Carolina Skeletons

by David Stout

  “Soon as I get a chance, I’ll explain everything, Sheriff,” Junior said. “Right now, I was just driving my, uh, visitor over to the airport and I wanted to stop in.…”

  Willop sat on the edge of the bed, near the end, and studied the old man. He would have been big, powerful in his prime. Perhaps Linus had been afraid of him. Or, if the sheriff had shown kindness, maybe Linus looked up to him.…

  “Mr. Willop here, he was just in Manning doing some research on, uh, some local history,” Stoker mumbled.

  Goddamn liar, the sheriff thought. My son Junior is a goddamn liar. I don’t know what that stranger is doing here, but he ain’t just doing research.… Have to get Junior to tell me the truth, goddamn it. Bob wouldn’t lie.…

  “Uhnnn … Bo …” Was Bob coming today?

  “Not this time, Dad,” Junior said, recognizing his father’s attempt to say his other son’s name. That was strange; his father seemed more confused today than usual.

  No, goddamn it, the sheriff thought. I haven’t lost it all. Swing back and forth in time now and then, but I haven’t lost it all. Junior still has some explaining to do.

  “I guess you know as much as anyone about these parts,” Willop said to the old man. His own voice sounded stiff and wooden, like his words, but it was the best he could do.

  “Uhnn …” Something about this stranger … Junior would have to explain.

  “Let’s have a little something,” Junior said. He stood three paper cups on the table next to his father’s bed and poured an inch of whiskey into each. He handed one to Willop and held out another to his father, who was slow in taking it.

  “Well, here’s to being happy and doing the best we all can,” Junior Stoker said, hoping he could live up to both ideas.

  The sheriff had trouble raising his cup. The whiskey smell was faint, and he was surprised when Junior reached over with a tissue to wipe off his chin. The sheriff hadn’t realized he had spilled on himself.

  “Here’s to truth and justice,” Willop said, draining his cup. Imagine, he thought. Me drinking a toast with the sheriff …

  Junior looked at his watch; if they left now, they could still make another stop and be on time for Willop’s plane. Besides, his father was looking tired.

  “Sheriff, we’re gonna push off,” Junior said. “I’ll be back soon for a long talk. Promise.”

  “Good-bye,” Willop said.

  In the hall, the plump attendant was waiting for Junior. She motioned to him, and Willop walked away to give them privacy.

  “Captain, I have to tell you something,” the attendant said, softly. “I see a change in the sheriff.”

  “A change?”

  “Yes. A lot of little things that add up to a change. His signs are still all right, but in my experience …”

  “Right. Well, I guess it’s no surprise, is it?”

  “No. Just wanted you to know.”

  The sheriff could not hear what they were saying, outside his room, but he was sure they were talking about him. That annoyed him; he would make Junior tell what is was.… Damn, he hated to be a problem.

  The whiskey, just that little bit, was making him tired. He would take a long nap this afternoon. Yes, it was getting harder to do even the simple things. And yes, he thought sadly, it was getting harder to keep everything straight. But he had not had a bad life, truth to tell.

  The sun bathed the fields in a light that turned the grass yellow-green. The same sun that had shone, not so long ago, on slaves and slave owners alike, no doubt comforting both, Willop thought.

  “Day like this, makes you glad to be alive, don’t it?” Stoker said.

  “Yeah, it does.…”

  “My dad, he’s slowing down a little.…”

  “Thanks for taking me to meet him.”

  “Well, I figured you came all this way, might as well meet … the sheriff.”

  “I can see he was a big man when he was younger,” Willop said.

  “Tough, too. But a good man, for all that. He knew everybody around Clarendon County. One of the reasons I kind of stuck close to home is that you get to know everybody. Makes being a cop easier, in some ways …”

  “Because you know everybody?”

  “Partly. Plus, any stranger comes to town, he stands out. Now you, you stopped and got directions from an old lady selling pecans along the road. Right?”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “I’m a cop, remember? Now, you would have stood out for her in any event, because you’re a stranger here. But when you asked how to get to the mill and how to find Cody’s place, you really stunned her.”

  “How come?”

  “Name’s Marcia Overpeck. In her sixties, not as old as she looks. Had some tough times. Used to be Marcia Ellerby. Sister of …”

  “Jesus.”

  “Told you. Small community, lot of lives touch each other. Married a guy who worked for a tobacco company. Seemed for a while like he had it made, good money and all. Then he got sick and died. Cancer. Wasn’t much of a smoker, himself, either … Anyhow, the scar stayed with her, with her family. What happened to her baby sister, I mean. Parents were a little bit sad all the rest of their lives.…”

  “So were Linus’s.”

  “Back there with my dad, that toast you made to truth and justice. Sad thing is, and I don’t have it all figured out yet, probably never will, but they don’t always go together.”

  Stoker turned onto the interstate, and Willop recognized that they weren’t far from Columbia. The traffic was denser, moved faster, and the buildings were higher than Willop had been used to for a while.

  Then Stoker surprised Willop by turning off the interstate into the parking lot next to a tall, white modern building.

  “This here’s the veterans hospital,” Stoker said.

  * * *

  Stoker led Willop down a long corridor with sparkling green and black linoleum and white walls. As they went by rooms, Willop saw men in pajamas, mostly old men, some very old, but a few who were in their thirties. Vietnam, Willop thought.

  Nurses and orderlies passed them, smiling and nodding as they recognized Stoker. Near the end of the corridor they turned into a room illuminated by sunlight streaming through a window. A white-haired, pajama-clad man who looked to be in his mid-sixties sat in a wheelchair. The sun shone on his face, and he seemed to be in a deep sleep.

  “My brother, Bob,” Stoker said softly.

