Although she did not want people to know it, Tot had a heart of gold and would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. That was the main reason she was so tired all the time. After working in the shop all day and on weekends she would pack up her kit and go over to all the older ladies’ homes and fix their hair for them. Most were either sick or bedridden and could not pay but Tot did not care. She said as long as her fingers could move no lady she knew was going to do without her weekly shampoo and set.
And as much as she complained about Darlene and Dwayne Jr., she let them have just about anything they wanted and baby-sat her grandchildren anytime they asked, which, unfortunately, was often.
The Hunting Trip
HAMM HAD BEEN campaigning for president for only a few months but already Hamm (“Tell It Like It Is”) Sparks had become a big thorn in the side of a lot of people. Once more he was making powerful enemies in his own party, only this time on a national level. What had started out as a fly-by-night, grassroots campaign was suddenly not so funny and could no longer be dismissed. Besides, his poor English and backwoods manner were an embarrassment to the elite East Coast Harvard and Yale, pipe-and-tweed Democrats in Washington and elsewhere. They also believed that his radical, black-and-white, take-no-prisoners brand of politics was dangerous for them and for the country. The powers that be called him in and tried to reason with him, get him to step down for the good of the party, but Hamm was like a dog with a bone. He would not withdraw and if they threw him out they knew he might run on an independent ticket and take the votes with him anyway.
On December 31 Dorothy’s first New Year’s resolution was the same as last year:
1. Lose ten pounds.
On December 31 Minnie Oatman sat down at the small table on the big silver bus that was headed for a New Year’s Day gospel sing in Bloomington, Illinois, and wrote out her same old resolution:
1. Lose fifty pounds.
Tot Whooten wrote out her yearly resolution, as she had for the past seven years, only this time she stuck it on the refrigerator:
1. Do not loan Darlene or Dwayne Jr. another dime.
But across the country a new resolution appeared on the top of a lot of people’s lists that year:
1. Get rid of Hamm Sparks.
They did not write it down but they thought it.
He gained momentum every day. They knew Hamm could never have the numbers to win the election—he was too much of a wild card—but now even the Republicans were beginning to worry. To their utmost irritation, Hamm was quietly receiving thousands of dollars from a lot of big-money supporters that should have been going to their man. Both parties were afraid of his growing popularity. Despite the fact that all the newspapers, magazines, and national television network news shows were either ignoring him or ridiculing him, he gained on them every day. Something had to be done; if he continued on with this momentum he was going to upset the election for everyone.
Some of the people who supported Hamm financially did not want it known. And there were some people he was willing to take money from that he did not want known.
Rodney was contacted by Mr. Anthony Leo, the man who had given Hamm The Betty Raye eight years before, and was told there was a friend of his in New Orleans who might be willing to contribute a lot of money under the table. But he wanted to talk to Hamm about who he was considering running as vice president before he committed.
Hamm agreed to a meeting. Both he and the man felt that for privacy reasons it would be best for them to meet on the man’s yacht in New Orleans. When the time was right, Hamm blocked out a weekend. Unfortunately, it was the same weekend he had promised Betty Raye he was going to come back to Jefferson City and spend with her. She had been so looking forward to it, not only because she missed him but also because she had so many questions to ask. That Friday morning, he called from Jackson, Mississippi, and informed her he would not be coming home because he and the boys had decided to go on a hunting trip instead. He said they would have to fly out of Jackson on Monday to another speech and he was not sure when he could get back. When Betty Raye hung up she was almost in tears.
Alberta Peets, who had been in the room, saw how upset Betty Raye was and went over and put her arm around her. “Them mens better stop treating you so mean while I’m around ’cause they liable to get me all riled up again. . . . They need to remember what happened to the last one who did that.”
Wendell Hewitt and Seymour Gravel had called and told their wives the same thing. As far as Hamm and the boys were concerned, it was not too much of a lie. They were hunting for money. Since the press was dogging his every move and it was a tricky situation, the trip to New Orleans had to be very carefully coordinated. After much plotting and map studying, Rodney Tillman had come up with the plan. Since Hamm was already in Jackson for a speech, Rodney would go back to Missouri a few days before and pick up The Betty Raye and meet them near the Mississippi-Louisiana state line, at the boathouse of a relative of Mr. Leo’s, and then take them on to New Orleans via the Mississippi River. In order for them to get to the boat without anyone seeing them, Cecil Figgs was to pick them up at the motel at four A.M. in an old hearse he would borrow from the back lot of one of his Kansas City mortuaries and drive them down to meet Rodney at the boat. Although it was uncomfortable, no one followed them or saw Hamm and Wendell crouched in the back with the curtains drawn. They stashed the hearse in the bushes about a half mile from the spot on the river where they were to meet The Betty Raye and walked the rest of the way. When they were all aboard they laughed all the way down the Mississippi, thinking how clever they had been.
Cecil had no idea what the meeting was about, nor did he care. He was just along for the ride. When they pulled into the dock in New Orleans and tied up beside the seventy-five-foot yacht where the meeting with Mr. Leo’s friend was to take place, Cecil made plans of his own in the French Quarter. Besides, who cared about politics when there were so many pretty boys in the world and Mother was miles away and nobody at home knew where he was? What fun. He almost skipped off the boat. Oh joy!
HAMM SPARKS, FOUR OTHERS MISSING—FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED
BY TUESDAY MORNING every headline and radio and television in America screamed the same thing.
By Tuesday afternoon there were dozens of newsmen and television cameras on the front lawn of the governor’s mansion, with hundreds more on the way. David Brinkley’s lead on the NBC nightly news was one sentence: “Controversial presidential candidate Hamm Sparks, along with four other men, including the Missouri attorney general, seems to have literally disappeared over the weekend. The question is, Where did they go?”
It was a genuine mystery. The state police, the district attorney’s office, the FBI had been called in and soon were all stumped. All they had been able to find out so far was that the last time any of the men had been seen was Friday night, and Monday morning none of them had showed up where they were supposed to be.
Hamm had been scheduled to address an auditorium full of six thousand AFL-CIO members in Grand Rapids and Cecil was to have taken his mother to the eye doctor that morning. Something was seriously wrong. The FBI questioned everyone for days. Seymour and Wendell’s wives had been told the exact same story—their husbands were going on a hunting trip. Rodney’s ex-wife knew nothing because they were not living together but she did mention to the press that Rodney owed her back alimony. The only odd thing was that Cecil had left his mother, Mrs. Ursa Figgs, a note saying he was on a business trip but would be back to take her to the eye doctor. He was the only one of the missing men who did not mention hunting. Being that he was not the hunting type, they could not be positive if he was with the other men or not, but because they’d all disappeared at the same time it could only be assumed. In the meantime, Betty Raye was walking around in a daze, trying her best to keep the two boys calm and keep them away from the press.