What Happened on Beale Street Read online

  The musician stretched out his hand. “Tyrone Biggs. Thanks for coming to Jimmy’s Downunder. Me and the boys have been playing together a while now.” He angled his head toward the stage.

  Nate got the feeling that Tyrone Biggs had seen and heard more than the average man. The moment they locked gazes, Nate knew he couldn’t fool him about anything. “We’re in town for a funeral. Our friend and her brother.” Nate nodded at Isabelle. “He recently died. Since he played the blues, we’re here to honor him before going back home.”

  “Danny played the saxophone, just like him,” said Isabelle, pointing at a shaved-headed musician talking to a group of women.

  “You’re Danny Andre’s sister?” asked Tyrone.

  “I am. Did you know my brother?” Two large tears ran down Isabelle’s face.

  “Yeah, and I’m real sorry ’bout what happened. He sat in with us once or twice. Nothing too regular, though.” Tyrone pulled up an empty chair.

  Unfortunately, Nicki took this opportunity to make her presence known. “We’re hoping to talk to other stand-in sax players. Maybe some of them were friends of Danny’s.”

  Tyrone thought for a bit and then rattled off three names. “I can’t think of anybody else not hooked up with a regular gig.” He waved over the waitress, ordered a beer, and told her to put it on Nate’s tab.

  Nicki jotted the names on a napkin and tucked the list in her purse. “Did any of them need work even more than Danny?”

  Tyrone glared at Nicki as though he suffered a case of indigestion. “Anybody here look independently wealthy to you, lady? This ain’t no hobby for us.”

  “No, but I want to know if someone had a grudge against my best friend,” Nicki shot back at him fearlessly.

  “You tryin’ to hang this on a sax player? You’re barking up the wrong tree. I heard they arrested some junkie uptown.” The tension between Nicki and Tyrone could be sliced with a knife.

  Isabelle touched the musician’s sleeve. “We just want to speak to them, Mr. Biggs. Please,” she added softy.

  Tyrone focused his bloodshot eyes on her. “Then you should talk to Leon Perkins. He weren’t as good as your brother, so every time Danny got work, Leon went home with empty pockets. Far as I know, he still lives in the projects on the east side.” He rose to his feet just as the waitress delivered his beer. “My sympathies, Miss Andre.” He bobbed his head. “And thanks for the brew,” he said to Nate. Nicki he ignored.

  That hadn’t been the most subtle approach at interrogation, but it had gotten the job done. Nate had a suspect.

  Wednesday morning, Nicki munched on a cold bagel and broke an orange into sections. The neighborhood grocery didn’t have fluffy croissants, and the packaged cheese had looked far too brightly colored to be natural. However, her financial outlay was far less than a twenty-eight-dollar room service bill added to Hunter’s tab.

  Apparently, their night out on Beale Street had been a complete success. All Nate did was talk about everything that happened and repeat every word said, especially those uttered by Isabelle. If Nicki didn’t know better, she would think her cousin had a crush on Danny’s sister. Izzy had certainly loosened up quite a bit since their initial meeting. From her clandestine surveillance, Nicki spotted Izzy glancing at Nate when she thought he wasn’t looking—and vice versa. Yet Nicki knew nothing would come out of this. She and Nate would soon be heading south while Izzy remained here in the land of the Delta blues. Long distance relationships seldom worked.

  Nate was also thrilled to get the names of other sax players. He planned to track down Leon Perkins today. Unfortunately, he had refused to let her tag along. Nate said the public housing described by the Blues Nation bandleader was no place for ladies to go. He apparently forgot why she was here, along with the fact her mother lived in subsidized housing in Natchez.

  Not everyone in this world was rich… or even remotely middle class.

  Nicki had seen poverty her entire life, from the soles of her shoes up to the tarpaper patches on Mamaw’s roof. She wouldn’t have been shocked or afraid.

  Instead, she was trapped in her luxury suite waiting for Nicholas Bennett to return her call. The lawyer hadn’t been quite so polite when she called the first thing this morning. Perhaps it was because she forgot to use Clotilde’s accent. More likely it was because she started rambling about expensive gems.

  “Tell me again who you represent, Miss Price.”

