The Empress File

CHAPTER 16

The next morning I phoned the Bolivar County Sheriff's Department. Posing as a reporter for a Memphis television station, I asked a couple of airweight questions about bodies pulled from the river. A woman had been found, a deputy said, but hadn't been identified. There'd be no further comment pending an autopsy.

I called another meeting at the country place.

"It's about your friends, the ones you've been looking for," I said cautiously, talking to Marvel on the telephone.

I went to the meeting alone, LuEllen shying away again. John and Marvel showed up at the rendezvous, tense, expectant.

"What? What?" Marvel asked as I came through the door.

"It's about Harold and Sherrie. I think they've been found," I said. "They're dead."

"Oh, no," she whispered, sinking onto a couch. John stood beside her, a hand on her shoulder. He had an odd look on his face: I wasn't fooling him, not entirely.

"Bobby called. He's been doing a data search. and he found that the Bolivar County Sheriff's Department has pulled a couple of bodies out of the river near Rosedale. A man and a woman. Both black. The man was dressed like you said Harold was. The woman, I don't know. they said a yellow blouse."

"It's them," Marvel said. She was dry-eyed, but on the thin edge of an explosion. "She was wearing yellow; her mama told us that."

"We've got to let the cops know; we've got to bring it back to Longstreet," I said.

"What do you want us to do?" John asked.

"I want you to get Marvel. or somebody. down there and identify the bodies. Tell the deputies you heard it on the radio. Find out how they were killed. Tell the deputies what you suspect – that Harold had gone to visit Dessusdelit – but tell them you don't know why. Tell them that Harold had some information about this political scandal that's going on. That'll put a lot of pressure on Dessusdelit."

"All right. I can do that," Marvel said. Her fingers were dug an inch deep into the tough fabric of the couch arm.

"I'll go with her," John said. "What are you doing?"

"We're getting ready to leave. We're about done, but I'll tell you what. You better get back here quick if Brooking Davis and Reverend Dodge are going to elect you to the council. Hill and Ballem will most likely quit this afternoon."

"What'd you do to them?" she asked.

"Squeezed them," I said.

"With Harold and Sherrie?" she asked.

"Look," I said, "I didn't want anybody to get hurt, but some people got hurt anyway. We're using Harold as a little extra encouragement for Hill to leave, above and beyond the computer material. That's all."

She was no longer sure of me, and her face showed it.

"If you manipulated Harold."

"You know what happened to Harold," I said harshly, "because you sent him. We aren't playing fuckin' Ping-Pong here. We're ruining some people's lives, and they are hard people. They'll fight back."

"If I'd known."

"Nobody can know," I said. I looked at John. "You keep her close. Hill, Ballem, and the others, St. Thomas, are in a pressure cooker. Hill's a psycho. I can't predict what he'll do."

I stopped at a supermarket on the edge of town and stocked up with sandwich meat, bread, soup, pasta, cereal, and milk for the run upriver. When I got back to the boat, LuEllen was waiting. So was Dessusdelit.

"Mr. Kidd," she said as I stepped aboard.

"Miz Dessusdelit. What can I do for you?"

"You know about our troubles?"

"Yes, after our talk. and I was at the meeting."

"Our animal control officer, Duane Hill-"

"I know him."

"He believes you have something to do with it, that I've been a fool with these tarot readings, with the crystal ball."

She sounded like a magnolia, her voice slow and dreamy, something out of a Tennessee Williams play, like Blanche. And she was pleading.

"That's bullshit, if you'll pardon the expression. You know about my history with Hill?"

"I believe there was some kind of confrontation on the river."

"It goes farther back than that. He attacked me, for no reason at all, outside the Holiday Inn. He was drunk. Actually he called LuEllen a rather unacceptable four-letter word, which I won't repeat, and I was forced to respond. There was a fight, and he lost. Then Mr. Bell intervened and sent him on his way. Ever since then he has been watching me, and yesterday he tried to run us down with a speedboat and board our yacht. I believe he was carrying a gun. Personally, Miz Dessusdelit, I think he's crazy."

"He says you're in league with a local Communist, a Negro woman-"

"Miz Dessusdelit, I don't know what to say, other than the man needs treatment. I don't know anybody in this town, other than you and a few people I've encountered casually. And frankly Hill frightens me. He's crazy. He's so crazy that LuEllen and I are leaving. Because of him."

She thought it over and then said, "I don't know what to do."

"I wish I could help you, but we've got to go."

She thought for a moment more, then sighed and said, "Once more with the cards?"

We weren't set up to cold-deck her. I don't even know what cards we would have planted. As far as I was concerned, she was in a box, and there was no way out. But LuEllen, standing behind me, poked me in the spine, and I nodded at Dessusdelit.

"All right."

In the cabin I got the deck from the Polish box, unwrapped it from its silk binding, and handed it to her.

