Joe Dillard - 01 - An Innocent Client (4 page)

”Thanks for the Pepsi,” he said, ”and thanks for the information. I’ll come back and tell you about it later.”

”I’m holding you to that,” she said. Landers looked in the mirror as he started out the door and saw Patti blow him a kiss. ”That man has a fine ass, Lottie,”

he heard her say.

”Screw him,” Lottie said. ”He’s a fag.”

Lottie was pretty good, but once Landers did her a few times, he dumped her. He had to. There were a lot of other women out there who wanted to be with him. He figured he owed it to them to stay unattached.

April 12

11:45 a.m.

A horny preacher. A man after Landers’s own heart.

Landers called Jimmy Brown, told him about the lead and that he was going out to the Mouse’s Tail.

Brown said they’d found one witness, the night clerk at the motel, who said she thought she saw a woman go up towards Tester’s room around midnight. The forensics van had showed up. Maybe they’d find something.

Brown said Tester was an evangelist, a traveling preacher from Newport, which was located in Cocke County about sixty miles to the southwest of Johnson City. Newport was infamous in the law enforcement community for three things: chop shops, marijuana production, and especially cock fighting. Landers had also heard some of the preachers down there were snake handlers, religious extremists who proved their faith by waving copperheads and rattlesnakes around while they delivered their sermons. He wondered whether the dead rev liked to play with slimy serpents.

He pulled into the parking lot at the Mouse’s Tail just before noon and circled the building. There was only one vehicle in the back, a black BMW convertible. A redheaded woman was just getting out. She was wearing black leather pants and a tight cheetah-print top and was having a hard time walking through the gravel in her three-inch spiked heels. The outfit was definitely on the outrageous side, but her body was good enough to pull it off.

Landers pulled up beside the BMW, got out, introduced himself, and showed the woman his identification. She shook his hand and said her name was Erlene Barlowe. She owned the place. Said her husband passed away a while back and she took over after he died. She had a pretty face and was wearing a push-up bra that pushed up plenty. But she had to be at least fifty, so Landers figured the bright red hair was bottle-fed.

”What can I do for you, honey?” she said after a little small talk.

”What time do you open?” Landers was disappointed that the place was closed, since he wanted to talk to some of the employees. Actually, he was hoping to get to see some of her employees in action.

He’d heard the Mouse’s Tail was a pretty steamy place, but he’d never been in there. When Landers wanted to go to a strip club, he went to the beach or Atlanta. As much as he liked to look at tits and ass, he knew the TBI would probably fire him if they heard he was hanging out at the local titty bar. Those kinds of places were notorious for drugs.

”Five,” the woman said. ”We’re open five to two, six days a week. Closed on Sundays.” Her voice was kind of Southern belle-ish, not exactly what he expected to hear from a woman who looked like her, with a syrupy Tennessee drawl. Landers thought it was nice that the titty bar observed the Sabbath.

”So you were open last night?”

”Wednesday’s usually a pretty good night for us.

It’s hump day, you know.”

She had a little smile on her face when she said

”hump day.” Landers wondered how much humping went on in there on hump day.

”Was it crowded last night?”

”Wasn’t anything special, sugar. Do you mind if I ask why you’re asking?”

As she talked, Landers noticed her mouth. Nice teeth, and candy apple red lipstick. Looked like a color you’d paint a ‘56 Chevy. Landers briefly envisioned those red lips wrapped around his pole.

”Just doing my job, Ms. Barlowe,” he said. ”Obviously, I wouldn’t be here unless I was working some kind of an investigation.”

”I understand completely,” she said, ”but I’m sure
you
can understand that I’m concerned when a police officer, even one as handsome as yourself, shows up at my place of business asking questions. Maybe I could help you a little more if you’d let me in on what you’re investigating.”

Landers stepped back over to his car, reached in, and picked the photograph of Tester up off the front seat.

”Were you here last night?” he said.

”I’m here every night, sweetie.”

”Recognize this guy?” Landers handed the photo to her. She looked at it for a few seconds, then shook her head and handed it back.

”I don’t believe I do.”

”I think he was here last night.”

