Cracker Town

by WF Ranew

  “You damned right it is, buddy boy,” Ginger Gail replied. She had no qualms about belittling his lack of endurance. She didn’t let up as his pitiful state continued. “Hell, I bet old Red could fuck me in a Georgia minute. Except, he’s not as old as you.”

  “Who? Red?”

  “Oh, you don’t know him, I don’t think,” she said. “He and I dated back in the early seventies. God, I loved that man and what he could do to me.”

  “Red who?”

  “Red Farlow.”

  A shock from the past shot through Gordon. That GBI agent who came to see me. Damned. She slept with him!

  The black pall covered Gordon again. He remembered his fear of being arrested. He was certain he’d go to prison. Or worse, the electric chair.

  Another incident haunted him. The Alabama housewife. He knew better, but Gordon always had a problem controlling his urges. And her husband.

  The ghosts from Gordon’s past suddenly descended on him. His head throbbed. His hands shook. His guilt ranted against him and everything he’d done in building his church. And jealousy raged.

  Then there was Ginger Gail, once the soothing balm to his tormented soul. Now, she’d become a burden herself.

  A weary Gordon stepped into the boat’s cabin and curled up on a bunk.

  Sleep came fast.

  * * *

  Gordon recalled his dreams vividly the next morning.

  Ginger Gail had cooled on their relationship shortly after his erectile dysfunction had become apparent to her. Gordon knew other things weighed upon her.

  Gordon dreamed another man was seeing her. In actuality, Ginger Gail sought the company of a life insurance executive she met at a state convention in Atlanta. He was younger than her but eager to bed the woman who invited him for a drink in her hotel suite.

  They had two bourbons each before clutching each other on the sofa and quickly disrobing. They got up only to walk each other to her king-size bed.

  There they stayed the next three nights of the convention.

  Ginger Gail’s room service tab was enormous.

  I’ll expense that.

  In his dream, Gordon saw a watery image of Ginger Gail approaching him down a long hallway. When she got to him, he arose from his bed to greet her. Only, he couldn’t. Iron bars shut him into the small room. His bed was a prison bunk.

  Ginger Gail dressed in a warden’s uniform.

  “Get down on your knees, preacher man,” she said in the dream. “Pray for your soul. Tomorrow you hang.”

  The words echoed through his head.

  Gordon woke up at three-thirty, drenched in sweat.

  He slept in that morning. The storm raged outside, and rainwater dripped into the cabin. At eleven, he found a yellow slicker and rushed to the marina’s dining hall for eggs, sausage, biscuits, and coffee.

  Back at the boat, he hunkered down and watched the storm slamming the marina and bay and viciously rocking the boat.

  Gordon prayed.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  In Wallace’s ICU cubicle, Ginger Gail approached the man’s bed. He had an oxygen tube in his nose and looked as white as a virgin’s wedding dress.

  He nodded as she took his hand.

  “Wallace, dear, came to see you,” she said. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Better than I was, Ginger Gail,” he mumbled. “Not feeling up to par yet but getting there, I think.”

  He looked over at Red standing in the doorway.

  “Come back to see me, did you? Bring Cleet with you?”

  Red shook his head and said Cleet had returned to his cabin in the North Georgia mountains.

  “Cabin, huh?” Wallace said. “That little retard did pretty well by himself. Once I sent him up there.” Wallace coughed. “Pretty well, by dang it.”

  The room fell silent for several moments, and discomfort arose.

  Ginger Gail broke the quiet.

  “Wallace, Red, and I need to talk with you about Gordon,” she said.

  Wallace’s eyes opened wide as he stared at her.

  “You know Gordon is one messed up son of a bitch,” she said.

  “Always has been, since he was a little fellow,” the brother said. “What’s he done now?”

  “Well, so many things I won’t go into it. You know most of them,” she said. “But the most immediate thing is he killed my husband Rubin four weeks ago. At least, the sheriff believes he did it.”

