Southern Rites Page 2

  “Sure, I remember.”

  “Well, the other day —”

  As Mrs. Porter prattled along a tale of misplaced mail, burnt cookies, and a stray cat, Max’s mind wandered back to the skeleton in the empty house. The missing bone, the missing journal, and the strange manner in which the coffin had burst through the floor — all of it reeked of trouble. But more than any of that, he wondered what Mother Hope truly sought. Could she really want him simply to research this oddity? Of course, not. Max had been down this road enough times now to know better.

  The doorbell had to ring three times before he looked up. Mrs. Porter had a wooden spoon in one hand and the other posed on her hip. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

  Sandra hurried down the stairs to answer the door. From the hall, she called out, “It’s J.”

  “Who’s Jay?” Mrs. Porter asked as Max jumped to his feet.

  Sandra and J entered the kitchen. “One of our employees, and a cutie-pie, too,” she said. J entered like a shy toddler hiding behind his Mommy instead of a shy teenager embarrassed by his employer. The second-half of the Sandwich Boys, J had been homeless like his counterpart. As a black teen without parents or stability, he lived a life destined for jail or death. But he was smart and ambitious. He saw a way out and wasted no time jumping on board. After several cases with PB and J, Max had no clue how he ever got on without them.

  Mrs. Porter gave J a once-over look and then nodded. “You want to help me cook dinner?”

  To Max and Sandra’s shock, J pushed them aside to get into the kitchen. As Mrs. Porter tied an apron around him, he glanced back. “PB’s doing much better. That infection is mostly gone and he’s eating good again.”

  “You say well not good,” Mrs. Porter said.

  “PB’s doing well. Another week or so and he’ll be ready to work.”

  Sandra said, “That’s good news. I’m sure you’re relieved.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t got to worry about nothing. I’m still here, and I can do anything you need.”

  Max nodded. “We know. In fact, after we eat, I have an important errand for you. I need you to pick up an old journal for me. I’ll give you the address and you can take my car.”

  Mrs. Porter raised an eyebrow. “He drives?”

  “I’m pretty good at it,” J said.

  “You can’t possibly be old enough.”

  He shrugged. “That only matters if I get caught.”

  Nobody pushed further on the topic and they all settled into casual conversation. Throughout dinner, Max and Sandra worked hard to keep all talk light and meaningless. They even successfully dodged a bullet when Mrs. Porter asked to use the serving tray she had given them as a wedding gift — an abomination to the name of serving trays (a porcelain tray with clawed feet as if it were an old bathtub) that they kept packed away in the attic. J came to the rescue, however, by asking her about a scar on her hand. That led to a story about a childhood bully she fought off in sixth grade.

  The two then spent much of the evening asking each other probing questions. Mrs. Porter wanted to know how homeless life had been and what it really was like to be black in the South. J wanted to know about life in the cold, cold North and whether she thought about dying much. They were shockingly honest.

  J said homelessness wasn’t so bad, except in the winter. And being black was just the way his life was. He learned early on not to trust or expect much from white people, even the kind ones, and then he had no problems. “You can’t get burned if you refuse to touch the fire.”

  For Mrs. Porter’s part, she complained that the cold had gotten much worse lately. The winters were shorter but harsher, and her old bones reacted badly when the snows came. As for death, she said, “I certainly think about it more now than ever before. But you know what? I’ve lived a long life, and I’m not done yet. The way I think about it is that I can’t control it one way or the other. So, until my number is called up, I’m going to keep living as much as I can.”

  J smiled. “You should work on a case with us. That’ll make you feel like you’re living.”

  Sandra choked on her food. Max wanted to leap across the table and gag the boy. Instead, he said, “It’s been a long day. Let’s clean up, and J, I still need you to get that journal.”

  Clicking her fork on her plate, Mrs. Porter said, “You are not going to let this sweet boy run through the city just to get a book. That’s cruel.”

