Did Robert Jackson have a split personality? she wondered. She stopped paging through the notebook, frowning. Was this where it started? With Robert? It made sense. She believed Wayne Williams suffered from a similar split personality. Were these journal entries written in the different script made by Robert’s alternate personality?
She flipped the page, venturing into a portion of the journal she hadn’t looked through, and something there on the page stopped her. Her heart froze in her chest as she read what was written there.
I killed them all.
The words came out of nowhere. He’d been describing the scene at Pastor Marcus’s murder, his flight from the church, and his subsequent meeting with the derelict in the Civil War uniform, and then those four cryptic words.
I killed them all.
Carmen stared at the words. Could this be Robert Jackson’s confession? There was one other entry after that. It answered her question. Carmen felt chills race across her flesh as she read this last entry.
September 2, 1911
Bitch last night tasted fine and sweet. She was so wet inside I creamed her all up in there and I drank her down, tasted her juices and mine all mingled together and then I cut a piece of her woman parts off and took it home, fried it like bacon this morning and ate it and it was very good and I put her tit in newspaper and have it in the icebox I will have some tonight because that’s what he wants its what I want its what she wants and she wants me to go for more, get some more of them half-breed hussies get more and I will go get more of that tonight and let him out let him out let him out-
Heart racing, Carmen reached for the hardcopies of her notes and began paging through them. She ran her finger along the page of murder victims of 1911 and came across an entry for September 1. A woman named Wanda Rutledge, found eviscerated in a dark corner of Fir Street and Lime in the Old Fourth Ward. Her murder had been reported in the Atlanta Constitution the following morning. What wasn’t reported was the coroner’s report that the victim’s left breast, uterus, and vagina had been severed and taken by the killer.
Robert Jackson was the Atlanta Ripper, she thought. But who is the “she” he’s referring to in that entry?
Her cell phone rang, jarring her out of her thoughts. She looked at the number on the display screen. It was coming from a Herman Alexander - the professor she’d been trying to get in touch with at the University of Georgia.
“Hello,” Herman Alexander said, his voice rich and deep. “I’d like to speak with Carmen Mendoza please.”
“Speaking,” Carmen said, setting her notes aside. She could hardly contain her enthusiasm as she made plans to see Herman Alexander the next day in her hopes to solve one more piece of this puzzle, namely that rare volume on voodoo she’d had photocopied from the library - Yoruba Magic in Georgia. Her assistant at the paper had done the necessary research and found out that Herman Alexander was the last person to have had access to that book. As much as she was having a hard time with the voodoo aspects of this case, she felt it imperative to follow up on it. She only hoped it would provide the knowledge she needed.
TWENTY-SEVEN
September 2, 2011, Atlanta
Dr. Herman Alexander was a big man. Standing a good six feet, five inches and as wide as a house, when Carmen entered his cluttered office space in the humanities building on the University of Georgia’s Atlanta campus, he conveyed warmth and good cheer. He was in his late sixties, with dark skin and a full beard that was pure white. He was dressed casually in blue jeans and a tan button-down shirt. His wooly hair was unkempt and also pure white. His eyes were warm and inviting.
His voice matched his imposing size; it was a deep bass rumble, booming, yet warm and friendly. “Ms. Mendoza. So good to meet you.” His hand engulfed hers as they shook. “Please excuse the mess. I’m preparing for the upcoming semester.”
“Not a problem, sir.”
“What can I do for you?” Dr. Alexander asked. He beckoned for Carmen to sit in one of the chairs by his desk.
Carmen scooted over and sank into the chair, which was old and worn. The chair next to it was piled with books.
“You asked me about that book from the Atlanta Public Library’s Special Collections room. Yoruba Magic in Georgia?”
“Yes,” Carmen said. “I found it about a month ago during some research. The library said that it had last been checked out back in nineteen-eighty-one by a university professor. That’s how I was able to find you.”
Dr. Alexander smiled. “Very persistent.”
Carmen smiled back. It had taken the intern she had for the summer, a tall, bespectacled, skinny White girl named Amy Williamson, most of the past week to track Dr. Alexander down. Carmen had Amy call every college in the greater Atlanta area, focusing on professors who specialized in religious studies, American and African American history, and anthropology. Dr. Alexander was a tenured professor of history at the University of Georgia.
“May I ask what your interest in Yoruba magic is?” Dr. Alexander asked.
“Voodoo, specifically.”
“Voodoo as it relates to African Americans in the United States?”
“Yes,” Carmen nodded. “Specifically, I want to learn more about the author of the book. Do you know who wrote it?”
“There’s no formal record on who authored that particular volume,” Dr. Alexander began. “But I have it on good authority that it was a man by the name of Daniel Weber, who was an occult scholar of some repute.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” Dr. Alexander paused momentarily. “He later fell into some foul business with a cult out in California while researching them. This would have happened much later, in the early 1920s. Yoruba Magic in Georgia was his first publication.”
“If he wrote it, why didn’t he cop to authorship?”
