'It's cold and it looks like rain.'
'Then we better run fast.'
thirteen
WE avoided the reporters, but not the Memphis police. Detectives Young and Lacey were less than thrilled at our choice of activity when they tracked us down. I'd been wondering when we'd be hearing from them. I was only surprised they hadn't called the hotel and told us to get our asses down to the station.
They had on their London Fogs, their gloves, and their scarves. Lacey looked morose but resigned. Young looked resentful. Come to find out when we jogged over to them, Young had a cold. In the middle of her narrow face, her reddened nose stood out like a reindeer's, and she had a tissue clutched in the hand not occupied with an umbrella.
'Are you nuts?' she snarled. 'Out here in your skintight whatevers, when it's freezing!' She made a vague gesture toward my running pants. I ran in place for a minute, slowing down gradually. I felt cold and wet, but I also felt exhilarated, as if the chilly damp air had blown away some of the cobwebs in my head.
'I guess you want to talk to us about something?' Tolliver was doing some stretching, and I saw that Detective Young's eyes had strayed to his ass. Lacey said quickly, 'Yes, ma'am, we sure do. Do you two want to come down to the station with us? At least it's dry and warm.'
'I definitely don't want to go to the station,' I said. 'Isn't there a coffee shop somewhere close? Unless you're going to arrest us, going to a cafe would be a lot nicer. Maybe they'd have hot chocolate?' I was deliberately tempting poor Young, who sneezed twice in succession and applied her damp wad of tissues to her raw nose.
'There's that place on Poplar,' she said to her partner, who looked indecisive. 'Remember how good their pie is?' she said, in a heavy-handed attempt at a bribe.
It worked like a charm.
Thirty minutes later we were in a restaurant so warm that the windows were steamy, with coffee in front of the men, hot chocolate in front of Detective Young and me. Lacey was happy as a pig in a wallow with a piece of pecan pie with whipped topping on a plate in front of him, and Young was almost weeping with relief at being indoors.
'Agent Koenig tells us you've heard the news about Clyde Nunley,' she said, her voice sounding nasal but at least human.
We nodded. 'He came by our room this morning and told us,' I said, wanting to be as honest as possible. I always try.
'Rick Goldman came by the station, too,' Young said, after he swallowed. He looked blissful. 'Rick was telling us that he had a run-in with Nunley in the lobby of your hotel, Ms. Connelly.'
'Yes, that's true. He ended up propelling Dr. Nunley out the door. Truthfully, I think Dr. Nunley was drunk. He was very belligerent.' I hoped I looked as frank and open as I was trying to be.
'You're not the only person who's commented on that. We'll find out what his blood alcohol level was. What beef did he have with you?' Young asked. Maybe her cold medication was making her blunt, or maybe she was just tired of do-si-doing around.
'He thought that somehow, despite all his precautions, I'd gotten into his precious private records and memorized the COD on all the burials. Goldman accused me of the same thing.'
'And did you do that?'
'No, I don't need to. I'm the real deal.'
There was a moment of silence, while the detectives either thought that over, or dismissed it as another piece of chicanery on my part.
'Did you two go out again last night?' asked Young directly. 'After Mr. Lang here came back from wandering Beale Street?' Detective Lacey put down his fork and gave us a look that might have penetrated steel.
'Yes, we did,' Tolliver said. After all, we'd gotten the car from the valet. There was no way we could deny it.
'Where did you go?'
'We drove down to look at Graceland,' Tolliver said. I blinked. What a good lie. Almost any tourist in Memphis would want to at least drive by Elvis's home. And since we'd just told Koenig we'd been looking at the sights of Memphis, this tied right in. Actually, we'd looked up Graceland on the laptop this morning after Koenig had left, so we'd at least have an idea what we were supposed to have seen.
'At night?'
'Yeah, we didn't have anything else to do. And we weren't sure if we'd ever be back this way again. So we drove down to Whitehaven, and we took a couple of passes in front of it. That's some place. You gotta love the gates.'
'And you're not going to go back and see it in the daylight, tour the house?'
'He's buried on-site, right?' I asked.
'Uh… yeah. And Vernon and Gladys, his mom and dad, and Minnie May, his grandma.'
'No.' I shook my head definitely. 'I really, really, wouldn't want to do that.'
Detective Young sucked at her teeth. She looked as though she were feeling a bit better, now that she was warm and had finished her hot chocolate. Her short brown hair still looked lank and tired, but her eyes were showing a spark of spirit. Her partner had that happy look that sugar-loving men get after they've had something especially rich. But the pie hadn't made him smarter.
'Why not?' he asked now. 'Why not go see the place they're buried?'
