Post Facto

by Darryl Wimberley

  Turns out that in 1951, Shamrock’s headmaster contracted tuberculosis which threatened to shut down the entire school. All the children had to be tested, not to mention their teachers. From the attending copy I learned that the school employed a faculty of twenty teachers, along with janitors, housekeepers, and a nurse. The article continued to an inside fold and that’s where I hit pay dirt because accompanying the continuing story was a photograph tagged, “Faculty & Staff Shamrock School.”

  Staring out from the withered page was a clutch of formally dressed men and women linotyped in a strained pose on some sort of verandah, the gentlemen rigid as statuary in four-in-hand ties and dark coats, the women equally severe in long, gingham dresses with high, white collars. It was hard to make out details; after all, I was looking at a photograph etched and printed nearly seventy years earlier on paper prone to decay. But a caption identified each of the nine persons photographed by name and position.

  I mouthed the first two entries silently: Mr. Matthew Lawson—Instructor, Miss Mary Lynn Folsom—Instructor. Any one of these faculty, presumably, could have been Annie’s confederate. I returned to the caption and found yet another possibility.

  “Reverend Paul Odom—Chaplain.”

  A chaplain? A confessor perhaps?

  I remembered that Hattie Briar alluded to a missionary associated with the Shamrock mill. I did not need a magnifying glass to find Reverend Odom’s place on the grainy page before me. It was not hard to spot on the back row a cleric’s collar white and bright against a severe, black coat. Reverend Odom was tall and clean shaven in his frock, derby hat, and boots, and he was the only person in the picture sporting darkly shaded glasses. He had some sort of cane in one hand, as well, and on closer inspection I could see that the minister was resting his free hand on the shoulder of a woman standing in front of him. Leaning on her shoulder as though it were an armrest.

  The final caption connected the dots—the woman bearing the weight of the cleric’s hand? Was “Annette McCray–Cook.”

  Annie McCray Lamb could not read. She couldn’t write. Hattie Briar’s uncle notarized the will Annie signed which, at her death, would pass along the McCray homestead to Kelly Lamb, but there was nothing to suggest the judge composed the text of that instrument. For that task, Annie may well have prevailed on some neutral player, someone not related to Kelly Lamb or her dead husband. She needed someone literate, certainly, but also someone bound to keep her confidence.

  What better man for that job than a chaplain?

  I wondered how far Butch’s mother trusted Reverend Odom. Did the minister know Annie was being pressured to deny her son his birthright? Did the reverend know that Kelly Lamb refused to marry Annie unless she named him as her heir? What counsel would a man of God offer a woman who traded her body and her homestead to ensure that a simpleton son would never be orphaned? If Reverend Odom was aware of these circumstances, did he approve? Would he even care? I looked again at the picture in the fading paper. The way the cleric leaned on Annie McCray’s shoulder. That familiar contact. Hattie Briar insisted that Butch’s mother was a hussy.

  Was it possible Reverend Odom was Annie’s lover as well as her scribe?

  All good reporters spin out hypotheses. We’re always looking for ways to connect the dots, but a good reporter never believes anything without corroboration. All I could say with any reasonable certainty was that Butch McCray’s mother worked in close proximity over some period of time with a man fully able to compose the document that would disinherit her son, and that, as a minister, he might also be obliged to keep her confidence.

  And then it occurred to me—what if Annie changed her will? She had threatened to do just that, according to Hattie Briar. Was it possible there was a revised will secreted away somewhere or another, or some other document that would create a problem for the Lamb brothers? Maybe that was what Hiram Lamb was looking for. Maybe that’s why he wanted Annie McCray’s steamer trunk.

  But this was nearly all speculation. Nearly—but not all. I now believed that Hiram Lamb was afraid of something he believed to be secreted in Annie McCray’s travel trunk. It certainly wasn’t much of a leap to conclude that Hiram, and probably also Roscoe, knew something about Annette’s relationship with their father that was not public knowledge. There was a story lurking just beneath the surface, I could smell it, but how would I ever know for sure? What source did Hiram have that I didn’t? What crypt held Annie’s last secrets?

