“Well, no, I guess not. It is hard to forget.”
“If this is too painful, Jessica,” I began to say.
“No, no. I’m fine. You wanted to know if I know who the woman was.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I did some checking around after the whole ordeal had created such tumult in our family. My granddaughter was devastated. Simply devastated. You cannot imagine what she went through, learning that the man she was to marry was having an affair with a younger woman, and a black woman at that.”
Her emphasis was obviously on the black part and not the young part. I sipped my tea instead of commenting. It was good tea.
“You sure it was an affair?”
“What? Of course it was an affair! Why else would he be coming out of a motel room with her?”
I decided that I didn’t have enough facts to answer that one, but I knew that situations are not always what they appear. Still, I let it die.
“I thought you were a keen investigator, Clancy Evans,” she almost laughed when she said that. She was wearing her condescending air.
“I look at all the facts whenever I investigate. Sometimes people, especially law enforcement people, have reasons for being where they are, and doing the things they have to do.”
“True enough, but when questioned and confronted, he gave no answer. He told Sally Mae nothing. Said it was personal or some such nonsense. Personal, indeed. Why, Sally Mae was to be his wife, for goodness sakes. He could have at least explained it better. But then, well, you know men. I doubt if he had an explanation.”
“So you don’t have a name.”
“I have a guess.”
“A guess?”
“Some of my friends and I were talking one day, a few years later, and one of them said something at our bridge club meeting that sort of gave me the idea of who this woman was.”
“Really.” Hooray for the bridge club.
“Yes. It was an innocent remark, you know. And she certainly wasn’t trying to dredge up the past or anything. We were simply sitting around playing cards and talking. You know, sharing stuff about the community and all.”
I got the picture.
“She said that she had heard that Sheriff Robertson went to visit Joy Jones a lot and that she had heard rumors that maybe the Sheriff and Joy’s daughter had something going on. But said that she had never seen anything or had no story to tell. Just an innocent remark, that’s all.”
Innocent.
“So your guess would be that Sheriff Robertson and Marie Jones were seeing each other?”
“Yes, but I have no proof or anything to back that up.”
“Quite a few years difference in their ages,” I said.
“I don’t think that matters to a man, Clancy Evans. They’re animals, you know.”
71
“I found the name of a nurse who was working back in 1975 and called her while posing as you, Boss Lady. I hope you don’t mind my subterfuge,” Rogers said.
“Spilt milk,” I said.
“What?”
“Water over the dam, Rogers. It’s done. Go on.”
“Sometimes I have no idea what it is you are talking about, and yet I am one of the smartest machines you know. Why is that?”
“Could it be that I am smarter?”
“Not likely. Not likely at all. Perhaps you have failed to program me properly.”
“Tell me about the nurse you found.”
“Oh, yes. She recalled the whole episode when I mentioned that the woman was black and that after she had given birth, she died a few days later. She said that it was a sad event. But she remembered that this black woman had been accompanied by a white man, a young white man.”
“She remember a name?”
“She apologized for her memory saying that it was just too many years ago, but she thought his name was Bob or Rob or something like that. She said that she kept a diary back then while working in the pediatric wing of the hospital, but she had no idea where the diary was. She said she would look for it. It might contain something that would help. That’s all I got.”
“Might be enough. It’s certainly enough for me.”
“The puzzle coming together?”
“Yeah, but I don’t like the picture that is forming. Call me if you get something else.”
“Anything else I should be checking?”
“All of my loose ends.”
“Now how am I to know what all of your loose ends are?”
“You’re the smartest machine I know. Remember?”
She was silent as she processed my retort, so I clicked off. I would pay for it the next time we talked. The thing about Rogers and her intelligence was that she remembered everything, but she seldom held grudges for longer than a day or so. At any rate, I had more serious matters with which to contend.
Rosey joined me in my mother’s backyard. I was sitting in the tire swing contemplating the whole mess that I was uncovering.
“You okay?” Rosey asked.
“Sure. I’m okay. Just sometimes I don’t like my job.”
“Which part?”
“The discovery part. Digging and digging, which I have to do; but, then I put this tidbit with that tidbit and the picture forms. Discovering the picture, putting it together … well, sometimes it is painful.”
“Some dogs better left sleeping.”
“Until they wake up and bite someone.”
“Like in this case.”
“This one is really complicated. Several dogs, lots of biting.”
“So what has your tidbit collection formed?”
“Marie Jones is actually Robby Robertson’s daughter.”
“That be one of those deep, dark secrets better left buried.”
“For this town? Absolutely.”
“For most towns in the south. The cities are different.”
“Depends upon one’s circle of friends, I suppose,” I mused.
“Is that all?”
“No, I think Robby is the one who switched syringes without Marie knowing it. She gave Preacher Rowland a shot of something that was not vitamin B-12. He used his own daughter to kill the man.”
“Motive?”
“Working on that. I might have to go visit the good sheriff once more and ask some questions. It could be as simple as Preacher Rowland found out that Marie was his daughter and threatened to expose him. Leverage, you know.”
“He won’t be forthcoming.”
