The Scribe (3 page)

He could not say whose work was the more important, hers or his own, he thought as he put his boot in the stirrup and climbed into the saddle. Yes, he thought, on considering it for a moment. Yes, he could.

U
NDER THE NEARLY
full moon the Chattahoochee glowed silver, pale light winking from the chop of its currents and eddies. As Canby stood on the northern bank and rang the bell for the ferry he could see across the way the dim outline of the black police hansom, lit by its two flickering lamps, and, faintly, the red ember of Vernon's cigar flaring and ebbing in the night. He watched as S. W. Power poled the raft across the river, the current tugging against the ferry's creaking guide rope. Power and the raft moved over the silvery surface of the water as though crawling across the surface of the moon.

How different the landscape was here, Canby thought, even this far out of the city, from the true mountains to the north. This was where the Appalachian Range ended, winding down to a series of ridges that stretched in a long slow descent to Atlanta. The mountain at Vinings the last of them, five miles behind him now. When Julia had set her scholars free for the lunch hour and stepped out on the schoolhouse's little porch, he felt as though he had been frozen in amber, in time. She had just looked at him sadly, her hands on her hips and Vinings Mountain looming behind her.

“Four years,” she said.

“And two months.”

“Not nearly enough letters.”

“I'd have written more if I'd had better news to relay.”

Julia had sighed and come down the steps. He tethered his horse and they walked slowly down to Stillhouse Creek, under the canopy of sycamores that grew on Vinings Mountain. He saw that their leaves were beginning to yellow, to turn gold against the scaling ivory bark of the trees. Canby told her of the message from Vernon Thompson, explaining the prospects he saw in it.

“I have a chance to clear my name.
That
would make me fit as a suitor.”

Julia had stopped along the trail, shaking her head. She'd reached up and touched the scar on his cheek. “They'll burn you again,” she'd said.

The ferry banged against the upstream pilings of the dock and Canby led his horse onto it, patting the animal's neck to calm it as the raft moved with the currents. He paid his fare
and noted that Power had aged a great deal in the years since he'd last seen him; his hair and beard had gone nearly white and his eyes were red-rimmed. Yet still he seemed to have the strength of a vigorous man, Canby thought, as he leaned against the pole and moved the weight of two men and a horse against the current, toward the other side. As they drew closer Canby saw the butt of Vernon's cigar arcing through the dim light, followed by the hansom lurching as he climbed down from it.

“Thomas Canby,” Vernon said, walking to the river's edge. “Back from the dead.”

“That's not exactly how I'd put it,” Canby said, taking his hand. Vernon's handshake was almost weak and he winced under Canby's grip.

“See you're shaking hands like a country boy now.”

“And you, like someone who shakes hands all day.”

Vernon nodded and put his arm around Canby's shoulder, turning him toward the hansom. He whistled loudly and the door of Power's store swung open, a uniformed officer coming out of it. “Maddox, tie Canby's horse on the back, will you? Thomas, I believe you remember Maddox.”

Canby nodded to the burly captain. “Good to see you, Thomas,” Maddox said as he took the reins.

Canby did not answer, only climbed into the hansom and waited for the others. Vernon spoke quietly with Power for a moment, then the two men laughed at something Vernon said. Canby felt the hansom shift as Maddox climbed up to the seat in back.

Maddox cracked the reins as soon as Vernon was settled
on the seat beside Canby, steering the horses east on the old Stone Mountain road. Canby looked at Vernon's profile in the flickering light.

“Decatur is our first stop.”

“Decatur? That's way the hell out of town.”

“More time for us to talk. Have I mentioned that you're looking well?” Vernon said as he pulled a fresh cigar from his coat pocket. He offered it to Canby. Canby shook his head. Vernon put the cigar in his mouth and struck a match on the bottom of his shoe. In moments the cab was filled with smoke that collected up against the roof and hung there before wafting out into the night. Vernon began to cough, a deep hacking. He pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket and spat into it.

“Too many cigars,” Canby said. “Your voice is beginning to sound rusty.”

