Carolina Skeletons

by David Stout

  36

  The old woman’s car was jerky and stalled out every so often, and it occurred to Willop that one way or the other, it might be the last car he would ever drive again in his life. He would have to ask Moira about irrelevant thoughts in tense moments, if he ever saw her again. She knew a lot more than he did about psychology.…

  Willop stopped the car not quite in front of the house. He wished he had had a bigger breakfast, because he knew he was running mainly on adrenaline. That and the thought of what had happened to his mother and Linus and Tyrone.

  He checked the revolver. Loaded this time, for sure. He told himself he would kill without guilt—more important, without hesitation—to save his own life. He told himself that, but he wasn’t sure. Was there still time to call the sheriff?

  No.

  A quiet street of cracked asphalt. Several small houses, none too close. Most of the lawns a little ragged. Old people, perhaps.

  With his hand in his coat pocket, around the handle of the revolver, Willop walked toward the front door. He saw no movement at the front window. Surprise him, he thought. His steps felt unsteady. He was afraid. No. I’m not dying, not today. Not if I can help it. Not yet …

  Willop stood at the door, his legs trembling. He felt lightheaded. Got to do it now, before the fear makes me change my mind.

  Willop knocked. Nothing. Another knock. The door swung open.

  And there he is, Willop thought. He had tried to picture him, but had never come up with a consistent image. The man in the door looked sickly and old, repulsively so. A flesh-colored hearing aid, bigger than a cigarette lighter, hung around one ear. Thick rimless glasses framed watery eyes. Thin, graying hair, slicked down and damp, like he had just come out of the shower. A couple of ugly purple growths on the face, one over the left eyebrow and one pushing like a grape out the left side of his nose.

  “Yeah?” the man said.

  “T. J. Campbell?”

  “Yeah. Who’re you?”

  “My name is Willop,” he heard himself say. “I need to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “Something that happened a long time ago.”

  Willop saw T. J. Campbell read something in his face. Willop thought Campbell was about to turn, like he was reaching for something, so he put his foot in the door and yanked the revolver out of his coat pocket, ripping some of the fabric.

  “What?” Face white with fear, jaw going slack, Campbell backed into his own house, steered by Willop, who held the revolver next to the grape on his nose. Surprised the shit out of him with the gun, Willop thought.

  “You are without a doubt the ugliest thing I ever saw,” Willop said. “What do you say I shoot this fucking wart off for starters?”

  “What …”

  There, Willop thought. Terror and bewilderment all over T. J. Campbell’s face. He’s so goddamned scared, he won’t see how I’m shaking.

  “How’s a smelly old buzzard like you get any?” Willop said. “But I guess we know, don’t we?”

  Backwards, step by step, Willop facing him down, until T. J. Campbell came to a chair.

  “Sit,” Willop said, as though he were speaking to a dog.

  T. J. Campbell slumped into the chair. Willop sat down on a sofa a few feet away.

  “Now, then, just relax,” Willop said. Can’t let him have a heart attack, he thought. “We have a few things to talk over.”

  T. J. Campbell’s chest had been heaving. Now his breathing eased a little, and some color returned to his face.

  Willop could feel the sweat on his back. The sofa he was sitting on smelled, as did the rest of the room, of stale breath, dirty skin, dirty clothes. Dirty thoughts?

  “You’re alone here,” Willop said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “I ain’t rich. Take whatever—”

  “Shut up. You know I’m not here for money. Besides, you sure as hell didn’t get rich when your uncle sold out. Shitty little house, lousy furniture. Even your wallpaper sucks.…” Willop stopped to catch his breath.

  “I’m not rich.…”

  “I know,” Willop said. “I checked your will. Damnedest thing, your uncle leaving all that money to the NAACP. I guess we know why he did that, huh?”

  Silence.

  “Your uncle felt disgusted with you. Probably guilty, too, for covering up. Him and that lawyer, Hornsmith. Am I getting warm?”

  Silence.