  “Mr. Henry Prescott, a retired bellman of the Carlton Hotel. Mr. Prescott knew your grandparents, Horace and Betsy, during the fifties and considered them friends.”

  Nicholas made a dismissive click of his tongue. “Even so, both of them have passed on. Any sort of reunion would be impossible.”

  “I understand that, sir. But I’m piecing together the scavenger hunts for Henry in case other participants are still living. Because Horace and Betsy won in 1957, they would have planned the next year’s event. Do you know who won the 1958 hunt?”

  “I haven’t the least idea,” Mr. Bennett said, sighing wearily.

  “What about the prizes your grandparents won? Any idea what kind of matching jewelry they found hidden inside the hotel?”

  “What exactly is this bellman after? Some kind of claim on my grandparents’ estate over a scavenger hunt prize?” His tone of boredom morphed into distrust.

  “Absolutely not. He and I only wish to locate any surviving participants. I’m curious about the prizes only so I can piece together the past for Mr. Prescott. You have my word.”

  Of course, the word of a stranger might not be worth much.

  Mr. Bennett seemed to be pondering the matter. “If I have time this morning, I’ll call my mother to see if she remembers anything about this. She assisted with their estate.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Nicki supplied her cell number again but had little hope of hearing from him.

  Sometimes, however, people surprised you in delightful ways. Two hours later, after watching several reruns of Petticoat Junction and finishing one hundred sit-ups, Nicki’s phone rang.

  “Miss Price? Nicholas Bennett. I have only a minute, but my mother remembered the scavenger hunts you referred to. My grandmother won a sapphire pendant, while Granddad won a sapphire tiepin. Rather lovely stones, she recalls. Grandma was so fond of her prize she insisted she be buried wearing it. No clue what happened to his. Maybe Granddad lost it.”

  “Did she mention anything about who might have won the following year? Your grandparents would have planned the next hunt and purchased the prizes.”

  “I asked, but the only other thing she knows was that the sapphires were found in a decorative vase on the fireplace mantle. Apparently, this porcelain vase was in the library, a gentleman’s meeting place to enjoy a cigar. The room was off-limits for women in those days. But Grandma got an inkling based on a clue given at dinner and sneaked into the room during the middle of the night. That’s all I can tell you, Miss Price. Please don’t call me again.”

  “I won’t, sir, and thank you very much.”

  Nicki’s gratitude went unheard because the busy man had already hung up. Undaunted, she jotted down the pertinent information on a chart she was constructing for Henry. She’d begun this quest due to boredom and a desire to make a sweet old man happy. But now that she was convinced the last set of jewels was still somewhere in the hotel, she couldn’t wait for the next sleuthing opportunity. Finding them and returning them to the rightful owner could make someone very happy.

  However, right now she should call Izzy. Maybe Nate didn’t need her, but her friend did. Venturing into Danny’s world had been a rude awakening for both of them. Nate seemed unmoved by the dark, smoky, cavernous club, but she had been shocked. Nicki didn’t think smoking was allowed in any public places, but clubs that didn’t admit those under twenty-one were exempt from the law as long as they didn’t have full restaurant menus. Nicki had to send her favorite blazer to the dry cleaners and shampoo her hair twice to get the smell of smoke out of i
t.

  But it wasn’t just drinking and smoking that made Beale Street an odd place for a former choirboy to work. Although the music had been the best blues she’d ever heard, she’d sensed desperation among the musicians. Apparently, the take-home pay and retirement benefits left much to be desired. Danny had been one of them. He loved the blues. So for his sake, Nicki hoped Nate was wrong about one of his peers being a killer.

  EIGHTEEN

  Musicians stayed up until the early hours of morning and then slept late the next day. Nate tried to spend his morning hours productively with emails and expense reports, yet like a lemming he found himself in the car on his way to Isabelle’s. After seeing nothing out of the ordinary at her condo, he drove to her realty office in the center of town to check on her. Even though the Germantown police had put her building on their nightly patrol, he still worried about her. Men like Markham were unpredictable. And that made him nervous.

  Spotting her car in the employee lot behind the building, Nate relaxed and headed back toward Memphis. When he reached the outskirts of downtown, he punched the last known address of Leon Perkins into the car’s GPS. According to the helpful bandleader, Tyrone Biggs, Perkins lived on the east side, close to the zoo. Nate had checked public records for the correct street and unit number.

