The Best of Evil

  But I knew Sammie wouldn’t mind.

  Pillars of mortar and brick, topped by lead-paned lanterns, stand on both sides of the driveway. Set into the stonework, a mailbox bears the name Rosewood in simple black letters. Samantha’s parents passed away a few years ago, and she lives here with Miss Eloise, keeping her grandmother company in her final days.

  There is no gate. The property is off the main thoroughfares, and Samantha claims the horses’ movements in the stable and the bark of her trusty golden retriever are security enough.

  Her claims were substantiated by throaty howls as I edged up the drive, but I knew the dog to be old and harmless.

  “Hi, Digger.” I stepped out and let him sniff my hand. His tail started wagging, and he lifted a paw. “There you go,” I said. “Good manners, just like your mama.”

  “Aramis.”

  I looked up, flashed a sheepish smile. “Am I too early for breakfast?”

  From the wraparound porch, Sammie returned the smile. “I suppose not. I’ve been up for bit, reading to Miss Eloise. She couldn’t sleep. What about the shop?”

  “I have twenty minutes. Maybe twenty-five before I need to head over there.”

  “We’ll work with the time available.”

  “I needed to see you.”

  “Good to see you too.”

  “No. I mean … Never mind.” I climbed wide steps to the porch.

  “Hmm. Tell me, Aramis, do you think a cheese omelet, grits, and hickory-smoked bacon will suffice?”

  “Sounds great,” I said. “But what about my coffee?”

  Sammie laughed. “You’ll have to see to it yourself.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Mystery built upon mystery that morning, from an unexpected source. Life—you gotta love it. Always keeping us on our toes.

  “Aramis, we made it through our first week together.”

  “Huh? What’re you talking about?”

  “Since the Elliston shooting.” Brianne brushed back her blond hair. “You and I, we put things back in order and cranked this place back into action.”

  “Didn’t lose too many customers, that’s true.”

  “Most are more loyal than ever, I’d say. Plus the tips’ve been great.” She grabbed a bag of whole-bean coffee and weighed it in her palm. “Think about it. You could’ve given up, but, no, you rose to the challenge. You’re Back-in-Black.”

  She nailed me in the chest with the bag.

  “Hey.” I looked into the dining area. “We have customers.”

  She glanced up from beneath dark eyelashes and put her finger to her lips in feigned remorse. “Sorry, boss.”

  “What’s got into you this morning?”

  “Well, you have been leaving me on my own quite a bit, so—”

  “Done a great job, by the way. Thanks.”

  “It’s just nice to have you around.”

  “Now you’re buttering me up. What do you want, Brianne?”

  “Can’t a girl have a little fun?”

  “Without trying to get something? No. Not from my experience.”

  “You’re a bitter old man.”

  “Twenty-seven is not old.”

  A smile played along her lips. The sun was shining through the front window, cocooning us in the morning’s warmth. Standing there in our ridiculous aprons amid the heat and the aroma of coffee, I felt a rush of attraction. Her gray blue eyes locked on to mine, holding me in place.

  “We should have dinner together,” she suggested.

  “Not a good idea.”

  “How about tonight?”

  “Can’t.”

  “Give me one good reason.”

  “We’ve got Johnny Ray packin’ the house at seven thirty.”

  “Tomorrow night then. I’ll cook calzone, my specialty.”

  “No, Brianne.”

  “You’re avoiding it, aren’t you?”

  “Avoiding? No, listen. We’re in a working relationship.”

  “So let’s work at it.”

  “I’m your boss. It’s not right.”

  “And I’m your only employee, so what’s it matter?”

  “What is with you college girls? What happened to subtlety? Used to be that the guys made the first move.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “All I did was mention dinner.”

  I retied my apron, turning toward the mahogany counter.

  “Anyway,” she added, “you are interested.”

  “Get to work. Make sandwiches for lunch. Clean the sinks. Anything.”

  “Your tattoos don’t fool me, Aramis. You’re afraid of your own emotions.”

  I looked back at her. “Listen. We shouldn’t be mixing our work and our private lives. I doubt Sammie would approve.”

