As it drove by Sy, he locked eyes with the driver. It was Jeffrey Peterson, and he was grinning from ear to ear as if he had won a prize. He was also alone. Too stunned to even move, Sy watched helplessly as Jeffrey turned the car into the parking lot of Bethel A.M.E. and parked. Jeffrey slowly got out of his car. He looked back at Sy who was still standing in a fog on the corner of Jackson and Third Street. Then, he walked towards the church and up its steps still smiling at Sy whose legs now refused to move. When he reached the top, he turned around and, smiling, waved at Sy as if he were an old friend, and then disappeared into the comfort and sanctity of Bethel A.M.E. Church, the oldest Negro church in Jackson Ward.
Chapter 31
It took everything Sy had not to run into the church and drag Jeffrey out of there by his hair, but he knew he needed to be patient. It could cost Lena her life. So, he willed his legs to walk. He waited anxiously in a small neighborhood cafe across the street from Bethel A.M.E. Church, sitting in a booth by the window which faced the church. He now knew that Jeffrey in fact had Lena; his mind was running rapidly trying to figure out a way to save her before it was too late: after Jeffrey had challenged him with that look – dared him to stop him. As Sy’s shaking hands brought the coffee cup up to his lips, Sy thought again about bursting into the church and announcing Jeffrey Peterson as the Jackson Ward murderer, but he knew that was pointless. He was an alcoholic war veteran and he had killed Amos Johnson, the estranged husband of Lena Johnson, although no one knew that. But he did, and so did Lena deep down in her guts.
The clouds had started to gather again in the sky. Rain slowly found its way back to earth, pounding softly at first on the window Sy stared out of. Finally, he had drunk the last of the coffee in his cup. He pointed to the waitress to bring him more as he waited for the church services to end. It had been an hour since Jeffrey had walked inside of it. The plan to end this all? He wasn’t sure. He had been walking with blinders on really these past few days - hell, these past few years since coming back to Richmond.
He had spent the last ten or so years in a bottle and self-pity, barely surviving and secretly loving a married woman – his secretary – from afar. He ached for her, watched her as she hid behind her own pain with make-up and smiles. Lena, his Lena. Sy clenched his mouth tight and gritted his teeth. He had no plan, no sense of direction. Just like in France, he was running on pure adrenaline, only this time, he didn’t have anyone to back him up if he found himself in trouble.
He started to choke on the pain and sorrow of his life. He had taken this assignment because he was desperate to keep Lena. Now, his drinking may have cost Lena her life and he felt that her only hope now was to outsmart Jeffrey. Peterson had been getting away with murder and there was no one to stop him except for Sy.
He was so deep in thought, Sy didn’t notice Deputy Brody standing before him. Deputy Brody cleared his throat to get his attention. Weary green eyes met Brody.
“Hello, Sy,” the deputy said warmly.
Sy remained silent. This was not good – bad timing. His eyes quickly darted to the church. The doors were still closed.
“May I join you?” Sy kept his eyes on the church but nodded his consent. Brody watched Sy intently. He had been following him all night and had even seen the exchange between him and Jeffrey Peterson. His instincts told him the Sy Sanford was onto something and he wanted to help, but would the Negro trust him? He had no reason to, especially seeing whom he worked for. Sheriff Mason had it out for Sy. Brody thought about all of this as the two men sat silently in the booth.
Sy broke the silence. “What do ya’ want? I ain’t broke no laws.”
Deputy Brody motioned for the waitress to bring over coffee. The poor young woman nearly spilled it all over Brody. She was not used to serving white men in the café. They never came to this place, keeping her a safe distance from interacting with them. She managed to get the coffee in the cup and hustled away in tears terrified that she was going to get into trouble.
Both Sy and Brody watched the incident intently. Sy felt sorry for the waitress; he hated that white men could bring such fear into the hearts of his people. He balled his fists underneath the table, trying desperately to control his anger. For Deputy Brody, he was embarrassed at the situation. He had grown up in the country – poor and often hungry. Folks out there supported one another as best as they could – Negro and white. He was not comfortable at all in the way things worked in the city, but he had no power to do anything about it – maybe.
