Crossed Bones Read online

  Jitty's eyes were black chips of anger. I closed the refrigerator door and walked back upstairs to the computer. Three songs later, I lay down on my bed. My head was pounding and my stomach churned. Based on the recordings of White Victory Studio, Scott Hampton was one of the worst musicians I'd ever heard. His early rap songs were backed up by a band called the Brown Shirts, and the sick, racist rants never even came close to what I considered music. He was a vile man with a vile message. No matter how he'd reconfigured himself for public consumption in Sunflower County, Mississippi, he had once promoted hatred, racism, and violence with a passion that sickened me.

  I had really stepped in it now.

  I took a long, hot bath and tried to think my way out of the predicament I found myself in. In my last case, I'd gone up against a mountain of circumstantial evidence and a signed confession from Lee McBride. But Lee was a person I'd known my entire life. She was someone I respected and knew to be good.

  Based on my further Internet research on Scott Hampton, I learned he'd been on a quest for self-destruction for several years before he'd been arrested. He hated everyone and everything that wasn't white and male.

  I'd found several sites that gave a brief history of the man. He was born into the very wealthy Hampton family of Detroit, Michigan. His grandfather had owned twenty Dodge dealerships in the area, and his father had increased that to thirty-one. Hampton Dodge was the name for Dodge vehicles in Michigan.

  Scott was an only child, heir to fabulous wealth. But he'd squandered his initial inheritance. At the age of twenty-one he'd come into a million-dollar trust, and he'd taken the money and left.

  Two years later, he was in serious trouble with the law. By the time he was twenty-five, he'd been convicted twice for possession of cocaine. By twenty-eight, he was arrested and convicted of possession with intent to sell. He was on the road to the Michigan Big House.

  Six years later, he was out of prison and in Sunflower County, Mississippi, playing blues in a black man's high-end juke joint. In the past twelve months—since coming to Mississippi—Scott Hampton had cut two albums. The first was his rendition of Mississippi blues classics, drawn from the music of B. B. King, Mississippi John Hurt, Muddy Waters, and the mysterious Robert Johnson, who died of drinking whiskey poisoned by a jealous lover. The second album was compiled of original music written and performed by Hampton. Both had received critical acclaim. Scott was building a solid reputation, and I couldn't help but wonder how, based on the awful rap music I'd downloaded. It was a conversion that ranked close to a miracle.

  How had a talentless rapper—and even I could judge he was talentless—become a master of the blues? What had happened to Scott Hampton during his prison term and his year in Kudzu?

  An article published in a national blues magazine out of Helena, Arkansas, charged Hampton with following in the footsteps of Tommy Johnson. Johnson was one of several blues musicians said to have traded his soul to the devil for musical skill. I knew the legend, and had even traveled to several crossroads in north Mississippi where Johnson and Satan might have negotiated the bargain.

  As the story went, Johnson had played the local juke joints with no apparent talent. And then he'd disappeared from the Mississippi scene for a while. When he returned, walking through the dark Delta night to the light and laughter of a club, he'd climbed up on the stage and delivered the blues with such power that his audience was stunned.

  It wasn't hard to draw the same conclusion about Hampton. He'd come out of prison with a talent that no one could explain.

  A cool breeze whispered across my skin, and I looked up to see if Jitty had entered the bedroom. But I was alone, and it was only the legend of a bargain made between an ambitious musician and a dark stranger on a hot summer night that was giving me the chills.

  Before I turned off the computer, I went to an on-line music store and ordered both of Scott Hampton's latest CDs. I'd heard his old stuff. Now I wanted to judge his talent with the blues. I clicked next day freight. Before I made any decisions, I wanted to listen to the music that had made women melt and men forget their prejudices.

  5

  Since I'd cleaned the refrigerator and nothing remained inside it except a questionable hunk of cheese wrapped in green cellophane—I hoped the cellophane was green—I decided to drive to Millie's Café and “do” a late lunch.

