Louisiana Bigshot

by Julie Smith

POLICE RESCUE PI IN BIZARRE KIDNAP ATTEMPT

  KIDNAPPERS TIED TO GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE

  CALHOUN WITHDRAWS FROM RACE

  And finally, when the whole story had come out, and the reporters had time to tie all the loose ends together:

  HOW A SMALL PI FIRM UNCOVERED A CONSPIRACY OF MURDER-FOR-HIRE AND BROUGHT DOWN A POLITICAL MACHINE

  It should have been the proudest day of Eddie’s life; in some ways it was. But the idea of listening to Angie congratulate herself one more time on making him hire Talba Wallis made his teeth itch. The minute he saw that paper, even before he read it, he grabbed Audrey and said, “Let’s take a little drive over to the Gulf Coast.”

  That way, at least his daughter couldn’t start in till Monday—and it was a sure route to marital bliss. Audrey always got romantic on the coast.

  There were a couple of other bitter pills. They got Stan for the kidnapping and the attempted murder of Nora Dwyer’s husband, but so far they’d been unsuccessful in getting him to deliver Calhoun. And why should he talk? He had a good chance of beating the Dwyer rap (since Dwyer himself was the only witness) and he’d be looking at several centuries of jail time for the other murders—why cop out? But at least Calhoun’s career was ruined. There was some satisfaction in that.

  Stan and one other person were charged in the Dwyer case—Stan’s brother, Rufus. What a pair of aces these two were. Grown men living at home with their parents, Frank and Margaret, who owned a mom-and-pop grocery; both men helped out in the store. And led double lives as assassins.

  They were self-taught, it seemed. The police found a few books on drugs and poisons in their house, and a gun—maybe the gun used to shoot at Eddie and later, Tanitha Richard—but that was it. The brothers had evidently had luck the first time and then hung out their shingle. They might get convicted and serve a few years but Eddie personally thought they should fry, though he recognized that he had more reason than most to think so.

  One thing, though. Ms. Wallis got what Eddie figured she’d probably call “closure” on her friend, Babalu Clayton Maya Patterson. Calvin Richard was the key to the whole thing, and at least he finally had the decency to come forward.

  ***

  He turned up at the office three days after the first newspaper story and asked for Talba Wallis. A wary Eileen Fisher ushered him in: he was in uniform and intimidating.

  Talba was so shocked all she could think to say was his name: “Calvin Richard.”

  He said, “I owe you an apology. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  “I could use some caffeine.” And off they went, not to the nearest coffee joint, but all the way over to the PJ’s on Frenchmen Street. Richard seemed to want to get far away.

  “I’ve told Langdon the story,” he said. “They reopened the Clayton Patterson case in view of all the new information. Stan and Rufus did it, and we know they did it, but the best we can hope for is Dwyer. We’ll never get ’em on Patterson.” He observed a private moment of silence. “I wish to hell we could. For Clayton’s sake. I helped ruin her life, and I keep thinking about it. About everything—the whole fucked-up mess that ended in her getting killed. All that crap that happened a hundred years ago. I wish to God I could go back and undo what I did. I wish to God I could.”

  Talba felt as if she were in Clayton again, at that charade of a funeral. “I’ve got to tell you something, Calvin. You did not ruin her life. And neither did anybody else. She had a good life, no matter what anyone in your hometown thinks. Just because she didn’t marry the captain of the football team and become a housewife…She was a good person and she was doing good work.”

  Richard gave her an ironic smile. “Actually, that wasn’t an option. The captain of the football team was black. In fact, he was me. That just wasn’t in Clayton Patterson’s stars.” He looked at the ceiling, as if he might actually be studying Clayton’s stars. “Look, this isn’t easy. Langdon suggested I tell it to you.” When he lowered his face, it had a half-smile on it. “My wife too. Fact, she’s been nagging at me since you first called, even though she was the one they shot at. So I’m gon’ do it, okay? I know you were Clayton’s friend. God knows she needed all the friends she could get.”

  Talba said, “I’m listening,” a little coldly. She hated this “poor Clayton” routine.

