A Dredging in Swann

by Tim Garvin

  She said, “Then here comes Mr. Marshall Britt down to North Carolina from New York wanting to buy land to treat his banker friends to hunting and fishing. This is just after the war, I think 1945. And he hired my grandfather, Granger Sackler, to be his overseer and guide. And he built that beautiful lodge. He was coming and going for ten years or so, but after that he brought his wife and son and moved down. You’ve seen that lodge.”

  “I have.”

  “His wife was Virginia. I’m named for her. The poor woman fell off a horse and died in a day. Marshall Britt was brokenhearted, and who became his friend? Granger Sackler did. My grandfather was not afraid of white men, even back then. Mr. Britt’s black employee had feeling for him, and when that starts up everything goes out the window. Black and white go out the window. That’s the way we tell it on our side. A year later Marshall asked my grandfather to move into the lodge, not into a slave house beside the lodge, but in the lodge, which he did do, with Semolina, and Leo, my father, who was fourteen years old, and my aunt, Carrie. So you got that picture? Black family packed up out of their little shack house and moved in with a rich white man. Drawing down a nice salary to be keeper. This was about 1960, just before civil rights time. Before she died, Marshall was building Virginia a new house two miles up the Sable. He went on and finished it, and he and his son, Hugh, moved there, but they lived with my family a full year. In that lodge.”

  Virginia gave Seb a sardonic look. “I’m getting to that murder. I believe that’s on your mind.”

  “I’m waiting and listening.”

  “You’re not writing it though.”

  “I can remember stories.”

  She arched her brows. “You may have a tad bit of sense. So Marshall had a will, and then he rewrote that will and gave it to his lawyer, Mr. Bentley Branch, to file it for him. That’s because he got cancer and was looking ahead. And he told my grandfather what he wrote, and what it was, he gave my family twenty acres and that lodge. Right on Council Creek. He had a surveyor mark it off. Then Mr. Marshall took his boat out to sea, and when they found the boat it was empty. So that’s how he ended himself. He was a prize man. So my grandfather tells Hugh, is my deed coming? And Hugh says, just wait, the estate is settling. A year later the sheriff shows up to the lodge with a paper that says the Sacklers have five days to vacate because the lodge and the twenty acres have been sold to the Ford family of New York City. That was because Mr. Bentley Branch did not file that will. That will was never filed. Marshall had cancer, and I believe Bentley Branch knew where his bread was buttered and that was with Hugh, the heir apparent, who did not contemplate niggers on his land. Even ones he grew up knowing. And that his father loved. That right there may have been the trouble. Just natural, mean-spirited jealousy.”

  Virginia sat straighter. Her head waved slightly. She said, “That is the black side. Now you must talk to the Branch family, and they will tell you the white side. There was no new will, just a tricky black family making trouble. There was nothing even to contest in court, so my grandfather took his family back to the shack side of Spartanville, which is the black side of Spartanville. They went back to oystering, built them a clam dredge, had a good business, did well, moved everybody down to the Sable in a nice house. I was born there, and my grandfather would show me the lodge from the water, where he lived three years of his life. My daddy and my mother, June, built them a house next to my grandparents. Those were nice days, there on the water. But my father had a sour heart, there is no doubt, and when a chance came he took it. What it was, Hugh had started up a fish house, buying shrimp and oysters and fish, and had him a freezer truck and was hauling up to New York City. My father and grandfather did not sell to him, but their friends did, and they were telling that Hugh was cheating the scales for the black fishermen. They weighed light, not every time, but enough, and word was passing. So my daddy says, let’s see about that, and shows up with a skiff full of flounder. And when they weighed in, he searched the scale and finds a couple of magnets tucked underneath. A scuffle breaks out with the scale man, and Hugh comes down from the house and grabs a gaff and puts it into my daddy’s arm and hauls him around the dock and throws him into his skiff. Hugh Britt was a large and violent man. This is documented fact and witnessed by various ones, black and white, on the dock that day and written in the newspapers. So then my daddy comes back at night when the boathouse is dark to get that scale and have his proof. And, if you’re a white man on the all-white jury, he kills Hugh Britt with an axe, from the front, with his right arm gaffed clean through. Or if you’re a black man, he finds him dead. But he walks in blood and leaves footprints and case closed.”

