Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(52)
I got out, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell. Erlene had a schnauzer named Benny, and he began barking. She opened the door after just a couple of minutes and was genuinely surprised to see me standing there.
“Why, Joe Dillard, I swan. What brings you out to my humble little abode?”
She was wearing a silk robe with a gold and black tiger print and fluffy pink slippers. Her hair was perfect, as was her make-up.
“I need to talk to you, Erlene. It’s important.”
“I was just having a cup of tea on the porch out back,” she said. “Would you like one?”
“Sure, that’d be nice.”
I followed her through the house. She had unusual tastes when it came to home décor—there were a lot of masks on the walls, a couple of Indian chief headdresses, some phallic pieces that had to have come from Africa, and several family photos. She’d told me about a couple of the photos. One was her deceased husband, Gus, who died mowing the lawn several years earlier, and another was of Gus’s daughter from his first marriage, who had died in a car accident. The walls in the house were painted in bright colors—blues and reds and garish pinks. Caroline and I had been in the house a few times when Leon and Erlene were dating. Caroline said she thought a New Orleans brothel would be decorated similarly.
“Go on out, honey,” she said. “I’ll be right along.”
I walked out onto the back porch. It had a beautiful view of the mountains that surrounded the area, and they were starting to come alive with the bright reds and oranges of fall. It was a serene setting, which made me feel a bit guilty because I was there to stir some things up.
Erlene walked out holding a cup of tea. Hers was on the table. I noticed her fingernails were painted the same tiger stripe design as her robe when she handed me the cup and saucer. The woman was nothing if not eccentric.
“What’s on your mind this beautiful fall morning?” Erlene said. “And I have to say you look wonderfully handsome, just like always.”
“Thank you, Erlene. I’m here, I think, to try to keep you out of jail.”
Her mouth dropped open and her eyebrows raised in a perfect Erlene expression of surprise and bewilderment.
“Whatever could you possibly be talking about, sugar? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“We both know that isn’t true,” I said. “You pimp your girls on occasion, you sell drugs out of the club, and you’re not above blackmailing a customer here and there if he has enough money and you have enough goods on him. You’ve had people killed. I don’t judge you for any of those things. Don’t really care, to tell you the truth. But you’re doing something with Mike Armstrong that is going to get you in deeper than you know. I might not be able to dig you out if you don’t let me help you.”
“How could I possibly help you? I don’t even know Mike Armstrong other than what I’ve seen of him on television. Ugly little man. I’ll say that much.”
“I have a recording of you talking to him on the phone, Erlene.”
She set her tea cup very slowly into the saucer, looked at me, smiled, and said, “I just don’t see how that’s possible, sweetie pie. I’ve never talked to the man.”
“Yes, you have. I heard it just before I came over here. If you hear it, it’ll be in court, you’ll be under oath, and it won’t be good for you.”
“My goodness,” she said. “I never thought I’d see the day when my wonderful friend Joe Dillard, who I paid half a million dollars in cash a few years ago, would threaten me.”
“I earned the money,” I said. “You and Angel Christian both walked on murder charges. And you were both as guilty as sin. You know it and I know it. But that’s not why I’m here. I’m not here to threaten you. I’m here to ask you to help me understand what in the hell is going on with these three football players from ETSU.”
“The ones who raped my Sheila?”
“They didn’t rape her. I’m about to blow that case out of the water, Erlene. But it’s already gotten out of hand. Do you know that somebody burned a cross in front of my house last night and shot up my garage, my truck, Caroline’s car and another car? There has been so much racial tension created by this case that it’s about to turn into something that will be extremely ugly and extremely violent. People could die. I’d like to know why, and I think you can tell me. If you don’t, I’m afraid our relationship going forward is going to change dramatically. And when I take the tape I have and play it for Leon, I think his attitude toward you is going to change, too. You’ll start having some serious problems with Leon and his deputies at your club.”
“Shitdammit,” Erlene said. She crossed and re-crossed her legs. “Shitdammit! Why did you have to get involved in this case? Why couldn’t it have been some dimwitted lawyer like ninety percent of them are?”
“Please, just tell me what’s going on and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure everything turns out all right.”
She stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of me, her massive bosom bouncing up and down with each step like waves rolling onto a beach. Constant motion.
“It’ll ruin everything,” she said. “All my plans. It’ll ruin them.”