“Let’s do this thing,” Charlie muttered to himself as he marched to the van, slamming his right fist into his left palm. “The motherfucker isn’t going to get away with it. Let’s bring the pain.” Not exactly a calming mantra, but it served his purpose, to get him moving in the direction he needed to go.
As he drove up Georgia 400, Charlie considered the other missing piece to the puzzle: how to prove that Minerva Riggins, lighter-skinned than either of her parents, was Pappy’s daughter. He had enough to convince a neighborhood gossip, but not an all-white jury in Forsyth County—or a reputable publisher. Of course, neither Minerva nor Pappy would cooperate with him on DNA testing, which was what Charlie needed to build an airtight case and help Minerva reclaim her family’s wealth. Reparations. That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? That and to wreak vengeance upon the evildoers. Go Old Testament on their asses.
Joan Osborne’s One of Us came on the radio, reminding Charlie of Trouble, riding on a bus that ferried the righteous away from danger and smote the wicked. Had Trouble been on that bus that ran down Angela’s lawyer? And had Bethany Campbell deserved smiting? Maybe the Almighty’s wrath was random, but whatever. God is not mocked. The idea that there was any kind of divine justice heartened him as he launched himself into this time of trial.
North of Cumming, Charlie exited the highway and drove by Coal Mountain. The surveyors were gone, but flags marked the right-of-way for the big road they planned. A half-mile away stood Stableford Farms, Phase II, Now Open! A forest of two-by-fours jutted from the ground. Eventually all the farms in the area would be gone, replaced by subdivisions and a megamall.
The pace seemed to be quickening, as if the devil and developers knew that time was running out. Well-connected builders were snatching up parcels of land every day, aided by state and local officials who insisted on literally paving the way for them by financing road improvements. Charlie was sure Stanley Cutchins had his dirty little hands in all of this. He’d devoted several pages of American Monster to the legislator’s misdeeds. So much to cover, so little time.
He drove past Pappy’s place without slowing, scouting it out. The only vehicle at the house was the old man’s battered pale blue Chevy pickup. He made a U-turn and pulled into Pappy’s semi-circular drive, his tires popping rocks and making it nearly impossible to take Ike Cutchins by surprise. With palms sweating, Charlie got out with his clipboard, which held the incriminating evidence. “Pappy!” he cried out heartily, attempting familiarity. He twisted his neck and adjusted the collar on his work shirt. Crows cawed in the distance. Ours or theirs?
His work boots crunched gravel as he walked toward the house. He checked his watch as he thunked onto the porch. The red wooden door was open and the sun shone through the screen, bleaching a patch of living-room carpet. Inside, an old table radio broadcast a low-watt AM fire-and-brimstone preacher from Ellijay, who was hollering eternal damnation at the top of his lungs.
As Charlie lifted his hand to knock, Pappy’s voice came from a back room: “Come on in.”
Although shocked by the invitation, Charlie opened the screen door and stepped inside.
“I left it on the coffee table!” the old man yelled. “Stanley said you need to get rid of it before that cocksucker finds out about it.”
Charlie looked around the living room and saw a pint Mason jar filled with amber liquid on the spindle-legged coffee table. Something in it half floated, touching the bottom. At first he thought it was moonshine Mezcal. He stepped closer and saw it wasn’t a worm.
“Shit,” he said, stepping back when he realized what it was. A memento, just like they used to keep in the bad old days, a souvenir of a successful lynching. He considered grabbing the jar and running away with this great prize, his personal Rosetta Stone. Before he could act on this impulse, Pappy walked into the living room, rubbing his face with a towel.
“That asshole—”
He lowered the towel and looked straight at the aforementioned asshole. Pappy’s mouth dropped open as he staggered backward two steps and clutched his chest with his right hand. Charlie thought the old man was going to drop dead, but Pappy’s look of horror was quickly replaced by his natural expression of dyspepsia. “Get the hell outta my house,” he said in an ominously quiet, clipped tone.