  Seb said, “What do you think happened?”

  “You ask me three months ago, before Germaine Ford’s will come out, I’d say I cannot conclude. I told my daddy that whenever I visited, I don’t know if you did it, but I love you. I guess I thought he did it, and you know why? Because it was easier than thinking he was in prison on a lie. But I no longer think so because of Germaine Ford’s will. Something behind that, and you know the whole county thinks so. Maybe you the one appointed to find out.”

  “I might be.”

  “Why you looking so scruffy? You look scruffy for a police.”

  “I sometimes get loaned to other counties to make drug buys.”

  “Oh, you do? That’s a shame. Busting black children trying to escape the only way they know.”

  “I agree with that.”

  “Then you need to clean up.”

  “Except it’s a good look for me, don’t you think?”

  They half-smiled together.

  Seb said, “If Leo didn’t kill Hugh, who did?”

  “Well, think on it now. The governor lets my daddy loose of jail, and Germaine Ford gives him back her farm where he grew up. And Germaine living there all by herself for fifty years, never married. Don’t you think that’s a hint in there somewhere? You ever see a picture of Germaine? She was a beauty. Blond hair and slim. She was twenty years old when the Fords moved down, and Hugh was twenty-six. Why’d she give her farm to a convict in prison? Some say, well, she was making up for the treachery of Hugh Britt about the will, and it was her family kicked out a poor black family. No, no. The Fords didn’t have nothing to do with that except move in.”

  “You suspect her?”

  “If you don’t, you’re not thinking.”

  “Your dad ever say anything to you, when he got out or over the years?”

  “He told me what he told that reporter, that God grinds fine.”

  “What was his plan for the future? Did he have one?”

  “Everybody could move in with him. I told him, let everybody get to know him first. His grandkids don’t know him, except he’s a jailbird. Marshall does not know him.”

  “You have relatives gathering, smelling money?”

  “Aunt Carrie’s gone, and she didn’t have kids. Some of my friends have called, but I don’t talk money with nobody.”

  “I might come back later for a list of those friends.”

  “And I might not give it to you. Why would one of my friends kill my father?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the money would be easier to get out of you than him.”

  “You will not get a list from me.”

  “Your dad bought a lot of stuff when you took him shopping. Where’d you go, Sears?”

  “Sears and the farm store. And Lowe’s for tools and a bunch of planters. He didn’t have no patience to dig a garden and wanted to get growing. Except he started on that well, I guess. Didn’t even mow the lawn.”

  “Where’d you get the desk?”

  “He didn’t buy the desk. That desk was the only thing left in the house after the estate sale. It was in the bedroom.”

  Virginia’s head dropped, and she stared at her hands. She unlaced and flexed her fingers, then laid her hands i
n her lap. She raised her head and offered Seb an appraising look. “It has just occurred to me that I am a wealthy woman now. If I don’t get arrested. I could have that whiskey right now if I wanted, and Miss Jean could go fish.”

  Seb raised his eyebrows, an offer.

  “I don’t want one.” She covered her face with her hands and emitted a trembling sigh. She looked at Seb. She said, “Be a good detective in this. You can’t right these wrongs, but you can show them to the people.”

  “I will.” After a moment, he said, “Tell me about your mother. I believe she’s living over in Duplin County.”

  “She is. After about four years, she married my stepfather, who raised me and my brother. A man she never loved, but she sealed off my father and kept with my stepfather, who is gone now three years.”

  “Did your father contact her when he got out?”

  “No.”

  “So they had no contact for all those years?”

  “It was one way. He wrote her letters every month for forty-eight years. Can you understand that?”

  “I know men in prison do all kinds of things to hope.”

  “It wasn’t even hope. Just like a thread, so he wouldn’t fly off into space.”

  “Did your mother believe in your father’s innocence?”

