Grievances Page 9

  “So you support the right to arm bears,” Bullock said.

  Brad laughed. “Where’re you from, Ronnie?”

  “Outside of Charlotte.” Bullock removed the scope from the rifle and polished its lens with a cotton cloth. “Place called Mallard Creek. Mama’s great-great-granddaddy came to North Carolina in the 1700s and kept walking until he found some land he liked. He claimed it, married a local woman, and it went on from there. Bullocks lived off the land—raised cattle, farmed and ran a little moonshine. ’Course the whole thing went to hell when Uncle Horton ran off with a waitress and Aunt Martha got the land.” Bullock poured himself another glass of Rebel Yell. “She sold out to developers for a pot-full and they built one of those Yankee Containment Facilities.”

  “A what?”

  “Yankee Containment Facility. Big development with a golf course, gates, huge expensive houses, and a fancy name. No one local ever lives in those places. Just Yankees who move down south, drive to work, drive home to their trophy wives, play golf on the weekends and never even have to feel like they’ve left Cleveland. Come to think of it, maybe ol’ Aunt Martha did us all a service. I’ve met some of those people. They need to be locked up.”

  “Those places have funny names,” I said. “Sometimes they’re not even words.”

  “The one they built on Aunt Martha’s land is called Byrn Brook. What in hell is a Byrn?”

  “Byrn Brook. I think that’s where the publisher lives.”

  “What a jerk,” Bullock said.

  “Well, Ronnie,” I said, “We see eye-to-eye on something.”

  Bullock tried to fill my glass but I was done. “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s make a deal. I can act like a gentleman if you can act like you’ve done this before, okay?”

  “Deal,” I said. We shook hands. It wasn’t the mutual admiration society yet, but it was a start.

  “How long have you been at the Times?” Brad asked Bullock.

  Bullock sighed as his memory rewound to the days just after World War II when he had joined the Times after writing press releases in the Army’s Signal Corps. His first job was writing obits, the same job he had now. “Great days,” he said. “Back before the paper was taken over by a corporate chain. Green eyeshades. Rolled-up-shirtsleeves. Gin in the bottom desk drawer. Hello, sweetheart, get me rewrite. The other thing is, we worked hard to write with style.”

  It sounded like a jab. “I try to write with style.”

  “There’s no point,” Bullock said. “They’ll edit the life out of it anyway. Anyway, after obits, I moved to cops and stayed there twenty years. Even had my own office at the cop shop.”

  “How’d you end up back on obits?” Brad asked.

  “My goose was cooked once the Times got sold to the chain. Bunch of Ivy League jerks with journalism school degrees took over. They don’t care about news. They edit the paper by survey research. They’re more worried about political correctness than content.”

  Bullock shook his head in resignation. “Anyway, I held ’em off for a bunch of years but they finally got me. I got moved from day cops and courts to night cops. Then to night rewrite. Now, my main job is satisfying the publisher’s fixation with having obituaries in the paper.”

  “What do you think this obit fixation is?” It was something I had always wondered.

  “I think he’s getting old.” Bullock said. “Likes to read about his friends.” We both laughed about a common enemy.

  Bullock fired off another shot and drank one, too. “Don’t think I don’t care about blacks or about what happened to Wallace Sampson,” he said. “I do. But with this story, I’ve got something else to prove.”

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning, I watched from my bed with one eye as Ronnie Bullock, up at the crack of dawn, gathered his weapons for battle. Khaki uniform. Tape recorder disguised as a pack of cigarettes. A device for attaching the recorder to a telephone handset. A miniature camera. A small, extendable telescope. Hunting knife. Derringer.

  “Jesus, Ronnie, we’re not breaking into the Kremlin!”

  “Be prepared. Though I don’t imagine a communist like you was ever a Boy Scout.”

  A light rain fell and the Dodge’s tires hissed on the pavement as we headed into Hirtsboro, Bullock and Brad in the front seat, me in the back.

