“Yes, ma’am.”
DuBose gasped.
“A cross, you said?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“She was targeted?”
“We don’t know yet why.”
“The color of her—”
“I just meant, we don’t know why her home was chosen as opposed to someone else’s,” the lieutenant said. “Mooretown is—”
“Yes, I’m aware of the neighborhood demographics,” DuBose responded. “Sorry. When can I speak with her?”
“Again, she’s sedated, but I’ll check and update you.”
“Are the people who did this still a threat?”
“Several other crosses were burned the same night. It wasn’t just her home.”
“Please call me back as soon as you can.”
“I will. I promise.”
“What hospital?”
“Lynwood Memorial.”
DuBose next called her longtime assistant at The New Yorker office.
“Nadine, please get me to Lynwood to see my grandmother. I need to catch the first flight available today, and I don’t care about how many connections.”
“Of course. I’m on it. Hotel?”
“Anywhere but the Twins.”
“I’ll see what’s available on the square.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” DuBose said. “No hotel. I’ll stay at the house.” No anonymous racist with a match was going to run her family out of their own home.
. . .
Close to midnight, DuBose parked the car in the driveway of her grandmother’s home on Crescent Street. The late hour hid the trauma to the yard, including the frozen mud that encased both brown grass and yellow tape. DuBose averted her eyes from the crime scene as if she could lessen the damage by ignoring it.
Mooretown hadn’t changed its overcoat in decades, but DuBose coveted the constancy of the neighborhood. She had spent her youth returning so often, the place had become part of her nature. Aside from her childhood visits, DuBose had also lived at the home for close to two years after her mother’s death—a time when the young woman needed what her father tried, but couldn’t, give to her. Her grandmother had stepped in and raised an unfinished and angry teenager. So the home in Mooretown became hers in a way, with her losses and survival absorbed by its walls.
Despite this history, DuBose saw the house in that moment only through the darkness. From the driveway it felt uncomfortable and cold, devoid of the warmth that comes with a welcome. The arrival was her first ever without her grandmother waiting with an embrace and an inquiring look-over.
She wrestled with the temporary lock on the door that had been installed earlier in the day, entered the foyer, and whispered, “Nettie Ma.” Closing her eyes, she imagined her younger self bouncing on the beds with the unbounded joy of childhood, and later, spending hours holed up alone in her tiny bedroom. She remained just inside the front door until the house started to become a home again.
At first glance, the rooms appeared untouched. She turned to the right but pivoted back in the opposite direction when she remembered the lieutenant’s report that her grandmother’s bedroom had been the area damaged by flames and water.
The entrance to the bedroom was boarded up with wooden slats, but she reached between them and opened the door. The room beyond was cold and damp and exposed to the elements, like a hostage stripped naked. Fire, water, and hatchet blows had torn up the roof, and a portion of the ceiling had a hole directly over Wynn’s bed. Any coming rain or snow would do more damage, so a tarp was needed, but one hadn’t been placed as yet.
She shut the bedroom door and retreated to the more recognizable and preserved living room. She stopped in front of a collection of framed pictures and picked one from the console—it was of her grandmother as a young woman sitting with two other black women DuBose didn’t recognize. She smiled when she realized that she and her grandmother looked awfully similar—the same face and eyes.
DuBose didn’t know whether to stay the night or flee to a hotel in town. The home surrounded her, damaged but willing. It wasn’t the source of her doubt. It was who was missing from it. Given the damage to her grandmother’s bedroom and the residual odor of hate that still hovered in the front yard, maybe a hotel would be better, at least for one night. She could see her grandmother in the hospital the next day and make a final decision then on where to stay for the rest of her visit.
But before leaving, she stopped at her childhood bedroom, a space so small it could accommodate a double bed only when shoved into the far corner. She lay on the bed to rest for just a moment, to quiet the voices of fear in her head.
She curled up and didn’t move again until morning.
4
THE BUREAU CALLS
The FBI’s war room for the cross burnings investigation was a windowless place deep within the innards of the federal building in Lynwood. Other than certain bureau personnel and Adrien Rush, the newly assigned civil rights prosecutor from DC, anyone wanting access needed the approval of Special Agent Lee Mercer, the case agent for the investigation. A real war room had battle plans, maps, rows of cabinets stuffed with intelligence about targets, and frenzied activity during all hours of the day and night. It was for war, after all. This one, however, was more clutter than nerve center, more stagnant water than running stream. That needed to change. Except for Nettie Wynn from the Mooretown home, the burning crosses hadn’t caused physical injury, but Mercer believed—no, knew—that crosses were an opening act, a first shot in whatever battle the perpetrators sought to wage.
. . .
Hoping for an early break, FBI agents fanned out into the rural reaches of Warren Parish to interview anyone suspected of having links to white supremacy groups. The list was short—less than twenty—but it was a start. Mercer, being a seasoned investigator, added some misdirection to the litany of the standard FBI interview inquiry. The supplemental questions described evidence that didn’t exist—partial fingerprints, surveillance video, and boot patterns—in an attempt to coax a reaction from the unwary. The guilty would sweat and eventually reveal themselves, or so went the theory.
