“Make it ‘was spotted fleeing from the scene of an unsolved killing.’ ‘Spotted’ and ‘fleeing’ are stronger.”
“I’m not sure we can say ‘fleeing.’ It goes too far.”
“What the girl said was that she saw him running away. That’s fleeing. The lede is: ‘A man later convicted of civil rights charges was spotted fleeing from the site of an unsolved killing that occurred during racial unrest in Hirtsboro, South Carolina.’ And I bet no one interviewed him, either. But that’s not the story we want to write. We want to write what happened and why. We still need to find the Possum.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a photograph. It was Bascom’s face, enlarged and grainy like those photos of robbers taken by bank security cameras.
“How’d you get that?”
Bullock extracted his camera from his pocket. “I took a picture of the picture at the gas station while you were talking to Larry. I have a mini-darkroom in the trunk.”
The Possum proved almost as elusive in Columbia as he had been in Hirtsboro. The Department of Corrections had no record of a William J. Bascom ever having been an inmate. Clip files at the Charlotte Times and at The Columbia State failed to include any stories on the sentencing of Watson, Bascom, Mayhew, and Hord. None of the earlier stories mentioned the name of Bascom’s defense attorney. As shots in the dark, we searched records at the S.C. Department of Revenue and the Division of Motor Vehicles. None hit the mark.
The pale winter sun had dropped low in the sky as we left the DMV. Bullock looked at his watch. “Seventeen hundred hours,” he said. “We’re going to have to find another hotel room soon. Got to crank out a few obits.”
I wasn’t looking forward to it. I read the clip about the trial that I carried in the pocket of my sports coat. “Prosecutor was named Red McCallum,” I said. “Maybe someone there knows something.”
Bullock shrugged. “It’s right down the street. We have time.”
We took an elevator to the third floor of a converted federal post office, which housed the administrative offices of the Richland County Courts. I knocked on the door where gold letters read “Solicitor’s Office.” When no one answered, we walked in.
In the outer room, a man in a gray suit bent over an open drawer of files. When he stood up and faced us, I was struck immediately by the contrast between his age—over seventy I guessed—and his youthful shock of red hair. Beyond that, he was chubby, his cheeks almost cherubic—Howdy Doody as a senior citizen. I figured there was a good chance we had just found Red McCallum.
“Can I help you?”
“Ron Bullock and Matt Harper from the Charlotte Times,” Bullock said. “We were looking for someone who might help us with a story we’re working on.”
“Charlotte Times? Did something happen to ol’ Henry?”
Henry Ashley was the Charlotte Times reporter who’d been stationed in Columbia since Sherman’s March, as Walker liked to say. He knew everyone and still carried the title of Bureau Chief, a relic of the days when the Times had actually employed more than one person in the bureau.
“No, sir,” I said quickly. “Henry’s still here. We’re on another kind of story. I’m sorry. I should probably know this. But do you happen to be Red McCallum?”
“All my life. Unless you happen to be from the IRS.” He laughed and we all shook hands. Bullock and I gave him business cards. He studied them. “In my thirty years in office, I’ve always tried to have a good relationship with the press. I like Henry. What can I help you with?”
I handed him the clip about the Watson. He put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and read it. “We’re trying to find Bascom,” Bullock said.
“Ol’ Possum and I got to know each other quite well. I’m surprised he’s back in the news.”
“He isn’t yet. We want to interview him. We’re hoping you can help.”
Bullock produced another print of the photo from Ray’s Amoco. “Just to make sure we’re talking about the same guy . . .”
“That’s him.” McCallum put his reading glasses back in his front pocket. “Come into my office.” He turned and I took the opportunity to glance at my watch. There wouldn’t be much chance for writing any obits. I prayed that no one important—or known to the publisher—had died in Charlotte.
