by Jae Hood
“Damn, baby.” Bryce’s smile was crooked, lazy. “I love it when you’re irrationally angry. You’re so hot. Let’s do drugs and have sex.”
Josie smacked him in his chest with her fist. “Ugh, you’re disgusting.”
“Six numbers,” I said. “If it holds six numbers, maybe it’s non-repetitive numbers. Ten, twenty-six, twenty-seven, and twenty-eight. That’s a one, zero, two, six, seven, and an eight. That’s six numbers in all.”
Everyone peered at me for a moment before hurriedly turning back to the safe. Chance spun the dial again, applying the combination of numbers I’d suggested. We all let out one combined audible gasp when the safe made a loud, resounding click. Chance pulled the door open. The rest of us leaned forward and stared inside the safe in rapt curiosity.
Chance eased out of the leather chair and offered it to me with a polite nod. “Here you go, Rue.”
I gave him a thankful smile and slid onto the chair. With a slow, careful hand, I removed each item from the safe. The unmistakable musty smell of old books and papers assaulted my senses. I stacked a group of well-worn diaries on the table. Some were tattered with frayed bindings, wrapped with stained ribbons, and some were newer with shiny, brown leather covers.
Then I removed a small, ornate box from inside the safe. It was covered in fabric with elegant Victorian men and women dancing along the lid. It was a jewelry box, and I set it aside for later.
The only other items in the safe were documents—stacks and stacks of documents. I removed them all at one time. A thick, manila envelope slipped from between the yellowing sheets of paper.
“Amos’ envelope,” Lucy said.
Bryce bent down and retrieved the envelope from the floor, handing it to me after I placed the rest of the documents on the desk. The envelope was large with a metal prong near the top, holding the contents inside.
Tanner nodded at the envelope, encouraging me to continue. I slid my fingers over the prong, releasing the top flap, and slowly shook the contents of the envelope onto the desk.
I hovered over the documents and skimmed each line. There wasn’t much I enjoyed more than taking my time reading a book, magazine, or anything really. I enjoyed losing myself in the words and phrases.
There was nothing enjoyable about what I read at that moment.
“Dear Lord,” I said, placing each document I read to the side.
Dread crept over me. Cold dread. My fingers trembled as I turned each piece of paper and photograph over. The photographs were sickening. I couldn’t look past the first two, so I moved them to the back of the pile.
The air was thick with anticipation and curiosity. I could feel Tanner’s concerned presence behind me, as though his body were a live wire connected to mine. Each document I read filled my entire being with dread and sadness. I wondered if he could feel my emotions as well as I felt his.
Lucy and Josie grew impatient with my silence. The two girls snatched up some of the papers I’d already read and began reading themselves. There was an occasional gasp or muttered word, but for the most part the room was silent. That was when Graham pushed the thick wooden door open and entered the office, and my fear and anxiety increased ten-fold.
Lucy grasped the rest of the documents Josie held in her feeble hands. “We should go and read the rest of this at home.”
“Now you wait a cotton-picking minute.” Bryce snatched the papers from Lucy’s hands. “We want to read those papers just as much as you do. Do you know how many hours Tanner, Chance, and I worked on opening this stupid safe?”
Lucy and Josie both protested, dancing around Bryce as he held the papers above his head. I busied myself by nudging the rest of the papers, the jewelry box, and the diaries back into the safe. Shoving the chair back, I stood and turned. Tanner grabbed my shoulders, holding me in place and preventing me from joining my sister and cousin.
“What in the hell is going on?”
“Please, let me go.” Tears streamed down my face. I was terrified of the Montgomerys’ potential reaction to the contents of Amos’ envelope.
Tanner shook his head minutely before nodding to where our relatives stood fighting over the paperwork. He loosened his grip and leaned in. His lips brushed the shell of my ear. “What do those papers say? What’s got you so upset?”
