Peterson raised his hand holding his notepad. The sheriff answered with a nod.
“Sheriff, I know you’re the man here in River Sunday,” he said.
“What’s your point?” the sheriff said, his voice a little rougher.
“How about telling us what else was going on in River Sunday in those days?” said Peterson.
“What do you mean?” said the sheriff, turning his head away and moving back to his desk.
“I’m talking about motive, about things happening in 1968 when this man got himself in trouble. This town was a lot different in those days,” said Peterson. Harry turned and looked at Peterson, wondering what the man knew from the past but knowing that Peterson, like any reporter wanting to cover his own scoop, was unlikely to give him any help. He resolved to go back over Lloyd’s records of the period, although he was pretty sure that nothing would be there.
Another reporter interrupted him. “That’s like you, Peterson. Treat a criminal like a hero in your articles. I’m waiting for one of them to put a gun in your own face instead of some poor victim. You know this town didn’t have it any worse than any others in Maryland or Virginia.” The speaker was a woman, stout in her green dress.
The sheriff nodded agreement and said, “Peterson, I don’t know what you’ve got on your mind, but Walker Douglas was witnessed setting a fire. The fire killed two people. The case is as simple as that.”
“What about the Terment company? Henry Terment and his son Jake ran this town in those days,” continued Peterson.
“We have an ironclad case against Walker Douglas,” Sheriff Good said, smiling. “You just want a story about the Terment family, Peterson.”
“Tell us again the names of the witnesses,” said Peterson.
“Only one left,” said the big man, his smile gone, staring hard at Peterson.
“Can we get the name of the witness?” Peterson asked. The meeting had shifted to a verbal confrontation of the two men.
“You know all this, Peterson,” he said, his face turning red. “We got no dirt here for you to report. Catch Kirby’s father, Homer, the town’s leading citizen, was knocked down unconscious by Walker. He’s passed away so you can’t talk to him anymore.” Sheriff Good leaned forward again and said slowly, staring at Peterson, “You know full well I was the other witness, just a mechanic working for Homer in his shop. Homer and me, we saw Walker John put the gasoline on the building, and I saw him light it and run off with the gasoline can in his hands. That is just as true today as when Homer and me swore it to the sheriff in this town back then.”
Peterson asked quietly,” We get a copy of that testimony, Sheriff?”
“When we got a man in custody, the court can see the witness statement all it wants to, and I reckon you too,” he said, smoothing his sleeve where his police emblem was sewn. “Until then, it stays police business and part of the ongoing investigation.”
The sheriff turned to the draped table. “I thought that you younger people who were not familiar with the case might want to see the evidence that we got back then. Of course, finding the boat has made most of this useless. You can see how much Walker fooled us. Ripped off a part of his boat and left that old piece of transmission. Anyway, case is pretty much history, the perpetrator is pretty sure dead and gone, and I suspect it won’t do no harm to show you this stuff. The newspapers published photos of all this back in Sixty- eight. It’s been in storage all this time right here in River Sunday.” He walked to the table and, with ceremony, lifted the sheet.
First was a framed portrait of two elderly women beside a picnic table in front of a whitewashed brick church which Harry recognized as the Episcopal Chapel in River Sunday. Black children who were receiving presents from them surrounded the women. One of the women was smiling, her hair white and her dress green and simple, while the other, more dour in expression but also white haired, was handing the wrapped gifts to her associate to dispense. The label said, “Heather and Floral Albright at the summer party.”
Next Harry saw a photograph of a white jacket, heavily encrusted and stained with mold from being drenched in saltwater, taken while it was stretched out on a flat board. On its back were the words Black Duck. One corner had scorch marks as from a fire. Beside it, a deeply corroded engine casting, similar to the molded parts that cover gears on automobiles, was marked with a faded wire tag. Flat on the table, triangular in shape, was a section of wood deck from the fugitive’s speedboat. The exhibit was about three feet by one foot, with a large split showing where it had broken off on two sides and with a beaded edge on the other more rounded side.