“As far as I know, you haven’t done nothin’ wrong, Sy. Listen, I’ve been watchin’ you these past couple of days. And I know you suspect something’ about that Peterson fella. He’s got somethin’ to do with these murders?”
Sy watched the deputy closely. He had not suspected that he was being followed. His nerves tingled even more now as he realized just how severely the alcohol had been affecting him. His green eyes focused hard on Deputy Brody. Could he trust him? It was clear he was nothing of the same cloth as Sheriff Mason. He gave off a different kind of energy, and in his eyes, there was no malice or hate like he’d seen in many white men’s eyes.
Clearing his throat, Sy whispered almost inaudibly, “Yeah, he does.”
“I want to help you, Sy,” the young deputy confessed with excitement now in his eyes.
The admission took Sy by complete surprise; his eyes widened and he shook his head as if to wake up. “How you gonna help me, deputy? Sheriff Mason ain’t gonna let you work with no nigger to solve no murders. He probably done figured out this case himself and is lookin’ for a way to pin it on me. You could be settin’ me up!” exclaimed Sy as his eyes darted back and forth to the church. “No, you can’t help me! Not now! Things have gone too far – farther than you can imagine. You just stay out the way so you don’t get hurt.”
It was Deputy Brody’s turn to be surprised now. Sy was right about Sheriff Mason; he had even suspected as much himself. He’d seen the sheriff set up a young Negro a few years ago for a murder he hadn’t committed. Brody hadn’t seen the actual crime, but he had secretly reviewed the evidence and he knew it wasn’t right, but there was nothing he could do about it. He watched helplessly as the scared young man vehemently denied the charges, but was sentenced to hang anyway by the jury.
But Brody was not ready to give up. “There’s gotta be somethin’ I can do to help you, Sy,” he insisted.
Suddenly, the church doors of the Bethel A.M.E opened up and its members came pouring out back into the world like ants charging out of an anthill. He spotted Mrs. Jones coming out slowly as she leaned on her cane with one hand and the other was on the shoulder of Jeffrey Peterson who was searching the parking lot and street with his eyes. “Smart man,” said Sy as he watched Peterson help Mrs. Jones into her waiting car.
Deputy Brody was also watching the church members as they exited the church. The look on Sy’s face had forced him to abandon his plea and follow Sy’s gaze. He, too, saw Peterson, and something deep in his gut started to stir.
“You know how you can help me, Deputy?” Sy said, never taking his eyes off Peterson and Mrs. Jones. “Pay for my coffee and stay out of my way.” Then, he quickly got up and headed out the café door before Deputy Brody could say or do anything.
Standing outside in the doorway of the café, Sy watched intently as Jeffrey walked nonchalantly to his Chrysler and get in. Jeffrey was musing over his plans for the rest of the morning, pleased with himself. He put the key in the ignition to start the car, but something was wrong. He turned the ignition over again. Nothing.
As Jeffrey tried to start his car, Sy was running across the street to the church and had hidden along the side of the building where Peterson could not see him. Exasperated and now extremely irritated, Peterson slammed his car door shut and then opened the hood of his car to see what the problem was. Several men from the church saw this and came over to assist him, but soon left. Peterson had told them he could take care of it. Sy chuckled as he took a set of
wires out of his pant pocket. He looked at the wires to Peterson’s starter. “You ain’t going anywhere,” he whispered.
The church parking lot was now empty with the exception of Peterson who could not figure out why his car would not start. The rain had started to come down harder and the privileged young black man who had never known hard work in his life, but loved to take the life of the women he stalked, stood there and sulked. He knew nothing about cars, but his pride had refused to let those men know this.
He slammed the hood down and went to sit in his car. When he opened the door, Sy was sitting in the front passenger seat dangling a set of wires in front of Peterson. “You need these, you know,” Sy smirked.
Peterson smiled waywardly. “Who are you and why are you trespassing in my car?”
“Trespassing?” Sy sneered. “You and I have other more important things to worry ‘bout than trespassin’, don’t we? You killed those women, Peterson, and your father.”
Peterson squinted his eyes darkly at Sy. “You can’t prove anything,” he replied confidently.
