by Sean Black
“Let me give you some friendly advice, boy,” said the cook.
“Boy” was not a word you used lightly to a black man. Not here. Not anywhere. And certainly not to Ty. His fists clenched. “Boy?” he said.
“This is a quiet town. We’d like to stay that way. Don’t come in here upsetting my staff. Keep your questions to yourself.”
Ty took a half-step towards the cook. He wasn’t a small man, but he was out of shape. Doughy and red-faced. “Call me that again and you and me are going to have a problem,” he whispered.
The cook swallowed, loud enough for Ty to catch it. He’d made his point, but he wasn’t going to back down, not in his own establishment. “You take care now,” he said to Ty.
Ty stared at him until the man finally dropped his gaze to the floor, then pushed past him to the door as the silence that had accompanied his entrance made a return.
He stood on the sidewalk outside the diner, his body still tense, his anger still raw. Across the street a pickup truck was parked. A man sat behind the wheel and spat a wad of chewing tobacco into an empty Coke can. He had shoulder-length white hair, and a long white beard, but his eyes told Ty he was younger than the hair made him seem.
He was studying Ty. Not hostile. Not friendly. His expression passive but unyielding.
Ty had had enough small-town bullshit for one day. He stepped off the sidewalk, ready to confront the man, who hurriedly started the truck’s engine, and pulled out. A Confederate-flag sticker rode on the bumper of the truck as it melted into a cloud of dust.
Maybe, thought Ty, he shouldn’t have left Cressida alone after all. Perhaps there was more to this place than he’d thought. All it had taken was a couple of questions for that sunny image on the billboard to slip away. It was well off the beaten path. Maybe it hadn’t moved on.
8
It had taken Cressida less than half an hour to realize she was unlikely to find anything in the papers that the librarian had gathered for her that would lead to any fresh revelation as to who had killed Carole Chabon. The local newspaper had gone out of business, like so many others, about five years ago. But back in 1974 the only thing noteworthy about its coverage of the murder was how sparse it was.
For most local newspapers in a quiet backwater, a murder like this would usually have been manna from Heaven. In the news business, crime sold. The old saying was “If it bleeds, it leads.” But the Darling Gazette had barely covered either the original search for Carole, or the subsequent discovery of the body. They had played it off as little more than some kind of random mystery. They hadn’t even gone after the killer on the loose angle.
The last mention of it that Cressida could see in the old back issues came two years after the murder when it had been announced that it was no longer an active investigation. She wondered about the motive for how the story had been covered. Was the editor, who’d passed away in the late nineties, afraid of local reaction? Had he come under pressure to downplay the seriousness of the story? Was it about maintaining the town’s reputation as a safe community to live? Or was there a more sinister reason?
None of that meant the Darling Gazette was a bust, though. Far from it. Local papers offered one major advantage over larger media sources. They told you who was who in the area.
She opened a fresh page of her notebook, and began to jot down names, especially where their owner’s age was included and suggested they had been young enough at the time to be around to speak to her now. The librarian had been away at college, but some of the people mentioned must have been here, with some memory of what had happened. The official town policy might have been one of studied silence, but Cressida had yet to work anywhere where there wasn’t at least one person who was prepared, even eager, to talk.
It was simply a matter of finding them.
She got up from behind the desk, and did some stretches. She could already feel a nagging ache in her lower back from hunching over. It was good of Miss Parsons to have set up a desk but it wasn’t exactly ergonomically balanced.
The bell sounded from somewhere above her. The librarian had stepped out and someone was looking for service. Cressida climbed the stairs, pushed through the door, and went to the front counter.
No one was there. She was sure she’d heard the bell. She reached down and picked it up. She rang it gently. Yup, that had been the sound.
“Hello?” she called out.
Silence.
She felt a little on edge and immediately chided herself. It was a small-town library not some cabin in the woods. The person had come in, seen that Miss Parsons wasn’t at the desk, had rung the bell and left before Cressida had got up the stairs. In fact, she’d heard something that might have been the front door closing just as she’d hit the top step.
She walked around the counter and went over to the shelves where the fiction was arranged in alphabetical order. She ran her fingers along the spines, reading off the author names to herself.
Most were familiar, the obvious big names you’d expect to find in the fiction section of any respectable library: James Patterson, Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts, J. K. Rowling, mixed in with more literary fiction, and some regional authors. Cressida started to look for some of her favorite African-American authors, big names in their own right: Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison.
She couldn’t see any of them on the library shelves. She went back and started at the As. There were no African-American or even Asian-American novelists.
Then she turned a corner at the end of the Ys and Zs, and was met with a shelving unit of its own. A card at the top read: “Celebrating America’s Diversity”. Here she found pretty much every author she had been looking for, and dozens she hadn’t.
Maybe she had been too quick to judge, hoping to be offended. If anything, when you looked at the shelf these authors were, someone might argue, over-represented. She reached for The Color Purple by Alice Walker and levered it out from between the other books. It opened with a distinct crack. It looked brand new. She checked the edition. It was a recent reissue, published this year. It looked like it hadn’t been opened, never mind read: the pages were stiff and compressed so that you had to turn them with care.
