All the Devil's Creatures (7 page)

He signed his name one more time to one last piece of paper and decided he could just about call it a night—one more call to make, this one in person. He locked up, bidding a
be careful
to the baby-faced deputy who served as night watchman for the annex. Behind the wheel of his official Crown Vic, he turned south off the square, crossing the railroad tracks by the train depot that hadn’t served a passenger in over thirty years. The street became bumpy and rutted, but the little old frame houses on either side were, for the most part, tidy. Most had large flower beds out front, and, he knew, sizable vegetable patches in the back just getting underway. Kids played in the twilight, chasing each other in the yards and riding bikes in the street. Two barefoot boys watched him pass from the low hanging bough of a massive chinaberry tree.

Near the edge of town, just before the residential lots gave way to open pasture and stands of pine, the sheriff pulled up to the finest house in the neighborhood, a brick ranch style on a curving corner lot, at least an acre. A plain but solid church of matching brick stood next door, its only ornament a white wooden steeple.

He hoped the old couple had finished their supper, expected they had.

The Reverend Mose Carter himself answered the door. The two men were near contemporaries, but the Reverend, stooped and gray, looked every one of his seventy five odd years and then some. Except for his eyes—as sharp as cut stone.

“John. What a glorious surprise. Please come in.”

Seastrunk removed his tan Stetson. “Thanks Reverend. You look well.”

“Hash was just clearing away supper. Pork chops and hominy. Can I get you a bite? Or a glass of tea?”

“Tea would be fine, Reverend. Mind if we set for a bit?”

“That would be marvelous.” Turning is head toward the kitchen, he said: “Hash, Sheriff Seastrunk has come calling. May we serve him a glass of tea?”

She emerged almost instantly with two icy mason jars filled to the brim. Her face was chiseled and bronze with hardly a wrinkle. Seastrunk noticed that she was now taller than her husband.

“Evening, Sheriff,” she said.

“Ms. Hadassah. Lovely as always.”

She smiled at him. “I’ll leave you two to your parley. A man works from sun to sun—”

“—but a woman’s work is never done.” The Reverend smiled as he finished the saying. Hadassah Carter smiled, too, as she turned back to the kitchen throwing a wink to the sheriff.

“Let us retire to the porch, Sheriff John.” He led them out a sliding glass door to a paved area in the back off the dining room. “I call it a porch. My children tell me this is a patio. I am blessed to have such a fine modern home. But I do sometimes miss sitting out front. Watching the world pass on the street …”

They sat on comfortable iron chairs that rocked a little, a matching table between them for their tea. A single yellow light attached to the back eave illuminated the space. A brick barbecue pit stood in one corner of the patio; a dogwood bloomed just off the other. Beyond that, a vast lawn faded into gloom, the hundred-foot pines around its perimeter silhouetted in the dying purple light.

“Reverend, I reckon you know what I’ve come to discuss.”

“The poor Bordelon girl.”

“It’s ugly. No two ways about it.”

“
Ugly
. There is evil in this world, Brother John. And sometime that evil does pierce the hearts of men.”

“I know it.”

They sat in silence. Then the Reverend said: “The Lord has brought us full circle, John. I sat down with your father before the Freedom Riders came through in ‘62. He came right to my little church and sat down with me in the front pew on a Saturday afternoon.”

“I know it.”

“Went to every black church in town that way, and told us, ‘I won’t stand for no violence. My boys will be lining the streets when your people march by.’ He told me, ‘But them boys are there as much to keep the white folks in line as to keep an eye on y’all.’”

“I know it.”

“‘Course, the white folks wouldn’t see it that way. Anyway, he said, ‘I’ll protect y’all. But you got to be respectable.’ Respectable! Of course we were respectable! Dr. King wouldn’t allow it any other way. We marched in coats and ties in those days, John. This was before the hippies came on the scene.”

“I know it.”

“The white kids who came down from New York, John—they had their hair cut proper. They dressed right. And they marched beside us for
justice
. Not like …
later
—the dope, the
lewdness
.”

“I know it.”