McCallum’s walls were a memorial to his life and career—photos with every celebrity who’d ever passed through Columbia; countless civic awards; a corn liquor jug with a cartoon of a Confederate flag, a drawing of a defiant Rebel soldier with the caption “Fergit, Hell!”; an autographed football from Clemson’s national champion football team; an autographed South Carolina Gamecock basketball jersey; a framed bumper sticker with the Gamecock logo and the words, “You Can’t Lick Our Cocks.”
McCallum laughed when he noticed that the bumper sticker had caught my attention. “We had some interesting free speech versus contemporary community standards litigation over that one a few years back.” He sat down on a red leather chair and pointed Bullock and me toward a matching couch.
“So you need to track down Possum . . .”
We started at the beginning, with the civil unrest in Hirtsboro and the firebomb directed at the building that housed De Sto. We told him about the life and shooting of Wallace Sampson, about the lack of police investigation into the killing, about the new information that we had developed—but not where it came from—that Billy Bascom had been seen fleeing just after the shots were fired.
Sometimes I talked. Sometimes Bullock did. For the most part McCallum listened quietly and without expression.
“When we learned that Bascom had been convicted in another case of civil rights violence, it all kind of came together,” I explained.
“So you think he was involved in the Wallace Sampson killing.”
“We have fresh eyewitness testimony that he was on the scene. We know that you had him in court up here for beating those civil rights marchers and that he was found guilty. We know that one of his co-defendants was Raeford Watson, the Klansman who owned the store where the Wallace Sampson shooting happened. There’s got to be a connection.”
“You’re wrong about at least one thing,” McCallum said. “Bascom wasn’t convicted.”
“He pleaded guilty,” I corrected myself. “Same thing. The point is, he did it. He committed other civil rights violations in addition to anything that happened in Hirtsboro.”
“Interesting but circumstantial,” McCallum said.
“Circumstantial is good enough for a newspaper story,” Bullock said. “We don’t have to convict. We know that when Possum Bascom is around, bad things happen.”
“You know, Ronnie, that’s not a half-bad lede,” I said. I took out my notebook and wrote it down.
“So you’re prepared to write a story that ties Billy Bascom to the unsolved murder of Wallace Sampson?”
“We could write that story now,” I confirmed.
“Blacks get uppity and firebomb the building housing De Sto as well as a hated whorehouse,” Bullock said. “Next night, someone shoots a black teenager at the site. Friend of the man who runs De Sto is spotted fleeing from the scene. Later, the friend and the guy who runs the store are found guilty of beating up some blacks who are agitating for civil rights. It seems pretty clear to me. I think it would be to our readers.”
McCallum sighed and slumped back in his chair. He pressed his palms and fingers together. For a moment, I thought he was going to pray.
“You could write that story and it would be accurate,” he said. He leaned forward. “But if you write that story you would be making a terrible, terrible mistake.”
“Facts are never a mistake,” I said.
“Son, I’ve lived a long time. I’ve been in a lot of courtrooms. I’ve heard a lot of stories. Here is what I know for sure. Facts and the truth are not the same thing. The fact is, Billy Bascom might have been at the site
of that young man’s killing. But the truth is, when it comes to advancing the cause of civil rights in South Carolina, Billy Bascom isn’t the bad guy. Billy Bascom is a hero.” He looked us up and down. Finally, he said, “You know Henry and I have a deal. Everything I say is off the record unless we agree upfront otherwise. Do you boys work like that?”
“We can,” Bullock answered.
“This is off the record and not for attribution or for publication unless you get it from someone else.”
“Agreed,” we both answered.
“Billy Bascom was an informer for the State Law Enforcement Division. Never did know how they flipped him but he became an informer once he’d risen pretty high up in the South Carolina Klan. Billy Bascom was SLED’s best source of information about what the Klan was up to. Billy Bascom probably headed off more civil rights violence and sent more Klan to prison than anyone in this state. And that’s the truth.”
“Then what happened up here in the case you prosecuted, when he got convicted along with Watson, Hord, and Mayhew?” I asked.
