Schooled In Lies

by Angela Henry

  I toyed with the idea of going over to the Kingford College library. In the end, I got out and headed inside. I wasn’t about to let some creepy kids keep me away from a place my tax dollars helped to run. I headed back to the periodicals section trying hard not to look over to where the computers were for fear of seeing the boys in question. When I got back to the desk, I was disappointed to see the same librarian who’d kicked me out three months ago manning the desk. Great.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, giving me a strange look. I could tell she was trying to remember where she’d seen me. She, on the other hand, looked just the same as she had three months ago. She still had the same thick bangs that hung in her face like a sheep dog, hair her troublemaking son had inherited from her.

  “I’m looking for information on a crime that was committed about 30 years ago in Urbana. A black man was murdered by a white supremacist group called the Righteous Whites.”

  “Hmm. That would have been the late sixties and we don’t have the Urbana paper on microfilm before nineteen seventy. But, I’m pretty sure the Willow News-Gazette probably covered the story. Do you know what month it happened?” she asked, still looking at me strangely.

  “I’m not really sure. Can I have microfilm for nineteen sixty-six through nineteen sixty-nine?” I replied smiling at her sweetly and hoping I could get the info I needed before she recognized me as the pervert she chased away back in the Spring.

  “I’ll be right back.” She returned minutes later with 3 rolls of microfilm.

  I settled in at one of the microfilm readers and got to work searching through nineteen sixty-six. It took me almost an hour to slowly scroll through the film. I didn’t find anything and loaded the film for sixty-seven. I had eyestrain and a roaring headache as I viewed the second roll of film. Lucky for me I found the story with the headline, “Urbana Man Found Beaten To Death,” after twenty minutes. The murder had occurred July 9, 1967. I skimmed through the article and read the details of thirty-six-year-old Maurice Groves’s brutally beaten body being found next to his car by a passing motorist.

  But there was no mention of any suspects or arrests in the murder. I scrolled through the rest of the roll. Except for articles about Maurice Groves’s funeral, and the outcry from the local NAACP that the police weren’t doing enough to solve Groves’s murder, I didn’t find another article until almost the end of the roll. It was dated December 28th with the headline, “Arrests Made in Groves Murder”. According to the article, a witness to the murder had come forward and identified multiple perpetrators that had led to the arrests of Calvin Lee Vermillion aged 25, Shane Powers aged 24, Donnie Boone aged 24, and his brother, Ricky Boone, aged 22. The four had been charged with second-degree murder. A large picture of a younger, heavier Calvin Vermillion grinning at the camera was below the headline. His look of proud defiance turned my stomach. In contrast, a smaller picture of the Boone brothers and Shane Powers showed three young men who looked terrified. Shane Powers, in particular, looked like he might be sick.

  I was rewinding both rolls of film when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the shaggy librarian. Looking quite contrite, I might add, and holding a video cassette.

  “Ma’am, it just occurred to me who you are and I’d really like to apologize for what happened back in May,” she said, turning slightly red.

  “Really?” I said not meaning to sound so huffy. She cleared her throat nervously and continued.

  “Yes. My son, Wayne, had no right to do what he did to you. I’m so sorry. You’re not the only one he’s pulled that nasty little trick on. My husband and I are so upset over his behavior we’ve packed him off to military camp this summer. Three months of fresh air and exercise with no computers or television will do him a world of good,” she said beaming. Thinking back on my unpleasant encounter with her son, I seriously doubted it but smiled at her anyway.

  “Is that for me?” I nodded toward the tape in her hand.

  “Oh, yes, I almost forgot,” she said, holding out the video. “This is a documentary that was made by one of the sociology professors at Kingford. It’s about that white supremacist group you mentioned. The Righteous Whites? It’s about twelve years old. But I thought you might find it useful.”

  This must be the documentary Ms. Flack had mentioned when I’d confronted her at work yesterday. I’d forgotten all about it. The name on the video case was Righteous Lies. I was so excited it took everything in me not to snatch it out of her hand.

