A Death in Live Oak

by James Grippando

  “Obviously she was leaving it up to me.”

  “Leaving what up to you?”

  “Whether to let Mom hear it before she dies.”

  The prognosis didn’t surprise Jack. He’d been worried for Liz. The surprise was in the fuller implication of what Mark was saying.

  “So what Brandon Wall said is true? It would have killed your mother to know?”

  Mark’s eyes welled. “I love my mother, Jack. She’s a kind, wonderful person. But—”

  “It’s okay,” said Jack. “I get it.”

  Silence hovered between them. Jack recalled his conversation with Mark’s father, who regretted the missed opportunity to show his ten-year-old son the courage to reject all those bad influences that say it’s okay to be racist. It had never occurred to Jack that Tucker’s own wife was among the bad influences.

  “You understand the problem we have now, right?” asked Jack.

  “I think I do.”

  “Where there was once no motive at all for you to taunt and then lynch Jamal Cousin, there is now the oldest and most stereotypical motive in the history of black-white relations.”

  “I understand.”

  “I have to call Shelly to the witness stand. She has to explain that you knew nothing about her and Jamal until she visited you in jail. But understand this: Not a single person in that courtroom is going to believe her. Maybe not even your parents. It’s going to come across as a sister who loves her brother and will say anything to save his life.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Mark.

  “So am I,” said Jack, and then a thought occurred to him. “Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “It’s possible a surveillance camera captured Shelly showing you the message on her arm.”

  “How does that help?”

  “If the camera caught Shelly telling you about ‘JC’ after you’re in jail, it proves that you didn’t know. That negates your motive to send that text message to Jamal and to have anything to do with the lynching.”

  “Do you think it’s on video?”

  “My guess is that the jail has a surveillance camera that snaps an image every eight seconds or at some set interval like that. The question is whether the message on her arm will be readable.”

  “Can you get the images?”

  Jack rose, no time to waste. “I’ll ask right now.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I need to have a talk with your sister.”

  Jack could have walked from the jail to his motel, but driving was the only way to make sure he wouldn’t end up on television with a microphone shoved in his face. Theo had flown back to Miami with Righley that morning, but Shelly still had the room next to Jack’s. She was alone when she answered Jack’s knock. She sat on the ottoman next to the noisy climate control unit built into the wall. Jack pulled up the desk chair.

  “Mark told me everything he knows,” said Jack.

  “Then there’s not much to talk about, is there,” she said.

  “We both know that’s not the case.”

  She looked at Jack, and he could see that she’d been crying. Then she looked away. “Baine Robinson is a pig.”

  “How did he find out about you and Jamal?”

  “I have no idea. He wouldn’t tell me who his source was.”

  “But he told you he knew?”

  She chuckled mirthlessly. “Told me is a nice way to put it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a history with me and Baine. I was a very stupid freshman. I made out with him one night at the Theta house. Terrible mistake. It was the biggest lecture Mark ever gave me. Anyway, I totally blew off Baine. He kept after me, but I was always like, ‘See ya, Baine.’” She sighed, her voice filling with regret. “Then he had this over me.”

  “You and Jamal?”

  “Yeah. He wanted me to sleep with him or he would tell my mother. I told you he was a pig.”

  “How did Baine know that your mother—” Jack stopped himself, searching for the right words. “How did he know that your mother would have such a big problem with Jamal?”

  “First of all, Baine is himself a racist. It’s like they can sniff each other out. Of all Mark’s friends, the only one my mother would make an inappropriate remark in front of was Baine. They kind of had a thing that they shared.”

  “A thing?”

  “It was like their own sense of humor. A private joke between them.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Here’s what I’m saying. One time last year there was a group of Mark’s friends over at our house watching a Gator game on television. My parents and I were in the room watching, too. There was a black play-by-play announcer, a former player. To be totally honest, he was really struggling. Most of us were like, ‘Okay, it’s his first time on television, the poor guy’s really nervous,’ whatever. But Baine—well, he had a few beers, and he would break into this exaggerated ‘yowsa’ imitation every time the announcer said anything.”