“Like I told you, he wasn’t convicted. He pleaded guilty. There’s a big difference. That was how they’d work it. He’d tell the SLED agents what was coming down, they’d show up and all the Klan would get arrested, including Billy. When trial came, he’d plead guilty. It preserved his cover. When it came time for sentencing, we’d make sure he walked away with no active time. Or maybe just time served.”
“Which explains why there’s no record of him at the Department of Corrections,” Bullock said.
I couldn’t have been more stunned. For the second time, Bullock and I had zeroed in on a Wallace Sampson angle only to have our central thesis destroyed. But this time, the story had gotten even better.
“A government informer inside the Ku Klux Klan was spotted at the scene of an unsolved civil rights murder, the Charlotte Times has learned,” I said sounding out a new lede.
McCallum looked horrified. “You can’t write that story!”
“Why not?”
“Because it would get Billy killed. There are people in prison today because of him. And believe me, if they knew he was the cause of their being there, they would have him killed. No question.”
Something nagged at me. “So if Bascom was an informer, how come he never informed about the shooting of Wallace Sampson, either in time to head it off or even afterward, after the shooting happened?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” McCallum said. “He dealt directly with the agents. Maybe he told them and they decided not to pursue it. Maybe it would have jeopardized something bigger.”
Images of Etta Mae Sampson, weeping in the rain at her son’s grave, flashed through my head. “Try telling Wallace Sampson’s mother there was something bigger,” I said.
“Or maybe he just didn’t tell the agents everything he was involved in,” McCallum offered. “I said Billy Bascom was a civil rights hero. But he wasn’t all good. He wouldn’t be the first informer to walk both sides of the street. Don’t forget. To catch the devil, sometimes you have to visit hell.”
“If Billy Bascom is a hero, that’s a story we need to write,” Bullock said firmly. “I’m asking you to let us put what you said on the record. All this happened a long time ago. Things have changed. There is no Klan anymore, at least not one that counts.”
“You’d be betting his life on that.”
“Then let it be our decision,” I argued.
“If anything, it’s got to be Billy’s.” McCallum closed his eyes and placed his palms and fingers back together. “You’d scare hell out of him if you showed up.”
“How about this,” I said. “How about you ask him for us. Ask him if we could interview him about the killing of Wallace Sampson.”
McCallum took the business cards we’d given him from his pocket. “Is this where to contact you? At the paper in Charlotte?”
“Let’s make the call now,” I said.
“Can’t happen,” said McCallum. “I don’t know where he is but I believe I can find him. So should I call you in Charlotte?”
“Uh, we’re on the move a lot,” I said. “How about if you call this number and leave a message.” I ripped a page from my notebook and wrote down Brad Hall’s number.
Outside, our run of luck continued. I called Brad and learned that he and Lindsay were back at Windrow and that his father was out of town. Bullock and I were welcome back at the plantation, at least for a while.
“Screw the obits,” Bullock said. “Right now I’m just thinking about a clean bed. I might even have a nice serving of tofu when we get there. On second thought, let’s grab a steak on the way back.”
It was after midnight by the time we rolled into Savannah County. Thick fog hung low in the road as we neared the river and the entrance to Windrow. Squinting and hunched over the steering wheel, Bullock slowed the Dodge to a crawl. A pair of headlights snapped on to our right and a car swung into the road behind us. It quickly closed to within inches of our bumper.
Bullock speeded up a little and muttered, “What makes you think I know what I’m doing, pal? I got no better idea where the road goes than you.” The car stayed glued to the Dodge. Bullock speeded up some more.
I turned around and squinted into the trailing headlights. The car switched on its high beams. I couldn’t see a thing. Bullock accelerated but the car closed the space again.
I was about to tell Bullock to just move over when the car slammed into the back of the Dodge, causing us to fishtail wildly.
