by Jeremy Tyler
Today was a perfect example. Arnold was perfectly capable of dropping in to the Boarding House and picking up a six-pack or two of his favorite beer, along with a bottle of Stovall’s Finest. But he didn’t feel like socializing with the common rabble that normally gathered down there, so he sent Opal instead. After all, it wasn’t really out of her way, since she already had to run into town to get a few cleaning supplies as it was…
It was really quite a typical day for Opal. That is, until she walked out of the boarding house and ran into Detective Webb.
He was on his way inside as she was exiting, and she nearly fell over him. It was only his quick reaction that kept her from falling and upending her package.
“Are you okay?” John asked, as he helped her regain her balance.
“Yes…thank you.”
Her answer was so quiet and timid it was almost a whisper. John smiled and nodded.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m glad I bumped into you.”
For the briefest of moments, Opal raised her head high enough to glance at John’s face. She almost looked him in the eye.
“Oh?”
“Yes, I…” John looked at the large package that Opal was carrying and suddenly remembered his manners. “Here, let me help you with that.”
Before she had a chance to object, John had swiftly removed the package from Opal’s hands. He couldn’t see the look of shame and horror that flashed across her face, since she quickly pushed it aside and resumed her normal quiet demeanor.
“That’s hardly necessary… I’m…I’m parked just across the street.”
“Which is entirely too far for me to let you carry all this by yourself while I’m standing around with two good arms,” he responded, using his most disarming smile. Opal decided that the fastest way to get out of this awkward situation would be to just let him help her to the car, and hope that he didn’t decide to look inside the package.
“As I was saying,” John continued, “I wanted to talk to you, without everybody around.”
“Ever’body?” she asked, walking toward the car.
“Okay, Wilhelmina. I know that she takes a lot of the credit for…basically everything you do. Everybody knows that, in fact. Which is why I figured that if I asked you any questions while she was around, the only answers I’d get would pretty much be hers.”
“I can’t imagine what you could want to know from me. I just don’t rightly know what questions I could answer.”
“Oh, just a few, really. Like, I understand that the reverend lived at the house, even though the church provided him with a parsonage. That seems kind of odd, and I was hoping you could tell me why.”
They had reached the car, and Opal was anxious to relieve John of that package. She had the trunk of the car open before he finished his sentence, and moved to take it from him.
“Oh, that. Carl jest never cared for puttin’ nobody out is all.”
“I’m sorry?” he asked. Opal had successfully managed to get the package out of his hands and into the trunk.
“Well, he figured that there were plenty of other folk that could use the parsonage who didn’t have a home o’ their own, so he let it out to young couples that were just getting’ started out, or folks who had fallen on hard times and needed a little boost.”
“And who’s in there now?”
Opal wanted nothing more than to just leave and get back to her duties at the house, but she could see that this young detective would not let her alone until he was satisfied.
“Well, nobody right now. There was a couple that jest had a baby, but they got themselves settled into a nice house out by the county line, with good solid pastureland. I expect they’ll be a new minister movin’ in soon.”
“I imagine so,” John agreed.
“Mr. Webb, I really do need ta’ get back now. I hope ya’ don’t think I’m bein’ rude, but…”
“No, of course, I understand. Everything being what it is, I imagine that Wilhelmina is really quite upset.”
“Yes,” Opal said, hesitantly.
“I know that, in situations like this, people often take great comfort in the routine of their daily lives. Little things become very, very important.”
“Sometimes havin’ ever’thin’ jest so can become the most important thing o’ all,” Opal said, with a great understanding.
“Having someone you can count on to keep everything running like clockwork, at those times…well, I can imagine how valuable a person like that can be.”
Opal didn’t exactly accept the compliment, but she blushed slightly. It was the closest that anyone had ever come to out-and-out telling her that she was valuable. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it.
As she quickly sidestepped over to the driver’s side, John stopped her once more.
