Carolina Cruel

by Lawrence Thackston

  “Why didn’t you get back in the cars with the others?” Chan followed.

  “Luther grabbed me and told me to hide. Said he would come back for me later. He was worried the cops would catch up with them.” Antwan blew out a breath. “And he was right. He was just trying to protect me.”

  “Where did you hide?” Tindal asked.

  “Bottom of the hill. There were woods next to the curve where we parked. I ended up staying there all night.”

  Chan jumped back in. “And Luther never told you what happened at the station? Nothing about what Sonny Watts told them?”

  “No. I still don’t know. Luther told me to never mention what we saw—we could never speak, write, or even breathe a word of it ever again. And we didn’t. After the trial and the Seven were freed, we went about our lives. Luther never told me anything, never indicated there was any secret, and we definitely never said anything about what happened in that barn again.”

  Chan and Tindal shared a quick glance before Tindal said, “So six years later you decide to blackmail Dover’s lover for fifty thousand dollars. Why?”

  Antwan shook his head. “Like y’all said earlier, I was working for peanuts at the time. The man was moving up in the world. I saw a chance.”

  “Moving up?” Tindal asked.

  Antwan cut his eyes between the reporters. “My God…you two don’t know, do you? You don’t know who it was.”

  “It was obviously someone powerful enough to have Sonny Watts perform his Henry Brooks trick,” Chan said. “And someone whom you felt you couldn’t cross once you learned how your letter backfired.”

  “More powerful than you know. More powerful than a couple of white reporters. And a helluva lot more powerful than some poor black man from Macinaw.”

  “Give us his name now,” Tindal said. “And we’ll take him down together.”

  FEBRUARY 8, 1969

  6:01 PM

  The Macinaw Seven sat around an oblong table in an office conference room of the Macinaw Jail. They were bloodied and beaten, nursing their wounds, scared to death. They all were quiet until William Anderson spoke up, “Hey, man, what are we gonna do?”

  “Just keep quiet,” Luther Jennings said. “We ain’t done nothing. They can’t hold us for doing nothing.”

  “Yeah they will,” Brandon Grimes protested. “They gonna say we killed that boy. They gonna say we hung him. And all y’all damn well know it.”

  “We didn’t kill anybody,” Tyrell James said. “And we know who did. We’ll be outta here before too long.”

  “Man, you’re crazy,” Grimes continued. “Jake’s Grocery got robbed last week and the cops came and got my cousin and his friend just because they were standing on the same street corner as Jake’s. They gonna nail us for this shit I swear.”

  “Shut up, Brandon.” James said. “All of you listen to me. All we gotta do is tell the truth. Tell the truth and we’ll be fine.”

  The door to the conference room opened and a man in a dark suit with a black brief case entered. The Macinaw Seven became quiet and attentive. He went to the middle of the table, placed the case flat and angled it so that when opened the contents would be visible only to him. He brushed back his hair and caught the eye of each member of the Seven to make sure he had their attention. “Gentlemen, my name is Sonny Watts, and I am a lawyer. Before we proceed any further, I need to know if any of you have informed the police about what you witnessed today. Anyone?”

  The Seven remained silent—a few weakly shook their heads that they had not. Watts smile was thin and cutting. “I say again, before I can offer my services to you as litigator, I need to know if any of you have mentioned what you saw today to Sheriff Crawford or his deputies or anyone else in law enforcement?”

  “Hey, man, we didn’t kill that boy,” Grimes said.

  “I didn’t ask you that, did I?” Watts snapped. “Now my patience is running thin, gentlemen. Did any of you talk to the police?”

  “We haven’t said anything to anybody,” James said. He looked around and pointed at his friends. “None of us.”

  This time Watts’ smile grew wider. “Good,” he said. “And you never will.”

  “Never will? What do you mean?” Anderson asked.

  “Just like I said—you never will mention what you saw today to anyone—ever. Not to the police, your families, not even to each other. What you saw today did not happen.”