  “I was in love with her in high school—yeah, yeah, I know Marshannon says she just had a thing for brothers, but it wasn’t that way, man. No way. Sure, he thinks she flirted with him—and maybe she halfway did. But Clayton was just a real friendly girl, man. If she flirted with Marshannon, she flirted with every white boy in the school too. Wasn’t anybody Clayton didn’t flirt with—or so they thought. Hell, the male teachers and the principal both probably thought she had the hots for them—and maybe she did, I don’t know. I choose to think she was friendly, and flirting was part of the way she connected. But a lot of us were just too self-absorbed to notice we weren’t the only one. Every eighteen-year-old boy thinks he’s the only kid in the world. I know I sure did. But I also knew better than to have dreams about the banker’s daughter.” He gave Talba a meaningful look. “The banker’s white daughter.

  “But one day I just couldn’t stand it—I don’t know, Clayton and I, we were alone in a classroom, I can’t remember why—maybe we both came back for something we forgot. Maybe even on purpose. But I do remember what happened in that room. When she was leaving, I touched her on the arm and said, ‘Take care,’ and all of a sudden we just started talking—but, you know, not really. Just in that kind of moony way embarrassed kids do when they’re attracted to somebody. Next thing you know I kissed her. And then I said I was sorry and she ran away. Then she sent me a note asking me to meet her, and that was when it started.”

  “Wait a minute. What about Donny Troxell?”

  Richard nodded. “I’m gettin’ to that. Her parents were real racists—maybe you know about that—and they threatened me; wouldn’t let us date. Well, hell, we were kids! We thought we were tragic heroes and everything, but we thrived on tragedy. We cried awhile and then we let it go. And that was when she started going out with Donny. The whole thing was over for a year by then—and nobody in that school knew a thing about it. Nobody. I’d stake my life they didn’t.”

  “Well, Marshannon didn’t. Or Ebony Frenette.”

  “Ebony! Well, yeah, I guess I was going with Ebony about then.”

  “She remembers you too.”

  He shook his head, as if in disapproval. “Don’t pull that woman thing on me. This isn’t the usual teenage shit. What happened with Clayton was a life-altering event—you understand?”

  It sure was for Clayton, Talba thought.

  “Well, here’s the part where I got used as a patsy—or maybe not. I just don’t know at this point. To say things got complicated’s pretty much of an understatement. See, Donny started cheating on her, and there she was, the sweetheart of the rodeo, humiliated in front of everybody.”

  Talba thought, His mama didn’t know that. But then, who was going to tell her?

  “Maybe Clayton wanted to make him jealous. All I know is, she came back to me. One night when the family was asleep, she let me in the back door. Only somebody wasn’t asleep—and the Pattersons had a shed out back where they kept tools. They have a fishing camp that I guess needs clearing now and then—and you can guess what they used to clear it.”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling you’re talking about a machete.”

  Richard nodded briefly and then started talking faster. “So, look, I’ll just tell it from my point of view. We were making love, you understand?”

  Talba thought, What’s to understand? She nodded politely.

  “And I heard something and I turned my head to look. That is, I started to turn my head—at that point I never even saw it coming, but if I hadn’t moved, that thing would’ve split my head wide open. I mean, I probably would have been killed. But when I moved my head, I uncovered Clayton’s face, you understand? I saw the thing
coming down, and grabbed the guy’s arm, but it was too late. I mean, it probably saved her life, but he still got her. Oh, yeah, he got her. He got all of us that night.”

  “Who got her?”

  “Her little brother, Trey. I swear to God I still don’t know if he thought I was raping her or if he just had some crazy idea of doing what his racist daddy thought was the right thing. God, all hell broke loose. You ever heard three terrified teenagers screaming at once? You should of seen it when Mr. and Mrs. Patterson came in and there was their little darlin’ in bed with a black kid, butt-naked, both of us, their son holding a bloody machete and precious princess losing about a gallon of blood a minute—you know how much a scalp wound bleeds?”

  Talba nodded, trying to envision the scene. “I read about it in the transcript. The phrase ‘hanging by a thread’ comes to mind as well.”