  Walter laughed before he descended into a coughing fit. He couldn’t seem to stop. A nurse scurried into the room and checked his heart monitor and oxygen level.

  “Sorry folks, but I need you to step out a moment,” she said. “I need to check Mr. Adan’s vitals.”

  They walked down the hall to the waiting room and took seats. Two hours later, the nurse came in. She looked nervous and haggard.

  “Are either or both of you related to Mr. Adan?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” Red said. He explained who he was and his need to speak with Wallace.

  Ginger Gail said she was a friend of his family’s.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this. Mr. Adan expired about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “What?” Red said. It was one of the rare moments in his professional life that the words knocked something out of him. He was shocked, a rarity for him.

  Ginger Gail sat back down and broke into sobs. Red put an arm around her shoulder.

  “What happened?” Red asked. “We were just visiting with him.”

  “He had a cardiac arrest,” the nurse said. “We tried to bring him back, but the poor man went quickly. Noting we could do. I’m sorry.”

  Red nodded.

  “But I need to ask you about his brother, a Mr. Gordon Adan,” she said. “Do either of you know how I can reach him.”

  It took Ginger Gail a moment to answer. She told the nurse Gordon was out of town.

  The nurse said she needed to notify him. She left the room.

  A Walmore County deputy walked into the waiting room and approached Red.

  “Sheriff Mason is looking for you,” he said. “He has some news about the man who just died down the hall.”

  “How did you find me here?” Red asked.

  “I was down getting coffee,” he said. “I was stationed at Adan’s room. The sheriff was here this morning. Adan confessed to some horrible stuff.”

  Again, Red’s heart jumped along with his hopes.

  * * *

  Red and Ginger Gail left the hospital immediately and told the deputy they were heading over to the courthouse in Damville.

  It wasn’t a long drive, and Ginger Gail cried all the way over. Suddenly, the weight of the Adan clan came crashing down on her.

  “I can’t believe he got so much from me,” she said.

  They drove to the courthouse and got out to see the sheriff.

  He was waiting and asked to speak with Red alone. Ginger Gail went out front and sat beside the Koi pond and fountain.

  Clouds had moved in over Damville, and soon the town would be the outer bands of rain from the Gulf storm.

  At that moment, though, Ginger Gail didn’t think about the weather.

  * * *

  When Red sat down, the sheriff closed the door.

  “Deputy Williams and I went over to speak with Wallace Adan this morning,” the sheriff said. “His fingerprints were found on Rubin Gillis’ car, on the steering wheels, doorknob, and underneath it. Wallace tampered with the brakes the day before Rubin got killed.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Red said. “It wasn’t Gordon, after all.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “Don’t jump to any conclusions so fast. I have a confession from Wallace about the brothers’ past behavior. Seems they were bonded in blood to commit murder.”

  “We would’ve arrested Wallace on the spot, but he was recovering from a serious illness,” the sheriff said. “I talked with this doctor before going into his room. The man was so sick, it was doubtful he’d recov
er from the flu. What would be the point in arresting him?”

  Red agreed, and he asked what Wallace told the sheriff.

  “Everything,” Paul Mason said. “Absolutely everything, going back sixty-four years. He and Gordon truly were brothers in crime.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Red knew the Goings family’s routine on the Saturday morning before they died back in seventy-three. The day started with life as usual in their household, Randy remembered. Until around nine that evening.

  Walter Goings awakened at seven Saturday morning. He got ready for the day and prepared toast and a poached egg. He started the coffee percolator and walked out to the curb for the newspaper.

  He let his wife sleep in. She needed her rest, as a new member of the family was on the way.

  Randy drank some orange juice and briefly spoke with his father. He heard his sister stirring as he said goodbye and headed out the door with a sports bag, baseball mitt, and bat.

  Saturday for other Goings family members meant work around the house and yard in the morning and a movie or other activity in the afternoon.

