by Orca Various
Webb remembered the engraving on the memorial.
26 • FEB • 1965 JIMMIE LEE JACKSON • CIVIL RIGHTS MARCH • KILLED BY STATE TROOPER • MARION, AL
Lee stared at his coffee cup for a few moments. He lifted his left hand off the table and reached over with his thumb and forefinger to pluck and lift the loose skin on the back of his right hand.
“This,” he said, “was the color of that man’s skin. Same as mine. Black. Some folks want to call us African-American. I’m okay with that, but I prefer black. It’s what I am. Black.”
Lee looked Webb straight in the eyes. “Ever had people sitting in cars at an intersection lock their doors when they notice you on the sidewalk waiting for a light to change? Ever had store owners follow you up and down the aisles to make sure you don’t steal something?”
Webb shook his head. When he’d been living on the streets, he’d worked hard to look groomed and clean. Otherwise, he supposed he would have faced the same thing.
“It’s because you’re white,” Lee said. “Let me tell you, when that stuff happens, it feels like there’s acid sitting in your stomach. It sits there for a long time after too.”
Lee took a breath. “Almost fifty years ago, the black man in the kitchen getting clubbed by troopers? He was eighty-two years old. His daughter, Viola, tried to pull the troopers away, and they began beating her too. That’s when the grandson stepped in and tried to help his mother and his grandfather. Grandson’s name was Jimmie Lee Jackson. A state trooper shot him twice in the belly, and they beat him with clubs as he staggered out of this café. Jimmie Lee Jackson died about a week later in the hospital. Nurse there said she saw powder burns on his belly. Trooper was that close when he pulled the trigger, it left powder burns. Grand jury back then didn’t feel there was enough evidence for the trooper to go to trial. A few years back, he finally did get charged with first-degree murder. He pled guilty to manslaughter and only got six months in jail. What a slap in the face of justice. I want you to give this a minute of silence, just to think about it.”
One part of Webb wanted to protest. The injustice wasn’t his fault.
But a bigger part of Webb could see it happening. The clubs coming down on an old man who had believed that singing hymns was a good way to make a statement. A man on the floor who looked up and saw troopers shoot his grandson in the belly, a grandson who had tried to protect him. Troopers. Men who were supposed to protect people and uphold the law.
Webb let out a deep sad breath. Only fifty years ago?
“Yesterday, much as you irritated me, I knew just enough about you and the efforts you’d made to help Ruby that I thought it would be worthwhile to spend a little time getting you to see things from my point of view,” Lee said after the moment of silence had passed. “I needed those Camaro parts from Roy Hawkins anyway, and I thought the money I spent sending you to Montgomery would be a good investment if it taught you to look at the world through my eyes, if only for a minute or two. That’s how change is made. One person at a time.”
Lee lifted the skin on the back of his hand again, then let it drop. “Maybe you’re thinking that it was a lot more time and effort than necessary to bring you right here to Marion. Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death sparked a huge march, you know. It did make a difference eventually. But that’s not why we are sitting here. First reason is, I needed to disappear. I’m using throwaway cell phones and cash only. This place was as good as any to meet you and stay on the run.”
He caught the look that Webb was unable to hide.
“Yeah,” Lee said. “I’m on the run. No doubt. Why? All I did was make a few phone calls about those identification cards.”
Lee tapped the side of his coffee cup, as if he had too much nervous energy and didn’t know what to do with it. “I was sixteen when all this happened here. This is my hometown. I could have been part of the hymn singing that night, but I thought it wasn’t my business. I was wrong. Later, I marched from Selma to Montgomery, and I faced down troopers who wanted to shoot us in the crowd. What happened that night in the café—it changed me. You should know that about me, because it looks like we are going to be spending some time together. That’s because you and I will be asking some questions in the next few days, and we won’t be trusting a single one of the people we ask. You’re going to be on the run with me. Unless you want out.”
The waitress set down two orders of meatloaf. Webb looked across the steaming dishes at Lee.
