Burying Daisy Doe

by Ramona Richards

  Alex flipped back a page in his notebook to check something. “So William thinks that a major shipment is coming.”

  Roscoe nodded. “A mix of counterfeit and dirty money, with some other items they still bootleg, maybe stolen goods. They’ve been moving the cash in small fireproof cases, nothing more than the trunk and axles of a Crown Vic can handle. Last week, Chris asked William if he could handle a Class 8 truck, a big rig. Apparently a major shift in the upper management is coming up on the Tennessee end of this, and it’s making Buck nervous. A new generation is taking over, and his relationship with the younger boys isn’t as secure as with their daddies. He wants to move some major merchandise, then lay low for a bit till the dust settles. See who he needs to court and who to dump.”

  “Early next year?”

  “That’s what seems to be in the works. The fly in the ointment is that most of this is coming from Chris, who may be on the way out as well. Buck is not happy with him, and he and Abner are fighting a lot over the Pineville runs. Abner’s ready for his younger son to move into Buck’s business, and Buck is growling about all of them getting too greedy. So Chris’s information may not be completely accurate. And scuttlebutt in the ranks is that the turnover up north is due to information being leaked to the feds.”

  Alex and Bobby remained silent a moment. Bobby cleared his throat. “But they think the information is coming from the Tennessee crowd.”

  “Oh, yeah. If they thought it was from down here, there would have already been a housecleaning that would make the Jonestown massacre look like a stroll in the woods. They have no loyalty to Buck or any of his guys. They’re just a conduit. A means to an end. Easily replaced.”

  Bobby shifted uncomfortably. “Anytime you want to cool this off—”

  Roscoe twisted to look at the man next to him more directly. “Say that again, Lieutenant.”

  Bobby’s mouth tightened in a part grimace, part grin. “Point taken, Sergeant.”

  “Look, my town has its problems, but it’s home to a lot of good folks. If this is not dug out at the roots, it’ll bring the whole place down. Hurt a lot of good people, innocent folks who have no clue what their town officials have been up to. We gotta do something.”

  Alex looked up from his notebook. “How’s William taking you working with us?”

  Roscoe straightened in the booth again. “Antsy. But he’s been that way ever since he started running with Chris. And since it started looking like Chris was getting pushed aside. His baby brother has taken over many of the runs with a new driver. Chris and William are doing more of the distribution into Birmingham, Montgomery, points south. Pay’s not as good. And old JoeLee is up for reelection in a couple years, and there’s already talk that he’s too old to run again. Buck needs to consolidate his organizational contacts before too much else changes.”

  “How old is Wilkes?” Bobby asked.

  “Pushing seventy. He’s been sheriff for almost forty years.”

  Bobby crushed a napkin in his fist. “Was sheriff when my mother was killed.”

  Alex glanced at the younger man. “Bobby, is this going to be a problem?”

  “No.” Bobby’s voice turned crisp. “But I don’t want us to forget why I dug back into this in the first place. I don’t want her to get shoved aside because we stumbled over something bigger.”

  “It won’t.” Roscoe was a bit surprised at the sharpness in his own tone. “That murder changed my world. I sought you out, remember?”

  “I do, but—”

  “What if they’re tied together?”

  Both men stared at Alex, who calmly downed about half his cup of coffee.

  “How?” Bobby asked.

  Alex set down the cup and focused on Roscoe. “Look, Chris is your central figure in all this, right? He’s the source of William’s information. He’s the older son of the Pineville connection to Buck Dickson. And he was the one you heard talking in the woods that day with his father about the murder. Right?”

  Roscoe swallowed hard. He’d almost forgotten about that conversation. “Right.”

  “So what if Esther Spire’s murder wasn’t about who she was but what she might uncover? Remember, Bobby, if we’re putting all the pieces together correctly, then Chris is your half brother. What if Esther’s murder had less to do with shame or inheritance than business? Greed?”

