Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) (4 page)

“Sorry to be late,” he said to his aunt.

She turned to him, her white blouse slightly open at the neck in the warm library air. People in town remarked on the similarities between the aunt and the nephew. Even under his deep weathered tan Tench’s face had the same resolute jut of facial features, the intelligent eyes, the strong cheeks and mouth. Mayor Betty Smart well understood her good looks gave her power. She showed off her middle-aged beauty to all the men in the town. The sweet and invasive perfume she wore hung about her in the damp air. She said, “I wanted you to meet this woman. She’s going to do a lot for my town.”

“She arrived at Strake’s yesterday,” Tench said.

“Yes, this woman is a friend of Strake’s. She’s staying at the mansion. I want to make sure she is welcome. Marengo called me about her.” Marengo had worked for Strake for many years. Also an African, Marengo was known around town for the three vertical scars on his forehead. He told Tench one time he received them from his village elders in a ceremony when he entered manhood.

“You went to the Island?” she suddenly blurted, surprise in her face and tone.

“Smote and I took the Emmy out there and cruised by the beach.”

She frowned. “You keep away from that Latino’s claims about his grandfather’s death. Strake’s our most important citizen, our only millionaire.” Betty Smart knew money. After all she had financed most of the purchase price of Tench’s garage, carrying it along with her other small businesses. More than anyone else, Tench owed her for his success in River Sunday. Looking at the African writer, she spoke with a calm expectation in her eyes.

“She’ll write about the town. I want her to be on our side.”

He stayed on his subject. “So, Captain Bob, you think it’s not murder?” he asked.

“Of course not, Jimmy.” Her attention was now on the African.

“What about Stagmatter? Do you think he could have done it?” He pushed his aunt’s patience. He owed Smote and the old man this attempt to ask his aunt about the situation. ”You know him pretty well. He is in your office from time to time. Actually, you’re one of the few people he talks to.”

“I said it’s not murder, Jimmy. Don’t you worry yourself about Stagmatter either. He’s all business. We talk about money and the town. He’s very interested in River Sunday. All he says to me is he wants more police patrols to protect the car museum and better roads into the estate. He’s very nice to me and I can’t believe he or Mister Strake would raise a finger to hurt anyone.”

The librarian’s voice pushed through his consciousness as she introduced the speaker. “Doctor Madeline Owerri has been employed as a writer for the Economist since she finished university in England. She has specialized in African affairs. Her latest book, The Bell, is published by Samson and Sons of London and has already been nominated for the prestigious International Book Prize in Non-fiction. We’re so fortunate to have her visiting River Sunday this week as part of her book tour of the United States. I should mention,” she said, looking around timidly, “Mister Strake helped the library to steal her away from her busy schedule of bookstore readings.”

The audience squeaked their chairs in the morning heat. The librarian opened a copy of the book, pushing back the cover sheet and holding the pages. She bent forward as she said,

“First, by way of further introduction and before we have questions, I’d like to share with you an excerpt from The Bell. Doctor Owerri has asked me to read and I hope I can do it justice.” Miss Peck proceeded with the motherly voice she used in her children’s reading group.

“An ancient mud brick fortress in my town has a heavy wall built from east to west to guard the harbor. In full view of ships anchored on the sheltered water are two tall and very thick wooden posts with a great brass bell suspended between them. This bell came many centuries ago from England from a foundry in Liverpool. The gift of this bell occasioned at the time a magnificent feast attended by chiefs from all the tribes of the neighboring villages.

“For hundreds of years afterwards, a man would climb the wall and ring the bell three times when cargoes arrived from the countryside to be traded with visiting merchants from the ships. A local chief, held in high respect for his services to the traders, earned the privilege of maintaining the bell, a duty which passed down over centuries to his sons. Today’s keepers of the bell are descendants of the original tribe. Part of their continuing duty, carried on even today, is to clean the sides of the bell after each storm so it remains brilliant in the sunlight. The bell has been known for all these years as a symbol of my country’s prosperity for no other harbor on the coast has ever received such a magnificent token of the foreign traders’ respect.

