by Ted Minkinow
With the exception of Myra Holmes, the night shift dispatcher, and Bert Sellers, the firefighter on duty for the evening, the station sat deserted. If days in Vienna proved less than challenging for emergency response, the nights rolled past even quieter. Myra sat at her desk, battling a ball of yarn with her knitting needles.
Save for a three-year draftee stint in the Army, Warren spent his entire life in Vienna. During Anderson’s tenure, a national civil rights movement was born and then surged to victory, famines raged in Africa, Presidents entered office and exited under varying degrees of honor, and Vienna, Alabama did not change an iota.
Warren called everyone in town—along with most of their pets—by first name.
This day turned out differently than any other in Chief Anderson’s thirty-year tenure with the VPD. Crime had snaked its way out of the cesspools people call cities and into his town, a place where the police mostly ticketed speeders and planned the semi-annual bass fishing tournament. Today, Warren Anderson met two strangers…John Doe and his killer. The Chief of Police did not care for strangers.
Warren glimpsed his reflection in a window and shook his head. He needed to take action. A business as usual attitude could get folks around town wondering about his competence. He’d wonder too. But try though he might, the Chief could remember exactly where the textbooks suggested he should start.
"Got a lot of digging to do if we're going to get a rope around this one," he told his reflection. None of his crew could fall back on any real detective experience. The two witnesses—Bass Fishermen—stomped a retreating French army’s worth of spurious footprints over the scene.
Anyone could see John Doe was no Rockefeller so a robbery motive seemed dubious. Who would chance the death penalty for a hit, two at max, of heroin? It all added up to one possibility.
Sport killing.
Years of inactivity separated the classroom—the Huntsville Police Academy—from the practical—this murder. Warren thought that if experience really was the best teacher, the town was fortunate to remain in ignorance for so long.
Given his department’s limited resources, he wondered if planning protection from further attacks should take precedence over planning the murder investigation.
Warren checked his watch. Fifteen minutes until the others should begin arriving. He closed his eyes and blocked out all sounds except the clicking of Myra's knitting needles.
CHAPTER 14
Saturday, July 14, 1:20 am, Vienna, Alabama, City Hall
1
Patrolmen Greg Beasley and Aaron Mosley arrived within thirty minutes. Chief Anderson watched in silence as they headed for the coffee pot.
This time, he thought, it’s not some no-pay at the filling station.
Beasley grabbed the surviving doughnut from the day-old dozen and sat down at the receptionist's desk. Everyone heard the police cruiser slide to a halt outside and in a few moments John Rogers, heir apparent to Chief Anderson’s kingdom, strutted in.
Something followed in his wake…something not visible to the Vienna Police Department
"Evening boys; howdy Chief."
"Have a seat Jolly, this won't take long," Warren said.
John, AKA “Jolly,” concocted his nickname as a child. Jolly Rogers painted the perfect image for a police officer…or a pirate.
"You boys know what happened today,” the Chief said. "Crime is crime, no place is immune...but this…well it just don’t happen here.” Warren did not expect anyone to speak.
Nobody did.
“We all need to face a fact,” he said, and paused for effect, taking the time to make eye contact with each of his men in turn. “This thing’s going to stretch us.”
More silence.
"Aaron, you track down identification of John Doe. Huntsville Police Department should be able to give you some hints. I want name and pedigree of the fellow ASAP. Maybe some old crony of his decided to look him up right there in Copper Gulch."
"Yes sir, Chief."
"Greg, you make sure the autopsy is scheduled, completed, and get a copy of the results.”
Greg nodded.
Warren thought for a moment and added, “Stay on their butts until we get that report. Sometimes the big boys forget what we pay for their services.”
A nod from Greg Beasley.
"Jolly, you get out to the area above Copper Gulch and talk to everyone.”
Jolly smirked.
The Chief let it slide and said, “Talk to pets if you have to.”
"You suggesting John Goldilocks Doe found a wolf in Grandma's bed?" Jolly Rogers said.
Nobody laughed, and Warren gave thanks the younger two possessed that much sense.
But Greg and Aaron saw the look on their Chief’s face. It would not take a Nobel laureate to see the stress.
Warren fixed his friend with an “I don’t have time for wise cracks” stare. "Whatever it takes," the Chief said. "You just make sure you find out. Don't you come back telling me there's nothing to know, because we all know there’s something.”
A big something, he thought.
“You get me some leads."
"I'll give it my best shot, Warren, but you know as well as I that if it ain’t-"
"Save the excuses for later. That goes for everyone.”
They all figured as much. Chief Anderson seldom barked at anyone, let alone his pal Jolly.
“Like I said, this will challenge us. If you need help, for heaven's sake let me know and I'll see we get it.” He paused for emphasis and to choose clear words.
"It don’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure this murderer is dangerous. I expect he’s willing to get dirty with anyone he chooses.”
Warren stood, pursed his lips, and turned his back on the group. He allowed his eyes to settle somewhere in the early morning darkness outside of the window.
"Looking a man eye to eye and killing him with your hands takes insanity.”
Aaron Mosley grimaced as the Chief continued.
