Swift Justice: The Southern Way (21 page)

“Sure, but you have to release this guy.”

“No, we can’t,” said the Sheriff. “We have to question him. We have to arrest him.”

Perry shot back. “Look, I’m in law enforcement like you guys. This guy didn’t start any fire. Just get his name and let him go.”

“No fuckin’ way,” Jimmy shouted.

“Sheriff, just let this guy go,” pleaded Perry. “Who’s to say that someone burnt down the building in the first place? It could have been accident. Why do you assume that someone set it on fire? I guarantee you that if someone did set the building on fire, they’re long gone.”

Perry looked around and made a mental note of who was present at the scene.

The Judge spoke and sighed in frustration. “Let him go. Look, Jimmy, we have to speak with the FBI to iron this out. Keep calm. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

The Judge and the Sheriff took Perry to the back of a local barbershop. They greeted a guy they called Acton and directed the Acton guy to join them in the backroom. The men introduced each other and they sat down at a small card table. Before Perry walked in, he subtly turned on his recording device in his briefcase.

The Judge and the Sheriff lit up cigarettes while the Acton guy already had one going.

Perry thought this was great. He would be able to speak to both the Sheriff and the Judge—the two suspects of the Texas Klan. He had to play his cards right, though, and get as much information out of them that he could without spooking them.

“So what can I do for you guys?” Perry asked.

“Well, as you can see, we have a crisis on our hands,” replied the Judge. “We got mad crowds. We got white people that want to kill every Negro in town. We were wondering if you could help us find out who committed these horrible crimes.”

“What makes you think it was a Negro?” asked Perry.

“Well, who else could it be?” asked the Judge. “I mean we got five dead
white
people, and then we have someone that set fire to our beloved Social Club. This is a social club for just white people. And there is no way a white person is going to kill other white people to save Negros, and there is no way a white person is going to burn down our social club.”

“So you think a Negro did it?”

“Yes,” said the Sheriff.

“Okay, you know, I’ve been around this downtown area this morning and it is segregated. I don’t see any Negroes roaming around. There are white people and no Negroes. How could a Negro roam around this town and set that building on fire without being noticed?”

“Look, there is no way a white person did this,” said the Sheriff. “What are you accusing us of?”

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” replied Perry. “It’s just that you’re jumping to conclusions here.” Perry thought it was odd and suspicious that the Sheriff was concerned that he thought Perry was accusing him of the crimes. The Sheriff has a guilty conscious, thought Perry.

“Look, we wanted you to help us, but you’re not really helping us here,” said the Sheriff.

Perry realized that he needed to back off if he wanted to get more information out of them. “All right, tell me how I can help you.”

The Judge responded. “Okay, it’s real simple, we would like you to go into the black areas and find the Negroes that are doing these horrible crimes.”

Perry’s head was spinning. Everything was happening so fast. He and Hall just arrived in this crazy town a few hours ago, and another crime, the burning of the social club, had already taken place. He needed to gather his thoughts, but he had to capitalize on the time he had with the suspected Klan leaders.

“Well, I don’t really know this town. I’ve only been here for a few hours. Me and my partner—”

“Where is your partner?” asked the Sheriff, interrupting Perry.

“Oh, he’s doing some other investigating. We had to split up.”

“Is it just you two?” asked the Judge.

“Yes, it’s just us two.” Perry paused and sighed. “Well, I tell you what, I’ll see what I can do. But wait a minute, what about the Texas National Guard that the Sheriff mentioned to the crowd. Are you planning on calling them?”

“No, the Sheriff spoke out of turn,” said the Judge. “We don’t want to involve them right now. We would prefer it if you can see if you can solve the crime as quietly and quickly as possible.”

This was good for Perry. It appeared that they would cooperate with him—at least for now. But now was the time to get information out of
them
. “Okay, my partner and I will do this for you, but can you answer a few questions of mine.” Perry noticed that the Judge grimaced and Sheriff shifted in his seat. The other guy, Acton, demeanor also changed. They looked concerned.

“Sure,” replied the Sheriff, unconvincingly pretending that he wanted to cooperate.

