Swift Justice: The Southern Way (17 page)

“Sure,” Goldstein replied and took everyone to the side out of hearing distance from the reporter and the state trooper. Goldstein addressed James Brooks. “Okay, I can assure you that your son, Deron, is fine.”

“What happened to him?” asked James Brooks.

“Okay, we have to keep this quiet. There are only three people who know where Deron is at: Mrs. Brooks, the person that is hiding him, and me. I think, for everyone’s safety, we should keep it that way.”

“I want to see my boy, though. I thought they killed him.”

“I understand,” said Goldstein, “but we need to keep him hidden until the FBI gets here.”

“FBI?” said James Brooks. “The FBI doesn’t give a shit about Negroes. That Hoover guy hates Negroes. What makes you think the FBI is going to help us? You think we should trust the FBI?”

Goldstein sighed. “Yes, I think you should. Quite frankly, it’s our only hope. If we can’t trust them, then we’re all in trouble.”

“What happened last night?” asked Leon. “Who else got killed, and what did they do with Deron.”

Goldstein filled everyone in on what happened.

Leon’s head was spinning. While one side of him was petrified with the last few day’s horrific events, the other side was beaming with delight that his true love, Joyce, seemed to really like and care for him. He wasn’t going to be shy anymore. He was going to be bold like most other black men in his neighborhood.

“Joyce, I’m so glad to see you,” said Leon. Then, he did something that even shocked him—he kissed her softly on the lips.

“Leon! Wow, what has gotten into you.”

Mama Brooks must have seen them because she said, “Leon, stop the kissing. We have a major catastrophe going on here, and you’re kissing girls. Now, shape up, boy.”

Leon sensed that his mother was jealous. He peeked over at Joyce, gave her a mischievous grin, and winked at her without his mother seeing him.

“Hall, how the fuck did we get stuck on this shit detail?” FBI special agent, Andrew Perry asked his partner, Tom Hall while they were driving towards Dodge County. Perry was driving while Hall sat in the passenger seat.

“I know. I agree,” replied Hall.

“What did you hear?” asked Perry. Perry was in his late twenties and a little younger than the thirty-two-year-old Hall. Both Perry and Hall were tall, physically fit, and had crew cuts. They were both dressed in the typical dark suit with a white shirt and skinny tie. Rumor had it that the FBI Director, Edgar Hoover, had fired a FBI agent for not having his tie on, so all FBI agents constantly wore their suits and ties.

“I heard it came from all the way up the top.”

“You mean from Hoover?”

“No, actually, I heard it came from the White House to Hoover. I heard that Hoover was trying to talk the President out of it because the FBI has its hands full with trying to catch the commies and the mob, and they don’t have time for a local matter. But the President insisted that the FBI needs to get down there to prevent this from exploding. The President is concerned about that
Brown versus Board of Education
Supreme Court case and that none of the Southern states are going to follow it.”

“Okay, so when are we supposed to arrive there?” asked Perry. “How much time do you think we got?”

“I think we should arrive in about thirty minutes, right at about nine o’clock this morning.”

“What are we supposed to do?”

“Well, we’re supposed to find out what happened there,” replied Hall. “Who knows, maybe it was a commie that did this.”

Andrew Perry secretly hated these frequent discussions about “commies.” Hoover was obsessed with Communists. Perry had no problems with spying on potential Russian spies, but Hoover had his men spying on people who clearly weren’t Russian spies but more like political opponents of Hoover. One time, Perry was on a surveillance team on a U.S. congressman. The word was that he was a suspected commie. They didn’t see the congressman doing any spy work, but he was cheating on his wife. Perry had to type up detailed reports that supposedly went directly to Hoover.

Although Perry vocally objected to the Dodge County assignment, he secretly looked forward to it. Maybe he might actually catch a
real
bad guy instead of Hoover’s political enemies. He was sick of the meaningless surveillances of potential commies.

“I can’t believe that five people have been killed in two days,” said Perry.

“I know,” replied Hall. “We got the report just before we left that there were two more murders this morning.”

“I was only able to glance at the report. Can you summarize it for me again?”

