Women on the Case

by Sara Paretsky

  I read on. The newspaper said that the mob had selected William Stuart, Calvin McDowell, and Theodore Moss as their three victims. This last name jolted me, for the kind letter carrier who’d helped me years before had been Tommie Moss. I prayed that Theodore was not a relative of his. The story said that the three prisoners had been marched to the edge of town. Every detail agreed with what I had seen. Then, “in an open field, near the Wolf River, the Negroes met their doom. For the first time they were allowed to speak. As the gags were removed Moss said: ‘If you are going to kill us, turn our faces to the west.’ Scarce had he uttered the words when the crack of a revolver was heard, and a ball crashed through his cheek. This was the signal for the work. A volley was poured upon the shivering Negroes and they fell dead.”

  “Oh, Lord, Lord!” exclaimed my companion. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

  Well, I didn’t want to read any more of this terrible story either. Getting away from it was the reason I’d left Memphis in the first place. Pushing the image of the prisoners’ frightened dark eyes from my mind, I skipped to the last paragraphs, cleared my throat, and continued. “The mob turned about after it had completed its terrible work and came toward the town. At the first crossing they scattered, and all disappeared as silently as they had arrived on the scene. Not a trace of any of them can be found this morning.’”

  Bessie lashed at the mule with such vigor that I paused to glance at her, but she said only, “Please, go on, ma’am.”

  I read on about the angry though unarmed assembly of Negroes, and about the equipping of 150 white men with Winchesters to preserve order, and about the verdict of the jury at the inquest: “‘We find that the deceased were taken from the Shelby County Jail by a masked mob of men, the men overpowered and taken to an old field and shot to death by parties unknown by the jury.’”

  Bessie snorted, “Parties unknown by the jury!”

  I said with relief, “That’s the end of the story.”

  “No ma’am, there’s more coming, and I’m not goin’ into Memphis.”

  Well, how could I argue with her? I myself was doubly eager to find a pawnshop, or my admirer, and leave the dreadful town where people shot each other with such abandon.

  Late in the day our wagon came to a crossroads, and Bessie pulled the mule to a halt. “Here we are, ma’am. I thank you for the reading. I go east here, where I know folks. You go straight ahead, and ‘fore long you’ll be at the curve of the streetcar line.”

  My benefactress had been right to be worried. As I hobbled toward the streetcar tracks I saw bands of colored men around a shop that had been nearly destroyed, its windows broken, its door smashed, the sign PEOPLE’S GROCERY gashed and hanging askew. There were also bands of white men carrying Winchesters, as promised in the newspaper. They were led by men with sheriff’s badges.

  The setting sun threw slanting rays across the tense faces, and I paused by someone’s henhouse to survey the situation. It appeared to be a wary truce, the colored men muttering and occasionally cursing but making no hostile moves, the white ones swaggering about with their rifles, all of them with that dangerous kind of anger men pretend when they are bone-scared. Under ordinary circumstances I might have tripped daintily across to the streetcar tracks, secure in the knowledge that as a proper white lady I would be defended by every rifle there. But nights without sleep, a broken heel, and bucketsful of road dust had somewhat diminished my ability to appear a proper lady. Thus, when a gunshot blasted through the late rosy light, I leapt into the henhouse, pulling the door closed behind me amid a great flapping and squawking on the part of the usual residents. Ignoring them, I applied my eye to a knothole.

  Outside, no one appeared to be hurt, but most of the colored men had taken shelter behind wagons or houses. The men with sheriff’s badges were laughing. One shouted something about a coon dance.

  The hens quieted in the darkness, and I became aware of another sort of breathing the instant before a taut voice said, “Who’s there?”

  “A lady! Fear not!” I cried, diving to the floor as I pulled my well-oiled Colt from the hidden pocket in my bouffant sleeve.

  “Yes, it is evident that you are a lady.” The voice was a lady’s too, educated far beyond the usual southern female’s. I could not tell where she was.

  I asked, “Pray tell, madam, why are you in this place?”

