Only the Wicked Read online

  Monk held the Robusto up to his eyes. “Fine cigar there, brother Locke.”

  “Thank you, kindly. Uh-huh.” He rocked some more.

  “People still come around here looking for the ‘Killin’ Blues’?’ Monk belched, the taste scotch and tobacco heavy in his mouth.

  “Oh yeah, you know they put up a marker for Patton over there in Holly Springs in the graveyard of the New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church.”

  “Like to see that ’fore I go.” Monk was getting very comfortable slumped in the chair, his leg up on the porch railing.

  “It ain’t buried ’neath him nor stuck behind the cupboard in the church’s kitchen, if that’s what you’re ponderin’,” Locke advised.

  Monk grinned. “I really didn’t think so.”

  “They caught a couple of fellas from Milwaukee a few years ago diggin’ up ’round Patton’s grave. The church made ’em weed and reseed the whole plot as their punishment.”

  Out on the access road, an engine’s transmission could be heard straining to get into a higher gear.

  “You ever look for the album?” Monk inquired.

  “When I was comin’ up, the way I heard it was Patton recorded this ‘Killin’ Blues’ album when he was preachin’. You know, like Swaggart used to when he was bangin’ out a tune on the piano, Patton would serenade the congregation with one of his songs while he played guitar.”

  “With his wild-cat growl, I don’t think serenade is what you’d call it.” Monk puffed.

  “Right you is, brother Monk. Anyways, the way I understand it, and this came from a play uncle of mine who was a friend of my mother Coretta, he told about some fella from New Jersey had come down here to record Patton live. He made his recordings, signed a contract with Patton—you know he had some book learnin’—and was on his way back up north when the bus he was riding in skidded off the highway somewheres outside of Nashville. So he and some of the others are dazed, see?”

  “I do,” Monk said, suddenly alert.

  “So he comes to his senses and scrambles outside. Now the luggage compartment flew open, and this fella looks all over the spot where they’d landed, and the suitcase he had them disks in was gone. Only that particular case, see.”

  Monk digested the tale as best he could. “That’s kinda amazing, brother Locke.”

  “It is indeed. Want a refill?”

  “Well, I …”

  “You can sleep in the front room, wouldn’t want Nona’s boy roamin’ ‘round these parts liquored up, not knowing east from west, now would I?”

  “You’re mighty generous with your accommodations,” he praised his host, half dozing again.

  “Ain’t I though?” Locke ambled back inside quietly.

  Out beyond the porch screen four lightning bugs zoomed up then down as if dive bombing in formation. The Robusto had nearly burned down to his knuckles, and Monk took his feet off the railing, stretching his legs out. His lower right leg, where he’d been shot, had knotted and he leaned over to knead the muscles. He fretted that in the years to come his collected injuries would stove him up, as his dad used to say. It would be just his luck to have children with Jill, and they’d have to roll the old man out to their softball games in his wheelchair. Suddenly cold from the certainty of his advancing years, Monk went back inside, shutting the front door in a futile effort to ward off inevitability.

  Chapter 21

  Monk shaved languidly, standing in the small bathroom in his boxers. He’d done several rounds of crunch sit-ups and push-ups and had even jogged through town, gathering several intrigued looks from working folk on their way to their jobs. It wasn’t like Mississippi hadn’t been touched by the health craze, but Clarksdale, where you could get grits and biscuits and gravy for lunch, probably wasn’t the next town on the list for a Bally’s outlet. He didn’t believe he’d totally burned off the calories from the pork chops and booze, but the exercise did alleviate his guilt.

  After the workout he’d walked over to the Laundromat and put his clothes in the wash. From a pay phone he made a call to his mother’s house and talked with Grant. The older man had found out from McClendon that Dolly Lee Ryshell had obtained an uncontested divorce from Manse Arnold Tigbee in 1954. She then went to live in Akron, Ohio, with a half-sister, the sister’s husband, and her and Tigbee’s daughter Merrill. McClendon had used a friend still on his old paper to get the information from its archives.

