At the only published address for the Islamic center, the titan and his crew carried the cross to a low line of sickly hedges in a surface parking lot. They stopped and turned toward the main boulevard as two police cars sped by silent but with red and blue lights flashing. Within seconds, a massive yellow ladder truck followed in close pursuit with a feverish wail. Two Klansmen dropped the cross like they were abandoning an unwanted pet and bolted. Bullock, however, remained a moment longer to light the cross so it would burn like a brush fire.
At the courthouse, they planted and doused the cross on the front lawn. Unlike the previous ones, this cross didn’t just light up—it detonated with such force that the Klansmen checked to see if they had been singed. Once reassured, they ran away baying to the sky, one waving his white hood above his head and one firing a rifle across the empty lawn.
With their dark outing done, the conspirators made their way to their homes just as the streets started to course with activity. Dazed residents, bundled in mismatched clothing, came out of their homes into the frigid night, summoned by the ominous kaleidoscope of sights and sounds. On a dormant, moonless stage, Lynwood’s season of fear and disquiet had begun.
2
HEAT OF HATE
Friday unfolded for Nettie Wynn like an often-read book, with ease and comfort. She cooked herself a breakfast of a poached egg with two pieces of brown toast. After she finished, she called family members or took their calls, speaking of nothing and everything.
She lived in a modest, tidy, one-story brick rancher. She had been born in that home. A four-door gray sedan hibernated in the driveway, its roof still topped with leaves from last fall’s shedding.
Once or twice a week, friends visited or a home health worker checked in on her, but more often she spent her time alone. She watched an occasional program on television, though she couldn’t hear much without the hearing aid, an item she regularly and conveniently forgot to put in her ear. She waited a great deal, but didn’t mind, and made only modest demands on the world.
. . .
“How are you today, Mrs. Wynn?” asked the home health aide, a woman in her midthirties from Kingston, on her scheduled visit later the same morning.
“Dear, I’m just fine. How nice of you to visit,” Wynn said, repeating the greeting she’d delivered for the past two years.
“I’m going to check your vitals,” the woman said. “We’re having some cold weather of late. You keeping warm enough, Mama?”
“Oh, yes. I’m snuggly as ever,” Nettie answered, extending her arm.
“You need anything?” The aide wrapped Wynn’s arm in a blood pressure band.
“No, dear, thank you.”
“How’s the family?”
“They tell me they’re just wonderful, but I don’t see them enough to know. They wouldn’t tell me anyhow.”
“Secrets—from you?”
“Best if I don’t know too much,” Wynn said in mock complaint.
“Mama, you know more than they think, but you’re too much a lady to let on.”
“My granddaughter Nicole, you’ve met her—she lives in New York City—always says she’s happy, but her way of sayin’ it tells me she’s not. I worry about her the most.”
“She gonna visit soon?” The aide filled time with polite questions.
“She’ll come when she can,” Wynn responded. “She’s awfully busy. You know she’s a writer for a big magazine.”
The aide stepped back. “The blood pressure numbers are almost perfect today. You must’ve done somethin’ right for—”
“You can say it, dear. I’m O-L-D,” said Wynn, the agreeable conversationalist.
“How’s it you’re always so good to me?” the woman asked.
“I’ll tell you something, dear. Being nice to folks isn’t so much about them—it’s about you.”
The woman nodded as she packed up. “All right, Mama, I’ll be back next week.”
“I hope so.”
. . .
Nettie Wynn awoke from a deep slumber that night to the siren calls of the fire engine. She grasped the corner post of the full-sized bed and lifted her small frame. She shuffled toward the offending noise, and as she drew back the heavy floral curtains, the cycling lights sprinted into the room and around the walls. She reached out and tried to touch the truck’s folded ladder, but her hand hit the windowpane instead.
With her sleep-blurred vision, Wynn thought she saw a tree on fire in her yard. The tree’s impending demise would be yet another unexpected loss for her. Just last month, Shirley, her neighbor of thirty years, had stopped visiting after she was moved into a nursing home. And six months ago, despite a legion of dedicated customers and decades of service, the grocer down on the corner had closed his tiny shop. The new economy didn’t have any room for him, he had said.
She stared out the window for the ten thousandth time but didn’t, or couldn’t, easily see that she was looking at the branded expression of hate. She wasn’t made that way. So she stood awhile longer before she recognized the true nature of the spectacle before her.
Oh, my—Lord, help me.
She couldn’t breathe. She raised her trembling hand to her mouth and backed away from the window. She heard someone beating on the front door. After all these years, the Klan had come for her. In an instant, the past had snatched away the present. She fell straight to the floor like a dropped stone of hail in a storm.
Outside, water shot from massive cannon hoses. It tore away the roof ’s wood shakes and saturated the ancient wood underneath. When Nettie didn’t answer the pounding on the door, a fireman broke through the simple lock and entered the home.
. . .
