The Killing King of Gratis (4 page)

She enjoyed Tech and there discovered sex, the great pleasure of her life. Generally she didn’t date Tech men, finding them more adept in the classroom than the bedroom. Instead she found her men in the Buckhead bar scene. She was only a college girl, but she could hold her own against the older men she met. Her pattern was to date them, wreck them, and leave them broken.

After graduation she went to New York for a year before finding her way back to Atlanta. She lived and worked in Midtown, despairing that there was no culture after being spoiled by Manhattan. Out of boredom she took up her college ways, discarding men, and now often women, at a brisk pace. Millie also moved from party to party in a sea of cocaine and cosmopolitans. More mornings than not, she awoke in a strange bed with a strange person.

Her lifestyle was such that rumors reached even to Gratis. People talked about her wild ways, her newly acquired northern accent, and her penchant to sample men, women, and any drug put before her. Daddy begged her to come back at first, promising to give her any car or home she wanted. When that didn’t work he threatened to cut off the family money. She calmly slurred to him that she could think of an easy way to make money. “Daddy,” she slurred to him, “you would pale at the thought.”

This attitude would not stand with Franklin, even from his little girl. He hired two detectives to bring Millie home, both of them more muscle than brain. They retrieved her as she was rolling in the bed of the Brave’s hottest rookie prospect. The rookie put up a good fight but was better at hitting balls than people. During the pregame broadcast that night, the official story, when asked about his swollen eye and busted lip, was that he was in a minor traffic accident.

Back in Gratis, Franklin hired a rehab specialist and a team of nurses to help Millie. She sobered up after a few weeks and understood how close she came to losing her daddy and his money. She decided not to fight his efforts but instead embraced them, at least outwardly, as a way to regain his trust. Millie found a willing ally in her rehab specialist, Dr. Martin Friend. By their third session she had seduced him. During their fifth session a nurse joined them for her special type of rehabilitation, and Millie felt herself getting better every day.

Dr. Friend pronounced her well on her way to recovery after the second month and worked out a treatment plan to see her two times a week. He also convinced Franklin that Millie needed her own home to be independent and “get on with the business of obtaining a full recovery.” She got a house in the one historic neighborhood of Gratis, and Dr. Friend treated her there. Sometimes he would be alone and other times he would bring a therapy assistant. Always he would bring another half an ounce of cocaine. Millie found a thoroughly reliable source for sex and drugs in the able doctor.

Of course she got bored. She convinced her daddy that she was fine and that Dr. Friend was only a crutch. When she told him their time was over, the doctor begged her not to throw him out. She laughed at him, threatening to tell her daddy about his unique treatment methods. Surely he would make sure that Friend never practiced again, at the very least.

Finally, though, Millie relented and allowed him to see her once a month, at no charge, as long as he brought an ounce of cocaine and at least one therapy partner each time. He did as she directed and soon was little more than her drug connection. By the time he came to his senses, months later, Friend had lost his practice, his home, and almost his license. It would be years before he was worth a damn, and even longer before he stopped missing his favorite patient.

In the meantime, Millie decided to bring something of the city to Gratis. She enjoyed the ruse she played with her daddy and saw merit in small town life done her way. She opened Knox Landing, a Boutique, on Main Street. There she sold fashion, gifts, and other knickknacks. She also employed some of the prettier young locals, often keeping them late for planning sessions. They would stay for hours, depending upon exactly how much planning Millie felt like.

Millie integrated herself back into the community in other ways as well. She joined the chamber of commerce and went to parties where her daddy would see her in good company. To this end the one ally she cultivated above all others was Johnnie Lee. Millie needed a positive public perception, and for that there was no-one better in Gratis than Johnnie.

She invited Johnnie to every function she hosted and gave her a special discount of ‘totally free’ at Knox Landing. They were always seen together around town, chatting and laughing, women separated in age but symbiotic in need. Johnnie knew of Millie’s predilections, but being close with her far outweighed the number of papers she would sell by recounting her escapades. Anyway, disparaging a Knox in Gratis was simply bad business. Instead, she invented a different Millie for her column, one who “always made sure to be the first to volunteer, and to give to any charity that needed her. Some apples just don’t fall far from the tree.”