  “Fear of that armed mob,” explained the unseen lady. “And you, madam?”

  “The same,” I replied. “By a series of misfortunes I find myself here in Memphis today.”

  “I live in Memphis, I regret to say,” replied the lady with considerable bitterness. I decided she had no plans to harm me and tucked my Colt back into its pocket as she continued, “I had thought my town had progressed beyond these barbarisms. Such dreadful stories I could tell! ‘Hie thee hither / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear …’”

  I was curious to know why a well-educated lady would be found in a henhouse in a colored section of town, but as the same question might be asked of me, I did not pursue it, and instead completed her quotation: “‘And chastise with the valour of my tongue / All that impedes thee from the golden round.’”

  The lady gasped. “Can it be? Are you—pray, madam, are you Miss Mooney, who came to Memphis four years ago with the famed Mr. Booth, and for three days kindly instructed me in elocution?”

  “Ida?” I gasped in turn, realizing my mistake. “Are you Ida Wells?” Amidst the clucking of the hens, I fumbled my way across the straw-strewn floor and embraced her, though I knew my Aunt Mollie would have frowned at such egalitarianism with a colored lady, even one as proper as Ida. I was so delighted to find a friend, I couldn’t help myself. “Ida, I am so glad to see you! Well, hear you,” I amended, as it was still pitch-dark. “You have forgotten none of your lessons! My teacher, the illustrious English actress’ Mrs. Fanny Kemble, would be delighted with your elocution!”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Shortly after you and Mr. Booth left, a score of us formed a dramatic organization. We were very much enthused about improving our vocal skills and our knowledge.”

  “I well remember your enthusiasm. I never have had a student so apt. Your tongue has valor indeed! You could have a great success on the stage!”

  “Thank you, but I find that my calling is journalism,” she said. “Did you know that I am now part owner and editor of our black newspaper here, the Free Press!”

  “How splendid!”

  “But we meet again in cruel, cruel circumstances. Oh, how I wish I were allowed to buy a pistol, so that I could defend myself!”

  Well, remembering the tenseness in her voice a moment ago when she first challenged me in the dark, I was just as glad she hadn’t had a pistol then. I said soothingly, “Things are quieter outside now.”

  “Is it yet dark?”

  I returned to the knothole and peered out. “Dusk has fallen,” I reported, “and there are fewer men and rifles about. I believe it is safe to emerge.”

  “Then I will go home,” she said. “I must finish my editorial.”

  “Oh, Ida, may I come with you, just for a few moments? My travels have left me dusty, and I crave a drink of water.”

  “Of course! You are most welcome, Miss Mooney.”

  “Bridget,” I said firmly, though I knew it wasn’t proper.

  We slipped out into the twilit town. She looked much as I remembered, a short woman with a lively round face and eyes that telegraphed her emotions, sparkling with enthusiasm or simmering with scorn or anger. Her dress was dark and neat, yet stylish and very proper once she’d brushed off the straws. She exclaimed when she saw my sorry state. Soon we arrived at Ida’s neat rented quarters, and she postponed her editorial for a few moments in order to fill the washtubs on her back porch for me and to take my unfortunate shoe to a cobbler across the street. I washed my face and hands and changed into a plain clean frock, then went out to the porch again to launder my road-soiled garments. When Ida returned, I lo
oked up from the washtub to say, “Ida, I am considering bringing an action against the dreadful Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. If a colored woman succeeded in the courts against them, surely I can too. Please, tell me how you won your case.”

  “Win? I didn’t win,” she said crossly.

  “What? How can that be? When we last spoke, you had proved in court that they had not honored your first-class ticket, and had sent you to sit in the smoking car instead! The court had awarded you five hundred dollars!”

  “Oh, yes, the lower court. I still remember the headlines: ‘A Darky Damsel Obtains a Verdict for Damages.’ But the railroad appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, and they overturned the decision.”

  “But the railroad didn’t honor the ticket it sold you! How could the judges say a jim crow car was first class?”

  “How could they not? My dear Miss Mooney—”

  “Bridget.”

