Mesopotamia (7 page)

“So when did Floyd take up an interest in Elvis?”

“Well, you know in these parts Elvis is a big thing, so he was always interested, but Floyd kinda went off the deep end late last year. First he bought that strand of Elvis’s hair just when we adopted my sister’s kids. I mean, we always loved Elvis, collected his paraphernalia, had the kids sing his tunes and all, but for him to suddenly decide to be an Elvis impersonator … I still can’t bring myself to throw it out.”

She opened up a tight closet and took out a big cardboard box. Lifting the flaps, she reached inside and removed an ensemble that could only be called Elvis Presley Vegas Wear. The outfit even included a cape with electrical wires. When Vinetta plugged it in, the entire suit lit up like a chubby Christmas tree.

“Wow!”

“I stitched this together myself.”

“How exactly did Loyd die?”

“Floyd was murdered,” she corrected, “because he was on to something really big.”

“What?”

She took a deep breath and nervously looked to the twins who were staring back at their toons. “He had reason to suspect that the owner of the Blue Suede was instrumental in … in some way—and I know this is going to sound harebrained, cause I thought it was harebrained right up to the instant Floyd was killed—but he believed John Carpenter was involved in Elvis Presley’s untimely death.”

“Elvis OD’d with a truckload of pills in his system.”

“I know it sounds insane, but Floyd found something big, I think.”

“What exactly did he find?”

“He said that Carpenter had the motive, the resources, and he thinks he more than had the opportunity while working for him.”

“Okay,” I bit, since I was there anyway, “what resources and motives did he find?”

“That I don’t know. I never touched Floyd’s papers.”

“Then I guess that ends our investigation.”

“Hold on. He actually did leave a diagram. Just follow me.”

“Look,” I said, as it was now nearly dark and growing cold outside, “why don’t I come back in the morning?”

“Nonsense. You can stay in his office. It has a cot and electricity so you can read as late as you like.”

Before I could consent or reject, she led me out of the house and past several screaming babes. As we walked across the dark field something smelled rank.

“Watch it over there!”

At the very end of their property I could see a large pile of burnt planks that looked like a toolshed that had caught on fire. Between where we stood and the pile of scorched wood, the odiferous earth seemed to erupt with feces like a herniated diaper.

“Septic tank’s on the fritz,” Vinetta explained. “I’ve been meaning to fix that.”

She led me upwind and uphill until we came to a door that was camouflaged the same color as one of those cracked concrete slabs. She opened it then led me down a few creaky steps into the storm cellar, where she opened a second door.

“This is where we run when the tornado monster’s on the loose,” said a sticky little girl by her side.

“If anyone knew that Floyd stored his files in here, they would’ve torched this place too,” Vinetta said, pulling a small drawer string, flipping on a naked bulb dangling overhead. Aside from various small articles of junky furniture were several beat-up file cabinets pushed every which way. Magnetized to their metallic sides were drawings and spelling quizzes as well as math assignments with gold stars. Apparently Floyd Jr., the oldest kid, was a good student. Packs of disposable diapers were stacked in the corner.

Against the far wall was a single metal cot. Above it was a homemade chart that appeared to be the product of a paranoid mind.

Dusty knitting twine ran along the wall connecting several fuzzy photos of men to other ill-focused photos of men. It resembled a hierarchical structure that the FBI would create to relate members of a crime family. In this case, the central image that all other photos revolved around was a shadowy photograph under which was the caption:
John Carpenter
, the mysterious coowner of the Blue Suede.

Looking carefully at the picture of Carpenter—a large man walking in the woods—it reminded me of an infamous Big Foot photo from the early 1970s.

“When the toolshed blew up, everyone assumed the files went too, but they were all down here,” she explained, pointing to the dented cabinets. Before she left, it struck me to ask why she didn’t notify the police immediately with all this “evidence.” But not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I kept quiet.

For the first few hours, I fitfully searched through the filing cabinet for that one smoking gun—a clear and simple document that would reveal that some murky figure named Carpenter had murdered the King of Rock and Roll.

