“Well, if you aren’t just a walking encyclopedia of helpful information,” Warren said.
Lindsay smiled coyly and rose from her seat. “If you don’t need me, I can just mosey on home...”
“Okay, okay. You are a naval stores savant and I bow to your superior wisdom.”
“That’s more like it.” Lindsay sat back down. The contact of the hard, wooden chair with the raw skin on her upper thighs caused her to wince audibly.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Some construction worker disguised as Yosemite Sam dynamited me on Sunday and I’m still feeling a little delicate.”
“Dynamited you?! Is that some kind of euphemism?"
“I’m afraid not. I was running back in the woods near my house and I didn’t realize I was going through a blasting zone.”
Warren raised his eyebrows questioningly, but Lindsay just waved her hands and shook her head. “Un-uh. I have you believing that I am some kind of genius. I don’t want to spoil your high opinion of me by revealing that I’m illiterate when it comes to ‘No Trespassing’ signs.” Lindsay cast her eyes idly over the book in front of her. Her gaze fixed on the paragraph she’d just read regarding the farmer’s will. “Huh. This says that the farmer left property to Celia and the other servant in February of 1865, right before the end of the war.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Slaves were considered to be property themselves, so they weren’t legally allowed to own property. But the old man didn’t free Celia in his will. It says right here that everyone was surprised that he didn’t free his slaves, since he had no heirs.”
Warren shook his head. “But the war was almost over by then, right? Lincoln had already freed the slaves in the Emancipation Proclamation a few years earlier. The old farmer probably saw which way the wind was blowing and knew that Celia and the other slave would be free as soon as the war was over. Or he was a Northern sympathizer and believed that the Proclamation made them free already.”
“Maybe.” Lindsay’s realization about Celia led to a troubling possibility. There was a loophole in the story. Surely, she couldn’t have been the only one to notice it. Lindsay walked over to the glass case and pulled down the last volume of the journal, 1872. She scanned the pages feverishly, reading them in reverse order. She was so intent on her search that she didn’t even move the book over to the table to read it. Instead, she perched in front of the glass case, supporting the weight of the heavy book on one of the lower shelves. “He doesn’t die,” she said quietly.
“Who doesn’t die?” Warren asked. He rose and walked over to where Lindsay stood. Lindsay silenced him with an emphatic Shh! He peered over her shoulder as she continued to read. It looked like more of the same—Samuel Wilcox reckoning the household bills, worrying about this and that. After another moment Lindsay murmured, “He must have seen the same thing that I did and skipped to the end, too.”
“Who must have seen what?” Warren asked. Again she ignored him. He shrugged his shoulders and sat back down to continue to paging through the earlier volumes. Lindsay sat back down at the table, never taking her eyes off what she was reading. She kept on muttering intermittently as she flipped the pages. She jumped up a few times to consult other volumes of the journal. Once or twice, she popped out to one of the library computers to check references and historical facts. Several times, Warren tried unsuccessfully to read over her shoulder or ask her what she found. His probing was met with silence. After an hour passed, Lindsay leaned back in her chair and removed her glasses.
Warren looked at her expectantly. He closed the issue of Sports Illustrated that he had been paging through since he had given up the pretense of reading the journal. “Well?”
“I think I might know who killed Vernon. And you’re not going to like it one bit.”
Chapter 30
“Let me start at the beginning,” Lindsay said. “Well, actually, let me start at the end. He doesn’t die in 1872.”
“What? Who?”
“Sorry, my mind is running in circles. Samuel doesn’t die in 1872. I always assumed that the journals ended in 1872 because he died. Why else would someone keep a meticulous journal every year, and then just stop? But that’s not why he stops. A few months before the last entry, in March of 1872, this mysterious relation of the old farmer, you know, the one who left Celia all the land?, shows up from Cincinnati. Second cousin twice removed or something. He comes to the Wilcoxes house one night and tells them to get out—the land and the house are his. Samuel chases him off with a shotgun. Everything goes quiet for a few weeks until the county sheriff serves Samuel with some papers saying that the cousin has filed a lawsuit to contest Celia’s inheritance of the property on the grounds that the will was invalid.”
“How did you know the will would be important? Why did that make you skip ahead?”
“That detail just didn’t sit right with me. White people didn’t make life very easy for blacks, whether they had been slaves before the war or not. But Samuel and Celia’s lives seemed to be going so well. Too well. I knew that something wasn’t right about the will. It was so rare for black people to own land back then. I’m sure Vernon, being such a history buff, must have had the same thought. Even though Samuel was an exceptional person in so many ways, I didn’t see how it could end happily ever after for the Wilcoxes.”
“Vernon studied this stuff all the time, so you might well be right about that. But how do you happen to know so much about Reconstruction?”
“American History was one of my majors in college.”
“One of your majors?”
