Crossed Bones (10 page)

"Who would want Ivory dead?" I asked, striving for a professional tone that hid all personal emotion.

He didn't answer immediately. He weighed what my question meant. When he finally spoke, his voice was calmer. "I don't know."

"Whoever killed Ivory went to a lot of trouble to make it look like you did it. The place was robbed and nearly three thousand in bloodstained money was found in the saddlebag of your bike. They'll know if it's Ivory's money before much longer." I didn't have to add that if the blood tests came back positive, it would be harder than ever to prove Scott's innocence.

"If I'd killed Ivory and robbed the place, would I have been so stupid as to leave the money in my saddlebag?"

It was a good point, but it led me to another. "So who would want you back in prison, or the gas chamber, badly enough to kill a man?"

Scott's mouth thinned. It wasn't a pretty sight. "A whole lot of people, Miss Delaney. I missed the Dale Carnegie seminar on how to win friends. I'm more adept at making enemies."

He did seem to have a knack for pissing people off. "My suggestion to you is to put your thinking cap on and come up with some names, Mr. Hampton. I can't help you unless you're willing to help yourself."

He didn't get a chance to respond. The door to the jail opened and Deputy Dattilo walked toward us, keys jangling on his belt.

"You've got visitors,
Hampton
," he said, making it clear he didn't like it. "Fifteen minutes."

Behind Dattilo, two men entered the narrow hall between the cells. They walked abreast, laughing and punching each other as they approached.

The light in the jail wasn't the best, but I caught the image these men wanted to project. They wore tight jeans, leather jackets, bandanas tied around their heads, gold hoop earrings in one ear, and one man had on dark sunglasses.

"Hey, man!" The one without sunglasses brushed past Dattilo and stepped in front of me. "We'll have you outta here in no time flat. These yokels can't keep you locked up."

Scott, too, seemed to have forgotten that the deputy and I were in the vicinity. He reached through the bars and grasped the biker's hand. That's when I noticed the tattoo on the newcomer's hard-muscled arm. It was exactly the same as the one Scott had on his arm. Crossed bones and a skull.

The one with the sunglasses stepped up for the secret handshake. "They won't get away with this," he said. He held out a wadded-up paper sack. "We brought you some beer, but the law-and-order man wouldn't let us bring it in here. He confiscated it. I guess they don't pay him enough to buy his own."

Scott laughed and nodded his head. When he finally remembered I was there, he gave me a cool look. "That's all for now," he said, dismissing me.

I was about to give him a piece of my mind when I felt Deputy Dattilo's hand lightly touch my arm. He nodded at me, and I followed him out of the jail and into the main office of the sheriff.

"Who are those guys?" I asked.

"Trouble."

I wasn't going to argue that.

"Your client, there, has friends in low places. Couple of ex-cellmates. They go by the names Spider and Ray-Ban. They actually tried to walk in here with a six-pack. Cute, huh?"

"I'm charmed." These were the guys Millie had told me about.

Dattilo closed and locked the door to the jail. "Those two rode into town yesterday, and we've had three complaints on them already. They've been riding through The Grove, gunning their motors, yelling, throwing beer cans at kids. That kind of stuff. As soon as we can catch them in the act, they'll be in the cell beside their buddy."

The Grove was a part of Zinnia that was predominantly black. "Does the word self-destructive come to mind when you look at Scott Hampton?" I asked, disgusted with my client. He'd greeted the two bikers like long-lost brothers.

"The word guilty comes to mind," Dattilo said. "Guilty and not nearly as smart as he thinks he is."

9

Sitting astride Reveler.
I
greeted the sun Friday
morning as it nudged against the water oaks along the banks of the
Tallahatchie
River
. In August, the heat provides a half-light in those hours before true sunrise--a time when past and present mingle in shadows and whispers.

A thick mist hung over the cotton fields that grew right to the edge of the river. The fields stretched into the fog, and as I stared, I saw the silhouettes of slaves walking the rows, checking the plants for insects and fungus, pulling the weeds.

They moved silently, intent on their tasks. Harvest would come in mid-fall. The pickers, long sacks dragging behind them, would bend to the white tufts of fiber that burst from the boles. A fast picker could harvest up to three hundred pounds in a day.

Reveler stomped his hoof in impatience to be moving, and Sweetie Pie came bounding out of the
Tallahatchie
, shaking the cool water from her fur. My horse, my dog, and I were the present, but there was another presence in the fields. The past seemed to rise from the dirt and blend into the fog, creating shapes and images down the rows of cotton. One of the distant shadows craned his neck to look at us. He turned back to his work, singing as he did. The low, mournful sound seemed to wind itself into the mist, hanging in the air.

Farther away, another shadow answered, and the song spread across the field. It told a story both joyful and sad. Like the history of this land that I loved, the blues were a contradiction.

The sun topped the trees and sent a shaft of light into the misty field. The silhouettes of the men and women evaporated, and I was alone again.

Those images still in my mind, I nudged Reveler into a canter and raced through the last cotton field. Ahead, Dahlia House rose solid and real against a pink-and-mauve sky. I dismounted in the front yard, intending to walk Reveler cool.

"Red sky in the mornin', sailors take warnin'," Jitty said from the porch. "We'll have rain this afternoon."

She was wearing a sleeveless orange shift and matching pumps. The way she stood, determined yet vaguely unsure, she reminded me of a young woman setting out for her first job interview.

"So now you're a weather forecaster," I said, hoping to make her smile. My own thoughts were troubled by both the past and the present.

"Your great-great-grandma used to say that about the sky. She was more often right than wrong. Back then, bein' able to predict the weather meant survivin' for another day. Maybe for a season, if a crop was at stake."

