“It’s a perfectly well-known fact that we keep them in poverty. They steal food to eat.”
“I’m not blaming them,” said Dawson. He’s becoming vexed himself. “That’s not the point. I’m citing facts.”
“They’ll be outraged,” says McKinley.
“Because I say that the public is more horrified over a white woman being raped by a black man,” asks Dawson, “than it is over a black girl being raped by a white man?” He pauses. “You know it’s true. Public outrage is greater over one than the other.”
“You make it sound as though it’s justified.” McKinley is definitely accusatory.
“I’m making a point, using language our readers will understand,” says Dawson. “I’m saying that in the past people have found this crime—a black man raping a white woman—so horrifying that they see it as justifying an even greater crime: lynching. Because of this, no one ever prosecuted the lynchers. But in the Pickens case the public felt more horror over the lynching than they did over the rape. Suddenly lynching is seen as a crime. Which I applaud.”
“Because it’s a white man being lynched by black men,” says McKinley.
“Race plays a part, it always does. It obscures the law. But what I’m trying to do, McKinley,” Dawson says, his voice turning emphatic, “is stop lynching altogether. I want it brought to an end.”
He stares at McKinley, as though the reporter is challenging him.
“The ministers will turn against you,” McKinley says.
“Against me?” asks Dawson. He’s spent the last fifteen years supporting them. “They know perfectly well I’m on their side. I’ve always been.”
McKinley says nothing.
“White people lynch black people because of the horror they feel at rape. But lynching is the horror. It poisons the body politic. The Pickens lynchers should be prosecuted. If we punish black people for lynching, then we can punish white people for it. And then we can get the whole barbaric system banned. Which is my intention. Sweet mother.”
Dawson runs his hand through his hair. This is like trying to run through waist-high water. Why must he struggle with every step? Here’s McKinley, his trusted ally, come in to pick a fight. Dawson’s fingers hurt and so does his wrist. He has no way to pay the paper bill. The delivery drivers will be next, and then there is payroll to meet.
“God made the races different,” Dawson says. “I’m simply stating facts. Do you deny it?”
McKinley stands up, buttoning his jacket. “What you’ve written is offensive.”
Dawson’s chest fills with fury. He strokes his mustache, holding McKinley’s stare. He would like to lean across the desk and shout at him. He will not be told by his employees what he can say in print. He’d like to fire him, but he won’t. “Out,” he says. He gestures brusquely at the door. “Come back when you’re civil.”
McKinley turns to leave, holding the folded paper in front of him like a declaration. His neck is dark and suffused with blood.
Dawson sits down. His ears are ringing, fury rages through him. McKinley is unconscionable, coming in to challenge him. Dawson can’t focus on the page. He thinks he should fire McKinley; he half rises to go to the stairs and shout this message down to the newsroom. He sits down again. He can’t afford to fire anyone. He rereads the article. He can’t focus, can’t take in what anyone else says.
He picks up the paper and finds his own piece. He goes over to the window to reread it. The clock ticks evenly beside him, that calm hurrying beat. He can’t concentrate. The races are different, but the sentence about purity is confusing.
He sees Langston’s face, shifting before him black to white. The idea of Langston reading this makes him uncomfortable—but Langston is not who he means.
He sits down again, still furious. McKinley has no right to challenge him. He doesn’t want to think about the editorial. He feels the silver blade within him, and shifts away from it. He’ll write again tomorrow. He’s done this before, written in the heat of the moment, then had second thoughts. The point is to bring lynching to a halt. That’s his intention.
There are signs of a better life. He’d meant that. For both races. He takes a slow breath, shallow, so he won’t feel the blade.
He exhales. He’s glad he didn’t shout down the staircase at McKinley.
* * *
JUST AFTER ONE THIRTY, Chief Golden arrives.
Dawson hears the distinctive footsteps on the stairs and is standing when Golden comes in.
“Golden,” Dawson says. “Thank you for coming.”
