Crown of Thorns (Nick Barrett Charleston series)

by Sigmund Brouwer

  it over the balcony.

  There was a slight crackle of cartilage in the boy’s wrist—all of his weight was strained against the ligament and muscle of his tiny hand in Samson’s. Samson merely continued moving down the hallway; meeting the boy’s resistance was as simple and mundane a task as dragging a sack of potatoes.

  Samson opened the door to the attic stairs with his free hand. He climbed slowly, still dragging Timothy’s weight entirely by the boy’s hand. Timothy did not kick or try to pull loose. His sobbing and shaking had stopped at the realization that Samson would not let him go; already Timothy was in his private world

  of paralyzed fear.

  In the attic, Samson let Timothy slide against the far wall, where the small boy collapsed, entirely silent, tears wet on his cheeks.

  There was a rope on the floor, below a four-paned window that opened in a gable set into the roof. The lower left pane was missing, and the night’s soft summer air breezed upon the two of them.

  Samson rolled Timothy over and tied one end of the rope around Timothy’s chest, then snugged the rope tight below Timothy’s armpits. The boy whimpered but did not move. Samson opened a window to the night air. The hinges squeaked. He decided when he returned at dawn that he would have to come with a can of oil to take care of the problem.

  Beyond the window was a small ledge, more ornamental than functional. Below the ledge was a sheer drop, three stories down to the immaculately tended lawn of the mansion.

  Samson did not pause to enjoy the view of Charleston at night, or of the harbor and the lights of the passing ships. He merely squatted and lifted Timothy by gripping the boy beneath his armpits. With a smooth, almost effortless motion surprising in a man of his age, he thrust the boy through the window and onto the ledge.

  “Stand,” he commanded.

  Timothy was almost catatonic because of his fear of heights. But self-preservation made him stand.

  Samson kept a firm grip on the boy with one arm as he pushed the free end of the rope through the small hole provided by the missing pane of glass. With the rope now inside the attic, coiled at Samson’s feet, Samson let go of the boy and closed the window. He took the rope and tied it securely to a hook in one of the inner support beams of the roof. It was a crude but effective safety harness. It would not do for the boy to fall to the ground. That would lead to awkward questions.

  “Please,” Timothy whispered one last time from his tiny ledge far off the ground.

  But it also might have been Samson’s imagination, so soft was the plea on that summer breeze. Either way, Samson ignored it.

  He locked the window on the inside, even though he knew it wasn’t necessary. Heights instilled such terror in the boy that Timothy wouldn’t move at all, not even to attempt to open the window that would lead him to the safety of the interior of the attic.

  Samson walked away, wrong about one thing.

  Timothy did move. A gentle rocking that even Timothy was unaware of during the long hours that he stared sightlessly straight ahead, waiting for dawn when, like the times before, Samson would finally take him back inside.

  Just before dawn, something broke inside the boy. All fear. All caring. This was his freedom. The realization that fear was worse than death. Later, he would look back and realize this was the greatest moment of his life.

  He untied the rope around his chest, sat on the edge of the balcony, and smiled a cold, cold smile until the sun finally rose and Samson returned to take him back into the attic.

  **

  Richard Freedman made an obvious point of checking his watch again after telling me the story.

  I didn’t want to leave. Not yet. “Evelyn said after Agnes died, you told a few others in the household about a voodoo curse that Timothy . . .”

  “A few others. You mean servants. That’s what I was. A servant to an old white woman. Now I could buy her out just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “You told a few of the other servants that only a month before her death Timothy had told her she would die.”

  Freedman spent more time in thought. “Yeah. That’s right. It’s been years but I can remember the look on his face when he told her that he’d made a deal with the devil and that she would be dead in a month. Weird thing, her dying like that the next night.”

  “A deal with the devil,” I repeated.