“Anyone believe he’d think twice about doing it again?” Warren let the meaning of his question sink in before continuing.
“Take's a sick mind.” Warren softened his voice. “Don't get complacent." And then, "I'm half hoping this idiot has moved on."
“But Chief,” said Beasley, “wouldn’t he just do it again in another town?”
“That’s the other half.” He picked up one of Myra’s knitting needles and looked at it for a second before putting down. “Don’t worry about traffic tickets for the next few days…don’t want any distractions.”
Everyone nodded.
"And there’s something else I want you to remember,” Warren said, picking up the needle again. “I expect this fellow understands the penalty. We'll get a fight, even if we find him naked in an outhouse."
"Do not, I repeat, DO NOT approach a suspect without backup. Now, I'll pause for a second right here and ask if there is any part of that instruction somebody doesn't understand; because if there is, I'll explain it all again."
More nods.
Air conditioning droned into the silence, the whirring sounded like mummers of accusation to Warren. He prayed this path he laid for his men would not get one of them killed. "Now, are there any questions?"
"Chief, what makes you think this guy hasn't moved off?" Aaron Mosley, at twenty-five, the youngest member of the VPD, asked. "I mean, it would be pretty stupid of a stranger to hang around a small town. He'd stick out sure as a boiled peanut in hot buttered grits with everyone suspicious as they're going to be.”
"Good point, Aaron," said Warren. "He could be gone, but it's safest to assume he hasn’t.”
Greg piped up. “What if the murderer isn’t a stranger?”
The simple question floored Warren…made him want to bang his head against the desk in frustration. Why had I never considered that? Warren recovered…he knew the others needed him to.
"Now don't go treating everyone you don't know like a criminal. Be cautious, alert, and suspiciou
s; but don’t overreact. Last thing we want is a population in a panic…wanting to take the law in their own hands.”
He let the statement sink in.
"Don't take chances. Be conservative.”
Despite the warning, Warren felt that sick feeling the father of teenage girls gets when he walks down the condom aisle in a drugstore. He decided to end the meeting.
“I'm as tired of listening to me as you are. Questions?"
Silence.
2
Leland Graves attended the meeting silent and unseen. He could do things like that. The portal remained closed for this one…he did not need the others looking over his shoulder. He needed to think…and those red eyes might drive him to theatrics ahead of schedule.
The Chief seemed interesting. Warren Anderson…where had this pudgy, graying person been before? How delicious the confusion. Chief Anderson would enter the transaction…along with his band of fools.
How to integrate them?
Leland Graves smiled.
CHAPTER 15
Friday, July 13, 1928, 6:31 pm, Jerome’s Grocery, Vienna, Alabama
“Hattie Jackson.”
Her name spoken in a voice that sounded like the rusty spring of a dead screen door.
A portion of the terror weighting Hattie into paralysis worked free and rose into her stomach like molten lava. She feared she would vomit.
How could he know my name?
Nana Sally said names held power…like the time Jesus banished Legion into a herd of swine. Now rising waters of fear threaten to carry Hattie into a sea of terror…she gasped for air as if to prove she could still breathe.
This old man is no Jesus.
“Do I know you?”
She knew she should have kept her mouth shut, just stood there in submission like elders, but Hattie could not stop herself. The stalemate needed to end and it was past quitting time. The stranger followed his walking stick a couple steps across the pine floor and toward the counter…toward Hattie.
Outside, the sun scooped final vestiges of light from the grocery a handful at a time, as if packing its case for a celestial homeward journey. Switches beyond her reach could have reversed the trend toward darkness…Jerome installed those new lights—the electric kind—several months earlier, before the Christmas shopping season. Those devil-clickers—Nana Sally’s term—stood fixed to the wall…behind the stranger. The man spoke.
“Well that’s a fine question, Hattie Jackson.” He touched the end of his cane to the spot where his brim would have been had his left hand not held the hat. “I’ve known you for years,” he said. “I have a certain amount of history with your family…knew your grandmother…intimately, you might say.”
Hattie’s face paled and the lava in her stomach turned to bile in her mouth. The stranger dipped his head in a parody of a cavalier’s bow.
“Does he know?” she asked her mind. People always talked about Papa’s skin; an octave lighter than Hattie’s. Nobody knew her grandfather, or more accurately; nobody knew his identity. “Some cream in the coffee.” That’s what both sides—the whites and those in her neighborhood—said.
Old folks were used to seeing master’s progeny…but those memories dimmed in the modern age of jazz. Nana Sally never turned loose of the name and even Papa quit trying years ago.
Hattie shrunk into the wall as the stranger neared. A wide grin cut across his face and it made her envy inanimate objects hanging from the wall…unconcerned about what could happen in the next few moments.
“Knew Nana Sally,” her brain said.
Intimately, her mind added.
My grandfather?
The thought bounced across her brain until it made Hattie sick. She prayed for a faint…anything to kill the mental image of this old buzzard as Nana’s mystery man.
Shadows conjured black stripes of nothingness into the dim store and none of that mattered to Hattie. The space between where she stood and the stranger—every inch precious—held her attention. And as the stranger closed the distance, Hattie noticed no sound; no scuffing of feet, no board that creaked to protest whatever might happen next.
