by Josh Thomas
“I had no idea this place existed. Look at how lush their fields are. That corn’s eight feet tall.”
“Such a luxurious green. Are you the Kent in Kentland?”
Kent bit his lip a second. “My Mom’s family.”
“She was a Tanqueray. My family used to eat at the Nu-Joy.”
“My great-great grandfather’s house. He was the Kent in Kentland.”
“These small towns must be deep in your bones.”
“They are. Welcome home, Jamie. Look at what you made of yourself, coming from this no-account swamp.”
Jamie chuckled. “What an odyssey. When I was eight, I promised myself I’d move to New York someday. And I did. Two decades later, I’m right back here.”
“Given the tragedy that took place, you’re the perfect guy to come back here and make justice.”
Jamie felt a wave of closeness, gratitude, respect; Kent supported him. “Let’s do it together.” The first houses appeared; some were rundown, others well-kept, with bright geraniums and ceramic geese arranged in the yard. There wasn’t much life around, though, no cars were parked in driveways.
Ahead of them rose a cloud of gravel dust. Kent slowed down, steered closer to the edge of the narrow road. A farmer, Black and aged, wearing a straw hat to protect himself from the sun, drove a tractor toward them. The two vehicles began to pass each other, and on impulse, Jamie waved big and slow to the farmer. Kent, cued, did it too.
The old man smiled and returned the big wave.
“Him,” Jamie pounced.
Kent looked in his rearview mirror. The farmer was turning down a lane on the Illinois side. Its ruts led to an old red barn; further south, well back from the road, was a large Victorian farmhouse, white with black shutters, sheltered by tall old maples and oaks. In the back was a huge willow tree.
Kent found an opening on the right, Parking Area 16, State of Indiana, pulled into it and turned around. He drove back to the farmer’s lane. The mailbox needed paint, but they made out the name WALKER. Kent eased the car over bumps and ruts, chose a wide spot to park.
Jamie jumped out of the car first. The farmer climbed down from the tractor, mopped his face with a faded red bandanna. He eyed Jamie and Kent. “Afternoon, Mr. Walker,” Jamie called, smiling, approaching slowly. Kent donned his trooper’s hat, then followed, hanging back a little, letting his partner lead.
“How ya doing, fellas?”
“I wonder if we could talk to you for a minute? My name is Jamie Foster. I’m from Morocco, and my relations have a farm outside Lake Village.” It was hot here again on the other side of the lake. Jamie deliberately employed Hoosiertalk.
“Foster?” Mr. Walker said, folding his handkerchief and stuffing it into the back pocket of his overalls.“I don’t rightly recall no Fosters.But then, I reckon I don’t get into town much. Or over to Lake Village neither. How much land they got?”
“A thousand acres. Corn, beans, hogs, and the Nowak Brothers’ Lime Service.”
“Nowak. Now lemme see.” He gazed at Jamie. “Yeah, I’ve run into Deed Nowak.”
“You’ve met my Unca Deed?” Jamie’s eyes shone.
“Nicest guy you could meet, heck of a farmer. I met his mama once, a fine lady.”
“She certainly was, sir,” Jamie choked. “She was my Grandmother.”
“And this here’s Deed’s nephew, don’t that beat all. What can I do for you boys?”
“Mr. Walker, we’re here on police business. This is Sergeant Kent Kessler of the Indiana State Police. We’re trying to find some information about a young White man who was killed over at the Slough. Found him not quite a week ago.”
“Yes, I remember that. Terrible. You boys thirsty? I shore am. Been out in that field since 6 o’clock this a.m.”
“That’d be real nice,” Kent smiled.
“Well, come on in, then,” Mr. Walker grinned. He turned toward the house. “Maw! Hey Maw! Comp’ny!”
They followed Mr. Walker up four well-trod back steps to the kitchen. Maw was a short, stoutish woman, gray hair neatly piled up on the back of her head, an old pair of dark-rimmed glasses slipping partway down her nose, a pink and yellow apron tied over a blue-print house dress. She smiled at the visitors, but it was her husband she talked to. “You ole hoss, I was wondering if you were ever coming out of that field. Child, you get over-heated, the next thing I know we’ll be finding you keelt over that old tractor and making me a widow. You best heed what the doctor told you now,old man.”To Kent, “You fellas want a cold drink?”
