Gone Too Long

by Lori Roy

  “Any idea who they belong to?” she says, looking down on the two watches Tillie called her about. They’re locked under glass and pinned to a white velvet backing.

  “Patek Philippe’s the brand, 1957. White gold,” Tillie says. “Belong to Robert Robithan. They was a wedding gift from Robert’s daddy. Sixty years ago, I figure.”

  Imogene backs away from the cabinet at hearing the Robithan name. “And I’m guessing Mr. Robithan isn’t the one who came here trying to sell them,” she says.

  Two dozen or so men have been murdered in Griffith County alone over the past hundred years. The story goes that they were all discovered strung up between two pine trees in a clearing near the river someplace south of town, their feet bound and a knife driven through their hearts. No one has ever been arrested, not in a single one of those deaths, and yet everyone knows, has always known. They were Klan killings, and a Robithan man had done the killing. All her life, Imogene’s heard the stories, sometimes in the classroom or at the post office or in line at the grocery store. And sometimes in her own home. Like the men of some families follow one another into studying to become lawyers or teachers, Robithan men follow one another into killing for the Klan.

  “Haven’t heard a word out of any of the Robithans,” Tillie says. “Hell, Robert probably doesn’t even know the watches are missing, let alone someone tried to sell them.”

  “So who brought them in?” Imogene unlocks the case and slowly opens the glass cover.

  “Natalie Sharon,” Tillie says. “Said they was hers. Knew straightaway that weren’t true.”

  A dozen insurance claims have brought Imogene to Tillie’s shop over the past few years. Harder times for the town have meant more folks trying to one-up the insurance companies. First the mills shut down; then a good number of jobs were lost to the closing of a nearby prison. Without jobs, folks have taken to pawning their valuables and then turning in insurance claims. Over the past few years, Imogene has cobbled together a career of investigating such scams and disability claims too.

  “Here’s the thing,” Tillie says. “Natalie dates the Robithans’ oldest boy. Tim Robithan. You know him, yes? I’m figuring maybe they’re in on it together.”

  Yes, Imogene knows Tim Robithan. Everyone knows him. Whenever Daddy and his men gathered on the courthouse steps, Tim Robithan usually did all the talking. While the rest of Daddy’s men would shout and rant, Tim Robithan was soft-spoken and had a way of cozying up to a camera. He could talk into one as if he were chatting with you across the kitchen table. Over the past fifteen years, ever since coming back home from a failed try at making it in Atlanta, Tim has become the son Daddy always wanted but never had in Eddie, Imogene’s only brother. And the son Garland never managed to become either, something that gnaws at Jo Lynne most every day, because she always figured if Eddie got passed over, her husband would be next in line. But now that Daddy’s dead, it’ll be Tim Robithan—not Eddie and not Garland—who takes over. Probably already has.

  “Ain’t you taking them watches with you?” Tillie says as Imogene closes the cabinet without taking a picture.

  Even if the work comes her way, Imogene won’t take it. She shakes her head as she snaps the lock back in place, and with her shirtsleeve, she rubs out a smudge her fingers left on the pane of glass. It’s the thought of Tim Robithan that’s making her want to leave behind no sign she was ever here. Imogene grew up not fearing monsters in her closet but instead fearing a Robithan was hiding in there. Her father represented the Klan of the past, a past that dates all the way back to 1915 and Stone Mountain. Or rather Mama’s past dates back that far, her granddaddy’s daddy having been one of the sixteen men who marched up that mountain and breathed life back into the Klan after it first withered. All her life, Mama has shunned her family’s historic ties and all that the Klan stands for, but Daddy gladly shouldered the fame and carried on the family tradition. Tim Robithan, however, is the cleaned-up, sweet-talking, media-savvy Klan of the future.

  “Haven’t been contacted about a claim,” she says, starting toward the front door. “You really think the Robithans will bother with insurance?”

  Imogene’s phone buzzes. It’ll be Jo Lynne again, reminding Imogene they’re all driving to the funeral together. It’s Jo Lynne’s way of trying to keep Imogene sober, and Eddie too. Whereas Imogene and Jo Lynne share a voice, Imogene and Eddie share a love of whiskey.

