We hit Greenville just in time for hot tamales at Doe’s Eat Place. The former grocery and honky-tonk, now a famous eatery, was highly lauded for the best steaks in the region. The restaurant business had grown out of a tamale recipe Mamie Doe had found and added her own special touch to. And I loved them. Tinkie was no slacker in the tamale-eating department.
While Elvis, B.B. King, Ella, and other blues greats sang holiday songs, we chowed down. All around us was the ebb and flow of Greenville residents. Eating and listening, we caught tidbits of conversations that could have been held anywhere in the Delta. Talk about the river, traffic, crops, weather. At one time Greenville had been a jewel in the crown of the Delta, but the city had fallen onto hard economic times. Still, the people who ate at Doe’s held on to their spirits.
A table of young women on their lunch hour provided the opportunity I was looking for, and I stepped over to the table and asked if they knew Jodie O’Neill.
“Sure. I know Jodie,” a pretty blonde said. “Why are you looking for her?”
“She may be able to help me find a young woman who’s missing.” I pulled out one of the new business cards. “We’re private investigators and we’re looking for Eve Falcon. Her cousin is worried about her. Eve is due to give birth any minute now.”
“Jodie had a baby a year ago.” The blonde considered me. “Let me give Jodie a call. If she says it’s okay, I’ll give you her address.”
“Good enough.”
I went back and filled Tinkie in on what I’d done, and in a moment the young woman came to our table with a slip of paper. “Jodie says she’ll help you. She knew Eve a little. They had some training sessions at the Memphis bank together.”
“Thanks.” I took the address, and Tinkie and I paid the tab and left. Thirty minutes later I was pulling up in front of a clapboard house set on a slight rise not far from the river. Aunt Loulane had told me stories about the Mound Landing levee breach in 1927, when the Mississippi River had poured into the Delta and submerged part of Greenville. In the end, over two million acres were flooded and the water rose so high in the lowest portions of the city that some homes and businesses were completely underwater. The crevasse in the levee poured water for months, and numerous residents had been rescued while clinging to treetops and whatever else they could grab hold of. Until recent hurricanes, the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was considered to be the nation’s worst natural disaster.
Now Greenville suffered from an economic drought, not a river flood. Tinkie and I parked and went to the front door, where a pretty young woman met us with a toddler on her hip. “What happened to Eve?” she asked, pushing the door open for us to enter. She wasn’t wary of us in the least.
“She’s missing. Her cousin is trying to find her.” We stepped into a neat house where clean clothes were folded and stacked on the sofa and baby toys were scattered about a scrubbed floor. In a corner of the living room was a small fir tree decorated with lights, ornaments, and tinsel. Christmas memories flooded me once again.
“Excuse the mess. I’m home today with the baby. She’s teething, and I’m trying to catch up on chores. Eve’s due to have that baby,” Jodie said. “Her due date is Christmas Eve. I remember because we laughed about Eve and Eve.”
It was good to know Jodie was friends with Eve. Perhaps she could tell us something that would help us find the girl. “Do you have any idea where she might be? Who her friends were? Was there anyone who might wish her harm?”
“Harm?” She was quick on the uptake. “Is there a reason to suspect she’s been harmed?”
“Please tell us what you know,” Tinkie said gently. “We just want to find her. Cece Falcon is very worried about her.”
“She mentioned her cousin Cece.” Jodie nodded. “They were close once. But Eve isn’t close to anyone in her family as far as I know. Her parents are kooks.”
“Yes, I agree.” I gave Tinkie the stink eye to keep her from going off on Carla. I knew she wanted to—because I did, too—but it wouldn’t serve us well. “Any friends or enemies? If she’s picked up and moved, we just want to know she’s safe.”
“I haven’t talked to Eve in the last three months.” Jodie was rueful. “I haven’t been a good friend, I fear. It’s just so hard trying to manage my baby and work full time, go to school in the evenings. I stay on the verge of exhaustion. I haven’t seen any of my friends unless they stop by here after work for a cup of coffee.”
“How did you meet Eve?” I asked.
“We both had training sessions at the bank in Memphis. I was surprised when Eve said she was moving to Cleveland.” Her brows drew together. “She knew what had happened to me. I’d already left the Cleveland branch by then.” She looked at her baby, who was sleeping in her arms. “I wouldn’t trade anything for my baby, but I hadn’t expected to be pregnant and single. Freddy said he would leave his wife and marry me. I was a fool.”
“Belvue is the father?” I felt compassion for her.
