Chiefs (48 page)

He sat composing himself for a minute or two, taking deep breaths until he could relax again. He felt foolishly relieved. He leaned forward in his chair again, rested an elbow on the desk, and began flipping idly through the files. It was mundane stuff— small theft, a wife beater, a stolen car. There was a brief but interesting account of a bank robbery early in January of 1920, apparently the new chief’s first day on the job. Tucker chuckled. What a way to begin! And then he came to the photographs.

They were striking. His first thought was that they should be in a museum someplace. The youth and vulnerability of the boy, the starkness of the surroundings, the shock of his injuries— everything was accentuated by gorgeous lighting and the density of the prints. He thought they must surely be contact prints from one of those old-fashioned 8 x 10 bellows cameras. He read through the autopsy report and marveled at its expertness and clarity. He read the new chief’s brief notes on his investigation, including an encounter with Foxy Funderburke, and the correspondence relating to the second murder—the young man found shot, hanging on a barbed-wire fence. It was obvious that Lee had thought the two murders related.

He read the whole thing twice, then came to a newer-looking folder. On the file tab were the words “Butts—Personal/’ That must be Sonny Butts, the one who disappeared. He wondered why it was filed with these records of twenty years earlier. As soon as he had leafed through the missing-persons bulletins he knew why.

Spread out in a row on the desk, next to the photographs of the corpse, the photographs of the missing youths had an eerie similarity. He noted that on each of the bulletins the names of towns had been underlined, and that an X had been drawn on the accompanying road map, forming a circle around Delano. He read Sonny’s line of thought as though the man were sitting there explaining it to him. Two young men had been murdered in Delano or its environs and five others had disappeared in the same area over a period of what—twenty-five years? And. now another sixteen years had passed.

“Bartlett, come here a minute,” he called out. The policeman came to the door. “While you’re sorting through those files, I want you to keep an eye out for old missing-persons sheets and pull them.”

“Every single one of them?”

“Make that every report on a male missing person. And keep it to yourself, hear?”

In the late afternoon Tucker took a patrol car and slowly cruised the town, occasionally penciling a note on where a stop sign or a parking notice might be needed. He started with the “town” side of the city, then moved on to the “mill town,” and finally to the major colored district, Braytown. The place was little different from when he was a boy; the streets were better graded now, though they were still unpaved; there were utility poles for electricity and telephone where there had been none; and though there was an occasional neatly painted and planted house, like his mother’s, most were still ramshackle.

As he turned a corner, into a side street, he spotted another patrol car parked in the barren front yard of one of the unpainted shacks. His first thought was that one of his officers might need backing up, but then he thought it more likely that somebody had a black girl friend in Braytown. He picked up the microphone. “Station, this is mobile one.”

Bartlett’s voice came back. “Chief, this is station.”

“Who’s patrolling in mobile two?”

“Patrick, Chief. He’s due in right now. Any problem?”

“No problem. Over and out.”

Tucker eased his car quietly in behind the other vehicle and got out. As he was about to climb the rickety front steps, he heard voices from the back of the house. He walked toward the back yard and stopped at the corner of the house, listening. He could hear Bobby Patrick’s voice, angry, demanding, alternating with that of a frightened black man.

“You ain’t paid, Roosevelt, and Mr. Cox wants his money.” Cox, Tucker knew, ran a furniture and appliance business in town.

“I done paid him more’n what that stuff cost,” complained the black voice, which was followed by the sound of flesh striking flesh.

“You ain’t paid the carrying charges, Roosevelt. You got to pay the carrying charges. Now, are you going to get it up, or am I gonna have to hurt you?”

As Tucker stepped around the corner of the house he saw a black man cowering on the ground. Bobby Patrick, his back to Tucker, stood over him, unsnapping a leather blackjack from his pistol belt. A woman and three small children stood on the back porch, clutching at each other, terrified.

Tucker stepped into the back yard, grabbed Patrick by the shoulder strap of his Sam Brown belt and yanked hard. Patrick left his feet as he traveled backward, sprawling in the dirt and chicken droppings. “Officer Patrick, go and stand by your patrol car and wait for me.”

The outraged policeman got to his feet, protesting.

“Shut up,” Tucker commanded. “Just go and stand by your car. Don’t say another word.” Patrick turned and stumped off around the house. Tucker turned to the black man. “What’s your name?”

“Roosevelt Hawkins.”

“What did you buy from Cox?”

” ‘Bout ninety dollars worth of stuff—a ironing board, some po’ch furniture. He send that poh-liceman around when I gets behind on my payments.”

“Does Cox send the policeman around to see everybody who gets behind?”

“Yessuh.”

“Just that policeman?”

“Just that Patrick. He the only one do it.”

“Did you sign a contract with Cox?”

“Yessuh.”

“Go and get it.” The man went into the house and came back with a long piece of paper. Tucker skimmed through it. “How much have you already paid him?”

” ‘Bout a hundred and thirty bucks.”

“Don’t pay him any more. This is unenforceable.”

“But he might come after me.”

“He won’t come after you. I’ll talk to him. Just forget the whole thing. Now, do you want to press charges against that policeman for beating on you?”

Hawkins shook his head hard. “No,
suhl
I don’t needs that kind of trouble.”

“If you want to press charges there won’t be any trouble.”

Hawkins shook his head again. “Nossuh, you just keep him off me, and I be happy.”

“All right, I’ll keep him off you, but I want you to do something for me. If you have any more of this kind of trouble, I want you to call me or come and see me. Will you do that?”

Hawkins looked at the ground. “Well—”

Tucker put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Now, listen to me, Roosevelt. If you’ll trust me and let me know when things like this happen, I can do something about it. But I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me about it.”

Hawkins nodded. “Awright.”