  “But how are we supposed to defend ourselves?” Anderson asked.

  “Leave that to me. You will face charges of murder, no doubt, and you may even go to trial, but you will not be found guilty. You will walk away as free men.”

  “Murder?” Jennings asked. “We didn’t kill anybody. We shouldn’t have to face murder charges.”

  “Even if you protest, claim your innocence in this matter, what do you think will happen? Let’s be honest here. Seven black males are caught running from the Dover barn—Ellis Dover’s youngest child is dead—what do you think the police will do?”

  “I done told them,” Grimes said. “They gonna lock our black asses up and throw away the key.”

  “This man is correct,” Watts said, pointing at Grimes. He leaned forward on the table, lowered his voice and spoke in a menacing tone, “Claim to the police what you saw today in that barn, mention a certain person’s name to anybody, and I can assure you that jail time will be the least of your worries. Do you gentlemen understand me?”

  “But you said we would go free. How?” James asked.

  “By doing and saying exactly as I tell you.”

  “I can’t lie,” Anderson said. “I won’t put my hand on the holy book and betray my oath.”

  “God will forgive your indiscretion, young man. But betray the Devil, and there will be hell to pay.”

  “What do you mean—the Devil?” James asked.

  Watts unlocked the snaps on his brief case and opened it up. He withdrew the eight-inch boar knife and held it up to the light. There was nervous bravado from the Macinaw Seven.

  “What?” Jennings asked with a quick laugh. “You gonna stab us all if we tell?”

  Watts did not answer as he marveled at the weapon under the light. He then drew the sharpened point across the palm of his left hand—blood poured from the cut and rained down into the open brief case. James and Grimes, who were sitting closest to Watts, moved their chairs away.

  “Jesus, man, what the hell are you doing?” Jennings asked.

  Watts held his bloody palm up to show the Seven. “Just a small cut, gentlemen. Nothing to be nervous about.” He then wiped some of the blood along the blade. “I have shed my blood for you and now you shall do the same for me.”

  “Man, you’re fucking crazy,” Ja’Len Wells said.

  Watts stared Wells down. “Don’t you know whose knife this is? Don’t you know who I represent?” He then turned to the others with his sadistic smile. “Today I offer you a one-time deal. You will swear to me on your life that you will never mention what you saw today to anyone ever again and I will grant you that life as free men. But betray that trust, cross that line—today or at any time in the future—and you shall be put to death by the cold hand of Henry Brooks.”

  Anderson frowned and then shared what everyone was thinking, “Henry Brooks? That crazy bastard has been dead for over three years now.”

  “No. He lives—of that I can assure you. You cannot kill someone that powerful. He was chosen by God to determine good and evil, to determine your fate. Shall we find out what fate lies ahead for you today?”

  Jennings slammed his hand down on the table. “Man, this is bullshit! That son-of-a-bitch is dead and this cracker is playing us for fools! Get the cops in here now! I want to tell them what I saw!” Jennings jumped up from his chair.

  Watts gave the Seven another passive-aggressive grin, placed the boar knife in the case, locked it and headed for the door.

  “Wait!” James said. Watts stood motionless facing the door. Tyrell James turned to Jen
nings and the others. “What do we have to lose? If we tell the cops what we saw they’ll bury us anyway. I think maybe we should do this.”

  “But you just said we should tell the truth,” Wells said.

  “I was wrong. Brandon was right. They ain’t gonna believe us. Think about what happened in Orangeburg. Three blacks were killed by white cops and only a black man went to jail for it. It will be the same thing here.” He turned back to Watts. “What guarantee do we have that if we agree to your terms we’ll go free?”

  Watts turned around slowly. “It is one hundred percent guaranteed if all stipulations are met. We will win this case. You will walk away as free men.” He put the brief case back on the table and opened it up again. “Of course, a guarantee from Henry Brooks requires a bit of a down payment from each one of you.”

  Watts held up Henry Brooks’ knife in his right hand and flashed them his left palm—slashed and covered in coagulated blood. He smiled. “So…which one of you is first?”

