“My God,” she said, outraged. “And they got away with that?”
“All the colored people knowed about it. Some of the white folks, too, I imagine. But the white folks turned their heads the other way. And we was all in the same position as the girls. Nobody darin’ to step forward and put a stop to it. They owned us, Miz McAllister. Lincoln might have freed the slaves a hunnerd years ago, but around here, it din’t make no difference. We still in chains. We still owned by the rich white folks who can do anythin’ they want and get away with it.”
“What happened, Luther? What happened to bring an end to it all?”
He glanced around again, set down the towel. “I don’t dare to say no more. They could burn my house down tonight while my babies sleep.”
“Luther, don’t quit on me now. I need this from you! Dewey needs it from you! You’re the only one who can help us!”
He looked at her for a very long time. Sighed. Picked up a napkin and a stubby pencil from behind the bar. He wrote something on the napkin, folded it, and shoved it across the bar. “This is all I’m givin’ you,” he said. “You gotta figure out the rest on your own. Now git on out of here, girl, before somebody sees you that shouldn’t.”
She was trembling with excitement when she left the bar. The steamy summer heat hit her the moment she left the air conditioned building, and the bright sunlight blinded her. She unlocked the Toyota and sat down behind the wheel, started the engine and turned on the air-conditioning. She gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness, and then she opened the napkin.
Ruby Jackson, it said. December, 1972.
Chapter Thirteen
Shanice Williams showed her how to load and unload the microfiche and then left her alone. With agonizing concentration, Kathryn began paging through the December, 1972 daily editions of the Gazette. On page two of the December third edition, she found a picture of a much younger Kevin McAllister and several other men she didn’t recognize, shaking hands with a young and surprisingly handsome Mayor John Chamberlain. The caption read Benevolent Association donates $1000 to Christmas Fund for Needy Children.
In fascination, she paged through the advertisements. Rollie’s Emporium was having a twenty-nine-cent special on gasoline. Ground chuck was selling for forty-nine cents a pound, and ABC Textiles, long since defunct, was advertising for experienced stitchers at two dollars per hour.
She was so caught up in the nostalgic look back that she almost missed it, buried on page nine of the December fourteenth edition. Police Puzzled By Disappearance of Local Woman. Kathryn paused, her heart in her throat, pulse hammering as she read the brief news article.
Elba, NC—In a case that has local law enforcement officials stumped, a young colored woman disappeared late Tuesday afternoon. Nineteen-year-old Ruby Jackson left her place of employment, the Dixie Diner, where she worked as a waitress, around 3:00 p.m. Tuesday. The young woman never arrived home. Subsequent investigations by Elba police have failed to unearth any clues regarding her disappearance. Jackson, the daughter of Raymond and Beulah Jackson of Persimmon Creek, is a 1971 graduate of Elba High School. She stands five-foot-five and weighs 120 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone having information concerning her whereabouts is asked to call Chief Wallace Hayes of the Elba Police Department.
The article was accompanied by a grainy black-and-white photo of a young black woman. Kathryn studied it carefully, but the quality of the newspaper photo, reproduced on microfiche, was so poor that it was almost impossible to discern features. She pulled out a notebook from her purse and took quick notes, read the article through again, then began paging forward, looking for a follow-up article. It took her nearly an hour to page through to the end of January, but there was no further mention of Ruby Jackson. Which could mean anything. She’d returned home. Had been located, safe and sound, in Atlanta or Charleston or Richmond or some other place young girls fled to when they left stifling hometowns like Elba. Or she had never been seen again, and had subsequently been forgotten by everyone except those who loved her.
She carefully rewound the microfiche and returned it to its case, then went in search of Shanice Williams. “Where do you keep the obituaries?” she said.
“Nowadays,” the woman said, “they’re all on computer.”
“You mean, you can just punch in a name and bring it up on the screen?”
“That’s right,” Shanice said. “The last fifty years’ worth.”
