by Ang Pompano
“Yeah. That’s the one.”
“Do you remember what they were talking about?”
“I work my feet off serving these people. I don’t have time to listen in on the customers’ conversations.”
After thinking about it, I could have phrased that question in a different way.
“Fair enough. Is there anything else you remember?”
“Only that Andy was recording with his phone as they were talking. I figured it was an interview. He was a blogger, you know.”
Her voice cracked.
“You don’t think the old guy did it, do you? Killed Andy, I mean.”
Greenleaf stirred a bit in her seat.
“No. He’s my father.” I said it as if it explained it all, when in fact it explained nothing.
“Ah,” the waitress said leaning inward. “When I gave them the check, Andy mentioned to me that they were going to Waycross after they had lunch,” she said. “I don’t know if that means anything to you.”
I gave her a twenty. The same as I had given the first waiter.
She looked at it in her hand and put on a weird smile.
“You’re not your father.”
“I appreciate that,” I said as she went about her business.
Greenleaf mumbled something under her breath about no respect.
“What do you know about Waycross?” I asked.
“It’s a small town about two hours from here. They call it the gateway to the Okefenokee Swamp,” Greenleaf said. “You know, where Pogo comes from.”
“Who?”
“Forget it.”
“You seem to know a lot about the place. Why the heck would my father go to Waycross with Andy Keller? And who was their 4:00 meeting with?”
Greenleaf stopped chewing and was rolling her tongue over her teeth. I couldn’t help but notice that the eye contact that was so important to her a few minutes before was now missing.
“Hmm,” she said finally. “Big Al knows people out in Waycross.”
“What people?”
“I remember the name Givens from way back in the Dark Ages. They’re a couple, Daryl and Avalou. Your father married them.”
Now that was a shocker. “Don’t tell me he’s a minister.” If he was, no doubt it was the mail order variety so that he could scam people.
Greenleaf laughed out loud. “Oh, Sweet Jesus save us! No. But he is a justice of the peace. Still, I’m not sure if it’s legal or not.” She shook her head.
First, I learned that my father eats fish eyes, and now that he can marry people. I wondered what else I didn’t know.
“Who are these friends?”
“Daryl and Avalou Givens. They used to visit once in a while then at some point they stopped. I don’t remember why or when. I thought maybe they had died.”
“You must have a theory why he’d bring Keller out there.”
“I may.” She looked away as if she were trying to find a safe place to hide.
“Care to share it?”
Maybe she found that safe place to hide deep inside of her because she came back with an emphatic, “No.”
“Why not?”
“If I did that, I might be spreading something that wasn’t true and that could cloud your entire vision of the case. But if you come to the same conclusion, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
I whipped out my phone and did a little research. It wasn’t long before I found an address for Daryl Givens in Waycross.
“Okay then. I’ll bring you back and then I’m heading out to Waycross. I always wanted to see The Okefenokee Swamp.”
41
IN MY PERFECT WORLD, I would find not only my father at the Givens place but the answer to who killed Keller and Hicks.
I was hoping for that perfect world as I put the F-150 through its paces while Batshit’s untrustworthy GPS lead me down I-95 south.
Now, there was a thought. Maybe Batshit showed up because he wanted his navigation system back. I laughed and jammed the pedal to the floor. Damn him, I had enough to deal with without him stalking me and leaving stupid messages on my windshield.
With that out of my system, I brought the truck down to ten miles over the speed limit until I got to the double bridge to Champney Island. With lots of adrenalin and luck, I got over the span with a minimum of head spin and a lot of clutching of the wheel only to find I had to cross a similar bridge to get off the island.
With the bridges behind me, I exited I-95 at Brunswick to U.S. 82 west. That last sixty miles to Waycross, the flat terrain hosted little more than farmland and the occasional tin roofed house with the requisite car on blocks and barking pit bull on a chain.
Two hours after dumping Greenleaf off at the office, I reached the humid little burg of Waycross, a railway center on the edge of that giant drainage pond called The Okefenokee Swamp. I parked at a Wendy’s in sight of a white water tower painted with the words “Welcome to Waycross.” I went in and got some food and brought it to an outside table. An African American couple with a little girl were seated at the next table. The little girl, about two years old, waved at me.
“How are you today?” I asked between bites of hamburger.
The child pointed to the water tower. She seemed to be fascinated by a cartoon painted on it.
“Pogo,” she said to me.
“Let the man eat,” the father said.
“Pogo.”
“You mean the teddy bear on the tower?” I asked.
The father put a straw in the child’s milk carton. “That’s not a bear. Pogo’s an opossum from a comic strip.”
“He lives in the swamp,” the mother said.
“Right, Pogo.” So, Greenleaf was talking about a comic strip character.
When I got in the truck, I hit the home button and spoke into my cell.
“How big is The Okefenokee Swamp?”
The little lady that lives in my phone gave me a quick response. “Checking my sources for you.” There was a slight pause. “Here is information from the web.”
According to my phone, The Big O is a shallow, 684 sq. mile, peat-filled wetland straddling the Georgia–Florida line. In addition to alligators and snakes, it is home to the black and orange warmouth, a tough hitting pan fish.