  Willop saw that part of the man’s forehead had been surgically repaired, almost as if the doctors had had to fill in a huge dent.

  “Piece of a German shell got him,” Stoker said. “A shade more to the left and he would have had just a small scalp wound. A bit more to the right and he would have been killed on the spot.”

  “Sad,” Willop said.

  “Happened in France, just after D-Day. We got the telegram the day of the execution. Waiting for my dad and me when we got back. My mother, she was afraid to open it until we got home.…” Stoker paused, took a deep breath. “’Course, he was actually wounded days before that, but it was the day of the execution that we found out. Awful day that was …”

  “Your parents, they must have been …”

  “My dad always liked Bob a little better, actually. Used to bother me, but it doesn’t anymore. They were never the same, my folks. Oh, they adjusted, whatever that means. But my father, especially … a part of him died, it really did. See, my dad always dreamed, prayed, that Bob would come home from the war and then they’d go fishing again and all that.…”

  “Instead, he came home like this.”

  “Pretty much. When he’s awake, he seems aware, sometimes. At least I think he is. I don’t know.… Folks used to hope—” Stoker had to stop.

  “Thing that hurts to think about,” Stoker went on, “is that guys with his kind of wound in Vietnam, well, he would have recovered, most likely. What they know today, what they can do …”

  “Ever think it would have been better if he’d
been killed?” Willop asked softly.

  “Used to think that. Thought how much nicer it would have been, my big brother dead, maybe under one of those white crosses in Normandy. Then, gradually, I thought different about it. I mean, he’s my brother, and he’s alive. Oh, I can’t visit with him or anything, but he’s here, living. He breathes and he feels the sun on his face.… Does that make any sense?”

  Stoker carried one of Willop’s suitcases into the terminal. Just before they got to check in, Stoker heard the public-address system: “Will Captain Bill Stoker of the South Carolina State Police call his Clarendon County office at once.…”

  Bestwick answered. “Captain, your wife called. She wants you to meet her at the Holiday Inn in Columbia at six o’clock for dinner.” A pause and giggle. “I already told her you would.”

  Stoker smiled. Then Bestwick put Bryant Fischer on the line, and the sheriff told Stoker a few things, none of which surprised him.

  “Trouble?” Willop asked.

  “No. Just found out that T.J. bought three gallons of gasoline at Winkler’s service station not many days ago. The can we found had a lot less than that, so …”

  “Makes it look like he might have set the fire. How’d you find out about the gas?”

  “Old Leon Winkler. Son of the present owner, been around forever. Used to wait on my dad, in fact.”

  “Sure. I had a fuse changed there.”

  “Same place. Sure enough. Anyhow, the sheriff— Bryant Fischer, I mean—tells me the soles of T.J.’s boots have burrs and seeds, like in the field where old Dexter was killed. And we may get something on the tire tread.”

  “Great,” Willop said. “Listen, I have to make a call.”

  “You go ahead. I’ll see when the next flight is.”

  Moira answered her office phone on the second ring.

  “It’s me,” he said softly. “I’m almost on my way.”

  “James! Are you safe? Did you find—?”

  “Found out some stuff. Other stuff I didn’t. Lots to tell you. And we have a lot to talk about.…”

  “James, I’m so relieved.” She excused herself for a moment to say something in Spanish or Portuguese; things were back to normal. “Oh, James. I am so glad.…”

  “Me too.”

  “Listen. Delmar Springs called.”

  “Tell him I still haven’t decided.”

  “No, not that. He says you should meet him on the first tee Friday morning at nine-fourteen.”

  The passengers were lining up to board.

  “So … I’m clear?” Willop asked.

  “Far as I’m concerned. That’s what I’m gonna tell the grand jury.”

  “You know, I never found Linus’s grave.…”

  “Tell you what, Willop. I’ll do some checking myself. Next time you’re in town we’ll stop and see it.”

  “Next time?”

  “Friendly place, Clarendon County. Expect you’ll want to be coming back to visit.”

  All the passengers except Willop had boarded.

  “Listen, Captain,” Willop said, embarrassed. “I want to thank you for playing it straight. I mean, I think I got more than a fair shake.…”

  “Just doing my job, that’s all. Got pretty good training from my daddy …”

  “Guess I should go,” Willop said.

  “Just one more thing,” Stoker said. “Want you to read something.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a yellow clipping. “This was a telegram sent to the Governor just before Linus was executed. See, there had been a case up at Parris Island. White boy raped and killed a girl. Got a prison term instead of the chair.”

  Stoker handed the paper to Willop, who read:

  I am a White man. I believe in the right thing among white or colored. Now I am pleading with you for the life of the little Negro boy age fourteen that kill the two little white girls. They gave the white boy that kill the little girl in Parris Island twenty years in prison. A sentence in prison would be fair for the Negro boy. Please Governor try to save this boy’s life.

  “What do you think?” Stoker asked.

  “A good man, whoever wrote this,” Willop said.

  “Had to be. And it was a South Carolina man wrote it. Over forty years ago. Plenty of good in people back then, too. Just different times.”

  “Different times,” Willop agreed.

  They shook hands, said good-bye, and Willop went down the tunnel to the plane.

  He was glad his seat was by a window. Soon the jet took off, and as it ascended, the buildings and houses were harder to see. The plane turned before heading north, and Willop saw farmland and grass—the rich earth that had received the blood and bones of slave and slave owner, black and white. Together now.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Although based on a crime that actually occurred in South Carolina in 1944, this book is a work of fiction. The characters who live and die in these pages were born out of the author’s imagination and are not meant to resemble any real persons.

  copyright © 1988 by David Stout

  cover design by Liz Connor

  This edition published in 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media

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