“I’m not sure. I can only speculate. I understand Mr. Weber was very secretive while he was researching that other cult in California too. He approached both subjects - Yoruba magic and the group in California - with great care and reverence. From what I understand, he wasn’t afraid of Yoruba magic or its various offshoots in any way. In fact, later he investigated and wrote about Haitian and New Orleans voodoo, Macumba, Santeria, and visited with Marie Laveau’s daughter in 1892, just a few years before she died. The younger Laveau was said to be just as powerful as her mother.”
“In his book, he mentions a woman named Sable,” Carmen said. “Did he ever meet with her?”
At the mention of Grandma Sable, Dr. Alexander’s demeanor changed. The smile went away. The laughter in his eyes became darker, narrowed in suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”
“I told you over the phone that I’m a journalist,” Carmen said. “I’m working on a story about Sable’s influence in the Old Fourth Ward. The few people I’ve talked to, who remember her, seem very afraid of her even after-”
“They have every right to be. That woman let something out!” Dr. Alexander stopped suddenly, as if realizing he’d said too much. He looked flustered. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to leave.”
“You researched that book for a reason, Dr. Alexander, and I’m not leaving until you tell me why.”
“It’s too late for that!” Dr. Alexander barked at her. “I know it’s started it up again. I read the papers. The Lust Killer they’re calling it this time. Fourteen young women and girls, all biracial like you. The papers say he was caught, but that’s not enough. The killings will continue. You are watching out for yourself on the streets, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am,” Carmen said, stunned by this sudden reversal of behavior in Dr. Alexander. “And what do you mean by ‘that’s what they’re calling it this time’?”
Dr. Alexander regarded her from across his massive desk. “You’re a smart woman. I can see that. This story you’re working on ... it led you to that book, and that led you to me. You’re researching Sable, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I need to know more about her.” Carmen leane
d forward. “What happened to her? What was it about her that still causes so much fear in people?”
“You’ve talked to others about her?”
“Yes.” Carmen nodded. “An old man who still lives in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood. He lives across the street from a home owned by a succession of White folks since 1925 or so ... only as far as I can tell, those people never lived in that house. Sable lived there. For some reason, they let her live there. Why would they do that?”
“Her power,” Dr. Alexander said, shaking his head. “She could use that power to great will. When she regained her strength following her near death in 1901, the family that employed her for so long, they let her live in that house. That neighborhood was brand new in the 1920s.”
“But why did they let her live there? And how could ... how could all those changes of ownership ... how could people who didn’t even know her just let her live there like that?”
“Do you practice Yoruba magic?”
Carmen shook her head. “No. Do you?”
Dr. Alexander grinned slightly. “My seeking that book at the library was due to my faith. I am a houngan. You are aware of that term?”
Carmen nodded again. “A houngan is like a priest. A voodoo holy man.”
“That is correct. I am a houngan asogwe - I am the highest member of clergy in my group, which consists of a broad spectrum of people in the city of Atlanta, from all walks of life. It’s my role to preserve rituals and maintain the relationships between the spirits and our community, as well as lead our religious services. There’s more than that though - a houngan also acts as a faith healer. Vodun is a benign religion. Our people used it to help each other. For protection. You understand?”
Carmen was excited. Dr. Alexander was an expert. If he didn’t have the answers, those answers probably no longer existed. “How long have you been practicing it?”
“Well over thirty years,” Dr. Alexander said. He focused on Carmen from across the desk. “Vodun, or Voodoo as it is usually called, is an Afro-Caribbean religion,” Dr. Alexander explained. “Elements of it were brought over by African slaves. It flourished throughout the American south in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, especially among the French Caribbean slaves. That is the branch of voodoo I practice, what is called New Orleans voodoo. It’s more an Americanized version. There is Haitian voodoo, which is similar. There is Santeria, which is more rooted within the Afro-Caribbean-Hispanic community. It figures very heavily in Florida, especially Miami, as well as the southern border of Texas and into Mexico. What they all have in common is they share roots with the old Yoruba religion. You read about this in the Weber volume?”
Carmen nodded. “I know it took elements of Christianity - specifically Catholicism - as part of its base.”
“Do you know what a bokor is?”
Carmen frowned. “No.”
“A bokor is like a houngan, but they are also sorcerers. This is what sets them apart from houngans. They are often for hire and are said to serve the loa with both hands. This means they practice both dark magic and light magic. Both houngans and mambos can be bokors.”
“What’s a mambo?”
“A female houngan.”
Carmen saw where this was going. “Sable was a mambo? A bokor?”
Dr. Alexander nodded, his features pensive. “Yes - and no. She wasn’t a bokor in the traditional sense because it can mean different things in different pantheons of voodoo. But for our purpose, yes, she was a bokor. She played both hands, working with Baron Samedi, Kalfou, and Legba.”
“Who are they?”
Dr. Alexander dismissed Carmen’s question. “Loas. If you want a crash course in voodoo, I suggest you take my course on the subject. Regardless, Sable became the most feared slave throughout Georgia, throughout the South for that matter. She had such power over the loas that even Marie Leaveau was said to be afraid of her.”