“Your father did keep the peace. His deputies lined the sidewalks. Rifles. Dogs at attention—”

“Daddy said that when word the Freedom Riders were coming to town got out, people from all over the state put their dogs on the train, addressed to him, in case a riot broke out.”

“That’s right.”

“He didn’t know what to do with them all.”

“There wasn’t going to be any riot. But your father kept the whites in line, too. Times were tense. This could have been another Selma, another Montgomery. But your father was no Bull Connor, John.”

“I know it.”

“I always supported him. And I’ve always supported you.”

“I know it. I appreciate it.”

“There are people in this county who are bitter, who are filled with bile, who are ready to blow up fifty years worth of progress. Y’all never catered to those people. Not like some politicians.” The Reverend paused, and when he spoke again his voice had an edge. “Now someone has stoked those fires of hate, made a martyr of a beautiful young woman. And you want, what, Sheriff? For me to keep my people calm? ‘It’s okay, y’all, the white police are on it, nothing to fret about here.’ Is that what you want me to say, John?”

“Reverend, I would never presume to tell you what to say. I just want to assure you that we are going to catch the people who did this. There will be no cover-up. No leniency.”

Reverend Carter sighed. “Okay, Sheriff. But we need to speak out. We need catharsis. John, we have folks coming from Dallas, Houston—a contingent from Chicago, even—they’ll be here Friday morning. We’ll be having a rally on the courthouse lawn.” He looked Seastrunk in the eye, pupils wide in the yellow light. “Don’t worry—we’ll be
respectable
.”

“I don’t doubt it, Reverend. Just remember, the people who killed Dalia Bordelon thrive on hate.”

“‘Hatred stirreth up strife: but love covereth all sins.’ Proverbs 10:12. But, John, there must be justice.”

“I know it.”

The sliding door opened and Hadassah Carter stepped through carrying two dessert plates in one hand. “Y’all want pie? These are last fall’s pecans—finish them up.”

The Reverend chuckled. “Oh, Hash—always trying to fatten me up!”

The sheriff took his pecan pie. “Thank you, Hadassah. By the way, I saw y’all’s grand-niece Tasha today. She’s grown into a fine young woman.”

“We were just tickled when she decided to move home,” Hadassah said. “You’ll be seeing more of her, I gather, Sheriff. She’s working on the Bordelon investigation.”

The Reverend scowled and remained silent.

The sheriff paused and glanced at him and then said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Well. Y’all’d better be careful.”

“I know it.”

•

The cable news reporter looked maybe twenty five years old, and, up close and in person, her pancake makeup gave her a China doll look that Seastrunk found unsettling.

“Is this a racist county, Sheriff?”

“No ma’am,” he said. “There are a few hateful, racist people here, as there are anywhere. It was individuals like that who committed this crime. And we will catch them.”

“So this case will be treated as a hate crime?”

“It will be up to the district attorney how to try the case. But our investigation is focusing on the hate crime aspect—this young woman was killed because she was black. So we’re digging into the white supremacist community, listening to chatter.” He sensed Bobby standing behind him, just out of the camera’s view.

“Any suspects so far?”

“We have some leads; I’m not going to give anything away at this point in time.”

“Has this incident divided your community along racial lines?”

“Well, now take a look up at that platform.” He nodded at the makeshift stage set up across the courthouse lawn where a young guitar player from out of town performed an old Pete Seeger song. He remembered playing the same song in a smoky bar on the Drag in Austin more than forty years before. Sitting on folding chairs behind the singer were two of the most bitter enemies in local political history—an enmity with national ramifications: Mose Carter, Civil Rights era icon known simply as “the Rev” to his fans and followers, who led marches and sit-ins as an acolyte of Dr. King himself; and former Speaker of the House Robert Duchamp, who built his political career railing against affirmative action and welfare queens as a master of the coded race baiting of the post-Civil Rights era. Seastrunk said, “Does that look like a community divided to you?”

“Still, some white residents have accused Reverend Carter of grandstanding—of bringing in ‘outside agitators’ to stage huge rallies in a bid to rekindle his fading political clout. How do you respond?”