  “I guess that’s an exaggeration, but I don’t know… Anyway, her scalp wasn’t flapping in the breeze. It was lying down like yours or mine at the time, just with buckets of blood coming out from under it. But I don’t know—maybe when they started to sew it back—I just don’t know. Kind of gives you the willies to think about, doesn’t it?”

  Talba tried not to think about what Clayton’s life would have been like if her scalp had actually been sheared off—assuming she’d even survived it.

  “So what happens is, Mr. Patterson and Trey grab me and hold me and that makes Clayton so mad she won’t even go with her mama to take care of the wound, but she’s yelling so loud everybody thinks she isn’t gonna die or anything. But, man, that attack left scars! On everybody involved.” He stared in the direction of his hometown, time traveling. “Umm. Umm. Umm.”

  Abruptly, he came back. “I was scared shitless and I still am when I think about it. You know how easily they could have framed me for that? Only reason they didn’t was Clayton. But that wasn’t what they were threatening then—they were gon’ kill me. Cut my balls off at the very least. Shit, I peed all over myself I was so scared.”

  “You thought they’d really do it?”

  “Man, you got no idea how mad those whitebreads were. Oh, yeah. They were gonna do it. Would have done it hadn’t been for Clayton. They knew she wasn’t going to sit still for it—she was right in their faces tellin’ ’em about it. Finally, she got ’em offa me, and they sent me home. Just like that—they sent me home. Once they cooled down, they couldn’t wait to get rid of me. But first they coached Clayton to say she was asleep and didn’t see who did it and they told her—holding the machete on me—they told her they’d hunt me down and kill me if she talked. And she said she’d keep her mouth shut and they let me go.”

  “Hold it a minute. Okay, so they had enough sense not to kill you—I still don’t see why they didn’t frame you.”

  “ ’Cause they couldn’t trust her not to tell the truth, little brother be damned. She was gonna come out with it, and they knew it. And they could have got the kid off—no question in my mind, they could have. But you know what they were afraid of? You know what really got ’em? They didn’t want the good people of Clayton knowin’ their precious daughter was in bed with a nigger. Tha’s what they wanted to keep quiet.”

  Talba exhaled loudly. “Whoo.”

  “But man, they got her good one more time. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm ”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “She didn’t know they were gonna frame Donny. They flat out threw him to the wolves. And none of us could do a goddamn thing about it.”

  Talba opened her mouth to speak, but Calvin held up a hand to shut her up.

  “Oh, yeah, you think we could, but who we gonna tell the truth to? They already had all that trumped-up evidence.”

  “You could have told his lawyer. Lawrence Blue.”

  “I could have. But they had another hold on me—they sent some money to my folks with a little note that pretty much indicated my daddy’d lose his job and never work again if I tried something like that.”

  “Well, what about Clayton?”

  He shook his head, regretful for what had been done to her. “That was a real big machine she would have been buckin’.”

  Talba remembered the pictures of her in the Clayton paper, in various stages of recovery, particularly the one with her head shaved and stitches showing. She’d been made to pose for those pictures, Talba realized now—she hadn’t done it for revenge. They’d made her do it as part of their campaign to convict an innocent boy.

  “Besides, there was one other thing,” Calvin continued. “Trey was still her little brother. They were close, too—she didn’t want to see him in jail.” He pressed his lips together and said, “You want to walk for awhile? I’m tired of sitting.”

  The second they were outside, Richard lit a cigarette, blowing smoke like a dragon.

  Talba said, “You think framing Donny was Buddy Calhoun’s idea?”

  “Hell, no. Had to be Sheriff Ransdell. Diabolical old bastard. Calhoun just went along with it.”

  “And so did the whole town.”

  “Not that many people knew about me. They sure couldn’t have known Donny was framed. But, yes. There was something they went along with—Clayton as pariah. Because that’s what happened to her. The minute that family made their pact with the devil, they turned against Clayton—” For the first time, he seemed at a loss. “I never understood how it happened. Okay, she fucked a black guy. But she was their daughter—” He shook his head. “It just doesn’t seem like enough. This wasn’t the fifties. It was just a few years ago.”