Rabbi Jonathan Steiner, wearing a saggy gray suit and wide tie, closed the door of his modest stucco duplex and headed out for the temple. He walked up Evergreen Avenue, the street that connected with Washburn Street a block from the synagogue. The early morning air was crisp, nippy even, and that Saturday morning carried a faint scent of burnt pine. When he approached the synagogue, the rabbi noticed a crowd had gathered. He quickened his pace to find out why. Maybe his lingering disappointment over the congregation’s recent poor attendance at services was premature after all.
Steiner put on his officious smile to greet the crowd. He searched for familiar faces, but saw only gawking strangers. He had just reached the synagogue’s entrance when an officer approached.
“Are you with the synagogue?” the officer asked.
“Yes, I’m Rabbi Steiner.”
“Is there anyone in the building?”
“No, I’m the first to arrive. At least, I think I’m the first. We have services at ten.”
“There was an incident last night,” the officer said, looking back over his shoulder. “Follow me.”
The officer led the rabbi over to the light pole. The crowd parted as the officer and the rabbi navigated the short distance to the streetlight.
“This,” the officer said, pointing to the blackened cross still lashed to the pole.
The wooded arms wore handcuffs of charred wood where the rags had been wrapped. The rope that encircled the cross had slipped down enough to escape the worst of the flames.
The rabbi glared at the skeletal remains. He hadn’t noticed it before because of the crowd. He glanced over to the temple’s entrance to judge the distance.
“Sir, can we go somewhere?” asked the officer. “I need to ask some questions—whether the temple has received any threats or odd calls recently. Stuff like that.”
“Let’s go inside,” the rabbi said. “The services can start without me.”
“Lead the way, sir.”
“Why now?” Rabbi Steiner asked aloud to no one in particular. “There’s been no trouble for so long.”
“Maybe some delinquent’s idea of a prank.”
“This is no prank,” the rabbi responded. “This is why one of our congregants wears long sleeves—even in summer—to hide the Auschwitz registration numbers o
n his forearm.”
A newspaper reporter standing nearby overheard the exchange and scribbled into her notepad. She started to ask the rabbi a question, but the officer cut her off and steered the rabbi away.
. . .
Nathaniel Rollins slept under a thick embroidered down comforter with his wife close by. The ring of the bedside phone upset the peaceful still of the room. He looked at his wife and reached over to the nightstand.
“Hello? Who’s this?”
“Is this Mr. Nathaniel Rollins with the NAACP?”
“I didn’t catch who this is,” Rollins said, swinging his legs around to sit up on the edge of the bed.
“I’m sorry, sir. It’s Louise with the Lynwood Police Department. I’m trying to reach a Mr. Rollins.”
“This is Nathaniel Rollins. How may I help you?”
“Mr. Rollins, the fire department is responding to 174 Fulton Street.”
“Why, that’s my office.”
He moved to a low chaise lounge in the corner.
“There’s a reported fire in the front of the building.”
“What could that—I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”
“Louise.”
“Louise, is the building burning?”
“Sir, you should just get down there.”
“I’m on my way.”
As Rollins dressed, his wife lifted her head from the pillow and asked what was wrong.
“Nothing, sweet pea. I have to go to the office to check on something. I’ll call after I get there.”
“Please be careful,” his wife murmured.
“Of course.”
Within minutes, Rollins was out of the house and heading to Fulton Street, his mind conjuring up a multitude of causes and consequences. Somewhere along the way, he reduced the possibilities to one. His face swelled with blood, his eyes glistened, and his hands gripped the steering wheel as if he were choking an intruder he had just caught in his home.
. . .
Maryam Modi finished filling her Accord with gas and parked behind the strip of stores. It was Saturday, and she was expecting six or seven children, ages seven and eight, and several mothers for the birthday party. Out of respect for the attendees, she wore the hijab she kept tucked away in a drawer. It covered her dark, luxurious hair, and she thought it made her look years older, but she wore it to avoid creating an issue with the conservative members, who might decide not to use the new Islamic center.
She struggled to find the correct key hiding in her pocket, and stopped when she came upon an object blocking her path. She smelled gas and looked down to see if she had spilled some fuel on her coat.
“Miss, you OK?” a woman in her thirties with screaming-blonde hair asked as she stepped over the wood on her way to the salon four doors down.
“Yes, thank you—I mean—I don’t know. What is that?”
“Let’s see—” The woman, like Maryam, was having trouble recognizing the object. “Construction?”
“Why would it be here?”
The two women bent down together to examine their discovery. The woman looked up at Modi in her headscarf and looked back at the cross.
“This wasn’t a mistake,” the woman said, pointing to Modi’s hijab.
“What do you mean?” Modi asked.
“Let me call someone for you, darlin’.”
“Why?” Modi’s lower lip shivered. “I’m not—”
She then knew what the woman knew. The woman reached for Modi’s hand.
“I need to keep the children away.”
“Honey, I’ll stay right here with you.”
. . .
The parish sheriff hired retired law enforcement officers for night security at the courthouse with the understanding the guards would wait for the first responders to arrive if anything significant occurred. That was just fine by the guards.
