Dark of the Moon

by Parrish, PJ

  Slipping on a T-shirt and jeans, he quickly went downstairs. He could see a shadow on the porch, silhouetted in the streetlight and thought of his gun upstairs by his bed.

  He hooked a finger around the curtain on the door’s small window and looked out. He sank back against the wall. Jesus, it was Abby.

  He opened the door. She was bundled up in a parka and a bright blue ski hat. A look of relief washed over her face, fading quickly to chagrin when she saw Louis’s disapproving expression.

  “Please, Louis,” she said softly. “I had to come.”

  “Abby, we can’t do this.”

  “But, Louis, I’ve been trying to reach you all day. I—”

  “I was at the memorial service.”

  “Oh, I forgot.”

  He shook his head, looking at her through the screen door. Man, she looked forlorn, like a lost kid in that silly hat. “Abby, you’ve got to leave.”

  She pulled off a glove and dug into her coat pocket. “I found something,” she said. “I think it might help you.”

  Louis looked at the folded paper she was holding out. If it was a ploy to get him to let her stay, it wasn’t going to work.

  “It’s an old article from the newspaper,” Abby said. “It’s about a missing boy.”

  Louis blinked. “Boy? What boy?”

  “I don’t know, exactly—”

  Louis opened the screen door and motioned her in. He took the paper and unfolded it. A photograph of a group of women caught his eye first, but then he saw the headline, colored boy MISSING, and his heart stopped. The edge of the page had been cut off with the exception of four lines.

  A colored boy was reported missing by his grandmother, Annie Graham, of the Sweetwater community late Thursday night. Graham told police her grandson, Eugene…

  He could not believe what he was seeing. Eugene. Eugene Graham?

  “Abby,” he said softly, “where did you get this?”

  “At the library, that day you were there looking through the old Journal files. You would have found it yourself if you’d kept going.” She looked up at him eagerly. “Is it the same man?”

  “The date is about right,” Louis said, his heart beating faster. “Damn! I need the whole article!”

  “I could go get it for you Monday morning,” Abby said.

  Louis’s eyes went from the headline to Abby’s face. “Monday? Jesus, today’s Sunday. The damn library is closed.” When Abby nodded, he began to pace in the foyer, staring at the headline. “Damn it, damn it, damn it…”

  “Louis?”

  “Eugene Graham…A name, I finally have a name,” Louis said, his voice tinged with excitement. He stopped short. “Wait! I can go to the Journal and get it from their files!”

  “The newspaper?” Abby frowned. “Louis, they’re never open on Sundays.”

  He stared at her. “Shit, I forgot. It’s a weekly.” His expression clouded and he sank down on the stairs. “Damn, I can’t wait till Monday on this, I just can’t,” he murmured. He stared at the copy, reading the name over and over.

  “Louis?” Abby said softly. When he didn’t reply, she sat down on the step next to him. “Louis, maybe I could get Mrs. Jenkins to let us in tomorrow.”

  He looked up, frowning. “Mrs. Jenkins?”

  “The librarian. I think if I asked her, she would do it for me. We’re pretty close.”

  A slow smile spread over Louis’s face. “You’re wonderful!” he said, taking her face in his hands. He kissed her lightly on the cheek and jumped up, excited again.

  “This is incredible,” he said. “How in the world did you ever find this?”

  Abby was looking up at him, stunned from his kiss. “See that picture? That’s my mother,” she said softly. “She won the Miss Magnolia contest.”

  But Louis was reading the four lines again, as if they might somehow reveal more. “I can’t believe this,” he murmured, grasping the paper.

  His mind was racing. He didn’t have much time in the morning. Lila’s funeral started at one. He looked down at Abby. “How early can you call her?” he asked. “If you got back here by eight, we could be there by nine.” He paused, seeing the wounded look on her face.

  “Abby? What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she murmured.

  He frowned. Shit, she expected to stay with him tonight. “Abby, look,” he said softly. “You can’t stay here.”

  She looked away.

  “Vra sorry,” he said, “but I thought you understood how I felt about this,”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?” She was crying softly and he pulled her hands away from her face. “Abby, what’s the matter?”

