*****
I told Ernie my plan. He told me I was crazy, but would help. It took me five weeks to put it together before I was ready to meet the Kincaids.
My “mise-en-scène” was constructed at Humboldt Fish Camp, halfway between Charlotte and Shelby. The menu there consisted of fried flounder, fried perch, fried hushpuppies, french fries and coleslaw in any frigg’n combination you wanted, but that was fucking it. Water, tartar sauce and ketchup were free; all the sweet tea or coke you could drink was fifty cents.
Humboldt’s itself was a massive dining hall, with a large kitchen comprised mostly of huge deep-fat fryers and refrigerators full of frozen fish and coleslaw. Sturdy, high-backed pews made of pinewood were constructed along the walls of the restaurant, with solid, pine tables placed in front of them. Wooden benches were on the opposite side of the tables. The interior of the hall was set up with at least fifty picnic tables and attached benches. In all, Humboldt’s could seat over 500 people at a time.
My meeting with the Kincaids at the fish camp was scheduled for a Tuesday afternoon around three o’clock, when the place was usually empty. I used Sandy Milton as our go-between. They would trust the lawyer.
I had Sandy tell them that I was having serious guilt issues with how I had handled their daughter’s case, that I felt responsible for her going off the deep end and trying to kill them. Sandy told them I wanted to apologize in person and as an aside, return their fee. Sandy told me later that Malcolm Kincaid jumped at the opportunity as soon as he heard that I was going to return his money.
Greed is the most reliable of sins.
Sandy drove them to the fish camp, and I was waiting at a table near the back of the hall. I stood up as they entered and waved them over. As soon as Sandy got them to the table, his beeper went off, as scheduled. He looked at it and with a look of disgust, shook his head.
“Folks, if you don’t mind, I need to step out and return this call. It’s from a judge and I really have to call him now. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.”
“No problem, Sandy, this is really just between me and the Kincaids," I said.
Sandy spun on his heel and left.
I looked at the Kincaids. They were dressed much the same as when I had last seen them in their office. Working casual. I pointed to the large pew along the wall and asked them to sit down. I sat on the bench across from them.
To put them at ease, I had plates, forks and huge basket of hushpuppies waiting for them on the table. I offered them some, in case they were hungry. Malcolm helped himself to a couple. Sandra politely declined. My briefcase was lying on the floor. I reached down to get it. As I did, I quietly slipped out of my coat pocket a small, ancient .32 caliber revolver loaded with thirty-year-old bullets and placed it under the table. I was careful to use my handkerchief when handling it.
I brought up the leather briefcase and plopped it on the table. I opened it and took out a large, manila envelope. They didn’t expect this, and I saw them both tense up. I knew that this could blow up in my face in an instant, so I hit them hard and fast.
“First, everything you are about to see is a copy. The originals are safely locked up.”
I pulled out a neat, typed written letter and waved it at them.
“I got this five weeks ago in the mail. It is a letter Myra sent to me before she tried to kill you two. She also sent a key to a safe-deposit box in Virginia. I have a sworn affidavit from the bank that Myra Kincaid was the person who rented that box. In this letter, she lays out some seriously sick charges against y’all. To back it up, she sent pictures that she had been storing in the safe-deposit box. She claims in the letter she took them from your private darkroom and playpen that you have above your garage.”
I pulled out four pictures from the envelope and tossed them on the table.
“I’m positive that this is a picture of you some years ago, Mrs. Kincaid, with Myra and a carrot, and—correct me if I’m wrong—this is a picture of your daughter Tammy getting fucked by you, Mr. Kincaid. Here are pics of both of y’all with the twins. I bet when they showed up at your door you two bastards had felt you had hit the Trifecta.”
They were too stunned to talk. I slammed it home.
“Sandra, you tart up quite nice in these pictures but Malcolm, I got to be honest, wearing nothing but a porkpie hat, Lone Ranger mask and five-inch hard-on is not a good look for you.”
That last remark hit hard. Malcolm Kincaid turned beet red and stammered, “You blackmailing son-of-a-bitch, you stole this from us. There is no way Myra sent you this—”
“Let me be clear Kincaid, are you accusing me of black bagging your house, finding your secret room where you and the wife play with the kids, stealing from your private photo collection, just so I can blackmail you?”
“Damn right I am, you—”
“Malcolm, shut up damnit! This ain’t about blackmail!” hissed Sandra Kincaid.
