To make a bad thing worse, he had run away from the theater in view of several dozen construction workers and who knows how many people inside the building. It was obvious why the police were calling every fifteen minutes.
He had weighed the options. He could call the mayor, tell him everything. But why put the burden on his shoulders? There were those who would never believe that he wasn’t working on orders from the mayor in the first place. He would have to resign, would probably end up a murder suspect, if he wasn’t already. It would certainly give him a motive. No one had seen him in the auditorium. If he came up with a convincing reason why he left the meeting in such a hurry, he might get yelled at by Detective Bonnie Weber but he wouldn’t crash and burn.
Nolan’s wife came into the bedroom. “I could lose my medical license for this, you know,” she said tensely.
Nolan smiled at her, knowing that to her he must look like a miserable excuse for a man. This was going to cost him in their relationship, big time. “No one will know, trust me.”
She tapped the syringe and pointed to his arm. “Let me see your vein. You better hope I know what I’m doing.”
Nolan rolled up his shirtsleeve and made a fist. “I believe in you, baby. Let me have it.”
Chutney-Cream Cheese Spread
1 lb. cream cheese
1 jar Major Gray’s Chutney, or any other good mango chutney
2 bunches green onions, sliced thin with some of the tops included
1 small can crushed pineapple, drained
½ cup golden raisins
½ 4 cup chopped roasted peanuts
1 T. mild curry powder
Combine all the ingredients, making sure to check the pieces of mango in the chutney and chop them up if they are too large. Form into a ball and wrap with plastic wrap. Chill for at least 2 hours and serve with crackers. This lasts up to 5 days in the refrigerator.
Four
Boots Turner was tired. It was two in the afternoon and he had just eaten breakfast. He and the band had played another college concert last night, so it hadn’t been the late hours of a club date. Still, by the time they’d gone out for something to eat, it had been almost three in the morning when Boots hit the sack. The habits of musicians don’t die easily, Boots had noticed. Even on the nights he didn’t gig, sleep never came until well after midnight. And God knows, it took longer to get up and running than it used to.
He was old—seventy-five, he thought—although he had guesstimated for Social Security. He’d been born at home in Clarksville, Tennessee, and the year of his birth seemed a little murky even to his own mother. She bore a baby a year for ten years. Only two of them survived to old age. Boots’s brother Jesse had been the musical director of the Boots Turner Big Band for more than fifty years; he did all the arrangements and produced their recordings.
Now Jesse had cancer. He had been determined to go to the dedication in Kansas City, but Boots was worried about him making the airplane trip. Come to think of it, Boots was worried about his own ticker. Last night his heart had pounded so hard during the encore he thought it was going to burst.
Then there were these damn letters and phone calls. A young woman’s voice that he didn’t recognize on the answering machine, computer-generated letters with different postmarks, the latest one from Kansas City. Boots didn’t know what to make of them. Was someone laying a trick bag on him, or was there a chance that it was the real thing? Everything was possible, life had taught him that. He couldn’t do anything about it until he got to Kansas City. Then, according to the phone calls, he would get a big surprise.
Most of all, Boots was worried about seeing Sam Scott and that son of a bitch she had married. It was hard to admit he had carried a torch for one woman for thirty years. Through four marriages. For years he imagined that Lefty Stuart would die and he and Sam would pick right up where they left off. Then for years he was mad at Sam; anger choking him every time they ran into each other. Now he found, when they were thrown together, the anger was gone, replaced by the kind of melancholy and longing Boots had never felt for anyone.
He had every recording she’d produced. Absentmindedly, he went over to the CD cabinet and picked out a disc. Soon the room was full of Sam’s voice, from the Gershwin songbook, singing “Bidin’ My Time.”
“I’ve been bidin’ my time; now my time is almost up,” Boots Turner said to his image in the mirror. “You better make hay while the sun shines, my man.” With that he pulled his suitcase out from under the bed and opened it. The first item he packed was a .357 magnum.
