Southern Gothic Read online

  Leon pulled back. “What the heck’s that supposed to mean?”

  Max cocked his head to the side. “Really, Leon? You think I’m suddenly a racist?” Leon didn’t back down. “Fine. The majority of black people in America descend from slaves. The majority of slaves were not permitted to learn reading and writing. Couple that with the oral African traditions most of those slaves originally came with and the American black family became one of oral traditions. Entire family histories were shared through stories, not by writing it all down. Thus, if Miss Lilla had died or lived an unusual life, somebody would have made it part of the family history, and Sebastian would have known more on the subject than he told me.”

  Though still ruffled, Leon gave a single nod. “Okay, then. We’ve got a window of time to look into. It’s probably safe to assume she lived in or near Winston-Salem; otherwise, what was the point of hiring you?”

  “Maybe I’m really that good.”

  “You are good. But I don’t know about that good.”

  Max grinned. “Guess I’ll comb through the local papers from that time and see what turns up.”

  “We got most of it here on microfilm. Some’s been digitized, too. So you can run a few computer searches first. I want to go through some more of what we’ve got here.”

  “Thanks,” Max said and offered his hand. Leon accepted and as they shook, he chuckled. Max laughed. “I know. I’m nuts, but I appreciate you helping me out despite all that.”

  After an hour had passed sitting in front of the microfilm viewer, Max’s eyes burned and his neck had a crick in it. When he finally stumbled onto a reference to Miss Lilla, he had to read the article three times before he believed that he had not misread it. Each time through produced the same result — he had found her. He printed the article and rushed to find Leon.

  The KKK’s nightly activities had reached a fever pitch. Several papers had taken to writing regular articles about the hangings and burnings, and no matter how bad the state of twenty-four hour news often felt, the papers of the 19th century held little in check. Graphic photos of black bodies hanging from the trees accompanied most articles as well as lists of those who had gone unaccounted for. While reviewing those lists, Max had spotted the name Lilla one column over. He pointed it out to Leon.

  With a careful eye, Leon read over the article. Max observed his friend’s eye hover over the photograph. It depicted three bodies dangling from a tree while several white cloaked men stood and watched. One of the bodies looked particularly small.

  When Max had seen the photo the first time, he processed it as a bit of research, a moment in history — despicable, grotesque, but no different than any harsh image on a television show. Leon’s hesitation, however, drove the reality deep into Max’s chest. These were real people that had been hung.

  They might have been sleeping that night — parents and their child — when the glass windows shattered and the door broke down. Voices shouted at them as men rampaged into their home. Dressed like ghosts, they swarmed the sleeping family, dragged them outside, ignored their cries and pleas, assaulted them with kicks and punches, until the coarse ropes scraped their skin and lifted them into the air.

  “Why do you stay here?” Max asked.

  “What do you mean?” Leon asked, but they both knew what he had meant. “Where am I to go?”

  “North? West? Any place without such a history for hating black people.”

  Leon looked up at Max as if catching a man running down the street naked while singing the British national anthem. “White people hate black people all over this country. It’s better than it was back then, but the problem hasn’t gone away. I stay in the South because this is my home, it’s where I’m from. But I’ll tell you something more. I got my degree in library sciences up in Pennsylvania. Beautiful state. Nice people. You know the town of Ephrata? Grand Wizard of the KKK lived there.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply there were no bigots anywhere in the North, but I would think —”

  “You would, but you’d be wrong. There are the same number of bigots everywhere. Difference here is that in the South, they aren’t afraid to show their true colors. I know exactly who my friends are and who are my enemies down here. Up North, everyone smiles and treats you real nice. Until you leave and they start counting the silverware. So, no thank you. I’m happy to stay here. I know where I stand. I know who my people are.”

  Max didn’t know if he bought Leon’s idea as a constant truth, but he certainly could see how it held true for Leon. He simply didn’t know enough black people to judge if all felt the same way. And what’s that say about me? That I don’t know enough black people?

