Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands

by Susan Carol McCarthy

  “Pleased to meet you,” I say.

  “And our son, Warren, Jr., who we call Ren,” Mother says. Ren does Daddy proud, shaking hands firmly, level-eyed.

  “It’s a pleasure meeting all of you,” Mr. Marshall says, openly surveying the kitchen. Unlike Luther and Mr. Moore, his hair is straight and brown. He sports a handsome, close-clipped mustache and a taffy-colored tweed jacket, an unusual fabric for Florida, but of course he’s the lawyer from New York.

  “You’re a long way from home, Mr. Marshall,” Doto says.

  “I’ve had business at the Lake County courthouse all week,” Mr. Marshall explains in a voice that seems to rumble around the room. “Spent today with Harry registering voters. Heading home tonight.”

  “Looky here!” Luther says, grinning gold. He pulls a small white card out of his shirt pocket. “Says here Ah’m a duly registered Democrat in the County of Orange, State of Florida. Come next spring, Ah get to vote in the primary elections. After that, Ah’ll help pick the President of the United States.”

  “Haven’t you voted before, Luther?” Ren asks.

  “Nope,” Luther says.

  Mr. Moore explains smoothly, “Orange County’s been a little slow in giving us the vote, but thanks to Mr. Marshall here, we’re back in the registration business.”

  “Good Lord, that amendment passed, what? Twenty years ago?” Doto asks Mr. Marshall.

  “Thirty, actually!” Mr. Marshall’s laugh is hollow. “But,” he tells Doto, “I doubt you need me to tell you the pace down here is a bit behind the rest of the country.”

  Doto shakes her head in weary agreement.

  “How’s the voter registration coming?” Mother asks Mr. Moore.

  “Pretty good, so far.” A shy grin widens his narrow, thoughtful face.

  “Harry’s being modest,” Mr. Marshall booms. “Before he got involved, less than four, four and a half percent of the Negroes in this state were registered. Now, we’re up to nearly thirty percent, which is twice the rate of any other Southern state!”

  “Good for you!” Mother says. “I’m sure it hasn’t been easy.”

  Mr. Moore nods, offers a honey-toned thank-you, then adds gently, “Ma’am, I need to get Mr. Marshall to the airport in about two hours. Luther said your husband might have a word with us?”

  “Of course. He’s upstairs putting our youngest—” Before she can finish, Ren and I are up and in motion. “We’ll get him right away,” we say and race out the door.

  “Would you like some iced tea, coffee?” Mother asks as we tear through the dining room and up the living room stairs.

  “Daddy!” we tell him on the landing. “Luther’s here . . . Mr. Harry T. Moore, Mr. Thurgood Marshall . . . to see you.”

  “Here? Now?” he asks.

  “Isn’t this great?” I ask, heart pounding. At last, somebody’s going to do something about Marvin’s murder!

  “Yes,” Daddy says. Suddenly, he’s all business. “You two stay up here while the adults talk,” he tells us curtly and heads down the stairs.

  Ren and I gape at his back, at each other, in surprise. It’s not like him to exclude us from living room conversation. Aren’t we witnesses to the conversation at the Lakeview Inn? I sulk. Together, my brother and I sink into the dark of the upstairs landing, lean against Doto’s bedroom door, and listen to the introductions downstairs.

  “Mr. McMahon,” Mr. Marshall begins.

  “Please, call me Warren,” Daddy says warmly. He sounds glad they’re finally here.

  “Warren, we’re compiling a file on what happened to Marvin Cully. I’d like to hear your story and that of your mother.”

  “Hold on. Let me get my notes.”

  I hear Daddy’s steps into his office, the slide of a file drawer opening and closing, and his quick return to the living room.

  “What I have here are four documents: The first is the notes I made on Thursday, March eleventh, the day Luther and I found Marvin on Round Lake Road. Except for poor Marvin, the scene looked pretty much like there’d been a party . . . beer cans, cigarette butts, a couple of broken branches on the orange trees, lots of wheel tracks nearby.”

  I hear the sound of rustling papers as the sheets change hands.

  “How’d you know to go to this place?” Mr. Moore asks.

  “Everybody knows where the Opalakee Klan takes people,” Luther says.

  “If we hadn’t found him there, we’d have checked the Ocoee Klan’s stomping grounds off Winter Garden Road,” Daddy adds.

