by Gary Gusick
“Thank you for indulging me. L. N. McClure,” he said standing up halfway, extending the standard Southern gentleman’s limp handshake. “Forgive me, but I have naught to offer in the way of refreshments.” The wastebasket near his desk contained an empty two-liter bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “And before you ask, as I know Northerners are fascinated with the fact that Southerners at times prefer initials in place of their Christian names, I will divulge what ‘L.N.’ stands for, on the condition that you promise not to share this intimate knowledge with another soul.”
“I’ll take it to my grave,” said Darla.
“Very well. ‘L.N.’ stands for…wait for it…Little Nelson,” said McClure.
“That does explain your preference,” said Darla.
“They are both family names, from my mother’s side. Of course, the order of my two names did make a difference. My maternal grandfather, Ronnie Little, helped found Little and Monroe, one of the largest timber management firms in the South. You will find pictures of Little relatives on the walls down at the capitol. Still, I put it to you, what man—especially what Southern man—would willingly allow himself to be called little?”
“If I could have a look at Tommy’s papers, L.N.,” said Darla, stressing the initials.
“Forgive me,” he said. “You’re a lady on a mission.” He fiddled about in the top drawer of his desk and removed a manila file with the words “T. Reylander” handwritten on the tab.
Opening the envelope, Darla emptied the contents on L.N.’s desk.
“As you can see, the dearly departed didn’t leave a will, as such,” said McClure. “Anything not covered by the documents in this envelope—and there is precious little else—will be probated and most likely end up in the hands of the cousin, which the authorities thus far have been unable to contact. He is believed to reside in Fish Belly, a town in northern Arkansas we haven’t yet located.”
The envelope continued three documents: an insurance policy from Wichita Life for ten thousand dollars, naming Edwina Nothauzer beneficiary; a title to Tommy’s Caddy, with Edwina’s name next to Tommy’s; and a ten-page trust document, which Darla took a few minutes to scan.
“If I’m reading this right,” said Darla, “Tommy owned a two-hundred-and-three-acre parcel of land, which he has placed in some kind of a trust.”
“Peace in the Valley was his name for the property,” said McClure.
“ ‘Peace in the Valley’ was one of Elvis’s hit songs, wasn’t it?” asked Darla. “I’m assuming this is hunting land of some sort?”
“Thomas was informed by the previous owner that Elvis Presley used to hunt deer on the property. This prompted Thomas to offer a thousand dollars an acre for the parcel, using every last dollar of the insurance money he received when his parents were killed during Hurricane Katrina. Surrounding acreage was going for somewhere around two hundred twenty-five an acre.”
“Sounds like Tommy,” said Darla.
“Thomas, believing the land to be sacred, put the parcel in trust,” said McClure, “specifying that it could never be sold. Last month he named Miss Nothauzer the guardian of the trust in the event of his demise, giving her authority over how the land is to be managed. She will also be the beneficiary of any income from the land. However, for the last three years there has been barely enough income from the pine tree thinnings to cover the taxes. In addition, the land is too hilly for any other cash crop.”
“Anything in a safe-deposit box?” asked Darla, moving on.
“Alas, he didn’t maintain one,” said McClure. “There was a valuable Gibson guitar, which I understand perished in the car along with him. And of course there are the Elvis outfits. I’ve seen him in four or five different ones. It’s my understanding that Elvis jumpsuits can fetch a goodly sum on the market, even used, although given Thomas’s less than athletic physique they may be hard to liquidate. The proceeds from their sale will likely make up the biggest part of his estate.”
“So, the girlfriend,” said Darla. “Ms. Nothauzer gets the markdown value on the Caddy, a small insurance policy, and income from some land that doesn’t produce any sizable income.”
“Not exactly a widow’s fortune,” said McClure.
“Did you ever meet this Ms. Nothauzer?”
“Only once,” said McClure, raising his eyebrows.
“And?” asked Darla.
“She’s quite attractive and,” he paused, looking for the right word, “quite exuberant.”
