Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 01 - Down Home Murder

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  “The police are asking the caller and anyone else who may have seen Miss Wilson to come forward. She was last seen wearing a green shirt, blue jean shorts, and sneakers, and was carrying a canvas satchel embroidered with a UNC Tarheel.

  “In sports—”

  I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the broadcast. Melanie had been two years behind me in school, but she was one of those girls that everyone knew. She was a cheerleader, and actually seemed to enjoy the job for the chance to lead cheers rather than as a way to get dates. Not that the boys hadn’t noticed her. Half the guys in school had crushes on her at any given time. Thaddeous had been among the many who had never quite found the courage to ask her out.

  Poor Melanie. After three days, it didn’t seem very likely that she was alive. Her parents had to be going crazy with worry.

  Once I got to K mart, it only took me a couple of minutes to find a pair of pajamas that I thought Aunt Maggie would approve of, but when I approached the long line of cash registers, I saw that only one register was actually serving customers. I sighed and joined the line, wondering why K mart insisted on that particular combination of red and sea-green to create their corporate image.

  The woman in line in front of me looked toward the latest blue light special, checked her watch, and then looked back toward the register. She looked awfully familiar, and when I tried to get a better look at her, the contents of the woman’s shopping cart caught my eye. In it were three dresses, three blouses, three skirts, and three pairs of sandals. Each set was identical except for the colors. That confirmed it—it was one of Aunt Nellie’s and Uncle Ruben’s daughters.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell which sister it was. Though I had spent a fair amount of time with the triplets when we were younger, I had always had problems keeping them straight. After a couple of minutes of trying to find some clue, I took a deep breath, comforted myself with the knowledge that I had a one out of three chance, and said, “Odelle?”

  The woman looked around wide-eyed, then relaxed her face into a smile when she saw me. “Laurie Anne? I heard you were coming down. It’s so good to see you.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief that I had picked the right name, and we embraced in a manner I knew was partially calculated to preserve Odelle’s carefully arranged hairstyle, but none the less sincere.

  Together we moved up a stage in the line. “Where are Carlelle and Idelle?” I asked. The three sisters were seldom willingly apart.

  “They’re up at the mill.” She glanced around us as if checking for spies. “Actually, I’m supposed to be there, too. I snuck out at afternoon break so I could get here before everything got bought up. You know how it is with a sale in here—if you don’t get here the first day, there’s nothing left.”

  We moved forward another couple of inches. “What are you doing in here, Laurie Anne? Don’t they have a K mart in Boston?”

  “Paw needed a new pair of pajamas, and Aunt Maggie sent me to pick some up.”

  “Aunt Edna told Mama that Aunt Maggie was staying at the house. Where’s that husband of yours?”

  We took another step toward the register as I wondered why everybody seemed to think that Richard and I were surgically attached.

  “He had a meeting today,” I said, “but he’s flying down this evening.”

  “We’ll probably see you at the hospital after work. We tried to get time off today, but you know how they are at the mill.”

  I nodded. “How did you slip out, anyway?”

  “They don’t know I’m gone. Carlelle, Idelle, and I wore the same color today, and I left my name tag with them. We’re working in the dye room today, and it’s always such a mess in there that no one’s going to realize that there’s only two of us instead of three.”

  “What about the guard at the gate? Didn’t you have to sign out with him?”

  “Well, not everybody knows this, but there’s a hole in the fence at the corner of the back parking lot, just big enough for someone to get through. We parked the car outside the fence this morning, and I waited until there weren’t any supervisors around and slipped out as pretty as you please.”

  “And you’ll get back in the same way?” I asked, amused at my cousin’s ingenuity.

  “I will if I ever get out of this line. If that cashier was moving any slower, she’d be going backwards.”

  “Let’s just say she’s not Boston Marathon material,” I agreed. We chatted amiably, avoiding mention of Paw, until we were allowed to hand our money to the cheerless cashier. Then I walked Odelle to her car.