  “She did when I was little. When I grew up, it came out she didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Not based on a fact she knew, or anything he told her. It was the same as me. Better than thinking he’s in prison by mistake. She didn’t even open his letters anymore. She just put them in the precious box at the top of the closet. That’d be a book of letters by now.”

  That struck a memory bell somewhere. “A precious box?”

  “One of those tobacco boxes. Black folks used to keep their papers in them. Look like they were made for papers. My grandfather had one.”

  “Has PB on it. For Phineas Brothers. I found one in the stable at the lodge.”

  “You don’t mean it.”

  “There was a hiding place under the floorboards.”

  Virginia smiled, flushed with delight. “That was my grandfather’s box. I don’t know how many times he mentioned it to me. It had a few pictures my grandmother took and some newspaper articles when my father played high school basketball. And money. But he took the money. He left the box on purpose. He said one day we might come get it. And look at here. That day has come, most tragically. I do want that box. Be sure now.”

  “Someone had dug it out of the floorboards. Did your father know where it was?”

  “Sure he did. That’s the first thing he would have done is get up that precious box. What was in it?”

  “It was empty.”

  “Well, look in the house.”

  “I looked. No photos, no newspaper articles.”

  “Well, then, he moved them. Look in the bank.”

  “I called the bank. He doesn’t have a box there.”

  Their eyes met for a moment. She said, “Somebody else got into that box then. And no, I do not have them.”

  Seb drew the photo from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Virginia. “Don’t remove it from the plastic. I found that in the stable. Is that your grandfather?”

  “That is Granger Sackler and his son, Leo. Keep care of this now. I want that.”

  “I will.” He took the photo back. “I’d like to hear about your brother.”

  “I wondered when we’d come to Marshall.”

  “You were both named for Marshall and Virginia Britt. But you were born after Hugh evicted you.”

  “So why didn’t we hate every Britt there was? See this man right here.” She tapped the photo. “We loved what our grandfather loved, and he loved Marshall and Virginia Britt, no matter about their son. Some people have love in them as a natural knack. That’s what attracted Marshall Britt. My grandfather was a shining man.” Her face worked, and finally, after her capable session of composure and history, her dignity lost its footing, and sorrow broke free. She lowered her head and sobbed. Seb waited, feeling for her, but without rights. After a moment, she lifted her head and palmed tears from her face. Her makeup smeared, exposing rings of purple skin. She said, “All this came because of love, when you think about it. The preachers get that much right. Love and hate must fight it out. Now then. My brother went to prison because he was caught with all that marijuana in that boat and would not tell on his friends, so they took it federal and locked him up for eight years. So he did six years for his friends. If you think a man like that would hire someone to kill his father for money, you best think again.”

  “He’s scheduled for release in three months.”

  “Will the prison notify him about all this?”

  “I can set up a call for you.”

  “Kind thanks.”

  “Now I have to ask you about your husband.”

  “Raymond Charles is back in Chicago and probably dead. His mother don’t even know where he is.”

  “He became addicted to crack?”

  “That and other women.”

  “I couldn’t see where you ever got divorced.”

  “Oh, lord. So you thinking he snuck down here and murdered my father and is planning to show up with his hand out. I expect that would take more sense than he’s got left. Last year, his mother told me he weighed just above a hundred pounds.”

  “I’ve seen some of that.”

  “He destroyed himself, poor man.” She paused, then added, “I see now I best get myself divorced, in case.”

  Seb fished a card from his jacket pocket. He said, “Would you be kind enough to email me his mother’s address and phone number?”

  She took the card, held it between two fingers, and cocked it toward him. She said, “Bark up that tree if you want, but you’ll come home to Germaine.”

  The Hurricane

  Gauntlet

  In the trailer, Cody dropped the four pillowcases of flytraps on the counter, then noticed a plastic basket of clean, folded clothes on his TV chair: selfless service from his sister. He and Charlene had a deal—she could enter the trailer for laundry but couldn’t clean up since that made things hard to find and also incentivized her bitching about disorder. The trailer had become a chaos of glasses, beer cans, whiskey bottles, opened and unopened mail, TV dinner cartons, books, a variety of food-crusted kitchen implements, newspapers and magazines, miscellaneous tools, plus a scatter of screws and bolts from appliances he had dissected. And also some of the appliance carcasses themselves—two radios, two blenders, a microwave oven, and a telescope. In Coopertown, where he lived for a while after prison, working his dad’s hogs, Cody was known as the go-to tinkerer.

