Cracker Town

by WF Ranew

  Randy looked at Red.

  “What happened to him after that? And wasn’t there another murder you worked on?” Randy asked.

  Red pulled out his file of newspaper clippings on Jamison Elton’s death.

  “Indeed, there was, to answer your second question. I’ll get to Cleet in a moment,” Red said. “First, I’ll tell you about a coincidence that we have never been able to explain. A man named Jamison Elton was killed around the time Cleet disappeared. And I do mean disappeared. We even think he might have been murdered.”

  “That’s sensational,” Randy said. “A web of death.”

  “Possibly. What we do know is this. I believe your father was Cleet’s counselor at Central State. I found these notes in the good professor’s files, labeled ‘Bible Salesman.’ I also found a reference to Cleet being a Bible salesman in a newspaper clipping about Jamison’s death. Cleet was suspected in that murder when he vanished.”

  Red handed a thick set of clip-bound sheets, again copied from the original files. On top of the stack was a newspaper story with the reference highlighted in yellow.

  “The man’s full name was Cleet Wrightman,” Red said. “He’s referred to as someone who sold Bibles. One woman who bought one was Mitsy Elton. Someone killed her in 1955, and Cleet went to Milledgeville accused of her death.”

  Randy read the newspaper article and the first pages of the material.

  “This is quite amazing, Red,” he said. “No one made these connections during my family’s investigation?”

  “We did, in fact,” Red said. “The problem was we could not find Cleet Wrightman at the time. That’s one reason the case went cold. No prime suspect, and he became that as soon as we delved into the Jamison Elton murder. Without finding Cleet, we could not proceed. There were no other suspects in either your family’s deaths or the Jamison murder at the time. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’re all too aware of what happened. We hit the ultimate brick wall. The suspect disappeared.”

  Randy set the file down and got up. He turned to look out his window and down below at the streaming traffic of cars and people going about their business along Peachtree.

  “Is there any chance of backtracking somehow, what with the Internet and all the digital technology we have today?” Randy asked.

  “Well, yes, and I am going to walk you through some things in that regard,” Red said.

  Randy reached over for the carafe and refilled both coffee cups.

  “Good. I consider myself tech savvy but wouldn’t know where to start,” he said.

  Red took another sheet of paper from a folder. It was an article in a New York Jewish newspaper from the early 1950s. It was about Jean-Michel Durand and the work he did during the war forging documents and saving lives. Red handed the copy over to Randy.

  “It’s difficult to read in places, what with the smudges and all,” Red said. “But I was hoping this man might have been able to help us. What he could offer might or might not be relevant.”

  “That’s one hell of a conditional past-tense statement, Red,” Randy said. He chuckled, but his eyes weren’t smiling.

  “Unfortunately, Monsieur Durand is dead.”

  “Well, damned,” Randy said. “But how could he have helped us… Oh, you think he forged documents for Wrightman?”

  Red nodded. “A long shot, perhaps, but he was the only person around I know of who could have managed new identity documents. And he lived fairly close to Damville. Here’s the thing. Cleet Wrightman could still be living. He’d be around eight-three years old.”

  “Dad used to say crazy people lived longer than anyone else.”

  “But, Randy, if we can find Wrightman, we may be able to find who killed your parents,” Red said.

  Randy paused, looked at the coffee cup, lifted it, and sipped.

  “I understand that, but short of a confession, how might he help?”

  Red raised a hand. “He might have an idea of who the real killer was.”

  Randy paused before answering. He picked up a fountain pen and drummed it on the tabletop.

  “Consider this,” Red said. “All through your father’s session notes with Bible Salesman, the patient insisted he didn’t do the crime. This went on for years, apparently. Then, in the last year your father worked with this man, Bible said he saw who killed Mitsy Elton. He said he witnessed the death after following the man to her house.”

  Randy turned his head to Red. His eyes widened at the statement. “Did he say who it was?”