So, she told herself, it was a new title that no one had had the chance to read. Plus it was popular. She imagined that most people who wanted to read it would have done so by now. Or had seen the movie rerun on television if they didn’t want the effort of reading the book.
She took down another title, this one a more recent Toni Morrison. This copy, too, looked brand new and untouched. She put them back where they had been shelved, and selected something else. The same story. Every book was brand new. None of them showed borrow or return date stamps, which she had noticed in the other sections.
It looked like someone, Miss Parsons, was trying to make a point. No black people, but lots of books by black authors.
Cressida tried to shake away the thought. A staged display just for her? It seemed over the top and unnecessary. What did it prove anyway?
She picked up one of the other books. Then again, so what? Wasn’t it better if people made the effort rather than not?
She wouldn’t ask Miss Parsons about it. Unless she brought it up.
Either way, she wasn’t here to decide if Darling, Florida, had a problem with racism. She was here to find out what had happened to Carole Chabon, and then, years later, to a man by the name of Timothy French.
9
The diner fell silent for the second time that morning as Mimsy made her entrance in a cloud of Chanel perfume, a long black skirt and a cashmere shawl that had to be way too warm, given that it was already in the high eighties outside and the diner’s air-conditioning was patchy at best. She also had on what people in Darling referred to—behind her back, of course—as her war face: lips pressed tight together, eyes narrowed, chin jutting out. She was a stout woman, only five feet two inches tall, with short, mousy-brown hair.
“Lyle,” she said to the
cook. “We need to talk.”
He looked up from the griddle and gave Mimsy a weak smile. Sweat was pouring from the top of his head, and trailing down a beetroot-red face. His shoulders rounded, everything about his body language suggested complete and total submission.
Lyle waddled across to the counter. “Sure, Mimsy. Can I get you something?”
She stared at him. He looked at the counter. Everyone else in the diner turned away. No one wanted to make eye contact with Mimsy when she was in this kind of a mood.
“Not here,” she said. “Let’s go out back.”
He turned to the waitress who was standing, hands on her hips, giving him a told-you-so look, although what she might have told him wasn’t entirely clear.
“Sue Ann, I’ll be right back.”
He lifted the counter flap that allowed access from one side of the counter to the other and, head down like a scolded schoolboy, followed Mimsy to a door at the back of the diner.
They walked down a corridor filled with cleaning and other supplies. He pushed open the fire-exit door and stepped out into the back alley.
Mimsy stood facing him, arms folded, her right foot tapping out an uneven beat. “You know why I’m here, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“That man’s a visitor to our community and you go behaving like, I dunno, some kind of crazy redneck.”
“It slipped out.”
“You know they don’t like being called things like that, don’t you, Lyle? It ain’t the 1950s any more. People have to watch their tongues.”
“Like I said, I reacted. He was being uppity.”
“Uppity or not, we have to show our best side. That reporter and him won’t be here for very long so let’s not give her a story where there isn’t one.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How long did it take this town to get over the last reporter who came here looking to make a name for themselves? I’m not going to let it happen again. We should count ourselves lucky we’ve been as fortunate as we have.”
Lyle nodded. He knew everything she was saying made sense. He knew as soon as he’d faced up to the man that it was a bad idea. But he hadn’t been able to control his temper. He would have thought Mimsy, of all people, would understand that.
“Now, Lyle, I want you to find him, and apologize to him for using that word.”
“But, Mimsy––”
“But Mimsy nothing. You’re going to say you’re sorry, and you’re going to make sure you sound like you mean it. And then you’re going to offer him his next meal free. Dinner, in fact, with the young reporter.”
This was too far. A fake apology he could just about stomach, but giving free food, bowing and scraping while he served it?
He looked up finally, squaring his shoulders. “I’ll apologize, but I’m not doing any of the rest.”
Mimsy’s hand shot out without warning, fist clenched, her two rings catching the side of his eye and opening it up. “Don’t you dare talk back to me,” she said to him, her voice low. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, you piece of trash?”
She raised her hand again. He flinched and stepped back. He was bigger than her, heavier, stronger, but he wouldn’t dare fight back. No one would. Not to Mimsy Murray. Not unless you wanted to find yourself out in the swamp.
“Okay, okay,” he pleaded, reaching for the rag tucked into his apron and using it to staunch the blood flowing freely from the cut next to his eye.
“That’s more like it. Now, I’m sorry I struck you. But you and everyone else have to understand what’s at stake here.”
“I know.”
“You’d better, Lyle. Because I don’t want to see any more slips. Not from you. Not from anyone in this town. That reporter and her pal, or whatever he is, they’re gonna leave in a few days. But you’ll still be here.”
She stared at him for a second, letting her gaze linger directly on him in a way that drove fear into his heart. “And so will I.”