  “Harry, can you research these properties, find out who owns them?” Mr. Marshall asks.

  “Oh, I can tell you that,” our father says. “Emmett Casselton’s a big citrus man around here and long-time Klan member.”

  Talk about how the Klan’s been taking people to the Casbah for years! I urge Daddy in my head, but he’s not listening.

  “Good. What else do you have?” Mr. Marshall asks. Though we can’t see him, his presence rolls up the stairwell. This is a man who, one way or another, makes things happen, gets things done.

  “These are Doc Johnny’s notes on Marvin’s condition when we brought him in. I’ve called the coroner a couple times for his report. I’m not even sure there is a report.”

  As he reads the notes, Mr. Marshall makes little clicking sounds with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. I’d asked to see the notes—after Daddy finally finagled them out of Doc Johnny’s nurse—but Mother said no. “She’s seen too much already,” she told Daddy. As if reading about it would be any worse than the real thing, I’d told Ren.

  “Here’s a transcript of the conversation my mother and the children heard at the Lakeview Inn on Saturday, March thirteenth. My mother and I sat down afterwards. She dictated, I typed. As you can see, I’m not the world’s best typist.”

  Again, there’s the sound of paper shuffling and a silence.

  “Did you get a look at this Deputy, ma’am?” Mr. Marshall asks.

  “Unfortunately, only from the back,” Doto answers. “He was a burly man, about your size, with big brown freckles all over the back of his neck and hands. Big-boned, too. I’d guess Irish descent.”

  “And the waitress. Can you remember her name?”

  “No,” Doto says, “I’m sorry.”

  “Mary Sue!” I cry out, and six pairs of eyes seek me mid-stairwell. Leaning over the banister, I explain, “She had a curly pin on her uniform that said ‘Mary Sue’ plain as day. And that’s what the Deputy called her when he asked for the check.”

  “You’re very observant, young lady.” Mr. Marshall nods, making a note. “Anything else?”

  “The other two men wore grove boots, like Daddy’s. One was tall and real skinny, stooped like Ichabod Crane; the other was older, with dark hair like Mother and a big bald spot on the back.”

  “That’s right, Reesa,” Doto says. “I’d forgotten.”

  “Any other details?” Mr. Marshall asks.

  Ren’s voice at my elbow startles me. “The deputy’s gun had a fancy handle.”

  Mr. Marshall’s eyes shift alertly up to Ren. “What do you mean, fancy?”

  “It was white, like the inside of a shell,” Ren tells him.

  “Like a pearl?”

  “Yes, like that, and marked, carved maybe?” Ren says.

  “Donnelly,” Mr. Marshall says grimly. “Deputy Earl the Pearl Donnelly. It figures.”

  “Ren, Roo, you’ve been a big help. Thanks.” Daddy’s look sends us back into the dark recess of the landing.

  “Warren, do you know these people Donnelly mentioned?” Mr. Marshall asks Daddy.

  “I know Reed Garnet; but I’m sure Armetta can tell you more than I can.”

  “Yes, we’ve spoken with her.”

  “J. D. Bowman’s another story. I know his father. The old man’s a loudmouthed bigot, worked for Emmett Casselton for years. Has a grove of his own, but since most of the local pickers won’t work for him, Bowman hires migrant labor instead. I don’
t really know J.D., but he has the reputation of being a wild hare, a real chip off the old block. I don’t doubt for a minute that what my mother heard is exactly what happened. This last is a copy of a registered letter I sent J. Edgar Hoover mid-March.”

  “Heard anything back?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. The Director’s had his hands full, and he’s not exactly color blind,” Mr. Marshall says, and I think his voice sounds careful. “Plus, this situation’s a little tricky. Here in Florida, murder is a state crime. If local lawmen choose not to act, the feds have to be creative because they lack the authority to get involved. If you would, Warren, I’d like a copy of all this.”

  “I typed everything with carbons, in triplicate. Take whatever you’d like.”

  “Warren, how would you compare the Orange County Klan to the group I’m dealing with in Lake County?” Mr. Marshall asks.

  “Well, the first difference is the sheriff,” Daddy says without hesitation. “Willis McCall is a racist son of a bitch— ’scuse me, ladies—and his deputies are pond scum.”

  “I have to agree with your assessment.” Mr. Marshall’s tone is weary.

