by Kristin Gore
Even when her daughter, Jiminy, had split her leg open on a tractor blade, no one besides Lyn, Edward, and Henry had rushed to care for her. The receptionist at Fayeville Hospital had claimed they didn’t have the time to treat her, and recommended they give the veterinarian’s office a try instead. Henry had stormed past the desk and made a direct appeal to the doctor, who’d agreed to stitch Jiminy up. Lyn looked across at that doctor now, sitting with Jean, both of them dozing off. She’d heard others claim that Walton Trawler was a decent man now, but he certainly hadn’t started out that way. In her experience, very few had.
By the time the sirens had pulled to a stop outside the Fayeville Hospital door, Lyn could tell that they were louder than normal. The crescendo sounded as though it was being caused by a whole fleet of ambulances. Before she could stand to look out the window, assuming she had any inclination to investigate what emergencies others might be facing, the doors opened and a crowd poured in. She saw state troopers and cameramen and Roy Tomlins. And an ambulance gurney that was whisked past, shielded by EMTs hunched over, hard at work. Lyn stayed right where she was sitting, observing it all.
She watched as the frantic EMTs tried to push open the far door into the inner sanctum of Fayeville Hospital just as the magazine orderly was pushing a large rolling trash can back the other direction. The result was gridlock, and in the confusion that followed, the gurney was left briefly unattended. For the first time in many years, Lyn looked straight into the eyes of Travis Brayer.
He was on his back, but his neck was turned toward her and his eyes were open. His limbs were folded at odd angles and a gash on his head had bled down the side of his face. For a moment, Lyn thought he might even be dead, and she felt nothing but numbness. But then he blinked, and she realized he was still alive. Though she couldn’t be sure just how conscious he actually was of what was happening.
Partly to test him and partly to amuse herself, she made her fingers into an imaginary gun and shot it in his direction. He closed his eyes, perhaps to protect himself from invisible bullets.
“You stay with us, Trav!” Roy Tomlins yelled.
Roy had struggled to keep up with all the commotion. He wasn’t young or limber enough, but his concern for his friend infused him with adrenaline.
“Who’s in charge here?” a younger, taller, broad-shouldered man asked in a loud, authoritative voice. “My dad needs care.”
Bobby Brayer, Lyn realized. Everyone knew him from his campaign posters, but Lyn had also known him since he was a baby, when she’d worked at Brayer Plantation. She’d changed Bobby Brayer’s diapers. And now here he was before her, a big man, running for governor and making a scene in a room that had just become too small.
The roadblock was sorted out, with the trash lady apologizing profusely in Spanish and flattening herself against the wall in a kind of prostrated position of penance to let them pass. With his eyes still sealed shut, Travis Brayer was rushed to the back, followed by his son and Roy Tomlins and one of the state troopers. Another of them stood guard at the door, glaring at the trash lady and putting up a hand to stop anyone else from trespassing where they shouldn’t.
Lyn watched a curly-haired man in glasses try to talk his way past, to no avail. He took out his wallet and showed some laminated badges, but the state trooper seemed completely unmoved. Lyn watched the man accept defeat and seat himself near the door, where he was soon absorbed in leafing through his notebook, making occasional marks with his pen.
The hubbub had woken Jean and Walton, who were anxious to be filled in. Bo had left the room more than half an hour ago and was nowhere to be seen, which left Lyn with the responsibility of talking.
“What’s happened?” Jean asked.
“Travis Brayer’s had some kind of accident,” Lyn replied in a monotone devoid of emotion.
“Oh my word, how awful,” Jean gasped.
“I suppose so,” Lyn replied mildly.
Jean gave her a sharp look. Lyn ignored this, but noticed that the curly-haired stranger was now only pretending to read his notebook while he actually listened to them.
“Well, is he okay? What was it?” Jean asked.
Lyn shook her head to convey that she didn’t know, and didn’t try to hide the possible implication that she didn’t care.
“I only caught a glimpse,” she replied.
She left out the fact that she had pantomimed shooting him in the face.
“I think this man was with him, though,” Lyn continued, pointing out the stranger. “Maybe he knows.”
The man immediately looked up in surprise, confirming Lyn’s hunch that he had been listening closely. Jean and Walton turned to look at him.
“Walton Trawler, how do you do,” Walton said as he crossed over and offered his hand in greeting.
“Oh, hello. I’m David Eisner,” David said as he shook Walton’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You a friend of the Brayers?” Walton inquired.
“Not exactly, no,” David replied. “I’m a writer, doing a story on Bobby Brayer, among other people.”
“Were you with them today? Were you there for the accident?” Jean asked anxiously.
“Yes, I was,” David Eisner replied. “Mr. Brayer took a nasty fall and they’re very concerned.”
“Goodness,” Jean said, shaking her head.
“How’d it happen?” Walton asked.
“Just an accident,” David replied. “He got a little agitated and lost his footing. Are any of you familiar with the initials ‘K.S.O.’?”
Lyn flinched and Jean stared at the ground. Only Walton held his gaze.
“Are they the initials of a Brayer relative or something?” David continued. “No ‘B’ obviously, but maybe from Bobby Brayer’s mother’s side of the family?”
