by Lila Beckham
“I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be back this soon,” Joshua said as he opened the icebox and put the co-colas inside. “I decided to stop and get a cup of coffee. I’m going to Leakesville and look through some of the old records and newspaper articles. I wanted to see if I can find anything on Dixon’s Mortuary.” Before he actually realized what he was saying, he asked, “Would you like to ride with me?”
“I can if you’d like me to. It beats sitting around here all day.”
Joshua poured himself a cup of coffee, walked out onto the porch, and lit a cigarette. Emma followed him out. She sat down in the swing and pulled her legs underneath her.
“How long before we leave?” she asked.
“We’ll leave as soon as I finish this cup of coffee.”
“I’m gonna go change my clothes then. I’ll be right back.”
Joshua nodded. He stared through the trees toward the river. Since the trees had grown taller and the underbrush was thickening, they were beginning to shield the river from view; he did not want that. He needed to thin them out. They also buffered the sound of the flowing water, which always soothed him. He saw a large buck gallop into sight from the north. The buck froze when he saw Joshua. For a moment, they stared into each other’s eyes. He was majestic with his eight-point rack held high and his tail up. With a flick of his tail and a twitch of his ear, he darted off to the south. Moments later, a doe followed. She too froze briefly, before following the buck’s lead. Joshua wondered what went through the buck’s mind as they stared at each other. Did deer even have the faculties to think? Could they logically decide what to do in certain situations, or did they simply follow through with their original intent.
Joshua had never been one to hunt. He had gone hunting with his grandfather when he was a boy, but did not enjoy it. His grandfather hunted only when he needed to for food; it seemed many hunted for the thrill of the kill. Joshua had decided a long time ago that as long as he could purchase what meat he ate, he would never hunt animals.
His granddaddy told him that God gave man dominion over the earth and other animals; “They were put here to serve us, Hoss. They are here to feed us - to clothe us,” he said with the utmost sincerity in his voice. “Every animal serves a purpose, son, and when man turned the act of hunting food into a sport, they went against God’s intention.”
“What will happen to those that hunt for sport and kill just to mount a trophy over their fireplaces?” Joshua asked.
“Their punishment will be up to God to decide, not man, so I can’t rightly say what sort of punishment they will receive, but I am certain they will be punished. Your father and I had this same conversation when he was about your age. I will tell you what I told him. If you need to put meat on the table, kill an animal and do so, but don’t ever kill more than you need, son. If you look back in time and think about what the buffalo hunters did, you can learn from that. The Indians never killed more than they needed to feed the tribe. White men came and killed as many as they could just for the hides. The Indians starved, white men prospered. In the end, the white men lost. The Indian kept their integrity. Without a good moral compass, a person is not worth the bullet it would take to kill them.”
I’ll remember, Grandpa, I promise, Joshua replied; and, he meant it. After his granddad passed, he had not gone hunting again.
Joshua could hear Emma moving around in the kitchen. He picked his cup up and finished his coffee. She came to the door and asked if he needed anything out of the house before they left. He turned to see her standing behind the screen door, once again looking like a barefoot replica of Francine. She must have been digging through that old trunk again, thought Joshua. He told her to grab the file on his mother’s disappearance and lock the door behind her. He walked to his patrol car and waited. Emma came right behind him so he did not have to wait long. She got in and laid the folder on the seat between them. He glanced at her feet to see if she had put shoes on; she had on a pair of sandals.
“What,” she asked when she saw him staring at her feet.
“You look nice.”
“Thanks,” Emma smiled and blushed all at the same time. Neither of them spoke again until they were across the state line; even then, it was just per functionary statements regarding differences Emma noticed since the last time she was up that way.
Just after they passed the weigh station, Emma pointed to a small mobile home with a greenhouse nearby and said that was where her grandmother now lived. Joshua nodded but said nothing. He drove the remaining three miles to the turn off for Leakesville and then turned right; they still had a good fifteen miles to go. He wondered if they would make the entire trip saying nothing more than generalized statements. Emma did not speak again until they passed the pole yard.
“I remember that place,” she said excitedly. “I came there with my grandpa once to pick up some poles to build a hog pen. That was a long time ago,” her tone was melancholy.
Joshua glanced over at her but she was not looking his way; she had her jaw propped on her elbow, both against the window, watching the passing scenery. It reminded him of just how young she really was.
“Yeah, it’s been there a long time - as long as I can remember, it has been there,” Joshua remarked. “It was probably there before I was even born.”
Emma did not respond.
Joshua lit a cigarette, rolled his window down about half way and then put his Black Sabbath tape into the 8-track player. It had been a while since he had listened to it. He thought Ozzy Osborne a little strange, but he liked the passion and intensity of his songs. ‘War Pigs’ was his favorite tune of theirs; at the time, it did not cross his mind that it might bother Emma.
