Chiefs (17 page)

They waited until they were sure he was gone before speaking. To Billy’s surprise, Willie was laughing. “What’s so funny? What was he doing?”

Willie laughed out loud. “He jackin’ off. What you think?”

“What’s jackin’ off?”

“Don’ you know
no thin‘1
Well, I guess I better show you.”

Willie showed him, and he tried it himself, but it had seemed a different thing when Foxy was doing it. It had seemed angry, and—Billy didn’t know. Just angry.

Chapter 22.

THE EARLY 1920s passed quickly for all of the Lee family. They thrived, parents and children, in their community. Will Henry became an established local figure in his job, as did Carrie in church and community activities. Billy and Eloise made friends, did well in school, and pleased their parents. They felt as if they had lived in the town for all of their lives, and the town seemed to feel the same way.

Holmes continued to improve his political position in the Tri-Counties, and his solid local position helped him to establish himself as an effective force in the state senate. A force of another kind appeared in Meriwether County during this period, one which, in time, would have a hand in making Holmes even more effective, and which would change the face of the country. Will Henry was, by chance, the first to meet the man, something the family would always remember.

The chief was leaving his regular afternoon coffee klatch at the Delano Drug Company on a fine spring day in 1924, when a shiny new Ford coupe with the top folded down pulled into a parking space in front of the drugstore. “Excuse me, there, Officer!” the driver called out to Will Henry.

Will Henry walked to the car and said, “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?” He was greeted by a smiling, finely sculpted face on a man of some bulk. A straw hat crowned the large head. Will
Henry expected to be asked for directions to Atlanta or Columbus. The man’s accent was clearly not local, not even southern.. He looked familiar, Will Henry thought.

“I wonder if I could ask for your testimony on the quality of the chocolate ice-cream sodas in that establishment?”

Will Henry laughed. “Well, if the testimony of my children is worth anything, everything made in Mr. Birdsong’s fountain is unsurpassed anywhere.”

“Well, that is excellent testimony indeed! I wonder if I could impose upon you to go inside and order something for me?”

Will Henry hesitated a moment, then he saw the crutches propped in the back seat. “Be glad to. What was it? Chocolate ice-cream soda?”

That’s it.” He handed Will Henry a quarter. “If you could just ask the fountain clerk to bring it out when it’s ready. I don’t want to take any more of your time.”

“Not at all.” Will Henry went inside, waited until the drink was prepared, and brought it back himself, with the change.

The man accepted it and drew thirstily on the straws, while Will Henry stood by, smiling. “Ahhhh, that certainly hits the spot.” He stuck out a hand. “My name is Roosevelt.”

Will Henry accepted the hand, feeling a little foolish. “Of course, I should have recognized you. I guess it was the hat threw me off. My wife and I voted for you and Mr. Cox in 1920. Harding’s not my sort of man. We’re Democrats. My name’s Will Henry Lee. I’m a little surprised to see you in Delano, Mr. Roosevelt. What brings you down this way?”

“My family and I have taken a house over at Warm Springs. We hope that the waters there might be good for what ails me. Swimming, not drinking, you understand.” Will Henry nodded. “Lovely little town you have here. Rather like the name. Delano was my mother’s maiden name, you know; my middle name. Think I’ll just pretend it was named for me.”

They laughed together. Will Henry found himself, somewhat surprisingly, at ease with a man who had run for vice-president of the United States. “Welcome to Meriwether County, Mr. Roosevelt. I hope your stay here is beneficial and that you’ll come back to see us often. Is there anything else I can do for you? The fountain clerk will come get the glass if you’ll just honk the horn.”

“Thank you, Chief, there is something else you could do if I could trouble you for just a minute. I expect you know a Mr. Hugh Holmes at the bank? I wonder if you’d be kind enough to step over there and ask him if it’s convenient for him to join me here in the car for just a few minutes?”

“Certainly.” Will Henry crossed the street, went into the bank, and stuck his head into Holmes’s office, where the banker was poring over a ledger. ” ‘Scuse me, Hugh. Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt himself is parked over in front of the drugstore, and he’d like you to step over there and meet him, if you have the time.”

Holmes’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, yes. He’s a friend of Clark Howell, at the
Constitution.
Clark said he was coming down to Warm Springs. You know he had a pretty bad case of infantile paralysis since the election.”

“I read about it in the paper.”

“Clark talked him into coming down here for his health.” The two men left the bank, and Will Henry stopped and watched as Holmes crossed the street, introduced himself to the man, then went around and got into the passenger seat. The two men fell into conversation. Hugh Holmes and Roosevelt seemed to be getting on like a house afire. Will Henry thought what a pity it was that a man in the prime of life could have such a brilliant political career cut short.

Chapter 23.

IT WAS shortly after the first visit of Franklin Roosevelt to Delano that the second murder occurred. Will Henry, at least, thought of it as the second murder. He learned about it, almost casually, from Skeeter Willis, who dropped into his office without notice one day.

“A nigger found him early yesterday morning hung up in a barbed-wire fence a couple of hundred yards from the Columbus highway, over the side of the mountain/
⁷
The other side of the mountain was in Talbot County. “He’d been shot in the back with what Sheriff Goolsby reckoned was a .45 automatic. Little hole in his back, big one in his chest where it came out. Don’t know much more myself. I saw one of Goolsby’s deputies at a filling station in Woodland. I been down to Albany to deliver a prisoner.”

“Was he wearing any clothes? Were there any marks on him?” Will Henry had a terrible sinking feeling already.

“Don’t know. You’re not thinking it had something to do with that thing of yours, when was it—two, three years ago?”

“Four and a half years.” Will Henry got up and put on his hat. “I think I better go talk with Jim Goolsby.”