“Is that what you were told?” Jean asked quickly.
Walton could see that Jean didn’t want anyone to offer any explanation counter to whatever the Brayers might have already said. In her mind this was about sticking together as a community. Walton understood that mentality all too well, but he suddenly felt it was time for something different.
“It stands for Knights of the Southern Order,” he told David Eisen.
Jean sucked in some air. “Walton,” she said, with a warning tone in her voice.
Lyn had raised her head and Walton could feel her eyes on him.
“It’s an offshoot of the Klan, started in this part of Mississippi over a hundred years ago.”
David had frozen in surprise, an instinctive reaction he’d been trying to overcome for years, not least because it was an impediment to his chosen profession. When he should be scribbling or reaching for a cell phone camera shot or clicking on his tape recorder, he was frequently still and amazed, taking a costly moment to process some genuinely shocking development. It had led to him being regularly scooped as a cub reporter and was one of the reasons he’d begun focusing on longer form profiles.
“Really,” David managed, goosing himself into action again. “And are the Brayers connected to the Knights of the Southern Order?”
“It’s a secret society,” Walton answered. “No one really knows who’s connected or not, or even if anyone is at all anymore. It was mainly active forty years ago. You don’t hear too much about it these days.”
“Fascinating,” David replied, as much to himself as anyone else.
He’d heard something about the fledgling investigation into the civil rights era crime here in Fayeville, and he’d asked Bobby Brayer about it. Bobby had assured him that should he be entrusted with the governorship he’d do everything in his power to punish any and all criminals. Other interviewees had talked about moving on from the past, but Bobby had been adamant that justice would be served, no matter how late. David wondered now if this was just another example of a politician speaking out loudest against things to which he or she felt some secret guilty connection. He’d seen this time and again: the closeted mayor denouncing gay marriage, the senator
who solicited high-end call girls publicly railing against prostitution rings, the reform-obsessed committee chairwoman awash in bribes. Hypocrisy didn’t surprise David. In fact, he’d come to expect it, which made it harder for genuine people to win him over.
“Kill Shootabay rides again,” Lyn said softly.
Walton, Jean, and David all turned toward her. She looked startled, like she hadn’t meant to speak aloud.
“Excuse me?” David asked.
“The Knights,” Lyn replied. “We knew who they were. Even in their robes, you could still see their shoes.”
She looked right at Walton, who felt deserving of the shame that engulfed him. He welcomed it even, grateful that there was some retribution after all, in a place where people had gotten away with everything.
Jean spoke up. “Some just thought of it as Southern pride.”
Lyn stared at her.
“I’m not saying they were right,” Jean continued defensively. “But to some it was just a rah-rah Southern patriotic thing. Partly.”
The ensuing silence was its own rebuke. David looked from one to the other, enthralled by the tension.
“What was that name you said a second ago?” he asked Lyn, wishing he’d turned on his recorder faster. “You said someone rides again?”
“Kill Shootabay,” Lyn answered. “People made him up—a monster that rides through town burning houses and snatching people. For the kids, to explain things when we had to. ‘K.S.O.’ would show up painted somewhere and we knew that someone was gonna be killed, probably shot, because they hadn’t obeyed.”
“Kill, Shoot, Obey,” David repeated.
“I’d never heard that,” Jean remarked.
Lyn ignored her.
“They killed my husband and daughter,” she said to David.
“Oh my God, are you—?”
David couldn’t remember the name. He knew about the case, and he’d asked Bobby Brayer about it, and now it was escaping him.
“Lyn Waters,” Lyn said.
“Edward and Jiminy Waters!” David exclaimed.
Lyn winced, resenting their names being blurted out like a quiz show answer. It didn’t feel like an improvement over their not being mentioned at all.
“Edward and Jiminy Waters,” David repeated in a quieter voice. “Theirs is the case that might be reopened.”
Lyn nodded.
“Do you know who did it?” David asked.
Lyn paused.
“I know it was the Knights,” she said. “But I don’t know which ones for sure. For all I know, the ones that did it might be long dead.”
Jean stared out the window. She could see Bo in the hospital parking lot, bouncing a basketball hard against the pavement, as though he were trying to punish one or the other.
“Were any of the Brayers in K.S.O.?”
David posed this question to Lyn.
“Travis Brayer was,” Lyn replied. “Don’t know about his son.”
“You don’t know about Travis, either,” Jean said automatically, unsure exactly why she felt compelled to protect him.
She’d never particularly liked Travis Brayer, though she’d admired his wealth and standing. Travis had enjoyed her husband Floyd, as everyone had, and he’d always invited Floyd and Jean to Brayer Plantation parties. He’d given them reasons to dress up, which injected excitement into otherwise dull routines. Jean recognized that this was a frivolous reason to defend him, particularly against something indefensible.
“Travis Brayer’s a Knight,” Walton said softly but clearly. “There aren’t many who weren’t, me included. And it’s past time we answered for it.”
His admission reshuffled the air around all of them. It blew through the room, and facts settled like leaves in its wake.