Samantha Scott picked up the phone and quickly put it down again, for the tenth time, or maybe the twentieth. She couldn’t shake the feeling she shouldn’t go to Kansas City. Once again she started to call and cancel, tell them she was ill or her voice was gone. Anything. Then she thought about Lefty going without her. That wouldn’t work at all, and she knew Lefty was looking forward to the whole weekend. He had worked hard raising money for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. It would be selfish of her to ruin his plans when she didn’t even know what she was afraid of.
At the time she had agreed to perform in Kansas City for the dedication, she was thinking of the early days of her career. Some of her first gigs had been there with Boots’ band, when she was still in high school in Saint Jo. And Kansas City was where she met Lefty.
She could remember it like it was yesterday. She and the horn section had gone to the baseball game in the afternoon to see the Kansas City Athletics. Lefty had thrown out the first ball and the trumpet player had explained that Lefty was one of the first black men to play on a white major league team. That night he was at the club where they were playing. He was treated like royalty. You would have thought he was Joe DiMaggio. Between sets she went over to Lefty’s table with Boots to say hello. The first time Lefty Stuart smiled at her, her heart melted.
A touch brought Sam back to the present. “A penny for your thoughts,” Lefty Stuart said as he slipped an arm around her waist. He smiled and her heart melted again, just like it had that first time. She turned and kissed him, not a peck on the cheek but a big juicy one, right on the mouth. “Oh, Lord, you’ll give this old man a heart attack, acting like that,” he said.
“I was thinking about the day I met you, you handsome devil.”
“Little did you know I was gonna steal you away from that piano player,” he teased, rumpling her short gray hair.
Her eyes filled with apprehension. “Boots Turner is probably waiting for us in Kansas City, ready to chase us out of town with one of your old baseball bats.”
Lefty held her out at arms’ length, studying her face. “You’re not kidding, you’re worried about this, aren’t ya, baby?”
“You know as well as I do he hasn’t spoken to me for almost thirty years. Last year at Lincoln Center, he almost softened. It was after that concert of Duke Ellington music. Everybody was high on the evening, it had gone so well. They had a reception for all the performers, and someone tried to introduce us, one of the kids who didn’t know the story, it could have been one of the Marsalis boys. Boots smiled this sad smile and said, ‘We’ve met,’ and just walked off.”
Lefty hugged her close. “He’s a fool. If I couldn’t have you for my wife, I’d have taken anything I could get. If I were Boots, I would have never made you stop singing with my band. He could have been part of that wonderful talent, played along with that angel voice of yours, this whole time. That’s something I can never do. You and Boots made fine music together. Plus, I’m an old man. I was retired from playing ball when we met. If he’d played his cards right, he might have had a second chance when I pass.”
Sam shook her husband gently, shaking her head at him. “He’s almost as old as you. And I’m no spring chicken, sugar. Don’t you be talking like that. Which one of us makes it to those golden gates first is in the Lord’s hands. I’m bettin’ you’ll outlive us all.”
“Not if I don’t take my walk. I hear Central Park is nice this
time of year. How about going with me?”
Sam smiled. “I go with you when it’s freezing and covered with snow, baby. I’m sure going on this beautiful May evening. That’s why we live in this damned expensive apartment, honey, so we’re across from the park. I’m gonna take advantage of it till I can’t walk anymore.”
The two went out of the apartment, arm in arm.
* * *
“So we all agree that a musician should be asked to be on this committee during these crucial last ten days. And because of my big mouth in suggesting it, I’m going to have to try to fill that slot. I’ll make some calls tomorrow. Why don’t we take a ten-minute break?” Heaven Lee said. “We only have two reports left, Mona’s and mine. Everyone has been great, staying focused when I know we all really want to be talking about Evelyn Edwards. Let’s get a soft drink and stretch our legs. I brought a cream cheese spread and some lavoosh; it’s on the counter by the Coke machine in the lunchroom.”
When the rest of the committee had left, Heaven got up and swung her arms around in circles. “Mona, how am I doing?”
Mona had slipped out of one of her shoes and was rubbing the bottom of her foot. “You run a good meeting, Heaven. Were you the president of something in college?”
“Law school. I was the president of something in law school. How’s Nolan?”