  “Of course in those days a southern woman getting a divorce was somewhat scandalous, particularly from a powerful man like Tigbee,” Grant had said. “By then he and his father were running the family textile mill over in Robinsonville, plus they had a large farm. And you know he saw action in the Normandy invasion.”

  “Anything else on the ex-wife? Is she still alive?” Monk worked a kink out of his neck.

  “Nothing else from the archives, according to McClendon. You think there’s anything here worth pursuing? Like maybe Tigbee called his former wife after Creel’s trial and confessed to rigging the whole thing?”

  “I guess we couldn’t get that lucky,” Monk allowed. “But the two sons seem close to the old man. The daughter Merrill isn’t mentioned in anything I’ve read. Like he cut that part of his life off.”

  “As if he disowned his own daughter,” Grant postulated.

  “Or she him. Anyway, if you can’t go in one direction—”

  “Go in the other,” Grant finished the saying he’d repeated often to his pupil.

  Monk said, “Ask Coleman to dial up Rook Securities, one of the search firms I use. He’s got my password and my PI number. See what they can get us on an employment record for Dolly Lee or Merrill. Given the time period, I would guess the daughter used Tigbee as her last name. And see if there are parking tickets or a change of address by the half-sister or her husband.”

  “I know how to do this, Junior,” Grant said testily.

  “Yes, wise one.”

  “That’s better. Your mother went to the store, but you’d better call her back later, she wants to hear you’re all right.”

  “I shall.” He hung up and went out to check on his wash.

  Now Monk examined his handiwork in the bathroom mirror. Using his trimming scissors, he clipped a loose thatch under his chin. He was pleased he’d managed to even out the sides of his goatee. Now that the fad had faded, he felt the need to keep the thing as a sign of … what? Commitment? He’d first grown the goatee in ’91 as it became an in thing. Now, past the end of the century, and the demise of the look, did he hope by keeping it as a relic to be a statement of individuality? Pushing his face closer to the mirror, he noted the puffy areas under his eyes, and the new lines at the edges on his face.

  Maybe for the shindig he’d been invited to he ought to just wear a mustache. More and more gray hairs kept spouting in his beard anyway, so why not get rid of it? As he contemplated the momentous act, he spotted several gray hairs at the sides of his head. It seemed he and the judge better stop contemplating children and get to stepping, as it were.

  Putting his jeans on, Monk decided the mustache look could wait. He sat on the bed and read the invitation again. The cream-colored envelope had been under his door when he’d rolled in early this morning. He’d slept on Locke’s busted, body-contorting couch until rising at four in the morning. Fortunately he hadn’t been greeted with a hang-over.

  Wasn’t, he reminded himself buttoning his shirt, last night the second time since being down here he’d drunk too heavily? One more vice to overcome before the grave. He sighed wearily.

  His name had been handwritten in a hand he couldn’t tell was feminine or male, including his middle initial, which he never used. A subtle but clear point from the sender telling him he’d checked on who he was. The card inside announced an afternoon of frolic and fund-raising on the Belle La Rouche riverboat this Saturday. The boat was to glide up and down the St. Helena River while a Dixieland band played and the guests were to mingle and no doubt laugh gaily. Cuisine was t
o be Chinese, braised rib tips and fresh seafood. The event was a fund-raiser for a school of the blind over in Meridian, sponsored by the Merit Foundation.

  Monk was going to meet The Man.

  The St. Helena River was ruddy brown with sea green foam brimming along the banks. The Belle La Roucbewas a fine old ship redone with dark marine varnishes rubbed into its woods and fresh white paint slathered on from top to below the water line. The engines hummed authoritatively, and the twin paddle wheels, one on each side toward the stern, slapped the water in soothing syncopation.

  On its third level where a pilot house might have been was a dome with windows.

  A knot of people were discussing the pros and cons of doing business in China. The band, headquartered on the fore section of the top deck, played Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.”

  Monk was holding a glass of papaya juice and watched as the landscape of Tunica went by as the riverboat navigated its way from the St. Helena River south onto the Mississippi River.

  “Who do you know?”

