Kid Carolina

by Heidi Schnakenberg

  They both signed.

  Strat, Frank, and the rest of Dick’s legal entourage popped bottles of champagne and toasted Dick and Muriel on their wedding day. After a round of speeches they sat down for dinner at seven.

  After dinner, they all walked to South End House, where Reverend King and the servants were waiting for them. Cushions had been placed at the base of the oak tree, which stood in the shadow of the mansion.

  Both Dick and Muriel were touched by the scene. A recording of “Be My Love” by Mario Lanza played over the loudspeakers in the garden as Dick and Muriel knelt down for the service. The moon—the same bright moon that followed their courtship under Italian, Swiss, and English skies—now shone brightly on the eighty guests, most of whom were a congregation of lawyers and Sapelo Island residents. Dick held Muriel’s hand throughout the ceremony.

  In this remote place on the Georgia coast, the ghosts of the island’s past seemed to serenade them as they entered their new life together. At long last they would be married.

  Tears streamed down Dick’s face. He’d abandoned two wives and two families, and he wanted it to be right this time. He wanted this marriage to be the last one.

  When Reverend King pronounced them husband and wife, Dick wrapped his arms around Muriel and kissed her as he wept. Dick helped Muriel to her feet and walked to the oak tree. Using a stick, he carved into the tree, “Muriel and Dick Forever Married Here, August 8, 1952.”

  After the ceremony, the guests went through the main entrance of the big house for wine and wedding cake. The guests spilled out onto the patio and drank as the night stretched on. Dick and Muriel milled around, chatting with guests. Everyone congratulated them and wished them well, including Dick’s lawyers, who seemed happy for Dick after all the romantic mistakes they watched him suffer through. After an hour, Dick and Muriel retreated to Azalea Cottage to be alone for the rest of the night.

  The lawyers slept in the big house and left the following morning by private plane, without saying goodbye or disturbing Dick and Muriel. The newlyweds spent the next two weeks anchored at Sapelo, recovering from the exhaustion of being on the run for almost a year. They didn’t speak much as Dick drove Muriel around the island in his jeep, showing her all the hidden corners of his private isle that she hadn’t seen before.

  But all was not as merry as they had hoped on their wedding night. Only three days after the ceremony, Dick went on one of his worst drinking binges. Muriel cried—he had already betrayed his promise. Dick lost his temper and threw a doorstop at her right breast.

  Muriel was shocked, but she fired back and pointed out that he had violated the terms of the document he signed for her. Dick dug up the paper, tore it into pieces, and threw them in Muriel’s face. Muriel fell into a depression as Dick’s alcoholic rampage carried on.

  When he came out of it, he begged for forgiveness as usual. Muriel was visibly shaken as she tried to tell Dick she would eventually forgive him, but she couldn’t get the words out.

  Dick abruptly announced that he’d like his relatives in Winston-Salem to meet Muriel before they departed for their honeymoon. Josh rejoined Dick and Muriel and accompanied them on the drive to Winston-Salem. Dick and Muriel’s first visit would be to Blitz’s so Dick could see his boys and bring home Josh. Dick intended to talk to Blitz about the younger boys’ education. He felt they hadn’t had access to good schools in Winston-Salem, and he hoped Blitz would give him an opportunity to make his opinion known.

  They would first see Blitz in the morning for a brief visit, after which they were expected for lunch at Roaring Gap, an hour’s drive away. Dick warned Muriel that Blitz could be a talker.

  When they arrived on the huge Surry County acreage in the foothills of the Appalachians, Blitz and the younger boys weren’t home, so Josh accompanied Dick and Muriel into the four-story lodge, and showed them the place. It was hard for Dick to be back at Devotion—the first estate he had built for himself—which he had once loved. It hadn’t been maintained well and seemed like a ghost of what it had once been. After an hour of waiting, Blitz came in. It was the first time she and Dick had seen each other in years. Because Dick was now with a different woman from the one who broke up her marriage, Blitz could find peace with her ex-husband.