“Yes, Freddy promised me the moon, and all I got was ashes.” She scoffed. “I was a kid and I believed every lie he told. He was this rich guy who drove a fancy car and took me to Memphis to fancy restaurants. He completely turned my head. I should have known better. I was raised better. My mama almost died of shame when I got pregnant. To this day she doesn’t know little Brie’s daddy was a married man. I can’t ever let her know about Freddy Belvue.” She put a hand over her eyes. “I’m just ashamed of myself.”
Tinkie put a hand on her shoulder. “Everybody walking has made mistakes. You have a beautiful baby girl. You love her. That’s all that matters.”
“Thank you.” Jodie straightened her posture. “But that doesn’t help you with Eve and where she might be.”
“Is it possible that Belvue is the father of Eve’s child?” I asked.
She looked at Brie and her face softened. “I don’t know. Eve never said. She was pregnant before she moved to Cleveland, but she could have met Freddy at a training session and gotten involved.” She blew air out of her mouth in a sound of disgust. “He’s slick when it comes to unsophisticated young girls. Especially girls who want to be loved.”
“He hasn’t hassled you about visitation with Brie?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? He signed over full custody—as long as I said I would never tell her he was her father and I would not attempt to gain anything financially from him.”
“Wow.” He was pretty damn cold.
“There’s always a price,” Tinkie said, and I knew she had an ultimate revenge plan cooking on the back burner of her brain. Freddy Teddy Belvue had made one solid enemy.
“Did Belvue threaten you to make you leave Cleveland and the bank?”
“No.” She didn’t hesitate. “Not in so many words. There was talk, and his wife came by the bank one day. She made it a point to come to my window. She remarked on my pregnancy and asked who my husband was. She said that a lot of women died in childbirth in the Delta. It was pretty clear she’d bump me off if she could.”
“Very interesting.” I made a note of Mrs. Belvue. I hadn’t considered a jealous wife.
“Freddy has been coming around the credit union here for business meetings. I work in the back—I’m not a teller anymore. He pretends he doesn’t know me.”
“Class act,” Tinkie said.
“It’s fine with me. Brie and I don’t need him. I’m terrified he’ll change his mind and try to interject himself into Brie’s life.”
“But he signed papers, right?”
She laughed. “Sure. Like that would stop him. He’s got money and lawyers and everything else. His name is on the birth certificate, if anyone really wanted to look. His wife knows. She made that clear.” She shrugged. “Brie and I just want to live our life here, to work at the credit union and advance if we can. She’ll be grown and off to college in a flash. She won’t make the same mistakes I made.”
“That’s every parent’s hope,” I said softly.
“Did Eve ever mention anyone following her or watching her?” Tinkie asked.
“Now that you bring it up, when she first moved to Cleveland, we talked on the phone a couple of times. She said there was a young man. She saw him several times outside the bank, across the road at the farm supply place. Just parked there. Watching the bank.”
“Was she afraid of him?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She rubbed under one eye with a finger. “I wasn’t a good friend. Not like I should have been. I didn’t want to talk to anyone who worked at the bank in Cleveland because of Freddy. I didn’t return her calls. We sort of drifted apart. I sure hope she’s okay.”
“We do, too.” Tinkie patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Thanks for your help. If you think of anything…”
“I’ll give you a call.” Jodie pointed to the card. “Find Eve and her baby. They have to be okay.”
* * *
Mrs. Belvue was a lead we had to pursue, and we had time. It seemed we’d driven in a triangle around the Delta. We cut back to the highway that would take us north of Cleveland to the address for Ricky Belvue. Tinkie had found the location by calling Harold at the bank. It was almost more than I could stand. Freddy Teddy and Ricky Belvue. Surely they’d violated some law of “Y” abuse. No two people should corner the market on Y’s.
The Belvue house was on the highway that led to Zinnia and Cleveland, and we turned down the long drive bordered by crepe myrtles and hydrangeas. In the spring and summer, it would be gorgeous. Winter’s look was barren, though. The house was a boxy Tudor that reminded me of New England instead of Mississippi. It was very upright and plain. “Is Ricky Belvue from around here?” I asked.
“She grew up in the Delta, but she went to Paris to attend fashion school. As far as I know she never worked in fashion. She married Freddy Teddy and joined all the social clubs. She’s active in a lot of them.”
“Do you know her?”
“Not really. We’ve attended some of the same functions, being banker’s wives, but she’s not my cup of tea.”
Which meant Tinkie hated her guts. This day was just getting worse and worse.
A maid came to the door when we knocked, and I took the lead, presenting our business card on the little silver platter the maid held out for our calling card. Where was Charlotte Brontë when I needed her? Maybe I should add Lady Sarah Booth or Her Royal Highness Tinkie to the cards. This calling-card silver platter was pretty pretentious stuff for the Mississippi Delta.
