Murder at the Wham Bam Club

Book 1: Psychics and Soul Food Mystery

by Carolyn Marie Wilkins

Genres: Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

As Prohibition era speakeasies and Jazz Age excitement reign supreme throughout a deeply divided country at the height of the Roaring 20s, a young psychic in small town Illinois helps the Black community fight crime and corruption in this thrilling historical mystery written by a real-life psychic medium and jazz pianist.

After the death of her brave Harlem Hellfighter husband during the First World War, young widow Nola Ann Jackson returned to her hometown of Agate, Illinois, to live with her Aunt Sarah, a known local psychic. Under her aunt’s care and tutelage, Nola has been learning how to tap into her own intuitive gifts and communicate with the spirits. And she will rely on their insightful guidance when she’s asked to help investigate a woman’s disappearance.

Lilly Davidson, the missing woman, was living at the Phyllis Wheatley Institute for Colored Girls where young ladies are educated and prepared to follow bright futures. But she vanished after a night at the Wham Bam Club where jazz music swings, prohibition is defied, and other vices are encouraged. Lilly was seen fraternizing with Eddie Smooth, trumpeter and leader of the St. Louis Stompers—and a notorious pimp. Nola finds Lilly at the club alive and well, supposedly engaged to Eddie. That same night, the Wham Bam is set afire and Eddie is killed by gunfire, leaving Lilly on the run, a suspected murderer.

Eddie Smooth had shady dealings with Agate’s wealthy elite, Black and white, making plenty of enemies with motives for wanting him dead. He was also a notorious womanizer who left several broken hearts in his wake. To prove Lilly’s innocence, Nola must listen to her spiritual instincts to unravel political schemes and personal vendettas to find a killer desperate to cover up a scandalous conspiracy . . .

Release date: July 29, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Everything about the man ahead of me screamed “pimp,” from the rakish tilt of his fedora hat to the diamond ring sparkling on his little finger. When you are psychic, as I am, being around the wrong people can make you very jumpy. The dark energy rolling off this man grated against my psychic senses like fingernails on a blackboard.

I was on my way home from dropping off my winter coat at Harry’s Dry Cleaning. To cheer myself up on this gloomy October day, I’d chosen to wear my favorite outfit, a long-waisted yellow sweater and matching skirt with a fashionably short hemline. The cut of it showed off the generous curves I’d inherited from my mother, while its color complimented my caramel complexion. At the moment, however, I couldn’t help wishing I’d worn something that didn’t hug my hips quite so tightly.

As I approached the corner where he stood, I felt the pimp’s eyes on me, sizing me up.

“Hey there, sugar,” he said. He flicked his cigarette to the ground and sauntered toward me. “What’s a pretty brownskin girl like you doin’ out here, all by your sweet lonesome?”

I shot the man a dirty look, picked up my pace, and kept on walking.

“Suit yourself,” he said, with a nonchalant shrug. “Plenty more fish in the sea.”

Agate, Illinois, had been a sleepy river town when I grew up here, but all of that had changed since the Great War. New money, new ideas, and new people were flooding into town. It was 1922, and we were two years into a brand-new decade. Negroes were moving to Agate in droves, hoping to escape Jim Crow segregation in the South and make a better life for themselves. Every day the Illinois Central Railroad brought a fresh new crop of country girls from the Mississippi cotton fields to Agate where, they’d been told, the streets were paved with gold. As a result, my neighborhood had become a popular hunting ground for pimps, pickpockets, and other lowlife types.

Not to say that there weren’t also plenty of ordinary, hardworking colored folks living here as well. Lincoln Avenue, the narrow and always congested street for which Agate’s Lincolnsville neighborhood was named, was lined with stores offering to sell you everything from a fashionable new hat, to a tire iron for your Model T Ford. On this gray October day, the street was packed with Negroes going about their business. Women picking up stew meat at Harry’s Butcher Shop. Men stopping off at Mo’s Corner for a haircut, and to catch up with the latest gossip. Swift’s Smoke Shop, with its bright red sign and cigar store Indian, was always crowded with people placing clandestine bets on the illegal numbers racket with Jimmy Swift, the store owner and local bookie.

