by Stuart Woods
If prosperity was passing anyone by, it was Jesse and Nellie Cole and their son, Willie. They existed precariously, Jesse’s illness ruling their lives. Jesse managed Idus Bray’s two days a week, but little more. Robert, his brother-in-law, steered handyman and small carpentry work his way as often as possible, but too often Jesse would accept or even begin a job, only to fall ill and not be able to finish it. His pride prevented him from accepting pay for work he could not finish, even though he might have devoted some days to it; Nellie was often late when the white folks came to collect their washing, and she lost customers. Willie could find only occasional work, and then at such low pay that he could not contribute much to the household. Only the kindness of Flossie and the concern of Carrie Lee kept enough in the Cole household to keep body and soul together. Willie took his father’s old single-shot shotgun and killed a rabbit now and then, and that was the only lean meat they saw, except when Carrie or the church provided a turkey at Christmas and Thanksgiving. It made him feel good to be able to bring something to the table, and such an event momentarily lightened the gloom that increasingly surrounded their lives.
By the autumn of 1927 Will Henry had found a kind of contentment, if not peace, in his life. The two murders had receded into the past, and time had mostly healed his personal, psychic wounds. Occasionally someone would mention the first murder, and that would be enough to remind him and send him into a mild depression for a day, but this happened less and less often.
The feeling of unease that Will Henry experienced on a Monday morning in November had no basis in reason, and he tried to put it down to the lingering effect of an already-forgotten dream. But it had increased by the time he arrived at the police station, and it did not dissipate as the morning wore on. Shortly after eleven o’clock two strangers entered his office, and, with a jolt of precognition, he knew who they were. They came to the window which opened from the waiting room, a middle-aged man and woman, both thin and worn looking, obviously dressed in their Sunday best. They might have been brother and sister.
Will Henry stood and went to the window, placing his hands on the sill to keep them from trembling. There was a terrible weakness in his bowels. He wanted to go to the toilet..
“Good morning, can I do something for you?”
The man extended a hard, dry hand. “My name is Holt, Julius Holt. This is my wife.” Will Henry and the woman nodded at each other. “I’m Will Henry Lee. How can I help you?”
The man took a yellowed newspaper page from his pocket and unfolded it. Will Henry willed himself not to look at it. “We’ve been putting a new room on our house—I farm down near Americus, at Plains—and we got some old newspapers from our neighbors next door to put up for some insulation. We came across this article.”
“Why don’t you come around in here and have a seat?” He opened his office door and arranged two chairs for them. When they were comfortable, he forced himself to look at the newspaper page. The headline read, “Youth Found Dead in Delano. Police Search for Identity.” The paper was dated the first week in February, 1920.
“This sounds like it could be our boy, James.” He produced a photograph. “This was taken more than eight years ago, but it’s the only picture we’ve got of him.” There were three people in the picture, all sitting on the front porch of an unpainted farmhouse. The man and his wife were seated rigidly in chairs; the boy was sitting on the porch at their feet, his skinny legs dangling over the edge. His parents were posed with stern faces; the boy was grinning. There could not be the slightest doubt who he was. “He left home at the end of January, in 1920. The weevil had hit us pretty bad, and James had the offer of a job in Atlanta. He never showed up for it. We never heard any more from him. The law, uh, wasn’t able to help us much.”
Will Henry put the photograph down on his desk and took a deep breath. He forced himself to look directly at the man. “Mr. Holt, Mrs. Holt, I’m sorry to have to tell you that James is buried in our city cemetery here.” The woman gasped and clutched her dress at the throat. The man looked as if he’d been struck.
“Are you absolutely sure? Look at the picture again.”
Will Henry turned to his desk and pulled a file from the bottom drawer. With his body between the couple and the file he quickly selected a picture of the boy’s head, one in which it looked as if he were merely asleep. He closed the file, turned and handed the picture to the boy’s father. “That’s James, isn’t it?”
