The Caine Plantation: The Next Quilt is Red

by Karine Green

  "If she is taking a so-called break, then she isn't helping them, not just giving the appearance of it."

  Unbeknownst to her, the black fog was swirling larger in the room behind her.

  According to the next paragraph, Marissa needed time to formulate a plan to drive the idea underground. Otherwise she was risking too much, and then she would lose the chance to help anyone at all.

  Kathy smiled. Underground was an interesting choice of words for a book about a period just prior to what would become the network known as The Underground Railroad. The railroad itself was a new concept in the US about ten years after the Caine's built the house. This article was painting a very pretty picture of the frail looking young woman in the portrait. However, if Marissa was the equivalent of the 'CIA Chief' in her operation of running slaves north then she would have to have been ruthless to be even remotely successful. Additionally, she had been older when she bought the slave off the whipping post. She would not need time to formulate anything. Her operation would have already been in place; it would have been a matter of protecting it. One didn't simply wake up one morning and decide to become a successful smuggler overnight. Secured routes would have been needed. Agents would be needed, and time to develop the contacts necessary to rule out the possibility of accidentally recruiting a law enforcement agent.

  Kathy had keen profiling skills, and she figured that Marissa's so-called break had more to do with being unable to deal with it anymore. Marissa had been able to hide her involvement when she was younger, but too much had been going on, for far too long. She figured, Marissa needed to step back and refocus before she could decide whether or not to continue to move the operation forward. It seemed more logical to assume that it was a mental rest bit to avoid a continued psychological break, than to assume the theory presented in the book. It just didn't match up with the way a long term successful smuggling operation would have to operate. It seemed, nonsensical. It also only highlighted the Caine's involvement, but what about the African Americans? The operation would not have worked, at all, without African American operatives.

  Kathy knew the feeling well, the thought of being faced with a task that cannot be left undone, but not having the heart to do it. The thought that she didn't want to be a homicide detective anymore had crossed her mind more than once during the last handful of cases she had handled. The frightening part was that it had been the constant political battles that had taken her drive, not the cases and stories of the victims. It had taken a great deal of effort to move the last few cases forward. The buyout had been perfectly timed. The only thing that worried her was that the further back in the time line of her life her former career traveled, the less tolerance she had for the victims' stories. Like last evening, she had blocked out the gore by concentrating on being jealous of whomever Jason had brought to the house to shag instead of focusing on the help he asked for in getting justice for poor Milton Lawrence.

  She sighed, and leaned her head back on her chair. She wished she could leave poor Milton to Jason and his officers. But, a newly found low tolerance for gore or not, she already knew, she would help both of them. She was not yet as weary as Marissa Caine had been with helping people who were trapped in extreme situations, but she was getting close.

  She straightened up, and took a bite of her protein bar before turning back to the book.

  It was believed that Marissa was killed by means of food poisoning, by the cook, a house slave known as Dark Lady. She was believed to have been Marissa's co-conspirator for trafficking slaves to freedom. There was no photograph of a beautiful hand painted portrait of her in this Caine puff-piece. In fact, other than her name, Dark Lady, there was no description of her at all. Kathy wished there was one. She was curious if it matched Jack and Ramón's description.

  The only useful tidbit of information was that Dark Lady' sister and brother-in-law had survived. They still had living relatives in the area, at least forty-five of them.

  Kathy smiled, she would have to track them down and see if there were any family stories passed down over the generations. She knew she couldn't find first hand witnesses, so second hand, or most likely third hand, would have to do.

  She read on, Marissa Caine had died almost instantly. She had been found in her bed. Dark Lady had been whipped to death by William Caine. Mr. Caine's journal described Marissa's fingernails as having a blue tinge to them. It was believed that Dark Lady had cooked a bad meal and killed Marissa. And while some believed she murdered Marissa, William refused. His diary indicated that he believed the two to be too good of friends for Dark Lady to murder her. He wrote that if she killed Marissa, it was almost certain to be an accident.

