Cracker Town

by WF Ranew

  Randy carefully put the stack of pictures back into the folder. He picked up the other folder for quite a surprise. These showed Nancy in various poses, some in red slacks and a beige turtle neck sweater in the woods as she leaned against a covered bridge post. Another set pictured her and Walter snapped by someone else and the rest of Nancy posing in the nude.

  “My, oh my,” Randy said as he looked at each image and handed it over to Red.

  Red looked at the pictures of Nancy. “Shit, man, to quote a country boy I used to work with,” he said. “Most men would tap that in the middle of July on a hot tin roof.”

  Randy chuckled. “Yeah, that’s for certain. Damned good-looking lady. Shit. Daddy did have an eye for women, tell you that.”

  “He sure did,” Red said. He hadn’t mentioned to Randy about the complaints about sexual romps in Walter’s office. He could only assume Randy had not crossed paths with Sarah Daniel. Or, maybe he had. She mentioned his donations to the institute.

  Still, Red remained discreet.

  Red did tell Randy that Nancy had kept her looks into her seventies.

  * * *

  Once they got their boyish ganders and comments out of the way, the two looked through the documents. When they lifted the file photos and other contents, they found a surprise.

  Neatly stacked on the bottom of the trunk were audiotapes.

  They also found a folded paper with the legend of names for Walter’s handwritten patient notes. The typewritten page showed each patient’s name, hospital ID number, Walter’s nicknames for the men, and the dates counseling started and ended, along with a notation of whether the patient died.

  Cleet Wrightman’s name showed up at the bottom of the list with the nickname “Bible Salesman.”

  “These are the reason for his treasured tape recorder,” Randy said.

  “The old reel-to-reel kind,” Red said. “I haven’t seen these since back in the seventies.”

  Randy picked up three of the tape boxes. “Each box is labeled with the name of the patient and my father’s nickname for the person.”

  Randy went on to explain that his father had a Wollensak tape recorder. “That was the standard. American-made, tough, reasonably priced. Every school and office in the US had one. I remember my band director recorded all our concerts on a Wolly.”

  “I wondered what happened to your father’s,” Red said.

  Randy didn’t answer immediately. He put the tape boxes down and picked up several others from the trunk.

  “Might you still have it somewhere?” Red asked.

  Finally, Randy looked at him. “You know, we didn’t go through all the boxes. But I bet the machine is in there. Otherwise, we’ll have to find one somewhere. I want to listen to these tapes.”

  Red considered that notion and saw the recordings as a chance to delve deep into the case that haunted him all these years. But he hesitated.

  “Randy, I’m not sure if these aren’t really the state of Georgia’s files,” he said. “We may be violating a law or at least ethics codes by listening to them.”

  Randy looked disappointed. “But these may contain a roadmap to who killed my family.” He paused and looked around the century-old plantation house and the woods that crept so close to it, weeds covering what was once a yard, and the well house encased in running vines and surrounded by dog fennel.

  “Yes, Red, you are correct,” he said. “I shouldn’t listen to these any more than I should have read my father’s notes. Linda told me that. But, let’s consult with her. I have to believe we might find some insights about whom we are seeking as the killer.

  Red nodded. “Yes, consult with Linda. But understand, I do agree with you.”

  * * *

  They took turns driving to Atlanta that evening, and each man spent his passenger time studying the paper documents from the trunk. There weren’t that many, as the trove consisted mainly of the tapes and the legend.

  Pirate’s booty, it wasn’t. But sometimes, information yields much more than gold and jewels.

  Chapter Eight

  The next day around noon, Randy and Red sequestered themselves in a small conference room in the law office.

  Randy set up an aging reel-to-reel tape recorder.

  They didn’t listen to any of the Cleet tapes at first since Randy wanted to test the machine and the fifty-year-old recordings’ integrity.

  Randy took the box of a patient named Knuckle Man, aka Jacob Sellers, and carefully threaded it through the recorder’s pickup device and onto an empty reel.

