by Parrish, PJ
“It was a joke.”
“A joke?” Dodie repeated.
“A joke, yeah.”
Dodie threw the rope at Larry. Larry ducked, batting it away.
“I don’t like your kind of jokes, mister. Get out. You’re fired,” Dodie said.
“What?” Larry croaked.
“You heard me. Get out.”
Larry stood up and took a step toward Dodie. “You wanna hear about jokes?” he shouted, pointing at Dodie. “You’re the fuckin’ joke! You know what they call you upstairs? ‘Do-do bird’ Dodie…Screw-up Sam…and that’s just a few.”
Dodie squinted at him. “Move it, mister. Out of this office.”
Larry just stared.
“Now!” Dodie thundered.
Larry glanced at Mike then back at Dodie. The veins rippled down his temples and he stepped around the sheriff, grabbing his jacket off the chair. He stormed out the door, shoving it open with both hands.
Dodie looked down at the rope and slowly bent to pick it up.
Junior came in, his eyes trailing after Larry. “What’s with him?” Junior asked, motioning toward Larry.
Dodie threw the rope on a desk. His eyes moved to Mike, who quickly turned back to the radio. “What’s going on out at Bessie’s?” Dodie asked.
Junior shook his head. “No sign of him, sir.”
“Who’s out there?”
“Our guys. A couple of troopers. Sheriff Vance wanted to know if we needed help. They want to know if Louis is dangerous.”
Dodie rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked down at the rope. “Tell them no,” he said softly.
Dodie walked to his office and Junior could hear him searching the drawers for the Jim Beam. He sidled over to Mike.
“What the fuck happened here?”
Mike eyes darted nervously. “Sheriff fired Larry.”
“Why?”
Mike pointed to the rope on the desk. “He tried to hang Louis.”
Junior walked over to Larry’s desk and stared down at the noose. He felt a wave of queasiness as he thought about that cold December morning in the woods. He let out a long breath.
He looked at the rope dangling in front of the top drawer. Picking up a pencil, he flipped the rope out of the way and opened the top drawer. He took out the Federal Express envelope and headed toward Dodie’s office.
Louis was sitting on the couch, wearing a pair of Tinker’s size 44 pants, a quilt over his bare shoulders. Stretching his legs out toward the fireplace, he took a sip of the steaming cup of coffee. He glanced at the phone, thinking about the message he had just left on Gibbons’s machine. “The shit hit the fan. I need you.” He knew it was enough.
Tinker brought the coffeepot to the small living room, spread a tattered kitchen towel on the end table, and set the pot down. He gingerly pulled the quilt off Louis’s shoulder and examined the freshly-cleaned cut on his arm. “It’ll be fine.”
“Hurts like the devil,” Louis said.
“It’s very deep. You should really get a tetanus.”
Louis almost laughed. “When I get time.”
“You want ice for that eye?”
Louis touched the bruised cheek but shook his head.
“So, what are you going to do?” Tinker asked, sitting down next to him.
“I need to call the sheriff.”
“There’s the phone.”
Louis looked at it. Then he lifted his eyes to the kitchen window, watching the flashes of red and blue travel across the curtains. He rose stiffly, went into the dark kitchen and peered through the curtains.
The kitchen faced the street and below he could see Junior, two troopers, and a strange man in street clothes standing in front of Bessie’s. Three squad cars were parked at angles in the street. God, what a mess this was.
Tinker came up behind him.
“Mr. Tinker, I better leave. They’ll probably come over here and I don’t want you involved in this.”
“You did not involve me, I involved myself,” Tinker said. “When I saw them take you away the other day, I got mad. I’ve been angry a long time, angry at almost everything. But I just sat on the porch and watched.” Tinker paused. “I thought it was time I did something.”
Tinker fell silent. The squawk of a squad-car radio filtered up to them.
“Did you kill that girl’s father?” Tinker asked quietly.
“No,” Louis said.
“Then why did you escape from that jail?”
