Officer Elvis (17 page)

C
IVIC
A
UDITORIUM,
T
UPELO,
M
ISSISSIPPI

S
UNDAY EVENING

U
LTIMATE
E
LVIS
FINALS

Everybody in Mississippi was up to speed on Josh Klein's “Elvis Atrocities.” The stories had been broadcast and re-broadcast on every local and statewide media outlet. It had even been picked up by the national news and the
Hello America
morning show.

The Elvis-loving public was fully aware of the potential risks involved but they came anyway.

Urged on by the National Rifle Association, close to five hundred showed up at the auditorium entrance carrying everything from a tiny derringer to an AK-47. It's legal in Mississippi to carry firearms in all sorts of public places as long as the individual can produce a valid gun license and carries the weapon where it can be seen. Dwayne Ribodeaux, a spokesman for the NRA, characterized the pistol-packing attendees waiting outside the entrance as a triumph of the Second Amendment. “The citizens of Mississippi have the lawful right to self-protection and if it should come down to it, the right to protect the memory of Elvis,” said Ribodeaux.

The festival director took a more pragmatic view. “This isn't about the Second Amendment,” Collins Duckworth told reporters. “It's about who gets caught in the crossfire.”

Fortunately, the festival's lawyers had determined that the event was technically a private affair, being sponsored by the Main Street Association. A
NO WEAPONS
sign was posted outside the auditorium, advising everyone that ticket takers would turn back anyone carrying firearms.

“Lots of towns in the Old West prohibited firearms within city limits, and we can do it here,” said Duckworth.

The NRA requested that its members picket the affair rather than surrender their weapons. However, when faced with the choice, most people chose Elvis tribute artists over their AK-47s. They stowed their weapons back in their vehicles and got back in line.

Forty minutes before the doors were set to open, Darla held a final briefing backstage with her security team. The group was handpicked. Each member was highly experienced, highly decorated, but young and athletic enough to deal with any physical challenges they might have to face.

Looking them over, Darla felt confident they were up for the task. “Okay, let's go over our assignments so everybody knows where everybody else is. We'll have four officers from the Tupelo PD at each of the theater's main entrance doors, plus an officer on each of the two side exits, and an officer on both left and right stairwells to the balcony, with two more officers doing a sweep of the building perimeter.

“We'll have a Mississippi state trooper stationed outside the dressing room door of each of the ten finalists. It'll be his or her job to guard the contestants while they're in their dressing rooms and to escort them to and from the stage when it's their turn to perform.”

She looked each trooper in the eye, waiting until he nodded that he understood. She pointed to a group of young men in suits sitting off to the side. “These six gentlemen are FBI agents. They'll be seated in different sections of the auditorium. Finally, Detective Gibbons and I will be backstage at the right and left wings respectively.

“This is our man,” Darla continued, holding up the laser-created photo of Riggins, now a ringer for the late Carl Perkins. “He may or may not be here tonight. It's possible that with all the media coverage, he may not want to risk it. Which would make our evening a whole lot simpler. On the other hand, our FBI profiler Bubba Abrahamson thinks Riggins will see the contest as his coming-out party and a chance to reveal himself. If he does, he'll likely be dressed as a country-and-western entertainer or maybe even the way Carl Perkins dressed in his early days. If he moves around before that, we have to assume he'll be using some sort of disguise. He's killed four people without being spotted at the crime scene. Three of those four were in public settings. He plans carefully. Whatever he does tonight won't be spur-of-the-moment or random. We need to proceed with the notion that he plans to kill again.”

“You want him alive?” an FBI agent asked.

“What I want is that nobody else gets hurt.”

She checked the time. Thirty minutes until curtain. “It's time to let the audience in. So, everybody to their posts. You've each been given headsets. Be sure they're on channel one, so you can hear me at all times.”

The security team fanned out as the stage manager and his crew began their final preparations. On the other side of the curtain Darla heard the doors to the auditorium open and the audience members filing in. Standing in the left wing, she peeked out between the curtains. Bubba said that in all likelihood Riggins would not be part of the audience, but if he were, he'd be in disguise.

The audience was a mixed lot. The majority were white and older and female, some of them Elvis groupies, but there were also plenty of men of various ages, and a number of younger couples, mixed in with some teens. There were no families with young children. Duckworth had raised the age limit to eighteen this year, saying that some of the material performed might not be suitable to younger audiences. Everybody knew the real reason.