  She shook her head again. “He’s pulling me out of school.”

  “What? Your father is? Why?”

  “To control me. He wants to control everything, who I see, where I go, what I think.”

  “Abby, it’ll be all right,” Louis said weakly. “You don’t have to stay there. You’re nineteen, free to leave. You know that.”

  “I can’t leave. I can’t leave Mother there alone.”

  “Your mother will be fine, Abby. You need to think about yourself.”

  “He hits her,” she whispered, choking back tears.

  “What?”

  “He hits her,” she repeated. “My mother, he hits her. I couldn’t do, I couldn’t…he…”

  Louis stared at her. “Who? Your father? Your father hit your mother?”

  Abby’s eyes flashed angrily. “Yes.”

  Louis had a vision of Max that night in the bar, drunk and bellicose, and then he saw Grace, so small and pale. A mix of disgust and pity swept through him. Back in Ann Arbor, he had gone out on his share of domestic calls. They were all tragic, senseless violence. And he swore he would never understand why the women remained with their abusers.

  “This isn’t the first time this has happened, is it?” he said.

  She shook her head. “I can’t go home,” she whispered.

  He could hear Bessie snoring upstairs. He stood up, taking her hand. “Come on,” he said.

  He led her upstairs. She walked into his room ahead of him and yanked off her coat. Her tears had turned to fury and she faced him suddenly.

  “I don’t understand how she can live with it!”

  “Abby, I’ve seen—”

  “You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know how it feels to watch it. Seeing her, hearing her screaming and not being able to stop it.”

  “Abby, let me call the sheriff for you.”

  “No!” She sat down on the bed. He watched as her fingers curled around the spread, her knuckles white. Her eyes drifted to the gun lying on the nightstand and he tensed at the thoughts that started spinning in his mind. She wasn’t capable of it; she could never pull the trigger.

  He went to the nightstand and put the gun in a drawer, sitting down beside her, taking her hand. “Abby, you can stay for a while. I don’t want you driving or going home as angry as you are.”

  She was staring at the floor. “I hate him,” she whispered.

  He pulled her into his arms and held her. Her body was a coiled spring against his, tight and unbending. He realized in that moment that he didn’t know her at all. He had seen her only as a romantic kid, a kid with a screwed-up homelife who, like all other kids, was looking for a way to break out. But the hatred in her voice and that look in her eyes as she gazed at his gun worried him. Max Lillihouse undoubtedly kept guns in his house. He didn’t believe Abby really would do anything, but he knew how these family things could go. No one ever thought it could happen in their family. But it did.

  He leaned back against the headboard, pulling her to his chest. He held her, stroking her hair. She seemed content to just lie there. It was only when he finally felt her muscles start to go slack with sleep that he began to relax.

  Louis sat in the chair by the window, listening to the sounds filter up from the stree
t below. He looked over at the bed where Abby lay sleeping. She gave a soft moan and turned, but did not wake up. Louis went to the bed and pulled the quilt up over her shoulder.

  He should not have let her stay, but he just hadn’t had the heart to send her home. He looked at the clock. Three-thirty. He was tired, but surprisingly alert, the name Eugene Graham spinning through his head. Restless, he wandered back to the window and looked out. The street was quiet. A light was on above Tinker’s store. Below it, parked under a streetlamp, was a silver car. He had never seen it parked there before.

  Suddenly, without turning on its lights, the car moved away. Louis’s eyes moved to the front door of the store. It looked secure. The sidewalks were empty. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  He went to the refrigerator and popped open a can of Dr. Pepper. Abby stirred, but did not awaken. He moved back to the window for one more look.

  The car was back. Louis frowned. There was something familiar about it. He went to the dresser for his binoculars and returned to the window. It was a Monte Carlo and suddenly he knew where he had seen it before. It was Max Lillihouse’s car. Fuck, what was this?