“Suspects rarely are.”
“He will resent you.”
“It’s a growing number. That’s why you will be going with me.”
“Body guard par excellence.”
“And friend. Show him I have at least one friend left in the world.”
“We could take the dog, too.”
“Softening up, are we?”
“He already owns the back seat. Might as well let him ride along. I could charge him rent.”
“Let’s go.”
I opened the back door and yelled to my mother that we were going visiting. She came to the back porch before she answered me.
“It’s nearly supper time. Can’t this wait?”
“Believe me, I would love for this to wait. But I need to get it over with.”
I told her we were going to visit Robby. I let her in on the picture that had formed from my investigation. I offered my best deduction as Mr. Holmes might have done with this case.
“You have evidence to support all of this?” Mother said.
“Some.”
“The rest is your insight, intuition, puzzle solving techniques.”
“That would be the greater part.”
“Be careful. He might feel trapped,” she said in response. “If you’re right.”
“I suspect the man has felt trapped most of his life. At least the tiny part I know about. Having secrets has a way of trapping the best of us.”
“You speak like a person of experience on that subject,” Mother said.
“I think most people have some experience on that subject.”
“So what are your secrets?” she asked.
“They wouldn’t be my secrets if I told you, now would they?”
“And if you told me, you wouldn’t feel so trapped. Would you?”
“Touché.”
I turned and walked down the steps and got in the car. Rosey headed the car in the direction of Sheriff Robby Robertson’s house. Sam was sitting up, alert, looking out the windshield, and ready for whatever might happen. I wondered if my dog had any secrets in his life. No doubt he did.
72
We were heading west toward DeWitt Road to Sheriff Robby Robertson’s house when I suddenly had the notion to go back to Dan River. My revelation came as we were passing by the Clancyville’s water tower on the west side of town.
“Turn left after you cross the bridge,” I said to Rosey.
“Why?”
“We’re going to Dan River first.”
“Shopping trip?”
“Is that a sexist remark?”
“Probably.”
“I want to go back and visit Henry and see how he is feeling.”
“He might not care if you know how he is feeling.”
“My intuition tells me that he will see me.”
“He wouldn’t see you the first time. What makes you think he will see you today?”
“You’re ruling out my all pervasive Clancy charm?”
“I suppose I was ruling that out,” he said as he turned off of Highway 40 and onto the ramp which took us to Highway 29 South towards Dan River. “If he won’t even see you, how will your devastating charm lure him into talking?”
“There’s an old saying about not crossing bridges before you come to them.”
Rosey made good time in the Jag and we were about to enter the visiting area of the Dan River Correctional Facility thirty-seven minutes later. We showed the man inside the well-protected and very secure barred booth our identifications. We put our firearms in the automatic metal basket that he sent in our direction like a bank teller at a drive-through window.
“You any kin to the prisoner?” the guard asked.
“He is,” I said and pointed to Rosey.
Rosey always had a poker face and played along as if we had planned this strategy for days. The guard looked at Rosey and said nothing.
“How are you related to Henry Smith?” he asked.
“Cousins.”
“You kin, too?” he looked at me.
“No, just friends.” I smiled. I used just a little of that all pervasive Clancy charm. The guard did not smile back. Obviously, he had no charm handed down to him in his family.
“Go through the door on the right when you hear the unlocking mechanism.”
We waited. A few minutes later there was a loud thud inside the right hand door. Rosey opened the door and we walked through. We walked into a large area with multiple rooms. The walls that divided these several smaller rooms were made of re-enforced wire. It afforded little privacy. Henry Smith was waiting in the second small room on our right along with a guard. Henry stood up when we entered.
“You ain’t my family,” he said to us under his breath, and moved towards the guard as if he were going to say something to the man guarding the doorway.
“We’re as close as you’re going to get today, Henry. Just talk with us for a few minutes.”
Henry looked down at his feet, turned, and sat back down at the small table in the middle of the room. Must have been my Clancy charm. I sat down across from him while Rosey found a place to lean, directly across from the stoic guard.
“Marie Jones is not your sister, Henry.”
“You tellin’ or askin’?”
“I’m making a statement.”
“Why you tellin’ me something I already know?”
“So you’ll know that I know. Marie is the daughter of Robby Robertson and Annie Tilley. Annie was your cousin.”
“How you know this?”
“I’m a detective.”
“So what you want from me?”
“I need you to fill in some gaps in the story of Robby and Annie.”
“Talk to my dear, old mother.”
“She wouldn’t even tell me who Marie’s father was. Family secret and all.”
“Yeah, she like secrets. She’s had plenty ‘a secrets in her life to like. Plenty ‘a men, plenty ‘a children, plenty ‘a time for everyone but me. That’s my mama.”
I knew some of Henry’s story, but he filled in some of my gaps with details and pain.
“You has no idea what it’s like to be a small boy and dejected by yur mama, do you?”
He looked at Rosey then back at me. I knew he meant rejected. I let it slide.
“No, I don’t,” I said to him.