  He turned the playback on.

  The scratchy sound blared out, and Randy adjusted the volume.

  The tape rolled, and soon the men heard the voice of Doctor Walter Goings. “Session two, four of Jacob Sellers” and the date.

  They played the tape for ten minutes, paying little attention to the content.

  Next, they tried the first of three tapes marked Bible Salesman, aka Cleet Wrightman.

  Doctor Goings: “Cleet Wrightman ongoing session, January 12, 1968…Good morning, Cleet.”

  Cleet: “Good morning, Doctor Goings.”

  Doctor Goings: “I’d like to revisit the end of our last session. You were telling me how much you feared your cousins, the Adan brothers. Let’s explore why.”

  Cleet: “Well, ah, they both always made fun of me. I mean, they was kin, and yet they called me names the meanest kids in my class never called me.”

  Doctor Goings: “Such as?”

  Cleet: “Wallace said I was not a human being, but some wild creature from the swamp. He called me a retarded queer. Gordon said the devil lived in my heart, and I didn’t have a soul. But that was after he got saved. Before that, he was about as bad as Wallace.”

  Doctor Goings: “How did you respond to these taunts?”

  Cleet: “I just told them to shut up and go to hell. They laughed.”

  Doctor Goings: “Were they ever physically threatening?”

  Cleet: “Oh yeah. Especially Wallace. He was a couple of years older than me and real big. He once found me in the tool shed behind their house and came after me with a chain. He didn’t hit me, though. I started crying, and my Aunt Gladys came out and stopped him.”

  Doctor Goings: “OK. Let’s look at something else you mentioned last time and on several other occasions. That’s Mitsy Elton. You had sexual relations with her, correct? More than the one time?”

  Cleet: “Yeah, it was my first time being with a girl. But it was just the one time I screwed her. At her house. The only time I was with a girl, except for that nurse. We had sex many times. But I ain’t supposed to talk about that, on account of her being staff and all.”

  Doctor Goings: “That’s perfectly understandable. But Cleet, you can tell me anything you want. The tape won’t be on the official record, so no one in administration will ever hear about you and the nurse.”

  At this point, the tape went silent for about four or five minutes. It picked up with Cleet answering the question about Mitsy.

  Cleet: “…Just went there to sell her a Bible. She was wearing skimpy clothes. I was kinda scared of her. She came on to me, got me to screw her. After finishing, I rolled on the floor and fainted.”

  Doctor Goings: “What else can you tell me about Mitsy. Was she sexually active with other men?”

  Cleet: “I got the idea my cousins went to see her. Also, there was this older man I saw walking up to her front steps one time. And another, two high school boys were there knocking on her door.”

  Doctor Goings: “Did either one of your cousins talk about being with her sexually?”

  Cleet: “Wallace would never talk about anything like that. At least, not out in the open. But I overheard him and Gordon talking about a young woman one night. They were exchanging stories about when they’d been with her. They didn’t say Mitsy’s name, though.”

  Randy turned off the machine.

  “Salacious,” he said.

  “Yes, and I have a feeling t
here is more of the same,” Red said. “But I suggest we keep listening for references to Mitsy’s murder.”

  Randy flipped the switch, and the machine’s reels rolled.

  Doctor Goings: “How did you feel about these men having relations with the woman you knew?”

  Cleet: “I just thought it was what people always said about Mitsy. She was well known around town for putting out. Even I knew that way before I sold her a Bible.”

  Doctor Goings: “Let’s move on….”

  The session ended shortly thereafter. Randy spooled on another tape of Cleet’s meetings with Doctor Goings.

  Doctor Goings: “We talked last session about your cousins and their possible relations with Mitsy Elton. Let’s focus on something you mentioned previously. That’s the day Mitsy was killed.”

  Cleet answered with a detailed description of the day, starting with his going over to Mitsy’s to collect payment for the Bible he sold her the previous day.

  The next ten minutes of the day sent a chill through Red and Randy.

