Mesopotamia Read online

  “Where exactly are these gray hairs that supposedly belong to Elvis Presley?” I asked Vin. Still weeping, she simply shook her head, then said she hadn’t found any gray strands. This was unfortunate as that would probably have made the biggest story of the new century.

  Recovered methhead Floyd Loyd had launched an interesting little investigation. His biggest flaw was getting himself killed while trying to extort John Carpenter (now Rod East?). The other mistake Floyd made had cost the life of the recent Elvis impersonator, Pappy East, who I witnessed when I first stumbled across this damn case. Pappy had probably star-sixty-nined Floyd’s phone call inquiring about his brother Rod, and subsequently tracked him down to this area. From here, it was just a short hop over to the Elvis cover bar. Pappy must’ve come face-to-face with his elusive brother, the Cain to his Abel, who had run off with the money the two had made on their best-selling Elvis tell-all. I vaguely remembered the peaceful expression on the dead man’s face. It did not convey the shock that most would’ve expected when getting a shotgun blast from one’s own brother.

  “Is there a severed hand in your fridge?” I asked Vin.

  “I saw the top of a mysterious box of corn buried in the bottom of my icebox. For the life of me, I couldn’t pry it out.” Looking out the window at the dark silhouette of a small church missing its steeple, she added, “Shit, that must’ve been what he was looking for.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “One night after we … I saw Reverend Mo digging holes out back. When I asked what was up, he asked if Loyd had buried a cat or something cause its scent was driving his dog nuts. But I was suspicious cause the smell out there was so bad already.”

  “When did you first start sleeping with him?”

  “If you’re suggesting that I cheated on Floyd …”

  “We know that he hangs out with those guys at the Blue Suede, and we know that they know that Floyd had that hand, and they want it back.”

  “We never did nothing while Floyd was alive.”

  “When did it start?”

  “I guess we first … dated about two months after Floyd died.” It appeared to finally be sinking in that the minister could be involved in her husband’s murder. “Shit, he lived nearby and he’d always be helping me around the house with the children and all. How can I be so stupid!”

  “So he did chores for you?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a quiet disdain.

  I remembered that empty bottom drawer in the storm cellar office and wondered if the minister or someone from the Blue Suede had removed the Elvis gray hairs? For the first time, I also wondered about that last rusting filing cabinet pushed all the way up against the wall, the one I never reached.

  “If that bastard did anything to my Floyd, I mean, God!”

  “Let me ask you something,” I said tensely. “How much is the policy for?”

  “What policy?”

  “Floyd’s life insurance policy.”

  “What insurance policy?” she shot back.

  “Sheriff Nick said he had a policy.”

  “That’s a bold-faced lie!”

  “How about the crystal meth lab, is that also a lie?”

  “Yes! He never had no lab!” she shouted back. I stared at her silently until she added, “I mean, he did once. Years ago, before I knew him. But he was done with all that when we hooked up. They knew all about it and decided to try to frame him with the explosion. But I was in that shed every day and I know for a fact that since we were together, Floyd never cooked up nothing. Never used nothing! Never sold nothing! And he coulda too. He kept saying that if he started manufacturing and selling narcotics again, he coulda got us outta this place in a flash, but he wasn’t going to do that to us. You’ve gotta believe me.”

  “You could have told me this before.”

  “I swear on the lives of my little ones, Sandy. He didn’t cook no drugs.”

  Although I initially doubted her, Floyd’s letter looked credible. Still, cynic that I am, I would’ve probably wished her good luck, then paid her back the five hundred bucks with a generous gratuity as soon as I could. But Gustavo’s big face rose in my mind like a full moon. He would’ve looked into this—particularly when he was self-righteously intoxicated.

  Additionally, I recalled how suspicious and menacing Snake was about what I might’ve seen that very first day I stepped into the Blue Suede. I also recalled how delicately Sheriff Nick had questioned me before releasing me that morning. Something was definitely up.