  The questioner was a slimly built, pretty black woman dressed ten years younger than her age. The hemline of her skirt rose above muscle-toned calves and hard knees. She had on lipstick the color of bruised peaches and Egyptian motif earrings hung from her lobes. She made no attempt to hide the country in her accent.

  “I’m a stranger in town.”

  “Chicago?” she guessed, cocking her head at the sound of his voice. “No”—she held up a hand before he could speak—“farther west.”

  “LA.,” Monk said.

  “I lived out there for awhile,” she admitted, “but honey, them drive-bys you got get on one’s nerves, you know what?”

  “It can be troubling,” he said. The boat sounded a horn as it rounded the bend. A gambling vessel passed them on the portside. A redhead in a black sequined dress on the other boat was hiking up her skirt and wiggling her butt as she backed to the rail. It looked like she was going to pee but they’d gone past her before Monk could determine if that was so.

  “People are acting up all over these days,” Monk retorted.

  “Ain’t that the case. What do you do?”

  “How about you,” he lobbed back, wanting to avoid long explanations.

  “The tall oblique type, huh?”

  “I’ll work on polishing the image.”

  She laughed, revealing several silver fillings. “I’m employed by our host.”

  Monk’s eyebrow went up.

  “I’m a program officer there, my docket is civil rights and civic participation.”

  “How long have you been at the foundation?” he asked seriously.

  “If I told you that, I might give away my age.”

  “I keep many secrets.” The two scrubbed white guys who’d been pretending not to be looking their way went into motion. They were the same two white guys he’d made when he first drove to the landing and parked. The duo had been standing midway on the upper deck as the riverboat lowered its ramp, eagerly engaged in conversation. But he’d caught the flick of their eyes, the sudden drop of their voices as he’d filed on with the others. There had already been some people on deck, so evidently the Belle La Rouche had made a previous pick up.

  “I wonder,” she said.

  “Enjoy what you do?” Monk asked.

  One of the men on this level, dressed in a Moschino sport coat of dark serge, had come over. He touched Monk’s elbow gently like he was docent pointing out an artwork of special interest. “Excuse us, Darisse, I was hoping to steal Mr. Monk away for a few moments.” The man had good-sized shoulders and thick legs. Crow’s-feet webbed out from the corners of his blue eyes, and his brown-blond hair was turning gray like it was dusted with ash.

  “As long as you bring him back, Cullen.”

  “Promise.”

  The woman and Monk exchanged smiles and Monk followed the younger Tigbee across the deck to a side door near the paddle wheel. As they did so, the son nodded at this person or that one, or murmured an assurance to look into whatever matter. They also walked by an open-jawed Cassie Bodar, who glared at Monk like he was a leper. He waved at her as if they were old friends.

  The second man came in behind the two as they entered the passageway.

  “This way if you would, Mr. Monk.” Cullen Tigbee stood to one side and indicated a flight of polished wood stairs leading up to an opening in the upper deck. The second man, smaller than either Monk or Tigbee’s son, stood with his arms loose at his sides, one foot cocked at an angle to the other. Some kind of martial artist, Monk surmised.

  “Thanks,” Monk said, turning abruptly and thrusting his glass toward the martial-arts specialist.

  “Kanner doesn’t usually take away the drinks,” Cullen Tigbee commented.

  But Kanner didn’t miss a beat and casually accepted the glass. “My pleasure. Always like to see guests treated right.” His voice was tight and throaty. What might have been a sneer contorted his lips for a brief second.

  Monk went up to find himself before the door built into the dome structure. The door was the same maple as the stairs, in contrast to the dome, which had a burnished steel finish.

  “Go on in, sir,” Cullen called from below.

  Monk entered the dome. As he’d expected, the interior was a combination office/retreat for the man standing and talking into a cellular phone. He was looking out of one of the windows, and turned at the sound of his visitor’s arrival. Manse Tigbee indicated a Swedish Modern leather-and-wood chair for Monk to sit in.

  Tigbee had to be in his mid-seventies, about Grant’s age, Monk calculated. He was six-foot even, on the thin side, but seemed in good health. He stood erect and his hair was a virtual match of his son’s hue. He was dressed casually in an off-the-rack sport coat and open collar. He’d been speaking in an even tone into the cell phone and soon clicked it off.