  “No. But I think he was getting close to telling your father everything that happened that hot Damville day in the fifties.”

  Randy slammed his right hand on the table. “Red, we have to find this man Wrightman. Or whatever his name is today. And wherever he’s living. If he is living.”

  “We do,” Red said.

  * * *

  A mental reminder struck Red during a bathroom break, but he still struggled when to tell Randy about his younger sister. He wanted to meet with the woman first, but Nancy Miller had not gotten back to him to confirm Jenny’s OK.

  He decided to hold off. Red covered a lot of information with Randy that afternoon and didn’t want to overwhelm the man with a bombshell about his living sibling.

  Back in the conference room, Red sat down. Lucy had refreshed their carafe of coffee and had brought in more snacks. This time hot oatmeal cookies steamed on a plate in the middle of the table. Red picked up two with a napkin and munched away.

  Randy entered the room and sat down. “We’d talked early on about technology and how that plays into solving cold cases,” he said. “Any concrete thoughts on that approach in this case?”

  Red swallowed and wiped his lips.

  “Yes, we need to discussed technology in detail,” he said. “But first, let me continue my update as it relates to Damville.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Oh, yes,” the PI said. “I’m driving down next Tuesday to visit the local sheriff and clerk of court. Both people have agreed to meet with me. They’re trying to locate the files on the killings of Mitsy Elton and Jamison, her older brother.”

  “And what do you think you’ll find?”

  “Not sure. Investigations were conducted differently back then, related to evidence gathering and the lack of high-tech methodology. But I’m hoping to review fingerprint files on various people. Number one being Cleet Wrightman.”

  Randy picked up his fountain pen again and opened a hardbound notebook. He wrote down several things, and Red could see there were a lot of question marks.

  Randy looked up. “Red, you are amazing,” he said. “I never would have imagined you could cover this much ground so quickly.”

  “That’s what it takes, Randy,” he said. “We need some answers.”

  Red went over what evidence might exist from investigations sixty-four and forty-six years in the past. He conceded the possibilities were remote that the killings of Randy’s family could be solved based on existing evidence or even DNA without major breaks in the case. But there were some positive aspects.

  “Your father’s clinical files serve as guiding lights at this point,” Red said. “We have a man he knew and counseled for years. They talked for many hours and the notations run to more than two hundred legal pad pages. From what I can tell, we may have even more notes on Bible Salesman. We’ve only located about five years of their work together.”

  Randy scribbled in his notebook. “Yes, there probably are other files. Perhaps in the early days. I can return to the boxes shelved in my basement. In fact, why don’t you come out to the house and go through them with me?”

  Red said he’d love to do that. They checked calendars. Red could be in Atlanta another few days. They decided on meeting Saturday morning at Randy’s home in Ansley Park.

  “Will this ever end?” Randy asked.

  “Well, it’s a tangled web spun over the last six decades,” Red said. “A lot there we may be missing. But if it exists,
I want to find it. And Cleet Wrightman is the most important conundrum right now.”

  Randy rose and shook Red’s hand.

  * * *

  Rush hour crawled along Peachtree. Red only had to drive a couple of blocks to curve off to the right at the Christian Science Church and enter the Ansley Park neighborhood.

  Randy lived toward Piedmont Road on the area’s eastern part. Red would visit the bungalow on Saturday. At that moment, as he hit the gas and rounded the corner, he headed for a less prestigious address in an older house on Seventeenth Street.

  Red rented an efficiency apartment there back in seventy-three when he first joined the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The house, a late eighteenth-century two-story, had been renovated into a respectable B&B. Other homes of the era had been demolished for more modern buildings for law firms, accountants, and one housing an environmental engineering company.

  Red parked on the street and checked in. Reaching his room, he unlocked the door and hauled in his roller board, briefcase, and computer bag. He took a novel from his satchel and collapsed on the bed.

