“Home, I guess. Or we could stop at Yvonne’s for something.”
Beulah’s Meat’n Three, I assumed, and not Yvonne’s house in Damascus. Damascus was in the other direction. But Beulah’s opened early, so the staff was probably already there.
I probed inward. “I could eat.”
In fact, something to fill that hollow sensation in my stomach would be nice. Not that I thought food would really do it. But it might make me feel better for the few minutes before I realized it wasn’t going to work.
Neither of us spoke as he mingled with the early morning traffic flowing into Columbia, and then back out the other side, where it was much less crowded on the road going out of town.
I’m sure he kept an eye out for Rodney’s Charger as he navigated traffic. I did, too. “Do you think they left town?”
I didn’t have to specify who I meant. “Could’ve,” Rafe said.
“Maybe we don’t have to worry about whatever was supposed to happen today.” That would be nice.
Rafe grunted. It sounded like dissent.
“They’re involved in two murders now,” I pointed out. “And they have to know we’re looking for them. The safest thing they can do is leave.”
“Not sure they’re worried about being safe,” Rafe said, which was probably true.
When we reached Beulah’s, the OPEN sign was blinking on and off in the window. The sun was starting to rise over the treetops behind the small, cinderblock building, outlining the budding branches in vivid orange, and the parking lot had a half dozen cars in it. None of them was Rodney’s Dodge Charger.
Rafe shook his head. “I don’t think we have to worry about’em being here.”
Not after last time he’d thrown them out.
It was too early for Yvonne herself, too, but Maureen waved at us from a few tables away. “Sit anywhere you like. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
We grabbed a booth by the window, and since Carrie was starting to stir, and it was getting close to her usual start-time anyway, I took her into the ladies room and changed her diaper. By the time I got out, Rafe had already ordered himself a cup of coffee and me a cup of tea, and was scanning the menu, trying to decide what he wanted.
“You need energy,” I told him. “It’s going to be a long day.”
“You got that right.” He closed the menu, and Maureen materialized next to him. “You ready, hon?”
He nodded. “I’ll take three eggs over well, with home fries, sausage, and wheat toast. You, darlin’?”
“Griddle cakes,” I said. “No butter and light on the syrup.”
The corner of Mo’s mouth quirked, but she nodded.
“What’s the point of having pancakes if you don’t want the butter and syrup?” my husband wanted to know.
“It’s not that I don’t want them. Just that they’ll go right to my hips.” And then Mother would lecture me about maintaining my figure, so my husband wouldn’t go somewhere else for his jollies.
“Your hips are fine,” he told me. To Mo, he added, “Give her butter and syrup. Whipped cream, too, if you got it. And throw in some chocolate sprinkles.”
Mo grinned. “Yessir.”
She sashayed away, beehive swaying, snapping her gum.
“I’m going to get fat,” I told Rafe.
“You’re nursing. You gotta keep your calorie intake up.”
Well… maybe. “Thank you.”
He grinned. It didn’t have its usual potency, but I gave him points for trying. “No problem. More to hold on to.”
“Don’t let Mother hear you say that,” I told him, but I didn’t quibble anymore about the food. If he wanted more to hold on to, I could certainly oblige. And if feeding me, and arguing with me about the food I ate, made him feel better about this morning, I was happy to oblige with that too.
Especially if I got pancakes out of it.
The pancakes were great, whipped cream, sprinkles, and all, and although I didn’t have much appetite—and all I had to do was think about Felicia Robinson to lose what little appetite I had—I managed to make a respectable dent in them. Rafe polished off eggs and sausage and toast and home fries like nothing was wrong, but then he had a lot of muscle to maintain, not to mention a full day ahead of him. I didn’t make the mistake of thinking his appetite had anything to do with his mental state.
“What happens now?” I asked him, when Mo had dropped the check on the table, and we were gathering our things—including Carrie—to go up to the front and pay.
“Now I take you home. And then I get a shower and put on clean clothes and go back to work. Those two bastards are out there somewhere, and we gotta find them.”