“Madam will see you,” the maid said when she returned to motion us to follow her.
We landed in a lovely morning room with pastel wallpaper and wicker furniture. Ricky Belvue was seated at a small rolltop desk, working in a journal. “Hello, Tinkie. And you must be Sarah Booth Delaney.” She dismissed me with a flick of her hand. “Make it quick. I’m taking notes on my life,” she said. “It’s going to be a bestseller. I’ve done everything a refined woman could ever dream of.”
“And probably a lot more,” Tinkie said under her breath.
“What?” Ricky asked.
“Nothing.” I stepped between them. “You know Tinkie and now you’ve met me. We have some questions about some bank employees.”
“Make an appointment with Freddy Teddy,” she said, flicking that royal hand again like she could make us vanish. “He manages the staff and servants. It isn’t a proper job for a lady.”
I did want to bop her in the nose. Hard. It was remarkable in this day and time that an educated woman would cling to such conventions. Fitting for a lady. Oh, I knew some feminists who would thrash her. “We’d rather talk to you,” I said. “We’ve heard that Freddy Teddy has been … too familiar with some of his young female employees.” I raised a hand to shut her up. “There are ethics violations here. I’m perfectly willing to press this matter. If I have to.”
“What do you want?” she asked, dropping all pretensions of the grand lady.
“Eve Falcon is missing. She’s due to give birth Christmas Eve. Is your husband the baby’s father?”
“Absolutely not.”
Tinkie laughed, and it was not the soft, bell-like sound she normally made. “How can you be so sure?”
“I know Eve and I know my husband. Eve intimidates him with her intelligence.” Ricky was blunt.
“You’re saying he’s innocent not because he wouldn’t cheat, but because he wouldn’t cheat with a smart woman?” Tinkie was mildly amused.
Ricky sighed. “You’ve had more than a thirty-second conversation with my husband? Not the brightest lamp on the street. Eve was pregnant when Freddy Teddy hired her. I told him to give her the job. She’s smart. Smarter than he is, you’re right about that. She’s an asset to the bank and she keeps the other young tellers in line. She knows Freddy Teddy is a fool. And she knows that if she keeps him on the straight and narrow, I’ll see that she is rewarded. Eve and I have an agreeable arrangement.”
I hadn’t seen that one coming. Eve had found a place at the bank and as an extension of the Belvue household. She was the wife’s surrogate in keeping Belvue in line. My estimation of Ricky rose. She’d chosen her path and she’d also figured out how to make the best of it. Her intelligence also made her a suspect, despite her warm praise of Eve. “Do you know where Eve is?”
Ricky shook her head. “I don’t know, and that’s the truth. I’ve been looking for her myself. We were supposed to meet three evenings ago. I give Eve a little bonus every month or so for her help. I had cash for her, but she never showed. They said she failed to go in for work that day.”
“She’s been missing three days,” I said. It was looking dire. A million things could go wrong with a pregnant woman due to give birth at any minute.
“Do you know of any reason Eve would voluntarily leave the area?”
“She had everything arranged for the baby’s arrival. I don’t.” She swallowed. “Do you think the baby’s father is involved?”
“We don’t know,” I answered, “but we’re going to find out.”
“I’m worried about Eve,” Ricky admitted. “Freddy Teddy says she’s just laying low, hoping to trick the baby’s daddy into stepping forward. That makes no sense.” She stood up. “You girls want some coffee or a drink?”
“No thanks,” Tinkie said. “We’re in a hurry. But thank you.”
“Listen, when you find Eve would you give me a call?” She rang a bell and the maid arrived with another little silver tray with her calling card on it, including a phone number.
“Sure.” Tinkie took the card. “And please call us if you hear from her. Her cousin is very worried.”
“I’m not going to mention to my husband that you dropped by. He’s made his mistakes in the past. I know about that young woman and baby in Greenville. I think Freddy Teddy will do the right thing … eventually. But you can’t force him into a corner. I’ve tried that.”
“Do you have any children?” Tinkie asked, and I admired her sudden perception of the situation.
“No. I can’t have children. Freddy Teddy doesn’t want any. We travel a lot. He plays golf. He has the life of a privileged sixteen-year-old, playing games and doing exactly what he wants. His saving grace is that he’s good at running the bank. The employees don’t like him, but he has a talent for hiring women with good sense. Eve was one of them. And Jodie before her. With a smart woman at the helm, he was free to be that irresponsible boy.”
We rose. It was time to go. She stood also, but it was the maid who walked us to the door and let us out.
“I wonder who really hired Eve and Jodie?” Tinkie asked as we pulled onto the highway. “I don’t think it was Freddy Teddy.”