At the corner of Sixth and Lincoln, a six-foot-tall red, white, and blue signboard blocked the sidewalk in front of the Black Rooster Pool Hall, the thinly disguised speakeasy and gambling den that served as the unofficial headquarters for Republican ward boss Franklin C. Dillard. The sign read:

Under the watchful eye of a beefy thug with a boxer’s broken nose and cauliflower ears, a posse of street urchins in cloth caps and knee pants swarmed up and down the block shoving Skelton campaign flyers into the hands of people walking by.

“Election’s in three weeks,” a grimy boy reminded me as he stuck a flyer in my hand. “Don’t forget to vote.”

Congressman Skelton’s opponent in the midterm election of 1922 was Jeremiah Saunders, a bespectacled white college professor from Peoria. Saunders was running on a reform ticket, which promised to clean up corruption and crime. Lincoln Avenue was peppered with speakeasies, gambling dens, and brothels. Prohibition, the federal law forbidding the sale of alcohol, had only made people drink more. These days, white and colored folks could be found staggering drunkenly down the street at all hours of the day and night. You might have thought an anti-crime candidate would be popular in my neighborhood, but Jeremiah Saunders had no chance of winning the colored vote. Franklin C. Dillard, the Republican boss of Ward Eleven, was a Harry Skelton supporter.

Boss Dillard was a former police detective who controlled a vast underground empire of illegal whiskey distillers, gangsters and thugs. If you wanted to do business in Lincolnsville, you needed to give Boss Dillard his cut, or risk having a brick thrown through your window or worse. Franklin C. Dillard was no ordinary hoodlum, however. He was also the City of Agate’s only Negro lawyer. Dapper and articulate, Boss Dillard was never seen in anything but a handmade charcoal-gray three-piece suit with a fresh carnation in his lapel.

As I passed the pool hall, the clock at the top of First Episcopal Church struck eleven. I needed to hurry if I wanted to make it home in time to share a late breakfast with my Aunt Sarah before I left for work that afternoon. If I cut through the alley between Tenth and Water Street, I’d be home in ten minutes flat. The alley route was dangerous, of course. It was poorly lit and usually deserted, but I had already been hassled once that morning. What were the odds of lightning striking twice in the same day?

I was almost to the end of the alley when I saw a man and woman standing in front of me. The woman had her back to me, but I recognized her voice immediately. That high, icy, and penetrating soprano could only belong to Mrs. Sallie Wyatt, the last person in the entire city that I wanted to see. Mrs. Wyatt, a tall Negro woman with a high yellow complexion and intense hazel eyes, was the founder and headmistress of the Phyllis Wheatley Institute for Colored Girls. She was dressed in her customary impeccable style—a crisp gray suit, white gloves, and a pair of sensible but elegant English walking shoes.

When I lost both my parents to yellow fever in 1915, Mrs. Wyatt brought me to Phyllis Wheatley Institute, the live-in school she founded to help Agate’s homeless colored girls. She encouraged me to learn a trade and maybe even go on to college one day. But I was a boy-crazed and rebellious teenager with a mind of my own. Mrs. Wyatt and the Phyllis Wheatley Institute were no match for the charms of William Bartholomew Jackson. Six feet tall with a cocksure grin and dreamy brown eyes, Will was visiting his cousin in Agate before returning to New York City to join the fabled all-Negro 369th Infantry Regiment, known to colored folks all over the country as the Harlem Hellfighters. I was seventeen years old the third time Mrs. Wyatt read me the riot act for sneaking out after curfew. Determined to make my own way in the world, I ran away from Wheatley Institute, married Will Jackson, and moved to New York City.

How was I to know my new husband would be killed by a German artillery shell just six months later? How was I to know I’d end up coming back to live in Agate?

Although I’d been back nearly two years, I had not seen or spoken to Mrs. Wyatt. I had no desire to do so now. Yet, there she was, standing no more than a dozen feet away, giving the man in front of her a piece of her mind in that unmistakable voice of hers.

