by C. J. Lyons
“Violence?”
“None so far. The police have things fairly well contained so far, but—”
“But TK can take care of herself. You know that.”
“Yeah, but—”
Lucy smiled. She liked David—he was such a stabilizing force for TK. She really hoped they stayed together. But last thing she was going to do was meddle in TK’s love life or let David interfere with TK’s career.
She and Nick had had to figure out their own give and takes, balancing her career with the FBI and the needs of their relationship and family. It had taken work and heartache and a fair amount of tears and shouting before they found their path. No way in hell was she about to tell anyone else how to live their lives.
“David,” she cut in before he could say something he’d regret. “Are you asking me to pull TK off a case and send someone else to do the job because you’re worried?”
There was a long pause before he answered. “No. Of course not.” Even with his traumatic brain injury and inability to express emotion with his voice—tonal agnosia, Nick had said it was called—she felt his misery. “I’d never ask you to do that.”
She glanced back to the living room. The family was now huddled together. Maybe it was time to leave them to their private grieving.
“Tell you what. How about if I join TK in Greer tomorrow? Not to take over her case, just to check in.”
“Thanks, Lucy. I knew I could count on you. Oh,” he hesitated, “do me a favor.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell TK you called. See you soon.”
A few minutes later she and Valencia had made their farewells and were back in the Subaru heading toward Beacon Falls. It’d felt that the family was as glad to get rid of them as Lucy was glad to be leaving.
“Maybe it would have been better coming from you,” she told Valencia as they left the interstate and turned onto Route 22.
“Why, because I’m black?”
“Because you’re older, more comforting.” Lucy paused, felt her pulse finally begin to settle back into its familiar rhythm. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been throughout the day—her body felt as if it had survived an attack. “Okay. To be honest, yes, also because you’re black. They just seemed so angry. I get that. If anything ever happened to Megan—”
Anything had almost happened to her Megan. Twice now. Lucy had pretty much gone berserker on the men who had threatened her family. Her rage had also spilled over onto the well-intentioned but too slow, too objective, too rational, including her own FBI team, who’d stood in her way.
“Anger is an important part of the grieving process,” Valencia reminded her, once again sounding just like Nick. “People need to vent their fury. Far worse if they try to keep it inside.”
“So I gave them an easy target to lash out at.” She could accept that. When her mother had died earlier that year, Lucy’s own grief hadn’t just gnawed at her. It had grown fangs and claws and threatened to shred her apart. “That doesn’t bother me. I understand it. But there was more. What she said, about Benji’s case taking so long to solve because he was black… You don’t believe that, do you?”
She hated the doubt that crept into her tone. Lucy knew the work she’d put in on Benji’s case—even when it wasn’t officially her case—and never once had she made him a lower priority because he was black. At least, that’s what she wanted to believe. “I mean…fourteen years. It’s a long time to wait with no answers.”
Valencia shifted in her seat, her fingers fluttering to smooth imaginary wrinkles from her already flawless silk dress. “Do I think if Benji had been a white girl, all pigtails and smiles, he might have gotten justice sooner, then yes. I do.”
Lucy was surprised. She’d been expecting Valencia to assuage her guilt. Hell, she wasn’t even sure why she felt guilty in the first place. “Really?”
“Really.” She shrugged. “I’ve been doing this longer than you. Missing persons. Families with no place else to turn to for answers. And if you run the numbers, look at the case files and how zealously they were pursued, glance at the amount of media attention, the odds are against a family like Benji’s. Not just because he was black. Also because he was a boy, he lived in a rural area with limited resources—”
“Smitty did the best he could. He never gave up.” Lucy felt obligated to defend the deceased detective.
“Obviously his best wasn’t good enough. Not for the Randalls. Not for those other boys who came after Benji.”
“Those other boys, they’re what led me to Wilson. Smitty didn’t have access to that information.”
“You mean he didn’t look beyond his own patch. You were the one who looked wider, who realized that Wilson might go after the same type of boy but was smart enough not to keep looking so close to home.” Or in Benji’s case, work—Wilson had been a traveling school photographer.
“Basic geographic profiling,” Lucy muttered. “Just because Smitty didn’t have training in it doesn’t make him incompetent or racially biased.”
“Of course not. It makes him human. As humans, we’re prone to take the easy way out. Especially if we’re overworked, underpaid detectives with a desk full of families like the Randalls hounding us for answers.”
“Benji’s case haunted Smitty until the day he died.” As it would probably still haunt her. The look in Jennifer Randall’s eyes—stricken was the only word Lucy could think to describe it. No. Shattered. Her world hopelessly broken by two strangers ringing her doorbell on a sunny summer day.
Chapter Eighteen
May 17, 1954
* * *
Officer Thomson reappeared, his uniform shirt torn, nameplate and a few buttons ripped away. In his hand was a shotgun. “Bought us some time. Won’t have to worry until Mabel gets to the chief, and he brings his keys. Henry doing okay?”
“Good as can be expected,” Samuel answered. “Help me move him to the car, and we’ll be out of here.” Not a moment too soon.
