by Sara Rosett
I stopped when I reached the halfway point and stood up to stretch my legs. Nothing remotely exciting or interesting had showed up as I shifted through the papers. Jodi paid her bills on time and her bank statements looked pretty normal for a single working girl. All in all, the papers seemed to indicate she had an ordinary life. Maybe the FBI would find something on her computer.
I stepped over the paper piles and angled up a slat of the blinds. The scene out front hadn’t changed, except Coleman was gone. Everyone else was still there. I dropped the blind back into place and sagged against the window frame, rubbing my forehead.
Somehow I had to clear the street before tomorrow. We wouldn’t have any guests for Nathan’s party if they had to fight their way through reporters and satellite trucks. If Coleman couldn’t make the reporters leave, I doubted my pleas would make any difference. And if I went out there to talk to them, I’d end up on the news for sure. Short of calling in a bogus anonymous news tip myself and directing them to some other part of town, I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of them. They had more patience than I’d given them credit for. I was almost sorry I hadn’t taken Abby up on her offer to create a distraction, but she was at the school at the moment, so I couldn’t get her help until later anyway.
The phone rang and I grabbed it before it could ring again. I didn’t want any extra noise disrupting the last few minutes of nap time.
Mitch said, “Ellie, are you okay?”
“Yes,” I said cautiously. “Why? Did you get my message?”
“I did. Are you at home?”
“Yes. In fact, I’m kind of stuck here.”
“I can see that.”
“You can? You’re watching the news?”
“Yep. We have a couple of hours on the ground before we take off again, so I’m waiting in base ops. They have the news on. What’s going on?” His tone was concerned.
I summarized the rumors and told Mitch about the plastic bag found yesterday. “Apparently, the identification of William Nash was what drew the national media here in the first place, but now they’ve latched on to Jodi’s story, too. What are we going to do?”
“Wait them out.” He took the news in stride, which amazed me.
“But we have Nathan’s party tomorrow.”
“If they’re still there, we’ll move the party somewhere else. Or we can postpone it.”
I rubbed my forehead. “You say that so flippantly. Move it. Postpone it. I’ve done a lot of work to get ready for his party. We can’t just move it. Where would we move it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Jeff and Abby’s house?”
“Okay,” I said grudgingly. “That’s a possibility.” She had offered to help me out.
“Besides, the press has a very short attention span. They’ll probably be gone before I get home tonight.”
“I hope so, but I thought they’d be gone in a few hours and they’re still there. I think Jodi was researching William Nash.”
There was a pause and he said, “I thought you weren’t going to get involved in this.”
“I think we’re past that point. It’s sort of overtaken us. Besides, I am interested in what happened to Jodi. I can understand the media attention. I want to know what happened, too. I’m looking through some of Jodi’s boxes for Nita. If I can find out what she found out—”
Mitch interrupted me, his relaxed tone gone. “You could be in a lot of danger if it’s what led to her disappearance or possibly got her killed.”
“Mitch, I’m strictly on paper patrol. You know I’m good at stuff like that—sorting, shifting, catching little details.”
He paused again and finally said, “I know you’re going to do it anyway, no matter what I say, so just be very careful. Stick to the paper trail.”
“That’s my plan,” I confirmed.
He asked, “Have you talked to them, the press?”
“No!”
“Good. Just leave them alone and they’ll lose interest. I have to go. I’ll call you when I land tonight.”
We said our good-byes and hung up. I paused as I put the phone back, thinking about what Mitch had said. “Just leave it alone” was his way of handling things. He was good at waiting things out and he believed that things worked themselves out. Que sera sera and all that. My way of handling things was more carpe diem.
I heard Nathan shifting around. Time to get back on mom duty. I got Nathan up and had to smile back at him because he was so delighted to see me when I pushed open his door.
I picked up him, showered him with kisses that made him giggle, then put him down on the changing table. As I unfastened the snaps on his outfit, I glanced out his window into the backyard. I wished it would rain. Showers might drive the reporters away. At least I could be pretty sure there weren’t any reporters in the backyard since we had a wooden privacy fence on all sides and the back gate was secured with a heavy-duty lock. There wasn’t an alley, and the woods behind our fence stretched out to the gravel access road.
While I was changing him, Livvy appeared in his doorway. Her supersonic hearing had detected the slight noise from his room. “Is rest time over?”
“Yep. You can come out of your room,” I said. I grabbed the last diaper and taped it on Nathan, looking at the back gate thoughtfully.
Livvy bounced. “Are we going to get the balloons? Is it time?”
“Almost. Go get your shoes. I have to make a phone call.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Twenty minutes later I’d revised my wishes for the weather and hoped the rain held off for at least another couple of minutes. I had Nathan strapped in the backpack. I was carrying his car seat and had the diaper bag slung over my shoulder. Livvy had on her pink rain slicker and rain boots. “I hope it rains,” she said, unfurling her princess umbrella.
I whispered, “Remember to be very quiet.” I unlocked the gate and checked the woods. I couldn’t see very far into the dense foliage, but there was no one in my immediate line of vision. I nodded at Livvy and she solemnly nodded back. We stepped through the gate and I relocked it.