  Bullock suggested we start with the crime scene. Brad directed us to a street two blocks off Jefferson Davis Boulevard, on the edge of the wrong side of the tracks. We cruised slowly, past a cyclone-fenced field of rusting cars, past a sagging mobile home, a faded Big Wheel the only feature of its stark front yard, past a sandy lot, vacant except for broken beer bottles and patches of scrubby grass.

  “There it is,” Brad said, pointing to a one-story wooden structure close to the road, behind two Sky Chief and Super Sky Chief gas pumps. Most of the white paint had flaked from the building and the siding had weathered to a light gray. The tin roof was the same color—except for the streaks of red rust which leaked from nail holes like blood from a dozen wounds. The peaked roof extended beyond the storefront, providing a sheltered drive-thru between the pumps and the store entrance. A simple rectangular sign, its letters pale and chalky from twenty years of sun and rain, hung above the pumps. “De Sto” it read in faded green, next to the red Coca-Cola bottle cap logo.

  Gravel popping beneath our tires, we eased up the semicircular driveway and parked by the pumps. Brad and Bullock got out and peered through the store’s dirty window. I tried the door. The screen door opened easily, but the main door was locked. Through the window, I saw shelves, empty except for a few boxes. A floor-to-ceiling cooler stood along the left wall.

  “I got a lock picker,” Bullock said, heading back to the car.

  “Ronnie!”

  He stopped. “What? It’s abandoned.”

  “Somebody owns it,” I said. “Brad?”

  “It’s been closed a long time. Anyway, nothing happened in there. Wallace Sampson was shot outside, in the next lot over, near the street.”

  “Where was the boy when he was hit?” Bullock asked.

  “I don’t know exactly. The police report might tell us.”

  I looked out at the street and calculated angles of fire. There were a dozen places the shooter could have hidden. I took out my reporter’s notebook and sketched a rough diagram of the area.

  “Not much here.” Bullock checked his watch. “I’m hungry. What do you say we grab some grub?”

  We ate in a Formica-topped booth at the Hungry Tummy Cafe on Jefferson Davis Boulevard. When we had finished, Bullock lit a cigarette.

  I looked around. “You sure this is a smoking section?”

  “It is now. I allow myself one a day and I enjoy every damn puff.”

  “Where to now?” Brad asked.

  “Let’s swing by Mrs. Sampson’s.” I was still worried that we hadn’t gotten her son’s picture. “Then we can pick up a copy of the police report.”

  We drove slowly down the sandy streets of the all-black neighborhood, past the peeling-paint shotgun houses and the Mt. Moriah House of Prayer, attracting the stares of the curious, the old who lounged on porches, the young who played in the streets. Mrs. Sampson wasn’t home. But I remembered something she had told me.

  “Where’s the black cemetery?” I asked Brad.

  The rain slacked as we reached the outskirts of town. We turned off the main highway and followed a single set of tire tracks up the wet, sandy drive that led through the white-painted metal arch entrance to Elmwood Cemetery. The road wove through the field of the dead and terminated at the top of a hill in a parking area shaded by a grove of Spanish moss-draped live oaks. We spotted Mrs. Sampson as we drove up, a lone figure with a pink umbrella standing in the drizzle. We parked nearby. Brad and Bullock waited in the car.

  “I thought I might find you here,” I said as I
approached.

  “Did you come to see his grave?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She led me to a white slab marker set flush to the ground. A brass vase of fresh-cut zinnias sat below it.

  “Here’s my little boy,” she said.

  I looked at the dates on the marker. “He was about ready to turn fourteen.”

  “Three days. I already had his birthday present. Charlotte’s Web. His favorite book. I put it in his coffin. We used to borrow it but I got him his own copy. Now, he has it with him.”

  I was surprised because it had been my favorite book as a child, the one Mom always read to Luke and me. I pictured a brightly wrapped package within the coffin. Inside, a child’s favorite book, an ultimately comforting story about the cycle of life and death. The body of a boy, three days short of fourteen, his head blown away by a slug from a deer rifle, with no closure or comfort at all. The rain resumed, God’s tears.

