Tin City Tinder (A Boone Childress Mystery)

by David Macinnis Gill

  “Specifically,” Echols continued, “the Department of Interior’s homestead programs, the first of which was in this county. Over a period of years, a total of four homesteads were established. Notes, people. Write this down.” He turned on the projector and clicked a PowerPoint slide. “Let’s start with the farming utopia of Atamasco, which was followed almost immediately by a similar homestead in Tin City.”

  My ears perked up. “Dr. Echols, did you say Tin City?”

  Echols clicked to the next slide. “Yes, I believe I did. There it is right there on the slide. It’s spelled T—“

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Excellent. Moving on. Atamasco Farm was followed by three other homestead farms. The aforementioned Tin City, followed by Black Oak Hill and Nagswood. Of the four, only Atamasco was a long-term success. It is the only remaining population center, while the others have officially ceased to exist. The question for today is: What qualities did Atamasco have that the other three homesteads lacked? Here’s the first one.”

  I raised my hand. “Dr. Echols, sorry to interrupt. Could you talk more about the other homesteads?”

  Echols strummed his fingers on the lectern. “I’m not that familiar with the ghost towns of Allegheny County. If this sort of history really interests you, you should talk to Mrs. Yarbrough.”

  “The college librarian?”

  “Also the director of the regional history museum. Pay attention to the resources around you, Boone. Now, can I get back to my lecture?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Echols clicked for the next slide, but his voice was already fading in my ears.

  Failed homesteads in Tin City and Nagswood.

  It had to be a coincidence.

  Or was it?

  2

  Conversing with a southern woman was a dangerous thing. Anyone who had seen that biopic about Truman Capote would know this. Capote grew up chatting with blue haired matrons, listening to their conversations, picking up on their gossip, worming his way into their hearts and their inner circles.

  In the South, if somebody told a young male that she wanted to chat, his blood would run cold. Because to chat in the South, especially when blue haired matrons were involved, meant a polite, torture session that exposed the very fabric of your soul.

  My torture session took place in the library. It started from the moment I was greeted by Mrs. Yarbrough.

  “So, here we are,” she said, seating me across the desk in her cubicle office. “A little bird tells me you’re interested in the history of our fair county.”

  “I’m most interested in the homesteads farms. The ones that failed?”

  “Yes!” she said. “Of course. Nagswood and my personal favorite, Tin City, with which I have several personal connections. My grandparents were one of the original families to settle there. What a progressive idea it was, a social utopia.”

  And then, she was off. Over the course of an hour, she told me about her grandparents, her great grandparents, and their parents, who were the first in her family to settle in the area. But she never came around to my original question, despite my best efforts to keep her on topic.

  “Look at the time,” she said, glancing at her watch. “Where does it go?”

  “But,” I said. “I still have questions about those farm projects.”

  “Can’t drink deeply enough from the water cooler of history? Boone Childress, you surprise me. Well, I suggest you visit me at the Allegheny County Regional History Museum one day soon. We’re open every day, Monday through Thursday, four to sevenish. Except on Wednesdays, of course, when we close at six sharp for church.”

  She had the look of a bulldozer that had quit work for the day—there would be no budging her.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I took the business card for the museum. my head was so full of questions, it was about to burst. "I'll come by the museum soon."

  What a complete waste of time. Was there any way the day could be more frustrating?

  I pushed open the library door, and the answer to my question was in my face. It came in the form of a water balloon, which had just left the hand of Dewayne Loach.

  3

  I ducked.

  The water balloon sailed over my head. It hit the wall behind and exploded, splashing on the back of my shirt.

  Dewayne and the knuckle draggers were laughing when I stood up. They stopped when they saw the murderous look on my face.

  “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kick all of yours asses,” I said.

  We met in the middle of the hallway. The crowd formed a ring around us.

  “That stunt you pulled the other night, insulting my brother about his sign,” Dewayne said. “You think you’re funny, chump? I got news for you, that’s my house, and ain’t nobody disrespecting me in my own house.”

  “It was a store.”

  “Everywhere I am, that’s my house.”

  “You live at the college then?”

  “Do what?”

  “You said this was your house. It looks like a campus to me. You seem confused about geography.”

  “Up yours.”

  “I’m sure you’d like that,” I said, “but you’re not my type.”

  Dewayne swung, just like I knew he would. The punch came from the right, a haymaker aimed for the side of my head, but I blocked it easily.

  “You think that’s funny?” Dewayne swung again, winding up with the opposite hand. “I’ll show you funny.”

  I rammed an elbow into Loach’s chin. The force of the blow staggered him, and he fell on his ass. I expected him to pop right back up, but he stayed put.

  “Had enough?” I asked.

  A whistle blew.

  The crowd whipped toward the sound.

  The campus cop was running toward us, blowing her whistle and reaching for a can of pepper spray.

  His buddies pushed Dewayne away.

  I was waiting for the cop when Cedar appeared.

