Bluff
Walk
Bluff
Walf
A John McAlister Mystery
_________ Charles R. Crawford _________
The events, people, and incidents in this story are the sole product of the author’s imagination. The story is fictional and any resemblance to individuals living or dead is purely coincidental.
© 2004 by Charles R. Crawford. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Crawford, Charles R., 1958-
Bluff walk : a John McAlister mystery / Charles R. Crawford,
p. cm.
ISBN 0-86534-439-6 (Hardcover)
1. Private investigators—Tennessee—Memphis—Fiction. 2. Memphis (Tenn.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.R3955B58 2005
813'.6—dc22
2004017075
SUNSTONE PRESS / POST OFFICE BOX 2321 / SANTA FE, NM 87504-2321 / USA
(505) 988-4418 / ORDERS ONLY (800) 243-5644 / FAX (505) 988-1025
This book is dedicated to Alice,
my wife and best friend.
Contents
1 _____________________
“What have you got for me, John?” Amanda Baker asked.
“At least five million bucks,” I replied with a smile.
“And how much do you want for it?”
“As usual, I’ll let you decide.”
Amanda Baker is one of the best divorce lawyers in Memphis. Thin, blonde and fortyish, her big blue eyes hide the mind of a combat general and the predatory instincts of a hunting lioness. Her clients give her a $20,000 non-refundable retainer up front, and that’s just the beginning. The clients don’t mind, since Amanda usually gets her fee out of the ex-husband in the end. Always the husband, because she doesn’t represent men. She says it would be an issues conflict.
Her other clients are women who can’t afford any lawyer, much less Amanda. Amanda takes their cases for free, and pays for their court and deposition costs out of her own pocket. It’s not unusual for her to be in court on the same day with the wife of a chief executive officer of a prominent business and the wife of an unemployed roofer. With Amanda, it’s full freight or nothing at all.
My name is John McAlister. I’m a private detective. I get paid when I can. On a good day, or a lucky day, I like to think I’m the best PI in the world, never mind Memphis. On a bad day, or an unlucky day, I sometimes feel like I couldn’t detect the Mississippi River, even though it rolls past only a hundred yards from my office window.
Oh, yeah. I used to be a lawyer, too. I made more money then, but I didn’t have nearly as much fun.
Amanda hires me on three or four cases a year. Our fee arrangement was reached some time ago. I get paid reasonable expenses plus what she thinks the result is worth. She passes my fee along to her rich clients, and pays me herself for her pro bono clients. I’m not asked to support her favorite charity.
My latest engagement for Amanda is the case of Jones v. Jones, Shelby County Chancery Court Docket No. 02-25437. Jack Jones III is what is known as a “Pillar of the Community,” a title he earned by giving away large sums of inherited money. Jack’s grandfather made money from huge cotton plantations in Arkansas and Mississippi, where thousands of sharecroppers hoed and picked cotton to enrich the original “Mr. Jack” while sinking further and further into hopeless debt at his company stores.
Mr. Jack died in 1920 at the age of eighty, after stroking out while screaming at hands who weren’t hoeing the weeds out of the cotton to his satisfaction. Legend has it that the sharecroppers on both sides of the river held a celebration that Saturday night like nothing that has been seen since, and black preachers at services the next day called upon their flocks to kneel in thanksgiving for their deliverance. It’s a good story, anyway.
After the old man’s death, Jack Jones, Jr.--“Mr. Little Jack” in Delta parlance--sold most of the farmland. Jack, Jr. had been sent away to the University of Virginia, and was a thirty year old bank officer in Memphis at the time of his father’s death. Everybody figured he would live quietly and well on his inheritance, maybe even keeping his job at the bank, since in