  "That sounds like Cyanide, not bad food," Cyanide killed fast. It starved oxygen from blood cells. Victims basically suffocated. She couldn't think of anything else at the moment that was available in the mid 1800's. She would have to do some research on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention website to see if there was anything else out there that would do that. She made a note in her tablet's calendar. "If it was Cyanide, then whoever gave it to Marissa meant to kill her. And I would be willing to bet it wasn't Dark Lady. Knowing victims and suspects, I would venture to guess that she would have too much to lose by killing Marissa Caine. We need to find out who would benefit the most by her death."

  Kathy frowned. There were holes in this so-called guide that didn't make sense. The main question was, is it bad research, or just a media puff-piece about how mysteriously great things used to be? Given the amount of videos on YouTube, she would venture to guess that the so-called haunting of the Caine Plantation was a decent tourist draw; so why was the town wanting to bulldoze it? Why didn’t they restore and put it on a tour with the museum?

  She thought for a moment before pulling out her tablet and jotting down some questions she had, that she knew wouldn't be answered by this book. "Why did Marissa only take slaves from surrounding plantations? What about her own slaves? Weren't they worthy of being free to?" She sipped her coffee, and then finished her protein bar.

  She gazed out over the balcony railing. The trees bridged the driveway so beautifully that she could stare at the covered-bridge the branches formed over the driveway all day. Perhaps she would call her mother later this afternoon and see if she wanted to visit. Right now, she enjoyed the coolness of the morning, and the fact that it was not twenty-eight degrees.

  She flipped a page and found a photograph of Dark Lady's bill of sale. It read female, eleven years old. She had been purchased for $200. The only thing that tied the bill to Dark Lady was the caption under the photo that identified it as being found in William Caine's papers with 'Dark Lady' and a question mark after it.

  Kathy briefly thought of the movie Schindler's List. Oscar Schindler had saved many Jews from the concentration camps during the Nazi's reign of power. He had to force them into slavery to keep them alive. However, Schindler could only save a few at a time. He knew full well that anyone he left on the trains was going to their death. It had driven him mad with grief at one point. He had a Jewish clerk who helped him make the choices. The level of trust that must have existed between the two had to have been extraordinary. The initial plan must have been terrifying, for both of them, not knowing whether or not they could trust each other; having to wait for the level of loyalty to prove itself true. Not knowing whether or not a raid team was coming for them, because they had trusted the wrong person. Fear, terror, uncertainty, keeping righteous lies,...forcing yourself to somehow become manageably insane to get a job done, that couldn't be left undone.

  What would Kathy do in that situation? Would she let a hundred die to save twenty? Would she be too scared, and not act at all, leaving all hundred and twenty to die to avoid making the choice? Perhaps she would do like Marissa, and try to save one too many, blowing her cover? Would it drive her mad? There seemed to be evidence to suggest that Marissa was no longer thinking with a clear head, such as intervening with the public whipping. S
he may as well taken an ad in the paper that she was engaging in human trafficking to the North. How could one be sane after making decisions like that, over and over again? She would feel like a murderer, or at the very least a party to murder.

  The people who started and ran the Underground Railroad didn't get enough credit, both African American and White. They would have had to have worked together. The slave would have somehow bridge the gap from kidnapped and sold into slavery to trust the very same group of people to help them escape.

  Then Kathy remembered something. "Jason said, Milton's little girl calls about the closet ghost to say she is crying about leading many to death."

  She covered her mouth, as if what she just realized shouldn't be spoken out loud. "Poor Dark Lady. That was the position you were in, after was Marissa was forced to back out. Anyone already in the 'pipeline' to freedom through the Caine plantation was now cut-off; basically left to the mercy of the runaway hunters." Dark Lady had led them from their homes, under the hope of freedom, and now had to send them back, or at least send them on with no further provisions or instructions on how to make the next connection.

