Only the Wicked (25 page)

There was beer flowing and whooping and hollering as everybody's favorite driver named Clint or Bobby Lee ground up passenger cars underneath their two-story tires. This was goddamn redneck heaven.

“This Forrest related to the ex-Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest who militarized the Klan to use them to halt Reconstruction?” Monk was surprised that question had managed to form in his troubled brain.

“Possibly, or at least the judge encouraged such thinking.” McClendon spooned up more of his red beans and rice. The concession stands offered the tasty fare in wide-mouthed Styrofoam cups, along with catfish and home fries, collards and red-eye gravy and ham, and hot dogs and hamburgers.

Monk was earnestly working on some catfish doused in hot sauce. “Was this judge in the Klan, too?”

“Yes, a Grand Wizard,” McClendon confirmed.

A woman in a nylon windbreaker, her dirty blond hair piled high, went past them toward the aisle, bumping Monk's knees. She didn't say anything and Monk glared at her, chewing.

“The myth goes that Forrest disappeared in the woods off the Natchez Trace, leading men and hounds chasing an escaped convict.”

Monk ate and waited.

McClendon delivered his punch line. “The real story is Jarius Forrest died in a sanitarium in Chattanooga blind and half mad from untreated syphilis in the fall of nineteen thirty-three. His idea of rehabilitation for young ladies picked up for solicitin' or vagrancy also had to do with him gettin' out from behind the bench. In this regard, and this only, he did not discriminate between black nor white.” McClendon finished his snack.

“An activist jurist,” Monk saluted the memory of Jarius Malachi Forrest with a tip of his cup of water. “So Forrest's exploits are glorified, and Malachi becomes a ghost—no, make that a spook story—to keep the superstitious darkies in line.”

Out on the dirt floor of the stadium, a souped-up tractor, its silver mufflers looking as if designed by the late great comic book artist Jack Kirby, spewed nitro flame into the air. The thing reared up on its hind wheels, and the driver waved his Stetson over his head as his mechanical steed did wheelies. The crowd went nuts.

“Exactly,” McClendon concurred. “If a black man were to get off, even if the evidence was overwhelmingly in his favor, well sir, maybe the Hand of Malachi had to come down and maybe that poor soul would find himself disemboweled, his bloated corpse floating down the Yazoo. Better yet, the supposed male-factor might disappear altogether, the more to heighten the reputation of the cornpone avenger of white rights.” McClendon dabbed at gravy on his chin. “As it says in Malachi, Chapter Three in the Bible, ‘And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be the swift witness.'”

The nitro-burning tractor took off from a ramp, and landed on a row of Japanese cars. Again, there was the vigorous waving of confederate flags and a general cacophony of giddiness.

“And Manse Tigbee and his Southern Citizens League kept this legend alive?”

“And thus we come to Hiram Bodar, the new breed of deep-fried Republican, fiscal conservative, racial healer.”

The woman in the windbreaker returned, holding a large cup of beer. She went past the two, spilling some on Monk's leg. She went on.

McClendon noticed, holding the rim of his cup to his mouth. As Monk smoldered, he proceeded. “At first it was just a story about Bodar's crack-up on the highway. I assigned a reporter who regularly covers political stuff here in Jackson. But this woman, Selma Portofino, has got the nose, you see? She'd no sooner filed her first report, when she got word that Bodar had been seen doing the ogle eyes in a Memphis restaurant in the company of a redhead—his wife is brunette.”

“In her follow-up piece,” Monk began, using his paper napkin to wipe the sweat, produced by the hot sauce and remnants of alcohol, from his forehead. “She hinted maybe the heretofore straight-arrow senator was waxing his shaft in another quill.”

“We like a salacious story as much as the next province, Mr. Monk. Really, we went with that slant on the story because it was a way to keep it alive, and not incidentally build circulation, I'm not too proud to admit. But more than that, it was the extra information Selma had.”

Monk nodded in ascent. “The identity of the woman.”

Two Peterbilt cabs were growling, churning up waves of earth while the vehicles played chicken with one another down on the track.

