She told him everything, leaving nothing out about her forced exile. “After my father took his life by hanging himself in his jail cell, my grandmother took me north to live with her sister. I cried for weeks because I missed my home. I hated my new school, and the students. There were only three black families living the area. Two were childless, and one had two sons. I’d opted not to go to the senior prom because neither of them asked me to be their date. It was in college that I was exposed to black men for the first time. They fascinated me with their regal arrogance and confidence as men. I dated, but refused to commit.”
Tyler closed his eyes, enjoying the haunting sound of Dana’s voice pulling him into a tightening web of seduction. He was content to lie in bed all day listening to her. She’d revealed her joy, fear, pain, and disappointment, eliciting a desperate need in him to protect her.
A wry smile curved his mouth at the same time he opened his eyes. He was forty-one years old, and for the first time in his life he’d clandestinely assumed responsibility for protecting someone other than himself: Dana Nichols.
Dana sat on the porch, staring at the oak trees shading the backyard. The ban on non-official vehicular traffic was lifted twenty-four hours after it had been imposed, and she was back home.
A letter Georgia Sutton had written to her, but hadn’t mailed, dated three years before, lay on her lap. The feeling of security that had lingered with her after she’d shared most of Sunday with Tyler was missing. They’d stayed in bed until late morning, talking while holding hands. She’d found it so easy to talk to him because he listened intently without interrupting her or interjecting what he thought she wanted to hear.
He, in turn, had proudly revealed the professional and personal accomplishments of his mother and sisters. When she’d asked him about his father, he’d said he was a retired businessman.
They finally got up, completed their morning ablutions, she using the bathroom in the master suite, Tyler the one next to it. He slipped into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and the stubble of an emerging beard on his lean jaw made his face less perfect—more rugged.
She assisted him preparing breakfast, but neither had much of an appetite because their focus was not on food but on a television screen in a niche in the large kitchen. The news of the destructive tornado had preempted regular programming. The governor had declared Calico and four miles of Washington County a disaster area, requesting federal aid from the president. Repeated footage of the arrival of representatives from FEMA and the Red Cross, and the governor talking directly to the interior secretary, buoyed the sagging spirits of those who had lost everything except their lives and the clothes on their backs.
The dispossessed were put up in school buildings in Hillsboro to wait for trailers, which were to be set up as temporary housing before the rebuilding would begin. The call for clothes, shoes, and money to aid families in the burial of their loved ones brought forth an outpouring of goodwill and compassion from Mississippians all over the state. Dana had packed up several cartons containing clothes and shoes her grandmother had worn, labeling the boxes with their contents.
Eugene Payton had come as promised at ten o’clock that morning, cradling a leather case with legal documents that would change her and her life—forever. It had only taken Mr. Payton ten minutes to answer twenty years of questions—those spoken and unspoken. However, it wasn’t the will that had unnerved Dana. It was the sealed envelope containing the letter from Georgia that had rendered her mute, unable to move.
She had become the beneficiary of her grandmother’s life insurance, home, and its contents. A provision had indicated she could sell the house a year following Georgia’s death.
Dana unknowingly had also been Harry Nichols’s beneficiary. Her grandmother, as legal guardian, had used the money to purchase treasury bonds, and at maturity the result was a modest six-figure sum. The monthly allotment from the Social Security Administration for survivor’s benefits for Dana had been forwarded directly to Georgia’s sister in New York.
Dana had been orphaned a second time when her maiden Aunt Fanny died during her college junior year. She’d considered returning to Hillsboro to complete her studies at Mississippi State, but Georgia forbade her to come back. Adhering to her grandmother’s wishes, she’d earned an undergraduate degree at Ithaca College.
Picking up the letter, she read it again, analyzing every word:
Hillsboro, Mississippi.
My precious granddaughter,
It is with a heavy heart that I write to you. It is so much easier to put everything down in writing that I am unable to say to you in person.
I know you wonder why I do not want you to come back to Hillsboro, but I did what I thought was best for you. What I have tried to do is protect you from the lies and those who would try to hurt you like they hurt your mother.
Alicia was not perfect, far from it, but she had never deliberately hurt anyone. And she did love you. There were times when she did not know how to show it, but I know she did. She would have given up her life rather than let anyone or anything harm you. I cry to this day because she did not deserve to die the way she did.
I know everyone believes Harry killed her. Even a jury said he was guilty, but they were wrong, Dana. All of them were wrong. Harry loved Alicia too much to kill her, no matter what she did.
You are going to have to come back to Hillsboro one of these days, and when you do, I want you to find out who murdered my baby. I will not be here when you uncover the truth, but wherever I am I sure I will be smiling because justice will be served.
I love you, Dana. I have loved you like you were my own child. Do not forget to do good and be generous, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
I pray for your happiness, knowing God will give you the desires of your heart.
Love,
Grandma.
Tears filled Dana’s eyes, turning them into pools of shimmering gold. From whom did Georgia want to protect her? Who or what? And why hadn’t she testified at the trial that she did not believe her son-in-law had fired three bullets into his wife’s head as she lay sleeping?
