Buried Bones Page 14

  12

  Silt-loaded Delta rivers surround and sweep through the old town of Greenwood, Mississippi. Near the heart of the city, the Yalobusha is joined by the Tallahatchie to form the Yazoo.

  The rivers bear the names of Indian tribes long removed from their native soil, a reminder that a particular culture is imposed on the land for only a brief time. Of course the damage done by chemicals, fertilizer, and removal of natural foliage may well be permanent.

  There’s a graciousness to Greenwood that has always pleased me, and I drove through the business district, enjoying the old brick buildings. I’d decided against phoning Beverly McGrath. I would take my chances and show up on her doorstep. Of course Millie might have alerted her of my impending visit, but I didn’t think so. Millie was eager to help me probe Lawrence’s death. She was certain that if her aunt had something to tell about Moon Lake, Aunt Bev would be delighted to talk.

  I wasn’t so sure, but I parked at the curb, left Sweetie Pie snoozing in the front seat, and walked up the sidewalk to the front door. Beverly McGrath’s home was a neat clapboard painted white with green shutters. An old cypress swing hung from chains on the front porch, which was free of leaves and debris. Although there were no plants blooming in the yard, the shrubs were neatly trimmed and the earth bordering the sidewalk had been freshly tilled. Aunt Bev was eager for spring.

  The neighborhood was older and had the air of a place long settled and loved. When I was a small child my parents had taken me to Meridian, to visit the Booth side of the family. Grandpa Lowell Booth was a banker, and the neighborhood had the same air. Solid, safe, a place where families rode the tide of life with grace and dignity.

  Beverly McGrath answered the door almost as soon as I knocked, and I could see a good bit of Millie in her blue eyes and bottle blond hair. She was a slender woman who gave the impression of meeting life head-on.

  She didn’t know me from Adam’s housecat, but she gave me a warm smile as she asked how she could help me. Though she spoke with a drawl, it was different from any I’d ever heard. There was a hint of some other influence I couldn’t put my finger on.

  Her puzzled look told me that Millie hadn’t alerted her to my visit. I introduced myself and followed her into a living room stuffed with antiques. “What lovely things,” I said, touching the plush brocade of an old rocking chair.

  “Some are family things, some I picked up at estate sales. I had a refinishing business when I was younger.” She stood, hesitating. “Would you like some coffee and plum pudding?”

  I’d resisted fruitcake for two whole mornings. I had a choice between feeling sanctimonious or indulged. “I haven’t had plum pudding since I was a child and my Aunt LouLane would bring it with her when she came for Thanksgiving.” It was a peculiar memory, because it occurred to me that once LouLane took over the job of mothering me, she never made plum pudding again.

  “I didn’t know your aunt personally, but I’ve heard so many nice things about her,” Bev said. “Let me get us some refreshments.”

  I examined the room while I waited, noting the handsome portrait of a man over the mantel. Family patriarch, no doubt. Whoever he was, he was rugged with a sharp eye. I knew that look, and the laugh lines that marked his face. Millie Roberts, née Wells, came from a strong gene pool.

  “What brings you to Greenwood, Sarah Booth?” Bev asked as she came into the room bearing a tray laden with coffee, pudding, and some homemade cheese straws. I had to swallow before I could answer.

  “Millie was telling me some stories about the past, and she said that you’d spent some time up at Moon Lake.”

  She was placing the tray on the coffee table. Her toe snagged one of the table legs and she almost stumbled. I grabbed the tray, and she was able to right herself. I couldn’t be certain if the dismay was due to her near fall or my reference to Moon Lake. Whichever it was, she recovered quickly.

  “So clumsy. I have to wear these big old shoes now. To accommodate my corns and hammertoes and all the other wages of sin.” She laughed at the expression on my face.

  “Fashion sins, Sarah Booth. Yes, I was up at Moon Lake for a summer. It was 1940, and I can tell you honestly it was the best time of my life. I never took a step unless it was in five-inch heels, and I loved every minute of it. Oh, I was nimble then. And had a figure that made men stop and stare, if I do say so myself. Once George Reeves, you know he played Superman on television years later, anyway he came up on the stage with me and proposed. It was incredible.” She sighed.

