Mercy Killing

by M. Glenn Graves

  “Looks like you,” Rosey said as he nodded towards the Renoir print.

  “My father thought so, except for the hair.”

  “Beg your pardon?” Rosey said.

  Rosemary’s daughter returned to the living room before I could explain.

  “Forgive my manners. I did not introduce myself, but since you came here to see my mother, my name didn’t really matter all that much to you.”

  “Understandable,” I said.

  “I’m Bergamot Jenkins. My friends call me B.C. My mother loved flowers, hence the name.”

  “Bergamot is an unusual flower, a wild variety.”

  “Well, Clancy Evans, you already know much about me. My mother believed in the meanings of names. She must have seen something in her baby to call forth that unusual name.”

  “Were you teased in school?”

  “No. I was smart enough to go by Clover in the early years. Then just before high school, I started using the initials BC, and it stuck. It also helps in the legal profession to have the name B.C. Jenkins. In the beginning clients didn’t know I was a woman until they met me. Now after years of hard work and a good reputation, most of the people around Elizabeth City know B.C. Jenkins.”

  “But few know that you are a flower child, at least by name.”

  “Oh, dearie, those who really know me understand that it’s more than just a catch phrase from the late sixties. I did the California scene and everything.”

  “You don’t look old enough to have that history.”

  “Thank you kindly. All compliments are received with gratitude.”

  She laughed.

  “My mother is awake and will see you now. Both of you may go in,” she said and gestured toward the hallway. “Turn left and it’s the first room on the right. And be careful. She’s a wily old soul.”

  We followed her directions and found our way to the room where Rosemary Jenkins was sitting up in bed. She had a pink, oversized bed pillow behind her. It had extended, fluffy pillowed arms which allowed a person to rest comfortably while sitting up in bed. Rosemary appeared to be comfortable leaning on her pink oversized pillow.

  I expected to be visiting with a person who showed some age at 99 years. She could have easily passed for someone in her eighties, if not younger. She was wearing a pink nightshirt which matched her bed pillow, and some reading glasses. They were gray with some floral print on the temples. The book in her hands was the poetry of John Keats.

  “Welcome to my world,” she said and smiled. “Please don’t get the wrong impression about me,” she said as she held up the Keats book. “My daughter insists that I educate myself by reading some poetry each day. I struggle with Keats. Have you ever read him?”

  “It’s been years,” I said and looked at Rosey.

  “Will not some say that I presumptuously have spoken? That from hastening disgrace ‘twere better far to hide my foolish face?” He quoted from memory. The rascal. Must have been his Oxford connection.

  “Ah, you know the poet,” Rosemary said.

  “Only a little. Some lines stick.”

  “For me as well. Funny you should quote that line of all lines.”

  “Funny, perhaps, but still appropriate?” he said.

  “Guilty as charged, I’d say. You know Keats better than most.”

  “I studied him a little,” Rosey said.

  “You’re a real danger to society, you know.”

  “How so?”

  “An educated black man. Be careful young'un. Life can always be cut short.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Rosey said. “What do you recall about the death of Colby Johnson in 1933?” Rosey continued.

  “My, oh my, you waste no time.”

  “I wasted time and now doth Time waste me.”

  “Now you be showing off,” she said to him.

  “Couldn’t resist. Enjoy the Bard more than Keats.”

  “Most of us do, but Keats has his moments.”

  “And you, do you have moments in which you remember and reflect on that time long ago?”

  “Indeed I do, young man. Sadness fell on that Johnson home like a heavy funeral pall being dropped on a casket. So painful. Such a bright young child that Colby was. He barely had a grip on life at just over a year. Gone so quickly. But never forgotten, at least not by me.”

  “Do you know what happened?” Rosey said.

  “Do you mean do I know who killed him?”

  “Well, the official report was that he died a natural death of unknown causes,” I said.

  “You’ve done some research. Yes, that was the official word back then, but I knew better. Too many little things out of place for me to accept the official whitewashed word.”

  She spit the word whitewashed at us as if she meant something more than a cover up.

  “What things?” Rosey asked.

  “Whoever killed him didn’t know how the child slept in that crib. I found him, you know. I had just finished cleaning up all the supper dishes and the table and the kitchen, you know, the usual stuff after a meal for that family. So I went upstairs to check on the baby. I found him in his crib. He appeared to be asleep on his pillow. I knew immediately that something was wrong.”

  “Why was that?” Rosey said.

  “That child didn’t use no pillow. He didn’t like pillows. You lay him down on a pillow and he’d wiggle off of it and then find slumber. Never could get him used to a pillow. So when I found him with his eyes closed and his head on a pillow, I knew something was bad wrong. Bad wrong. I checked his pulse and he had nothing. I picked him up and blew into his face, his mouth, his nose, but nothing would revive that child. Someone done smothered that baby and put him down on his pillow to make us think he was just asleep. I didn’t buy it then, and I ain’t buying it now.”

  “Other little things?” Rosey said.