  Bobby looked at Roscoe, who nodded. “He has a point, Bobby. These critters would definitely eat their own young for more money. So what’s next?”

  “Keep the money exchange going,” Alex said. “And eyes and ears open about that shipment. You keep us informed. We’ll do the rest.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Birmingham, Alabama, Present Day

  BELLE IS HARD to miss. Even in an area fond of and full of classic cars, a 1966 GMC Carryall stands out. Especially a bright-blue-and-white one that sounds like a Sherman tank on the move. When I first started working as a PI, one of my friends still on the police force suggested I might trade her for something a little quieter and nondescript. With a 305 V6, a subtle entrance was nigh onto impossible.

  Maybe. Someday. But I could live in her if I needed to, and I hadn’t really needed to sneak around much, at least so far. But I did wish that I could be a little less obtrusive when I left Gran’s Monday afternoon and headed for The Summit. I took reasonable precautions to make sure I wasn’t followed, but anyone in pursuit would have to be blind to miss me on a road, even on Highway 280’s normal crush of traffic. I turned into the lower part of The Summit’s parking area, hoping all threats had remained behind in Pineville.

  But I wasn’t the only obvious vehicle around. A bright-red 1992 Thunderbird already sat in the parking lot, announcing who my secretive meeting would be with.

  Roscoe’s kin.

  Imajean Carver Thompson, as elegant as always, sat at a booth in the rear corner of the restaurant, reading a paperback and nibbling on a pastry. Steam rose from a cup of coffee near the plate. Her hair was a neat cap of blonde-tipped curls that nestled in rows against her head. Two loops of a gold necklace accented her soft red shirt, and matching bracelets bumped the coffee cup as she reached to take a sip. Her son, Charles, occupied a two-person table a few yards away from his mother, focused on a computer, his fingers blazing away over the keyboard. The very opposite of his mother, he sported jeans, a University of Alabama at Birmingham T-shirt, a neat goatee, and stylish thick-rimmed glasses.

  I bought a chai tea and made my way toward Imajean’s booth, approaching slowly. As I neared the booth, Imajean set the book aside and motioned for me to come closer. As I did, she smiled, a sad expression that didn’t quite make it to her eyes, which were puffy and shot full of red streaks.

  “I won’t bite. I promise.” She gestured toward the seat opposite her. “I’ve heard you had quite the weekend.”

  “Yes ma’am.” I sat, pushing my cup of chai closer to the wall. Imajean may have been a generation behind Miss Doris, but I had the same respect and admiration for her. Maybe more so. “But not as bad as yours.”

  “No. But you do know what it’s like to lose a father.” Her gaze stayed on me, watching every muscle in my face.

  “Yes ma’am. Although I was just a kid.”

  “Like my cousin, Jeshua. When he was only a child, he lost his father. And a baby brother. I lost my mother at the same time.”

  Not what I expected her to say, and my eyes widened.

  She nodded, as if confirming something to herself. “You came down here to investigate your grandmother’s death. Your daddy’s. You thought it might be about race or just how outsiders were treated in the Jim Crow South.”

  “I suspected. I had nothing that proved anything.”

  “You had no idea you were about to beat a hornet’s nest with a stick.”

  “I knew it could be dangerous, but I thought that danger would be aimed at me, like it was my father. I thought your father would just be a source of information.”

  “That’s be
cause you had no idea how many other people died that week. The week your father and that other man died. It wasn’t just them. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. In private. Away from all that. To let you know what you’re really in for. You see, they also beat that hornet’s nest, and my father handed them the stick.”

  Her metaphor had started to confuse me. “I’m sorry, but I don’t—”

  She held up a hand to stop me. “May I still call you Star?”

  “Of course.”

