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The Actress -- A Christian Murder Mystery

By Michael Hicks Thompson

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Chapter 1 -- The Intruder


Midnight, August 10, 1962, Solo, Mississippi.

A filthy windowpane separated the most famous actress in America from the human silhouette outside her bedroom.

The crunching of leaves, the sound of footsteps had gotten her attention. She removed her pistol from the bedside drawer and inched her way toward the window. She gathered a breath, then eased a finger to the trigger, pointing the barrel at the dark figure.

The intruder’s hand touched the window. She fired. The bullet passed through the glass, into the darkness.

Movie star Tully Ivey had shot local farmer and respected citizen Andrew Dawkins.


The Bethel County Sherriff’s Department arrived an hour later. Four Hollywood RTO executives hovered around Dawkins’s body. Sheriff Butch Turnbull made a mental note of Tully Ivey crying on a man’s shoulder.

Turnbull knelt beside the body and unbuttoned Dawkins’s bloody shirt. The bullet wound was dead center chest. Turnbull checked for a pulse. None. He noticed a note clenched in Dawkins’s right hand and a pistol in the grass.

He slipped them both—the gun and the note—into a plastic bag.

The note would hold the key to Tully Ivey’s future.

How do I know these things? Because it’s my business to know. I’m the only reporter for The Bethel County Gazette. The knowing is easy. It’s the unknown that takes time to uncover.

In a small town like Solo, we know everything about everybody. It’s strangers who keep us up at night. And crickets.

I drove to the sheriff’s office in Greenlee. Shirley Dawkins had called me, sobbing and hysterical. She needed to know why her husband had been shot and killed. I felt sick for her.

I walked into the sheriff’s department at three in the morning. Tully Ivey was sitting across a desk from the sheriff—a hefty man, built like a bull, with a crew cut and bushy eyebrows.

The famous actress was explaining what happened. “He was trying to open the window,” she said. “What would you expect me to do?”

She didn’t seem the least bit arrogant or irritated. She was calm and collected. I flashed back to her roles on the big screen— elegant, sophisticated, the star of every movie she made.

“It was dark,” Butch said. “And the window was dirty. How did you know it was a man?”

Before she could answer, I walked closer. He was surprised to see me. “Martha, what are you doing here? You need to leave.”

“I’m here for Shirley. She needs to know what happened.”

Reluctant at first, he nodded in agreement and turned back to Ivey. “So, how did you know it was a man?”

“I didn’t know,” she said. “Like I told you, eventually I went outside to see if someone was still there. I was frightened to death when I discovered his body.”

She looked at me. “Wouldn’t you be? Who are you?” I didn’t respond. Maybe I was star-struck.

The sheriff kept probing. “Did you hear him say anything from outside your window? Did he call your name?”

“No, I only heard those crickets. They’re so eerie.”

“You said earlier you hardly knew Mr. Dawkins. Why were you crying over his body?”

“I was upset. Oh, I knew him a little,” she said, squeezing two provocative fingers together like Lauren Bacall. “He had a small role in the movie. I never thought of him as a bad person.”

Butch scratched his cheek. “How do you explain the note?

Sure seems like you knew him more than you’re lettin’ on.” “What note?”

“The note in his hand.”

“Oh, I did notice something in his hand. Was it a note?

What did it say?”

Butch took the note from a manila folder. “Here—here’s a copy.”


Tully,
I don’t deserve you. I will always love you. I just want you to know the proof of your innoçençe in the Rod Russell shooting is in safe deposit box 4918 at City National Bank. One day I will explain why I didn’t tell you earlier. The key is on the ledge.
Andrew


She pressed a hand against her chest. “Oh, my. How did he know I’m innocent of that awful Rod Russell murder?” She expelled a lung of air and placed the note back on Turnbull’s desk.

I stepped closer to read it, but he took it away. I could smell her perfume. Tabu.

She reached in her purse and retrieved a thin, silver-engraved box of cigarettes. She selected one and inserted it into a shiny black holder. Deputy Cox, who’d been leaning against the doorjamb, pulled a Zippo from his pocket, strutted over, and lit it. She smiled at him, tossed her head back, and blew out a smoke ring as big as my dinner plates. Cox grinned and dropped the lighter in his trousers, while Butch continued.

