Brambleman (35 page)

“So you never told anyone? You never went to
the law?”

“He was the law. People were afraid of him.
And now you tell me he got away with murder.” She shook her head.
“Make a long story short, I got pregnant and ran off when I was
sixteen. They didn’t none of ’em come after me. Weren’t no rescue,
just good riddance.”

“Was he—”

“Yes.”

“The father? My God.”

“God didn’t have anything to do with it. And
I wanted to get rid of it. I went to a black woman in Atlanta. I
hadn’t never seen a black person but in pictures up till then.
Everything they taught me about ’em was wrong. She saved my life.
Don’t know what I would have done, having to carry a baby around.
Probably starved myself to death, just to kill it, knowing whose it
was. Whole family’s that way. Can’t keep their things in their
pants around family. I bet you know that much.”

It was true
. He remembered how Momo
and Stanley kissed Susan and Sheila on the lips when they hugged at
family gatherings.
Cutchins blood loves itself
. The woman
gave him a wicked smile. She sure knew how to look ugly when she
wanted to. A family thing, Charlie supposed.

He silently cursed Pappy for getting away
with all these terrible crimes as he thought about Lettie Riggins,
rest her soul, as well as Shirley/Arlene, ruined, waiting to die in
a little white ghetto while those proud of their Cutchins
blood—fattened on ice cream—now stood to become rich.

She gave him a crooked smile. “Some family
you married into, eh?”

“Yeah. But my marriage isn’t working
out.”

“So now you know the deep dark secrets.
Though with that crowd, there may be more.” She chuckled drily.
“You gone too far to stop now.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“On your book. You better be careful. They
don’t take criticism too kindly. They went and put one of their own
in the government to protect themselves.”

“You talk like it’s a conspiracy.”

Again, the wicked smile. “It
is
a
conspiracy. But you aim to bring it all down, right?”

“I aim to tell the truth, and if that brings
him down, so be it.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “You
get the bastard. Get him good. That’s what you need to do,” she
wheezed. “It’s bigger than you know. I prayed for something like
this to happen, that his own would do him in. I reckon you’re close
enough.”

Charlie sat back in his chair and thought:
No. I can’t be the answer to her prayers, too
. Surely they
would be too dark, too damaged in transit, to make it through.
Otherwise, Pappy would already be in hell.

“Don’t tell him where I am.” She stubbed out
the third cigarette she’d smoked since his arrival. “He’ll send
somebody if he knows where I live.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise. Blood oath.”

“No problem on that,” Charlie said.

In return for the promise, Charlie got as
much dirt as an investigative reporter could hope for from one
source—a cold, hard, gritty, and hateful firsthand account of life
with Isaac Cutchins. He learned that after she’d run away, the high
school dropout had worked in factories and restaurants, bouncing
from job to job, never finding anyone to love, having grown tired
of men before she ever had a chance to know a decent one, if he
knew what she meant. And now she lived on Social Security.

As he loaded his equipment into the van, he
remembered Evangeline talking about going out for ice cream every
Saturday. It was her fondest childhood memory. Could he put it in
the book? Hell, yes. Maybe he’d follow up and ask her if she’d
known what was going on while she went out for happy time. He’d ask
her: What flavor did Shirley always get? But first he’d talk to
Pappy. That monster.

And there it was, his title:
American
Monster
.

Charlie stepped out from the dungeon into the
back yard and paused to bask in the afternoon sunshine, but his
mood on this mid-November day was grim. A most unpleasant task lay
ahead. He had finished the rest of his research, and it was time to
ask Pappy a question: “Did you kill John Riggins, rape his wife,
and steal their land?” Face to face, man to monster. Charlie had
cleared his schedule for the confrontation. Beck and Ben were
staying at friends’ houses, and Susan would retrieve them. Kathleen
would nap.

“Let’s do this thing,” Charlie muttered to
himself as he marched to the van, slamming his right fist into his
left palm. “The motherfucker isn’t going to get away with it. Let’s
bring the pain.” Not exactly a calming mantra, but it served his
purpose, to get him moving in the direction he needed to go.