“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice low as I reached down to pick up the car seat and diaper bag. “Close your umbrella. Are you ready for a hike?”
“Yes! Can we pick flowers?”
“No,” I said rather sharply. I softened my tone and explained, “Some plants can make you itch if you touch them. And I don’t think there will be any flowers this time of year anyway.” I put out my hand, she put hers in mine, and we walked down the tiny path that wormed its way through the trees. It was just wide enough that we would walk side by side. Livvy smacked at dead leaves with her furled umbrella as we went along. It was only a few minutes before we reached the gravel path where the heavy silver car was idling.
Dorthea emerged from the driver’s seat and took the diaper bag from me. “Did anyone see you?” I asked.
She shrugged. “They saw me, but they didn’t care.”
“That’s good,” I said as I secured the seat belt to Nathan’s car seat and transferred him into it from the backpack. Livvy had a special strap holder to keep the seat belt at just the right place for her, so I buckled her in and then dropped into the passenger seat, tired from carting all the kid paraphernalia.
Livvy’s voice piped up from the backseat. “Do you have a quarter for me today, Mrs. Dorthea?”
I cringed. “Livvy, it’s impolite to ask for a present.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Dorthea said, digging in her pockets. She pulled out a coin and held it up. “Well, look here.” She eased the car down the gravel path and I said, “Thanks for helping me out.”
“Glad to do it.”
“I don’t know how we’ll get back inside without someone seeing us.” A balloon bouquet was pretty hard to hide.
Dorthea touched the brake as we emerged from the trees where the gravel path met the paved neighborhood road. She turned away from the conglomeration down the block at my house and said, “I’m sure something will
work out.”
I studied the cars, trucks, and people milling around until Dorthea turned the corner and she said, “I’ve never seen anything like that. In fact, I don’t think North Dawkins has ever had this much attention or excitement, except when Jodi first went missing.”
“You’ve lived here a long time?”
“All my life. Hard to believe we have all these fancy stores and restaurants. When I was a girl, North Dawkins had one road and it didn’t even have a name.” She looked over at me and said, “They named it in the ’70s. Tarlton Street.”
“That’s pretty amazing,” I said, considering Tarlton was constantly snarled with traffic now. “So, what was it like around here in the ’50s?” I asked.
“Like most small towns.” Dorothea shrugged. “We had the base by then and there were always handsome flyboys about town. We had a bank and the train was still important, but North Dawkins was nothing like it is now. If we wanted to do any shopping we went up to Macon or Atlanta.”
“Was there a lot of racial tension?”
She tilted her head back and forth. “There was some. Some white people thought black people had to be kept in their place. My granddaddy was like that, but not everyone felt that way. Of course, there are some people who still feel like that today. We had a dustup at Magnolia Estates a few years back when the Websters sold their house to that nice black family. You know the Calvertons, across the street? They were upset and said their property values would go down. Ridiculous, but thank goodness the rest of the neighborhood didn’t feel that way.
“I know my daddy thought segregation was evil. Not just wrong. Evil. So opinions varied, but we didn’t have the marches and demonstrations. As strange as it sounds, I think the air base made North Dawkins more…cosmopolitan. That’s an odd word to use to describe North Dawkins, isn’t it? But we had all kinds of different people coming and going. Broadened our horizons, I suppose.”
“Did you know William Nash?”
“You knew everyone, but things were still segregated then. I knew who he was, but I didn’t know him. I was older than him and he went to a different school. He lived in one of those tiny houses at the corner of the state highway and Scranton Road.”
“The houses past the antique place? What’s it called? Crooner’s?” I asked.
“That’s it. No antiques there. It’s a junk market.” Dorthea snorted. “I can’t believe the county lets Crooner get away with that eyesore.”
“Who else lived out there?”
“No one, really, except for a couple of houses way down at the end of the road.” Dorthea had navigated through our neighborhood and stopped by the second pond to wait for an opening in the traffic on Scranton Road. As we whipped past the houses she waved her hand at a rancher set back from the road. “That was where Coleman and Ava lived. They only had a couple of neighbors,” Dorthea said, indicating three smaller houses a bit down the road. She nodded at the last one. “There’s my old house.”
“I think I met a girl that grew up in one of these. Kendra Jenning.”
Dorthea nodded. “The Jennings lived there for years, too. I think they’ve moved up to Atlanta. It’s so hard to keep up with everyone now.”
I glanced back to check on the kids. Livvy was putting the coin in her pocket, then pulling it out, then putting it away again, and Nathan was snoozing.
“Now that I think about it, everyone who lived on Scranton Road has moved on to some place new, except for Nita and Gerald. Even Coleman’s moved to Magnolia Estates. That stunned everyone.”
“Why?”
“Well, he’d lived on Scranton Road forever. Ava died—oh, I believe it was about 1992.”
It always amazed me when people could pinpoint a date in their memory so exactly. Everything was moving so fast now in my life I usually had a hard time remembering what day of the week it was.