  “Calvin, let me tell you something about that kind of people—sex isn’t the sin, black, white, or purple. What they worry about is ‘disgracing the family.’ They’d have only hated her for being with you if it had come out.”

  “Well, they sure as hell hated her for something. You tell me what.”

  “She was a witness, for one thing.”

  He thought about it. “It always seemed to me like they blamed her for what they did. But I couldn’t make it make sense.”

  Talba’s neck hairs prickled. “Makes sense to me.” Made her sick too.

  They walked in silence while Talba got up the nerve to bring up a couple of things that bothered her. “Why didn’t you come forward before?”

  Richard didn’t answer for awhile; seemed to be thinking of a way to explain. Finally, he said, “You know about my little boy?”

  Talba nodded. “Damian? Yes. I thought it might be something to do with him.”

  “It started about four years ago. Checks started coming. Made out to Damian Richard from some foundation; signed by somebody we never heard of. They always came with a nice letter with some real good reasons why our son had been chosen. But I’m a cop, right? I checked it out. There ain’t no such foundation. It was a bribe, pure and simple. I knew it and I took it.”

  “I don’t blame you for that,” Talba said. “I don’t think anybody would.” She shook her head at the sheer size of the deception. “Buddy sure thought of everything, didn’t he?”

  “He’s a detail man. Always has been.” He spoke absently, his mind elsewhere. “Tell me something. Doesn’t this bother you at all? You really glad you brought Buddy down? You gonna be happy with Jack Haydel for governor?”

  “No, I’m not. Hell, no. But, Calvin, look—Buddy Calhoun’s as crooked as Haydel is—and a cheap opportunist and a murderer. Sure, politicians are corrupt; that’s a given. But you ever heard of one who’s actually a murderer? I mean, Hitler and Stalin, sure, but in this country? This guy’s way beyond Nixon and Clinton and everybody else. You ever think about that?”

  “I swear to God I might vote for him if he were still running.”

  “You don’t care that he killed all those people? And covered up for Trey—who tried to kill you?”

  Richard bowed his head. “Yeah, I care. I just think he’s better than the other guy. This damn thing’s warped me, you know that? I’ve lived with it all these years.”

  “What happened
with you and Clayton after the attack?”

  “Nothing. We were never alone together after that—even for a minute. Never spoke again except to say hi. I never got over her, though. In some ways, I never did.”

  “I should think not.” They had walked back around to his parking spot. “I’ve got one last thing to ask you,” Talba said. “Her fiancé needs to know about this. Would you be willing to tell it again?”

  Real distress filled his face. “Talba, I can’t. Right now my stomach feels like there’s a hive of bees in it. I can’t go through this again.”

  She nodded, as if in sympathy. “Okay, then.” She pulled a tiny tape recorder out of her pocket. “Would you mind if I played this for him?”

  “Hey! You should have asked my permission to do that.”

  Legally, she didn’t have to and they both knew it. “I’m asking for your permission to play it. Out of courtesy.” He scowled, but she didn’t really give a damn. “Eddie wouldn’t have been kidnapped if you’d come forward. Your own wife wouldn’t have been shot at.”

  “Oh, fuck it,” he said. “Play him the goddamn thing.” Like he was the victim. He got in his car and drove away, leaving Talba with a bad taste in her mouth. Sure, the scalping and all its attendant effects had been hard on him—nearly getting killed; seeing Clayton hurt; being threatened. And God knows, so had his son’s illness. But one little confession didn’t make up for all those years of silence—for all the harm they’d done.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Closure,” Eddie called it. It had a nice, long-o’d, settled sound. Serene, almost. She sincerely wished she had closure.. But in fact Talba had hardly felt less serene and settled in her life. Impressions of the past weeks swirled in her brain—feelings, images, but most of all, words. Words, words, words.

  Oh, God, the words:

  Hanging by a thread.

  Rudimentary conscience.

  Just a real friendly girl.

  Oh, Mama, I’m gonna lose her!

  Daddy! It’s that girl I hate.

  Professor Plum. Whatchathink that means?