  “Not that our sheriff’s much better,” Daddy continues, “but he’s a lot less arrogant. The second thing is there are three different Klans here in Orange County. I don’t know much about the one in Orlando except they seem to have the good sense to leave the folks in Eatonville alone. There’s another Klan in Ocoee-Winter Garden and that crowd’s a lot like the Crackers in Lake County. You know about the signs, don’t you?”

  “What signs?” Mr. Marshall asks.

  “You mean the ones in Ocoee?” Luther says.

  “What signs, Luther?” Mr. Marshall asks.

  “Driving in and outta town, they’s signs on both sides sayin’ ‘Nigger—If you can read this: Don’t let the sun set on your head in Ocoee.’ ”

  “Harry, make a note,” Mr. Marshall says with a rumbly sigh.

  “The Opalakee Klan’s a little different,” Daddy says. “The names I know read like the town’s social register. Most of the oldest families are involved. Their grandfathers brought The Klan with them from Georgia and the Carolinas. The fathers are pretty sedate, but the sons . . . Well, before the war, they mostly pulled college-boy pranks on young couples parked in cars and old coloreds whose fear amused them. Obviously, they’re men now . . . veterans, with experience in killing.”

  Despite the fact that six adults sit in it, our living room is silent.

  Ren and I exchange looks. What’s happening down there? Finally, Mr. Marshall clears his throat. “Warren, Luther said you’d be a big help and you certainly have been. I can’t make any promises. The problem is the state’s jurisdiction and the lack of hard evidence. If the coroner removed the bullet, if the bullet happened to match J. D. Bowman’s gun . . . Well, we’ll see what we can do.”

  “Marvin was a good friend, not just to me and Lizbeth, but to our children. We’ll do whatever we can to help.”

  People are standing, shaking hands.

  We hear Mr. Moore quietly singling out Mother. “Thank you for the coffee, ma’am, and for opening your home to our little meeting.” Daddy, meanwhile, is insisting that Luther and Mr. Marshall, turning toward the kitchen, leave by way of the front door. Doto opens it for them and bids Mr. Marshall a warm “Good night and safe journey.”

  As our parents and Doto head back to the kitchen, Daddy tosses up the stairwell, “You two go to bed!”

  “Now, we’re getting somewhere,” I tell my brother, punching his shoulder in celebration. I feel light-headed with tonight’s progress.

  But Ren is less confident, his face pinched in disappointment. “Not exactly Dick Tracy and Sam Catchem, are they?” he pouts, wanting more from Mr. Marshall than “We’ll see what we can do.”

  “No, they’re not,” I tell him, “but since nobody else seems to give a good damn ’bout Marvin, they’re all we’ve got!”

  Chapter 12

  At quarter ’til one on the steamy hot Saturday before Mother’s Day, I amble over to Miss May-belle’s to meet her grandniece Maryvale. Miss Maybelle’s on her lunch hour from the post office and I’ve been told to be prompt. Expecting the worst, I’m relieved to see that the girl swinging her bare legs on Miss Maybelle’s front porch is dressed like me in shorts, T-shirt and sandals. And there’s not a doll in sight.

  “Hey, there,” I call as I open the wood-and-wire front gate.

  “Hay’s for horses; try grass, it’s cheaper!” the girl calls back. Her face is full of freckles and her brown eyes crinkle beneath red-brown bangs when she grins. “You Reesa?” she asks.

  “That’s me. You Maryvale?”

  “Puh-lease call me Vaylie. I’ve been Maryvaled to death this week!”

  I figure the pretty woman opening the screen door is Vaylie’s mother. Miss Maybelle’s in full steam behind her, jangling keys to the post office in hand.

  “You two met already? Good.” Miss Maybelle takes charge as usual, brisk in her postmistress’ uniform. “Marie Louise, this is Maryvale’s mother, Miz Laverne Carrollton.”

  Miss Maybelle acts surprised that I know enough to step forward, shake hands, and say “Pleased to meet you, having a nice trip?”

  Miz Laverne’s more redheaded than her daughter and her teeth are bright white against the reddest red lipstick I’ve ever seen. Her skin is pearl-colored with tiny lavender veins showing through. Although she wears makeup like a movie star, I see dark purple circles under her eyes. There’s a small bruise like a violet-colored butterfly on the ivory inside her wrist.

