Blackman's Coffin (21 page)

“That’s my leverage. That’s what he needs.”

“No. You can’t. That’s too much to lose.”

“Coming from a woman who’s on her hands and knees clawing at the ground with her fingernails?”

Nakayla had to laugh at the absurdity of the scene.

“Someone fired a bullet that missed my head by inches,” I said. “Somehow, I’d forgotten that. This is personal for me too. I won’t tell Stanley any more than I have to.” I smiled. “Besides, it’ll be worth the money to see his face when I hand him a shovel in that graveyard.”

Chapter Nineteen

“May I help you?” The woman’s voice sounded tinny coming from the small speaker beside the keypad.

“We’re here to see Harry Young,” Nakayla said.

“Come on through.”

The crossbar next to the unmanned guardhouse lifted, and we began our ascent to Golden Oaks. The Hyundai’s trunk contained three new shovels, a pick, and a ten-by-ten tarp. I’d also purchased a crowbar and a hammer, but I had no idea as to the condition of the coffin’s wood after nearly ninety years in the ground.

Exactly one week ago, Tikima Robertson had been buried. Tonight, in another cemetery, I hoped to unearth the reason for her murder.

My call to Stanley the previous night had gone as well as I could expect. Thanks to Nakayla’s insistence, my letter had arrived that morning, and, though I didn’t back down from my position on the lawsuit, I’d written a profuse and sincere apology for the personal things I’d said. That probably kept him from hanging up on me.

When I asked Stanley to meet me in Gainesville, Georgia, he’d hesitated, saying anything we needed to discuss could be done over the phone. I said since writing the letter, I’d reconsidered my objections and would be willing to discuss them. But I needed his help with something else in return and I had to explain in person. I’d be in Gainesville at eight the next night. Otherwise, we’d leave things as they were and hope the lawsuit wouldn’t drag on.

Stanley bit the bait. I just had to keep him hooked. I’d left him wondering when I’d told him come dressed for gardening.

Golden Oaks Retirement Center looked beautiful in the morning sunlight. Automatic sprinklers showered beds of begonias and impatiens lining the parking lot. A multitude of rainbows appeared in the fine spray as we drove to the main lobby. Nakayla found a visitor’s spot and as we left the car, Captain came out the front door. He wore a pith helmet, a khaki safari shirt, and brown-checkered Bermuda shorts. Except for his walker, the old guy was ready to hunt crocodiles.

“Good morning, folks. It’s a glorious day.” His voice rang out like the town crier’s. Then he dropped to nearly a whisper. “Hilda at the front desk said someone just buzzed at the gate for Harry. Glad to see it’s you.”

“We’re going to take him out with us,” I said. “Probably won’t be back till tomorrow.”

Captain’s eyes darted left and right looking for eavesdroppers. “Part of the case?”

“Yes. But that’s all I can say. I guess I’ll need to sign him out.”

Captain waved off the idea. “No. I’ll take care of it. Anybody comes looking for him, we’ll say he’s not feeling well.”

“Has somebody been by?” Nakayla asked.

“Not for Harry. Yesterday, Mr. Armitage dropped in on Sandra Pollock, the resident manager. I had Bertha stationed outside her office. He was asking about Tikima’s visits, but Sandra didn’t mention Harry.”

So, Armitage was conducting his own investigation. I regretted hanging up on him. Maybe Detective Peters was right. I am a hothead. I’d better cool down if I hoped to find Tikima’s killer.

“Good,” I said. “Don’t be surprised if the police show up today.”

“We’re ready. Gertie and Harold are taking an exercise stroll up and down Harry’s hallway. We’ll still keep to our surveillance schedule while he’s gone.”

I shook my head in amazement at Captain’s network of spies. His CIA—Corridor Intelligence Agency.

“If I might make a suggestion,” he said. “Drive around to the rear of the building on the left. I’ll wheel Harry out where he can get in your car unobserved.”

“All right.” I turned to Nakayla. “Have you got a notepad in the car?”

“In the glove compartment.”

“Give Captain your cell phone number.”

She went back to the parking space.

“Call us if someone comes looking for Harry. I’d like to know who we’re dealing with.”

“You’ve got it.” He took the number from Nakayla and tucked it in the chest pocket of his shirt. “Give us about ten minutes.” He swung the walker around and headed inside.

To the minute, Harry, Captain, and an elderly couple I assumed to be Harold and Gertie came out the rear door of Harry’s wing. Harold pushed Harry in the wheelchair and Gertie carried his crutches.

