Deeper Than the Grave

by Tina Whittle

  “Her fiancé didn’t make it out either?”

  “Nobody knows. The final shelling started, and the rest of the family decided that they couldn’t risk staying any longer. Travel was severely restricted then for all persons of color, free or slave, and they had to move when they had the chance. They had no choice, not with the baby to consider.”

  “Josephina’s baby?”

  “Yes. A little girl. Today Josephina seems too young to be a mother, seventeen, but given the context of the time, she was of marriageable age. In her prime, actually.”

  I thought of the Minié ball, the probably fatal wound on her vertebrae. She’d left her child with her family to meet her soon-to-be husband, but had instead been shot in the back before she could return to them.

  “The baby survived?”

  “A minor miracle, that. Josephina’s brother raised the girl as his own.” A pause. “We’ve always suspected Josephina lied about the child’s parentage. She told her brother her betrothed was a freeman, but the baby could have passed for Eastern European. The child chose to identify as black, however, even though it cost her a lifetime of privilege.”

  “So you suspect Josephina’s betrothed was white? Or do you think…I’m sorry, I don’t know how to ask this question delicately.”

  “It’s always the question, isn’t it? Josephina was a free black woman, but that provided very little protection from the predations of white men. She could have been raped. She could have sold herself for money or food. Or the child really could have been the child of her betrothed, as she claimed. We’ll never know.”

  “And she never said?”

  “No. She was a teacher, Ms. Randolph. She worked with churches to provide religious instruction to the enslaved workers on the plantations, secretly sneaking in reading and writing lessons when she could. It was a dangerous endeavor, illegal in antebellum Georgia, and it put her in close contact with white slave owners who would have been very unhappy with her. If she became pregnant through such an encounter, she would have lied about it, most assuredly.”

  Something was trying to put itself together in my head, but the threads weren’t weaving together properly. Something Ophelia Price had said. Or was it something Evie Amberdecker had said? Or was it…

  Dr. Walker kept talking. “We’re of mixed ancestry, Ms. Randolph. Indigenous people, specifically Cherokee and Muskogee, African American, Northern European to make it interesting. Even a soupçon of East Asian. My ancestral line is rich and diverse, but I identify as black. Would you like photos of me too?”

  “Yes, please. Whatever you’ve got.”

  “Certainly.” He chuckled. “You can easily see the resemblance between Josephina and me, even though she’s the more attractive.”

  I clicked the first link. And I lost my breath.

  There was the face of Josephina Luckie, with the locket around her neck, the locket I’d held in my hands. She possessed the long, high-cheekboned features I’d seen on the Ugandan women at the History Center, dark skin, a rounded nose, and piercing eyes. Her dress was that of a Victorian gentlewoman, but her eyes flashed with defiance.

  The second link revealed a handsome man with cocoa skin and neat black dreadlocks. He was straight up beautiful, and deceptively young-looking—close examination revealed that the dreads were shot with steel-gray threads and the angled jawline bore the first softness of post-middle age. The caption identified him as Dr. Geoffrey Walker, head of the African American Studies program at a university I recognized from the annual top ten lists. I could see Josephina in his eyes, his nose…

  But not his chin, his assertive square chin. A chin I recognized. And the threads started knitting themselves together.

  “Dr. Walker? I don’t know how to say this, but…Dr. Walker?”

  There was no reply.

  I looked at my cell phone. Call ended. I pressed redial but the little icon on my screen went round and round.

  I banged my fist on the counter. “No! No! No! Not now!”

  But it was futile. The inevitable overloading of the cell phone towers, overwhelmed with the call volume of an entire city freaking out. At least I still had electricity, which meant that the deer head was broadcasting over the Wi-Fi, and Trey was listening, dear Lord, I hoped he was listening.

  I looked up at the deer head, pointed a finger at it. “Don’t go anywhere!”

  Outside, the wind howled as pellets of ice pelted the windows with ballistic regularity. I dumped my tote bag on the floor and found the catalog from the History Center. I flipped to the photograph of Braxton Amberdecker—young and handsome, his jaw set firm and strong. I placed the cell phone image of Geoffrey Watson next to him, and saw it clear as day.

  The Amberdecker chin.

  Josephina had lied—her child’s father was no freeman, he was Braxton Amberdecker. I remembered Evie’s story, of Violet Amberdecker being reprimanded for bringing teachers in for the slave children. Josephina had been such a teacher. And the story came together with such force that I had to sit down again.

  I looked up at the deer head. “Violet was the sister in Josephina’s story, the one who was secretly giving her and her lover supplies to flee the Siege. That’s how Josephina’s bones got on Amberdecker land. She went to get provisions. From Violet. Violet knew everything. That’s why her family destroyed her journals and locked her away. Because she knew that Braxton was in love with a black woman, that he was deserting the Confederacy and his wife—even his unborn baby—to be with her and his other child, to get them out of Atlanta, and she tried to help them do it. And she knew that somebody on the plantation killed them both, shot them with Minié balls and buried their bodies in the woods.”

  I studied Josephina’s face as the storm blasted the windows. She’d been a force of nature too, born free, which was a loaded and inaccurate word for describing being black in a white-dominated world, but she’d wielded that edged freedom like a sword. And she’d paid with her life.