  “Boone! Let’s go!" She steered me to the custodian’s closet. Pushed me inside and shut the door. “You don’t need more trouble with cops!”

  “This is nice and roomy for a closet,” I said.

  “Sit down.” She turned on the faucet in the utility sink, then splashed water on my face.

  I lost my balance and grabbed the nearest thing to me. It was warm and soft and wearing blue jeans.

  “That’s my ass, Boone.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, you aren’t.” She removed my hand. “Fighting is stupid.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “Because guys are stupid.”

  “No argument there,” she said and splashed more water in my face.

  I fished out my handkerchief. “Use this.”

  “Is it clean?”

  “Clean enough.”

  She held the handkerchief under water, rung it out, and dropped it into the trashcan. “Damn it, I’m such a klutz…What’s this?” She reached down, then stopped, “I don’t believe it.”

  “What?”

  Pinching only a corner, she pulled a plastic bag from the trash. It was labeled with large black letters:

  Sodium.

  And underneath, in red:

  DANGER! EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL!

  4

  “Thank the Lord for half-days.” Mom threw herself into her chair. She pulled off her heels and slapped them on the desk. “Now I can stop this travesty in its tracks.”

  I lay stretched out on the couch with the newspaper over my face, trying to hide.

  Mom’s laptop binged as it booted, followed minutes later by her fingers on the keyboard, first squeaking like guitar strings, then like a fan on a snare drum.

  “You’re making enough noise to wake the dead.”

  “I intend to.”

  “I’m not dead,” I said from under the paper.

  “Not you.” She pounded away. “I am referring to the brain dead pu
ppets on the County Council. The planning board says destroying the Tin City cemetery is completely legal!”

  “Those would be the puppets?”

  “The one and the same. They say the development company has signatures for the relatives of the deceased giving them permission. I find that hard to believe. Don’t you find it hard to believe?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’m tired of being patronized today.”

  I moved the paper aside. “Is this about the injunction you filed?”

  “The injunction that was denied, you mean.”

  “Did you see they identified the victim of the Nagswood fire?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Any thoughts?”

  “Many. Come to the Council meeting tonight, and you’ll hear them all.”

  I checked my watch. 1615 hours. “I was hoping for a ride to the regional history museum.”

  “That’s halfway across the county. What’s wrong with your truck?”

  “Oil leak.”

  “Fix it.”

  “I will once I get to the auto parts store. Can you give me a ride there first?”

  “Not until after five PM, my dear boy.”

  Lamar walked down the hallway. He was dressed in olive green slacks and a starched white shirt.

  “If you’re ready to go.” Lamar buttoned both cuffs. “I’ll run you down to the store. I’ve got some errands to do.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll get my stuff.”

  While I was getting ready, the house phone rang. Mom answered and took the call outside for privacy. She finished as Lamar and I were leaving.

  “What’s that on the grass outside?” Mom asked me on the way to the truck. “Is that cookies?”

  “Possibly.”

  “How long have they been there?”

  “A while.”

  “Why are they still on the grass?”

  “Thought the birds would eat them, but even the crows didn’t touch them.”

  “Smart birds,” Lamar said.

  “Boone?” Mom crossed her arms. “Did you try cooking again?”

  “I had a sweet tooth, so I used your recipe to make some snickerdoodles. They were a failure. I don’t understand why. I followed the recipe precisely.”

  Mom clamped her lips together, struggling not to laugh. “There’s your trouble. The best recipes are never in a book.”

  5

  Twenty minutes later, Lamar’s truck was roaring down Highway Twelve toward Atamasco at seventy miles per hour. We had just left the auto parts store, where I had bought the parts to fix my truck.

  "Mind dropping me off at the museum, too? I can kill two birds that way."

  "Don't mind at all."

  “Just an observation,” I said, “but when I drive over the speed limit, there’s always a deputy around the next corner. Especially Deputy Mercer.”

  Lamar drummed his fingers on the wheel. “Normally, I would say you’re being paranoid, but that feller has given tickets to at least three firefighters. Julia got one on the way to that brushfire up in Black Oak Shelter.”

  “He almost busted me on the Tin City call, remember? If Sheriff Hoyt hadn’t stopped me, he would’ve Tased me.”

  “Hoyt’s pretty good at keeping his deputy’s reined in. Comes with the territory.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “In North Carolina, the office of sheriff is elected, which means half the job is political. Hoyt’s a good man, and he follows the spirit of the law, but there are some things he does to stay on the voters’ good side.”

  “Got anything in particular in mind?”

  “When I read the paper today, I got a little worried about a few things Hoyt said. There are times when it’s a good idea to stay away from politics, if you know what I’m saying.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what Lamar meant, but it seemed like a good time to nod.

  “By the way, your mama’s proud as punch you were the one who found that woman. I may not like the way it happened, but there’s no doubt those inspectors never would’ve found her.”

  “Thanks. But we might have saved her, if the Atamasco VFD had listened to me.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. That’s not your place to decide, even if you think it is. Listen, Boone, I know you want to be a bone detective like your granddaddy. Fact is, you aren’t out of school yet, and there are some things you’ve got to let the experts figure out.”