  She took a long deep breath. “Star, my family has lived with a web of secrets for a long time. Decades. We just got involved because it was so hard for black vets to find work after they got home from Vietnam. My uncle, William, couldn’t find anything. They wound up living with us until Uncle William started driving for some bootleggers. That’s what pulled us into this. Daddy worked the farm for a bit, with my grandfather, but then went to work in a repair shop. Worked his way up to owning his own store right there in Pineville, on the square. Everybody respected him. But they eventually pulled him into it too. Then it all came crashing down. That week.”

  “What happened?”

  She remained silent a few moments, still studying my face. Then she reached down beside her and set an ancient shoebox on the table. “This,” she said softly, “is what they trashed our house looking for. There are two others just like it. Almost from the time your grandmother died, my father kept notes. Anything he could remember about her, about how she died, anything his father told him, letters he exchanged with your father, they are all in these boxes.”

  She placed a hand flat on the top of the box. “He kept them hidden for all these years. My mother didn’t even know about them. I only found out about them last year when we moved him in with us, after his previous stroke. When I found out, I made him put them in a safe-deposit box. The other two are still there, along with some other things he had squirreled away. I don’t dare give you all of it at once.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  We sat in silence a few moments, both of us staring at the box. Finally, she let out a sigh. “No. I haven’t read them.” She smiled. “I know you’re dying to ask. You see, unlike you, I already know too much, and I have no desire to know any more. And I hope to God my family is finished with this. That it’s finally over for us.” She slid the box toward me.

  I accepted the box and placed it on the seat beside me. “Can you tell me about the hornet’s nest?”

  She pursed her lips a moment. “Not really. I don’t know enough details. I heard rumors, gossip, things I overheard when Daddy and Uncle William would talk. Mostly I remember people who died. Enough that it almost took the town apart. Daddy sent Aunt Maybelle—that’s Uncle William’s wife—and us kids to live with his aunt here in Birmingham. To get us out of it.”

  “Where’s Maybelle now?”

  Imajean paused. She took a sip of coffee. “She’s in hiding. She doesn’t know anything. She insists that William never talked to her about anything. To protect her. He mostly talked to Daddy.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  She glanced briefly at her son. “Charles and I both work down here. He already has an apartment, and I’m staying with him for now. We really kept the house in Pineville for Daddy. Once the police release it, we’ll probably clean it out and put it on the market.”

  “So you’re safe.”

  “As we’ll ever be. Until this is over.”

  Realization dawned, and I leaned back against the booth. “You want revenge.”

  One elegant eyebrow arched. “Don’t you? You don’t want to only solve the puzzle. You want to expose all the cockroaches to the light. So do I. Revenge? Absolutely. But this has been going on for more than sixty years. Too many people have died. Too many others walk in abject terror each and every day, looking over their shoulders, afraid of making the wrong move. That’s why Dean Sowers shot himself. He’d had enough of the fear. And you are probably the one person with enough guts, information, and determination to end this. Once and for all.”

  “No pressure.”

  Imajean gave a small laugh. She pulled a business card out of her purse and handed it to me. “My cell phone is on the back. When you make it through the first box, we’ll meet again.”

  “Be careful. Apparently most people who meet with me about this wind up dead.”

  She slipped out of the booth and stood up, adjusting the shoulder strap of her purse. “You may have realized by now that I am not most people.”

  I nodded. “I can see that. And I’m sorry about your father.”

  Imajean paused and inhaled deeply, as if steadying herself. “Thank you. But we almost lost Daddy three times in the last two years. He coded twice. The last time, we made our peace and said our goodbyes. He loved Jesus and his family, in that order. It hurts, and we’ll miss him for a long time. But I’m grateful it was quick. His funeral will be at the AME Zion in Pineville. Not sure when yet. Whenever they release him. You’ll be welcome if you want to attend.”

  “Thank you.”

  She touched my shoulder in an affectionate farewell and headed toward the door. Charles met her there and opened it for her. I watched as they headed away in the Thunderbird, and I prayed fiercely that they would survive what was to come. They deserved it.

  I returned to Gran’s and took my first look at the papers in the box as Gran peered over my shoulder. Some of the first writings were notes in a childish handwriting, which matured as the dates advanced from 1954. This was going to take some time.