  He lowered the glasses. Max had followed Abby. That had to be it. Louis looked back at the car. He couldn’t see inside the heavily tinted windows. Why was Max just sitting out there? Gathering his courage for a confrontation? Louis had a sudden vision of Max storming up the staircase, waving a loaded gun. He thought briefly about calling the station, but he knew that wouldn’t solve anything. Maybe he should go down there himself.

  The car began to move away, slowly and silently at first, then with a roar as the taillights faded into the blackness. Louis looked over at Abby. He could imagine what Max Lillihouse was thinking. What he couldn’t imagine was what a man like Max Lillihouse would do.

  Louis stared out at the street. He was afraid for Abby. Hell, he was afraid for them both.

  Louis watched as old Mrs. Jenkins trudged up the steps of the library, keys in hand. She greeted Abby with a hug but had only a cold stare for Louis.

  “I don’t know why this couldn’t wait till Monday, dear,” she said as she unlocked the door.

  “I told you, Mrs. Jenkins,” Abby said gently. “Detective Kincaid has to get a copy of a newspaper article for police business. We really appreciate this.”

  “Well, I can only stay here ten minutes,” the old woman sniffed as Louis and Abby went in. “I’m going to be late for church as it is.”

  Louis quickly found the reel for 1955 and wound through the pages until he spotted the photograph of the Miss Magnolia pageant. There at the bottom was the article about Eugene Graham. He hit the print key. He and Abby thanked Mrs. Jenkins and left. Back in the Mustang, he read the article.

  A colored boy was reported missing by his grandmother, Annie Graham, of the Sweetwater community late Thursday night. Graham told police her grandson, Eugene Graham, a student at Cotton Town High School, never returned home from a sports event that evening.

  Eugene Graham was Sweetwater’s top baseball player, having helped that team win the Negro High School baseball championship of 1954. It was reported that Eugene was being scouted by the Cleveland Indians as an outfielder.

  Sheriff’s officials offered no comment on the disappearance.

  “I bet they didn’t,” Louis said softly.

  “What?” Abby asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. But who would have cared about a missing boy, except Annie Graham? Why hadn’t anyone remembered this? Jesus, a boy vanished, and this was his only eulogy. But then he realized that maybe no one remembered it because Eugene Graham had eventually shown up, returning home later in the day or week. Louis closed his eyes. What if this was just another dead end?

  “Louis, what’s the matter?” Abby asked. “Is it the wrong man?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I wish there was someone who—” He stopped.

  Buford! That crazy old man in Cotton Town. He might remember, now that Louis had a name. Louis looked at his watch again. Less than three hours until the funeral. He put the Mustang in reverse and peeled out of the parking lot.

  “Louis! Where are we going?” Abby asked, grabbing the armrest.

  “You’re going home. I’m taking you back to your car. I have someplace I have to go.”

  “Where?” Abby demanded.

  “I have to go see a man who might remember Eugene Graham.”

  “Well, I’ll go with you.”

  “Abby—”

  She turned in the seat to face him. “Why not? I helped you find his name, Louis. Why can’t I go with you?”

  “Abby, this is business. Please understand.”

  She sighed and sat back in the seat. “All right.”

  After he backtracked to Bessie’s and dropped Abby off at her car, Louis headed to Cotton Town. Buford was sitting on the porch of his house, rocking in a chair, enjoying the unseasonable break in the cold weather. Louis introduced himself, grateful the old man remembered him. He held out the copy of the newspaper article.

  “I was hoping you might be able to tell me something about this,” Louis said.

  Buford squinted at the paper then shook his head. “You read it, sonny. I ain’t got my glasses.”

  As Louis read the story, a slow smile spread over Buford’s face. “That’s him. Detective. That’s the young ’un I was thinkin’ about.”

  “Do you know if he ever returned home?”

  “Nope. Don’t reckon he did.”

  “Mr. Overstreet, are you sure this is the same boy? You said he had a hand missing. How did he play baseball?”

  “That’s what done made him special. It was only part of a hand missin’…jus’ a couple fingers. He still done good. He played right field. The big boys was down here lookin’ at him.”

  Louis frowned, looking again at the copy of the article. “Mr. Overstreet, how do you remember this boy if he lived in Sweetwater?”

