by Lisa Turner
Able glanced at the old man, then back at her.
She’d been on the scene when the body came out of the hole. She left out the part about the whiskey bottle found beneath him. No reason to insult Davis by saying his friend got drunk, fell in a hole, and broke his neck.
She bent down to Red, seated on the bench, and spoke louder than she meant to. “I heard you checked into the ER on Thursday with chest pains. Are you feeling better?”
“I’m not deaf,” Red shouted back, then swigged from the pint he was holding.
She straightened. He was drunk and grieving, probably broke. Able was staring at Red in silence.
“You’re here mighty late, Mr. Davis,” Able said.
“I was catching the train to Chicago, but the lady in the office said my New Orleans ticket wouldn’t carry me all the way. I been sitting here cogitating on the situation. I got to get out of town.”
“So catch the morning train to New Orleans,” Frankie offered.
Red scratched his neck. “I got people in the burbs outside a Chicago. Don’t want to go there and live down no rabbit trails, but I ain’t got a choice.”
“You lost your partner. Time with family is a good idea,” Able said.
Red wiped his nose in a smooth motion of disdain. “You know about losing a partner. Lou Nevers talked to us regular when we was on the streets. I know what your partner did, and I know the reason he died. I’m gonna keep Lou and Little Man in my prayers every day.” He sniffed. “It was that shit jacket. Snakebit, ebbo, voodoo. Hell.”
Frankie heard “ebbo” and caught the reference. She could tell from Able’s expression that the word meant nothing to him.
“What jacket?” he asked.
“Bought it at the Goodwill. It’s cursed. I brought bad luck down on our heads. I should’ve been the one to pay, not Little Man.”
Frankie glanced around. “You got this jacket in a suitcase somewhere?”
Red drew himself up. “You don’t carry a cursed thing around with you. You don’t talk about mbua. Evil draws its power from words.”
A crackling sound spread across the ceiling. An echo boomed like artillery fire from the freight tunnels below. Red leaped to his feet, eyes bulging, and the bottle shattered on the floor. Weird sounds in the terminal didn’t bother Frankie, but she understood why they bothered Red. The old man believed in Santería. He thought the Evils were after him. She glanced at Able, who had a mystified look on his face. He didn’t understand Red’s reaction, but he held out his hand anyway.
“Let me see your ticket,” he said.
Red fumbled in his pocket, the alcohol already working through his brain. Able took the ticket and strode up the steps to where the cashier was closing out the register.
Frankie disapproved of what Able was about to do. Her first year on the street she’d learned that handing out money didn’t make a dent in people’s desperation. Able was a veteran cop. His willingness to ante up for Red Davis surprised her.
He returned with a yellow ticket. “Next train for Chicago leaves at ten forty tomorrow night.” He pulled five twenties out of his wallet. “This is for food and a cab when you get to Chicago. Not for booze.”
Red’s voice jumped to a higher register. “You ain’t hearing me, son. I got responsibilities. I got to leave town tonight.” He stared helplessly at the bills and the ticket in Able’s hand.
“The terminal closes in twenty minutes,” Frankie said. “I’ll drive you over to Robert House. You can come back tomorrow.”
Red shook his head, resigned. “Thank you, ma’am. I got a place to stay.” He pocketed the money and the ticket. The side of his mouth twitched, and he eyed Able. “Lou Nevers told me about you. He said you’re a smart cop, but you’re too softhearted. Don’t go believing every story you hear.” He waved them away. “Go on now. I’ll get myself outta here. I got some thinking to do.”
They walked toward the stairs that led to the street-level entrance. She felt comfortable leaving Red. He had a pocket full of cash and a ticket to Chicago. Apparently, Able didn’t see it that way. He paused at the steps and looked back at the old man now seated on the bench, his elbows resting on his knees and his long hands dangling. After a minute, Able followed her down the steps and out the door.
“See you around, Officer Malone,” he said with a half smile.