As the hours tediously unraveled, though, the files only released more smoke. It was a landfill of documentations, utility bills, credit card offers, bank statements, and endless receipts. Unfortunately, nothing on that twine-lined wall explained anything. There were no neat Pelican Briefs, no Deep Throats, not even any manila files with carefully printed headings. Mostly they were filled with curling scraps of yellowing papers. A phone number here, an illegible marking there. I could feel my hands slowly drying up, just begging for moisturizer. At one point, after hours of skimming, a wave of itchiness hit as though hordes of dust mites had swarmed up my arms. Eventually I found a handmade flier regarding the 2004 annual Sing the King contest at the Blue Suede. On the back, I saw various names followed by hastily drawn question marks. For the most part, the handwriting was unreadable.

All papers I found led to a single overwhelming conclusion: Loyd was one phenomenal pack rat. Along the back wall, behind an old poster of Farrah Fawcett, I made an odd discovery. In a stack of half a dozen Florsheim shoe boxes were hundreds of different-sized photographs. There were also lots of negatives, and when I held a few of them up to the single bulb, I could make out voyeuristic closeups of intertwined black-and-white ghosts.

Usually the photos showed couples. Frequently they were poorly lit and ill-focused, probably taken with a broken zoom lens. Precisely who these people were or what their significance was remained a mystery. One photo in particular caught my eye: a sleazy-looking guy and a younger, cute blond girl. Something about the girl’s cowboy boots and longhorn belt buckle grabbed me. In one slightly clearer photo she appeared to be giving him a blowjob, but I could only see the top of her head. Something about the guy gave me the willies, I didn’t know why.

By two or three in the morning, I had checked out all but two rusty filing cabinets buried in the back like a pair of upright metal coffins. I leveraged my body around one, spinning it, then pried open the top drawer. It was packed with yet more trash. In the middle drawer, however, I made an exciting find—a half bottle of Jack Daniel’s. There in the bottom drawer, I made an even more surprising discovery—emptiness. Odd in that hoarder’s paradise. I just couldn’t help sensing that something had been covertly removed from it.

Inasmuch as alcohol sped up time and opened part of my brain, allowing me to read deeper into things, I took enhancing sips from Mr. Jack Daniel’s. Eventually, though, looking through more shoe boxes I collapsed on the rickety old mattress. Before passing out, I noticed that three of the four legs of the wooden cot had snapped. On the floor I also spotted what I initially thought to be a short, fat snake skin. It wasn’t until I delicately picked it up that I realized it was actually lambskin—a used condom.

After shrieking and tossing it in the air, I realized that dear departed Floyd wasn’t quite so innocent. Perhaps to get away from all the little screamers, he and the misses would sneak down here for a little privacy. Yet in a family of seven children, where family planning was God’s work, I just couldn’t imagine him ever unraveling a condom. Looking further under the bed, I saw that even more cardboard boxes were holding it up. Inside them was yet more clerical garbage. Rifling through one, I spotted “case history forms.” The boxes held files of divorce cases Floyd Loyd had worked on.

I skimmed through dozens of copies of these case histories loaded with phrases like
subject seen going into
and
signs of intimacy evident. Photographic evidence of infidelity included
was the one phrase frequently at the bottom of them. It painfully reminded me of Paul’s infidelities toward the end of our marriage. Feeling increasingly crappy, I finally slugged down the remainder of the Jack Daniel’s and knocked myself out.

When I woke up late the next day, my drooling face was submerged in a pile of his canceled checks from the late 1990s. Despite a severe crick in my neck, the only thing I could take away from this endeavor was the answer why Vinetta hadn’t gone to the police: Loyd had nothing. No leads, no motives, no real suspects. Nada. For that matter, other than a colorful wall and Vinetta’s accusation, I found only evidence of a garbage-driven life.

I clutched my throbbing head and staggered outside. As I opened the busted screen door to the trailer, I was treated to an Alvin and the Chipmunks rendition of “Don’t Be Cruel.” Some minor miscreant was screeching out his amends.

“Who the heck are you?” asked some pint-sized terror blocking my path. It must’ve been the boy genius, Floyd Jr.

