Cracker Town

by WF Ranew

  Red found his interview notes with Nancy Simmons, and something dawned on him. How old would she be now?

  Red studied the first page of the notes on her. In 1973, Nancy was twenty-seven years old.

  He did the math. If still living, Nancy would be around seventy-three.

  Red opened his laptop and searched for her name. Four people known as Nancy Simmons popped on his database. One lived near Albany, Georgia, and the rest in other parts of the country.

  He figured someone who’d gone through her boss’s murder and accusations against her husband might have left town to start over in another city. Happened all the time.

  The Albany listing noted Nancy Simmons, also was known as Nancy Miller. He clicked on her address information, cut and pasted it into a fresh spreadsheet file. He then did a Facebook search for her. Dozens of names flowed onto the screen.

  He culled through the list until he found a woman in her early seventies. She lived in Radium Springs, near Albany. Her photo showed an older version, he was certain, of the Nancy Simmons he interviewed years ago.

  Her personal details were sparse. No indication if she might be still married to Mr. Miller; her photos showed no men. In the first picture, she posed with a woman who might have been in her forties and a man much younger. The caption read, “Mother’s Day Fun 2016. Love my daughter and son.”

  Red figured one thing very interesting. The woman pictured with Nancy. Could she be in her mid-forties?

  Speculation.

  That and answers to the what-ifs had helped Red solve several crimes. Maybe all these decades later, some conjecture might help solve the Goings murders.

  He wrote down Nancy’s phone number and address in a fresh notebook. He’d visit her. Soon.

  Red flipped a page. After his interview with Nancy Simmons in the early seventies, he talked with several of her co-workers. Red remembered Sarah Beth Daniel, a student around twenty years old at the time. She majored in library science.

  He started a new browser search.

  A Sarah D. Williams lived in Atlanta in the Druid Hills neighborhood. Red delved deeper. The woman received her master’s at Valdosta and her doctorate from Florida State University. Her most recent employer was the Ira Goldman Archives and Research Institute at Swain University, where Sarah Williams held the senior research chair. She also was a professor of library science at Swain.

  He noted her home address and phone number. He knew the Goldman Institute well.

  The other person who complained about Doctor Goings’s sexual behavior was Professor Ishaan Kohli. Red found an online tribute to Doctor Kohli. He died in 1997, according to an obituary in the Valdosta newspaper.

  There also was Lawson Simmons, presumably Nancy’s former or late husband. Red would not search for Lawson until after he spoke with Nancy.

  He called Nancy’s number.

  * * *

  Nancy Simmons married a man named James Miller two years after she divorced Lawson.

  She knew the end was near for her life with Lawson when Walter Goings died. She figured Lawson had to find out about her heated love affair with the professor.

  As it turned out, she was driving home from Douglas, Georgia, one Saturday afternoon and saw a familiar face leaving a mobile home on Bemis Road.

  Her divorce filing described everything explicitly.

  Lawson stepped out of the trailer. Standing on the steps behind him was a woman Nancy didn’t know. But she’d find out. Lawson turned and stepped over to embrace the woman before he went to his car.

  Nancy slowed and pulled in at a gas station across the road. She parked behind the pumps to hide from Lawson as he passed.

  She watched as his car picked up speed into town. She started following him but figured he was heading home.

  Nancy returned to the trailer park and did two passes before turning onto the property. She stopped by the office and watched the trailer across the drive. Number thirty-three. She got out of the car and went into the office.

  She was surprised when the clerk told her the name of the woman who lived in thirty-three.

  Julie Hammer.

  It was around six-thirty in the afternoon, but Nancy took a chance on someone being in the lawyer’s office. He was Michael Dobbins, who’d just handled the divorce of a friend of Nancy’s.

  She entered the office into a darkened reception area. But she saw lights down a hallway.

  Dobbins’ office was the third door on the left. She gently knocked, and the man looked up from his desk.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  “Well, yes, I want to file for divorce from my philandering husband.”

  “Please, have a seat.”

  * * *

  Nancy was a nervous wreck. She found Lawson’s love nest not long after Doctor Goings died. Two months after the tragedy, she learned she was pregnant. Lawson, of course, assumed it was his. But Nancy knew.

  She opted for the quickest divorce possible. She went home that evening and confronted Lawson. He chuckled, didn’t really deny he’d been unfaithful, and tried to shrug it all off. Nancy said she was divorcing him, and he’d pay for it dearly.

  “I’m going to stick your ass for alimony and child support, shit face,” she said rather heatedly.

  She turned and headed to pack a suitcase—for Lawson.

  Six months later, her daughter Jenny was born, around the time her divorce was granted.

  * * *

  “Mrs. Miller?” Red asked when the woman answered the phone call.

  “Your voice sounds familiar. Who are you?”

  “My name is Red Farlow, Mrs. Miller. We spoke many years ago about the unfortunate killing of Doctor Goings and his family.”

  There was a long pause. Red heard her crying over the line. Throbbing, body-shaking tears.

  He listened. She didn’t hang up.

  Nancy collected herself in a couple of minutes.

  “I knew what you were going to say. I absolutely knew it,” she said. “Your voice. Your haunting voice.”

