“And the evil shall be reckoned with,” said Father Drew in a gentle, hushed murmur, and it was all they needed to hear.
Katherine, sitting on the floor between Clarence and Lily Mae, rested her head against the side of the mattress and sobbed. There was nothing anyone could do but grieve with her.
When the sobs subsided, Katherine sat very still with her eyes closed for several minutes. Then she looked at Clarence, not sure if she was strong enough to hear more but certain he had more to tell.
He falteringly began again, although he knew these were brutal assaults he was delivering. “Well, the two drunks looked at each other and they both seemed pretty pleased with themselves. It seemed as if the rainclouds had watched the tragedy and must have decided it was time for a downpour because almost instantly the bottom fell right out of the sky.
“Once it started raining hard, I couldn’t hear much but I watched it happen. Kind of like watching a silent movie, you know what they’re thinking while they act it out. I saw Sullivan say something to Campbell and he just shook his head and shrugged, seemed like he was saying he didn’t know. Then Sullivan started waving his arms around and pointing to the truck and shoving Campbell to the back of it. All of a sudden I realized they were planning to push your daddy’s truck right into the lake and that’s exactly what they did. Campbell pushed from the back and Sullivan straddled the running board as he steered, and they watched that car slowly twist and turn in the water and eventually go under completely. After it disappeared, they started yelling. I was hoping they might kill each other, but I guess they were just mean and evil enough they only used their bullets on good, decent folks.”
Those in the room saw Sheriff Washington’s head nod, but his jaw was set such that you’d need a crowbar to pry it open. For a lawman with integrity, it was a difficult story to hear.
“They sat in their car for what seemed like most of a full morning, but I never climbed out of that water. I knew it would be the end of me if they spotted me, so I held onto the planks of the pier for hours. I kept watching the spot where your daddy’s truck went in because I thought it might float back up to the top, but it never did. After a while the water started to rise quickly, and I was scared the swift water was going to force me to climb out from under the pier. Those evil men were still sitting there in their car like they were waiting to find somebody else to kill.
“Back in that day, lots of folks in our part of town had respect for the lake for fishing but weren’t brave enough to get in it because every two or three years it seemed like one of us would drown and that only magnified the fear of water for our people. My grandpa’s littlest sister died that way, so he made sure every one of his children and his grandkids learned how to swim. I guess he saved my life because if I had been somebody who was afraid of the water, I wouldn’t have survived that day. The water took on a mind of its own. Seemed like it was wild and angry. I always thought the lake knew it had just been turned into a graveyard, and it was thrashing and swirling, looking like water dragons were turning circles underneath.”
Katherine began piecing together her memories of those days in 1941 with the facts she was learning for the first time. “I remember the sheriff coming by the house each day for a while to tell Mama they didn’t have any leads, but they were still looking. One of those times my mama asked if they could get more lawmen to investigate, and the sheriff got loud and angry with her, so she never asked again. I guess he bullied her to make sure she stopped thinking like that. Mama never was very strong. She loved daddy so much and she knew he was dead, even if they never showed her a body, because there wasn’t anything, other than death, that would keep those two apart.”
Looking at the sheriff, she asked, “Is there still a report or anything that deals with my father’s disappearance?”
“There actually is, but I was hoping you wouldn’t ask. When these men came to me earlier today with this information, I did a quick check in our archival room and found a couple of entries about the investigation of your father’s disappearance. On the forms they used in those days there was a small section that provided space for the sheriff to indicate any undocumented theories.” The sheriff stopped suddenly.
“And?” Katherine prompted him.
Sheriff Washington hesitated then continued with a pained look. “Sheriff Sullivan wanted people to think that your father had run off with a woman and that they’d probably settled in a different part of the country.”
“He had the nerve to write something completely fictitious knowing full well he’d been murdered?” Father Drew asked, just as incredulous as the others.
Wincing, the sheriff replied, “Well, if anyone other than the county sheriff’s office had bothered to investigate, they would have immediately recognized the case was officially closed on May 25, 1941.”
In unison, the minister, the judge, the witness, the daughter, and the woman who had been the glue that held them all together responded, “Only one day later?”
“I’m not proud to be the one to deliver that part of the story, but you need to know I suspect the sheriff, his deputy, and probably the Justice of the Peace were all a part of this horrendous lie.” Then the sheriff waited a couple of seconds before adding, although it wasn’t necessary, “From this point forward I can assure you that you will receive nothing but the truth from the Sheriff’s office. I’m just so very sorry it wasn’t always that way.”
“I still don’t remember anyone saying that someone else disappeared at the same time. What kind of story did Miss Effie’s family receive?”
Thomas explained, “The sheriff’s office never pursued an investigation. They ignored the family completely until a couple of weeks later when an oilcloth bag washed up on the shore, and her family recognized it as one that contained her clothes and shoes. From that point on, her death was listed as an accidental drowning,”
“Do they now know what actually happened?” Katherine asked. She suddenly felt the urgency to contact the family to let them finally know the truth.
Lily Mae gathered her strength. “Queenie, they knew from the very beginning. Her mamma and daddy almost never got over it, but you were the one thing that helped them want to live.”