  Troubled by his thoughts, Max welcomed a change when Leon tapped the paper and said, “Hmmm. It says here that a family of three was hanged because the Ku Klux said they had attempted escape during the War. ‘Governor Holden has requested the aid of Federal soldiers in calming the nightly agitations. This is good news to most Negroes who have been complaining about ill treatment. Miss Lilla H. was willing to be quoted as saying “We ain’t slaves no more.” This reporter agrees but notes that while Negroes are no longer slaves, that doesn’t give them the mental faculties necessary for voting or participating in our civilized mode of life.’ See that? There’s still too many today who would agree with this paper.”

  “Racism issues aside, do you think that’s Miss Lilla?”

  Leon read the article again, his distaste for it pulsing off his tense shoulders and set jaw. At length, he nodded. “It could be her. It would explain a lot, too. See they call her ‘Miss Lilla H.’ which suggests that she’s no slave.”

  “Civil War’s over by this point. Nobody’s a slave.”

  “I mean if she had been a slave, she’d have the Master’s last name, or like Freeman, she would have changed it. Instead, the paper only gives her an initial. It’s possible she was never a slave. That the letter stands for whatever her real last name is, and that the white men running the paper didn’t want to acknowledge that but also wanted to make sure the KKK knew who to target for saying anything at all. Don’t forget, the KKK was made up of all types — ex-soldiers, former slave owners, and plenty of people longing for the ‘good old days’ — so, they use the initial of her last name.”

  Max frowned. “That can’t be the big secret. I mean, somebody killed Sebastian. Almost a hundred fifty years later, why would it matter if Lilla was a slave or not? It couldn’t matter enough to kill a man. Could it?”

  As Leon shrugged, Max’s cell phone rang — Sandra. “Hi, hon,” he said, enjoying the warm feeling of speaking to her with affection.

  Instead of a warm response, Sandra’s filled his ear with excited energy. “I’ve got him. I think I know why Sebastian was murdered.”

  Chapter 8

  Max met up with Sandra and Drummond at the McDonald’s across the street from their trailer park. They knew they shouldn’t splurge on dinner out — even dinner as cheap as McDonald’s — but none could stand the thought of discussing the case that evening while surrounded by their failure. At least while eating fast food, they could face the other direction and pretend that crappy trailer didn’t await their return. More importantly, the restaurant had much better heating.

  As Max and Sandra settled in on the same side of a booth, Max grabbed a fry. “So, tell me everything. Who killed Sebastian?”

  Drummond slipped into the seat opposite them. “Hold on, there. Leed and I have spent the whole day in the Other, and I think we have some worthwhile information to provide.”

  “Don’t you think knowing who killed Sebastian trumps anything you or I found?”

  “First off, it wasn’t just me. You keep forgetting Leed and he doesn’t like it.”

  “Sorry,” Max said, hoping the other diners ignored that he and Sandra appeared to be talking to each other yet looking across at an empty side of the booth. “I only forget sometimes because I can’t see him.”

  “He says it’s no big deal
. What is big, though, is that we couldn’t find Sebastian. I don’t mean that we’re narrowing in on him or that we got a clue. I mean, he isn’t in the Other. I don’t think he’s dead.”

  “I saw his body. Heck, you saw his body.”

  “We saw a body. But I’m telling you he’s not in the Other.”

  Sandra said, “Maybe he moved on. You know, like you were supposed to do.”

  “Only problem with that idea is that we know he hired Max to look into his family. Only a few things normally keep a ghost hanging around. Shocking death where the soul isn’t willing to accept that the body is dead — that could easily apply if he had been murdered the way Max and I saw at Baxter House. But then finding him in the Other should have been a snap. Trust me, it’s not hard to locate people who can’t admit they’re dead. They stand out.”

  “So, you don’t think he died in a shock. That doesn’t mean he’s still alive.”