  Mrs. Sampson knelt at her son’s grave. She closed her umbrella and lifted her face to the stinging drops. “Take care of my baby, God.” She patted the white marble slab. “See you tomorrow, Wallace.”

  Mrs. Sampson opened her pink umbrella and shielded me from the rain as we returned to the car.

  “Mrs. Sampson, is there any way I could borrow that picture of Wallace on your living room wall? We’d like to use it if we write a story.”

  “It’s the only one I have. I couldn’t afford to order.”

  “You’d get it back.”

  “How long would I be without it?”

  “Couple of days, at most. We’d copy it and send it back.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t,” she looked at me pleadingly. “It’s the only one I have.”

  I couldn’t imagine how I was going to explain this to Walker. Best to bring Bullock into it, I figured, so I wasn’t the only one taking the blame.

  “Not a problem,” Bullock said when I got back into the car. He pulled the small camera I’d seen that morning out of the Dodge’s door pocket. “We’ll take a picture of the picture.”

  Back at the Sampson house, Mrs. Sampson said, “You can have Wallace’s picture, if you want. I have to have it back. But if it will help make sure he’s not forgotten . . .”

  I knew the original picture would work better. A picture of a picture is one more generation removed from the original. But I also knew it wasn’t beyond the Charlotte Times production department to damage a photo or lose it entirely. The newspaper’s interest had to take a back seat to the interests of Mrs. Sampson. I told her a photo of the photo would do just fine.

  Bullock got a small tripod from the trunk of the Dodge while I positioned the photo. “Helps steady the 30.06 firing from the prone position,” he explained. “Also fits the camera.”

  Ten minutes later, we were headed back to Windrow in the Dodge. “Looks to me like ol’ Thomas Jefferson musta visited around these parts,” Bullock said.

  “I don’t think he did.”

  “Well, then, Strom Thurmond or some other white man with a taste for black women. There’s some white in Wallace, judging from his picture.”

  “Ronnie,” I sighed. “Try to stay on track.”

  In one day, we had explored the site of the shooting, visited the grave, got Wallace Sampson’s picture, and developed exactly no new information about the killing.

  We needed to do better. Walker’s clock was ticking.

  The next morning we returned to town hall, the scene of our conviction for speeding. The glass door marked Municipal Offices wouldn’t open. Inside, we could see Patty Paysinger, the town clerk, at her desk. Bullock rapped on the glass.

  “We’re closed,” she mouthed. She pointed to the right of the door where, for the first time, I saw a sign: Hours: Monday–Thursday, 1:30–5 p.m. Closed Friday.

  “What kind of backwater is this?” Bullock snarled. “The damn government’s open only half the time?” He peered through the glass door. Patty Paysinger shrugged her shoulders and smiled sweetly, as if it were all out of her control.

  “I forgot,” Brad said. “Sorry.”

  We returned at 1:30 p.m., having killed half a day with nothing to show for it. Patty let us in. “Sorry you had to wait. I’d love to be full time but poor ol’ Hirtsboro just can’t afford it, bless its heart.”

  I remembered my manners. “Mrs. Paysinger, thank you for taking care of me yesterday.”

  “I hope you’re feeling better.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Mrs. Paysinger, you remember how we’re down here to do a story about the killing of Wallace Sampson?”

  “I know you said that and I know that Mr. Hall was down here a while back asking about the same thing.”

  “Well, we need you to find us the police report from the incident itself.”

  “I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

  Olen Pennegar walked in. I ignored him. “This is public information,” I protested. “Any taxpayer is entitled to look at it.”

  “Mr. Harper, I’m not talking about the public’s right to know. I’m saying I don’t have time to drop everything and look for a twenty-year-old police report. Hirtsboro has one full-time employee. That’s Olen Pennegar and he’s just a pup.” Pennegar turned bright red. “The magistrate, the mayor and I are part-time and I’m the only one who gets regular pay. I got a dozen things to do and I’m sorry, but helpin’ you boys out just isn’t one of ’em.”