  AUGUST 5, 1976

  10:07 AM

  Chan sat across from Sheriff Crawford’s desk with his head hung low, wishing the world would just somehow open up and swallow him whole. He reached for another cigarette, but like him, the pack was empty. He crumbled it up and threw it in a wastebasket.

  The door swung open and Sheriff Crawford and Deputy Haskit entered. Crawford took his seat and Haskit stood behind Chan. “Mr. Adams, I sure am sorry about all you’ve had to go through,” Crawford said. “We, Deputy Haskit and myself—the whole department really—would like to express our condolences over your recent loss. Jean was a pretty girl and a helluva nurse from what I’ve been told. She’ll be sorely missed.”

  Chan nodded and mumbled something that sounded like “Thanks.”

  “I wanted you come here today so that I can tell you a few things and also find out a few things from you, you understand me?”

  Again, Chan nodded.

  “Well, for one thing, we finally caught up with Ryan Grubbs. The FBI tracked him down in Florida late last night. He was held up in some flea-bag apartment in South Dade County. The feds moved in to make the arrest. Unfortunately, he did not go quietly. There was a shootout and Grubbs was killed. Special Agent Mike Dunn took a shot to his shoulder, but thankfully it looks like he will be making a full recovery.”

  “That’s good,” Chan said quietly.

  “Yes, but Grubbs’ death does leave holes in our case here. We will probably never know now the extent of his involvement in the deaths of the Macinaw Seven. And, at the present time, Orton and Wolfe are not telling us anything either. That’s where you come in. We need information from you to help figure out the part he and the Henry Brooks Disciples played in this mess. Do you think you’re up for that?”

  Chan nodded again. “Yes.”

  Haskit joined in, pulling up a chair next to Chan. “You followed Ryan Grubbs the past few weeks, didn’t you? For your newspaper coverage?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You kept an eye on his place there in Eastland, and some of his hangouts. We’d like to know what you may have discovered during your surveillance of the man.”

  Chan sighed and rolled his shoulders. “There’s not much to tell, really. He’s a small-time hood as you know. He has a cover job at a local liquor store but deals in meth and pot. He hangs out at Ricky’s at times and the strip club out near the interstate.”

  “We know all that,” Crawford said. “Is there anything you may have come across, anything you might have seen or anybody you might have talked to that would warrant the attack they delivered on you and Miss Reid?”

  “I beat Orton in pool one night. It pissed him off, but I would hardly say that was cause for what they did.”

  “How deep did you get with the Henry Brooks Disciples?”

  “Surface level only,” Chan said. “The gang has a high secrecy factor—it would be hard to get any information on them. And those that may know a little something about them are generally too scared to talk.”

  “Like who?” Crawford asked.

  “Like this stripper—she goes by the name Dixie Love—out at Dolly’s Dollies. When I asked about Grubbs or the HBD’s, she became very frightened. She even threatened my life the last time I brought it up.”

  Haskit caught the sheriff’s eye and then asked, “And when was the last time you talked with Dixie Love?”

  “Last week. The day Jean was killed. I saw her at Dolly’s.”

  “She threatened your life?” Crawford asked.

  “Well, she did pull a gun on me, but I didn’t take the threat seriously—she just wanted me to leave—get out of her face—so I did.”

  Crawford and Haskit grew quiet for a moment. Crawford then leaned forward in his chair with a hint of a smile. “Chan, now I’m gonna ask you something that sounds like its straight outta left field, but it needs to be asked.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you think there was ever anything…supernatural in the deaths of the Macinaw Seven?”

  “I don’t believe in the supernatural. I don’t believe in ghosts. But fear can be manipulated by human hands and I think that was definitely the case here. Someone has expertly used the murderous rage of Henry Brooks—making it seem like some necromantic communication—to cause all this death and destruction for his own gain. Someone smarter than us with infinite resources. Someone who may have gotten away with it and sadly will probably never be revealed to us.”