Johnson had talked about going fishing someday. When all of this mess was over, maybe we could organize a fishing trip. We could bring the old man along too, if he showed up by then.
My cell rang and Max’s picture appeared on the face of the phone. I hit the accept button on the second ring.
“Did Greenleaf tell you about Big Al taking off from The Palms?” I asked.
“She did. That’s why I’m calling. I just got off the phone with Major Johnson. Big Al’s been spotted in several places around Chatham County and even here on the island, so he’s okay. It’s just a matter of them catching up with him.”
“How hard can it be find an old man with a shot memory?” Ouch, that needed a disclaimer. “I’m not taking it out on you, I’m just saying.”
“I know Big Al better than you...” now it was Max’s turn to backpedal. “What I mean is, I’m confident that even though he has his problems, he knows what he’s doing on a professional level. I think he can take care of himself, but I’m still worried. Like you.”
“Call me if you hear anything else.”
With my short rest all but ruined, I headed to the Givens property on Swamp Road about a half hour outside of the Waycross town center. The narrow road went on through lonely forest for so long that I concluded that Daryl and Avalou were people who valued their privacy. I wondered how welcome I would be to come knocking out of the blue.
My gas gauge was showing that my fuel was getting low, so I was happy when the finicky GPS told me to turn down what seemed to be a poorly paved driveway. If Bat
shit’s GPS was wrong and the Givens’ house wasn’t ahead, I might end up out of gas in the most desolate place I had ever seen. I was relieved to eventually come up on a weathered little woman in old-fashioned pants that stopped just below her knees. She was using a small blow torch to strip paint from an old chest of drawers. Behind her stood a one-story ranch style house of concrete block that, judging from the outdated jalousie windows of narrow glass slats, seemed to have survived at least fifty or sixty scorching summers. It looked as inviting as a kiln.
She switched off the torch when I parked. “Can I help you?” Her tone gave no hint of welcoming.
“Are you Avalou Givens?”
I got out and was standing at the front bumper of the truck when she put up her hand to halt me.
“That’s right. Are you a salesman? Because if you are, there’s a clearly written posted sign at the foot of the driveway.” She put her hands on her hips. “That goes for bill collectors as well.”
“I’m not selling anything, honest. And I don’t like collection agents either.”
“Well then.” She seemed to relax a bit.
In the distance behind the house, a huge black cloud rose up against the blue sky. Tornado was my first thought.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s smoke. The Okefenokee is burning again. You get used to the ash, the smell not so much.”
“Can’t be good for the environment, or your lungs either.”
“Tell me about it. Now they want to build a titanium mine next to the swamp. Daryl and I are fighting it with the Sierra Club. It doesn’t make us popular with the people who say the mine will bring jobs. But then, we never were all that popular around here. What did you say you want?”
“I’m here to talk about the Granville kidnapping.”
“Oh.” She turned on her torch and continued to bubble paint from the chest and scrape it off with a putty knife. “I think you should leave.”
“I just have a few questions,” I said. There was a feeling in my gut that this little lady could be dangerous. I told my imagination to keep itself in check.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Then she screamed, “Daryl!”
With that, a shot rang out and ricocheted off the driver’s door of my F-150 just a few feet behind me. Avalou dropped the torch and ran into the house as the flaming canister spun wildly on the driveway.
What the hell just happened? In hindsight, I should have introduced myself, maybe mentioned my father. But no, not me. I had to come right out and announce that I wanted to question them about Grandville. All of this went through my mind as I lunged forward and rolled as I hit the ground before scrambling around to the passenger side of the truck.
“Do you want every cop in the county down on you?”
I chanced a peek above the passenger door toward a steel barn about 200 feet away. The bullet must have come from there.
I opened the door and hugging the floorboard, I managed to get my hand in the glove compartment to retrieve my Glock.
“Is that you Daryl?” I shouted as I crouched beside the truck. I was answered by another gunshot.
“There’s no need for this, Daryl. I only want to ask a few questions. But I’m warning you. I am armed and if I have to shoot back, I will. You should know, I don’t miss.”
I guess Daryl wasn’t impressed because another shot rang out and the driver’s side front tire of the truck exploded.
With one eye on the house, in case Avalou started firing from there, I got off a warning shot that, if anything, proved that I could hit the broad side of a barn.
Daryl answered by destroying the back tire on the driver’s side. The truck lowered itself with the awkwardness of a kneeling camel. I smelled gasoline and watched it puddle under the chassis. As it formed a rivulet down the driveway toward Avalou’s torch, I scrambled to my feet, fired off one more shot in the general direction of the steel shed to gain time before I ran like hell. There was a slight pop and a whoosh like when you start up a gas grill. My truck was soon engulfed in flames.
As I dove away from the fire and heat, I felt like Ivan the Great, shot out of a circus cannon. My arms and legs spread as I flew. I realized too late there was no net.
42
THE NEXT THING I REMEMBER was waking up on a couch with two women standing over me. One of them was Avalou. “Don’t get up,” she said.
