Music City (9 page)

Dottie was still reeling from the news he had just announced and here he was worried about a woman on a magazine cover like nothing was wrong in the world. “I don’t know, Billy Joe, she’s just some star down in Nashville. What are we goin’ to do without jobs? I thought you said this one was the best... we can’t do without jobs. What about BJ?”

“I told you to save some money, but here you done spent it on a magazine. It’s just like you to sit around all day drinkin’ my beer, lookin’ at trashy magazines that my money bought and doin’ nothing to contribute to this family. I reckon you’re gonna have to look around for a job, too. We’re in this thing together, Dot.”

Dottie sighed, “Billy, I didn’t buy that magazine, I took it from the laundromat, and you know that last doctor I seen said I wasn’t going to be able to do much lifting or twisting with my back in the shape it’s in. You know that. Last time I worked, down at the Circle K, I couldn’t hardly walk none a’tall.”

“If your back’s in that bad a shape, then you ought to be gettin’ some government money for it. I don’t see no checks a rollin’ in around here addressed to you. If it’s so bad, that doctor of yours ought to see ‘bout some disability.”

“I can’t get disability, Billy Joe, cause there's jobs I can do. I just can’t do much lifting, or standing in one place for very long. You know as well as I do, that’s the only kind of job that I could get around here. You know I’ve tried.”

Billy Joe threw the magazine back down on the coffee table, “Well Dottie, if you want to eat, and Lord knows you like to eat, you might just have to suck it up and deal with the pain. Lord knows, I don’t like liftin’ and twistin’ and a turnin’ none, but you gotta do what you gotta do, and you might just hafta do it too.”

BJ had come into the room, just then, carrying a beer. He sat on the couch next to her and threw his
left arm around the back of the couch and took a sip from the can with his right hand. His knees bounced without rhythm and he noticed the magazine his father had just discarded. “Well would ya look at her, she looks just like you, Ma. Isn’t that Shelly Shepard? I don’t remember seeing a picture of her that old before, she could almost be your sister, Ma. You sure you ain’t kin to her?” BJ asked as he looked between Dottie and the magazine cover of Shelly.

“
Hmmm, now that might just be the ticket.  Yes siree. ” Billy murmured, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

The day after ‘the thing’ at the Shepard home, Derek and Alex were sitting in their shared backyard discussing the events of the previous night. Neither had gotten much sleep, it was late when Derek had left—or early, depending on how you looked at it, and later still when Alex had come in after hitting some of the local night spots with some new found friends from Habitat for Humanity.

“Will some
one get this gate for me please?” They heard Tracy yelling from the side of the duplex that was their first investment when they moved to Nashville. Alex jumped up and went to the side where he found Tracy, arms full.

“Trace, you didn’t have to bring anything, we
were just going to burn up some steaks on the grill,” Alex grinned.

After Mila
was settled down last night, Tracy called Derek and asked if he could come over to talk to them Sunday afternoon. Of course Derek had agreed and told him they would feed him as well.

Tracy shook his head, “You don’t know my Momma! Can you grab something please?” Tracy looked like he was going to just throw everything down if he didn't get some relief from his packages soon.

Derek had wandered over when he heard their voices and reached out to grab a few of the bags from Tracy.

“What is all this?” Alex asked.

Tracy shook his head as he handed off bags to both of them. “I’m sorry, my Momma does this. She has to take care of everybody, so she just had to send y’all stuff from the garden on our farm, plus some stuff that Martha, our cook, made and insisted that I bring,” he sighed. “Probably because Momma asked her to.”

Derek looked inside one of the bags and grinned. “Hey, I never turn down food of any kind, that would just be wrong.”

As they unloaded the bags, Alex opened up a basket that was wrapped with foil, and when he lifted the aluminum wrap, the aroma of fresh baked rolls wafted out.

Derek groaned and nimbly took the basket out of Alex’s distracted hands, “Well, I’m good, y’all can eat whatever else you want to.”

Tracy laughed, “That’s okay, you take the rolls, I won’t share this black raspberry jam she put in here, and let me tell you, if my Momma is sharing her jam she thinks pretty highly of you. Vani and I practically have to beg to even get a taste of it.”

Derek quickly put the basket of rolls back on the counter, “I’ll share if you will.”

Later, after the steaks were cooked and they sat eating, Alex couldn’t stand it any longer. “Okay Tracy, what’s up?”

Tracy finished chewing, swallowed and then looked at each of them. “Why would anything have to be up for me to want to hang out with y’all?” he asked.

Alex and Derek looked at each other, then back at Tracy.

“Okay, okay.” Tracy
held his hands up in surrender and sighed. He took a folded letter out of his pocket. “This came in the fan mail a couple of days ago, we haven't told Momma yet, it's going to upset her a lot. I wanted you two to see if you could pull up anything on your magic computers and find out if it’s for real.”

Alex took the letter from Tracy and read.

Miz Shepard,

My name is Billy Joe Thompson, I got your address from the back of one of your records. My wife is Dorothy Taylor Thompson, and according to her family, her big sister Mayelynn, runned off when she weren’t nothing more than a baby. Since you look so much like my Dottie, I can’t help but reckon that you would be the sister what runned off.

Looks like you done real good for yourself, and believe me, we are real happy for you. Here's the thing, times are tough back here in North Carolina, real tough, and me an Dottie, we been takin’ care of your ma, Maye, all these years ourselves without no help from nobody. She is your kin as much as she is Dottie’s and it is about time you paid your fair share for her keep.

