Cracker Town

by WF Ranew

  * * *

  Red knew Durand from a case he worked on to track down and arrest several drug smugglers in north Florida. An informant told him one of the smugglers confessed a great deal about the Frenchman’s operation. The man had gotten new ID papers after being released from prison.

  Red drove down to visit Durand after his discussion with Nancy Simmons Miller.

  Upon arriving at the Attapulgus farmhouse, Red met Durand’s daughter. Her father had died the previous year.

  Chapter Four

  On his drive back to Savannah, Red listened to a podcast of a mystery hour radio show on Savannah’s public station. The show featured the bizarre history of Damville, Georgia, and its working-class neighborhood called Cracker Town.

  For Milledgeville, the Georgia state asylum there prompted pejorative terms in the Southern vernacular. Thus, the town became as feared and dreaded as any asylum. Parents used Milledgeville to keep kids in line, threatening to send them there if they didn’t behave. Coworkers humiliated the oddball in their workplace and suggested the person shape up or ship out to Milledgeville.

  Cracker Town came by its moniker from the house styles and an illness that caused behavioral changes and physical sickness among the locals.

  The podcast centered on what caused sickness in people working at or living near the small industrial area. These businesses included Damville’s hat factory, a lead-acid battery plant, and a railroad boxcar repair shop. Mercury was used in the hat manufacturing process, and many workers came in contact with the liquid metallic element. Lead slag from a battery plant smelter was dumped behind the facility for decades. And, chemicals and oils from the boxcar shop seeped into groundwater and flowed into a nearby stream.

  The radio show’s narrator described what happened in the early twentieth century. Workers in the industrial area displayed irritability, depression, tremors, poor memory, and dizzy spells. Many suffered from delirium, and three employees committed suicide. These characteristics alarmed the town as more mad hatters appeared in the community. Then, one man’s irritability triggered rage.

  That led to an infamous Damville murder preceding Mitsy Elton’s violent death by three decades. In 1924, Nathan Coffer killed his wife’s mother and father, sister, and two brothers. All died of shotgun blasts to their heads and chests in quick succession at the Sunday dinner table.

  Coffer worked at the Dandy Stan Hats factory for thirty years. By World War I, he started displaying symptoms of erethism, or mad hatter’s disease. His ears and nose bled on occasion.

  Behavioral changes set in. He’d tear up and cry for no reason. In time, his irritability increased. Over the years, a relatively calm man turned into a monster of tirades.

  His brother-in-law started calling him Nutty Nate. The ridicule spread to bestowing nicknames to others living in Damville, all employees of Dandy Stan Hats. People working and living in the area, folks said, were cracking up. Finally, a newspaper reporter writing about the Coffer murder victims dubbed the neighborhood around the factories as Cracker Town.

  Over time, science revealed the truth about hat making and the use of mercury, and also lead contamination, the radio show said.

  Too late.

  Most oddly, a new high school opened in Damville in the mid-thirties. The name of the school mascot became The Mad Hatters.

  Red called his wife Leigh and asked her how mad hatter’s disease and lead poisoning were carried forth into later generations. She promised to have an answer once he got home but said environmental mercury poisoning might affect people for many years.

  He already knew about lead poisoning. A relative suffered the effects of working for decades in a print shop and pouring molten lead for the pigs used in typesetting.

  * * *

  In Savannah, Red reviewed his notes from the Nancy Miller interview and the Goings’s murder files. He came across another woman he needed to contact.

  Red found her number and called Sarah Beth Daniel, now Ph.D., who’d worked at Valdosta State during Doctor Goings’s brief tenure. In fact, she complained to the president about the professor’s intramural affair.

  Doctor Daniel’s assistant answered the phone. Red explained why he was calling, absent many details. He needed to schedule a time to speak by phone with Doctor Daniel about her years at Valdosta State College.

  The assistant was nice enough, but he’d trained in the artful skill of delay and obfuscation.

