“Edna say how she found out?”
“Not really.” Collins shook his head. “Always a phone call from somebody who passed by or heard some noises or something like that. You know Edna. She’s getting old. Sometimes she gets things mixed up. Heck, we’re lucky she remembers anything at all.”
“So this makes four,” Montgomery said.
“In six weeks. You ain’t tired of autopsies yet, are you?”
Montgomery stood motionless, Collins to his right, and looked down at the corpse. He wished he had stayed home, chatted with Travis, and had a leisurely breakfast. Instead, here he was, staring at another body that offered few clues as to what might have happened or what he should do next.
“Somebody said they saw Travis get back late last night,” Collins said, not taking his eyes off the body.
“Yeah, when I left the house this morning, he was still in bed,” Montgomery said, looking up at Collins who stood a couple of inches taller.
“What’s he going to do this fall?”
“What everybody else does: pray for the price of cotton to go up.”
“What about after that?”
Montgomery shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I don’t know, but he better be making money or making progress. One of the two.”
The coroner moved away from the sheriff and began to circle the body. They had done this so often lately it was routine.
“Well, we know it wasn’t an act of passion over a card game or a woman,” Montgomery said, not bothering to look at Collins. “Of course, neither were the other ones. Looks like our killer spent some time making the victim pay for whatever he did. The mutilation is extensive, a real mess.”
“And nobody called me about coming out to watch a lynching,” Collins said, only somewhat kiddingly.
“Frank, if this had been a lynching, you know the perpetrators would still have been standing around patting each other on the back when I got here,” Montgomery said. They both smiled uneasily because it was true.
Montgomery leaned over and opened the coroner’s bag he had brought with him. He took out a pencil, a notebook, and two sample jars. He continued to study the body and look for any clues while Collins leaned back against the tree and puffed away at another unfiltered cigarette. He’d need the final report for Sam Tackett, the district attorney, as soon as Ruth could have it typed up. Eventually, the sheriff, the coroner, and the district attorney would meet to discuss the findings and develop a course of action for this and the three previous homicides.
“Recognize him?” Collins said.
“No,” Montgomery said. He assumed that, like the other victims, this one had drifted into Clarksdale looking for day work in the fields. If someone wanted to work, this was the time to do it in the Delta. This victim may or may not have found work, but he certainly found the fastest way out of the Delta. Some would say he found salvation and freedom from the chains of a dirt field. That what God hadn’t given him in this life, he was sure to get in the next.
Montgomery bent over the body and carefully scooped up some charred, gas-soaked soil with a small spoon, then emptied it into one of the sample jars. He capped the jar and returned it to his bag. Then he stood up and walked around the tree. He continued to walk circles, enlarging them with each pass, hoping to spot anything that might provide some answers.
The body lay in an oddly peaceful configuration. The victim’s hands were at his sides, palms facing up; his legs were stretched out as if he were dozing, and his feet were bare. His head had been battered and numerous bruises were evident. His left eye was swollen shut and his jaw was broken. Portions of his clothes were torn and burned, although his filthy charred shirt and pants covered him adequately. His left wrist showed cuts and abrasions, evidence of having been bound. It would have been nearly impossible to set fire to an untied man unless he was already dead.
Collins tossed his cigarette to the ground, mashed it into the dirt with his foot, and moved closer to the body. He peered intently at the dead man’s face.
“Look at this,” Collins said. “Why the hell is there dirt in his nose?”
Whether because of the burns, the bruises, or the morning’s shadows, neither man had noticed the dirt and mud until then.
“I don’t know,” Montgomery said. He took a knife from his pocket and unfolded its thin, narrow blade. He knelt, placed one hand on the dead man’s forehead, and gently scraped at a nostril. Then he flipped the knife and used its handle to gently pry open the victim’s mouth. Dirt had plugged his nostrils and partially filled his mouth.
“What do you think, Bill?” Collins asked.
