Down by the Riverside

by Jackie Lynn

  The story was on the bottom of the first page, situated between two pictures. The first one, pasted in the upper left corner, was a recent photograph of the deceased, a posed shot in which he was wearing a shirt and tie and jacket, arms across his chest, a slight smile, and a look that spoke of discomfort or a sense of being ill at ease. Perhaps, I thought, studying his picture, we shared the same dislike for having our photographs taken.

  The picture, dated as being from the same year as his death, was a shot from a recent photo directory of the church. It was black and white, but you could see that Mr. Lawrence Franklin was graying a bit, along the edges of his hairline, along the borders of his mustache. He wore glasses, dark frames at least a decade old, and he leaned forward as if the photographer had said words he couldn’t hear, as if he was pushing himself to see something more clearly.

  The other picture in the paper, farther down on the right side of the story, was a shot of the sandbar where his body had been recovered, a few firemen standing around the edge of the water, a winding piece of tape marking perimeters to keep away reporters and curious bystanders.

  There was the ambulance I had seen on the day of the recovery, backed up near the group of people, its door opened wide. The two attendants were standing near the rear of the vehicle. It appeared as if the young woman I recalled seeing had turned and faced the camera just as the shot had been taken, as if she had been surprised by the presence of a photographer and having her picture taken. The man standing with her was staring out over the river. There were shadows cast across the water, an eerie presence looming along the Mississippi.

  If you looked at the entire page of the newspaper at once, drawing your vision from left to right, top to bottom, it seemed as if that page had been designed or laid out so that Mr. Franklin appeared to be supervising the event taking place in the second photograph.

  The story pasted in the middle of these two photographs told facts and figures of the dead man. It reported that he was born and raised in West Memphis and listed him as a graduate from the local high school and a business college somewhere near Little Rock. It was noted that he had been an award-winning athlete, a runner, and a member of the local Civitan Club, a volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club. It was noted that he was well respected in his community and known for his hard work.

  Based upon the short bio of the dead man, he seemed like he had a good life, a happy life; I wondered again how it was concluded he had committed suicide.

  There was a quote from some official person about the fast current in the river, how dangerous the water can be, but there was nothing, it seemed, of what had really occurred in the accident, of the real story.

  Mr. Franklin, posed in his business suit, refusing to smile more than he considered necessary, refusing to open his mouth, his eyes, dark and aware—this, I discovered, was the heart of what really happened.

  Here were the details of the truth, and they were not reported in the West Memphis Daily Record. There was something, I could tell from his photograph, that was not being told.

  And just as I was starting to ask a question of myself or to the picture of the dead man, the phone rang. I reached over to answer it.

  SIX

  Shady Grove Campground,” I said, just as Mary had instructed. I searched for a pen and a piece of paper in case there was a message to record.

  “Mary?” the voice asked.

  “No, this is Rose Franklin,” I replied, saying the name with even more confidence than before, claiming it, making it mine. “I’m just helping Mary out.”

  “Oh.”

  There was a pause.

  “This is Sheriff Montgomery,” the voice on the other end said. “From the West Memphis Sheriff’s Department.”

  There was a slight hesitation as if he were waiting for some sign that I understood who he was. I couldn’t think of anything friendly to say.

  “Tell Mary or Lucas or whoever will be there later today that I’m sending the deputy back out there this afternoon. We got some more questions to ask of the campers, find out if there are any witnesses who might know something about the Franklin death.”

  I waited.

  “It seems Deputy Fisk got run off before he could complete his detail,” the sheriff noted.

  I smiled, remembering Mary’s reaction to the lawman.

  “We need to clear some things up before we can close the file on the suicide,” he continued.

  “Okay,” I answered and then asked, “What things?”

  “I beg your pardon?” he replied.

  “You said you had to clear up some things, what things?”

  “Who are you again?” The voice was gruff.

  “Rose Franklin,” I said.

  “You kin to Lawrence?”

  “Maybe,” I replied, thinking how odd it felt to say such a thing, right and wrong at the same time.

  “Well, not that I need to tell you anything,” he said sharply, “We just need to check with the rest of the visitors at the campground who were there over the weekend and view a few locations near Shady Grove before we write up the report. I’m trying to understand where the victim got into the river. I think it might have happened near the Boyds’ place”—then he stopped as if he realized he was telling more than he needed to.

  “It’s nothing for you to concern yourself with. And you can tell Mary and Lucas that we can talk to whomever we want. We don’t need their permission.”

  “It’s private property,” I said. I’m much more assertive on the phone than in person.

  “It’s police business,” he said.

  “I’ll tell them,” I answered. “What time do you think Deputy Fisk will be here?”

  And the sheriff hung up.

  There are things a woman knows. I don’t mean to make it sound like a man wouldn’t know the same things, but I can’t speak for that part of the human race. I can only speak for my part, the female part. And I don’t mean to sound like women know everything all the time. We don’t, of course.