  Once I got home, I eagerly put the tape in my VCR and spent the next twenty minutes watching Calvin Lee Vermillion spouting hatred for every race that wasn’t white. He’d been interviewed at London Correctional Institution in 1985 and was dressed in faded prison garb. He obviously hadn’t been missing any meals behind bars and had made use of the prison’s weight room. He was muscular and heavily tattooed with his gray-streaked dark hair slicked back from his forehead. He was also missing one of his front teeth. According to Calvin Lee, the mud people, as he referred to minorities, were responsible for everything from inflation, wars, drugs, and illegitimacy. He also, just as Ms. Flack claimed, blamed his victim, Maurice Groves, for being out on the road that night. Predictably, Calvin Lee was a high-ranking member of London Correctional Institution’s Aryan brotherhood. The interviewer, a doctor of sociology named Ben Brock, asked Calvin Lee what he would do if and when he was let out of prison.

  “Kill the lying little bitch that helped put me in here,” he responded, point blank, scowling at the camera. That certainly verified what Ms. Flack had told me. Did Calvin Lee’s cohorts, Shane Powers, Donnie and Ricky Boone feel the same way?

  More than a little tired of listening to Calvin Lee’s ignorant ass, I fast-forwarded through the tape to the interviews with the other three Righteous Whites. But at the beginning of Shane Powers’s interview the tape suddenly stopped. I tried to fast-forward it, but it wouldn’t budge. Fearing my VCR had eaten the tape, I quickly hit the eject button. I was relieved to see my VCR readily spit the tape out. I examined it closely and saw that the film was twisted and knotted inside the case. I tried unsuccessfully to unravel it. There was only one thing left to do. I called the Kingford College operator and asked to be connected to Dr. Ben Brock’s office in the sociology department. I didn’t really expect professor Brock to be in his office on a Saturday and he wasn’t. His voice mail said he was only in his office on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. I left him a message to call me regarding his documentary. Now all I could do was wait.

  I spent the rest of my Saturday cleaning and doing laundry. Afterwards, I took a nap and was awakened from a frightening nightmare where I was naked and being chased through the woods by an angry torch-wielding mob that included Audrey Grant, and the rest of the round table crew, and Ms. Flack and the Righteous Whites, by a loud knocking on my door. It was Carl and he’d brought a large pizza with him. Smart man. I gave him an awkward smile and stood aside to let him in. Even though we’d pretty much made up, there was still some lingering tension between us.

  “I got pepperoni and extra cheese on one half for you and the works on the other half for me,” he said, setting the box down on the trunk in front of my couch that served as a coffee table.

  I got paper plates, napkins, and a two liter of Coke from my fridge and we dug in. I told him all about finding Ms. Flack’s body, and he had pretty much the same reaction as Gwen. I was rapidly becoming known as a corpse magnet to my family and friends. We ate in silence for a while. I didn’t want to start a fight, but I had to know.

  “How’s Vanessa?” I asked cautiously. Carl just shrugged.

  “I guess she’s fine. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of days.” He wiped his greasy fingers on a napkin before pulling off another piece of pizza.

  “Has her husband accepted the fact that he’s going to be a daddy yet?”

  “I think so. That’s probably why I haven’t heard from her. Dude found out she was crying on my shoulder and suddenly everything changed. Last
time I talked to her they were going shopping for stuff for the nursery.” He laughed.

  “She wanted to make him jealous so he would think he might lose her. So, I was right.” I shook my head. “She was using you, just not in the way I thought.”

  “It’s what she does. I was married to her, remember? I know how she operates. She never had any real interest in me. I tried to tell you that.”

  “And you don’t mind?” I asked, trying hard not to get pissed when I thought about all the trouble she’d caused between us.

  “Not really. I’m not interested in going down that road again. Despite what you think, I’ve never forgotten what she put me through. But she can’t hurt me anymore because I don’t love her. I love you. Do you love me?” He cocked his head to the side. He looked like a little boy, and I felt my heart swell with love and affection.