“You may not want to thank me, Captain,” Golden says. He hands Dawson the report and sits down.
Dawson reads it, his frown growing deeper and deeper.
“Dr. Thomas McDow?” he asks, looking up. “Who is he?”
“Your neighbor,” Golden says. “An unsavory piece of meat.”
“What sort of unsavory?” asks Dawson.
“Insurance fraud, for one,” says Golden. “He and some other doctors have worked up a very nice practice. They dig up a body and someone declares the person has just died. They claim the life insurance and everyone takes a share.”
“We ran a piece about that,” Dawson says. “I didn’t know it was my neighbor.”
“We’re still investigating,” Golden says. “McDow’s definitely involved.”
“Anything else?” Dawson asks.
“He seems to have shot a man in Tennessee,” says Golden. “That’s why he came here in the first place. The Medical Association turned him down over ethics.”
“Anything more?”
“He seems to have tried to hire his brother to kill his father-in-law.”
Dawson leans back in his chair. “Really. Kill his father-in-law.”
“The plan was for his wife to inherit. She’s C. D. Ahrens’s daughter, the grocer. Then McDow would put something lethal in her tea,” says Golden. “Then he’d run off with another woman. Or that’s what the brother claims. We caught him, we have his sworn testimony.”
“What happened with the brother?”
“He double-crossed Thomas. Instead of killing Ahrens, he tried to extort money from him. Ahrens told us and we nabbed him. He confessed, but there’s no crime,” says Golden. “Thomas lives right behind you, on Rutledge.”
“So I hear. I’ve never met him, though.” He looks over the report: the meeting, the tram ride, the walk. Hélène slowly shaking her head. Non. “Your man is sure of all this.”
Golden nods. “He knows McDow. He saw the girl. There were only the three of them in the car.”
“McDow is a hound.” Dawson feels heat rising into his chest again.
Golden looks cautious: Dawson has a temper. “He hasn’t committed a crime. All he’s done is ride on a streetcar and walk about with her. That’s not an offense.”
“This young woman is under my protection,” says Dawson. “He’s planning to murder his wife and carry her off.”
“No,” says Golden, “he was planning to carry off someone else.”
“Someone else?” Somehow this is worse. Now Dawson is offended on Hélène’s behalf.
“A young woman called Julia Smith,” says Golden. “Some connection of Senator Smythe.”
Carson, the office boy, appears in the doorway, looking anxious. “Telephone, Captain,” he says. “Mrs. Dawson.”
“Tell her I’m in a meeting,” he snaps, and Carson vanishes. “I want you to put a stop to this,” he says to Golden.
“He’s done nothing yet,” says Golden. “It’s not a crime to meet someone in the street.”
“You refuse to make a move?”
“We can’t stop it,” Golden says.
Dawson glares. “Must I take care of it?”
“Captain, don’t approach him yourself,” Golden says. “McDow is dangerous. He’s killed one man anyway.”
“Which is why I can’t have him meeting with my servant,” Dawson says. “She looks after my children.”
“I’m
sorry, Captain,” says Golden. “We’re following up on the insurance fraud. Nothing else we can do right now.”
“Very well. I’m grateful for the report.” Dawson puts it in his breast pocket and stands up. “Thank you for coming by.”
Golden stands. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we learn anything.”
Dawson nods. He’s remembering the man standing beyond their fence, while he was fixing the telephore. He was staring up at them. He has been watching Dawson’s children play on the lawn. He heard them calling back and forth to the Lafittes’. He has watched Sarah as she walked about in the garden. He can see into their windows. Dawson is sickened by this. His family has been contaminated. Each time he thinks of the man peering over the fence, his chest expands with rage.
* * *
IT’S NEARLY THREE O’CLOCK when Jane comes out to tell Sarah that the captain is on the telephone.
When she answers he says, “Good. You haven’t left yet.”
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she says. “I’ve been working with the tree man.”
