When the Dead Speak

by Sandra Tooley

  “Anyone ever tell you that you look like Denzel Washington?” she asked Frank as she set down the tray of soft drinks and cookies. Her staring was making Frank uncomfortable.

  “No, not recently,” Frank stammered. “I hear more Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes. Although I wouldn’t mind having any of their paychecks.”

  “Well, you can bust me any day.”

  “Latoya,” Amos cautioned. “Didn’t your mother have a little talk with you about this very subject?”

  Latoya straightened up, suddenly appearing as innocent as a Sunday school choir girl. “Sorry, Sir. Guess I’ll get back to cleaning my room.”

  Once she left Amos said, “Hope you don’t have any girls.”

  “No, just one boy.”

  “Good. These girls are a handful after the age of twelve.”

  The breezeway overlooked a tidy backyard, two-car detached garage, and a vegetable garden. The lush, green lawn was edged and manicured to perfection.

  Frank looked at the tattoo on Amos’ forearm. It was faint under the dark skin but he could make out the shape of a hula dancer.

  “Yep, I’ve seen a lot in my day, officer.” Amos ran a hand over his thinning gray Afro. His dark eyes resembled oil drops in a bowl of milk.

  “Frank, please,” Frank requested.

  “Yep, Frank. If it’s war you want to talk about, it’s war you’re gonna get.”

  “Korea is what I’m interested in.” Frank took a sip of his soda as he watched a light rain dot the sidewalk leading to the back fence. He pulled out a notepad from his jacket pocket.

  “Terrible war. We had no damn business being there any more than Viet Nam. Those damn gooks fought a mean fight on the ground. We were not prepared. Hell, our troops were physically unfit.” Amos offered Frank a cigarette. Frank declined.

  “I thought our military always had state-of-the-art equipment and training.”

  Amos laughed. “Are you kidding? You ain’t never been in the military, I take it.”

  “Sure. I served four years in the Army.”

  “Ever see action?” Amos glared. “Unless you been in the trenches, you don’t know shit.” After a few seconds of silence, Amos added, “Even that Desert Storm fiasco was a laugh. They sent our boys with gas masks that were fifty damn years old.” Amos scoffed. “All this military spending going on and we spend it on billion dollar planes to make our defense look good. Meanwhile, our boys still carry the same M-16 rifles that were used in Nam.”

  “How many years were you in the service?”

  “Thirty years. I got out at fifty. Went to work for the post office. Got my boy, Zeke, a job there.”

  “What did you make it to? Colonel?”

  Amos laughed again. “Lieutenant. Ain’t no nigra offisahs in the military. That’s what our commander always said.”

  “But we’ve come a long way. Look at Colin Powell.”

  Amos smashed his cigarette in the ashtray and reached for a chocolate chip cookie. “Look at the swastikas still being painted on the doors at the barracks. It’s been in the news.” Amos passed the plate of cookies to Frank who took a couple. “They can write all the laws they want, Frank. But what happens out there in the trenches, the White House either refuses to see or covers up.”

  The rain started coming down heavier, pounding the roof of the breezeway. The skies were dark but there wasn’t any lightning or thunder. It was just a hard pounding summer rain, enough to knock the aphids off the rosebushes and drench the thirsty vegetable gardens and lawns. Amos walked over to close the windows where the rain was being carried in by a gentle breeze. He returned to the cushioned rattan love seat.

  “What about that 1948 executive order?” Frank asked.

  “Wheweeey. Yessir, boss.” Amos gave a mock salute. “Congress said that segregation was banned. So, poof.” Amos motioned with his hands like a magician. “Segregation be gone.”

  “Nothing changed?”

  “Hmmmrf,” Amos snorted. “We had all black engineering units in WWII and Korea. We were construction battalions. We went ahead to build the bridges, sweep the mine fields. We weren’t allowed to fight in WWII. We did the menial tasks. They didn’t even train us for combat. Our own damn Army loaned us to the French. And the bigoted press did their bit to fuel the prejudice. We niggers were subservient, they said. Always drunk, disorderly, disrespectful. We always went AWOL. And why bother promoting us. We always conducted ourselves unbecoming an officer. Bullshit. All goddam bullshit.” Amos jabbed his finger at his chest. “I was there.”