“Can you look up a name for me? Ruby Jackson.”
The name obviously meant nothing to Shanice, who swiveled in her chair and efficiently typed the name into her computer. A moment later, a blue screen popped up with the words NO MATCHING ENTRY. “She’s not here,” Shanice said.
“And if she’d died, and her obit had been printed in the Gazette, it would be here?”
“That’s right,” Shanice said.
Her next stop was the Elba Public Library, located on the corner of Elm and Persimmon. The librarian looked up, recognized her, and pursed her lips in disapproval. “Good afternoon,” Kathryn said. “Do you keep copies of high school yearbooks?”
“Row five, left side, near the end.”
She found it on the second shelf from the top, the 1971 Elba High School yearbook. She carried it to an oak table and opened it up, flipping through the senior portraits until she found Ruby Jackson. Ruby had been a pretty girl, with a slightly exotic tilt to her eyes, as though she’d had a trace of Asian ancestry. She’d been a junior varsity cheerleader as well as a member of the yearbook club, and she’d sung in the school choir.
Kathryn took the yearbook to the photocopier, paid a quarter and made a copy of the page. “Phone book?” she said to the librarian with the permanently sour expression.
The woman reached beneath the counter and handed the book to her, and she opened it and turned to the J’s. Twenty-six years ago, Ruby Jackson had disappeared at the age of nineteen. That would make her forty-five now. Her parents could easily still be living out on Persimmon Creek.
But there was no listing for either Raymond or Beulah Jackson. Frustrated, she handed the phone book back to the librarian. “Where would I find voter registration records?” she said.
“Municipal building, town clerk’s office.”
“Thank you,” she said. “You’ve been very helpful.”
Betty Watson, the town clerk, eyed her with open curiosity. “So you’re the lady who’s got our boy Nick all wrapped up in knots,” she said.
“Christ,” Kathryn said, “are there any secrets at all in this town?”
“None worth talking about,” Betty said. “How can I help you?”
“I’m trying to locate a Raymond or Beulah Jackson, who lived out on Persimmon Creek back in 1972. I couldn’t find a telephone listing, but I thought they might be listed in voter registration records.”
“Well,” Watson said, “let’s have a look-see.” She opened a wooden card file and began thumbing through cards. “Jackson,” she said. “Hmm…we have Jackson, Abel, Jackson, Arthur. Jackson, Beulah. Bingo!” She pulled the card and checked the address. “Looks like her last known address was Cumberland Convalescent Center. Know where that is?”
“Old Raleigh Road?”
“You got it.”
The drive out Old Raleigh Road was lovely at this time of year, past majestic plantation homes surrounded by tobacco fields wearing a rich, deep green. The Cumberland Convalescent Center had been built in a field where acres of cotton had once grown. She parked near the entrance and went inside and up to the front desk. The receptionist was a middle-aged black woman. “Hello,” Kathryn said. “I’m looking for a Beulah Jackson. According to voter registration records, this was her last known address.”
The woman eyed her silently. “You a bill collector?” she said.
Taken aback, she said, “No, no, nothing like that.”
“Good thing,” the woman said, “because if you was, you wouldn’t be gettin’ much out of old Beu
lah, seein’ as how she up and died last spring.”
“She’s dead?” She hadn’t expected this depth of disappointment. After all this searching, she’d reached a brick wall.
“Sorry, lady. What’d you want to see her about?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you.”
She was halfway out the door when the woman shouted, “You might try her daughter.”
Her heart stumbled in her chest. She forced herself to turn slowly. “She has a daughter?”
“Sure, hon. Her name’s Eloise Fitzgerald. You want to hang on a minute, I’ll find her address for you.”
Eloise Fitzgerald lived in a trailer park on the banks of Persimmon Creek. Small children in varying shades played in the red dust beside a ‘67 Chevy Impala with the hood up and its engine missing. Kathryn knocked on the door, and it was opened by a fiftyish black woman with reddish hair done up in dreadlocks. “Yeah?” the woman said.