“No, I’m calling to say don’t come down to pick me up,” he says. “I’ll take the car. There’s something I have to do on the way home.”
This is a relief; she’s hot and dusty, and if she changes she’ll be late to pick him up. “I can’t wait for you to see the trees,” she says. “The palmetto is fifteen feet tall, and bigger round than you.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” he says, in his public voice. He must have someone in the office with him. “I’ll be there very soon.”
Sarah hangs up. They have both forgotten about the portrait. Hélène is in the doorway, her face watchful.
“Quelque chose a passé?” Has something happened?
“Rien,” says Sarah. Nothing has happened. “The captain is coming home by car, which gives me time to dress.”
“It’s not bad news, then,” Hélène says.
“No,” Sarah says, irritated by the question. “Why do you ask? Go and get the children ready for dinner.”
Dawson waits on the sidewalk outside his office. At twenty past three the car pulls up in front of his building, and just as it arrives a friend comes over to speak to Dawson. He raises a finger to the driver, who knows him and holds the car. The friend hands him a letter, which Dawson puts inside his coat. He waves to the driver and climbs on board, making his way up the aisle, nodding to acquaintances. He knows many of these men, businessmen, coming home for dinner. Dawson sits down next to his lawyer, Julien Mitchell. The men trade the news of the day as the car trundles up Rutledge Avenue.
36.
3:00, March 12, 1889. Rutledge Avenue, Charleston
McDOW CLOSES THE street door behind him, then the inner door. He takes off his hat. His office is dim and shadowy. The windows onto Rutledge are opaque glass, and the ones onto the garden are overshadowed by the wide piazza overhead. The room seems subterranean.
McDow turns on the gas chandelier, which casts a crepuscular glow onto the round table below it, the bottle-green settee between the side windows where he examines his patients, the tall secretary in the corner.
He stands at the table. The dreadful morning comes flooding back: on the car, when he recognized Dunn, the fruitless attempt to lose him; the maddening appearance of Melville, his father’s friend; the colored woman on her porch, shaking her head. The trip home, Marie’s face turned to the window. The dreadful Mrs. Fair. His head still throbs from his slamming impact against the door jamb, his ears ring with her raucous cries. The whole episode—her gravelly voice, his panicky retreat—fills him with rage. He is furious that he ran from her. His fingertips feel burned where they brushed against her heavy pendulous breast, like a loosened sack of meal. The memory scalds with shame and rage.
He takes the pistol from his pocket.
He’d told the clerk at the hardware store he was familiar with it. “Very familiar,” he’d said, though it wasn’t true. He hasn’t owned a gun since Tennessee. He knows this is a Smith & Wesson—that’s what everyone has—but he’s already forgotten the caliber. Is it .36 or .38?
It’s heavy in his hand. The barrel is a dull pewter, the handle matte black. He takes the bullets from his pocket and makes a heap on the table. They’re small, smooth-nosed cylinders. He breaks open the pistol. The clerk warned him not to carry it loaded, but why have it if it’s not ready when you need it? The bullets slide smoothly into the chambers. Each turn of the cylinder makes a metallic sound. Everything locks into place. He fills all five chambers, then straightens, powerful.
Because he won’t stand for this. He’s had enough. He knows who’s behind it all. He puts the pistol on the table and it makes two small, important sounds as first the muzzle, then the handle, meet the wooden surface.
Beside the front door is the secretary. The slant front is folded down, the writing leaf is untidy with papers. Below this is a drawer, below that the cupboard with the bottle. He opens the door of this and the bottle gleams in the dim light. The sight of it excites him. He picks it up; it makes a faint liquid sound, and this too excites him. He opens it and fits his mouth over the glass lip in a smooth embrace. He lifts the bottle and tilts his head back. He closes his eyes and swallows. The fire slides inside him. He takes three long, fortifying swallows. He deserves this. The fire fills his chest. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve. He sets the bottle back on the shelf. He pats his chest twice. He feels powerful.
