Brambleman (30 page)

Yours truly,

Lucious

Charlie stared at the meticulous handwriting
and thought:
Everyone knew the little bastard was up to
something
. He put the letter in the flatbed scanner and made a
copy on his hard drive.

There was much more. He felt a spike of
nervous energy when he found some letters from local historian
Cecil Montgomery to Lillian’s mother, his “dearest cousin.”
Montgomery would not be pleased to know that Charlie Sherman was
looking at his letters. Indeed, Charlie was tremendously surprised
to find them. Apparently, Cecil hadn’t covered this base and
collected them from Lillian back in January when he’d warned the
townsfolk to beware the strange invader. Maybe Cecil was getting
old and forgetful—or didn’t think these papers mattered.

Well, they did now. Charlie’s gaze froze on a
brown envelope he uncovered near the center of the table.
Hello
. “Joshua Logan” was written on it in thick black ink.
The lyncher and land stealer of 1912. He of the deathbed
confession, dictated to a young Cecil Montgomery and promptly
burned. Unless—

No. Nothing like that in the envelope. But he
could now see handwriting samples and signatures from both men.
Get while the getting’s good
, Charlie told himself. As he
scanned a letter from each man, he stifled a laugh, worried that an
outbreak of glee would alert Lillian to the true nature of his
mission and the pending danger to her family’s good name.

After that, he sought more documentation for
his main story, but no worries. It was all around. He was
practically whistling when he found this letter:

June 6, 1937

Dear Horton,

Just to keep you posted on the
Cutchins-Riggins problem. Here is the latest. On the night of June
3 Ike Cutchins showed up at John Riggins house with a homemade
gasoline bomb and threw it on the porch. Riggins stepped outside,
picked up the bomb, a canning jar stuffed with a burning rag, which
had failed to explode. He threw it after Ike, who was running away
down the road as fast as his stubbly little legs could carry
him.

Unfortunately, there was a casualty. Ike’s
fyce, who apparently possessed a fair deal more courage than his
master, stayed behind to bark at John. When the jar hit the road,
it blew up, and a piece of flying glass so mangled the dog’s back
leg that it had to be amputated.

Sheriff Ware told me this after both parties
reported their own versions of the incident and demanded that an
arrest be made. Riggins must understand that a white man has more
rights than a nigger will ever have.

Yours truly,

Lucious

Lillian fixed ham sandwiches for lunch. By
then, Charlie had scanned thirty pages into his laptop. “What
exactly are you looking for?” she asked as they ate in the newly
remodeled kitchen, complete with granite counters, maple cabinets,
and black appliances. “Like I said, I haven’t read that stuff.”

“Local color,” he said in his best deadpan.
“The sort of things that make a story come alive.”

That seemed to satisfy her, but as it turned
out, she was interested in something else. As they chatted amiably,
she told Charlie with a shy smile, “There isn’t a man in my life,
at present.” She also said that she considered his separation “the
same thing as a divorce.” He took these statements as a warning,
along with her tendency to reach over and touch his hand when she
laughed at his jokes.

After lunch, Charlie kept reading, but didn’t
find anything of particular interest until his eyes fell on a
partially blacked-out journal entry by Anderson on October 13,
1937, the day after the date on the back of the lynching photo:
“Yesterday marked the death of (name redacted) at the hands of
(several names redacted), and especially (name redacted), who
started all this. I am not happy about it, but the nigger had to
argue, so he died.”

While Charlie was staring at this entry, the
phone rang. Lillian took the call in the kitchen. A few seconds
later, he heard her mention his name, which was precisely when
things went wrong.

“Oh,” Lillian said. “I didn’t know. Nobody
ever told me that.” She became more apologetic and agitated.
Finally, she said, “Yes, Cecil.”

Shit
. Montgomery.

When Lillian returned to the dining room,
Charlie glanced up and flinched when he saw the look on her face.
“You have to leave,” she said between gritted teeth.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Logan’s coming. He’s won’t be happy,”
Lillian said. “It’s best for you if you’re gone.”

“Who’s Logan?”

“My brother. I’m not telling you anything
more. You’re a snake.” She hissed the last word.

