by Dan Arnold
Twenty-Five
We talked about what Diondro might be interested in as a career choice. I wasn’t surprised he was thinking about criminal justice or practicing law. It led to a discussion of college classes and degree programs.
“You are obviously very smart, and I think you can accomplish pretty much anything you set your mind to do, Diondro.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tucker.”
“Something is lacking however, and it is the most important thing of all.”
“What is that?”
“Where will you spend eternity, when this life is over?”
Diondro threw his hands in the air.
“Oh man. Here we go again…”
“I just want you to do a little research. Do some reading and some serious thinking. You can do it easily enough, right? Until the trial starts, you have some time on your hands; with nothing more important to do.”
“Yeah sure, I guess.”
I want you to read the New Testament in the Bible. Start with the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then, continue on from there.”
“Really, I mean… really?”
“Yes.”
Diondro made a face.
“I don’t understand all the ‘thou shalt’ and ‘sayeth thee’ stuff, man.”
“Tony has some modern language versions you might like. Focus on Jesus and the things he said. Think about what it means, if what he said is true.”
“Why? What did he say?”
“It would be better for you to find out for yourself.”
Christine and Tony came back at about eleven o’clock. We could hear them, out on the landing, laughing and making small talk. Then there was silence for so long a time it became awkward for Diondro and me, as we waited inside. At first, the cat, Mr. Tumescence, acted indifferent, but as time stretched by, he altered his attitude.
We exchanged glances at each other, among the three of us. Diondro’s eyes got real big, as he made a funny face. I started to whistle a happy little tune, and Mr. Tumescence stared at the front door, as if he were attempting to open it with his mind.
Diondro and I were both stifling our laughter, when Tony and Christine eventually came into the living area. I thought I even saw the cat looking amused.
“What is so funny?” Christine demanded.
Tony was just shaking his head and looking embarrassed.
“Oh, uhhh… Mr. Tucker was just showing me this trick with the remote control. Did you know you can mute the laugh track, on a comedy show?” Diondro asked.
“No, why is that funny?” Christine asked.
“Well, when you do, it gets real quiet for a long, loong, looong time.” I said, looking at Tony.
Tony grinned and looked down at the floor.
“Oh! Good grief, y’all are a bunch of children!” Christine snapped.
The next morning, as I was driving to the office, I spotted my homeless friend Dustin. We have an odd relationship.
Dustin was wounded in the war, and most people would say he’s not quite “right” in the head. Dustin would agree. He appreciates his limitations.
I appreciate his gifts.
Dustin was pushing his shopping cart down the sidewalk, along the edge of the park named after a lady named, “Rose”.
I found a place to park and walked down the sidewalk to meet Dustin. Even though my leg was healing quickly, I couldn’t help limping a little.
“Hey, Angel, you that good angel,” Dustin called out his usual greeting to me.
“Good morning, Dustin. How are you today?”
“I be truckin’ along just fine. Better’n you, I expect. I aint seen you in many a day, Angel man.”
As usual, Dustin was gazing around, as though he were not really talking to me.
“I’ve been pretty busy lately, but I wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“I be doin’ what I’s supposed to do. Just like you.”
I thought about that. I often wonder if I’m doing all I’m supposed to do.
Dustin was studying me. He said, “Ummm hmmm. I see you worried. You got a pack of wolves be snappin’ at you.”
I nodded in agreement.
“The last few weeks have been pretty rough.”
“Don’t forget.”
I puzzled at this comment for a moment.
“Don’t forget what?”
“Whooeee. You done forgot already.”
Talking to Dustin can be… challenging.
“What did I forget, Dustin?”
“Angel man, you gots to take a hold of them horns.”
“Patience is a virtue”, I reminded myself.
I waited a moment before I asked the question.
“What horns?”
“You grab onto them horns of the Alter, in the city of refuge.”
I had to search through his statement, looking for a clue as to what he might mean. He seemed to be referring to the days thousands of years ago, when the children of Israel lived under the law which required that if a man killed another man, then the killer had to flee to a city of refuge, until a court of elders could be appointed to conduct a trial. He would enter the city and place his hands on the “horns” at the four corners of the alter. He would be safe in a city of refuge, but if he left the city limits, the avenger of blood could kill him on sight.
“You got blood on your hands, Angel man.”
I looked down at the ground.
“Yes, I do.”
Dustin nodded, and then he caught my eye.
“Are you the avenger of blood?”
“No, of course not, I’m just a Shepherd.”
“… with blood on your hands?”
I looked away, and nodded.
“But the sacrifice is already done, the price is paid, you a citizen of a better city now, a city without no city limits.”
I grinned.
“I guess I had kind of forgotten, for a moment there.”
“No, no, no, good Angel. Don’t you never ever forget.”
“I hear you. I won’t forget.”
“You gots to watch out for them wolves, too. They won’t never let you be. You fight the fight, today, tomorrow and the next day. Don’t you tire and don’t you quit.”