“In,” Webb said. “Want to tell me more about what happened last night?”
Webb began to pick at his food, mainly just moving it around on the plate.
“I heard the fire alarm coming from my garage,” Lee said, also leaving his food untouched. “I looked out my window, and it was already in flames. I tried calling the fire department, but my landline was out. My cell phone wouldn’t work either. I ran outside, thinking maybe I could do something with my garden hose, but all I could do was watch the garage burn. Motorcycle and Camaro inside. When I turned around, my house was on fire. Some people might think I was lucky, getting out of the house in time, but I don’t. I’m guessing whoever set the garage on fire did it to get me out of the house. What they really wanted to do was burn down the house. Can you think of a reason why?”
Webb shook his head. A bite of meatloaf tasted like sawdust to him. He put ketchup on it.
“Two identification cards,” Lee said. “Somebody with the ability to cut off my landline and jam my cell-phone signals wanted the cards destroyed so that nobody could prove they existed. Somebody who later listened in on my call to Roy Hawkins. That was my test. First thing in the morning, I called from my cell and told Roy he could find you at the Civil Rights Memorial later in the afternoon. That gave whoever it was all day to send someone there. The fact that someone showed up told me they were monitoring my calls. Two identification cards. They can’t be worried about the names, because those are easy to memorize. It must be the photographs they want destroyed, so that no one can prove one soldier had two cards in two different names.”
“Them?” Webb said. “Who is them? Gangsters from BTK?”
“Someone higher up, is my guess,” Lee said. “Someone who could send BTK after you. Someone who found out I was asking about those cards and wanted the questions to stop. As I mentioned, someone with considerable resources. Let’s just call him the Bogeyman.”
“Bogeyman? I thought that was an imaginary monster.”
“Imaginary until we track him down. Both cards burned in the house though. That’s going to make it a lot tougher on us.”
“I’ve still got both.” Webb set his iPhone on the table. “I saved them in the cloud.”
He pulled up the photos he’d taken of the identification cards. Jesse Lockewood. Benjamin Moody. Two names. One face.
Lee grinned.
“All right then,” he said. “The two of us are in business. And it’s time for payback. Let’s track down the Bogeyman. First stop, Atlanta.”
NINE
From the restaurant, Lee and Webb walked half a block. Lee pulled out a key fob and clicked the button. Ahead of them, chirping sounds came from a gleaming black Camaro parked in front of a hardware store.
“I’ll drive the first half of the trip,” Lee said. “You drive the second. Like our ride?”
“Almost invisible,” Webb said. “Nobody will notice us at all.”
Lee laughed. “Had one of my employees rent it in his name. We’re off the radar, unless we get pulled over for speeding. But Roy and I have a weakness for fast cars and motorcycles. I figure if we’re going on a road trip, we’re going to do it in style.”
Lee opened the trunk. Webb saw a suitcase and a computer bag. Webb put his guitar travel bag in, shut the trunk and slipped into the passenger seat. Bucket seats. Leather. Tinted windows. It wasn’t a bad ride.
As Lee put on his seat belt, Webb asked, “You and Roy are good friends, right?”
“He’s a redneck and I’m a civil-right
s activist. Couldn’t find two people farther apart in ideology. But we fought back-to-back in jungles and in elephant grass. I know he’d die for me, and I’d die for him.”
Lee turned on the ignition, and the Camaro rumbled. He eased it forward. As they moved beneath the streetlights, Webb said, “You called Roy and told him I’d be at the Civil Rights Memorial. Roy said you both wanted to see if anyone would show up to prove that someone was tapping your phone.”
“Yup. Now we know we need to stay off the radar.”
“If someone is looking for us, why wouldn’t they have gone right to the junkyard when Ali first took me there? They know you and Roy are friends. That’s where I was supposed to go anyway.”