  “Doctor Daniel right now is in a meeting with our provost,” he said. “I know she’ll be busy for the next few weeks. What is it you are calling about again?”

  Red repeated his reason. He also pulled a card he didn’t like showing to just anybody. “What’s your name?”

  “Joseph.”

  “Yes, Joseph, I am a private investigator looking into something that is a life and death situation,” he said. “If I cannot speak with Doctor Daniel by phone to set up a personal meeting, I’ll have to tell my client her office isn’t cooperating. Oh, by the way, he’s on the Swain board of trustees. This is very important.”

  “Just a moment, Mr. Farlow,” he said. “Just so happens she’s returned from lunch.”

  “Good day, Mr. Farlow,” the woman’s voice said. “I cannot imagine why you are calling me after all these years. But I have a couple of theories. How can I help you?”

  “Doctor Daniel, you have an incredible memory,” Red said. “I need to speak with you. The Goings murder case has been reopened. I’d like to pick your memory about that unfortunate event.”

  Clicking over the phone line sounded as if someone might be cutting in on the call.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “I am not sure that I can offer anything we didn’t discuss back in seventy-three, Mr. Farlow. But I am more than willing to meet with you. Yes, I do have a fantastic memory.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Daniel,” Red said.

  “You know, I met Randy Goings shortly after joining the institute,” the woman said. “He’s been very generous to us over the years.”

  “I’m happy to hear that,” Red said. “But it doesn’t surprise me, as Randy was off to a bright future. He just had a dark cloud hanging over him. It hasn’t lifted.”

  “I am sure,” she said. “In fact, he and I have discussed the tragedy. When can you be at Swain?”

  “Would sometime Wednesday or Thursday work for you?”

  “Let’s see.” The clicking returned. Red figured out Doctor Daniel was tapping a fingernail against the phone screen. “I have a faculty gathering Thursday afternoon. Let’s make it Wednesday. Come to my office at eleven-thirty. I’ll treat you to lunch in our award-winning faculty dining hall.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Daniel. Look forward to seeing you again,” Red said. Unspoken, he suspected Swain’s cafeteria was no better or worse than a dining hall on any college campus.

  Next, he called the late Jean-Michel’s daughter and asked her something he should have covered when he visited her farm.

  She didn’t answer, nor was her voicemail available.

  * * *

  The lunch with Sarah Daniel was delightful. Red apologized to her about his unspoken doubt on food quality. They ate in the elegant trustees’ dining room.

  He ordered a Cobb salad, and Doctor Daniel had soup and a side of asparagus.

  She spoke first of her days as an undergraduate.

  “The best four years of my life, at least in the sequential sense,” she said. “Of course, I loved graduate school, too, but Valdosta taught me a great deal about life and instilled a lot of self-confidence.”

  The waiter came with their food.

  “I am glad to hear that,” Red said. “But tell me, what attracted you to the college?”

  “Their library science program,” she replied. “Small school, small department, easy access to highly regarded professors. And the chance to work in the library there my senior year. That was just after I met you.”

  She paused to sip her soup.

  “Y
ou worked for the academic dean, as I recall.”

  Doctor Daniel dabbed her lips with a white napkin.

  “I did. Also, a valuable experience,” she said. “But let me ask this. What have you learned in reopening the case file?”

  Red considered how much he’d reviewed and how to answer the question.

  “Several things. First, Doctor Goings had a visitor on Saturday afternoon at his college office,” Red said. “Of course, it was locked.”

  “That is interesting,” she said. “Do you have an idea who it was?”

  Could she have seen the man?

  “A man named Cleet. At least, that’s the name on a scrap of paper he left on the door. We determined his complete named is Cleet Wrightman. He’d just been released from Central State Hospital when he tried to visit Doctor Goings the date the professor died.”

  Red wasn’t surprised at the shock this caused Doctor Daniel. She took a moment before commenting.

  After a couple of minutes, she asked if Cleet could have killed the Goings family a few hours later.

  Amidst the talk of family murder, they tried to eat. Each consumed very little.