"Did you ever harvest cotton?" I asked Jitty.

Instead of answering, she looked down at her hands. They were long and elegant, the palms soft. "We've both done hard labor, Sarah Booth. I'm more interested in what you're gonna do today than what I did yesterday."

"Scott's bond hearing is this morning." I walked Reveler the length of the porch, turned, and circled back toward her.

"Do you really believe he's worth helpin'?" Jitty asked.

I pondered her question. Yesterday, in his presence and under the full blast of his charisma, I'd believed him when he said he was innocent. This morning, I was having second thoughts. "I can't be sure."

"A man like Scott Hampton can make a woman believe just about anything he wants her to believe."

I looked at Jitty and realized that she knew I was attracted to Scott. I hadn't even admitted it to myself until that moment. It was an attraction fraught with paradox. He worked on me in a strange way, making me wary of him and yet wanting more of him. In that way, he, too, was like the blues.

"Scott isn't interested in making me believe anything," I told her.

"You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me." She stood so still. I'd never seen Jitty so static.

"What if he is innocent and I just walk away?"

"Is he that big a part of
your
future?" Jitty countered.

I started to repeat to her what Bridge had said, about how Scott could be my ticket to big-time cases.

She held up a hand and stopped me. "This isn't about future cases or the cover of
Rolling Stone
magazine. Watch yourself, Sarah Booth. A person can recover from hard work, but there are some mistakes that can't never be undone. Don't let Scott Hampton be that for you." She walked through the front door and was gone.

The courtroom was
jam-packed when I got there. Scott was seated at the defense table, to the left. Beside him was a young man I recognized as a court-appointed attorney. As I recalled, he'd gotten his law degree two months before.

True to her vow, Nandy was still outside the west-wing door, boom box blaring. She'd made more signs, all of them proclaiming Scott's innocence. One had declared his godhood, but I'd surreptitiously yanked that one out of the ground and hidden it in the camellia bushes. Nandy was not helping matters at all, and I had begun to seriously wonder about her motives. I intended to point out to Coleman that if she'd seen Scott at the club, she was there, too, and was therefore also a suspect.

Ida Mae Keys was in the fourth row behind Scott, seated alone. I slipped in beside her. She nodded once to acknowledge me, then turned her attention to the front of the room as the judge entered.

Coleman stepped into the room through a side door that led to the jury deliberation room. Tinkie was right on his heels, and they both stopped beside the door. Coleman's gaze found me immediately, but I could read nothing on his face.

He bent down to Tinkie, who was giving him an earful about something. His gaze shifted to Ida Mae, brushed over me, and then returned to my partner.

Judge Clarence Hartwell gaveled the room to order. He was a middle-aged man who was popular in town. He'd been a football coach at the high school and was known for his rapid--as in reactionary--judicial decisions. For the first time since I'd known him, he was wearing a robe. On closer examination, I saw it belonged to the
First
Baptist
Church
choir.

Lincoln Bangs was at the prosecution table, dressed in a suit that must have cost an arm and a leg. No doubt he had a date with the television crews that were setting up on the lawn. Judge Hartwell had ordered them out of the courthouse. There were several reporters I didn't know sitting across the room beside Cece Dee Falcon and Garvel LaMott from the
Zinnia Dispatch.
I was only a little surprised to see Cece on the case. High society was normally her beat, but I guess she'd managed to stretch her territory to include high celebrity.

Lincoln
gave a brief summary of the evidence against Scott, including the fact that they now had a blood match between the stains on the money found in Scott's saddlebags and Ivory. It was devastating news that drew the intended gasp from the audience.

The young man, who was obviously Scott's lawyer, stood up and stated that the evidence was circumstantial. Linc countered with the fact that Scott had no ties to the community and a criminal record. Judge Hartwell set the bail at five hundred thousand dollars. It was over in less than ten minutes.

The bailiff came to lead Scott back to the jail, but Ida Mae was quicker. She was out of her seat and at the defense table in a matter of seconds. She put one hand on Scott's shoulder and squeezed. The face he turned to her was cold.

"Stay out of this, Ida Mae," he said.

"I can't." Her reply was carved in stone.

"I don't want your help." Scott walked away from her, following the bailiff out of the room as a hubbub of noise broke around him. Ida Mae came back to me, ignoring the reporters that sprang in her wake. Her cool fingers touched my wrist. "I want that boy out of jail," she said. "He thinks he can run me off with that bad attitude, but it won't work. I saw Scott sit with my husband and argue about Ivory's reputation in the black community and how he was damaging it by hiring a white, ex-racist ex-con. Scott loved my husband. I won't abandon him now."

"I'm not so sure he wants out of jail," I said. "It might be best if he stayed put." The image of a bloodthirsty lynch mob and the bitter ironies implied by such were racing through my mind.

"Mrs. Keys! Mrs. Keys!" A reporter who was wearing a name badge from
Rolling Stone
magazine came up to us. "I'd like to schedule some time to talk," he said.

"I've got one thing to say, and that's all. Scott Hampton didn't kill my husband. He's an innocent man, and Miss Delaney is going to prove it."

I was still recovering from the shock of that bold statement when the reporter leaned in closer. "Your son tells me that
Hampton
is guilty and that he's got some hold on you. He says it's voodoo."

I could see the insult in Ida Mae's eyes. "Some
hold
on me like voodoo." She was furious. "I'm a Christian woman and voodoo holds no sway with me. My son is mistaken, as he is in so many things."

"Emanuel Keys said
Hampton
deceived both you and Mr. Keys."

"My
son
said these things about me and his father?" It was asked gently, but even the reporter caught the hint of anger.