Vernon nodded, his face still red. “You're right. But it seems like they're the only thing that gives me real pleasure anymore.” He waved a hand against the smoke. “Beside the point. You seem well, Thomas, and I'm glad of it. The mountain air must agree with you.”

“It does.”

“But God, what do you
do
up there?”

“What if I told you I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately?” Canby said, wondering if Vernon would catch the reference.

“Bullshit. You ran away, though I can't say I blame you much. Quoting Emerson don't make it any truer.”

“That was Thoreau, his protégé. You should read the book about Walden Pond.”

Vernon waved a hand absently. “I live in Atlanta,” he said. “I can't imagine it up there—what do you do besides chasing poachers? I'd bet your biggest case has been a sheep-mounting farmer's son.”

Canby could feel the color rising in his cheeks but he fought it down. “Do you know what I have found out up there, Vernon? I like it.”

“Sure you do,” Vernon said, then caught Canby's eye and held it in the steely way that had ended so many interrogations over the years. “That's why a single telegram brought you all these miles. And back to Atlanta.”

Canby looked away. He counted five breaths before he spoke. “Tell me about the case.”

“Certainly. No offense intended, Thomas.” He put a hand on Canby's knee, patting it. When he spoke again his voice was lower, difficult to hear over the creaking of the wheels. “We have a madman on the loose.”

Canby laughed. “For that you want me back? Since when is a madman in Atlanta cause for concern?”

But Vernon did not smile. “I've seen the victims, Thomas. And I've had some nightmares since.” He shook his head slowly. “What does that tell you?”

“A great deal.”

“Right. As it happens, I found the first of them myself.”

“You did?”

“I did. Tell that to anyone who thinks the chief spends all his time in the office. Do you remember Alonzo Lewis?”

“The barber? He was doing very well for himself, last I heard.”

“Very well, indeed. Last year he expanded his shop, hired six new barbers, and took up most of the business space in the Markham Hotel. Eighteen chairs in all. He also owned half the real estate in Summer Hill. Two entire blocks of rental property east of South Pryor Street. Even had a loan business, conducted under the table and off the books. He was in all likelihood the richest Negro in Atlanta.”

“Was?”

“Was until the late evening of September seventeenth, or the early hours of the eighteenth. I went to his shop in the Markham before opening, as I do for my shave every Friday, and found the door unlocked. He was inside.

“No cash taken from the box, although I counted nearly two hundred dollars in it. And Alonzo's body on the floor in a pool of blood the size of a billiard table, cold as a fish.”

Canby nodded, piecing the details together. “Lewis kept no rough company, did he? And the Markham is not a place where your criminal element could pass freely. Too much traffic, and too much of it upscale. And no robbery. There's no clear motive.”

“You haven't gotten too rusty chasing cattle. No motive except for this: I said Alonzo's body was on the floor. His head, however, was on the marble counter, swaddled in towels. He still had his spectacles on and the razor that had done the work was arranged around his neck like a bow tie. There was a letter, an
M
, carved into his forehead, Thomas.”

Vernon traced the letter in the air with his cigar. “All my years on the force, all the wives beaten, all the suicides and poisonings, I've not seen anything like that.”

Canby thought he could feel the temperature of the night air drop.

“I'm surprised you haven't read about it in the papers.”

“No one in Ringgold reads the Atlanta papers much. Least of all me.”

Vernon nodded. “Well, that's not the story you'd have read, anyway.”

“And why not?”

Vernon's face took on a nearly weary cast. “I have been getting pressure, Thomas. If you did read the papers, you'd have heard about the cotton fair the city's putting on. In fact, you'd have
been
hearing about it. International Cotton Exposition, they're calling it. Henry Grady's been crowing about it in the
Constitution
for months.”

“You know my opinion of Grady.”

“Indeed I do. But it's not just Grady who has skin in this game. It's to be the biggest thing Atlanta's ever seen, that Georgia's ever seen. Dozens of the city's prominent men have invested in the exposition—Negroes among them. Alonzo was one.”

“And so . . .”