  “It’s possible,” Red said. “He was high on our list. Oddly, through another murder investigation in another Georgia town, we got a full name for Cleet. Unfortunately, we never apprehended him. He disappeared. Our investigation eventually concluded the family’s assailant likely was an unknown person.”

  Doctor Daniel’s brow furrowed. “What can you do all these years later?”

  A waiter appeared to remove their plates. They ordered coffee.

  “Good question, but I trust we can explore the office visitor and turn up new evidence,” he replied. “Perhaps a long shot.”

  Red shifted the conversation to something he doubted Doctor Daniel wanted to rehash. But he had to discuss everything pertinent to his cold case investigation.

  “I have a sensitive matter to ask you about,” he said. “You spoke with President Madison about the relationship between Doctor Goings and his secretary, Nancy Simmons. I don’t think we delved into that back in seventy-three. But I understand you had firsthand experience with them.”

  Doctor Daniel smiled. The coffee arrived, and she sipped before responding.

  “I would describe it as a head-on collision.” She laughed. “I was shocked because you don’t normally see your work colleagues nearly naked and fully engaged in coitus. But I was raised a very conservative Christian. I’ve loosened up since then. Still, the same thing would shock most anyone, even today.”

  “Tell me, Doctor Daniel, how did they react when you entered the room of their, ah, engagement.”

  Her eyes twinkled. Perhaps she was nervous about the topic, but in any case, her laugh persisted.

  “That was funny in retrospect,” she said. “Nancy was shocked, but for a few seconds, Doctor Goings just kept at it. From behind. I nearly screamed. Instead, I closed the door and left.”

  “I see. Did you know Doctor Kohli very well?”

  Doctor Daniel took a moment before answering. She ran her right index finger around the rim of the saucer.

  “Not at all. But funny you should ask,” she replied. “He cornered me one day in a hall and described in detail the antics of Doctor Goings and Nancy. Said he overheard everything. I think he got off on it. Then he asked me out. I declined and quickly moved away from him.”

  Red was conscious of the time, and they wrapped up their lunch. Besides, he had no more questions for Sarah. He did ask about calling her later if he had other matters to discuss.

  “Please do,” she said. “Also, I would love to have an update once you solve this case.”

  “If I solve the case.”

  “Second time’s the charm, Red. You’ll get the results you seek,” she said. “I believe you will.”

  He thanked Doctor Daniel for lunch, and they said their goodbyes. Red departed for an appointment in the afternoon with Randy Goings.

  Chapter Five

  Red drove to Randy’s office. He arrived early and pulled into the fourteenth street parking deck under the high-rise building in the city’s Midtown business district.

  Red sat in his truck and mentally tossed around what he knew about Cleet Wrightman. He flipped through a tattered notebook from forty-three years ago. He also opened a new journal with scribbles from his recent interview with Nancy Miller.

  According to Red’s seventy-three interview with Wallace Adan, Cleet stayed with his cousin in Damville for two weeks after Doctor Goings’s murder. Adan said Cleet became concerned that Mitsy Elton’s relatives were after him and left town for an unknown destination in Florida.

  Red knew people did not just up and vanish, except in very unusual circumstances. He ran through his what-if exercise. That is, taking what you know about a person and running through potential scenarios as to what might have happened to him.

  First, Cleet Wrightman feared the potential actions of Mitsy’s kin. Add to that the body of her brother, Jamison, was found several weeks after the Goings family died. What if Jamison confronted Cleet, they got into a fight, and Wrightman won. Cleet dumped the body in a nearby swamp and fled town.

  Second, Jamison confronted and killed Cleet, burying his body in a grave somewhere nobody could find it. Wallace takes revenge and stabs Jamison to death. Dumps body in a swamp.

  Third, setting the Jamison and Goings cases aside for a moment, there remained the possibility that Cleet Wrightman, fearful for his life, left town, and assumed a new identity.

  * * *

  He would brief Randy about Cleet and the document forger. That might have been tangential, but he’d inform his client anyway. Red had to figure out how to backtrack a person’s identity change.