“Sorry,” Charlie said, doing his best to look
confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do,” she said. “Why else would you
be sitting at my table, taking notes?”

He glanced around at the papers. All those
sources, all that history … fading before his eyes. But at least he
now had more damning information on the old man. Charlie cleared
his throat and gulped. “Tell … Logan that I’m not working on 1912
anymore. This is a Cutchins thing I’m doing now.”

She glared at him, arms folded across her
chest.

He closed his computer, unplugged the
scanner, and quickly packed up his stuff. With his gear in his
hands, Charlie turned to her and said, “I’ve got a job to do.
That’s all it is.”

“Like I said, it’s best that you go. I’m only
giving you this warning because I don’t want blood on my carpet.
And delete whatever you put on your computer. You don’t have rights
to use it.”

“Goodbye.” Charlie marched out of the house
and quickened his step. He opened the van door and tossed his
equipment on the floor in front of the passenger seat. As he drove
off, he cast a glance back at Lillian’s house and shook his head
mournfully at the history he’d left behind. When he was a
half-block away, a blue Ram pickup sped by going the opposite
direction, running a stop sign. Racing the engine, its driver
turned toward Lillian’s house.

“It’s good to be gone,” Charlie muttered as
he drove off. As for deleting the copies he’d made on his computer,
she’d have to take that up with his boss.

Of course he felt badly, but his mood
brightened when he realized how much treasure he’d rescued from
behind enemy lines. What occupied his mind on the drive back to
Atlanta were those blacked-out names. How could he learn the
lynchers’ identities?
Maybe Lucious Fervil also had a horny
great-granddaughter
.

He crossed the line into Fulton County and
breathed a sigh of relief. Soon afterward, his cellphone trilled.
He was glad it was Joshua Furst at Fortress, but his relief was
short-lived. “What the
hell
is going on down there?” his
editor asked. “I haven’t even finished reading the manuscript—it’s
absolutely fantastic, by the way—and people are already calling me.
You’re really stirring up trouble, and I say that with the greatest
admiration. Some guy named Cecil called demanding to see everything
you’ve written. Then some woman called to say your life is in
danger and gave me her number. Your first groupie. Ha, ha.”

“Uh, thanks. Don’t let Cecil Montgomery see
the manuscript. And it’s not about him, anyway. I’m working on
something else. What’s the woman’s name?”

“Wouldn’t give it. Just a number.” Joshua
rattled it off.

“Hang on,” Charlie said, tossing the phone on
the passenger seat, pulling out his pen, and writing the number on
the back of his left hand. He picked up the phone and checked with
Joshua to make sure he’d got it right. “OK, thanks.” Charlie hung
up.

He dialed as he drove past the first sign of
civilization, the North Springs MARTA station. No answer.

A minute later, a call came in. “Hello,” he
said, trying not to sound agitated.

“You called me,” a woman’s voice
declared.

“I did? Oh. Did you leave a message with my
editor?”

“Is that you, Mr. Sherman?”

“Yes. And you are—”

“You don’t need my name,” she said in an
accent torn between drawl and twang. “I got some information for
you. I wanted to warn you, but your editor wouldn’t give me your
number.”

“Warn me about what?”

“Logan Scott is looking for you.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Charlie said. “What’s his
problem?”

“He was nervous about something ‘that damned
writer’ is working on and said his uncle’s gonna kill his sister. I
said, ‘What writer?’ And he said, ‘The one working on the dead
man’s book about 1912.’ He ’bout had a conniption on his way
out.”

“The dead man’s book.” Charlie liked it as a
title. Maybe for his memoir, if he wasn’t careful. “Now … who’s his
uncle?”

“Cecil Montgomery.”

“You mean his cousin.”

“He said uncle.”

“Whatever. And they were talking about
me?”

“Not by name, but I knew it was you. I been
followin’ you. Saw an article earlier this year. I Googled you
about a book deal, then I called Fortress. I didn’t think the guy
was going to help me out. Glad he got in touch with you.”

“You told him my life was in danger?”

“Logan carries a gun. Probably end up
shooting himself, though, like his cousin did down in Atlanta last
Christmas.”