They both looked at the picture carefully. Tears spilled from the woman’s eyes and rolled down her pale cheeks. The man looked as if he had been struck yet again. “Yes, that’s James,” he said, and handed the picture back to Will Henry. He put his arm around his wife and comforted her awkwardly. Then he turned back to Will Henry. “How did it happen?”
Will Henry made an immediate decision to lie to them. “It was only a few days after he left you. He fell from a bluff on the mountain over yonder. It was at night, and a stranger wouldn’t of known about it. A newspaper delivery boy found him the next morning. He had no identification on him. We thought he might have been traveling with someone—a lot of people were on the road around then—and that they might have taken his things.”
“Do you think somebody might have pushed him off that bluff?” It was the first time the woman had spoken.
“There was no indication of that at all, ma’am. These… traveling people he was probably with, they don’t like to talk with the law much. If one of their friends dies, they divide what he has among themselves and keep going. We’re pretty sure that’s what happened. No one would have had any reason to kill your boy.” There was a silence, and he prayed they would accept the story.
“I see,” she said weakly.
“We’d like to take him home with us,” said her husband. “We’ve got a truck. Do you think you could fix that?”
Will Henry hesitated. He wondered if the cheap coffin would be intact after more than seven years. “Why don’t you folks make yourselves comfortable here for a few minutes while I make some inquiries. There’s some coffee on the stove, and the rest room is over there. I’ll be back shortly.” He went next door and telephoned Lamar Maddox, the undertaker.
Maddox did not like the idea at all. “Will Henry, I don’t have any idea what’s in that grave after all this time. I mean, that was a good pine casket, but there was no vault, and that’s not the driest part of the cemetery down there in the city plot. And, you know, I’m real good at burying ‘em, but I’ve never dug one up. I don’t know what we can expect. Listen, you hang on there for a minute, and I’ll come over there and talk to them.”
Maddox arrived at the station a couple of minutes later, a little breathless. After introductions had been made, he sat down and composed himself into his most professionally soothing demeanor. “Now, Mr. Holt, I know what a grievous shock this has been for you, but I think we’re going to have to look at this situation clearly. I think—it’s my most considered professional opinion, that you are going to feel a lot better about this if you leave James to rest where he is and let me erect a real nice headstone there in his memory. Now, don’t you think that would be the best thing to do?”
Holt and his wife exchanged a long look, and she shook her head. He turned back to the undertaker. “Mr. Maddox, we appreciate the advice you’re giving us, we really do, but we’d like to take our boy home with us, and we’d appreciate it a lot if you could arrange it so we could do it today. Will you do that, please?”
Maddox sighed and clapped his hands on his knees. “Well, if you’re sure that’s what you want to do—” He called Will Henry into the hallway. “Listen, I don’t even know what the law is on exhumations, but I reckon nobody is going to object. Why don’t I just write out a kind of order and get the JP to sign it, and then, well, we’ll just have to see what’s in that grave.”
Will Henry stood with the Holts at their truck, some fifty feet from where the two blacks were digging, supervised by Lamar Maddox. He was grateful for
their silence, grateful especially that they had asked no further questions. It was taking a monumental effort on his part not to pour out the whole story, give them the medical report, take full blame for not having caught the murderer of their son. He was tightly wound, his jaws clamped together, his facial muscles hurting from the wretched expression frozen into his features.
“Will Henry!” Lamar Maddox was calling from the grave side. He walked quickly over to find the two blacks clambering out of the grave. “Take a rope, and help us, will you?” They hauled until the top of the coffin was at ground level. “Hold it right there!” Lamar said. They stopped, and Will Henry could hear water streaming from the coffin back into the hole. “The casket’s in one piece, thank the Lord, but like I said, this isn’t the driest part of the cemetery. Let’s just wait a minute.