There was no chance for a response. I was hyper-aware of Graham crossing the room and taking the paperwork from Bryce’s willing grasp. Josie, Lucy, and I froze. Tanner’s hands left my shoulders. We all turned to peer at Graham. He clutched the documents and photographs in disbelief, his skin paling. Recognition, betrayal, and anger danced across his features as he learned the truth.
“What is it, Graham?” Bryce asked. “What does it say?”
Graham squared his shoulders, clenching his jaw a moment before he spoke. “Police reports, phone records, photographs, and it all points to Jeb Monroe’s true killer.”
“So who was it?” Chance asked.
“Davis Montgomery.” Graham rubbed the back of his hand against his forehead. “My brother.”
The room was filled with a sudden stiff silence. Bryce’s breathing picked up. His face began to turn red and his fists clenched at his sides. “Dad?” he asked in disbelief.
“Davis Montgomery is your father?” The only memory I had of Davis was one filled with pain, sadness, and heartache. Different images of that day ran through my head. Some were of Davis pointing a sawed-off shotgun at my uncle—Josie’s father—but the ones that stood out the most were the images of my mother sprawled on the ground, ones of her slapping me in the face and tossing hurtful insults my way.
“Yes, Davis is my father,” Bryce said. “Why would he kill Jeb Monroe?”
“Because Amos made him a deal he couldn’t turn down.” Graham flipped through the paperwork. “With Jeb out of the way, Davis and Christine were free to do whatever they pleased. Maybe Jeb found out about Davis and Christine’s affair? Who knows? The point is, Amos used Davis. He used my brother to get rid of Jeb so he could take over the family drug business.”
“That’s why Amos didn’t stir up a fuss when Daddy caught Christine with Davis,” Josie whispered. “He already knew about the affair.”
Bryce crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at me in disdain. “So that’s it? Amos hired my dad to kill Jeb so he could take over the family business and my father could have his little affair with Christine?”
“Amos had a personal vendetta too, I’m afraid.” Graham held an old, fading document in one hand, dangling it in the air.
Everyone stared at the document, unsure of what it held—everyone except me. The document was among the first I had read. Lucy and Josie hadn’t seen it yet. They stared at the piece of well-worn paper in morbid curiosity. Tanner crossed the room and took the paper from his uncle. The room went silent. After reading the document, Tanner stared at me in bewilderment.
“It’s a birth certificate.” I sighed, dropping onto the office chair. “It’s a birth certificate for Amos Montgomery Monroe.”
“Amos Montgomery Monroe?” Josie’s eyebrows were drawn in confusion. “Montgomery Monroe. What the …”
“Montgomery.” I giggled, an odd sense of hysteria building inside me. “Amos is a Montgomery.”
The room was silent aside from my hysterical giggles. Laughter and tears, those were all I had left.
“That’s some horseshit.” Lucy crossed the room and snatched the birth certificate from Tanner’s hands. “Uncle Amos is not related to the Montgomerys.”
“Yes, he is.” I snorted, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “It’s all right there in black and white. Handwritten due to the times, but still a legal and binding document. Nana Monroe gave birth to an eight-pound, six-ounce baby boy whom she named Amos Montgomery Monroe. She gave him the Monroe last name, but listed a Montgomery as the father and gave Amos ‘Montgomery’ as a middle name.”
Perplexion pinched Tanner’s face. “Wait, if your grandfather wasn’t Amos’ biological fathe
r, then who was?”
My giggles evaporated as I, myself, didn’t know the answer to his question. The father’s name on the birth certificate was unfamiliar to me.
Graham’s face fell, his shoulders slumping with a haggardness I’d never seen him display. “I can answer that. The birth certificate lists Peter Montgomery as the baby’s father. Peter Montgomery was my father as well.”
The room was deathly silent. Bryce slowly shook his head, refusing to acknowledge the utter truth of the situation at hand.
I groaned, breaking the stiff silence. “That doesn’t make sense. Nana told me she fell in love with a man who died in the war.”
Graham ran his fingers through his hair. “Your grandmother obviously lied to you. My father only passed away a few years ago. He married my mother two years before Amos’ birth, according to this record. Your grandmother and my father apparently had an affair. She probably married your grandfather to cover up their indiscretions.”
