Carolina Skeletons

by David Stout

  Nothing here about any water being found in the lungs, Willop thought. Or even any indication that the pathologist at the time even thought to look. So, Doctor, you’re telling us that you don’t know whether the girls were alive or dead when they were thrown into the water, isn’t that correct? You don’t know because you didn’t bother to do any tests to find out. And would you say that the rest of your report …

  Willop could see that the head wounds were deep. Too deep to have been inflicted by a fourteen-year-old boy who weighed only a hundred pounds? Hard to say … How strong does somebody, even a kid, have to be to cave in a head with a piece of metal? Willop had seen many men, and boys, smaller than he drive a golf ball a lot farther than he could.

  He continued his imaginary cross-examination: So, Doctor, your testimony is that you didn’t bother to do any fingernail scrapings of the victims, isn’t that correct? And because you didn’t bother, we don’t know whether the girls struggled with their attacker, whether some of that attacker’s skin and hair might have stuck under their nails, so that the real attacker would have a scratched-up face and a patch of hair missing, unlike Linus Bragg, who has no scratches.… Isn’t that correct, Doctor?

  Okay, Willop thought. Enough of the Walter Mitty routine. But could a kid the size of Linus inflict wounds that deep? Maybe yes, maybe no. Wouldn’t the girls have struggled? Who could say? Richard Speck had killed eight young women in Chicago, one by one, with no help.…

  Willop rubbed his eyes, got up from the metal chair, stretched his legs, and walked around the little room. None of what he had seen proved that Linus had killed the girls, or that he hadn’t.

  It seemed pretty obvious that Linus had not had any kind of defense in court—by today’s standards. Though back then, maybe his defense wasn’t so bad.

  The confession, that was the big thing. There, a piece of yellow lined paper. “Confession of Linus Bragg in the deaths of Cindy Lou Ellerby and Sue Ellen Clark,” it read, through the strikeovers.

  Willop scanned the paper, soiled and brittle with age.

  My name is Linus Bragg, and I can read and write and understand my rights.

  On the afternoon of Friday, March 28, I saw the two young girls, whose names I later learned were Sue Clark and Cindy, picking flowers near the tracks down past the sawmill.

  I approached them and made sexual advances and when they resisted me, I picked up a spike and struck them with it repeatedly. When I knew they were dead, I was in a state of panic. So I dragged the bodies, one by one, to a ditch and threw them in the water. I threw the bicycle in after them. Then I went and got the cow owned by my family, which I had been walking before this incident occurred.

  I walked to my home near the mill, and on the way I met Mr. Crooks and talked to him briefly. I swear that I make this statement of my own free will, and that no one has attempted to threaten me or pressure me in any way.

  Sure, Willop thought. Of your own free will, and in your own words, too.

  With his fingertips, Willop shuffled the papers some more. He studied a sheet of notes, on yellow paper, in the same handwriting he had seen elsewhere in the file. Now, maybe to the guy who made these notes, forty and more years ago, this all made sense, Willop thought. Damned if I can make out much …

  In the upper left corner of the paper was the indentation left by a paper clip. Did the paper clip fall off, or was it removed, ten or twenty years ago? Forty?

  And did the fact that the clip was no longer in place mean that somebody had taken something out of the file? Or did it just mean that whoever was looking was too lazy to put the clip back in place, and that all the papers were right there, on the table?

  Willop drummed his fingers on the table. He was fighting to balance his common sense and his curiosity: It wouldn’t do to stay here much longer, yet this was probably the only shot he would ever have of seeing the file.… Should he take some of the stuff with him, and to hell with his promise to Bestwick?

  No. Besides, he wouldn’t know what to take.…

  Just a few more minutes. What to look for? What can I get here and only here? Got the lawyer’s name, got the name of the guy who found the bodies, got some other names. Maybe something I missed in the confession. Read it again, word by word.…

  “Left the stuff on the table back there,” he said quietly to Bestwick. “Appreciate it.”