  “For ten short weeks, I lived a dream. Sometimes, when I think about it now, it seems that I must have read it in a book. Every night there was dancing, and lights out on the lake. So many famous people stayed at the resort.” Her skin had actually flushed with pleasure. “It isn’t possible that I had such excitement and glamour in my life. But I did.”

  Whatever I’d anticipated, it wasn’t this Hollywood memory. I’d assumed, after reading Weevil Dance, that Bev would be somehow scarred. In the book, four young people witnessed a murder. I was positive something sinister had actually happened at Moon Lake that summer. Something other than gambling, gangsters, and teenage adventure.

  “You were there with Lawrence Ambrose and Rosalyn Bell.” I watched closely for her reaction to those names.

  “I was indeed,” she said. “Rosalyn got me the job, actually. She knew I could sing.” When the folds of her face finally did sink into sadness, her age was revealed. Until that moment, she’d been able to hold the illusion that she was much younger. “Such a pity about Lawrence. He was seventy-six. My age.” She reached to pick up the coffeepot and her hand shook. “My husband has gone on, fifteen years ago. I lost one of my boys when he was an infant. And it nearly killed us all when my niece Janice was murdered. Soon it will be my turn to die, and I have to say that with each passing year, the prospect seems more and more attractive.”

  That wasn’t a statement to be easily refuted, but it was one that left me very curious. Bev seemed in good health, and she certainly lived in comfortable surroundings. Why would death seem appealing?

  “Did you stay in touch with Lawrence or Ma— Mrs. Bell?”

  Bev finished pouring the coffee and held a cup out to me before she answered. “No.” She put cream and sugar in her coffee and sipped it. “I was brought home from Moon Lake before the summer ended. My father came up and got me. It was a humiliating scene.” She put the coffee down, and once again her hand shook. “He dragged me out of the casino by my hair.” She looked up at me. “I mean that. It was horrible. Lawrence tried to intervene, and my father beat him savagely. I was so ashamed … I didn’t answer their letters or talk to them. They came to visit me three times, and it was a difficult journey back then. No one had a car or gas, but they came. And I wouldn’t answer the door. My father thought it was because he’d scared me into obeying him. He was so satisfied with himself.” The lines around her mouth deepened, and I understood that it didn’t matter that sixty years had passed. She was still angry. “I just couldn’t face them. That’s why I didn’t open the door.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I held my coffee cup and didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t mean to—” What? Drag up the past? But that was exactly what I’d come to do. “I’m sure they understood.”

  “You young people today are so lucky. You chart your own futures, and you don’t even realize how different things were one generation before you. I wanted to be a torch singer. I didn’t have great expectations. I thought maybe a small club in Memphis, or even New Orleans. Some place exotic where I could have an apartment and sing at night. I didn’t expect to get wealthy or become famous. I only wanted to sing.” She looked me dead in the eye. “Not a terribly big dream, is it?”

  I started to say that sometimes having a dream was more important than achieving it, but before I blurted it out I realized how utterly stupid that platitude was. It’s one thing to fail at a dream, and quite another to have it choked and suffocated.

  “How
did you find out that Lawrence was dead?” I changed the course slightly, wanting to spare her further digging into that particular tar pit of memory.

  “I read the paper. Every day. And Millie called. She remembered the day I took her up to meet him. That left an impression on her.”

  “I only met Lawrence a few days before he died, but he left an impression on me, too. He was extraordinary.”

  “Brilliant,” Bev said, and her face took on that internal light. “He wrote and directed our little productions up at the Crescent, that was the name of the casino. We had a special production every Friday and Saturday night. You wouldn’t believe the people who came to see us. Rosalyn was a fine dancer, and she knew some very unusual routines. If some of those men had realized that she was barely sixteen …” Bev laughed out loud. “We were a scandal, but everyone thought we were legal.”