“Oh, there is one little mystery I was hoping you could solve?”
Opal stared at him blankly.
“It actually has nothing to do with the reverend or George. But it’s been bugging me ever since I saw it.”
Opal’s hand was resting on the car door, which she had only managed to half-open.
“It’s that big tapestry at the house,” John continued, “I remember it as a boy, but nothing specific. I can’t explain why, but I just feel like there’s something about it…”
Suddenly, and seemingly without reason, Opal started to laugh. It was the type of laugh that you would never expect from someone like Opal—deep and unyielding. It didn’t just catch John off guard, it completely threw him.
“Did I say something funny?”
Opal was catching her breath now, and coughing with the effort. She waved at him as if to signal that it wasn’t intended to make fun or insult him.
“I am so sorry. It’s just…that big ol’ tapestry has been featured in magazines and newspaper clippins’, an’ pretty much ever’one around knows how Wilhelmina had it special made all the way out in England.”
“And that’s funny?”
“Well, no. But, yes. Ya’ see, Wilhelmina had it special made so that it would exactly match the crest and seal of the Rivers family that hails from England. That was her way of stayin’ connected.”
“I’m still not getting the joke.”
“That’s ’cause you don’t know our dirty little family secret. But you are a Rivers, like it or not…so you should.”
John waited for her to pluck up the courage to finish the thought.
“Your great-great-great granddaddy, Elijah Rivers, who up and founded this whole little town o’ ours—and pretty well the whole county around it—his name weren’t even Rivers. Don’t ask me what it was before he changed it, ’cause I don’t know—nobody does. But whatever it was, it weren’t a name worth havin’. He had earned him a reputation down in the swamps o’ Florida for crime and wrong deeds that would nat’rilly preclude him from earnin’ a respectful livin’. So when he settled here, he saw all them rivers, full o’ life an’ energy. And he was Elijah Rivers from then on.”
John was still trying to understand the joke, and Opal could tell.
“He was a fake, Detective. The first o’ many fake Rivers. Wilhelmina don’t like to face that, so she brought that nice, fancy seal to help herself forget. It don’t work, though. I can tell ever’ time she looks at it, all she sees is the lie. In fact, I think she’d tear that thing down today, but she’s afraid somebody would ask her why.” With that, Opal opened her car door fully and began to get in.
“Thank you, Opal. I appreciate your honesty,” John said as he started to walk away.
“Mr. Webb? John?” Opal called out, after looking to be assured no one was watching. John turned to face her again.
“Ever’body assumes that I’m this mousy little thing that cain’t stand up to Wilhelmina. And, maybe they’re right. But they are wrong about one thing…”
“What’s that?”
Opal paused, as if she were about to rethink the whole conversation and duck back into her car. M
aybe, John thought, it would be better for her to do just that.
“They all assume that I’m embarrassed to be the younger Rivers daughter. But that ain’t it. The more I see my family do—the more I help them do—I’m plain embarrassed just to be a Rivers at all.”
With that, Opal got behind the wheel and drove off.
John stared at the departing taillights as she made her way back to the Rivers Estate. He couldn’t help but think to himself that he had just witnessed the single-most brazen act of bravery that the woman had ever dared to commit.
* * *
On the other side of town, a train was passing through, delivering sorghum, corn, and pecans to destinations across the Eastern Seaboard. Running twice a week, that train produced enough revenue to pay the salaries of 150 workers, fund the daily operation of 14 farms, 3 mills, and a loading depot, with enough left over to ensure that no one with the last name of Rivers ever had to worry about paying bills or putting food on the table. That train meant prosperity.
As Roy stared at the passing cars, he remembered the first time his father had brought him and his older brother out to the depot to watch the men fill those cars with Rivers product.
“You boys should feel a sense of pride,” he would say. “Every time you see that train go by; every time you hear that lonely whistle. It’s a testimony to the hard work and force of will that has been the hallmark of Rivers men since we came to this county.”