"I still don't know how far to trust you, Mr. Kidd," she said, still with the dreamy expression.

"Then don't trust me," I said harshly. "You know that tarot spreads are artificial constructs. So let's skip the spread. Pull out four cards and lay them down: past, present, future, and final outcome. You can do your own interpretation if you like. If you have questions, I'll try to answer them."

A spark showed in her eyes as she stared across the table at me. "Yes," she said. She shuffled the deck seven times, then spread it across the table. Her hand hovered for a moment and pulled a card.

"Past," she said, and flipped it over.

The Devil. A man with a goat's head and horns and bat wings, with a man and a woman chained to his throne. Usually interpreted as bondage to base emotions-greed, for example, or the urge to personal power.

"Present," she said, and flipped the second card.

The Nine of Swords. A woman sitting up in bed, weeping, nine swords racked on the wall behind her. She's suffering great losses of all kinds, as are people who are important to her. All of it's accompanied by great anguish. Dessusdelit nodded.

"Future," she said, and flipped the third card.

The Ten of Swords. The body of a man on the ground, with ten swords protruding from his back and neck. Final ruin.

"Final outcome," she said. Her hand paused at one card, but she stopped without turning it, moved to another, paused again, and flipped it over.

The Tower of Destruction. The lightning bolt striking the tower.

"My old friend," she said weakly. "I've seen it a lot lately."

I reached forward and turned over the card she'd almost chosen. The Sun. A card of success.

"You almost chose this card. Why didn't you?"

"I. don't know," she said.

"You made a choice in the recent past that perhaps led to these problems you're experiencing. That's reflected in this choice, isn't it?"

She was silent for a moment, staring unseeingly at the cards, then nodded.

"I made the choice," she said.

It was as close as anyone would ever get to a confession. Hill and St. Thomas had killed Harold and Sherrie. But Dessusdelit had made the call. The mayor got shakily to her feet and started toward the door. LuEllen, solicitous, asked, "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," Dessusdelit said.

"Could I give you some. advice? Something to think about?"

Dessusdelit stopped with her hand on the doorknob, looked carefully at LuEllen, then nodded.

"I was once involved in a situation. well, it wasn't the best situation, and there were some police involved. I don't want to say more. But I will tell you something about the American legal system: It's quite difficult to convict anyone of anything, and when time passes, it becomes almost impossible. You know what I did, when I had my. trouble? I went away. And nobody really looked for me. It was too much trouble, I guess. I went back four or five years later, talked to some people who were involved with me, and it was like. nobody even remembered that the police once were looking for me. Nobody cared."

"You're saying I should go away?"

"I don't know what your problems are exactly," LuEllen said. "I'm just saying that. there are options. There are some really wonderful places in the world and here in the United States. Longstreet isn't everything."

Dessusdelit nodded a last time, stood silently for a few more heartbeats, then said, "Thank you," and walked out.

When she was on the levee, LuEllen turned to me and said, "She told Hill to kill Harold and the woman, Sherrie."

"Yes. I think that's what she was telling us," I said. "What was all that bullshit about running from the cops?"

"Give me the car keys," LuEllen interrupted. "C'mon, quick."

I handed her the keys. "Where're you going?"

"After Dessusdelit," she said hastily. "You call Bobby. Ask him to monitor Dessusdelit's phones. We want to know if she's going anywhere tonight or if anybody's coming over."

LuEllen was gone for four hours. I filled the boat's diesel tanks and got some gas for the auxiliary generator, then climbed up on the top deck with a sketchbook. John called in the early afternoon.

"Two things," he croaked, as though he were losing his voice. "We identified Harold and Sherrie. Marvel and I stayed away, though. Sherrie's brother did it. He freaked out and told the cops that Sherrie was screwing Hill and about how all this weird shit was going down in Longstreet. I suspect the deputies will be calling on Hill – or the Longstreet cops will."

"You didn't tell her brother?"

"We didn't tell him anything except that we'd heard it on the radio. I told him that he had to make the identifications because Marvel couldn't stand to do it, and I didn't know either one of them. He went along."

"Was it bad?"

"Man, Marvel is fucked up. I'm going to have to take some time with her."

"Jesus, John, I'm sorry."

"And there's the other thing," he said. "The council's called another special meeting, but it's not until tomorrow night."

"Hmph. I would have thought. I guess that's OK, but I would have thought they'd do it quicker."

"Maybe stalling for time. Maybe trying to figure out who knows what. You take care."

"Yeah," I said. "You, too."

When LuEllen returned, she was wearing the intent look she develops when she's working, when she's turning a job in her mind.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"Greenville," she said. "I shadowed Dessusdelit back to her place and waited for a few minutes, to see what she'd do. She came back out, got in her car, and drove down to Greenville."

"To do what?"