She was the smarter of the two. She had figured it out.
I glanced at her. She didn’t look so mousy now. Her eyes were flame hot.
I looked at a flustered Malcolm Kincaid. My pulse was pounding. I knew it was now or never.
I said clearly and distinctly, just to make sure the microphones that were wired around the table picked it up, “Put—down—that—gun.”
A heartbeat later, I launched myself at Sandra Kincaid, grabbed her head by her ears and with every bit of strength I had, slammed her face as hard as I could onto the edge of the table. She was a little over five feet tall, a tad bit over a hundred pounds. I was six foot one, close to two hundred.
That’s a fair fight by my rules.
I threw her head back up against the wooden back of the pew. Her upper front teeth were caved in backwards. Blood was streaming from her mouth and nose, and her eyes were going in two different directions. She was out cold.
It was now time to take care of “Daddy."
He was already starting to get up when I flicked out my left fist and broke his nose. He fell back, stunned. I grabbed a fork with my right hand and pushed the table aside. In a vicious overhand arc, I plunged the fork into his crotch.
There were no goddamn plastic “sporks” in this eatery. Humboldt’s had been using the same cutlery since they opened up in 1952. It was made of Cold War grade stainless steel, meant to survive a direct nuclear blast. The doctors said later I had buried the fork, tines and all, three inches above the bastard’s dick.
Kincaid threw his head back and screamed. I put him in a head lock with my left arm and with my right hand grabbed a handful of hushpuppies. I crammed them down his throat.
His eyes flew open in panic when he realized he couldn’t breathe. I grabbed another handful and forced them also down his throat.
He started thrashing about, pounding on me, but I was on an adrenalin high and nothing was going to break my grip on him. I was on my fourth handful of hushpuppies when he stopped moving, went limp and into full-blown cardiac arrest. At the same time, an arm reached out behind me and went around my neck. I was jerked back and thrown to the floor. I wouldn’t let go of Kincaid and dragged him down with me.
The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation agents had finally shown up from their listening van outside.
At least five men had entered the hall. It took two of them to get me to let go of Kincaid. By the time they had me pinned to the floor, I saw Ernie running towards me. He was wearing his favorite lime-green leisure suit. Sandy Milton was right behind them. Both stopped in their tracks to survey the carnage.
Sandra Kincaid was slumped over where she sat, blood streaming from her shattered face and onto her clothes. Malcolm Kincaid lay on the floor, sporting a fork erection; the crotch of his khaki pants stained crimson with blood. One agent was trying to get the mashed cornmeal out of his mouth. Another was pounding on his chest.
A third agent, kneeling next to the body, looked up, saw Ernie and screamed, “Get your crazy bastard partner out of here!”
/> He then pointed at the cops holding me down and yelled, “Get on the radio and get ambulances here ASAP, move!”
Ernie ran to me, got me on my feet and led me to the parking lot outside. He took me over to his caddie and sat me down in the passenger side of the car.
“I’m going back in kid, to make sure they find the gun," Ernie whispered. He turned and saw Sandy Milton standing by his car, looking lost.
“Milton, come over here and stay with Jay, You’re on the clock as of now," Ernie hollered. He then headed back into the restaurant.
Sandy walked over me and asked, “What in the hell happened? You were just supposed to get them on tape talking about the photos and then let the SBI handle it.”
I looked at him and said, “The bitch had a gun. Small one. Self defense. When she went down, Kincaid went after the piece. I had to defend myself.”
Sandy raised his right eyebrow at this, looked at me for a few seconds.
“That’s your story?”
“Absolutely. It was them or me.”
He shrugged and leaned up against the caddie and waited.
A couple of ambulances arrived. The EMT guys went in, and about thirty minutes later they were wheeling Malcolm Kincaid out. He was hooked to an IV and had an oxygen mask on. They threw him in the back and shot out of the gravel parking lot, siren wailing. About ten minutes later, they wheeled out a semi-conscious Sandra Kincaid, put her in the second ambulance and left.
Seconds later, the agent who had told Ernie to get me the hell away from the scene came storming out of the restaurant with Ernie in his wake. He was Inspector Alan Fitzsimons, the agent who was put in charge of this when I approached the SBI ten days ago. He came right at me.
“The bastard’s barely alive. They had to use the paddles twice on him. You lied to me, you did break into their house. You’re going down for this, Dafoe, and if he dies, it will be for murder," he snarled.