“The traders bought slaves and the bell rang when a cargo of slaves assembled in the harbor pens.

“They came from the rural areas to the assembly fields near the shoreline. The traders from the local tribes made ready for the auctions. English and other European agents who lived in local houses would then come out to the auction to represent the ships and their employers in Europe and the Americas. When the auction was ready, the bell ringer repeated sets of three rings of the bell until longboats lowered and the merchants came ashore.”

“At the side of the bell, after all the centuries, the original huge timbers still rise from the enclosure of the thick wall. These support the bell as well as a small side platform for the bell ringer to climb upon to do his task. Tourists ask about the sword cuts on the timbers. These are deep in the wood surface and even after many years of repairs and coats of paint, the caretakers of the bell have not been able to remove them.

“The marks are the only remaining sign of a desperate battle held three hundred years ago at the foot of the wall and near the supports of the bell. A single tribal group, a small number of dedicated men from my country, attempted to destroy the bell against the multitude of forces quickly assembled to defend it. The small band came to the bell at night and its leader began to ring it without stopping even though no ships had arrived. He warned the people to beware the traitors who would sell their own people. These fighters died, their bodies hung on posts and burned. Over many months the blackened carcasses rotted away.

“My ancestral great grandfather led the attack and his body burned the brightest. His descendants made a memorial to him. On the inside walls of the bell is the painting of a golden blossom with a black center and the English words: “One person with courage rang this bell to warn his village of the foreign slavers.”

In the silence following the reading, Doctor Owerri proceeded forward to the podium, her sandals clapping on the tile floor.

Tench recognized the African writer’s facial expression immediately. He’d seen it as a child growing up on the Baltimore streets. She had the same belligerent smile with steel beneath it, the edges of her mouth not bending with any warmth. She walked with a jauntiness of a person who feels sure she is in the right and deserves to be welcomed. Her face shone with the energy of a person who had much to say. However, at the same time as she reached the podium and began to speak, the cat did not want to hear her. It jumped away, its tail high in the air, and disappeared among the bookcases.

Tench had no interest in her message. He tried to move his cramped legs again. He thought of schemes about how he could convince his aunt to let him out of this kind of event in the future. He looked at his aunt. As she listened, she scribbled what she referred to as her “daily orders” in the little leather covered notebook she carried in her huge purse.

“Thank you for welcoming me with your famous Maryland hospitality,” the writer said, her voice deep and melodious, clipped with the same British accent as the African mechanics. Her words swept through the heat of the library room, its books, and the assemblage of senior citizens and schoolchildren in front of her. Tench noticed her rings. She had jeweled rings on every finger of each hand, including around her thumbs. As she spoke, she moved her hands for emphasis and the jewels sparkled.

His aunt noted the rings too and said under her breath, “She must be African royalty to be wearing all that jewelry, Jimmy.”

The African said, “Thank you, Miss Peck, for reading the excerpt from my book. As you will find out when you read the book, today that same bell is no longer rung for slave traders. Yet by its very presence and existence standing over the harbor of our greatest city, it symbolically still welcomes marauding outsiders and continues to cheer on the destruction of my country.”

Chairs creaked again and arms were raised with questions.

An older black woman called out, “Doctor Owerri, you describe parallels existing between your country, a country of the Third World and our country, the post-industrial United States.”

Owerri spoke harshly, some of the words coming through without the subtle British accent. “It is true. In my country we have always had a ruling class, those who survive and participate in each historical stage of the country. Some of the families who run my country today are descendants of the same ones who traded its people to the Europeans during the slave trade. Today they trade in petroleum. These elites are here and are in every country in the world. This theory is simple and easy to prove as I say in my book.”