  “My dear Bridget, they could not allow the precedent! My case was the first with a colored plaintiff since the repeal of Sumner’s federal civil rights bill. The repeal means that we can no longer go to the federal courts, and must abide by state decisions. This state does not want justice for my race.”

  “Oh dear.” I rinsed out my muslin underskirt. “It’s true, I have never found the law favorable toward those of us who are not rich.”

  “Rich and white,” she agreed. “Oh, Bridget, when I heard the verdict, I wanted to gather my people in my arms and fly far away with them! There is no justice in this land for us.”

  “But surely it is better than it was!” I protested. “My brother died fighting for the Union side!”

  “The war has been over for twenty-seven years,” Ida said with dignity, “and despite the sacrifices of people like your brother, there has been so much backsliding since the days of Reconstruction that I have no confidence in the majority of white people. Our hard-won freedom is hollow without justice. At this moment I am so heartsore about the lynching that it is difficult to feel that anything has improved.”

  “It was terrible indeed,” I agreed. I didn’t wish to discuss the terrible affair, but I was curious about one point. “Ida, I believe the newspaper left out part of the story. Doesn’t lynching spring from gentlemen’s unreasoning anger about unspeakable crimes against womanhood? No such crimes were reported.”

  “I can hardly blame you for thinking that lynching is the product of unthinking outrage, because that is the story they always give out, and in fact I too believed it until last week,” Ida said. She stretched up to pin my washed underskirt onto a clothesline stretched between the porch posts. “But of course there was no such occurrence here, and they lynched Tommie Moss all the same.”

  “Tommie?” I froze, the soapy bloomers in my hand dripping into the washtub. “Tommie Moss, the kind letter carrier who introduced us? He was lynched?”

  “Yes.” She nodded, her face a picture of grief in the light that shone out through the kitchen window. “Tommie Moss, the kindest, best-loved man in Memphis, and my dear friend Betty’s husband. I am godmother to his little daughter Maurine.”

  “Oh, Ida!” Once again I embraced her, heedless of the soapsuds and of what Aunt Mollie might think. “But the newspaper didn’t mention his name!”

  “The white newspapers got the names wrong too. Misspelled Stewart, and called Tommie Theodore’ Moss.”

  “But—how did it happen? How did such a kind man come to shoot a white man?”

  “He didn’t!” Ida explained indignantly. “He did something far more outrageous.”

  I had met Tommie Moss only briefly, but still found it difficult to imagine him committing outrages. “What did he do?”

  “He owned his home. He saved his money. He look McDowell and Stewart as partners and went into the grocery business with the same ambition that a young white man would have had. Tommie was the president of the company. He continued delivering letters during the day while his partners ran the business, and then took care of the books at night.”

  “I don’t understand. That sounds perfectly proper.”

  A bitter smile twitched at Ida’s lips. “Then you do understand. Tommie was an exemplary young man, with a sweet family. He worked industriously. He was succeeding. But you see, the People’s Grocery was located across the street from a grocery owned by a white man.”

  “I see,” I said, and I did. Gentlemen everywhere are like that, don’t you agree? They’re full of manly ideals and heroic aspirations and kindness in their conversation, but their actions are more often inspired by money. “Still, lynching seems an extreme measure, even for a grocer who was losing business.”

  “They made other attempts first,” Ida explained. “At one point the white grocer and another man swore out warrants against Tommie and some others for defending a little colored boy who’d been flogged by a grown white man. But the judge merely fined them and dismissed the case. Then we heard that the vanquished whites were coming Saturday night to clean out the People’s Grocery Company.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Tommie consulted a lawyer, who said that since the grocery was outside the city limits, they were beyond police protection, and therefore would be justified in protecting themselves if attacked. That’s what the law says.”

  Well, I could see what was coming, because I’ve never found that what the law says has very much to do with what happens. As I pinned my bloomers to the line, I grieved for Ida, who had tried to use the law to stop injustice on the part of the wicked Chesapeake and Ohio, and most of all for kind Tommie Moss, who foolishly believed that if he had freedom to buy a grocery, the law also gave him freedom to protect it.