“Oh my God,” Josie said, awed. “This only means one thing. Nana Monroe was a sideline ho.”
“Josie.” My fist slammed against the desk, causing Lucy to jump in shock. “This is no time for jokes.”
“I’m not joking. She was the other woman. Face the facts, Rue. Nana’s not as perfect as you think she is. She’s a sideline ho.”
Heat spread from my chest to my neck, consuming my face. “Stop saying that!”
Josie raised an arched eyebrow. “Sideline ho.”
“Josie.”
Josie’s comments died away, her eyes widening in concern and trepidation. “Wait, does this mean we’re all related?”
“No.” I sighed. “We’re not related to the Montgomery family. Only Uncle Amos is.”
“Are you sure?” Josie asked. “I’m not into the whole kissing cousins sort of thing. That was one disturbing era for the South.”
“Josie,” I replied. “Will you please shut up and pay attention to the situation at hand?”
“The photographs … what do they show?” Tanner asked.
“They’re photographs taken at night by some high-resolution camera,” Graham answered, passing him the pictures. “They show Davis standing in a field dumping Jeb’s body. I don’t know if Amos took them himself or if he hired someone else to take the photographs. He’s probably kept all this evidence as an insurance policy of some sort. If Davis were to ever cross him, he’d have photographs, the original un-doctored police report, and phone records between Davis and Christine. It’s genius. Davis must have told Amos about Tanner’s father and me partnering with Jeb. Amos then cooked up a scheme to take down Tanner Sr., and then eventually Jeb as well.”
“Buck Bridges doctored the police report,” I whispered. “The report on file says that there’s little evidence pointing at my father’s true killer, but that report shows all sorts of evidence. There’s a witness statement placing Davis and Jeb at a bar together right before the murder. Then there’re the photographs themselves. The supposedly unidentified tire tracks near the scene of the homicide belong to the same vehicle Davis drove at the time. Buck was in on the murder for hire as well.”
Josie sniffed, chin tilted high. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. So now what do we do?”
“We turn it over to the FBI,” I suggested. “There’s no way they can deny the evidence we have.”
Josie sneered, crossing her arms over her chest. “So we’re gonna put Nana out on front street? Air her dirty laundry for the world? That’s a pretty messed up thing to do, Rue.”
“No.” Graham spoke up in a steely voice, meeting all of our stares one by one. “If Amos wants a war, he’s got a war. Brother against brother. Davis doubled crossed our family. I’m sorry, Bryce, but it’s the truth. There’s only one solution, and it doesn’t involve the FBI.”
Bryce wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, his mouth drawn in a thin, fine line. “What’s the solution?”
“Davis, Amos, Buck, and whoever else was involved will pay for what they’ve done,” Graham replied. “They’ll pay with their lives. They’ll pay for Jeb’s death, and for my brother’s as well.”
Tanner’s face was bitter, broken, but only for a moment before it was hidden behind a curtain of well-practiced indifference. “If only there were some sort of evidence of my father’s death in that safe as well.”
I reached out, running my fingers over the stack of diaries inside the safe. “Maybe there is. There’s so much more to go through. What we read just now is a sample of what’s inside here. There will be plenty of time to read the diaries.” My mother’s angry face flashed through my mind. “I think I’ll take a little vacation and visit our mother after all. She’s got some explaining to do.”
“Do you think she knows that Davis murdered Daddy?” Sadness laced Lucy’s voice.
Dread filled my very being. “I don’t know, Sissy. There’s only one way to find out. We’re going to Birmingham.”
Chapter 17
The next day after work, I sat on the deck, watching the sun sink in the distance, dipping behind the pines lining our lake. The rays hit the surface of the water, sparkling and glistening, blinding me with the light. The sky was a mixture of dusty purple and powdery pink. I shoved my shades down over my eyes, casting my sight away from the beautiful scene and down to the open book in front of me. It was no ordinary book. Quite the opposite, in fact. The book was a diary, a diary belonging to my grandmother.
