The Last Clinic (11 page)

She removed the key. It was small and almost straight. A number was etched on it.
1026
.
The key was to a post office box. She put the key in her pocket, closed the drawer, and rechecked the envelopes on Reverend Aldridge’s desk—the unopened correspondence. All of it was junk mail, and nothing was addressed to a post office box.

When she returned to the living room, Lenore had poured herself a drink, about three fingers’ worth of something brown.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Aldridge, but did your husband have any other place where he might have stored valuables?”

Lenore took a good swallow and made a face. It was obvious she didn’t drink often.

“Valuables? What exactly are you talking about?” Lenore was back on her horse. “I have a wedding ring and a string of pearls, some earrings of my mother’s. That’s the extent of our so-called valuables. We didn’t keep them locked up. We have a copy of our will in a safe deposit box at the Fondren office of Plantation National. You can talk to the bank if you like.”

Darla already had. There was no cash in the safe deposit box, just the usual title papers and their wills.

Lenore took another swallow. This one looked like it went down easier.

“I saw a mail slot in the door, Mrs. Aldridge. Is this where you receive all your correspondence?”

“I suppose you have some sort of court order that lets you read our mail?”

Darla showed her the key. “I found this in Reverend Aldridge’s study. Taped to the inside behind his top desk drawer.”

Lenore served herself a quick pour this time, not as much, and took another swallow, finishing most of it without making a face, then wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. It seemed to give her courage.

“That desk was a present. Maybe the previous owner hid it there.”

“Are you saying you didn’t know about the key?”

“What are you implying now? In fact, I don’t really care what you’re implying. I just want you to leave. You can come back tomorrow. It’s trash day. You can go out on the curb and pick through my garbage if it will make you feel any better.”

“I need for you to answer my question, Mrs. Aldridge. Were you aware that your husband had a post office box? Or at least had a key to post office box?

“Is this how the police treat the victim’s family up in Philadelphia?”

Darla waited.

“All right, no. I don’t know anything about that key or any post office box. Do you think any of that matters to me now?”

“I’ll send the key back when I’m finished with it. Plus any mail we come across, unless we feel it’s pertinent to the investigation.”

“My husband was murdered, and we all know who the killer was. If you were any kind of a detective, you’d be helping Tommy Reylander find the evidence needed to convict him. I’d like you to leave now. You can let yourself out the same way you came in.”

As Darla reached the front door, Lenore called out to her, “Hugh Cavannah would roll over in his grave if he knew the way you behaved.”

The Fondren Post Office had a box ten twenty-six. Darla tried the key, and the door opened. The mailbox was empty.

She introduced herself to the postmaster, telling him that she was working a case, without saying which case. She figured he probably could guess.

“I need some information about one of your post office boxes—box ten twenty-six.” She showed him the key. “Can you check your records and tell who rents this box?”

The postmaster disappeared into the back room and returned with a record book.

“It was rented for 12 months, a little less than a year ago. Paid in advance.

Rented to RJA Enterprises. That’s Reverend Jimmy Aldridge isn’t it? I remember him renting it now, and wondering did he have some sort of side organization, a charity or something.”

“Who sorts the mail into the post boxes?”

“It’s a small post office. We don’t have many employees. I do some of the sorting myself. Is something wrong?”

“Can you tell me if there’s a lot of mail that comes to box ten twenty-six?”

He thought for a moment. “I don’t know how much mail they get, but it’s not a high volume box. Some of the boxes, they get so many the pieces the box won’t hold them all. We leave a note in the box. Tell the customer to come to the desk to pick up their mail. Ten twenty-six is not one of those high volume boxes. I can tell you that much. I’d remember if it was. A real pain, those kinds of boxes are. We had a man who’d won one of those lotteries. Not the big one, but still, he’d get hundreds of letters every day. People wanting his help financially, proposals of marriage. That kind of thing. He let me read a couple of letters and look at the various photos women had sent him. Some of the women looked kind of pretty, but with a photo like that, you never can tell. Went on for a couple of years. Made it real tough taking care of the other customers. The things a desperate woman will do. Oops. No offense.”