  How do you search an empty box?

  IT TOOK me over an hour to make the drive from Laureate to Cross City. You can’t actually visit the town of Shamrock anymore—it doesn’t exist. The original tidewater cypress and longleaf pine that busied the town’s mill have long been cut to extinction along with the community that once thrived alongside. There remains, however, a relic of that era, a kind of visitors’ center and museum housed in a lodge that used to be a favored hangout for visiting big shots and dignitaries. What I hoped to find was some local curator or aficionado at the Putnam Lodge who could give or guide me toward more detailed information about the Shamrock School and its faculty.

  A tower of bright, shining cumulus was building by the time I turned off Highway 19 and pulled into a parking lot sprinkled with palm trees. Putnam Lodge has been restored a couple of times, two wide wings and two stories of hardwood roofed in green above an exterior painted in a modern and blinding white. I passed through the small verandah leading to the lobby and was greeted immediately by a mid-aged woman lounging behind a long counter.

  “Good morning.”

  She offered a brilliant smile and silver hair.

  “Hello.” I offered my hand. “Clara Sue Buchanan. I run the newspaper in Laureate.”

  “I’m Virginia Chauncey.” She gave me a firm shake. “Will you be needing a room?”

  “No,” I said apologetically, “I’m just filling in details for a column I’m writing. I’m especially interested in the old Shamrock School.”

  “My grandmother attended Shamrock School.” Virginia smiled. “She’s no longer with us, unfortunately.”

  I mulled that over. “I read a short piece concerning an outbreak of tuberculosis. You know anything about that?”

  “Just the mention from grandma. You might contact Putnam Lumber in Jacksonville; they put out a nice history. I b’lieve we still have a copy or two in the gift shop.”

  “I’ll check. But does that mean the lodge doesn’t have an independent archive of records from the school? Letters or contracts? Anything of that nature?”

  “Nothing like that, no.” She shook her head. “And you aren’t the first to ask. It really is a shame to see how much was lost of that early history. We’ve salvaged what we can but, truthfully? It’s only a shadow of what was here.”

  “Is it all right if I just look around then?”

  “Please do.”

  I strolled through the lobby first, a generous room facing a large fireplace. The walls were famously paneled in pecky cypress, that vermiculated timber now rare and expensive beyond belief. There were tintype photos of the mill’s operation scattered about the lobby and halls and several ferrotypes of the managers and staff who ran the mill, but I didn’t see a thing related to the company-owned school or its faculty. I had about decided to grab a coffee and custard from the dining room when I spotted the lodge’s small gift shop.

  The young fellow at the cash register barely looked up. A twentysomething clearly underemployed in a uniform of T-shirt and jeans.

  “Morning.” I saluted but was not acknowledged.

  Most of the items for sale were brummagem and had nothing to do with Shamrock’s operation. There were a couple of trays of arrowheads, for instance, advertised as authentic. I didn’t know the intrepid crew at Shamrock felled trees with arrowheads. There was some mediocre artwork, etchings and illustrations that were based on linotypes of the mill and surrounding grounds. I saw a few hardwood carvings that were better crafted. I was about to leave for a coffe
e and custard when I spotted a shelf filled with what appeared to be handcrafted boxes.

  “These local?” I asked the unengaged cashier.

  “Hmm? Oh, yeah, we got a guy brings ’em in. They’re puzzle boxes.”

  “Say again?”

  “Puzzle . . . Boxes,” he repeated as though I were deaf.

  The boxes were simple cubes or rectangular stained to reveal the natural grain of wood, the lids burned or etched with scenes from the Suwannee or from the Shamrock mill. They ranged in size from a cigarette pack to a cigar box.

  I picked up one of the larger pieces and raised the lid. There was nothing like a puzzle obvious to see. Just an ordinary vanity box, except without any lining, not even a skin of felt. I checked the price.