  The details were, indeed, bloody and frightening.

  * * *

  The tapes proved to contain more details than Doctor Goings’s notes or his assessment report on Cleet Wrightman.

  However, they had not gotten to Cleet’s information about the person he saw killing Mitsy.

  “Maybe it was neither Wallace nor Gordon,” Randy suggested.

  “That’s a possibility. But I have to believe he may be protecting his cousins,” Red said. “They were kinfolk, after all.”

  Randy nodded with a grimace. “That’s true. But in my thinking, one of them may have thrown poor Cleet under the bus.”

  Red considered that comment. In his experience, people tended to save their own asses, even if it meant a friend or a relative or even a spouse did time for a crime.

  “Yes, and from what we know from your father’s information, neither one seems to have any empathy for Cleet,” he said. “They both ridiculed him throughout his childhood. They considered him inferior. He was their scapegoat.”

  PART II

  JULY 1972 THROUGH JANUARY 1976

  Chapter Nine

  Doctor Walter Goings didn’t expect the intensity of the searing heat in the summer of seventy-two. Milledgeville—where he lived in middle Georgia—experienced nothing like the devastatingly high temperatures of south Georgia summers. But this was…well, ninety-eight degrees in Valdosta was pure hell.

  Walter Goings described these details in an account he wrote about an early visit to the college town and the other, more important reason he drove down.

  Doctor Goings arrived and moved some crates into his new office at the state college. He’d become the head of the social sciences department. Over many years before his appointment, Doctor Goings established himself as a psychiatrist and specialist in mental retardation mainstreaming.

  His mission of the day concerned something of deeper interest than his new job.

  After stopping by the college, he drove west to the small town of Damville. He met Wallace Adan before driving toward Moultrie to visit the man’s brother, Preacher Adan.

  * * *

  Goings had given Wallace no warning of a visit to the man’s auto repair shop or the shocking revelation.

  When he arrived at his garage in Goings’s account, Wallace apparently thought the man had car trouble.

  The professor, dressed in a summer-weight gray suit, white shirt, striped tie, and brightly shined black shoes, walked in and introduced himself.

  He asked to speak privately with the mechanic.

  Wallace took him over to the City Café. Nobody was in there in midafternoon but the waitresses. They sat at a table by a front window.

  What Doctor Goings told Wallace shook him deeply.

  * * *

  “I know a relative of yours, Mr. Adan,” Doctor Goings said. “He’s Cleet Wrightman. I worked with him at Central State for many years. I just left the hospital staff for a professorship over at the college in Valdosta.”

  Wallace nodded.

  “Cleet and I spoke of why he was at Central State. He says he didn’t murder the young woman whose death sent him there.” Doctor Goings paused, but he never took his eyes from Wallace’s.

  A waitress interrupted and asked for their orders—coffee for the professor and a soft drink for Wallace.

  “Mr. Adan, your cousin more than likely was falsely accused. I’m convinced of that. What’s more, he believes he knows who really killed the young woman. I believe her name was Mitsy Elton.”

  Wallace finally said something.

  “What’s this got to do with me?” he said.

  Doctor Goings described Cleet’s time at Central State and how it was spent there. He didn’t mention Cleet’s episode with the young nurse years before.

  “I’ve come to learn that you, Mr. Adan, probably knew more than you said at the time about how someone killed Mitsy Elton with a meat cleaver,” Doctor Goings said. “No one’s saying you did the crime. But by your not speaking up, Cleet got sent away.”

  Wallace kicked his chair to the side as he arose.

  Doctor Goings jumped at the grating sound of chair legs scratching across old linoleum.

  “You’re nuts,” Wallace said loud enough for people to turn and look their way. “I heard doctors up there in Milledgeville were as loony as the patients. Now, I know.”

  Doctor Goings stared at Adan. He let the man vent. It was news most people would react to with either feigned disbelief or defensive anger—or absolute denial.

  Adan’s reaction told the doctor a great deal.