  “Only reason a white man from these parts would leave money to the NAACP back then was because he felt guilty. Ain’t that right? It was also your uncle’s way of showing how much he hated your guts, how much you made him sick, he was so disgusted with you. That’s right, too, isn’t it?”

  T. J. Campbell looked like he would cry, but he bit his lip. Willop thought he saw his eyes harden, like he was calculating.…

  “You were a foreman back then,” Willop said.

  “For a while.”

  “I know. You used to boss the niggers at the mill. Go to the shanties and collect the rent. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever get any pussy in them shanties?”

  T. J. Campbell twisted his face to keep from crying in anger.

  “You ever think of screwing my mother?” Willop asked. “Or was she too young then, even for you?”

  T. J. Campbell bit his lip hard.

  “I know, I know,” Willop said. “You weren’t the only one who did that around here, back then.”

  Got to be careful, Willop thought, as Campbell’s eyes showed hate as well as fear. Got to keep him afraid …

  “Aren’t you curious who my mother was?” Willop said.

  “No,” Campbell whispered.

  “What?” Willop raised the revolver slightly, glad that Campbell avoided looking at it so that he could not see how Willop’s hand trembled.

  “Yes, I mean,” Campbell stammered.

  “Her name was Jewel. Last name Bragg, same as my middle name … Never mind that. My mother’s brother was Linus Bragg. You know who he was, even though you only saw him once. Ain’t that right?”

  “Oh, my God …” T. J. Campbell shook his head and started to cry for real. Willop thought he cried like a child.

  “God doesn’t figure in this. I used to wonder how a god could let something like this happen. Then I gave up trying to figure.…”

  “I never meant …” Campbell sobbed loudly.

  Willop felt tired, old, almost sick to his stomach. “I know, I know. You never meant to hurt those two girls. It just happened, didn’t it?”

  Campbell sobbed and nodded his head yes.

  “It just happened, and you figured you could blame it on a little nigger kid.”

  Campbell trembled and sobbed.

  “You knew just what to say to my Uncle Linus, didn’t you? Back then, little black kids were told by their parents not to even look at white girls, else they’d get their parts cut off if a white man caught them. You knew that.”

  Tears and snot dripped from T. J. Campbell’s face into his lap.

  “So you told him it was his fault, that you’d kill not just him, but his mama and daddy. Maybe rape his sister, my mother, if he told. Something like that. Right? Right? You’d better answer.…”

  T. J. Campbell nodded yes.

  “Sure, Linus was there. Maybe he wanted a little look, nothing more than that. Then he saw you, or you saw him, and you figured you could keep him quiet, let him take the blame. Right?”

  Silence.

  “And the way you did it,” Willop hissed, “you told him he shouldn’t have looked. Then you threatened to cut him, down there, cut him right on the spot. Right? Maybe you even grabbed him, down there, and said if he told he’d get his parts cut off, if he told what he saw. Right?”

  T. J. Campbell slumped in his chair.

  “Sure,” Willop said. “I can almost fill in the words.… Linus, him being just a poor nigger kid, was scared shitless. Out of his mind, almost. Probably did go out of hi
s mind before it was over. Which was just what you were counting on.”

  T. J. Campbell rubbed his cheeks and eyes with the back of a blue-veined hand.

  “So,” Willop said, “poor Linus was taken away, fried in a chair without hardly a trial. Like everybody figured he was guilty from the start.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Campbell whispered.

  “Hell no. Wasn’t supposed to happen. But as long as it did, you figured a nigger kid might as well take the blame.…”

  Willop could feel sweat from his hand on the revolver handle. “ ‘Go back there,’ my mom said in her letter. ‘Go back to that mean little Carolina town, reopen the whole thing, find out what really happened.…’”

  T. J. Campbell’s face was in his hands. His shoulders shook as he cried.

  “Always told myself I’d go back one day, but I never really meant it. Until …” Willop paused. He himself was close to breaking down, and it would never do to let T. J. Campbell know.