“Sure, no problem.” Hall opened the file folder that had papers nicely bound to the file folder at the top. “Okay, we got a call from a Jewish attorney named Howard Goldstein. He’s from that annoying ACLU that Hoover hates.”

“Then why are we going down if Hoover hates the ACLU so much?” asked Perry. Perry was only putting on an act in front of Hall. Perry knew that most agents followed in the footsteps of their leader and were supposed to hate anything the director hated including commies and the ACLU, among many other groups.

“Like I said before, it came down from the White House.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Sorry, go on.”

“But it’s not just the Jewish attorney. It’s a reporter and a state trooper. Hoover thinks this will be national news by this afternoon. He expects that all the national networks will be there along with the pain-in-the-ass New York Times.”

“Shit, we better not fuck up,” said Perry.

“I know.”

“So continue on,” said Perry.

“Well, this Howard Goldstein claims that on the first night, his client, a Negro named Leon Brooks, was kidnapped and ready to be hung, but someone shot the three people who were going to hang him.”

“Was it a Negro?” asked Perry.

“No one knows because the guy was disguised.”

“What happened last night?”

“Almost the same thing except it was Leon Brooks’s brother, Deron Brooks, who was kidnapped. This time Howard Goldstein claims that it was the Sheriff that kidnapped Deron Brooks and brought Deron to an abandoned warehouse. Again, three white guys were allegedly going to kill Deron Brooks, but someone shot and killed two of them and injured the third one, who is still alive and is in stable condition.”

“Wow, this is amazing. We’re stepping into a hornet’s nest here. These locals are not going to like us being around.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot more information, and, here, is where it gets a little touchy. Dodge County is home to Atwood Baker, the Chief Justice on the Texas Supreme Court.”

“Yeah, so what does he have to do with it?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Know what?” asked Perry.

“He’s is believed to be the Imperial Wizard of the Klan in Texas. That is, he is the leader of the whole Klan. Goldstein suspects that Atwood Baker ordered the two hits that went bad.”

“Wait a minute, here,” said Perry. “We have a potential corrupt Sheriff and a corrupt Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. This is not a shit detail. This could be juicy.” Perry decided not to hide his excitement anymore.

“Yeah, you’re right. You and I could bring down the whole Texas Klan if we play our cards right.”

“Wait, I have a question,” said Perry. “If the FBI already knows that the Chief Justice is the head of the Klan, why haven’t we targeted him before?”

“That’s easy,” replied Hall, “because he’s not suspected to be a commie. Remember, the Klan doesn’t just hate Negroes, they hate Jews, Catholics, and they also hate commies, so Hoover hasn’t put the resources on them yet. Plus, as you might know, Hoover doesn’t care for Negroes as well.”

Perry liked what Hall was saying. It appeared that Perry wasn’t alone in his questioning of Hoover’s tactics.

“So how are we going to play this?” asked Perry.

“That’s a good question. We need to act low key because it’s just us. Let’s see what we can accomplish by ourselves, so we don’t have to give all the credit away.”

“How about this,” said Perry. “How about we pretend to be on the Sheriff’s side that we want to help them but not step on their shoes. Make them feel relaxed that we are only planning on being there a short while just to make sure it is only a local matter.”

“Yeah, I like that, but we need to speak to that Goldstein guy and his clients to get the real scoop.”

“Hey, what about that guy that is still alive,” asked Perry. “What’s his name?”

Hall flipped through the file. “His name is Paul Sawyer. He’s in the hospital recovering.”

“Why don’t we go directly to him—catch him off guard.”

“Hmm, that might piss off the Sheriff and ruin our whole plan.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, but I think he could be the key. He may be able to tie everything to Atwood Baker.”

“Maybe, but it’s hard to get these guys to talk. We have to convince him somehow.”

“All right, how about this,” said Perry. “Why don’t we give the Sheriff an opportunity to speak to us before we speak to Goldstein and his Negro clients? Like we said before, let’s get them to relax and think that we will leave shortly. Then, we do some serious investigating and find out who did the crimes.”

“Okay,” said Hall, “let’s head straight to the police station and pay a visit to the Sheriff. Then we can interview the prisoners.”