  “When he slept, he always put his index finger and thumb from his right hand into his mouth. He liked to suck on those two fingers at the same time. Gave him comfort, I reckon. But when I found him, his right hand was lying under him as if it had been dangling and whoever moved him, put his body down in that position and his right hand was underneath. When I would come into his room after his long naps, I would always find his finger and thumb still wet from his saliva. They wuz bone dry, I tell you. That child did not die a natural death.”

  “There could be other reasons why he was on that pillow and why his fingers were dry,” Rosey said.

  “I wuz his nanny, young man. I cared for that child like he wuz my own. You know what I’m tellin’ you? Someone killed that baby.”

  “Did you suspect anyone?”

  “I think I’d better shut-up now. I have said enough, maybe too much. Besides, I’ll a little weary of hearing myself talk so much. Better let Mr. Keats close out our session: ‘For sweet relief I’ll dwell on humbler thoughts, and let this strange assay begun in gentleness die so away.’”

  She finished reading the line from the page and closed the book.

  “Well said,” Rosey added.

  “I thought you’d like that quote. Come again, young folks. I hope you have some success in your search for the truth.”

  “If we have more questions or need clarification on some things …?” I said without finishing the idea.

  “Door is always open and the welcome sign out front is meant for the likes of you,” Rosemary said.

  We thanked B.C. Jenkins for her hospitality and left. We found a seafood restaurant that looked appealing so we sat in a corner booth in the back so Rosey could keep an eye on the entrance as well as the double doors leading to the kitchen. Mr. Cautious.

  “Your father an admirer of Renoir?” he said.

  “Not that I recall. The little girl with the watering may have simply been some conflagration of colors that caught his eye and he liked it. Maybe he thought it looked good hanging on the wall over my bed.”

  “Or your mother?”

  “My mother?”
>
  “Men do not generally decorate their daughter’s room with art work. Perhaps your mother is the one who chose the painting and encouraged your father to buy it,” Rosey said.

  “Is there a point to which you are headed with this Renoir questioning?”

  “Art often has a revelatory value. People choose specific works or artists because of some inherent quality in the style or the colors or both. Maybe the choice of this painting could reveal something about your parents,” he said more as a question than a statement.

  “The family story was that it was my daddy who bought and hung the painting. That’s all I have to go on. Our time together was cut short. He left before I could ask all of the questions.”

  Despite Rosey’s insight, I was not thinking about questions I would have benefited from asking my father who was dead. I was thinking of some questions I wanted to ask Rosemary Jenkins.

  23

  I was visiting Rosey’s room at the motel after we finished our seafood dinner at one of Elizabeth City’s fine establishments. We were continuing our conversation from our meal regarding Rosemary Jenkins.

  “You think she knows who killed Colby?”

  “Hard to say,” Rosey said. “She appears to be an honest lady, so, if she knows and we ask, she might tell us.”

  “Or maybe she has an idea. She does recall details, amazingly so after, what,...close to 80 years? I’m guessing on that, but she’s sharper than any ninety year old I’ve ever known.”

  “My money says she knows more.”

  “Well, B.C. Jenkins did invite us to come back. I think we should do that, and maybe sooner rather than later.”

  Before Rosey could respond, my attention shifted to the sounds of a motorcycle engine humming outside our motel room door. I put my index finger up to my lips with my left hand, drew my gun with my right hand, and motioned for Rosey to move to the room door opposite the side where I was standing. I flipped off the light switch which killed all of the lights in the room.

  There was a knock on the door. I looked through the privacy hole and was shocked to see the face of a biker we had met just a few days prior. He was perhaps the last person that I would expect to be knocking on Rosey’s motel room door in Elizabeth City.

  “Keep your gun out,” I said as I holstered mine. “I’m going to open the door. If I get shot, you have my permission to shoot the thug on the other side of this door.”

  I opened the door enough for Rosey to remain hidden behind it.

  “You lost, Bubba?” I said.

  Big Mike was standing there in all of his glory, head band, tattoos, leather chaps and leather vest.

  “Can we talk?” he said.

  “Sure. Come in,” I stepped aside and allowed him to enter. Rosey closed the door behind him and he turned around. His eyes fell on the 9 mm that Rosey had pointed at him.

  “You won’t need that,” Big Mike said. “I’m not who you think I am.”

  “So who are you?” Rosey said without moving the barrel of the gun away from Big Mike’s chest.

  “I’m Sam Gunther. I’m an undercover F.B.I. agent. We’re trying to stop illegal gun running along the east coast. We think the center of the activity is located in North Carolina, and, believe it or not, we think that the operation is controlled by someone in Riley Corners.”

  “You have any identity to prove what you are saying?” I said.

  He took off his right boot, removed his sock, and retrieved a piece of paper from inside the sock. He offered it to me, but I graciously refused to accept it. I have my limitations. I don’t have a foot fetish and I am suspect of anything that touches certain parts of one’s anatomy. Feet are included in my restraints.