  City streets in need of repair, barricaded doorways and boarded up windows of foreclosures, and weedy yards neglected by absent landlords indicated he’d reached the less fortunate residents of Shelby County. Nate parked on a narrow street clogged with vehicles in various states of disrepair. It wasn’t until he had stepped out of the car that he began to doubt the wisdom of visiting the musician alone. If Perkins was the killer, he was walking into his house without anyone knowing his whereabouts. He could wash up on the riverbank in the same spot as Danny. Nate released the safety on his weapon and cautiously approached the concrete block building. Fortunately, no one on the street paid him much mind.

  A young woman of about twenty-five answered his knock on the door. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for Leon Perkins. Is he home?”

  “What you want?” The woman seemed more curious than suspicious. “He owe you money? We ain’t got it if that’s the case.”

  “No, nothing like that. I want to talk to him about a friend of mine—”

  “Charlene, you go on in the kitchen. I got this.” A young man, muscular and multi-tattooed, moseyed into the room. Nate had never before seen anyone slouch while they walked.

  “I’m Leon Perkins. Who are you and what do you want?” He lifted his chin with an air of authority.

  “I’m Nate Price, a friend of Danny Andre’s. Could I come in for a minute and talk?”

  “You got a warrant?”

  “I’m not a cop, so that would be no.”

  Perkins studied him with deeply hooded eyes and then shrugged. “Come on in. I ain’t got nothing to hide. Just don’t go wandering around. A man’s home is his castle.” He strolled toward the recliner facing the TV.

  “Thanks,” Nate said, stepping into the tidy room. Although none of the furniture was new and the decor wouldn’t make Southern Living magazine, it looked like a family who respected what they owned lived here. A laundry basket filled with stuffed animals and an infant swing next to the couch indicated Leon and Charlene were parents. “I understand you play the sax, just like Danny.” Nate perched on the sofa but didn’t settle in.

  “Who told you that?” Leon crossed his arms and glared.

  “Tyrone Biggs.” Nate watched the kitchen door from the corner of his eye.

  Leon uttered a foul word and rolled his eyes. “Biggs. That guy just won’t give it a rest. You want to know who whacked your friend and threw him in the river, and Biggs sends you here?”

  He started to repeat the foul verbiage until a child about four years old bolted into the room. The boy wore Hercules pajama bottoms, but he had apparently escaped before his mother could put his shirt on him. With a baby on her hip, Charlene entered hot on her son’s tail.

  “Come here, you.” Leon swept up the giggling child and set him on his knee. “Who you runnin’ from?”

  “He’s slippery as an eel.” Charlene tossed Leon the pajama top and then tucked the baby into the swing.

  “What’s your son’s name?” asked Nate. “You have a pair of real cute kids.”

  “Isaiah, straight from the Bible.” Leon pulled the shirt over the boy’s head. “And we got three. One’s in school.” He cranked the handle on the swing to start the rocking motion and turned back to Nate. “Is that it, Price? You think I killed Danny Andre? Why would I do that?”

  Nate tried to think of a safe answer but came up empty. “Tyrone thinks Danny took good paying gigs that could have been yours.”

  “That’s… ” Leon glanced at Charlene and reconsidered. “That’s baloney.”

  “Tyrone said Danny may have been a better sax player.” Nate expected Perkins to balk or argue the assertion. With the man’s wife and children in the room, he went out on a limb.

  Leon’s nostrils flared, but he kept his composure. “Danny was better than me. I ain’t gonna lie about it. But Danny ain’t why I don’t get my fair share of work on Beale.”

  Nate’s surprise must have shown on his face. “So Danny really was good?”

  Leon snorted. “Funny how Andre was supposed to be your friend, but it sounds like you never heard him play.”

  Nate felt a flush climb his neck. “I lost touch with him a while ago. I’m trying to make up for that now.”