“I disagree. A tragic thing happened in our community, and the people have a right to speak out about it. But let me be clear about one thing: this is not a rally of outsiders, and it’s not the Reverend’s rally alone. This is a rally led by the people of this community, condemning an evil act.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.” She turned toward the television camera and Seastrunk felt the tension fall from his body as she addressed an unseen anchorman in New York. “Let’s go now to the stage where local African American leader Mose Carter is preparing to speak.”

Seastrunk looked out over the crowd as Carter gave his sermon. Mostly, but not exclusively, black. About evenly divided between locals and out-of-towners. A group of white college-aged kids occupied one corner of the lawn under a “Peace Now” banner, as if this were an anti-war protest. They had unwashed hair and hemp clothing, and one dark-haired boy even played a bongo drum. Scattered along the periphery, members of the Nation of Islam stood with arms crossed in their trademark dark suits, bow ties, and hats. And, in the center of it all right in front of the stage, the massive national media contingent—a jumble of cameras and microphones, blow-dried hair and print-reporters’ scruffy beards.

But much of the crowd consisted of local families wearing looks of concern and sadness more than anger. Officers from the local police department provided security, but Sheriff Seastrunk did not expect violence. No one was defending the murder—no groups had signaled any intention to stage a counter-protest.
Embarrassed
: had the reporter asked him how the white community as a whole felt about the murder, that’s the word he would have been tempted to use.
Most folks just want this thing solved and forgotten
.

Reverend Carter spoke, his aging voice still strong: “We have suffered a great pain in our community this week.”

Murmurs through the crowd:
amen
.

“We have suffered hurt at the hands of those who would deny the spark of the divine in all God’s children.”

Amen
.

“We have suffered hurt at the hands of those who live by hate, who seek to divide us, who seek to sow hatred and discord throughout our land.”

Amen
.

“But we shall conquer the hatred with justice. We shall conquer the hatred with love.”

Amen
!

Applause flowed through the crowd, along with a few hollers. One of the college kids blasted an air horn. Duchamp rose and pumped a fist, and, notwithstanding his conciliatory words to the reporter, Seastrunk’s stomach turned at the Speaker’s hypocrisy. And he could swear he saw a brief look of utter disgust cloud, for just one second, the face of the Reverend as he turned to see the Speaker beside him.

The Reverend continued. “The devil has come to the bayou.”

Mmm-hmm. That’s right
.

“
Evil
has come to the bayou.”

Amen
.

“The devil puts hate in the hearts of men, turns him against his brothers. For the Lord said: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of
all nations
, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’

“All nations. Not white nations, black nations, brown nations, yellow nations.
All
nations.”

That’s right
.

“And so Paul told the Galatians, ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ The devil wants you to forget that. The devil wants you to see black nations and white nations, Jew and Greek.”

Mmm-hmm, amen
.

“So we must fight against the devil’s racism. And we must fight against the racist devils!”

Oh yeah! That’s right! Amen!

Seastrunk turned to his deputy, who was watching the stage with one eye and the crowd with the other, like a New Orleans cop at Mardi Gras. “Bobby, I’m going to see about paying Willie Kincaid another visit—last thing we want is photos of the sheriff dawdling on the courthouse lawn instead of devoting every minute to solving this murder. But why don’t you poke around the crowd, see if you see anything worth telling momma about.”

With an intense gaze the sheriff could not read, Bobby said
yessir
and sauntered off.

•

The deputy walked along the edge of the crowd along the back of the courthouse lawn, wondering what “leads” the sheriff was talking about. It had been Bobby’s idea to log into the various neo-Nazi websites and chat rooms, using the Southern Poverty Law Center’s database as a resource. But his probing through the dank crevices of cyberspace yielded nothing about Dalia Bordelon’s murder except the typical racist rants—certainly nothing that provided any leads. The sheriff himself had only a rudimentary understanding of the “internets” (as he called it) and seemed almost gratified that his deputy’s technological sleuthing had been fruitless.