  “I had been pruning a hedge in the courtyard. On the other side of it, Agnes was outside, sitting on her swinging chair and drinking lemonade. I was taking a break myself and keeping very still, knowing if she knew I was nearby and not sweating hard, she’d threaten to fire me. When Timothy came by with a little girl, I heard every word. Two reasons I remember it so clear. One was because I hated how she treated the little girl. Like because she was black, she was nothing. Just made me more determined to get my MBA and come back and buy her out. Wish old Agnes was still alive. I’d love to write her a check for her mansion and—”

  “Second reason?”

  “Her boy. She asked him what he’d been doing north of Calhoun with a common little black girl. He didn’t answer right away, so she squeezed his arm hard and he yelped. That’s when he laid into her about the deal with the devil. That he’d gone to

  a voodoo woman and paid her to put a hex on her. Said she was going to be punished for all that she had done to him. Agnes hardly listened before telling that black girl to get and started cussing her like she was a dog.”

  “The girl went?”

  “Of course. But I had nowhere to go. If she saw that I’d been listening in the first place, I was in trouble. So I stayed hidden. That’s when it got interesting. You know, now that you’ve got me remembering, I can almost hear every word again, like

  I was there right now on the other side of the hedge.”

  I nodded.

  “Timothy told her that he’d given a painting to the voodoo woman. The one with the letters in it. Timothy started laughing hard, saying how if Agnes didn’t stop hurting him, maybe that voodoo woman would do more than lay a hex; maybe she’d tell everybody else about the letters. And then Agnes started screaming at Timothy that the power of Jesus was far greater than the power of the devil or the power of voodoo, and she dragged the poor boy inside and up to the Jesus room, calling for Samson to join them. From what the others told me later, that night was the loudest that Timothy had ever howled in there.”

  “Know anything about the letters? Did anyone talk about it later?”

  “If there was anything to talk about, it didn’t matter when Agnes got poisoned to death, did it?”

  “The little girl’s name?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Any idea who the voodoo woman was?” I had a good guess. I just wanted it confirmed.

  “None. I wasn’t into any of that stuff of my ancestors. It was the past I wanted to shake and the future I wanted to chase.”

  “What about the Jesus room? Any idea what happened in there?”

  “Just that whenever Timothy did something wrong, old Agnes hauled him up there with Samson. There’d be yelling and screaming of the name of Jesus. Half an hour later, they’d come back out again, all three of them. Like nothing had happened. Spooky, if you ask me. ’Course, old Agnes and Samson, they might have had something going, if you know what I mean. That was spooky, too. Her thumping the Bible

  so hard but having that strange connection with that big, strong black man. And he was strong, even in his eighties. They’d been together all their lives, or so I’d heard. And their connection, I don’t think it was anything physical. But still strange.”

  “Strange?”

  “Rumors and whispers. Nothing concrete. Except . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “The letters Timothy threatened her about. When I was behind the hedge and she and Samson were leading Timothy away, Agnes told Samson that the letters were missing, and it was the first time I ever heard him threaten Timothy. He flat out told the boy he’d kill him or the old lady if th
ey didn’t get those letters back. They took Timothy upstairs, and like I said, the next night she was dead.”

  Richard Freedman pantomimed a golf swing. The past was something he wanted to discard. “That enough, my friend? I can’t be late.” He made another phantom golf swing.

  My cell phone rang.

  “Perfect timing, huh?” he said, then started walking down the porch, waving me to follow.

  I fumbled for my cell. The caller ID on the cell phone display told me who was calling.

  “Jubil,” I said as I answered, limping as I tried to keep up to Richard Freedman as we walked to our respective vehicles.

  “We’ve got to talk,” Jubil said.

  I started toward my Jeep, fully five paces behind Freedman. “Now is good.”

  “I mean we have to talk in person. It’s about this Bingo kid you wanted me to scare.”

  I watched Richard Freedman swing into his Jag convertible.

  “Now would be better if we could do it over the phone.” I’d promised Amelia to try to get back as soon as possible, and there were still a couple of stops waiting for me.