Roy could remember with a painful clarity how his father had told them that the strength to lead was required of all Rivers men. That they had a duty to uphold the town of Sales City because, in the end, no one else really would.
Evan Rivers died just 3 years later. Carl, as the oldest, was expected to take over the business, but he had already decided to devote his life to God, and would have no part in it. Roy was just a boy of 16, and the thought of that heavy burden terrified him beyond what anyone could have guessed. To hide his fear, he acted brasher, more brazen than was healthy or wise for one so young.
In the end, his boldness with one particular young girl placed him in a situation that made the challenge of big business pale in comparison. The memory of Emma Lou left a lasting scar on his soul, yet he hid a certain smile when her face appeared in his recollection.
When she died, he shut down. Business didn’t matter to him, and nothing could change that. Wilhelmina would end up handling most of the day-to-day operations, expecting Roy to eventually snap out of his funk.
When Roy finally did emerge from his self-imposed exile from reality, however, he did not go to an office.
He, like his brother, answered a more personal calling.
“Sheriff?” asked Dan, breaking the reverie. Roy turned to see him standing by the open door of his squad car. He had not even heard his deputy drive up.
“Dan,” Roy responded, with almost no inflection. “Anythin’ new?”
“Lots o’ dead ends,” Dan answered faithfully. “Went over to Hank Groves, just like ya’ asked.”
“And?”
Dan walked up to his boss, his hands shoved into his uniform pockets, affecting his very best ‘Awe Shucks’ posture.
“Poor ol’ Hank was stuck out at his mother-in-law’s the other night. Apparently, she’s got a touch o’ sumthin’ and his wife figured it was her duty to look after ’er. Which, o’ course, meant it was Hank’s duty, too. Ain’t no way he could’a done it.”
Roy only nodded.
“Same with pretty much ever’body, one way or another. I was fixin’ to go see Gerald, though. Prob’ly nothin’ there, but I was thinkin’ that maybe one o’ them times he went off with George on one o’ his ‘wild weekends,’ he met up with somebody…”
“You don’t gotta bother with Gerald, now,” Roy interrupted. “He’s got nothin’ worth nothin’ to say about George.”
Dan wanted to take the sheriff at his word, but something about the quick way he had dismissed him sent the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.
“I just thought since Gerald went with him so often…” Dan insisted, but Roy cut him off with a wave of his hand.
“Gerald Peachtree wouldn’t have any kind o’ information that would help. You saw that crime scene. That weren’t no bar fight. That there was pure hate, and nothin’ less. If George had ever met up with somebody who could’a done somethin’ like that, well then I guaran-damn-tee ya’, he would’a told me.”
Dan still was having a hard time with this, though. Ignoring a possible source of information went against everything he knew—against everything Roy had taught him.
“You’re prob’ly right, o’ course. It makes sense. Still, I jest think it would be best if I got a chance to talk with Gerald about the kinda’ places they would go, when…”
“Damnit, I said let it go!” Roy shouted, more loudly than he probably intended. “I already talked with Gerald. That’s a dead end, and that’s the last I wanna hear of it!”
Dan and Roy stood there, awkward and unsure. Dan wasn’t certain what was eating Roy, but the sheriff was clearly disturbed by the very thought of Dan questioning Gerald. He wondered how Roy would react if he told him about Webb’s mysterious appointment with Gerald the night before. He considered telling him, but decided to hold off until he knew more. No sense getting the man upset over nothing…and it gave him an excuse to talk to Gerald, without deliberately disobeying the sheriff’s orders.
Pushing those thoughts aside, Dan decided to ask the question that he had been working so hard to avoid.
“Sheriff?” he began.
Roy didn’t bother to even look at him. It was evident that this man had no real interest in any police work, at least not at the moment.
