Leftover Dead (16 page)

“Please, Roscoe,” Wanda Nell said, deliberately using his real name. “We talked to your sister. She was the one who told us how to find you.”

Rocky stopped, staring at them uncertainly. Jack reached inside his coat and pulled out the stuffed dolphin. He held it out to Rocky. “She said we should show you this.”

Rocky took the toy into his hands, cradling it gently. He stared at it for a long moment, and when he raised his eyes to Wanda Nell and Jack, there were tears in them.

“I’ll talk to you,” he said.

“How about we do it over lunch?” Jack asked. “I know a good place nearby.”

“How long can you take for lunch?” Wanda Nell asked when Rocky didn’t respond. He held the toy dolphin in one hand and stroked it with the other.

“I can take an hour. Let me go tell my supervisor.” He handed the dolphin back to Jack. “You better take this back to Sandra.”

Jack accepted the toy and tucked it in his pocket as Rocky ambled off.

“You don’t think he’s going to try to skip out on us, do you?” Wanda Nell asked.

“No, I don’t think so. I believe he meant it when he said he would talk to us.”

Rocky returned in a couple of minutes. “Come on,” Jack said. “We’ll take our car.”

Rocky followed them, opening the door for Wanda Nell and closing it before getting into the backseat. Wanda Nell turned to look at him, struck by his sad expression. “We know this is going to be hard for you,” she said. “But we think maybe we can help you.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Rocky said, his eyes on her.

Wanda Nell believed him, maybe because of the simple way he had spoken. “I don’t believe you did,” she responded, and he gave her a faint, brief smile. “If we can find out who really did, we want to. She deserves justice, and so do you. Your name should be cleared.”

“Here we are,” Jack said, pulling into one of the few vacant spaces in the parking lot of a steak house. “I hope this is okay.”

“Sure,” Rocky said. “The food’s good here.” He got out and opened Wanda Nell’s door for her. Wanda Nell smiled her thanks. She already liked this gentle man. She could see the resemblance to his sister in his face, though Sandra looked quite a bit older instead of four years younger.

They had to wait about ten minutes for a table, and during that time they didn’t talk. When their turn came, the hostess showed them to a booth near a window. Wanda Nell slid into it, with Jack after her. Rocky sat down across from them.

Once the preliminaries were out of the way and their waiter had brought their drinks, Rocky stirred his tea. “I guess we’d better start. Y’all just tell me what you want to know, and I’ll tell you, if I know it.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “I guess the first thing is, what was her name? Your sister couldn’t remember it.”

“Jenna Rae Howell. They never found out who she was? Even after all this time?”

“No, not as far as we know,” Wanda Nell said. “From what we’ve been able to find out, the whole thing got hushed up as soon as you left town.”

“I’m not surprised, I guess.” Rocky paused for a drink of his tea. “The way they was treating me down at the Sheriff’s Department, I figured I was going to end up going to jail. So I ran, though I sure hated to leave my mama and Sandra June that way.”

“I know they understood,” Wanda Nell said. “They wanted you to be safe.”

Rocky nodded. “I got a friend to drive me to Greenville, and from there I caught a bus. I ended up in Oklahoma City. I knew a guy out there, he used to live in Tullahoma. He didn’t ask no questions, just helped me find a job and gave me a place to stay until I could earn some money.”

“How long did you stay there?” Jack asked.

“About eight years, I guess. Didn’t look like nobody was trying to find me, or else they just couldn’t. So I moved back closer to home. Memphis was as close I’d get, though.”

“So you’ve been here a long time?” Wanda Nell asked.

“Seventeen years. I been with the dealership for twelve now. It’s a good job.”

“And nobody has come looking for you here?” Jack asked.

Rocky shook his head. “Naw. You’re the first people, far as I know. Now that I think about it, that is kinda strange.”

“Once you disappeared,” Jack said, “we figure the Sheriff’s Department, and whoever else was behind the cover-up, used that as an excuse to ignore the case. They didn’t really try to search for you, I’m willing to bet, because your running away actually worked to their benefit.”