We drove from the far corner of the lot and stopped by the access ramp at the curb.

I shook Harry’s hand. “You can sit in the front seat with Nakayla where you’ve got more legroom.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m shorter and I only have one leg.” Harry wore a plaid cotton shirt and beige pants with the right leg tied up below the knee. “I’ll be fine. You sit where you can stretch out that mechanical marvel.”

I’d put on the sports model prosthesis and part of the articulating ankle must have shown as I got out of the car. Like Dr. Anderson had said, the feel was stiffer but the night’s activities promised to be a good test.

Nakayla got Harry settled in the backseat and I thanked Harold and Gertie for their assistance. They wanted to help me fold and load the wheelchair in the trunk, but I didn’t want them seeing the tools. God knows what they might have thought we were going to do with Harry. Nakayla anticipated the problem and asked a brilliant question—“Do you have any grandchildren?” Osama bin Laden could have been in the trunk and they wouldn’t have noticed.

As we pulled away, Harold and Gertie waved. Captain saluted.

“You’ve got some nice friends,” Nakayla said.

“Yes, I do,” Harry laughed. “Nice friends and nice to get out where they’re not watching my every move.”

I passed him the web pictures of the graves.

“That’s them,” he said. “Hard to believe after all these years. What are we going to do when we get there?”

“Have a picnic,” Nakayla said. “It’s a park. People will think I’m your nurse.”

“Then we can check out what we’re dealing with tonight,” I said.

“And your brother?” Harry asked.

“He’s meeting us at the Holiday Inn in Gainesville at eight.”

“Does he know?”

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Not exactly,” Harry repeated. “Well, I hope he’s more than a brother. I hope he’s a best friend.”

Stanley was definitely not a best friend. “Why’s that?” I asked.

Harry chuckled. “That old saying. A friend helps you move. A best friend helps you move a body. This time tomorrow Lord only knows what we’ll have done.”

***

We stopped at a KFC outside of Gainesville and bought our picnic lunch. The park proved difficult to find, given the way roads wound in and around Lake Lanier’s coves. We missed a few turns and discovered Georgia’s street signage left much to be desired. The prevailing philosophy seemed to be if you don’t know how to get where you’re going, then you have no business being there. I was glad we were making our mistakes in daylight and not after dark. We were out in the country where moonlight and headlights would be our only illumination.

The wide picture Nakayla had downloaded turned out to be the whole park. No ball fields or tennis courts, simply a small boat launch used by fishermen and canoeists. A scattering of picnic tables covered the grassy knoll. Along a far edge near the lake’s shore lay the wrought-iron fence cordoning off the small graveyard.

We claimed a picnic table and passed around a bucket of fried chicken, sides of slaw and hushpuppies, and plastic cups of lemonade. Harry sat in his wheelchair at the head. He lifted a drumstick like a baton.

“I remember Elijah telling me about fried chicken. Black folk cooked it as traveling food for trains or long car rides. When you couldn’t stop to eat at restaurants, you had to fix something that would keep. Frying the chicken sealed it so it stayed fresh longer.”

“Now I can eat anywhere I want,” Nakayla said, “and what do I buy? Chicken.”

But Colonel Sanders’ secret herbs and spices tasted pretty good. Maybe the bright sunshine and cool breeze coming off the sparkling water had something to do with it. We took our time. Harry had to cut his chicken away from the bone and almost mince it before swallowing. Evidently more than cold liquids gave him problems.

For a Saturday afternoon, the park was sparsely populated. A few families with small children sat on blankets, preferring to let toddlers roam on the ground rather than imprison them in a car seat on a picnic bench.

We dumped our trash in a wastebasket and went over to the boat launch. Nakayla pushed Harry in his wheelchair on the concrete approach to the ramp. I stayed on the grass where I could practice walking with the new leg.

We watched a middle-aged couple unload matching yellow kayaks off the roof of a Saturn station wagon, the red-haired woman giving instructions, the curly gray-haired man ignoring them. Both seemed perfectly happy in their roles and I saw the marital wisdom of the two boats.

A gravel path looped from the ramp to the cemetery. The packed pebbles made pushing Harry’s wheelchair difficult, and Nakayla veered onto the grass where the ride was bumpier but faster.

The pickets were about four feet high. A padlock clasped the gate shut. A bronze plaque beside the gate read—“Robertson Family Plot, Descendants Unknown.”

Harry wiggled in his chair. “I’d like to stand. I want to see.”