  Blitz gave Dick a big hug, briefly shook hands with Muriel, and as Dick predicted, she chatted them up for twenty minutes straight. Dick was nervous because he wanted to broach the subject of schooling, but it didn’t look as if he would be able to on this visit. He kept checking his watch. Mary, Dick’s sister, was having a celebration for them at Roaring Gap and they were already late. Finally, Dick stood up to leave while Blitz talked on. Muriel and Josh jumped up to join Dick, and Blitz followed them out to the car, still talking. Dick told Blitz he would be back to visit the rest of the boys.

  At least the visit had been amicable, and Blitz had been nice to Muriel. They were off to a good start.

  Before leaving the estate, which was ten times the size of Dick’s second childhood home, Reynolda, Dick squeezed in a few minutes to take Muriel up to a complete shooting range that he had built. Dick had created it himself with an architect’s eye. He informed Muriel that every year they had held the North Carolina State Skeet Shootout, one of Dick’s favorite activities, on the estate. The range was used regularly by Winston-Salem residents.

  Muriel sensed a hint of sadness on Dick’s face since they had pulled up to his tremendous estate. He had put so much work into it, building dams, fishing lakes, the range—all for a love now lost.

  Once they got back on the road, Dick’s mood improved. When the Roaring Gap country club soon came into view, Dick smiled. He couldn’t wait to see his beloved sister. They parked in front of Mary’s house and when they got out of the car, Dick was welcomed by many familiar faces.

  CHAPTER 14

  Winston-Salem Society

  1952

  Mary’s butler, Harvey Miller, opened the door to Dick and burst into tears. The old man had been with the family since the days of R.J. Sr. and he was overwhelmed with emotion at seeing his face. Dick gave him a long hug and Muriel stood by, already liking the place.

  Mary’s mountain retreat was modest and opposite the scale of Devotion and Sapelo Island. Muriel recalled the time Dick told her that Mary and Nancy had carefully and frugally saved their inheritances, while Dick outspent both of them by far. Mary was very wealthy now, perhaps more so than Dick, because she’d reinvested her money sensibly throughout her adult life.

  Mary greeted the couple, and Muriel liked her on the spot. She was elegant, warm, and kind, and it was obvious that Dick and Mary loved each other. Muriel was introduced to her husband, Charles Babcock, and the children, Barbara, Betsy, Mary, and Charles Jr.

  Mary planned to throw them a formal evening reception so Muriel would have the chance to meet all of Winston-Salem society. Mary whispered to Muriel, “Blitz is coming. I hope you don’t mind.” Mary and Nancy both had continued to treat Blitz as a sister-in-law, even after nearly a decade since she divorced Dick.

  After lunch, Dick and Muriel went up to the guestroom to rest, but worry permeated Dick’s face.

  “Mary looks very ill compared to just two years ago when I last saw her. Did you notice that her stomach is large?” asked Dick.

  “Perhaps she’s having a late baby,” replied Muriel.

  “Do you mind if I leave you to unpack and go have a word with her alone?”

  Muriel assured him that was fine and lay down for a nap.

  A couple of hours later, Muriel awoke when Dick came back into the room. He looked even more worried than before. He said that Mary was not, in fact, pregnant, and that her doctor didn’t know what was wrong with her and had strongly advised her to see a New York specialist earlier that summer. She hadn’t been feeling well all summer, but she was putting it off, which frustrated Dick. Mary wanted to wait until the children went back to school in the fall so she could enjoy the holiday with them.

  Dick said h
e suspected she had a mass in her belly. He vowed to bother Mary about it all weekend, but every time he brought it up, Mary tried to brush it off by saying it might be early menopause. Eventually, Dick let it go when Mary’s health seemed to improve during their stay.

  They attended the reception that evening. Dick and Muriel stood in the receiving line and it seemed as though the whole town was there to see Dick. Ever since World War II, Dick had been a rare sight in Winston-Salem, but they still spoke of him with pride and claimed him as one of their own.