“They probably figured you wouldn’t come back, either,” Wanda Nell said.

“I never have. I didn’t even go back for my mama’s funeral, and that like to’ve killed me.” His right hand moved restlessly on the table.

Impulsively, Wanda Nell reached over and squeezed his hand. “I’m sure your mama understood.”

Rocky shrugged. “Wasn’t nothing much I could do about it.”

“Do you have any idea who might have been behind the cover-up?” Jack asked after a brief pause.

“Naw, all I saw was the inside of the Sheriff’s Department, and him and some of his men. I never heard them talking about anybody else. They just kept me there for about eighteen hours, going over and over it all. And me telling them what I knew, and that wasn’t much.”

“How did you meet Jenna Rae?” Wanda Nell asked. “She was a stranger in Tullahoma, right?”

“Yeah, she was. I was working a couple of jobs back then, trying to help my mama out. One of them was working at a little motel out on the highway, not far from where you turn off to go out to the lake. It was a pretty sleazy kind of place. It’s probably not there anymore.”

“I know where you’re talking about,” Wanda Nell said. “They tore it down about fifteen years ago, something like that.”

“It was a real cheap place to stay,” Rocky continued. “I worked there in the afternoons and evenings. I did some cleaning, and I was kind of the night clerk, too. Jenna Rae was renting a room there.”

“How long had she been there before she was murdered?” Jack asked.

Rocky looked up and frowned. Their waiter was approaching with their food, Wanda Nell saw when she turned her head. They waited until they had been served before continuing the conversation.

“She was only there about three days,” Rocky said.

“Did she tell you why she was there?” Wanda Nell asked.

“She wouldn’t say much, though I tried to talk to her as much as I could.” He paused for a moment. “She was the prettiest girl I ever seen, and she was sweet. But she was also real determined about something.”

“Did she tell you anything?” Jack asked.

“All she’d tell me was that she was in Tullahoma looking for her daddy. She was adopted when she was a baby, and she was trying to find her real daddy.”

Wanda Nell set down her knife and fork. “Did she know who he was?”

“She seemed to, but she wouldn’t tell me who he was. She said she had to be real careful about how she approached him. I figured he must be somebody pretty well off, and that maybe he wouldn’t be too happy about her turning up all of a sudden.”

“You’re right about that,” Jack said. “Especially if he was married to someone who wasn’t her mother. Did she say anything about her mother?”

“Naw, she didn’t talk about her, so I figured she must already know who her mama was.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes, Wanda Nell and Jack both lost in thought. Rocky ate steadily, not speaking unless to answer a question.

“Can you tell us about the night before her body was found?”

Rocky nodded at Jack. “Yeah, I had to go over it and over it a lot of times for the sheriff.” He set down his knife and fork to take a long drink of his tea. “I was working that evening, and I saw her come back about seven. I followed her to her room to talk to her. I couldn’t help myself, she was so pretty. But she didn’t seem to mind too much.

“She was kind of excited. She was going to talk to somebody that evening. She didn’t tell me who, but she seemed real pleased about it. Said she’d be meeting her daddy soon. She left about nine, and that was the last time I saw her.”

“How was she getting around?” Wanda Nell asked, as the thought suddenly struck her. “Did she have a car?”

“Naw, she came to town on the bus. But I let her use my car in the afternoons and evenings while I was at work. She was always back with it by the time I got off work, and she put some gas in it.”

“Did she have your car the night she was murdered?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, and that was what was so strange about it. I usually left there around one in the morning, because I had another job at a garage in town from seven to three. I didn’t see her come back, but my car was where it always was, and the keys were in it. I didn’t think nothing of it at the time.” He stared down at his hands for a long moment. “And then we heard next day about the girl found dead on the football field over at the high school. I didn’t want to believe it was her.”

“She really made an impression on you,” Wanda Nell said, her voice soft.

“Yeah, she did. She was so pretty, and she was young, about my age, nineteen or twenty. I couldn’t imagine why someone would want to hurt her.” His fingers toyed with his steak knife. “But I reckon she must’ve stirred up something that somebody didn’t want stirred up.”

