Jazz Funeral (34 page)

The cop grabbed her arms: “Let go!”

Ti-Belle didn’t. Her face just got redder and more intense. Nick wondered if he should do something, but it was only a moment before the big cop wrenched Ti-Belle’s hands off Proctor, whose hands instandy went to his own throat, as if to reassure himself it was his again. Nick was about to jump over the table and help Proctor up, but before he could budge, Ti-Belle, wriggling away from Langdon, stepped in Proctor’s face.

Then she turned on the cop, raking at her with open hands. Claws, Nick thought later. Langdon feinted, saving her face from certain laceration. She said, “Calm down, Ti-Belle.” No more Miss Thiebaud. “Calm down or I’m going to have to hit you.”

Ti-Belle went for her again, a noise coming out of her throat that could have been a growl. She not only sounded like a cat, she behaved like one; moved gracefully, sure-footedly. She was beautiful even now, even doing what she was doing. Nick felt a surge of love for her, and pity. He wondered later where the fear had been; it should have been there.

Perhaps the threat threw her off her stride; Nick wasn’t sure. Either she lost steam or the cop moved faster than he’d thought she could. She didn’t hit Ti-Belle after all, instead managed to catch her, turn her, and cuff her, so fast Nick found that later on he couldn’t reconstruct it in his mind.

“You have the right to an attorney,” she said. “You have the right to remain silent …”

Somehow that was more shocking to him than Ti-Belle’s attack, the sound of her being arrested.

Doradale, Alabama, according to Skip’s two-year-old almanac, had a population of 10,919. She’d had to track down the county sheriff, a job she knew wouldn’t be easy on a Saturday. But she had to try anyway, had woken up early with Johnny Murphy’s tale of Lacey Longtree binning in her brain. Seven o’clock was too early. She waited till eight, figured out what the county seat was, and tried the sheriff’s department there. The watch commander said he’d try to get the sheriff but he just didn’t see much chance, it being a weekend and all. “Can I tell him what it’s about?” he asked, almost as an afterthought.

Skip hated telling one person and then the next, running the risk of getting everything garbled; she usually didn’t do it. But without planning it, she answered this time. “It’s about somebody who used to live in Doradale—woman named Lacey Longtree.”

“Lacey Longtree! Oh shit, do you have her?”

And Skip had known the sheriff would be calling back soon.

Now she had Ti-Belle Thiebaud in an interview room, looking raw and gaunt, her makeup having dissolved in floods of tears that started as soon as they walked out the door of Nick Anglime’s house. Floods and floods and floods of tears, maybe some of them for Ham, Skip thought.

Even if you’d killed somebody, you’d miss him. You’d be sorry he was dead and sorry you’d done it at least some of the time.

When the sheriff called, he didn’t stand on ceremony, just asked the same question the other cop had: “You got Lacey Longtree?”

“Not in custody. Why—should I? Who is she?”

“Well, she’s Doradale’s answer to Lizzie Borden, is Ms. Lacey. I knew she’d turn up sooner or later.”

“Are you saying she killed her parents?”

“No, I’m not sayin’ that. She ain’t really Lizzie. Just close to it.”

Skip waited.

“Just like those big-city murderers that get all the ink too. Lacey was the last one you’d think done it. Done anything, for that matter. Mousy little fat thing. Kind of reminded you of the Dormouse. Then one day she came home from school and gave her daddy forty whacks.”

“Surely not with an ax.”

He laughed as if it were the funniest thing ever happened in Pine County. “Not forty either. Just stabbed him once, to tell you the truth. But hard. Rammed that sucker right up to the heart—she was fat but she wasn’t necessarily strong. But you know what they say—crazy people got superhuman strength.”

“What was the weapon?”

“Kitchen knife. Plain ordinary kitchen knife. Homely little crime, nothin’ fancy about it, but shore did shake this town up.”

“Her daddy was a prominent citizen?”

“Naah. He was a carpenter, I b’lieve. Maybe ‘lectrician. Something like that. Lacey was closer to being a local celebrity. Straight-A student, good citizen award, worked on the yearbook. Nobody could believe it.”

“Were there witnesses?”

“Well, now. That depends on who you believe. Officially, no, there weren’t any witnesses. What happened was, her mom left to pick up her little brother from basketball practice and came back to find daddy dead and Lacey gone. That’s what Mom and Bubba say. Coach says there wasn’t any practice that day.”