  They must have received the extortion letter from Floyd and dug up the corpse buried in the back. That would explain the large rectangle of tilled soil where I had fruitlessly searched for Missy’s body. It was right below a large oak tree.

  By now, they had probably incinerated the burglar’s body. Though the hand in the freezer was evidence of possible foul play, it alone proved nothing.

  “Can the Elvis connection help?” Vin added.

  “Only if you can find Elvis’s gray hairs that Floyd mentioned.”

  She looked helplessly around the unswept floor of the little kitchen.

  “Let me ask you another question,” I said, shifting back to my original mission. “You don’t know if your husband worked for a man or woman named Scrubbs, do you?”

  “You mean like Missy Scrubs, that child killed by that black guy down in Memphis?”

  “Yeah, but there’s no evidence he killed her.” Suspicion was too frequently equated with guilt in the press.

  “Floyd never mentioned her to me, but he rarely talked about his cases at all.”

  So I had a decomposed hand, a rotten wallet, two dead Elvis impersonators (actually, Pappy was only loosely dressed like the King), and an unsubstantiated claim of Elvis’s gray hairs suggesting the King of Rock was still alive out there somewhere. I might be able to spin out a couple tabloid pieces, but as far as justice for Floyd—no way. It was difficult to believe Vinetta’s husband tried extorting Carpenter with such scant evidence. The only thing that really gave credence to Floyd’s story was the fact that he had been killed. That’s when the answer came to me: “The only chance we have of seeing any money or, for that matter, getting any justice for Floyd is picking up where he left off. But we have to do it right this time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You got seven kids. You live on scraps, and as your husband said in his valediction, it’s just a matter of time before another tornado hits. This Carpenter guy owns the biggest mansion and most successful bar in the county. Let’s extort the son of a bitch!”

  “Extort him with what?”

  “That thing in your freezer,” I explained. “We probably got it and they probably want it.”

  “How much do you think we can get for it?”

  “Floyd asked for fifty thousand dollars. I think we should stick with that. That’ll let them know that we’re picking up where he left off and that if they try killing us, it’ll just keep coming.”

  “Then what’s our next move?”

  “You live fifteen minutes away from the Blue Suede and have seven kids. The minister is probably keeping an eye on you for them. I don’t think you should do anything. I, on the other hand, live in New York City. This is my last trip to this neck of the woods. I can do what Floyd tried to do, only this time I’m going to stick to his original plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “Instead of approaching that bastard Snake, we go right to his recluse, this John Carpenter guy. I’ll tell him that I know he killed this burglar and show him Polaroids of the man’s hand.”

  “Are you going to mention Floyd’s death?”

  “No, we don’t have adequate proof that they killed him. Let’s just stick with what we can prove. There is probably a missing person’s report on this guy somewhere. At the very least we can get the hand fingerprinted.”

  “Hardly anyone’s ever seen this Carpenter fella,” she said. “How’re you going to find him?”

>   “The same way Floyd was going to do it. Have you ever gone to this Sing the King ding-a-ling?”

  “Just once. But it’s usually mobbed so now I stay away.”

  “Floyd’s letter says Carpenter judges it himself. I heard they’re going multicultural this year, so I’ll sign up and hang out there.”

  “What if they grab you and torture you until you give them the hand?”

  “They didn’t shoot or beat Floyd. They planted a bomb along with incriminating evidence in the toolshed. It was a very careful and patient murder.”

  “So why won’t they come after you?”

  Violence against journalists was nothing new. Twice I had been attacked on the job. Once a ridiculously corrupt assemblyman whacked me with his cane, which left a red welt on my back. I was able to get him convicted for fourth-degree assault. The second time I was punched in the stomach by an old, fat-ass slumlord who I slugged right back, sending him to the curb with a broken hip. Both times only invigorated me. I sure as hell had never let fear govern my life.

  “I’ll just have to convince him that if he does that, the hand will go to the FBI along with a letter prompting an investigation into my death.”

  “They killed Floyd,” she repeated.