“With ice cubes!” Mr. Walker bellowed, heading for the bathroom.
“If it’s not too much trouble, ma’am,” Kent said, all teeth and smiley eyes. Jamie could see why he always got the Dillinger’s mother assignment. Mrs. Walker moved slowly to an old steel cabinet overhead, white-enameled, next to the sink. Her kitchen was immaculate. On an old white stove, a pot of fresh green beans simmered, smells mixing with the aroma of fatback. A beef roast was done to a turn. Huge red homegrown tomatoes were peeled, thick-sliced, juicy and piled high on a platter. Jamie briefly stared at them, his mouth watered. He smelled cornbread too.
He gave Mrs. Walker their names. Glancing over her shoulder, she nodded and smiled. She handed down glasses two at a time and put them on the counter. At the freezer, she pulled out a steel tray of ice, which she took to the sink. The tray had a handle on top, which she yanked up to free the cubes. The old tray looked like it wouldn’t budge, but she was stronger than it was. Jamie’s Grandma Clara had ice trays like that.
Mrs. Walker put big cubes into each glass, then returned to the refrigerator to find Pepsi-Colas. The refrigerator was so stuffed with her food, only an architect could have fit in more.
Mr. Walker re-entered; he’d washed his face and removed his outer shirt. Brown eyes, old and wise, surveyed Maw’s progress. “Sit down, boys, sit down,” he said, scraping out his chair at the steel and vinyl dinette in the middle of the room.
Mrs. Walker brought two glasses of cola, laid one in front of her husband and one in front of the police officer. She returned to her counter for the others.“Believe I’ll sit me down too, just for a minute.Now don’t mind me.” She sat down in her chair, but didn’t pull it up to the table with the men.
“Mrs. Walker, Mr. Walker, thank you for your hospitality. We’re sorry to intrude,” Jamie began. “I know you’ve got supper on the stove, ma’am, so we’ll just be a minute.”
“Land, child, don’t you never-mind. We’ve got plenty, and we’d be real happy if you could take a bite with us.”
“You’re very kind,” Jamie smiled. “I’m afraid we can’t, though. Sgt. Kessler has business in Rensselaer this evening. We’re going to have to miss that cornbread of yours. I hear it’s famous.”
She put her head back and chuckled. “Just ole cornbread, same as I’ve been making for sixty years. You’ve been talking again, ole man,” she teased her husband.
“Now Maw, they here on bidness,” Mr. Walker growled. “You heard the fella, this here’s police officers.”
“It is kind of you both to let us into your home,” Jamie said. “Ma’am, you keep a fine house.” Mrs. Walker smiled. Jamie took a sip of cola. “The reason we’re here has to do with a young White man whose body was found at the Slough a few days ago. Maybe you heard about it.”
Mrs. Walker folded her arms over her bosom, looked down, shook her head sadly. “Poor baby. Tsk-tsk-tsk. Lord have mercy on his poor suffering mama.”
The back door opened. A lithe young man in a white dress shirt, tie and gray dress slacks bounded into the room, suit jacket over his shoulder. He halted when he saw Kent and Jamie. “Mama? Daddy? What’s going on?”
“LeRoy, now, where are your manners? Who taught you to come into a room that way?” Mrs. Walker jumped up to make a drink for her son.
“Daddy? Is everything all right? What’s this about?” LeRoy hung his jacket on a hook next to the door, but he never took his eyes from the strangers.
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br /> “Now son, these officers is here concerning that young man was found over at the Slough a few days ago. They want to ask us some questions, now. You heard your Mama.”
LeRoy continued to watch Kent and Jamie as he headed to the sink, where his mother handed him an icy glass. He swallowed thirstily, then said, “How do you do?”
Jamie got up,approached LeRoy,hand outstretched.“Mr.Walker,I’m Jamie Foster. This is Sgt. Kent Kessler. We’re sorry to disturb your family. Nothing has happened, we’re only looking for some help.”
Kent stood. LeRoy shook hands with him too.
“Now will you let the man finish so’s we can eat?” his father demanded.
“How was the bank today, son?” Mrs. Walker inquired.
“Fine, Mama,” LeRoy replied softly. He was still watchful, but if his Mama said things were okay, they were okay.