  “Remember …” she said.

  “Relax. Our secret.”

  Willop got into his car and headed back to the motel. It wasn’t a question of laziness; he needed to calm himself down before he unraveled.

  24

  Back when he could talk, and when he had the audience (and the energy), he would talk about his boyhood. To his listeners, the things seemed so far away. But when the old man reminisced, either to others or silently, within himself, it was like pictures being held in front of his eyes.

  He saw the wrinkled men, men who were old when he was a boy. They had fought in The War, and some had lost arms and legs. They told of biting hard into a piece of rawhide, going crazy with pain despite great gulps of whiskey beforehand, as the knives and saws went through flesh and bone.

  Of course, for the longest time The War meant only one thing; nobody had to ask which war. Everybody remembered which one. To have fought in The War, even to have had a relative who fought, was something to be proud of forever, and the defeat was a tragedy to be embraced.

  The images ran through the old man’s head: sunshine on bugles and trumpets, on the brass fittings on the drums, on the brass spear points atop the poles around which curled the Confederate flags. Parades, then barbecues, then the old men—old when he was a boy—walking through the crowds, stopping to talk and tell stories. As long as he lived, the old man would remember the sun on the brass, on the red and blue and the white stars of the flags, the hot sun on those summer parades.

  And those old men (now he was old!) wore their uniforms from The War, and the old man would never forget his boyhood wonder that they could have worn such heavy gray and butternut clothes while marching and fighting in the summer heat.

  Now they were gone, all of them—long, long gone—and he was old. Think of that!

  When he traced the course of his life, he remembered how it was that, gradually, those old men who had fought in The War became, not just old, but ancient, and how there were fewer and fewer of them. Eventually, there were only a few in all of Clarendon and Sumter counties. Then one or two in the entire state of South Carolina. And then, almost before he knew it, his own years having added up so fast, only a few in the whole South.

  And then there were none. And he was old.…

  Wait, now. That’s only part of it. See, the old man told himself, that’s how come you used to lose your listeners; the stuff about The War is only part of it.…

  Television and the interstate highways, that’s what changed things around here. That and the United States Supreme Court. For better or worse. Maybe both.

  Japs and Germans, that’s what people mean now when they talk about The War. At least people my age, the old man reminded himself.

  What happened since that war, that’s the stuff that’s unbelievable. Wasn’t that long ago (was it?) that a lot of folks had no electric or plumbing. Whites as well as the colored.

  People didn’t go to Columbia or Charleston ’less it was something special. Trip took way too long, cost way too much for most folks. Even if you could get gas, which you couldn’t always …

  The interstates, Godalmighty! Go to Columbia in the morning, come back to Manning at night. Even have dinner in Columbia, at a fancy place. A lot more people can afford that now. A lot more.

  And television. Damn. See folks in Columbia or Charleston—Atlanta, even—and see how they live. The whole world. Used to be you were born in Manning, worked around here, got buried here.

  And the colored. Working alongside the whites, sometimes bossing ’em. Well, say what you like, good or bad. Hard to believe, for someone my age. There I
go again!

  The old man had forgotten whether he was trying to talk out loud or just inside his head. Whether he was alone or had company.

  Alone.

  That big motel, over by Lake Marion. The old man could remember when they built it. Big place, took up some woods. Hard to believe, the motel sitting there. Television in every room.

  People from all over, they stay there. They talk different. On their way to Florida or New York, God knows where. Passing through. Spending money.

  The old man’s son had taken him there for dinner a number of times. Hard to believe, his son affording that. Big steaks, free seconds on the salad. Air-conditioned.

  Sometimes the old man thought he had missed a lot, like being able to afford dinner at a place like that. Twice his wife had been to that big motel place to eat, both times when their son treated them. She had not enjoyed eating there much; made her guilty to see that much money spent. She had ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. It made the old man sad to think about that. She was dead.