  “There’s nothing cruel about it, and it’s his job. He gets paid to help me out. Besides, he knows the streets better than any of us. And it’s not like we’re living in 1970s Harlem. This is Winston-Salem.”

  J patted Mrs. Porter’s arm. “I’ll be fine. It’s no big deal.”

  “You should at least spend the night here when you get back. It’ll be too late for you to go tramping around town by that point.”

  Sandra stood and gathered the plates a bit too harshly. “Fine. I’ll make the couch up for tonight. Now, if you’re done deciding how to use my house, I’ve got dishes to take care of.”

  All grew still as Sandra left the dining room. J’s eyes widened in the silence. He looked to Max for assurance. With a motion of his head, Max sent J off to get the journal, and J didn’t hesitate. Max’s mother sat stiff as she dabbed a napkin at her mouth.

  “I’ve apparently overstepped my bounds,” she said. “I only wanted to make sure the young man was well-cared for.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Max said. “And Sandra will be fine, too.”

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “You don’t like her, either.”

  “I wouldn’t be rude to her like that.”

  Launching into a detailed list of all the times she had been rude to Sandra would have taken up the rest of the evening. Max held back. With a controlled, faux-calm, he said, “Since we didn’t know you were coming, we weren’t prepared. We’ve also been hired on for a new case, and that means I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight.”

  “Oh, well, I wouldn’t want to be a burden. I’ll stay out of your way. Don’t worry. It’s good that you’re working. You work too hard, but I’m happy that you keep busy. I’m sure we can spend time together tomorrow.”

  As Mrs. Porter left for the guest room, Max heard the faucet running in the kitchen and the clatter of dishes flung into the dishwasher. He thought it best to stay out of range, but he had to pass by the kitchen in order to reach his study. No sense in poking an angry lioness. He would wait.

  Several minutes later, the dishwasher rumbled on and Sandra entered the dining room. With her arms crossed and her hip popped to the side, she said, “Are you going to keep hiding out here or are we going into the study to discuss the case?”

  With a bashful grin, Max said, “The case sounds like the best thing to discuss right now.”

  “You know it.”

  Settling behind his desk in his study, Max took breath and tried to relax his muscles. Though most certainly a cliché, Max saw his study as a private sanctuary. Surrounded by books, a few sculptures, thick carpeting, and dark wood walls, Max’s study remained the best part of the house in his eyes — even with his wife sitting opposite him with a heavy glower.

  “How long is she staying?” Sandra asked.

  “I thought we were going to talk about the case.”

  “The longer she stays, the more difficult our job will be. So, how long?”

  Max shrugged. “I’ll ask her tomorrow.”

  With two fingers, Sandra rubbed the center of her forehead. “I know you haven’t seen her in a long time, and I know she’s your mother, but I can’t take too much of her. She hates me, and she’s not shy about it.”

  “I know. I wish it wasn’t so.”

  “Just ... please keep her out of my hair.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks, hon. So, this case — what do we know?”

  Max leaned back in his chair. “We really haven’t had time yet. Once J gets back, I’ll dig into that journal,
but otherwise, you know more than I do.”

  “Me?”

  “No way did that coffin burst out of the floor naturally. That much seems clear. Something magic caused it. And if Mother Hope is calling us on the job, then it’s definitely a major magic problem.”

  “You are the best around here at research. You don’t think she could simply want you to —”

  “No,” Max said. His hand absently traced the circular mark on his chest — the curse Mother Hope had put upon him. “She wouldn’t bother with us for minor research. Something serious is going on.”

  Sandra lifted her head. “I wish you weren’t right, but we both know you are.”

  “I’ll savor the rarity.” He forced a chuckle. “Go get some rest. I’ll wait up for J.”

  Chapter 3

  Hours later, under a blanket of quiet in the house, Max returned to his office with the newly acquired journal. J had no trouble getting it, and when he arrived at the house, Max’s mother took over his care.