  I knew my mother was sick before she ever went to the doctor. I was only twelve years old, but I had already acquired that gift of being a woman. I knew it because of the way she touched her chest, lightly, her fingers spread open as if she was trying to contain the clump of multiplying and irregular cells. The way she closed her eyes as if she were praying when she sat down on the sofa after cleaning up the dinner dishes, brief as those moments were, for she would pick up a magazine or look at the mail before you could ask her anything, but it didn’t matter; the moments were telling and I was paying attention. And I knew.

  I knew she was going to die when I felt the heaviness in the hand of the doctor when he stepped by me, patting me on the head, making his way toward my father. It was just one action, one stupid way an adult acknowledges a child, done to me a million times in my young lifetime, but that time was different and I knew.

  I knew she was dead when I awoke at five o’clock in the morning and a bird was sitting on the sill of my bedroom window, perched there like she had been waiting for me to awaken, a sign from God, a tiny bit of pink ribbon in her beak. I lay perfectly still and watched her, a sparrow, small and brown, a mother building a nest, and I knew.

  I knew when my brother was leaving home, a month before he turned sixteen. The way he kept avoiding me, locking his door at night, slowly packing things in milk crates and in the trunk of his car, the way he just turned away without yelling when I told him I lost his favorite cassette tape. Even when he lied to Daddy and said he was just going to stay with a friend for the weekend, I knew.

  I knew that my father was becoming more and more dangerous and that he drank every night after my mother died. I knew the baby was dead, that my womb was empty, and that my husband didn’t mean it when he said he never really wanted children anyway. And I knew that Rip had fallen in love when I saw him sitting across from the girl who looked nothing like me.

  I knew I would pass the RN exam, that I would graduate from college, and th
at I would never be as lovely or as comfortable with pain or as tender as my mother. And once I had seen the photograph of Mr. Franklin, staring over the details of his death, and once I had heard the voice of the sheriff, short and irritated, still needing to find some clue or some answer to a simple suicide, I knew. I knew there was nothing simple about it; I knew it wasn’t suicide.

  Unfortunately, as I reflected upon my gift of intuition, my infallible means of knowing, I also reflected upon the fact that even if I knew something was going to happen, even if I could tell the real truth of a situation, I remained paralyzed or ineffective in doing anything about it. There was never a plan made or a series of proactive measures put into place. I was sure that there had always been things that I knew, but even with that knowledge, nothing ever changed.

  My mother was sick and soon died. My father drank himself into a stupor. My brother ran away from home. I became a nurse, lost a baby and a husband, became a woman unlike the one I wanted to be. All the things I knew, but could not change. But as I stood in the office of the Shady Grove Campground, convinced that Mr. Franklin had fallen into something more sinister than suicide and that there was something untold about his life and death, I felt a tiny possibility that things could be different this time.

  Maybe, I thought, it was just the place, someplace so different from my growing-up place, or maybe it was the time, having left my life. Or maybe, I wondered, standing alone in a campground office, maybe it was me. I was different.

  Not just the name. Not just the removal of my husband’s infidelity and my father’s heavy hand from my identity, giving birth to a new designation. Maybe I was bolder or wiser or less afraid of the things I didn’t know and more willing to believe those things I did know.

  Maybe I was tired of always being on the outside looking in. Maybe in having packed up my things and left what was behind me, I was ready to be a part of something bigger than myself, ready to be a part of a community, ready to belong. Maybe I was finally tired of being alone, the way I have felt all my life, the way I felt even in my marriage. Perhaps I was finally ready to break through the wall that had been around my heart since the moment my mother died.

  It’s hard to say why or how, only that it was so. Something was different. I knew.

  “Rose Franklin,” I said aloud in the empty office. “Rose Franklin is my name and I know that there’s more to this story.”

  “Well, Ms. Rose Franklin, perhaps you can enlighten the rest of us.”

  The voice surprised me so much that I whipped around, knocking off books and papers from Mary’s desk. I hadn’t realized there was a back door to the office and that an older woman was now standing directly across from me.

  “Good heavens!” I yelled. “Who are you?”

  She smiled and held out her hand like a queen. “Rose Franklin, my name is Lou Ellen Johnston Maddox Perkins . . .,” she paused. “Well, there are other last names, but that’s more than enough for you to try and remember.” She winked.

  “I’m from southern Arkansas and I am Rhonda’s mother. And I’ve always known there was more to every story.” And she glided over to where I was sitting.

  Glided, that’s what she did. She didn’t just move or walk or get to where it was she was going. Ms. Lou Ellen had been a ballerina, and Ms. Lou Ellen floated, like a feather in midair. She was as smooth as bathwater.

  I reached out and touched her fingers. I wasn’t sure how to shake such a dainty and royally held hand. Then I started picking up the things that had fallen.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting anybody else to come by.”

  She laughed and stepped out of the way giving me more room to gather the fallen papers. “It’s quite all right, dear,” she said, her words drawn out with a thick Southern accent.

  I finished returning things to order and I moved away from the desk and around to the front of the counter, resuming the role of visitor, and giving her the rightful place of the campground manager.

  “Mary went to pick up trash,” I told her. “I was just watching the office for her.”