“You think it was Ricky?”
“I do.”
“I tend to agree with you. Iron fist in a velvet glove.”
“And she likes the perks of her husband’s job.” Tinkie leaned back into the seat as I drove. “Do you think Eve is alive?”
“I do. The only lead we have right now is the young man who was watching her from the hardware store. We can go there and ask around.”
“It’s not a very substantial lead.” Tinkie was nobody’s fool. We were whistling past the cemetery.
“Chew the bone you’ve got,” I said. It was an old law-enforcement saying. The truth was, we didn’t have another bone. “Cleveland is only twelve miles down the road.”
“Hit it.” Tinkie pushed her sunglasses more firmly into place and leaned her head back.
I turned on the radio to a blues station and rode into Cleveland on the joy and sadness of Billie Holiday.
The bank was just where we left it, across the street from the local farm supply store. My old antique convertible was pretty conspicuous—but so would Tinkie’s new Caddy have been. I pulled around the building and we got out and sauntered inside.
I love old farm supply stores. I’m a regular customer at the Sunflower County Seed and Feed. I like the smell of the horse and cattle feed, and in the spring there are baby chicks, which I always worried about. They seem so fragile and frisky and helpless. The Cleveland feed store was no exception. I wandered through the aisles looking at gardening tools and weed killers, fertilizers and salt blocks. I kept one eye out on the parking lot, hoping against hope that our stalker would appear.
Tinkie had fallen into conversation with the clerk behind the counter, and they were laughing at some joke she’d shared. The clerk was an older man and it was clear he was smitten with her, in the most gentlemanly fashion. She used her feminine wiles to ask him questions that he didn’t know he was answering, but it was also genuine from Tinkie’s perspective. She liked men. She enjoyed their weaknesses and their strengths, and while she knew how to play one like a fine fiddle, she was never careless or cruel. It was a craft she’d been taught in the cradle. The art of being a Daddy’s Girl, a woman who could bend a man to her whims and fancy and make him think it was his idea.
Long ago, I’d been contemptuous of such manipulations. I was an older and wiser woman now. Why battle with a man to prove a point? Sometimes you could catch more flies with sugar than vinegar, as Aunt Loulane used to say. Tinkie, with her sweet laugh and flashing blue eyes, was bringing in a swarm of flies.
I ambled a little closer to the conversation and learned that the store owner had seen a young man watching the bank. He gave a pretty good description of a dark-haired, slender man in his early twenties. He’d applied for work at the farm supply store and Mr. Melton, the owner, was thinking of hiring him if he showed up again.
“Didn’t leave a phone number or address,” Mr. Melton said. “I got the idea he was looking for a job so he could find a place to settle. So many young folks today got no family to rely on. It’s a shame. They’re just out there on their own.”
He was right about that.
“Do you remember his name?” Tinkie asked.
“Sorry, Mrs. Richmond, I don’t. I should have written it down, but an eighteen-wheeler of fertilizer arrived and it was all hands on deck unloading it. The young man helped, and I was going to give him a ten spot because he threw in without being asked. I came in the store and got the money but when I went back out to give it to him, he was gone.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
Mr. Melton shook his head. “I haven’t. That was three days ago.”
“Did you know Eve Falcon from over at the bank?”
“Oh, yes. Pretty little thing, but she was about to pop the last time I saw her. She stopped by for some dog food. She said there was a stray dog near the place she rented and she wanted to feed it. Sweet woman.” His mouth thinned. “That father of her baby wasn’t around to help her. Some men should be horsewhipped.”
Mr. Melton was old-school when it came to responsibilities. I liked that.
“Did Eve have a place in town here?” Tinkie asked.
“She rented a little apartment off Dawes Road. Cute little green cottage set off the road in a nice residential area. I haven’t seen her lately, so I assumed she was at the hospital having the baby.” He was getting suspicious. “Is something wrong?”
“Eve’s gone missing.” Tinkie just put it out there. “Her cousin has hired me and my partner to find her. You’ve helped us a lot.”
“What do you mean she’s missing?” He was about to get upset.
“She hasn’t shown up at work and her relative is worried. Because of the baby and all.”
“You let me know when you find her, okay?” Mr. Melton wrote a number on the back of a receipt. “I’m fond of that young woman. Everyone who meets her is.”
“Thanks, Mr. Melton. We’ll let you know for sure.” Tinkie took the number and soon after we left. We had one more lead—Eve’s cottage. Cece hadn’t known where Eve was living, but now we did. It wouldn’t take but a minute to search through it to see if there was evidence of an abduction or a scuffle … or worse.