a marvelous host and I found the project he had in mind for me challenging. The best part was that I could work at home in Ft. Smith most of the time. So, for the most part, life that fall and winter was spectacularly normal.

  Even so, two separate incidents occurred over those next months that were tied to the case. The first was a call from Weaver not too long before Christmas. After we talked fishing and hunting for a while, he asked me an odd question. He wanted to know if I had included the lottery ticket I bought to get the store clerk’s prints in my expense statement. I told him I had not and I told him why. State auditors tend to have very little imagination and even less of a sense of humor. They seem to assume people will cheat and are ready to assume the worst. I know there’s a reason they’re that way, and I didn’t include the lottery ticket because the last thing any of us needed was for some low-level clerk to challenge the expense and stir up a fuss. When it comes to politicians and auditors, I assume the worst, and I could easily imagine the political capital Pea Vine and his cohorts might make of this.

  I said as much to Weaver. “Good,” he said. “Then that means the ticket is your property, not the state’s.”

  “I guess you’re right, but it’s not worth the paper it’s written on now.”

  Weaver laughed. “You might want to check that out, Jazz. You didn’t hit all the right numbers, but you hit five out of six. You damned near had fifty million dollars.”

  “Damned near is only good playing horshoes or hand grenades,” I replied.

  Weaver laughed again and I asked what was so funny. “You are,” he said. “You don’t realize you just won a hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”

  That’s how Nellie and I ended up spending half the winter exploring the rain forests and mountains of New Zealand. We talked about it for years, but had never felt we could afford the trip. So that’s what we did for six weeks right after Christmas. It was wonderful and when it came time to come home, we were both sad to leave.

  * * *

  The other incident was not wonderful at all. It happened just before Easter and I never saw it coming. I tell myself now I should have known, but how could I? There’s no predicting insanity.

  I was driving home from an errand one afternoon when I saw an old man pushing his bicycle. It was obvious he was homeless. He had a beat up suitcase strapped to a home made rack behind his seat and wrapped in a plastic garbage sack to keep out the rain. There was a basket in front, too, with what looked like a bedroll wrapped in clear plastic strapped on top. Yet, what was most unusual was the long horn case tied to the frame of the bike. It looked awkward, out of place, and the old fellow had to straddle it to pedal. I wondered why he had not hocked the horn a long time ago for whatever he could get.

  It was a wet day and I was in the pickup. So I stopped by the old man and offered him a ride. He shook his head and waved me away, muttering under his breath and not even looking up. When I asked if he was sure about that, he didn’t act as if he even heard me.

  I drove on, wanting to help and knowing there was little I could do. Many of the street people these days are mentally ill, remnants from the Reagan era when we closed our mental hospitals and turned the patients out onto the street. There’s little we’ve done in our nation’s history which was more cruel or more barbaric. Those folks, unable to defend themselves from urban predators or even from their own insane impulses, became immediate targets of violence and degradation. Many of them died soon after being released. Those who did not were condemned to a life of constant fear from human predators.

  When I got home, Nellie was not yet back from the hospital. She volunteers there, and sometimes she needs to stay longer than she planned. So I didn’t lock up the way I normally do after coming in. Ft. Smith may not be a large city, but it does share some of the same problems metropolitan areas experience. When I was with the CID, we used to preach simple home security as the best protection from casual crime, and I try to practice what I preach. So we lock the doors and windows when we leave and when we’re home alone.

  I was working at my laptop in the den when something made me look up. When I did, I found myself staring into the dark mouth of the biggest automatic pistol I’ve ever seen. The cop part of my brain registered the fact it was a .44 auto, the most powerful production handgun in the world. Who was holding it as steady as a rock was the old man on the bicycle I’d offered a ride to.

  I don’t know why I wasn’t startled. A part of me must have expected this confrontation. Or maybe something registered when I passed the old man on the street. Whatever it was, I found myself strangely calm.

  “Dr. Phillips, I presume.” The mocking voice was strong and clear, and I could see the man was not nearly as old as I thought. His hair was gray around the temples, but his skin was as unwrinkled as a man half his age. The hand that held the heavy pistol was firm and steady.

  “Hello, Edward,” I heard my voice saying. “Excuse me. Let me save my work.” I pushed a couple of keys on the laptop and placed my hands on the table where he could see them.

  That was clearly not the response he expected. He looked around quickly, then crossed to the window and pulled the shade. Never once did the barrel of the pistol move from its point of aim in the middle of my chest.

  “Move over to the recliner,” he told me, watching every move I made until I was there. “Lay it back,” he said.

  When I did, he nodded and pulled up a chair facing me but too far away for me to made a move. Smiling, he took out a smaller pistol fitted with a silencer and stuck the heavy magnum under his jacket. “Now then, Doctor,” he said. “You and I need to have a talk about what you know and what you don’t.”

  There was no point in balking. I knew how he would respond if I did. The first shot would be to one of my ankles, and he would move to other joints until I told him what he wanted to know. So I summarized what I knew about him very quickly, covering the high points.

  “All right,” he said. “Now give me details.”

  I did so quickly, talking about the men’s choir and everything I had been told. His eyes darkened when I mentioned learning that Smiley stole his music, but other than that, he did not respond. Then, when I mentioned the Pentagon’s sending us the wrong DNA, he smiled.

 
“That’s how you got out of Asia, isn’t it?” I asked. “You switched dog tags with someone and took off.”

  Posey nodded, almost impatient, and asked me a number of questions. I answered them as carefully and truthfully as I could. When we were done, he sat there looking at me. I knew he was deciding how best to kill me.

  I heard the door of my study swing open. Posey swung to his right to bring the pistol to bear but his hand dissolved in a red mist as a deafening explosion filled the room. He tried desperately to pull the big magnum from under his jacket with his left hand, but a second explosion took his arm off at the elbow. Most men would have died from shock, but Posey jumped up and made a run for the window. Just as he was about to throw himself through it, a third explosion slammed into his right knee and he went down.

  I glanced to my right. Nellie stood in there in the door of my study, calmly pushing more shells into my twelve gauge riot gun. “What’s your name?” she asked Posey calmly, and when he didn’t answer, she pointed the shotgun directly at his crotch. Posey screamed his name in terror.

  I was on my feet by then. Nellie handed me the shotgun and calmly began to tie a tourniquets around Posey’s right wrist and left arm. The hands were both missing. “Nothing personal, Edward,” I heard her saying. “You just don’t mess with my man.” Then, when she was done, she excused herself and walked into the bathroom next to my study. Even through the insulated door, I could hear her retching.

  * * *

  That’s where it ended. There were other details, like when Edward Posey tried to sue Nellie for making him a cripple. When Dee pointed out to Nellie she wouldn’t have that problem if she had shot to kill, she smiled and said that this way was a far worse punishment. He could repent at leisure.

  McKee heard about the lawsuit and took care of it quickly, sending Dill to point out to Posey exactly why he needed our good will. Without hands and the use of one of his legs, Edward wouldn’t last three months incarcerated with the general prison census. Posey was defiant until Dill suggested we could plant the rumor that Posey was a child molester and a snitch. Not wanting to die from the gang rape Dill predicted would result, Posey crumbled.