  “Now I see.” Brianne blinked once. “It’s okay if it’s you and your boss.”

  “Hey. Wait.”

  She moved into the kitchen and started cutting ham into thin, precise slices.

  The chiming of the door pulled me away to meet the next customer. This tug and pull, this hesitation on my part—these are the reasons workplace relationships are unwise. I couldn’t even focus on my job.

  All that was forgotten when I saw the heavyset woman at my counter, her fleshy face recognizable from the Channel Two broadcast a week earlier. She wore a loose floral blouse over her wide frame, pleated slacks, and white nurse’s shoes.

  “Aramis Black. You know who I am, don’t you? Reckon we can talk?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “Didn’t make the drive down here for nothin’, now did I? Been a week today.”

  “Today,” I echoed.

  Mrs. Michaels let her violet eyes run over the counter, the tiled floor where her son had died, then back to my face. She teared up, raised a hand to her mouth, and nodded toward the entry.

  “Yes,” I said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  After tossing aside the green apron and informing Brianne that I was stepping out, I joined Mrs. Michaels on the sidewalk. Don’t ask how it happened. Within ten strides along Elliston Place, I’d taken the woman’s hand in mine.

  It felt natural. Necessary.

  We walked like that for the next five or ten minutes. A mother. A son. Cut through with grief, she clung to my hand so tightly I thought my bones would break. Her hips and tummy quivered with each step, and I watched approaching pedestrians move aside in veiled disgust.

  I thought she was beautiful.

  A woman without much education who’d raised seven children. She was someone to be honored and appreciated. She would not walk this earth forever, as I’d been reminded by Miss Eloise’s feeble form at the Rosewood table a few hours earlier.

  “I don’t hold nothin’ against you,” Mrs. Michaels told me. “I didn’t mean what I said. Weren’t the fault of you or no one else, what happened to my boy.”

  “I should’ve done something …”

  “Darrell, he just got hisself mixed up with the wrong sort. Can’t punish yourself over that, Mr. Black. He’s in the good Lord’s hands now.”

  “The killer should be brought to justice.”

  “Let’s keep walkin’,” Mrs. Michaels said. “Got some things I’d like to tell ya.”

  The cool shadows of Centennial Park’s magnolia trees welcomed us. The day was warm. I spotted ducks bobbing on the pond’s wind-feathered waters. Magnolias and dogwoods extended over the serpentine path where a pack of college students jogged, some old men played chess, and a bag lady inched along with a wooden cart and a dog on a rope.

  The dog strained to reach me as we passed, yipping, wiggling its body.

  “She’s just the cutest, ain’t she?” said Mrs. Michaels.

  “She knows me. We visit almost every morning on my way to work.” I freed my hand and waved. “Hey, Tina. Seen Freddy C?”

  Tina barely lifted her chin. Between her mumblings, she said, “Hard to find, by daylight’s glow. An owl flying at night, so low.”

  “Tell Freddy hi for me if
you see him. Tell him to swing by.”

  “Walking in alleys, rarely dallies.”

  “See you later.”

  As we continued on, Mrs. Michaels gave me a questioning look. “Not to be rude, but that woman don’t seem right. You say she lives in the park?”

  “Something like that. Rhymes are Tina’s thing, her trademark.”

  “Is she able to feed herself?” Spoken with concern.

  I nodded.

  “And that dog?”

  “They get by. I’ve brought stuff from home a time or two, but Tina prefers to scratch out a living on her own. She makes crafts, wall hangings, centerpieces from twigs and flowers. All sortsa stuff. Sells them when she can.”

  “Mighty respectable.”

  “And she always feeds her dog first.”

  “A good woman.” Mrs. Michaels looked back over her shoulder.

  “So.” I stopped to scoop up a stone. “You told me you wanted to talk.”

  “Mr. Black, I just plain don’t know how to start this off.”

  “Look, I’m skipping rocks. Just say what comes to mind.”