”Really? What would make you think that?”

”Just some information I picked up. He was killed last night.”

She gasped and covered her mouth. ”Oh, my goodness. That’s terrible!”

Landers held the photo up in front of her face again. ”You’re absolutely certain you didn’t see him in your club last night?”

”Well, now, I don’t believe I could say for
certain.

Lots and lots of men come and go. I don’t notice all of them.”

”I’m going to need to interview the employees who were working last night and as many of your customers as I can.”

”Well, I swan,” she said. ”You’ll scare my girls to death. And the customers? Honey, they’d run from you like scared rabbits. Most of them don’t even want their wives to know they’ve been here, let alone the police. If you were to come in here and start asking them about a murder, why, I just don’t know what would happen to my business.”

”I didn’t say anything about a murder.”

The phony smile she was wearing stayed frozen on her face, but her eyes tightened the slightest bit.

At that moment, Landers knew she realized she’d fallen face-first in a pile of shit. It didn’t surprise Landers. Any woman who dressed like that had to be a dumbass.

”I thought you said the man was killed,” she said.

”I did, but I didn’t say he was murdered. I didn’t say anything about how he was killed. He might have been run over by a train or gotten killed in a car wreck. He could have jumped off a building or blown his brains out. What makes you think he was murdered?”

”I don’t claim to know a whole lot, honey, but I didn’t think the TBI got involved with car wrecks. I thought they only sent you boys in for the bad stuff.”

Nice try. She knew something, and now that she’d fucked up, she was trying to backpedal. Landers decided to try to get her out of her element and into his, get her to a place where she’d be less comfortable.

”Ms. Barlowe, let’s you and I go down to my office where we can sit down, have a cup of coffee, and talk. You can give me a list of your employees and the names of as many customers from last night as you can remember, and I’ll have you back here in a couple of hours.”

The smile vanished.

”Honey, did I mention to you that my late husband, God rest his soul, used to be the sheriff of McNairy County? I was his personal secretary for almost a year before he resigned, and then we got married about a year after that. It was a long time ago, but I remember a few things about the law.

Now, I don’t mean to be rude to you, sugar, but one of the things I remember is that unless you have some kind of warrant or unless you arrest me, I don’t believe I even have to talk to you. I’ve tried to be nice up to this point, but you’ve made it clear that you think I’ve done something wrong. So you know what? I think I’m just going to go on inside and get to work now, okay? You have yourself a wonderful day.”

She turned around and sashayed off. It was the only word to describe the way her hips swayed as she headed into the Mouse’s Tail on her spike heels.

Landers stood there watching her for a minute, then turned and got back into his car.

Most people cringe when they talk to TBI agents, and damned near all of them cooperate unless they have something to hide. This woman had something to hide. Landers decided to stick a flashlight up her skirt until he found out what it was.

April 12

12:10 p.m.

I went up to see my mother after Johnny Wayne was carted off. It was lunchtime, and walking down the hall in the long-term-care wing at the nursing home was like running a wheelchair gauntlet. I knocked gently on the door and walked in. She was awake.

It seemed she was always awake. The doctors told me that Alzheimer’s, as it progresses, interferes with sleep patterns. She was sitting up in bed, watching
SportsCenter
. Baseball season had started, which meant her beloved Atlanta Braves were back on the field.

”Hi, Ma. How’re you feeling today?”

”Like I’ve been hit by a train.”

”Good. At least you’re with us.”

The disease was steadily running its course. One day I’d walk in and she’d say, ”Hi, Joe,” and we’d talk for a little while, and the next day she wouldn’t even know my name. It was painful to watch. She was only sixty years old, and she’d always been strong and vital. But her skin had lost its elasticity and was the color of bleached bone. Her weight had dropped to ninety pounds, and she seemed to have shrunk by at least two inches. Her cheeks were hollow, her hazel eyes dull, and her hair gray and stringy. Her teeth were in a jar on the bedside table.

As I sat down in the chair next to her bed, I knew it wouldn’t be long before she wouldn’t be able to talk at all.