  Frank studied the anger on Amos’ face. He had seen it other times on the faces of police officers, black and white, who had been passed over for promotion.

  Frank set his glass down saying, “With all due respect, Amos, I thought there was an old military slogan that said, There are no bigots in foxholes.”

  “Maybe now things are a little better. Maybe now there aren’t segregated units. But back then? You didn’t know if your enemy was in front of you or in your foxhole.”

  “Grandpa?” Latoya appeared in the doorway. “Can I go to the mall with Amy?”

  Amos checked his watch. “What time are you going to be back?” He studied her bare midriff and short shorts.

  “Two-ish. I left your lunch in the refrigerator. Tuna salad.”

  Amos leaned toward Frank. “Her momma says I should cut down on my fat. But when Latoya wants something, she makes my favorite sandwich, high in fat.”

  “All right. But you either cover your stomach or wear longer shorts. You ain’t goin’ out there with all that skin showing.”

  She sighed, walked over and gave him a kiss. “Okay, Gramps.”

  After Latoya left, Frank asked, “What did you mean?”

  “About the foxhole? You had to watch your back, boy. If whitey didn’t like you, whitey shot you. If some young eighteen-year-old who had never been out of his town before sees his best friend scattered over a twenty-foot area and runs scared, they shoot him in the back.”

  “You are kidding ... aren’t you?”

  “No sirree. I ain’t never told this to anyone since the war. Not even my son. But I saw it. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “Why not tell someone?”

  “Who? My commanding officer who looked the other way? The White House who would just as soon cover it up and keep its lily white hands clean?”

  “What about black leaders? What about Martin Luther King?”

  Amos lit another cigarette. “You saw what they did to him. You think he woulda’ stirred up a hornet’s nest with an allegation of murder in the military? It’s been so many years now, who’d believe us?”

  Frank closed his notepad and put it back in his pocket. He eyed the proud man in front of him. Amos was still sharp, seemed of sound mind. “Amos, do you really believe there was a cover-up?”

  Amos took a long drag from his cigarette and let the smoke trail out slowly from his nostrils. “I’d stake my life on it.”

  Chapter 49

  Sam looked up from the large volumes of back issues of the Chasen Heights Post Tribune. Jake was standing in the doorway of the conference room at the Chasen Heights Public Library.

  “How did you know where to find me?” Sam asked.

  “It’s what I would have done. Your father was a reporter. Hap had a story to tell. There might be a clue in the papers.” Jake pushed several volumes to the opposite side of the conference table. “How did you sleep?”

  “All I saw were the lightning bolt shapes. I missed Abby this morning. She must have left early. I wanted to ask her about my father’s car accident.”

  “So you slept through the alarm?”

  “What alarm?”

  “There was someone in the yard last night right after Abby and Alex came home. Alex and I searched the yard but we didn’t come up with anything.”

  Sam shrugged. “Probably a deer.”

  “What have you found so far?”

  “I actually started in January of 1977
. It was a one-year project rebuilding that overpass. My father started getting involved in the political campaigns in February.

  They skimmed the pages in silence searching for any bylines with Samuel Casey’s name. “I need a break.” Sam pushed herself away from the table, stood up and stretched. She walked slowly around the room trying to get the circulation going in her legs.

  For the next twenty minutes, Jake worked his way backwards through the pages from August, July, June. Then he came across an obituary in June. “Sam,” he called out.

  She walked over and leaned on the table. The obituary was on Samuel and Melinda Casey. It was very complimentary, listing all of Melinda’s charitable work and Samuel’s literary awards. It mentioned the only surviving relative as their five-year-old daughter, Samantha. No mention was made of the car accident. Only that they were pronounced dead at the scene.

  Jake asked, “You’ve never seen this before, have you?”