He couldn’t know that a month ago she’d aced the promotions exam. A position was opening up on the homicide squad. His squad. She desperately wanted the job.
“I hope so,” she said under her breath, and waved.
They walked into the sultry night and went their separate ways.
Chapter 4
A persistent beeping jarred Billy out of a sound sleep. Opening one eye, he focused on the cheap paneled wall and the sunlight coming through the porthole, illuminating his unpacked suitcase. His shirt from the night before hung over the back of the chair. Somewhere on the slack water an outboard motor cranked until it caught.
He slapped the alarm’s off button. It read 7:00 A.M. The damned thing must have been going off every morning for the last nine months. He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, still able to feel Mercy as if she were curled against him while they slept.
He drifted off. The beeping started again. This time his feet hit the linoleum. Some jackass was honking his horn outside on the landing. He stomped through the barge to the front window and lifted the blind to see Frankie Malone standing beside her cruiser with her right arm stuck through the rolled-down window and her hand on the horn. She saw him at the window and stopped honking. He could tell she was agitated.
“Aw, hell, lady. What do you want now?” he mumbled and dropped the blind.
He wasn’t about to get dragged into the personal drama of a woman he barely knew, but from the determined look on Officer Frankie’s face, he was on her list. He went back for a shirt and to zip into his Levi’s. He walked out on the deck, and let the door slam behind him, a signal that he wasn’t at all happy with the situation.
He noticed she was inspecting his car with a slight smile, like she might know more about cars than most women and thought it was cool but couldn’t quite place it. No wonder. Most 1986 Plymouth Turismos had been off the road for a while. This one had been stored in a barn down in Mississippi for seventeen years when he first saw it. He’d bought it on the spot and spent his summers between university semesters making it worth his ride.
He gave it a black matte finish and dropped in a rebuilt engine to replace the gutless four-banger that came standard. After that, he could outrun most street cars, surprising the hell out of them, especially on tight turns.
The Plymouth was the only car he’d ever fallen in love with. Maybe it was because it had no onboard computer and nothing on it ever broke. Or maybe it was because the damned car never let him down.
Frankie looked back across the barge’s gangplank at him. Her cropped hair framed her classic good looks that contradicted the masculine cut of her uniform. A woman that attractive would be more effective working undercover or on plainclothes duty, which was probably where she was headed.
The bruise on her cheek he’d noticed the night before was even more visible now in the daylight.
“Good morning,” she said. “We’ve got a problem.”
“Maybe you do. I don’t. I’m on vacation. You know what time it is?”
“Seven.”
“Are you nuts, honking like that?”
“I couldn’t knock.” She pointed to the locked gate he’d installed at the foot of the ramp to keep tourists from boarding the barge.
He knew better than to ask, but he couldn’t stop himself. “What’s wrong?”
“Red Davis was found dead on the bench outside Central Station. He must have settled there for the night after we left. I caught the call a little before five. He was sitting up, chin on his chest, hands in his lap. Cold as a Popsicle.”
She stared across the river as if weighing how best to continue. “There�
��s something at the scene you’re going to want to see.”
He sighed inwardly. A dead body before breakfast means the whole day is going to be shit. “You said Red went to the ER a couple of days ago with chest pains.”
She paused. “That’s right.”
“Did you check for bullet wounds or trauma?”
“Yes. There’s nothing obvious.”
“Then Red’s DOA natural. I’m sorry he passed, but the case will be closed.”
She gave him a long, loaded look. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“I’m on leave. I can’t step into another detective’s case. What do you want from me?”
“I didn’t like what I saw at the scene. Before I could figure out why, Detective Dunsford showed up.”
“Dunsford the Dud?” Billy laughed. “He’s retiring in October. He’s about as effective as a wet match.”
“Precisely.”
Behind them a tug running in the river’s full current blasted its horn. He cleared his throat, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. “He’ll do all right.”