Charlie’s sphincter clamped shut. He was
stunned into silence for a moment, then attempted a recovery:
“Wouldn’t know about that.”

“Got into it with a guy at a Pancake Hut. I
figure he had it comin’. Anyway, Logan works for the county. He’s
an auxiliary deputy, thinks he can arrest people.”

“Does he work for the sheriff?”

“No, the planning—you don’t need to involve
me in this.”

The planning commission. That would make
Scott one of the county bigwigs. And Joshua Logan’s farm was out
there near the proposed superhighway, too. Lillian’s family
probably had as much at stake as Pappy’s clan did. “No, of course
not. Uh, thanks for the warning, I’ll certainly—”

“You married a Cutchins.”

“That’s true.” He stared over traffic into
the blue sky. A smile crossed his lips. “We don’t get along so well
anymore.”

“I figured as much, if you’re working on what
I think you are. So Evangeline Powell’s your mother-in-law.” She
cackled. “What do you think of her?”

“A little goes a long way,” he drawled.

“I hear you. Her act got old with me a long
time ago.”

“So what is it that you think I’m working
on?”

“I figure you’re writing a book about the
Cutchinses and by now you know they’re all evil and crooked as
snakes. Stanley Cutchins cheated me on my insurance. Told me the
policy he sold me covered my boat, even charged me for it, and then
I found out the hard way it didn’t. He knew what he was doing, and
it cost me dearly. Now one of their own is going to do it to them.
If that’s not poetry, I don’t know what is. But you need to be
careful. There’s people up here who have worked for generations to
keep this quiet. But some of us think the Cutchins’ time of ridin’
high needs to come to an end, what with the news about the
farm.”

“I saw that there’s an option of a million
dollars on the land.”

“Purchase price be twenty times that. If you
know how they got it, you know it’s not right.”

“OK. You called me, and I got a feeling you
want to help. Is there something else you’d like to share?” He
still wasn’t sure exactly what she knew, and he didn’t intend to
tip his hand.

“Yeah. Get in touch with Danny Patterson.
Lives on Crooked Hollow Road. Know where that is?”

“I’ve been by it a few times.”

“My daughter’s best friend—his niece—takes
care of him. If you talk to him, he might have something to tell
you. But be quick. He ain’t gonna be around much longer. Got cancer
real bad.”

“What will he tell me?”

“I don’t know what he’ll tell you, but he
seen it.”

Bam
. Charlie felt like he’d been
shoveling in the dirt and just hit something hard. “It?”

“The thing itself. He’s your eyewitness, Mr.
Sherman. I gotta go. People can listen in on these cellphones. Good
luck,” she whispered. “I hope you nail their butts to the
wall.”

* * *

The next morning, Charlie drove on Crooked
Hollow Road for several miles before he found a gray mailbox with
“Patterson” painted on it in crude red letters. Atop a hill, an old
two-story house stood at the end of a long, two-track grass and
gravel driveway that cut through an overgrown pasture. No cars or
pickups. It was a scenic view, if you didn’t look too closely, but
Charlie could see signs of decay even from a distance: peeling
paint, torn screens, plywood on a window, and a sagging roof
adorned with a dish antenna.

It was a sunny October day and the air was
still; leaves from oaks and poplars dropped straight to the ground.
Across the road, behind him, stood a new subdivision. A half-mile
away, work had begun on yet another one. The clanking union of a
front-end loader and a dump truck broke the morning stillness. The
van’s tires crunched and popped along the driveway. Charlie parked
beside the house, climbed out with his satchel, slammed the door,
and shouted, “Hello!”

He didn’t trust the broken stair railing or
front porch to hold his weight (or the porch roof not to collapse
on him), so he walked around the house and knocked on the kitchen
door. He heard a chair squeak, then slow thumping. The door opened
and a grizzled, wild-haired, and rheumy-eyed old man in a ratty
pale blue bathrobe stood before him, giving Charlie the blankest
stare he’d ever seen. Underneath the robe, the man wore a frayed
T-shirt and graying briefs. A tube from his nose connected to an
air tank on a two-wheeled cart he pulled behind him. The man’s free
hand hung trembling uncontrollably.