Even now, long after the crime had occurred, and not even knowing these women, Harry was saddened by their photograph, two women who had obviously lived too great a giving life to have come to such a terrible end. As stunning as the photograph of these victims, though, he was even more affected by the fragment of motorboat deck. It was covered with a shine, almost a glow, emanating from its white paint, from the hand rubbed racing gloss that was still bright even after thirty years.
“Where’s the jacket now?” asked Harry.
The sheriff turned to Harry and said, “It was given back to the Walker Douglas family by the former sheriff. I wouldn’t have done that with evidence but folks thought the criminal was long dead and the case was pretty much closed.”
“You were smart enough to keep the case open when you became sheriff, is that right?” asked Harry. He wanted to see what the sheriff would say when he was being praised.
The sheriff smiled. Even so, the big man had an angry downturn to his mouth when he tried to be friendly, Harry noticed.
“You could say that,” said the sheriff, looking carefully at Harry. He went on, “It was a big case for the town, caused a lot of heartache when Walker killed those women and the facts didn’t deserve to be forgotten by any of us. Of course, I didn’t have any idea though that we were going to find this boat. Hey, got to go back to work.” With that last remark, the sheriff pointed to his associates, and, preceded by Marty Sol and Captain Stiles, left the room with a wave to the assembled news people.
Chapter 5
Friday July 31, 9 am
Harry had been summoned by Pastor Jefferson Allingham, he suspected for a news story about his church. The pastor was seated in his small office at the back of the Third Baptist church building. He was a spare elderly man with long white hair matching a white mustache on his dark skin. He reminded Harry of the African chieftains he had seen overseas, the men of wisdom with the years of survival etched on their skin, yet he was smaller, more wiry. His face had a stern look, that of a man who has seen too much hardship to smile easily, yet Harry knew that he was popular with the people of color in the town, that he was known for acting in a fatherly way to his flock, exuding love. When he smiled, Harry knew that would be more an occasion than routine, but he also knew that the man could find reason to do so. He spotted that resident earnestness and hope immediately in the man’s old eyes.
The pastor, sitting on a wooden swivel chair, was dwarfed by the size of his wooden desk and half hidden by the piles of papers and books stacked on its surface. A light hanging from the ceiling threw a dim light over his face and the desk surface. The room had no windows. At one end of the desk a small American flag protruded from a black marble paperweight, surrounded by small pictures of children of various ages. On the walls were faded certificates concerning his ministerial education as well as a framed photograph of Martin Luther King as well as various black and other minority leaders. The walls were otherwise covered with bookcases which held many more magazines and books. He motioned Harry to a red leather chair, an expensive seat which appeared out of place among the simple brown walls and folding wooden and metal church furniture that otherwise decorated the room. Harry sat down.
“I’m glad you could stop by, Mister Jacobsen,” the pastor said, staring at him. He spoke in careful English with none of the softness of the other River Sunday citizens.
> “You wanted to talk to me,” said Harry.
“You and Annie must be busy with the regatta coming up next week, getting out the story. My guess is that the town will have a good race weekend again this year,” said the pastor, not looking at Harry directly as his hands slit the flap of a piece of his mail.
Harry nodded. He wondered what the old man had been in such a hurry to ask him about.
The pastor leaned back, tossing the letter on his desk without reading it, the spring of his chair making a stretching sound, “Tell me, why’d you come to this town anyway?” he said.
Harry was taken by surprise but hid his emotions. “I wanted to run a paper,” he answered.
“A person could say that was a major undertaking, running a paper,” said the pastor.
“Yes,” answered Harry.
“Why this town?” asked the pastor, his eyes inspecting Harry, as if Harry were not dressed properly for his audience. “I expect newspapers all over the country are looking for a man like yourself. I know you’re famous. I’ve even read some of your international reports.”
“The Nanticoke Times was for sale,” said Harry.