  Red walked across Crescent Avenue and into the building. He stepped into an elevator with several other people and rode up to the twenty-seventh floor.

  The lobby gleamed in white marble and bright lights. Huge canvases of oil paintings hung on either side of the reception desk. A pretty blonde woman in her thirties cordially greeted Red.

  “Yes, I’m here to meet with Randy Goings,” he said. “He’s expecting me at two o’clock.”

  The woman smiled and picked up her phone. “Yes, Lucy, a Mr. Farlow is heard to see Mr. Goings… OK, great. I’ll tell him.”

  “Mr. Farlow, Lucy Fender will come up to escort you back to your meeting.”

  “Thank you,” Red said. As he turned to take a seat, a double door opened.

  A dark-haired woman dressed in a red suit came up with her right hand extended. “Mr. Farlow, I’m Lucy,” she said. “So good to meet you.”

  Red shook her hand. She had a solid grip and wore lipstick the candy-apple red of her suit.

  “Please come with me to Randy’s area,” she said.

  They walked through the doors into the discreet dimness of a white-shoe law firm. The hallway’s light contrasted to the opposite spectrum of the well-lit lobby. Red knew the low hum of meetings behind closed doors likely concerned anything but peace and quiet. Turmoil reigned, he figured, or else attorney fees wouldn’t run hundreds of dollars an hour.

  They walked into a small conference room adjoining Randy’s office. Red’s client walked in to greet him.

  “Good to see you, Red,” Randy said.

  They shook hands and took seats opposite each other around the table.

  Randy’s office faced south, and Red looked down Peachtree Street. He recognized many Midtown landmarks, such as the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum, but he couldn’t see the famous Fox Theatre. That was because the spate of new buildings blocked the view, with construction cranes crowded around high rises in progress.

  Randy watched Red’s eyes. “When was the last time you were in Midtown?” he asked.

  “Oh, it’s been a couple of years,” he said. “First time I came was back in my football days at Georgia. It was the hippie district then. Turned into quite the upscale neighborhood, I would say.”

  R
andy laughed. “Yeah, I went on a Baptist youth retreat near Atlanta and visited Midtown then, just before my parents died. The thing that shocked me most was a headline in the Great Speckled Bird, the alternative newspaper. I opened the paper, and the two-page headline read, ‘Peach creek is full of shit.’ Way out there for a Baptist boy.”

  “I can’t imagine you had any problem with the young ladies roaming the streets,” Red commented.

  “Not at all. I wondered, though, why their mothers hadn’t packed underwear for them before they moved here.”

  Red opened his leather satchel and took out several file folders.

  “How long do you have, Randy?” he asked.

  “Rest of the afternoon, Red,” he said.

  He heard a light tap on the door as it opened. Lucy rolled a cart in with coffee, iced tea, and snacks.

  She smiled while serving both men coffee and set a plate of brownies down before Red.

  He thanked her, sipped his coffee, and began to update Randy on his investigation.

  Red told him about what he’d found of interest in Doctor Goings’s Milledgeville papers. He also dropped a big one about the scrap of paper and who left it.

  “Randy, you’ve seen this. It indicates your father had a visitor at the college the day he died,” Red said. “They didn’t meet there because the office was locked up. But a young assistant talked to the man. He left the note on your father’s office door.”

  Red handed a copy of the hand-written note to Randy. The attorney paused and looked it over.

  “Cleet. Yeah, glad I kept all this. I wonder why he wanted to see my father and whether…”

  “The million-dollar question, my friend,” Red said. “Turns out, Cleet was released from Central State a few days before your family died. He stopped in Valdosta, presumably to visit your dad. However, we do not know what happened after he left the college. And whether he found where you lived and went to the home that evening.”

  Randy said nothing for a few minutes.

  “But we know where he showed up next,” Red continued. “A couple of days later, he arrived in his hometown. Damville, Georgia. He visited his cousin and stayed with him two weeks or more.”