“Roy was hoping they would,” Lee said. “Anybody inside the gates would have been trapped. And trespassing. Battle strategy. It would have given him a chance to find out who sent them. But it didn’t work out that way, so that’s why we’re going on this road trip to Atlanta. I want a face-to-face with the person I called about those identification cards. We’re going to go all the way up and down the chain of people who asked questions about them, and find out who was worried enough about those cards to burn down my property. My gut says government. But someone in the government who can’t work in the open; otherwise they would have gone to Roy’s junkyard. Which means this Bogeyman has something to hide, and once we find out what it is, we’ll nail him. Or her. Or them.”
They reached the outskirts of town, going north on Highway 5, and Lee eased the car up to the higher speed limit.
“We’ve got about four hours,” Lee said. “There’s an iPad in the backseat. Why don’t you grab it?”
Webb reached around and set it on his lap.
“That’s our KITT,” Lee said.
“KITT?”
“From Knight Rider. A television series in the eighties. About a guy who fought bad guys with the help of a car that could talk to him—KITT. Science fiction then. But Siri will answer our questions, map out where we need to go, give advice on restaurants. Not quite like a car talking to us, but close enough. And we’ll have entertainment too. I loaded a movie on it that I’d like you to watch while we drive. Casablanca.”
“That’s an old movie. Black-and-white?”
“Classic. Greatest film ever. You’re stuck with me, and it’ll give us something to talk about after you’ve seen it.”
“Sure,” Webb said. He began to pull up the movie on the device.
“Not so fast,” Lee said. “I need some truth from you. Restaurant wasn’t the place for it. I wanted you in a place where you couldn’t run away when I asked.”
It struck Webb then how completely he’d trusted a stranger. What did Webb know about Lee Knox? Maybe Lee had been lying about everything. And now Webb was stuck in a vehicle moving at sixty miles an hour on a dark highway somewhere in the middle of Alabama. All Lee had to do was pull out some kind of weapon…
“First,” Lee said, “look at it from my point of view. Some kid shows up out of nowhere, hands me two pieces of military ID from the Vietnam War and wonders if I can ask some questions about them. I make a couple of phone calls and ask those questions, and within hours it’s obvious that somebody is willing to risk ten years in a federal prison to burn down my house and destroy those cards. You with me so far?”
“So far,” Webb said.
“So I need to know how you got those cards in the first place and why you wanted those questions asked. That’s going to go a long ways toward helping us find the Bogeyman.”
Webb hesitated before answering.
Lee caught the hesitation, and his voice came out of the darkness, his face glowing slightly in the light from the dashboard. “Here’s the deal, son. If you don’t want to answer, I’ll respect that. Birmingham is up ahead, and I’ll drop you off at a hotel near the bus station and pay for the room and give you enough money to get back to Nashville in the morning. Then Roy and I keep looking for answers without you, because this is personal now, and if you don’t want any part of it, you can bail out of the fight. But if you’re in, you don’t lie. I will take you on your word of honor about that. Take as much time as you need to make your choice. Birmingham’s at least an hour down the road.”
Headlights from an approaching car cut through the windshield. Webb saw that Lee’s eyes were focused on the highway.
Webb said, “What’s my guarantee that you’ll keep me involved once I tell you everything? For all I know, you’ll leave me behind somewhere and keep looking without me.”
“You still have the photos of the identification cards in the cloud,” Lee said. “I need those. Without you, I can’t access them.”
That was true. Webb decided it was enough protection for him. But he had another question.
“What I tell you stays between us?” Webb asked.
“Word of honor,” Lee said. “As long as us includes Roy. Ali too. We’re a team.”
Webb made his decision. “It started in a cabin by a lake in Ontario. Five of us,” he said.
TEN
“Last year,” Webb told Knox, “my grandfather David McLean died. I have six cousins, all guys, all about my age. In his will, he left each of us a task and the money it would take to complete the task. My cousin DJ went to Africa. Steve to Spain. Adam to France. Bunny and Spencer stayed in Canada. And Rennie went to Iceland. Me? Grandfather sent me to the Northwest Territories, and I hiked a remote trail. Led me to discover something that happened about sixty years ago.”