  “Cause he didn’t scare the living shit out of them!” I replied, fueled by Gus’s death. I had gone down this road before.

  “Suppose Carpenter goes to the sheriff and we get arrested for extortion?” she wisely asked.

  “It’s your call, Vinetta. But nothing comes without a fight.”

  “Can I sleep on it?” she asked. I told her to go ahead.

  She spent the afternoon outside with the kids while I took a nap in the storm cellar. When I awoke, I headed into the house in time to hear her playing her answering machine and murmuring, “Son of a bitch!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Beaucheete just asked me if I wanted to join him for a drink at the B.S. Bastard! Using me like a fool and thinking I’ll just merrily go with him and have a drink with those old farts who killed my Floyd.” She snatched up the phone and said, “I’m going to give that son of a bitch a piece of my mind—”

  “Hold on!” I stopped her. “You end things abruptly, they’ll know something’s up. I’m sure they’re keeping tabs on you through him.”

  “Shin splints!” She slammed the phone down.

  “You almost cursed!” chimed in Floyd Jr. from the living room, “You got to sing Elvis.”

  Vinetta ignored him.

  “Do you know them?” I asked.

  “Who?

  “Those barflies who hang out there.”

  “You mean that group who make up the band? I know a couple names, but I don’t really know any of them personally.”

  “I just keep thinking that they must be Carpenter’s little posse,” I said. “They’ve got to be the ones behind his dirty little tricks.”

  “If it’ll help, I can probably go to the bar with Mo and see what I can come up with. I mean, they’ve all seen me in there, so I’m sure I can blend in.”

  “If you can get their names I can check them out, but I don’t want you taking any risks or doing anything crazy.”

  “It’ll probably take a few nightcaps to casually get all their names. The only problem is I’ll need someone to babysit.”

  The idea of handling seven kids at once filled me with a sudden dread I had never known while doing investigative reporting. “I don’t know if I can babysit that many at once.”

  “They’re a well-trained group, not nearly as bad as you think. Most of them are fast asleep by eight.”

  “All right, if you risk it, so will I,” I said.

  She clasped my hand and thanked me profusely for taking up her case. I could see she was touched that someone was finally listening to her.

  I didn’t tell her that I wasn’t really doing it for her. I barely knew her, and normally no amount of money would compel me to take a risk like this. I was a reporter, not a private investigator. Although I was grateful for her bailing me out, the boundless guilt from losing Gus tormented me every waking moment. I knew myself well enough to suspect that if I just went back to my homeless, unemployed life, I would hit the bottle until I killed myself. At the very worst, this seemed like a relatively noble—if slightly clownish—way to die.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  For the next few nights, around eight o’clock, Floyd Jr. and his oldest sister would finish the dishes and help Ma put the younger ones to bed before jumping in themselves. Then Vinetta would tug on a nice dress and head out to the B.S. where she’d meet up with Minister Beaucheete and absorb as much information as she could over a few drinks. During the daylight hours, I drove over to the parking lot of the pub and would set up one of Gus’s cameras with a long lens. Though I was hoping to find the mysterious Mr. Carpenter, I was only able to get photos of the five or so drunks who seemed permanently balanced on barstools inside. At the week’s end, we went into the root cellar and put together a wall of real names and identities, replacing Floyd’s fanciful artwork.

  It wasn’t so bad babysitting the kids at night. Slowly they grew on me. One night when I was putting Urleen to bed, she asked me about the shape of my eyes.

  “If you want to know whether they hurt,” I anticipated, “the answer is a little, but just along the edges.”

  “No, I was just wondering if you can see in small places, like through keyholes and stuff.”

  “Oh yeah, I can see through walls. Sometimes if I squint really hard I can see right into a person’s heart.”

  “No, but … but do you see things like this.” She pulled open her eyes really wide. “Or do you see like this?” She squeezed them so they were nearly shut.

  “I guess I see things the same way you do.”

  “Then why are they like that?”

