The Dead Hand of Sweeney County

by David L. Bradley

  “It's shiny... glass... round... wait, I think it's coming loose... it's a mason jar. It sure is.” I held it in my hands, wiping dirt from its surface. It looked as if it had been buried among the roots of this tree for a century. The lid had rusted long ago, but the tree itself and a hard crust of dirt had protected its contents, which appeared to consist of a single piece of folded paper.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked aloud.

  “It's a will,” Steve answered.

  I unfolded the unlined paper and smoothed it. The handwriting was crude and unpracticed. I read aloud,

  Dear Bitty,

  Ive been sad every day since Mama died. I couldnt stand him doing that to either of us anymore, so I tried to kill him with the ax. Poor Isac was only ever an angel to both of us, and I reckon hes an angel now, but I keep seeing him done like that over and over, and I cant stand it. There wont be no new will now, you can bet. That evil evil man will find me where he hung Isac, and if I go to Hell well then hes going there too.

  I love you Bitty. Im sorry. If I dont go to Hell Mama and I will look for you in Heaven.

  Willie

  I stared until the letter dissolved completely out of focus, and I realized my eyes were dripping tears. I looked up and saw that I was not alone.

  After a moment, Sarah spoke. “I told you Isaac Cooper was lynched,” she said.

  Steve cleared his throat. “I told you there was a will,” he said.

  I cleared mine and took a deep breath. “Yes, you did, both of you. And me, I wanted to believe that Willie ran off and joined the circus, but I never really did. He's a suicide. An attempted murderer, and a suicide. Help the boy... how do you help a murderer-slash-suicide?”

  “They are both mortal sins,” Sarah said.

  “I don't think you can,” Steve shrugged.

  I folded the letter and placed it back into the jar, then stood turning the jar in my hands while I tried to think. A “new will”, whatever it was, might be so important that a reasonable person would consider its destruction worth the cost and trouble of burning down your house, even if it meant driving to Texas. What could it possibly say?

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing suggested itself as a possible explanation. I wanted a legal opinion.

  “Know what, folks? I'd like to see this safeguarded, so I'd like to get it into the hands of our lawyer friend, which it where her diaries and scrapbooks belong, too. Steve? Ready for a trip to Augusta?”

  Steve interlaced his fingers, turned them inside out, and cracked his knuckles. “Say the word, Daddy-o, say the word!”

  “Aren't you both so cute?” Sarah smiled. “You're like those Duke boys, off on a crazy adventure, except you have jobs.”

  “And no '69 Dodge Charger,” Steve frowned.

  I called Tyler and Frank as a formality, for of course they wanted to see and safeguard the document, and an hour later I was sipping coffee while Frank and Tyler studied the note.

  “Now we know Willie didn't join the circus, and we know what happened to Isaac,” Tyler said.

  “So who the hell is this William Conley in Conyers?” Frank wondered. “And if there is or was a new will, what does or did it say? Nothing in her books, nothing at all?”

  “No will, no mention in her diary of a will.” I answered. “Maybe it was burned. Thrown in the outhouse. Fed to the hogs. If it existed, maybe it was hidden in the old house and was lost when it was torn down.”

  “Maybe. There could have been a safe somewhere, but I never heard of one, and I don't remember a safe at the auction,” Frank said. “My dad handled all that, finding an auctioneer and labor to help Ramon clear out the house.”

  “There was an auction?”

  “Oh yeah. All the antiques in the house were auctioned off before the house was torn down. I remember all that pretty clearly. There were beds, dressers, whole sets of antique china and silver, candlesticks, chandeliers, tables... but no safes.”

  “If I were a will, where would I hide?” Tyler mused.

  “Were there any roll-top desks?” I asked.

  “A beauty,” Frank answered. “It was one of the first items sold.”

  “Too bad,” I answered. “Every one of them has a hidden compartment just perfect for hiding a will.

  They both eyed me quizzically. “I watch a lot of 'Antiques Roadshow',” I explained.

  Frank rose to his feet. “My dad bought it. It's in my front room.”

  We all followed Frank at a quick walk. My fatigue was gone, replaced by excitement bordering on giddiness. Something about this just felt right, as if Elizabeth had left me something there, a clue that would take me one step closer to this game's finish.

  Just as Frank had described, the desk was a beauty. I rolled back the cover. “Here on the right, where these three drawers are...” I removed papers from the cubby above the drawers and felt around at the rear until my fingers found a metal release lever. I pressed it downward, and all three drawers came out together, along with the box in which they were housed. In the space behind them was an envelope measuring about six inches by nine. I brought it out and looked around the room.

  “Open it,” they said in unison.

  I gently raised the flap and looked inside. I tilted the envelope, and a sepia-toned photograph slid out.

  There was a moment of silence while the photo was passed around to Frank, to Steve, to Tyler, and back to me again.

  “Who is that?” Tyler asked.

  “It's Aphrodite Kallypigos,” I replied. “She just finished bathing in a lake, and she is looking over her shoulder at her reflection in the water.”