  Although she was in her fifties, Millie was my thumb on the pulse of Sunflower County nightlife. Or at least the nightlife outside The Club, which was where the Daddy's Girls and their fathers and future husbands, the Buddy Clubbers, partook of liquor, dance, character assassination, and general bitchiness.

  My stomach growled a warning that a serious caloric disaster was in the offing as I drove through Zinnia's main street, called, appropriately, Main Street, and parked the Mercedes in the crowded lot at the café. I was thinking of several of my stick-thin contemporaries who frequently claimed that they “just flat forgot to eat lunch.”

  My own body was far better organized. In the thirty-four years of my life, it had never forgotten a single meal.

  Millie hailed me with a shout and a wave as she whipped through the café pouring iced tea and coffee. She could handle both at once, a pot in one hand and a pitcher in the other. She served only sweet tea and regular coffee. She didn't mess around with unsweetened tea or decaf.

  I took a seat at the counter, put in an order for fried chicken, turnip greens, fried green tomatoes, fried okra, and corn bread.

  “Why not change the turnip greens to French fries and make it a totally brown meal?” Millie teased.

  “I'll put some catsup on the plate and balance the entire thing out,” I assured her.

  She plopped an iced tea down in front of me. “I'll be back.”

  She was, within ten minutes. The main lunch rush was ending, and the place was clearing out.

  “What can you tell me about Playin' the Bones?” I asked as I stabbed several crisp okra morsels.

  “A year ago, it was closing down. That man who was murdered, Ivory Keys, was a great pianist, but he couldn't get a singer. The club band was good, but they didn't have the necessary youth appeal to bring the thirty-somethings into the club. Then Scott Hampton started playin'.” She arched her eyebrows. “I heard him last Memorial Day.” Her mouth opened slightly as she was caught in some memory. “Wow. That's all I can say.”

  “Hot?”

  “Honey, he had every woman in that place ready to play nasty right there on the stage.”

  “What about his music?”

  “If you closed your eyes, you wouldn't know he was a white boy from the North. During part of the show he was using an old bottleneck slide, and I swear, it could have been Mississippi John Hurt or Sun House. He could make that guitar talk sweet and promise a lot of pleasure.”

  “As well as pain,” I said, almost under my breath.

  “As well as pain,” she agreed. “That's life, Sarah Booth. Life and the blues.”

  “So what's the gossip around town regarding the murder?”

  She glanced around the café to make sure all of her customers were chowing down. Leaning closer, she spoke softly. “There's a lot of high emotion around Ivory's death. Folks loved Scott's music, but they didn't much cotton to the man himself.”

  I waited for more, though I fully understood what Millie was talking about. With his arrogance and seemingly permanent sneer, Scott could rub a saint the wrong way.

  “Ivory Keys set a great store by Scott. They shared some prison experience that bonded them together. I've heard two or three versions of the jail story,” she shrugged, “but the bottom line was that Scott and Ivory were like blood kin. They both had a love of music and a dream of a different kind of future.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Millie was nobody's fool. She was a fine judge of character.

  “It would break Ivory's heart to see what's happening now. I heard this morning some of the roughnecks up around Blue Eve community are planning on so
me retaliation for the noose at the courthouse. The fool thing is they all think Scott is guilty, too, but they're angry that blacks would have the audacity to threaten a white man with hanging.” She shook her head.

  That news troubled me, too. Hatred spread like gas fumes and it was just as volatile. “Do you have any names?”

  “No. They're all too cowardly to step forward and say this in public. It's all secret meetings, anonymous threats.” Her mouth showed her distaste.

  “So why do you think Scott would kill his friend and benefactor?” I got back to the issue I had to resolve.

  “That's a good question.” Millie patted my arm as she picked up the coffeepot and made a quick circuit of the remaining crowd. She could pour with one hand and scoop up a ticket and payment with the other. After a dash to the cash register and a few moments to lay out change along the countertop, she was back.

  “Some folks believe Scott is just a bad seed,” she said, one corner of her mouth quirking up. “I can't say as I subscribe to that way of thinking. There's a lot of difference between drugs and murder.”

  “Coleman might say that one leads to the other,” I pointed out.