The door at the far end of the hall opened with a clatter. Samuel glanced up, expecting to see Jo waving at him to hurry. Instead it was the white girl, tugging Maybelle inside, hugging the wall as if afraid of being seen.
“Philip’s father,” Winnie said, her voice strangled with fear. “He and his friends. A whole bunch of them.”
“They hit Mommy!” Maybelle cried, racing down the hall to Samuel. “Called her bad names. Those men, they’re mean. Why did they hurt Mommy?”
Samuel’s first instinct was to run down the hall and out the door, do whatever it took to get to Jo. But Maybelle clung to his legs, a weight he couldn’t deny.
He pulled her up into his arms, one hand wiping her tears, while his mind fought to make sense of the insanity that had engulfed them. All he could keep thinking was that this was Pennsylvania, not Georgia. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen here.
Fool, he cursed himself. Men were men. And they were always going to hate, never going to change. No one cared what the Supreme Court said—it was all just lies and empty promises. There was no equality. Not in this country. Not for men like Samuel or boys like Henry or a girl like Maybelle.
“You can’t let them take her,” he told Thomson, surprising himself with the menace chained within his voice. “We have to stop them.”
Instead of answering, Thomson rushed past him to the end of the hall, securing the door and snapping down blinds over the windows. He turned to face Samuel. “There’s at least a dozen out there, and they’re armed. Winnie. Tell me the truth. What did Henry do to you?”
She backed away, eyes on the floor, shoulders hunched like a beaten animal. “Nothing. He didn’t do nothing.”
“Then why does your father and Philip Greer think he did?”
“Henry didn’t do nothing.” She jerked her chin up, defiance snapping her posture straight. “I did. This time Daddy had a knife. I was scared, so scared. I thought he would kill me for sure. But Henry heard me screaming and came—even though Daddy could ki
ll him easy, he’s so much bigger. He distracted Daddy, gave me time to run, then he ran, too. Daddy couldn’t keep up, he just stumbled and fell, right there in the dirt. And Henry and me, we, we were laughing so hard, it felt so good, and I—I kissed him.”
“You let a colored boy kiss you in front of your father? And Philip Greer saw as well?”
“No. He didn’t kiss me. I kissed him. It wasn’t Henry’s fault. He got scared, grabbed my hand, and we kept running. But then Philip and his friends caught up.”
Silence thudded through the narrow space as Samuel met Thomson’s gaze. Winnie and Henry were just kids. Of course, they should have known better, but…
“They’re gonna kill him,” Thomson said.
“No,” Winnie cried. “They can’t. You have to stop them. He didn’t do anything wrong. It was me, my fault.”
Thomson’s lips thinned as his eyes moved from Winnie to Maybelle and then, finally, to Samuel. They were under siege. It was clear Thomson had already sacrificed his job, would maybe even go to prison for his actions if Winnie’s father decided to press charges. Henry might still die if Samuel didn’t get him to a hospital for proper care. How much was Samuel willing to lose?
“They have my wife,” Samuel said. “She’s no part of this. She can’t be a part of this. Neither can my daughter.”
That was his price. He could give up about anything. Including his freedom. As long as Jo and Maybelle lived.
Chapter Nineteen
After asking Madsen to keep her updated, TK joined Grayson out in the garage where he was prattling about dahlias, peonies, glittering silver fish, and crackling chrysanthemums.
“This is going to be spectacular,” he told her, proudly patting the stacked crates of fireworks. “Wait and see.”
“How about if we focus on finding out who our Officer A. T. is?”
“Sure, sure. C’mon, follow me.” He waved to the police officers, none of whom looked up or acknowledged his presence, then led her back outside.
They crossed the street to the police department’s rear entrance. Grayson fished a badge from his pocket and swiped it into the security lock, then pulled the door open for TK.
There were two sidelights on either side of the door, both crossed with bars, creating a strange spider-web effect where the afternoon sun cast its shadow on the linoleum floors. The hall was narrow with a old-fashioned holding cell on one side, empty despite the protests out front. TK wondered if that spoke to the restraint of the Greer police department or simply a lack of manpower.
“This way,” Grayson said, leading her past a small break room to an unmarked door. He opened it and a wave of musty, damp air assailed them. “It’s not so bad, you get used to it.”
He switched on a light, and they carefully made their way down rickety wooden steps. The basement was much larger than the narrow police station and TK realized that the storage space extended beneath the courthouse as well. “The oldest records are back here.”
She followed him to the farthest corner, dodging sagging bookshelves stacked with bound volumes stained with mouse droppings. “How can you find anything in this maze?”
“Used to play down here all the time when I was a kid and Dad brought me with him to work,” Grayson said in a cheerful tone. “Mom died of cancer when I was little, so it was always just me and him. And the judge, of course. My grandfather.”
Right. Because a rat-infested, toxic mold-infected basement was the perfect place for a child to play. TK shook her head. No wonder Grayson had turned out the way he had.
“Okay. I think these will probably be our best bet.” He stopped at a worktable beside a wide file cabinet with thin drawers, the kind libraries use to store maps or documents that had to remain flat.
“What’s in here?”