  “I’ve got to get back to work, but we’ll see you up at the hospital tonight,” Odelle said.

  “Say hello to Idelle and Carlelle for me.”

  It was only when I got back into Paw’s station wagon that I realized that I probably should have asked Odelle the best way to get back to the hospital. I leaned over and opened the glove compartment, and thumbed through the registration papers and warranties inside. That’s funny, I thought. Paw always kept a map in the car. Oh well. Surely I could find my way from Byerly to Hickory without getting too lost.

  My memory proved better than I expected, and I found the hospital after only one wrong turn. I left Paw’s things with the nurse, then went to the waiting-room. Aunt Nora was dozing, with her head fallen onto her chest. I lightly touched her forearm. “Aunt Nora?”

  Aunt Nora started, then blinked a few times. “Is Paw all right?” she said anxiously.

  “The nurse says he’s fine.”

  “Oh good. What time is it?”

  I checked my watch. “It’s about a quarter to five.”

  Aunt Nora reached for her bag. “Goodness, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I guess I just drifted off after Ruby Lee and Edna left. How did you get back here?”

  I explained and concluded with, “Since I’ve got Paw’s car, we don’t have to wake up Willis.” We left a note for Aunt Daphine, who was due in at five, and headed for Aunt Nora’s and Uncle Buddy’s house.

  Chapter 5

  Uncle Buddy’s and Aunt Nora’s house was a simple ranch-style brick house, but it was in a nice neighborhood and meticulously maintained. “Willis, we’re home,” Aunt Nora called as we came in the back door. There was a low mumble from upstairs in response.

  “He doesn’t really get rolling until after supper,” Aunt Nora said. She looked around the kitchen and frowned. “I’m pure ashamed for you to see the place like this, Laurie Anne.”

  I looked around. Almost everything was in perfect order. There were a few dirty dishes, but even these were rinsed and stacked neatly in the sink.

  “Here it is after five o’clock and I haven’t even touched the breakfast dishes,” Aunt Nora fussed. She reached for the calico apron Thaddeous had bought her for Mother’s Day when he was in sixth grade, and tied it firmly around her waist.

  “Why don’t you just put them in the dishwasher?” I asked.

  The shiny, white appliance, placed where it could be noticed immediately when someone came in the door, looked as aloof as it had when Uncle Buddy installed it three Christmases ago.

  “It wouldn’t be worth running it for this few dishes.”

  “Then why don’t you wait until after supper?”

  “I’ve never eaten supper with the breakfast dishes dirty, and I don’t mean to start now.”

  I gave up. There was no use trying to figure out my aunt’s brand of logic.

  “Is Aunt Maggie coming for dinner?” Aunt Nora asked.

  “No, ma’am. She already had plans.”

  “And Richard won’t be here in time either, will he?”

  “No, ma’am. His plane isn’t due until after eight. I told him to call us at the hospital when he gets in.”

  The kitchen door opened, and Thaddeous walked in. He looked worn out, and I could well believe he hadn’t slept since Thursday night.

  “Any word about Paw?” he asked as soon as he got inside.

  Aunt Nora shook her head. “We got to
see him for a minute this afternoon, but he looked about the same.”

  He nodded, hung his car keys on a brass rack on the wall, and put his lunch-box and thermos down on the counter. “Mama, is there time for me to take a shower before supper?”

  “Plenty of time. You go ahead.”

  He trudged upstairs, and went into his room for fresh clothes. A few minutes later we heard the shower running.

  “Do you want me to dry, Aunt Nora?” I asked as she put the first wet dish into the drain rack.

  “That would be a big help.” She pulled out a faded blue dish towel from a drawer and handed it to me. “I wonder if Thaddeous remembered the dish towels I asked him to pick up at the company store. Mine are just about worn out.”

  “I’ll go ask him.”