“And tell everybody else that I want to hear from them. I’ll see that they get treated fairly if they’ll come to me.”

“Awright, I tell ‘em. And I sure ‘predate what you done.”

Tucker left the back yard relieved. His reception among the local blacks had been cautious at best. He thought this incident might loosen them up a bit. He smiled; now the incident was going to solve another problem for him. Bobby Patrick had been resentful, insolent, and an all-around pain in the ass ever since
Tucker had taken the job, and now he was about to be rid of him.

Patrick was leaning against his patrol car, sulking. Tucker went and hiked himself up onto a fender next to the man. “Listen, I’m sorry about bringing you down back there, but I had to make it look good. You’ve bought yourself a real problem here; Roosevelt says he’s going to press charges.”

Patrick’s head snapped around. “You going to let him do that to one of your own men?”

Tucker spread his palms. “What can I do, man? He’s mad as hell, and he says he can get a lot of other people to testify who’ve had the same problem. He wants to see you in the county camp.”

Patrick’s eyes widened. “I can’t go up there. Shit, I wouldn’t last a week up there before somebody stuck a shiv in me. You know what it’s like for a cop on the inside.”

“I know, but what can I do? I saw the whole thing myself, and if I testify for you on the stand they’ll get me for perjury. There were five witness there, man!”

Patrick was frightened now. “Listen, Chief, you can’t let ‘em do this to me. You gotta help me.”

Tucker tried to look as if he were thinking hard. “Look, Bobby, I can’t see but one way out of this, if we’re going to keep you out of jail. You’re going to have to resign. If you do that, maybe I can talk Roosevelt out of pressing charges.” Patrick looked pained. “I know it’s rough, man, but what else can you do? You could even end up in Reidsville on this one if enough other people testify.” The mention of the state prison sent a shudder through the policeman. Tucker pressed. “They might even bring other charges. I don’t think you want to let this get into court. They’d have some NAACP lawyer down here like a shot. You’d be lucky to get off with five to seven.”

Patrick looked at Tucker pleadingly. “Listen, if I resign, will you get the bastard to back off? You promise me that?”

Tucker squeezed the man’s shoulder. “I’ll do everything I can, but we’ve got to move fast, before this spreads.”

Patrick nodded. “Yeah, right.”

“Tell you what. You go back to the station right now and get Bartlett to type up a letter for you. Say you’re leaving for personal reasons, something like that; make it sound real sincere. Then tell Bartlett to put it in my safe, and you leave your badge with him and go straight home. I’ll call you the minute I know something, okay?”

Patrick nodded. “Right, yeah, I’ll do that.” He grabbed Tucker’s hand and wrung it. “And listen, Chief, I sure do thank you for squaring this for me. You won’t regret it.” He jumped into his patrol car and spun away in a cloud of dust.

Tucker stood in the road looking after him, chuckling to himself. “Oh, I sure won’t regret it, Bobby, I sure won’t.”

Tucker stood in Elmer Cox’s office and waited while Cox dug out Roosevelt Hawkins’s contract. The merchant came back to his desk, nervously picked up a rubber stamp, and marked it “paid.” He signed and dated it and handed it to Tucker. “Chief, I sure appreciate your handling this quietlike.”

Tucker took the paper and folded it into a pocket. “I’m glad to be of help, Mr. Cox. But you’re going to have to be real careful from now on.”

“Right, right.” The heavyset man mopped his brow with his sleeve. He was sweating profusely.

“Another incident like this one, and I won’t be able to contain it.”

“I understand, Chief, and I really do appreciate it.” He reached into a pocket, came up with a sheaf of bills, and began to peel some off.

Tucker threw up a hand. “That’s not necessary, sir, I’m just glad to have been able to help.” The merchant saw him to the front door, thanking him all the way.

At the station Bartlett dug Patrick’s letter of resignation out of the safe. It was full of gratitude and best wishes for the future. “What did you do to Bobby, Chief? I never saw him so worried.”

“Oh, I just did him a little favor. Why don’t you call him up and tell him I said everything is okay, not to worry about a thing. Tell him I talked to the businessman involved, and he’s squared there, too.” Tucker began to chuckle. “I’d talk to him myself, but I swear I don’t think I could keep a straight face.” He went into his office and closed the door.

Bartlett looked puzzled but did as he was told. He dialed the number. Through the closed door he could hear the chief laughing.

Chapter 12.

DURING THE DAYS of mid-December Billy Lee carried with him everywhere a feeling of unease about the relationship between Skeeter Willis and Tucker Watts. He had to do something about the sheriff. He thought of going to Skeeter and warning him off, but the politician in him shied from such a direct confrontation. Finally, he thought of a better way.

John Howell, the
Times
Atlanta correspondent, called at his office on a cold morning and invited him to lunch. “I just want to chat and get some background for my
Sunday Magazine
piece, which probably won’t happen until the spring/’ Howell said. “Where can we get a bite in Delano?”

Billy grinned. “How strong is your stomach?”

“Surely there’s a barbecue place, or something?”

“Oh,” said Billy, grabbing his coat, “I think we can find you a more interesting lunch than that.”

The two men drove north from Delano toward the center of the county, Howell asking questions and making notes. Billy was impressed with how well informed Howell was about his political career. He was surprised when Howell brought up the fact of Tucker Watts’s relationship to Jesse Cole, and thankful that he was ready for it.

“It’s the kind of coincidence which is interesting, but meaningless,” he said, “the sort that some people might use to try to make life uncomfortable for Tucker or for me. Well, I’m in no way uncomfortable with it. Tucker told me about it himself, quite voluntarily. The boy, Willie, apparently came to the Watts home in Columbus and left without even spending the night. Tucker didn’t even know he had been there until later, after Willie was dead.”

“Then you don’t mind if I print it?”