I put down the coffee. “Tell him it’s about Sons of the South.”
Stewart laughed. He combed through his wet gray hair with his fingers and kept laughing. “That’s it? You want to tell us that Elias Nix is in with those nutcases? Don’t you read the paper? Hell, he brags about it.”
“Listen, let’s quit fucking around. All right? See that young lady over there? Her parents were murdered a few weeks ago. I found a hell of a lot of personal letters at her house that shows her dad was working for Sons of the South when he died, at Nix’s instruction. If I were a cop and I learned about that, I’d want to talk to him.”
Stewart scratched his goatee. “Let me see the letters.”
“Let me see Russell.”
“Shit. He’s running for governor in an election that’s two weeks away. He’s at a rally in Memphis right now with another scheduled for later tonight. He has television appearances and speeches. Don’t you read the paper? Besides, I’m sure whatever unfortunate thing happened to this girl’s parents is being appropriately looked into. Who are you anyway?”
Abby spoke up: “Friend of the family.”
I smiled. “It will be worth his time. Besides, wouldn’t he want to know before reading it in the paper?”
“What?”
“What’s in the letters. A whole box of them, from Nix himself.”
Stewart stood and left the room for several minutes. When he returned his face was reddened and he seemed a little more jumpy. He chewed at his cheek and twisted in his seat before finally leaning across the table. “If this is some kind of bullshit, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
T wo-and-a-half hours later, Jude Russell walked through the hunting lodge’s oak door and shook the rain from his slicker and removed a wide-brimmed hat. He was younger than I expected, or just seemed younger. Slender boyish face with a lot of lines through his deeply tanned skin. He had thin brownish-gray hair and amber-brown eyes. He wore frayed jeans and beaten work boots that he slipped out of at the front door. He smiled to everyone seated in the kitchen as he padded in and opened a mammoth stainless-steel refrigerator searching for a beer. He found one and came back to the head of the table where he propped up his bare feet, smiled again at everyone seated around him, and said, “Now what the hell is all this about?”
The room had a pleasant energy as most places do during a storm. It felt good just being inside as a true shitstorm pounded the trees outside and batted the hell out of the windows.
“Hey, wait. Royal? Tell Rance to go get Muddy out of the pen and bring him here. Hell. So, what is this all about? Who are you?”
I introduced myself and Abby. I briefly told him about Abby’s parents – trying to get through it without too many details – and how we believed that Nix was connected.
“So why come to me?”
“We want to know about him.”
“You want to know if he’s just a good ole boy or a fuckin’ – excuse me – Nazi,” Russell said as a fat Lab came into the room shaking its wet coat and rested its snout in his lap. Russell rubbed his head and picked up a towel to dry the dog.
“Who is he and who are the Sons of the South?” I asked.
“Christ. I drove about an hour out of my way and am gonna have to haul ass back to some rubber-chicken dinner tonight because you want to know about my opponent? Shit, Royal, way you were talkin’ made it sound like this boy might have pictures of Nix screwin’ a goat.”
Everyone around the table laughed except Royal, who looked a little pissed. Russell tossed the towel on the ground and leaned back in his chair. He placed his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling.
“Letters?”
In the rain, Royal and I walked back to my truck for the papers we’d found at Abby’s. And for the next thirty minutes after we returned, we sat around and read useless memos and congratulatory messages from Nix to Abby’s dad. I knew she felt invaded and uncomfortable, and I was sorry for that. But I also knew this was the only way to get him to talk.
“Well,” he began. “You want to tell me your deal in all this, partner?”
“I’m a friend of the family.”
“How’d you know her father?”
“I didn’t.”
Abby said, “He’s my friend.”
Russell was good, an old poker-player type who could watch a man’s face and see what was clicking behind the facade. But I was pretty damned good, too, and stared right back. JoJo had taught me well.
“She hire you?” he asked.
“No.”
“What do you do, Travers?”
“Loaf.”
He laughed.
“I teach blues history at Tulane.”
“No kidding,” he said, a big smile crossing his lips. “Been to the Sunflower Festival, I’m sure.”
“Yep.”
“You know we’re not too far from the Stovall plantation where Muddy made that record for that man with the Library of Congress.”
“Alan Lomax.”
“You know him?”
“I met him once in D.C.”
“He still around? I bet he’s got some stories goin’ back into Clarksdale in the day when white folks kept to their side of town.”
“He’s in Florida. Been pretty sick.”
Russell had gotten me way off subject. I was used to people answering questions with a question or trying to angle the conversation so they could learn about you. That kind of talk usually came from oily record company types who got pissed when I asked them about royalties for some of the blues players I’ve worked with. But this was different, Russell seemed to have a genuine interest in the history of the Delta and had apparently done more than just read a few liner notes.
The politician scratched the ears of his big dog and finished off his beer. He offered me one and I refused.
“So,” I said, trying to get back to Nix. “Is he a Nazi?”
Russell clenched his jaw and rubbed his bare feet together. One foot was bruised and swollen purple around the big toe. He looked over at Royal and the older man shrugged. Apparently he did more than just look out for the place. He was an adviser of some sort.
I smiled for a minute. I’d bullshitted my way into a lot of things, mainly to find musicians or people who owed them money. But here I was sitting with the man who could be the next governor of Tennessee and I had to keep smiling. My ole tracker mentor would be damned proud. Rule one: You can bullshit your way through anything.
A maid placed a silver tray of pickles, salami, cheese, and sausage in the middle of the table. We all took a few things off the tray and sat back while Russell seemed to contemplate me.
“Is she one of your students?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“So what does this have to do with blues?”
I thought about telling him about Clyde James and Loretta and my time in Memphis and the casino and everything leading up to the meeting. But it was one of those things that I knew would only make him more suspicious. It was better to keep it clean. Friend of the family. New information on Nix.
“She’s a friend, man. I don’t know what to tell you. The Oxford police aren’t listening to her and we wanted to know more about Nix and the Sons of the South.”
“And you thought, ‘Let’s just knock on the door of ole Jude’?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
He studied my face again.
“Well, nothin’ I can tell you can get me in trouble. I tell some of the media, ones I can trust, the same thing. First off, if you tell someone else what I say I’ll deny it. Not ’cause it’s not the truth but because it could get me sued.”
He sighed. Rain pattering on the metal roof the only sound in the room.
“Sons of the South is dangerous as hell and Nix’s connection to them scares me for our state. You care about blues and the heritage of black folks around here? Nix doesn’t see that. The South is white. The music. The culture.”
“Celtic.”
“Yep,” he said, pointing the nose of his empty beer at me. “Exactly. Their favorite word.”