The pastor said, “I’m thinking that you wanted to hide out. You came here after you were fired from your job in New York.”
Harry looked at him solemnly before he replied. “If my past is what you want to ask me about, I think we’ve finished here,” he said as he rose to leave.
“Sit down for a while. I don’t mean to anger you, Mister Jacobsen. My guess is that you were right and your superiors were wrong when they let you go.”
Harry stared into the old man’s deep and kind preacher’s eyes. “I’m a newspaperman, that’s all,” he said.
“I’d bet you are a very good newspaperman, Mister Jacobson.” His old face, not smiling but folding into handsome lines, with a crinkle around his eyes, continued,” So what will you do here in River Sunday with all your talent?”
The change to a friendly tone took Harry again by surprise. “I’d like to make the paper successful,” he said.
The pastor leaned forward and said, “Did it occur to you that the town is divided about half and half white and black folk and that your paper only reports on the news of the whites?”
“Well, that’s not completely true,” answered Harry.
“It’s true enough,” said the pastor, nodding. He waited a moment then said, “Here’s my point and why I wanted to see you. Now that Walker’s boat has been found, I’m sure you will do a story about it. Well, you see, I’d like to make sure that you cover all sides of the Walker story, especially the one more popular in the black community.”
Harry looked at him. He felt he was being pushed and he didn’t like it. This was more like what he had endured in New York in the old job.
“What do you mean by all sides?” he asked the old man.
“Don’t look so surprised,” said the pastor. “My request is a reasonable one.”
Harry calmed himself and said, “I’ve heard that lots of big stories were going on in River Sunday when the fire occurred, that some of these might have been part of Walker’s motive for starting the fire. What can you tell me?”
“What kind of trouble do you think was going on?” asked the pastor, sitting back and eyeing Harry.
Harry said, “Race problems, civil rights issues, freedom marches, freedom rider buses coming into River Sunday to help with voter registration, murder, fire.”
The pastor said, “Sounds like we had going on here just about what every other small southern town had going on. Maybe you think writing about that is a little bit trite and boring nowadays. You’d like to dress it up, print that if race misunderstandings occurred here, that’s why Walker set the fire?”
“Was that true?” asked Harry, watching the old man’s face which showed nothing.
“Has anyone said this?” the pastor asked quietly.
“You don’t believe that?” asked Harry.
Allingham pushed his chair back from his desk and said, “We all heard that excuse for so many years after the fire that some of us folks of color got to believe it as fact. I will admit the young man might have been angry. We all were in those days. We suffered a lot of injustice.”
He stood up. “I don’t know why Walker set the fire, or even if he did set it. I’m afraid I did not know Walker very well. His mother was a member of my church, that’s all.” He smiled. “We black folk don’t know each other all the time, you know. You don’t know all the white folk here either, do you?”
He went on, “I want you to hear about those years from someone besides me. Let’s say I might be prejudiced. Maybe he can say something to lead you in the right direction for your story about Walker and, as you say, understanding whatever his motives might have been.”
The pastor noticed Harry admiring the red leather chair and said, “You like that chair?”
“It’s very comfortable,” said Harry, touching the leather with the fingers of his right hand.
“It was given to me by President Lyndon Johnson,” said Allingham, a note of pride in his voice.
“Lyndon Johnson,” Harry repeated, accenting the name with astonishment. “That was a great honor,” he added. “I should remind people of this in the paper.”
The pastor nodded. “That will be the first time that award has been noted in that newspaper.”
Harry looked at him. “You’re saying an honor like this was never reported?”
“Oh, it was reported all right but only in the Baltimore and Washington papers, not down here in the country,” said the pastor.
“When did Lyndon Johnson give it to you?” asked Harry as they moved toward the door to the church interior.
“That was the spring of 1968, before the big fire. His helicopter came down right in the courthouse square, you know.” Then the pastor added, leaning toward Harry and speaking in a lower tone as if it were a secret and he didn’t want to be overheard, “You ever hear of the OEO?”