  Of late, Randy, who was eighteen, rarely went along on family outings other than church on Sunday mornings. He left the house for a pickup baseball game at the high school, spent the afternoon with friends, and went to a movie that evening.

  Walter read the newspaper over breakfast, then went to his home study for a final review of his professional paper, which his secretary had retyped the afternoon before.

  That afternoon, Walter, his wife, and their daughter went to the movies to see “Charlotte’s Web.”

  The family stopped for burgers on the way home.

  Walter settled into his study for the evening while his wife and daughter watched TV.

  * * *

  Wallace Adan’s confession filled out the story of that fateful day.

  The professor answered the doorbell around nine-thirty. He might have thought Randy forgot his key when he got up to answer it.

  A man stood there in a suit, white shirt, and tie. Professor Goings recognized him and asked him into his home.

  The man smiled broadly. He wanted to pick up on a previous conversation with Doctor Goings about someone they both knew, Cleet Wrightman.

  The man was likely the last person to see the Goings family alive.

  * * *

  Red had reviewed the day several times with Randy. He wanted to get an absolute picture of what the family did from what Randy observed before leaving the house and his knowledge of their plans.

  He also had talked again with Wallace Adan. The man seemed to have faded in his memory during Red’s visit to the retirement cottage.

  His recall of that night was murky, beyond saying he’d gone to the Goings home that Saturday around nine in the evening.

  * * *

  According to Wallace, his brother killed the Goings family.

  In Walter’s study, the visitor—the Reverend Gordon Adan—said the professor knew too much about Mitsy Elton’s death. Goings laughed and said he only knew what Cleet had told him.

  Without further comment, the man brought out his meat cleaver and heaved it into Walter’s neck. The professor slumped over his easy chair and onto the floor.

  Gordon went through the house until he found Mrs. Goings and her daughter. At that point, Wallace entered the home.

  Mrs. Goings had walked in to see her husband dying on the floor of his study. She screamed.

  Gordon led her to the bedroom and also grabbed the little girl.

  When Wallace walked down the hallway, he found Gordon in the master suite with the mother and daughter. The two females sat on the bed.

  Gordon slapped Mrs. Goings when she screamed repeatedly.

  Oddly, however, it was Wallace, not Gordon, who beat Mrs. Goings on the bed. Gordon had led the daughter away. Wallace came out and held the daughter down on her bedroom floor. Gordon stopped him.

  “You can’t do that, brother,” he told Wallace. “She’s a child. You’ll burn in hell.” With that, Gordon pulled the girl out of Wallace’s clutches and killed her with the meat cleaver.

  The brothers agreed going in, there could be no one left alive as a witness to the deaths.

  * * *

  After they killed the family, Wallace recalled, Gordon walked out the front door to wait for his brother to get his truck two blocks away.

  Gordon paused on the lawn to light a cigar. But he took too long finding his matches.

  B.J. Beresford watched from across the street.

  Wallace took some time getting to his truck, mainly because he got lost in the darkened neighborhood streets. As he cranked up, Gordon ran up to the vehicle and got in.

  “Brother, you left me over there too long,” Gordon said. “A boy saw me in their front yard.”

  “Well, you could’ve gotten your fat ass out of that quicker,” Wallace recalled saying.

  On the way home from Valdosta, the men drove to Gordon’s church and changed into clean shirts and pants. They burned the bloody clothing in a steel barrel behind Gordon’s house.

  * * *

  At Randy’s house in Atlanta, Red gave a sanitized version of what happened to the attorney’s parents and sister. He left out the gory details. He saw no use in dragging Randy and Linda through the bloodletting.

  Linda cried softly as Red spoke. Randy remained resolute.

  Neither one said much after Red finished his story. He told them they needed some time to console each other.

  Randy thanked Red as he headed out the door.