“Ah, but you just invited me in,” Charlie said, forcing a smile.
“I sure as hell didn’t know it was you.”
Charlie gave a sidelong glance at the Mason jar. The black finger was crooked like a question mark. “Do you know why I’m here?”
“Ain’t no reason for you to be. I told you to get off the property last time you was here.”
That finger kept beckoning him. Charlie had to force himself to look away from it. “I’m glad your memory is so good,” he said, “because I need to talk to you about something.”
“I don’t wanna talk to you. Ain’t got nuthin’ to say.”
“Is that part of him?” Charlie pointed toward the jar.
“What the hell?” Pappy gave Charlie a one-eyed squint.
“That finger. Is that what’s left of John Riggins?”
“Don’t know who you talkin’ about. And you’re trespassin’. Get out.”
“I know what happened.”
“You don’t know a damn thing.”
“I have the photo of you with—”
“Photo don’t prove nuthin’. Get the hell out or I’ll shoot you.”
Charlie looked around. The shotgun wasn’t in sight, though he knew Pappy kept it handy, standing in a corner of the kitchen. Loaded.
He shoved the clipboard toward Pappy. On it was the lynching photo inside a transparent plastic report cover. Pappy glanced at it, then looked away. “That ain’t me. You need to head on. After what you did to my granddaughter, I’m not worried about what you got to say, anyway. Nobody gonna believe you.”
“What did I do?”
“You know what you did. A man like that shouldn’t even walk this earth. You want money, is that it? You tryin’ to blackmail me?” He grew more animated as he spoke, shifting his weight, casting a furtive glance toward the kitchen. Calculating time and distance, no doubt.
“No. No amount of money could keep me from telling the world about John Riggins.”
“Ain’t no one left to tell no tales. And you’re a liar on top of bein’ a wife-beater.”
“That reminds me: Did you rape your oldest daughter?”
“Shut up, you bastard. I’ll not have you talkin’ that way in my—”
“I got a statement from Danny Patterson. And from Shirley.”
“Get out.”
“Did you know Riggins had a daughter?”
“You’re a damn liar. He didn’t have no kids.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know him.”
Pappy snarled, “I told you, get outta my house!”
“She was born nine months after he died. She’s still alive.”
“I’ve worked for everything I got. You can lie about me all you want—”
“I’m not going to lie. I don’t have to.” Charlie pulled his printed list of questions from behind the plastic-covered photo. “I’m giving you a chance—”
“I’m givin’ you a chance to get outta here before I kill ya.”
Charlie would have laughed off the old man’s threat except there was one thing he didn’t know: Where was that gun? Charlie wanted to break toward the kitchen and go for it himself, but it would be hard to explain to the Forsyth County sheriff how he’d killed Pappy. Plus, it would ruin the book’s ending. Anyway, a reporter should avoid inserting himself into the story, if possible. “Why’d you do it? Did you rape John Riggins’ wife?”
That hit a raw nerve. “You accusin’ me of sleepin’ with a nigger?”
The old man licked his lips and proceeded to make one of the biggest blunders of his execrable life. He hocked up a loogie and spat at Charlie’s face—but the wad of saliva fell short and splattered the plastic report
cover on the clipboard, instead. Charlie glanced down. At first he was grossed out. Then he realized Pappy had voluntarily and vehemently given him exactly what he needed: a DNA sample. He glanced at his watch. “This interview is over,” Charlie declared. “I’m out of here.”
When Pappy broke toward the kitchen, Charlie grabbed the Mason jar and dashed out with it, still clutching his clipboard, wondering how fast the old man could move. He struggled to open the van door, then placed the clipboard on the seat beside him and the jar in a box with his papers on the passenger-side floor. He started the van and rolled down the driveway. “Hot damn!” he yelled, panting in relief.