  She insisted on fixing him a turkey sandwich and sat with him in the kitchen as he downed the meal. Then she snapped at him because he wanted to go to bed without brushing his teeth. A lecture about hygiene, including dental, ensued with the end result that J quickly showered and brushed his teeth before calling it a night on the couch.

  By the time things were quiet again and Max could fall back into his office chair, the house had closed up shop. Mrs. Porter had tucked J in and promised him a pancake breakfast in the morning. Sandra bid all a goodnight before she retired to the master bedroom, not fast enough to avoid a reproach for failing to have stocked blueberries for the pancakes, but fast enough for all to let the walls in the house protect them from each other for a few sleepy hours.

  Max, however, did not sleep. He read the journal — cover to cover. It belonged to a young man named Archibald Henderson. It wasn’t long and the majority of entries involved the maintenance of a farm, but near the end, he chewed upon some choice nibbles.

  March 7, 1769

  I’ve been absent from writing my thoughts upon this book for too long. It is the irony of the times that I have so much to contribute here yet not enough hours to put it down. I will try, however, to bring about some understanding of what we in the back country face and have faced. Our dispute with the Royal government stretches back quite far. In point of fact, I recall clearly my father telling me about his participation in the Enfield Riot of 1758. I was but ten years of age, sitting on the floor of our tiny home. Father sat at the table while my two sisters and brother, all younger as I am the eldest, lined along the edge of our parents bed in the corner. Mother stood by the fire, cooking venison stew from the doe we had caught that morning. Such a warm memory of my family that it was not until this past year that I began to understand the importance of the tale he told us that night.

  Archibald went on to relate in detail how his father and the other farmers tried to cut a living out of the difficult terrain of the back country — the interior of North Carolina, barely connected with rudimentary roads and mostly inaccessible to sea and river vessels. They were hearty folk who did not balk at the backbreaking work required of them. But they also wanted a sense of fairness in their lives.

  The inequity that caused the trouble surrounded the very land they lived on. Through an odd bit of heredity, Lord Granville had fallen into owning a huge swath of North Carolina that cut a line halfway across the state. Everything north of the line (and reaching into modern day Virginia) belonged to him.

  Granville had little interest in owning this land but great interest in selling it for a large profit. The Crown had laws concerning how land in the New World would be cut up and sold, but even then, the Crown had difficulty controlling matters so far from home. Few of the governors paid attention to the Crown’s fee schedule, and instead, adopted convoluted and arbitrary rules for acquiring land. This had the desired effect of keeping the rabble from gaining too much land.

  “And at that time,” Max muttered to the journal, “land ownership equaled voting rights.”

  All Father wanted back then was a voice. It is still all we desire. Back then, Father and almost five hundred men walked into the lower house of the legislature with complaints against Francis Corbin and Joshua Bodley. Five hundred men.

  Corbin and Bodley had been among the worst offenders of abusing the land laws. They had milked the back-country folk for every bit of money they could squeeze out.

  “But five hundred men in the 1750s was enough to scare the local government bad.”

  Between Archibald’s journal and a few quick Google searches, Max discovered that Corbin and Bodley fled. They made it as far as Edgecombe County before getting caught. Lucky for them, these “backwards” farmers were not blood-thirsty. They simply wanted a fair deal on the land and a voice in the government. They thought they had won that day. But corruption would never be defeated so easily.

  “Max, you awake?” Drummond called out before sliding through the far wall.

  Rubbing his eyes, Max said, “Yeah, come on in. You find anything?”

  “Don’t have much to go on. No name, no identifying bits. Basically, we got a dead guy from Revolutionary times. You know how many ghosts in the Other fit the description?”

  “Actually, no.”

  “A lot. Hundreds.”

  Setting the journal on the table, Max tapped the top of it. “Well, we got a name now. Archibald Henderson.”

  “Anything else? You know yet why he’s trying to break out of his coffin?”