She handed the postmaster her card. “The next time anything arrives addressed to post office box ten twenty-six, I want you to pull the letter or package or whatever and call me. I’ll come by and pick it up.”

“If you’re sure it’s alright? I might better check the postal regulations?”

“I’ve got the key to the mailbox and a badge. Besides, you know who I am. I’m Hugh’s wife. Hugh the Glue?”

His face lit up.

“Yeah, I kinda thought that was you.”

11

King Arthur’s Daddy.

First Darla checked in at Hind’s County Sheriff’s Department, the downtown Jackson office, across from the Chancery Court. She logged Reverend Aldridge’s postal key and his laptop into evidence and signed both out.

It was time to meet with the computer whiz, Uther whatever his last name was, at the FUSION Center, located outside of Pearl, just east of Jackson.

Darla showed her badge to the lady at the desk, signed in, and asked to see Uther. Just that. How many Uthers could there be? The lady pointed to the elevator, instructed her to go to the floor below and look for a cubicle in the far left corner of the main room.

Uther sat hunched over his computer, his nose inches from the screen. A pair of thick glasses sat on the desk next to the computer. Shelby’s description was right on the money. He did look like Buggin Out, the character from
Do The Right Thing,
especially the huge eyes and the crazy hair, and he dressed like a black Muslim minister with the dark suit, starched white shirt, and bow tie—not a clip-on, but one he had to tie himself.

She popped her head into his cubicle.

“Mr. Johnson?”

Uther reached—groped was more like it—for his glasses, put them on, and adjusted them, not once, but twice, bending them slightly so they sat straight. All set, he looked up at Darla.

“You must be Detective Cavannah. How good of you to come. Uther Pendragon Johnson.” The accent sounded Bahamian, but had a familiar ring. She’d heard it before from somewhere—probably a movie, but she wasn’t sure.

He rose, bowed slightly and offered his hand.

“Shelby didn’t tell me about the Pendragon part,” she said as she took his hand. He had a good handshake. With most geeks, it was like shaking with a fish.

“You’re aware of the context?” Uther said, looking surprised.

“Uther Pendragon was King Arthur’s father, wasn’t he? The one who put the sword in the stone?”

Uther’s face opened into a wide smile.

“The Sword Excalibur. Very astute.”

He signaled she should sit, a sweeping gesture.

She pulled up one of the two empty metal folding chairs and sat next to his cubicle.

“Arthur was the only one who could pull the sword out of the stone, and so he became king,” she said, feeling like one of the smart kids in school.

“This splendid lady is my mother.” He pointed to a framed photo on his desk of an elderly black lady. “She is a great fan of
The Knights of the Round Table.
She briefly considered the name Lancelot, but thought it too football-playerish. My mother had non-athletic aspirations for me. Tell me, what is the familial story behind your name?”

“My mother used to watch
The Little Rascals
. She liked the character Darla. It’s a few rungs down on the cultural ladder. Not much I can do about that.”

“I see. Well, it’s a good thing my mother wasn’t your mother and vice versa.”

“Otherwise I would have been named Guinevere. That wouldn’t have been so bad.”

“Yes, but I would have been named Buckwheat, a name better suited to a Blues musician.”

“You didn’t grow up in Jackson did you Uther?”

“I’m a native of Cleveland.”

“Cleveland, Ohio?”

“Cleveland, Mississippi. And what about your formative years?”

“I’m from Philadelphia.”

“Philadelphia, Mississippi?”

“Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”

“There’s also a Columbus, Mississippi and a Louisville, Mississippi. Did you know that? However, they pronounce it
Louis
, not
Louie
. The town was named after a gentleman with the first of name of Louis, but not of France’s royal lineage.”

“Is this what your research is about? Towns in Mississippi that are named after famous cities?”