Part Three
Chapter 13
Jiminy stood at the edge of the courthouse steps and scanned the lawn for Bo, whom she felt a bit desperate to find. She wanted to talk to him, alone, away from everything and everyone else. When they were together, she’d felt more like herself than she had her whole life, and she longed again for that sensation.
Disappointed not to spot him, she sank down beside the memorial for Fayeville soldiers killed in battle, closed her eyes, and turned her face sunward.
She tried to clear her mind, determined to have a little part of this day for herself only. A little sunny, quiet part. She needed to sort some things out.
A few minutes later, she sensed someone standing over her. She smiled without opening her eyes.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
It took a lot of willpower to keep her eyes closed, but she hoped the effect was confident and sexy. She wanted Bo to want her back.
“Meeting with the clerk,” Carlos answered.
Jiminy’s eyes flew open in surprise.
“Oh! Hi!” she exclaimed.
Carlos laughed.
“Expecting someone else?” he asked.
Jiminy blushed.
“I’m happy it’s you,” she replied.
This was sincere. She really liked Carlos. Nothing physical had happened between them since the night he’d almost kissed her, and Jiminy didn’t plan for them to be anything other than friendly colleagues. But the alternatives hovered, quickening the pulse between them. She felt them in the way he looked at her, in his crooked smile.
“Busy?” Carlos asked.
“Deeply. Can’t you tell?”
He lay down in the grass next to her, leaning back on his elbows.
“This is the best part of my day so far,” he said.
The night they’d been interrupted by the ambulance whisking Jiminy’s grandmother past them to the hospital, when Walton had spotted them and pulled over his car to tell them what was happening, Carlos had watched Jiminy struggle to process the news. He’d watched her blame and then absolve herself, all amid shock and grief. He’d fallen a little for her in that moment. His ex-wife would say it was because of the drama and the sirens and the overall chaos. She’d say the turmoil was what he was attracted to, and that he was simply cultivating affection for a woman who could conveniently embody it. And if that was true, then he would tire of Jiminy once the excitement had passed. He didn’t plan to overtly pursue her; he intended to focus on the work at hand. But her company was a pleasant perk of the job, and he allowed himself to imagine further possibilities.
“Any luck today?” she asked.
They’d run into roadblock after roadblock trying to persuade various Fayevillians to speak openly about what had happened to the Waters. Thus far, the defunct 1966 almanac had been more forthcoming about what may or may not have transpired that year than any living breathing human had. People didn’t even want to discuss what the weather had been like, or the crop yield. They just went silent and blank. Some seemed ashamed, others depressed, a few defiant. A surprising number seemed amnesiac.
Carlos sighed.
“None to speak of. You?”
Jiminy shook her head.
“No. Though I can’t get my mind off of those photos, especially the self-portrait of my granddad and the shot of Lyn. There’s something so haunting about them,” she said.
“You and your pictures,” Carlos replied.
Jiminy took Polaroids of everyone they spoke to—quickly and without asking permission. It often caused immediate discomfort, but Jiminy couldn’t help herself. Carlos had given up trying to dissuade her. At night, she arranged the photos across her bed in a celluloid lineup.
But it was the album of her grandfather’s decades-old photos that continued to preoccupy her. Carlos had threatened to confiscate it, to force her to focus on activities that might actually advance their case. Jiminy thought of this now, as the sun beat down on them. She felt herself getting overheated.
“Can we get out of here?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Carlos replied.
He stood and pulled her up after him. Just ahead of them, Bo walked out of the library. For a split second, Jimi
ny simply froze. Then she dropped Carlos’s hand to move toward Bo.
“There you are!” she exclaimed.
“Hi,” Bo said, in a tone that stopped her short of the hug she might have been going for.
He hadn’t meant to sound so curt. Bo had seen the look that crossed Jiminy’s face when she’d spotted him. It had been thrilled and confused and worried all at once. But he’d also seen her holding hands with Carlos, and now he just needed to get away from them. He didn’t want to hate Carlos, or resent Jiminy, or second-guess himself. He wanted to be bigger than all of those emotions.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Jiminy said.
Bo stayed silent.
“I’ve actually gotta check on something in the library,” Carlos interjected as he moved easily past them.
Jiminy kept her eyes trained on Bo.
“I need to talk to you.”
Bo heard the plea in her voice, but didn’t let himself weaken.
“I can’t now, I’ve gotta get somewhere,” he replied.
Jiminy nodded slowly, upset. They both were.
“So you must’ve taken the MCATs,” she said. “Congratulations.”
“I won’t know how I did for a while, but thanks,” he answered.
They stood looking at each other, hamstrung by awkwardness.
“I really miss you,” Jiminy blurted.
She was embarrassed, then resolved.
“I do,” she continued with a shrug. “A lot. I miss being with you. I know you don’t think we can be together in this place, but I just want you to know that I wish things were different. I’m trying to make them different.”
Bo took this in, swallowed, breathed.
“Thanks,” he replied. “But you seem to have moved on pretty well.”
Confusion flashed through her features. Despite himself, Bo felt an urge to lift his hand and trace the outline of her lips. He looked away.
“I really do need to get going,” he said.
“You’ve got the wrong idea,” Jiminy protested. “There’s nothing—”