She smiled, as if she knew more than the rest of the people in the room, held some insight her Third World birth had given her over this rural audience. “My book documents this ruling elite and its presence among countries, regardless of how small or poor the nations may be.”

Another hand went up, this from a very fat man, his lap covered with loose papers. Tench knew him, the editor of the weekly newspaper in River Sunday.

“Doctor,” he said, with a drawl, “You mentioned ‘black prophets,’ who came to your family’s village centuries ago and taught them to fight slavery.”

She leaned forward. “These white visitors are referred to as black because they dressed in dark cloth. From the accounts in our legends, they did not embrace the culture of slavery which existed in most tribes in my country. My research so far indicates they may have been a sect of Quakers.”

“Quakers?” the man asked.

“Yes, but a unique sect. I’ve gained my description of them from the few written records, the legends memorized by village historians and told to Europeans. They ate only vegetables they grew by themselves from seeds they brought with them. They refused to own the land or to have slaves to help them with their crops. They left no children. All of them eventually died from river fevers which indicates to me they must have emigrated from far away and were never seasoned to the climate. When they died, they refused to have grave markers. My family put stones on the sites of their burial, but only after the last of them died, the man they called their leader. I might say also they insisted on being buried upright, their feet down and their faces toward the east.”

A white girl about ten from the local elementary school raised her hand and, in her young voice, asked, “You mention your own family as a source of your dedication. Can you tell me about your brothers and sisters?”

Doctor Owerri smiled and said, “Many centuries ago my family owned most of the land in the south of the country. They had many canoes and the men to handle the boats. Canoes, in our country of that period, were a sign of wealth. Each part of the family had its own canoe and team of men. They were a large tribe of interrelated traders each with their own relatives. My immediate family lived in a settlement where they built a fortified house. The house had three stories with towers with bright red painted turrets at each end. My family came to be known for its resistance to the slave traders who would take people north to the Arab lands to sell with their salt exports. When the merchant white Europeans came, these same traders began to sell slaves to the visiting ships. My family would not allow this practice in its own lands.”

The girl persisted, “What was it like when you were a little girl?”

“The trade in oil replaced the trade in slaves. My family would not allow the trade in the oil. So, the government killed my father, mother and brother. Afterwards the officials completely took over the land for oil prospecting leases.” The audience sighed.

The meeting adjourned to a book signing. The people lined up to get a copy of the Bell and to have it signed. The author engaged in small talk with her readers as she sat at a small table near the side of the room, penning her signature.

Tench was anxious to get back to his garage. The African saw him look at his watch. She stood up and walked toward Tench and his aunt.

As she approached, the Mayor rose. She smoothed her blouse and summer slacks and said, “I’m Mayor Smart. This is Jim Tench my assistant.” Tench took his turn shaking the African’s hand. She had rough hands and a strong grip.

“Interesting talk,” went on the Mayor, in what Tench knew as her most pleasant voice. “I look forward to reading your book.”

“I hope you like it. Mister Tench, what did you think?” Owerri asked. Tench didn’t say anything.

“My nephew is not much on books,” interpreted the Mayor.

Owerri said, her voice perfectly gracious and statesmanlike. “I have had many students, young boys, in my classes. Few liked books.” She laughed, moving closer to the Mayor. “Oh, yes,” she nodded, “I taught in my country for many years. I came back after studying English literature in England. After my family died everything of course changed. Because of the danger I went into hiding. None of our American friends including Mister Strake could help. After some time I fled back to England where I began writing.”

Tench offered, “I remember Marengo up at the Strake farm talking about a house with red turrets,” said Tench.

“Marengo is an old friend and the reason I am staying at the Island. He prevailed upon Mister Strake to invite me to stay.”

“I would think you’d have something against oil men like Strake, from listening to your talk,” said Tench.

“No, William Strake and his family remained close to mine when they worked in Africa, although they did not agree on oil policy. Marengo worked for Mister Strake so the government did not bother him.”