Officer Elvis (2 page)

A
ROUND 9 A.M. THE NEXT MORNING

M
ISSISSIPPI
B
UREAU OF
I
NVESTIGATION,
J
ACKSON
O
FFICE

Major Shelby Mitchell had his Tony Lama size-14 cowboy boots perched on his desk, toes pointing toward heaven. In his early sixties, bald and barrel-chested, he reminded some people of General Norman Schwarzkopf.

Detective Darla Cavannah, all five feet eleven of her, sat across from him, in her char-gray, chalk-striped pantsuit, slouching slightly in her chair, her long legs extending straight out, crossed at the ankle. Her black, lady-sized, holstered, six-shot .380 Taurus peeked out from her right pant leg.

Shelby was addicted to smokeless tobacco and had a half-hour chew going. He kept a Styrofoam cup on the edge of his desk for whenever he needed to expectorate. He lifted the cup, bent his elbow, turned the receptacle on its side, and shot a stream of tobacco juice into the center. Bull's-eye. He grinned like a high school point guard who'd just hit a three-pointer.

“Is that really necessary?” asked Darla, making a face.

Shelby offered the usual tight smile he employed when she got on him. “Miss Darla,” he said, “I know you have in mind for us to catch the Reylander case. But, as you know, we're a statewide agency. Tommy Reylander's homicide is a local matter, and certainly not a hate crime, which is supposed to be your area of endeavor. Unless you think he was killed because of how badly he imitated the King of Rock and Roll. Which I suppose is possible, but unlikely.”

Darla gave Shelby one of her this-is-bullshit looks. “What's really on your mind, Shelby?”

Shelby put his feet back down on the floor, folded his hands on the desk, and leaned forward for emphasis. “The bomb squad team the FBI sent over from Atlanta said the person or persons who blew him up knew what they were doing—probably out-of-town professionals. Which means they're long gone from Mississippi. This case ain't ever going to be solved. Just going to be a month's worth of negative publicity. You know how much Cole is going to like that.” Cole was Cole Haverty, the executive director of the MBI, a political appointee of Wilson Burnett, Mississippi's current governor. It was Cole who had appointed Shelby as regional director.

“So, it's not the jurisdictional part that's the problem,” said Darla.

“All right, since you require me to be blunt, the unsolved murder of a fellow police officer is not the kind of case a law enforcement official in my position wants hanging around his neck, not if he has in mind to keep his job. As you well know, I officially serve at the will and pleasure of the governor. Which means I can be sacked without so much as a never you mind.” He shifted the tobacco to the other side of his mouth. “Lookie here, Miss Darla, the media is going to have a feeding frenzy if Tommy's killer ain't caught. And I don't favor them feeding on me. The way Tommy Reylander was always riding around in that damn vintage Cadillac with the Hinds County Sheriff's Department logo on the side whenever he made an arrest…Damnation, woman, the case isn't eight hours old and it already has its own Twitter account,
hashtag Officer Elvis
.” He paused for effect. “In summary, your well-meaning request is denied.”

“But Tommy was one of ours,” said Darla.

“In another incarnation maybe,” said Shelby.

“It was just two years ago,” said Darla.

Shelby had been the sheriff of Hinds County before his appointment to the state bureau of investigation. Tommy and Darla had both been detectives in Shelby's department. Shelby brought Darla, the best detective in his department and a hate crimes specialist, with him, giving her a raise. Tommy, a second-rate officer who'd used family connections to get ahead, was left to fend for himself. The new sheriff, for good reason, took an immediate dislike to him.

“Tommy was my partner,” said Darla, sitting up in her chair.

“Begging your pardon,” said Shelby, “but y'all were only partners on the one case. As I recall, you and Tommy got along about as well as a hound and a coon sharing a honeymoon cottage.”

“It's the unwritten law,” said Darla.

“Please, I have enough problem remembering the written law,” said Shelby.

“Remember the line at the end of the movie
The Maltese Falcon
?” said Darla. “What Sam Spade says to Miss Wonderly just before he turns her in for the murder of Miles Archer? ‘When somebody kills your partner, you're supposed to do something about it.' ”

“Detective, you are asking me to put an essentially unsolvable homicide on the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation books, and risk putting myself in unfavorable light, because of a line from a movie?” said Shelby. “Just so we're clear.”