There was the usual milling around, talking and getting up and down, Mississippians doing what they do best: socializing. For the most part, despite the presence of uniformed officers, or maybe because of them, the audience, which continued to file in, seemed relaxed, ready to enjoy the show.

“Look up there in the balcony, center section, Detective,” Rita said in her headset. “Isn't that your lady friend from the Beaumont?”

“That's her,” said Darla. Kendall was seated next to a hunky-looking guy maybe ten years her junior, with his arm draped around her.

“How'd she end up with him?” said Rita. “What's her trick?”

“I'll tell you later, but it's a good one,” said Darla.

“And look down front. Is that who I think it is?” asked Rita.

Sure enough, on the far right side, row two, sat Hardy Lang, dressed in a maroon silk jumpsuit with a cream-colored cape.

“Looks like the catfish coalition is going to be well represented,” said Darla.

“And there's Mr. Conway next to him,” said Rita. “But who's them other gentlemen on the other side of Conway? Them two tough-looking ones?”

“Say hello to the mobbed-up J. B. Caulder, or Jerry Bob as he was called in his formative years; agent to Elvis tribute artists everywhere. That thug to his left is his leg-breaker-in-charge-of-transportation. Marks, I think his name is. An unholy group if ever I saw one.”

“I guess they love Elvis like everybody else,” said Rita, looking at the group.

“Or maybe they've come to take in an assassination,” said Darla. “The question is, why are they sitting together?”

The backstage lights flickered on and off, signaling that they were five minutes from showtime.

Darla caught the stage manager's eye. He nodded his head. “Okay, bring down number one,” she said into her headset.

“Yes, ma'am,” answered the trooper accompanying the first contestant.

The dressing rooms were at the rear of the auditorium, a two-minute walk to the backstage area. The rooms for contestants one, three, five, and seven were situated on the right corridor, with contestant nine just around the corner. Similarly, contestants number two, four, six, and eight occupied rooms on the left corridor, with contestant ten just around the corner.

From her position backstage, Rita could see down the right corridor, and Darla the same on the left.

“You make visual contact, Rita?” Darla asked through her headset.

“I got eyes on him, Detective,” Rita said.

Darla breathed a small sigh of relief, and another when the contestant and the trooper reached the backstage area. Maybe we've scared Riggins off, Darla hoped, as contestant number one took his place and the house lights went down.

The festival committee had done everything they could to maintain a level playing field for the contestants. The ten finalists drew lots to determine the order of their appearance. They were all required to use the same set: an empty stage with plain white backdrop. Each contestant provided his own costume. Most contestants appeared in a replica of one of Elvis's jumpsuits. Each finalist was to perform two songs of his choosing, so long as the songs had been recorded by Elvis and commercially released. Usually contestants chose a combination of a hard-driving song and a tender ballad. The contestants were required to provide their own prerecorded music track, which the festival engineer would transfer to a master track. There were three judges. Each contestant began his act by stationing himself in the center of a darkened stage. Once he was introduced and the applause died down, a single spotlight would light up and the crowd would get their first glimpse of him.

The lights were off. The theater was dark. “Our first contestant,” said the announcer over the PA system, “from Larchmont Penitentiary, prisoner Number 34287, also known as “Inmate Elvis” Buchman.”

The lights came up revealing the contestant dressed in a black-and-white prison uniform. The audience laughed and applauded as he went into his first song, what else, “Jailhouse Rock.” He drew another huge around of applause at the end, and proceeded to rip off his tearaway prison costume, under which was a bellhop's costume, and launched into his second song, “Heartbreak Hotel.”

“You got to admit,” said Rita in her headset, “he knows how to work the audience.”

So far, so good, thought Darla. Let's hope we're all still laughing at the end of the evening.

The next six contestants all did their thing, with varying degrees of success, and more important, without incident.

Contestant eight, a seven-foot-tall basketball player version of Elvis, had finished his first number, “All Shook Up,” and was in the middle of his second number, “My Way,” a mainstay of Elvis's Vegas act.

“What do you think?” Darla heard Rita ask over her headset.

“It could be anytime now,” said Darla. “Stay sharp.”

“I'm eyes wide open, Detective,” said Rita. “What I meant was, what do you think of number eight?”

“He's good,” said Darla, “but really, it was Sinatra's song.”

The ninth finalist, Eddie Ide, who went by the stage name of Captain Eddie Elvis, stood next to Darla, waiting to take his place on the dark stage. Captain Eddie was attired in a caped white jumpsuit studded with red, white, and blue sequins. Finishing off the look was white pilot's hat with a winged guitar stitched in gold across the visor.