  I went upstairs past the rows of family photos lining the stairwell, and knocked on the bathroom door. “Thaddeous? Aunt Nora wanted me to ask you about some dish towels.”

  “They’re still in the truck,” he called back over the sound of the water. “I’ll go get them after I get out of here.”

  “Okay.”

  I decided I could save my cousin a few steps, and went back to the kitchen and said, “He left them in the truck. I’ll go get them.” I reached for his car keys.

  Aunt Nora saw what I was doing and said, “This is Byerly, Laurie Anne, not Boston. I don’t imagine he locked the truck.”

  “I forgot.” I went outside, and sure enough, both doors were unlocked. There were two paper bags on the floor of the passenger side, and I pulled out both of them and went back inside.

  “Here are the towels,” I said as I checked inside one bag.

  “Just leave them on the table. What’s the other bag?”

  I looked inside. “It looks like a sheet.” I pulled out one corner of the white muslin and showed it to her.

  “A sheet? What in the world did he bring that home for?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he stained the one on his bed and he didn’t want to tell you.”

  “Not hardly. That boy wouldn’t notice it if his sheets turned black.”

  “I’ll take it up to his room.”

  The shower was still going as I went by on the way to Thaddeous’s bedroom. It wasn’t nearly as messy as I had expected. True, there was a healthy layer of dust and the bed was somewhat sloppily composed, but there was plenty of floor space to get around the stacks of dirty clothes and hunting equipment, and only a few Coke bottles in the corner.

  The one thing dust-free was the ancient shotgun hung over the bed. It had belonged to Great-Great-Uncle Thaddeous, Thaddeous’s namesake. Family legend said that the elder Thaddeous had been a half-Cherokee drifter hired to help out while most of the townsmen were off fighting for the Confederacy.

  When a mess of Yankee soldiers, inspired by Sherman’s march through Georgia, decided to burn Byerly, Thaddeous defeated them single-handedly. Not with the shotgun—he didn’t win that from Junior Norton’s great-great-grandfather until several years later. Instead he approached the soldiers with all the moonshine he could find, and kept pouring it for them until they passed out. Then he went to fetch their colonel, and let the Union Army deal with their own. As a hero, he married the prettiest girl in town, the Nora for whom Aunt Nora was named. Despite its lack of a place in history, Thaddeous revered the weapon, and kept it in perfect shooting condition.

  I tossed the bag onto the bed, but somehow managed to spill out the contents onto the floor. I reached for the material to fold it, but noticed that the “sheet” was much lighter than it should have been, nowhere near heavy enough for a double-sized bed sheet. What was it? I shifted it around a couple of times, and finally located what looked like sleeves and held it up as if it were a shirt. Only it was much too long for a shirt, even for Thaddeous. A night-shirt? Thaddeous had never struck me as the type to wear a night-shirt.

  I put it down, and looked in the bag. There was another piece of material in there, and I pulled it out. It was pointed on one end, and I found two holes about the right distance apart for eyeholes. A hood?

  I swallowed hard. If that was a peaked hood, then the night-shirt was a robe. I only knew of one reason for having a white robe and hood.

  Then Thaddeous walked in. I jumped and dropped the hood onto the bed. He saw it and said, “What the hell are you doing with that?”

  I suppose I should have been more tactful, but I was too shocked for tact. “Thaddeous, does Aunt Nora know you’re in the Klan?”

  “Shh…” He closed the door quietly, then reached for the robe and the hood. Carefully he folded them, and tucked them onto the shelf of the closet.

  “You haven’t told her, have you? Good lord, Thaddeous, what are you doing, running with the Ku Klux Klan?”

  “What do you know about it?”

  I looked at him in disbelief. “Just what everybody with any sense knows! That the Klan’s idea of a good time is to spray-paint swastikas on synagogues and to burn crosses on people’s yards in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s not like that, Laurie Anne, not now.”

  “No? Then you tell me what it’s like.”