  “Yes, I do.” I leaned in to give him a pepperoni flavored kiss.

  “Good because I think we should take the next step.” He was grinning at me and it took a few seconds to grasp what he was saying.

  “Huh?” was all I could get out.

  “You know. Get married and start a family of our own. Have some little Carls and Kendras running around. I’m ready to be a daddy. I’ve been ready for a long time. What do you think?” he asked eagerly.

  What did I think? I stared at him in shock and felt the love and affection swelling in my heart evaporate like water drops on a hot griddle.

  Chapter Twelve

  I WAS IN A WEIRD mood when Monday arrived. And was it any wonder? Carl had proposed to me. I still couldn’t believe it. I also couldn’t believe my reaction. I’d told him I’d think about it. Why the hell had I done that? I wasn’t ready for marriage. I damned sure wasn’t ready for babies. I can barely get my ass out of bed to get ready for work everyday. How was I going to get up every couple of hours to feed a baby? Then there was the question of breast-feeding versus bottle-feeding. Would I be a stay-at-home mom or would I work? Would Carl expect me to move to Columbus to be with him or would he move to Willow to be with me? Then there was the question of why I was even having these thoughts because I knew I wasn’t ready for marriage and babies. I couldn’t even commit to a pet or a potted plant. How the hell could I get married? Plus, I suspected that Carl, though I knew he loved me, really wanted to be a father more than he wanted to be a husband.

  I was at work grading papers when Iris Reynolds, the program secretary, came to the classroom. Iris was dressed in a sleeveless beige dress with a navy blue satin ribbon laced into the bodice. It was a pretty dress, but on Iris it looked like a sack and did nothing to brighten her sallow complexion. I was happy that she’d recently gone back to her natural brown hair color from the unflattering blonde she’d been sporting for a year. She gave me a smile, and I felt bad for the unkind thoughts about her dress. Iris is one of the nicest people I know, even if she has absolutely no tact and isn’t afraid to talk about anything. No subject is taboo to Iris.

  “You have a phone call from a Dr. Brock. Do you want to talk to him or should I take a message?”

  “I’ll take it. Thanks.” I followed her back to the office, happy that I’d left my work number as well as my cell phone number.

  “Dr. Brock, this is Kendra Clayton. Thanks for calling me back,” I said into the receiver. I tried to turn away so Iris couldn’t hear my conversation.

  “Since your message said this was about my Righteous Lies documentary, can I assume that this has to do with Calvin Lee Vermillion’s recent release from prison?” Ben Brock’s slightly nasal voice sounded amused.

  I told him it was. Not really wanting to get into my specific reasons on the phone, I asked Dr. Brock if I could stop by his office later that afternoon before my dreaded class.

  “I shall await your arrival with bated breath,” replied the sociology professor, who hung up on me before I could thank him for his time.

  I turned to hang up the phone and caught Iris enthusiastically sniffing her armpits. She caught me watching her and held up both her arms.

  “I think my deodorant stopped working. What do you think? Can you smell me?” she asked, getting up and coming over to me, arms still raised over her head.

  I almost broke my neck getting back to my classroom.

  Ben Brock’s office was located in Oliver Hall on the second floor. It was a dark, cramped corner office with a filmy cracked window and a blurry view of the side of Floyd Library. A large rolltop desk took up most of the office. Ben Brock took up most of what was left. He was a tall white man and large, but not so much fat as hefty, with a shock of brown, curly hair that hung over his collar, with a red bulbous nose that looked like it was always stuffed up. I guessed his age to be late forties. He was wearing faded jeans and an untucked denim chambray shirt. The worn leather sandals on his large feet, which were propped up on a corner of the desk, looked like relics from the sixties. I noticed a woven hemp bracelet on his right wrist. I could hear what sounded like rap music coming from a small boom box by his chair.

  “Miss Clayton?” he asked looking up.

  “Please, call me Kendra.”

  Dr. Brock reached down and switched off the boom box. “Love that Wu Tang Clan, don’t you?” He gave me a sheepish smile. I laughed and he gestured towards a chair by the door. I sat.