In truth, Millie did made some effort to get involved. She worked blood drives for the United Way and donated time to the animal shelter. She even helped the local girl scout troop by giving them the back room of her shop every Tuesday night. Of course she always cleaned the room beforehand, making sure all the liquor bottles, baggies, and condoms were gone before they arrived. She would laugh thinking about the merit badges she earned in that room.
Do they have a merit badge for ménage a trois? What about advanced fellating?

Millie was smiling about exactly that as she got ready to go out the first Friday of summer. She admired herself in the mirror, still young and somewhat fresh looking despite her habits. Not yet thirty, the world was still hers to play in as she pleased. She thought she might go to Daddy Jack’s, get a few drinks, and see where the night led.

She checked her dress. It showed a little skin but not so much daddy would disapprove.
And I do look good in red, damn good.
After trying on at least a dozen pair, Millie finally found the right shoes and was almost ready to go. She only needed a necklace and earrings to finish her ensemble. The diamonds she tried on at first were beautiful but didn’t have that pop she was looking for. Then a necklace in the bottom of her jewelry case caught her eye. She slipped it on and smiled.

After searching a little more she found the matching earrings and looked in the mirror. She didn’t want to be vain, but she couldn’t help being beautiful and knowing how to show it off.

God, I do love emeralds,
she thought, admiring herself. Her daddy gave the necklace to her when she graduated from high school, and the earrings when she graduated Tech. He loved her smile when he gave her something beautiful.

Millie sat looking at herself in the mirror, in no rush to start her evening. She did love her daddy, and remembered the way he looked at her when he gave both pieces of jewelry. The day she graduated from high school he teared up when he put the necklace around her neck. At the college graduation, maybe because he was out of town, he openly wept. He told her he loved her, and that she always had a home with him. She would always be his baby girl.

Millie found herself tearing up as well while she sat there.
I will be the daughter he wants,
she thought
, soon enough. I’m almost done having my fun.
She believed it, believed she would be able to put away her hobbies, or at least tone them down.
I can do it for daddy, just not yet.
She touched her earrings while still looking in the mirror, promising herself that her daddy would have no reason to worry about her, no reason to ever be ashamed.
He will love me like he used to, soon enough.
She smiled at the thought.

Unfortunately for her, Peck found one of those emerald earrings the next morning, hiding in a turtle’s mouth. It was still attached to Millie’s very beautiful, very dead ear.

Tommy found the other one in her other ear, barely attached to Millie’s bashed in head. It twinkled in the weak glow of his flashlight, the green stones dazzling against the blood pooling on the damp tunnel floor. Millie would never keep the promise she made to herself that night, and her daddy would never know that his little girl still cared about making him happy.

W
ord of Millie’s murder shot through Gratis like a load of buckshot, tearing those who heard it. Everyone felt the emptiness left behind by such a large life.

The men and women she slept with missed her. There would be others but none like Millie. Even their spouses had the small consolation knowing that their significant others were returned before long. Millie never kept anybody past their expiration date.

Her preacher missed her because she gave mightily to her church, and charities missed her because she gave mightily to them. Of course, the girl scout troop missed her, too. They would name their community service award the “Millicent Knox Arrow of Love.”

Her daddy missed her terribly, as any parent would miss a child who suffered such a death. Upon identifying her body at the morgue, Franklin fell to the concrete floor, sobbing. He had to be sedated.

Millie had the grandest funeral ever seen in Gratis. Over a thousand people crammed into and around the First Baptist for the ceremony, dripping into the churchyard for lack of space. Her preacher eulogized her for her giving nature and piety. Several of the grand ladies of the church wept.

Nobody, though, missed her more than Johnnie. For her, Millie only gave.

