Free Officer Elvis by Gary Gusick

connection, but Caulder wasn’t going to talk about it.
    “And where were you night before last, at say ten p.m.?”
    Caulder smiled. “At last, the real question. As it turns out I was at a meeting with our board of directors in Hattiesburg.” Caulder checked his Rolex. Another I’m-short-on-time move.
    “I’ll need you to furnish me with a list of people who saw you there,” said Darla.
    “My executive assistant will email it to you,” said Caulder. “Now, if you’re planning an event and need an entertainer, I’d be more than happy to assist you
, Detective
. Otherwise…” He removed a small pack of business cards from his breast pocket, peeled one off, and handed it to Darla. “Maybe you’d like to talk to my attorney.”
    She took the card. L . N . M C C LURE, E SQUIRE, it said.
    “L. N. McClure was Tommy Reylander’s lawyer, too,” said Darla, “but I’m guessing you already knew that.”
    “Jackson really is a small city, isn’t it?” Caulder said, turning back to his computer.
    Darla wasn’t buying the Cadillac story. The story fit but Caulder had only come up with it when she pressed him. Unfortunately, she’d run out of questions for now. She handed Caulder her card. “Tell your executive assistant—I assume that’s the lady out front—I’ll need the list by the end of the day.”
    “Forgive me if I don’t stand,” said Caulder, and turned back to his computer screen. As Darla reached the door, he said over his shoulder, “Help yourself to a free bobblehead on your way out. We have a large inventory.”

Chapter 9
The One Everybody Calls Brother
    T HE NEXT NIGHT
    Tommy’s cousin in Fish Belly, Arkansas, could not be located, nor any of his second or third cousins. The responsibility for the funeral arrangements, for better or worse, fell to Cill.
    As the site for Tommy’s wake, she selected Higginbotham & Higginbotham Funeral Home (Higgie & Higgie, the locals called it), with services to be held the following morning at Tommy’s church, the Southern Church of the Holy Redeemer, where Brother Tommy had been not only a member in good standing, but also the featured singer in the choir, and when he pushed for it, the soloist, and always in one of his glittering Elvis costumes.
    Since Tommy’s remains were in short supply, Cill had elected to dispense with a coffin and have what little there was cremated. In place of a coffin, in the viewing room, center stage, so to speak, was a life-size cardboard cutout of Tommy, dressed, of course, as Elvis, in both Tommy’s and Elvis’s younger days. The cutout was flanked on the left and right by four free-standing horseshoe floral arrangements, with photomontages of Tommy chronicling Elvis’s career as a performer.
    The walls of the viewing room were decorated with photos of Tommy (dressed as Elvis) having his picture taken with various Mississippi luminaries—most of them, even the politicians, looking a bit uncomfortable.
    There was no visual reference to Tommy’s career as a member of the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department, only a one-paragraph blurb in the leaflet that was handed out at the door.
    Darla had come to pay her respects to her onetime partner and longtime frenemy, but also to touch base with her friends, Kendall Goodhew and Lulu Brister, neither of whom she’d seen in over a month, due to an unusually heavy caseload recently at MBI.
    It wasn’t just social. After living in Jackson for five years Darla understood that a gossipy friend or two who’d resided in the area all their lives could be a source of valuable information for a homicide investigation. There was invariably a wealth of background material that all longtime Jacksonians knew and talked about, but that never found its way into an official report. All Darla had to do was ask a question or two and be ready to listen. Kendall and Lulu were always up for gossip.
    The three women made their way around the room, taking in the various photos along the way.