The pistol is still lying on the table; he puts it in the drawer of the secretary.
He leaves by the interior door and goes up the inside staircase. Katie is in the back sitting room, standing by the window. She turns as he comes in.
“You’re late,” she says.
Thomas shrugs and shakes his head. This is no way for a wife to greet her husband. “I had a call.” It’s what he always says.
“We have to go right in,” Katie says. “They’re waiting.”
She walks past him without speaking. She’s irritated; she’s always complaining about this. It irritates him that she’s irritated.
In the dining room they sit down. Moses Johnson, the butler and coachman, serves them. They eat in silence until Katie says, “Where were you this morning?”
He frowns. She never asks this. “I had some calls,” he said. “A patient over on Ashley.”
“But you took the cars,” Katie says. “I saw you get off.”
“I met a colleague earlier,” Thomas says. He thinks of Melville, up on Nunan Street. He cuts the meat roughly, sawing with his knife. He stuffs a messy bite into his mouth.
Katie is watching him as she eats. When she swallows, her chin jerks.
“What colleague?” she asks.
She has never asked this before, and he flicks his eyes up at her.
“Never you mind,” he says forbiddingly. “It’s not your affair who my colleagues are.”
She looks down. It’s chicken, undercooked.
She changes tack. “Are you going to the dinner?”
“What dinner?” he asks, though he knows.
“The one my father asked you to. The Merchants’ Dinner.”
“I can’t,” he says.
“You said you would,” Katie said. Her voice takes on edge. “You told him you would.”
“Well, now I can’t,” he says. “I’m not a merchant,” he adds, lordly.
Katie puts down her fork. “You told my father you would go with him.”
Thomas nods, holding his knife and fork. He gulps and swallows. He detests this conversation. He detests the way his wife holds her head down low between her shoulders, as though she had no neck.
“And now I’m telling you I won’t.” Those three golden swallows have let the fire loose. He wishes the bottle were up here. “I’m not going. I’m not a merchant.”
“You can’t humiliate my father like that.” Katie’s voice has risen again, her blue eyes gleam. Is she crying?
“Stop it!” he says, slamming his hand down on the table.
“I won’t have you making accusations!” He is feeling more and more powerful. “Close your mouth,” he adds.
She watches him. She swallows, takes a drink of water. She puts the goblet down and sets her fork and knife together on the plate. Her small blue eyes redden. She starts to speak and then stops. Her voice catches in her chest. “What am I supposed to tell my father?” Now she gives a long liquid sob and begins to weep. “You have to apologize to him.”
All this is distasteful. “All right, I’ll go,” he says angrily. He won’t.
“The way you act,” she says, “it’s insulting to my father.”
He shrugs again and says nothing.
“You may not insult him,” she says. Her voice shakes.
“I haven’t,” he says. “And there’s no reason for me to go.”
Old Ahrens paid for this house, and for other things as well. This means Thomas can’t really speak candidly to Katie, as a man should be able to speak to his wife, though he can hint at his feelings. Most of the merchants are German: he doesn’t want to attend these roistering Teutonic celebrations.
“I’m not a merchant,” he says. “I’m not German.”
“You’re his son-in-law,” Katie says. “You promised. You may not behave like this. I won’t have it.”
“Oh, you won’t,” he says mockingly. “Well then, don’t have it. Do without it.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.” Her voice has now risen, shrill and angry, with a note of panic.
“I’ll talk to you as I wish,” McDow says, standing up. He slaps his napkin down. “Don’t tell me how to talk to you.” There’s something else he wants to say, but it eludes him. He puts his fists on the table and leans toward her. “I’m not a German,” he hisses.
She’s frozen, staring at him.
“I’m not a German and I’m not a merchant,” he repeats. He straightens. Power floods through him. Yes, this is what he meant to say. He turns to walk out of the room.
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