Nakayla pushed him closer to the gate. He grabbed the black iron bars with his bony gnarled hands and pulled himself up on his one leg. Nakayla and I stood beside him, ready to assist if he wavered.

“The last time I was here was with my father.” Harry’s words were barely audible.

Nakayla took his arm. “If we find Elijah deceived your father about the coffin, I hope you can find room in your heart to forgive him.”

Harry turned and hopped closer to the fence where he could lean against it. “My dear. The gratitude Elijah and his kin showed my father and me wasn’t deceit. We just didn’t understand the full extent of our service.” Harry smiled. “It will give me comfort to know we made a difference in the lives of Bessie and her family.”

“And you’re making a difference in my life too,” Nakayla said.

The three of us stood in silence. Nakayla and Harry were probably lost in memories of family members gone forever. I was thinking how we would need to scale the fence. A six-foot stepladder could straddle the pickets and let Nakayla, Stanley, and me climb up and then use the support side of the ladder as a makeshift way down. Stanley had purchased a minivan when the twins were born. I’d find a Wal-Mart or Lowe’s open late enough to pick up the ladder tonight in his vehicle. Maybe call Stanley’s cell phone and ask him to come at seven.

Deceit. The conversation between Nakayla and Harry hit home. I was tricking Stanley into helping me, but I didn’t care if he forgave me or not. He wasn’t being altruistic like Harry’s father, helping Elijah simply because he needed help. No, that wasn’t quite true. Elijah had rescued Harry from the bear. A debt had been incurred. Stanley and I owed each other nothing. And yet guilt weighed on me. Is that what it meant to be family? To be in debt to each other? Or to recognize a shared debt to your parents? What does an orphan at any age owe his parents? But wasn’t that the reason I’d given for making Galaxy Movers and its insurance company pay more money? Punishment for my parents’ deaths, even at the cost of whatever fragile ties I had with my brother? The argument was circular. What would happen would happen. I was helping Harry and Nakayla. Their sense of family would be all the justification I needed.

“I wonder what the designs mean on the headstones.” Nakayla leaned across the fence and pointed to the markings chiseled in the smooth space by the names. For the oldest monuments of Malachi and his wife Annabelle, the lines, curves, and circles weren’t as eradicated as the names.

“All the designs share the same degree of erosion,” I said.

“Maybe Elijah added them later,” Harry said. “When his father died. They were here when I came the first time. They look like patterns to frame the names.”

Like the ridges on the bracelet, I thought. A family marking. Maybe some alphabet born in the slave days when reading and writing were forbidden.

“We’d better go,” I said. “There are a few more things we need. Then I want to get rooms at the Holiday Inn. A rest will do us good. We’ve got a long night ahead.”

***

“Nakayla’s sister was the woman who was murdered. The victim the detective told you about at the hospital.”

I’d just introduced Stanley to Nakayla and Harry after the two of us returned from Lowe’s with the ladder and some plastic containers to hold whatever we found in the grave. We sat in my hotel room and I could tell Stanley was anxious. The contrast of the old one-legged white man and young black woman was strange enough, but the vague information I’d given him must have set his imagination running wild.

On the way to the store, I’d told Stanley that Nakayla’s and Harry’s families had known each other for over a hundred years. Harry knew of some family heirlooms stored in Gainesville that Nakayla should have. We needed to retrieve them from the property and that’s why we bought the ladder and storage containers.

“Is no one living in the house now?” Stanley asked Nakayla.

She looked at me, wondering how to answer.

“There is no house,” I said. “The items were actually buried on the property for safekeeping. Now that Nakayla is the sole survivor, Harry encouraged her to claim what is rightfully hers. Harry knows the spot.”

Stanley looked from Harry to Nakayla. “Why would your family bury their own things?”

“Fear,” I said before Nakayla could speak. “The KKK terrorized African-Americans who showed any hint of being successful. Harry helped Nakayla’s great-great grandfather bury them years ago.”

“Is this like silverware?” Stanley asked.

“Yes,” Nakayla said. “I know it sounds strange, but Harry heard about my sister’s death and got in touch with me. I’d prefer not to risk having someone see us dig it up, so Sam agreed to help me tonight. Thank you for helping us, Stanley.”

Outside, a crack of thunder covered Stanley’s “It’s no trouble.”

“Damn,” I said. “We don’t need a storm.”

“It’ll make sure no one’s in the park,” Harry said.

“We’re going to a park?” Stanley asked.

Nakayla’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me.” She stepped out in the hall. A few seconds later, she returned. “Sam, it’s for you.”