“Bastard!” Bullock shouted. He resisted the instinct to brake and instead let the wheels roll free. The Dodge swerved then straightened. The car rammed us again. I was thrown back into the seat. My leg hit the glove box and the .38 rolled onto the floor.
“Grab it!” Bullock yelled. The Dodge jolted forward with another crash. The .38 slid just out of my grasp. Bullock punched the gas and the Dodge leapt forward. “Give me the damn gun!”
I found the pistol but Bullock had his hands full. We were careening blind down the road door-to-door at eighty miles an hour. A curve or a vehicle ahead and we were dead. The car—an aging Plymouth—swerved to the right. The Dodge took a hard hit in the quarter-panel. Bullock cursed and fought for control.
I stole a glance inside the Plymouth. A man in a baseball hat wrestled with the steering wheel. Bullock notched the Dodge up to ninety. Our pursuer kept pace and we traded paint again.
Bullock pushed the accelerator to the floor. The Dodge surged ahead. Bullock pulled into the on-coming lane. “Shoot his radiator out!”
I leaned out the passenger window, clicked off the safety, aimed at the massive grill of the Plymouth and pulled the trigger again and again, my arm jumping from the recoil. The Plymouth rolled on unimpaired.
“Reload!” Bullock yelled
But before I could, steam began pouring from the hood of the Plymouth and it pulled to the side of the road. We raced on.
“I got him, Ronnie!” I yelled.
“Damn. You have the makins’ of a good ol’ boy after all.”
We inspected the damage to the car when we finally arrived at Windrow.
“Ronnie, we need to wrap this story up. It’s time to get out of Dodge.”
“No,” he said, giving the smashed rear bumper a kick. “It’s time to get the Dodge out of here.”
We crept past Maybelle, who didn’t budge from her bed by the door. Tasha opened one eye, stretched, yawned and went back to sleep. Brad Hall appeared in a bathrobe in the hallway and held his finger to his lips.
“Lindsay’s asleep. Sorry about my old man. Judge Buchan told me what happened.”
Friday, we slept late, wrote enough obits to make up for the ones we’d missed the day before and waited for McCallum. Instead we got a call from one of the Times assistant editors. Charlotte Times newsroom raises for the year would be limi
ted to two and one-half percent.
“The eagle flies on Friday,” Bullock said happily when I passed along the news.
“Ronnie, how can you be happy about two and one-half percent? That’s barely a cost-of-living increase.”
“Beats what I got last year by a long shot.”
I made a vow not to grow old in the daily newspaper business.
When Saturday arrived with still no word from Red McCallum, Bullock decided to go out and play.
“I can’t stand just sitting around here waiting for the damn phone to ring.” He laced up a pair of hunting boots. “Brad’s gonna take me and the dogs on a flora and fauna tour of Windrow. Too bad you can’t come along.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone needs to man the phone.”
“Oh, yeah.” And then I realized I’d forgotten about Lindsay. Since our return, signs of strain between her and Brad hadn’t been evident. But then, mostly she had stayed in her room. “Can’t Lindsay take a message?”
He snorted. “Lindsay isn’t good for much beyond spending money, if you ask me.”
As had become my practice with many of Bullock’s offensive remarks, I chose to ignore him. But I agreed to stay.
I went to the library when they left and scanned the shelves—volume after volume on botany, a surprising number on fencing. I pulled down several, leafed through them and put them back. I was lost in my solitude, absorbed by someone else’s interests. I pulled two volumes that had caught my eye earlier—Jack Bass’s Orangeburg Massacre, because it was a true story of civil rights violence in South Carolina and, for no particular reason—other than maybe being without female companionships for weeks—Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Sex.
I had stretched out on a leather couch, had put down Bass and had just opened Comfort when I realized I wasn’t alone.
“I thought you’d gone,” said Lindsay.
I sat up. “Jesus, you surprised me.” I put the book on the coffee table. My heart beat wildly and my stomach was in my throat. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
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