A second later, the rear window shattered and he felt a bright, hot patch of pain in his neck. “What the hell!” he shouted. A splotch of red spattered the inside of the windshield in front of his face. He grabbed his neck. It was wet. He looked at the red on his fingers. Shit! He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Pappy standing with his shotgun on the porch. Charlie grabbed his chest with his right hand and steered with his left as he hit the gas pedal, throwing up rocks and dust, then swerving onto the county blacktop without checking for oncoming traffic. There was a second blast, and a rain of pellets sprayed the roof.
He felt his neck again and put his hand in front of his face. He’d either been hit with birdshot or a piece of glass. It wasn’t bleeding much, but it stung. Only a scratch, Charlie told himself. Only a scratch. He checked the mirror. No sign anyone was following him. He’d gotten away. He would live to tell the tale. He’d have to swear out a warrant on the old bastard for aggravated assault. This would bolster the book’s credibility, and more importantly, get the asshole arrested. Charlie wouldn’t mind if the old bastard died in jail.
“That is one serious motherfucking footnote!” he yelled, holding his neck and checking his mirror one last time, just to make sure that old pickup wasn’t barreling after him.
Charlie hit the highway and sped out of Forsyth, bleeding and laughing. Beside him, the spittle glistened with promise in the late afternoon sun.
* * *
DNA Testing Lab, located in a small strip center near Northlake Mall, looked like a cross between a copy shop and a medical clinic. A few minutes before closing, Charlie walked in wearing duct tape on his neck and placed his clipboard with the bespittled cover on the counter. He perused the pricing sheet, wishing he could simply opt for the Personal Satisfaction package, but knowing he had to spring for the more expensive Court Admissible deal. Do it up right. Gift wrap the package.
When the young black technician wearing a white lab coat turned around to serve him, she did a double take. “You’re hurt. We’re not a clinic. You should—”
“I know,” Charlie said. “It’s just a scratch. I’ll patch it up better in a minute. First things first.”
He pointed to the clipboard. She grimaced in distaste.
“It’s saliva,” he said. “Manspit.” Then, because he couldn’t resist, he added, “Spitacular.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“A little less than an hour.”
“No. That.” She jabbed her finger at the photo.
“Oh. Seventy years.”
“Did somebody spit on the picture?”
“He was aiming at me,” Charlie said.
“Uh-uh.” The technician’s castor-oil grimace was so severe it was almost comical. “I don’t want to know. Do you have a match for this sample?”
“I’ll have to bring it in later.”
“Any other testing you want done today?”
Charlie looked over his shoulder at the van and wondered if he could get the finger tested, then decided against it. A historian’s artifact could be a lab technician’s 911 call. Besides, if his theory was correct, John Riggins was related to no one he knew, since Minerva was an only child. And he didn’t want to pay to find out that Riggins’s closest relative was a pickle.
The technician took the sample. “I guess there’s enough,” she said.
After learning that the results would be available five days after he brought in a comparison sample, Charlie paid the technician and returned to the van. The vehicle looked like it had been involved in a drive-by, with pellet marks peppering the tailgate. He counted eight new holes in the back of the driver’s seat. He was lucky he’d only been hit by a single pellet. If Pappy had been a few seconds quicker, used buckshot, or Charlie had been just a bit slower, he and his van would be spending the night at the bottom of Lake Lanier. “Helluva contract,” he muttered.
Now all he had to do was convince Minerva to help prove her father was a white rapist. He debated driving over to her house, but that would have to wait. There was too much else to do. Even though Trouble had that No Cops rule, Charlie needed to drive back to Cumming and swear out warrants, for the record and the story. First, he needed to patch the rear window to decrease the chance of getting pulled over by police.
As the sun was setting, he drove to a nearby office complex and circled around behind the buildings. Next to a Dumpster, he found a large corrugated box. Working in the glow of a yellow security light, he pulled a utility knife and duct tape from his tool box and cut a patch of cardboard. Then he fastened it over the shattered rear window. In the process, he cut himself on crumbled safety glass. He used several bandages from his first-aid kit to dress his newest oopsies, then repatched his gunshot injury, a flesh wound that had already stopped bleeding.
