“What was her real name?” I asked Serras.
“Doris Mickel.”
I reached for the sheet and drew it up over her face.
Serras smoothed a wrinkle in the sheet, then slid Della/Doris back before stepping away from her. If he’d been the pencil-pushing type bucking for Administration, I’d have written the gesture off as anal. But it being not even noon yet and already too long a day, I decided to allow myself the delusion this cop might really care what happened to a twenty-seven-year-old stripper with a violet choker and green bruises for eye shadow.
“Got any other thoughts on what happened to her?” I wasn’t deluded enough to think he’d start spouting out theories, but my motto is “You Can’t Fault a Girl for Trying.”
“We’ll be investigating all possibilities.” He gestured for me to precede him out of the morgue.
I didn’t move. “Maybe someone was trying to rob the Oyster and Della got in the way?”
“How ’bout a cup of coffee, Ms. LeGrande?”
It was July in Memphis. Just breathing made you sweat. Officer Serras wanted more than to extend hospitality. I glanced at my Rolex knockoff. I was taking a few summer courses at the college, catching up on credits. “I’ve got Principles of Macroeconomics in ten minutes.”
Serras didn’t crack a smile. Della could have done worse for a homicide detective.
“Was she killed in the club, then dumped out back?” I probed.
This time Serras took my elbow, steering me toward the door.
“We’ll investigate all angles.”
“The bruises on her body, the pooling of blood suggest she was moved from the original crime scene.”
Serras glanced at me. I was bluffing, and he knew it, but it was a good bluff, and I sensed he liked my style.
“There’ll be a preliminary report filed later today. You can give me a call.”
I took his card. “Thanks.” I meant it.
“If you remember anything, think of something that might help us learn who did this to Ms. Devine, you can get in touch with me at that number or leave a message. I’ll get back to you.”
He had used Della’s stage name as if he knew it’d please her. And me. He was right.
He led me up one floor. At the public entrance door, he tapped the card still in my hand.
“If you remember anything—”
I nodded. I knew the routine. You don’t strip for eleven years without participating in a few police procedures. This was the first time it was this personal, though.
I stopped on the way out to hold the door for a young woman coming up the sidewalk pushing a stroller. Serras was heading toward the back of the station house. As a stripper, I’d become a student of the body but I wasn’t even using that excuse this time. I watched him for the pure pleasure. His glutes tightened. His backside became even firmer. Finer. I didn’t know if his cop radar sensed I was watching him or he just wasn’t taking any chances. I did know one thing though. It wouldn’t be the last time I’d see those prime-time buns flex. Like gals called Silver LeGrande and Della Devine, some fates are unavoidable.
Chapter Two
Three miles from campus I pulled a 180 and headed into the heart of the city. Billie’s held center stage in a renovated warehouse two short blocks from Beale Street. Only a small sign near the double doors advertised Adult Entertainment. The club’s owner, Billie West, ran a clean joint. Topless only, no lap dances, no drugs, and Billie never missed a contribution to the Policemen’s Benevolent Association. I parked, went in through the back employees’ entrance. The club wouldn’t be open for hours, but Billie did her paperwork in the afternoon. She didn’t look surprised when I came to the office door. Billie had always expected it was only a matter of time before I’d be back.
“Silver.” She welcomed me in her rich contralto as she enfolded me in the reassurance of two hundred pounds plus. She rocked me a little and was kind enough to let me hang on tight. Billie was a mulatto from New Orleans with golden marcel waves and a variety of lovers. Her mama had sewn the costumes for many of the burlesque stars of Bourbon Street while Billie had listened to the triumphs of “Lottie the Body” and “Tajmah the Jewel of the Nile” and other stories of the glamorous life in the French Quarter clubs. When still on the sweet side of thirty, Billie had convinced one of her boyfriends, an ex-racketeer, to invest in her dream, and Billie’s was born–a nightclub in the forties’ French Quarter style. Billie’s featured an emcee, comics and singers, but it was the girls that brought in the customers.
“So, you finally ready to come back to work? I can start you on the floor, strolling and getting drinks.” Billie smiled, showing a gold cap.
I cocked a hip. “When did I ever wait tables?”
“That’s only ’cause you never could learn to take orders.” Billie’s smile split wider, adding another lush fold to her chin. Billie had caught my show one night in an upstart club in Jackson. I’m five-eleven with a yard of crayon-red hair and miraculously not one freckle plus big breasts that even unsupported still look happy. She promised me one-third more than my current nightly take. By the time we finished, she’d guaranteed double my salary and headliner status. I have the attitude to match my assets. The next night I was on her stage.
“You hear about Della?” It was a rhetorical question. Billie had probably known about the murder before I’d even gotten down to the morgue. Part of being a successful club owner was keeping the cops happy…and vice versa.
The dance in her eyes disappeared. “Bit of bad business, this with Della.”
She reached for a candy from an inlaid bowl on her desk. She pushed the bowl toward me. I shook my head. Normally I ate like a linebacker, but a dead body did wonders to suppress the appetite.
“I didn’t know she’d left the club. You have to let her go?” Della had been known to dabble—coke, crystal meth mostly, but besides a four-day toot when the rest of us girls covered for her, she’d kept her act together and her vices limited to off-club hours. Still, little went on in the club that Billie didn’t know about and would only tolerate to a point.
The huge gold hoops in Billie’s ears jangled as she nodded. “She’d been on a bender since her brother’s death—”
“Her brother’s death?” My breath seemed to go. I sank back into the chair.
Billie reached for another candy, unwrapped the foil slowly and slipped it between her lips. “Ugly incident. Not far from where the child was stationed.” Billie sucked on the candy.
“What happened?”
“Seems he was out with the boys, whooping it up. You know G.I.s, give ’em a weekend pass and they think they’ve got a one-way ticket to Sodom-and-Gomorrah land. When the others decided to call it a night, the boy, Della’s brother, either hadn’t had enough yet or maybe he just got separated from the others. When he was ready to go home, he must have decided to walk back to the base. He either got lost, stumbled and fell or passed out on the train tracks. By the time the conductor saw him, it was too late.”
“He was run over by a train? Lord.” The breath left my body again.
“I turned a blind eye to Della’s behavior the first couple months, but when things began to get worse instead of better, I realized I wasn’t doing the child no favors. I gave her a choice. Get herself into a program and clean herself up or I’d have to let her go. She left. Ended up at the Oyster.” Billie’s nostrils flared wide. I thought of Flo.
“It was the last time I saw her.” Billie tapped an inch-long acrylic fingernail with a crystal in its center on the candy dish’s edge.
“Until