“We're cops. It's what we do,” said Darla.

The two of them sat in silence for a minute, waiting to see who would give. Finally, Shelby spit his wad into the cup and shook his head in disgust. “All right. Go ahead. Give it three days. If you don't get somewhere, I expect you to dump this mess on one of the local county sheriffs. Truth is, much as Tommy disliked you and me, he'd be wanting MBI to catch this one, and you're the person he'd want working it. It would make him feel like he was a big shot.”

“Who do you have to partner with me?” Darla asked.

“No one you'd be willing to work with, or vice versa,” said Shelby.

Darla was a Yankee—meaning she was from someplace other than Mississippi, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, the Florida panhandle, or East Texas. In fact, she was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The only thing not Yankee about Darla was that she'd been married to Hugh Cavannah, an all-pro wide receiver from the great state of Mississippi and an Ole Miss football legend. Darla had followed Hugh to Jackson when his career ended. Then Hugh was killed in a car crash and Darla had elected not to leave Mississippi—making her not only a Yankee, but a damn Yankee. Damn Yankees were the ones who came to the South and stayed. Added to that, Darla had a directness and lack of gentility that most Mississippians—including most of the other detectives in the bureau—saw as offensive.
Rude, Rude Yankee,
or
Rude Yankee Bitch
were their favorite expressions for her—always behind her back, of course, since Mississippians, even Mississippi cops, were far too polite to say anything unpleasant to your face.

Then, just a year after Hugh's death, Darla had remarried. Her new husband, Dr. Stephen Nicoletti, was the medical director of the controversial Jackson Women's Health Clinic, the last health service in the ultraconservative state of Mississippi to perform abortions. Her choice of a second husband made her even more of an outsider.

“What about Mosley?” asked Darla. “I could partner with him.” Fifty-five-year-old Quentin Mosley was a first-rate detective, with close to thirty years' experience. Quent, as he was called, knew his stuff. Plus, he and Darla actually got along.

“As fate would have it, your fellow officer, Detective Quent, is on restricted duty for the foreseeable future,” said Shelby.

“Meaning?” asked Darla.

“He is experiencing the scourge of late middle age,” said Shelby. If there was a colorful, albeit obscure phrase to describe a facet of the human condition, Shelby usually went for it.

“Can you just tell me directly?” asked Darla.

“Benign enlargement of the prostate, I believe, is the medical term,” said Shelby. “The good thing is, ole Quent don't have cancer. That said, he can't be more than twenty feet or so from the men's room, seeing as how the poor man's bladder is subject to requiring emptying on a moment's notice. This, as you will no doubt agree, is a serious handicap when attempting to serve and protect the citizens of our great state. I suppose we could see if Quent would agree to wearing those adult diapers so he could ride around in your little Prius car with you. However, you'd be the one who would have to ask, being as how I've never been comfortable discussing matters of the genital areas with my subordinates.”

“I'll pass,” said Darla.

“What about Rita Gibbons?” said Shelby.

“The one that dresses like a country-western singer?” asked Darla.

“So okay, maybe Miss Rita has a little trailer park in her upbringing. In Mississippi that passes for street smarts. Something you usually tell me my detectives could use more of,” said Shelby.

“I heard she got demoted to desk duty after she totaled a departmental SUV chasing that guy who shot up a black church down on the coast.”

“Pushed our auto insurance rates up was the reason she was exiled,” said Shelby. “Director Haverty insisted. But she caught her man. Miss Rita may be a half a licorice stick short in the judgment area, but she ain't afraid of the devil. Anyway, she's served her time in the office as my administrative assistant and deserves a chance to get back in the field.”

“Sorry, Shelby,” said Darla, “but I don't need somebody who's spent the last six months fetching your pocket tobacco and running over to Louisiana to buy you lottery tickets.”

“Doing her duty, Miss Rita was, but it's your call,” said Shelby.

“Can we move to the part where you brief me?” said Darla.