“She’s here to help me find your daddy’s killers,” Mama yelled from the next room. Floyd Jr. grabbed one of the other kids and led him outside.

Continuing on to the narrow living room, I found that Mama was dressed in a strange sequin dress with a silver tiara and star-tipped wand. She was supposed to be a fairy godmother. There was a plastic drop cloth on the ground and she was surrounded by a circle of four high chairs. Vinetta was playfully feeding the four youngest.

“You’ve got an amazing level of concentration,” she said between spoonfuls.

“Huh?”

“I peaked down there this morning and saw you with your head in the pages so I didn’t disturb you.”

I smiled politely.

“If you have coffee anywhere …” I would’ve even chewed down some old grounds.

“There’s still some on the stove.”

I poured myself a cold, thick cup. She had no blue Equal packets but offered me a spoonful of molasses as sweetener.

“You ain’t trying to take my mother for some ride, are you?” the eight-year-old asked, returning to the kitchen.

“Huh?”

“We got no money if that’s your game,” Floyd Jr. said as his sister went through the kitchen cabinets and shouted out items in stock. He was compiling a grocery list.

“I’m not asking for anything,” I assured him.

Mama entered still dressed in her outfit and led me into the living room. “They fear the fairy godmother,” she said, “makes them easier to handle.”

“Can you talk a moment?”

“I’m always starved for adult conversation,” she replied as she tried to spoon more food into their tiny mouths.

“I remember reading on the Internet that Loyd died in some accident.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t an accident. They blew him up.”

“Tell me about it?”

“They wired the shed with explosives and when he went in to get a rake,
kerblam
!”

“Why did the article say it was an accident?”

“Probably cause Sheriff Nick works for Carpenter.”

“Floyd was a private investigator?”

“Yep.”

“What exactly did he investigate?”

“His bread-and-butter work was for divorce lawyers. Tracking down cheating husbands and such. He was good at it too. He got hired all over the western part of the state. It wasn’t exactly glamorous, but it paid steadily and there’s a lot of skunks out there.”

“Maybe a divorced husband or wife who got a bad settlement killed him,” I suggested.

“No, that wall chart says it all—Carpenter did it.”

“You really should have gone through his papers before asking me or anyone else to do it.”

“I would’ve, but frankly I was afraid to screw something up.”

“That’s like screwing up an oil spill. Your husband seems to have saved every shred of paper he ever came across. Unfortunately, nothing really leads to anything.”

“Nothing?” she asked, holding her serving spoon in midair for the first time. I let out a hopeless sigh.

“If there’s a method to his madness, I don’t see it.”

“But you’re a reporter, you’re not telling me you never did an investigative piece before.”

“Good reporters know their turf, they slowly build up an investigation. You get to know your players, you have a thread of mystery that you work toward.”

“I’m telling you, it’s this Carpenter guy! He’s your thread!”

“Even if I had a better idea of what was going on, I just don’t have a lot of time and cash to pursue this.”

“Look, I know the area and people. I can bring you up to speed, and you can stay here. I’ll feed you while you’re working on the case.” She accidentally dipped her magic wand into her food bowl. “In return I can grant a wish.”

I went back to my car, got my cell phone and battery recharger, plugged it into a wall outlet, and to my amazement I got a signal. I checked my messages. First my editor Riggs called and again asked where the hell I was. Then Gustavo called to say I should get my ass down to Memphis pronto. Scrubbs was back in town and rumors of his infidelities were swirling like dust devils.

Before returning the calls, I phoned the sheriff’s office.

“Can I speak to the investigator who handled the Floyd Loyd case?”

“That would probably be me.”

“May I ask your name?”

“Everyone calls me Sheriff Nick, but let me just say there wasn’t really a case,” he replied. “Floyd died when his crystal lab blew up. The coroner ruled him out of his skull on fumes.” My entire body tensed up.

“Crystal
meth
?”

“He had a long list of priors. He had been arrested for using, for manufacturing, and for selling.”

I let out a deep sigh. “His wife didn’t say a thing about that. May I ask the date of his last drug arrest?”

“Now we both know I can’t release that kind of information, but to save us both some time, I’ll say it was all about ten years ago.”