  “Not good enough. Drop whatever you’re doing and meet me at the canal just south of the old naval base,” Jubil said. “You can’t miss us. Look for about a half dozen marked cars.”

  I stood beside my Jeep. I heard the whine of an electric motor. Freedman might have been cutting it close to his tee time, but that didn’t stop him from lowering the convertible top before he started the engine.

  “What if I can’t?” I said.

  “Make it happen,” Jubil snapped.

  Richard Freedman gave me a wave from his Jag as he left me behind. A free man happy in a free world. Knowing what I did about Charleston’s history and the subtle racial issues that simmered civilly from generation to generation, I couldn’t blame him for what seemed like an obsessive need to thumb his nose at the white world.

  “It’s that important?” I asked as I swung the door to my Jeep open. It had a convertible top, too. But Richard Freedman was too far away for me to wave at him.

  “No,” Jubil said. “That bad.”

  **

  Retha was still humming Billy Lee’s favorite lullaby. It was the only thing that had given her the strength to continue walking all through the night.

  She was on the downhill slope of the bridge that curved over the Ashley. To her left, she saw the square buildings of the Citadel, separated from the river by lowland marsh grasses. To her right, the masts of yachts at the marina.

  To drivers of Land Rovers and Mercedes and Lincolns, the commuters on their way from the islands into Charleston to fill law and accounting offices, she appeared as just another homeless person, filthy and walking in the erratic manner of someone with no particular destination.

  But they were wrong. Just ahead was the hospital.

  She didn’t know what she would do when she got there. She was too exhausted to think about it. She wouldn’t let herself wonder if the man in the Jeep had taken her baby to this hospital as she’d asked in her note. She just told herself he had. It was her only hope. And she just knew that she had to reach Billy Lee. When she did, everything would be all right.

  Retha made it only as far as the hospital parking lot. A nurse going into work saw her stumbling progress and caught up with her.

  “You alright?” she asked Retha, then opened her mouth in

  a silent gasp as she saw the welts, bruises, and dried blood.

  “Fine, fine,” Retha said.

  “You poor woman,” the nurse said. “Let me help you get to emergency.”

  “No,” Retha said. That wasn’t her plan at all. She was nearly delirious with exhaustion and pain. All she wanted to do was get into the hospital and sneak to Billy Lee’s room. She had no idea how terrible she looked.

  Retha’s protests didn’t matter. The nurse lifted one of Retha’s arms over her own shoulders and helped her toward the sliding doors of the emergency room.

  Though she was soon surrounded by a Demerol-induced cloud, Retha had enough sense to understand she must not ask about Billy Lee. Especially in the emergency room. They’d wonder how she knew about him. She yearned for Billy Lee though. She wanted to smell his skin, listen to his gurgling, feel his fingers clutch at her, hold him to her chest.

  When the tall orderly began to push her wheelchair to take her to her room on the second floor, Retha was unable to stop herself from blurting out a question.

  “Mister, would it be alright if you pushed me down the hall to where the children stay here in the hospital? It always makes me smile to see children. And believe me, I could use a smile right now.”

  Retha hoped that if the orderly went slow enough, she might be able to see in the rooms and get a glimpse of her little boy.

  “Wish I could, lady, but we’re short-staffed. I’ve got to take you straight to your room and hurry straight back.”

  “I understand,” Retha said.

  Retha closed her eyes. She didn’t open them until he wheeled her into her room. On the other side, asleep in the bed, was another woman, only the top of her head visible above the sheets tucked around her body.

  Retha was glad the other woman was asleep. The way Retha felt, aside from how her body felt, was that if someone tried talking to her right now, she’d burst into tears.

  She missed Billy Lee badly. And she was all mixed up inside about what to think, being in the same hospital as him. Being that close, which was good. But not knowing anything about him, which was bad. Real bad.

  What if he had died?