“Exuberant?” asked Darla.
“The image of a roller-coaster ride comes to mind,” said McClure. “But I must say, she and Thomas were quite besotted with one another.”
“Did Tommy have any other legal papers?” asked Darla.
“None that I’m aware of,” McClure said. “And I believe I would have known. Thomas, as I’m sure you were aware, was always one for frugality, and my rates are the most reasonable in Jackson.”
“Did you know of anyone that might want to harm him?” asked Darla.
“Perhaps someone in his line of work,” said McClure, “but I know nothing of that.”
When the conversation paused, McClure shifted in his seat. “Well, I suppose you’ll want to know where I was last night?”
“If you feel the need to tell me,” said Darla. “I could check your name off the list.”
“I was having dinner with my precious mother,” said McClure, dotting his alibi with a polite smile.
“With your mother?” Darla repeated flatly, the way cops do, implying that the matter required further explanation.
McClure was quick to respond. “I know what you’re thinking. A middle-aged Southern man still tied to his mama’s apron strings. I don’t live in her house. I have my own dwelling. Mama is quite attached to me, is all. Family is everything here in the South.”
“Thanks for the sociology lesson,” said Darla. She gave the documents a last look, slipped them back into the envelope, and handed them across the desk to McClure. “Could you have copies made and sent over to the MBI office, to my attention?”
“It would be my pleasure,” said McClure, sounding more solicitous than the situation called for.
Darla let a few seconds of silence fill the room, while her green eyes bore in on his watery blue ones. She sensed L. N. McClure had left something out of his well-prepared story, but she wasn’t sure how to uncover it. She stood and offered her card to McClure. “In case something else comes up.”
He pocketed her card. “Yes, exactly,” he said. “It would be useful to know where to find you, if the need should arise.”
Chapter 4
Officially in Mourning
Tommy and his girlfriend had a rental in the Lake Terrace Apartments on Old Clayton Road in Ridgeland, the first suburb to the north of Jackson. The sixty-unit complex was composed of a series of slate-gray wood-shingled, attached one- and two-bedroom town homes. The tenants tended to be either young professionals fresh out of college, or middle-aged men trying to rebuild their finances after costly divorces.
There was a wrought-iron gate and a guardhouse at the complex entrance, promising added security, but the gate was open and the guardhouse empty.
Darla drove halfway around the circular drive, until she found number 113, Tommy’s apartment. She rang the buzzer and waited. After the second ring, a woman whom Darla took to be Edwina Nothauzer opened the door. She was barefoot and wearing a frilly black nightie that didn’t cover much. Darla could see that the lady was large-chested—they looked real—and had a supple young body, unmarked by the sag of age or childbearing. She was pretty enough to attract most any man. Tommy would have thought her irresistible. Her dark hair, with lighter roots that were just starting to show, was rolled in large curlers and covered with a layer of pink toilet paper. Darla recalled seeing photos of Priscilla Presley during her courtship with Elvis wearing her dark hair in a bouffant.
Edwina looked Darla up and down like Darla was someone she’d bumped into at a high schoo
l reunion and was trying to place her. Finally, she said: “I know you, don’t I now? You’re that detective, ain’t you? The one that come down from up north? Hugh’s wife. Hugh the Glue. I mean before he went to his reward?”
Most people in Mississippi still thought of Darla as Hugh Cavannah’s wife, and always would.
“Darla Cavannah,” Darla said, offering her a hand. At her husband Stephen’s insistence, she had kept Hugh’s last name when she married Stephen. It was a door opener, her new husband told her. Everybody remembered and still loved the all-pro wide receiver from Jackson. Stephen Nicoletti, the director of the last clinic in Mississippi to perform abortions, wasn’t quite as popular. “I worked with Tommy at the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department a few years back,” Darla added, showing the woman her MBI badge. Her point being, this was an official visit, not condolences for the grieving girlfriend.