As soon as the music started to play, the sky darkened and lightning streaked across the skies. When the intro to the song, ‘War Pigs,’ began, Emma knew exactly what it was. Memories of Earl dancing around her wearing the pig head, teasing with the feather, and then shoving his hand between her thighs flashed through her mind. She cut Joshua a scathing glance, but he was looking straight ahead. Immediately, she assumed that he and Earl had something in common, why else would they listen to the same type of music. However, as she sat quietly and listened to the lyrics of the song, Earl left her thoughts, and after a bit, she understood why he liked it. Joshua Stokes was unlike any man she had ever known, not that she had known that many outside her family. Men in authority such as teachers, principals, and bosses were all fuddy-duddy and stiff. Joshua was cool as a cucumber, tough when he needed to be, but calm and easy going otherwise.
When War Pigs ended, a song called ‘Paranoid’ came on; it was the first time Emma had heard it. It was faster, and with and thumping beat. It seemed the faster the song got the faster Joshua drove; they were flying low, the car seemed to barely touch the pavement. Joshua’s thoughts were not even concentrated on the music-his mind was on what he might find when he reached Leakesville. He hoped to find something that would provide him with some answers as to what happened to his mother.
Joshua was doing seventy miles per hour when he reached the Chickasawhay River Bridge; it marked the city limits of the small town. The river was running swift, probably because of the rain upriver. He hit the brakes to slow down since the town began immediately on the other side of the bridge.
He drove first to the Herald, the newspaper office for the community, and parked right out front. He asked Emma if she wanted to go in with him, but she said that she wanted get out, stretch her legs, and walk around the Main Street area of the quaint little town. He rolled his window up in case the rain came and then told her to meet him at the Tiny Diner in an hour and they would get some lunch. As she nodded, he turned and entered the building.
22
Who Killed the Main Street Flasher?
The records in the archive section of the Herald were on microfilm. Joshua was not expecting that; however, it was going to save him a ton of time. He immediately asked f
or the nineteen thirties, forties, and fifties rolls of film. A tall, good-looking redhead whose nameplate in the window said was Carol Sanderson, gave him an ‘are you sure look’ but returned with what he had asked for. It was many more rolls than he thought it would be. As he sat down at the reader machine, he carefully placed the first roll, connected it, and then wound the handle until he saw an image.
The date on the front page of the Herald said, Jan 2 1930. The headline read, ‘Who Killed the Main Street Flasher.’
Right away, the name Dixon caught Joshua’s attention. It seemed that a man by the name of G. W. Dixon was shot and killed on the front steps of the courthouse as deputies led him from the jail to the courthouse for his hearing scheduled for later that morning. The deputy was also shot but survived. A 22-caliber rifle was the weapon they thought the shooter used; the shots had come from a distance.
From what he read, it seemed that the elder Dixon had gone senile and was exposing himself to young attractive people of the community, both male and female.
After his wife died, there was no one to watch him and he had begun standing on Main Street exposing himself to families as they exited the church on Sunday mornings. The article in the paper said his son, Early Dixon, owned the local mortuary, but they had had a falling out and had not spoken for years.
Joshua flipped through a few more pages but saw very little on the case. He quickly checked the rest of that year but saw no reports of missing women. It was several years of headlines before he saw anything pertaining to missing persons.
The headline for March 30 1938 declared, ‘Headless Corpse Found near the Chickasawhay River Bridge.’ The article went on to say, that the body was believed to be that of missing Sandhill woman, named Julie Vernon. Vernon was reported missing the previous month.
So it begins, thought Joshua as he cranked the handle to the weekly paper’s next headline. ‘Sheriff Walter Scott says he has a Suspect in the Case of the Headless Corpse Found near the Chickasawhay Bridge.’ Excitedly, Joshua read on.
The article said that the nude, mutilated body was positively identified by relatives of Julie Vernon by a unique birthmark and by a scar on her upper thigh. Although the headline read that the sheriff had a suspect, he did not release the name to the public. Joshua was sure the name of the suspect would be in the sheriff’s records at the station. He was anxious to go to the sheriff’s office to get a look at those records but restrained the urge in order to go forth with his headline search.
Joshua flipped through several more months of papers before he saw another item that caught his attention. ‘Local Woman Missing’ this one said that Janet Hall, the wife of a local storeowner disappeared on the morning of September 9. She was last seen putting her young children on the school bus.
When her sister arrived around eleven thirty for their weekly luncheon, the woman was nowhere to be found. Nothing was missing. Her clothes, jewelry, purse, and other personal items were in the home and the family vehicle, which she occasionally drove, was in the driveway.
Joshua saw several more articles informing that Janet Hall was still missing, that any information on her whereabouts would be greatly appreciated, and that all information would be confidential. He finished out 1938 and was about to look at another roll of film when he saw that the clock on the wall told the time as eleven fifty five. He had told Emma to meet him at noon. He would need several more hours to go through all of the film, plus he wanted to go to the courthouse and the sheriff’s office, he needed to make up his mind what he was going to do. Right then, lunch and a cigarette was what was on his mind; his stomach had begun to growl hungrily.