  “Coleman might say that, but even he doesn't believe it. Scott was involved with coke, but I really believe he gave it up.” She gave me a hard look. “If everyone around here that dabbled in a little coke went right to murder, you'd be surprised at who was killin' whom in Sunflower County. The membership roster at The Club would be a lot shorter than you might expect.”

  I knew better than to ask for any names. Millie often helped me on my cases, but she wasn't a gossip. If cocaine use became pertinent to my case, she'd spill the beans. But not one second before. I decided on a different tactic.

  “Scott has an extremely racist past. And he wasn't much of a guitar player until he came out of prison.” I pulled Millie's pen out from behind her ear and began to draw the skull-and-crossbones symbol on the back of my ticket.

  “So I've heard.” She made a face. “His rap music was pure-D-raunch.”

  “Nasty,” I agreed, working on the design. I was surprised that Millie knew as much about Scott as she did, but I shouldn't have been. Millie had a far more active social life than I did, and lately she'd been dating an antiques shop owner from Greenwood. They'd been to Memphis dancing and to Nashville to hear Lucinda Williams, but the blues was still her favorite.

  “Folks can change,” she said. “That's a fact.”

  “They can. And sometimes they can pretend to.”

  “True enough.” She looked at me, worried. “You're working for Scott Hampton, and you don't believe in him at all. Why'd you take the case?”

  “How'd you know I took it?”

  “Cece called me.”

  I rolled my eyes. Cece Dee Falcon was the society editor for the Zinnia Dispatch. Formerly Cecil, Cece had spent her family fortune on a trip to Sweden and a change of gender. She was the best journalist I'd ever met, and she knew the dirt on everyone in town, including who was wearing panty girdles under summer sundresses and who'd had liposuction to avoid the horror of binding underwear.

  “Cece's at the jail right this minute trying to get an exclusive interview with Scott. Some big music magazines are there, too. Coleman isn't in a good frame of mind.” Millie cleared the counter as she talked.

  “I can imagine.” I tried not to visualize Coleman behind his desk, blue eyes seeking to catch my gaze. I'm going back to Connie. We're going to give it another try.

  “You heard Coleman and Connie are back together?”

  I kept my face perfectly blank. “Yeah, I heard.”

  “Fat chance that'll work out.” She shrugged. “But you gotta give the man a blue ribbon for trying.”

  I stood up and pulled a wad of ones from my pocket. “If you had to say someone other than Scott Hampton killed Ivory, who would you name?”

  Millie didn't hesitate. “Emanuel Keys would be my first suspect. I'd put him at the top of my list way before Scott. In fact, I'll bet you a steak dinner in Greenwood that Emanuel's the one behind that noose in the magnolia tree.”

  “Emanuel Keys? The son? He's alive?”

  Millie acknowledged my surprise with a knowing look. “To hear Ida Mae talk about him, you'd think he was dead. But he isn't. And he's back in town just in time for his daddy to get murdered.”

  I recalled the gist of Ida Mae's limited comments about her son, and the sorrow and loss in her voice. Small wonder I'd assumed he was dead. “Tell me about him.” I could see a real complication if Scott had become the “adopted” son.

  Millie hitched one hip up on a barstool. “I think they found that boy under a cabbage plant. Or maybe a hemlock tree. He has poison in his veins—has ever since he was a little thing. He's just downright mean, and he treated his daddy like dog poo on the bottom of his shoe.”

  “Where is Emanuel?”

  “He's back in the area. I know because I've seen him. He moved off to Atlanta in some big job as soon as he graduated from Notre Dame. He let Ivory and Ida Mae pick up the tab for his education and then told them he was too smart to come back to Mississippi. Then he came home about three months ago.” She picked up the ticket I'd been drawing on. “What's this?”

  “Scott's tattoo. Ever see that symbol anywhere?”

  “Funny you should ask. I saw it Tuesday.”

  “Yesterday? Scott Hampton was in jail.”

  She lowered the ticket, her face puzzled. “It wasn't Scott. It was those other two.”