  Blitz approached Muriel after most of the guests had arrived. “It would look nice if we had a long conversation for the sake of all the people here observing us,” said Blitz. Muriel agreed and Blitz ushered her to a corner where they talked for a long time. Muriel was surprised by how much she enjoyed Blitz’s company and decided she liked her very much. Blitz liked Muriel, too—she was delighted by Muriel’s reports that Josh was a perfect gentleman in London, and a great host. Perhaps they would be friends.

  Devotion Drama

  A few days after the Roaring Gap party, Dick woke early in the morning to spend time with his younger boys, whom he hadn’t seen in years. He showed up early, intending to share breakfast with them and Blitz, but when he arrived Blitz wasn’t in the mood to wait on him.

  Dick hugged his two youngest sons, Will and Zach, and asked one of them to get him breakfast. Dick talked with Blitz cordially for about a half hour until a tray of scrambled eggs arrived. Dick ate from the tray, while Blitz and the boys all lingered awkwardly.

  In between bites, Dick asked Blitz if, after all this time, she would mind returning the few valuable personal possessions he had left in the safe at Merry Acres, which he’d never retrieved after their divorce. Of particular importance to him was his pilot’s license, his father’s Joshua Coin (the ancestral heirloom passed down to male heirs in the family for good luck), and his father’s pocket watch and compass, which was an antique nautical navigation timepiece. Dick also wanted all the reels of film he’d shot with the color motion picture production company and lab he’d owned at the time, Precision Films. While he’d been married to Blitz, he also financed a color and sound movie titled North Carolina: Variety Vacationland, which was used by the state’s Department of Conservation and shown around the country. Dick had once pursued photography as well, and he stored the negatives in filing cabinets at Merry Acres. Dick was eager to take all his films and photos down to the Sapelo theater.

  Blitz had little patience for a man who had left her to raise their children on her own and then suddenly showed up years later to demand his things back. She abruptly stood up and shouted, “You will get nothing back from me! You won’t get a single thing out of any of the houses. Not so much as a piece of paper!”

  Blitz added that Dick could forget about the film footage anyway, because she’d let the younger children play with the reels and they were so unraveled, tangled together, and damaged that no one could get them rewound, let alone view the films again.

  Dick and Blitz exchanged venomous looks. Dick was enraged, but he reminded himself that he was there to discuss boarding school. He took a deep breath and poured his third cup of coffee.

  Will and Zach were getting restless, so Dick suggested they go out and play. Josh and John sat in on the discussion as Dick broached the subject. Dick said it was time for the two younger boys to go to Virginia’s Woodbury Forest, which was one of the best boarding schools in the South and Dick’s own childhood school.

  “Why don’t you mind your own business?” Blitz retorted. “I have custody of them, and if you dare try and do anything about it I’ll see you in court.”

  Dick said again that he felt like they weren’t getting a good enough education, and it was time they had an opportunity to be educated like the other boys of their status. Blitz said that public school was good enough for her sons, that they loved the country, and that she wasn’t going to pay fees at Woodbury. She only had $5,000 a year for each of the boys. Dick offered to pay their education fees in full.

  Blitz refused Dick’s offer. She was disgusted by his nerve in telling her what to do with Zach and Will. Instead of bossing her around, he should have been outside spending time with them. They hurled insults at one another just as they had when they were married. Finally, Blitz threw a coffeepot at Dick, narrowly missing him. Dick stormed out of the house, too upset to speak. Josh and John ran out after him. The boys told their father that they would see what they could do to change Blitz’s mind. But the message to Dick was clear: too little parenting, too late.

  Dick didn’t see Blitz again for a long time.

  Determined to get on with their trip, Dick took Muriel for one more visit to Charles and Mary’s and then he went back to Winston-Salem for the day. He wished to show Muriel the bungalow his mother built when he was a kid, the legendary Reynolda.

  As they drove down the tree-lined street of the same name, they passed beautiful homes and mansions that had been built up all along the once desolate country road since R.J. Sr. died. The richest people in the area made sure they settled around Reynolda—the prestige of the estate made the neighborhood one of the most valuable sections of the city.