With a matter-of-fact expression, Lindsay enumerated on the fingers of one hand. “History, Religion, and Math, with a minor in Spanish. Then, in graduate school, I did a Master’s in Divinity and a degree in Counseling. I had just started on my PhD in Religion when I quit. Don’t look so astonished. Having no social life is a great way to accrue degrees. So where was I? Oh yeah, Samuel isn’t the type to give up without a fight, so he mounts a countersuit. He basically gives himself a crash course in the law and drafts a pretty good case supporting Celia’s right to the property. Remember, Samuel is no illiterate slave. He was free even before the war and worked in a printing press. He joined the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. He was well-known and respected in the community, among both blacks and whites. It sounds like the cousin thought that Samuel was just some country bumpkin who fell off the back of a turnip truck, so he’s caught off guard by the strength of the legal challenge.”
“So did Samuel scare off this carpetbagging cousin?”
“This was not a pretty period in North Carolina history. The Klan was formed by former Confederate soldiers right after the war, and they had gotten really out of hand by 1870. They were so powerful that they were challenging the authority of the local governments. They lynched the black town commissioner over in Graham. The governor at the time decided to call out the militia against them that summer. He imposed martial law in two counties, one of which was Alamance. The man he appointed to carry out the action against the Klan was a former Union general.”
Warren grimaced.
“Exactly. That governor became the first governor in US history to be impeached and removed from office. That was at the end of 1870. So, this contested will was happening at a very precarious time for race relations. The Klan was on the wane elsewhere in the South, but in this part of North Carolina, they had won a major battle against the state government. The Cincinnati cousin used it to his advantage.” Wrapped up in the telling of the story, Lindsay unconsciously switched to the present tense. “He does a bit of rabble-rousing. First, it’s behind the scenes, like stealing livestock from the Wilcox farm. But pretty soon, the house gets firebombed. Samuel and Celia only just managed to put it out before it set the whole place ablaze. By this time, Celia and Samuel have two sons, both under the age of two. Samuel decides that they have to hightail it.
“They move down to Durham. Celia has some
family who can hook Samuel up with a job in tobacco processing. There is a list here of all the things he sold to raise money quickly—all their animals, lots of the furniture, all the food they have stockpiled. Samuel writes that he hopes they’ll be able to return in two or three years when things quiet down in the county. But I guess they never came back, because that was the last entry—June 13, 1872.”
“So what happened with the will? Who inherited the land?”
“It doesn’t say here, but I think I know. There wasn’t much call for naval stores right after the war, like I said. But that soil was perfect for tobacco growing. Samuel had already started clearing the land. Based on the description of the farm…”
“Silas Richards!” Warren exclaimed, cutting her off in mid-sentence.
Lindsay pouted. “Hey! I was building up to the dramatic climax! Didn’t you notice that I purposely haven’t mentioned the cousin’s name up to now? That was so that I could dramatically reveal that his name was none other than Silas Richards! I was even going to pause and point to the book and say ‘The cousin from Cincinnati was none other than Silas Richards, the First!’ and your jaw was going to drop in amazement at my powers of deduction.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to steal your thunder. But when you mentioned tobacco, I realized that the meeting in Vernon’s datebook must be with Silas. That’s why Vernon wanted to discuss the vegetarian option—for the engagement party catering order—and Wilcox’s journal. He must have unearthed the connection between Richards and Wilcox.”
“Fine. But I bet you don’t know the motive.” Lindsay crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows, daring him to guess.
Warren’s brow creased in concentration. “Maybe Silas didn’t want a stain on the honor of his family. They’ve always cast themselves as more Southern than grits and gravy and the kind and generous benefactors of the county. If people found out that the original Silas Richards was a carpetbagging Klan sympathizer from Ohio, it could have been very embarrassing. This would cost him the black vote. It would be enough to torpedo his political career.”
“I think it might be all that and more. Before my triumphant ‘I know the murderer’ speech was so rudely interrupted, I was telling you about the naval stores farm. Based on Wilcox’s description of the place, I think that it was the Richards Homestead—the land where the Richards family started building their tobacco empire. I didn’t mention this before, because I didn’t know it was relevant to Vernon’s murder, but I overheard a conversation at the tent revival the other day. Silas and his future son-in-law, Morgan Partee, were discussing some business deal that they have. Morgan said that a man had to die because he was presenting obstacles. Silas said that everything was taken care of now, and the deal was going to happen. I bet whatever it was had something to do with the ownership of that land. It’s the same land that I was jogging through when I got blown up. There’s some kind of major construction project going on out there. I think that Vernon might have jeopardized that deal by finding out about Celia and the will. If the Richards family doesn’t legally own that land, than whatever they are doing to it might not be legal, either. Celia’s descendants might even be able to claim some kind of compensation. Now that I know about the stuff in the journal, it all fits together.”
“How did you happen to hear the conversation between Morgan and Silas?”
“I was hiding from some old ladies between the tents.”
Warren let this revelation pass without remark. “Based on what Silas and Morgan said, do you think Morgan could be in on the murder? Did he definitely say that a man had to die?”
“I’m almost sure those were his exact words.”
Warren let out a long, slow whistle. “This is not going to be pretty. The police were hoping to wrap this case up swiftly to protect this county from a race riot. Now we’ve got a scenario where two of the richest and most powerful families in this part of the state could have conspired to murder a man. You add in the Civil War and the Klan, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for Stink Pie. Well, at least Kimberlee will be happy not to have the suspicion on her anymore.”