  Amazing, all the things that had happened in the old man’s life. His son had sensed that even though the old man was put off by the money and fancy table manners and funny accents at the motel eating place, he still liked going there. Just to see all the people with all that money to spend …

  After his wife died, the old man still looked forward to going to that place with his son, maybe two or three times a year. It was there, sitting with his son at a corner table and with no warning at all, that the terrible pain had come to his head, and his face had drooped and he had been unable to make words to tell what was happening to him.

  The old man had to work hard to get the blanket all the way across his lap. His arms were stiff and his hands were warped by arthritis.

  It tried his patience, getting that damn blanket the way he wanted it. Still, he preferred to struggle with it himself rather than allow that snotty bitch in the white uniform to do it for him.

  It was the know-it-all way she said things that pissed him off so. Like this morning, in fact: “Sheriff, you best let me do your blanket for you, else you’ll just get all worn out and cranky trying to get it right.”

  “No,” he had said, clutching the blanket to his chest so tight his knuckles hurt, and that had ended that. Now, as he sat in the chair a few feet from his bed, facing the door, he almost had the blanket the way he wanted it.

  Smells from the folds of his flannel shirt reminded him of being outdoors, of fishing. Today? Was he going today? With Bob? No. It had been weeks, months maybe, since he had seen Bob, let alone gone fishing with him. Longer ago than that, even. A year?

  The thinking flustered him, mixed him up. It was something he could not always control, the thinking. Bouncing from one time to another and getting all confused; it embarrassed him, even when he was alone, which was most of the time.

  Junior came to see him every now and then, more often than Bob. Junior always poured him a stiff one, just a tiny bit of water, and they would talk. Actually, Junior did most of the talking. Most of the time, whenever the sheriff tried to talk, it didn’t come out right. Even when he knew what he wanted to say, knew exactly what he wanted to say, he couldn’t get it to come out right. The side of his face, where there wasn’t much feeling, got in the way, blocked his words, took the edges off them, slowed him down, so that sometimes—even when he started out knowing what he wanted to say—he would lose track before he could finish.

  The best times were when Junior took him over by Lake Marion. Junior did that quite a bit when the weather was good. The old man loved to sit by the lake in the sun, smelling the water, watching the boats. It had not been so long ago—had it?—when he had gone out in the boat with Junior and Bob. Goddamn, there were times, over by the lake, sitting in the sun, when the sheriff recognized men in the boats and remembered when they were just little boys. Back when he wore the badge, back then.

  It made the sheriff a little sad to recognize the fishermen that way (it reminded him of how old he was), yet it was reassuring, too. It meant he had not lost everything. Truth to tell, he had lost enough lately.

  Never expected the wife to go as quick as she did … Never expected that thing to happen in the restaurant that time, that thing that felt like a slap across his face and took away some of the feeling along his whole side.

  Suddenly he heard steps outside the room. Bob, maybe! Oh, no, it was Junior.

  “Hi, Dad. Can’t stay too long, but I just wanted to say hello …” Why was it, Junior wanted to know, that he almost always felt awkward in the presence of his own father after all these years?

  “Uhnnnn,” Sheriff Hiram Stoker said, “Uhnnnn …”

  “Good to see you too,” Junior said.

  “Uhnnnn,” the sheriff said again, trying to ask his son where his brother, Bob, was. The sheriff thought he felt a little spit escape from the side of his mouth.

  “Uhnnnn …”

  “No, no. Don’t try to talk, old fella.…” Junior Stoker turned away for a moment, trying not to feel annoyance toward his own father, trying to let his compassion dominate his irritation.

  Junior Stoker sat on the edge of the bed and looked into his father’s face. For a moment, the sight of the sagging throat skin, the liver spots on the cheeks and forehead, made him want to cry. My God almighty, where does a man’s life go? he thought.

  “Feel up to a little libation?” Junior said, trying to make it sound light. He reached under the bed and fetched the whiskey bottle that was always there. Then he took a paper cup from the rack on the table next to the bed. “Here, Sheriff,” Junior said, handing his father a paper cup half full of whiskey.