Yes, they did. Now more than ever.
Rafe was just pulling out his wallet to pay for breakfast when his phone buzzed.
“I’ll get it,” I told him, plucking the wallet from his hand and opening it. “Get the phone.”
I fished out enough money to pay the bill—Rafe still prefers cash to credit or debit cards, since it’s impossible to track someone through cash—and handed it to Maureen, who was handling hostess-, waitress-, and cashier-duties this early in the day. She made change, and I gave her a five for the tip. “Thanks.”
She smiled as she tucked it away. “We’ll see you next time, hon.”
I told her to tell Yvonne hi, and was just about to turn away when I caught sight of a poster pinned to the front of the cashier’s station.
Friday, it said, with today’s date. Dedication of the bauta to commemorate the victims of the 1946 race riots. Join us in The Bottom/Mink Slide, 10 AM , to hear Mordecai Lawson speak.
I glanced at Rafe, but he was still on the phone, half turned away, scanning the parking lot.
I reached out and grabbed the poster. “Mind if I take this?”
Maureen looked at it. “Not at all, hon. It’s almost over anyway, ain’t it?”
Was it?
I glanced at my watch. It was just past eight. So no, not almost over. But getting close to starting. People were probably beginning to congregate. Wherever The Bottom/Mink Slide was. I’d lived here in Sweetwater my whole life—minus the few years I’d spent in Charleston and Nashville—and I had no idea.
“Do you know where this is?” I asked Mo, who was close to Mother’s age. Not old enough to remember the race riots, but perhaps more up on the old place names than I was.
She scanned the poster. “Mink Slide? That’s what the whites used to call the black business district in Columbia a hundred years ago. Not sure about The Bottoms, but it could be the same thing. Or a business in Mink Slide.”
Maybe so. I shot another glance at Rafe, who was still talking. “Do you know where it is?”
“South of downtown,” Maureen said vaguely.
“What about the dedication? Know anything about that?”
She shook her head. “Nothing more than it says. Mordecai Lawson’s from Memphis, I think. Important during the Civil Rights era.”
So after the Columbia Race Riots—everyone involved in them was probably dead by now—but a big shot in the African-American community.
“This is a black thing, right?”
“Yes,” Maureen said, giving me a pitying sort of look, like she suspected that while I might look bright, looks could be deceiving.
Rafe sounded like he was in the process of finishing up his phone call, so I kept a tight grip on the poster and took Carrie’s car seat in my other hand. “Thank you,” I told Maureen politely, and took the couple of steps toward Rafe, just as he lowered the phone and dropped it in his pocket.
“We gotta go, darlin’.” He pushed the door open.
“I know,” I said. “Listen, Rafe…”
But he talked over me. “Let me take the baby. We gotta hustle.”
“Who was that on the phone?”
“Tammy,” Rafe said, as he legged it across the parking lot toward the Cadillac. He’s six feet three inches, so quite a lot taller than me, and his legs are correspo
ndingly long. I had to scramble to keep up.
“What happened?”
“They found Rodney’s car.”
So this was good news, not more bad. “Where?”
“In the parking lot at Laurel Hill,” Rafe said, unlocking the car doors remotely and reaching for the back door to put Carrie inside.
I skidded to a stop next to him. “Laurel Hill?”
He nodded. “I gotta get down there. If they’re in the park, it’s gonna take a lot of manpower to root them out.”
“Or you could just put a guard in the parking lot and wait for them to get hungry and come out on their own,” I suggested. “Why set yourselves up as targets? It’s not like they’re going to want to be in there forever. Rodney, at least, isn’t used to roughing it. He’ll want his pizza delivery and his HBO in a few days.”
Rafe gave me a look as he shut the back door.