“Well, it hurts. Hurts like hell. Won’t my fault that her first boyfriend left her with me. But she blamed me. Treated me like I had leprosy. Fed me, gave me hand-me-down clothes, let me sleep in a back room, nothin’ more than a broom closet, but never once told me she loved me. Never touched me except to wup me. I never had a real mama. Not like other folks. At least not much of one.”
Rosey was still standing by the wire-wall to my right, opposite from the guard who was still stationary by the door. I turned my head slightly to the right to look at Rosey. He was composed, ever the stoic. My heart was breaking inside, but I tried to remain unmoved externally.
Henry was staring at his hands which were interlocked with the fingers. They were stretched out in front of him with his elbows resting on the table. He was silent, thinking about something long ago and far away, yet still close to him.
“I reckon she wanted me to be a secret. But I wouldn’t let her. I didn’t allow such. I made sure ever’one knew I wuz a son of Joy Whittaker as she wuz known back then. Some man named Smith came along and caused her eyes to dance. Never even offered to marry her.
“How old were you when Marie was born?”
“Ah, I don’t know. Early twenties, I think. I wasn’t livin’ with my dear, old mama then. I was already on my own, trying to make it.”
“Tell me about Annie.”
He smiled for the first time and leaned back in his chair. I think it was the first time I had ever seen Henry smile. It surprised me. I didn’t think the man any smiles left inside himself.
“She was a good person, a really good person. You know what I remember the best about her, Miss Clancy?”
I shook my head.
“She was kind. Kindness can go a long way, especially to a child that nobody wants. She was so kind. Didn’t deserve what happened to her.”
“Tell me about her, Henry.”
“Annie had a twin brother, named Raymond. They had an older brother named Sam Tilley. I bet you heard of him before.”
“Yes, I recognize that name. Do you know that story?”
“Course I do. I was there.”
“What do you mean you were there?”
“I was at that hiding place in the woods when Sam and his girl were killed.”
“You saw it happen?”
“Seen the whole thing.”
“And why were you there?”
“Sam wuz my friend. He wuz also my cousin and he treated me with some respect, like I wuz a person and all. I knew about this secret place in the woods ‘cause I spent a lot a time there when I wuz a kid. I could hide there and nobody wud bother me ‘cause they cudd’na find me. Good hidin’ place. Anyhow, I showed Sam the place, and that’s where he and his girlfriend, that white girl, would go there to be together and nobody knew.”
“J.D. Rowland must have known about it,” I said.
He looked hard at me for a few seconds and then went back to watching his folded hands in front of him. He was thinking of something.
“That wuz my fault. He lied to me about being Sam’s friend and all. Said he wanted to surprise him by showing up at the place. Said he knew all about Sam and Barbara Ann Smit
h, that white girl.”
“So, you told him about the place?”
“No. I took him there. That’s why I wuz there when he killed them. I brought J.D. Rowland to that spot where he gunned down both of them right in front of me.”
“I suppose you’re lucky he didn’t shoot you as well,” I said.
“I ran away. As soon as he fired that gun into my friends, I ran. I ran fast. I wudd’na gonna give J.D. no chance to shoot me. He wuz a mean sonofabitch. I shud’a known better. I can’t ever forgive myself for that. It wuz my fault. I gots to live with it. As long as I live, I have to live with that.”
“But you had no way of knowing that he was planning to kill them. It wasn’t your fault, Henry.”
“I shud’a known that J.D. wuz no good. Never had been. I let him fool me. Bad. I shud’a known.”
I started to say something about J.D.’s father fooling Henry as well, but I thought better of it. Henry was carrying around enough guilt and grief. And pain. He didn’t need me to put more on him.
“Robby and Annie were not there on that day either, right?”
“Naw, they weren’t there. J.D. wudd’a shot ’em both. But then, if that had happened, there wudd’na been no trial for J.D.”
“Why not?”
“I wud ’a killed him with my bare hands, or died tryin’.”
“What do you know about Annie and the birth of Marie?”
“Not much. Annie and Robby didn’t see each for a few years, but then all a sudden they were thick as thieves once more and next thing we know’d wuz that Annie wuz with child. She developed some problems giving birth and died shortly after Marie wuz born. That’s ‘bout all I know.”
“What happened to Raymond Tilley, Annie’s twin brother?”
“Oh, Ray, he joined the Navy, you know, to see the world. I spect he did. Saw more world than I ever saw. He came back now and again, but not often. Came back for the funeral and all. Never see much of him anymore. I think he lives in Norfolk, but I ain’t too sure ‘bout that.”
“Robby Robertson never told anyone that he was the father of Marie.”
“Naw, that wuz my mama’s idea. She believed it wuz better to make that another secret. I told ya, she like secrets. So she made Marie her own. Mama took the baby since Annie’s mama had cancer and didn’t have no strength to raise a child. She died a few months later as I recall. Mama raised Marie like she wuz her own. Funny thing wuz tho’, no matter how hard Mama tried to keep Marie from seein’ me, knowin’ me, that little girl wud come callin’. Just like her mama, she wuz kind. She liked me, too. I cud tell.”
The Peace Haven Murders Page 31