“Check the first-floor hallway,” George Stone told Al, his partner for the overnight shift.
Stone was a recent arrival from New York who’d secured an early disability retirement from NYPD before coming south. A low-key guy, he loved fried food, and it showed. Stone climbed the stairway at his usual leisurely pace, even though the steps were supposed to be his exercise. Stone’s two-way squawked, interrupting his meditation in motion.
“George, it’s Al.”
“I know who it is.”
“I heard something. Maybe a car. You hear it?”
“No, I’m heading up on the inside.”
“Look out the big window when you get there.”
“Fine.” He expected there would be nothing to see because there never was.
Stone reached the landing and made his way across the mosaic floor to the front of the building. He peered out and cupped his hands against the windowpane. Without warning, the lawn lit up in a plume. Stone blinked and reached for the two-way.
“There’s an explosion! A person’s on—oh, shit. It’s a goddamn cross. Some fuckers just burned a cross at our courthouse.”
. . .
Breaking news producers, armed only with the information available from monitoring emergency channels, briefed station managers with little more than guesses. They deployed crews to as many locations as possible, but by the third call, the stations coordinated their efforts to reach them all before first light. The cameramen couldn’t film any of the crosses still on fire, not even the one at the courthouse. One enterprising producer asked whether someone could light one of the charred crosses again so it could be recorded and broadcast.
Stories of the nighttime raid led the local news for days. The newspaper’s editorial board used the crosses to recall the region’s history of racial bigotry. In the town itself, the cross burnings evoked starkly different reactions. Leaders took the burnings as an affront to their civic pride, while for others—those with less favored status—the incident confirmed their suspicions that nothing ever really changes. In upending the tacit communal understanding that the race storm was long past, the crosses reminded the good folks of Lynwood that a single night of wood, smoke, and fear could pollute the present.
. . .
One thousand one hundred and sixty three miles away from Lynwood, Adrien Rush sat in a luncheonette in Washington, DC, and perused his newly acquired USA Today. The state-by-state news summary contained the usual eclectic basket of happenings from across the country; the blurb for Louisiana described five crosses burning in Lynwood targeting the town’s minorities. Rush finished off his second cup of coffee, tore the page with the cross burnings report from the rest of the paper, and made his way to the office at Ninth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
3
UNWELCOME NEWS
Nicole DuBose squinted to see the phone number, but she didn’t answer the incoming call. She would check later for any message. On assignment for The New Yorker magazine, she was late for an interview in Washington, DC, with a charming but verbose foreign minister from a small central European country reemerging from communist occupation. DuBose hustled to catch the minister before the formal interview started—her best quotes often began as off-the-record asides and ended with permission to share the unguarded words with the world.
“Minister, we’ve met before. Last summer.” DuBose shook the minister’s hand. She couldn’t tell whether he purposefully held on to her hand too long.
“Of course I remember. We met in Oak Bluffs at a dinner party,” the minister said. “Enchanting evening.”
“You’re correct as to both.”
“Your family vacations there—”
“Yes again.” DuBose was impressed but remained on guard. “But don’t I ask the questions?”
“But of course.”
They sat at an odd angle, as if they both were watching a television hanging in the far corner of the room. The minister parried until it was time to say something of value—a newsworthy insight or an insider’s intrepid observation—and after he did so, the session ended. An hour later, DuBose remembered the unansw
ered call.
“Miss DuBose, this is Lieutenant Dan Wilson of the Lynwood Police Department. We found your contact information in a purse belonging to a Nettie Wynn. There’s been an incident here. Mrs. Wynn’s in the hospital. I need you to contact me as soon as you hear this message.”
DuBose stopped breathing, but the message continued.
“I forgot to say that Mrs. Wynn is stable. Again, it’s Lieutenant Dan Wilson. My number is 435-949-8301. That’s my direct line. It’s about twelve thirty here.”
DuBose was mining her leather tote bag for a pen when her phone buzzed.
“Hello.”
“Hi. This is Lieutenant Wilson—”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” DuBose said, interrupting him with a salvo of questions. “What’s happened? How is she? When can I speak to her?”
“She’s sedated right now. There was an event at her home very early Saturday morning. She’s being treated at our local hospital, but I’m guessing—”
“Are we speaking about Nettie Wynn from Mooretown? My grandmother lives alone on Crescent Street.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s her.”
“Was there an accident? She doesn’t drive anymore.”
The lieutenant didn’t answer.
“Lieutenant? Can you still hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s happened?”
“There was a fire at her home. In the front yard. The EMTs found her inside.”
“Fire? What kind of fire? A lightning strike?”
“No, ma’am. Wood.”
“What?”
DuBose’s body tensed. Fire. Wood. Yard. The words were disconnected but ominous.
“Some kind of cross.”
“Sorry, but I’m not understanding you.”
“No one responded at the home, so fire rescue went in. They found her unconscious in the bedroom,” Lieutenant Wilson explained.
“Is my grandmother OK?”
“She had a heart attack, but the doctor said she’s not in any immediate danger.”
“Of what? Dying?”
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