  “Would you bother with seventy thousand dollars?”

  Imogene stops at the door. “They really worth that much?”

  “I’m guessing there’s not another two like them in the whole of the South.”

  “My advice?” Imogene says. “You need to call the police. You do not want the Robithans thinking you had a part in whatever is going on here.”

  “I can’t call the police,” Tillie says. “I known Robert and Edith Robithan most all my life. And I ain’t going to be the one to tell them their son is a thief.”

  “Why didn’t you just send Natalie away, refuse to buy from her?”

  “And have them Robithans find out I let her walk off with their watches?” he asks. “What if Tim isn’t involved? You really need to ask me that?”

  “No,” Imogene says. “I get it. How much you give Natalie for them?”

  “Nothing,” Tillie says. “Told her I needed some time to look into them and asked could I keep them here. Got her on film too.” Tillie nods toward a camera mounted on the ceiling behind Imogene. “Told her come back in a few days and then called you.”

  “That’s called receiving stolen property, Tillie.”

  “With no intent to sell it. Planned to call Robert straightaway until I pieced together Natalie goes with his son. Might mean my word against Tim’s, and I know how that ends.”

  “All the more reason to call the police,” Imogene says, pulling open the door.

  This is new, Tillie asking Imogene’s advice. Ever since she was about twelve years old and realized she would never be a real Coulter, not in name or any other way, he’s been the one Imogene has turned to. Eddie is seventeen years older than Imogene, and while he could have been a father figure to her, he was too busy living a young man’s life by then. Jo Lynne, ten years older, was too busy with Garland. And Mama would have done anything for Imogene, but asking Mama for help was too close to asking Daddy, and by the time she was a teenager, Imogene wanted nothing from Edison Coulter.

  As a little girl, Imogene had been afraid of the Klan and their white hoods with the black, empty eyes, but by the time she accepted that she’d never be a real Coulter, she was old enough to feel, not fear, but instead all the shame and anger that went along with her family’s history. She worried what people would think of her once they learned her last name. She worried they would assume she was like Eddie and Jo Lynne. She worried they would think she should be able to stop it or change it and think her cowardly that she wouldn’t or couldn’t. It was a shame so heavy she didn’t even want to carry the Coulter name anymore, and she begged Mama to tell the name of Imogene’s real father so she could take his instead. But Mama refused. Even if she had ever told, Imogene would still be known as a Coulter. She is technically a Tillerson, having happily taken her married name, but in this town, she’ll always be known as a Coulter.

  “Tell Mrs. Tillie I’ll look for you both at the church,” she says, hoping Eddie has a bottle for the drive over. “And promise me, please, as soon as this door closes behind me, you lock up and call the police. The sooner those watches are gone, the better.”

  Chapter 3

  BETH

  Before

  Even though Julie Anna left my closet light on and didn’t shut my bedroom door all the way, things she always does when she comes to stay with me, I’m not going to go to sleep. I’m going to stay awake until Mama gets home so I can tell her about the terrible thing I’ve done. After I picked up the flyer that man threw in our yard because I didn’t want it to ruin Mama’s going-out plans, I stuffed it under my mattress,
and now I can feel it under me like a hard lump, a rock digging into my back and reminding me I did bad and that I have to tell Mama the truth. That’s what a lie is like, a hard stone cutting into your backside that won’t let you sleep.

  Lots of those flyers have landed in our yard. Sometimes there is a picture of a man wearing a white, pointed hat who has black holes where his eyes should be and he’s pointing right at Mama and me. JOIN BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE, they sometimes read. RALLY THIS SATURDAY. BRING THE KIDS. LEARN TO LIVE AS GOD INTENDED. Mama works with lots of old folks, and some of those folks are black. She takes in their mail, gives them their medicines, and changes their bandages and sheets. She figures her taking care of black folks is why we get those flyers.