  He was wrong, but I decided not argue. It was a waste of oxygen.

  “What’s this trip to the museum for?” Lamar said.

  “Research.”

  “I figured that much. What kind of research?”

  “North Carolina History class.”

  “Extra credit?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “What’s your errand for?”

  “I’m meeting with the captain of the Atamasco VFD. We’re going to discuss personnel.”

  6

  Lamar dropped me near the entrance of Atamasco Farms. Like Dr. Echols said in class, Atamasco had thrived more than the other towns, and it was obvious even from the small collection of buildings that have been preserved. It was also obvious because Atamasco was still a small but growing town near the highway, while Tin City was a graveyard.

  Literally.

  I surveyed the house. It was in excellent shape even after fifty years. Clapboard siding, small porch, double hung windows freshly painted. An aluminum roof, a modernized version of the tin ones those once were ubiquitous in the county. A two hundred and fifty gallon propane tank stood nearby.

  Mrs. Yarbrough met me at the front of the museum, which was a renovated homestead farmhouse expanded to include a collection of artifacts. She led me to a small library in the back.

  “These will get you started.” She pulled several books from the shelves. “I realized when you left the library that I failed to provide the information you needed. Make yourself at home, and I’ll make myself scarce. But before I do, let me give you a history lesson.”

  I checked my watch and hoped it was a short lesson.

  According to Mrs. Yarbrough, Allegheny County was a land of sleepy ambition. It started life as part of a neighboring county, until it split off following the civil war. The new county was named in honor of Confederate General Codsworth Allegheny. After several failed attempts, the county seat was created in Galax, a dot on the map that grew slightly larger with the building of a courthouse and nearby jail. Allegheny grew tobacco, and the county begrudgingly grew with it.

  Then the unthinkable happened. King Tobacco lost its crown. It was not a coup d’état, no quick overthrow and seizure of power. It began slowly, with the US government’s tightening hold on allotments, with subsidies that made it more profitable not to grow tobacco than to grow it. Finally, it was the creation of the Golden Leaf Foundation, which was funded with the billions that cigarette companies were forced to pay. The Golden Leaf was intended to change the way tobacco farmers farmed, but it also included buyouts for farmers unwilling or unable to adapt.

  The beneficiaries were a new breed of carpetbaggers called developers. They bought huge tracts of land from farmers. Allegheny County awoke from its long slumber to a frenzy of neighborhoods being built across the county line.

  As those homes sold, the building expanded up the highways, hopscotching between existing farms to the land that had been sold out. Eventually, the frenzy found its way across the county, where it petered out on Highway Twelve near Tin City. It appeared the western part of the county had escaped the sprawl, until the NC State Transportation Department announced a new highway bypass.

  That’s when the real buying frenzy began.

  Developers who had concentrated on the coast turned their eyes to the family farms that blanketed the area covered by the proposed corridor, huge plots of land that made them drool. But the gold rush ended before it really began. Most of the deeds for the
property surrounding the corridor had never been registered. Over the generations the land was left to children then grandchildren and then their own grandchildren. Ownership was so murky, no one knew who really owned what.

  “That means the land will stay undeveloped,” I said.

  “Not so fast,” Mrs. Yarbrough said. “North Carolina has a little provision called unencumbered interest, which allows the court to grant one part-owner the right to buy everyone else’s shares.”

  “Whether they like it or not?”

  “That would be correct. All you need is capital.”

  “That doesn’t sound fair to me. The rich owner exploiting the rest of them.”

  “Welcome to North Carolina, Boone.”

  “Too bad.” I checked my watch again. “It’s a moot point, because nobody living in Tin City or Nagswood has the cash to buy that much land.”

  She smiled wryly. “Why would it have to be someone living there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have several connections with Tin City, and I’m not the only faculty member who does. This is a library, and it’s full of information. Perhaps you should look into it.”

  For the next half hour, I poured over the materials. I found that the farming homesteads were created under the separate program, but they were dramatically different. Atamasco was a social experiment by a Winston cotton baron who had diversified into electricity, railroads, and later, aerospace.

  During the Depression, the coot baron bought one square mile of farmland in central Allegheny County and then sponsored hundreds of Polish immigrants to settle the farms. Skilled laborers and farmers, they helped build a utopian farm village, complete with homes, stores, slaughterhouses, and granaries—everything a town needed to be self-sufficient. The baron then used his political clout with the Democratic machine to sell the idea of homestead farms to the Roosevelt administration. The government bought in, the Baron cashed out, and the community survived.

  The same wasn’t true of the other three homesteads. Logging tycoon E.D.S. Landis tried to replicate the Atamasco experiment by selling three one thousand acre tracts of timberland to the government, creating Tin City, Nagswood, and Black Oak Hill by recruiting poor residents from other parts of the Carolinas. Some farms succeeded, but most failed, and the government sold off the land at auction.