“Photographs.” He opened one of the drawers, releasing a tangled nest of yellowed black and white photos and film negatives. “If we can’t find him here or with the tax records, we’ll check the library. But any photos they have would be copies from here; these are the main archives, so I figure this is our starting point.”
She glanced at the file cabinet. There had to be over two dozen drawers—and another cabinet just like it on the other side of the table. “Are they in any order?”
“Kinda.” He didn’t sound very certain.
TK closed the drawer he’d chosen from the middle of the cabinet and instead opened the top one. She scooped out its contents onto the table and turned on the gooseneck lamp. Thankfully the bulb was good and strong.
“Anything from 1940 to 1960 that has names that might fit keep, the rest goes back into the drawer. Anything you’re not sure of, give it to me.”
He nodded and they waded in. As they worked, TK called Wash and updated him.
“Police officer, initials A. T. Got it.” As always, the sound of computer keys clicking served as background noise.
“Any luck with the car?” she asked.
“Those pictures you sent are a huge help—I edited out any of the gory details and uploaded them to a bunch of classic car fan sites. There’s one called the Horseless Carriage Foundation that looks particularly helpful. Oh, and Mopar, the car parts dealer; they have scanned all of their catalogues, so I’m running a search for the serial numbers.”
She made a grunting noise of acknowledgement, knowing that Wash wouldn’t need more encouragement. She and Grayson quickly plowed through the first drawer—it was all from the 1990s and early 2000s, probably the end of the department using real film for its archives—and moved on to the next.
“Did you get a good look at the hood ornament?” Wash continued. “From a distance it looks like an angel with its wings folded back, but up close it’s a ram with elongated horns curling around. Anyway, I’m working on some leads to narrow in on a possible dealership. No luck with the DC registration records; those are long gone, but maybe I can find out where it was bought. It’ll be a start.”
“And we’re now looking for missing persons reports of three African-Americans. Adult male, adult female, and a teenaged or pre-teen boy.”
“As in, you think there’s a whole family gone? No, can’t be. I would have seen a report like that. Even though the paper police records are pretty much gone, there’d have been something in the newspapers, right?”
Grayson glanced up from his work, and she remembered he hadn’t heard about the victims in the trunk. Now that he knew, his dad would soon as well. Nothing the mayor could do about it—and Madsen worked for the county, not Mayor Greer, so even if Greer could silence TK, he couldn’t silence the coroner.
“David said to try personal ads,” TK told Wash. “Said back then people used them when they were looking for family members they lost touch with.”
“Good idea. I already have access to all the scanned newspapers, I can focus on the African-American ones. Which, by the way, have a much more robust database and search engine than the police archives. Just saying…”
His disapproval at the slipshod police record-keeping wasn’t new. Almost every cold case they had, they had to overcome the simple fact that not everyone hoarded data the way Wash wished they would.
Suddenly Grayson jerked around, thrusting an eight-by-ten in front of TK. “Look. 1953 Greer Police softball team.” He flipped it over. “Second baseman, Officer Archibald Thomson. That’s him. Has to be.”
She flipped it back, squinted at the man in the center of his teammates. Not a whole lot to distinguish him as far as looks, but what they really needed was demographic information. “Find me more.”
Grayson plunged back into the pile of photos.
“Wash, we think we’ve just ID’d one of our victims. Officer Archibald Thomson. Can you see what you can find on him? Date of birth, when he was last seen, any mentions.”
“Sure, but you know I won’t be much help on the real question, right?”
“Yeah. How the hell did he end up in a car belonging to someone from DC at the bottom of a quarry?”
&
nbsp; “And why didn’t anyone in his own department report him as missing?”
Chapter Twenty
TK called Karlan with what they’d found. A few minutes later he called back from the courthouse. “Got him. Last paycheck issued May, 1954. Nothing in the records at all after that—no sick leave, no vacation, no paychecks, just a note that he never picked up his final check. As far as the paper trail, it’s like he jumped off the face of the earth.”
“Or the side of a quarry,” she added in a grim tone.
“If you don’t need anything else, I’m headed back to my office—still have work to do on my current cases before I can head home.”
“Thanks, Karlan. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.” She hung up and turned back to Grayson, who’d managed to unearth a few more photos of Thomson, including one that showed a good, full-face image. She scanned them with her phone and sent them to Wash and Madsen.
“Don’t suppose there’s any way to access Thomson’s case files?” she asked, turning to look around the shadowy basement.
Somewhere in this detritus of a police department’s bygone years, there would be citation books, arrest reports, duty logs—evidence of what Thomson had been working on before he ended up in the quarry.
Grayson shook his head mournfully. “Not that I know of. I’ve been through a lot of this stuff, trying to catalogue and organize it for my dad, but I don’t remember seeing anything from 1954.”
“It was a long shot. Not that a patrol officer would have kept much in the way of files. Besides, he may never have had a chance to put anything in writing.”
Still, it would have been nice to flesh out Thomson’s character. Was he a good cop? Back in the fifties organized crime still ran gambling and protection rackets, not to mention union-busting and moonshining. Any of which could have gotten Thomson killed, good cop or not.