“Dunsford’s going to do a half-assed job. They’ll close the case, throw Red in a trench at the Shelby County Cemetery, and push dirt over him. After you bought his ticket last night, I assumed you had some regard for the man.”
He let that one pass. “Red has folks in Chicago. Did you find their names on him?”
“No one’s meeting him in Chicago. He told you that story to shut you up.”
She had him there. Something about Red’s death had bothered her so much she’d gone to the trouble to track Billy down.
“What made you question the scene?” he asked.
She cocked her head. “You’re the big-city detective. Take a look for yourself.”
If she thought leaning on him would do the trick, she was wrong. It wasn’t nearly as effective as knowing that he’d left Red alone last night when he was in trouble.
He ran his hand through his hair. “We’ll get coffee on the way. You’re buying.”
Chapter 5
Frankie pulled over at Denny’s on South Second for him to run in and grab a jolt of Mississippi Mud Coffee. Then she parked in front of Earnestine and Hazel’s, around the corner from the crime scene. Billy could see Red’s body already laid out on a gurney, encased in a white vinyl body bag.
While Frankie typed her report on the computer console, he drank coffee and tried to get his wits about him. He rolled down his window for some air. A prosperous-looking young couple, people from the new homes built on the bluff, waved as they walked past.
This part of town had been a different scene in the forties. Earnestine and Hazel’s was a skinning joint back then with prostitutes working the warren of rooms over the bar. A variety of fools walked across the street from the train station, looking for a drink and some quick action from the ladies, only to regain consciousness with a knot on the back of their heads and their wallets emptied. A few blocks north, Beale Street had been home to gamblers, showgirls, street preachers, river men, blues players up from the Mississippi cotton fields, medicine men, voodoo priests, and housemaids. There was no more creative, stimulating, or dangerous fifteen square blocks in the country.
Billy noted the sun lighting up the peeled blue trim on the windows of E and H—the bar’s nighttime potency having given way to exhaustion. What’s enticing in the nighttime can look like hell in the morning. Daylight changes the nature of things.
He downed the last of his coffee and turned his attention to Frankie, who was speaking to him between rapid-fire keystrokes.
“Dispatch is pushing for this report on Davis. Dunsford isn’t going to let me back on the scene, but he can’t kick you out. Behind the bench you’ll find a pile of plastic bottles. I dropped a small gray bag there, a conjure bag, used to transport ebbos.” She glanced at him. “That means charms or spells. I’d say we’re dealing with Santería.”
She threw out ebbos as if she were comfortable with the word. Red had done the same. Billy knew almost nothing about the religion. Apparently Frankie did.
She read the text on the screen, tapped a key, and turned to him with the same earnest expression he’d had when he was a patrol cop.
“There’s not much Santería activity in Memphis,” he said. “The big evangelical churches rule the city.”
“You’d be surprised by what’s going on behind closed doors. I tried to explain the significance of the bag to Dunsford. He cut me off, told me it was trash and to throw it away. I couldn’t let him toss evidence, so I squirreled it away behind the bench.”
“I’m guessing there’s a voodoo potion in the bag.”
“Technically, it’s not voodoo. The stuff looks like it came out of a vacuum cleaner bag: ground eggshell, pulverized coal, bits of a wasp nest, rock salt, guinea pepper. You knock it down in a blender then blow the dust into the face of the person you want to do away with.” She flattened her palm and blew air in his direction. “Poof. You’re dead.”
“From eggshells?”
“In a believer’s mind, it’s a bona fide death curse. It could stop a person’s heart.”
“Did any of that devil dust show up on Red?”
“His jacket and face looked dusty when I checked him over. Then I found the bag, but before I could compare the two, Dunsford showed up.”
Billy crumpled up his coffee cup. “I’m not saying you don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can’t believe a savvy guy like Red is into that crap.”