Then he remembered Kathleen. Oh, yeah. That. He should have been back at Bayard Terrace an hour ago. He pulled out his cellphone and tried to call her, but her phone was out of service.
That was creepy. Just like before.
It took Charlie a half hour to drive to Bayard Terrace, where he found, to his horror, that both Atlanta police and Angela were on the scene. One patrol car sat in the street and another in Kathleen’s driveway. Neighbors stood on the sidewalk, talking amongst themselves. Charlie parked on the street and rushed up to the young couple who lived next door.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Somebody broke in again,” the wife said, shaking her head.
Charlie silently cursed himself. This was his fault for not returning straight to Bayard Terrace.
“I heard Kathleen yell,” the woman said. “And I saw somebody in that room.” She pointed toward Talton’s study. “I knew it wasn’t you, because it was a short person. Wearing a ski mask. So I called 911 and then I yelled out the window. I think I scared him.”
“Young or old, fat or thin?”
“Normal. I couldn’t tell the age.”
Not Momo, then. Maybe they hired someone.
“He was gone when the police arrived,” she added.
“When did they get here?”
Husband and wife exchanged glances. “Ten minutes ago, maybe,” she said.
“Have you seen her?”
“No. We didn’t go in. We weren’t sure they were gone.”
“I’m going to check on her.”
Charlie rushed up the sidewalk. A black cop pushed against his chest when he tried to enter the house. “You family?”
“I live here. I’m her caretaker.”
“Not anymore,” said a voice from the bedroom. Angela came out glaring. “They bound her up with duct tape and strapped her to a chair. She nearly had a heart attack! If that wasn’t enough, she said this has happened before. And you didn’t report it! Is that true?”
“Uh …”
“She hasn’t been taking her meds, either.”
“Is she all right?”
“No thanks to you, she is.”
“I know who’s behind this,” he offered. “It’s about the book.”
“It’s definitely about you,” Angela said. She turned her back on him and returned to her mother’s side. Charlie found himself talking to Officer Tanner. He breathlessly told the officer what he knew—some of it anyway. Enough to point a finger at the Cutchinses—without mentioning the finger, of course. That was his, all his.
But he did happen to mention the shooting. Tanner said a detective would talk with him.
Charlie tried again to see Kathleen, but Angela wouldn’t let him near her. After a short and heated argument, she told him to pack his things and get out. “You’re fired!” she said.
“I couldn’t smite him!” Kathleen cried out from her bedroom. “It wouldn’t work.”
He saw no point in arguing. Angela didn’t know about American Monster, and Kathleen didn’t understand its heavy familial implications, since he’d never told her about them. So much the better. Charlie handed Angela his key and went into the study. The manuscript of Thoracic Park—his decoy novel—seemed to be the only thing missing, since all his papers were in his van or the safety box. He didn’t tell police about the theft of 350 sheets of paper. He just wanted to get out of there and swear out warrants in Forsyth.
Charlie bagged the few possessions he kept in the study and grabbed the printer, then went downstairs and began hauling stuff out of the basement. There was one tricky moment, when he snuck out the dungeon’s back door with the contract vat, something that would be extremely difficult to explain to police. It had filled to the top, so it was very heavy. He carried it gingerly to the van and put it behind the back seat, managing to do so without spilling any blood.
By then, the neighbors had drifted away. The officers stayed inside the house. Feeling more like a perpetrator than a victim, Charlie left without talking to an investigator. As he drove away, he noticed a black car following him. The detective? Not likely. Charlie zoomed through a red light, barely avoiding a T-bone crash, rounded a corner, took a left, a right, and then pulled into an empty driveway. After waiting ten minutes, he left the neighborhood via a back way. While he was driving along Briarcliff, his cellphone rang. The call was coming from the place he had once called home.
“Hello,” he said uncertainly, having deep misgivings about talking to anyone right then, especially a varmint.
“I heard you went up to Pappy’s.” Susan’s tone was hard as rock.
Brambleman Page 27