  “Pretty steep for an empty box,” I noted acerbically.

  “Just cause it’s empty doesn’t mean there’s no puzzle.” The cashier for the first time seemed to take interest in his customer.

  I turned the box over in my hands.

  “What? Where?”

  “Bring it here,” the kid directed and, tamping my temper, I complied.

  “Open the box,” he suggested casually, and I did.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “A nice-smelling hole,” I groused.

  “That’s all? You’re sure?”

  “Is there a riddle I’m missing?” I asked, and he smiled with undisguised condescension.

  “Watch this.”

  He took the box without permission, placed his hands inside, and gently pressed the opposed panels. I heard the slip of wood on wood and then I saw—

  “A false bottom.”

  “Yep.”

  The kid was grinning like a carny as he displayed the well-hidden compartment, the sliding panels concealing a cavity maybe half a foot wide and a couple of inches deep.

  “An’ every single box on sale opens up in a different way,” the kid declared with admiration. “Way cool.”

  “It’s clever,” I affirmed even as I declined the purchase. “But it’s not very practical. I mean—how much could you actually hide in this thing?”

  “You could hide diamonds,” he pointed out. “Or jewelry.”

  “Well, that’s true,” I granted. “But I don’t keep many diamonds around.”

  “You got a passport?”

  “I do.”

  “Keep your passport safe in here. Or a social security card. Be good for that.”

  “I don’t think so.” I slid the box over.

  “Or a letter,” he went on as if I was not there. “You might have a letter you wanta keep private? Puzzle box’d be great for a letter. Or a diary, maybe.”

  His sell was getting unexpectedly hard, and I was about to leave when the persistent young man said something I had heard not long before.

  “These are boxes built to keep secrets.”

  I felt a rush of adrenaline.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Nothing. Here.”

  I fumbled a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet and slapped it down.

  “But what about the box?”

  “Keep it!”

  I hit the lobby at a lope and hauled ass back to Laureate. I burst into the Clarion and found Randall cutting the twine that binds stacks of our just-printed paper.

  “Could use some help here.”

  “One second, babe! Give me a second!”

  I bounded up the flimsy flights to my upstairs office, threw open the door, and rushed straight to the armoire where I’d stowed Annette McCray’s trunk. This wouldn’t be like the box at the gift shop, I knew that. I dragged the heavy chest from my wardrobe and sat the lid back on its cowhide restraints.

  I saw again the nameplate, Annette’s engraved identifier. Was there some keyhole behind that brass herald? I briefly considered prying it off, but instead leaned over to explore the box’s cedar interior and when I did my glasses fell from my face to a pleasant report.

  “What in the world are you doing?” Randall now standing with crossed arms at the door.

  “Help me open this thing.”

  “It’s already open, Clara.”

  “Not the lid; there’s something else. Got to be. A false bottom, hidden compartment. Something. I just have to figure out how to get at it.”

  “Should be fun,” Randall replied laconically, and strolled over.

  Minutes later I was straddling Annette’s trunk and cursing like a sailor to pound, prod, slap, and otherwise abuse Annie’s strongbox, trying to find some pressure point that would reveal a false floor or secret cache. I jammed my hands along the sides and the bottom with no luck. Pulled and yanked the heavy straps and bronze fittings.

  Nothing. Nada.

  Randall observing at a safe remove and patient as Buddha.

  “Here,” he offered at last. “Let me try.”

  I moved aside and my husband dragged a chair over. He took a seat and for a moment just looked the trunk over. Then, without so much as touching the thing, he said, “You haven’t tried the lid.”

  “The lid?” I scoffed. “The hell are you talking about? How could I get inside the box without raising the damn lid?”

  “You raised the lid, Clara. You didn’t look at it. Hand me your scissors.”

  “You planning to cut the thing open, you’re going to need more than these,” I advised.

  “Shut up and listen,” he said, and tapped the chest’s heavy lid with the scissor’s handle.

  “Hear that?” Randall smiled. “The lid is hollow.”

