Free Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem by Karen G. Berry

Beau’s truck, his bank account, and his trailer in Space 21 on Faded Love Lane. She’d kept it all: the truck, the big screen TV, the chest freezer. She’d even kept his dog, Old Beau.
    Memphis looked at Beau. “Beau, there has been a death. The Right Reverend Henry Heaven.”
    Beau whistled. “Are you serious? The Reverend? How?”
    “He was probably run over. It was pretty ugly.”
    “Well, alive he wasn’t all that pretty.” He walked behind the bar, poured himself a shot and drained it down. “Seltzer and lime?”
    “Thank you.” Memphis was parched, and the bite and tang of seltzer helped, though a ginger ale would have tasted wonderful. But he avoided sugar as scrupulously as he avoided alcohol and white women. He carefully wiped his mustache. “According to my niece, the Reverend was up here last night.”
    Beau rubbed his eyes, remembering. “It wasn’t that late. He was up here talking to Gator Rollins and some boys from Bone Pile, and then he left right about the time Raven got here.”
    “What time was that?”
    “Around ten. But Gator and the boys stayed. They set up and played. They sounded damn good, Memphis. Damn good. I think they might take the talent show.”
    “And Gator was here the whole time?”
    “He was. He was playing with those Bone Pilers.”
    “Anyone else might be able to verify that?”
    “The usual suspects. Jeeter Tyson, probably.”
    “Jeeter?” Jeeter was maybe the dumbest man in the park, and he only won the honor because his brother, Deputy Hiram Tyson, lived in Ochre Water. Memphis wondered how the Tyson family had managed to pass on the family name. The Tyson men crawled up on their trailer roofs and adjusted aerial antennas during thunderstorms. They walked across the highway in the middle of the night while drunk. They jacked up cars and crawled under the chassis without setting the emergency brakes. Jeeter had nearly killed himself by using an electric shaver while sitting in the bathtub. Memphis wasn’t excited about the idea of trying to get any information out of Jeeter. “Anyone else?”
    “Well, Quentin Romaine was in here, blowing off steam about unemployment among decent white Americans. He was trying hard to get the men riled up to go out and hunt Mexicans.”
    “You’ll call me if that ever sounds serious?”
    “If a time comes when it seems he might actually have a taker on that redneck vigilante border patrol idea of his, I’ll call you, Memphis.”
    “Thank you. I appreciate that.” Memphis knew that ragged Mexicans moved silently around their community every day and every night. He knew they stole and carried drugs and upset the community. He knew the Border Patrol was understaffed and under-budgeted. He also knew that whatever the answer was, it wasn’t some dimwit like Quentin Romaine roaming the desert with a shotgun, a flashlight, and a pair of inbred bloodhounds, hunting those desperate people for sport.
    “Well, Memphis, there’s one thing more. I hate to tell you this, but…”
    “Go on.”
    “Well, yesterday afternoon, the Reverend had a few words with your brother about a certain lady. It was just a little charged, there, for a moment. But then, your brother left before it got too ugly.”
    “My brother is not under suspicion of killing anyone, Beau.”
    “Oh, I know, but there might be talk.”
    “There’s always talk.”
    Beau, known for his personal fondness for such talk, nodded. “Say, you and Tender given any thought to joining us for the talent show?”
    “We’ll be there, I’m sure, but in the audience, not onstage.”
    “A shame, that. The more acts we have, the bigger the prize. Plus there’ll be a talent scout from Nashville here. And I’d like to see that old trick you did.”
    “Which one is that?”
    “I hear you’d toss your instruments to each other, mid-song, and never miss a beat.”
    “Well, we were twenty and seventeen when we came up with that one. I think we’d miss more than a beat if we