  I looked up at the deer head. The red light behind the glass eyes was no longer flashing. Trey had signed off. I felt a pang in my heart. And then the realization hit me—there was another reason that light could be off.

  I pulled out my phone, then cursed. First the cell phone towers, now the Wi-Fi. And then, without even a flicker of warning, I heard a soft click and the room went totally, utterly, and completely dark.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  I spent the next sixty seconds cursing the darkness. I cursed the general meltdown of technology too, then cursed some more just to hear myself curse, a human voice against the storm outside. And then I gathered my wits and opened the supply box Trey had brought. It was a survivalist’s delight—candles and matches, batteries and protein bars, solar rechargers and handcrank flashlights.

  The romantic in me chose the candles first. I lit a few and lined them up on the counter, then spread a blanket on the floor in front of the deer head even though Trey couldn’t hear or see me anymore. The system’s battery backup powered its essential components, like the emergency alarms and the interior monitors. So the cameras still recorded, and the monitors still worked inside the shop, but without the Wi-Fi, there was no way Trey could tap the feed. And even if the towers came back up and a 911 call went out, neither police nor ambulance could respond, not until the roads cleared. I was essentially on my own.

  So I poured another cup of coffee before it went cold and sat on the blanket, wrapping a second one around my shoulders. I turned off my useless cell phone to conserve the battery. And then I hunkered down to wait out the storm.

  “They were secret lovers,” I said to the deer head. “They took advantage of Braxton’s Missing-in-Action status after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain to flee the city, but they went back to the Amberdecker plantation to get provisions from Violet. That’s where they were murdered. By Nate Amberdecker. His own brother.”

 
There was no one to hear my words, but they sounded true enough in the dark cold. Josephina’s story mentioned an older brother, unsympathetic, that she and Braxton had to sneak the provisions past. They’d not succeeded. Nate had discovered the two lovers making off with the money and food that Violet had supplied, so he killed both of them and buried them in the woods. Only he didn’t get away with the crime undiscovered—Violet knew.

  “They’ve all known,” I said, and my voice echoed back to me. “Starting with Violet, who got shut up in an asylum and drugged to death so she’d stop talking about her dream, about her brother dying in the woods. But it wasn’t a dream, not at all, and the cover-up has continued with every single Amberdecker since. They’ve known Braxton was an adulterer and a deserter, and that Nate murdered him and Josephina. And they’ve known those bones were out there somewhere, the ones that would tell the truth, so they never developed the land, never allowed excavation. And that’s why they want those bones back so badly, so they can shove them in the ground again, so nobody will figure it out. And one of them was willing to kill me to make that happen.”

  I looked up at the deer head. Still no red light.

  “Damn it, Trey, where are you?” I said, louder now. “I need you to hear this, right now! I’m cracking the whole damn case, and I’m stuck here until—”

  The popping crunch of tires on gravel broke through my tirade, and I saw headlights swing across the back wall. Not the Ferrari. No, this was a deeper rumble, unfamiliar on this deserted night, a night when there should be no traffic. I stood, and was surprised to find that my hand automatically went to my gun-less hip. And I heard Trey’s voice as clear in my head as if he’d been standing there—what do you do now?—and I knew the answer to that.

  I hurried behind the counter and got my carry bag from the safe. I pulled the .38 from the holster, opened the cylinder to check it. Fully loaded.

  I looked out the front window. The square outside was dark and empty, every business shuttered and locked tight, except for the massive black truck parked askew at my door. The engine sputtered to a stop, the driver’s door opened, and a familiar figure stepped out, boots crunching in the ice and snow.

  Richard.

  I double-checked the locks, including the industrial-grade deadbolt. Then I put my back to the wall and both hands on the .38.

  He banged at the door. “I know you’re in there, Tai!”

  “Go away!”

  “Let me in and I’ll explain everything!”

  “I figured it out myself! Now get off my property!”

  He banged some more. The headlights from his truck pierced the darkness of the shop. It was a four-wheel drive, capable of running roughshod over ice and snow, hell and high water. He didn’t need my shelter, and he wasn’t getting it.

  “I’m the one who found that girl’s bones, Tai, right next to Braxton’s! I know who she is and I know who put her there and I know why Rose doesn’t want anybody to know!”

  “So do I!”

  “Then you know why she’s coming to kill you!”

  I felt a new chill, one that had nothing to do with the storm. I tightened my grip on the gun. It was cold. I liked it cold. The cold made it was clear where the gun ended and I began.

  “Tai!”

  “I’m listening.”

  He blew on his hands and stamped his feet. “I found two sets of bones in the woods that morning. Right away I knew one had to be Braxton—I saw the bayonet—but when I told everybody about it, Rose had a fit. She told me to march back out there and destroy them, both sets, but I told her it was too late, that Evie had already called the archaeologist’s office. Rose told me to pretend I’d only found one set and to destroy the others. But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, so I got Lucius to help me bury them back near the park line.”

  “That was a big mistake, considering he promptly dug them right back up again and hid them in the walls here.”

  “I know that now.”