  It was so easy to follow Bev back into the past. Part of it was because I’d read Weevil Dance and I had everything set up in my brain. Another part, though, was her vivid recollection.

  “I know this is going to sound like a strange question, but did anything untoward happen up at Lula that summer?”

  It was almost as if the expression froze on her face for a split second. I couldn’t be positive that I’d seen anything, because she immediately recovered and drew her eyebrows together in thought as she handed me a serving of plum pudding.

  “There was that murder, of course.”

  “Murder?” I played innocent.

  “That awful man was killed. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.” She waved a hand in a quick gesture that gave me a glimpse of the girl she once had been. “Lawrence and Tom, that’s Tennessee’s real name, had all of us in a high state of nerves, predicting that all hell would break loose because of Hosea’s murder.”

  I slowed the hand that was shoveling plum pudding into my mouth and swallowed. The pudding was delicious, and I was caught up imagining Lawrence and Tennessee Williams embellishing a murder. But I needed the facts, not some imaginary version. “Tell me exactly what happened,” I said, pointing at the pudding with my spoon. “This is the best I’ve ever had.”

  “My great-grandmother’s recipe. A family secret. The only person I ever told was Lawrence.” Some of the enthusiasm had faded from her face, and once again she looked old and worn. “Hosea Archer was the man who was murdered, the son of Senator Jebediah Archer. It was a big scandal, and there was some speculation that his daddy would come down to Mississippi and shut the Crescent down.”

  “A U.S. senator could have such influence on a place in Mississippi?”

  “Don’t be so naive,” she said, but gently. “A word from Senator Archer and the doors of the the Crescent would have been nailed shut. Gambling was illegal back then, and the only way the casino stayed in business was because it had protection.”

  “There must have been a lot of money.” I was naive. It had never occurred to me that someone in Washington would have his finger in a Mississippi pie. Mississippi had always been the bastard stepchild of the nation. The Crescent must have been a truly high-stakes house where big money changed hands.

  “Several senators were connected to the Crescent. Mississippi had some powerful men then. Old men who knew how things worked. The casino was a perfect place for the rich and powerful to come and play without the eyes of the world on them. It was secluded, a private little hideaway with the benefit of a few celebrities hanging about. Hollywood and Washington have always been in bed together, you know. Kennedy wasn’t the first and he won’t be the last.”

  I was getting the picture. Lawrence had hinted at undercurrents of power in his book—even drawn strong parallels—but Bev was laying it on the line.

  “Anyway, after Hosea was killed, there was a week or so when everyone tiptoed around, but nothing came of it. The gamblers kept coming, and the riverboats drifted around the lake. The liquor flowed, and we kept our jobs.”

  “Who killed Archer?”

  “As far as I know, no one was ever arrested.” She shook her head. “Hosea was caught cheating in a card game up in the Yukon Room. It was a magnificent room decorated with a huge stuffed bear and moose heads. Teddy Roosevelt loved that particular room, I was told. It was where the high rollers played cards.”

  I spooned the pudding into my mouth, alternating with a sip of coffee. By this time, I honestly didn’t care what Bev told me as long as she kept talking. She knew some fascinating history.

  “Let me get back to Hosea, though. He was not much older than we were, but he acted like he was a big man. He had this attitude, because his father was powerful, that he could treat everyone like servants. For a Southern boy, he was horrible to the Negro girls who worked in the kitchen and laundry. Arabella told me and Lenore that he pushed her face down on his bed when she went up to change the sheets and tried to sodomize her.”

  “What a creep.”

  “He was indeed. On the staircase one time he passed me and grabbed my breasts.” Her hands went up in a defensive gesture. “I grew up with brothers, though, and I knew a thing or two. I jammed my knee right between his legs and pushed him down the stairs backward. I was terrified he’d tell on me and get me fired, but he never did anything.”

  “No wonder somebody shot him.” This bore a resemblance to Lawrence’s novel, but only in the vaguest sense of plot. And perhaps in the reaction of the four young people. My disappointment was keen. I’d assumed that the story Bev would tell me would somehow parallel actual events. I’d conveniently forgotten that Lawrence was a fiction writer.

