A Murder In Passing (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

“Marsha was here this morning, but she left about thirty minutes ago.” Captain whispered the words at the opposite end of the hall from Lucille Montgomery's apartment.

“Do you know if Marsha's coming back this afternoon?” Nakayla asked.

“I overheard her say she'd see her mother for church tomorrow.”

“How'd you manage that?” I asked.

Captain looked hurt. “Give me credit for some subterfuge. I had the copy of the morning paper with the story of the D.A.'s dismissal of the murder charge. When Marsha opened the door, I pretended to be bringing it to Lucille to make sure she'd seen it.” He patted the seat of his walker. “I sat about twenty feet away. Close enough to hear them come to the door. My legs might be weak but I've still got good ears.”

“Anything else we should know?”

Captain nodded. “Lucille didn't look too good. She's been under stress and it shows. She said she didn't feel like coming to the dining room for lunch and would eat in her apartment.”

“Okay. Thanks, Captain.”

He grabbed my arm, and then looked back and forth from Nakayla to me. “Do you think she's in danger?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Let's not take any chances.”

“Then I'll activate the corridor patrols. A little tougher since she's at the end of the hall, but we'll make it work.”

He stepped back and saluted.

As we neared Lucille's door, Nakayla whispered, “She's been under stress but she's also grieving. No one but she and John Lang understand what the DNA report confirmed.”

“She, John Lang, and us.” I lifted the manila envelope I carried in my left hand. “This won't be easy. Will you take the lead?”

“Yes. That may mean I ask you to leave if she doesn't open up to both of us.” Nakayla knocked on the door.

“Just a minute,” came the muffled response.

We heard Lucille's footsteps shuffle closer on the other side. The door opened and Lucille gasped.

“I wasn't expecting company.” She looked down as if uncertain whether she was properly attired. Her beige cotton dress was one of comfort, not style.

“May we come in?” Nakayla said. “It's urgent.”

Lucille stood there, bewildered by our sudden appearance and Nakayla's request. Good manners won out and she turned aside.

“Yes, yes, certainly. But you know I've been cleared. Everything's all right.”

“Please sit down, Miss Montgomery. We'll be as brief as we can.”

The old woman closed the door and walked with hesitating steps to her rocker. “I should have called you. I'm grateful to you and Mr. Donaldson for what you've done.”

I sat on the sofa and Nakayla took the armchair next to Lucille.

“You haven't been cleared,” Nakayla said. “The murder charge was dropped for insufficient evidence but you could be charged again. Especially since Sam and I know Jimmy Lang died in that log.”

Tears welled in Lucille's eyes. “No, that's not true.”

Nakayla nodded to me and I pulled the print of the photograph from the manila envelope. I laid it on the coffee table and turned it to face Lucille.

The wells of tears overflowed and spread across the wrinkles of her cheeks. “Where did you find it?” She reached out, hesitant to touch it less the picture vanish.

“This is a copy we found in Charleston,” Nakayla said. “You can see there aren't the number of children you claimed were in it.”

“It was so long ago. I couldn't remember.”

“You remember very well. Well enough to try and protect the twins, Jimmy and John Lang. Descendants of the Kingdom just like your family. Jimmy's holding your hand, isn't he?”

Lucille took in a breath, and then exhaled a long, staggered sigh.

“My Jimmy,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and wiped the tears from her face with both hands.

Nakayla and I sat silently waiting for her to compose herself.

She opened her eyes and fixed them on the photograph. “Jimmy and John grew up on Peterkin's Lang Syne Plantation.”

Lang Syne Plantation and Jimmy and John Lang. I should have made that connection. The boys had taken the surname of the place they lived.

“Their father had been what white folks called an octoroon,” Lucille said. “One-eighth Negro. He was born on the Kingdom and a descendant of the first king, the mulatto slave owner who was said to have a white wife.