“Can’t be,” Hattie’s brain said. The goat looked old sure enough, but less than a decade older than Papa. So what’s this about Nana Sally? And where is Jerome? Now only the counter separated Hattie from the stranger.
“Where ARE my manners—glorious aura—this evening?” Another mock bow.
This time he paused; and Hattie detected a hint of confusion…as if the old vulture forgot what came next. The moment passed, and the man returned to his full height. He doesn’t know about that little hitch in his step, thought Hattie. She didn’t understand why, but the revelation upped the level of her fright the same way the accumulation of small raindrops raises the level of a catfish pond.
“My name is Leland Graves,” he said, “and I’ve had the honor to be of service to Missus Emily.”
The words came to Hattie in the scratched sound of a skipping gramophone. She knew all about Miss Emily Brunson, Nana’s mistress at the time of emancipation. Leland Graves interrupted her thoughts.
“Let me assure you that will find no hint of deceit when I state my pleasure in meeting you.”
The shadows gathered in solidarity to mute the store in a darkness interrupted only by stray beams as the full moon relented to curiosity and rose to peak in from outside. Hardware and dry goods watched in the background like a Greek chorus in silent rebellion.
If he knew Miss Emily and Nana Sally both, then it had to be during the war. Can’t be.
Leland Graves tipped a wink as if to say, “You know it cannot be true, as do I. So let us just pretend.” Hattie was willing to pretend, to do almost anything necessary to goad the grizzled bobcat into leaving her alone.
“True enough,” he said. “Sold a couple of Bibles to Missus Emily.”
They both seemed happy to let that statement sit, and in the silence, Hattie felt pain in both hands. She looked down to see them gripping the wooden counter with a force as unnatural as it was unconscious. When she looked back up, it was into the eyes of Leland Graves.
For about the fifth time that evening, Hattie wished she could faint because, if eyes were a window to a man’s soul then what Hattie glimpsed was shuttered. One thought caught purchase and she didn’t know from where. No future in those eyes…only the past. And if Nana Sally sit’s in this man’s past…
As if reading Hattie’s thoughts, Leland Graves said, “No need to sweat your mule, Miss Jackson.” He spent several moments looking up beyond the ceiling, tapping the end of his walking stick against the side of his leg.
When he looked back to Hattie, she knew some decision had been made. Leland Graves returned the wide-brimmed black hat to his head.
“If I might take the liberty of assuming your pardon at replacing my cover indoors…”
Hattie said nothing because she did not know what to say…or what to think.
“You see, I have decided that I am not here for Sally Jackson.” He bent over the counter and added in a conspiratorial whisper with the effect of a metal rasp on fine porcelain, “Unless of course, the tumblers fall into place.”
Bile in her throat coagulated into a sludge that once more constricted Hattie’s breathing. She had no clue what he was talking about—none of this made sense. Hattie understood that although she had little control over the situation, she needed to exert some measure over herself…soon.
She eased her grip on the counter and prepared to sprint one way or the other. Hattie thought it would all boil down to a footrace. The muscles in her legs cocked and twitched, awaiting the command.
“No ma’am,” he said.
Hattie still wondered if he could read her thoughts…hoped he couldn’t. “Run left or run right?” passed through her brain. Leland Graves continued to speak.
“No, I reckon I am not here for Sally Jackson.”
The eerie repetition convinced Hattie that this man’s egg was close to cra
cking. How do those white women drop—no, swoon they call it—so easily? Then he said something else and that evaporated what starch Hattie mustered. The world around her swam out of focus and Hattie crossed her arms to hold her shoulders in as much an attempt to block exit routes for a stampeding heart as it was a defensive reaction to what the old man said. That’s how found herself when she woke on the floor; arms still crossed at her chest.
Clarity returned to Hattie’s eyes and Leland Graves no longer stood in front of her…or anywhere else in Jerome’s Grocery. Somehow he vanished; got past the creaky pine floor as well as the hinges and springs leading to outside. She detected a hint of how the air tastes after lightning strikes nearby. His departure did nothing to slow Hattie’s heart and offered no brake for her mind as it steamed runaway down a broken track. What Leland Graves said just before he departed echoed in her ears, her brain, and down into everywhere else.
He had said, “I am here for you, Hattie Jackson.” But that wasn’t all he said because after a pause he added, “and Jerome.”
CHAPTER 16
Friday, July 13, 11:40 pm, Vienna, Alabama
1
Marlin’s car departed the state road. Brakes locked, his sedan skidded through damp earth like Flash Gordon’s rocket ship on planet Mongo. Grass and dirt flew and flew as white knuckled, Marlin held on to the plastic steering wheel as if it were a life preserver on a roiling sea of kudzu.
The old sedan came to rest eighty feet from the highway, nose pointing toward the road. Marlin sat motionless, drinking in the moment’s dumb joy. He attempted to regain his senses. The world outside came back into view as his brain rebooted.
2
Leland Graves selected the spot. Perfect—and he was right. The fool nearly killed himself along the road and would eventually have done so; a light pole, as Leland Graves projected the future he prevented. Though he never could be certain…none of them could.