  “Another reason to stay is when you got unfinished business. Anybody murdered would have loads of unfinished business. I’m talking serious business here, not unpaid bills or something. I’m talking telling a loved one something very important along the lines of ‘Gee, honey, you have a child I never told you about.’ That kind of thing.”

  Max said, “Now, he didn’t die or if he did, he’s all good with his personal affairs?”

  “Here’s the kicker — a big reason ghosts stay around is when they are deeply disconnected from their lives. Sebastian Freeman hired us to find his relatives. He was searching for that kind of connection and never got it. So, if he were murdered, he most definitely would be haunting the area. I can’t believe he would be allowed to move on with all this hanging over him.”

  “Well, he is dead. If he were alive, he would have called me by now.” Max pointed a fry at Drummond. “And don’t tell me he’s faked his own death. I’m not buying that one.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  Sandra put down her burger. “Can we get to what I found?”

  “Of course. Sorry, your husband can get so carried away.”

  Sandra lifted an eyebrow at Drummond. “I looked into two parts of this and found some very interesting things. First, I checked out Baxter House.” Sandra had once been a Realtor and still had contacts in that world. They often provided her with information that she shouldn’t have access to — her father had always said that it paid to maintain friendships.

  “The house dates back to 1912 when a man named Cal Baxter inherited a tremendous sum of money. Several million dollars — which in 1912 was something like a hundred million today. He built the house that same year. Before becoming wealthy, he worked as a clerk for the local papers and his name never turned up in much else. After building the house, though, neighbors complained about strange noises and Baxter’s unsociable behavior.”

  “1912?” Max tapped his chin in thought. “Did you find any mention of a woman named Lilla H?”

  “No.”

  “She would have been quite old by then — especially for those times. Maybe 70.”

  Sandra shook her head. “Nobody like that came up, but I was only going through the Realtor’s history, so I can’t tell if he had children or if he was married or anything like that. None of that would show up in business papers from that time period since only men counted back then.”

  Max thought about what he had learned earlier that day, things Leon had said. If Lilla had never been a slave, she would have been making a living somehow before the war. And afterwards, all black people needed to find jobs. It was a chaotic time. But she would have had years of work experience under her belt. Getting a job might have been easier, but not necessarily easy — no matter what, she was still a black woman in the late 1860s looking for a job.

  “Maybe,” Max said, drawing out the word as he formulated his thoughts, “Lilla’s child worked for Cal Baxter. Lilla would have probably been a highly sought after maid. One of the best in the area. If she wasn’t a slave, she would have been better educated — at least enough to take care of herself and keep employed.”

  Drummond agreed. “Over time she builds up a good reputation and then trains her daughter to do the same. Did she have a daughter?”

  “Lilla and Walter Freeman had two daughters and three sons. So, it’s possible. By the time Cal Baxter has built his mansion, he hires the Freeman daughter to run the place based on the firm reputation of the mother.”

  Sandra pulled out her cell phone and tapped away. Their phones would be one of the last things to give up. Their trailer had no Internet connection, so they relied on their phones to stay connected to the world. “I’m making a note to look further into that. I’ll see what I can find.”

  “I still don’t see how all this Cal Baxter stuff tells us who murdered Sebastian.”

  “Patience, honey.” Sandra finished her note and put the phone away. “After I found out the Baxter info, I turned my focus toward Luther Boer, and let me tell you this — he’s lucky to still have his job. The Boer’s are heavily in debt. They spent the last few months house hunting but couldn’t secure a loan. I called their landlord and told her I was the bank following up their loan application. She told me they were two months behind on their rent.”

  “What a wonderfully sneaky move,” Drummond said.

  “I’m learning a lot hanging around you two. I also posed as a Realtor and was able to get access to the rest of their finances.”

  “Wait,” Max said, his jaw as wide open as his eyes. “You can do that?”