  Miss Maybelle checks her watch and spouts orders. “Laverne’s keeping me company at the post office while I sort the afternoon mail. Marie Louise, you must return Maryvale at precisely five o’clock. I went over this with your mother in case you forget.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say nicely, hating her.

  As we trail them down the walk, I marvel at Miz Laverne’s ability to walk so smoothly in spiky heels next to Miss Maybelle’s MacArthur-like march. At the street, they turn right toward the post office and Vaylie and I peel left, toward home.

  “That woman’s a witch,” Vaylie says. “She always like that?”

  “Pretty much.” I grin. “Our school bus picks us up every day in front of the post office. No matter what the weather, boiling hot, freezing cold or pouring rain, she never lets us wait inside. ‘I’m runnin’ a branch of the United States Post Office, not a nursery school! This building is for official business only. You hooligans stay off those benches, too. They’re official government property!’ You’d think the fate of the entire nation rests on those benches staying empty.”

  Vaylie’s laughing at my version of Miss Maybelle’s ornery old attitude. “She wanted us to stay over a few days, but our Atlanta cousins warned us that an afternoon was ’bout all we could stand.”

  “Where you headed next?”

  “Over to Winter Park to stay with a school friend of Mamma’s. We’re on tour, Mamma says, but mostly we’re takin’ a break from Daddy.”

  “Is your father sick?” I ask.

  “Sort of. I mean, he’s all right most of the time. But sometimes he gets to feelin’ melancholy and then he drinks and turns mean as a snake. Usually only lasts a couple weeks, but when Mamma sees his melancholy comin’, she tells Whit and Claudette to take over and we go on tour.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Whit and Claudette? They’re our colored maid and butler, been takin’ care of Daddy since he was a boy. Claudette says melancholy runs in Daddy’s family, but Whit says it was The War that did him in. Whatever the reason, Mamma and I leave town ’til they get Daddy back on track. Where you takin’ me?” Vaylie asks as I turn down the grove road.

  “Dry Sink. It’s this old, dry sinkhole where my brother Ren and the Samson boys are waiting to have a rattler race.”

  “What’s that?” Vaylie asks, breaking into a run beside me.

  “
Ren and Roy and Dwayne have been out in the palmetto scrub all week with their fork sticks looking for rattlesnakes. Caught some and trapped ’em in burlap bags. First, we all climb up the tree, then we lower the bags and let ’em free. The rattlers race for cover into the brush outside the sinkhole. You won’t believe how fast they go!”

  In the clearing, where, on one side of the hole, our grove stops and, on the other side, the Samson palmetto scrub begins, Vaylie declares she’s never seen a sinkhole before. “Where’d it come from?” she pants.

  We wave to the boys, who are already up in the giant oak, and run around Dry Sink to join them.

  “Daddy says this whole state’s just a thin layer of limestone floating on a million underground rivers. Every once in a while, either a river rises or the ground sinks, then you wind up with a big hole like this one,” I explain.

  “Swell!” Vaylie hoists herself easily onto the lower branches of the tree, yelling “Hey” to the boys above us.

  “This is Vaylie,” I tell them. “Don’t drop those snakes ’til we get up there!”

  Ren, Roy and Dwayne are champing at the bit to get started. “What took you so long?” Ren grumps.

  “Got here as soon as we could!” I blaze back at him. “Get this show on the road!”

  Vaylie and I scramble above them, cushioning our seats with the Spanish moss that hangs like lace around us. Vaylie wrinkles her nose. “This stuff stinks.”

  “That’s not the moss; it’s rattler taint!” I say, watching her eyes balloon open.

  Each of the boys holds a squirming burlap bag with two ropes attached. Side by side, the three of them lock their legs on the tree limb and “skin the cat.” Now upside down, like a trio of acrobatic puppeteers, they use the ropes to lower the bags into position, behind the starting line drawn in the dirt.

  “Now, Roo, now!” Ren hollers.

  “On your mark,” I yell. “Get set! Go!” The boys yank on one of their ropes to release the slip knot on the other. Instantly the snakes are free, their terrible beauty churning the pale gray dust. From our tree, we watch and hoot and yell as the fat brown diamondbacks coil and uncurl, tail bells rattling, split tongues flicking, angry, hooded eyes surveying each other and the barren sinkhole for cover.