  “We don’t even know if that’s what happened. It’s clear that his family came from the back country and they were involved in some of the precursors to the American Revolution. That’s all I got so far.”

  Drummond pursed his lips. “Any idea what’s really going on here? I mean with Mother Hope and the Magi.”

  “Haven’t a clue. But I’m glad to see that you’re thinking it, too. I can’t believe this is just some simple research.”

  “Is there such a thing when it comes to our cases?”

  “Exactly.” Max warmed at the reassurance — even if it meant that something darker hung over them all. “I guess we’ve got to keep digging. I’ll get back to the journal. You —”

  “I know. Back to the Other. See if I can find Archibald Henderson.”

  “Good luck. We’ll meet up at the office in the morning.”

  Drummond brought his collar tighter around his neck. “Will your mother be coming?”

  “Charming as ever. No, I’ll try to keep her clear.”

  “Thanks. I don’t mean to be rude to you, but I can only take small doses of people like that.”

  Max tried not to be offended. He knew his mother rubbed many the wrong way. But she was his mother. And she could be kind, too.

  “Good night, Drummond.”

  “Night, Max.”

  Max sat alone in his office for a little. Cool air followed the whoosh of the central air kicking on. He brushed his fingers over the journal. Almost two hundred and fifty years old and here it sat on his desk, under his fingers, divulging its secrets only to him. It seemed as if there should be some ceremony before he read it again, but he would have to settle for standing up, stretching his arms over his head, and grabbing a drink of water from the kitchen.

  Heading back to his study, he heard murmured voices from the living room. He stopped and listened closer. Inching down the hall, Max maneuvered near enough to see his mother tucking J into the makeshift bed on the couch.

  She beamed at the teen. “You listen to me. Your life is important. Don’t go wasting it on stupid risks. Okay? And I’m not talking about running around at night. I’ve lived a long life. I know a thing or two, and I see that you can handle yourself well. But that kind of surety brings along with it arrogance, and arrogance can get you hurt.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” J said, with his cocky I’m the man voice. “I’m always a step ahead.”

  Max cringed, bracing himself for the
tirade his mother would now unleash. But she laughed — a short, quiet sound unlike anything he had ever heard from her.

  “You get some sleep,” she said. “Can I get you anything before I go?”

  J actually snuggled further into the couch. “Thanks. You’re a sweet lady.”

  “I’m glad somebody here thinks so.”

  Popping up on his elbow, J frowned. “Why is that? I mean, why are you and Sandra so mad at each other?”

  “I’m not mad at Sandra. Really, I’m not. But I think Max could have done better. He could have found a woman who made him happy. That’s all parents ever really want for their children. I don’t care if Max is rich or poor — as long as he’s happy.”

  “You don’t think he’s happy with Sandra?”

  “Whenever we talk on the phone, I can hear the tension in his voice. Ever since they got married, they’ve struggled, and he never sounds content, let alone happy. Look at this place. It’s gorgeous. But do they enjoy it? They look as stressed as ever. Do they cling to each other? Help each other through? I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t seem so. Never has.” She re-tucked J’s blanket. “Max is my boy. You understand? My child. It hurts me to see him this way, and it angers me to see the source of that being the person who should be loving him, not hurting him.”

  “Hey, at least they’re together. My folks split up when I was a baby. Then they both split town. I ain’t ever had anybody care enough even to be mad at me.”

  “Don’t say ain’t.”

  J glanced around the room. “Fact is, Max and Sandra and my pal, PB — they’re the closest thing I got to family. So, even if they are a bit messed up, they’re better than nothing.”

  Mrs. Porter leaned over and kissed J’s forehead. “If they’re your family, then that makes me your family, too. I guess I’m your new grandma.”

  He smiled. “Cool.”

  Before she could leave J’s side, Max hurried back to his study. He banged into his chair with a clumsy escape like an amateur. He stared at the journal on his desk, even reached out to open it and get back to work, but he pulled his hand away.