  Red apologized for calling about a tragedy so long ago.

  She took another moment to answer.

  “No, no. You must be calling for a reason,” she said. “Have you any news about who killed my precious Walter?”

  “No, ma’am. But I’m reopening the case at the request of his family. I’m a private investigator now.”

  “I see. I met his son only once,” she said. “I understand he’s quite successful in Atlanta now. A lawyer, I think.”

  “That he is,” Red confirmed. “But Nancy, I need to speak with you if this doesn’t disturb you too much. We can do so on the phone, but I’d rather meet you in person. I can drive to a suitable location.”

  “Well, I guess if you tracked down my phone number, you probably know where I live,” she said. “It’s in Radium Springs.”

  “Could we meet in two or three days? I don’t want to rush you, but the sooner, the better.”

  “I keep two of my grandkids on Wednesdays,” she said. “Could you come by on Thursday morning, about ten?”

  “Yes, I can be there.”

  Nancy confirmed her home address and said she looked forward to seeing Red. But not what they would be discussing.

  “I understand, Nancy,” Red said. “See you on Thursday.”

  * * *

  Red left early for the four-hour drive to Albany. On the way, he pulled into a country store for what he remembered to be the best sausage and biscuit around. He thanked himself as, back on the road, he munched away on the late breakfast and downed the hot but disgusting country coffee.

  He arrived in Albany at nine-thirty and rode around town. A few minutes to ten, Red drove to the Radium Springs address.

  Nancy Simmons Miller lived in a pale green ranch house of frame construction and trimmed in white. The roof looked fairly new as Red got out of his truck and gazed at the structure. Overall, the neighborhood featured houses built in the late seventies with neatly trimmed lawn
s and flower beds. The owners prided themselves on these residences. More than likely, on Saturdays, a half dozen lawnmowers buzzed and hummed in unison.

  Red walked to the front door, which opened as he stepped onto the small porch.

  Nancy Simmons, now Miller, hadn’t changed much at all, despite the fact she was in her seventies, by Red’s reckoning. She aged into her beauty and struck the confidence of a fit body.

  She invited him in, even hugged him, and they walked through to the back den of the house overlooking a fenced backyard. The scene wasn’t so remarkable as other lawns except for the spacious and lovely flower garden.

  “You’re a gardener, Nancy?” Red asked.

  “No, that’s Jim, my husband,” she replied.

  “He’s a talented man.”

  “Thank you.”

  Red looked around the room as Nancy fetched coffee and cups. On the mantel were several trophies from running events. When Nancy returned, he asked her about the awards.

  “Oh, Red, those are from so long ago,” she said. “After my divorce from my first husband—believe you spoke with him—and the birth of my daughter, I decided to get in shape. I’d been drinking more and sinking lower. But, hey, I had a beautiful child to raise. So, I decided to start running. The craze was taking off in seventy-four.”

  “Looks as if you did pretty well.” Red took a long sip of his coffee.

  “Yeah, well, I achieved rewards far greater than what you see up there,” she said. “I improved my health, and I met a man at my first Peachtree Road Race. He became my rest-of-life love, Jim Miller.”

  Red smiled. “I believe you did pretty well in leaving Valdosta behind.”

  “I did. I found a job at the college in Albany,” she said. “That was wonderful because they supported my time off for a young daughter and son. I retired seven years ago.”

  Red opened his notebook and brought out a pen.

  “Nancy, in reopening the Goings case,” he said, “his son Randy asked that I look in every corner and turn over every stone for any information we may have either missed or misconstrued in seventy-three.”

  Nancy refilled Red’s coffee cup.

  “How can I help you, Red?” she asked. “Understand, my husband knows everything about what happened back then. Even my dalliance with Walter. How could I not tell him? The man I loved so much then suddenly was taken away from me. I doubt Walter’s son would understand that.”

  Red nodded. “Perhaps not. You’ll remember Randy lost his parents and sister that night. And a sibling yet to be.”

  Nancy burst into tears. “Red, this is difficult. But I have to tell you. Randy has another sister. She lives in Atlanta.”

  “Oh?” Clearly, a lot more happened in Nancy’s life after the Goings’s murders than her grieving over a lost lover.

  “I was carrying Walter’s baby when he died,” she said. “I didn’t know about it until two months later when the doctor confirmed the pregnancy. It wasn’t my husband’s child because we’d had very little if any, intimacy during my time with Walter. Besides, she looks just like a Goings.”

  “May I pass that on to Randy?” Red asked.

  Nancy shook her head but seemed to be considering what to say. After a few minutes, she answered.

  “It doesn’t seem fair for Jenny not to know her big brother,” she said. “I’m very ashamed of what Walter and I did behind a locked office door. I knew people had complained about our relationship.”

  “I would like to let Randy know,” Red said. “He’s a reasonable man. I am sure he’d want to know he has a sister living in the same town he does.”

  “Then tell him,” Nancy said and teared up again. “But let me talk to Jenny first.”

  * * *

  Red went over some of the things she told him and his boss the day they met her in seventy-three.