“Brief is right,” said Shelby. “There's precious little to go on. Forensics is still out in the field. There are enough scattered remains for a positive ID, but so far the only part of Tommy Reylander's person they've found intact was his white ostrich high-tops. Explain that.”

“What about the parking lot surveillance tape at the nursing home?” asked Darla. “Are they sending it over?”

“Nothing to send,” said Shelby. “Somebody, Sheriff Holcomb assumes it was the assailant, knocked out the parking lot camera sometime during Tommy's performance. The security guard at the front desk noticed that the screen had gone dark and wrote it up in her report. That's all she was required to do.”

“Anything in the witness statements?” asked Darla.

Shelby opened a file on his computer and put on his reading glasses. “Sheriff Holcomb emailed this earlier.” Shelby shook his head as he read, paraphrasing to Darla. “Most of the staff and residents in the nursing home witnessed the explosion. Plus Edwina Nothauzer—Tommy's girlfriend, the one that dresses like Priscilla Presley—she saw it, too.”

“She dresses like Priscilla Presley?” asked Darla.

“The young Priscilla,” said Shelby. “With the helmet hair.”

“You're knowledgeable about Priscilla Presley's fashion habits from era to era?” asked Darla.

He shot her a dirty look. “Please, may we continue?”

“How did Ms. Nothauzer handle seeing Tommy getting blown to pieces?” asked Darla.

Shelby scanned the email. “She was ‘semi-mortified,' according to the report.”

“Semi?” said Darla.

Shelby, still reading and paraphrasing: “The witnesses, the entire staff and the resident population, were approximately a hundred fifty yards from the explosion, up on the porch of the nursing home. They were all looking right at Tommy's Caddy when the event took place. Everybody saw it the same way—it didn't start with a fire. Just a big ole Hollywood kind of explosion.” He nodded at Darla. “I'm guessing you seen the very same thing in action movies a hundred times.”

“Actually we don't see a lot of action flicks at our house,” said Darla.

“I forgot, you and your husband are more into the artsy-fartsy genre,” said Shelby, picking up his makeshift spittoon to shoot yet another stream of tobacco juice into it.

“Any other injuries reported?” asked Darla.

“Nothing of a physical nature,” said Shelby, continuing his way through the email. “Many of the residents had their anxiety medication doubled last night. Apparently a couple of the old-timers forgot that Elvis had met his maker in—what was it, 1977? They thought they were witnessing Elvis's actual demise. One of the old ladies became so exercised she had to be strapped into bed for her own protection.”

Shelby's smartphone tinged, a text message. Shelby read the message, fingered his device rather clumsily for a few seconds, turned it to its side, and then stared at the screen, shaking his head. He handed the phone across his desk to Darla. “See for yourself,” he said.

Up on the screen a camera was panning across a parking lot, revealing a line of parallel-parked cars, each car with its side marred with numerous small bits of pink shrapnel.

“Looks like the cars all got polka dots, don't it?” said Shelby. “Tiny bits of Tommy's Caddy. Posted on YouTube ten minutes ago under
Pink Peltings
. Earlier, I got a call from a patrolman over on the reservoir. You remember those rhinestones on that gaudy Elvis costume that was Tommy's favorite?”

“The white silk outfit with the cape?” Darla asked. “The one he wore for a court appearance that time and Judge Winthrop balled him out and sent Tommy home to change?”

“It was the same Elvis suit he wore last night,” said Shelby. “A couple of bubbas were out fishing for bass on the reservoir at sunrise this morning and came across various teeny-tiny bits of the aforementioned costume floating on the river. They mistook the rhinestones for diamonds on the water. Believed it was the hand of the Almighty. One of the fishermen thought they was witnessing the fulfillment of some sort of end-of-days Bible prophecy and was thinking about going home and putting on his Sunday best while he waited for the Rapture.”

“Have Tommy's next of kin been notified?” asked Darla, returning to the less magical aspects of the case.

“Tommy's mama and daddy were killed a few years back during Katrina, when a tree fell on their trailer,” said Shelby. “There ain't any brothers or sisters. His uncle, our former mayor, was sent to the Lord's glory a couple of years back. As best we can tell there's a cousin who lives in a small town somewhere in Arkansas.”