“Well, I guess he had a heart attack,” Mona said. “Or had pre-heart attack symptoms. His wife is a doctor, you know. He got so worked up about Evelyn and the florists and the kickbacks that he started having chest pains. When the lights went out, he panicked. I guess that’s when we saw him hightailing it down the street. He went home and his wife the doc checked him out and then took him to the emergency room. He’s in the hospital. Or at least he was last night, when we were getting drunk at your place. Boy, did I have a headache this morning.”
“Buck up, Mona. You’re playing with the big girls now. I commend you for your information gathering. Between your headache and this interminable meeting, when did you have time to get the word on Nolan? And what’s the diagnosis? Does he have to have valves replaced or anything, like bypass surgery?”
Mona smiled at the praise. “The headlines come from Sal, of course. I told him it was an emergency, that he had to get info fast. That little piece on the front page of the Metro section didn’t say squat, just that the mayor’s aide was admitted to Saint Luke’s last night. But, as of noon, word was Nolan would be released today or tomorrow, so I guess no surgery.”
“Poor Nolan. Working for the mayor must be tough, lots of pressure.”
“Nolan has really shepherded this whole Eighteenth and Vine revival from start to finish. It’s the mayor’s favorite project of his reign,” Mona said.
“Mona, only kings have reigns. Mayors have terms,” Heaven said with a grin.
“You know what I mean. Now, let’s get this show on the road,” Mona said as their cohorts began returning.
With them came Pam Whiteside, the public relations aide for the mayor’s office. She chirped, as she was paid to do. “Guess who’s here and wants to talk to the committee? This is so exciting.”
Heaven didn’t think she or anyone on the committee needed ‘exciting’ at this point, but there didn’t seem to be an option. “Gosh, Pam, we don’t have a clue. Are you taking over for Nolan?” Heaven asked.
“Just for a few days,” Pam said. “I talked to Nolan, and he gets to go home tomorrow morning. He promised his wife he would stay home for two days. He really wants to see this project through to the dedication. He didn’t need angioplasty or anything. They think it was just an anxiety attack. But I didn’t come here to talk about poor Nolan. Bob Daultman, the famous documentary filmmaker, has come to Kansas City. And the big news is, he wants to bring his crew to the dedication weekend. But I’ll let Bob tell you all about it,” she effused while avoiding eye contact. She knew the committee didn’t need the strain of a filmmaker hanging around after what had happened yesterday. Giving a little gesture toward the hall, she exited, coming back with the famous man in tow.
Heaven had seen pictures of Bob Daultman, but she couldn’t believe he really wore a black turtleneck and beret when he wasn’t at a photo shoot. It was so hokey. But there he was in the flesh, being led in by the mayor’s P.R. person, turtleneck and beret in place and not a camera in sight.
“Bonjour, Kansas City,” he said solemnly, as if he were addressing a new alien nation.
Heaven said little during the next twenty minutes as the rest of the committee members fell all over themselves to impress the filmmaker. If he had asked them to have the official dedication at midnight, instead of noon, they probably would have agreed. Even Mona batted her eyelashes at the guy.
“So I see, here in your quaint city, a chance to show my fans, especially those in Europe, the essence of the Kansas City jazz style as it is in the present day and as the old-timers who will be here for the dedication represent it,” Daultman intoned, waving his arms expressively. “And there is the famous Charlie Parker. I hear you will put the plastic sax in the new museum, the one that Parker bought when he was short on money. That will be amusing.”
Heaven couldn’t help but grin. Amusing, indeed. When the city paid a fortune for that saxophone at auction, the taxpayers went wild. They weren’t sure they wanted to spend their money on some junior high band instrument that once belonged to a junkie musician, famous or no. Now this documentary filmmaker was going to show the world what Kansas Citians spent their money on. She looked at her watch and realized she better take control of the meeting or they would be there all night. “I hate to interrupt, Mr. Daultman, but we have to move along here. If I read my fellow committee members correctly, I’d say we are sold on having you on board.”
Everyone murmured yeses and grinned like fools. “How long are you going to be in Kansas City?” Heaven asked.
The filmmaker did a 360 degree turn, complete with hand gestures. “Just another day, to get the feel. Then we will come back next week.”