  He cleared the table of dishes and cans, removed the flytraps from the pillowcases, laid them in neat rows on wet paper towels, then gently rolled them into columns. When money was at stake, he could be neat and careful, neatness that would have impressed even Charlene, if she wasn’t so anticrime. When Cody learned in Coopertown that flytraps had a nice price, he saw opportunity, and also safety, since flytrap poaching was then only a misdemeanor. His first market was nurseries. If you brought the traps in after hours, they were happy to buy, even after North Carolina upped the poaching penalty from misdemeanor to a class H felony. Hey, the guy swore he was growing them. Then he searched the web and learned that flytrap extract was being used in a new age cancer cure. He made calls, repping himself as the owner of a North Carolina nursery—did they want purebred, natural-grown flytraps from the wetlands of North Carolina, the single place on earth where they grew naturally? They did and paid five times what the nurseries did. He had so far delivered five thousand-trap bundles to two guys in a hotel parking lot. Money was miracle stuff and meant being warm and fed and having things, like a beer when you wanted one, or a TV and the internet, or spending the evening in one of Gleen’s s
cented hot tubs, see if Keisha was around and would join him.

  He got busted once, early on, with a couple hundred traps in a backpack, but that was before poaching went felony. He paid the fine but had the record. Eventually, when they discovered the dug-up water tower pods, they would knock on his door.

  His cell phone rang in his front pocket.

  “Hello.”

  “Cody, my little man.” It was Elton Gleen, starting him off with little man, tucking him into his slot. With Elton that was good. It was a safe slot, beside the fire but not burning.

  “What say, Elton?”

  “I been missing you, little man. Had a job for you too, but it fell on through.”

  “I’m not too much looking for work.”

  “Oh, I know you got your thing going. This was just a quick something, help me with a debt. But the man with the money did not cooperate.”

  “What’s up, Elton?”

  “I’m just thinking about you. I miss you. I live in the wilderness out here, full of ignorant forest creatures. Pedal your ass over here, and let’s light one up.”

  “I turned the leaf on dope.”

  “You did? When?”

  Cody hesitated, then made the truthful bad answer. “Today.”

  “Oh, lord. Well, at least come over and hot-tub. I just saw Keisha leave with her mom. She’s not working today, and they’ll be back. I need to hear an intelligent voice.”

  Cody hesitated again. Then because Elton could be the right company, the company to end with, if he was ending, he said, “Okay,” and closed the call.

  Elton Gleen had a soft spot for Cody, since Cody was the landlord’s son and smart and also since Cody had gotten out from under, for a while at least, with entrepreneurial moves in the marijuana business and now flytrapping. Elton owned the best trailer in Coopertown, a fancy double-wide with a front deck, and he kept it and his yard tidy and open for business. He had a double yard too, with four cast-iron bathtubs atop bricked-in gravel firepits and a tarp-covered stack of kindling. His yard was the gathering place for the hundred-odd Coopertown trailer park residents, and for nine bucks you could fill a tub, build a fire to heat the water, choose from an array of scents, and soak while you chatted with your buddies. You could roast hot dogs and marshmallows and, at night, you and your wife or girlfriend could get in and have sex while you soaked, right in front of everybody. If you didn’t have a girlfriend, you could solicit one of the gals in trailer five, who, depending on the state of their finances, might oblige for a fee. You couldn’t bring your own beer, but you could buy one from Elton’s icy cooler. Also wine and whiskey. And some nights, irregular with the employment or larceny of the trailer park denizens and friends, you could join a poker game in the double wide. Now and then the landlord, Squint Cooper, and his business cronies showed up to play table stakes, which cleared the trailer of Coopertowners, except for Elton Gleen, who had won poker tournaments and flew to Las Vegas twice a year, and who won large and lost small.