  An impatient text from Mike asked when I’d be back to make my statement, and I reluctantly put the box into Gran’s safe. One of my grandfather’s “tinker around the house” projects, the fireproof box was bolted to the wall of her bedroom closet. It would be secure there. Plus, I didn’t want it anywhere near Pineville.

  Disappointed, Gran made me promise that I’d come back as soon as possible so we could go through it. I made her promise not to mention the box to anyone, even in passing.

  I packed up the notes I’d made the night before and headed to Pineville and the police department. I found myself unexpectedly nervous and a little fidgety. For all of our flirting and randy banter, I’d never seen where Mike worked or lived. The city police department operated out of the first floor of the courthouse. Since the county seat had split, a larger, more modern courthouse had been built in another city, and many of the normal county functions had moved there. Other offices and functions had merely split. Thus the Pineville courthouse had a lot of empty offices. Courtrooms and judges’ chambers occupied the third floor, along with two jury rooms and a lounge for the bailiffs. The second floor held one version of the county clerk’s office, along with two ADAs, and a slew of conference rooms, many of which were never used. The elected DA and sheriff were located in the other courthouse.

  The city management of Pineville had moved into the first floor. The police department was across an atrium lobby from the mayor’s office, which was behind a wall of oversized glass, with small white bistro tables and chairs for anyone who had to wait. Ellis Patton’s name was emblazoned in an arch across the wall of glass like the logo of a major retailer, including his tagline—“A man of the people for the people”—and office hours. One thing I could say about Mr. Ellis Patton—he certainly knew how to market and brand himself.

  The police department, on the other hand, was a solid block wall with two openings: a small plexiglass window, probably bulletproof, where visitors signed in and a solid metal door with a numeric keypad and a buzzer lock.

  I signed in, receiving a heavy-lidded and wary look from the sergeant behind the glass, a man who looked as if he’d been with the department since the 1600s. He sounded like he’d smoked since then as well. “Step to the door. Wait for the buzz.” He coughed.

  I did and found myself in a small anteroom. More block walls, another door with a keypad entry, two hard plastic chairs, and a silk ficus that was limp and covered in dust. I stood. Mike push
ed open the inner door a few moments later and motioned for me to follow him.

  As I passed by him, his hand closed gently on my elbow, and he tilted his head toward me. “How are you holding up? Did you sleep?”

  I kept my reply soft as well. “Feeling safe at Gran’s helped. And ibuprofen. I missed talking this over with you.”

  “Soon. I promise.” His eyes gleamed as he led me through a cubicle farm of ten offices or so, most of them occupied by officers I’d spotted on the streets or at the crime scenes. On the far wall, the police chief’s office was clearly marked, and I could see a relatively neat desk and computer behind the glass-windowed door. Along the wall next to it was a line of interrogation rooms. Mike opened the door to the one closest to his office and gave my arm a firm squeeze before letting go.

  More block walls waited inside, although these were painted a pale gray. A square table and four chairs sat in the middle. Two video cameras were mounted up close to the ceiling in opposing corners. I sat facing the door and pulled my notes from my purse, spreading them flat on the table.

  Mike sat opposite me and cleared his throat. He spoke in a clear, professional tone. “For the record, this interview will be recorded. Please state your full name, birthdate, and occupation.”

  “Star Renee Cavanaugh. January 23, 1981. Private investigator.”

  “Please describe, in as much detail as you remember, the events surrounding the murder of Roscoe Carver at Pine Grove Baptist Cemetery last Friday.”

  I glanced at the notes, then started with the items I had loaded into Belle for the trip to the grave. I gave the time of my arrival, what I’d done, and how Roscoe had scared the living daylights out of me by sneaking up behind me. I relayed what we’d talked about, as close to verbatim as I could. I described his behavior, including the profuse sweating and his coughing, my concern over his health.