“Ruby Gavin’s father,” Lee said. “The funeral in Eagleville.”
“And more than that.”
David McLean had hired a private investigator to dig up information on Webb’s stepfather, information that had removed the stepfather as a threat from Webb’s life and the life of his mother. Not Lee’s business though.
Webb instead told Lee about the other legacy. “Grandfather left money for me to get some songs recorded in Nashville. I did that before Christmas, and then I went back to Canada for a visit.”
Webb wondered if he should explain how the producer seemed to be ripping him off and how he was still trying to get back the copies of the songs. Webb decided against that too. It wasn’t anyone’s business but his own.
“The day after Christmas,” Webb continued, “all the grandsons who were around decided to spend the day at our grandfather’s cottage, in honor of his memory.”
Webb could easily picture it. The snow-plowed driveway marked by an old, handmade mailbox in the shape of a beehive. The cottage that had begun as a few bedrooms and a stone fireplace in a central room, with more and more rooms added on over the years.
Webb had driven up to the cottage with Adam, happy to listen to him talk about movies. Webb wasn’t about to talk about his troubles with a sleazy producer in Nashville.
“We were nearly out of firewood, and it was cold. Spencer was pulling at a log beside the fireplace and didn’t know that it was actually nailed in place to hide a panel behind it. First thing that came out when the panel pulled loose was a Walther PPK.”
“You Canadians even know what that is?” Lee said. “I thought the only weapons you had up there were snowballs.”
“Ha, ha,” Webb answered. “We watch movies too. A Walther PPK is what Bond uses. But trust me, we were rattled. What would our grandfather be doing with a hidden weapon?”
“Take your time with this,” Lee said. “We’ve got more than two hundred miles ahead of us, and you’ve got my full interest.”
“My cousin Bunny is a cool kid,” Webb said. “Kind of lives in his own world. He got hold of the gun, and when he pulled the trigger—”
“Not loaded,” Lee interrupted. “Tell me it wasn’t loaded.”
“Bunny didn’t think so. It was very loud. Understatement. Nobody got hurt though. And that wasn’t the most dangerous thing we found.”
There’d been a mesh bag full of golf balls, but confusing as that was, it didn’t seem relevant, so Webb described the money instead.<
br />
“My grandfather had hidden a bag full of money behind the panel,” Webb said. “Lots of currencies. I mean, lots. Ten thousand in American. Ten thousand in Canadian. Five thousand British pounds, five thousand Euros. Argentinian pesos. Russian rubles. We wanted to believe it was there because he’d made a good living as an importer/exporter. That’s what everyone had believed while he was alive.”
“That makes sense,” Lee said.
“But the passports didn’t. British. Spanish. American. Russian. German. About a dozen. Each of them with his photo, and each of them with a different name.”
“Import/export,” Lee said. “You were thinking…”
“Yeah,” Webb said. “Spy. It didn’t help that there were some disguises in the bag too. It was hard to comprehend. Who had our grandfather been? Someone we never really knew like we thought we did? A spy?”
“Not necessarily,” Lee said. “Maybe there was another explanation.”
“Like what?” Webb asked.
They traveled about a mile in silence. Lee broke it first. “Okay, maybe there isn’t another explanation. But if he was working for the Canadian government, that makes him a good guy. And, of course, he’d have to keep it hidden from his family. We have the CIA. You guys have…”
“CSIS. Canadian Security Intelligence Service.”
“So he probably spent his life helping Canada then.”
“Except…” Webb said. He needed to gather himself to continue. He’d promised Lee the truth and all of it. That didn’t make it easy though.
“Except?”
“We found a small black notebook too.” Webb could picture Adam holding it up after he’d found it in the back corner of the hidden cubbyhole. “There was a note from our grandfather in it.”
Webb pulled out his iPhone. He’d taken a photo of the note, and now he read it to Lee.