  “No.” She sat down and read the obit again. It contained pictures of the happy couple, youthful and vibrant.

  Jake placed his hand on top of hers and gave it a squeeze.

  “You okay?”

  She didn’t look at him, couldn’t take her eyes off the page. But she felt the electricity flowing from his hand to hers. She felt her hand squeeze back, hold on tightly. His skin was warm, almost hot. Her eyes moved from the page to his hand and he quickly removed it.

  “I guess I expected it to say more about the accident,” Sam said.

  “Maybe it’s in the Wednesday edition.”

  He turned the pages as he worked his way back through the hard bound volume. It wasn’t in Wednesday’s paper or the one prior to that. But it did make the headlines in the Monday edition.

  Sam inhaled deeply, her breath coming in short gasps.

  EXPLOSION KILLS AWARD WINNING

  REPORTER AND HIS WIFE

  Chapter 50

  Sam picked up a small, white box sitting on the island counter. Inside was her father’s lightning bolt pin hanging from a fourteen-carat gold chain.

  Walking up behind her, Jake said, “Don’t say I never pay my own way.”

  “You did this?”

  “Actually, Alex modified the pin to a pendant. The chain was mine. It was too tight for me.” Sam unclasped the chain. “Here, I’ll get that.” Jake grabbed the necklace from her and reached around her neck.

  That familiar pounding in Sam’s ears was distracting. She was close enough to see the yellow speckles in his soft brown eyes.

  “Perfect fit,” he said as he pulled away.

  They heard a beep from the computer and walked to the study. “Great,” Sam said. “Tim found Cain.” She waited for the sheet to come off the printer. “Instead of focusing on Dallas, he focused on any repeat traveler who flew into Chicago, then Dallas, and back to Chicago. He used the name Al Morgan.”

  The one page gave a post office box number in Brooklyn. “Clever,” Jake pointed out. “He never paid by charge card and even changed the post office box several times. It will be hard to prove anything. Let me handle this one.” Jake took the page from her, folded it up and slipped it under his keys on the bar.

  Abby and Alex entered through the patio door carrying bags of groceries.

  “Abby,” Jake said, “we really need to talk to you.” He pulled out a stool for her at the counter. Sam took a seat next to her.

  Alex placed the bag of groceries on the counter saying in an indignant voice, “And Abby needs to talk to you, Sam. Using your gift to have those mourning doves do such a disgraceful act.” He rested his gaze on Jake as if he were the one who instigated it. “Bad influences.”

  “Another time, Alex.” Abby turned to Jake. “What did you want to ask me?”

  “What happened the day Sam’s father died?” He recapped the Hap Wilson case, informing her of the pins, the death of George Abbott, Preston Hilliard’s possible involvement, Elvis’s efforts to find someone from Korea who might have known Hap.

  Sam showed Abby a picture of Hap Wilson and the pin hanging from the chain around her neck.

  “You found this in your father’s jewelry box?” Abby touched the pin.

  “Yes,” Sam replied.

  Abby sighed. “Are you sure you want to hear this? It’s been so long.” When Sam nodded, Abby started. “I am not aware of what story he had been working on but it was something big. After receiving a disturbing phone call, he made arrangements to go out of town. He was going to fly Melinda to Connecticut to stay with friends and wanted me to take Samantha to the reservation. He asked me to bring Samantha to the office to say good-bye. Samuel and Melinda then climbed into their car. He turned the key in the ignition and,” Abby stopped and took a deep breath.

  “And we know what happened next,” Jake said.

  Abby nodded. “It was a horrible sight.” She looked into Sam’s eyes, touched the back of her hand to Sam’s face. “You watched it all from the window, Sweetheart.”

  “The newspaper said the police had ruled out a car bomb.” Jake told Abby.

  “Yes. Nothing indicated that it was anything other than a freak incident, a gas leak, a spark from somewhere. I didn’t really understand the explanation.”

  Sam tried to visualize the scene, search her memory, to no avail. “Why don’t I remember anything?”

