An Elderberry Fall (12 page)

“Carrie, could you step in the front room for a few questions?”

“Yes, sir,” I sputtered, and Momma cut her eyes at me.

I got up, patted down the pleats in my dress and went into the
front room. Simon followed close behind me. “Now, you need to go on back. I need to talk to her alone,” Bobby said to Simon.

Simon stopped in his tracks and held his hand out. “No problem, sheriff.” Simon turned and walked back toward the kitchen, where Ginny and Momma were sitting so still. I knew they were straining to hear the conversation.

I sat down in the paisley, high-back chair my Papa always sat in. Bobby stood in front of me, his hand resting on his pistol. It was an intimidating pose. He cleared his throat. “Now don't be nervous, Carrie. I just got a few questions to ask you,” he said in a long Southern drawl.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now what was your relationship with Herman Camm?”

“He was my stepfather.” I answered, paying close attention to the hand he held on his pistol.

“Did you have a good relationship with him?”

“No, sir.”

“Why you didn't have a good relationship with him?”

“I just didn't. I was still mourning my papa when he married Momma.”

“Did he do anything to you?”

“Like what, sir?”

“Did he touch you in the wrong places?”

“Why are you asking me, Sheriff?”

“I am the one asking questions here. Gal, you answer them.”

“He touched me once.”

“Did you hate him?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you get mad when he touched you?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Did you want to kill 'em?”

“No, I never wanted to kill anyone. I wanted him to leave our house.”

“Did you sneak out the house and go looking for him on Christmas?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you kill 'em?”

I started to tear up. “No, I would never kill anyone. I did not like him, though.”

“I hope you ain't lying to me, 'cause I ain't got time to be playing with no nigga, I mean, colored killer.”

Bobby quickly caught himself.

“I'm not lying, sir. I didn't want him dead.”

Before Bobby could say another word, Ginny had come down the hall. When he saw her, he paused and threw up his hands. “Ginny, now I asked you to stay in the goddamn kitchen.”

“I asked you to not hurt my kinfolk. This is my niece. She crying.”

“I didn't make her cry. She doing it on her own.”

“I heard her tell you she didn't do nothing to Camm. You know he had a lot of enemies, Bobby. Now, you need to gwon.”

“Ginny, if I didn't know you, I'd lock you up for messing with my investigation.”

“I ain't messed with no damn 'vestigation. I want to help you. She didn't kill 'em.”

Bobby adjusted his holster. Then he said, “I guess you telling the truth.”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“You better not be lying to me or I will lock your colored butt up.”

He started toward the front door and stopped. “Ginny, you need a ride home?”

“Naw, you gwon. I'll get home directly.”

Bobby changed his entire disposition when Ginny walked in the room. His approach was less intensive. It was like he had some compassion, at least for Ginny. She knew it, and used her influence to get him to stop his nonsense interrogation of me.

“Y'all folks have a good evening,” Bobby said, tilting his hat, before walking out the door.

Ginny put her arm around my shoulder. We walked back into the kitchen. Simon, Carl and Momma all had concerned faces. Little Robert had even been quiet in Momma's arms.

“I'm so glad he is gone,” I said.

“You all right, Carrie?” Simon asked.

“He made me nervous. I am so tired of hearing Mr. Camm's name.”

“All of us are tired,” Carl reiterated.

This was the first time I had seen Carl so flustered; his round eyes were glaring. He had always appeared relaxed about most things, and he reminded me of my papa. My papa had a mild spirit. Today Carl seemed unsure and overly concerned for someone who had nothing to do with the crime. He moved without control. He got up from the chair, gazed out at the clouds and sat back down. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples. Even Ginny recognized it. “Carl, are you all right?”

“Yes, ma'am. I didn't know what to expect from a white sheriff. You know white people do not like us.”

“Yo sista is the one he wanted to talk to, not you,” she said. “Now you calm down.”

Momma was silent. Her beautiful eyes narrowed, and she bit her lip. Carl was shaking his leg relentlessly up and down. It was something he'd do whenever he was nervous. I did it too. Momma and Carl seemed drained by the visit even more than I was, even
though I had puffy eyes from crying. At that moment, I wondered who really was the guilty one.

After Bobby was out of sight, we all sat around the table talking about the funeral. None of us brought up Mr. Camm. We all discussed the amount of people who came out to show Willie respect, and pretended Bobby was never there.

“Any colored man who has served in the wa' ought to be honored,” Ginny said. “Colored men don't get no respect. I'm sho glad the peoples came out for Willie.”

“You right; so many coloreds go unnoticed,” Momma said.

“What got under my skin was Pearl Brown. She left with a white man in a new, shiny black Studebaker…one of them just like Mr. Ferguson drive,” Carl said.

Simon shook his head. “He's the man accused of killing Willie.”

“Now that is a damn shame,” Ginny said.

“I told ya'll that woman is trouble,” Momma reminded us.

“Yes, she is something else. She is the devil, I tell you, the devil.”

Then I said, “We don't know what really happened. Only Ms. Pearl can tell us, and the white man.”

“The devil, I tell you. It ain't nothing but the devil,” Momma added.

Nobody really knew Pearl Brown. We knew the show girl, the entertainer, the singer, yet none of us could relate to her. Nobody had actually had more than a passing conversation with her. We all were on the outside gazing in, wondering what her life was about. We all had formulated opinions, but nobody could say much. Just like the murder of Herman Camm, it was also a mystery. Jefferson County had more to gossip about now, than when I'd left. All I knew was getting out of Jefferson County again would be on the top of my list of things to do and as soon as possible.