Louis hesitated, then tilted his head back. Even in the dim light of the street lamp. Tinker could see the rope burn under Louis’s jaw. He closed his eyes for a moment.
“Mr. Tinker,” Louis said, “I didn’t kill Max Lillihouse. I think he was killed because he was involved in the lynching.”
“So you know who killed that boy, then,” Tinker said.
Louis looked at Tinker then nodded. Pulling the quilt tighter, Louis hobbled back to the sofa and sat down. Tinker followed him.
“Yeah, I know who did it,” Louis said quietly. “Max Lillihouse, George Harvey the jeweler, and Earl Mulcahey. They were all involved.”
“So you did it,” Tinker said. “You said you would solve it and you did.”
Louis shook his head slowly. “I didn’t do anything, really. I didn’t even know what I was doing half the time. Hell, at one point, I thought it was these men’s fathers who lynched Eugene Graham.”
“But you still found your answers,” Tinker said.
“I suppose, but you know what’s funny? The answers didn’t come from the men, they came from the women. Grace Lillihouse, Ethel Mulcahey, and even Maisey Kelly.”
Tinker’s eyes grew distant. “But there’s no justice for that boy. The men who killed him are all dead,” he said.
“No,” Louis said. His gaze drifted to the Ziploc bag on the end table. “There was a fourth man, too.”
“Who?”
“I’m not sure.” Louis took a sip of coffee. “But if Max was trying to eliminate his partners in crime, then he had one to go.”
“But then he was killed,” Tinker said. “By the fourth man?”
“That’s what I suspect, but I can’t prove it. Not yet, anyway.”
Tinker shook his head. “If you knew who killed Mr. Lillihouse, then your puzzle would really be solved.”
“I know who did it,” said a small voice from the door.
Louis and Tinker looked at Teesha standing in the hall. Her skinny arms hung from the limp lace sleeves of her cotton nightgown. All the braids were gone and her hair formed a fuzzy black aureole around her small face. Tinker rose slowly, moving to his granddaughter. He gently took her shoulders.
“How do you know?”
Teesha spoke with a teenager’s arrogance. “I saw it,” she said. “I saw it from my window.”
Chapter 28
Louis parted the curtains on Teesha’s bedroom window and looked down into the street.
“I was standing right here,” Teesha said softly at his side.
There was a streetlight just to the left of the window, which illuminated the street. Louis knew Teesha had had a better view of Max’s car than he did from his own window. From where she stood, she would have seen the passenger-side door, a good portion of the roof, and the entire block from the intersection to the corner.
Louis turned to face Teesha. Louis could tell from her eyes she was scared, only a trace of her usual insolence visible in the set of her lips.
“Teesha,” Tinker said quietly. “You need to tell Mr. Kincaid what you saw.”
She bit her lip and looked up at her grandfather. “Then the police will come.”
“Mr. Kincaid is the police,” Tinker said.
“Not anymore, I done seen him get arrested.”
“Teesha,” Tinker urged.
Teesha nodded. “All right.”
Louis gently pulled her to the window and let her look out, keeping a reassuring hand on her back. Louis felt Teesha’s shoulder rise and fall with a heavy sigh.
“I was awake, listening to music. The only light I had on was that one there, near the bed,” she said. “I heard a car door close. I wondered who was out there. So I went and looked.” She glanced back at Tinker.
“It was just a car, Teesha, why did you wonder?” Louis asked. He needed to make sure she was telling him the truth.
She shrugged. “I jus’ did.” Her eyes flicked to Tinker but she said nothing.
“I can tell you why she looked,” Tinker said. “There’s a boy, works at the Texaco in town. Gets off at two in the morning,” Tinker said. “She’s snuck out to meet him before.”
Louis looked back at her. “Is that true?”
Teesha nodded. Tinker gave her a firm pat on her shoulder. “Tell him the rest, girl.”
“Well, I looked outside. There was two cars out there. That big silver one and another one, a smaller one. The silver one was in front. I could see a man sitting in there.”