  Red banished the day’s meetings and conversations from his mind for the next hour and a half. He had work to do in the evening, but it was time to relax a bit.

  * * *

  Red’s paperback novel fell to his side as he dozed off for a nap. He dreamed muddled things, images of a swamp with alligators chomping on a human leg.

  The mental pictures segued to a woman he’d wanted to ask out in high school. She was shy; he was even timider. He probably never asked her out for another reason; his mother wanted him to like the young lady. A sure deterrent for any seventeen-year-old male. But there she was—Mary Jane Jergison, young, tall, naturally blonde hair cut short, a bright smile, and nude.

  Oh my God! Where did that come from?

  Red jumped awake with a start.

  His cell phone rang. He’d forgotten to silence it.

  Four rings in, he hit the answer button.

  “Hello, Farlow,” he said.

  “Red, this is Nancy,” the female voice said. “Can you talk now?”

  It took a moment for Red to focus. He’d lapsed into a deep sleep, not uncommon for his afternoon naps of late.

  “Oh, Nancy, how are you?” he asked. “Sorry, but I’m just emerging from a meeting.” A meeting with the sandman.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m calling to let you know that I spoke with Jenny, my daughter,” Nancy said.

  “Yes, I’m listening.”

  “Red, she would like to talk with you before seeing Randy,” the mother said. “She’s excited about meeting him.”

  Red rubbed his eyes and reached for his flask of seltzer water. He took a long draw as Nancy spoke.

  “Years ago, when she was about thirteen, I told her about my relationship with Walter Goings,” Nancy said. “She was confused at the time. I perhaps told her too much. That we’d had a months-long love affair when he was already married. That he and his wife and daughter were savagely murdered.”

  Red shook the flask to determine how much he had left and drank the remaining water.

  “I can imagine it would be,” Red said. “But she’s a woman now. What have your more recent conversations been like?”

  Nancy cleared her throat. It was then Red realized the woman had been crying.

  “She’s driving down to see me this weekend,” she said. “We’re going to discuss everything again. I can tell you more next week, but Jenny is ready to meet her brother. That is if he’s ready to meet her. May I give her your number?”

  “Of course,” Red said. “Nancy, have you thought about meeting Randy yourself?”

  Silence on the phone. Red heard sobs.

  Finally, Nancy spoke again. “Red, I don’t know,” she said. “I’d never thought about that since Jenny and I have lived apart from the idea for so long. Even recently, just before you contacted me, we spoke again about Randy. But Jenny expressed little enthusiasm about meeting him at that point. Now that she’s had some time to think it over, she wants to get to know her brother.”

  “I can understand that,” Red said. “It’s complicated. But then again, all families have their twists and turns and complexities.”

  “So true,” she said.

  “What does Jenny do in Atlanta?” Red said.

  “She has a web design business in her home,” Nancy said. “Jenny never married. She’s a beautiful woman, and I never understood why. Well, I do. I don’t like talking about it.”

  “Would you share that with me?”

  “After Walter died, I divorced Lawson. He was cheating just as I was. When Jenny was born, well, we started going to church,” she said. “I’d gotten away from organized religion when I moved to Valdosta to take the college job. I had a great life there, even with Lawson at first. Anyway, when Jenny was just a few months old, I joined First Baptist. Put her in the nursery for Sunday School and church.”

  “Sounds like the place to be on Sundays for a young lady,” Red said.

  “Oh, it was,” Nancy said. “Just what we needed. Over the years, she had many friends at the church. She was active in the youth group, and in high school, dated a young man in the church. In college, she worked at Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly every summer. Loved it. But you know, Red, the church helped get me through what happened to Walter. I loved that man, as you know. But I came to realize our love would have done nothing but crush his family in time, assuming he would have left his wife for me. That was never hinted at by him or suggested by me.”

  Red refilled the water bottle, this time from the tap.

  “So, you and he never talked about a life together?”