Soon the dripping sound stopped, and they manhandled the coffin away from the grave, where the two gravediggers began to wipe the mud from it with rags. The varnish was mostly gone, and the wood was pitted, but Maddox was right, it was a sturdy casket. Holt pulled the truck over, and the coffin was lifted onto the bed and the tailgate fastened. Holt turned to pass some bills to Maddox, while his wife looked forlornly at the casket; then he came and helped her into the truck. He thanked Will Henry profusely for his help, then climbed in and drove away. As Will Henry climbed stiffly into his car the two gravediggers were shoveling dirt back into the grave.
Will Henry went home for the noonday meal, but could not eat. Instead, he went upstairs and stretched out on the bed. He felt as if he’d opened the grave himself and filled it again. Every muscle ached, and the ache went to the heart of him. He dozed.
He was awakened by the ringing of the telephone downstairs. Carrie answered it. “Will Henry, it’s for you,” she called up to him. He struggled from the bed, got his shoes on, and staggered downstairs, hardly awake.
“This is Chief Lee.”
“Chief, this is Ed Routon, out at the grocery store.”
“Yes, Ed, what can I do for you?”
“Well, I hired a colored boy to sweep up this morning, and I caught him going out with a ham and a sack of beans. I guess you better come get him.”
“All right, Ed,” Will Henry replied, wearily. “I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Uh, who is the boy? What’s his name?”
“His name is Willie. Jesse Cole’s boy. Lives down on D Street.”
28
WHEN WILL HENRY arrived at Routon’s Grocery Store, Ed Routon was sacking some purchases for a woman and laying on the charm. Will Henry looked around, but saw nothing of Willie. He waited for Routon to finish with his customer.
“Hello, Will Henry. Sorry to have to get you out here.”
“That’s my job, Ed. Where’s the boy.”
Routon turned toward the rear of the store. He chuckled. “Got him on ice.” He unlocked a large padlock and swung open the thick door of the cooler room. Willie sat on the floor, hugging his knees, trembling violently. Will Henry shot a glance at Ed Routon; the man avoided his eyes. “Only place I had to lock him up.”
Will Henry helped the boy up. He was surprised to find that he was nearly six feet tall, though still thin. It had been a while since he’d seen Willie. There was a swelling around one of the boy’s eyes. “Willie, you go out and sit in my car and get warm. I’ll be out there in a minute.” The boy left.
Ed Routon looked concerned. “He’s going to run off.”
Will Henry shook his head. “I know Willie. His folks used to work for me when I was farming. He won’t go anywhere. You roughed him up, did you?”
Routon still wouldn’t look at him. “Well, I got mad. I give the boy a job, and then he starts walking off with a ham.”
Will Henry nodded. “Ed, do you have to make a case against him? His daddy’s been sick for a long time, and they’ve had a lot of trouble. You won’t have any more problem with him.”
Routon shook his head. “I’ve got to do it, Will Henry. If I let him get away scot-free every nigger in Braytown will be in here stuffing his shirt full of groceries. I have to be hard about this, or they’ll steal me blind. You understand. He won’t get much. Tell you what. I’ll make the case on the minimum charge. What would that be, petty theft?”
Will Henry nodded. “That’s a misdemeanor. At least he won’t go to the county camp. Thanks, Ed.” He walked out of the store and got into the car. Willie was still shivering. Will Henry got in and turned the heater on.
“Why did you do this, Willie? You know what this is going to do to your mother.”
Tears began streaming down the boy’s face. “Thanksgivin’ comin’ up. We don’ have nothin’ in the house.” His voice was very small, but Will Henry could tell it had changed. Willie was becoming a man.
“You know you could have come to us. Or to Flossie. Anyway, the church would have got y’all a turkey at Thanksgiving.”
Willie shook his head. “Mama say we ain’t gon’ take nothin’ else from nobody no mo’. Mist’ Routon jes’ payin’ me a dime a hour. Cain’t buy nothin’ wif’ that.”