“You know I been keeping me and Fred real busy, between takin’ phone calls, trackin’ down alibis, an’ keepin’ ever’body calm the past few days,” Dan pressed on. The sheriff’s gaze never left the departing train, fading into the morning sun. “Fred’s been doin’ pretty good on keepin’ the day to day stuff straight, an’ he ain’t said as much as one word o’ complaint about the overtime. I got the widda’ Porter helpin’ out on the phone at the station, too. It’s been real good havin’ her ta’ take messages, an’ such…”
“You gettin’ to some kind of a point, Dan?” Roy asked between clenched teeth.
“Mr. Parrott—he’s been runnin’ himself jest ragged at the mortuary tryin’ to find somethin’ to help,” Dan continued, undaunted. “Mr. Ellswhite, at the Boardin’ House, has been bringin’ breakfast, lunch, and dinner down to the station every day, and won’t take one penny for it. Even ol’ Earl’s been keepin’ an eye out for anything weird goin’ on along the river.”
Finally, Roy Rivers turned his eyes away from the train, now long past. The sunken cheeks and haunted expression gave him the appearance of a man lost. It was a little startling for Dan to see the man he had admired for so long in such a state. Since he was a boy, Dan had admired the strength, determination, and out-and-out life that had been so evident in Roy Rivers.
“Spit it out,” Roy demanded.
Dan took a moment to collect himself. He’d already angered his boss—his hero—and it seemed as though he was well on his way to causing permanent damage to their relationship. A part of him kept wondering if it was worth it, but Dan’s own conscience won out. This must be said.
“It’s just that the town is seeing an awful lot of people workin’ real hard to catch this killer. And some of ’em are bein’ heard askin’ why you ain’t among ’em.”
Whenever you prepare to ask a question or make a statement like Dan just did, you usually have some kind of an image in your head as to what the resulting reaction will be. Whatever expectation Dan may have had, it was not realized. Roy Rivers’ face was virtually unreadable, as though Dan’s words came as no surprise and held no concern.
Dan fought the urge to ask if Roy had even heard him at all. It seemed as though an eternity went by before Roy responded.
“And what,
exactly, did you tell them, in response to all those questions?”
Dan paused a moment, just long enough to make it seem like he was hesitating.
“I’ve been tellin’ ever’body the same thing. That we’re workin’ several leads, and you’re very busy coordinatin’ our efforts…” Dan paused for effect, then, “In short, I’ve lied.”
Dan allowed his words to sink in. He didn’t want to be cruel, but there came a time when a man had to be clear enough that his words could break through the haze of grief and anger.
Now was just such a time.
“Don’t get me wrong, Sheriff. I don’t think there’s a man alive that could hold up better’n what you have, considerin’ what all you’ve had to see. But that’s Roy Rivers I’m talkin’ about. And though it sure as hell ain’t fair, the simple fact is the folk of Coweta ain’t concerned about him—not one little bit. Na’ssir. They are scared and confused, and they are countin’ on their sheriff to set things right. Not Roy Rivers, but Sheriff Rivers.”
In the distance, the train whistle sounded faintly against the Georgia heat.
“It’s up to you, sir,” Dan finished. “You gotta decide who you gonna be today…the man, or the sheriff.”
Roy looked the deputy straight in the eye for a moment, as though seeing him in a way that had never occurred to him before.
“So, Dan. What do you need from me? You want my badge?”
“No, sir, I do not. What I want is to catch the son-of-a-bitch that killed your brother and your nephew, and I’ll do whatever the hell I hafta to do it…even listen to that natterin’ northerner son o’ yours goin’ on about how much smarter he is than ever’body else!”
This, finally, drew a slight smile across Roy’s face. He clapped a weary hand on Dan’s shoulder, much as a father would a son. He held it there for a moment, and took one more long look out across the unchanging Georgia plain.
“Thank you, Dan. I suppose it is time I got back to my responsibilities.”
“Far as I’m concerned, you never left ’em. Ya’ jest needed to take a step back and collect yer thoughts. Same as anybody does…now and again.”