  Dick made a slight right turn and abruptly pulled up to an unassuming iron gate. Muriel could see nothing but a large lawn at first. Once Dick drove in a few hundred feet, the estate opened up before them. There it was—the grand Reynolda mansion, poised in the distance at the end of acres and acres of long, rolling, green pasture. It took Muriel’s breath away.

  Dick was also moved by seeing the house, but in a different way. He regarded it with quiet trepidation as he continued driving down the winding road to the home’s entrance. The house and lawn were surrounded by thick woods and the mansion’s front garden was adorned with a quiet fountain, flowers, and plants. A wide, windowed porch stretched along the entire width of the back of the house. By now, groves of trees on both sides of the house had grown so thick they hid both wings and made the house look much smaller than it was.

  They got out of the car and Dick hastily walked Muriel down the crushed-stone walkway to the back entrance. He seemed unsettled.

  The only person in the house at that time was Charles Jr., who greeted them enthusiastically.

  Young Charles gave them a tour of the house, which lived up to its magnificent reputation. The main reception hall was a two-tier-wide rectangle—thirty-eight by forty-seven feet—and accented by a marble fireplace in the middle. Velvet sofas sat in the central hall and the windows were covered with silk curtains. A twin staircase trailed up to the second floor balcony, which surrounded the hall and was visible from the ground floor. Both Mary and Nancy had been married at the base of those stairs.

  Dick pointed out the Aeolian organ, with its four sets of keyboards, and showed Muriel where he used to play hide-and-seek in the hidden organ chambers. They entertained themselves with the telephones in every room and three dumbwaiters that serviced the house.

  Charles briefly left them to take a call. Dick somberly ushered Muriel down a long narrow hall to the wood-paneled library that was meant to be his father’s retirement nook and instead served as his sickroom in the final months before his death. The library overlooked a circular garden and fountain near the lake porch on the back of the house. Behind the old desk was a large plate glass picture window with views of Lake Katharine below. Dick pointed to a long antique sofa by the window and said, “That is the couch on which my father died.” His eyes glistened with tears. After all these years, he still missed his father terribly. Dick said they concluded many years after R.J. Sr. died that he likely had pancreatic cancer.

  Dick said, “I want you to come upstairs and see the room where Smith died.”

  Muriel gasped—she hadn’t made the connection before. It suddenly occurred to her that Smith was shot in this house. No wonder Dick looked subdued when he first glimpsed the house from the road.

  “I don’t want to see you upset.”

 
“I want you to see it. I have never understood what happened and I’d like your opinion on it.”

  Muriel followed him out of the library to the flight of side stairs that led to the master bedroom suite and sleeping porches. The bedroom was intended for Katharine and R.J. Sr. to use, but R.J. Sr. never spent a night in its bed before he died. Muriel hesitated before climbing the stairs. This house is cursed, she thought. R.J. Sr. died six months after arriving at Reynolda and even Katharine hadn’t had the chance to live there for long before she died tragically prematurely. Then young Smith was shot in the same wing of the house in which R.J. Sr. died. Muriel followed Dick to see where Smith died that fateful night, twenty years earlier.

  CHAPTER 15

  Smith

  1952

  They walked up the flight of stairs to the next level. Muriel felt apprehension wash over her as she moved through the ill-fated house.

  Dick took her into the east wing sleeping porch and showed her where Smith had been found and where the bullet had landed. He couldn’t finish the description, and he sat down on the bed and held his head in his hands.

  The room was filled with sadness and regret. Muriel visualized young Smith in that room, with his wife, Libby Holman, and his friend and secretary, Ab Walker.

  “I know this is difficult. But we must pull ourselves together for Charles’s sake. Your nephew will wonder what happened to us,” Muriel said gently.

  They shuffled out of the room and Muriel glanced back one more time before closing the door. She imagined what Dick must have gone through upon learning of Smith’s death, and how devastating it must have been to never know what really happened. Perhaps the Reynoldses shouldn’t have quashed the investigation after all. They would have suffered some embarrassment, but at least they might have gotten some answers.