  “An awful lot on my mind these days, and that’s the Lord’s honest truth. But he don’t give us more than we can bear. Ain’t that so? He won’t allow it.”

  “Seems like he allows a lot of things. I don’t claim to understand.”

  She sighed. “My boy. Darrell.”

  I threw another stone, counted eight skips.

  “Darrell was trouble right from the get-go. My third child. A preemie. Not quite four pounds and able to fit right here in my hand. Like a little bird. We was livin’ in Memphis then, didn’t have no insurance, and that put us in a spot. His daddy started workin’ overtime, two jobs and some mechanical repairs on the side. Anything to get by—that’s what he done. We had two children already. The twins and the rest came later.” She watched my next throw. “Wasn’t no one’s fault, not really. But when his daddy started sellin’ dope, with his buddies at work and all, we thought we finally had ourselves a way out. Just long enough to get our heads above—that was the plan.”

  Five large skips. And a frightened duck. I looked up at Mrs. Michaels.

  “Darrell seen his daddy go to jail the first time when he was eight or nine. The second time, his daddy got eighteen years. Still there. Well, he was Darrell’s hero, and my boy weren’t never the same after that.” Mrs. Michaels shook her head and brought both hands to her neck so that bags of flesh wobbled on her arms’ undersides. “Yessir, he was his daddy’s shadow. That’s how it was from day one. He did just like him, followin’ his footsteps. The drugs. The jail time. All along, even when the judge was pointin’ that finger, I knowed he was a good kid. Heart big enough to go ‘round.”

  “He was cleaning up, wasn’t he?”

  “Hard to say. I moved here in ninety-eight, that house on Neely’s Bend. Old place, run-down, but a fenced yard for the young uns to play. Told Darrell he weren’t welcome bringin’ his crack hoes into my home. He was a charmer. Always had hisself a girl. Well, he comes knockin’ on my door one night, all the ways from Memphis. He’s in real trouble. Done got a man ready to kill him.”

  “Let me guess. A jealous husband.”

  “Coulda been. Didn’t ask, didn’t wanna know. I told him if he wants my help, he first needs to take hisself straight to the police and tell them what he done. Drugs and all. Get it off his chest and stop runnin’.”

  “I like your style.”

  “Helpin’ my boy—that’s all I had in mind.”

  “So he did it? Went to the cops?”

  “And he was sittin’ at my side come Sunday. A good kid, like I told you.”

  “Okay. He did time, got out, did the church thing, and straightened around.”

  “His PO was keepin’ an eye on him, said he been testin’ clean.”

  “Leroy Parker, right?”

  She huffed in agreement.

  “They said on the news that Parker suspected drug dealers in Darrell’s death. Do you think that’s true?”

  “Could be. Darrell had been tryin’ to keep clean. He was supposed to meet up that mornin’ with his PO. They’d been worryin’ themselves over some deal, some money-makin’ scheme. Darrell and Mr. Parker, they found somethin’, they said, a gift from above.” She noticed my expression. “ ’Tween you and me, Mr. Parker ain’t the shiniest penny in the jar. But he’s smart, yessir. He was keepin’ my boy occupied. Fact is, I think he made it up, the whole entire thing.”

  “You lost me, Mrs. Michaels. Made what up?”

  “Oh, this nonsense about gold bullion and Meriwether Lewis.”

  “As in Lewis and Clark?”

  “All a big secret, accordin’ to Mr. Parker. Don’t tell no one, he says. Well, plain as the nose on my face, it was hogwash. A lie to keep Darrell’s mind off them drugs and all. Seemed like a good thing. Until it went belly up on ’em.”

  “You don’t think he was telling the truth?”

  “Mr. Leroy Parker may be many things, but an honest man? No sir.”

  “So it was all a joke.”

  “A joke?” She cupped her hands over her belly and peered across the water. “Not now that my boy’s dead, it ain’t.”

  “Maybe there’s something to it, though.”

  “Not by my reckonin’. That Mr. Lewis, he’s been dead and buried two hundred years. The man took secrets to the grave, and all y’all would be better off not knowin’ what they were. Darrell ought never to have listened to Mr. Parker. I see that now. They was just askin’ for trouble when they started diggin’ up them ghosts.”

