Officer Elvis (4 page)

Tommy and his girlfriend had a rental in the Lake Terrace Apartments on Old Clayton Road in Ridgeland, the first suburb to the north of Jackson. The sixty-unit complex was composed of a series of slate-gray wood-shingled, attached one- and two-bedroom town homes. The tenants tended to be either young professionals fresh out of college, or middle-aged men trying to rebuild their finances after costly divorces.

There was a wrought-iron gate and a guardhouse at the complex entrance, promising added security, but the gate was open and the guardhouse empty.

Darla drove halfway around the circular drive, until she found number 113, Tommy's apartment. She rang the buzzer and waited. After the second ring, a woman whom Darla took to be Edwina Nothauzer opened the door. She was barefoot and wearing a frilly black nightie that didn't cover much. Darla could see that the lady was large-chested—they looked real—and had a supple young body, unmarked by the sag of age or childbearing. She was pretty enough to attract most any man. Tommy would have thought her irresistible. Her dark hair, with lighter roots that were just starting to show, was rolled in large curlers and covered with a layer of pink toilet paper. Darla recalled seeing photos of Priscilla Presley during her courtship with Elvis wearing her dark hair in a bouffant.

Edwina looked Darla up and down like Darla was someone she'd bumped into at a high school reunion and was trying to place her. Finally, she said: “I know you, don't I now? You're that detective, ain't you? The one that come down from up north? Hugh's wife. Hugh the Glue. I mean before he went to his reward?”

Most people in Mississippi still thought of Darla as Hugh Cavannah's wife, and always would.

“Darla Cavannah,” Darla said, offering her a hand. At her husband Stephen's insistence, she had kept Hugh's last name when she married Stephen. It was a door opener, her new husband told her. Everybody remembered and still loved the all-pro wide receiver from Jackson. Stephen Nicoletti, the director of the last clinic in Mississippi to perform abortions, wasn't quite as popular. “I worked with Tommy at the Hinds County Sheriff's Department a few years back,” Darla added, showing the woman her MBI badge. Her point being, this was an official visit, not condolences for the grieving girlfriend.

Edwina stepped out on the landing, and leaned down for a better look at Darla's badge, turning it around in a semicircle to read the words. “The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Wouldn't Tommy be proud?” She smiled like she herself was grateful. “You can call me Cill,” she said, touching Darla on the arm. “Tommy give me that name and now everybody calls me that. I guess you can figure out why.”

“I know you already gave a statement to one of the Hinds County officers last night,” said Darla, “but there are a couple of areas I'd like to go over with you. If this isn't a good time I can come back later?”

Cill shrugged. “Like they say, now's as good a time as any.” She sounded way too perky for a woman who had just lost her boyfriend. “Of course, as you can see, I'm officially in mourning.”

“You mean the black nightie?” asked Darla.

“It seems only fitting,” said Cill, who let the screen door close behind her, and then did a slightly awkward pirouette on the porch.

Darla looked to the left, then to the right to see if any of the neighbors were watching the show. An elderly man up the street was washing an SUV in his driveway. He'd dropped his hose and was ogling Cill.

“It might be better if we stepped inside,” said Darla.

“Ain't I the rude one?” Cill opened the screen door, moved aside, and ushered Darla into the living room. The room was taken up by a sectional sofa and a wide-screen TV. The TV appeared new, the sectional not so much. The living room walls were decorated with a few photos and posters of Elvis, but quite a few more of Tommy in costume as Elvis. On the wall above the sofa, in the place of honor, was a blow-up photo of Tommy and Cill in costume. Darla, recalling old photos of Pricilla Presley, could see the resemblance. At the far end of the room was a small display case crammed with Elvis bobbleheads, five or six Elvis books (the extent of Tommy's library), and gobs of other junk, all of which had an Elvis theme.

Darla took a seat at the end of the sofa. Cill plopped down next to her, close enough to invade Darla's space. She adjusted the curlers, shifting the toilet-paper-covered bonnet as though she was trying to scratch an itch. “The things we women go through to make ourselves beautiful for our men,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it.”

“I'm sorry for your loss,” said Darla.