Will Henry fished in his pocket and found two dollar bills. He stuffed them into Willie’s shirt pocket. “Now, listen to me, Willie,” he said. “Don’t you tell your mother where you got this. You tell her you found an odd job. Now, if you get this way again, I want you to come see me, and I’ll help. We won’t tell anybody. Will you do that, now?”
Fresh tears welled up in Willie’s eyes. “Yassuh. I do it. Yassuh.”
“We’re going to have to tell her about this business with Ed Routon, though. That’s out of my hands. City court’s tomorrow, and he’s going to see you’re charged with petty theft. Don’t worry, though, you won’t get sent to the county camp for that. Likely, you’ll be sentenced to some time in the city jail. I’ll be around there, and you’ll be all right. Now you stop crying, and let’s go see your mother.”
Will Henry talked to Nellie on the front porch at the house on D Street. Jesse was inside, suffering through another malaria attack. Nellie took the news in silence, but Will Henry could see that she was angry and terribly hurt.
“Now, Nellie, I’m going to leave Willie here with you tonight. City court meets tomorrow, and he’ll have to be there at nine o’clock sharp, hear? Mr. Routon has agreed to make the minimum charge, and that means city jail instead of the county camp, so he’ll be right here in Delano, and you can come see him. It won’t be for long.”
She nodded, her teeth clenched, jaw muscles working.
“I’ve already given Willie a good talking to, and he got a pretty good clout from Mr. Routon. He’s learned his lesson, and he’s getting too big to spank, anyway, so you take it easy with him, all right?” She nodded again. “Now, I’ll see you both at nine o’clock tomorrow morning at city hall. I’ll send Flossie to stay with Jesse. You remember, Nellie, that I’m leaving Willie in your custody instead of making him spend the night in jail, which I’m supposed to do, and if you aren’t there on time I’ll get in a lot of trouble.”
“We be there, Mist’ Will Henry,” Nellie said. “And we ‘preciate you lettin’ him stay home.” But her eyes didn’t meet his, and her mind was somewhere else, in a dark and desperate place. From inside the house came a noise, a loud moaning. “I got to see to Jesse,” she said.
Will Henry drove back to the station slowly, his heart filled with pity for Jesse and Nellie Cole. After all their trouble, now this. And it all went back to the Spence boy. His pity changed to guilt, and, on top of the visit from the murdered boy’s parents, it was almost more than he could bear.
The telephone was ringing as he walked into the station.”Delano police, Chief Lee speaking.”
“Chief? T. T. Brown here.”
The salesman from the police equipment company. Will Henry had seen him regularly, twice a year, but Brown had never telephoned before. “How’re you, Mr. Brown?”
“Just fine, just fine. I’m due down there next week. Stop in and see you, if I may.”
“Well,
yes, there are a couple of things I need.”
“Reason I called, though, we got an order from Delano last week.”
“I haven’t ordered anything.”
“I know. It’s apparently from a civilian. We get them from time to time, but we don’t sell to the public. If somebody wants something from our catalogue we tell ‘em to order through their local police department; that way we don’t have any problem.”
“I see. Well, who was it, and what did they order?”
“No name. Just got an order for two pair of handcuffs, with a money order for the correct amount enclosed and a Delano postoffice box number for an address. Box eighty-two. Probably a child, we get that now and then. They want to play cops and robbers, and they save up some money and want the real stuff. Still, I thought you ought to know about it. We’ve already returned the money order with a letter telling them to go through you.”
“Well, thanks for letting me know, Mr. Brown, and stop in to see me when you’re down this way.” Will Henry hung up. He didn’t know why Brown had even bothered to call. The money had been returned, that was the end of it. He doubted if anyone would be coming to see him to place an order for handcuffs. He turned to other work. Anything to occupy his mind. There was a letter from some women who wanted a stop sign at their street corner. He marked it for the attention of Willis Greer at city hall and put it in his out basket so he wouldn’t forget to take it over.