“Me? Do I know Miss Effie’s family?” Katherine frantically searched the faces of Clarence, Lily Mae, and Thomas.
“Well, you don’t know them by name, but you know them by their handiwork,” replied Clarence.
Katherine rubbed her temples. “I’m feeling sick. I just don’t understand any of this. It’s too much all at once.”
Father Drew suggested, “Let’s have a moment of silence and let Lily Mae have a little nourishment.” He carefully lifted the mug of broth to Lily Mae’s thin lips and encouraged her to take a sip. She complied, but she never took her worried eyes off Katherine. She took a few sips, more to please Katherine than to sustain her life.
“You okay, Queenie?”
“I’m okay,” was about all Katherine could muster.
Clarence began again. “Do you remember meeting me for the first time at Lily Mae’s house? I was twelve and you were seven.”
“I remember. I didn’t think you liked me being at Lily Mae’s house because you wouldn’t talk to me. I thought you acted like I had no business being there. She scolded you and told you to make me feel welcome, but you’d just stare at me time and time again.”
“That’s because you made me feel guilty my father was alive and yours was dead. I knew you couldn’t even bury yours because you were still hoping he’d one day walk through your door. I was covered up with both anger and sorrow and I didn’t know what to do about it.
“The first time my folks saw the way I was looking at you, they got me right out of there and took me home. They knew what was eating me up inside. That night Papa told me the good Lord let all that evil happen for a reason and it wasn’t up to us to make sense of it. He told
me to be wise and listen because the Lord had something to reveal. Papa didn’t know what it was, but he said when times are the worst the Lord always tells us something we couldn’t have thought of on our own.
“So, I started listening good every day. About three weeks after you started coming home with Lily Mae, I heard you tell how your daddy used to tell you stories about fairies and pixies. I told that to Mamma and Papa that night at supper about you not being very smart because you thought fairies and pixies were real. They gave each other a funny look and as soon as we finished eating, we walked down to Effie’s house and told her parents what I’d said. Early the next morning, Effie’s pa brought me a little strip of blue ribbon and asked me to wait till after dark and then sneak over and put it by the back door at the diner where you lived but to be careful not to let anyone see me.”
Amazed, Katherine’s bottom lip quivered. “My very first pixie gift was a little blue ribbon tied to the screen door of the diner.”
Without saying another word, she went to her closet and brought out a beautiful walnut hinged box. “One of the first gifts I ever received from Murphy was this beautiful box. He stayed up half the night making it for me after I told him about my pixie gifts. He was intrigued that I had kept them all and he asked to see them. I used to keep them in a couple of saltine cracker tins, so I pulled them out one by one. He marveled at each one and held them in his hands as if they were delicate artifacts from an archeological dig. He brought me this box the next morning.”
Thomas, who wasn’t even alive at the time of the pixie gifts, knew all about them. Holding his head high, he explained, “Katherine, you had a great many folks who were looking out for you without you ever knowing it. They felt it was up to them, their duty and their honor, to bring some joy to your young life. They knew how drastically it had changed in one short day. The gifts were just little things meant to help you stay a child a little longer. It was a way to provide some dignity to a tragic death. Our people felt responsible.”
Katherine began to unwrap the gifts and laid them at the foot of Lily Mae’s bed. For the first time in her life, she learned the names of those who had given her these tiny gifts at a time when she had very little.
Lily Mae recited the origin of each one as Katherine held it in the palm of her hand, and as she told it, Clarence nodded in affirmation.
“Effie’s mama managed to find that blue hair ribbon after I told her your eyes were the kind of blue the Lord intended his white clouds to float in. Clarence’s father carved the rabbit for you. Thomas’ daddy found that little brown rock shaped like a heart down by the creek bed. Rev. Dade‘s wife contributed your tiny doll and every woman in the church made something for her to wear. Didn’t take but a swatch of fabric because she’s so small but we had to take care that none of the cloth we used was from anything you’d see any of us wear.”
Clarence knew she’d ask so he told it before she had the opportunity. “It was my daddy who delivered the rabbit muff to your classroom that early morning. Lily Mae made sure every one of us knew what happened to the old one. I’ve never seen her so mad, not before and not since. Miss Effie’s folks stayed up all night making you a new one.”
She lifted the soft fur to her cheek, remembering how it felt to know the pixies were taking care of her so long ago. “What about this?” Katherine held up a small blue velvet box. “This wasn’t homemade. Who had money to buy me something?”
When no one volunteered the answer, Katherine addressed Lily Mae. “Just tell me.”
“Queenie, Doc was part of the pixie gifts, and he gave you that.”
“Doc? He knew too? That was the last pixie gift I received. It was just before Mama and I moved from above the diner to the apartment Doc created for us above his clinic.”
Silence filled the room, and everyone knew what was coming next. This was the crescendo. This would be the moment they gathered to witness. This was the invisible binding that tied them all together and it came in the form of a promise made to a little lost girl so long ago.
She turned and looked at Lily Mae. Her Lily Mae. The woman who just happened to pause under a large shade tree after a long day’s work many years ago. Who just happened to look up and see a little girl who was hiding. Hiding from the awful truth that something had somehow destroyed everything good and reliable in her young life. Her eyes were brimming. Her quivering lips tried their best to form a smile.