  After the orderly helped her into bed and took away the wheelchair, Retha allowed herself to cry for the first time since her whipping.

  Retha waited until her face had dried of its tears. She rolled to the edge of the bed and lowered her slippered feet. She had to see if Billy Lee was fine.

  The woman in the other bed remained asleep. She wouldn’t know or care what Retha did.

  Retha stood and wobbled. She remained standing for several minutes, until the blackness that buzzed around her eyes dissipated. Then, holding the bed, she shuffled along its length. She paused again, waiting for a new cloud of blackness to dissipate. From the edge of the bed, she tottered to the wall, falling into it for support like a child just learning to walk. She used the wall to keep herself upright as she shuffled toward the hospital room door.

  Billy Lee. That’s all she cared about. Billy Lee. She had to find out if he was fine. She had to hold him.

  When she reached the door, the cloud of blackness grew and buzzed and grew, an angry swarm of bees attacking her consciousness. She fell forward onto her chest and face.

  **

  I arrived at the canal just as the tow truck began to drive away with a bright red Chevette.

  Two marked cars were parked, lights flashing. Jubil stood at his unmarked sedan.

  He waved me past the uniformed officers. When I reached him, he pointed at the disappearing tow truck.

  “That was the car you told me to look for, Nick. We found it. Correction, a boater found it. Called it in.” Jubil wore his dark sunglasses and nothing on his face gave me any indication of his thoughts. “Nick, no skid marks. No brake marks. Just deep footsteps alongside the tire tracks in the mud off the road. Someone pushed the car in the canal. Didn’t fall far. The water barely covered the roof.”

  He took my elbow. It was a rough grip. He pushed me toward the marked cars.

  Then I saw it. On the ground. A dark body bag.

  “You also told me to look for a kid named Bingo,” he said. “We found him, too.”

  “Was he driving drunk?”

  “I don’t like these coincidences, Nick. What do you know about him? Why’d you send me after him?”

  “You know the reason.”

  “No. I know the reason you gave me.”

  “Anyone tell you that when you play tough cop, it looks like you’re sucking on a lemon?” It was a bad attempt at a joke. Wrong place, wrong time. I
felt stupid as I said it.

  Jubil didn’t answer. He yanked me closer to the body bag. Wordlessly, he unzipped it. In death, Bingo was placid. A wax dummy. Pale, still gleaming wet.

  “This the kid you wanted me to find?” Jubil said.

  “Yes,” I said. Sobered.

  “I’m asking you again. What do you know about him? Why’d you send me after him?”

  “Jubil, he’s a friend of Angel’s. The kid in the hospital that I’m trying to help. Can you tell me why you’re so upset?”

  “He drowned, Nick. He was strapped into his seat belt. The car went into the water. The water rose. It filled his car. No one should have to die that way.”

  “You’re right,” I said. Quietly.

  “And no, he wasn’t drunk. There was a very simple reason he couldn’t undo the seat belt.”

  Jubil zipped up the bag again and straightened. “Whoever did this meant for the kid to drown. Because whoever did this taped the kid’s wrists to the steering wheel before rolling down the window and pushing the car into the canal.”

  Chapter 19

  Drowning.

  Agnes Larrabee was twenty years old in the spring of 1890, the spring that she watched her twin sister sink into the east branch of the Cooper River, just out of reach her flailing, outstretched arms.

  Spring was the traditional time of year for their family to visit the remaining holdings of a plantation that had once included forty-two hundred acres, four hundred acres of rice paddies, a colonial mansion, ten cabins and the slave families to fill them.

  The drought of the rice industry had waged the first inroads against the Larrabee wealth. That was followed by various hurricanes, poor investments, and one or two fires. But the true beginning of the end of the plantation was marked by the war of Northern aggression. Without the manpower to sustain the land and buildings already ravaged by Union soldiers, the Larrabee family was forced to sell most of their land holdings and invest in businesses within Charleston.