My eyes darted around the room.
“Stay down,” Avalou ordered.
I tried to sit up anyway. There was another woman, too. My eyes darted looking for Daryl and his gun. My head throbbed and I put my hand to it. I felt a damp bandage and when I pulled my hand away, I saw blood on my fingers.
“Every cop in the county will be here,” I said to Avalou.
“We’re country. Nobody pays a mind to gunshots.” The other woman was matter of fact.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Daryl. I’m afraid it’s all my fault. I didn’t realize you were Big Al’s son, or I wouldn’t have shot at you.”
She handed me my wallet.
“You should rest a bit.” Her voice was anything but that of an armed assassin.
“I don’t need rest. I need answers.” I tried to get off of the couch but my head had ideas of its own. I plopped back down. “Maybe I’ll just sit a minute.”
Avalou frowned and sat in a whicker rocker. “Yes, you rest. Daryl will get us something to drink.”
Daryl disappeared and soon came back with three cans of Dr. Pepper.
She handed a soda to me. “You said you had questions. Shoot.”
Avalou giggled at the expression. I didn’t think it was that funny.
“I need to know about my father. Did he come out here with a young surfer type named Keller?”
“Andy. He’s such a nice boy. Your father brought him by about a month ago. Andy was writing about the Granville Kidnapping to put it on the Internet. Why are you asking?” Avalou clutched the rocker as if she were worried that the answer would make her fall off.
“Keller was murdered and my father has disappeared.”
“What!” Tears formed in Avalou’s eyes.
“You’re not saying your father had anything to do with Andy’s death, are you?” Daryl asked.
“I’m not. But the police think he might.” I would think that the Granville Kidnapping had been covered to death in the papers back in the day. “Why would my father want Keller to bring the kidnapping up again after all of these years?”
“That surprised me, too,” Daryl said. “Your daddy never wanted a lot of publicity about it. But he said it was time, and that the boy could be trusted to do a fair report. But he also warned us that some people would be upset and to watch out if strangers came around. That’s how the misunderstanding with you happened. I thought you were one of those strangers who he warned us about.”
Misunderstanding? Is that what she called almost killing me?
“Mr. Keller was mostly interested in learning about Georg Gerber,” Avalou said.
“Why the focus on Gerber?”
“He’s the man who was accused of kidnapping Christmas Granville.” Avalou’s tone seemed to question why I wouldn’t know that.
But I did know that. I had read the name Gerber in the file. “Still, in all of the times someone brought up the Granville kidnapping to me since I arrived in Georgia, no one ever talked about the kidnapper.”
“But that’s the thing,” Daryl said. “We never believed it was a kidnapping even though Georg confessed to having the child stay with his family for a while. Georg worked as a handyman on Granville’s estate in Augusta. He and his wife had rented the cabin from us in June of that summer so their little boy could do some fishing. They planned on staying three months. We got to know the family a little before the troubles started.
“The
n toward the end of July, the Granville toddler disappeared. The police named Georg as a suspect. Their evidence was based mostly on a ransom note written by someone who might be German, and tools that were used to open the window to the nursery had Georg Gerber’s fingerprints all over them.”
“Martin Granville hired your father to find him. Big Al traced Gerber to our cabin,” Avalou said.
“Was the girl there?”
“No, just the little boy, their own son.” Avalou held back from tearing up again.
“After he was arrested, Georg insisted that Martin Granville had paid for the cabin and asked the Gerbers to watch the girl,” Daryl said.
“So, Georg Gerber admitted that he took the girl?”
Avalou clasped her hand over her heart as if she were pledging allegiance. “Not exactly. He claimed the Granvilles were having marital troubles and Martin was worried that if they divorced, his wife would never give him custody of the child. Georg claimed Granville sent his daughter to stay with them for a few days until he could straighten things out with his wife.”
“Of course, nobody, especially not the jury, believed him.”
“I believed him,” Avalou said.
Daryl touched Avalou on her back. “Yes, you always did, my dear. You were the only one.”
“If Granville was behind his own daughter’s disappearance, why would he hire my father to investigate?”
Avalou became so agitated that she sprang from her seat. “Because he had an agenda, that’s why. He wanted to destroy his wife.”
“So, he hired your father to make it look good.” Daryl was turning the can of Dr. Pepper in her hands.
“Your father and Martin Granville had a mutual friend, Gil Johnson. Johnson was a cop and when Martin insisted on hiring a private investigator, Johnson recommended Big Al. You know the rest,” Avalou said.
“Maybe he doesn’t know all of it, Avalou. I’ll tell him.” Daryl continued. “Big Al started tracking Gerber north after Granville gave him a roadmap that he said he found in one of his barns. The markings on the map indicated a route to Ohio where Georg had family. But your father didn’t find any trace of someone who had seen them along the way; no stops for gas or food, no motel stays, nothing. Big Al got almost to Charlotte, North Carolina, when he realized that maybe the map showing the route to Ohio was left behind to throw everyone off the track. He started heading south in the opposite direction.”