“According to my mother, their father had been killed when a cart loaded with apples he was pushing up a hillside rolled back on him. His wife was expecting and went to be with her sister who was a housemaid at Lang Syne. After the twins were born, their mother stayed on, joining her sister as one of the servants.”

Lucille lifted the photograph and held it close to her eyes. “The boys were not only fair-skinned but inherited white features. Miss Julia didn't try to pass them as white, but they were given an education on the plantation and stayed in the finer quarters of the house servants.”

She angled the picture first to Nakayla and then me as if we were seeing it for the first time.

“Our families stayed in touch and we would visit on occasion. Miss Julia knew their father's connection to the Kingdom, so when the photographer wanted to take this picture, Jimmy and John came with them.”

“But you saw them after that?” Nakayla asked.

“Yes. Once or twice a year. My grandmother Loretta also worked for a time at Lang Syne before her husband purchased our homesite. That was back when Miss Julia and Mr. Willie were courting.”

“Mr. Willie?” Nakayla repeated.

“Yes. Willie Peterkin. Miss Julia's husband.”

In my mind I saw William P. Lang's nameplate on his fine desk at the paper company.

“Willie Peterkin Lang,” I said.

“Yes,” Lucille said. “John named his son after Mr. Willie.”

“How did they cross the color line?” Nakayla asked.

Lucille gave a bittersweet smile. “It started as an accident. Jimmy had come up to visit our family. He was about seventeen. And he went into town to pick up some sugar for my grandmother. No one knew him. The plantation was its own little world in South Carolina and he'd always kept to the mountain land near the old Kingdom when he and John came to visit. Well, he passed the sidewalk test. Not on purpose. He said he was just daydreaming.”

I looked at Nakayla, but she was as confused as me.

“What's the sidewalk test?” she asked.

“Yielding to the white folk. You were expected to step off into the street if a group of white men or women was too wide for everyone to pass by without changing their stride. Jimmy said four men came out of the feed store and were walking side by side. He'd been unaware of their approach until the last moment. Before he could step out of the way, the men closest to him said, “Good Day,” and moved into a single file until they were clear. White men had never spoken to him as an equal before.”

“When was this?” Nakayla asked.

“I guess the summer of 1944. He watched the white men move away and saw two dark-skinned black men step into the street, ceding the whole sidewalk. The white men continued walking four abreast as if the black men didn't exist. And I guess back then they didn't.”

Lucille dropped the photograph on the coffee table as if that shameful period could be discarded just as easily.

“So Jimmy walked to the bus station and without hesitation took a long drink from the white water fountain. No one paid any attention. That's when he saw the possibilities open for him and his brother. He returned to Lang Syne, saved every nickel he could until he had enough to buy some property, and became the white Jimmy Lang. You know when he knew he'd pulled it off?”

“No,” Nakayla said.

“The day he registered to vote.”

“But the state of North Carolina made him choose between you or a better life,” Nakayla argued.

“It was a choice between having his potential limited to the status of a black sharecropper or having a better life for both of us. His brother jumped at the chance, and I pushed Jimmy just as hard. But when the marriage barrier fell, Jimmy believed he didn't have to make a choice any longer.”

“And you did.”

“I've already told you. Laws don't change hearts. In 1967, people weren't going to accept Jimmy marrying a black woman and treat him as a legitimate business man.”

Her face tensed. “Why does this even have to come out? What difference will it make?”

“Someone killed Jimmy,” Nakayla said firmly. “You told us you wanted justice for him.”

Lucille's lower lip quivered. “I do. Lord knows I do. But I can't see how destroying lives sets this right.”

Nakayla's eyes narrowed and a tremor of anger rippled through her body. “Having African blood doesn't destroy a life, Miss Montgomery. This isn't 1967. I'm proud of who I am and what I do. The lives of John Lang, William Lang, and Jennifer Lang will not be destroyed by their genes. Any lives destroyed will be because of their actions and it isn't your responsibility to protect them. You have a responsibility to Jimmy Lang, the man who was willing to give up everything for you.”

I jumped in before Lucille could respond. “And a responsibility to Jason Fretwell.”