“My name is Kathryn McAllister,” she said, “and I’m trying to track down a woman named Ruby Jackson.”
The woman eyed her for a very long time. “I know who you are,” she said. “What I want to know is what a classy white lady like you would be wantin’ with Ruby Jackson?”
“I was given her name by a confidential source. I’m trying to find out who murdered my husband. I think there may be a connection somewhere.”
Again, the woman looked at her. “Ruby Jackson was my sister,” she said, and opened the door farther. “Come in.”
Wanita Crumley’s sister June wore a navy blue dress with a white collar, and sat primly on the couch with her dress carefully covering her knees. “I didn’t always approve of what my sister did,” she said in a soft drawl, looking at Nick with pale blue eyes. “But Wanita was still my sister, and I loved her.”
“Of course you did,” he said, “and I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Now I got her boys to raise, and I’m just praying to Jesus that we can do it right, Wally and me. We’re all they got in the world now that Wanita’s gone.” With a white lace handkerchief, she dabbed at the corner of her eye.
“Mrs. Roberts,” he said gently, “why’d you ask to see me today?”
“I’m just so distraught over Dewey’s arrest,” she said, those blue eyes warming. “I mean, I certainly don’t approve of what he does for a living, sellin’ hard liquor to foolish men who ought to know better—but Dewey’s a gentle soul, and I can’t believe he would have harmed a single hair on my sister’s head.”
“I know this is a terrible question to ask you after such a recent loss, but please understand that I have to ask. Were you aware that your sister was a prostitute?”
“Jesus loves us all, Mr. DiSalvo, saints and sinners alike. Yes, I was aware of Wanita’s weaknesses. She sold her body on the street for drug money. That’s why I thought Dewey was such a good influence on her. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d put up with that nonsense for long.”
“Did Dewey know about Wanita’s ah…extracurricular activities?”
“I don’t think so, no. If he had, he would have carried her off on his shoulder to the nearest preacher and that would’ve been that. Lord knows, he tried. But Wanita was stubborn and defiant right up until she breathed her last. She wouldn’t let the other one go.”
His interest sharpened. “What other one?” he said.
“The one who helped her pay the bills and stuff. He was an older man who could afford to throw money around, I guess. She called him her honey bun. Isn’t that just nauseating?”
His pulse quickened. “I don’t suppose you know his name?”
“No. But I think he fathered her oldest boy.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I assumed the boyfriend in Baltimore was the father of her kids.”
“Only the youngest. Joey. She was already pregnant with Timmy when she left town.”
“So this relationship’s been going on for a while?”
“Oh, sure. Off and on since she was nineteen or twenty.”
“I’ll be damned. Is the father’s name listed on the boy’s birth certificate?”
She looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.”
“Born in Baltimore?”
“That’s right.”
He pulled out a pen and paper. Clicked the pen. “Date of birth?”
“January 16, 1995.”
“Full name?”
“Timothy Ward Crumley.”
He slapped shut the notebook. “It’s something to go on,” he said. “Thank you.”
“What about Dewey? Do you think he’ll be convicted?”
“Mrs. Roberts,” he said, “right now, Dewey’s the only suspect we’ve got. Unless or until somebody better comes along, he’s our man, no matter how many well-meaning friends pop up to attest to his sterling character. If it goes to trial, it’ll be up to the judge to decide what happens to him. It’s out of my hands now.”
Kathryn sat on the couch in Eloise Fitzgerald’s living room. “My grandkids,” Fitzgerald said, nodding toward the children who played outside. “I take care of ‘em while my daughter works.” She walked across the room to the television and picked up a framed photo of a young woman, carried it over so Kathryn could see it. “This here’s my sister Ruby.”