“Sheriff, I was trying to speak to you earlier, but I heard that you needed to get some much needed sleep because you were up all night. So I would like to speak to you now. Now, I already spoke to this attorney, Howard Goldstein, from the ACLU.”

“Yeah, we know about him,” the Sheriff said gruffly.

“He says that you said that a Deron Brooks escaped, and I was just trying to follow up on that. Can you tell me about that?”

“Yeah, he did not escape,” replied the Sheriff. “We let him go. I don’t know what everyone’s talking about.”

“Oh, really,” replied Perry. “He didn’t escape? So where is he?”

“I have no idea,” said the Sheriff. “We let him go. I mean, I don’t know where’s he’s at.”

“So you’re not looking for him?” asked Perry. This was getting stranger by the minute, thought Perry. Nothing was adding up. Actually, things were starting to add up. Things were adding up that the men in this room were definitely involved or had something to do with all the crimes. They were terrible liars.

“No, he’s free to do whatever he wants.”

“Are you sure?” asked Perry.

“Yes, I’m sure. I just spoke to the press outside our police station. I told the newspaper people that he did not escape.”

“Okay,” replied Perry. Perry needed to get to the crux of the purpose of the meeting—to interview the purported Imperial Wizard of the Texas Klan.

Perry turned to face the Judge. “You’re Atwood Baker?”

“Ah … yeah,” replied the Judge.

“Okay, what is your involvement in all this?”

“Well, I have very little involvement in it other than I’m a concerned citizen. I mean, I’m the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, but I’m just a concerned citizen. What do you mean by involvement?”

Perry replied. “I mean what involvement do you have in these murders?”

“I have zero involvement in these murders,” the Judge replied irritably.

“Where were you when these murders occurred?” Perry realized that he was pushing it. What did Perry expect—that Atwood would confess to the murders. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see Atwood’s reaction. Plus, he wanted to put a little fear in the Imperial Wizard. He wanted him to know that the FBI was on to him.

The Judge sighed in frustration. “Wait a minute, here; you’re not accusing me of doing these murders. I was in Austin.”

“So you were in Austin for both crimes?”

“No, I was here last night, but I was not here the first night. Okay, this is ridiculous. Let’s just stop it right here.”

“Okay, okay, I just want to get it on the record. So you had no involvement in either crime—didn’t know anything what was going on?”

“Absolutely not,” said the Judge.

Perry turned to the Sheriff and Acton. “How about you guys—any involvement in the murders—did you know what was going on?”

Both the Sheriff and Acton said no.

“Look, I’m not even sure I want you to investigate the crimes now,” said the Judge. “Your investigation seems to be off to a bad start.”

“Well, Mr. Baker, I thought you were just a concerned citizen. You don’t have any authority to decide whether the FBI should get involved in your local matter. That’s up to the Sheriff.”

The Sheriff interjected. “Look, maybe you should leave this town because this is a local matter. We were hoping that you would help us find the criminals—not interrogate us.”

Perry needed a good comeback. “Well, we’ll probably be leaving here in a couple of days anyway, so we’ll get out of your hair. I’m sorry for asking these questions, but it is necessary for our procedures. We asked that to anyone who we interview.” Perry was putting on the bullshit. “We’ll do your dirty work for you and find the Negroes that did this.”

“That would be great,” said the Judge.

