Phoenix Noir

Monk replied, “That’s the point. Given the excitement of the moment, witnesses routinely don’t recall events in the same sequence. If it’s too tight, too rote, something’s up. And in both your accounts, to me and to the newspapers, you used identical phrasing.”

Loveless and Thaxton looked at each other.

Monk rubbed his lower jaw. “By the way, was that a Colorado River Frog at the gym? Used the toad skin as a chaser in the Timothy Leary cocktail you slipped me?” Not only had he reread the news accounts, but he’d also studied up on toads, frogs, and bufotenine, a hallucinogen the croakers and some plants produced, at the library. Monk found that if you were quiet, off in a corner doing your own thing, the library made for a nice hideout.

He came further into the room. “You must have also used some substance to get your witch’s brew into my bloodstream quicker. Now, you could have given me a heart attack or psychotic breakdown … But I ain’t mad at you,” he added sar-castically, suppressing his anger. “I suppose you brainiacs discussed my outright kidnapping first, huh? Anything to get me out of the way long enough for the lady here to pass on and any questions I raised to be discounted.”

Loveless deflated.

Mrs. Mumford moved and said, “Help me sit up.”

“Justine …” Minnie Thaxton started.

“No, no, please.” She held out a hand and Thaxton used the control to raise the top portion of the bed. “Come over here, young man.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He stood by the side of her bed, hands clasped before him.

“I did it,” Justine Mumford said, looking beyond the walls, then back at Monk. “I came down to the studio to talk with Hayzell that day. The drugs, the sex, those things of course disappointed me. But I knew at the bicentennial celebration, where his father and I were to be honored, he was going to sing that song.”

Monk frowned. “‘Blazin’ on Broadway?’”

She closed her eyes. “Yes, the damned hit of his. Part of the lyrics talk about a certain woman the singer meets and falls for. He was referring to a real woman. Someone his father knew …”

“Someone he had an affair with?” Monk hedged.

“It had happened in the early ’60s,” Minnie Thaxton said hoarsely. “She was a member of the church and a young widow. Her son and Hayzell went to Sunday school together, and the son had spied the reverend tippin’ in one night.”

Loveless glared at her for being so coarse in front of the dying widow.

“I forgave him,” Justine Mumford said, “but Hayzell never did. As he grew up and they grew more apart about everything from baseball teams to the Vietnam War, he wrote that section of the song to get back at the man he considered to be a hypocrite.”

“Justine hushed the affair up around the church,” Loveless said. “The woman and boy left town.”

“But the band knew, cause Hayzell made a point of telling us,” Thaxton added. “It was a big joke to him.”

“So it was you two arguing in the backroom of the studio?” Monk asked the old woman.

She gave a brief nod. “The church was the landlord of that property. Gospel used to be recorded there. Imagine. I had a key and came in the back way to try and talk to him away from the others. As we argued, Burris heard us and rushed in, trying to get him to calm down. Hayzell was medicated, as was usual then, and pulled his gun on Burris. They fought and the gun dropped to the ground.

“I picked that pistol up,” the old woman proclaimed. “I suppose I thought to scare him.” Her eyes got wet. “But he taunted me, belittled his father and spat on all that we’d worked so hard for. He said he was going to enjoy singing that song to all those who’d be there for his father, and he threatened to tell everyone how he came to write it … How could my own son be so hateful?” Thaxton handed her tissue paper. She sighed and said, “Yes, I killed him, murdered the flesh of my flesh. I committed the greatest sin there is.” She turned her head away to the wall.

“We covered it up. We had no choice,” Minnie Thaxton explained. “It was one thing for one dope-fi end musician to shoot another. But the woman who was the symbol of Arizona civil rights? We just couldn’t give that kind of ammunition to the crackers.” She looked pleadingly at Monk. “We just couldn’t.”

Dr. Justine Mumford passed away peacefully two weeks later. Luminaries such as Jesse Jackson and former president Bill Clinton attended her august funeral. Several legal entanglements were hanging over Monk in Phoenix, but the prestigious law firm that represented Greater First Congregational was providing its services pro bono.

Ardmore Antony had a lot of unanswered questions, but the rights to his compilation were secured. The CD was eventually released, with extra tracks and updated liner notes, including recent remorseful quotes from Burris Parchman. The tragic story of Hayzell Mumford’s demise remained unaltered.

Nearly forty years after its original release, “Blazin’ on Broadway” by Hayzell and the Sugar Kings enjoyed a renewed run on the R&B charts.

IT’S LIKE A WHISPER