“Who exactly is in jail?” asked Perry.

“Well, it is that Leon Brooks, his other brother, his father, and some other Negro. Deron Brooks is being hidden for us to meet with directly.”

“This is really a hornet’s nest,” replied Perry.

~~~~

It was a little past nine o’clock in the morning, and the FBI arrived into Dodge County driving north on Highway 191. They first went through the black residential neighborhood and noticed that the streets were fairly empty, which surprised them.

“Why are the streets so empty?” asked Perry. “I was expecting there to be some kind of riot.”

“Patience, my friend,” replied Hall. “It’s the calm before the storm.”

Using a map, Hall directed Perry to their destination. On the way, they drove down Vine Street, which was the Negro business area. This street was bustling with activity. The Negroes appeared to be happy, almost cheering out on the streets. This seemed odd to Perry after what Hall had read from the file.

They kept driving and entered the downtown area. They saw a sign that read:
If the sun has set, get your black ass out of here
.

“That’s a very welcoming sign to Negroes,” Perry said sarcastically.

“Yeah, such Southern hospitality,” said Hall.

They finally arrived at the police station. Again, it was odd that there was not that much activity outside the police station considering that there were just five murders in two days. Perry thought there would be a massive crowd of black people demanding that the police release the black suspects, but there was not one black person outside. This was odd. Something was not right, thought Perry.

Perry and Hall parked their car, walked up the stairs, entered the police station, and approached the policeman behind the counter.

Perry spoke in a calm, professional, non-threatening manner, “Hello, my name is Special Agent Perry and this is Special Agent Hall. We’re from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. We’re here to see the Sheriff. Is he available?”

“What do you guys want?” asked the policeman behind the counter.

“Well, if you must know, we’re here about the five murders.”

“How did you know that there were five murders?”

“We heard. It’s all over the news. There have been five murders here. Everyone is going to know about this. It’s going to be national news.”

“Well, this a local matter,” said the policeman. “We don’t really need you to investigate our local matter.”

“Yeah, you might be right on that,” replied Perry. “We were just told to come on down here. There are just the two of us as you can see, and we’re supposed to see if this is a federal matter. And if it’s not a federal matter, then we can get out of here quickly. You know we really don’t want to be down here—we were just told to come down here. So if it’s just a local matter, then we will be gone.” Perry was putting on the bullshit for their first phase of their plan.

“Oh,” said the policeman in a much more relaxed tone.

“So, can we speak to the Sheriff?” asked Hall.

“Well, actually I’m the Sheriff’s son. My name is Tyler Mason. Everyone calls me Junior.”

“Oh, hi Junior, how are you doing?” asked Hall.

“All right … I guess.”

“Well, can we speak to the Sheriff?” asked Perry. Perry noticed that they had now asked several times to speak to the Sheriff.

“Well, um, he actually had a late night because of all this action, and he is taking a nap right now—a much needed nap. However, he may have gotten enough by now, so I’ll check to see if he can speak to you.”

Perry and Hall glanced at each other, and Hall gave Perry a slight nod, which indicated for Perry to ask more questions.

“So do you have any suspects?” asked Perry. “I understand you had some suspects arrested.”

“Oh, we
had
prisoners, but we released them.”

“You released them?” asked Perry. Now, Perry knew why there wasn’t such a commotion outside.

“Yeah, we released them. You know, we didn’t have enough evidence at this time to press charges.”

“Really,” said Perry.

Hall spoke. “What about someone I heard that escaped?”

“Who did you hear that from?” asked Junior.

“Again, we hear things,” said Hall. “So someone escaped?”

“You have to talk to my dad.”

“Okay, can you go ahead and see if you can find him?” asked Hall.

“Sure, why don’t y’all have a seat, and I will see if I can get the Sheriff for you.”

After about five minutes, Junior returned. “I’m sorry, he’s still sound asleep. Can you come back later?”

Perry replied. “Sure, we can do that, but we wanted to give the Sheriff an opportunity to speak first and get his side of the story before we speak to anyone else. We thought that this would be fairest thing to do. Again, we really don’t want to be down here, and we would like to wrap it up as soon as possible.”