“What about the other one?” Louis asked.
“The door opened and a woman got out.”
Louis took Teesha’s arms and turned her to face him. “A woman?”
“Yeah, a woman,” Teesha repeated, looking at Louis like he was stupid,
“What did she look like?” Louis asked.
Teesha jerked her shoulders away and resumed looking out the window. “She was a white woman, wearing a dark coat and a hat. I didn’t see all of her.”
“What color of hair?”
Teesha sighed. “I told ya, she was wearing a hat!”
“What kind of hat, what color?” Louis pressed.
“I don’t know…like a blue thing.”
“What happened then?” Louis asked.
“The woman got into the big car.”
“And?”
Teesha looked back at Louis. “She was in there ’bout ten minutes. Then the inside of the car looked like a firecracker went off. Sounded like it, too.”
Louis put a hand on the windowsill. “What happened then?”
“The woman got out of the big car,” Teesha said, turning from the window, indicating her story was over. Louis watched her walk back toward the living room.
“Teesha,” Louis called. “What did she do then?”
“The white woman?” Teesha asked.
Louis nodded.
Teesha put her hand on her hip. “She got back into that yellow car and left,”
Louis sat on the edge of Tinker’s bed, his hands clasped. Tinker brought him a neatly folded set of tan sweats, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a pair of rolled socks.
“This is the only thing I have that will fit you,” Tinker said. ‘Take this, too,” he said, holding up a huge parka. “It’s supposed to snow.”
Louis looked up, frowning. “Snow?
“It does, once or twice every couple years.”
“No thanks. I’m going to be running. ItTl slow me down.”
Louis stared absently at the floor. Tinker sat down next to him. Louis could hear the clock on the nightstand ticking away the minutes.
“You don’t really think that girl killed her father, do you?” Tinker asked.
Louis shook his head, reaching for the clothes. “Abby drives a yellow car. But I can’t imagine it. I just can’t.”
“What will you do if you find out she did?” Tinker asked.
Louis pulled on the hooded sweatshirt. “I don’t know.” If Abby did kill her father, he wanted to know why. He wanted to know what she was thinking. Was it to go back to school? Was it to stop the abuse? Or worse yet, was it so she could be with him? No, she couldn’t do it. No matter what Teesha had seen, he just couldn’t see Abby pulling the trigger of a gun pointed at the head of her father. But he knew one thing for sure: No matter what had happened in that Monte Carlo, Abby needed his help. He had to go to her.
“Where are you going?” Tinker asked when Louis stood up.
“To see her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’ll tell me the truth.”
Tinker came closer. “You’ll never make it. Call your sheriff.”
Louis shook his head. “I can’t.”
“You told me you trusted your sheriff.”
Louis stood up, shaking his head. “It’s not that simple anymore. Now it’s my life we’re talking about. And I won’t spend it in some damn Southern prison for a crime I didn’t commit.” The anger passed and Louis rubbed his face. “Right now I don’t trust anyone,”
Tinker stared at him silently. Louis picked up the plastic bag with the journal pages and tucked it in his pants.
“If anything happens to me,” Louis continued, “please call the number I left by the phone. His name is Gibbons, with the FBI in Jackson. Tell him everything I told you.”
Tinker nodded again. “There’s a window you can climb out that will put you on the roof. There are trees to get down on the other side.”
Tinker led Louis to the back of the apartment and opened a small window that looked out onto a flat roof. Tinker pushed out the screen, and Louis stuck his head out into the cold night air. He could see the police on the street below. Louis turned back to Tinker. He could think of nothing else to say.
Tinker extended a hand and Louis took it. Tinker squeezed tightly. Louis pulled him to him and gave him a quick hug.
“God be with you,” Tinker said.
Louis nodded and hopped out onto the roof. He scurried across the tarred roof to the other side. There were three sprawling oaks, and Louis jumped the small gap to the nearest tree, swinging himself over to a thick limb. There was a familiar smell to the air, heavy and wet. Snow was coming.