  “It’s a little late, don’t you think? He was every bit as good as the sax player in Blues Nation, but that guy has worked for Biggs a long time. You don’t fix something that ain’t broke.” Leon set the boy on the floor, who took off down the hallway at lightning speed. “I didn’t have no beef with Danny. Fact is, I liked the guy. Just about everybody did. He gave work to me a couple times when I had rent due or a sick kid. Besides, I got an alibi for when Danny was killed. I was in Mobile for a few days with my family.”

  Charlene huffed. “You’d better give him the address where we stayed so you don’t get locked up for no good reason.” She hurried down the hall after Isaiah.

  Leon rolled his eyes after she left the room. “Looks like you’re wasting your time talkin’ to me.”

  “Starting to sound that way. Got any idea why Biggs sent me here?”

  Leon’s face filled with hatred. “Biggs is the reason I don’t get my share of gigs. He badmouths me every chance he gets. Says I steal from the tip jar when nobody’s looking. He’s the one who goes from table to table, pocketing whatever he can shake down folks for.”

  Nate remembered seeing Biggs slip the hundred into his pocket real fast. Maybe he didn’t plan to share with the band at the end of the night.

  “I ain’t no thief!” Leon pounded his fist on the sofa.

  “I believe you, Mr. Perkins. Not that it does much good.” Nate rose to his feet. “Thanks for talking to me. And I appreciate what you said about Danny’s music. For the rest of my life I’ll regret not hearing him play.” He was halfway to the door before he stopped in his tracks. “You said almost everybody loved Danny. You know somebody who didn’t?”

  Leon frowned. “Why would I jam up somebody based on nothing? That’s what Biggs tried to do to me.”

  “You said Danny was a nice guy. Anyway, I’m not a cop. You’re not jamming up anybody.”

  “Tell him about Jimmy Watts.” Charlene said from the kitchen doorway.

  “Ain’t you got something to do, woman?” he snapped at her. “This is my business.” With another roll of his eyes he looked at Nate. “Jimmy hated Danny. He thought Danny was some rich boy hanging out in the slums like it was spring break at the beach.”

  “Because Danny was white?”

  “Nah, because Danny passed up work and loaned money to just about anybody. I told Jimmy that Danny worked with junkies out of some church basement, and that made him even madder. He s
aid he hated do-gooders even more than rich kids playing poor.”

  “Danny didn’t have two dimes to rub together from the day he was born.”

  “I know that. But you just can’t tell some folks nothin’.”

  “Know where I can find this Jimmy Watts?” Nate asked, inadvertently holding his breath.

  “I ain’t got an address for the guy, but if I wanted to talk to him—which I don’t—I’d hang around the Blues City Club. If a band needs a stand-in at the last minute, they can usually find one there.” Perkins’s expression turned hard as nails. “And that’s the last thing I’m gonna say to you, Price.”

  At least Nate now had somewhere to go.

  Isabelle spent the entire day in a daze. It was a good thing that she had no houses to show or she might have tried to sell a one-bedroom loft to a family of six. She kept replaying the previous evening with Nicki and Nate in her head.

  Nate turned out to be nothing like what she had originally assumed—an arrogant, sexist jock concerned solely with sports or what others thought of him. Although he still loved the Mississippi State Bulldogs and the New Orleans Saints, he didn’t seem to have an egotistical bone in his body. He wasn’t afraid to show his softer, gentler side either. Nate had been as touched by the unforgettable music as she had been. Why else would he tip the band so generously? He’d tried to hide the bill’s denomination, but details seldom escaped Isabelle’s eagle eye.

  How could she not like a man who loved the blues like Danny?

  But Nate wasn’t the only thing distracting her. Seeing Danny’s fellow musicians in a venue where he had worked was a rude awakening. Whenever he had talked about playing his saxophone, she pictured a small auditorium or a cozy coffeehouse with a raised center stage. Seeing Jimmy’s Downunder up close and personal erased all images of chamber orchestras from her mind. Although tourists made up the majority of the club’s patrons, Isabelle hadn’t been prepared for the amount of alcohol being consumed or the rowdy behavior from some guests. It was hard to picture her sweet brother hanging out there. Whether or not Nate learned anything helpful from the names supplied by the guitar player, Isabelle was glad he’d called her. Beale Street, like the New Horizons Outreach Center, had been Danny’s world. How heartbreaking she hadn’t known her brother better when she had the chance.