Edwina stepped out on the landing, and leaned down for a better look at Darla’s badge, turning it around in a semicircle to read the words. “The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Wouldn’t Tommy be proud?” She smiled like she herself was grateful. “You can call me Cill,” she said, touching Darla on the arm. “Tommy give me that name and now everybody calls me that. I guess you can figure out why.”
“I know you already gave a statement to one of the Hinds County officers last night,” said Darla, “but there are a couple of areas I’d like to go over with you. If this isn’t a good time I can come back later?”
Cill shrugged. “Like they say, now’s as good a time as any.” She sounded way too perky for a woman who had just lost her boyfriend. “Of course, as you can see, I’m officially in mourning.”
“You mean the black nightie?” asked Darla.
“It seems only fitting,” said Cill, who let the screen door close behind her, and then did a slightly awkward pirouette on the porch.
Darla looked to the left, then to the right to see if any of the neighbors were watching the show. An elderly man up the street was washing an SUV in his driveway. He’d dropped his hose and was ogling Cill.
“It might be better if we stepped inside,” said Darla.
“Ain’t I the rude one?” Cill opened the screen door, moved aside, and ushered Darla into the living room. The room was taken up by a sectional sofa and a wide-screen TV. The TV appeared new, the sectional not so much. The living room walls were decorated with a few photos and posters of Elvis, but quite a few more of Tommy in costume as Elvis. On the wall above the sofa, in the place of honor, was a blow-up photo of Tommy and Cill in costume. Darla, recalling old photos of Pricilla Presley, could see the resemblance. At the far end of the room was a small display case crammed with Elvis bobbleheads, five or six Elvis books (the extent of Tommy’s library), and gobs of other junk, all of which had an Elvis theme.
Darla took a seat at the end of the sofa. Cill plopped down next to her, close enough to invade Darla’s space. She adjusted the curlers, shifting the toilet-paper-covered bonnet as though she was trying to scratch an itch. “The things we women go through to make ourselves beautiful for our men,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Darla.
“He’s with the Lord now,” said Cill, her soft brown eyes not registering much pain.
Darla removed her recorder from her purse, and set it on the coffee table in front of them. “It’s voice activated,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind? It’s easier than taking notes.”
Cill looked at the recorder and nodded. “Tommy used his to listen to himself sing,” she said, offering a faint smile. “Sometimes he’d try a duet with himself. Now that was something to hear.”
“I’ll try to be brief,” said Darla.
“Before you get to the interrogating part, I got something I need me to confess,” said Cill. “Excepting I don’t want it put down for what-do-you-call-it, prosperity?”
“Posterity?”
“So, if we could hold off on the recording?”
Darla turned the recorder off, making sure that Cill saw her click the off switch.
Cill cleared her throat. “What I got to confess is, Lord forgive me, ’cause I know it’s sinning. I’ve been, how should I say it, I’ve been just plum jealous of you.”
“Of me?” asked Darla, incredulous.
“Once, when Tommy was talking about all the law enforcement types he worked with,” said Cill, “he was saying how you got them green eyes like a cat, but the rest of you reminded him of a Greek statuette he saw on the wall of Niko’s diner in Flowood. He said how you looked like that woman who’s married to that actor. The media, they call them by that one name, Brangelina. And I can see you do favor that lady, but seeing you standing out front, I knowed that you’re being so much up there, stratospherically speaking, you and my Tommy would never be making a couple. So Jesus forgives me.”
Darla listened in amazement. The woman had a language all her own. “Stratospherically?” Darla asked.
“ ’Cause a man don’t want to be looking up to his true love and vicey-vicey.”
“Vice versa,” said Darla.
“Now little ole me, even when I got on them spikey heels, I ain’t barely five feet four—meaning I could rest my pretty little head on Tommy’s shoulder, and him feeling like a manly man. I think that’s important, don’t you?”
In an odd way, she’s right, thought Darla, who was over six feet in heels. Both her husbands measured six four and made her feel small and protected in their arms.
“If you’re ready, I think we should turn the recorder on now,” Darla said.