Carmen wasn’t interested in hearing about why Grandma Sable had gone completely over to the dark side of this old African religion. The hatred that had been burned into her had no doubt been done courtesy of her White masters. And what happens to one who is constantly and systematically abused for years? What happens to a dog that is abused and tortured? It strikes back and attacks its abusers.
“Dr. Alexander, does the term, the Fury mean anything to you?”
Dr. Alexander’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why?”
Carmen was thinking out loud, trying to connect the dots. “I spoke to the Atlanta Child Murderer Wayne Williams. He said when he was a kid, he knew Sable. All the kids knew her. He said she was a calming presence to them but that she spoke of something she called the Fury. He said she seemed to speak of it with pain and regret. Some of my research into this led me all the way back to 1911, to the Atlanta Ripper case. Are you familiar with that?”
Dr. Alexander nodded. “Of course.”
“I came across some old files in the archives of the Atlanta Constitution, where I work. I found what appears to be an old notebook kept by one of the civilian investigators. A man named Robert Jackson. You know about the civilian investigators, right?”
“Sure,” Dr. Alexander said. “Negro detectives. They weren’t formally deputized. The police chief at the time thought they could get more information on a suspect by using African American detectives.”
“Right.” Carmen nodded. “I skimmed through it last night. He talks about the same thing - the Fury.”
“So?”
“Daniel Weber only refers to Sable by the name given to her by her slave owners way back before the Civil War,” Carmen continued. “But after the Civil War, during Emancipation, many African Americans took on the names of their slave masters. Of course those who knew her probably continued to just call her Sable. But I’m willing to bet she was given a last name, a proper American last name, the name of her slave owners. Do you know what it was?”
Dr. Alexander hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “I know. I found out shortly after I learned about her from that book. I knew about her even as a child, you see. I come from a long line of houngans. I was raised within the voodoo religion. My father was a houngan, as was my grandfather. Sable’s name … was spoken with much reverence and fear in our household. But when I became of age and assumed the title of houngan, I learned more.” He regarded her from across his large desk. “Much more.”
“So you know the Fury is her curse?”
Dr. Alexander nodded. “And myself, my father, and my grandfather ... we’ve all tried to stop it. I almost died trying to stop it.” He paused briefly, eyes downcast. “Others have died trying to stop it.”
“What was her name?”
Dr. Alexander looked at her. “Jackson. She took the last name of Jackson back in 1871. The Jacksons owned a large plantation north of here. She had been sold to them shortly before the war ended. Unlike her former slave owners, they treated her fairly well in comparison.” He shrugged. “No beatings. No rapes. Nothing ... too bad.”
“Did she have children?” Carmen asked, already putting two and two together.
“Several,” Dr. Alexander said. “Most were born in the 1820s. They were all sold. But in 1842 she had a son that she was allowed to keep. Twenty years later, after slavery ended, her son and his woman had a child, a girl. Her name was Tonya. After the war, Sable went with her son and his family to work at the Jackson plantation. That’s when they all took the Jackson family name. When Tonya grew up, she went to work for a large plantation in Cobb County run by the Jeremiah family. By then Tonya had become a mother - she had a boy named Robert.”
I knew it, Carmen thought, feeling everything start to click together.
“Tonya and Robert lived on the plantation. By then Sable was living in a shack at the edge of Cobb County. She didn’t work the plantations anymore, but she was well known to the servants in other ways. You see, she had never given up the old ways. She still made her sacrifices to Baron Samedi, to Orisha, to Legba.”
Carmen nodded at Dr. Alexander to continue.
Dr. Alexander sighed and shook his head. He looked uneasy, almost fearful. Carmen had grown used to seeing that look when Grandma Sable’s name came up. “Most of what I learned was from oral tradition,” he said. “I spent a lot of time talking to a houngan who had been involved in Vodun since 1929. He had been raised in the religion much like myself. His own father spoke very highly of Sable - they still called her that, you know. She never went by her slave name.”
“She was upset with her son and granddaughter for taking on the Jackson name,” Carmen said. “And she was probably forced into taking it on herself.”
“She was furious!” Dr. Alexander said, nearly hissing the word. “She was insane with rage, with anger, with hate. She had a great falling out with her family because of it. That’s why she left the plantation and went off to the woods to live in that shack. She had that built - I don’t know who did it for her, but if we take the power she had over people into consideration, I believe she had people in the community build it for her.”
“I have to ask you, Dr. Alexander. Her age. Born in 1799? Really? How is that possible?”
“I spoke of her power,” Dr. Alexander said. His eyes darted around the room as if he were nervous. “There’s something you need to know about bokors. They are usually chosen from birth when it is believed they bear a great ashe, or power. There is no information on Sable’s mother, but it is very likely her mother was a mambo, that she recognized that her daughter had a great ashe when she was just an infant and was thus chosen to be a bokor.”
“And that power was strong enough to give her such a long lifespan?”
“No, but Daniel Weber wrote about her ability to harness the dark side, to reach beyond the pantheons of voodoo.” Dr. Alexander paused for a moment, as if unsure how to continue. “This is only my opinion. I’ve never spoken to anyone of this, and if anybody comes around and asks me about it later, I will deny it and I will deny ever meeting with you. Is that clear?”
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