  “Nice angle,” Frank remarked.

  “Nice ass,” Steve observed. “I like a little junk in the trunk.”

  “She's beautiful,” was all I could say. “She is all women, and she is beautiful just as she is.”

  “I wonder who the model was,” said Tyler.

  I said nothing.

  “Probably some hooker,” Frank opined. “Whoever she was, she was hot.”

  I slowly nodded, but I didn't say anything.

  “Know of any other secret compartments?”

  I shook my head.

  “It was worth a look,” said Frank. I replaced the drawers in the desk, and we returned to the den. Frank refilled his whiskey and Tyler's, and offered me a glass, which I accepted.

  “No will,” Frank said.

  “Nope. Just the will to survive with dignity and maintain the family honor. Poor Elizabeth, taking all this to her grave. Poor, poor Willie. Poor Isaac, a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, brutally murdered just for being black.”

  “Well,” said Frank, “maybe not technically black, but dark enough.”

  “Roger that. Now I know why Elizabeth had the limbs cut off. I wonder why she didn't just cut it down... unless she was the one who stashed the note there. But why? Why leave it there?”

  “The same reason you brought it to me,” Frank reasoned. “Safeguarding it. She probably hid it out there at the time of the suicide, and over time, she couldn't retrieve it because of how the tree grew around it.”

  “When Willie hanged himself, she probably had no idea if her dad would recover or not,” Tyler added. “Maybe she thought holding on to the note would give her some kind of leverage with her asshole dad.”

  “Or maybe she wanted the Specialist to find it,” Steve said. We all turned to look at Steve, who continued explaining himself. “Oh not Addie himself, you understand, but someone. Maybe she thought she'd leave clues and hope the right person would find them and figure out what they meant. Maybe she wanted people to know. Not while her family was still alive, but one day, like when her tenants would finally own their property. When that day came, her family line would have died out, and she could finally let the truth be known. 'For ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set ye free!'” He glanced upward. “Granny used to say that all the time. Once a day, at least.”

  I sighed. “The truth is that the bank sh
e trusted is going to steal her properties.”

  “Well, it's unfortunate that it turned out that way. My dad worked for Dick Junior and hated him, but he said Dick Senior was a great guy,” Frank said.

  “You know who else was a great guy?” I added. “Fin Conley. Let's have a toast to Captain Fin Conley, Elizabeth's granddad.”

  “Hey ya know who else was a great guy?” Tyler asked quietly. “Ramon was a great guy. Let's have a drink to Master Sergeant Ramon Burroughs.”

  “To the good guys,” Steve said, toasting with water.

  “To the good guys.” we toasted.

  The sun had just set when we left Frank's place. I left behind Elizabeth's books, all but her last diary, of which I planned to read as much as I could before my eyes closed, an event I expected soon. I was tired all over, physically and mentally. As we left Frank's neighborhood in the Mighty Ford, I was thinking that instead of a shower, I might opt for a long, hot bath.

  We stopped at a light. As soon as I realized where we were, I looked at Steve and said, “Small world alert. Ellie's husband, Dr. Greg Hubbard, has his office and apartment up here on the right.”

  “And there he is,” Steve said.

  I turned just in time to make out Greg getting into a ten year-old Toyota Corolla. As we passed, I glanced into the driver's seat, and the forty year-old Hispanic woman behind the wheel was definitely not Ellie.

  “Who's he with?” Steve asked. “Is it a guy?”

  “It's a woman. I'm pretty sure. Like I know?”

  “Let's find out. Damn, I wish I had a camera. This could be a Springer episode.”

  Steve slowed to wave a car out of a strip mall, and the Toyota went around us. Steve gave me a sly wink and began following the compact from a few lengths behind.

  I shook my head. “I cannot believe I am stalking my married girlfriend's husband. Don't you ever tell anyone about this.”

  “I can't believe your girlfriend's husband has a girlfriend,” said Steve. “I'll betcha it's a man in drag. I'll betcha anything that's the real story. The doc's payin' for a sex change. I knew a stripper named Roxy one time who was a sex change. Yep. Was born a Thomas, but always felt like a woman inside. She did it in stages, she told me: first she lived as a woman for awhile, then they did the tits, you know, but she still needed money for the second operation, the one that would make her a woman. So she met this older businessman who fell in love with her and paid for the operation that cut off her dick. Here's the funny part. The old guy's favorite sex act was being fucked in his ass. Okay, now you tell me. Is that what you call ironic?”

  “I think that's what you call true love.”

  “I guess when these two head for a motel, they don't mind saving a little money,” Steve said.

  What he meant was that we were quickly entering a less expensive side of Augusta. Houses and yards here were smaller; cars were older. We turned into a modest subdivision of one-story brick ranch homes, half still boasting the carports of their original design, the other half having converted that space into an extra room. Neighbors old and young were outside, talking, playing, drinking beer, and generally enjoying the evening.

  “I think they're going to her place for a quickie,” I grinned.