  “Y’all got to know that Sweetwater was only a couple miles from here. Lots of kids lived there went to school here in Cotton Town. Wasn’t no other place back then.”

  “But what about the school?” Louis asked.

  “Closed down. This used to be a nice town. Officer. Real nice. Sweetwater, too. Wasn’t no trashy streets like now. Most of the Sweetwater folks moved up Tupelo way after the trouble.”

  “The trouble in Sweetwater, when did it happen?”

  “Let’s see…‘65, ‘66. Klan. Burnt the church. Burnt houses. Run folks outta town.”

  “This kid, Eugene Graham, vanished before that?”

  “Way before. School here done closed in ‘64.”

  “Did you know his grandmother?”

  “No, sir, not right well. I know she raised them young ’uns like they was her own. She done died of the fever way back. I jus’ heard about the boy being able to throw a baseball with a hand that had fingers missin’. I thought that was a pretty good trick. I’m glad I ’membered him. I ain’t thought about Eugene in years.

  You done good. Officer, finding out on your own. Makes me feel poorly I couldn’t help you before,”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Louis leaned against the porch railing. “Mr. Overstreet, you said most of the Sweetwater families moved up toward Tupelo?”

  “That’s what I hear, but I can’t say real good, if’n they did. Theys could be anywheres.”

  “Anyone else around here from Sweetwater originally?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “How do I get to Sweetwater?” Louis asked.

  “Back to the highway, go left and look for the old wooden sign.”

  Louis paused and put on his sunglasses. “I have to go. Thank you for your time, Mr. Overstreet.”

  “I gots lots of time. Officer.”

  Louis turned to leave. He turned back to Buford. “Cubs play today?”

  Buford shook his head. “Damn Cubs. They get more days off than the gov’ment. Pay them fellas a million dollars and they only pl
ays when they feel like it.”

  “Maybe tomorrow, Mr. Overstreet.”

  “Mebbe so.”

  Louis almost missed the faded wooden sign hidden in the weeds. He followed the rutted dirt road about a mile, rounded a curve, and there was Sweetwater.

  The first thing he saw was a white steeple against the brilliant blue sky. It rose from mounds of black rubble. He drove slowly down the dirt road, fascinated but saddened by what he saw.

  It had been no more than a village, really. A general store, a gas station, a school and some houses. Now most of it was nothing but charred remains. The old store was choked with brown kudzu. Two rusted gas pumps stood in lonely isolation, their gauges frozen at 21 a gallon. Tall, thin weeds fluttered in the breeze.

  Almost twenty years had passed since the town’s destruction. Sweetwater was long dead, but the air was alive with hundreds of voices. Children laughing. Choirs singing. Women weeping. Men screaming.

  Eugene Graham had lived here, in one of these old houses. He had disappeared in 1955; the destruction of Sweetwater happened in ‘65 or ‘66. It wasn’t related, but it sure made the search harder.

  Louis parked the Mustang beneath an oak tree. He got out, standing for a moment, then walked around the edge of what once had been a vegetable garden. He stopped in front of a house that was still standing. The windows were busted out and the door hung off its hinges. A twisted chain-link fence surrounded the yard.

  Louis moved the rusty gate enough to step through, and walked to the porch. The railing wobbled and Louis stepped carefully, avoiding the rotted planks. He gently pushed open the door. It squeaked and fell to the floor with a muffled thud, spraying Louis with dust.

  He ventured inside. Sunlight, speckled with dust, spilled in through the broken windows. The only furniture was a few small tables and a broken ladder-back chair. A tattered T-shirt lay on the floor next to a dead mouse.

  In the kitchen beyond was an old refrigerator with a broken door. Something on the wall over the warped counter caught Louis’s eye. Moving closer, he saw it was a wooden plaque. Scrawled on the front, in a child’s hand, were the words Black Is Beautiful. Louis took it off its nail and turned it over. On the back someone had written in pencil: LaTonya, 1965, 8th Grade. He wiped the dust off and stared at it, running his hand across the varnished surface.