“Please let us know, through the mayor’s office, if you will have special needs,” Heaven said. “I’m very happy this is a documentary shooting. That’s certainly easier to integrate with a live audience. Of course, the sooner you can let us know what you need, the better.”
Bob Daultman smiled vaguely. “We have simple needs. Remember my coal mining film? We crowded down in a narrow shaft, down, down, down, into the earth, along with the miners. Then there was the piece about the Kabuki theater in Kyoto. The hours and hours of listening to that droning music. Why, one of my crew members went bonkers, brought a boom box into the theater one night and played a Nine Inch Nails CD at full volume. He had to be sent to Bali for R&R. Now usually my crew can handle adversity. Do any of you remember one of my early films, it was in 1963, or was it ’64, in the meat packing plants of Chicago, the one with the Carl Sandburg poem and the Frank Sinatra song, all over the shots of the cattle being . . .”
Heaven realized these reminiscences could go on forever. There’s nothing an artist likes better than talking about his projects. “We hardly think of this coming celebration as adverse conditions, Mr. Daultman,” she said tartly, cutting him off before he started describing the cattle slaughter. “Thank you for your interest in Kansas City and our jazz heritage.” She stood and held out her hand. He bent over it and took it grandly, placing a kiss on her knuckles.
The P.R. aide swooped in to whisk him away amidst a chorus of thank-yous from the committee members.
Heaven didn’t even give them time to discuss this new turn of events. “Mona, what about the volunteers?”
Mona stood up, beaming. “I have such good news. The old-time social clubs of Kansas City have all agreed to provide volunteers for the weekend.”
“What social clubs?” a businessman representing Kansas City Southern Railroad asked.
Mona’s voice slipped into a lecture tone. “There were black social clubs created in the 1940s and 50s when black people in Kansas Ci
ty couldn’t go to white people’s places. So they organized these clubs to have dinners and dances and do volunteer work together. And then they started picketing for equal rights for black people in front of department stores and such. Lots of these groups still exist in Kansas City, even though their members are getting up in years. They are a real part of Kansas City history. It will be wonderful to have them participate in this celebration.”
“Mona, aren’t these people too old to be of any help?” Heaven asked.
Mona sniffed at Heaven’s lack of tact. “Every social club member will have a younger club or family member with him or her. Even though the original purpose of the clubs isn’t necessary anymore, I guess younger people have joined, you know, since the 1950s. I’m meeting with someone from each club next week. I’ve asked them to bring photos of their club activities in the old days. I thought we could put them up someplace.”
Heaven smiled at her friend. “Good thinking. Mona, I’m assigning you the job of figuring out where. Sounds like the social clubs should definitely be a part of the celebration.”
Heaven passed out copies of a calendar of the dedication weekend that she had printed out on the computer at the restaurant, complete with the food plans for each day. “As you can see, the first event, the Friday night concert and gala, is being handled by Miss Ella’s Soul Food, from New York, and ten of the local soul food restaurants.”
“How is that working out? I thought all the local soul food restaurant owners hated Miss Ella for bringing her restaurant into the new historic district?” Mona asked.
“They do, but Miss Ella has only been here since yesterday, so I haven’t seen any face-to-face confrontations yet. I’m sure the tasting on Sunday will be very interesting. All the restaurants are bringing their dishes to my restaurant and we’re sampling the menu. You’re welcome to come; it starts at six. As you know, the Friday night event will be an outdoor buffet on Eighteenth Street with tables set up in front of the Ruby Theater, where the concert will be that night. We’ll have two food lines set up in the blocked-off portion of the street. Then there will also be two dessert stations, at opposite ends of the street. On Saturday, the governor and congressmen and all will dedicate the Eighteenth and Vine district. Barbecue will be available from seven different barbecue restaurants at a food court across the street from the stage when the musicians will be performing. People can eat and enjoy the music at the same time. And before you ask, these barbecue folks aren’t crazy about each other, either. At least they aren’t as vicious as the barbecue competition people are, trying to RUB each other out.” She looked around for laughter, expecting them to have heard about the murders surrounding a barbecue competition she’d been involved in.
The Cornbread Killer Page 4