  Ida continued, “Tommie’s company armed some guards and stationed them in the rear of the store, not to attack, but to repel the threatened attack, as allowed by the law. And that night, as he was doing the books and McDowell was waiting on customers just before closing, they heard gunfire. Their guards had shot at several white men who were sneaking in the back way. Three were wounded, none killed.”

  “But the newspaper said they were officers with a warrant!”

  “No, they were not. The newspapers also said the People’s Grocery Company was ‘a low dive in which drinking and gambling were carried on: a resort of thieves and thugs.’” Ida’s eyes blazed. “That’s what the leading white journals called this legitimate business owned by decent black businessmen!”

  Could the just-minded Mr. Peterson work for such a newspaper? I said, “So you think the problem was, Tommie was successful.”

  “That’s right, Bridget. Success was Tommie’s outrageous crime. Immediately there was a massive police raid on the entire neighborhood. Over a hundred colored men were put in jail on suspicion. They look our weapons, of course, and forbade any sale of arms to Negroes, so we are completely defenseless. The while newspapers said the wounded white men would die, and for two nights colored men guarded the jail. Then the newspapers announced that the wounded were out of danger, and our men thought the crisis was past and left the jail unguarded.”

  Had my brother died for this? I was thinking that my handsome blond admirer’s friends were about as low and cowardly as they came. How could they claim they broke the law in an unreasoning fit of rage if they waited coolly for three days until they could break it in perfect safety?

  No, it was clear that they’d lynched Tommie Moss because he would have won in a fair public trial.

  I asked, “So none of the wounded men died?”

  “None. But of course that was not the issue. The lynchers did not look for the men who had fired the shots. Instead they took the three partners of the People’s Grocery Company. Three decent, kind, successful men.” Tears sparkled on Ida’s dark face, and I found my cheeks wet too.

  “I am sorry, I didn’t know! The white newspapers reported so many lies,” I said, my faith in Mr. Peterson crumbling.

  “There is more!” Ida declared, her eyes flashing. She stepped into her kitchen, returned with a copy of the
Commercial Appeal, and read, “‘McDowell’s jaw was entirely shot away and back of his right ear there was a hole large enough to admit a man’s fist.’”

  I clapped my hands over my ears. “Stop! Ida, please, I can’t bear to hear it!”

  “Bridget, don’t you see, that is the problem!” Ida’s eloquent eyes blazed. “How can we ever stop this injustice if white people refuse to notice it? Did Tommie Moss and your brother die in vain?”

  Hang it, all I wanted to do was avoid trouble and get myself to St. Louis. But what can a poor girl do, confronted with someone as persuasive as Ida Wells? Her words, like daggers, entered in mine ears, and I could think of no reply. Reluctantly I muttered, “Go on.”

  Ida read, “‘His right hand, too, had been half blown away, as if, in defense, he had grabbed the muzzle of a shotgun. Stuart was shot in the mouth and twice in the back of the head. His body was riddled with buckshot. Moss had one ear shot off and several bullet holes in his forehead.’”

  Sickened, I moaned, “Oh no!”

  Genteel and unstoppable, she read on: “‘As the gags were removed, Moss said, “If you are going to kill us, turn our faces to the west.”’” Her blazing eyes flicked up to my face. “Don’t you see, Bridget? The journalist was there! This is an eyewitness account. He knew!”

  In the fading hope that my admirer had been a mere observer, I said, “But isn’t it true that journalists are often at the scenes of terrible events that they cannot prevent?”

  “Even if you cannot prevent the crime, you can work for justice! You can publish the whole truth!”

  “Isn’t that story true?”

  “The facts of the lynching are true. But listen to this: ‘Not a trace of any of them can be found this morning.’ Bridget, the inquest found that Tommie Moss and McDowell and Stewart were killed by ‘parties unknown by the jury.’ That’s ridiculous! Everyone knows! And yet—no one tells.”