Crandall always likes a challenge.
“My,” he said, “a little knowledge of the law certainly can be dangerous in the wrong heads.” The triumphant smirk still played across his face. “I’ll bet you’ve been around here long enough,” he said, “to find your own fucking way out.”
As November days go, you couldn’t have asked for better to bury dead children. It was chilly, and the leaves were long gone from the trees, but it felt like late September with bright sunshine and a nearly cloudless, blue sky. I was kind of sorry that Naomi had to share the morning with nearly as many cops and reporters as friends and family, but that was her own doing. I doubt she had many friends to begin with, and once she changed the time of the funeral, she notified every news outlet she could think of and then welcomed them personally into Poteet’s parlor.
Poteet had opened the partition between two of his viewing rooms to accommodate the crowd. I entered from the back. I’d had enough time after my conversation with the cops to go back to my place, retrieve my notes, and write my story. Marley thought he’d use it to top the story about the police investigation. I argued it should be separate and the lead. Marley thought that would cross the line into us making, not reporting, the news. It seemed a pretty damned fine line, but editors get paid to think about perceptions, I suppose.
The casket was placed against the wall at the opposite end of the enlarged room and open. I tried not to think what Poteet must have done to make that work. They’d dressed Timothy in the black suit he had worn in his family portrait. He had not a blond hair out of place. Behind the casket, flower arrangements covered the wall, tiered to the ceiling, and the room reeked of their cloying scents.
Naomi and William stood in front and to one side of the casket, receiving callers. When I arrived about fifteen minutes before the service, Naomi was talking animatedly with the lead twink from Channel 13. Naomi wore what looked like a new and stylish black dress. Her gold-rimmed sunglasses looked new, too. The twink, one of those lean types with a square jaw and rhomboid hair, had his left hand laid over Naomi’s right hand. His head was cocked to one side, as he tried to look intently past the sunglasses into Naomi’s eyes. Hard to say who would’ve won the sincerity prize in that exchange.
William, too, was dressed in same dark suit he had worn in the portrait Naomi loaned me, but today he was pale, and the suit looked too big for him. A tall man I did not recognize held William’s hand with one hand, massaged his neck with the other, and spoke close to William’s ear. Throughout, William kept his head bowed and would not lift his eyes from some spot on the carpet very close to his feet.
Folding chairs were set in two blocks side-by-side, with an aisle down the middle. The first three rows on each side were reserved with a maroon velvet ribbon draped across the end chair of each row.
Only a handful of people sat in the reserved chairs on the right side of the room. The reserved rows on the left side were full, many of the chairs occupied with faces I recognized. My suspicions were confirmed when the lead twink left Naomi, took up a chair on the outside of the first row, and began to make notes with a gold pen on a small pad he removed from his inside coat pocket. Naomi had set up a press gallery and put it right in front, so we could all see.
Naomi was very considerate. She caught my eye and nodded to one of the last empty places there. I shook my head once; my favorite place remains the back of the room.
Three camera crews had set up there. Our shooter had parked himself between two. Now that I’m old and sober, I am slightly embarrassed by colleagues like him. This is his first job out of journalism school. His jeans looked unwashed, he had maybe forty hairs’ worth of beard that he wore untrimmed, and he had not considered what Miss Manners would say about the appropriateness of a Rocky-and-Bullwinkle tie at this sort of event.
Wood had taken a seat in the back row opposite the door into the room so that he could see each person who entered. He knew thing or two about dressing for respect; he had replaced his brown, polyester jumpsuit with a brown, polyester sport coat. He nodded at me.
Moze stood along one wall scanning the crowd. His ensemble was a short-sleeve, white shirt, a striped tie that looked like it came from his granddad’s closet, and slightly faded, blue Dockers that sagged under the weight of the nine-millimeter handgun and handcuffs he wore exposed on his belt. We made eye contact, he winked, and his eyes moved on.
There were at least two other cops I recognized—state boys—scattered around the room. All were in plain clothes, but I doubted they were there merely to pay their respects. One of them held something cupped in his hand that he glanced at every time someone new entered the room. Probably there were another couple of them writing down license numbers in the parking lot.
Family and friends, of course, made up the rest of the people present. The mourners did not fill all the seats, but it seemed to me—and I would not have been surprised if I had thought about it—they included more children than you usually see at a funeral. Kids about the age of Timothy, decked out in ties and dresses, church clothes they should not have had to wear for another ten years, were scattered throughout crowd. Like the cops, they were doing a lot of looking around, but their expressions were those of the displaced. They looked nervous or scared. Some were teary. They could not contemplate the casket or its contents. They stole glances at it, then each other. I thought about cherry picking some quotes off the kids after the service, to angle the story from the effect of the murders on the children of the community, but I decided that was too intrusive and schmaltzy.