“You knew all of this the day I met you? It wasn’t a coincidence you stopped under that tree and saw me sitting in it?”
Lily Mae couldn’t speak. She was growing weaker by the minute, but she had willed herself to live long enough to see this through. She gently squeezed Katherine’s hand.
“I prayed you to me, Queenie, and God answered that.”
“You’ve known this all these years?” Katherine was amazed at the very thought, but none of it made sense to her. “And you never, ever gave me the slightest clue that you knew? Why? Why, Lily Mae?”
Clarence spoke for her, but Lily Mae never took her eyes off Katherine. “Lily Mae did that for me, Katherine. It’s something she did for me the morning after your daddy died. When I got home that day, my mama and papa fell to their knees and cried because they and lots of other folks had been searching for me for hours. They thought I’d drowned in the raging water. When I walked in the house they said I had a look in my eyes that scared them all. They didn’t know what had happened, but I just stood there and stared as if my brain had left my head. I’d gone mute. Mama filled the tub with the hottest water she could boil and let me just soak. They had to take the soap away from me because I wouldn’t stop scrubbing my skin. When Papa got me out and put me in warm clothes, he said I shook so hard my teeth were knocking against each other. Said it looked like my soul had left my body. I never closed my eyes that night. I just sat up in bed and rocked and cried. Folks gathered around me and prayed through the night. Said the devil had me and they were going to pray him out of me. Before daylight the next morning, Lily Mae came walking through our door and she was carrying a candle. Something about the way she stood in that opened door frame with the light against the darkness outside made me turn my head and when she saw me she yelled out in anger, ‘Satan, I rebuke you!’ and then she started singing to Jesus. Asking Him to bring back my soul. My whole body went warm the instant she started singing. I’d been so cold, so cold my body was tense and sore from shivering and shaking, but all of a sudden I went warm like toasting-myself-by-the-fire warm. More than that, I felt a sudden calm spread over me, and I started humming with Lily Mae. Mama said they knew then they had me back. The room grew hushed and all those folks who’d gathered through the night started filing out the door one by one knowing we needed to spend some time without a crowd. By the time Lily Mae finished her singing the only folks in the room were me and her and my mama and papa. I went and got Papa’s Bible off the mantel, and then I made each one of them swear with their hand on the good book they’d never tell any white folks what I was about to tell them. And they did. First Mama, then Papa, and then Lily Mae.”
Clarence stopped and drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the power to continue. “Then, clear as if I had told it a hundred times, I told them what happened. Every detail. Mama just sat there and cried as I told it and Papa kept rubbing those big farmer’s hands of his against the sides of his thighs. Like he was trying to hold his legs still, trying to prevent them from getting up and running. Not Lily Mae though. She just kept looking me straight in the eye like she was sending some mighty strength out of her body into mine and she was nodding her head as the words were spilling out of me. Like she knew what the next word would be before I ever said it.”
He stopped to search Katherine’s face and then Lily Mae’s. He knew then he had better hurry.
“It was because of that promise she made to me and God that day that Lily Mae never told you any of this, Katherine. You have
any idea what would have happened to me or my people if we’d walked into the sheriff’s office and told that story? The whole group of us could’ve gone missing. Those folks in charge of the law back then didn’t know the meaning of justice. They just knew the kind of law that let them get their way with folks.”
The room was quiet for a long time. Emotionally, they’d climbed to the top of Mt. Everest and back down again. All eyes were now fixed on Lily Mae. Her breathing was labored, and her eyes were closed.
Katherine had one final question but decided she would ask later, after Lily Mae’s passing. But the dying woman had read her mind, and she asked as her eyes remained closed, “Are you wondering how Doc found out, Queenie?”
“Yes, but you don’t have to tell me now if you’re too tired. We can talk about it. Later.”
The impossibility of later hovered over the room and permeated the air they all breathed.
“Now,” Lily Mae commanded and still not opening her eyes pointed her finger in the direction of Thomas. There he was, a distinguished federal judge, being ordered to speak by a woman who still wielded immense power over him.
“My world revolves around the truth and what can be proven to be truth from circumstantial evidence. What I am about to tell you would be ruled as inadmissible in my courtroom. It is all circumstantial.” He looked at Katherine to make sure she understood, and she nodded for him to explain more.
“None of us ever really knew how Doc came into the story. We know none of the four who swore on the Bible ever broke that promise.”
“Until now,” Lily Mae whispered.
“Yes, until now,” Thomas continued. “We suspect he overheard a conversation somehow. Our people knew how dangerous it would be if word got out that we were accusing the sheriff of a cover-up. Folks knew not to talk about it outside the boundaries of our part of town. Doc was the first doctor who felt comfortable to walk the streets in our part when someone was ill enough to need a doctor’s care. That’s why he was revered and respected by so many of us. He came into our homes and doctored us just as he did anyone else in this town. We think he overheard some folks talking about it while he was doctoring one of the black families, but he never let on and didn’t pry for more details.”
Letters on the Table Page 21