Sandy stepped in, “Inspector, my client told me the couple was armed and tried to kill him. It’s self-defense, and you know it.”
“Bullshit, I know a dropped piece when I see it. The goddamn bullets are covered with rust.”
I had him. I got out of the car. Fitzsimons was less than an arm’s length from me.
“Fact. Myra Kincaid had a safety deposit box rented in her name for three years to hold those pictures. I’ll swear on a stack of bibles she sent them to me in the mail. How she got them, I don’t know. Try to prove otherwise.”
Fitzsimons scowled at me. I kept on.
“In addition, a hundred bucks says you find the box of cartridges that those bullets came from somewhere in their home. I suggest you look on the top shelf of the closet in their room above the garage. Finally, another hundred also says you find a ledger there with over thirty pages of cash entries with various P.O. box addresses listed after each line item. I bet they were selling their pictures. They made quite a bit of money. I’d say if you played your cards right you can claim credit to busting up a huge child pornography ring. No need to thank me for handing it to you on a silver platter.”
Fitzsimons froze. He looked down at the ground for a minute. Then he slowly raised his head, looked me in the eye and said, “One day, you son-of-a-bitch, I’m gonna fucking nail your ass to the wall.”
He suckered punched me in the stomach with a left jab and followed it up with a right cross to my jaw.
I went down.
Fitzsimons turned around and went back into the restaurant.
Ernie rushed to help me. I waved him off and struggled to my feet, spit out some blood and laughed. I had done it, free and clear.
I finally knew what salvation felt like.
I didn’t own it anymore.
The End
If you enjoyed this, you will love my novel.
Scrambled Hard-Boiled
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006QCMG30
Miscegenation and Other Acts of Love
He was worsted-wool perfection. His suit was conservative dark blue with faint pinstripes. Shirt, a perfect white with a wine-red tie. The hair was grey, razor cut, elegant. His skin was smooth and what wrinkles there were reminded you that this was a serious man. His eyes were his only flaw. They were not quite right. Other than that, he looked like his job; that of a quiet, highly paid, professional lawyer. No grandstanding or bullshit with this man.
He was on the phone, talking. He saw me and motioned for me to sit in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk.
I sat down and listened.
He was leaning back in his chair with the receiver stuck next to his ear. He was listening to the voice on the other line. After a few moments, he spoke.
“Janet, try to get some rest and remember if anyone from the press approaches you, don’t say anything. I got a gentleman here in my office who is going to help me get Kevin out of this jam.”
He paused for a second, listened, then spoke again.
“That’s right. It’s the detective from Charlotte I was telling Kevin about. Now you take care of those kids of yours and try to get some rest. Kevin needs you to be strong right now—,” he paused and listened. “Fine, fine. Goodbye Janet, I’ll call you again later to make sure everything is Ok.”
He hung up the phone and turned to look at me.
“Pleased to meet you Mr. Dafoe. I'm Everett Buchanan. Sorry for not getting up to greet you. That was the wife of my client, Kevin Watkins, who’s currently sitting in the Davie county jail charged with murder. He owns a couple of car dealerships here in town.”
I played it cool and just raised an eyebrow.
Buchanan went on.
“He’s accused of shooting one Miss Samantha Wilson. A week ago she was found dead, lying in a ditch, outside of town here.” He grabbed a folder on his desk and tossed it in front of me. “There’s the police and coroner’s report. Read it and then we’ll talk.”
He sat back, lit a cigarette and smoked it as I opened and read the contents of the folder.
Victim: Samantha Joan Wilson. Age: twenty-five. Five and a half feet tall, 125 pounds. Found dead a little over a week ago in a roadside ditch on a small road just east of Stanville. Coroner said cause of death was a single .32 caliber shot, straight through the top of her head. Powder burns on the entrance wound. Bullet was found lodged in her chin and removed. It was fairly intact and should be easy to match to the murder weapon if ever found. Incidental bruising around the torso. No sign of sexual assault.
I looked at the crime scene photos. She had been nude when she was dumped by the road. The body was sprawled face down in the grass with one arm outstretched and the other tucked under the body.
The photos taken in the coroner’s lab showed her face, distorted and swollen. Like a lot of people who met a violent end, death had made her ugly. Her matted hair was dark and looked to be shoulder length or so. The body was soft and sagging with large breasts splayed out to the sides.
One note by the coroner caught my eye as I shut the folder. She had been three months pregnant. A boy.
I looked up at Buchanan.