  Nancy said she vividly remembered the interview. “Your questions prodded me to think of his death and everything he meant to me in great detail,” she said and picked up her coffee cup to sip.

  “I don’t want to make you relive that horror, Nancy, but I do want to go over some things we discussed then.”

  She nodded and noted how quickly Red had finished his second cup. She refilled it.

  Years before, she told investigators about a visitor to Walter’s office on the afternoon before the murders. Red asked her to recall the encounter.

  “Yes, I spoke to the man,” Nancy said. “He mentioned Milledgeville and that Doctor Goings was his counselor there. He’d dropped by the office to see Walter. That was a Saturday, so the office was locked. I worked part of that day on aptitude tests for sophomores. The academic dean asked me to assist his office with that.”

  “Can you tell me again what this man looked like, best to your memory?” the PI asked.

  “Well, I told you then he was not a tall man. If my memory isn’t too fogged, he stood about five feet six, was slender, and wore a soiled, white short-sleeved shirt and wrinkled khakis. His work boots were caked with mud.”

  “What else did he say?”

  Nancy said nothing for a moment.

  “He asked for a pen and wrote a note to Walter on a torn sheet of the campus newspaper. He left it on the door.”

  Red handed the piece of newsprint to Nancy. “This it?”

  She took the note and looked at it.

  “Yes, I remember it took him a while to write this,” she said. “Only a few words, but he seemed challenged. I found the note on a stack of Walter’s papers when I returned to the office two weeks later. I had to sort and box everything.”

  She handed the note back to Red.

  “Did he hang around long?” the PI asked.

  “No. I had to go back and forth down the hall copying drafts of the papers. I didn’t see him when I walked by the office twenty minutes or so later.”

  Nancy remembered something else about that afternoon. A dirt trail led down the hall.

  * * *

  Red asked Nancy about her relationship with Doctor Goings and when it started.

  She looked down at her pile carpet, seemingly lost in thought. The silence lingered. Finally, she looked up at Red.

  “Red, I had worked at the college for some time when I was assigned to the history department chair’s office,” she said. “This is very difficult. OK, I was a good-looking woman when I went to the college. I’m not the flirty type, but many men do not need an invitation. Some walk right up and pinch your ass.”

  Nancy revealed the history chair came on to her often. Finally, he invited her into his office and insisted they have a sexual affair or he’d have to let her go. She was stunned. Instead of complying with such a forward and inappropriate request, she went to personnel and transferred to another position.

  The next year, she took a job with the incoming Doctor Goings, a renowned psychiatrist.

  “I was smitten the moment we met,” she said. “After a few days of working together, Walter said he liked me a great deal. Professionally and personally.”

  “Did things move along quickly?” Red asked.

  “Very. In the office. Then we started going to a motel in a nearby town two or three days later,” she said.

  Red turned to another area of speculative questioning.

  “Nancy, other than the history chair, did other men approach you at Valdosta?”

  Again, Nancy paused. Finally, she cleared her throat. “As I said previously, the image of myself at the time was pretty damned sexy. I had the looks and body. I also perfected the walk. I kind of got off when having sex with my husband about all the men fantasizing about me.” Nancy chuckled and placed a hand to her forehead. “Admittedly, my ego got out of control.”

  She went on to relate the suggestions of Doctor Kohli. “He knew Walter and I were doing the deed,” she said. “He heard us and complained. He was jealous as hell.”

  “A motive to kill,” Red said. “But Professor Kohli is dead.”

  Red thanked Nancy for her time an
d wished her the best in her life and with her grandkids.

  “Thank you, Red.”

  * * *

  Red maximized his time while in deep south Georgia. He next stopped in a little town sixty-seven miles south of Radium Springs and a squirrel’s tail from the Florida line. He pursued someone based on a hunch without expecting much nor calling ahead.

  The PI went to visit a man he could have arrested years ago but didn’t. The person became a valued informant.

  Jean-Michel Durand survived the Nazi occupation of France. He joined the Resistance and fought, not with a gun or bomb, but with his talent for creating documents that looked like the real deal. During World War II, he saved the lives of countless Jews fleeing France and Germany.

  His forged documents proved unassailable. No one, to his knowledge, ever died or was arrested because they were outed with a Durand passport or other documentation. He told Red that on a previous visit to the man’s house.

  After the war, Durand moved from Paris to a small farm in a most unlikely place. His daughter met and married an American serviceman after Paris was liberated. When Anne Durand Smith accompanied her husband Clinton to the US, her father followed several years later. Besides his daughter, Durand had no other living relatives.

  They settled on his son-in-law’s family farm in a town called Attapulgus.

  In the late fifties, a Jewish friend sought him out. Ezra Fixler traveled from New York down into rural Georgia to Durand’s home.

  They talked about the war years and their experience in the Resistance. Fixler had another reason for the reunion. He had clients who needed new identity papers to get out of Argentina.

  Durand obliged and gave new birth to his discreet and private business.

  Unfortunately, most of his US clients were people with criminal backgrounds or intent. Yet, Durand never got caught—until Red came along. The forger’s experience in World War II made him cautious, quiet, and under the Germans’ radar and their French snitches, or so Red figured.