Ma was born in 1947 in a small town called Erwin, Tennessee, which sits nestled in the Appalachians not far from the North Carolina border and is surrounded by the Cherokee National Forest. She fell in love with a football star from nearby Johnson City and married him in 1964, a month after they graduated from high school. She had Sarah in 1966 and me in 1967, after my father was drafted and went off to Vietnam. I never laid eyes on my father; he was shipped home in a body bag by the time I was born.

Ma provided for my sister and me as best she could by working as a bookkeeper for a small roofing company and taking in other people’s laundry. She didn’t talk much, and when she did, it was usually a bitter tirade against Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. She never dated another man and hardly ever left the house. Her only real requirement of me was:

”Get an education, Joey.”

”Sarah’s getting out of jail today,” I said. ”I hope she’s going to stay at my house for a while. Caroline was supposed to go down and talk to her sometime this morning.”

Her eyes dropped at the mention of Sarah and she began to shake her head.

”My own flesh and blood in jail,” she said. ”Tell me where I went wrong.”

”No sense in beating yourself up over it. She is what she is. It isn’t your fault.”

”You better lock up your valuables, Joey. She’ll haul the whole house off if you give her the chance.”

”Sarah wouldn’t steal from me, Ma.” In fact, Sarah
had
stolen from me in the past, but I’d never told Ma about it.

”Well, she’s stole from me, plenty of times.”

”Maybe she’s changed. You looked sad when I came in. What’s the matter?”

”I was thinking about Raymond.” She reached for a tissue beside the bed and dabbed at her eyes. Raymond was Ma’s younger brother. He drowned at the age of seventeen. ”Such a waste.”

”No, it wasn’t,” I said before I realized what was coming out of my mouth. ”Don’t spend any tears on him, Ma.
That’s
a waste.”

”Joey, you’ve never had a kind word to say about your uncle. What did Raymond ever do to you?”

I shook my head, not wanting to get into it. She hadn’t mentioned him in years. ”He wasn’t a good person.”

”He just needed—”

”Ma, could we please not talk about Raymond?

You’re entitled to your opinion; I’m entitled to mine.”

I wanted to tell her what my opinion was based on, but I didn’t see the point. It had happened so long ago, and Ma was dying. There was no sense in sullying whatever pleasant memories she had of her only brother.

I managed to get her mind off of Raymond and onto my son Jack’s baseball prospects for a little while, but then, like a sudden change in the weather, she looked at me as though she’d never seen me before.

”What are you doing here?” she said. ”Who are you?” It was a fast transformation, even for her, like some inner switch had been flipped. Even the pitch in her voice changed.

”It’s me, Ma. I’m Joe. Your son.”

”Why are you wearing that tie? You some kind of big cheese or something?”

”No, Ma. I’m not a big cheese.”

”Where’s Raymond?”

”Raymond’s dead.”

She let out a long sigh and stared at the ceiling.

”Ma? Can you hear me?”

She didn’t respond. She lay motionless, almost catatonic. I looked over at the bedside dresser. On top of it were several photos of our fractured family.

There was one of my grandfather, wearing bib overalls and following a plow pulled by a mule through a cornfield. There was a framed photograph of me walking across the stage at my law school graduation ceremony. Next to it, in a smaller frame, was a black-and-white of Sarah and me when I was seven years old. We were standing on a plank raft in the middle of a half-acre pond out back of my grandparents’

home. Both of us were grinning from ear to ear. Two of my front teeth were missing.

Just to the right of that photo was a slightly larger one of Uncle Raymond, taken about six months before he died. He was seventeen years old, standing next to a doe that had been shot, hung from a tree limb, and gutted. He held a rifle in his left hand and a cigarette in his right. I walked over and picked up the photo. I looked at it for a minute and then turned back towards the bed. Ma was still staring at the ceiling.

”Can you hear me?” I said.

Nothing.

I sat back down on the chair next to the bed and began to dismantle the picture frame. I pried the small staples loose on the back of the frame, pulled the photo out, and tore it into little pieces.

”Hope you don’t mind too much, Ma, but I’m going to put Raymond where he belongs.” I walked to the bathroom, dropped the pieces in the toilet, flushed it, and watched them swirl around the bowl and disappear.