"Visit a bank," LuEllen said. "She had a briefcase with her when she came out of her house. She was carrying it by the handle and threw it in the backseat of the car. When she came out of the bank, she was carrying it with both hands."

"She took something out of the bank," I said.

"Yeah. Out of the safe-deposit box in a town where she's not known."

"She had some money stashed."

"She had something stashed, and now she's got it in her house. She's thinking about running."

"And you."

"I'm going to hit her again. She killed Harold and Sherrie, and she's got to pay."

"You weren't that close to Harold, and you never even knew Sherrie."

"They're fuckin' Nazis," LuEllen snarled. Then, in a milder voice, she said, "Besides, there's some bucks in it. Truth be told, she's the kind of fat cat I'd hit just for the money, and the first time around we never really touched her."

Bobby reported a flurry of calls between Dessusdelit, Hill, St. Thomas, and Ballem, all cryptic but increasingly testy. Ballem had gone to the chief of police about the burglary of his house but hadn't formally reported it, Bobby said. And he'd gotten the murder photos in the mail, delivered while Dessusdelit was in Greenville.

"He didn't tell her what the pictures were, but he wants to see her tonight. They're meeting at his house after dark. He's only about three blocks from her, so she's going to walk over. Hill's going to be there, but they haven't said anything about St. Thomas. I think they're cutting St. Thomas out."

"Or planning to set him up for the murders," I said.

Hill was insisting that the "goddamn artist" had something to do with the machine's problems, but the others weren't listening, Bobby said. "Dessusdelit told him she knew all about the problems between you and Hill. She said that if they wanted to get out of this trouble, they had to stop fantasizing and understand that they caused the problems themselves, by making a mistake, and now they have to straighten it out themselves."

"Sounds like she's recovering herself," I said to LuEllen when I passed on Bobby's information.

"It also sounds like she's going to be out of her house tonight," LuEllen said.

We argued about whether to hit Dessusdelit, and LuEllen won.

"Look," she said, "the heart of the machine is Ballem, St. Thomas, Hill, and Dessusdelit. We know we can take Hill and St. Thomas, because the cops have the bodies, and we have the photos. We already ripped Ballem for those stamps, and now we're siccing the IRS on him; plus he'll be tarred with the killings whether or not he's convicted of them. But Dessusdelit-Dessusdelit slides free, unless the IRS gets her for evasion or the state gets her on a corruption charge. That's not enough. But if we take her stash, we take her heart out. Everybody says that she lives for money. Even the cards said so, didn't they?"

"The cards are bullshit," I said.

"Yeah, right."

LuEllen took Dessusdelit by herself. The house was an easy target the first time, and it was easy the second. It was, however, a little tough to watch, so we watched Ballem's instead.

Dressed in navy blue sweats and running shoes, we parked in the country club lot – there was a dance going on, and the lot was full – and jogged along the edge of the golf course to a small copse of trees off the third tee. From there we were looking right down at Ballem's front door. Hill arrived first, a little before nine, and then Dessusdelit walked in. We jogged back to the car, called Dessusdelit's place from a pay phone, and, when we got no answer, nipped off the receiver.

As we drove down to Dessusdelit's, LuEllen unscrewed the car's dome light, so it wouldn't come on when the door opened. I took the car into the cul-de-sac, as though lost, and slowly rolled through the turning circle. When we passed Dessusdelit's driveway, I stopped just for a second, said, "Go," and LuEllen rolled out the back door. She pushed it shut before she crawled away, and I continued out onto the road.

LuEllen said ten minutes max. I drove back to Ballem's house and parked on the street near the entrance to the country club. Hill's car was still in Ballem's driveway, and I once saw a shadow on a curtain, moving across the living room.

Eight minutes. I started back. At nine minutes, forty-five seconds, I was a block from the entrance to the cul-de-sac. I stopped at a corner, reached back, and opened the right rear door. The only turn I had to make was a right turn, so it shouldn't swing open.

At ten minutes and ten seconds I rolled through the cul-de-sac a last time. I paused again at the end of Dessusdelit's driveway. LuEllen popped into the backseat, staying low, and held the door shut with her hand.

"Get it?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I don't know what I've got," she said. "It's the briefcase, but I didn't find it until about a minute before your pickup. She had it hidden behind some built-in drawers under the linen closet."

When we were well away from Dessusdelit's, she screwed the dome light back in and climbed into the front seat. We were sitting at a downtown stoplight when she dug into the briefcase and came up with a handful of small white envelopes, the same kind I'd taken out of the wall cache.

"More stones?" I asked.

"A fuckin' river," she said, dumping a glittering tracery of light into the palm of her hand. "Diamonds. Emeralds. Some rubies. Jesus Christ, Kidd, there's so many you could make a snowball out of them."

"So she's paid."

"Oh, yeah. She's paid."