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he’d walk to Kathy’s Tavern and drink enough George Dickel to catch a nice buzz.
Pimp was a dirty word in Butch’s vernacular, and he didn’t like to refer to himself or his partners in that way.
Instead, Butch and his cohorts labeled their operation a ring or, to be more specific, “the ring.”
The Sundowners
Name of the strip club.
Buford Pusser, the late sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee,
Giles County
There’s a black man named Haynes that most of the town folks think is the best lawyer around.”
Booker T. Rowe is Haynes’s cousin.” Butch licked his chapped lips and peered across the table at Finn. “You remember what we’ve done to Rowe, don’t you?”
Dick Selby
Dick was a short thin man who used to be bald on top but, a few years ago, had undergone a hair transplant.
Helen Evangeline Lewis relished the look of fear she saw in her colleagues’ eyes. The familiar expression sent electricity through her bloodstream and, in truth, was the only feeling anymore that gave her a high. Better than alcohol. Better than sex, though it had been years since she had felt that sensation. To be respected was wonderful, but to be feared was divine.
She was the district attorney general of the Twenty-Second Judicial Circuit, which comprised the counties of Giles, Maury, Lawrence, and Wayne.
her ex-husband, Butch,
But in the state of Tennessee, the district attorney was referred to as “General” during court proceedings.
Helen Evangeline Lewis, for lack of a more sophisticated term, was mean.
She had tried being nice and cordial early in her legal career, but the effort made her feel weak, and she found that her male counterparts did not take her seriously.
“No. The fact that Mr. Zannick is a wealthy playboy who’s donated a truckload of money to Martin Methodist College isn’t an extenuating circumstance.”
“I’m not talking about that, General. The girl . . . the victim may have only been fifteen, but she was sexually promiscuous. I have witnesses who say she was giving out blow jobs for one hundred dollars a pop in the boys’ locker room.”
“You put Ennis Petrie in prison for being part of a race crime that garnered national headlines. And yet, at the hearing, despite how hard you argued that Ennis didn’t deserve parole and how you shamed the board at even considering the suggestion, they gave it to him anyway.”
“Let’s suppose Bocephus Haynes had shown his face. I doubt the board would have thought much of what a twice-suspended lawyer with a criminal record felt about anything. All I know is that Ennis Petrie, former sheriff of this county, charter member of the Tennessee Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and one of the ten men in 1966 who lynched Bo’s father, or, to be technically correct, stepfather . . . is walking the streets of Pulaski again. And you want to know why? Because the board followed the hearing officer’s recommendation and not your own.”
The law firm of Frederick A. Renfroe, LLC, was located on West Madison Street a block from the courthouse. Three doors down from the office was the two-story square building where, on Christmas Eve of 1865, six Confederate veterans had formed the Ku Klux Klan.
Terry, ever the politician, maintained a delightful public image with his beautiful wife, Doris, a platinum blonde with Dolly Parton–size breasts, and their three golden-haired daughters, all of whom would one day be elected homecoming queen of Giles County High School.
Hence, on the evening of Terry’s fortieth trip around the sun, Butch and Lou set up a VIP room extravaganza for their pal at the Sundowners Club with several willing dancers. Though the girls were supposed to only fondle each other, once the whiskey started flowing, Terry found his pants around his ankles. When the show was over, Terry, ever the salesman, confided in his two friends that perhaps other hardworking men might like to enjoy the pleasures that he had experienced. “For a reasonable price, of course.”
“Because half the students I’ve talked to had heard that rumor. Mandy supposedly gave head to one of the Fitzgerald twins before the first home JV basketball game.”
“Joey Sartain. He’s a freshman guard on the team who’d arrived early to the game to get some extra shooting in and saw Mandy blowing Doug Fitzgerald in the locker room. He took a picture on his phone and sent it to several of his friends on Snapchat.”
“If it’s true, General, and I believe that it is, why would Mandy Burks be engaging in oral sex in a public place so soon after such a traumatic experience?”
“Rape affects women in different ways, Gloria. You’d be wise to not make any callous assumptions.”
She gazed up at the old balcony, whose original purpose was to segregate black spectators from the whites and which now was more of a museum piece that Willa Michaels, the archives custodian, would show visitors during tours of the courthouse.
Historical Court House.
“But how do you think your supporters at the First Baptist Church will feel about what you did in December of ’77? Think they’ll still take up a collection for you and come out to the polls in droves? How about the men at the Elks Lodge that you’ve had curled around your finger for years? What about the deputies in the sheriff’s office that all worship you?”
What did Helen do in December 1977?
“Sounds like you’re a dead man, then.”
Bo’s former father-in-law, stood next to her. Ezra Henderson had a full head of silver hair and a matching beard. Ezra’s skin was milk-chocolate brown and mirrored that of his daughter, Jasmine.
“Given your criminal record, your multiple suspensions from the practice of law, the fact that you currently do not have gainful employment, and finally that you are renting a farmhouse on the edge of the county that, in light of where Lila currently attends school, would not be a suitable residence, I’m going to award full custody of Lila Michelle Haynes to her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Henderson.”
“As for your son, Thomas Jackson ‘T. J.’ Haynes, who is seventeen years of age, though I would certainly recommend that he also stay with the Hendersons, it is the court’s decision to allow T. J. to decide where he wants to live.”
“JimBone Wheeler killed Momma. Just like he murdered Uncle Rel and Detective Richey. Just like he tried to kill Professor McMurtrie and his grandson.”
Apparently, in the late 1980s, the kids from Huntsville High School had liked to loiter in the parking lots of Krystal, AmSouth Bank, and an old grocery store called Big Brothers, which were all within a half-mile radius on Whitesburg Drive.
“Hooper, Private Investigative Services.” He smiled. “Just Hooper?”
“Even still, I suspect folks see me as a circus act. A black man whose biological father was the Imperial Wizard of the KKK.”
“All those years I spent trying to bring the men that murdered Roosevelt Haynes to justice, and turns out my daddy wasn’t Roosevelt but the leader of the lynch mob. How’s that for irony?”
“I’m the district attorney general of this county as well as the counties of Maury, Wayne, and Lawrence. I don’t need your permission to go home. Now stand down, Deputy.”
“General Lewis, you are under arrest for the murder of Frederick Alan Renfroe,” Hank said, his voice low and cold as ice. “Please step out of the vehicle and place your hands behind your head.”
“I guess your placement could have something to do with all of that family money you’ve filtered into Page’s war chest over the years.”
“I am the resurrection and the life.”
They came from the eleventh chapter of John, verse 25. The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead was Ennis’s favorite of the Messiah’s miracles, and he repeated the phrase from chapter 11 often, especially when he was anxious or scared.
“Did she tell you about her abortion today?” Frannie asked. “What?” Frannie kept her poker face. Her eyes remained glued to Bo’s. “The baby she aborted in 1977. Did she tell you?”
“My hunch is that Butch Renfroe died because he threatened to reveal her secret.”
“GHB.”
This is what was put into Helen’s drink.
“I don’t remember much after leaving the bar. Vague images, like a television screen that’s losing its picture, are all I could make out. He was on top of me . . . behind me . . . inside me.”
“But it doesn’t change the fact that on October 15, 1977, I was drugged . . . and raped.”
“This was 1977 in Birmingham, Alabama, and my rapist was a rich blue blood from Mountain Brook. You ever heard of that neighborhood?”
“I asked my friend on our way back to Knoxville. She said she hadn’t seen anything and then asked me what happened.” “Did you tell her?” Helen grimaced at Bo. “No.” “So, you kept the rape a secret all this time?”