“This note says he loves you. Is that why Andrew Dawkins was at your window?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, Sheriff.” She batted her Hollywood eyelashes. “Like I told you, I hardly knew him.”

“Had he ever been to your window at the Grater house before?”

“Heavens no.”

Butch held his palms out to her. “By the way, should I call you Mrs. Ivey?”

“Please, call me Miss Ivey. All my close friends do.”

Dropping his head, Butch placed a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “I’m not sure you should refer to me as a close friend. Please understand I’m investigating your involvement in a man’s death.”

“Well okaaay. Ask me anything,” she said, casting a polished smile too bright to ignore.

“I should have asked if you’d like to have an attorney present.”

Motioning to the man next to her, she said, “Randall Carr here is not only my agent, he’s my attorney. He usually lights my cigarettes, too.” She sneered at him. “Don’t you, Randall?”

Randy Carr was yawning; his chin nestled in his palms. He reached in his pocket, pulled out a butane lighter and flicked it in front of her burning cigarette. She brushed him off and smiled at Deputy Cox, then returned her focus to Butch. “Besides, Sheriff, I don’t need a lawyer. He was breaking into my bedroom.”

Butch squeezed his eyebrows together. “Did he break the window? Try to open it?”

“I saw a hand. He was trying to break in.” She tamped down an unfinished cigarette into the sheriff’s tin ashtray.

“Tell me how the pistol ended up beside his body.”

“I took it with me. I thought someone might still be outside.” A stricken look crossed her face. “Then I saw him on the ground. It was awful. There was blood. He wasn’t moving.”

Butch kept probing. And Tully Ivey kept repeating the same sequence of events—from when she first saw someone outside, to pulling the trigger.

An hour more of routine questions and the sheriff was done. “I’m going to release you under your own recognizance. But you must not leave Solo without my permission. Do you understand?”

“Of course, Sheriff, whatever you say.”

Stamping out her third cigarette, she stood, as tall and regal as her reputation. She oozed grace and charm with the confidence of royalty who’d never expected to spend a single night in some Mississippi jail cell.

Butch seemed enamored with her. Me? I was disappointed in the sheriff’s interrogation.

“Cox, I want you to drive Miz Ivey and Mr. Carr out to the Grater house,” the sheriff said.

“Be my pleasure,” Cox said, spreading his cowboy legs, both thumbs wrapped around his belt buckle.

After Tully Ivey and Randy Carr left with Deputy Cox, I approached the sheriff, “How come you let her off so easy?

His response was lame. “If somebody was trying to get into your bedroom in the middle of the night what would you do?”

“I’d call you.”

He scowled. “Martha, I’d advise you not to get involved in this.”

“It’s too late. I’m doing this for Shirley.” He walked away in a huff.

And it was too late to visit Shirley, so I phoned her from the sheriff’s department.

“Shirley, I am so sorry about Andrew. I believe it was just a terrible accident.”

I explained some of the circumstances, but didn’t mention the note. No sense rattling her nerves more than necessary.

“But, Martha, what was Andrew doing at her window? Why was he there?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to look into it.” She deserved to know why her husband died.

“You will? Thank you. Thank you so much.” Her voice broke on a sob.

Driving home, I vowed to root out any evil behind his death—if there was any. Maybe the shooting was self-defense. In the Mississippi Delta, we’re not sure who committed anything. Including murders. Maybe Tully Ivey had every right to shoot somebody breaking into her bedroom.

We all knew Andrew Dawkins as a good-looking, well-respected cotton farmer in Bethel County. Two years ago, we even thought he might marry Mary Grater after her divorce from Capp. But one day—whoosh!—he was gone. Turned up a month later with Shirley Williamson from Memphis on his arm. He stayed out on his farm and did his churching—and everything else—in Greenlee, probably because he was too embarrassed to face our little Bible study group at church on Sundays.

Shirley Dawkins was his opposite. If Calvary’s doors were open, she was there. Mary and Shirley even became good friends in our Bible study group. I always thought it was very Christian-like, Mary holding no grudges against Shirley and all.

Still, the note in Andrew’s hand led to a series of bizarre discoveries nobody expected.

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