“You’re probably right,” Jack said. “That’s sure what it sounds like.”

“What happened to her things?” Rocky asked. “Surely somebody come and took all that? And they would have known who she was. She had a driver’s license.”

“We don’t know,” Jack said. “The only accounts we’ve able to find say that she was unknown. My guess is that whoever killed her destroyed everything she brought with her, to make it harder to trace her.”

“I see. I thought it was pretty strange they found her without any clothes on.”

“That’s why,” Wanda Nell said. “But at least we know her name now. You’ve given her that much.”

Rocky smiled sadly. “I hope you can find out who killed her, and if they’re still alive, see that they pay for it. She didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“No, she didn’t,” Jack said. “And we’re going to try our best for her.”

“Is there anything else she might have told you?” Wanda Nell asked. “Like where she came from?”

“I saw her driver’s license when she registered. She was from Hattiesburg.”

“Good, that gives us something else to go on,” Jack said, relieved. “Did she happen to say anything about any family there? Her adoptive parents, or anybody?”

“I don’t remember her saying much about that, though I did ask her at some point.” Rocky frowned, trying to remember. “Seems like she did say something, though. Now what was it?”

Wanda Nell and Jack waited in silence while Rocky tried to recall what Jenna Rae Howell had said to him. With her name and the fact that she came from Hattiesburg, they now had some solid leads to follow up. But if there was something more, they’d be happy to hear it.

“I was asking her how long she was going to stay in Tullahoma,” Rocky said. “And she said ‘maybe forever.’ And then I asked her if she wasn’t ever going back to Hattiesburg. She shook her head. She said ‘never,’ and then she said something kinda strange, or at least it sure sounded that way at the time.” He paused again. “I think what she said was, ‘I’m sick of the stink of death.’ Or something like that. I never did get to ask her what she meant by that.”

“We’ll have to think about that one,” Wanda Nell said. “That is kind of a strange thing to say.”

By now they had finished their food, and Rocky glanced at his watch. “I gotta be getting back to work.” His tone was apologetic.

“Of course,” Jack said. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate you talking to us this way. I promise you we’ll do our best to find out who killed her, and why.”

“You know, it was kinda good to talk about it to somebody, after all these years. I ain’t told anybody, not even my wife.”

“You’re married?” Wanda Nell asked. “You mentioned your daughter.”

“My wife died about five years ago. She had cancer. It’s just me and Judy now. She’s fourteen.”

Jack signaled the waiter to bring their check, and he refused to accept any money from Rocky for his share of the meal. “We invited you to lunch, so it’s on us.”

“Thank you, then,” Rocky said.

On the brief drive back to the car dealership, Rocky asked them how his sister was doing. Wanda Nell didn’t want to lie to him, but she really hated having to tell him the truth. After a deep breath, she said, “We don’t think she’s doing real well, to be honest. We think the man she’s married to isn’t treating her right. She seems pretty out of it most of the time. And he keeps an eye on everything she does.”

Rocky absorbed this in silence. “Is he hitting her?”

“We’re not sure,” Wanda Nell said. “We couldn’t see any signs of it, the two times we saw her. But he’s trying every way he can to control her.”

“That just don’t sound like her. But I ain’t seen her in thirty years, so what do I know? She’s only sent me a few letters, and she never said nothing about any of that.” He shook his head. “I need to do something about it. She shouldn’t have to live like that.”

“We’ll be glad to help you,” Wanda Nell said, and Jack echoed her.

“Thank you, I sure do appreciate that. You’re good folks.” They had reached the dealership, and Rocky opened his door to get out. He closed the door and stood by the driver’s side window. Jack rolled down the window, and Rocky stuck his hand in. They shook.

“We’ll be in touch,” Jack said. “We’ll let you know as soon as we find out anything.”

“Thank you.” Rocky pulled a business card from his pocket. “You can call me here if you need to. Just tell ‘em you’re calling from my daughter’s school, and they won’t make a fuss.”

“We will,” Jack said. “You take care.”

Rocky turned and walked off.

Jack and Wanda Nell sat there for a moment. They glanced at each other.