  Ms. Lou Ellen nodded. “Fine,” she replied. “I know I’m late. Annie Lester made a run at the pot.” She waved her hand across her face. “Swish,” she added.

  I’m sure I appeared confused.

  “Swish, dear. It’s a card game.”

  I shrugged.

  “Doesn’t matter.” And she slid around to the desk and sat down. “You’re staying here?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Got here yesterday. My car broke down and is being fixed.”

  “Well, how lovely,” she said. “And our Mary has already put you to work?”

  I smiled.

  “No, I volunteered.” Then I added, “I met your daughter and your son-in-law.”

  “Oh, they’ve returned?” she asked.

  “Yes, but they’re not here.” I glanced around, thinking how stupid that was to report since the office was clearly empty except for the two of us.

  “Yes,” she answered. “I’m sure they have things to do at their trailer.”

  She lifted up the paper I had been reading. “And what story is it that has more to tell?” she asked as she scanned the headlines.

  I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about this to anyone. About a minute passed. I was thinking.

  She peered at me over the rhinestone reading glasses she was now wearing.

  “Lawrence Franklin’s suicide,” I confessed. “I think there’s something else about his death that the police aren’t telling.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Ah,” she replied. “A mystery.” She dragged out the syllables of the word mystery, making it sound very interesting.

  I lowered my eyes.

  “Did you talk to Tom?”

  And there it was again. That flutter in my chest.

  “No, but Mary has told me about him.”

  “Tom knows almost every mystery of this community and he loves to talk about that river.”

  I nodded.

  She folded the paper and looked at me. “Besides, he and the dead man grew up together. They were good friends,” she added quietly, confirming what Mary had already told me. “He can answer any question you might have.”

  Mary rushed in about this time. She was huffing. Her long hair was twisted in a bun on top of her head, but large pieces were falling down. Her face was red, flushed from her work and her hurry.

  “You finally here?” she said to Ms. Lou Ellen.

  “Yes, dear,” she responded. “And now so are you.”

  Then she turned in my direction. “And how lovely to have made the acquaintance of Ms. Rose Franklin.”

  Mary looked at me. “Thank you, Rose. Any call?”

  I shook my head at first. Then I remembered the sheriff. “Oh, the policeman is coming back out here today.”

  Mary rolled her eyes.

  “Something about checking out possible locations where the dead man entered the river and he intends to speak to the other campers.”

  I stepped toward the door. “It’s about the suicide,” I added.

  “The one you expect that there’s more to tell about,” Ms. Lou Ellen said in that dramatic way she had said the word mystery previously.

  I nodded slowly, smiled.

  “Well, then you better get busy because the sheriff likes things at the river very tidy.” She slid off her glasses and they hung around her neck on a gold chain.

  “He’ll be here every day if he thinks somebody knows more of the story than he does.”

  “Aahhh,” Mary said in exasperation, moving behind the counter. She untied her hair and it fell down across her shoulders. “Sheriff just mad at Lucas for not selling.”

  “Well, there is that,” Ms. Lou Ellen added.

  “What was Lucas not selling?” I asked, standing at the door.

  “The property, darling.” Ms. Lou Ellen handed Mary a mirror, but she just shook her head at her and started twisting and smoothing down her hair.<
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  “The campground?” I asked.

  “Yes, Shady Grove Campground.” The older woman returned the mirror to the front drawer of the desk.

  “I thought it was some developer from Tennessee who tried to buy this land.” I remembered the trucker mentioning it on the day I arrived.

  “The sheriff’s brother from Nashville,” Mary answered. “He the one wanting to buy it. Sheriff was a big investor.”

  “Seems like this would be the perfect spot for a rich man’s river dwelling,” Ms. Lou Ellen said with a smile. “Some people just don’t like the idea of a campground in their proximity. And some people particularly don’t like that this campground is owned by Lucas and Rhonda.”

  Then she leaned back in her chair, stretching her hands across her lap, studying her nails. “Too many strangers coming and going,” she added.

  “Sheriff been here causing trouble ever since Lucas say no.” Mary tightened the pull on her hair, flipping it and twisting it into a bun, then tying it up using a pencil from the counter.

  “How long ago was that?” I asked.

  “Six months, maybe seven, I’d say, wouldn’t you, Mary?” Ms. Lou Ellen asked.

  “Almost a year,” she answered. “Doesn’t matter. Can’t find nothing here.”

  She smoothed the sides of her hair. “No sign of drugs, gambling, no crime at Shady Grove.”

  “That’s right, dear,” Ms. Lou Ellen said. “We’re as clean as old bones bleached in the sun.”

  Ms. Lou Ellen, I am learning, has a very dramatic way of holding a conversation. She’s full of lines like this one.

  “ ‘Old bones bleached in the sun,’ ” I repeated. “I guess that’s pretty clean.” And even though I didn’t speak of it at the time, I wondered if the campground and Ms. Lou Ellen’s daughter and son-in-law were really as spotless as she believed.

  “Yes, dear, very clean indeed,” she replied.