He told Carol that he wanted to look through a few more rolls after lunch, and if she did not mind to just leave them there. Carol told him that was fine; she was going home for lunch and would return in an hour.
Joshua left the newspaper office and walked the half a block to the diner. When he walked in, Emma sat at a table drinking co-cola and watching the other patrons. She smiled when she saw him enter.
As soon as he sat down, the waitress was at his elbow. She asked if they were ready to order and what he wanted to drink. He told her he wanted a deluxe burger, an order of fries and sweet tea - Emma ordered fries; she said she was not very hungry.
“I like this little town. It’s not as pretty as Lucedale, but it’s quaint.”
“Uh huh” Joshua mumbled as he lit a cigarette. “If you blink, you’ll miss it when driving through.”
“Yeah, there’s not much to it, maybe three or four blocks. I walked the entire main strip and several side streets in about thirty minutes. I saw a little antique shop on Cedar Street; I started to go in but figured I might lose track of time if I did.”
“Well, I need to go back to the newspaper office for a bit and then the courthouse and sheriff’s office. You’ll have plenty of time to explore it; hope you don’t mind entertaining yourself.”
“No, I don’t mind at all.” Emma glanced up at the waitress who brought their food. Both busied themselves eating lunch. When they finished, Joshua left a tip on the table and took the bill to the register to pay the tab. Before he left, he asked Emma if she needed some money. He could tell she did not want to take the money from him, but he insisted.
“It’s the least I can do after dragging you up here and then leaving you to fend for yourself. There’s not much to do here, that’s for sure.”
“It’s fine; I’m fine. It beats being home alone,” Emma replied.
Joshua noticed her use of ‘home.’ He hoped she had not become too attached to him or his house. When he reached the newspaper office, the sign on the door with the little clock on it said, closed, be back at one o’clock. Joshua lit a cigarette and leaned against his patrol car to wait. Movement out the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned to look. He saw a man walking across the street from the police station. The man was older, probably in his early sixties. He wore khaki pants, a sport coat, and donned a plaid fedora, which made him look a lot like Bear Bryant, the coach for the Crimson Tide - University of Alabama football team.
“I’m Thomas Merrill, Sheriff of this county,” the man said extending his hand; Joshua shook it and introduced himself.
“What brings you to our neck of the woods, Sheriff?” Merrill asked.
“Just doing a little research on a case I have been working on,” Joshua replied.
“One that involves our little town?” Merrill asked as a question, not an observation.
“Sorta, well… I wanted to look into a man by the name of Early Dixon.” Joshua saw the sheriff’s eyes light up. “I heard he ran a mortuary up here.”
“Yeah, he did, up to about fifteen years ago,” Merrill replied. “Then he was sent to prison. I think his wife sold the place to the present owners before she moved away.”
“Prison-What happened?” Joshua asked expectantly.
“I caught Mr. Dixon red-handed. He was having sex with a corpse. It was the sickest thing I had ever seen in all of my years on the force and believe me, I have seen it all, son. From animal husbandry-folks having sex with animals, to child rape, but that sick son-of-a-bitch…” Merrill sputtered. “He, I think the psychiatrist the state called in on the case, called it necrophilia or something like that.”
“Damn,” Joshua said softly.
“Damn, is right, son. My mother was on her deathbed and I knew it wasn’t gonna be long before she passed; I wanted to have everything ready for when she did. I had gone over there to pick out a coffin and pay for a funeral. Well, when I got there, I didn’t see anyone. I called out - no one came. I followed my nose down to the embalming room and when I walked in, there he was, naked as the day he was born. He was going at it with - well, who with is not important. If that hadda been my dead mama on that table, I would’ve dropped that crazy son-of-a-bitch in his tracks. I was tempted then.”
“I bet you were.” Joshua lit another smoke and said, “You know, I was on the force back then, I don’
t remember hearing anything about that case.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have;” Sheriff Merrill replied. “The case was tried in Jackson, Mississippi. They said that Dixon would not get a fair trial here in Greene County; he was too well known. Most folks knew who he was diddling. She was the only one that had died!”
“Is he still locked up?”
“Naw, he died about five years ago. That family was something else. Their old man went crazy and exposed himself to folks here in town. Someone shot him. Never did find out for sure who done it. I always suspected that it was Early Dixon that done it, because of the shame it brought on the family. I heard his younger brother hung hisself over there in your neck of the woods not too long after we caught Early. Most of the older ones are gone… I read about those you just got done with down there in Mobile.”
“Yeah, those boys were something else too. They had a room full of women’s heads. They held them prisoner, mutilated them; they killed men too. Some of those heads was old. I have my suspicions that they took over where their daddy left off. I had to kill them, so I won’t ever know for sure what went on or how they got started.”
“Well, I didn’t know what had transpired; there wasn’t much about it in the news.”
“Never is when it should be,” Joshua agreed. “Anyhow, I think Early Dixon was doing some of the same stuff. I read in the newspaper archives that y’all had found a decapitated female body by the river bridge back in the thirties, and another woman went missing. I haven’t finished looking through those articles yet.”