  “Cleet Wrightman is my cousin. That’s true,” Adan said. “He’s kin, and I hate to say anything against him. But let me tell you. That boy’s been funny since he was a little child. Off in the head. He killed that gal; sure’s we’re sitting here. And he’s paying for it.”

  Doctor Goings cleared his throat and let the moment sit there for maybe thirty seconds.

  “So, you deny killing that girl?”

  “You’d best get your fancy-ass out of town, mister,” Wallace said. Fuming, he left the café and slammed the screen door behind him.

  In his account of the day, Doctor Goings also related his visit with the Reverend Gordon Adan that afternoon.

  Preacher Adan apparently was more receptive than older brother Wallace.

  Gordon Adan welcomed him to his office in a double-wide trailer behind his small church. On the wall was an architectural rendering of a new, larger church with offices and an adjacent Sunday School building the preacher and his congregation planned to construct themselves.

  “We’ve raised the money to buy everything,” Adan told Walter Goings. “We’ll start laying the foundation this fall. God is good, professor. He sure is.”

  Goings went on to relate his conversation with the preacher.

  “We discussed his cousin, Cleet Wrightman, and his time at Central State. Gordon Adan said he prayed daily for Cleet. I confronted him with the notion that Cleet did not murder Mitsy Elton. The preacher smiled and said a prayer. I couldn’t tell much about this man, except that he wasn’t what he appeared to be. Perhaps it was because I had my perception of the man going into the meeting. But in the flesh, he did not seem to be the same person Cleet described in our many sessions.

  “While he talked mostly about his cousin Wallace, Cleet dwelled on Gordon, as well. He described the man as a troubled child prone to anger and temperamental fits, even rage at times. Gordon’s conversion to the Christian faith came when he was around thirteen. Cleet said his cousin suddenly became a different person, but ‘someone you still didn’t want to piss off,’ in his words.

  “That made me question which cousin killed Mitsy Elton. Wallace or Gordon? Wallace became angry at my accusations. The preacher just smiled and prayed. I would love to know which of these men had the greater inward turbulence, the potential for malice, and the legacy of murder? I could not begin to answer. But my impression is that Go
rdon, while a man of God and positive and upbeat in his demeanor, has something roiling underneath the surface far deeper and angrier than Wallace’s rage. I felt Gordon was superficial to the extreme, while Wallace seemed to be exactly as he appeared. That is, angry but trying to keep his life on a somewhat even keel. Yet, who knows really what lies beneath Wallace’s surface, as well?”

  The accusations in Cleet’s affidavit plus this provided enough evidence for Damville police to question Walter about Mitsy Elton’s and her brother’s deaths. But there was a lingering question about Gordon Adan and what role, if any, he played in the deaths.

  Chapter Ten

  A gentle breeze teased as the man leaned against the flaky bark of a pecan tree in a spot two miles west of Boston, Georgia. Cleet Wrightman soaked up the shade’s comfort after several long, warm April days on the road. His back eased against the trunk. Restful.

  Cleet welcomed the morning sunlight as an assurance spring had arrived. Yet, the day warmed quickly. Probably no more than eighty then. He didn’t mind the heat, long as he was in the shade or caught a ride. Both offered a solace of their own, depending.

  If he had to walk along the road, arm high begging for a ride, he would be in for perhaps hours of making slow way along Georgia’s two-lane blacktops. Something he had to do. But thumbing wouldn’t get him where he needed to go very fast. Then there was an occasional truck passing thirty yards or so from where he rested. Any one of their drivers might pick him up. Then, it was springtime, and he relished a day of lying in.

  He’d gotten to the pecan grove the night before, late, and slept for several hours before the sun woke him up. He rubbed the night grit from his eyes and licked his tongue around a dry mouth. When he stood up and walked around the tree to limber up, he noticed his boots were wet. He shook off the dew, but he feared more blisters that day. As he peed, the notion of moving on hit him. Maybe he’d go ahead and hitch a ride.