“Was he banging her?”
“Yeah and before you ask the blood tests on the child indicate he could have been the father. From what I can gather, he probably was. He’s been covering the rent on her apartment for almost a year.”
This was back in 1979, in the days before DNA. Blood tests were all we had to go on.
“Alibi?”
“None. His wife took the kids the week before to visit her parents in Georgia. He claims he was home alone that night.”
“Anything to link him to the killing—other than getting her pregnant? Was he seen with her that night, blood in his car or what?”
“No.”
“Damn, then why is he in jail? Other than a shaky motive I don’t see what the law has on him.”
“She was black.”
I flipped opened the folder, looked at the coroner’s photo’s again. She wasn’t Snow White, but I had seen Italians dar
ker than this gal. I looked back up at Buchanan, questioningly.
“I know, I know. Here—look at these photos while I explain.”
He handed me another folder. They were color photos of her. Some were taken at the lake standing next to a big guy who had a mullet hair cut.
“I had copies from the original negatives made. That’s her with our client,” said Buchanan, “he was stupid enough to pose for photographs with his mistress.”
Well, it looks like I have a dumb ass for a client, I thought to myself.
I continued to sort through the pictures. Others were taken inside an apartment. Some were of her nude in a bed with the sheets sprawled around her. She was laughing at the camera.
She was a good-looking woman in her prime. Full figured, luscious, dusky, with a pair of bedroom eyes. I could see why Watkins was sleeping with her. Even in these still photos, she oozed moist, sexy heat.
The last picture showed her with a black woman, a light-skinned one, but definitely black. She appeared to be in her late forties, sort of stout, but when you saw the two standing side-by-side, you could tell you were looking at mother and daughter.
I held the picture up to the lawyer.
“Yep,” he said, “that’s her mother, Alice Wilson. That was taken a year or two ago. Alice died around last Thanksgiving, cancer. She and Samantha used to clean houses of folks around here for a living. At least they did until Alice took ill.”
“Is there a Mr. Wilson?”
He frowned and shook his head no.
“Alice was a fine-looking lady in her day. Rumor has it, she caught the eye of wealthy man from Winston-Salem, and the result was Samantha. The girl grew up in these parts, even graduated from the local high school here. In any other town, she could have passed for white but not here. Here she was still a...well...let's just say bastard and leave it at that.”
“Why didn’t she leave when she got old enough?”
He just shrugged his shoulders, turned and looked out the window. “Hell, I don’t know.” He paused and seemed to gather his thoughts, “Maybe she was planning on it, and her plans got interrupted.”
“I still don’t understand why Watkins is in jail,” I said.
He whirled around in his chair to look at me.
“The colored population of this county is around thirty percent. They work the fields, load the trucks, clean the buildings. They go to church. And since 1965, they’ve been voting…Democratic. Democrats have run this county since reconstruction but in the last election Sheriff Thompson got well less than sixty percent of the vote. That has never happened here before. The Republican Party is growing and if Democrats want to stay in power they have to listen to, and more importantly, respond to the black folk, or else they won’t show up at the polls.”
He lit another cigarette and took a deep drag.
“Alice Wilson was a religious woman, and her church got very upset about what happened to her daughter. The anger quickly spread to other black churches. Someone called the NAACP, and they got into the picture—”
I interrupted, “—and the good Sheriff, to help cool things down and maybe score some points during the next election needed to nail someone for the killing.”
“I was told you’re quick on the uptake. Right. He had to get someone in jail, fast. He didn’t care if the DA couldn’t convict him; he just had to at least show he was trying. Lucky for Sheriff Thompson he had a perfect fall guy in Kevin. They found those and other pictures in her apartment, did a little checking on her living arrangements and bam, instant suspect.”
He paused to stub out his cigarette in an ashtray and went on.
“No one likes car salesmen, especially ones that sell goddamn lousy cars while providing crappy service at the same time—you know, the poor bastard has sold cars to some of the local Klansman and now even they want to see him strung up for killing a black woman. It’s crazy.”
“Is he guilty?” I asked.
“I'm his lawyer, so I'll stick with his 'No'. Damn, I would too with what little evidence they got. But there’s always a chance they might come up with something else to help their case. Plus there’s no telling what may happen if this goes to jury. So we have to be prepared.”
He stared at me for a moment.
“Dig up dirt on the dead girlfriend?”