  "Holy hand baskets to Hell, Batman! The sidekick can't be the hero. They simply aren't in the position of power to do it, despite having the heart to carry it out. A network is needed. There has to be a Commissioner Gordon to overlook it, an Alfred to take care of things for the heroes, and a sympathetic media contact to keep the good press coming so suspicion never looks toward them," Kathy said. "So...Who was this Dynamic Duo's Gordon and Alfred? Someone had to look the other way, and someone had to do Dark Lady's job while she assisted Marissa."

  Kathy felt a lump in her throat. She quickly sipped at her coffee. It was just too tragic to think about. How did people survive? They didn't. Dark Lady certainly didn't. She was whipped to death. The field hand Marissa had blown her cover for was left to the alligators. Many survived, but many more died. Just like the people on Schindler's List. "May Jesus have mercy on you, Dark Lady."

  She read on. The Caine son, Percy, had three sons and a daughter. The daughter married and moved to Vermont. She was never seen in town again. The youngest son eventually took over the plantation after the elder two sons were killed in the Civil War.

  She looked at the photo of the painted portrait of Percy Caine's little daughter. She looked very much like Marissa, with the ginger hair of her grandmother. "Did you runaway too? Or, did they just marry you off to get rid of you?" Kathy asked the painted portrait of the Caine granddaughter.

  The guide went on to speculate that Percy took up the network after his mother's death, but there is little or no record of him succeeding at anything, especially after his arrest for trafficking.

  "Too bad there wasn't an arrest report to review. Maybe there is a log in the police archives?" It would be a good opportunity to spend time with Jason.

  A smack on the floor caused her to jump. She turned around to find the box with her books in it had fallen on the floor. There was no sign of the black fog. "How did that happen?" She walked over to the box. "Oh, the box under it collapsed on the back."

  She set her book down, and then stacked the fallen books back into the box. She picked up one, and smiled. It was a copy of her cold case training manual. It had been this particular training session that had put her ahead of the pack during the interview process when she was promoted to detective.

  She set the book on top of the box, picked up the local history guide, and returned to her coffee on the porch. She paused and thought of Jack and Ramón, and their claim that the house was haunted. Her cold case text just fell on the floor, of all her books that was the one? Was someone trying to get her attention regarding the original murder on the property? She shook her head. It was stupid. Ghosts didn't exist.

  She turned her attention back to the historical guide pushing supernatural ideas out of her mind. The last chapter was about Dark Lady's death. There was a photo of the whip. It was identical to the one found at the homicide last night. The caption identified it as a replica to the one the Dark Lady was whipped to death with. It was period, but not the same whip. No one had seen the real whip since Dark Lady's death. There were rumors William Caine had buried her with it somewhere on the Caine Plantation.

  Kathy wondered where she was buried. Could it be on Milton's property, since here had been reports of Dark Lady crying in the closet? She had to get that whip out of her grave. Who would want to be buried with their own murder weapon? Something about it seemed unholy.

  She turned the page.

  Dark Lady's little grandson was Stable Boy. Kathy wondered if that was 'Ethan.' He was six when he died. Beyond those two sentences, there was nothing regarding his death, or how it happened.

  Kathy frowned again, she had easily found the newspaper article that indicated he had died on the same day as his grandmother. Seems like the author could have found that tidbit of information?

  Her thoughts drifted back to the Lawrence murder. It was more than an interesting coincidence that this whip would be in this photo. The photo credits showed it as being part of a display in the local museum, along with the whipping post that Dark Lady was chained to, and one of her famed hand sewn quilts that fueled the railroad quilt rumor in town.

  She picked up another article. Apparently, much later in his life, it was rumored that Percy Caine began trafficking slaves to the North, deliberately, to cause financial hardship to the surrounding plantations. Percy's idea was to run up their costs, and buy up their land when money became tight. Replacing slaves was expensive. This no doubt caused a tremendous financial burden on their competition. Each missing slave was like missing six to ten thousand dollars, or more, in modern dollars depending on the slave's training.