“I’m warning you, young man,” she said. “If I catch you coming anywhere near the Wheatley Institute again, I will call the police. Is that clear?”

“It’s a free country,” the man replied. He had slick processed hair, rich brown skin, and a thin mustache. His mohair suit looked expensive, as did the two-tone patent leather shoes he wore. His gravelly voice made me think of whiskey, cigarettes, and other forbidden pleasures. “I got a right to advertise my show wherever I see fit,” he said.

“A show at the Wham Bam Club?” Mrs. Wyatt shook her head in disgust. “If I had my way, the city would shut that horrid place down immediately. There’s illegal drinking, gambling, and god knows what else going on in there.”

The man laughed, the gold caps on his teeth flashing in the sun. “Quit foolin’ yourself, lady. You and I both know these cops ain’t gonna do nothing to me. My jazz band is the hottest thing in the Midwest. The way I see it, I’m doing the City of Agate a public service. Providing musical entertainment and good times to people who sorely need it.”

“Do not trifle with me, young man,” Mrs. Wyatt snapped. Despite her cultured manner, Mrs. Sallie Wyatt was quite strong, and not above giving you a good whipping if she felt you deserved it. Back when I was a misbehaving teenager, the very sound of Mrs. Wyatt’s voice was enough to fill my heart with terror.

“You were not soliciting the general public, and you know it,” she said, and wagged her finger in the man’s face like an avenging angel. “For the last several nights, you’ve been hawking your wares directly in front of Phyllis Wheatley Institute, a place dedicated to protecting homeless colored girls from exactly this sort of temptation.”

“A little bit of ‘temptation’ might be just what those lovely young things are looking for,” he said, “a chance to get away from all that Bible reading and hymn singing you got them doing.” His smile held more than a touch of malice. “At least that’s what your girls tell me.”

“Are you saying that residents of Wheatley Institute have been going down to the Wham Bam Club?” As Mrs. Wyatt stepped closer to the man, I detected a note of doubt in her voice.

“I can’t be altogether sure about that,” the man replied with an insolent grin. “Wouldn’t want to get any of my little friends in trouble, right? I think I better keep mum on that one.”

“Answer me, young man,” Mrs. Wyatt demanded. “One of my girls has been missing since Friday. Her name is Lilly Davidson. Have you seen her?”

“If I had, do you think I would tell you?” he shot back. “Look, lady. I’ve got places to go and people to see. Can’t waste no more time listening to your foolishness.”

Mrs. Wyatt grabbed the lapel of his jacket. “Answer me,” she said. “Have you seen Lilly Davidson? Do you know where she is?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have to tell you a damn thing, old woman. Get your hands off me.” He slapped at Mrs. Wyatt’s hand. When she did not let go, he gave her a hard shove. As she lost her balance, tumbled to the pavement, and lay motionless, the man turned and walked away without looking back.

As I ran toward Mrs. Wyatt, I could see a small rivulet of blood seeping through the gray hair of her elegant bun.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Wyatt?” I said. “Can you hear me?” I knelt next to her on the pavement and touched her hand.

She nodded weakly, and winced in pain as she pushed herself to a seated position.

“It’s a good thing you happened to come along, Nola Ann Jackson,” she said. “Has that despicable man left the area?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“In that case, we shall go to the police at once,” she said, sounding much more like the authority figure I remembered from my teenaged years. “Help me up, please. I want to report this assault as soon as possible.”

When Mrs. Wyatt tried to stand, it was clear she was in no condition to walk unaided. Once I’d gotten her upright, she teetered and would have fallen if I had not been holding her up.

“You should have someone look at that cut on your head before you do anything,” I said, though it felt strange to be telling my former headmistress what to do. “My house is just a few blocks from here. My Aunt Sarah can bandage you up and put some herbs on your wound so it doesn’t get infected. There will be plenty of time to fill out a police report afterwards.”