Sy knew he was right, but that didn’t matter. He wanted him to know that he knew. Peterson would no longer be able to operate in the dark. But he still had to get Lena away from him. “Where is she, Peterson?”
Peterson got in his car and shut the door behind him. The two men stared heatedly at one another with hate. Peterson sat smug in his wealth, confident that the smelly drunk sitting next to him could not stop him. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Now please give me those … things … so that I may go.”
“Not until you tell me where she is!” Sy screamed at him.
“Who?” asked Jeffrey innocently.
Sy lost his cool then and reached over and punched Peterson in his nose. Blood squirted out onto the front of Peterson’s suit and on the dash of the car. Peterson screamed in pain as he desperately tried to stop the bleeding with the handkerchief he pulled from his lapel. “You’ll pay for this!” cried Peterson as he wiped his nose.
Sy knew he had made a huge mistake, but it was too late to take it back. He reached over and grabbed Peterson by the neck and slammed his head against the steering wheel of the Chrysler. “You hurt her, and I’ll kill you,” Sly whispered sternly in Peterson’s ear. Sy threw the wires at him and charged off into the rain. He had nothing to lose now. But he did have an ace up his sleeve that he planned to use immediately.
While Peterson and the others had been in church, Sy had managed to get Peterson’s address from the waitress and then confirming it with the telephone operator. He was going back to his room to get the revolver he had hidden under his mattress years ago. He had meant to bring it earlier when Mrs. Jones first told him that Lena was missing, but he had forgotten it in his haste to leave. Now back at his place, as he flipped over his mattress to retrieve it, he had a flashback to a very painful memory from his past that he had tried desperately to suppress all these years.
Sy’s father, Big Sy, was just that … BIG. And he was filled with hatred and contempt for anything and anyone that didn’t give him what he wanted. He especially had a strong dislike for Sy and his mother. He felt that Sy’s mother had spoiled the young boy and thought him too good to be disciplined by him or to work. The truth was, Hattie Sanford had big dreams for her son and did not want for him the life her husband led – running moonshine and womanizing. He was gonna go to school and “become somethin’,” she’d tell her friends.
Whenever Big Sy would go for Sy’s behind, she’d step in the way and give Big Sy something else to be angry about to distract him. Sy saw his mother take many brutal beatings for him, but one night, Big Sy went too far. Twelve-year-old Sy watched from inside of a pantry closet as his father pistol whipped Hattie Sanford nearly to death. He had been caught stealing fruit. Sy was hoping to sell the fruit to make some extra money so that he and Hattie could leave Big Sy for good. Sy was tired of watching his father take nearly every penny his mother worked hard to earn and drink it up or spend it on other women.
So when the police brought Sy home that day, his father became enraged, not because Sy had been trying to steal. But that he had gotten caught and embarrassed him in front of the community. So Hattie had stepped in to take the beating for Sy – trying to protect her only child. It seemed like she wasn’t breathing when Sy finally managed to get to her after his father had left her there to die on the clay, dirt kitchen floor.
Although she had taken several severe beatings over the years, Hattie was never the same after that. She couldn’t care for herself anymore or anyone else for that matter. She spent the last ten years of her life confined to a bed, her mouth permanently shut as her jaw had been severely broken and the left side of her face paralyzed. Sy had never felt such rage towards another human being before in all of his life. He had gone looking for his father that night with the same gun he had used to beat his mother with, but Big Sy had long run off and wasn’t seen around town for days. He came back to town a few weeks later filled with tears and remorse, but it was a lie. He pretended to lovingly care for Hattie when company was around, but when they left, he’d disappear with some woman and liquor.
Hattie died without seeing her dreams for her son come true. She had died saving Sy’s life and Sy carried that guilt deep within him for years. Now, as he stood in his room on this cold, rainy October day, the same rage he felt back then about his mother, he now felt for Lena. He was gonna kill Jeffrey Peterson. Although he could have killed him right there in the car, he had other things in mind first. Sy was gonna give Peterson a taste of his own medicine – that meant torture.
