I shook my head. “Sherry might have been someone’s loving wife and grieving widow,” I said, “once upon a time, but she wasn’t Willoughby’s. When I moved to Knoxville twenty years ago, Sherry Burchfield was Knoxville’s most famous madam.”
Miranda laughed. “She was definitely well named, I’ll give her that. Isn’t ‘Sherry’ taken from the French word for ‘dear’ or ‘darling’?”
“French is Greek to me,” I said, “but that sounds right. And it’s certainly consistent with her history. Sherry was arrested a bunch of times for prostitution-related crimes—pandering, soliciting, I don’t know what all—but she never actually came to trial. Perhaps the pen really is mightier than the sword.”
“The pen?”
“The pen that wrote in Sherry’s little black book,” I said. “Apparently she was a meticulous record keeper, and rumor had it that her client list included half the judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys in Knoxville. Funny thing: When she died, which was maybe ten years ago, her little black book was never found. I wouldn’t be surprised if some enterprising associate of hers got hold of it and has been collecting hush money for a decade now.”
The backhoe’s bucket screeched—a harsh, grating sound, like immense steel fingernails on a monumental blackboard—as the claw raked mud from the top of Trey Willoughby’s metal burial vault. Miranda grimaced, then shook violently, like a wet dog flinging water from its fur. “Argh.” She shuddered. “Glad I don’t have any fillings—my head would be exploding right about now. So what’s the scoop on this love child Sherry might or might not have had with our man Willoughby? You say she died ten years ago; unless she died in childbirth, I assume the child is older than that.”
“Considerably,” I said. “Somewhere in his thirties. I’m not sure why he’s just now getting around to tracking down his paternity.”
Miranda shrugged. “Maybe he just found Sherry’s black book in a shoe box of memorabilia—with the words ‘Big Daddy’ down in the W section, beside Willoughby’s name.”
“Maybe,” I said. “All I know is that Judge Wilcox signed the exhumation order last night, and here we are this morning, at the request of the man behind the wheel of that car.” I pointed to the cemetery’s entrance, where a gleaming black sedan was gliding through the wrought-iron gates. Miranda groaned. “Oh, God, you didn’t tell me we’d be working for Satan on this case.”
“Now, now,” I soothed. “Grease isn’t really the Prince of Darkness; he just puts on the horns and the hooves when he goes to court.”