  “No, not at all,” Nancy said. “We were together nine months. We mostly lived for the lust in our relationship. Working together in a small space, I sometimes could sense when Walter got horny. In no time, he’d walk out and lock the front door. I knew what was coming. I lived for every moment he touched me and every beautiful way he did that.”

  Red delved a bit deeper into Nancy’s personal story.

  “Nancy, do you mind telling me why you didn’t get pregnant sooner?”

  “Oh my God, Red. No, I don’t mind,” she said. “He used condoms until the first of that year. Around late February, I think, he came in and wanted me. I mentioned my period. He insisted. He’d run out of rubbers, so we did it anyway. Besides, since it was my time of the month, we didn’t think I’d get pregnant. Anyway, that sort of became the norm. I got pregnant somewhere around February twenty-fifth and March tenth that year. Give or take. Hard to pin down since, by then, we were screwing several times a day. He even rented an off-campus apartment where we’d meet on weekends.”

  The information heightened Red’s curiosity. “An apartment? Where was that?”

  “Oddly, it was three blocks off campus and near his house.”

  Red paused in reflection for a moment.

  “How long did you meet there?”

  “From early February until Walter died,” Nancy said.

  “Did he keep anything in the apartment other than the essential furnishings for a love nest?” Red asked.

  Nancy paused before answering. Red could almost hear the memory gears turning.

  Finally, Nancy said she wasn’t sure what he had there, except for an old metal army green locker from his days in Korea.

  “Why would he keep that in a rental apartment?” Red asked. “I mean, he had an office and full-time abode.”

  “Oh, shit, Red,” she said. “This is all just coming back to me. Damned! I can’t believe we haven’t discussed this. But honestly, my memory is just coming into focus about that little apartment. The trunk was there the last time we visited. That was Thursday night before Walter…before he died.”

  Red contained his excitement for two reasons. First, the chances of locating a private locker nearly fifty years later would be remote. Second, he didn’t want to get his hopes up about it even if he and Randy found the box.
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  “But, Red, do you really think you could locate that locker?”

  “Nancy, yes, first of all. At least, it’s possible. But do you remember if he had it padlocked?”

  “Oh yes, he did, one of those old-fashioned British padlocks,” she said. “Looked like something they’d use on a jail cell. He did that for very personal reasons. He took photos of me. I can’t say more about them.”

  Red figured it was nearly impossible but worth some investigation. “Do you happen to remember the name of the person renting out the apartment?”

  “Their names were Mr. and Mrs. Finley,” she said. “An older couple. The wife owned the house, which she inherited from her grandmother.”

  “Your memory is amazing, Nancy,” Red told her.

  “Red, I’ve kept all the details of that wonderful and tragic period of my life locked away in my heart and mind all these years,” she said. “There’s not much I don’t remember about my time with Walter. So precious, every minute.”

  He thanked her for the call. Nancy promised to contact him early in the week about Jenny.

  * * *

  Red got up after the call and took a shower. He dressed in fresh clothes and walked down Peachtree Street to grab dinner.

  The next day—Friday—he drove over to Athens and spent much of the afternoon in the Georgia Newspaper Project’s microfiche room. He uncovered very little more than what he’d kept from his investigation in seventy-three and the files from the fifties. But he did find a longer enterprise story in the Atlanta Herald about Mitsy Elton’s slaying.

  Most interesting, the writer named M.C. Browning wrote about suspects in her death.

  “Cleet Wrightman of Damville was judged to be mentally incompetent to understand the charges against him or to stand trial, according to the local district attorney,” the story related. ‘Thus, he has been remanded to the state mental hospital in Milledgeville,’ Ben Washington, the prosecutor, told this reporter. ‘Tell you the truth, though, the boy might not have killed the young woman.’ Asked who else was considered a suspect, the prosecutor refused to say. ‘We’re still looking into that,’ he said. ‘Case is closed, but my boys are still working on an angle or two.’ ”