It was clear from Lyle’s expression that he had got the message.
“I hear you.”
“Good,” said Mimsy, glancing around the alleyway with distaste. “You ought to keep this area out back a little cleaner before you get a citation.”
She turned and headed back to the diner, stopping at the door. She smiled brightly, her entire demeanor changing in less than a second from one of menace to cheerleader pep. “Best foot forward, Lyle. Let’s make sure these people don’t have any story to write, except that a nice little town has left the past behind and is trying to move on.”
“Yes, Mimsy.”
“Well, I’m glad that’s settled.”
She pulled the door open, and disappeared back into the diner. She caught Sue Ann’s eye as she stepped inside. “Could you be a doll and take out a fresh towel and some ice for Lyle? He seems to have caught his eye on that danged doorframe. I keep telling him to get it repaired. It’s going to really hurt someone one of these days.”
“Coming right up.”
Sue Ann snapped straight to it, ducking behind the counter for the items, as Mimsy walked past her and out of the door, leaving the smell of Chanel perfume and fear behind her. Slowly, for the second time that day, the conversation in the diner picked up again.
10
This time Cressida definitely wasn’t imagining someone else in the library. She could hear footfalls on the floor above, heavy and definite, a large man or woman. More likely a man, as the sound of their steps was more like that made by boots than sharp heels. Definitely not Miss Parsons. Someone much larger.
She told herself it was likely someone who had wandered in to browse. She waited for the sound of the bell, but nothing came.
The footsteps stopped. The person sounded as if they were close to the desk.
She was starting to get creeped out. She reprimanded herself. She was in a dimly lit basement but it was the basement of a library, for Heaven’s sake. Nothing bad happened in libraries. Alleyways, yes. Bars, sure. Lonely country roads, absolutely. But not libraries.
She looked down at her notepad. She had flicked to a section of notes she had written a few months back when she had first begun to research the Carole Chabon murder case. At the top of the page were four letters. They made her shudder every time she looked at them.
WKKK.
Beneath the letters was a list of names. She was attempting to see if any cropped up in the Darling Gazette. So far only one had: Murray. The family had been in the area for generations. Originally Scots-Irish, they had settled down in the swamplands in this part of Florida, becoming not just slave owners but slave traders, who provided men, women and children to plantations across the South. Franklin Murray had founded the business and made a fortune by ruthless exploitation, with a laser-like focus on the bottom line.
After the civil war, the family had lost most of their fortune in a series of bad investments both in America and abroad. They had become a minor historical footnote, holding to the three-generation rule of wealth: the first generation made it, the second consolidated it, and the third lost it. But one thing had remained constant through the years: the power they held in this part of the Sunshine State.
The fresh press of boots on an uneven floorboard sounded again from above. It was no use. Cressida wouldn’t be able to focus until she had satisfied her curiosity.
She got up from her desk, and started up the steep wooden steps. As her head cleared the basement hatch, she looked around. There was no one in sight.
She called, “Hello? Can I help you?”
A man appeared from behind a shelf of books about six feet in front of the main service desk. He was in his sixties with a scraggy white beard, trucker’s cap and jacket, heavy boots and denim jeans. A thick mullet of white hair spilled out from the back of the cap. He shot her an unsettling gap-toothed smile.
“I was looking for Miss Parsons,” he said, stepping towards the desk.
Cressida held her ground
. Suddenly she wished she hadn’t been so keen on not having Ty there. “She had to run an errand.”
He smacked his lips. “You the reporter lady who’s visiting?”
She didn’t register the question at first, instead offering a hurried “She should be back any second,” before her brain caught what he’d asked her.
“Yes, I’m the reporter. Did you want to . . .”
Before she could finish asking him if he wanted to speak with her, he was making for the exit with long, quick strides.
“Hope you’re more careful than the last one who came down here,” he offered, over his shoulder, as he pushed through the door and went out into the blinding sunshine.
Cressida ran after him as the door swung shut again, her heart racing. Was that a threat? Or was it something else? Whatever, she needed to catch up with the guy, and asked him what he meant.
As she reached it, someone pushed it open from the other side and she almost toppled over backwards. She ran straight into a man’s chest and looked up to see Ty.
“Hey, thought I’d check on you.”
She shoved past him.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“That guy who just left . . .”
Ty pivoted round, following her gaze into the street as the man climbed into a pickup truck. “Him?” he asked her.
“Yeah, that guy.”
“Town eccentric,” said Ty. “He was sitting in his truck earlier, staring at me. He took off. Hey, did something happen?”
Cressida had a decision to make. To share with Ty, or not? She didn’t know why she hadn’t already. Maybe because she was afraid that if Gregg, back in New York, knew everything about the story she was covering, he’d withdraw her, and send someone else to get it. A man, most likely.
It was part of the reason she hadn’t protested more fervently when he’d assigned her Ty as a minder. Part of her wanted to be the fierce independent journalist who went where she wanted and asked the tough questions. The other part knew that someone had already done that, and it had not ended well.