  “His drag queen's place, you mean. Or wait, I know: the doctor is just borrowin' his maid's car so he doesn't have to drive his own to the sex club. Or the orgy. Or wherever he's really goin'. Doctors are smart; that'd be smart.”

  “They're pulling in. Keep driving. At least we're in a truck, so we don't stick out.”

  “We're in a Ford,” said Steve. “We stick out.”

  It was dark, so I didn't see a lot, but from what I saw of her, the woman was nothing short of average. Attractive, but definitely middle-aged, average Hispanic woman height, which is to say, something less than five and a half feet, with an average middle-aged weight gain, fairly evenly distributed between top, bottom, and belly. He did not leave immediately in her car. Instead, it looked like they were unloading bags from the trunk.

  “Loop around, eh? I really need another look.”

  “I'm hungry,” Steve complained.

  “Loop around again, drop me off a couple of blocks back, and go get us some burritos at that taqueria on the main road. They should be good burritos. Make mine pollo.”

  “Damn, you're a thinkin' man! Hold on, Specialist, let me getcha situated. You gonna peep in and watch 'em do it? I'm still willin' to go ten dollars that it's a man in drag.”

  Steve drove around and dropped me off, and I began a slow stroll down the street, just taking my time. I crossed the street so as to distance myself a little further from the object of my surveillance. A block ahead, I could see the car was still under the carport. Perhaps there would be a name on the mailbox. The closer I got, the slower I walked. The address was 3967 Avon Street. Thirty-nine sixty-seven. The front room was indicated by a large picture window, and the drapes were partly open, about three feet apart. I didn't want to stare, so I looked around at the trees, the darkening sky above, the Camaro passing by to my right... I looked into the gap between drapes and saw Dr. Hubbard in a white T-shirt, seated in a recliner, holding a Budweiser longneck in one hand and a remote control in the other. I looked away. In the yard immediately to my left, three middle-school girls practiced dance moves to a radio. In the next yard, four men in boots and straw cowboy hats sat in camp chairs, drinking canned beer. I looked again. Now I could see all the way to the kitchen, where the woman I'd seen before busied herself with supper. No one was doing it.

  I continued my casual saunter until I reached the end of the block. There I stopped, looking up the cross street in one direction, then looking down the other direction, as if trying to figure out where I was. I shrugged, turned around, and began sauntering casually back the way I came. Approaching the house again, I could plainly see the woman in the kitchen. I looked away for a couple of seconds, then glanced in the window again and saw only an empty recliner. At exactly the moment I wondered where he'd gone, his carport light came on, the kitchen door opened, and he came outside. I looked away.

  “Mr. Kane! Mr. Kane, I need to have a word with you.”

  I could have kept walking. Perhaps I should have. But something in his voice made me stop. I turned and walked back, meeting him at the end of his driveway.

  “Dr. Hubbard?” I tried to make it sound like a question.

  “Yes, it's Dr. Hubbard. You can call me Greg. One of the neighbors called to tell me a white man was acting suspicious and checking out the house. Does Eleanor know you're here?”

  “No, she doesn't. I wasn't even sure it was really you. I thought I saw you, and I told my driver to follow you. I was just curious.”

  “You're probably wondering about all this.”

  “You don't have to tell me anything,” I said.

  “But I don't think you can make a fair judgment without knowing the facts.”

  “I do love facts,” I admitted. “I'm a surveyor.”

  “Then listen to these. Right before I left Georgia for my residency in Vermont, I had a brief affair with a Costa Rican janitor who worked at the medical college. She had two kids, and she hardly spoke any English at all. And my Spanish was terriblé. Just awful. But I have been in love with Gabriela since our eyes met in the cafeteria. We dated in secret for a couple of months, then I went to Vermont.

  “I met Eleanor there. Eleanor is... Eleanor. She and I really hit it off. She's really a sweet, wonderful woman. I loved her, and my mom found her acceptable, but just barely. For all her beauty, brains, charm, and culture, she's still.. you know...”

  “A Yankee,” I finished.

  He nodded and resumed. “Before long we were living in Carswell, and I was asked to join a practice here in Augusta. It's really just a long commute from Carswell. Well, being back in Augusta made me think of Gabi. She was still working at the hospital. I called her up, just to see how she was doing. We got together for dinner, and...

  “Mr. Kane,
one of the blessings of your life is being able to marry whomever you like. I don't know what you know about my family, but people of our class rarely enjoy that opportunity. My folks found fault with Eleanor, and they would never have approved of Gabi. She knew it, too. It's the same way in her country. I know it sounds stupid. It's just something we learned to live with. A dinner turned into two. A week turns into a month. A year turns into two, then five, ten. I'm a bigamist. And all because I was afraid to sully the family name.”

  “Sometimes, some names deserve to be sullied. Some demand it. But look, if you love each other, don't you want to have a family?”

  “Her children like me a lot. They know I'm good to their mother. They don't know anything about Eleanor. They've gone to college and now they have children, and they're very much like my grandchildren. They're just beautiful.”