Chapter 29
Louis ran along the empty blacktop road. Despite the cold, he was sweating. He had come nearly five miles and still had one to go. It gave him time to think and he didn’t like the thoughts that rumbled around in his head.
One way or another, it was almost over for him. He could feel the end coming, an end to the last two disastrous months, and an end to this strange part of his life that had begun that day last December when he stood in the mud staring down at Eugene Graham’s yellowed skull.
After a quarter of a mile, he spotted the porch light of the Lillihouse mansion and it spurred him onward. He cut across the grass and hopped the white brick wall on the east side of the house. A light was on downstairs and another one on the second floor. He estimated it was about three a.m.
He paused near the door, trying to remember if he had seen a security system on his visits. He edged across the long porch toward the front door. It was locked. He moved off the porch to the bushes, going to the first window. It, too, was locked. He crept around to the back of the house to the patio. The curtains on the French doors to the dining area were open and Louis could see inside. A wall sconce burned faintly in the dining room.
He tried the door, and it opened with a squeak. There were more of the sconces to guide his way through the hallway and out into the foyer. He paused, looking into the dark library. The two wing chairs were black silhouettes against the orange glow of the dying fire in the hearth.
Louis held his breath, listening. Silence. He looked up the staircase. There was a light on in one of the bedrooms. He put a hand on the bannister and started up. The stair creaked loudly under his weight.
“Mother?”
Louis froze. It was Abby; her voice had come from the library.
“Mother? Is that you?”
With a quick glance up the stairs, he descended quietly. She was sitting in one of the chairs by the fire. Her face had been hidden from him by the chair’s wing, but as she rose slowly now, he saw it in the faint firelight. Her look of apprehension quickly faded when she recognized him.
“Louis,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to see you.”
Her eyes swept over his sweatsuit, returning to his sweat} face as she shook her head in confusion. “I thought, I thought you were—”
“I was.” It crossed his mind to tell her wha
t had happened, but he quickly dismissed it. He ventured closer, seeing her more clearly now. She was wearing a nightgown, an unbelted robe hanging loosely over her slender body. Her hair was bedraggled and she looked dazed, almost drugged. It occurred to him that she might have taken a sedative, but there was something else in her expression, a strangely passive, almost resigned look, as if all the energy had been drained out of her. It was quiet and a part of his brain was alert for the sounds of sirens outside. How long would it take Dodie to figure out Louis would come here?
“Abby…” He started toward her and she took a step back. He paused, surprised. The look on her face the day of his arraignment came back to him in that moment. God, did she believe he had killed Max? “Abby,” he said softly. “I didn’t kill your father.”
“I know,” she said, the words coming out in a strained whisper. She drew her arms up around herself and looked away. She started to cry softly. “Oh, Louis, I never meant…I didn’t want…” Her voice trailed off.
Louis couldn’t move. Oh no, dear God. Please—she didn’t do it, she couldn’t kill him. His brain was reeling, a million thoughts and images rushing through. Abby’s beaten face, her hand on his gun. Red blood, a yellow car. Temporary insanity, diminished capacity…all those damn legal names that could be put on murder to make it sound like something it wasn’t.
He went to her, enfolding her in his arms. She slumped against him, crying. “Abby, it’s all right,” he whispered. “It will be all right. You didn’t mean it. I won’t let them hurt you. It will be all right, I promise. There are—”
“Detective…”
Louis’s head shot up in the direction of the soft voice. Grace was standing under the archway.
“Mrs. Lillihouse, Abby—”
“My daughter will be all right.”
Louis stared at Grace, shocked at the woman’s utter calm in the face of Abby’s pain. “How can you say that?” he demanded. “After what she’s been through, how can you just stand there and say that?”
“Louis, no,” Abby said.
Grace’s eyes were locked on Louis’s. She shook her head sadly. “Abby didn’t kill her father. Detective.”
Abby pushed away from Louis’s chest. “Mother, don’t—”