  “Yes, he probably deserved to be shot, but it was a terrible shock. I was taking a round of drinks up to the room when the alarm went off, alerting the gamblers that a raid was in progress. I heard the shot and a lot of scrambling. When I opened the door of the Yukon Room, there was the body. He’d flipped backward in his chair and was lying there, cards scattered everywhere and blood seeping out onto the carpet.”

  Since he was shot during a poker game, he was probably shot by a man rather than one of the women he enjoyed abusing. Unless I was badly mistaken, women weren’t allowed to play poker with the men unless it was in a movie or out West.

  “Was there actually a raid?” In Lawrence’s book, the killing had been an inside job. The raid had been a setup.

  “Yes. There was a system of bells set up in each gambling room. It was a truly remarkable place. Each room had a theme and a different game of chance. There were several high-stakes poker rooms, roulette, craps, blackjack, all of that. But down at the front desk, hidden beneath the counter, were buttons. It was an old system that was put in back when the local sheriff used to bust the card games.

  “If there was a raid or trouble, the clerk at the desk could reach under the counter and press all the buttons. Up in the gaming rooms, the bells would sound and alert the gamblers that a raid was in progress. They’d mostly have time to grab their money and hurry down the back stairs.”

  It was an amazingly simple system, but one that would work.

  “How many raids when you worked there?”

  “It was strange because the local sheriff was paid off. He kept clear of the Crescent, except to come eat a fancy dinner and listen to our show. He had something of a crush on Rosalyn.”

  “The sheriff led the raid?” I was interested in Hosea Archer’s murder only because it was so blatant—and so thoroughly uninvestigated.

  Bev nodded in response to my question. “It was a Tuesday night, which were generally slow. The weekends were the busy times, when folks came downriver from Memphis and upriver from New Orleans. On weeknights, Rosalyn and I took turns entertaining. Either she’d dance or I’d sing. Lawrence directed and sometimes played the piano. Lenore, though, was usually the pianist for me. She could play those old songs beautifully.”

  “What about Tennessee Williams?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Oh, he was too shy to perform. He was a little older than us, and a hundred times more reserved.
He and Lawrence wrote songs together and skits, but he’d never put a toe on the stage. He just stood in back of the curtain and watched. Lenore was shy like that, too, and didn’t like to perform. She sewed all of our costumes. And she played a guitar, too. It was something of a scandal, a woman with a guitar. But she was very talented. Very popular with the guests. Maybe a little too popular.” Pain crossed her face, and I wondered if she was thinking of Lenore’s suicide.

  Lenore was an Erkwell. Even though the family had been hit hard by the Depression, they were still considered upper-crust. If Bev’s father was so opposed to her working at the Crescent that he dragged her out by the hair, I wondered about Lenore, a society girl.

  “How did Lenore Erkwell manage to get permission to be at the Crescent?”

  Bev brightened. “Her folks thought she was with relatives in Tunica. Lenore was shy, but she was very strong-willed. Of the four of us, she was the one who came up with all the plans. The whole adventure in Lula was her idea.” Her voice grew hesitant. “I never knew what her life at home was like, but she had no problem doing whatever she wanted. Either her parents were stupid or they didn’t care as long as she didn’t cause trouble.”

  Still, it was a daring lie for a young girl. “Tell me about the night of the murder. What did you see?”

  Bev’s gaze focused on a middle distance where the past was most easily seen. “It was my night to sing, so I did my numbers and then went into the bar to help out. That’s what we did. We were the performers, but we also helped serve drinks, and if the dining room was really busy, we’d serve there, too.

  “That’s when I got the call to take the drinks up to the Yukon Room. All the other waitresses were running their feet off, and I always liked to go up and serve the men playing poker. It was exciting, that big pile of chips on the table, the smoke, the intensity. And, of course, the tips.”

  Lawrence had described a game in the book, and it was easy to picture the scene as Bev talked.