  T. J. Campbell had stopped crying. He wiped his face with his sleeves.

  “And when I started to find the trail, old Tyrone went to you, like a good loyal darkie, to tell you about it, just like he gave you an alibi way back then. Right? Only, you couldn’t afford to have him around. Just like you couldn’t afford to have that old deputy, Cody, around. Tell me something. Was he blackmailing you? Or was he a cop to the end and gonna turn you in?”

  “You can’t make me tell. Anything.”

  “We’ll see,” Willop said. “Guy I feel sorry for is Tyrone. Nothing clever about him. Didn’t want much. I couldn’t figure what he said to me that was so important. Then I got it, finally.”

  Willop paused, breathed deep. He wondered if T.J. would guess.

  “Tyrone said something about how you had trouble with a horse. Just went right by me, he said it so fast. Wasn’t a horse. It was that little girl’s teeth. Bit you so hard, one of them broke. Must have hurt like hell. Bled. That’s why you had to make something up about trouble with a horse. Hey, want to show me your hands?”

  The last thing Junior Stoker had wanted this day was a call from his wife, but he had been worried about his son, Thomas, and so he told her he could talk for a few minutes, even though he was buried under work.

  Thomas was much better, Jen said, and one of the doctors wanted to try some new drugs. Stoker had never met the doctor (he had let that end of his life slide, let Jen pick up the slack, he thought guiltily), but Jen said she trusted him.

  “I don’t know,” Stoker said. “About them drugs …”

  “You’re not much for trying new things,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “This is our son we’re talking about, and these are drugs we’re talking about.” God, he didn’t like this conversation, it was the worst possible time. Then, because he was rattled and recalled the hurt from their last conversation, he said, “Besides, you can always get someone who’s more willing than I am to try new things.” There, the words were out, no calling them back.

  “You’re a goddamn fool. Bill, you know that? Mixing one thing with another. The person I was with when I talked to you was my boss. I’d invited her over for dinner. That’s right, I said ‘her.’”

  Stoker was both embarrassed and elated.

  “Are you still there?” she said.

  “’Course I am. Guess I should apologize. But you can’t blame me for being worried. About you and Thomas both …”

  “All right …”

  “And I got a lot on my mind, which of course I don’t blame you for. I went to see my dad and he was a real pisspot. Knocked over his soup and whiskey, and of course I got all pissed off ’cause I had to clean it up. Tried not to let on, but of course he could tell I was pissed.…”

  “I know,” she said, her voice more gentle. “It’s tough sometimes.”

  “Anyhow, you think those drugs might help and you trust the doctor, let’s go ahead.” Then, in a sad afterthought, “What’s to lose?”

  “Nothing, I think. We’ll talk some more, Bill. Take care.”

  As soon as Stoker hung up, there was a knock on his door and Bryant Fischer came in.

  “Results, Junior. We got some results from the computers.”

  “Hey, I told you. Computers are here to stay.”

  “Look here,” Fischer said, spreading a printout out on Stoker’s desk. “Our boy himself hasn’t been arrested yet, but look here at these people with the same last names. We already verified it’s the same last name.…”

  Stoker’s phone rang. “Yeah,” he said, annoyed at the interruption.

  “Sorry, Captain,” the dispatcher said, “but I got Deputy Morris on the line. He’s been with your father, and he says it’s urgent.”

  “Put him on.” Stoker took a deep breath. Had the old man suffered another stroke? Died? Junior felt guilty for having been so impatient. No, if the old man had died, it would be some nursing-home official calling, not a deputy.

  “Captain, Morris here. Your dad was agitating like crazy. Took me the longest time to figure out he wanted paper and pencil to write something down. Anyhow, took him forever, but he finally scrawled the word ‘camp,’ then an equal sign, and then ‘T.J.’—”

  Junior felt like a whip had cracked his face. “Well,” he said, “I’m a goddamn fool, Tell my dad I understand and I’m sorry.”

  Junior cradled the phone. Of course; so simple.

  “Look here, Junior,” Bryant Fischer was saying. “This entry here, this is our boy’s mother, as it turns out. Ain’t that something …”

  “Bryant, let’s you and me get on over to T. J. Campbell’s place as fast as we can,” Junior said. “I’ll explain on the way.”