  “Yowsa?”

  “Yowsa, Mastuh referee. Yowsa, Mastuh alligator mascot.”

  “Oh.”

  “It got to the point that we were all telling him to shut the hell up. But Mom—she was noticeably silent. I hate to say this. I love my mom. But I could tell that she thought Baine was funny. Something inside her wanted to burst out laughing. I had to leave the room. Everybody thought it was because of Baine. But that wasn’t it. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed of my own mother.”

  Jack felt her pain. There were things his own father had done—things that had driven them apart when Jack was a young lawyer. He wished he could have told her that it’s possible to work out these differences over time. But time was short in the Towson family.

  That made it all the more difficult to ask the question that Jack felt compelled to ask. “Shelly, please don’t get mad. But you said earlier that Baine threatened to tell your mother.”

  “I didn’t sleep with him, if that’s your question.”

  “It wasn’t. But the fact that you didn’t give in to his demand makes the question all the more important. Is it possible that Baine did tell your mother?”

  Shelly considered it for a moment, but her thoughts quickly turned to resentment. “Seriously? Are you asking me if I think my mother lynched Jamal?”

  Or encouraged someone else to do it. “Never mind,” said Jack. “I was having one of those ‘everyone’s a suspect’ moments. Forget I said it.”

  “I will,” she said. “And I think you should, too.”

  There was silence between them. Jack decided not to pursue it any further—at least not with Shelly.

  “One last question,” said Jack.

  “What?”

  “Who was the old black man in the back of the courtroom today?”

  CHAPTER 69

  The sun was setting over southern Georgia, and Andie could hear the sounds of creeping nightfall on the Okefenokee Swamp.

  She also heard rumblings among the Aryan National Alliance rank and file.

  Since the move to Okefenokee, she’d met Alliance supporters from at least a dozen states, some of whom had traveled hundreds of miles to join the camp, all drawn by the prospect of a showdown with black frat boys. So far, the closest thing to any form of “action” had been Steger’s speeches.

  “Talk is cheap,” said William. “Time to crack some heads.”

  Tonight’s speech was again given in the tin-roofed shelter. Andie was seated beside William, trying to listen to Steger, but there were whispers of discontent around her.

  “I agree,” said the man behind her and William. “I’m tired of sittin’ around.”

  The sentiment was generally expressed in quiet exchanges between men who knew each other well. If Steger was aware of the growing dissatisfaction, it didn’t stop him from talking.

  Andie just listened. This speech was of particular interest to her. It was classic Steger—the pseudo-intellectualism
that had inspired the naming of FBI “Operation 777.”

  “On July 7, 2016, a black man opened fire on Dallas police officers,” Steger told the group. “His victims were white and black, but make no mistake about his purpose. During the shoot-out, Micah Xavier Johnson told police by phone that he ‘wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.’”

  Steger paused. He wasn’t addressing a crowd of news junkies, but no one would forget the day that bullets rained down on a peaceful #BlackLivesMatter protest in downtown Dallas.

  “Johnson was shot and wounded in the exchange of gunfire,” said Steger, “but he was determined to fight to the death. Before an explosive robot was sent in to blow him to bits, he used his own blood to write two letters on the wall: RB.

  “Now, the liberal media will have you believe Johnson was a lone wolf. No connection to any organization, they say. Let’s take a closer look. First, note the significance of the date. The seventh day. The seventh month. The sixteenth year—one-six. How much is one plus six? What three-number combination does that date give us?

  “Seven, seven, seven.”

  Andie discreetly gauged the crowd’s reaction. The seven-seven-seven gimmick had caught their attention.