As he drove up Georgia 400, Charlie
considered the other missing piece to the puzzle: how to prove that
Minerva Riggins, lighter-skinned than either of her parents, was
Pappy’s daughter. He had enough to convince a neighborhood gossip,
but not an all-white jury in Forsyth County—or a reputable
publisher. Of course, neither Minerva nor Pappy would cooperate
with him on DNA testing, which was what Charlie needed to build an
airtight case and help Minerva reclaim her family’s wealth.
Reparations. That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? That and to
wreak vengeance upon the evildoers. Go Old Testament on their
asses.

Joan Osborne’s
One of Us
came on the
radio, reminding Charlie of Trouble, riding on a bus that ferried
the righteous away from danger and smote the wicked. Had Trouble
been on that bus that ran down Angela’s lawyer? And had Bethany
Campbell deserved smiting? Maybe the Almighty’s wrath was random,
but whatever.
God is not mocked
. The idea that there was
any
kind of divine justice heartened him as he launched
himself into this time of trial.

North of Cumming, Charlie exited the highway
and drove by Coal Mountain. The surveyors were gone, but flags
marked the right-of-way for the big road they planned. A half-mile
away stood Stableford Farms, Phase II, Now Open! A forest of
two-by-fours jutted from the ground. Eventually all the farms in
the area would be gone, replaced by subdivisions and a
megamall.

The pace seemed to be quickening, as if the
devil and developers knew that time was running out. Well-connected
builders were snatching up parcels of land every day, aided by
state and local officials who insisted on literally paving the way
for them by financing road improvements. Charlie was sure Stanley
Cutchins had his dirty little hands in all of this. He’d devoted
several pages of
American Monster
to the legislator’s
misdeeds.
So much to cover, so little time
.

He drove past Pappy’s place without slowing,
scouting it out. The only vehicle at the house was the old man’s
battered pale blue Chevy pickup. He made a U-turn and pulled into
Pappy’s semi-circular drive, his tires popping rocks and making it
nearly impossible to take Ike Cutchins by surprise. With palms
sweating, Charlie got out with his clipboard, which held the
incriminating evidence. “Pappy!” he cried out heartily, attempting
familiarity. He twisted his neck and adjusted the collar on his
work shirt. Crows cawed in the distance.
Ours or theirs
?

His work boots crunched gravel as he walked
toward the house. He checked his watch as he thunked onto the
porch. The red wooden door was open and the sun shone through the
screen, bleaching a patch of living-room carpet. Inside, an old
table radio broadcast a low-watt AM fire-and-brimstone preacher
from Ellijay, who was hollering eternal damnation at the top of his
lungs.

As Charlie lifted his hand to knock, Pappy’s
voice came from a back room: “Come on in.”

Although shocked by the invitation, Charlie
opened the screen door and stepped inside.

“I left it on the coffee table!” the old man
yelled. “Stanley said you need to get rid of it before that
cocksucker finds out about it.”

Charlie looked around the living room and saw
a pint Mason jar filled with amber liquid on the spindle-legged
coffee table. Something in it half floated, touching the bottom. At
first he thought it was moonshine Mezcal. He stepped closer and saw
it wasn’t a worm.

“Shit,” he said, stepping back when he
realized what it was. A memento, just like they used to keep in the
bad old days, a souvenir of a successful lynching. He considered
grabbing the jar and running away with this great prize, his
personal Rosetta Stone. Before he could act on this impulse, Pappy
walked into the living room, rubbing his face with a towel.

“That asshole—”

He lowered the towel and looked straight at
the aforementioned asshole. Pappy’s mouth dropped open as he
staggered backward two steps and clutched his chest with his right
hand. Charlie thought the old man was going to drop dead, but
Pappy’s look of horror was quickly replaced by his natural
expression of dyspepsia. “Get the hell outta my house,” he said in
an ominously quiet, clipped tone.

“Ah, but you just invited me in,” Charlie
said, forcing a smile.

“I sure as hell didn’t know it was you.”

Charlie gave a sidelong glance at the Mason
jar. The black finger was crooked like a question mark. “Do you
know why I’m here?”

“Ain’t no reason for you to be. I told you to
get off the property last time you was here.”