“He's with the Lord now,” said Cill, her soft brown eyes not registering much pain.

Darla removed her recorder from her purse, and set it on the coffee table in front of them. “It's voice activated,” she said. “I hope you don't mind? It's easier than taking notes.”

Cill looked at the recorder and nodded. “Tommy used his to listen to himself sing,” she said, offering a faint smile. “Sometimes he'd try a duet with himself. Now that was something to hear.”

“I'll try to be brief,” said Darla.

“Before you get to the interrogating part, I got something I need me to confess,” said Cill. “Excepting I don't want it put down for what-do-you-call-it, prosperity?”

“Posterity?”

“So, if we could hold off on the recording?”

Darla turned the recorder off, making sure that Cill saw her click the off switch.

Cill cleared her throat. “What I got to confess is, Lord forgive me, 'cause I know it's sinning. I've been, how should I say it, I've been just plum jealous of you.”

“Of me?” asked Darla, incredulous.

“Once, when Tommy was talking about all the law enforcement types he worked with,” said Cill, “he was saying how you got them green eyes like a cat, but the rest of you reminded him of a Greek statuette he saw on the wall of Niko's diner in Flowood. He said how you looked like that woman who's married to that actor. The media, they call them by that one name, Brangelina. And I can see you do favor that lady, but seeing you standing out front, I knowed that you're being so much up there, stratospherically speaking, you and my Tommy would never be making a couple. So Jesus forgives me.”

Darla listened in amazement. The woman had a language all her own. “Stratospherically?” Darla asked.

“ 'Cause a man don't want to be looking up to his true love and vicey-vicey.”

“Vice versa,” said Darla.

“Now little ole me, even when I got on them spikey heels, I ain't barely five feet four—meaning I could rest my pretty little head on Tommy's shoulder, and him feeling like a manly man. I think that's important, don't you?”

In an odd way, she's right, thought Darla, who was over six feet in heels. Both her husbands measured six four and made her feel small and protected in their arms.

“If you're ready, I think we should turn the recorder on now,” Darla said.

“Go on ahead,” said Cill. “Make this part official. Do I need a Bible to swear on?”

“Not at this juncture,” Darla said. She switched the pause button and sat the recorder on the coffee table. “How long had you known Tommy, Ms., ah, Cill?”

“You mean this lifetime?” asked Cill.

“That would be a good place to start,” said Darla.

“Well, let me think,” said Cill, leaning forward into the recorder. “I know it might be stretching things, considering my true love officially met his demise last night, but it would be six weeks to the day. But we knew we was soul mates right from the get-go.”

“Have you contacted the insurance companies yet?” Darla asked, clicking off the usual questions.

“Am I suppose to?” Cill asked, looking wide-eyed and innocent.

“Your name is on his life insurance and you're a co-owner of the Caddy. You're also guardian for the land that Tommy had put in trust.”

“Well,” said Cill, “now that you mention it, Tommy said something about fixing his legal papers, but I didn't give no never mind to such things. I ain't much of one for practical matters. I mean, just as long as there's enough so's I can give Tommy a big ole send-off.”

If this is an act, it's a good one, thought Darla. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt Tommy?” she asked.

“You know my Tommy, being so sweet and all, he didn't have an enemy in the world.”

That's not the Tommy I know,
thought Darla. “Cill, he was a cop,” she said. “All cops have enemies.”

“Well, Tommy never discussed his police business with me,” she said. “He said it wouldn't be right.”

Darla didn't believe her. Tommy couldn't keep his mouth shut about anything. “But soul mates tell each other everything, don't they?”

Cill smiled, looking relieved that she was being given permission to share a confidence. “He did mention one person that had evil in his heart,” said Cill. “That ole Mr. Conway.”

Conway was Conway Boudreaux, the owner of Continental Conway's Gentleman's Club, a sleazy strip joint in South Jackson. Tommy had been working vice, so the connection made sense. But Darla didn't remember seeing anything about Conway in Tommy's files.

“What about Conway?” asked Darla.

“Conway, he just hated Tommy,” said Cill.

“A few seconds ago you said Tommy didn't have an enemy in the world.”