  On the way, they got the radio call about the intruder at Cody’s house. Stoker hoped they would be in time.

  They saw the old car in front of Campbell’s place, and Fischer parked the patrol car half a block away. They got out and closed the doors quietly.

  “Let me go around back, Bryant. You take the front.” They checked their service revolvers.

  “I don’t know what to expect,” Stoker said. “I’m not really satisfied our boy Willop is a killer. Not satisfied he isn’t, either. He’s got a gun, and if he waves it my way, even casual-like, I’ll pull the trigger. Expect you to do the same.”

  “Understood.”

  “Well, I can’t remember the last time we did any shooting around here. I’m nervous.”

  They nodded at each other, to show they knew what they had to do and that they wished each other good luck, and then Stoker was tiptoeing along the hedge next to Campbell’s house.

  From inside the house came a loud shout, followed by someone else’s scream.

  Stoker trotted around back, tiptoed two steps at a time onto the porch (there’s a gasoline can, he said to himself; got to check it out …) cocked his revolver, and took a deep breath so his arms would be steady if he shot.

  “Tell me, goddamn it.” Stranger’s voice from inside. Where had he heard it before? On the phone?

  “No!” T. J. Campbell’s voice. Scared out of his wits.

  “Tell me …” Lots of hate there, Stoker thought. May have no choice but to shoot.

  “Don’t …”

  Stoker elbowed the screen door open as quietly as he could. Ah, the inner door wasn’t locked. He opened it slowly, catching the stale smell of the house as he stepped inside.

  “You killed those girls and you killed my uncle. Now you’re gonna tell about it.…”

  “Please …”

  Very close, the voices just around the corner from the tiny kitchen (dirty dishes, Stoker noticed). Stoker went into a crouch, locked his elbows. A long, crisp step to the entrance of the living room.

  The stranger was exhausted, on the edge, Stoker thought. Could do anything. Careful …

  “Say yes,” Willop hissed, holding the revolver under Campbell’s nose. Campbell’s face was full of fatigue as well as terror.

  “Police,” Stoker said
. “Let the gun drop or you’re a dead man.”

  Willop shuddered, turned his head slowly toward the voice.

  “Now, or you’re dead. Last chance.”

  Willop let go, and the gun thudded to the floor.

  “Now stand up, slowly, and lean on the sofa. Bryant! I got him. Come on inside.”

  “He would have killed me or framed me,” Willop said. “Just ask him.”

  “We’ll ask him,” Stoker said quietly.

  Willop had never felt such a mixture of elation, relief, and fear. He wondered what would happen to him.

  Bryant Fischer banged through the front door, his revolver already holstered. “Nice,” he said softly to Junior.

  37

  Willop sat on the smelly, dilapidated sofa. The words of the Miranda warning, read to him by Stoker, had been a distant echo. Willop could not begin yet to fathom all of his feelings. All he knew, for the moment, was that he was dead tired. He wondered what would happen to him.

  T. J. Campbell had been taken into another room, where he was being watched by a deputy.

  “You know who I am?” Stoker asked.

  “I figure you’re Stoker,” Willop said.

  “You got it. Stoker, Bill D., captain of investigations with the South Carolina State Police.”

  “Son of the former sheriff.”

  “That too. You know, since you came to visit I got two dead people and lots more trouble than we usually have.”

  Willop shook his head and laughed. Appreciating the joke might make things easier.

  “Nothing funny about what’s been happening,” Stoker said.

  “I didn’t kill either damn one,” Willop said. He shook his head and laughed again, to himself. He recalled scenes from old, old Western movies in which the man with the white hat was jailed for a crime he didn’t commit. The man with the white hat would call his horse over to the cell window, tie a lariat around the bars, and have his horse back up, yanking the bars loose.

  Then the man with the white hat would ride off and find the real killer (who wore a black hat), all in time for the final cereal commercial.…

  “Ain’t nothing funny about this,” Stoker said again.

  “Know where I can find a horse?” Willop said.