  Steger continued. “Interesting, you say. But so what? Could be a meaningless coincidence. Or is it? What about those letters, ‘RB,’ which Micah Johnson wrote in his own blood? The official investigation concluded that they have no significance. Don’t believe it. Rb is the symbol for rubidium, a chemical element. Scientists describe rubidium as “highly reactive.” You bet it is. But more important, do you know what the atomic number is for rubidium? Thirty-seven. Or say it another way: Three-seven. It sounds a lot like ‘three sevens,’ doesn’t it?

  “Again: seven, seven, seven.

  “All this talk of sevens is not just a numbers game. It means something. It tells you what is really afoot.”

  Andie knew what was coming: for Steger, the hate speech always followed the false intellectual premise.

  “Islam describes the numerical miracle of the number seven,” said Steger. “On the trip to Mecca, Muslims cast the traditional seven stones at the devil. I don’t mean to get silly about this, but this will show you the depth of meaning that this number has for the Muslim-inspired black nationalist movement. Malcolm X was in Miami Beach in 1964 to watch Cassius Clay—later Muhammad Ali—take the heavyweight crown from one of the greatest boxers of all time, Sonny Liston. You know what seat Malcolm X selected to watch that fight? You guessed it: seat seven.

  “Do not for a minute believe that Micah Johnson was a lone wolf. Do not underestimate the danger of radical Islam and the influence it has on black nationalism in this country. Again, we can look at the words of Malcolm X himself to prove my point. He was at the height of his career when other black Muslims were turning against him and threatening his life.” Steger opened the book again. “Chapter sixteen: ‘I knew that no one would kill you quicker than a Muslim if he felt that’s what Allah wanted him to do.’”

  Steger laid the book aside, and Andie noticed that there were two books Steger carried everywhere: the Bible and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. She noted that he never carried the Quran or referenced its text. His understanding of Islam was typical of a hate-monger, based on out-of-context quotes taken from secular writings.

  “My friends,” said Steger, “Malcolm X’s written words foreshadowed his own death. Don’t let them foreshadow yours.”

  Applause followed, but it was not thunderous. It was lukewarm at best.

  “Hey, Steger!” a man shouted.

  Andie glanced over. It was Colt.

  “Do you have something to say?” asked Steger.

  “Yeah, I do. When are we actually gonna do something? I’m tired of sitting around.”

  The crowd joined in, some members voicing their agreement and others applauding for Colt—much more applause than Steger’s speech had garnered.

  Steger raised his hands to quiet the crowd. “That’s a fair question.”

  “Yeah,” said Colt. “How about a fair fucking answer?”

  Steger glared—long enough and with enough intensity to silence Colt and those who were egging him on. When the crowd was completely still, he spoke in the dramatic tone of a prophet.

  “In twenty-four hours, all the waiting will be over,” he said. “It’s going to be so big. Huge. And each of you will know what to do. Believe me.”

  Steger grabbed his books and stepped off the makeshift stage. The crowd broke into small clusters of conversation. The mood among the rank and file had shifted. Andie could feel the energy.

  And the urgency.

  CHAPTER 70

  Jack met with Oliver Boalt at the state attorney’s office. The cardboard takeout box was still on the prosecutor’s desk, but even without it, Jack would have guessed pizza for dinner. The greasy pepperoni stain was still on the wrinkled white shirt that the state attorney had worn to court that day.

  “I have everything you asked for,” said Boalt, handing Jack a large manila envelope.

  Jack had subpoenaed the Suwannee County Jail to get the surveillance tapes from Shelly’s conversation with her brother. He’d scheduled a meeting with Boalt to make it clear that he needed them immediately. He hadn’t expected such quick compliance.

  Jack peeked inside the envelope and saw a flash drive and a CD. “This is everything?” he asked, still skeptical. “All audio, video, and still images?”

  “Yes, sir. And in the spirit of cooperation, I went one step further,” Boalt said, as he handed Jack another envelope across his desk.

  Jack opened the envelope and removed a photograph. It was a magnified image of the message on Shelly’s arm.

  Jack looked up. The prosecutor seemed curiously smug.