“My area of concentration is unidentified patterns in criminal behavior. Specifically, crimes that society doesn’t immediately recognize as crimes because, taken as individual incidents, no criminal activity is apparent. However, when viewed in the proper context, a pattern of criminal activity is readily apparent. Once such a pattern is identified, a crime can be recorded, the case built, and the perpetrator or perpetrators apprehended.”

“Just like that?”

“One can hope.”

“In other words you’ll be increasing the case work for your fellow police officers. That’s not going to make you a big hit with the law enforcement community.”

Uther looked off into space, lost in his own world.

“I use internet search engines to identify events that might form a pattern. From these events, their pattern, I create a hypothesis and develop a new search.”

Bingo. She made the connection. “Sidney Poitier! That’s who you sound like.”

He turned back to her. “Excellent auditory recall, Detective. As a matter of fact, my mother, who was also great fan of the movie
My Fair Lady,
concluded that the Southern African American accent would be a deterrent to my future earning power. She recorded Mr. Poitier’s movies and forced me to listen to the soundtracks over and over.”

“All his movies? He made a lot of movies; most of them were really good.”

“I’m ashamed to say, I have most of his roles committed to memory.”

Darla decided she’d try him out. “In
The Heat of the Night
Rod Steiger goes, ‘What do they call you up there in Philadelphia, Virgil?’”

“And then Sidney Poitier, his character, jaws clinched, growls, ‘They call me Mr. Tibbs!’” said Uther.

“That’s remarkable. You sounded just like him. I saw the movie on Netflix a couple of weeks ago.”

“As you may already be aware, the movie was set in Mississippi, but it wasn’t actually filmed here. It was filmed near Saint Louis. The producer concluded that the racial themes of the film would lead to reprisals by the citizens of this fair state.”

“Somebody might have been lynched, is what you’re trying to say?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. And as an indication of how life imitates art, in the film, a prominent white man was murdered in Mississippi. Mr. Poitier’s character, Virgil Tibbs, a detective from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that is, was called upon to solve the murder, just as you, a detective originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have been called upon to solve the murder of a prominent white man. This sort of coincidence, random though it may seem, does leave me with the view that the divine hand is guiding the metaphysics of your pursuit.”

“You’re saying God’s on my side?”

“An argument could be so fashioned.”

“I hope you’re right. In the meantime, I could use some help on the human end of things, Uther. That’s what today’s visit is all about.”

“And do you fear reprisals should you fail in your mission?”

“Not personally, but I think there’s an ob-gyn in Jackson some people would like to string up.”

“In that case, I am at your service, Detective.”

“Have you gotten into Reverend Aldridge’s BlackBerry yet?”

“I looked through it as soon as it arrived. I’m sorry to say it was not all that revealing, except that the majority of calls placed over the last year were to a cell with a Washington, DC, area code. I checked the number. It’s a corporate account with a Jackson billing address.”

“Let me guess, The Magnolia Group?”

“You have the advantage on me, Detective.”

“The Magnolia Group is Bobby Goodhew’s company. They’re the biggest lobbying group in the state. They represent The National Rights of the Unborn. Reverend Aldridge was head of the local chapter. The National Rights of the Unborn is the largest financial PAC behind House Bill 674.”

“That would be the anti-abortion bill?”

“I guess it makes sense. The political connection. How much talking did they do?”

“Two hundred fifty four calls last year, equaling over six thousand minutes, or one hundred hours of talking.”

“He and the Reverend had a lot to talk about. Maybe Bobby Goodhew knows something about the three thousand dollars.”

“The money found in the Reverend’s SUV?”

Darla was on her feet, ready to leave and catch up with Bobby at the Capitol.

“I want you to check out Reverend Aldridge’s laptop, Uther. Start with the emails. Pull up any that look like they might be from The Magnolia Group. Let’s see what Bobby and Reverend Aldridge were talking about. How long will this take? A day?”

Uther looked at her puzzled.

“Longer? Two days? Come on. This is a homicide.”

“Have a seat, if you would, Detective,” he said, stretching his fingers like a pianist, his eyes glued to the screen.