Dorthea continued. “He was devoted to her. Her death crushed him. She was delicate. Some folks said he spoiled her, but she wasn’t in the best of health and he took good care of her. I remember when he bought her a brand new car. That caused quite a stir. They drove up to Atlanta one weekend in their old car and came back with a shiny Bel Air.” Dorthea laughed. “He said it was a late Christmas present, but everyone said that car was really for Coleman because after that he drove her everywhere, even the grocery store.
“He was devastated when she died. He retreated to that house and didn’t do much for a couple of years. In fact, I think the whole town felt it. She was the quintessential southern lady. She had a Christmas tea at their house every year and the whole town was invited. She ran the volunteer program at the library and was a member of all the clubs—garden, bridge, the rose society. I don’t know how to describe it, but she had a spark, an excitement that could move people and she was always on some crusade or another. First it was the library. She did most of the fund-raising for that and then she was on to, let’s see, was it the campaign to plant trees and flowers at the entrance to North Dawkins or was that later? I can’t remember now, but she was always doing something.
“After she died, he didn’t run for mayor. He got a civil service job at Taylor and worked there. Never showed any interest in remarrying. And let me tell you, several of the ladies around here had their eye on him. If he’d so much as smiled at one of them, they would have had him marching down the aisle before he knew it. So everyone was as shocked as all get out when he moved to Magnolia Estates.”
She spent the rest of the drive describing the history of the various areas we drove through. It was interesting, but my thoughts were stuck on this nice-guy view of Coleman. Could a man who took care of his sickly wife murder someone?
We arrived at the store and I had to focus on checking off my list, but I was still contemplating those questions on the drive home. The Mylar balloons bumped around the ceiling of the car, which delighted Livvy and Nathan. I debated about asking Dorthea another question. Finally, I shifted so that I could see her better.
“Do you think Coleman had anything to do with William Nash’s death?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Why are you asking about him?” she asked, cutting a quick glance at me.
“Well.” I took a deep breath. “I think Jodi was researching Nash and if she uncovered something about Coleman being involved, then perhaps…” I trailed off.
Dorthea was shaking her head. “Coleman’s not like that. He has a don’t-rock-the-boat kind of personality. A stickler for rules. You know what he’s like with the HOA. I can’t imagine he’d ever be able to go that far outside of normal actions.”
“But if he’s racist, if those are his norms, then he might have seen killing Nash as acceptable.”
Dorthea shook her head, one decisive shake. “That’s about as likely as Coleman approving Bridget Sanders’s request to build a backyard playhouse and paint it hot pink. I’m telling you, there are some things that just wouldn’t happen.”
I propped my elbow on the armrest and leaned my head on my hand. “Well, was there anyone else around that time that you can think of who might have wanted to hurt Nash? Or any black man to make a point?”
“What point was there to make?”
“Wasn’t Nash organizing a march to support the Montgomery Bus Boycott? Scott Ezell told me that was why Nash was lynched. To make a point about desegregation.”
Dorthea turned the wheel and we glided past the pond and fountain at the neighborhood entrance. “Now that you mention it, I do remember something like that making the rounds. Just whispers, but it doesn’t sound like William. He was a very quiet man and didn’t put himself forward. I can’t see him leading anything.”
“But the lynching was common knowledge, right?”
“There were whispers, but that’s all I remember. North Dawkins certainly wasn’t a hotbed of desegregation feelings.”
“There weren’t any other incidents?”
“No,” she said derisively. “Unlike the image
some people have of the South, the KKK didn’t exist in every town.”
A balloon floated forward and I batted it back to the backseat, which set Livvy and Nathan to giggling. They were so engrossed in the balloons that they weren’t paying any attention to the conversation in the front seat.
“People here might not have liked desegregation, but no one was foolish enough to dress up in sheets and burn crosses.”
Maybe the lack of information in the news archives at the library was not because news had been suppressed, but because there really wasn’t any news? Then why was Nash killed?
“Don’t turn here.” I realized we were about to turn onto our street. “Go around the back way and drop us off on the gravel path.”
“Let’s take a peek.” Dorthea eased the car into the turn. “Well, look at that.” The street was empty except for the normal scattering of a few parked cars.
“What happened?”
Dorthea smiled. “I think Nita decided that she should have a press conference this afternoon about the search tomorrow.”
I heard the garage door go up and I met Mitch in the kitchen. He parked his rolling suitcase, put down his flight bag, and kissed me. “Kids asleep?”
“Yes, even Livvy,” I said.
“And the media siege is over?” he asked.
I relaxed into his arms, glad to have him back. “Yes, Nita called a press conference this afternoon and they haven’t been back. I don’t know what’s keeping them busy, but I’m glad they’re not here.”
“We could turn on the news and find out.”
“No, I’ve had enough of that for today. I have a better idea. How about a date?”
Mitch looked over my shoulder. “Do you have the sitter hidden around here?”
“No.” I took his hand and pulled him into the living room. “Since we can’t seem to get out of the house for a date, I thought we’d have one here.” I’d spread a tablecloth over the coffee table and tossed big pillows on the floor. “You know that new Chinese place we’ve been wanting to go to? I’ve got takeout,” I said as I lit the taper candles in the new candlesticks. “We can eat in here while we watch a movie. Unless you’re too tired?” Sometimes the time zone changes wiped him out after a trip.