  “Red, as painful as this is, I appreciate your getting to the bottom of this,” he said. “Learning who the monsters were helps. I hope they find the so-called preacher and bring him to justice. It’s horrible as always, but it gives us some closure. We’ll be talking.”

  Red didn’t hear from Randy until several months later.

  After resolving the question of Gordon Adan, Red emailed Randy an entire account of his investigation and findings, again cleaning it up for his client.

  Two days later, after receiving the document, Randy called.

  “Red, this is enlightening,” he said. “Linda and I have had a lot of time to talk about it and process what you discovered. My final impression is that these two men deserved what they got, and yet, they never really got justice for their horrible actions against my family.”

  “That is the unfortunate aspect of this, Randy,” Red said. “No justice, but then, one of them did suffer in the end.”

  “That they did.”

  Red never talked to Randy again.

  But he did drive down to Damville and take Sheriff Mason out to lunch.

  “I never told you this, Red,” the sheriff said. “And I was surprised you never asked for a transcript of Wallace Adan’s deathbed confession.”

  “I’m curious as hell,” Red said. “But I just didn’t want to read the gory details after you told me everything.”

  “I won’t make you,” Paul said.

  Red fell silent for several minutes. He stared at first out the front window of the diner where they’d just finished lunch and sat over third rounds of iced tea.

  Cold cases no longer.

  “And they blamed their mentally afflicted cousin for that by suggestion,” Red said. “Shamelessness knows no end, does it? A man’s born into a world he doesn’t understand, and what does he get? A lifetime of torment and hate-filled names. Yet, I found Cleet Wrightman to be a man beyond all that.”

  “Didn’t know the man,” the sheriff said. “Wished I had.”

  * * *

  Red had several remaining matters in the cold case killings by the Adan brothers.

  He drove to Ellijay, Georgia, on a cold winter day in March.

  A deadly virus was killing people all over the world.

  Red stopped outside the elder care nursing home across from the parks and rec ballfields, but he knew he couldn’t go inside. He called the reception desk and asked to be connected to C
leet Wrightman.

  Cleet had been admitted to the home two weeks before. He’d come down with COVID-19 after a trip into town to buy groceries and run several other errands. Unfortunately, he visited a sick friend. It was that contact, doctors believed, where Cleet contracted coronavirus.

  “Red Farlow, you came to see me,” Cleet said as the private detective talked to him by phone.

  “Cleet, I’m so sorry you came down with this,” Red said.

  “Oh, Red, I feel better,” the man said. “Doctor says I might just survive this thing.”

  “Well, Cleet, I hope so. I sure do.”

  Ten days later, Cleet Wrightman walked out of the nursing home, got into his truck, and drove back to his cabin to live the solitary life he enjoyed.

  He called Red to give him the update.

  “Red, life is good,” he said on the phone. “I got out of hell all those years ago and found paradise.”

  “Yep, Cleet,” Red said. “I guess you did.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Six months later, as the coronavirus plague spread rapidly around the globe, Red got a call from Ginger Gail Gillis.

  “He’s in New Orleans,” she said. “Gordon, remember him? He’s running a whorehouse.”

  “What the…?” Red said.

  Red flipped off his espresso machine and carefully removed the hot cup. He walked into his office and sat down, grabbing a pen and pulling over his notebook.

  “The oddest thing happened,” Ginger Gail said. “A gal came through here and dropped by my office in Bainbridge. She worked for Gordon at Golly! Miss Molly’s, a men’s entertainment establishment on Bourbon Street.”

  Gordon had told the woman—who grew up in Climax, a small town near Bainbridge—about Ginger Gail.

  Red couldn’t stop laughing. The scene Ginger Gail painted brought images of crazed frat parties on the most notorious dive street in the Big Easy. He spilled his coffee on the notebook, smearing the ink over the page.

  “Actually, it’s a strip club where the girls crack dance on men’s laps,” Ginger Gail went on. “Let me tell you, Red, the Orange Blossom Tail in Orlando has nothing on this place.”