“How do you know Mom didn’t kill Dad and Lacey both, but somehow got rid of Lacey’s body?”

“Detective, you have any idea how small Doradale is? Lacey was seen, of course; at the Greyhound bus station. Bought a ticket to Jackson. But she fooled us—got off at the first or second stop, who knows what happened after that? Trace’s been cold for almost fifteen years, but don’t think we’ve forgotten. Spectacular murder by our standards. Been looking for that young woman off and on ever since.”

“She was fat, was she?”

“Uh-huh, but kind of tall. Worst possible combination. Big and clumsy.”

Well, thanks.

“Much worse than short and fat, I always thought.”

Skip said, “Blond?”

“Nope. Dark. Real ordinary-looking kid.”

“Sheriff, have you ever heard of someone named Ti-Belle Thiebaud?”

“The singer? Sure. She’s one of my favorites. I’m crazy about her.”

“Have you seen her on television or anything?”

“Heck, yeah. Been to one of her concerts—why do you ask?”

“Because her drummer says she’s Lacey Longtree.”

“No!”

“I’m just telling you what he says.”

“Oh, fuck. You mean I gave up an hour’s sleep for this? I thought you had something.”

“She absolutely couldn’t be Lacey Longtree?”

“No way in hell.”

She hadn’t known about Proctor at the time, or she would have asked about him.

Ti-Belle was saying, “I just don’t know what happened.” She stared at her hands as if they were foreign objects. “I’ve never done anything like that in my life.”

“The sheriff of Pine County, Alabama, says you have.”

“Oh, fuck.”

Her attorney, Barnes Naismith, hastily called by Anglime, was trying to shush her, had been trying for half an half, but Ti-Belle apparently had things in her that wanted out. Tears for sure and maybe words, if Skip got lucky.

Ti-Belle got a quizzical look. “You’ve talked to the sheriff already?”

“He says you killed your dad, Ti-Belle. With one blow; with a kitchen knife; in the kitchen. Just like you lulled Ham.”

“You bitch.” She was half out of her chair before Naismith could stop her.

He got her back down but couldn’t shut her up. “I didn’t kill Ham. I swear to God I didn’t kill him. I didn’t love him, I wish I had, but I didn’t kill him. I didn’t have any reason to kill him. Why in hell would I kill Ham?”

Skip kept her voice low, almost sleepy. “He wanted you to stop seeing Anglime. You fought, he said the wrong thing, it made you furious. What was it he said, Ti-Belle?” She was doing the questioning alone because it was Saturday, and because Cappello wasn’t there. She would have loved to work with Cappello on this one. She needed someone to play the good cop.

“It wasn’t me. Can’t you leave me alone, goddammit?”

Naismith turned to Skip as if she were beating babies up.

“Can’t you?”

She ignored him.

Ti-Belle maundered, a woman in a dream: “I didn’t hurt Ham. I could never hurt Ham. His problem was he was too nice. How could you hurt a guy like that?”

“Sleep with another guy?”

That brought on more tears. “I did wrong, I know I did wrong. But I didn’t kill him. Don’t you see the difference?”

“Tell me about your dad.”

She bent her head, laced her fingers behind her neck and stayed that way for a long while. When she straightened up, she said, “My dad was a drunk and a sadist. He started drinking the minute he came home from work, and the minute he started drinking was the minute he started picking on people.”

“What people? How?”

“Oh, my mother. My little brother. Me. He did it all the usual ways. Physically. Verbally.”

“Sexually?”

Ti-Belle looked surprised. “I don’t really know. I don’t remember it.” She shrugged. “But hell, he did everything else.”

Naismith said, “Miss Thiebaud, I really must advise you—”

“Would you just shut up?”

Skip thought: Maybe it’s a good thing there’s only me today. Maybe it’s less threatening this way.

“What did he do?” she said.

“He tried to kill my baby brother.”

“I thought your brother was thirteen.”

“Prentiss was small for his age. Anyway, I was seventeen—I practically raised him.” She smiled, and Skip wondered what she remembered. Rocking him to sleep, maybe, the smell of baby powder soft and reassuring. “He used to call me Sissy,” she said.

“My mother was sick; always, always sick. She couldn’t take care of us, really. Couldn’t even take care of herself.” She started to cry again. “It wasn’t so bad when he beat me. I always felt every time he did it, it saved them getting hit. He never hit me with the bat.”

“The bat?”

“Prentiss’s baseball bat.”

Involuntarily, Skip found herself making a face to ward off the evil. “He hit you with a baseball bat?”