“Well, he will.” I lifted the poster. “Listen—”
“We don’t have much time, darlin’.” He moved me out of his way. Literally, physically, moved me, so he could open the door for me. “I gotta get home, get the SWAT gear, and get down to Lawrence County.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I told him, even as I let myself be maneuvered into the seat. “If you’d just listen to me for a second—”
But the car door shut behind me before I could finish my sentence. When he opened the driver’s side door and slid behind the wheel, I decided I’d just bide my time and let him drive. This dedication wasn’t scheduled to take place for an hour and a half, at least, and I could be wrong to focus on it, anyway, if Rodney’s Charger was in Lawrence County.
“How big is Laurel Hill?”
“Not sure,” Rafe said. He pulled the nose of the car up to the edge of the parking lot, hung there for a second, and then gunned the engine. We shot across the road and into the southbound lane between two cars, the second of which gave us an irate toot of the horn.
I let out the breath I’d been holding while I’d waited to see if we’d get creamed, and took another one. “You’ve spent a lot of time walking around there. How long do you think someone could, reasonably, stay hidden?”
“If we didn’t know they were there, maybe a couple weeks. In this situation? We’ll find’em by tomorrow.”
He glanced at me and added, “We’ll have’em in custody in a couple hours if they’re heading for that camp the park service found yesterday.”
“I thought we decided that had to be somebody else’s. If Lance had been sleeping in the house on Fulton.”
“Not sure we decided that, darlin’. As I recall, we thought it mightn’t be, if he’d been in the house. But there’s no saying the camp couldn’t be his and they’re there now.”
“Well, what do you think they’re planning to do there? It’s not like there’s anything going on in the park that it’ll be fun for them to blow up.”
“There’s still that hypothetical family reunion we talked about yesterday.” He zoomed down the road like the hounds of hell were on his heels. “Although, after last night, they mighta given up on that.”
“If they’ve given up on whatever they were planning, wouldn’t they be gone? And off to somewhere where it would be easier to disappear? I mean, Laurel Hill isn’t exactly the Appalachian Trail. You can’t get lost in Laurel Hill for very long. You said so yourself.”
Rafe sighed. “So what are you saying, darlin’?”
The driveway to the mansion was coming up ahead, and he slowed down to take the turn. Good thing, too, because at the speed he was going, we would have ended up halfway across the field if he hadn’t.
“Drive around to the back,” I told him.
He shot me a look, but didn’t ask why. It was probably obvious. If Rodney and Lance weren’t in Laurel Hill, they could be anywhere else, including here. And while I didn’t think they were, I didn’t want to take any chances. Unlike the other night, Rafe wasn’t wearing Kevlar today.
He pulled around the house and parked the Cadillac in front of the garage. “”I’ll go open the door.”
“I’ll get Carrie,” I told him. “But I really do need you to listen to me, Rafe.”
“Come upstairs and talk to me while I change. Tammy’ll be here in five minutes.”
He was already gone. By the time the car door slammed, he was at the back door, fumbling for his key.
I sighed, and went to get Carrie out of the back seat.
Twenty-Three
I trailed him through the kitchen, down the hallway, and up the stairs. And then I planted myself on the bed, determined to get him to listen to me.
Here’s the problem, though. He was taking his clothes off, and that’s always distracting. And he was naked underneath, having gone commando this morning because it was too much time and trouble to dig out a pair of underwear, so that was distracting, too.
By the time the black cargo pants were fastened and the black T-shirt was going down over all those lovely muscles, I was ready. “So here’s the thing…”
He held up a finger in a ‘just a minute’ gesture. “I gotta brush my teeth.”
And he walked out of the room and into the bathroom.
I gritted my teeth, since this was getting ridiculous, and stalked after him. And planted myself in the doorway of the bathroom while he put toothpaste on his brush and stuck it under the water spray and then into his mouth. “Listen to me. This is important.”
“I’m listening,” he told me, or something like it, around the brush. Although with all that noise going on inside his head, I wasn’t sure how much he’d be able to process. So there went another thirty seconds while he gave his teeth a quicker than usual swipe after breakfast.
“Now,” I told him when he’d spat and was in the process of wiping his mouth. “One minute. Sit on the edge of the tub.”