“The big payoff being the woman was the daughter of Wallace Burchett, a hardcore member of the Citizens League.”

Monk told him about seeing the odd interview with him in Embara's film.

McClendon took a breath. “Did you know he was rumored to have done killings on orders of the League's inner council? That in effect he was one of the ones chosen to be Malachi?”

Monk's jaw dropped partially open.

McClendon threw his empty containers down on the concrete riser, and laced his fingers before him. The stadium lights sprang on as evening overtook the festivities.

“Several years ago, the files of the supposedly defunct and various Citizens Leagues were released from Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas. It made national news.”

“Oh, I know,” Monk agreed.

“Well, you probably know the one here in the Magnolia State was the originator, and the headquarters for the various branches. Like”—McClendon used his hands, one as if it were holding a globe, the other circling over the imaginary sphere—like here was the boss of bosses, and the others were the lieutenants.”

“The underbosses,” Monk amended, to better fit the analogy.

“Absolutely,” McClendon said, pointing at him emphatically. “The Citizens Leagues have been compared to buttoned-down Klansmen, and there's some truth to that. But the Leagues, that is to say the inner council, the leadership, was always about the future, not about bringing back some lost white paradise that didn't exist anyway.”

Monk was feeling better and feeling scared. “This is what Bodar was trying to get at?”

“In a way,” McClendon yawned. “Excuse me, I've been doing some copyediting and clean-up work for a corporate website designer over in Canton. After all, I gotta keep up my end of the mortgage.”

“No need to apologize for that.”

“You're all right, Monk. Anyway, like any clandestine organization, like any outfit that had burrowed deep in the political and social structure, the Citizens League had strategized plans for the long term.”

Monk saw where McClendon was heading. “The files were released, after much wrangling. And more than thirty years after the little girls were bombed in the Birmingham church, and Schwerner, Goodmen and Chaney were murdered leaving the Philadelphia jail. Those files were made public.”

“Conveniently found under the floorboards of a rickety smokehouse over in Wiggins, and then some more contributed by retired businessmen. These papers detailed illegal electronic surveillance, beatings, character assassination campaigns, even named some sell-out Uncle Toms, who for money, did their bidding. Our own version of the East German Stasi.”

Nausea made saliva gather in Monk's mouth as he thought about his cousin. “But there must be other files that reveal who carried out the sanctioned hits ordered by the inner council.”

A Mack cab with three engines mounted over the rear wheels was dragging a large cage on wheels. Inside the cage, buxom, bikini-clad young women gyrated. Some waved U.S. flags, and others the stars and bars.

“These files named who in local and state, and sometimes even federal authority, looked the other way, or obfuscated the investigation. Don't forget that old queen Hoover had a pathological hatred for King and anything smacking of black self-determination. The FBI down here wasn't nothin' but some regular fellers from 'round here who knew how to knot their ties properly.”

“This what you were getting close to before the publisher canned you? That you were on to actually producing these secret files?”

McClendon squinted into the artificial lights. “We looked for Burchett's daughter, Nancy, once we got onto her. She used to have a typing service she ran over in Brownsville for something like ten years. A week after the accident, she was nowhere to be found.”

“Killed?”

“Or running scared, what happened to Bodar a warning to git and stay git, man.”

The truck and its cargo of busty bevies had made its last circuit, and now another customized tractor spewed chunks of stadium floor and bleated thunderously as it roared into view. A glass-walled tank of sharks had been brought in and twin thin metal planks were now being placed parallel across the tank. A ramp was pulled into position to allow the tractor to get up to the planks.

“That's the hombre I gotta interview.” McClendon pointed at the souped-up tractor, then removed his press pass from a rear pocket and put the laminated card on its chain around his sweaty neck. “Pickin' up some extra scratch from
Babes & Rigs
magazine.” He assessed the look on Monk's face. “You'd be surprised at the size of their readership.”

“You got any pull with Bodar or his wife?”

“‘Fraid not. We tried for weeks to get him to talk, but no go. The missus, Cassie Bodar nee Ibers, and me went to the same high school, but that didn't get me anywhere either.” McClendon stood up. “You goin' out there?”