He smiled slightly and nodded his head. “Look around, see if we can spread the blame around if you catch my drift. Now let’s go see our client; you can ride with me to the jail.”
I rode in his Cadillac to the county jail. I checked my .38 at the door and we were escorted to a small windowless conference room. A few minutes later, Kevin Watkins, handcuffed and in prison denim, was escorted in.
Unshaven with his hair greasy and ruffled, Watkins appeared not to be adjusting too well to jail life.
Buchanan introduced me, and we pulled up chairs around the small table located in the middle of the room.
“Any news on getting me the hell out of here?” he blurted.
“Now Kevin, I told you that we had to wait for the next hearing before we broach again the subject of bail,” said the lawyer, “and even then chances of you getting out are slim and none. Get used to the idea.”
Watkins hung his head for a second or two, shrugged and looked up.
“Ok...Ok, where do we go from here?”
“Mr. Dafoe is going to be looking into the circumstances of Samantha’s death. I want you to tell him about your relationship with her. Hold nothing back—understand?”
He nodded and looked at me. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Just start telling me about you and the girl. I’ll listen and ask questions as appropriate.” I got my notepad and pen out.
He bummed a cigarette from Buchanan, lit up and started talking.
They had met a little over a year ago, at a local bar. Sex the first night. For a couple of months, they rendezvoused once or twice a week at local motels but soon the relationship deepened. She evidentially was a hell of a lay.
“What about the apartment, when did you start paying for that?” I asked.
“Nine—ten months ago. I own the apartment complex. There are twelve rental units at the property, and I let her stay in one of them for free. At first, it was to be only for a couple of weeks, but it got to be really convenient. Less hassles that way.”
“Did you give her money outright?”
“I slipped her a hundred every now and then; it covered all her utilities at the apartment. Samantha made a few bucks on the side cleaning houses. She’d been doing that with her mother for a few years and kept working for a few folks after her mom died.”
“Names?”
The lawyer quickly interrupted, “I got a list of her customers. I’ll give it to you after we leave here.”
Watkins continued his story. The affair continued. Other than the occasional weekend getaway, most of their meetings were confined to the apartment.
His wife never suspected; he wasn’t seeing any other women.
“What about the day of the murder. Mr. Buchanan says you were at home. Seems to me with the wife and kids gone you would have spent the time with her.”
He shook his head, bummed and lit another cigarette.
“I started calling her that afternoon and kept on calling her till it was past ten. There was no answer at the apartment. I finally gave up and went to bed. I called again early in the morning before I went to the office but there was still no answer. I was more jealous than worried. I thought she might have been with another man.”
“You think she was seeing someone else?”
“Naw. Not really. I...I...hell, you know how it is when a bitch gets inside your head...not that I was going to marry her or anything.”
No, I guess not. Leaving your wife for a colored woman, even a high yellow one, wouldn’t be good for business, I thought.
I turned to the lawyer and said, “I think I got enough for now. We can always come back.” I looked bac
k at Watkins, “You got anything else that might help us figure out what happened?”
“No. Not really. But I swear I didn’t kill her.”
That ended the interview. We signaled the guard. He escorted Watkins back to his cell.
No questions about the wife, no worries about the kids. My kind of guy.
Our next stop was at Samantha's apartment. We crossed the police yellow tape and went in.
It was a simple one-bedroom affair with bath and kitchen. A 12-inch color TV with rabbit ears was on a cinder block and plywood shelf. The bed was a queen sized and was unmade. I recognized it as the bed in the photographs. Her closet was half-filled with clothes, mostly jeans and blouses.
Buchanan was going through her jewelry box and made a small exclamation of surprise. I walked over and noted he was holding an old-fashioned cameo. It was made of ivory, and it showed two women, dressed in robes, pouring wine into a cup.
“Sort of out of place among all this costume stuff wouldn't you say?”
Not wanting to show that I had no idea how much a cameo like that was worth, I grunted in assent.
He put it back and shrugged his shoulders. “Wonder where a maid got the money to buy that? Ones like this are quite expensive. My late wife had a few.”
We finished going through the apartment and found nothing more of interest. We got back in the lawyer's car and went back to his office.
Once there, Buchanan gave me a list with some names and addresses.
“These are the names of the folks who employed the Wilson girl to clean house. I suggest you start with Sarah Laumer. She's Alex Laumer's widow and still runs a local jewelry store that Alex started. Hell, for all I know the Wilson girl may have stolen that cameo from her. It looks like something Sarah would have.”