He had just put the revolver in the back of his pants when the door flew open and his room filled to the brim with white police officers. They grabbed him and twisted his arms behind his back, removing the gun and shoving him to the floor. Sheriff Mason walked through the door last. He smirked as he leaned down to speak directly to Sy’s face. “I gotta tip that you’s the person responsible for the death of Amos Johnson. That true?”
Sy kept his mouth shut tight, refusing to even look at the sheriff. “Well, no matter to me if one nigger kills another, but I think you’s the one been killin’ them Negro girls too. Search the place, boys!” the sheriff ordered.
Sy watched helplessly as the white officers tore his room to pieces; the officers held him up as they flipped his bed over and turned his kitchen table, glass bottles flying all over the floor. Where was Deputy Brody? Sy wondered. He must have ratted him out to the sheriff. “So much for wanting to help me,” said Sy under his breath.
Then the nightmare got worse. Sy’s heart leaped when he saw one officer turn over the trashcan in the corner. “No!” Sy screamed in his head. He tried to wiggle free, but the officer on his left punched him hard in the gut with his club. Sy doubled over in intense pain, his eyes filling with tears. And then he heard those dreaded words.
“Sheriff Mason, come see this.”
Sy lifted his head and watched as the sheriff held up a pair of blood and mud stained women’s hosiery. A deep smile spread across Sheriff Mason’s face. Sy dropped his head.
“And what have we here?” Sheriff Mason walked confidently over to Sy and motioned for one of his men to raise Sy’s face. His eyes had zeroed in on the hosiery. A sigh of resignation escaped from deep inside of him. Sheriff Mason’s smile grew even wider on his pale face. “You gonna fry, nigger!” and with those words, they hauled Sy out of his room and to the jail.
Chapter 32
Lena Johnson awoke to the sunlight beaming down on her face. Its sudden warmth caused her to jerk awake. Lena tried to move her hands to cover her eyes, but they were bound behind her back. Trying to avoid the heat of the sun, she turned her head away and found herself facing a large, empty room. She was lying on a dirt floor in what must have been a basement. Her face was smeared with make-up and her clothes were covered in dirt. “Oh, my god!” she whispered to herself as she now realized that her mouth was covered with tape. Panic started
to well up deep inside of her. Her mind raced back to the last few hours as she tried to hold back the tears that were threatening to overwhelm her. It was all so clear now. The nice young man who had kissed her hand at Mrs. Jones’ home had turned out to not be so nice after all.
The night of the ball, Lena had decided that she was going to go back to her home to get her things after Sy and Mrs. Jones had departed. She was so angry and disappointed in Sy that he had not trusted her enough to reveal to her the identity of the killer. Perhaps she could have helped him. And then there was Amos. She had almost forgotten about him in all of this. Poor Amos, she thought: to die that way.
She shook her head as a nagging feeling suddenly overtook her. Sy had something to do with Amos’ death, of that she was sure. But she’d never press the issue because in Amos’ death, she was now free. “Free to be with Sy?” a small voice asked from the back of her mind.
“Mrs. Johnson, are you leaving us?” Robinson’s voice intruded upon her thinking.
“Oh, Robinson! You scared me. Um, no, not just yet. I will return soon. I … I need to go get a few things from my home.”
“Shall I call you a taxi, ma’am?” he asked.
“No, Robinson. Thank you. I think I’ll walk home.” And with that, she turned and walked out the door.
She was coming down the steps of the front porch when he pulled up in his nice red, car. “Where are you going in this cold weather, Mrs. Johnson?” he asked politely. The young woman sitting in the passenger seat beamed pleasantly at her.
“I’ve got to pick up a few things at my home,” she explained as she stood on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Jones’ house.
“Well, I was on my way to take Clarissa here home. I can take you next,” and he smiled so sweetly.
Lena’s instincts were screaming out no, but she did feel safer with the other young woman in the car. Plus, her house was several blocks away in Church Hill and it was starting to rain again. The streetcar had stopped running up that way a few hours ago. Against her better judgment, Lena acquiesced. “Sure, why not,” and he got out of the car, opened the door to the backseat and ushered her in.
Murder on Second Street: The Jackson Ward Murders (Sy Sanford Series Book 1) Page 19