“No! He hit with my mother with a baseball bat. He hit my little brother with it. But just once.” Her eyes turned lynxlike. “He only did it once.”

Naismith said, “Miss Thiebaud, I beg you!”

She turned on him: “Oh, what difference does it make? Somebody had to recognize me eventually. Better now than when I really have something to give up.” But her face was sad. Obviously she felt she was giving up a lot.

“Listen to me carefully, Miss Thiebaud. They mean it when they say ‘what you say can and will be used against you.’ If you say any more, you’re going to hear it again in court.”

“I want to talk to Skip. Could you leave us alone for a minute?”

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

What Ti-Belle was doing was wildly self-destructive, and yet Skip had seen it a hundred times—there was something in the human animal that wanted to confess.

Ti-Belle said, “Skip, I can trust you, can’t I?”

They hadn’t been on a first-name basis before. For a moment Skip had thought she’d gotten to her. But it wasn’t that. She thought Skip could be manipulated.

“Trust me to do what?” she said.

“I don’t know.” Ti-Belle spread her arms, looking helpless, as if she really didn’t know. “I just want to tell you something.”

“Tell me what?”

“I yelled at him to stop; stop hitting Prentiss. And he said, ‘who’s gonna stop me?’ I had the knife already—I was making dinner. So I just held it up, like I was going to stab him. And I said ‘Me.’ He laughed like it was the funniest thing he ever heard, and then he tried to hit me with the bat. He was coming at me.” She stopped and gathered her resources. “I lost my temper. I just lost my temper.”

“You stabbed him?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, if you didn’t, who did?”

“Not my mama; you can just forget that idea. And not my little brother.”

“Who else was there?”

“I think I should shut up now.”

“Ti-Belle, you’re in a lot of trouble. You lost your temper then, you did it again with Ham, and you did it today at Nick’s.”

“I didn’t kill Ham! I swear to God I didn’t.”

“You’ve got a real bad temper, Ti-Belle.”

“I’m famous for my fucking temper!” She was getting mad. “I used to yell at Ham all the time. And today I got madder at Proctor than I’ve ever been at anybody in my life, except one person. He tried to destroy everything I’ve worked for. You’d be mad too, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know if I would have tried to kill him.”

“I didn’t try to kill him.”

“Did you try to kill your dad?”

“Of course not! I just … I don’t even remember anymore.”

“Look, it sounds to me as if it was self-defense. Why did you leave town?”

Her eyes filled with despair. Her mouth turned down and twisted. Her face fell in on itself. Through her tears, she said, “Mama made me.”

Melody had hardly slept at all after the music stopped and so couldn’t have been more surprised when she found herself awakened by yelling. Two things about it were surprising: first, she didn’t know she’d been to sleep, couldn’t believe she’d actually dropped off, considering the circumstances; and second, she wasn’t at home. Brocatos yelled, not Boucrees; surely not Boucrees.

Yet it was the Boucrees’ studio and yelling was occurring right now, before breakfast.

“Goddammit, Tyrone, what’s wrong with you? Couldn’t you even make it to the bed we put in here?”

“I got tired. I curled up on the rug. You got a problem with that?”

Oh, no. If he’s been here all night, he’ll come in to use the bathroom in about two minutes. Suddenly, she got up and made the bed; rolled under it, holding her crotch, scratching it. She’d gotten up in the night to investigate the funny little itch she’d felt. There were red spots there. The itching wasn’t so bad, was hardly any worse, but the fear was making her sweat.

“Motherfucker, you got a problem. Alicia’s been up all night worryin’ about you, not knowing if you were dead or in some woman’s bed. Why you do her like this?” It was a third voice. The sleeper was being ganged up on.

“Hey, I got an idea. Know that transition we been havin’ so much trouble with? I think I got it figured out.”

“Oh, man, you’re out of your mind. Your wife and four kids want to know where the fuck you are, that’s all you can talk about? Why you think we’re here, man? Alicia’s been callin’ all over everywhere.”

“She call Mama?”

“Hell, yes, she called Mama. Mama’s ‘bout to have a stroke, thinks you’re prob’ly lyin’ in a ditch. It wouldn’t occur to Mama you’re just a lazy, inconsiderate fucker, can’t even let his own wife know where he is.”

“Hey, there’s a phone here. Is there a phone here?” The sleeper was getting mad. “You see that phone over there? Alicia might have called all of y’all, but she didn’t call me.”