“Relieved, yes. But not happy. She likes Silas. Just today she called him a ‘bona fide saint’. Matter of fact, I am having trouble believing this myself. If the proof wasn’t staring me straight in the face, I’d say that there was no way Silas could be involved in anything like this.” Lindsay sighed. “What happens now?”
“First off, we’ve got to prove that Vernon talked to Silas about the diary. We still don’t have a murder weapon or much in the way of physical evidence, either. And we have no explanation for how the threatening letter came to be printed off of Kimberlee and Vernon’s computer. We also don’t know if Morgan was involved in the murder, or if he just knew about it after the fact. Silas may not have been the triggerman. He’s got money; he might have hired someone. Then, we’ve got to find out what is going on with the Richards Homestead.”
“And don’t forget about Buford Bullard. If he was poisoned deliberately, maybe it was because he knew something about the murder.”
“To tell you the truth, that troubles me a whole lot. Murderers don’t usually change tactics like that. Someone who shoots a man in broad daylight in front of a crowd is arrogant. Or real, real desperate. Someone who puts poison in somebody’s food or drink is sly and careful. I’m struggling to fit those pieces together in my mind.” Warren began to stack the volumes of the journal in two piles on the center of the table. “For the moment, all’s I’m going to do is call for somebody to come over and take the journal in as evidence. Then we’ll go from there.”
Chapter 31
Lindsay waited anxiously for the police officers to arrive and collect the journal. She had a deeply uneasy feeling, as if villains could burst in at any moment and snatch the evidence of Kimberlee’s innocence from out of her hands. Another part of her conflicted mind wished that someone would steal the journal. That they would destroy it and the terrible things it contained. At last, two uniformed officers knocked on the large metal door. Without even introducing them to Lindsay, Warren began issuing instructions on how they should secure the evidence. In the presence of his fellow officers, Warren was all crispness and efficiency—not a hint of the gangly, jokey Warren that Lindsay had seen in the past few days. Lindsay began to drum her fingers impatiently on the table while Warren droned on. He turned to her, looking slightly annoyed at her continued presence, “You can go home now, if you want to. We’ll take it from here.”
“You’re my ride, remember?”
“Oh.”
Just then, there was a rapid staccato of approaching footsteps in the hall outside. The door clicked open and a librarian entered, followed by a stocky black man with an almost cartoonishly square jaw and a close-cropped, no-nonsense haircut. Even the librarian seemed to have a sense of his authority, giving him a slight, almost involuntary bow as she wordlessly left the room.
“Special Agent Fleet! I didn’t know you were coming,” Warren said.
Fleet just sniffed and approached the large volumes that the officers were in the midst of collecting. “This it?”
“Yes.”
“Nice work, Satterwhite.”
“You’ll want to secure that log book, too,” Fleet said, gesturing to the record that detailed Vernon’s visits to the reading room. “And get statements from all the librarians who’ve had contact with the victim.”
“Already on it,” Warren replied.
Fleet snapped his head abruptly toward Lindsay and then back to Warren. “And this is?”
Lindsay opened her mouth to speak, but Warren jumped in. “She is my, er, girlfriend, Lindsay Harding. She had just dropped in to bring me some supper when I came across the evidence in the diary.”
Lindsay’s face contorted into a number of simultaneous expressions—shock, confusion, anger, and incredulity. With great effort, she arranged her features into a sphinx-like half smile. She nodded. “Uh-huh.”
Fleet bent over th
e journal. He turned the pages slowly. He pinched the edges of each page with the tips of his thumb and index finger, like an old woman grasping a cup of hot tea. Without interrupting his rhythmic page-turning, he said, “Sergeant Satterwhite, please ask Miss Harding to wait outside. Her presence is not required.” His tone was one of scientific certainty—neutral, clinical, indisputable.
Lindsay rose and, giving Warren an acid smile, said, “Sure thing, Snookie Wookums. Don’t want to interrupt y’all while you’re doing your important police things.” She gave Warren a firm and obvious pat on the left butt cheek and walked out into the hallway.
A few minutes later, one of the uniformed officers waddled out carrying the journal in a large zip-top bag. He was middle-aged and balding, with a pot belly and skin so pale he looked like he’d spent most of his life underground. He paused in front of Lindsay, his lively blue eyes twinkling. “I can’t believe Warren hasn’t mentioned that he had a girlfriend. ‘Specially one as pretty as a prize peach, if you don’t mind my saying so. No reason to hide you. I tell you what, my Rosaleigh’s got buckteeth and a face like a brickbat, but I still put her picture right on my desk.”
Like many long-single women, Lindsay had eagle eyes when it came to spotting wedding rings. She had seen Warren’s thin gold band immediately the night he visited Kimberlee’s house. “Maybe the secrecy has something to do with him being married,” she said, amazed at the officer’s nonchalant attitude toward Warren’s (pretense of) infidelity.
A Murder in Mount Moriah Page 15