  “The Klan is our last hope for preserving our way of life,” he said, sounding as if he were quoting. “What way of life is that?”

  “We’ve got a right to keep a job, don’t we? Without being undercut by foreigners so bad we can’t make a decent wage? We’ve got a right to make cloth as good as we ever did and be able to sell it, instead of having to close down for two, three weeks every year to save money. We’ve got a right to have our women drive down the street without being dragged off by a car full of niggers and…” His voice caught and he turned away from me.

  “Thaddeous, is this because of Melanie? Did you join the Klan because of Melanie?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I went out with the search parties when they first reported her missing, and I was with them when the report came about that phone call. The one that told us to look in Marley.”

  I nodded.

  “A bunch of us wanted to go down to Marley right then and see what we could find out, but the county police said they’d handle it.”

  “So?”

  “They were black.”

  “So?” I said more loudly.

  “They protect their own, Laurie Anne. Everybody knows that.”

  At least he came by it honestly—he sounded just like Aunt Nora. “Are you trying to tell me that county policemen covered up a kidnapping just because the kidnappers were black? Did it ever occur to you that they didn’t find anything because there wasn’t anything to find?”

  “Then where’s Melanie? I went over that ground for a couple of miles around where they found her car. There was no sign of her—someone came and took her away.”

  “But you don’t know that that someone was black. Thaddeous, there are a lot of sick people in this world, black and white.”

  “What about that phone call?”

  “If that person really knows something, why doesn’t he come forward?”

  “We figure he must be black, too, and he’s afraid to say anything because of what the others will do to him.”

  “‘We’ meaning the Klan?”

  “That’s right. A bunch of us in the search party got to talking while we were searching, and a couple of the guys hinted that if the police couldn’t find Melanie, maybe the Klan could. They were kind of nervous about me at first, but then they figured out that they could trust me. They’re good men, Laurie Anne, men with families. They told me they were going to have a meeting Saturday night and that I should come.”

  “Don’t tell me. They showed Birth of a Nation, and told you how much smarter white people are than black people, and explained that the reason this country is going to Hell in a hand basket is because of the mingling of the races. Then they told horror stories about white women getting gang-raped by black men.”

  He didn’t say anything, so I knew my g
uesses had been pretty close.

  “I suppose you signed up right away,” I said disdainfully.

  “I told them I’d think about it, but I made up my mind last night and paid the dues and picked up my robes this afternoon after work.”

  “Great! You’re making decisions that could affect your whole life when you haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in days.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “No, you don’t. Can’t you see what they’re up to? They’re using Melanie as an excuse for a membership drive. They don’t care about Melanie. All the Klan cares about is preserving their way of life. If you’re anything but lily-white and their brand of Christian, they don’t have any use for you.”

  He shook his head in denial, and I saw the stubborn set to his jaw. “Thaddeous, I asked Paw about the Klan once,” I said. “He took me downtown, and pointed out that big old oak tree in front of City Hall. He said he used to go by it when he brought fresh eggs into town in the morning. One day he found a black man hanging there. The Klan had lynched him because he registered to vote. I could still see the scar that the rope had left on the tree branch.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Thaddeous protested.

  “Hitler killed twelve million people a long time ago, but I still remember it.”

  He kept shaking his head, not meeting my eyes. “What business is it of yours anyway?”

  “You’re my family aren’t you? I care about you! That makes it my business.”

  Thaddeous looked at me skeptically, and I knew how he must feel. Usually I would be the last person to pass judgment merely by virtue of being related, but this was different.

  Finally he asked, “Are you going to tell Mama?”

  I was damn tempted to let Aunt Nora try to talk some sense into him, but I knew he’d never forgive me if I did. “No. Not yet, anyway. I do want you to think long and hard about what you’re doing. Do you really want to be involved in something you’re ashamed to tell your own mother about?” I looked at the shotgun over his bed. “You know Great-Great-Uncle Thaddeous was half Cherokee.”