Montgomery stood up, wiped the knife with his handkerchief, folded the blade away, and returned it to his pocket. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “But he certainly wasn’t able to breathe very well with all that dirt in there.”
“Very well? Maybe not at all.” Collins wiped his brow and glanced up at the blazing sun as it began to burn away the morning clouds.
Montgomery walked toward the river, mentally listing what was known. Only a few similarities linked the county’s four recent deaths. First, all of the victims were colored men, apparently day laborers who had drifted into Coahoma County and met a terrible end. The crimes were not of an overtly sexual nature, and the victims had been found with small sums of money, eliminating robbery as a motive. There seemed to be only one motive: to inflict a painful death. A shooting, a stabbing, a drowning, and now this—a sadistic combination of beating and burning. Four homicides in quick succession were unusual in this Depression-stricken county in the cotton patch, but not improbable. The sheriff and the coroner had considered calling the state police, or even the feds in Jackson, after the third body had been found, but they had decided against it because they didn’t want the commotion of outside law enforcement officials traveling all over the county, stirring everybody up and overriding local jurisdiction.
Now, it might be impossible to keep them out.
“Are we done?” Collins called out to Montgomery. Sweat was dripping from his forehead into his eyes and trickling down his neck, staining his tan shirt.
“Just about,” replied the coroner, turning back to the sheriff. “Let me get a photograph and we’ll go.”
Montgomery took a large camera from his car and carefully snapped a picture. Then he and Collins walked back toward their cars.
“Bill, why don’t you stop by after the autopsy and let me know what you find,” Collins said. “Then we’ll meet with Sam early next week.”
“Sure,” Montgomery said, rubbing his hand through his thinning hair. “I think we have time. Sam can’t indict until he has at least one suspect.” Montgomery knew the district attorney wasn’t looking forward to explaining this new development to Judge Bertram Long, the sitting county judge.
Collins reached inside his vehicle for the radio. “Yes, Sheriff,” said the dispatcher on the other end of the radio.
“Send out the body buggy. I got someone needs a ride.”
CHAPTER 3
When you get to Clarksdale.
—Muddy Waters
TRAVIS WAS AWAKE LONG BEFORE THE COFFEE’S AROMA wafted upstairs. The groans and rumblings of the trucks headed to the cotton fields and the wagons hauling cotton to the gins had started shortly after dawn, rousing him from a deep and satisfying sleep. But he hadn’t gotten up. Now, however, he could smell bacon, eggs, potatoes, coffee, and biscuits. He lay in his bed, enjoying visions of breakfast the way he used to daydream under the magnolia in the backyard. Then he heard his sister Rachel tiptoeing down the hall. Her footsteps slowed, and he sensed her arm rearing back with a tight fist. Three loud bangs on his door shattered the silence.
“Breakfast is ready!” Rachel yelled. “Hurry up before it gets cold!”
Travis smiled, pleased that he was already getting to her so early in the day. “Thanks, Sissy,” he said. “I’ll be right down.”
Plopping his feet on the floor, Travis got out of bed and pulled on a white robe. He looked
at himself in the mirror above his chest of drawers. His dark eyes stared back as he picked up a brush and pushed his thick brown hair back to the right, keeping a crooked but discernible part on the left. His walk yesterday had left a touch of sunburn on his forehead and nose, but in a day or two, the red would turn a deep brown like it always did.
He headed downstairs, smiling again as he listened to his mother ask Rachel, as she had for years, to please knock quietly on Travis’s door the next time. Rachel was already at the table, picking through her eggs and fried potatoes while the radio played softly in the background.
“And that was ‘Deep in a Dream,’ by Artie Shaw,” the radio announcer said. “That song is sure to be one of the most popular hits of 1938. It’s been one of our favorites, and our listeners’ too, for over eighteen weeks now. We’ll be back in a moment.”
“Good morning, Mom,” Travis said, leaning down and lightly kissing his mother on the cheek as she stood in front of the stove.
Margaret gently pushed back her curly auburn hair from the sides of her face so she could see her son’s face better. “Glad you’re home safely.”