S
imon drove the speed limit and more trying to get us out of Jefferson, and I was elated when we sped past the Ferguson house on our way back to 460, a two-lane highway leading back to Richmond. I hoped Bobby was done on his venture to find a killer, something which he really didn't care about, only saw it as a way to harass colored folks. I was a better sheriff than him; I thought I knew who killed the monster.

“I don't like that cracker,” Simon said as we passed the Fergusons' mansion. Although I would never say it out loud, I hated Mrs. Ferguson, too, for the way she looked down her pointed nose at my momma. I didn't like my momma being directed to the back door instead of the front door when she came to clean.

“Simon, I've never heard you call someone out of their name before.”

“Bobby brings out the worst in everybody. He don't like coloreds and will do anything to bring them down.”

“Who do you think killed Camm, Simon?” I asked, almost knowing the answer.

“I don't know, and don't give a damn,” he said, and I watched a frown ripple across his forehead.

“You all right?” I asked.

Simon inhaled and said, “He did a lot of things to a lot of people around Jefferson. He wanted to die. He was ordering his own death sentence.”

“Nobody wants to die.”

“Carrie, he hurt you, your momma and Pearl. He was a gambler, a drunk and a careless bastard. He set his own self up. I just can't feel sorry for him.”

“Nobody has the right to take a life,” I argued, even though I knew Camm didn't care about nobody.

“Right, unless you don't care about living. So to me he got exactly what he deserved,” Simon said, without blinking an eye.

“When will we be able to put this behind us?”

“Now, we will. That sheriff questioned you, and forgot about me. I could have killed him myself.”

When he made the comment, I stared at him. The serious glare that was in his eyes was far too cold for the Simon I loved.

“You couldn't have killed him. There is no way you did it.”

Simon didn't comment. He just kept his eyes steady on the road, grinding his teeth like a madman.

I was beginning to believe there were more things about my husband I knew little about. I still remembered the lady in the club and how she had approached Simon. I wonder where they had met, and why he didn't take the time to explain her presence. Eventually, it would all come out. I prayed it was something I could understand.

The winds had picked up and we'd weathered the pitter-patter of thunderous rain most of the way home. Even though the red country dirt had splashed all over Simon's Ford. He had a lot of pride in that car. He said he'd bought it from a white man in Baltimore, Maryland. The man was feeling kind of terrible about the
way he'd treated his own colored children, so when he was full of liquor, he decided to sell Simon his car for next to nothing. Simon bought the car, and the white man freed his soul. Now both of them were happy. “Soon the rain ends, I'm gonna clean my tires off. A man can't drive around with dirt on his vehicle. I don't want the folks to say we don't deserve it.”

“I'm tired of worrying about people. I just want things to be right for us.”

Simon tapped me on the thigh. “We gonna be all right.”

We pulled into Richmond just as the rain stopped. The only sign left was a beautiful fall rainbow. Robert slept the entire trip back. I missed Momma and Ginny already, although the town, I could learn to forget. But how could I separate the people from the town? The town was made unattractive to young people looking for opportunities. Mainly it was the white people who treated the coloreds like they were still second class, and worked us like slaves. The coloreds didn't embrace education, because their focus was on commerce, making farming a business. We all knew farming could never be a lucrative money-maker as long as the white man didn't pay fair wages. I was glad Robert would be raised in an environment where the most powerful woman in the community was colored and she owned a bank.

As soon as we had put our things away, and Robert was in the bed, Simon said, “I will be going out again tomorrow.”

I didn't get upset like I had time and time again. I had some things I wanted to do too. “I figured you'd have to go. Let me iron your laundry.”

“Do you have to do it tonight?”

“I guess I can do it before you leave in the morning.”

“I'm surprised at your reaction to me leaving.”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem to want me to leave.”

“I guess I'm getting used to you leaving. Anything can get old.”

“You sure you are all right?”

“Yes, I'm fine.”

“You don't have another man walking around here, do you?”

“I can't believe you said that to me.”

“I can tell things are different. You are not worried about the sheriff in Jefferson, are you?”

“No, I am just growing up. I realize you have to leave and there is no sense in making a big deal about it. You are going to leave anyhow.”

“I sort of liked it when you begged me to stay.” He chuckled.

“It didn't do any good.”

Simon decided to change the subject, “I can't believe we just left a funeral. Willie was living and smiling like a Cheshire cat at the club. The man appeared proud of his wife and his life.”

“I know. Who would have thought he'd be dead.”

“We were having a good time until the shots rang out in our ears.”

“I can't believe Ms. Pearl has to deal with the loss of another lover.”

“I think Pearl moves on pretty quickly. She appears to be a lady with her own plans in life. It is a shame two men have lost their lives.”

“Yes, especially Willie, who wanted only to love her.”

At that moment, the girl from the club flashed up in my memory.

“By the way, Simon, who was the woman who visited our table at the club?”

“She is just someone I met awhile ago.”

“Where?”

“It don't matter. I'm married to you.”

“I want to know.”

“She ain't nobody, Carrie,” he said.

“Well, you are somebody to her,” I replied, waiting for a reaction.

“I knew her before we were married.”

“But, I thought I was your only girlfriend.”

“You were. She is just someone I met at the club one night when we were on a break.”