  “It’s strange,” I said softly. “People from every part of the world are a little different—different colors, different shapes, different food and languages—and yet when you really get to know them, you find that they are all really pretty much the same.”

  She scratched her head and thoughtlessly gave me a kiss, which I happily returned, then closed her eyes.

  Slowly the information started coming together. The first target of my investigation was Snake Major. We already knew everything we needed to know about him—a major snake. Next was a tall skeleton named Leo Jones, who farted frequently and referred to them as his “air babies.” Vern Lawrence seemed to think that dogs were leashed to poles as a public service, so that they could be kicked. Irv Packer allegedly had a slew of kids—black, white, brown, and round children scattered all around the county. He didn’t know exactly how many, or where they all were—he probably didn’t even know where they all came from. Finally there was Ernie Dreysdale, who liked heavyset girls, the fatter the better. His supreme sexual fantasy he had confessed to all one night was to have a human she-hippo forklifted down upon his skinny, quivery midsection.

  After four anxious evenings of babysitting and reconnaissance, Vinetta’s little investigation came to an abrupt end when the minister drunkenly grabbed at her breasts. She smacked him across the mouth and said it was officially over between them. I was eternally grateful. They had publicly broken up so there would be no suspicions as to why, and my babysitting sentence was over.

  The next afternoon I called Blue Suede and told them I wanted to enter their upcoming Sing the King contest.

  “Then you best hightail it in here quick, sweet’em,” said the rough male voice on the phone, “cause deadline’s in three days.”

  “I’ll do just that.”

  “And I hope you have somewhere to stay cause every hotel and motel in the county’s been booked for months.”

  “I took care of that,” I replied. “I just need to know exactly what I have to prepare for.”

  He explained that I had to pay a twenty-five-dollar entry fee that was nonrefundable. In addition to providing my own costume, the fo
rmat involved singing one Elvis hit for the preliminaries. If I made it through that stage, I had to sing about fifteen minutes of Elvis for the finale—usually three songs. The odds that I was going to memorize and learn three Elvis tunes better than anyone else in the contest seemed highly unlikely. But I only had to be there long enough to get a lay of the land and find this Carpenter fellow. Additionally, I had the slight advantage that the judges this year were looking for multicultural Elvises.

  “You’re also permitted to make some ad hoc Elvis-like remarks,” he added, “but you can’t use profanities, or say anything controversial. That’s an automatic disqualification.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Well, we had an Extreme Elvis in the past who flashed the audience, and this year the contest is being filmed for several local TV channels,” he said proudly.

  “Which ones?” I had no desire for any more publicity than absolutely necessary.

  “Channel 37 in Nashville, Channel 28 in Memphis, and Channel 22 in Chattanooga.”

  My call waiting pinged, so I thanked him and took it. It was the Murphy County morgue informing me that I could claim the body of Gustavo Benoit as well as his death certificate. I explained that I would not be able to collect the body for a few days. They explained that I had one week before he would be buried in a county field—very nice, considering they killed him.

  His sister Clementina had specifically asked if I would handle burial. The only problem was, having started out broke, I was now very broke, living on new credit card debt paying off old credit card debt. Since I knew many of the upper-management people Gus had worked for as a journalist and I was not too proud, I spent the next day inviting them all down to the funeral, knowing full well that none of them would travel to a small town in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, money alleviated their guilt. After calling and e-mailing about half a dozen of his more successful friends, I half-begged, half-borrowed more than enough—about five grand—for the Gustavo Funeral Fund.

  Again Vinetta came to my rescue with ground support. In addition to poor Floyd, she had buried a slew of relatives, so she personally contacted a small funeral parlor run by a distant cousin. For thirty-three hundred, they organized a cheap, tasteful funeral, and the director knew of a bargain plot of land nearby. In fact, it was located in my mom’s hometown of Mesopotamia. Apparently, a field that had once been the site of a minor civil war skirmish had recently been redesignated as Patriot Hills Cemetery, and bodies were just pouring in. After making the arrangements, I called Clementina and asked if she would be coming down for his funeral in two days.