I nodded in agreement.
“Not till He returns or calls me home.”
“That’s all then. You can go now. I done told you what He told me to tell you.”
I chuckled a little, at his abrupt dismissal.
“Yes sir, Dustin. I believe you have.”
Twenty-Six
“You’re not going to believe what I found out,” Gary said.
I was driving toward the office, feeling a little better, after my talk with Dustin.
I was enjoying the fact I only had to push a button to be able to talk on the telephone. It hadn’t been too many years ago, I would have had to stop and use a payphone to talk on the phone. The first cellular telephone I had ever owned had been a big, heavy, bag phone. Now my cellular phone was synced with my truck. I didn’t have any wires involved, and it was completely hands free.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Watkins is a skin head.”
“Really, you think he’s a white supremacist?”
“I know he is. At least he claims he is. He’s proud of it.”
“How did you get him to tell you?”
“I didn’t even have to try. We were on the jobsite getting the roof joists in place, when he showed up. You should have seen the way his arrival motivated the men. Anyway, he and I were standing over in the shade, watching the men working, and he said he thought ‘wetbacks’ were better workers than ‘niggers’.”
I took a slow, deep breath, as Gary went on.
“I played along, you know. ‘Sure’, I said, ‘I expect life is so much better here, than it is south of the border, they just naturally want to earn as much as they can, to send home to their families’.”
“No,” Watkins had said, “I mean they are better s
uited to do this kind of work, than most of the other ‘mud people’, especially them ‘niggers’. You know what I mean?”
“So, I just pretended to agree with him.” Gary continued.
“You and me think alike.” Watkins had said. “Now, you take them wetbacks. They’ll work from daylight to dark thirty, and never complain. You smack um around a little and they just work harder. Niggers won’t, and they won’t stand for any kind of goading, neither.”
“I pointed out that all American citizens are protected by the law,” Gary said, “It’s not legal to assault anyone, and now days, non-whites of every variety, are well represented and have a seat at the table of our political power base.”
“Hell, yes. Don’t I know it?” Watkins had said, “It’s part of the problem, but some of us are fighting for God and country. We mean to see the mud people are put back where they belong… under our boot leather.”
I interrupted Gary with a question.
“He said that? Watkins called non-whites ‘mud people’, and talked about subjugating them?”
“Oh, it gets worse,” Gary replied. “He went into a long, drawn out spiel, about how God never intended for white people to become a minority in America. He said traitorous politicians had allowed the ‘mud people’ to rise up and get involved in politics, when they should have been put in their place. He said he was a member of a group that intended to restore America to her better days. His group has plans to punish the traitors and they will not tolerate any of the ‘mud people’ being uppity.” Gary added.
“Did you ask him what group he belonged to?” I enquired.
“Yep. He said he’s an officer in the Righteous Army of God.”
When I got to the office, I called Tony.
“Hey J.W. what’s up?”
“Have you ever heard of an organization called the Righteous Army of God?”
“The RAGs? Sure, they are one of those neo Nazi, white supremacist, hate groups. You know, wanna-be militia types. They have secret meetings and march around with arm bands and weapons. They shout slogans and racial slurs at people of color. They hate anyone who is not a white, ‘Christian’. They’re real punks, and there’s often a connection with loud punk rock music.”
“Do they use a swastika as a symbol?”
“Sometimes, but the symbol they have on their flag is… Oh no, I don’t like where this is going.”
“Is it a cross?”
I heard Tony sigh, before he answered.
“Yes, it is. They have a blood red flag, with a black cross on it. It’s a cross with a big “R” at the top, a big “A” on the left side with a little “o” in the middle, and a big G on the right. Did you see it somewhere?”
“No. I just thought you might want to know, Watkins is a member of the group.”
“I was afraid you were going to say something like that.”
“Is it enough for you to get an arrest warrant?”
I heard the squeak of Tony’s chair as he leaned back in it.
“No, all we have is a dead body, with evidence of having been murdered, and a report of a missing man, last seen in the company of Watkins. We don’t have any way to positively identify the body, and we can’t put Watkins at the scene of the homicide. In fact, we don’t even know where the crime occurred. We have the remains, found at a particular location, but no way of knowing if that was where the crime occurred. We don’t have any actual witness to a homicide. Being a member of a hate group is not a crime.”
“I have never understood how people, who are so filled with hate, can call themselves Christians.”
“I know. What it really means to them is that they are not Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or whatever else. I guess they figure that if they aren’t one of those, and they live in America, then they can just call themselves ‘Christian’. When in fact, what they really are is ignorant, white, trash.” Tony said.
“It must make Jesus sad.”
“It makes me angry”
“Have you talked to the Rusk County Sheriff, yet, Tony?”
“I have. I told him what we have so far, and he wants to meet. Is this afternoon, at about two o’clock, good for you?”