The preacher came forward out of some alcove off the viewing room and escorted Naomi and William to their chairs. Janelle entered about the same time. She wore a narrowly cut black pants suit that made her appear slenderer than I had suspected. Janelle looked around, found me, and smiled. She came up to me, mouthed a smiling collegial hello, and slapped a copy of her paper into my hands as she passed by. She took a seat a few rows up from the back, removed a pad and pen from her purse, and settled in to work. She had been entirely too pleasant. It made me suspicious.
The organist droned through a medley of Sunday school hymns that the preacher, an older man who had ministered in small towns all his life, said were Timothy’s favorites. Two women, a child of Timothy’s age on either side of them like squat bookends, looked at each other and rolled their eyes. It made me skeptical about whether Naomi sent Timothy to Sunday school.
Not that it made much difference to whether we published his sermon, but nothing profound came from that preacher’s mouth. He recited the brief facts of Timothy’s short life and found no cause to believe anything other than goodness had resided there. He acknowledged the crushing sorrow of the boy’s parents, his family, and friends and the existence of evil. It was not fair, he said, just not fair, it was that simple. And under these circumstances, he would have to grant each person present permission to be angry at Man and doubtful of God. But having framed the issue and being a Christian, he had to come down on the side of New Testament forgiveness and hope over Old Testament fixation and revenge. There is a heaven, the preacher said, Timothy was in it, and we must take comfort from that. As usual, I didn’t see that many in the audience who did: they looked glum or fearful or numb. Still, if the theme was look forward not backward, then as a Program guy I’ve got to buy that.
Some of it was hard to hear over Naomi’s crying. An older couple, presumably William’s parents, sitting in the row immediately behind the Crawfords, looked at each other and frowned. We do not wail in Failey.
I did not need to hear anyway. About halfway through the service, about the time my attention began to flag, I discovered I had most of what the preacher had to say in front of me. It was contained in Ms. Wheeler’s story on the front page of that morning’s edition of The Chronicle. She had deftly woven italicized quotes from the preacher’s sermon throughout an interview with Naomi and a review of the facts as they were kn
own. It looked like sometime last night, before or after she called me makes no difference, Janelle called Naomi and the preacher. Naomi pretty much told Janelle S. everything she’d told me, and the preacher pretty much told her what he was going to say. If Marley intended to lead with the weepy stuff, it was going to be about eight hours old. I had to talk to those children after all.
I’d like to blame my next trick on Janelle. I’d like to tell you I pulled it because she beat me on a story that day. Or because I didn’t like her attitude after the Crawford kid’s service.
She came up to me and demanded that I let her have the portrait of Naomi, William, and Timothy since Naomi had told her to get it from me. But let’s not forget the Program. Looking at it honestly, I’d have to say that telling me no usually results in some damn stunt.
As soon as they hauled out Timothy’s casket, I grabbed four or five weepy kids and gathered them around me in a little impromptu grief forum. Under the generally disapproving glares of their mothers, I gently browbeat them into telling me what a cool guy Timothy was and how they were going to miss him and how afraid they were and how they were having nightmares and stuff and so like they were sleeping with their mom and dad, which was kind of weird, actually they were sleeping on the floor, and now they really didn’t want to talk about it anymore cause it made them sad.
I zipped out into the country, past tan corn fields threadbare and ragged after the harvest, to a country cemetery so I could jostle with the clans around a little tent and listen to most of the preacher’s standard-issue dust-to-dust. At the end of the sermon, when Naomi lunged for the descending casket, William finally knocked her down. That made the motor drives whine and the arc lights flare.
I made it back to the paper with more than enough time to write the funeral story. I had so much time, in fact, that Marley threw in a little lecture about getting beat by The Chronicle before I had to race back to Poteet’s, without lunch, mind you, for the Russell kids’ funeral.
Poteet’s place looks like a spartan mansion. The outside is nothing more than plain, red brick with white shutters and a portico on the front resting on unadorned white columns, but the building’s three stories tall and the grounds on which it sits take up most of a quarter block. It has a large, front lawn that is bordered at the street on two sides by a sidewalk.
Sometime while I was gone, somebody had strung that damned yellow police tape along the sidewalk. The “fence” opened at the sidewalk leading from the street to Poteet’s front door. A line of troopers on each side of the opening in the tape held back the clans. They were jockeying for position, shouting questions at people arriving for the funeral, and baying at two silent and stern-faced troopers who stood cross-armed behind mirrored sunglasses on either side of Poteet’s front door. I ducked under the tape at the street corner behind the clans and crossed the lawn. When they saw me, my sisters and brothers in the news hooted and jeered.
“You guys are what? The museum lions?” I said to the front-door trooper on the right. He had put his hand on my chest.
“What’re you talking about, Ambrose?”
“You know, the lion statues. Either side of the door. Art Institute of Chicago? Chicago? Probably you been there?”
Cultural references were lost on these guys.
“You’re not on the list, Ambrose,” the cop said. “Get behind the line.”
“And that list would be?”
“Who gets in and who doesn’t.”
“Who gets in?”
“People that’re invited.”
“And who’s invited?”
“No media, I’ll tell you that.”