He found the Talbot County sheriff at the Talbotton courthouse during a recess. Goolsby, an elderly man who had held office for more than twenty-five years and looked fragile and worn, was very pushed for time.

“Sorry, but it’s always like this when court’s in session.”

“What was the man wearing?”

“A shirt and overalls, no shoes. Feet was tore up a little. Looked like he’d been running. Run into a bobbed-wire fence. Bullet went clean through him.”

“Were there any other marks on his body?”

“Huh?” The sheriff turned to a deputy. “Carlton, are they back with that prisoner, yet? Well hell, go see what’s keepin’ ‘em. The judge has already had to call a recess. He’ll pitch a fit.” He turned back to Will Henry. “What was that about marks?”

“Were there any noticable bruises anywhere? Had his hands or feet been bound?”

Goolsby looked at him incredulously. “Good Lord, I don’t know. The coroner would ordinarily have done some kind of examination, but he had a funeral to do in Villa Rica, so I just talked to him on the phone. I put ‘death due to a gunshot wound’ on the death certificate, and he signed it when he come back.”

“Can I have a look at him?”

“The dead feller? He’s halfway to Waycross by now. There was a letter in his pocket with a return address on it-. I called the sheriff down there, and the feller’s daddy come up here with a truck and took him home to bury this morning.”

“You got any suspects?”

“Hoboes, we reckon. We found an empty camp we didn’t know about not very far away from where the nigger found the body. He didn’t have no money or shoes, and I reckon that’s what hoboes would take.”

“Do you have any idea which way he was running?”

The sheriff thought for a moment. “The way he was hung on the fence he could have been running either away from the highway or towards it. Hard to say. My guess was towards the road, away from the camp.”

“How old was he, could you estimate?”

“His daddy said he just turned twenty-one, but he looked younger than that to me. Listen, Chief, I’d like to talk with you some more, but I’m due back in court. Was there anything else?”

Will Henry got the name and address of the boy’s father and directions to where the body was found. He thanked the sheriff for his time and asked to be notified if anything else turned up on the murder.

The spot was easy to find. He had only to follow the tire tracks where the sheriff’s car had driven. They stopped at a barbed-, wire fence on the edge of a pasture. There was a scrap of cotton flannel still hanging from the wire. Will Henry looked in the two directions in which the sheriff had said the man might have been running. The Columbus highway was in sight in one direction, and on a reciprocal course was Pine Mountain. There was smoke rising from the trees half a mile away. The smoke was from Foxy Funderburke’s house.

Will Henry began to walk away from the fence, using the smoke as a mark to maintain his direction. He walked slowly, looking at the ground. There had been no rain for a while, and the earth was firm under the grass. There were no footprints. He had covered nearly forty yards when he found the cartridge case. He stuck a twig into the case and gently lifted it without touching it with his fingers. It was a .45 automatic, its size left no doubt. There were smudges that might have been fingerprints, but they were no longer identifiable. He had read enough about fingerprinting to know that. He turned the case slowly on the twig, willing it to give up some other bit of identifying information, but it was bare of anything, even a maker’s name. Only the numerals .45 were visible. He turned and looked toward the fence, measuring the distance in his mind. Forty yards, near enough. An amazingly good shot for a weapon which had a reputation for being difficult to fire accurately. He put the cartridge case in his pocket and continued toward the smoke.

He entered the trees on the other side of the field and soon found the camp, a clearing scattered with cans and bottles and with the remains of a fire, cold. The smell of burnt garbage hung in the air. He searched the ground carefully for several minutes, but found nothing else of interest. Then he walked twice around the perimeter of the camp to see if he could find signs of someone having entered from another direction from that which he had come. There was nothing. The woods were mostly pine, and a thick carpet of brown needles had absorbed any footprints without a trace. He could no longer see the smoke because of the trees, so he walked back to his car.

He drove to Foxy’s house almost without thinking, nearly surprised when he found himself parked in front. Foxy’s azaleas were in bloom, and the place was really quite lovely, with none of the cold foreboding of his earlier visit, more than four years before. Foxy was a bit easier, too, inviting him in and offering him a chair with an air that was very nearly like courtesy. They sat in cushioned wooden rocking chairs on either side of the fireplace. On the wall over the mantle there were a dozen rifles and pistols. One of them was a .45 automatic. Will Henry tried not to stare at it.

“What can I do for you?”

“Foxy there was a shooting about half a mile from here, day before yesterday.”

“I heard about it.”

“You see or hear anything around that time?”

“Not a thing.”

There was a long pause. Will Henry hardly knew what else to ask the man. He looked up above the mantelpiece.

“That’s quite a collection.” He rose and reached for the .45. “May I?”

Foxy jumped up and got to the weapon first. “Let me unload that.” He slipped the clip out and worked the action, ejecting a cartridge. Will Henry noted that the pistol had been ready to fire. Foxy handed it to him, butt first. It was oily to the touch.

“Been fired recently?”

Foxy waved a hand. “They’ve all been fired recently. I take good care of them.”

Will Henry picked up the clip from the mantlepiece, where Foxy had laid it, and slipped out a cartridge. The name Remington, along with the caliber, was stamped clearly on it. The brass was a brighter color, too, than the cartridge in his pocket. “I hear this is a hard pistol to hit anything with.”

“That’s the case. I’m a good shot with almost anything, but I just barely qualified with that in the army. Lots of men never did.”

There was a silence again. “Think you could hit a man at forty yards with this, Foxy?”

“I doubt it. You think / shot that fellow?” Will Henry handed the pistol back to him before answering. “I don’t have any good reason to think that.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“You live nearby. I just thought you might have seen or heard something.”

“Seems like you call on me every time somebody gets himself killed. I can’t say I like that much.”