She felt no sexual longing toward her and therefore couldn’t be hurt by Millie’s wanderings. She had no husband to seduce and no child to mislead. Millie gave her solid footing in Gratis’ social scene, as well as clothes and other finery she could hardly afford otherwise.

Millie also gave her a sense of relevance, of hipness. Here she was, a fifty-four year old spinster, and her best friend was the sexiest, most dangerous woman in town. She felt like the plain girl adopted by the cheerleader. In fact, that is exactly whom she was.

Johnnie could hardly breathe upon learning the news. She was eating lunch at “Le Café” after going through town and noticing that Knox Landing was still closed that morning. She thought it odd because Millie always opened on time, even when she had a late night. Johnnie was going to ask her to lunch but instead ate with a group of ladies that met there every Saturday. They were known as the “gossip gaggle.”

Her phone rang and caller ID showed the name of her source in the sheriff’s office. She was chewing her first bite of food but answered the call anyway. Being late in the gossip business was fatal.

Once Johnnie got the news she dropped her phone and started choking on her chicken salad croissant. The ladies at the table shouted for the owner, Franky Francis, who came running as fast as his fat legs would allow. The last thing he needed was Johnnie complaining about bones in the chicken salad. As it turned out she choked because her throat swelled with grief and there was no room for anything else.

Franky got behind her and performed the Heimlich. Johnnie coughed her croissant onto the table and screamed at him to stop humping her. She then promptly fainted. The ladies gathered around her, crying for her to wake up even as Franky was dialing 911.

Johnnie slowly regained consciousness but was unable, for the first time in her life, to say anything. She just stared at the tea spilled on the floor in front of her, thinking that it looked like the Bird flowing through Gratis on the green tile. She stayed in the hospital overnight for observation and returned home the next day. She righted herself and was the concerned, loving friend at Millie’s viewing.

Her episode at Le Café quickly became known, and her very public grief garnered some sympathy. She would later have an arrangement with Franky to eat free as “a token of the deeply felt sympathy of everyone at Le Café.” Johnnie also promised not to write that the chicken salad was bony. Franky felt as if he came out of the whole ordeal rather cheaply, although Johnnie’s appetite grew healthier with no check involved.

During the funeral she sat in the first row of the balcony. Being a close friend of Millie’s she could have sat with the family. She preferred this seat because she could look around the sanctuary and see which person was there with whom, what they were wearing, and whether anyone was sneaking stolen glances at any other mourner. A funeral wasn’t usually as good as a wedding when it came to gossip but this was Millie’s funeral. Johnnie never knew her to be upstaged whether she was breathing or not.

Even recalcitrant parishioners graced the church for this affair, and the air was electric. Millie Knox may not have been the finest person ever eulogized in Gratis, but she was the most exciting. She brought an energy to the town, a source of angst and celebration, and would be impossible to replace. The buzz in the sanctuary reminded Johnnie of Millie’s intoxicating presence. To withdraw from it so suddenly was physically painful. She looked around the packed house realizing that she was not alone in her grief.

It was then that Johnnie started planning the next phase of her life. She enjoyed the power she wielded in Gratis but wanted more. She wanted to be loved. She would have to find a suitable platform for such a difficult transition.

Sitting there, Johnnie realized there would be no more popular cause than finding Millie’s murderer. She would take up that cause and find this person just as surely as she found the secrets breathing in the souls of all Gratisians. This would be her crusade and nobody would stand in her way. To do so would invite scorn and, as always, she had her sources. Everyone had some secret they didn’t want others to know. If she ran into a roadblock she would use those secrets like a bulldozer. The thought of the good she would do in the name of her friend made her cry. Her tears burned hot on her fat, mottled cheeks.

Those at the funeral could see her grief and were genuinely touched. Little did they know that Johnnie wouldn’t stop mourning when Millie was finally lowered into the ground. She would exalt in her grief and keep it alive, making it her calling card for the foreseeable future. She believed Millie would have wanted her to do so, and was convinced that Gratis would love her for it.