In truth, the real evidence developed thus far was of little value. The nails could have been bought at any local hardware store, the wood acquired at over a dozen local lumber yards, and the hate—well, it could have come from a great number of homes in Lynwood.
Mercer wanted help from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to pursue an arson angle. Maybe the local crime scene technicians had missed something that the ATF would consider critical. So he was pissed when the assistant special agent in charge—the ASAC—of the local FBI field office nixed the idea. The ASAC said the bureau would handle the matter on its own. Mercer left the ASAC’s office, silently invoking his own pithy axiom for the FBI: an asteroid will collide with anything that crosses its path, but it can’t change directions on its own, and there’s a whole lot of nothing in space.
. . .
Special Agent Matt McClure, who worked with Mercer in the bureau’s Lynwood resident agency or RA office, approached the sagging, rough-cut wood door. He was alone and twenty miles from a named anywhere. A dog in a pen to the side of the house growled and jumped, only to be yanked back by a chain attached to its collar. The sight of the dog chained within a pen bothered the agent, not because of the dog’s welfare but because of what it said about the owner. He struck the door with his closed fist while he massaged the holster hidden under his coat with the other hand.
“Hello?”
No one answered.
The agent waited, listening for footsteps or a cough beyond the hard barrier.
“Anybody home? Norman Blankenship here?”
Nothing. This place was too rural even for the agent’s country tastes. He backed up, intending to walk around to the side of the house, when the tumbler of the lock turned and the door cracked open.
“What you want?”
“I’d like to speak with
Mr. Blankenship. He around?”
“Who askin’?”
“I’m Special Agent—”
“Got nothin’ to say to no government stooge.” The man shoved the door back into the frame and reset the deadbolt, an action that sounded eerily similar to the chambering of a firearm.
“You Blankenship?”
“Show a warrant or get off my land.”
“Just a few questions. It’s about others, not you.”
No answer came. McClure waited on the porch until it was past time to leave and then made his way back to the car. His badge didn’t intimidate some people. They saw it and got angry, not scared. While heading away, the agent twice looked back over his shoulder for any sign of a barrel or muzzle, and he resolved to bring another agent to the next off-the-grid interview.
. . .
Back on the streets of Lynwood proper, Mercer approached a man on the extremist list. This time a second agent stood back and off to the side.
“I’m Special Agent Lee Mercer with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Mercer produced his credentials by flipping them open at eye level to reveal his gold badge with an eagle perched on top and his unsmiling face in full color, complete with the blue bureau seal in the background.
“Why you harassing me?” Randy Anderson asked. He disliked suits—especially a black man in one acting all superior.
“We have a few questions for you. It won’t take long.”
“What about?”
“Your neighbor, Mr. Bullock, and the cross burnings a few weeks back.”
“Don’t know what you talking about.”
“You didn’t hear about the Klan burning crosses?”
“I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no Klan,” Anderson stammered.
“Did you know about the crosses being burned, Mr. Anderson?” Mercer asked again.
“Nope, don’t know of no such thing. Why would the FBI be so interested in crosses anyhow? Probably just some coloreds trying to get attention.”
Mercer didn’t take the bait. “You know a Billy Joe?”
“Can’t say I do.” Anderson squinted and pitched his head a little, which told Mercer that Anderson indeed did know Billy Joe Bullock.
“We hear Billy Joe doesn’t like Arabs or Jews or any folks who don’t look like him. That right?” Mercer asked, trying to bait him right back.
“I don’t mess in others’ business.”
“We want to find out who’s responsible for the crosses. We think he might know something.”
“Like I said, maybe they planted them crosses to get attention.”
“Now, why would they do that?” Mercer asked.
“Seems you—they—all want some kind of attention.”
“Does that include the woman who had a heart attack?” Mercer’s black body cast a shadow of disgust across Anderson.
“Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that. Why you asking me all these fool questions?”
“Billy Joe. We’d like to know more about him.”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself ?”
“Well, we’ve reason to believe you might know something that he wouldn’t say himself.”
“For the last time, I don’t know nothin’,” Anderson said. “So, if y’all will excuse yourselves, I got things to do.”
Anderson scampered away like a small prey still running after the predator ends the pursuit. He darted into the dollar store and pretended to examine the cheap plastic merchandise. After the agents drove away, he headed straight to Billy Joe Bullock’s house.
. . .
Word of the FBI field interviews spread through the local confederation of white supremacists, but the Klansmen and their sympathizers didn’t talk; loathing trumped fear in Lynwood.
“It’s a backhanded compliment,” Mercer told a local task force officer who had reported getting spat on by an angry witness during one of the interviews.
“I don’t need compliments. I know I’m fine,” preened the muscled and tanned investigator. “Don’t you feds have files on these losers?”
“Remember Watergate?” asked Mercer, but he realized he was talking to a twenty-five-year-old who liked mirrors too much and likely had slept through history class. “Maybe not, you’re too . . . young.”