  “Oh, honey, it’s easy. The world pretends we’re all security conscious, but things are as loose as they ever were. Maybe even more than before computers.”

  She put her hand over his, and the simple gesture warmed him. “Luther’s broke,” he said. “Worse off than us. And he’s got all sorts of problems because of that. I’m guessing you think he killed Sebastian.”

  “Doesn’t it seem likely?”

  Max thought for a moment. “We need more information. This is all good stuff, and I feel in my gut that we’re closing in on things, but it’s not there yet.”

  Rising in the air, Drummond said, “Okay, pal. What do you want us to do?”

  “You and Leed have got to find Sebastian.”

  “I told you —”

  “He didn’t fake his death, and you know it. So go back to the Other and find him, or find out where he went. While you’re at it, see if you can find Cal Baxter in there. Maybe he’ll tell us if he ever hired Lilla H’s daughter. Sandra, I need you to do the same incredible job you just pulled finding information on Luther Boer, and go find whatever you can on Sebastian Freeman. I’ve been spending all my time looking into his past, but we don’t know anything about his present.”

  “You can count on it,” Sandra said. “What about you?”

  “I’ve got to take on what might be the most dangerous job of all. I’m going to visit Luther Boer’s wife.”

  Chapter 9

  The next day, Max drove out east on Route 40 and exited onto Thomasville Road. The Winston-Salem city line ran clear out to the town of Walburg where there were several groups of apartment buildings. Some looked well-maintained and pricey. Others looked as if they had been designed in the 1970s — all brick and utilitarian. Then there were those that made Max thankful for his crappy trailer.

  Pulling up to one of these disheveled buildings, Max noted the dented cars and scattered trash in the yards. In warmer weather, he imagined most of the people hung around outside — indoors would be too hot. But winter had arrived early, and the biting chill hit Max every time he got out of his car.

  Knocking on the door to Apartment B, Max skipped from foot to foot and blew warm air on his hands. He had waited until Luther left for work, and he knew Luther’s wife, Maria, was still inside. So, he knocked again. “Mrs. Boer? Please answer the door.”

  When the door finally opened, Max faced a short but harsh-looking white woman. With a cigarette in hand, scraggly hair tied back with a d
irty kerchief, and eyes that didn’t want to be bothered, she glared at him like a petulant teenager. “What do you want?”

  “You’re Mrs. Luther Boer?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was hoping you could answer a few questions about your husband’s involvement with the police department’s crime scene division.”

  Her face lost all of its swagger. Jabbing her cigarette in his direction, she said, “I am not going through all that crap again. You IAD people can talk to him direct. And he ain’t dirty, so there ain’t nothing to talk about anyways.”

  Max smiled and decided to play along. “No, no, ma’am, you misunderstand. We’re not investigating your husband for any wrongdoing.”

  “You’re not?”

  “I promise you, he’s not in any trouble coming from us. But he is involved in a case that has crossed our table regarding another officer, and I hoped by speaking with you, I might be able to get the information I need without causing your husband any embarrassment at headquarters. Those things can stall a career, and frankly, when it comes to IAD asking the questions, other police officers might make poor assumptions.”

  Her brow furrowed tight. “You sayin’ that by talking with me, you’re trying to protect him from getting an ass-whooping from the other cops?”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m saying.”

  “Shit, why didn’t you say so? Come on in.” She walked away from him and headed into the kitchen. “Want a beer?”

  Max glanced at his watch — 10:14 am. “I can’t. I’m on duty.”

  The apartment stank of mold and grease. Max suspected the windows had never been opened, and the grime coating the bottoms of the panes backed up this idea. A torn couch sat against one wall and off to the side was a plastic table with two chairs. Junk mail piled up on the chairs, and the table looked like a dumping ground for pizza boxes and take out. In front of the couch was a stained coffee table with three full ashtrays. A few feet away, a small television perched on a pile of old phone directories. Behind the television, hung on the wall bold and proud, Max saw a large poster of a black fist.