I’d picked one of the newer-looking diaries to read first with the intent of finding out if Nana had written anything about my father’s death. The diary deceived me. It wasn’t new. The leather cover was clean and well cared for, but the diary itself was over fifty years old. I started to place it aside to grab another but found myself hesitant to release it from my firm grip. My thumbs skimmed through the pages and I was transported, no longer sitting on my deck.
The diary took me back to a different time, a different era. Everything surrounding me faded away, even the sweltering heat and humidity that lingered in the air, curling the tendrils of hair that had fallen loose from my bun. I was enraptured in the past, and in a very different Mississippi.
Nana spoke of chickens and hogs roaming the yard, sagging front porches, and a breezeway that would cool her off in the summer and chill her bones in the winter. She wrote about the freedom of cutting through the air on the rope swing over the creek near her home, a rare, sweet relief from her time laboring in the cotton fields. I read about her sisters snoring beside her in the cramped bed they all shared. I snickered at the excitement she felt over indoor plumbing, as she no longer dressed in heavy clothes to use the outhouse in wintertime.
Rapidly absorbing every word, I drank it all in, flipping from page to page until I found a passage that sent my heart into overdrive.
May 6th, 1962
Dear Diary,
Yesterday was a very strange day, Diary, because yesterday I met a man. He’s not just any man. He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.
My younger sister, Nita, heard a rumor that some kids were meeting up that afternoon to swim in the river. She asked me to walk with her, claiming some of our classmates would be there as well. I knew she was just looking for an excuse to spy on some boys. Nita’s fifteen and boy-crazy. If only Mama or Papa could hear the things that come out of her mouth! Papa would surely beat her with the strap!
I can’t blame her for craving a distraction. These are some dark and dreary times. Lord knows we all need some relief from the tension building in the South. People, great people, are rallying together for change, but things look bleak.
The schools were supposed to become desegregated eight years ago, but there has been no change here. Segregation, although now illegal, continues, and with it comes the harsh realities of the local law. We have one sheriff and one deputy who cover our entire county. They are not only few in number, but swift to look away from the injustices that surround us.
Men have come marching silently down Main Street
twice this week, waving their flags around and wearing ghastly white disguises that terrify me. Their eyes peek out through the black holes, making them look like demons from hell. Rarely do I get a good night’s rest.
To keep my mind off these things, I finally caved, agreeing to Nita’s idea, and we walked to the river. The sky was a strange mixture of clouds and sunshine. The air crackled around us, and we both remarked on it, feeling slightly off-kilter walking down the dusty road, drunk off the prospect of spying wet male flesh.
When we came up on the river, we noticed the boys weren’t local boys at all. The boys swimming under the bridge were unfamiliar to Nita and me. I was a little scared, Diary, because these are strange times and strange things are happening around us. It seems I’m scared of everything lately.
The boys noticed us standing on the grassy bank. They emerged from the river, laughing and smiling at us. My cheeks burned red. I’d never seen boys wearing so little. I turned my head, pulling at Nita’s arm, trying to drag her up the bank, but she was standing there like a bump on a log. When I looked back up, that was when I saw him.
That was when I saw Peter Montgomery for the very first time.
The first thing I noticed was his hair. This man’s hair was the color of molasses when the clouds block the sun, but burned like fire in the harshest light of day. His eyes were neither green nor brown. They were a mixture of both, with little flecks of gold near the inside, the color of wild oats.
His hands were wet from wading in the river and rough from picking cotton. I know this because, when he climbed the hill, soaking wet and wearing so very little, he took my hand and pressed his lips against my flesh. Those lips! They were the same color as Mama’s rose bushes and just as soft as the petals that fall from the blooms. His voice was warm and dark with unspoken secrets.
He’s not so much a boy as he is a man, Diary. He’s older than me and just as poor. Mama and Daddy wouldn’t approve.
I can’t find it within me to stay away from this man, Diary. When he touched me it felt odd, like a warm current washed over my body, freezing my blood yet burning my bones.