  Just last month, Mama and I went downtown to buy me an Easter dress, and a group of men were standing on the concrete steps outside the courthouse. One of them wore a blue shirt and tan pants and he talked into a microphone. “That’s a rally,” Mama said as we stopped on the sidewalk to watch the man and the small group that stood around him, hollering and cheering. The man who held the microphone talked about Simmonsville not needing anybody but white folks to teach its children. Not needing anybody but white folks anywhere. It’s only right, he said. You pay good money for that college education. Real Americans should be teaching your children.

  As we stood there, other people stopping alongside us to watch and listen too, Mama’s hand closed tight around mine, so tight I almost hollered out. “Don’t you say nothing about this to Julie Anna,” she said. “It’ll just scare her.” Then Mama looked down at me, tugged on my hand to make sure I was listening. “You understand me? Pretend it’s a secret you can’t never tell.” I nodded like I understood even though I didn’t and promised to never tell Julie Anna.

  At first I’m not sure what I’m hearing. And then I hear it again. It’s someone knocking. Rolling out of bed in a way that won’t make any noise, I crawl across the floor, slowly stand, and peek out into the living room. Julie Anna has opened the front door and is talking to someone. With one finger, I push on my door, opening it a bit more. A man stands on the porch. His voice is gravelly, and he holds a square, flat box in both hands. Even all the way in my bedroom, I smell pizza, greasy and salty, the kind that drips runny red sauce down my hand and all the way to my elbow. Mama and I never order takeout because it’s too expensive, and frozen from the Piggly Wiggly is just as good. As the man and Julie Anna keep talking, the toes of his two black boots stick over the threshold and almost touch the linoleum in the entryway. He is teetering there, not quite inside. Not quite out. I hear Julie Anna say she didn’t order pizza.

  “Maybe someone else did,” the man says, talking louder than he needs to. “Your mama? A friend? A boyfriend, maybe?”

  “Just me here.” The light from the living room lamp makes Julie Anna’s black hair shine. “House-sitting. Not even my house. Must have been a neighbor. I’d call them, ask if one of them ordered it, but I’m afraid I don’t know the area.”

  We don’t call it babysitting when Julie Anna comes over because I’m too old. We call it house-sitting instead, so she’s only part lying to the man. She isn’t really alone, because I’m here, but it’s true that she doesn’t much know our neighbors. She only moved to town a short time ago. She lives in a real nice house with a big green lawn, and her daddy took a job teaching at a college. Mama says it’s an important job where he’s the boss of lots of people.

  Ever since Julie Anna and her parents moved to town, Mama has been saying Julie Anna is the right kind of influence. Her hair is always freshly combed and she doesn’t ruin her precious face with makeup like so many of the girls. Mama says that’s putting brains over bosoms and she wants the same for me. She wants me to be smart and clean and sweet smelling just like Julie Anna, and she wants me to go to college too because she never did and neither did anyone else in our family. She doesn’t want me wearing God-awful white granny shoes—Mama’s nickname for the white shoes she has to wear every day—and working a job where I’m on my feet a full eight hours and still can’t pay the cable bill.

  “Tell you what,” the man says. The toes of his boots shuffle forward. “Seeing as you’re all alone, ten bucks and it’s yours. Will just go to waste otherwise.”

  Julie Anna glances at my door. Maybe she winks. Maybe not.

  “Come on, pretty lady,” the man says in that deep voice. “Five bucks. Comes out of my pocket otherwise.”

  The man’s voice flows out of him like warm gravy. That’s what Mama says about a Southern man’s voice. Like warm, peppery gravy that’ll leave you craving more and give you heartburn all the same.

  “You got a deal,” Julie Anna says. “Let me grab my purse.”

  Leaving the door open, Julie Anna walks toward the kitchen, where she always drops her books and purse. I watch, and when I can’t see her anymore, I look back at the front door. First one black boot steps into our house, then the other. Then all of the man is standing inside. I see mostly the back of him because he is leaning around the door so he can see into the kitchen. I wish Julie Anna would come back and give him five dollars and that he would leave. I wish it more than anything I’ve ever wished. The man slides the box onto the small cardboard table where Mama and I eat our meals, and in three long steps he crosses the living room, his feet quiet on the carpet, and disappears down the hallway that leads to Mama’s room.