  “Did you know he took Braxton’s remains too?”

  Richard shook his head vehemently. “I thought they were in the casket, I swear I did. I didn’t realize Lucius was dead either, not until the morning of the tornado. And then you found the girl’s bones, and Rose found out about them, and she knew I’d lied…look, just let me in, okay?”

  I sighed, then unlocked the door and opened it a sliver. Richard stood on the welcome mat, shoulders hunched, face raw from the cold.

  “I don’t have Braxton’s bones,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied. “I do.”

  He unslung a drawstring bag from his shoulder and held it in my direction. I stood there, staring, sleet frosting the heavy canvas, but I didn’t put down the gun.

  “You found them near the chapel, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “I dug ’em up under the flagstone path. Lucius had a cache there, probably built it when he lay the path during the restoration.”

  “Does Rose know you have them?”

  “She will when she sees that path dug up. And then she’ll come for me. But she’s going to come for you first. She came for you once already, only she got your neighbor instead, and when she sees that hole in the ground, she’ll come for you again. And I can’t let that happen, Tai. I’m sorry for the rest, by God I am, but I’m here now, and I’m going to keep you safe until I get Rose Amberdecker to justice.” Richard took a step forward. “Now let me in.”

  I raised the revolver. “Oh no, you don’t, you’re—”

  I heard the crack of the rifle and the whine of a bullet at the same time, and I threw myself on the floor. Richard bellowed and went to his knees, the bag still in hand. He lunged for the doorway, and I dragged him inside as another bullet shattered the front window, leaving only the burglar bars for protection. The emergency alarm tripped, filling the room with flashing red lights and shrieking sirens. I slammed the door, locked it. Through the slanting snow, I saw a figure coming across the square—Rose, two long guns in hand—and I crawled behind the counter, Richard right behind.

  He sagged to the floor, one hand pressed against the red stain blossoming on his shoulder. “Aw, shit. I’m shot.”

  I knelt in front of him. He cursed and clenched his teeth as I pulled his jacket back. It was a clean exit wound, a through-and-through in the left shoulder, but it bled like a stuck pig. He’d been shot from behind. I hadn’t seen Rose across the square, but that was no surprise. The bulldozers provided excellent cover. Richard had been lucky that the storm had dropped visibility to virtually nil. Otherwise, she’d have picked him off first shot.

  I heard boots kicking at the front door, a rifle butt banging in broken glass. I fumbled in the drawer under the cash register until I found the spare speedloader. I was moving from memory, from training, and if Trey had been there, I would have kissed him on the mouth for making me stuff that stupid thing full of bullets over and over again, because it was by rote now, even though my hands were shaking and my vision was collapsing, and I was sick, and cold, and tunnel-visioned.

  Rose emptied some rounds into the lock—which held, by the love of all that was holy—but she was using the shotgun now, not the rifle. Any second she’d come at the lock with a buck slug, and the door would fall open like a freaking red carpet.

  “Rose Amberdecker!” I yelled. “I got enough ammo to put a hundred holes in you. So you stay the hell out of here, you hear me?”

  She fired through the broken window again, but said nothing. I knelt next to Richard. “Can you crawl?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. Stay low and follow me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “The storage room.”

  “But she’ll—”

  “Not my storage room, she won’t.”

  There was a shotgun blast at the door, and that was enough for me. I scrambled for the back using the co
unter as cover, Richard right behind, the bag of bones still clutched in his hand.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Rose kicked the door in just as we cleared the threshold of the storage room. I slammed the door behind Richard, listened as the deadbolts engaged with robotic precision, then moved to the far corner, my back against the wall. I kept the .38 out, and I kept it pointed right at him.

  Richard took a step in my direction, but I shook my head. “You stay right there, or I’ll put a fresh bullet in you.”

  Rose kicked at the door, but it wasn’t budging. Three more kicks—rapid, violent, wrenching—and then a final thud as she flung her whole body against the door. She shot at the handle, but it held. Another blast and the shrieking alarm ceased. And then I heard Rose’s voice on the other side of the wood.

  “I got no quarrel with you, girl. You open this door, and you can walk out safe and sound. Richard too. It’s the bones I want.”

  I ignored her—no way I was falling for that line. I switched the gun to one hand, pulled up the shop’s security monitor with the other. One click, and I got a panoramic 360 of the front room, brilliant in the blaze of Richard’s headlights, then a quick switch shot to the outside cameras, which were a blizzard of black and white.

  Richard pressed his hand against his shoulder. “This is all my fault. I should have seen this coming sooner.”

  “Yeah, you should have. But this isn’t about you, it’s about a whole line of dark-skinned descendants who don’t even know they’re Amberdeckers.”

  He was pale, and in shock, but I saw no surprise on his face.

  Anger bloomed in my chest. “You knew all of this too, didn’t you?”

  He stared at the far wall. “Rose told me that part when I found the bones the first time. She needed me to understand why that second set of bones could never see the light of day. She said it was necessary to protect the family, that if I really cared about her and Evie and Chelsea, I’d do what she asked. And God help me, I almost did it, but I couldn’t go through with it. I told Rose I had, though, and she believed me. Until you found the bones in the wall.”