“I'll take a run at 'em. Can you give me the address?”

McClendon did and Monk walked with him out of the bleachers and down toward the rear of the stadium. The driver was adeptly maneuvering his tractor over the sharks, screeching and belching smoke and fire. People were yelling and the stomping of their boot heels all over the place was like listening to a stampede of bison.

“Well, I wish you luck, and hope you can shake something loose. If you do, remember me for the book rights when you walk out arm-in-arm with Creel.”

“You got it, Todd.” He shook the man's hand and made his way to the exit. Three good-sized men in Ts and open shirts were talking near a display of various tractor- and truck-pulling paraphernalia. The three bunched together as he got nearer, and Monk flexed his shoulders, refusing to slow his gait in the least.

“Enjoy the show?” one asked, the other two snickering. Two of them were holding beer cups.

Monk got close. “Real fine. I especially liked the girls dancing in the cage.”

The one who'd spoken was taller than Monk, thinner in the arms. He grinned down at him maliciously. “Like that white pussy, do you?”

In a very measured tone Monk said, “I like it any way I can get it.” He returned the smile with a gleeful of his own.

Neither one said anything as the pulse in Monk's neck intensified.

“Come on, Barry, we gotta get movin'.”

“It'll keep.”

“Sure it will,” Monk agreed.

“Come on,” Barry's buddy insisted. “You want another beef to contend with now, when you tryin' to get the visitation rights with your kids back?”

“I guess we can find out how much tough boy here really likes that blond southern snatch another night.”

“I'm holdin' your boy, Barry.”

The two backed off. Barry and Monk stood looking at each other for several minutes until the former walked away with his friends. Monk was glad he'd left his gun back at the motel—along with his good sense, it seemed.

Chapter 16

Grant and Nona Monk walked up to the woman sitting in the open doorway of the house. The abode was, appropriately, done in the Monterey Revival design. There was a second-floor maple balcony running the horizontal length of the front, its wood lustrous in the bright sun. The original wood shingle roof, according to the listing, had been replaced by unblemished terra cotta tiles. Though they were several miles inland, the smell of the peninsula was keen in the morning air.

“Come on in, folks.” The woman stood up, smoothing her business skirt, a practiced, but sincere smile on her handsome face.

“Actually we didn't come to see the house; we came to see you, Ms. Allen.” Grant stopped at the doorway, indicating that Nona Monk should go through first.

“And why is that?” The smile now had creases in each corner.

“About your older sister, Sharon, and that time,” Nona Monk said, taking some of the edge off Grant's harsh delivery. Man wouldn't know subtle if it smacked him upside the head, she noted. “My son is a private detective, and he's in Mississippi looking into matters that touch on your family's history.”

The woman looked beyond the bogus couple as if in hope of spotting genuine potential buyers, someone who would relieve her from engaging in what was clearly a painful subject. There were no people coming along the segmented walkway, and she drew her shoulders in like a boxer ready for a savage round. “I was just a kid; there isn't much I can tell you.”

Grant rumbled, “Listen, young lady—”

“Is it okay if we sit?” Nona Monk interrupted him, and swept her hand toward the large living room and a couch covered in throw pillows.

Lindsey Allen was resigned to saying something. “Why not, it's not as if you're interrupting the morning rush.”

“We won't be long,” Grant blurted, boring Nona Monk with a look.

He and Monk's mother sat side by side on the couch after Grant made room for his bigger frame by stacking some of the pillows to one side.

Allen sat diagonally in a cabriolet chair with red velour padding. She crossed her legs, tightening up her face as she examined the pair. “Let me get this right: You two are some kind of modern age Nick and Nora, and your son is a sleuth, too.”

Nona Monk explained the permutations of what brought them to Monterey after Grant had quieted down from his laughing jag.

“I'm sorry to hear about your cousin—Nona, is it?” she asked. “But like I said, I wasn't even ten years old when my sister was murdered. And well, Mom and Dad didn't go on a lot about what happened …”