  The office smelled a little funny and I soon realized it was a combination of Vicks Vapo Rub and the spicy mustard slathered all over the large deli sandwich sitting on his desk in front of a wedding picture of him and his beautiful wife, a cinnamon-colored sister with long bead-laden braids and a nose ring.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted your dinner, professor.”

  “More like a late lunch, and, no, you’re not interrupting me at all. And, it’s Ben.” He swung his long legs down from the desk and sat up to give me his full attention. “Now, what can I do for you, Kendra. I’m all ears.”

  I explained I wanted to know about the other three Righteous Whites. He blew his nose loudly before answering me.

  “Sorry. Summer cold’s got me all stopped up. Anyway, the Righteous Whites,” he laughed. “A sorrier bunch I have never seen. The real power behind the group was, of course, Calvin Vermillion. Those other three idiots were just stupid and unlucky. Lazy, unemployed losers who had nothing better to do than drink and follow Vermillion around. I never got the impression that they seriously subscribed to his views.”

  “What happened to them?” I asked.

  “Shane Powers died of a massive heart attack back in eighty-five not two weeks after I interviewed him. Donnie and Ricky Boone each got ten years less than Vermillion and Powers. Their lawyers claimed they were both borderline retarded, which I’m inclined to agree with. They got paroled within a few months of each other about five years after I interviewed them. Last I heard, Donnie’s a preacher out in California. Got married and has a houseful of kids. Ricky, on the other hand, got blinded in a prison fight and lives with their younger sister and her husband, a cop.”

  “Neither one of them has been in any trouble since they got released?”

  “What kind of trouble?” he asked, clearly curious as to what I was getting at.

  “Does the name Alice Ivy Rivers mean anything to you?” I asked.

  “Of course. She was Calvin Lee’s girlfriend and the other person involved in the murder of Maurice Groves.” He took a big bite of his sandwich.

  “No. She was a witness.” I corrected him. But Dr. Brock shook his head vigorously. I had to wait until he finished chewing his mouthful of sandwich for him to elaborate.

  “Not according to Calvin Lee. He’s maintained all along that Alice Rivers was an active participant in what they did to Maurice Groves. He claims they knocked Groves down and Alice Rivers was the one who started kicking him first.”

  I almost fell out of my chair. Ms. Flack a murderer? Was it possible?

  “And you believed him? He’s a racist and convicted murderer,” I needlessly pointed out.

  “The
only people who know for sure are the people who were there that night. But, Shane Powers, and the Boone brothers, also backed up what Calvin Lee told me. The three of them had a falling out with Vermillion and he was no longer speaking to them months before they were all arrested. They had no reason to back up his story unless it was true.”

  “But why in the world wasn’t she charged with murder?” I still wasn’t sure I believed anything a man like Vermillion said. I’d known Ms. Flack for more than a decade, and until recently, she’d never seemed anything but caring and helpful.

  “Miss Clayton, you already answered that question. Who was a jury going to believe, an innocent looking fifteen-year-old girl or a racist who had a rap sheet as long as my arm? Besides, there was a lot of pressure on the district attorney’s office by community leaders to get a conviction and put an end to the boiling racial tensions in the town. They needed Alice Rivers to testify against the other four. My guess would be that the DA figured sending four out of five people to prison was better than not getting any convictions. I bet they offered her immunity for her testimony.”

  I filled him in on Ms. Flack aka Alice Ivy Rivers’s probable murder and her fear of Calvin Vermillion finding out where she was. Now it was his turn to be shocked.

  “Wow. I saw that on the news. I didn’t know it was her. Is that why you asked me about Powers and the Boone brothers? You thought one of them could have killed her?”

  “Seemed logical to me that one of them could have finally tracked her down and made her pay for sending them to prison while she was scott free. If they didn’t do it, then Calvin Lee could have paid someone to kill her and make it look like an accident,” I said.

  “Not if he thought she was already dead,” he replied.