That finger kept beckoning him. Charlie had
to force himself to look away from it. “I’m glad your memory is so
good,” he said, “because I need to talk to you about
something.”

“I don’t wanna talk to you. Ain’t got nuthin’
to say.”

“Is that part of him?” Charlie pointed toward
the jar.

“What the hell?” Pappy gave Charlie a
one-eyed squint.

“That finger. Is that what’s left of John
Riggins?”

“Don’t know who you talkin’ about. And you’re
trespassin’. Get out.”

“I know what happened.”

“You don’t know a damn thing.”

“I have the photo of you with—”

“Photo don’t prove nuthin’. Get the hell out
or I’ll shoot you.”

Charlie looked around. The shotgun wasn’t in
sight, though he knew Pappy kept it handy, standing in a corner of
the kitchen. Loaded.

He shoved the clipboard toward Pappy. On it
was the lynching photo inside a transparent plastic report cover.
Pappy glanced at it, then looked away. “That ain’t me. You need to
head on. After what you did to my granddaughter, I’m not worried
about what you got to say, anyway. Nobody gonna believe you.”

“What did I do?”

“You know what you did. A man like that
shouldn’t even walk this earth. You want money, is that it? You
tryin’ to blackmail me?” He grew more animated as he spoke,
shifting his weight, casting a furtive glance toward the kitchen.
Calculating time and distance, no doubt.

“No. No amount of money could keep me from
telling the world about John Riggins.”

“Ain’t no one left to tell no tales. And
you’re a liar on top of bein’ a wife-beater.”

“That reminds me: Did you rape your oldest
daughter?”

“Shut up, you bastard. I’ll not have you
talkin’ that way in my—”

“I got a statement from Danny Patterson. And
from Shirley.”

“Get out.”

“Did you know Riggins had a daughter?”

“You’re a damn liar. He didn’t have no
kids.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know him.”

Pappy snarled, “I told you, get outta my
house!”

“She was born nine months after he died.
She’s still alive.”

“I’ve worked for everything I got. You can
lie about me all you want—”

“I’m not going to lie. I don’t have to.”
Charlie pulled his printed list of questions from behind the
plastic-covered photo. “I’m giving you a chance—”

“I’m givin’
you
a chance to get outta
here before I kill ya.”

Charlie would have laughed off the old man’s
threat except there was one thing he didn’t know: Where
was
that gun? Charlie wanted to break toward the kitchen and go for it
himself, but it would be hard to explain to the Forsyth County
sheriff how he’d killed Pappy. Plus, it would ruin the book’s
ending. Anyway, a reporter should avoid inserting himself into the
story, if possible. “Why’d you do it? Did you rape John Riggins’
wife?”

That hit a raw nerve. “You accusin’ me of
sleepin’ with a
nigger
?”

The old man licked his lips and proceeded to
make one of the biggest blunders of his execrable life. He hocked
up a loogie and spat at Charlie’s face—but the wad of saliva fell
short and splattered the plastic report cover on the clipboard,
instead. Charlie glanced down. At first he was grossed out. Then he
realized Pappy had voluntarily and vehemently given him exactly
what he needed: a DNA sample. He glanced at his watch. “This
interview is over,” Charlie declared. “I’m out of here.”

When Pappy broke toward the kitchen, Charlie
grabbed the Mason jar and dashed out with it, still clutching his
clipboard, wondering how fast the old man could move. He struggled
to open the van door, then placed the clipboard on the seat beside
him and the jar in a box with his papers on the passenger-side
floor. He started the van and rolled down the driveway. “Hot damn!”
he yelled, panting in relief.

A second later, the rear window shattered and
he felt a bright, hot patch of pain in his neck. “What the hell!”
he shouted. A splotch of red spattered the inside of the windshield
in front of his face. He grabbed his neck. It was wet. He looked at
the red on his fingers. Shit! He glanced in the rearview mirror and
saw Pappy standing with his shotgun on the porch. Charlie grabbed
his chest with his right hand and steered with his left as he hit
the gas pedal, throwing up rocks and dust, then swerving onto the
county blacktop without checking for oncoming traffic. There was a
second blast, and a rain of pellets sprayed the roof.