Perry excused himself and left the men in the room. Once he was outside and safely out of eyesight of the men inside, he shut off the recording device. He found a phone booth, called Goldstein, and gave him an update of the latest events to communicate to Hall. He informed Goldstein that the cops weren’t looking for Deron anymore and that they claim that they released him and he never escaped.

~~~~

“Judge, are you sure this is a good idea getting the FBI involved?” asked Acton.

The Judge sighed. “I don’t know. We thought it would get them distracted and have them go after the niggers, but it seems like they think we did it. It seems to be backfiring.”

“Shouldn’t we demand that they leave, since this is a local matter?” asked the Sheriff. The Sheriff did not like the latest developments. The purpose of burning down the Social Club was to take the suspicion away from them—not have the FBI suspect them.

“I think we got to give them a couple of days before we demand that they leave. I mean, we specifically asked for his help. But, you know, the FBI is not going to leave just because we tell them to leave. They will do whatever the fuck they want.”

“Maybe we could encourage them to leave,” suggested Acton.

“Yeah, if we try to intimidate them, they will only bring in more reinforcements,” said the Judge. “Then we would have a whole shitload of FBI agents roaming around.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” conceded Acton.

“What about the Texas National Guard?” asked the Sheriff.

“Yeah, what the fuck was that all about?” asked the Judge irritably. “Where did that come from? You should have asked me before you shot your mouth off.”

“I don’t know. I think it might be a good idea.”

“Are you fuckin’ nuts? The last thing we need is the Guard coming down here trying to solve our problems. It would be a fuckin’ circus.”

“Okay, but how do we keep control of the crowds?” asked the Sheriff. “They are angry and are ready to take action.”

The Judge thought carefully about this. “Acton, put the word out that we are going to have a Klan meeting tonight at the usual secluded spot. You know, a KOT meeting. We need to organize our own national guard.”

“Okay, I’ll get the word out right now,” said Acton. He immediately walked out of the barbershop.

As soon as Acton was gone, the Judge turned toward the Sheriff. “Any developments on the real suspect?” the Judge asked.

“No, I haven’t had a chance to do anything other than put out fires this morning, but I’m going to spend the rest of the day doing my own investigating. I’m going to head out to the crime scenes and see if I pick up on anything that I originally missed.”

“Okay, keep me posted.”

~~~~

The Judge promptly left, but the Sheriff remained in the barbershop’s backroom. Before he started investigating the crime scenes, he needed to plot out his strategy. His mind was sharper now that he had a decent nap. He needed to open his mind and seriously consider who did the crimes, but he needed to keep it simple.

One thing he was confident in was that the person or people who killed the victims was probably a man. Big deal, he thought. That narrows it down to about twenty thousand potential suspects. Was it a group of people or just a lone killer? He thought about this. Paulie said that there was only one person at the warehouse and that was what Leon had said too. He believed Paulie—he wasn’t so sure about Leon. But Leon certainly couldn’t have done it the second night because he was locked up. So if there was only one person who was doing this, then it couldn’t be Leon. But it could have been a different person the first night, and Leon could have been that person. Maybe another Negro killed on the first night and a different one killed on the second night.

The Sheriff was encouraged with his line of thinking. He realized that he should probably interview Paulie first because he was the only white person that saw the killer, albeit he couldn’t describe the person.

The more the Sheriff thought about it, the more he thought it was probably the same person who did the killings. Now, was this person a Negro, like everyone thinks, or a white person? He had to keep an open mind and not rule out a white person. One thing was for sure: the killer did not want anyone to recognize him or whether he was black or white. The shooter was a good shot and had access to different types of weapons.

If it was a Negro, what did they have to go through to do the killings? First, it had to be someone that worked at the same construction site as Leon. They could have seen him going in the back. Heck, probably a lot of Negroes saw that happening. Then, they probably wondered where Leon went. Maybe they followed the car to the warehouse and then followed them to the woods. That was possible, but Lucky would have probably noticed someone following him. Maybe not, though.

The Sheriff continued this line of thinking. So the Negro follows them to the woods. He would have had to follow far back to avoid detection. He probably parked down the path from where they were going to hang Leon. He probably put on his disguise, hiked over to the scene, shot everyone, kicked them, and freed Leon. Then, he probably drove off in his vehicle. Who knows, maybe he also drove Leon back, and Leon story about him hiking back on foot was a lie.

Okay, so then how does the killer kill the Sawyer boys? The Sheriff pondered this. He must have seen me leave with Deron and followed. He then hung back, entered the warehouse from the back, and shot the guys. Yes, it was entirely possible for a Negro to do it, and he had it narrowed down to the Negroes who worked at the construction site. He would get a list of all the Negroes who worked that night. That shouldn’t be too hard to get.