  The sheriff had to take the cup in both hands. His hands quivered, but he held tight. He loved the smell of the whiskey, and he loved having a son there to drink it with him.

  “To long life,” Junior said softly, raising the cup to his father.

  “Uhnnn.” It took the old sheriff a long time for him to raise the cup to his mouth. The whiskey was hot and good. He wished Bob had stopped by to have a belt. Maybe he still would!

  The afternoon sun came through the window. Shafts of light fell across the blanket in the old man’s lap. The sun was warm and good. It was a good day to be on the lake. To fish, to fish! If Bob got here pretty soon, there would be time to go to the lake and bait a hook while the bass were still biting.

  “Uhnnn … Bo … Bo …” It made the sheriff goddamn mad; no matter how hard he tried, he could not make his mouth form the rest of Bob.

  “No, Sheriff,” Junior said, “I don’t think Bob is gonna get here today. Uh, maybe tomorrow.” Junior paused; it was always difficult choosing the words. “I’ll, uh, give Bob a call and see if we can set something up.…”

  “Uhnnn …” The sheriff was happy to hear that. He would give Bob hell the next time he saw him, give him hell (but Bob would know he was kidding!) for staying away so goddamn long.

  “I, uh, talked to Jen today. Seems Thomas had a little fall.…” Junior Stoker paused, annoyed with himself. Now, why in God’s name would he start to tell his father about that?

  “Uhnnn …” The sheriff was not sure what his son (his son?) was talking about.

  “I’m getting a new Clint Eastwood movie pretty soon.”

  “Uhnnn …”

  Junior Stoker almost laughed. God, what would someone think, listening to this conversation? Guess I’d never make it as a guest host for Johnny Carson. Can’t even talk to my own father. Not that it matters much. What the hell does he care about Clint Eastwood? Hell, what do I care about Clint Eastwood?

  So it went, a conversation between father and son.

  25

  Back at the motel, Willop dialed the number and almost prayed she would answer.

  “Legal Aid. Moira Rosario speaking.”

  “I called because I just plain need to talk to you.”

  “James! You caught me right in the middle— How are you?”

  “Been better.”

>   “I’ll make a few minutes to listen. Go ahead.”

  So he told her about the meeting in the field with Dexter Cody, how afraid he had been, how inconclusive it had turned out to be.

  He told her about seeing the old case file. He told her how seeing the long-ago death pictures had broken his heart, yet given him—if he was really honest about it—a thrill of sorts. He told her about walking down past the mill, about seeing the church where his mother had sung, long ago.

  Simple things, stupid things tumbled off his tongue—how he had kept his hand on the revolver handle while talking to Cody in the field, but that Cody—an old man!—had had him measured all the way, had kept a round in the chamber of his shotgun, just in case, and had seemed quite capable of pulling the trigger. An old man!

  And more. To top it all off, Willop said, part of him longed to be part of South Carolina—to dig in its dirt and plant a backyard garden; to fish in the lake (he hadn’t fished since he was a boy, for Chrissake!); to play golf and talk over the fence with neighbors and—yes—live there with her and have children.

  “What’s so bad about those things?” she asked softly.

  “Nothing, I guess. I just feel like I’m coming apart.”

  “Listen, James,” she said, all business. “Your circuits are way overloaded. You—”

  “That’s your answer for everything.” He was sorry as soon as he said it.

  “Just listen,” she said. “You fly to a strange place on a strange errand, talk to all kinds of strangers, do and say things like you’re not used to at all.… I mean, Jesus, of course your circuits are overloaded. Am I right?”

  “Probably.”

  “ ‘Probably.’”

  “I shouldn’t have taken up your afternoon, just to argue.…”

  “We’re not arguing. I’m telling”—she interrupted the conversation for a moment to say something quick and businesslike in Spanish to someone else—“I’m telling you what you already know.”