Dixie City Jam by James Lee Burke

Author:James Lee Burke [Burke, James Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Police
Published: 1998-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

I walked around the side of the house to the backyard and turned on the soak hose in my vegetable garden. The bamboo and periwinkles along the coulee ruffled in the breeze. Beyond my duck pond, the sugarcane in my neighbor’s field flickered with a cool purple and gold light.

Bootsie had gone shopping in New Iberia, and Alafair was fixing sandwiches at the drain board when I walked into the kitchen. From the front of the house I heard the flat, tinny tones of a 1920s jazz orchestra, then the unmistakable bell-like sound of Bunk Johnson’s coronet rising out of the mire of C-melody saxophones.

‘What’s going on, Alf?’ I said.

She turned from the counter and looked at me quizzically. I could see the outlines of her training bra under her yellow T-shirt.

‘Who put one of my old seventy-eights on the machine?’ I said.

‘I thought you did,’ she said.

The record ended, then the mechanical arm swung back automatically and started again. I walked quickly into the living room. The front door was open, and the curtains were swelling with wind. I opened the screen door and went out on the gallery. The yard and drive were empty and blown with dead leaves. Out on the dirt road black kids on bicycles, with fishing gear propped across their handlebars, were pedaling past the dock. I went back inside, lifted the arm off the record, and turned off the machine. The paper jacket for the record lay on the couch. The record itself was free from any finger smudges; it had been placed on the spindle with professional care.

‘Alf, it’s all right if you wanted to play the record,’ I said in the kitchen. ‘But it’s important you tell me whether or not you did it.’

‘I already told you, Dave.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘You think I’m lying?’

‘No, I didn’t mean that. How long has it been playing?’

‘I don’t know. I was outside.’

‘Did Bootsie put it on before she left?’

‘Bootsie doesn’t play your old records, Dave. Nobody does.’

‘Bootsie hasn’t been herself, Alf.’

She turned back to the counter and began spreading mustard on her sandwich bread, her face empty, the way it always became when she knew something was wrong in the house. Her pink tennis shoes were untied, and her elastic-waisted jeans were stained with grass at the knees from weeding in the garden.

I saw her hand with the butter knife slow, then stop, as a thought worked its way into her face.

‘Dave, I heard the front screen slam about fifteen minutes ago. Was that you?’

‘I was at the dock, Alf. Maybe it was Bootsie.’

‘Bootsie left an hour ago.’

‘Maybe she came back for something.’

‘She would have said something. Was it that bad man, Dave?’

I picked her up and sat her on top of the drain board, like she was still a small child, and began tying her tennis shoes.

‘Was it that bad man?’ she said again.

‘I don’t know, Alf. I truly don’t.’ My fingers were like a tangle of sticks when I tried to tie the bow on her shoe.

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