“I’ll make it work. How about I take you and Diondro to lunch, and we drive over there together, after that?”
“Yeah, I’ll take you up on the offer. Come by here about noon.”
I spotted my tail shortly after I walked out of my office building. It was almost too easy. So easy in fact, at first I thought it wasn’t even real. Maybe, I was just being paranoid.
I noticed the car as I was getting into my truck, in the big parking lot that surrounds the building where my office is, on the south loop. The car was parked one row away and there was a black man with a shaved head, sitting behind the wheel. The car was a dark grey, Toyota sedan. I recognized the plates. I don’t believe in coincidence, but I tried to shrug it off. I started the truck and drove toward the nearest exit, which empties out onto Copeland Rd. I changed my mind, when the car started to follow me through the parking lot.
When I reached the driveway exit, I stopped my truck and got out. I had blocked this exit onto Copeland Rd.
The black guy behind the wheel of the Toyota watched me approach his car, with a smirk around the corners of his mouth, which was not reflected in his eyes. His eyes watched me intently as I approached.
He rolled down his window, so I leaned toward him and spoke as I watched his hands on the steering wheel.
“Well, as I live and breathe, if it isn’t Kirby Wilson. What a coincidence meeting you here, Mr. Wilson,” I said, by way of greeting.
“What’s up, Mr. Tucker?”
“I don’t know. Were you following me, again?”
“I was just coming in to see you in your office, when you came out. So, I figured I’d just follow you to wherever you’re going, and we could talk there.”
I nodded and looked around the parking lot. Other cars were beginning to come up behind his.
“OK, so here I am, what would you like to discuss?”
“It’s too hot to stand around in the parking lot, blocking traffic. Let’s talk somewhere else.”
“Sure, let’s do that, somewhere else and some other time. You can make an appointment with my associate. Right now, I’m meeting a friend for lunch.”
“Yeah, who’s that?”
“I think you know him, Lieutenant Escalante, of the Tyler P.D.?”
“Yeah, we’ve met.”
“Maybe you would like to join us for lunch, my treat.”
“No thanks. My business is with you.”
“Ok. Like I said, you can make an appointment with my associate.”
“Whatever.” He said.
I looked him in the eye.
“Whenever, wherever.” I replied.
As I got back in my truck, I was wondering why Kirby Wilson had gone to the trouble of deliberately catching my attention.
Twenty-Seven
“I don’t like it.” Tony started. “What if Wilson followed you here?”
Tony had sent Diondro away, ostensibly to get more coffee, so we could have a moment to talk.
I shrugged.
“I was watching for him, and after I got headed toward downtown, I never saw him again. If Wilson did manage to follow me here, he would see I was coming to the cop shop to have lunch with you. Just like I told him I was going to do.”
“It would seem likely he’s trying to find Diondro again.”
“Could be, but we don’t know for sure.”
“I don’t like it,” Tony repeated.
“Well, the trial is only a week away. I’m confident we can avoid putting Diondro into any kind of danger, until then. Those street thugs aren’t really trying very hard. Putting Kirby Wilson back on my tail, at this late date, would be kind of a weak and uncommitted measure,” I pointed out.
“It probably took a little while for them to figure out what exactly happened to the crew they sent to get you the f
irst time, and more time to arrange for another crew.”
“Not enough time. These gang banger types are not particularly smart. They’re not well connected to professional killers, and they won’t want to waste any more money on amateurs. They’re probably planning to just come after Diondro themselves. The usual way they handle something like this is with a drive by. Just a bunch of guys in a car firing all their guns out the window as they drive by, hoping to hit their intended target, but you can’t fire a lot of bullets at anyone, until you know where they are. At this point, they have no idea where Diondro is.”
Tony considered my statement for a moment.
“I think we’d better do something to protect Diondro’s mother,” He said.
“Good night! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Think of what?” Diondro asked, as he walked back into the room.
“Diondro, does your mother work?”
“No sir.”
“Is she usually at home during the day?”
“Yes sir. Why do you ask?”
“I’m going to ask Christine if she would have your mother stay with her, until after the trial.”
“Oh, I don’t know if she would do something like…”
“I think she’ll be happy to do it, Diondro. Christine is really good about this sort of thing, and she has an extra bedroom.”
“No, I mean my moms. She wouldn’t be comfortable staying with a strange white... uhh, what I mean is, she wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Sure, I understand, but we think she would be safer if she stayed with Christine.”
“Are you saying you think they would go after my moms?”
I shrugged.
“They might try to use your mother to get at you,” Tony said.
Diondro looked shaken.
“Diondro, use Tony’s desk phone there. Call your mother and ask her to join us for lunch. We have to go right through Chapel Hill on the way to Rusk County. We’ll pick her up, and she can come with us to Henderson.”
Diondro looked at Tony.
Tony smiled back at him.
“Sure, it’s an excellent idea. I look forward to meeting your mother.”