“Got your favorite radio station on?” Travis said.
“Of course,” she smiled, setting a plate down at Travis’s usual spot, then wiping her hands on the beige apron that covered her maroon dress.
“Morning, Rache,” Travis said as he sat down. His sister cut him off with a glance, and he turned his attention to the breakfast before him. He sized it up, deciding what to sample first. He took a sip of his coffee, and then broke a perfect, glistening egg yolk with his fork.
Travis looked up from his plate at Rachel. She was fifteen, no longer the childish girl he once knew. Even as she glared at him, her green eyes and jet-black hair were almost magical. Her complexion was a nutty brown that radiated, as it always did, from the first days of summer until almost Christmas.
The clothes she wore were in no way provocative—Travis’s parents would have none of that—but they hung on her in a way that hinted at her athleticism, confidence, and femininity. The day Travis would have to scare off countless unacceptable suitors was approaching. Shortly, his sister would be a woman of the South. Not a belle, but a woman. She could cook, tend house, mix drinks, and do everything her mother could. Well, almost. Her cooking skills needed a little fine-tuning, but not much.
Travis mused about Rachel in silence. It wasn’t that Travis and Rachel didn’t get along; rather, that Travis, like so many sons of the South, was the recipient of a mother’s abundant adoration and attention. Rachel believed this would corrupt Travis so that no woman could ever measure up, and she considered it her unenviable task to ensure that Travis always had one foot grounded in reality, even if she had to put it there herself.
“Rachel, dear, would you like to tell your brother good morning?” their mother said.
Rachel looked at him and grimaced. “Thanks for dressing for breakfast.”
“Where’s Dad?” Travis asked.
“He was called in to work very early,” Margaret said.
“Do you know what he wants me to do today?”
“Well, I think he wants you to meet him down at the courthouse. He should have a list of things for you to check on by then. He also asked how those applications to Mississippi, Virginia, and Emory were coming.”
Travis winced at the thought of poring over the dreary questions on law and medical school applications. He was procrastinating, at the least, putting them off indefinitely if he could.
He finished his bacon, methodically making his way around the plate, eating one thing at a time. His biscuits were next.
“Just eat it,” Rachel moaned as she watched his ritual.
Travis ignored her. “Okay,” he said casually, “I’ll go down to the office after breakfast.” He purposely neglected the topic of his applications, hoping his mother would forget she mentioned it.
“Can Travis take me to work?” Rachel asked.
Travis had hoped she wouldn’t make the request, but his mother nodded, and he was instantly obligated.
“Your father left the car at the courthouse for you, so you can walk over with Rachel, take her to work, and then go back to the courthouse,” she said.
Travis sopped up the last bit of egg yolk with a biscuit and realized that he had once again eaten too much. He finished his coffee and pushed his chair away from the table while motioning for Rachel to pass her plate to him so he could take it to the sink.
“I’ll get it myself,” Rachel snapped. She rose from the table.
Margaret leaned over and took her plate. “I’ll get all this. Y’all get ready to go. You don’t want to keep your father waiting.”
Travis went back upstairs, dressed quickly, and returned to find Rachel waiting outside on the porch. He stood for a moment, taking in Clarksdale, listening to the bustling activity of harvest time in the Cotton Belt.
“Ready,” he said, stepping off the porch.
They walked to the sidewalk in front of their house, turned left, and headed down Clark Street. Clark and nearby John Street were lined with the large and stately homes of Clarksdale’s most prominent and well-to-do families. Huge oaks, magnolias, elms, and dogwoods adorned the front yards of houses distinctive yet similar to their neighbors. Some, built in 1919 during one of King Cotton’s heydays, were representative of that era’s extravagance and the excesses that often accompanied a surge in cotton prices. Others dated to a more conservative period, their simple frame structures a clear indication of less prosperous cotton seasons.