“So you got nothing?”
“Some basic information in old case files about the Order and the White Aryan Resistance, but we got no deep-state dossiers if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Most people assume you got a handle on all this shit.”
“Most people would be wrong.”
. . .
Adrien Rush bought coffee in the Justice Department’s basement cafeteria and returned to his cubbyhole office on the seventh floor. The DOJ building was old and antiseptic, but it housed legions of department attorneys, including the twenty-four missionaries from the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division. Rush, by fate, good fortune, or dumb luck, was one of the section’s young prosecutors. After being a sidekick on several cases, the chief had agreed to his request to be the assigned prosecutor for the federal investigation of the recent cross burnings in Lynwood.
It was four and a half years since he’d been rescued from Denali in the Alaska Range after a tragic climbing accident—an incident that left him diminished in body and soul. A born climber from Ridgeway in the Colorado Rockies, Rush had spent his youth outside wandering trails and forging creeks to reach whatever place he had not yet been. Nature was his childhood companion. On that climb, however, he had made one small misjudgment and slipped on a jagged ridgeline. He had tumbled toward an overhang of ice and snow—the cornice had been a mere twenty feet straight below, dangling like a wave frozen in a photograph. A final half-somersault had saved him from a drop-off over two thousand feet. After spending the night alone in subfreezing temperatures, park rangers found him and evacuated the severely injured Rush from the mountain by helicopter.
For two weeks, he lay in traction with his left leg hoisted above the rest of his body. During the hospital’s early morning hours, Rush could be heard uttering, “I should’ve got him” over and over in an apparent incantation of regret, even guilt. Not surprisingly, the nurse took Rush’s later emphatic declaration that he was going to be a federal prosecutor as a product of painkillers, not real ambition. At the time she offered him only a doubtful, caring smile. But—against the odds—his hospital bed prediction proved true. Rush had persevered—not the same way others had to survive far away from any mountain, but he didn’t understand that yet.
His smooth, lanky face and quick smile, all with an abundant, unruly mass of ginger hair reigning atop his head, gave him the appearance of an enthusiastic tour guide. Rush longed to look older and project an aura of maturity—this he didn’t have at twenty-seven. His boyish face and lean frame, however, broadcast a certain youthful ambition. He was everyman handsome—vaguely pleasant; he impressed but at times needed the several courses of a dinner to do it.
Mercer and McClure reached Rush by phone in the early afternoon.
“You need to get down here,” Mercer said, “right away.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“The guy says he wants to meet you.”
“What guy?”
“The Klan grand titan. He called and said he wanted to talk to the lawyer from DC.”
“What else did he say?”
“Not much, but I’ll bet he wants to cut a deal in the cross burnings. The interviews worked. They just took some time.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Wouldn’t say,” McClure replied. “I’ll crisscross the number, but it’s got to be Bullock.”
“The Klan grand titan would be one of our targets, right?” Rush asked. “Why should we deal away anything now for his cooperation? Shouldn’t we work our way up the ladder?”
“Counselor, just get here so we can meet the bastard,” McClure said. “We’ll see what he says. If we th
ink it’s bullshit, we walk. We’ve not made any damn headway, and if a Klansman wants to come in out of the cold—”
“There’s nothing to lose,” added Mercer, “and a big upside if it’s real.”
“I’m listening.” Rush already was searching for the government travel agent’s number. “I’ll let you know when I can get a flight.”
Rush disliked being called counselor. Agents invoked the term using particularly clear diction and more than a hint of derision, or at least that’s how Rush saw it. Being labeled counselor was an agent’s way of emphasizing that the lawyer might have an advanced education, but the juris doctor degree didn’t come with street smarts or investigatory experience.
And Rush didn’t know the case agent, Mercer. The two hadn’t worked any other cases together. Rush harbored some suspicion that he was being lured to fill yet another day in the life of an agent assigned to a small resident office far off the path of promotion. But an unsolicited call from the supposed grand titan in a Klan investigation couldn’t be ignored.
Federal civil rights prosecutors had a history of spearheading sensitive hate crimes cases throughout the country. Over decades the Criminal Section had developed, even nurtured, its reputation as an aggressive cadre of true believers. They were an ambitious lot in one of the most prestigious litigation sections at the department. But for that very reason, a section prosecutor was as likely to be shunned as welcomed by the agents in a new case.
At least for this call, agents Mercer and McClure wanted Rush to come to Lynwood, not stay away.
5
THE SECRET SUMMIT
The bureau car arrived in a slow arc, finally coming to a stop in the field’s rarely mowed center. The federal prosecutor and two FBI agents waited in the car with the windows partially down for several minutes, but eventually Mercer cut the engine so they could hear any approaching vehicle. The feds had agreed to the grand titan’s request to meet at the rural property, away from any sign of civilization except for some tangled wire fences in need of repair. While the remote location lessened the chance that someone else could watch the clandestine gathering, it also made an ideal spot for an ambush.
No Truth Left to Tell Page 3