“Who?” Lucille asked.

“A young veteran who was gunned down last night while trying to help us with your case. A twenty-three-year-old kid who may never wake up from a coma.”

Lucille stared at me, unable to say anything.

I ratcheted back the edge in my voice. “Miss Montgomery, has John Lang threatened you?”

“No. Of course not.”

“You knew his secret. Did anyone else? His son? His granddaughter?”

“No. Just me. Not even Gladys his wife. They were married in 1946 within six months after John moved here. A legally married white couple. No one ever suspected. And John never threatened me. He was grateful.”

I looked to Nakayla. She nodded for me to continue.

“Now that we know Jimmy Lang was killed on the old site of the Kingdom of the Happy Land, take me back to that day and tell me everything you remember.”

“I already have.”

“Then Nakayla and I want to hear it again. When did Jimmy tell you that he would pick you up at the camp on July 14th?”

“The night before. He came by and ate supper with Marsha and me.”

“And why did he say he was picking you up?”

“He had something to show me.”

“Show you, not tell you?”

“He said show me. Otherwise he could have just told me the night before. You know, when he made the arrangements.”

I leaned back on the sofa, trying to parse extra meaning from her words. “You said something else in Mr. Donaldson's office about new beginnings.”

“That's right. Jimmy said it was time for a new beginning. That we couldn't go back, but we could start over. That would be a real treasure.”

I pointed to the photograph on the coffee table. “And your copy of this picture was there after he left that night before he disappeared?”

“Yes. Jimmy had walked over to it. I remember because that's when he talked about new beginnings and we couldn't go back. You know, go back to when we were children.”

Nakayla smiled at me and I knew she thought we were making progress.

I pressed on. “Miss Montgomery, the stone chimney in this photograph is still standing.”

“Really? After all these years?”

“Yes, ma'am. I saw it myself earlier this week. That means it would have definitely been there the day Jimmy disappeared. The day we now figure he was killed on that property.”

“You think he went to look at that chimney?”

“I don't know. Do you have any idea why he'd be there?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. I would tell you if I did.”

“So, let me just check that I understand the situation back then. You didn't want to marry Jimmy after the Supreme Court decision because nothing had really changed as far as discrimination, and the county trash contract was too important.”

“That's correct.”

“John's wife had died a little over a week before and I imagine he was still quite upset.”

“Yes, sir.”

“William Lang had returned to Vietnam.”

“Willie took the bus to Fort Bragg the day after the funeral. He said he'd fly with one of the units being sent over. I packed him a lunch with some of the food that friends brought for the family after Gladys passed away.”

“And Jimmy wanted a new beginning.”

“That's what he told me.”

I sat for a moment, trying to put myself in Jimmy Lang's head. What leverage did he have? What could he do to change Lucille's mind?

“Miss Montgomery, what would have happened if Jimmy had made his mixed race public?”

“What? You mean confess he'd been passing all those years?”

“Yes. What law would he have broken that was still in effect in 1967? The Civil Rights Act had passed. Voting rights were guaranteed.”

“But the business.”

“Yes, the business may have been the casualty of his honesty. Would you have left him if he lost the business?”

“No, certainly not.”

“And then what would have been the reason not to marry him?”

She said nothing. Her eyes seemed to be looking beyond the walls.

“Jimmy loved you, Miss Montgomery. He knew what you would do once he knocked down that last obstacle.”

“A new beginning,” she said softly.

“Maybe. What do you think John would have done if Jimmy told him he was going to admit his racial heritage?”

“I don't know. He would have been upset for sure.” She leaned forward and shook a bony finger at me. “But I know what he wouldn't have done. He wouldn't have murdered his own brother. I stake my life on that. Someone else shot my Jimmy. Someone who had something to lose more valuable than kinfolk. I think you should take a close look at that Emory family, Mr. Blackman. Jimmy told me never to turn my back on them. Never. He said they'd sooner shoot you as look at you.”