Dana opened her eyes, determination radiating from their moist depths. Twenty-two years was a long time—long enough for her mother’s murderer to have passed away or to have left Hillsboro permanently.
Pushing off the cushioned rocker, she climbed the staircase to her bedroom. She had to change her clothes. If she was going to investigate a crime, then she needed to begin with two sources: the Greenville courthouse where her father had been tried for murder, because she would need a copy of the transcript of the trial proceedings. She would also need any newspaper clips covering The State of Mississippi vs. Harry E. Nichols.
Fourteen
Dana knocked, and then pushed open the door to the Hillsboro Herald. The gold letters on the frosted glass door identified Ryan Vance as publisher and editor in chief.
She stepped into a large pace littered with orderly chaos. Bundles of newspapers were piled high on two long tables, while corkboard walls were covered with paste-up ads. There were two facing desks, both with computers, and a man with thinning red hair sat at one, his fingers skimming over a keyboard. His head came around when she closed the door.
Eyes the color of shiny copper pennies widened as Dana moved closer. “Good afternoon. I’m—”
“Dana Nichols,” the red-haired man said, rising to his feet and completing her introduction. “I’d know you anywhere.” He had a high-pitched, nasal-sounding voice. He extended a freckled hand. “I’m Ryan Vance, editor of the Herald.”
She managed a skeptical smile. “You seem to have me at a distinct disadvantage.” She shook his hand.
“Please sit down.” He waited for Dana to sit down on a chair next to his cluttered desk. “You look exactly like your mother. What I mean is that you look exactly like she did before she died.”
Dana stared at the newspaperman, who appeared to be in his mid-forties to early fifties. His
sedentary career was evident by the softness in his slight body under a rumpled white shirt and khakis. His clothes were clean, although she doubted whether they’d seen an iron since leaving the factory where they were made.
“What do you know about my mother?”
She listened intently as Ryan revealed he’d been only twenty-three when he’d covered Dr. Harry Nichols’s murder trial for a Greenville newspaper. His father, who’d been editor at that time, had come down with an acute gout attack, and Ryan had temporarily assumed the responsibility of the running the weekly. He boasted that the paper’s circulation had tripled for the duration of the celebrated trial.
“Emotions were off the chart, half the populace of Hillsboro believing in Harry’s innocence, and the other half in his guilt. The beliefs went according to gender: the men openly condemning Dr. Nichols, while most women lamented that the handsome doctor was innocent.
“Alicia Nichols was a very controversial woman,” Ryan continued. “She was beautiful and extremely flirtatious. Whenever she walked into a room, women held onto their husbands as if they feared she could lure one of them away with a single glance.”
Dana peered closely at the editor, seeing a flush of color darken his face. “Did she sleep with other men beside her husband?” she asked, recalling her parents’ argument the night of the murder.
The color in Vance’s face deepened as he shook his head. “That I don’t know. Hillsboro was just beginning to integrate during that time, so there wasn’t too much mixing socially. The fact that the trial was moved to Greenville gave me the advantage over the Davises, because I was able to interview blacks and whites without suspicion. My father was respected for always reporting the truth.”
“And what do you believe was the truth? Was my father guilty of murder?”
Minute lines fanned out around Ryan’s eyes as he squinted at a photograph over Dana’s shoulder. “I didn’t believe he was capable of murder,” he said after an interminable silence.
She shifted her eyebrows. “You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Vance.”
“No, Miss Nichols. I don’t believe he killed her.”
Her expression softened. “Please call me Dana.” He nodded. “I’m going to need your help.”
Ryan angled his head, staring at a face that had bewitched him more than thirty years ago. He’d told Dana the truth—during that time segregation had kept the races apart, but that hadn’t stopped him or other white men from lusting after Alicia Sutton Nichols. There was something about her most men—young or old—could not resist. And he wondered if Dana, like Alicia, was just as provocative.
He knew Dana Nichols was a journalist. He’d remembered her name in a picture caption under an award-winning syndicated article exposing years of sexual abuse in an upstate New York group home for girls. It hadn’t been her name as much as her face, her uncanny resemblance to Alicia Nichols, that had captured his rapt attention.
“How?” he asked.
She smiled, the gesture crinkling her golden eyes. “You covered the trial, so you were familiar with all of the players: prosecutor, defense attorneys, witnesses, and the jurors.”
He lifted red-orange eyebrows. “Are you saying you want to talk to them?”
“Yes. And that includes the fire marshal, coroner, crime-scene technicians, and the former sheriff.”
“Even if all of them are still alive, do you think they’d be willing to open up to you?” Ryan questioned.
Her smiled faded. “Why shouldn’t they?”
“You’re a stranger to them, Dana. An outsider. Hillsboro is a strange little town. It has always hid its dirty little secrets well.”
Dana stared at the newspaperman, her smooth forehead furrowing. “You live here now?”
Ryan nodded. “I moved here after I brought the Herald. I’ve always liked Hillsboro—even twenty-two years ago when I came here for the first time to talk to your grandmother.”
This disclosure forced Dana to sit up straighter. “What did she tell you?”