Kathryn recognized the face, the faint tilt of the eyes, the fresh young smile. So much joy in that smile. So much anticipation of what life held in store for her. “She was a lovely girl,” she said softly.
“Two weeks before Christmas,” Fitzgerald said. “That’s when she disappeared. Poor Momma never did get over it. Every Christmas until the day she died, she lit a candle for Ruby and prayed that God would bring her baby back home to her. But God wasn’t listening. She died of a broken heart.”
Kathryn swallowed, and leaned forward. “Eloise,” she said, “what happened to Ruby?”
The older woman sat down across from her. “You tell me,” she said.
“She never came back, then?”
“Never came back, never wrote. Ruby would’ve come home if she could.” Fitzgerald’s mouth thinned. “But she never did.”
“You think somebody killed her.”
“I know somebody did. I just ain’t got no proof.”
“And the police never had any leads?”
“The police,” Fitzgerald said, “didn’t exactly look too hard. You got no corpse, you got no evidence, you got no crime. Besides—” Fitzgerald spread her hands wide on her knees. “If you don’t want to see something, it’s pretty easy to not see it.”
“And the police didn’t want to look too closely at what happened to Ruby.”
“Nobody gives a damn what happened to some nineteen-year-old colored girl. Specially if it ain’t convenient for them to give a damn.”
Kathryn frowned. “Tell me about the Businessmen’s Benevolent Association.”
Fitzgerald’s smile was cynical. “Didn’t take you too long to get around to them boys, now, did it?”
“I know a little,” she said. “Tell me the rest.”
“The Businessmen’s Benevolent Association,” Fitzgerald said. “Yes, ma’am, they were a bunch of pistols, them boys. Liked to play God, they did. Liked to play God with young girls.”
“Were you one of them?”
“No,” she said flatly. “I wasn’t eligible for their little private parties.”
Kathryn raised an eyebrow. “Not eligible?” she said. “Why?”
“They went for the sweet young meat. Untouched. The girls that did what momma done told them and kept their legs crossed. I was used goods. Tainted. Not their style a-tall.”
“You mean they only wanted virgins?”
“Young,” Fitzgerald said. “Innocent, pretty, and pure as the driven snow. Wouldn’t want to take no chances that some colored boy’d been there first. Might get somethin’ dirty, don’t you know? They treated them girls some special, I tell you. Had a special initiation rite for a girl making her debut into their oh-so-polite
society. First, they’d gag her so nobody’d hear her scream. Then whoever’d issued the formal invitation got to do the deflowerin’ while the rest of ‘em watched. And then they all got their turns, one after the other.”
Her stomach soured. “Those monsters,” she whispered.
“Of course, after the third or fourth man, the girl usually stopped fighting. And once the fun and games was over, she never dared to say a word to nobody. Those men ran the town, sister, and they was mean as rattlesnakes.”
“And what happened then? After the first time, I mean?”
“Oh, the men all had their favorites, their reg’lars. They’d keep a girl comin’ back with threats and promises. They’d threaten her family, her livelihood. Threaten to burn down her house if she didn’t cooperate. Sometimes, the old goats would get sweet on one o’ their girls. Buy her little trinkets, make empty promises ‘bout how they were gonna leave their sorry-ass rich white wives. As if any one of ‘em would’ve jeopardized their status in the community by giving up a white woman for a black whore. That’s what they turned them into. Whores.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, “how they got away with this.”
“Miz McAllister, you’re a Yankee, you gotta understand what the South was like then. This was only a few years after young black protestors was gettin’ arrested for sittin’ at a white lunch counter at Woolworth’s. They might’ve passed laws, but discrimination was still goin’ strong. Hell, public buildings still had three bathrooms when I was a girl. Men, women, and colored. The boys of the Benevolent Association weren’t doing anything new. That kind of thing’s been goin’ on since slave days. They just took an old sport and gave it a new twist. Sorta unionized it, that’s all.”
“And Ruby,” she said softly. “She was part of this?”
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