Mrs. Wyatt nodded, biting her lip against the pain. She leaned heavily against me as I led her, step by step, out of the alley and onto Cherry Street. The man who had pushed her was nowhere to be seen as we made our way slowly down the cracked sidewalk past a block of small wooden houses, their tiny porches and barren dirt yards a testament to the poverty of the Negroes in my neighborhood. We turned left at the corner of Cherry and Upper Fifth Street. Although it was small, like all the others on the street, my aunt’s house was surrounded by a white picket fence and neatly painted in a cheerful shade of light blue. My Aunt Sarah was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch waiting for us as I pushed open the front gate and led Mrs. Wyatt up the walkway.

Aunt Sarah is a tall woman with big bones, strong features, and the high cheekbones she inherited from her Cherokee grandmother. Her skin is the color of deep mahogany, and when you look into her eyes, you can sense a wisdom that goes all the way back to a time before slavery.

“Aunt Sarah, this is Mrs. Wyatt, the head of Phyllis Wheatley Institute,” I said, as I helped Mrs. Wyatt over the doorstep and into the front room.

“Set her on the sofa,” Aunt Sarah told me. “She is going to need a bandage for that head wound.”

When Mrs. Wyatt opened her mouth to speak, Aunt Sarah told her to save her energy. “You’ve had yourself quite a shock,” she said, “but it’s nothing the Spirits can’t put right.”

Too weak to say anything, Mrs. Wyatt sat down and slumped against the back of the sofa. Her normally tan complexion was pale and her breathing was ragged and shallow.

“You rest, Mrs. Wyatt. I’ll go and get you some tea,” I said, and followed Aunt Sarah down the hallway and into the kitchen.

When I started to tell her what had happened, Aunt Sarah put a finger to her lips. “No need to explain,” she said. “My Spirits showed me the whole thing. Nasty piece of work, that young man.”

My aunt’s psychic abilities were a daily source of wonderment to me. I was psychic myself and able to see shapes, colors, and energies around people. On a good day, I could see bits and pieces of a person’s future, and often felt a buzzing sound in my left ear when something important was about to happen. Aunt Sarah’s skills were at another level. Her ability to see into the future, prepare potions for healing, and, on occasion stop evildoers in their tracks, was legendary.

Psychic ability ran in the family, something my Bible-believing mother had done her best to deny. For Mama, the fact that Aunt Sarah brewed potions, read tea leaves, and talked to the Spirits was a source of profound shame. These activities represented a throwback to a dark and ignorant past, a past my mother was determined to move beyond. Mama rarely spoke about her sister, and when she did, her tone was bitter.

“Your Aunt Sarah is an educated woman,” she told me. “I can’t understand for the life of me why she wastes her time on this superstitious mumbo-jumbo. She learned how to read, write, and do figures at Zion Missionary School for Negroes. She ought to know better.” Mama gave her head an angry shake and frowned. “I have not spoken to your Aunt Sarah in fifteen years. If she wants to behave like an ignorant savage, I suppose that’s her business. But I can’t be around that kind of foolishness. It’s un-Christian. It’s ignorant, and it’s devilish.”

One thing about my mama. When she made her mind up about something, it stayed made up. Like all the women in my family, she was as stubborn as the day was long. When my parents moved to Agate, Mama cut my Aunt Sarah completely out of her life.

I never saw or heard from my Aunt Sarah while I was growing up. Not once.

The summer I turned fourteen, an epidemic of yellow fever swept through Agate. My mother and father died on the same day, within hours of each other. I was a sullen and disobedient teenager at the time, with raging hormones and a smart mouth. Mama tried to rein me in, but I rebelled. I wasn’t even home the day my parents died. I was out running the streets with some of my bad-news friends, and never got to say goodbye.

I felt horrible. The pursed lips and disapproving glances I received from the adults at my parents’ funeral only increased my sense of worthlessness. Aunt Sarah was not invited to my parents’ funeral. None of Mama’s friends in Agate even knew she had a sister. For all anyone knew, I was an orphan, alone in a friendless world.

Reverend Oates, the pastor of my mother’s church, brought me to live with his family. When I spent the next month drinking moonshine, chasing boys, and generally wreaking havoc, I was sent to live in the orphanage at Phyllis Wheatley Institute.