The oldest houses included the home of John Clark, Clarksdale’s founder and brother-in-law of James Lusk Alcorn, a noted Mississippian who had been at various times a Confederate general, a U.S. senator, and a governor of Mississippi. Alcorn, a moderate Republican, was known as the sage of Coahoma County, and during Reconstruction he had been Clarksdale’s leading citizen. Begun a few years before the War Between the States, the two-story mansion, which overlooked the town’s river, was moved on logs in 1916 to make room for the Cutrer home, an Italian Renaissance villa, whose owners, Clark’s daughter and her husband, desired the property for its view.
The Montgomery family home was one of the smaller ones on the block, a wooden, two-story house with just three bedrooms and an outside porch that wrapped halfway around the house. Because he was an elected county official, Travis’s father thought it prudent to live in such a home. He always said that when taxes pay your salary, it’s better to live modestly—unless, of course, you were a judge.
Travis and Rachel turned left onto John Street, passing the big house that stood on the corner. It was the former home of Governor Earl Brewer, who had built it upon returning to Clarksdale from Jackson after his term as governor from 1912 to 1916, and it was one of the finest homes in Clarksdale. Travis had been inside only once, while playing with one of Governor Brewer’s grandchildren. In a house of that size, hide-and-seek was a popular game, and Travis had once hidden for more than two hours. He was eventually found sleeping in a closet.
The brother and sister then turned right onto First Street and headed for the west side of town, where the city hall, county courthouse, and county jail were located. They passed Issaquena Avenue on their left and peered down the street at its many shops.
“Looks busy today,” Travis said, though they both knew the Delta was always busy this time of year.
Farther down Issaquena stood the train depot along the Illinois Central line. Past the tracks was the other Clarksdale: black Clarksdale.
Travis and Rachel turned onto Sunflower Avenue, and they easily spotted their father’s car. Travis reached under the driver’s seat and felt around for the keys. The car started right up, and they traveled south down Sunflower Avenue, which ran parallel to the Sunflower River. Travis turned right onto Highway 61 and drove for a few miles until he reached the Gilman plantation. Although it no longer operated like the plantations of an earlier century, many Southerners still liked to refer t
o the old farms as such, taking rebellious delight in all the connotations that accompanied the word.
They drove past the cotton pickers, bent at the waist, some appearing to crawl as they half-carried, half-dragged their canvas sacks, slowly filling them with cotton. Most of those men and women in the field were sharecroppers, but Travis knew it was just another name for legitimized slavery. Abandonment was their only escape.
Travis pulled up to the plantation’s commissary, a small store where most of the tenants and sharecroppers bought food and day-to-day necessities. He turned to his sister. “You want me to pick you up this afternoon?”
“Okay. Why don’t you come back around five o’clock?” Rachel said. “Do you know if Mom wanted anything from the store?”
“She didn’t say anything to me about it.”
“See you later,” said Rachel by way of thanks. She stepped from the car and slammed the door. She walked up a couple of stairs, opened the commissary door, and was gone.
Travis cautiously backed up, watching carefully for pedestrians, and pulled onto Highway 61. He accelerated toward town past a steady flow of trucks rolling in the other direction, headed to the gin. He had always lived in town, never the country. The plantation owners—their habits, politics, and thinking—were simultaneously comprehensible and foreign to Travis. He usually felt uncomfortable here, beyond the rules of fair play and a town’s scrutiny. It seemed to Travis that on the plantations the rules were like those in any card game where the house plays a hand. Rule Number One: The house wins all ties. This always gave the house a slight advantage. And Rule Number Two: Don’t ever forget or try to change Rule Number One.
CHAPTER 4
Lord, I’ve got a trouble in mind.
—Mississippi John Hurt
CONRAD HIGSON KICKED ASIDE A SMALL RUG ON THE floor of his bedroom. He bent down and, with both of his thick hands, grasped a short rope tucked into a six-inch slot on what looked like a floorboard. He tugged at the rope, and several boards rose together with a reluctant creak. He rotated the small door 180 degrees on its hinge and laid it down.
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