I reckon you could ignore my letter, but then I reckon I’d have to call some of them reporters over to the news stations in Raleigh and Charleston and ask them what they think of a big star like Shelly Shepard a lettin’ her poor old momma starve to death and refusin’ to help her only kin.

My address and phone number are below and I look right forward to hearin’ from you.

Billy Joe Thompson

After reading the letter, Derek rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “Well, he obviously wants money.”

Tracy nodded, “Obviously, but before we let her see this, Vani and I thought we’d better have you guys check it out, just to make sure it’s legit. Momma will be upset. She doesn’t talk about her life much from before she came to Nashville, but what she has told us, it was pretty bad.”

Alex stood, “Let me go make a call, it will be quicker to use some FBI databases.”

Tracy looked at Derek after Alex left, “He can just make a call and the FBI will do things like that for him?”

Derek shrugged and smiled, “Technically he’s still a Federal Agent, they have him listed as being on ‘extended leave’, and they really want him to come back to the agency full-time, even after all these years.
”  Derek shrugged and continued.  “When he told them he was going to move down here and try his hand at private investigation, they told him they'd continue to hold his job. If he needs to use Federal resources, he calls somebody, tells them what he wants to do, and they give him access or they get the information for him.”

“I didn’t realize that
they still wanted him back, or that they would do favors like that for anyone.  Do you think he’ll go back?” Tracy asked.

Derek shrugged, “You never know with Alex. He’s had a lot of bad things happen in his life and I think he still blames a lot of it on the fact that he was an FBI agent. I’m not sure he’ll go back, but, I guess it’s always a possibility as long as they keep telling him they want him back.”

Tracy nodded, “Well, Momma has said all my life that people come and go at times in your life when they are most needed, so maybe you two are here now because you are needed in someone's life, and when that reason is completed, you’ll go on to other things.”

Derek considered this for a moment, “Yes, I suppose you could look at it that way. I don't know what my purpose is anymore, I really don’t. I know I’m starting to enjoy life again for the first time in a long time and I'm happy about that. I like what we’re doing right now, I feel like we can make a difference. What
any of us will be doing a year from now, I guess no one knows.”

Alex returned some time later with several pages of paper in his hands. He handed one to Tracy, “Well, here are pictures of
Dorothy Thompson and Billy Joe Thompson.”

Tracy's mouth fell open, “She does look a lot like my momma.”

Alex nodded, “Yes, I noticed the resemblance too.” Handing him another sheet of paper, “This would be your grandmother, if what he says is accurate, though that is a driver’s license photo from over twenty years ago.”

Tracy nodded, “So, I guess his letter could be legitimate?”

Alex nodded, “There is a distinct possibility. Honestly, I am surprised they haven’t tried to contact your mother before now.”

Derek laid the papers on the table, “So, is it safe to assume that since they're in the FBI computers that they have records?”

Alex nodded, “Petty stuff—bad checks, public intoxication, some judgments for non-payment and a couple of drunken driving charges. It’s all typical stuff for people from a low socioeconomic background.”

Tracy nodded as Alex handed him another piece of paper. “This is a copy of your mother's birth record, it was hard to get
, really hard. Somewhere along the line, I imagine someone paid some lawyers to get it buried pretty deep. The address listed at the time of her birth is Shady Spring, North Carolina, which is about ten miles from Raleigh, and where the letter came from. The mother is listed as Maye Taylor, the father is listed as unknown. Interestingly enough, if you notice, the mother's occupation is listed as Licensed Practical Nurse.”

Tracy was confused, “A nurse? She was a nurse? Momma never mentioned that.”

Alex nodded, “She was a nurse, I couldn't find where she is currently employed, or any record of employment for about twenty years now. The last employment I could find, she worked at the Raleigh Hospital. I'll have to dig a little deeper and in a couple of other places to find out what happened there.”

“Anything else?” Tracy asked.

Alex nodded, “In the birth records, when I did a cross search for any other children for Maye Taylor, it turned up three boys and three more girls. One was older than your mother, he died when he was five. Your mom was two. The other two boys and all three girls are younger than your mother. I will dig up what I can find on the others as well.”

Tracy swallowed, “What do you suggest we do?”

Derek shrugged, “You’re going to have to tell your mother, Tracy. Let’s cross that hurdle first—and see what she wants to do. She may want to help them, but I have to say, their approach is a pretty underhanded way to do it. It’s extortion, which as you know, is illegal.”

Tracy looked at the
printed papers Alex had brought out again, one by one, and shook his head. “This is potentially a huge scandal, the media will eat this up. I don’t want my Momma’s good name to be drug through the tabloids.”

“Tracy, unfortunately, we’re not dealing with people from the upper echelon of society. There is absolutely no guarantee that even if your mother gives them money now, that they won’t go to the press, especially if they think they can make money from it.”

Tracy nodded, “Will y’all go with me to tell her?” He asked.

Derek and Alex stood at the same time. “Let’s clean this up and go, the sooner your mother knows, the sooner we can come up with a plan.”

Tracy nodded as he picked up his plate, “I’ll call Vani and fill her in on the way over.”

When the three of them arrived, Vani met them at the front door and led them to the den, where Shelly sat curled upon a sofa reading. Shelly smiled when she saw them come in, stood and then studying their faces asked, “What’s wrong? Y’all look like your best friend just died.”

Tracy approached a few steps, “Momma, you need to sit down.”

Shelly laughed, “Honey, I can take bad news as easily standing up as I can sitting down. You and Vani are both here and look healthy to me, so there cannot be anything so bad that I have to sit down to hear it.”

“Momma, please,” Vani begged.

“Savannah, please, don’t whine, just tell me whatever it is y'all think is so bad and we'll deal with it.”