  I felt a pulse quicken. “What other two?”

  “The bikers. They were in here for breakfast.”

  “Locals?” Sunflower County was small, with a minimal population, but there were all kinds in the mix. Even bikers.

  “Not local. Hard to tell the difference sometimes, though. All that black leather, bandana head rags, sunglasses, black T-shirts. They all look alike.”

  “The uniform of the nonconformist.” I knew what she was talking about.

  “Exactly. Anyway, they came in for breakfast and they were talkin' hot and heavy about their preference in music, particularly Scott's music. Real connoisseurs, if you know what I mean.” She rolled her eyes. “That's the first I heard of Scott's rap days. They were discussing some of the lyrics, if you can call that stuff lyrics, but I put a stop to it. I told them if they wanted to finish eating, they had to shut up.” She made a sound of disgust. “Just a little more powder for the keg, if you ask me. Coleman ought to lock them up. Emanuel, too. Try to keep this place from going up in flames.”

  “Did they say they were friends of Scott's?” I was liking my client less and less.

  “I doubt you could call those two friends of anyone, but they implied that they knew him.”

  “Did they happen to mention where they were staying or how long they'd been in town?” I picked up my car keys from the counter.

  “No, I think their sole purpose in life is to stir up trouble. I'd stay away from those two, Sarah Booth.” She saw I was getting ready to leave. “By the way, Cece's looking for you,” she said as she picked up my plate.

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “She wants a quote for her story. It wouldn't hurt, you know. Publicity would be good for the Delaney Detective Agency.”

  “I'll keep that in mind.” I had no intention of giving Cece a quote about Scott Hampton. In fact, I wasn't clear how I felt about Scott as a client—or a human being. I had my own soul-searching to do before I gave an opinion on anything.

  6

  When I got back to Dahlia House, Sweetie Pie was in a deep doggy coma on the front porch, overcome by the morning's play with Chablis and the heat. Beside her was a message from Cece, written in her signature purple on eggshell vellum and topped with her initials in a gothic swirl. Cece took the Southern thing way over the top.

  “Call me the instant you get home.” Cece excelled at directives.

  I crumpled the note and went inside, sighing as the coolness of the big old house swept ove
r me, a haven from the blistering temperatures outside. On the short walk from the car to the front door, I'd worked up a sweat. I hit the switch for the ceiling fan in the parlor and stood under the whir of the blades. The rush of air created a chill on my damp skin, and I felt that prickle that could be either cold or a tingle of apprehension.

  “Do you believe in the basic laws of nature?”

  So it hadn't been the ceiling fan. Jitty was standing beside the horsehair sofa. I knew instantly that this wasn't going to be a casual conversation about something she'd seen on Wild Kingdom.

  “Why is it that I feel this is a trap?” I asked, avoiding an answer. I headed to the kitchen to find some ice cubes and something cold to drink.

  Following right behind me, Jitty didn't give any quarter. “It's a simple question. Can a tiger change his stripes?”

  “What you're really asking is, can a wild animal be domesticated?” It was a feeble dodge, but I was wary of Jitty and her linguistic tricks.

  “Would you put a Bengal tiger in with a herd of sheep just because the tiger had spent a few years with humans and seemed to be tame?”

  “I suppose it depends on how hungry the tiger might be.” I hated these philosophical arguments. Jitty had an agenda, and she was good at moving me into a corner to prove her theory.

  “So the element of safety for the sheep depends on how hungry the tiger is?”

  “I suppose.” My stomach growled loudly, and I was sorry I'd said anything about hunger. I'd just downed at least five thousand calories, and if Jitty got close enough, she'd be able to smell the fried chicken on me.

  She sat on the edge of the table, and for the first time, I noticed that she looked exactly like someone off the cover of one of my mother's old albums. The Shirelles, one of the original girl groups, came to mind. She had on a powder-blue tent dress of layered chiffon, powder-blue satin pumps, and her hair gelled or ironed or something so that it swooped into a French twist–beehive kind of do. I missed the Star Trek outfits she'd been wearing only a few weeks before.