“Go on ahead,” said Cill. “Make this part official. Do I need a Bible to swear on?”
“Not at this juncture,” Darla said. She switched the pause button and sat the recorder on the coffee table. “How long had you known Tommy, Ms., ah, Cill?”
“You mean this lifetime?” asked Cill.
“That would be a good place to start,” said Darla.
“Well, let me think,” said Cill, leaning forward into the recorder. “I know it might be stretching things, considering my true love officially met his demise last night, but it would be six weeks to the day. But we knew we was soul mates right from the get-go.”
“Have you contacted the insurance companies yet?” Darla asked, clicking off the usual questions.
“Am I suppose to?” Cill asked, looking wide-eyed and innocent.
“Your name is on his life insurance and you’re a co-owner of the Caddy. You’re also guardian for the land that Tommy had put in trust.”
“Well,” said Cill, “now that you mention it, Tommy said something about fixing his legal papers, but I didn’t give no never mind to such things. I ain’t much of one for practical matters. I mean, just as long as there’s enough so’s I can give Tommy a big ole send-off.”
If this is an act, it’s a good one, thought Darla. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt Tommy?” she asked.
“You know my Tommy, being so sweet and all, he didn’t have an enemy in the world.”
That’s not the Tommy I know, thought Darla. “Cill, he was a cop,” she said. “All cops have enemies.”
“Well, Tommy never discussed his police business with me,” she said. “He said it wouldn’t be right.”
Darla didn’t believe her. Tommy couldn’t keep his mouth shut about anything. “But soul mates tell each other everything, don’t they?”
Cill smiled, looking relieved that she was being given permission to share a confidence. “He did mention one person that had evil in his heart,” said Cill. “That ole Mr. Conway.”
Conway was Conway Boudreaux, the owner of Continental Conway’s Gentleman’s Club, a sleazy strip joint in South Jackson. Tommy had been working vice, so the connection made sense. But Darla didn’t remember seeing anything about Conway in Tommy’s files.
“What about Conway?” asked Darla.
“Conway, he just hated Tommy,” said Cill.
; “A few seconds ago you said Tommy didn’t have an enemy in the world.”
“The reason Conway hated Tommy,” Cill said, ignoring Darla’s observation, “was because of how Tommy was God’s tool for shutting down Mr. Conway’s club for homosexuals.”
“The Adonis Club?” This was news. Darla knew a little about it, a gay strip joint Conway had tried to get going. Conway had closed the club after a month, without explanation. “What do you mean Tommy was God’s tool?” asked Darla.
“All Tommy told me was he led the crusade against that infidel Conway and his den of sodomy.”
“What kind of a crusade?” If there was a crusade against the club, the media had never picked up on it.
“He didn’t share the details with me,” said Cill. “Anyway, now that old place is closed and Tommy is dead.”
“Do you know of anything specific Mr. Boudreaux, Conway, actually said or did that would suggest he intended to harm Tommy? Any threats, for instance?”
“Conway was the disciple of Satan. Ain’t that enough?”
“Not usually.”
“In God’s eyes, it is.”
“Well, not in the district attorney’s eyes,” said Darla. “He’s going to need evidence.”
“I guess I’ll just have to leave the matter in God’s hands,” said Cill. “Let go and let God. Plus, you doing your investigatory job and all.” She patted Darla on the arm and smiled, friendlylike.
It was clear that Cill had issues with the LGBT community but Darla wondered if Cill and Conway had some bad blood between them. Or maybe Cill was smarter than she looked, and wanted to get the focus of the investigation off her. Whatever it was, Cill was finished talking about the subject.
Darla resumed her questions. “Last night, when the two of you were leaving the Clarion Hills nursing home—”
“Assisted care facility,” said Cill.
“When you were leaving,” said Darla, “you didn’t walk with Tommy to his car?”
“His chariot, you mean?” Cill said. “That’s what Tommy called it. He was so proud of that car. Had that rolled and tucked Naugahyde seats.”