  “Good to meet you.” Tigbee extended his hand.

  Monk half-rose and returned the handshake. “Glad you invited me, Mr. Tigbee.”

  “Can I get you anything, water, whiskey, or both mixed together?” He didn’t make a move toward the wet bar. It was trimmed in turquoise marble built into one part of the room’s wall.

  Monk was going to say no, but was curious to see what would happen if he did want something. “A splash of Maker’s Mark if you have it.”

  Tigbee walked to the bar. “Ice?”

  “Neat is fine.”

  Tigbee poured the drink and walked back to Monk with the squat tumbler. “How about a cigar? I’m going to have one.”

  “That’d be fine,” he said, accepting the drink. In France, the condemned would get a shot of rum before getting his head lopped off by the guillotine. Monk didn’t see anything suspended from the roof, but you never knew.

  “I’ve got some Cohibas and Padrons, Churchills in fact.” Tigbee was reaching below the bar and Monk estimated he could cut the distance between them if he leaped immediately. Just in case the old boy pulled out a gun.

  “A Cohiba would be great.” Monk’s triceps tensed.

  “Very good.” Tigbee produced a walnut humidor fitted with yellow ivory along its edges.

  Monk stood as the older man approached with the box and he extracted one of the valued, and contraband, Cuban-made Cohibas. Tigbee severed the ends and the two lit up. Tigbee fanned flame from an electronic lighter on the tip of Monk’s cigar. The desk in the room was empty except for the cell phone, the lighter and two books stacked one on the other. The sounds of the revelers were muffled through the walls of the steel igloo, and Monk realized any sounds from inside the structure were bound not to be heard, either.

  Tigbee moved an old-fashioned brass stand-alone ashtray and placed it near Monk. Then he wheeled his plain office chair from around the desk, and indicated for Monk to take his seat again. Monk did, and Tigbee sat too, diagonally from him.

  “You get some big private detectin’ cases?” Tigbee allowed his accent to drip over his words. “I was curious, and ran ac
ross your name in several write-ups we looked up.”

  Monk blew a cloud into the air. There was a ventilation vent over the bar, and he could hear the quiet whirl of its blades behind the metal slats. He watched the smoke drift toward the fan. “I don’t try to grandstand.”

  Tigbee tapped the end of his cigar over the tray with a blunt finger. “I like a man who does his work quietly. It’s them pesky paper people who like to make stories sometimes out of nothing. Diggin’ and snoopin’ like hounds with their ribs show’n’, goin’ through a mess of garbage cans.”

  “Sometimes there’s something there that needs to get dragged out into the open.”

  Tigbee pulled on his cigar, looking at Monk down the length of the shaft. He let the bluish-white fumes pour from around his open mouth, and he talked with the Cohiba latched in the corner. “You think that’s the case in this matter?”

  “Don’t know until you lay out the pieces on the table, sorta like rebuilding a carburetor. Have to see what fits together, and what doesn’t.” He tasted the Maker’s Mark and it went down warm.

  “Only them old jalopies got carburetors these days,” Tigbee pointed out.

  Through the vent, Monk could hear a clarinet reach higher octaves. “Don’t mean it won’t work once it’s put back together.”

  Tigbee crossed his legs, placing his glass at his feet. “Mississippi has always moved at a different pace than the rest of the country.”

  “Meaning there’s truth, then there’s Mississippi truth?” Monk set his glass down, too. If the strong-arm Kanner was going to give him the bum’s rush to the door, Monk didn’t want his hands busy.

  Tigbee examined his cigar. “I know there’s been much about my past that’s been misunderstood. I also know there’s been mistakes made, but the future is what’s important.” Unblinkingly, he looked across at Monk.

  “We all have to account.”

  “You think the Citizens League was a buncha shiny suit Knights of the White Magnolia who blew up little colored girls in church basements or took some fourteen-year-old out into the woods to torture and castrate him?” A tremor rose in his voice, and it seemed he was trying hard to stamp it down.