“He’s wearing a necklace of green and yellow beads. That’s a Santerían collar. I found rooster feathers, a red bandanna, and a red apple in his pocket—all elements of a charm meant to counteract a curse.”
“No room for coincidence here?”
“Nope,” she said with certainty.
“You don’t believe in this stuff, do you?”
She made a face. “You know a lot about the Delta blues. That doesn’t make you a sharecropper with a guitar. I saw evidence of Santería at a number of Key West crime scenes. This appears to be death by natural causes, but it’s a mistake to take Santería off the table.”
“Let’s be clear. You got me out of bed to verify your theory that a voodoo curse killed Red Davis.”
“Santería isn’t voodoo, but yes, I’d like to hear your opinion.”
He almost laughed at her cockiness. “You should take the promotions exam. You’d fit right in with the squad.”
“I took it a month ago. Scored ninety-eight percent. Three candidates are up for two positions in the investigative squads. I’m going to land one of them.”
Her score impressed him, but her attitude put him off. “Look. Most times, a heart attack is just a heart attack. I haven’t heard how you’re going to connect Red’s death to this bag of dust.”
“Just take a look at his face.” She handed him a pair of latex gloves. “I have to sign off my shift. Give me a call when you’re done.”
Chapter 6
Detective Don Dunsford was coasting through his final year on the force. The fact that his brother-in-law was a Memphis Police Association union rep along with Don’s announcement that he would take early retirement at the end of the year had saved him from being slapped with probation for flunking the latest technical-training upgrade. He was never much of a cop. At this late stage, any case Dunsford caught was at serious risk of being underinvestigated. He had earned the nickname “the Dud.”
Billy ducked under the tape and headed toward Dunsford. He was standing next to the bench where Red’s body had been discovered, wagging a clipboard in his face to create a breeze. Dunsford was a low-oxygen type, a mouth breather.
“What’s up, Don?” Billy said in a cheery voice.
Dunsford stared at him, a little blank. “Hey. You back in town?”
Billy shrugged.
Dunsford shrugged back. His mobile rang. He answered and walked away as if satisfied their conversation was over.
Billy located the gray bag Frankie had described and sna
pped on gloves to scoop out a handful of the concoction: fine dust with bits of eggshell and lumps of wasp nest.
Dunsford strolled over. “You hear about the hiring freeze? I got four cases running. Could use some help.”
Billy dumped the dust in the bag and rolled off the gloves. “Any idea what happened here?”
Dunsford swatted the air. “Some Sambo named Davis died waiting for a train. Just another damned drunk.”
Billy’s jaw tightened. Davis’s talent and emotional fortitude made him worth a thousand fools like Dunsford. “The man deserves more consideration than that.”
“Naw. I didn’t even call the ME’s office. A waste of manpower. What’s it to you?”
“My granddaddy was a black man. I’m thinking Mr. Davis might be my great-uncle.”
Dunsford’s face swelled with suspicion, then he sneered. “So that’s why you’re always standing up for the coloreds. You were bred to it.”
He leaned into Dunsford’s face. “My granddaddy got around. The white ladies loved him. I hope you and me aren’t related.”
Dunsford’s lips parted so a whiff of sour breath escaped. Then he laughed, showing a gold tooth on the side. “You’re good, Able. Had me going.” He punched Billy on the bicep. Billy punched back harder and raised the conjure bag for Dunsford to see.
“You plan to use this in your investigation?”
“That little gal cop had her shorts in a wad over that thing. What’s with you being so interested in trash?”
“I’m going to take a look at the body on the way out, see if I recognize a relative.”
Dunsford’s eyes went cold. “That’s not necessary.”
“I think it is.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dunsford retorted.
That response pretty much exhausted Dunsford’s repertoire of comebacks, which meant he’d have to ante up or back down. But forcing Dunsford to assert his authority wouldn’t get Billy a look at the body. What they needed was a distraction. He pointed toward the parking lot.