  “The last time you saw your father, you saw his head blown through the windshield and the rest of his body blown apart. Your mind has blocked out everything that happened that day. You were catatonic.” She brushed a wisp of hair from Sam’s face. “You didn’t speak for two years. That’s why I always thought it best not to ever tell you about that day.”

  Alex said, “Abby did what she thought was best for you, Sam. Back then, clinics believed in shock therapy and drugs to bring patients out of catatonic conditions. She took you where our medicine could do you the most good.”

  Abby reached across the counter and patted Alex’s hand. To Sam she said, “Your mind still blocked out that day but at least you started talking again.”

  Sam hugged her mother. “I understand. It’s all right.”

  “But you haven’t seen the pin before?” Jake asked.

  “No. And I don’t remember ever meeting this Mr. Wilson.”

  Frank walked in from the patio. They gathered in the study where Jake told him about his conversation with Sheila Ames, the daughter of Leonard Ames, one of Preston’s unit members who, two days before driving his car off a cliff, had drawn a shape of a lightning bolt on his calendar.

  “Something occurred to me while talking to her,” Jake said. “Sheila told me her father was a trial lawyer before his sudden death.” He handed them a sheet of paper explaining, “Sheila faxed this article regarding a case her father had worked on that caught the national media.”

  “I vaguely remember this one,” Frank said. “The Blalock wife who hired the hit man to kill her husband. The case was used in a law class I took. Ames defended her?”

  Jake pointed to the date of the article. “What if Hap had been searching for Preston and his buddies all along, lying low?”

  “And then he found Leonard Ames in 1976.” Frank skimmed the article. “This gives the name of the law firm, the city.”

  Sam shook her head. “For the purpose of murdering him? I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t either,” Jake agreed. “But maybe what he wanted from Ames was information on how to find the rest. Maybe getting one of the pins and finding out where Preston, Parker Smith, and George Abbott lived, he would have something substantial for an ace reporter like Samuel Casey to work with.”

  Sam’s fingers instinctively ran up past her medicine bundle to the lightning bolt pendant. “Sounds probable.”

  “Damn probable,” Frank echoed. He described his interesting visit with Amos Washington, the lively war veteran.

  “And you don’t think he was just being overly sensitive about prejudice?” Jake asked.

  “No. I believe Amos. He’s completely c
oherent. Still has a great memory. He’s seen a lot in his seventy-five years and I think he was pretty fair and honest with me.”

  “Had he ever heard the term, lightning strike?” Sam asked.

  Frank shook his head no. “And he wasn’t assigned anywhere near Hap Wilson in Korea.”

  Frank’s cellular phone rang. It was Janet. When he hung up he announced, “Maury located Parker Smith, the last of the guys from Preston’s unit in Mushima Valley. He’s in a nursing home in Elkhart, Indiana.”

  Chapter 51

  Carl walked over to the window and gazed out at the night skies. Lights on the break wall could be seen in the distance. Turning away from the window, Carl said, “You look tired.”

  Jake leaned back against the couch. “Didn’t sleep much.” Jake had stopped by Carl’s suite on the way home. A lot had happened since he had talked to him last. He handed Carl the list of Cain’s flights Tim Meisner had obtained.

  “Cain Valenzio may look big and dumb but he knows how to cover his tracks. We’re keeping an eye on him.” Carl placed his briefcase on the coffee table and opened it.

  “What I’m about to tell you has to be kept in the strictest of confidence.” Carl smiled a sincere smile. “But I don’t have to tell you that.” He took a seat across from Jake. “I had to get clearance first.”

  “From?”

  “Jackson Whittier.”

  “The President?” Jake took a long swallow of beer.

  “He was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1977. I called him to brief him on what we’ve discussed. I thought he might be able to shed a little light on the case.” Carl placed his horn-rimmed glasses on his nose, pressing them tightly to the bridge. “When he was chairman, a reporter contacted him with information about some alleged murders that took place in Korea.”

  “That reporter didn’t happen to be Samuel Casey, did it?” Jake watched Carl intently.