“The reason Conway hated Tommy,” Cill said, ignoring Darla's observation, “was because of how Tommy was God's tool for shutting down Mr. Conway's club for homosexuals.”

“The Adonis Club?” This was news. Darla knew a little about it, a gay strip joint Conway had tried to get going. Conway had closed the club after a month, without explanation. “What do you mean Tommy was God's tool?” asked Darla.

“All Tommy told me was he led the crusade against that infidel Conway and his den of sodomy.”

“What kind of a crusade?” If there was a crusade against the club, the media had never picked up on it.

“He didn't share the details with me,” said Cill. “Anyway, now that old place is closed and Tommy is dead.”

“Do you know of anything specific Mr. Boudreaux, Conway, actually said or did that would suggest he intended to harm Tommy? Any threats, for instance?”

“Conway was the disciple of Satan. Ain't that enough?”

“Not usually.”

“In God's eyes, it is.”

“Well, not in the district attorney's eyes,” said Darla. “He's going to need evidence.”

“I guess I'll just have to leave the matter in God's hands,” said Cill. “Let go and let God. Plus, you doing your investigatory job and all.” She patted Darla on the arm and smiled, friendlylike.

It was clear that Cill had issues with the LGBT community but Darla wondered if Cill and Conway had some bad blood between them. Or maybe Cill was smarter than she looked, and wanted to get the focus of the investigation off her. Whatever it was, Cill was finished talking about the subject.

Darla resumed her questions. “Last night, when the two of you were leaving the Clarion Hills nursing home—”

“Assisted care facility,” said Cill.

“When you were leaving,” said Darla, “you didn't walk with Tommy to his car?”

“His chariot, you mean?” Cill said. “That's what Tommy called it. He was so proud of that car. Had that rolled and tucked Naugahyde seats.”

“The police report says you waited on the porch of the assisted care facility with the residents and orderlies while Tommy walked to the parking lot,” said Darla.

“I think I know where you're going with this,” said Cill. “You're wanting to know do I think we're all just some random atoms floating about the universe without purpose, or was it the hand of the Almighty? And being a Christian woman, I'd have to say me and Tommy wasn't meant to go hand in hand to our maker. But I know he'll be waiting at the pearly gates for me.”

“Don't you usually walk with Tommy to the car?”

Cill put her right forefinger on her lips, like she was miming someone thinking over a question. “Well now, sometimes I do and sometimes I just don't. Depending.”

“Depending on what?”

“How big is the rocks?” said Cill. “The ones in the parking lot. Unless it's got asphalt, then I don't give no never mind. But if there's big ole stones, I got me on them long spikey heels, the kind that bumps one up buttwise, makes the fellas stare at you. If I'm wearing them, I can't do no navigating over big stones.”

“And that's why you didn't walk Tommy to the car last night?”

“God's hand was in it, too,” said Cill, like she'd thought and prayed on the matter.

“Do you know of anyone else, aside from Conway, that might have reason to harm Tommy?”

“You might had a notion it was someone from the Elvis community,” said Cill, shaking her head, “but I don't think it was.”

“You mean Elvis fans?”

“The other Elvis tribute artists,” said Cill. “I forgot, you ain't from Mississippi. Let me just tell you, Mississippi has got lots and lots of Elvis tribute artists. And different types, too. There's Young Elvis, Army Elvis, and Vegas Elvis—some call this older Elvis—Tommy was Vegas Elvis 'cause he thought he fit the part more, lookswise. There's also Gospel Elvis, Cowboy Elvis. Them's the main ones.”

Cill put Darla in mind of Bubba from the movie
Forrest Gump,
the part where he was naming the different shrimp preparations.

Cill continued: “The lack of available Elvis artists in the marrying pool is why I up and moved here from Kentucky. They got Elvis tribute artists there, of course. Elvis is everywhere, but it ain't on the same level, numberswise, as Mississippi. I wanted me an Elvis husband, so I had to come to where Elvis come from. And when I heard Tommy singing ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight,' the rest, as they say in history books, is history—only this is one of them sad chapters in the book.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, I don't think it was one of the other Elvis artists. I never heard any of them talking bad of Tommy.”