  “Ghosts,” I repeated.

  “That’s right.”

  “Can I ask a silly question?”

  “Don’t see hows it can hurt.”

  “Leroy Parker. Does he, by any chance, wear golfing visors?”

  She turned and gave me a curious stare. “Seen him wear orange for the Tennessee Vols, but come basketball season he’s a Tar Heels fan through and through. He puts on North Carolina blue.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  On stage Johnny Ray Black becomes a different person. He pulls down the brim of his Stetson, corralling that hair, shading his eyes above a glistening smile. He prowls—I swear that’s the best description—like a caged cat. Oh sure, he’s aware of crowd perception, but there’s no gimmick to it. No pretense. It’s still my brother up there—in amplified form.

  He’s the bigger, better, badder Johnny Ray. The man every woman wants to be with and every man wants to be.

  Black’s had never seen so many customers. Advertisements in the Scene and All the Rage had paid off, and fliers distributed by a dedicated street team added numbers to our gathering.

  Sammie was here, radiant in a fitted, white, sleeveless dress. Her auburn hair brushed against her smooth back as she allowed me to give her a gentlemanly hug.

  “She likes you,” Brianne said.

  “No. That’s Sammie’s style, just being polite.”

  “What about you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Would you be so polite as to join me for calzone tomorrow night?”

  “Didn’t we settle this already? Get another pot brewing, please.”

  The first set kicked off at seven thirty. All original tunes.

  Freddy C ambled in midway but disappeared before I could speak with him. He still owed me an explanation for his concern.

  Johnny Ray started strong. The audience latched on and stayed with him. By the third song, he was singing with his heart on his sleeve, his mouth brushing the microphone as he held a fist to his chest.

  “Where’d I go so wrong … in tryin’ to do things right?

  “I’m winnin’ the war, that may be true … but still I’m losin’ this fight.”

  The crowd followed him, note for note.

  “When I’m comin’ through the back door … why does a cold front chill my bones?

  “Our love was a thing of beauty … but our house, it ain’t a home.

 
“So I’m askin’ …”

  He held out the microphone, and the crowd repeated his cry: “I’m asking …”

  “Where’d I go so wrong … in tryin’ to do things right?”

  Nashville music fans are jaded and educated. They dip their toes into the waters of blues and rock, punk and reggae, country and hip-hop. On any given night, you’ll find live music in this town; oftentimes, accomplished musicians play for a pittance, just to sharpen their chops.

  It’s a running joke that there are no real Nashvillians in Music City. To find a true born-and-bred is to rub shoulders with nostalgia. This place has seen it all. And yet, beneath the surface, there remains a little-brother stigma—always one step behind LA and New York City. Always trying to catch up, to earn respect.

  Maybe that’s why I feel comfortable here.

  There I stood, the little brother—and hugely proud—taking orders, making drinks, cleaning tables, directing the man at the mixing board to add more bass. As if I had the slightest inkling about sound dynamics.

  I just knew I wanted to feel it in my bones.

  Although cutting edge and heartfelt, Johnny Ray’s songs pay homage to the Nashville sound, with mandolins and fiddles and an upright bass providing texture. I saw a couple of my older patrons tapping toes and nodding heads. Dad was clapping his hands in rapt approval.

  Twenty-somethings made up the majority of the crowd. They were less demonstrative, more interested in each other. But they were here. That said a lot.

  Johnny Ray: “So I’m askin’ …”

  Audience: “I’m askin’ …”

  I joined in: “Where’d I go so wrong … in tryin’ to do things right?”

  Johnny Ray never discusses his lyrics, convinced that each listener should enjoy the songs on a personal level. He says if he tells where the lyrics come from, he’ll jinx it. Suck out all the magic.

  Maybe he’s right.

  Tonight I didn’t want the song’s inspiration interfering with my interpretation. I could feel those words down in my bones.

  Where’d I go so wrong … in tryin’ to do things right?