  “Open the paper,” Rosey said to him as Big Mike smiled at me. “What’s on it?”

  “It’s a code. When deciphered, it tells who I am. I can decipher it for you.”

  “Yeah, that would prove a lot. You bring the secret message and then tell us what the secret message says,” I said as I drew my gun and pointed it at Big Mike.

  Rosey put his weapon away and took the paper from Big Mike.

  “I know the code,” he said. “I can decipher it.”

  Rosey sat down at the motel desk and deciphered the code on the page. He made note of the code on the side using the motel pen from the drawer while Big Mike and I watched. It gave his badge number and credentials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It also said that Sam Gunther was a field agent working undercover on gun running along the east coast.

  I could tell that Rosey was still a bit suspicious of this man. I was in complete agreement.

  “Satisfied?” Big Mike said.

  “Not entirely, but, for the sake of why you are here, let’s say we are willing to listen. Why are you telling us this and why did you come here?” Rosey asked.

  “I wanted you to know that I was the one who tried to protect you two after you entered Joe’s place the other night over in Bakers Station. I had to take the lead in confronting you since I knew that you were working your own case.”

  “And how did you know that? We’ve never met you before,” Rosey said.

  “You know Starnes Carver in Norfolk?” Big Mike, aka Sam Gunther, said to me.

  “I do,” I said a little surprised.

  “Well, Starnes and I went through the academy together. We did our Quantico training at the same time. Starnes moved in one direction, I ended up with the F.B.I. We’re friends and have stayed in touch with each other. I’ve known about you, Clancy Evans, from conversations I’ve had with Starnes. She seems to think highly of you. I did my best to try to keep you alive the other night.”

  “By shooting at us?” I said.

  “Aiming high. The bullets sailed over your heads, as I recall. I figured that if I took the lead, the rest of the guys would allow me to avenge my wounded pride.”

  “Wounded pride? You mean the murder of that old man Bishop Tanner?”

  “Didn’t murder him. Honest. I went along with Knucklehead to make sure he didn’t kill the man. It was part of my cover. I figured going would put me in a position to save the man.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Knucklehead threatened him, grabbed him by his shirt and shook him. It scared the old man so much that I think he had a heart attack.”

  “So at the very least Knucklehead is guilty of manslaughter or negligent homicide.”

  “Something like that. But he didn’t do anything other than threaten him.”

  “Appears it was enough.”

  “Yeah, and I hate that.”

  “Did you see him die?”

  “No, we had left the room before he had his attack. We were exiting the building when I heard some yelling and people started moving quickly in the direction of his room.”

  “You may have to answer for that later on, you know,” I said to Gunther.

  “Yeah. I will. It’s in my report already. I call in every two weeks or whenever something notable happens or is going to happen. I called in the incident at Joe’s place when you two ran into the bikers.”

  “So the Feds know we’re down here checking on a possible homicide,” I said.

  “They know you’re here, but don’t know why you’re here. You want me to tell them?”

  “No. Not enough info yet to be sure what is going on or what happened. Old, old story. We’re still piecing things together.”

  “You suspect a murder in the past?”

  “Suspect, yes. Prove, another matter entirely.”

  “I get that. I’m close to finding out who’s running the guns, but nothing substantive as yet. I need to be going. I can’t be away too long or Knucklehead will get suspicious. He’s not the brightest bulb in the light fixture, but he does have his moments of clarity. And he has a temper.”

  “He needs sensitivity training as well,” Rosey said.

  “Yeah, that too. Sorry about that.”

  “Believe it or not, I’ve heard and tasted worse in my life.” />
  “I’ll bet you have,” Gunther said.

  “Any clues as to the identity of the big boss of the gun runners?”

  “Better keep my opinions to myself for now, but I can tell you that we are looking carefully at some law enforcement people in Waylon County.”

  “Do tell,” I said.

  24

  It was Monday and we were on our way to Riley Corners to see what trouble we could stir up by asking more questions. Relentless troublemakers. Sam wasn’t happy with all of our interviews since he had been forced to remain in the truck during them. He was still speaking to me, so to speak, since I had taken him for a run earlier in the morning. At least he had been permitted to sniff and roam around for a couple of hours. He was sleeping in the back seat at the present.

  “At least now we know why we are still alive after our rendezvous with destiny in Bakers Station,” I said.

  “Only if you believe Sam Gunther or Big Mike or whoever the hell he is,” Rosey said.

  “You don’t believe him?”

  “I remain skeptical until I have some objective reality delivered to me.”

  “So the paper with the codes didn’t do that for you?”

  “Nope. I trust very few people. In fact, I trust you. I trust Estelle. And I trust your mother and Aunt Mildred.”

  “You don’t trust Sam or Rogers?”

  “Dogs are trustworthy. Jury is still out on computers.”

  “And you trust my mother?”

  He nodded.

  “Yikes. You’re a better man than I am,” I said.

  “In so many ways.”

  “Anyone you can call to check on this guy?” I said.