That brought a satisfied smile to his face.
“I’m not just media,” I said. “I’m print. There’s a difference.”
“You must think I’m stupid. Whatever you are you got to stay behind the tape. Poteet says. Wishes of the family. No reporters, no cameras.”
“None?” I said, thinking about Janelle S. “Not one press person? Not even a pool reporter?”
“None,” he said.
With a moistened finger, I started to touch up my bushy eyebrows in the mirrors on his glasses.
The cop jerked his head back.
“Fuck off,” he said.
An elderly couple who apparently were on the list tottered up the sidewalk. “Get behind the tape,” the cop hissed and moved me aside with a Popeye-sized forearm.
My compatriots rewarded me with another round of hoots and catcalls as I turned and came up the walk. I put a moderately abashed smile on my face, added a little spring to my step, and threw them a Boy Scout salute as I walked out and around them, heading dutifully toward my place at the back of the pack.
The back of the building was around that way as well, but nobody seemed to notice. I had not seen Janelle S. among the clans, and that was a little worrisome.
Moze was guarding the back door of the garage. He, too, stood cross-armed, but it was hard for him to look tough when the weight of his gun made his Dockers droop.
“I need to go in here, Moze.”
“Can’t.”
He wouldn’t make eye contact with me. A good sign.
“I need to go in and talk to Poteet, find out why we’re being shut out.”
“Can’t,” he said, but he shifted his feet.
“Moze, I’m going in ’cause I’m the pool reporter for this funeral.”
“There’s no pool, Clay. Stop lying to me.”
He knew it was coming; otherwise, why was he so nervous?
“Okay, Moze, here’s the truth. I’m going in ’cause I kept my mouth shut in Crandall’s office. You owe me.”
“No, I don’t.”
He was too quick; he’d been playing it out in his head.
“You owe me. I let you in at Aunt Lotty’s. You got a good story, and I damn near lost my job.”
“You could’ve said no, but you didn’t, and I didn’t rat.
He didn’t move, but he looked south.
“What’re you going to do if I let you by?” Moze said.
“Sit unseen and patient in an adjoining room. Listen to the service.” I shrugged. “Probably take a few notes.”
“How’re you going to get in, anyway? Door’s locked.”
A small console beside the door carried a 10-digit keypad.
“Ever looked up Poteet’s telephone number in the phone book?” I said. “If you translate the numbers on the phone pad, it spells out ‘Plant ’em.’”
That much was true. Knowing Poteet and being an alcoholic with nothing better to do, I tried it one night.
“Same number here,” I said, although I will admit I wasn’t exactly sure about that then.
“No, it’s not,” Moze said.
I punched in the numbers. The lock snapped. Moze rolled his eyes.
Some days it’s better to be lucky than good. Since my luck was so good, I took another flyer.
“I hear they got a plate number on the guys who did these kids.”
Moze winced like I’d grazed him with a cattle prod.
“Jesus, Clay, who told you that?”
I remained impassive.
“Well?” I said.
Still, he would not answer.
“Okay, I didn’t hear it from you and I’ll verify it with Wood.”
“It’s only a partial.”
On the third canvas of the neighbors, after the cops widened the area to five, six miles from Aunt Lotty’s, a state boy had found an old guy with a prostate problem, Moze said.
“He gets up in the night to piss and sees this car driving slowly from the direction of the old woman’s place.”
“Description?”
“Not very good. Car, large, dark. Probably an older model. Called it ‘boxy.’”
“How partial is partial?”
“A few digits.”
“County prefix?”
For license plate purposes, the state’s counties are numbered in order of where they would fall when the counties’ names are arranged alphabetically. Except for vanity plates, the first one or two digits of a plate signify the county where the car owner resides. One or two letters follow the one or two digits signifying the license branch within the county where the plate was purchased; that usually corresponds roughly to the area of the county where the car owner resides.
“Well,” Moze said, “yeah.”
“Okay, what prefix?”
“Jesus Christ, Clay, I can’t tell you that.”
“All right, was it an Austin County plate?”
“No.”
“Adjoining county?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s you and me play a game,” I said. “I’ll name a county that I’m going to identify in a story that will probably be published tomorrow. I want the name to be right, so I’m going to rely on you to tell me if I’m wrong. If I name a county, and you don’t tell me no, that’s the county I’m going to name. Got it?”
This was a little dangerous; just ask Woodward and Bernstein. If the source misunderstands the rules, you print the wrong information. That plays hell with your credibility, not to mention the paper’s libel insurance rates.
“Come on, Clay,” Moze whined.
“Come on, Moze,” I whined back. “Look, this way you can truthfully say that you did not give up the name.
I ticked off the name of three of the five adjoining counties. On the fourth, he stopped telling me no.
“Maybe I didn’t hear what you said, Moze.” I said the fourth name again. Still, he said nothing. I tried the fifth name, and Moze said no.
“Want to play on the rest of the digits?” I asked.
“Clay, get the fuck away from me.”
Fourth Person No More Page 11
