Уинстон Грум - Alabama Noir

“You thinking vandals or someone personally connected with the dead girl?”

“More likely revenge,” the deputy said. “Jet Swanson has some serious detractors. Some say he had a beef with your daddy.”

“My daddy didn’t rise out of the grave to steal a dead girl’s body. Not unless you know something I don’t.” Anger made Jackie’s words hot.

“You got a short fuse where your daddy’s concerned.”

“Do you have a suspect or not?”

“Not. Wouldn’t tell you even if I did.”

Sandy Stewart was normally easygoing. Jackie had brought out his obnoxious streak. “I’m going over to the Quik Mart there to get a Coke. You want one?”

“Sure.” He took the peace offering.

She got the cold drinks and walked back, handing him the icy can. They popped the tops and drank. The day was hot for October. “Did you know the girl?”

“In passing. She was shy. She’d just taken a job at the Quik Mart after school. Said she was saving to go to college.”

“What caused the wreck?” Jackie asked.

“Drunk driver. He wasn’t hurt. Not even a serious scratch. She was dead at the scene. She was Jet’s only child.”

“That couldn’t have been planned.” She thought a minute. “Could it?”

Stewart shrugged. “Facts don’t matter to Jet. Now they’ve gone and stolen his girl’s body. Going to be hell to pay. You keep your head down and don’t try talking to Jet. I’m warning you, he’s not above hurtin’ you because he’s hurtin’.”

“I can take care of myself, but thanks.”

Stewart only lifted his eyebrows. “Your daddy said the same thing.”

Jackie froze. “You know who hurt my daddy?” She had suspected all along that the sheriff knew who’d shot Jackson Muldoon. He just chose not to do anything about it. Jackson was a bootlegger and because of his profession had given up any claims to justice.

Stewart leveled a gaze at her across the red clay wound of the earth. “Your daddy sold hooch, but he paid off the sheriff and he traded honest as far as I ever heard.”

“If it wasn’t the law or his customers, then it had to be his competition. Was Jet a competitor?” Her daddy had never talked business with her. She’d accumulated his old customers because he had a name for quality and a reputation he was proud of. Quality moonshine was a family tradition.

“Steer clear of Jet.” The deputy frowned. “Not that you’ll take my advice. Girl, you got a streak of self-destruct a mile wide.”

Jackie had heard that before. “You got any idea who dug this girl up?”

“Nope. I’m just hoping we can find the body before it shows up someplace that’s going to make the national news.” He gestured toward the empty grave. “She was one of those Angels in White. Did the singing on the radio. You know, they pledge to be pure and sing at the revivals for that Brother March.”

She looked down into the hole where the coffin had been opened. The pink silk lining was smudged with dirt. The body had simply been pulled out and taken. “Did this girl have a boyfriend? Someone who might be... strongly attached?”

“Now that’s some sick stuff you’re sayin’.”

“Hey, I’m not the one riding around with a dead body in my car.”

“No, you’re ridin’ around with a ghost, Jackie. That can be just as dangerous.”

“Thanks, Sandy. I’ll quote you in the paper. Give you some fame.”

“Keep it. Fame never leads anywhere good in Mobile.”

Jackie finished her story and waited while Clint read it. The photograph of the empty coffin in the grave was haunting and disturbing. She didn’t know if the paper would run it or not. She honestly was torn herself. The prospect of taking a hard dig at Jet Swanson, who she suspected was involved in her father’s death, and the grief the photograph would give Mrs. Swanson, were conflicting impulses. Clint gave her a nod of approval and dismissal.

Dusk was falling quickly, and she’d been up since four a.m. She left her car parked in the newspaper lot and walked up Government to Royal Street. Work-a-day employees were headed out of the city to Midtown or the apartments along Airport Boulevard near the mall. The day people abandoned the streets to the sizzling neon signs, rock music coming out of bars, and the men who came into the port city from around the world to sow their wild oats.

Two blocks over she pushed into the Port of Call. The bar was so dimly lit that she had to stop to let her eyes adjust. Euclid Adams was behind the bar; Martha Lowell, aka Candy, was on the stage. She wore a pink-and-white-striped baby-doll outfit that emphasized her cleavage and long legs. She was a good dancer. Not all of the stars at Port of Call were. Some had all the right moves in other athletic pursuits.

Jackie settled at the bar. Euclid put a Diet Coke in front of her. “When the streets are clear, I’ll pull around back.”

“How long you gonna cook mash, Jackie?”

“Haven’t decided.” She’d known Euclid since she was twelve and started riding with her dad when he made his deliveries.

“Your stories in the paper are good. Folks say you got a set of huevos . They also say you gone end up dead, just like your daddy.”

Jackie sipped her cola through a straw. “Could be.”

Euclid leaned down on the bar so he could look her eye-to-eye. “Girl, you need to stop whatever plan is churning in that brain of yours. I see clear as day you’re about to get yourself caught in a gill net. That kind of ending isn’t pretty.”

“Where’s Lyda?” She finished her soda with a loud slurp.

“In the back. You should leave her alone. She’s not feeling good.”

“I need to ask her something.”

“Don’t let Johnny catch you back there. He says you make the girls unhappy by telling them things they don’t need to hear.”

“Yeah, like in five years they’re gonna be strung out, diseased, and living in a homeless shelter?”

“Yeah, stuff like that.”

Jackie nodded. “I won’t be but a few minutes.”

“If Johnny comes back, I’ll play Frijid Pink on the jukebox.”

Jackie ducked behind the curtain that separated a long, narrow hallway with doors on either side from the rest of the bar. As she passed a door, she heard a man laughing. Some of the girls were already at work.

She knocked on the third door to the left and opened it. “Lyda?”

The young woman was stretched out on a sofa, her gaze unfocused. A half-finished vodka on the rocks was sweating on the bedside table. “Go away.”

“Lyda.” Jackie sat on the floor beside the bed. “I’ll get some coffee for you.”

The woman shook her head. “Let me ride this high a little longer. You don’t know what it’s like to be free.”

Jackie shifted to her knees and brushed the hair back from Lyda’s forehead. Lyda March was only a few years older than Jackie, and she had once been beautiful. She’d danced in New Orleans in the finest gentlemen’s clubs. Now she was back home, performing as Lyda Monarch to avoid soiling her family’s name.

Jackie got coffee from the bar. She had to get Lyda on her feet. Johnny Zenata didn’t put up with dancers who were too loaded to work. “Lyda, do you know a girl named Cornelia Swanson?”

Lyda looked down. “Sweet Cornelia.”

“Lyda, she’s dead. Did you know that?”

Lyda nodded. “Newspaper. Car wreck.”

Jackie heaved a sigh of relief. Lyda wasn’t as far gone as she seemed. “Did you know any other of those girls? The White Angels?”

“I know things my daddy did that you’d like to know.” Lyda pushed past her and went behind a screen to dress. She was done talking.

Twenty minutes later, a shaky Lyda was in her cowgirl costume and standing upright. Jackie ushered her to the stage just as Johnny Z. came in the back door. He scowled and started to push Lyda, but Jackie stepped into his hand.