Aunt Sarah did not write me during the two and a half years I spent at Wheatley Institute. She did not write me when I eloped with Will Jackson and moved to Harlem. But exactly one year after Will was killed in the war, my Aunt Sarah wrote me a letter:

Was my Aunt Sarah really that psychic? Perhaps she had read of Will’s death in the obituaries. Whatever had prompted Aunt Sarah to write me at that moment, her timing was perfect. I was struggling hard to make a life for myself in New York City, but Harlem had been my husband’s home, not mine. Without Will Jackson in my life, I felt rudderless there—no friends, no job, and no family. After reading Aunt Sarah’s letter, I felt I had been given a new start. Two weeks later, I boarded the Illinois Limited and returned to Agate.

It had been nearly two years since my return to Agate. Aunt Sarah and I had settled into a comfortable rhythm. Although the woman had to be at least seventy, she was sharp as a tack and great company.

“Mrs. Wyatt needs something on that wound to keep it from getting infected,” Aunt Sarah told me. “I think I still have some comfrey leaves in my cabinet. I’ll fix her a poultice.”

She pulled out a large metal key from the pocket of her tattered cardigan and opened the door of the glass-fronted cabinet next to the sink where she kept her herbs, tinctures, and potions. After rummaging around for a minute, she pulled a large glass apothecary jar filled with comfrey leaves from the back of the cabinet. As she pried open the jar, a horrible smell filled the kitchen. The leaves of the comfrey plant are long and hairy, and they smell like horse manure. As I held my nose, I reminded myself that comfrey had powerful astringent properties that would help Mrs. Wyatt’s wound heal quickly.

“Don’t just stand there, Nola,” Aunt Sarah said sharply. She reached into the cabinet above the kitchen sink, pulled down a small black tin, and handed it to me. “Fix Mrs. Wyatt a pot of Recovery Tea,” she said.

I took the tin, measured out a generous spoonful of powdered herbs and dropped them into a blue porcelain teapot. Aunt Sarah’s homemade teas were wonder-workers, designed to help with everything from a runny nose to a broken heart. Recovery Tea was made from ordinary black tea mixed with a powder made from ginger, sassafras, and dogwood bark. However, its real power came from the mysterious incantations Aunt Sarah muttered under her breath as she ground the herbs.

I filled the teapot with hot water, let it steep for a minute, and placed it on a tray with a cup, a spoon, and a jar of honey. When I was finished, Aunt Sarah nodded her approval.

“You’re starting to get the hang of this work, Nola,” she said. “Now take this out to Mrs. Wyatt and see that she drinks it.”

When I returned to the living room, Mrs. Wyatt was slumped in the same position I’d left her in earlier, wan and semiconscious. I set the tray on the end table and filled her cup, making sure to add a generous dollop of honey to the steaming black liquid. After letting the tea cool for a few minutes, I tapped Mrs. Wyatt gently on the shoulder and helped her sit up.

“Drink this,” I said, and placed the cup between her hands.

Fifteen minutes later, Mrs. Wyatt had finished her tea and was sitting upright on the couch. After the second cup, Mrs. Wyatt’s color had returned and her breathing was back to normal.

“No need to fuss over me,” she said, placing her empty cup back on the tray. “It’s just a small bump on the head. I’ll be fine.”

“Aunt Sarah is making you a poultice for your wound,” I told her. “It will be ready in a minute.”

“Tell her I’m fine,” Mrs. Wyatt said firmly. “I don’t want her to go to any more trouble on my account.”

As Mrs. Wyatt continued to insist that she did not need any further treatment, Aunt Sarah bustled into the room carrying a bowl filled with warm comfrey paste and a long strip of white cotton.

“Nonsense,” Aunt Sarah said firmly. “You need more healing for that wound.”

Once the bandage was in place, Mrs. Wyatt began to look a lot more like the intimidating, take-charge school principal I remembered from my teenaged years.

“I read about your husband’s death in the Agate Daily Chronicle, Nola. Please accept my condolences,” she said. “When I heard you were back in town, I was hoping you’d stop by Wheatley Institute to see me.”

Although I was nearly twenty-one, I . . .