  Kathy glanced at the reporter's name, Robert Lacompte. He was the same reporter from the article about the dressmaker, later. Was he looking for some of the missing African-Americans that Percy and Blanc kidnapped? Kathy wondered if he had been able to find them. Whatever the circumstance, Robert knew more than he was reporting.

  "Were you Commissioner Gordon?" she asked. "Where you the one allowing Marissa to get away with taking the slaves to the North? The puff-pieces prior to her death, the call for help by interviewing the dressmaker, so why allow the trafficking headline?" She Googled the name and was immediately overwhelmed with thousands of results. The search for Robert Lacompte would have to wait.

  She picked up the book again, reading the last line in the chapter about Percy. However, none of the Caine slaves had wanted to escape.

  "Or more to the point, if they did, it wasn't reported." Kathy seriously doubted life was ponies and pink glitter on the Caine Plantation for the slaves. "I can think of at least two who would have been very happy to escape the Caine Plantation without doing any research at all. In fact, it seems life here wasn't ideal for anyone, white or black. Who wrote this?"

  She turned the book over to see if there was a photo of the author. Lauren Grayson was the main contributor! She sighed, loudly, that's why it seemed fake! It was just more of Lauren's lies of omission.

  Kathy sighed, feeling a bit deflated. She had felt good about the history Lauren had told her about the plantation’s Underground Railroad involvement. Now she just felt duped. She was a veteran police officer and an experienced homicide detective. She was embarrassed that she had bought Lauren's malarkey hook line and sinker, even though she had been suspicious that Lauren was leaving things out. She had sensed it was something else, something personal not something related to the history. So, why did she contradict her own book?

  She glared at Lauren's photo, "Or maybe you're just a pathological liar. Why was it that no one could just do something because it was the right thing to do? They were moving slaves out to screw their neighbors, not because they were freedom fighters. Well at least some people were finding freedom, regardless of the motives."

  She thought about Lauren and the possibility of her being mentally ill. She was by no means a psych
iatrist, but she had talked to enough mentally ill people to know one when she saw one. She suspected that Lauren's lies were to build and maintain her fantasy. She thought the official term for it was pseudo logia fantastica. It was usually part of another larger mental illness, but Kathy wasn't sure. She would have to pull some research on it. Then she smiled. "Maybe I should visit Lauren...return her gesture of friendship." She knew a few interrogation techniques that would ferret out whether or not Lauren lived in a fantasy world.

  Her phone rang with the new ghostly tone she had downloaded, "Hello."

  "Good morning, Kathy, It's Jason. Want some coffee? I have some Starbucks getting cold here. Plus Ramón and Jack emailed me their statements. I thought you might like to see them, even if there isn't anything new in them."

  "I would love to." She glanced toward the gate, and dumped the little bit of her home brew that was left in an empty box full of packing tissue. She smiled, nothing like the equivalent of flowers delivered in the morning by a hot Cajun man in uniform. "Do you know anyone who can install a remote for the gate?"

  "Yes. The gate isn't near the house, so we should be able to get someone to do it without them carrying on about ghosts."

  Ten minutes later she was sitting on the back porch with Jason while she looked over the statements. It was basically just a replay of what they had said before, over and over again. She wasn't surprised, they had both sounded traumatized. She wondered what the story would sound like in two months, after their fear/terror manifested itself into their memories. The stories would effectively become lies, but not like Lauren's lies. They would be lies created to protect their sanity after being terrorized, not to feed a fantasy. The movers would be able to read their statements and ground themselves back into the truth. There was also the concern of what the movers must have really seen.

  Lauren was moving up on her priority list of people to interview. If Lauren was suffering from pseudo logia fantastica, she wouldn't be able to ground herself in the truth because she really believed the lie. However, that was a big 'if'. Did the movers see Lauren? Lauren wasn't African American, and although skinny, she was at least 5'8", tall for a woman. What about the little boy?