  “You know about this?” asked Jack.

  “Before you did,” said Boalt. “The audio recorded her saying ‘it’s about Baine,’ and then in the next frame of video surveillance she rolled up her sleeve. Not exactly discreet. We’ve seen that trick before.”

  Jack looked again at the magnified image. It was exactly as Mark had described.

  “Oliver, you look strangely at peace for a prosecutor who has just handed over irrefutable proof that Mark Towson was completely unaware of the relationship between his sister and Jamal Cousin.”

  “Irrefutable?” he said, smiling. “I think not.”

  In a case filled with excess footwear, Jack sensed that yet another shoe was about to drop.

  “As you might expect,” said Boalt, “I spoke to Baine Robinson and his lawyer about this.”

  “When?”

  “An hour ago. Mr. Robinson admits that he knew.”

  “Which is exactly what the message from Shelly shows,” said Jack. “Baine knew. Mark didn’t.”

  “Not exactly,” said Boalt. “When Shelly visited her brother in jail, she was apparently unaware of the fact that her brother already knew about her and ‘JC.’”

  “That’s not true,” said Jack.

  Boalt slid a third envelope across his desk. Inside was a signed affidavit from Baine Robinson. Boalt explained the highlights as Jack skimmed it.

  “Baine Robinson told Mark Towson that his sister was ‘doing the president of the Alpha house,’ to use Baine’s words. As it states in the affidavit, that conversation took place before Mark Towson sent his text message, and well before the lynching of Jamal Cousin.”

  Jack laid the affidavit on the desk, looked straight at the prosecutor, and said, “Baine’s lying.”

  “Your client’s lying to you, Jack. Which is the real point of this meeting.”

  “You brought me here to gloat to my face. Is that it?”

  “Not at all,” Boalt said, his expression turning very serious. “I brought you here because this case is doing terrible things to this community. It’s not good for Live Oak. Not good for the people of Suwannee County. Not good for anybody.”

  “Are you offering a deal, Oliver?”
r />   The state attorney leaned forward, his forearms resting on the leather desktop. “Yes.”

  The two lawyers locked eyes. Then the prosecutor reached inside his suit jacket, pulled a letter-sized envelope from his pocket, and slid it across the desk. He left his hand on the sealed envelope, maintaining his eye contact with Jack.

  “This is the only deal I am ever going to offer,” Boalt said, and then he slowly retracted his hand and settled back into his chair.

  Jack looked at the envelope but didn’t open it. A minute passed. Finally, Jack took it, tucked it away in his coat pocket, and then rose. “Good night, Oliver,” he said, offering his hand.

  The men shook hands, and Jack left the office with much more than he’d expected.

  CHAPTER 71

  Percy sensed it was time.

  It was night. He could tell. It was a new ability he’d developed. Percy was in constant darkness, except when his captor came to feed him or empty his bucket. But over the past few days he’d learned to distinguish between the pitch blackness of night and the slightly less complete darkness of daytime when, from someplace in the shed that was outside his line of sight, a minuscule amount of sunlight seeped through rotting boards or perhaps a crack in the roof. If his figurative clock was correct, it was nearing dinnertime, and his captor would arrive soon.

  And then Percy would make his move.

  There had been plenty of time to plan. Each time his captor switched on the light Percy stole a glimpse of his surroundings. When the light went out, he replayed the image in his mind. He knew how many steps it was to the door. He knew exactly where the lightbulb was, the length of the exposed wire from the rafters, and how high the bulb dangled above the concrete floor. Most important, he knew where the tool bench was, and which tools might be of greatest use.

  Footsteps. They were right outside the shed. Right on time.

  Percy drew a breath to calm his nerves. He knew what he had to do, and there was no backing down. He’d been told from the outset that he would live only if Jamal’s killers went free. Seeing his first captor’s face had erased even that small hope. His replacement had given Percy the name “Emmett,” and Percy was keenly aware of how the story of Emmett Till had ended.