“And so I took the cash out of the box and, God forgive me, put Alonzo's head back with the body. Then I grabbed the first boy I saw on the sidewalk and sent him for Jim Fitzsimmons. Stood watch out front of the shop myself until he got there. So the coroner got to the scene before anybody else on the force, before Alonzo's people came in for work. We arranged a towel around Alonzo's neck and reported it as a slashed throat. Fitzsimmons did the embalming himself.”

“But the
M
, you couldn't make that go away.”

“No. I had a probable scenario, though. Fitzsimmons and I figured some drunk peckerwood in town for the expo dragged himself back to the hotel while Alonzo was closing up shop, wanting a shave, and Alonzo sassed him. This old boy, not being as progressive as an Atlanta citizen, didn't cotton to it, so he took Alonzo's own razor and did him with it.”

“And then emptied the cashbox.”

“Why not? There would be no witness.”

“What about the
M
?

“Alonzo was a mulatto, you could tell it by a glance. Our boy from the outlying districts didn't care much for this black man, nearly as white as you and me and wearing a gold watch chain and cuff links, telling him when he could or couldn't get a shave. He was mad as hell, and inebriated, and thought he'd make a point.”

“That is complete hogwash.”

“It certainly is. But Henry Grady was glad to help out on that one. And so that's how it got reported.”

“He's got a precedent of publishing lies.”

“Grady's got the best interests of Atlanta in mind. Always has.”

“I hope you'd make an exception to that in my case.”

Vernon looked uncomfortable. “He erred there. We all do, sooner or later. I hate it that the stakes were so high for you. But we have an opportunity to set that straight now. You see, Thomas, every spare man on the force will be out at Oglethorpe Park, covering the exposition. This is the first real
chance I've had to bring you back. Now we have a good shot at trying to right things for you.”

“I'm not at all sure of that.”

“I am,” Vernon said. “Sure as I can be.” He pulled an envelope from his vest pocket and handed it to Canby. “Your retainer. And you'll have quarters at Hannibal Kimball's new place. It's straight-up first-class. European fixtures, water closets, even heated water in the baths.”

Canby squeezed the envelope. It was thick. “Two hundred dollars?”

“Thereabouts,” Vernon said. He tossed his cigar out the window. “I know you've never cared much for procedure, Thomas, because you know as well as I do that procedure can get your neck wrung in a town like Atlanta. Atlanta moves too fast to do things by the book. And God help us, when we found the second one Friday, we knew we were dealing with a different kind of beast.”

Canby found himself leaning forward in his seat as Vernon told him of the events of Friday night, when L. J. Dempsey's wife had grown concerned about her husband not being home in time for supper, as was his custom. It being payday, however, she gave him an hour, after which she folded the tablecloth over the meal she had prepared and walked through Jenningstown to Dempsey's office. She let herself into the office at seven o'clock and found her husband of fourteen years sprawled back in his desk chair, his throat cut.

Canby raised his hand. “Not severed this time?”

“Just cut, with a week's worth of cash payments for burial insurance stuffed into the incision.”

“Burial insurance, you said. Was Dempsey also a Negro?”

Vernon nodded.

“How much money do you figure he had?”

“The city records show he paid nearly as much in taxes as Alonzo did.”

“Had he invested in the exposition as well?”

Vernon nodded. “Quite heavily.”

“Another
M
?”

“No. An
A
this time.”

“So there will be more.”

“Until he finishes this goddamned spelling bee of his.”

Canby thought about crimes of passion, the only kind of crimes in his experience that did not somehow revolve around money. But the disfigurement of the bodies, the elaborate violence involved, was no typical kind of passion.

“I figure we've got a serious disagreement running in our Negro community.”

“That could be,” Canby said. “But I'm uneasy about the money.”

“Ah, Thomas, that's your prejudice talking.”

“You know it's not prejudice. It's pragmatism. You've just told me of crimes where hundreds of dollars were left at the scene. That makes no sense.” Canby looked out the window, at the dark pine trees that lined the road like sentinels. “What rate of interest do you figure Alonzo charged his borrowers?”