“Nothing. Georgia Sutton refused to talk to me, the Davises, or her neighbors about her daughter’s murder or the trial. The only person I remember her interacting with was her lawyer.”
“Eugene Payton,” Dana said softly, wondering just how much the elderly man knew. Had Georgia confided in him? She mentally added Mr. Payton’s name to her list of interviewees.
A shiver of frustration swept over her. She had four months—less than 120 days to attempt to clear her family’s name. “There has to be someone who’d be willing to talk to me about my parents.”
“I doubt it,” Ryan countered, pulling his lower lip between his teeth. “I happen to know you’re a journalist,” he countered sheepishly. “I read a syndicated article on the work you did on that residential group home for adolescent girls.
“Come work for the Herald. If you want, you can start today with editing copy while you do your investigating. Folks will get used to seeing you around here and connect you with the paper. After a couple of weeks I’ll have you cover a story about something of interest. I’ve begun a column I call Hillsboro: Then and Now. I select a date in history, profiling a particular person or event. I also feature a current event or person, which always makes for a lot of excitement because anyone I interview must sign a statement attesting they will not disclose the contents of their interview before that edition of the paper is released. It’s a gimmick, but the paper’s circulation has doubled since the start of the column.”
Dana had to smile. “That’s very clever.”
Ryan lifted a shoulder under his short-sleeved rumpled white shirt. “It sells copies. The Davises started the Herald as a hometown paper, and I plan to continue the tradition.”
Dana knew the newspaper editor was right about small towns. It was easier to glean information from intelligence agencies than tight-lipped residents, many of whom would carry secrets to their graves.
She wanted to reject Ryan’s offer. She had a job in Carrollton, and she hadn’t come to Mississippi to work for a small-town weekly, even if it was only on a temporary basis. However, she was also familiar with people’s unwillingness to disclose things to a reporter unless she granted their request for complete anonymity; she’d earned a reputation for never disclosing her sources. She was also aware that if she didn’t get the editor’s cooperation, then her investigation would be certain to hit a roadblock, if not a dead end.
“I’ll accept your offer,” she said reluctantly, “but I’m going to need time to go through your morgue. I’d appreciate it if you pull the microfiche on the issues covering everything from the police investigation to the trial. I also plan to visit the courthouse in Greenville to secure a copy of the transcript from my father’s trial.”
Ryan’s eyes danced with excitement. “I can help with that. I have a cousin who works in court records. I’ll call her and tell her to have the copies ready for you. You’ll have to fill out a request form and pay a fee for each page. Now, about working here. You can set your own hours as long as you get your assignments completed before each Wednesday. Everything goes to the printer on Wednesday. We drop off the mail subscriptions at the post office Thursday afternoons. Everyone likes to get their Herald for the weekend.”
Dana nodded. “I’d like to begin tomorrow morning with the microfiche.”
“I’ll have them ready for you. Meanwhile, I’d like you to set up an interview with one of Hillsboro’s newer residents.” Ryan stood up and walked over to a table stacked with back issues. Sorting through the dates, he picked up three, handing them to Dana. “He’s Dr. Tyler Cole. He’s a bachelor and the latest medical director at the Hillsboro Women’s Health Clinic. If you read what I’ve written in these back issues, then you’ll glean an idea of what to ask for.”
Her expression did not change when Ryan mentioned Tyler’s name, despite the rush of heat singing her face. Ryan wanted her to interview the man who’d pursued her with the quiet, determined stalking of a hungry predator. Fo
cused and relentless, he’d temporarily become a part of her life and she his.
She’d slept under his roof, shared his bed, yet he hadn’t made an attempt to share her body. She knew he was physically attracted to her, and she marveled at his resolute promise they would not make love with other until the time was right for both of them. She vacillated, wanting to sleep with Tyler, and then changed her mind because of the short time they’d known each other.
What she felt for Tyler, shared with him, she had never experienced with the men whom she’d known or been involved with. Men who she doubted would share her bed but not her body. And there was no doubt Tyler was as virile as any normal male. The obvious difference was that he was in total control of his mind and his body.
She gave Ryan a direct stare. “If Dr. Cole is the column’s Now, then who are you profiling for the Then?”
“Your great-grandfather Dr. Silas Nichols.”
Dana felt a rush of uneasiness. Had the editor decided to write about one of her ancestors because she’d returned to Hillsboro? “When did you decide to profile him?”
Ryan turned back to his desk and picked up several printed pages. He handed them to Dana, watching intently as she perused the schedule of names and dates for upcoming issues. A date on the lower left of the page indicated it had been revised the month before. The profile on Dr. Silas Nichols was due to run in three weeks. That meant she had to interview Tyler and write the column before that time.
“Your return to Hillsboro had nothing to do with my decision to write about your great-granddaddy,” Ryan explained. “The fact that he was Hillsboro’s first resident black doctor was a history-making event. And because there were rumors that he’d saved the life of a prominent white Hillsboro citizen, that’s something our current citizens should be made aware of. Less than twenty years after Dr. Nichols purchased his house from the widow of a former Confederate officer, Hillsboro had become an all-black town.”
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