“Out of curiosity,” asked Darla. “Why Captain? Were you in the armed services?”

“Helicopter in Desert Storm. Now I'm a commercial pilot. I've got my own twin-engine Cessna. You know Elvis owned two planes? He called his favorite the
Lisa Marie,
after his daughter. I bet you've seen it up at Graceland.” He gave her his version of the Elvis smile. “You like flying? I could take you up sometime.”

“I'm married,” said Darla. “But I know a lady who might be interested, if you're into policewomen.”

“Does she have handcuffs?” asked Eddie, winking.

Contestant eight finished the set, receiving the loudest and longest applause of the evening.

“He may be the one,” Rita declared in her headset.

“Our ninth contestant,” the announcer said, “from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Captain Eddie Elvis!”

Ocean Springs was 310 miles from Tupelo, but Captain Eddie Elvis must have brought half the town with him. The applause was huge.

He tipped his hat to the crowd and got right to it, singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” The audience rocked along with him.

“This is Patrolman Garrison. Over,” Darla heard in her headset. Garrison was one of the two Tupelo officers patrolling the building perimeter.

Darla felt her stomach knot up. “Go ahead, Garrison. Over.”

“We have a security breach at the left rear of the building, I checked it ten minutes ago and it was locked. Now it's unlocked. Over.”

“Shit,” she said under her breath.

A new voice broke in. “This is Patrolman Winston.” Winston was the other patrolman on the perimeter. “I got the same thing on the left rear. Over.”

Riggins was in the building but Darla had no idea which side he was on. “Everybody listen carefully,” she said into her headset. “Riggins is somewhere in the auditorium. Officers Garrison and Winston, step inside the doors and stand guard over the exits. Everybody else maintain your posts. Detective Gibbons and I will conduct a search.”

A state trooper was waiting outside the dressing room of Alan Hailburn, the tenth and final contestant. “Stay inside until I come to get you,” the trooper told Hailburn through the door.

Hailburn had flown down for the contest from Des Moines, Iowa, where he performed five nights a week as a headliner in his own venue. He'd been runner-up last year and contestants were prohibited from competing once they had won. Plus, he had been the audience favorite in both the preliminary and semifinals. As luck would have it, he was tonight's final performer.

Outside his door, the trooper looked from one end of the hallway to the other, his sidearm drawn.

A man with a beard in a dark suit came running toward him. He was wearing identification around his neck and held it out for the trooper to see. “FBI,” the man said. “We need to move number ten.”

The trooper glanced at the ID. He'd seen FBI ID before. The badge, the insignia, the photo. Everything checked.

“There's an explosive device in the room. Get him out now. Do you understand?” the FBI agent demanded.

The trooper looked panicked. “Okay, okay. Just let me clear this with the Detective,” he said, letting his weapon drop to the side. “This is trooper ten,” he said clicking on his headset. “Over.”

The FBI agent made a movement like he was putting his badge back in his breast pocket. His hand came out with a Glock with a silencer on the end, pointed at the trooper's chest.

“What is it, Ten?” the trooper heard Darla ask.

“Say ‘everything is fine,' ” said the agent.

The trooper stared at the gun pointed at him. He had no choice but to do as he was told. “I, ah, just wanted to let you know, everything is fine here.”

“Stay off the air unless it's an emergency,” said Darla. “I'm clearing rooms. I should be down your way in a couple of minutes. Watch out for Riggins. He could be in disguise. Over and out.”

Riggins knew he wasn't supposed to kill the innocent, but rules were made to be broken. He moved his gun to the trooper's head in one swift motion and fired. One shot was all it took. The trooper slumped to the ground.

Riggins knocked on Hailburn's door. “It's time, Elvis,” he said.

Hailburn cracked the door. “Where's the trooper?” he asked nervously. “I was told he'd stay with me throughout the contest.”

“He's been redeployed,” Riggins said, showing Hailburn the ID through the crack in the door. “I'll take you where you need to go.”

Hailburn opened the door. Riggins took hold of his arm by the elbow and led him out into the hall. A second later, Hailburn felt a gun at his ribs. He looked over his shoulder and saw the trooper on the floor.

“Make a right at the hallway,” Riggins said.

“Where are you taking me?” Hailburn asked, terrified.

“Where do you think, Elvis? You're going home.”