  The tops of my legs go numb as I sink to the floor, and my heart starts beating fast like it does when Mama turns on her favorite music and gets me to dancing with her. When Julie Anna walks back into the room, I try to speak, even just to whisper, but I can’t. With her head down, Julie Anna picks through her wallet and pulls out a bill.

  “Here you . . .”

  She drops the arm that is holding out the money and, with one hand, touches the top of the square box. She stands still, like maybe she’s listening for the man, like maybe she feels something is wrong. But then she shoves the money in her front pocket, steps into the open doorway, and looks outside. I try again to speak, but my tongue won’t move and my mouth has gone dry. The woman who used to come once a month to check on me and Mama would ask if strange men ever came to the house. I always told her no. And now there is a strange man here, and I wish I would have told the woman the truth because maybe this is what happens when you lie.

  Julie Anna closes the door, and as she takes a step toward my room, she smiles because she is coming to tell me we are going to eat delivery pizza. She’s happy and she doesn’t hear him or see him, and before she takes a second step, the man is on her.

  Part of the man is blue, his shirt maybe. Part is darker, almost black, his pants. Mostly, he is a blur. He is on Julie Anna like they are cars crashing out on our road. It will be a quiet Saturday afternoon, Mama’s wind chime ringing, a lawn mower humming somewhere far off in the neighbor’s yard, and then a screech and a crash, metal crumpling, glass breaking, and then quiet again. That’s how fast he is on Julie Anna.

  From where I sit, huddled at the bottom of my door, my lungs burn because I can’t take in a single breath. I try to call out to Julie Anna, but I have no air.

  “Quiet, girl.” The man stands behind Julie Anna, one arm wrapped around her body. She dangles like my sock doll in his arms. “That’s a good girl,” he says. “Now tell me your name.”

  “Julie Anna,” she says.

  “That ain’t your name. Tell me your given name.”

  His back is to me, but I hear every word like he’s whispering them in my ear. My neck tingles like his hot breath is washing over it.

  “Julia Marianna,” she says in a clear and strong voice that makes me straighten my back. “My name is Julia Marianna Perez.”

  Julie Anna doesn’t sound like Julie Anna when she says the name I’ve never heard. It scares me, makes me pull my knees to my chest and squeeze my eyes tight.

  Even though I can’t see Julie Anna and the man anymore, I can’t stop my ears from hearing. The room was silen
t after Julie Anna said her new name, but now they’re breathing heavy again and stumbling through the room. The air is rushing in and out of their mouths and noses. Something knocks against a wall, maybe the back of the sofa. Something rips. There is more shuffling and knocking, and then something shatters, maybe the glass top of the table where Mama sets her drinks and always uses a coaster. There is more banging about, and the man hollers.

  He’ll tell me later it was Julie Anna’s own fault. She got ahold of a piece of broken glass and sliced him good in the arm. Don’t you never make the same mistake, he’ll tell me soon enough. She’d have been just fine. She’d have gotten the message, whole damn family would have gotten the message, but she’d have been fine. God damn it all, I didn’t mean to do it. But she was high and mighty, the all of them were. Her daddy teaching over there at the college, teaching God only knows what to all them good kids.

  After the man hollers, Julie Anna screams. It is a single scream, one that I’ll hear in the middle of the night for years to come. It will wake me, cause me to sit straight up and hold my breath, waiting to hear another, wondering if somehow Julie Anna is just there in the other room even though in the years to come, there will be no other room.

  And after the single scream comes silence. I lift my head and look out my open door. The sight of him makes my stomach screw itself up into a ball, and I press a hand over my mouth. He is on top of Julie Anna. I can see only her feet and legs, and they aren’t moving. He is talking, mumbling really. Something about good people being on his side and God’s will and a storm that’s coming and does she understand. When Julie Anna doesn’t answer, he begins to shake her and yell at her to wake up. When she still says nothing, he pulls back a hand and slaps her face.

  I scream. Just like Julie Anna, loud and clear. One single scream. The man swings around, that hand pulled back into the air like he’s ready to use it again. He pushes himself off Julie Anna, who still doesn’t move, and before I can close my eyes, he is walking toward my doorway.