“Sure,” said Harry. He had studied this program when he was in college. “Johnson’s New Society program, the Office of Economic Opportunity,” he rattled off.
“Yessir,” Pastor Allingham said. “We made it work here. We were going to get a big grant from OEO. That’s why he was here, to give me a medal for my OEO work.”
The pastor led Harry out of the church, and as they exited, they went by a small cemetery just to the right of the front entrance and back under some mulberry trees. Harry stared over the gate at the graveyard and noticed a fresh covered grave among several small tombstones.
The older man followed Harry’s glance. “That’s for Dorothy Douglas, Walker’s mother,” the pastor said. “She was buried a few months ago. Dorothy’s next to her husband. He died in the Navy fighting the Japanese. The Navy trained him to be a cook, but he taught himself to man a machine gun and got killed.”
Harry pointed to the small faded American flag by the man’s grave.
“They come around now, the veterans club, and put out the flags. Started doing that a few years back for this graveyard. Douglas worked on a farm as a laborer,” Allingham continued, opening the gate and stepping into the graveyard. He bent to straighten some plastic flowers at the top of the brown pile of dirt then came back to Harry’s side and started walking again.
“Paid his bills so the whites liked him,” said the pastor. “However, I don’t think he understood his son Walker very well. The boy was interested in machines. His father didn’t know much about that. He knew planting and earth, things like that.”
He and Harry got to the street and headed toward the harbor. Several stores were mixed among the residences on the street. “Her daughter hasn’t arranged for the marker stone yet,” said the pastor.
As they walked, the pastor said, “The younger ones need to step up.”
“The younger ones?” asked Harry.
“The young people of my congregation. They don’t stay here to help. They go to the city for jobs,�
�� observed the pastor.
Allingham went on, “We need more jobs and the younger ones have got to fight for that.”
Allingham studied the harbor as he walked. “When the President came,” he said, his voice softer, becoming rich and melodic like a song, “that was a fine spring day. I remember the crocus were up in the ground and the snow was all melted. President Johnson flew in with a lot of noise in a big military helicopter. Some of the Washington visitors, Congressmen and women, came in by yacht. He said to me that he had brought his dog because he said he wanted the dog to see the black ducks out in the harbor. He said his animal was a Texas dog and didn’t know much about Eastern Shore duck hunting.”
Pastor Allingham turned to Harry, a smile now briefly on his face as he remembered the details of that visit, “Some of the kids were still out on the playgrounds and they saw the helicopters go over. One landed near the Courthouse, blowing up a big cloud of dust, and one of them stayed in the air, just circling the whole time.”
They stopped, several hundred yards into the center of Mulberry, in front of a small store. To the right of the entry door was a window filled with canned goods. Several white cardboard signs proclaimed sales on fresh vegetables. To the left was no window, only stained clapboard that was at one time painted blue.
What struck Harry’s attention was the fact that the plate glass of the display window had in the past been hit with something about three quarters of the way up. The glass had not been replaced and the cracks had been repaired with white tape, two large tapes going up and down and two going from side to side so that the repair looked like a misshapen crucifix. From the condition of the tape, Harry figured the tape repairs had not been made that long ago.
“What happened to the glass?” asked Harry.
“What do you think happened? You ought to be able to guess who did it,” the old man said, his face taut. Then he relaxed and said, “We’ll go inside. The man I want you to meet is named Jack Bob.” They entered and Harry found himself in a small corridor. A door to the left led to a small one room barber shop while on the right another door led into the grocery store. The pastor went into the barber shop which was empty of customers. A radio program with gospel music crackled slightly in the back of the room. The place smelled like a very sweet after shave lotion, some flower which Harry did not recognize. Wicker chairs, their seats piled high with magazines and newspapers surrounded a barber chair placed centrally like a throne in the room. Behind them, a small bell on the top of the door tinkled an alert.
Powerboat Racer (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 3) Page 7