  12:48 PM

  Norma got up from her desk and stretched a bit. She then grabbed her empty coffee cup and headed for the bullpen. Dennis Darby was the only other person in there. He was reading copy and drinking his fourth cup. He moved over slightly so that she could get to the coffee pot. He then spoke to her without looking up. “How are you today, Norma?”

  “The same. Confused, mad, depressed.” She added sarcastically, “Thanks for asking.”

  Darby pulled out the chair beside him and indicated for her to sit. She did staring at the steam rising from her cup. Darby waited and then said, “We’ve been through a lot, you and me, personally and professionally. We’ve covered a lot together. But this…? Well, let’s just say our little town of Macinaw has gone through some tough times of late.”

  “Tough times? More like the town has gone through hell, Dennis.”

  He nodded. “You’re right. This one has shaken us to the very core. I sincerely hope we can recover from it.” He looked over at her. “I pray you’re not thinking of leaving us any time soon.”

  “I’m tired. I’m tired of the madness and the lack of answers. I’m tired of our town divided on every issue. I’m tired that we see everything as either black or white.” She paused. “Did you know I saw Ellis Dover walking about town yesterday? He had the biggest shit-eating-grin on his face that you’ve ever seen. I know he lost his son and I know he thinks the Seven were responsible, but it’s like he won the goddamn sweepstakes or something. And he’s supposed to be the pillar of this community? Something’s wrong with that, Dennis. Something is seriously wrong with that.”

  Darby could only nod. He sat in silence for a moment more before asking, “Have you talked with Adams lately?”

  “Not since last week. He’s not going to quit, is he?”

  Darby shrugged. “I heard that rumor, but I hope not. I think…I think the kid’s got potential.”

  Norma smiled. “You really do, don’t you?” She laughed. “I knew you were an old softy at heart.”

  “The hell I am,” Darby said with a slight smile. “I just don’t want to lose a good reporter, that’s all.”

  “When is he due back?”

  “I gave him two weeks off. He’ll be back next week, but I’m afraid it may be too late by then. He’s really going through it.”

  “Yeah, I know. You want me to talk to him?”

  Darby patted Norma’s hand. “You’re better at it than I am. Besides, if you help me get the kid back in the game that means you’re back in as well.”
<
br />   “You’re nobody’s fool, are you, Dennis Darby?”

  He bumped Norma’s coffee mug with his and said, “I’ll drink to that.”

  7:22 PM

  Chan opened the door to his small apartment and let Norma in. A thunderstorm had developed in the early evening and the rain was pouring down. Norma shook the droplets from about her as she stood, looking around.

  “How are you, Chan?” she asked with a mix of sympathy and curt directness.

  “Lost,” he said simply. Chan moved to the kitchenette table and invited her to sit as well. “I went to see Crawford today. He said the FBI killed Ryan Grubbs last night.”

  Norma slid her raincoat around the back of the chair and sat. “I heard. One less nuisance in the world.”

  Chan nodded as he pulled two Marlboro Lights and slid one to Norma. He leaned over and lit it for her. “Still…it leaves the puzzle wide open.”

  She blew smoke. “Think he could have killed them?”

  Chan shook his head that he did not. “The seven were killed by a pro—someone who knew how to kill in the exact manner as Henry Brooks. I think Grubbs was in on some of the plans, but I don’t think he had the skills to do the actual killing.”

  “I agree. So who do we look for?”

  “Not we, Norma—you. I’m done.”

  “Done? C’mon, Chan. You can’t give up now. We owe it to the town, to the Seven. Even to Jean…”

  “No.” Chan shook his head. “And that’s the thing, Norma. See, I didn’t mind so much when it was just me—when death was staring me in the face on this story. I can accept that risk, but I can’t be responsible for someone else’s death.”

  “You’re not. Ryan Grubbs killed Jean.”

  “Only because she was with me,” he turned slightly as his eyes became wet again. “She was my responsibility.”

  “Chan….”