“The body was found September 7th,” Kent said. “He had been there awhile before anybody found him. We think he might have been put there of an evening, maybe around the Labor Day weekend. We were just wondering if you remember seeing anything unusual around then. Did you happen to see anybody near the Slough that you thought looked a little out of place? Anybody who caught your eye or made you wonder?”
Mr. Walker rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Mrs. Walker cocked her head, trying to remember. LeRoy moved to study a calendar, advertising a Watseka grain elevator.
“Maw, what night was it you had me go investigate that there foreign car?”
“I’m not sure what night that was, Henry,” she said slowly. “LeRoy? You remember what night that was?”
Jamie asked, “What was the car doing that made you notice it?”
“Well now, Maw had seen it from the kitchen window there when she was finishing up the supper dishes. Driving up the road faster’n he oughten to, raising a big cloud of dust. And then coming back again. What for? Sometimes he’d stop over on the Slough side, pull into one of them parking areas, then turn around and go the other way.”
“Up and down. Up and down,” Mrs. Walker said. “Like he was looking for something but didn’t know what it was. If you miss the Slough sign, you miss it. If you’re southbound, Illinois don’t show you a Indiana park.”
Kent asked, “What kind of car was it?”
“Tuesday night. September the 6th,” LeRoy said, finger on the date.
Kent’s eyes met Jamie’s. Right time frame.
“Is that when it was, LeRoy?” his mother asked.
“Day after Labor Day, Mama,” LeRoy said emphatically. “Everybody came that day to get money or deposit their checks. We had the picnic the afternoon before at the lake.”
“With all the bank people,” Mrs. Walker told Jamie. “First Bank of Kankakee, yes sir. He invited them and everybody came, even though it’s little ole Hopkins Park.”
“You must be proud of him.” White people seldom ventured into the historic Black settlement.
Mrs. Walker beamed. “Assistant manager there at the mall.”
“Wow. Assistant manager already. Banking.”
“Don’t tell him I said so, but he’s a smart little fella. Put First Bank on the Internet, yes sir.”
Jamie knew what a huge achievement this was—not the Internet, but the family. “A college man?”
The farmer’s wife swelled even more. “Yes indeedy. Univers’ty of Illinois. Mr. Walker scrimped and saved for that boy.”
“Congratulations, all of you. What fantastic parents.” Mrs. Walker sat proud as a mother hen.
“Let’s see,” Mr. Walker said, rubbing his chin some more. “A brown car, pretty beat up. What’s the name of that foreign car, LeRoy? A Twyota? Yeah, Twyota. Ten years old at least. Maybe more.” LeRoy grinned slightly at Jamie. “Anyways, I was sitting in the front room there, watching the teevee. And then I seen him going up and down the other way. Looked like he’d go into the Slough, then five minutes later back out again, up and down. I didn’t like it. That’s why I noticed him, yes sir.” Mr. Walker nodded, certain of himself.
“Did you see who was driving it?” Kent asked. Jamie pulled his notebook out of his back pocket.
“Not right at first. After awhile we didn’t see him no more, and I got ready for bed. I was going to turn in when Maw here comes saying that little brown car done turned into our lane and was right out there, and I had to go see.”
“That’s right, now. What was that man doing here? I didn’t like it,” Mrs. Walker scowled.
“So I put on my overalls again, and LeRoy, you come in asking what I was getting dressed for, so…”
“So Daddy went out the back door to talk to the man, and I went out the front and circled around,” LeRoy finished. “I don’t want no White man tramping around here at 10 o’clock at night.” He looked at Kent, then Jamie. “I mean…”
“Absolutely right,” Kent said. “You have to protect your family.”
“Sometimes the hunters, they pull over and urinate on our property, right close to the house even, out there in public,” Mrs. Walker said. “Don’t give a care who sees ’em.”
“Did you get a look at the driver?” Jamie asked.
“We both did. Didn’t we, son?” Mr. Walker replied.
“We sure did, Daddy.”
“Could you describe the person?” Jamie pressed, pen in the air.
“Well, it was a White guy, like I said,” LeRoy began, glad the race thing was out of the way. “Maybe six feet or so? Medium build. In his mid30s, or late 30’s. Wearing Levi’s and a blue and gold tank top with a basketball. Brown hair. Just a regular White guy’s haircut. I don’t think he saw me in the dark.”