He glanced from me to it and back. “I’ll stand.”
“Fine. Just don’t try to get out of here until I’ve finished talking. If Grimaldi shows up, it won’t hurt her to wait sixty seconds.”
“Then start talking,” Rafe said. “You’re wasting time.”
I took a breath, and used it to order my thoughts. It wasn’t enough, but better than nothing. “I don’t think Rodney and Lance are in Laurel Hill. I think the car parked down there is a ruse. I think they’re trying to lure you down there so you won’t be here.”
He arched a brow, but didn’t try to interrupt me, so I kept going. “They probably drove there in Rodney’s car, parked it, and then came back, maybe in Jennifer Vonderaa’s car. You still haven’t found that, right?”
He shook his head. He was leaning against the edge of the sink, and his arms were folded across his chest—nice arms, nice chest—but at least it seemed like he was actually listening.
“There’s nothing for them to blow up in Laurel Hill,” I said. “And probably not a lot of people on a weekday morning, either. And Clayton was specific about something happening on Friday.”
“Could be Friday night. Might be more people tonight.”
“Sure. But it doesn’t make any sense. If they want to make a splash, making it in a small wildlife area in the middle of nowhere isn’t very impressive. You have to admit that.”
Apparently he didn’t, because all he did was arch a brow.
“While you were on the phone with Grimaldi, I saw this poster hanging on the hostess stand at Beulah’s. This morning at ten, there’s a dedication of a monument to the people who died during the Columbia race riots in 1946. Some big-shot Civil Rights leader from Memphis is the speaker. It’s going to take place somewhere called The Bottoms or Mink Slide in Columbia. I’m not sure whether The Bottoms is just another name for Mink Slide, or whether it’s a place—a business or something—in Mink Slide. But Mo told me Mink Slide is what the white population called the black business district back then. That’s where the riots started.”
Rafe’s posture didn’t change, but his eyes sharpened. “So there’s an event at ten c
ommemorating black history.”
I nodded. “I was thinking—”
“I know what you’re thinking, darlin’.” He dropped a quick kiss on my lips before he moved me out of his way. “That the piece of paper you were hanging onto all the way home? Let me see it.”
It was on the bed next to Carrie’s seat—the baby was cooing and playing with her toes—and Rafe grabbed it and scanned it.
“If Lance wants to start a race war in Columbia,” I told him, from the doorway of the bedroom this time, “this sounds like a good time and place to kick it off.”
“No kidding.” He looked pensive for a moment. “Any idea where this place is?”
“None. But Google is your friend.” I pulled out my phone and typed. While I was scanning the results, there was the sound of an engine and the beep of a horn outside. “That must be Grimaldi.”
“I’ll go,” Rafe said and turned toward the door.
I moved out of the way so he could get past me. “Don’t leave with her.”
“I won’t. But I’m thinking maybe we’ll let the sheriffs handle Laurel Hill, and the PD can handle Columbia.”
That sounded like an excellent division of labor to me. Of course, he had to talk Grimaldi into it first.
He disappeared down the stairs while I finished my Googling. I grabbed the car seat and followed. By the time I got to the foyer, Grimaldi had, very reluctantly, left the car, and was standing just inside the door looking at the flier Rafe had given her.
“The riots took place just southeast of the town square,” I told them both. “The black population called it The Bottoms, the area at the bottom of the hill along East 8th Street. The white population called it Mink Slide. There’s already a historical marker on that block, outside the A.J. Morton Funeral Home. I don’t know why I’ve never noticed it.”
“I don’t imagine you would have been there,” Grimaldi said distractedly, reading the flier. “East 8th is a wasteland. There’s nothing there but some boarded-up buildings and a couple of churches. Maybe a barber shop or two. And several empty lots. Nothing you’d be interested in.”
Maybe not. But I should have known about the historical marker, at least. It was for history that had taken place less than thirty minutes from where I grew up, and within the last hundred years.
Collateral Damage: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 19) Page 26