  He was right. You could hear the echo of a concealed tympanum inside the lid’s rounded architecture. Randall dropped the scissors to the floor and I slumped back humbled as he ran his hands over the ribs that formed the box’s top.

  “Ah!” He paused. “Help me stand this thing on its end.”

  I tipped the chest on its end, glad to be of some use, and Randall showed me a notch barely large enough for a pen at the terminus of a cedar strake.

  “I’m guessing this’ll slide out,” he said.

  “You’re the man.”

  “Got a pocket knife?”

  “Letter opener.”

  I grabbed the letter opener from my desk and handed it over. Randall slipped the very tip of that slender instrument into the lid’s exposed notch and pulled gently—

  The rib slid free, and it was immediately apparent that the lid was hollow. The whole top of the trunk, in fact, was a concealed cavity, a false roof.

  “I feel something. Some kind of fabric,” Randall declared.

  He fished out an inch of fabric from the cavity hidden in the trunk’s lid.

  “Look here!”

  Randall pulled out a length of silk about a yard in length. Was this what Hiram was looking for? Was a piece of silk worth a thousand dollars?

  “Sure there’s nothing else in there?”

  “Well, let’s see.”

  Randall took the trunk lid apart strake by strake. There was nothing else to find. No will or testament. No document of any kind. There was nothing to be found in Annie’s trunk but a length of dimpled fabric.

  “Mind if I take a look?”

  I took the fabric into my hands. It was silk, for sure, a swath maybe a foot and a half wide and the length of a serape. The material was pipped all over in tiny raised welts that provided an interesting texture. It was the sort of shawl that might have graced the shoulders of some elegant lady at a tony restaurant but could just as easily be a throw for some chair or couch.

  “There’s some kind of embroidery along the bottom.” Randall pointed, and even with that prompt I almost missed the delicate stitch of black thread woven close to the edge along the fabric’s width.

  “It’s not embroidery!” I held the needlework up for Randall’s inspection.

  This was a signature, a claim to provenance rendered in cursive with a delicate black thread:

  Annette Elizabeth McCray.

  “Well, I’ll be dipped.”
Randall smiled.

  Yes, I’d found Annette McCray’s treasured talisman. Her secret possession. A nicely dyed length of silk.

  “Is this what Hiram Lamb is looking for?” Randall shook his head. “A thousand dollars for a piece of cloth?”

  “To hell with Hiram.” I dismissed that claim out of hand. “Whatever this thing is, or was supposed to be, it should go to Butch.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Prison Guards Searched for Contraband

  The Clarion

  Tiny Sessions was sorting the latest Sport Illustrated into its designated caddy when the prison’s librarian approached.

  “Inmate, you have a visitor.”

  Tiny turning his massive bulk in anticipation of Sheriff Buchanan’s visit.

  “Give us the room, would you, sir?” Colt requested formally, and the guard disappeared behind a closed door and venetian blinds.

  “You know why I’m here, Tiny?”

  “I reckon maybe.”

  “Tiny, I’m not here to fuck with you, but goddammit if I even think you’re lying to me, I’m going straight to the warden, is that clear enough for you?”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “So first off: Where did Officer Hart get his crystal?” “From the same people you put in jail. Thass why he was short. Thass why he come to me. I never sold him nuthin’ ’fore that. Not a damn thing.”

  “So that was your stash I found in his toolbox?”

  The huge felon spread pie-sized hands on the table.

  “Watn’t no stash. I don’ keep no stash. Just some shit left over from somebody cell is awl.”

  Colt allowed Sessions to sweat a little before letting that pass.

  “You know, Tiny, for a good while now you been giving me the names of mules. Maybe a middleman or two, the friend of a cousin dealing meth out of his backyard or pickup. I’ve got me a chum’s worth of minnows off you, Tiny. Sometimes a bream or perch. But not the kingfish. Not the boss. Is that a fair statement?”

  Tiny regarded the scars on his hands.

  “Dammit, inmate, answer the question.”

  “All I get is crumbs.”