Jamie wrote, blue and gold tank top, hoops.
“Said he was lost, had a map out,” LeRoy’s father said. “I asked him could I help him find what he wanted, and he said no, he’d found it, he’d be moving on right now.”
“And Daddy, you waited till he did.”
“Stood out there in the driveway, trying to look stern, you know, even though I was in PJ’s under my overalls.” Mr. Walker chuckled. Then he grew serious again. “Don’t like strangers coming here late at night.”
Kent asked, “Did you see him well enough that you would recognize him if you saw him again?”
“Well, now. Yes sir, I think I might. I think I might.”
“LeRoy?” Jamie asked.
“I can do better than that,” he said with satisfaction. “I wrote down his license number. Now where did I put that paper?” He moved over to a kitchen drawer as Kent and Jamie exchanged glances. Kent got up to stand next to LeRoy.
“Child, is that the slip of paper I put in my special place?” Mrs. Walker asked. She told Jamie, “That’s where I always put my important papers.”
“Maybe, Mama.”
She got up, went into another room, returned with a white slip, handed it to her son. “Is this the paper you mean?”
LeRoy unfolded the note. “This is it, Mama, 49R 772. I even got the expiration date. And the date and time it happened.”
Jamie wrote the number down, 49, Marion County. The plate was purchased in Indianapolis. Kent asked LeRoy to sign the paper and give it to him; Kent gave him a receipt and pocketed the evidence. Jamie said, “What else should we be asking? Any other details you remember from that night? Any little thing.”
LeRoy declared, “That car stunk.”
His father looked at him. “Shore did. Don’t know how he could stand it. Like he was a hunter, ’cept he didn’t have a pickup. And it ain’t huntin’ season noway.”
Jamie asked evenly, “The smell of dead flesh?”
“Daddy, wouldn’t you say?”
“He had animals in there for three, four days afore he cleaned ’em.”
They had no other details; these were plenty. Kent handed his business card to Mr. Walker. “Sir, you’ve all been very helpful. We really appreciate it. It’s the good people like you who help us out and give us a chance to catch the bad guys. Now you call me if you think of anything
else. Or if you happen to see that car or that man again, you call the sheriff first thing, then you call me. Will you do it? It’s an 800 number, toll-free. It doesn’t cost anything. Will you do it?”
Mr. Walker took the card, studied it. “Sho’ nuff. You think he might be the one?” He stood, scratched his neck, gazed up at Kent.
“We don’t know, sir, but if he is, you’ve helped us so much. We have a lot more questions before we know anything, and I’ll be back to talk to you again, show you a photograph and ask if that’s the man. But you’ve been very helpful. All of you have,” Kent said, turning to face Mrs. Walker and LeRoy.
“Thank you all,” Jamie said. He shook hands with LeRoy, whose vibes had changed. Jamie smiled at him, and LeRoy smiled back.
Mrs. Walker held out her hand shyly; Jamie took hers in both of his. “We’ll let you get back to that good supper, ma’am.”
“I wish you could stay. We’ve got plenty. Man needs to eat regularly.”
“You’re so kind.”
She reached toward her husband. “Now here, Henry, you give me that card. I’ve got a safe place for it.”
“I’ll see you to your car,” LeRoy said, following Kent and Jamie down the back steps. Kent went on ahead, studying tire tracks; LeRoy fell into step beside Jamie.
This was pleasant. A stand of gladiolus was colorful in the late-summer air. LeRoy seemed to want to say something. Jamie glanced at him. LeRoy was smiling, but he was watching the behind of the officer in front of them.
“Oh,” Jamie grinned.
“Oh ain’t the half of it, you dog. Look at that hot bod.” LeRoy growled like a cat, then whispered, “I don’t know how you did it, but that is the handsomest cop since Erik Estrada.” Then he held back. “But I do know how you did it. You are the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen.”
Jamie chuckled, they went on to the car. “Where did he park?” Kent said. LeRoy showed him. Kent crouched, studied the ground. “Between the rain and the tractor, this is a waste of time. We’ve got the plate number anyway.”
Then Mrs. Walker came out carrying napkins and two paper plates. “Would you eat a tomato sandwich? If I’d’a known, I’d have fried up some bacon.”