  “Make time. The law says you have to give it to us.” I tried to smile but felt my face get hot.

  Bullock put his hand on my shoulder. “Easy, Matt.” I pushed his hand away.

  “We’ll sue their damn asses if we have to. Ronnie, we’re talking about the people’s right to know.”

  Pennegar stepped forward. “Cursing in the town limits is only a misdemeanor. But we can fine you again.”

  Mrs. Paysinger turned to me. “I don’t how they do it up in Charlotte but I’m sure your momma didn’t allow talk like that.”

  I winced and said I was sorry. Patty Paysinger softened. She told Bullock it was okay if he looked through the files himself, as long as he didn’t make a mess.

  Bullock motioned Brad and me over to the corner. “I’ll stay here and plow through the police reports. You guys see if you can find Wallace Sampson’s girlfriend. I ought be able to find this thing in an hour or two.”

  “I don’t like being told I can’t look at the records,” I said. “Where’s she get off deciding who can look and who can’t?”

  “Will you get off it? Take ‘yes’ for an answer and keep your ego out of it.”

  “It’s not ego. It’s principle. Public records are open to everybody, not just the people the government likes.”

  “Save it for the Supreme Court. We’ve got work to do.”

  Brad and I found a phone book, bloated by the effects of the weather, hanging by a chain from the drive-up payphone perched on a pole in the parking lot. There were dozens of Browns, too many to call.

  “Plus, there’s no guarantee that she’s still Vanessa Brown,” Brad pointed out. “She could have married.”

  “Or moved.”

  I dialed Reverend Grace’s church. If anyone would know the whereabouts of Vanessa Brown, he would. As the phone in the church began to ring Olen Pennegar pulled up in the Hirtsboro town patrol car.

  I removed the phone from my ear, cupped my hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Pennegar.

  “Something I can help you with?” I asked.

  “Nope.” He got out of the patrol car and leaned on the front fender, as if he had nothing in the world better to do.

  “We’d like to have a conversation here,” Brad said.

  “Nothing stopping you.”

  Fine, I thought. We’ll play above board. Let Pennegar be the jerk.

  “Reverend Grace, it’s Matt Harper of the Charlotte T
imes,” I said. “I called because I’m trying to track down Wallace Sampson’s girlfriend.” There was no reaction from Pennegar.

  When I got off the phone I told Brad, “She works at the Hungry Tummy.”

  We walked the four blocks from town hall to the diner past sun-baked brown yards, sand, and bleached gray buildings. Even the leaves of the live oaks straddling the streets seemed pale and washed out.

  At the Hungry Tummy, the air conditioner mounted over the door ran loud and hard, dripping water onto the sidewalk, baptizing patrons who hesitated. Brad and I dodged a drip and entered. Heat from the kitchen and the grill swept across the eight-stool counter, aided by a large ceiling fan. The air felt thick and smelled of greasy hamburgers and frying bacon. The air conditioner was fighting a losing battle.

  We took the same booth we’d sat in the day before and the same blonde, heavy-hipped waitress took our order.

  Brad asked, “Does a Vanessa Brown work here?”

  The waitress gave us a guarded look. “Who’s asking?”

  We introduced ourselves and told her we were working on a story.

  “Good Lord Almighty! You wanna interview Vanessa Brown? For the paper?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

  “You sure you got the right Vanessa Brown?”

  “Girlfriend of a young man who got shot here twenty years ago.”

  “Don’t know nothing about that.”

  “Reverend Grace told us she washes dishes here.”

  “That’s right. Tried her at waitressing but you have to be able to write. That or remember the order. She can’t do neither.”

  Wonderful. An ideal witness.

  “Could we talk to her?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Soon as the lunch rush is over.”

  After we had eaten, we went outside and waited under a big umbrella at a picnic table near the back door of the restaurant. It was clear from the saucers of overflowing cigarettes butts that this was where the staff came to smoke.