Each Shining Hour (21 page)

“Well, if I wasn't thinking about it before, I sure am now.”

Christine rolled her eyes, never losing her sly grin. “Let's eat some pizza.”

Conspiracy

W
e moved into the warmth of the tack room. Christine cleaned off a worktable while I grabbed the pizza and retrieved a couple of beers. While we ate, I surveyed the ribbons and trophies lining the shelf above her father's old desk and discovered a dusty framed photograph of her that was tucked behind a stack of ancient equestrian magazines. She was mounted on Aragon and was completely decked in riding gear, including boots, riding pants, a buttoned coat, and a traditional British skullcap.

“Well, Your Highness. Was this taken before you were off to follow the hounds?”

“Very funny. Put that away. I had no idea it was still hanging around.”

“Nah, I love it. How old are you in this picture?”

“Mmm, sixteen, I think.”

“And why no smile?”

“Braces.”

“You look very regal.”

Christine swallowed a bite of pizza. “Yeah, I'm sure that's the look I was going for.”

I smiled and returned the photograph to her father's desk.

“Okay, Hardy Boy,” she said. “Let's have a look at what's in those old murder files.”

“You sure you're okay with this? I mean, so far our Valentine's Day has included a sweaty game of basketball, lukewarm pizza, and now digging into an old murder. I don't want you dying of dream date overdose.”

“You have an alternative activity in mind?”

“Wow, like that's not a loaded question. Let's think, you're a healthy farm girl. It's just the two of us in a hay barn. . . . Hmmm?”

Christine smiled and shook her head. “Shut up and get the box, Bradford.”

“Right.”

I laid out the thick manila folders on the table. We began with the one labeled “Crime Scene.”

Inside were photocopies of the original black and whites taken at the bandstand. Even though they were faded and brown, they did little to hide the gruesome nature of the bloody death of the man infamously known as the “murdered German.” Oddly, the man was still in his suit coat and the only visible wound was a huge gash across the left side of his neck. I found a photocopy of his autopsy report, the same one I had found in the clinic filing cabinet. Curiously, it clearly noted stabs to the chest, yet there were no bloodstains visible on the man's buttoned suit coat. It was a peculiar inconsistency.

We moved on, sifting through the file of the official police report. The findings stated that Oscar had attacked the man, who had shot him in self-defense. Oscar had bled out while trying to run from the crime scene. Oddly, there were no pictures of him.
Just as Lida had mentioned to me in weeks past, the report stated that Oscar's actions were ruled as voluntary manslaughter because there appeared to be no premeditated intent. Crawford Lewis, the sheriff at the time, had signed the document.

There was also a photocopy of the telegram found in the suit lining of the German. I held it up to the light to see it as clearly as possible.

“What does it say, Luke?”

I clumsily tried to articulate the words.
“Oscar geglaubt in Watervalley Tennessee pro Postadresse sein. Suchen und erholen.”

“Any idea what that means?”

“Not a clue. After
guten Tag
I've pretty much exhausted my German vocabulary.”

In a matter of seconds, Christine had typed the words into her cell phone. “Looks like it means ‘Oscar believed to be in Watervalley, Tennessee, from postal address. Find and recover.'” She stared at me blankly. “Find and recover what?”

“I don't know. Oscar, I guess.”

“Hmm, looks like he didn't want to go along.”

“No, you're right. That doesn't make sense, does it? It probably wasn't Oscar. And I'll tell you what else doesn't make sense. I haven't found a copy of his autopsy report. There's not one at the clinic, and I'm not finding one here either.”

“What does that tell you?”

“No idea. But it should be part of the file.” I studied the document a moment longer. “You know, this is odd. This is a Teletype message and not a true telegram.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's not like a Western Union telegram. There is no letterhead and no name to which the message was addressed. It looks like it came from a personal Teletype machine. That means that whoever
this German fellow was, he was getting these messages directly, not from an agency like Western Union.”

“Who would have one of these?”

“I'm not sure. Businesses, I guess. Private individuals. Spies, maybe.”

Christine shrugged. “Leaves a lot of room for speculation, doesn't it?”

“Yeah, I'm afraid so.”

We worked through the balance of the interviews of people who had attended the dance on the night of the murders, including Elise Fox and a farmer by the name of Otto Miller, the man who had reported hearing the gunshot. These revealed nothing beyond what we already knew. As well, the interview with Elise Fox vindicated her, asserting that she knew nothing about the murder victim or the events surrounding the murder.

The file of newspaper clippings included copies of the front page from the local paper, the
Village Voice
. The accounts were general in nature and simply noted that the police investigation was continuing. Subsequent articles confirmed that the official investigation had been ruled a double homicide and voluntary manslaughter.

Frank Sanderson had also included a newspaper clipping from February 1945, nearly a year after the event. It was a microfiche picture of the clinic doctor, Haslem Hinson, shaking hands with Raymond Simmons, who was listed in the caption as vice president of the Farmers Bank. Hinson had just been installed as the newest bank board member. Right below the picture, a large question mark had been written in red ink.

Christine spoke first. “This is strange. Why did Sanderson include this photo? It has nothing to do with the murder.”

I'd been thinking the same question. “I don't know. Apparently he thought it did.”

“Maybe it just got in this file by mistake.”

“Hmmm, doesn't seem likely.” I read on through the details of the newspaper clipping. “It says here that Chairman Cavanaugh was not pictured. Wasn't he your grandfather?”

“Yeah, Sam Cavanaugh, my mom's dad.”

“He was chairman in 1945? How old was he?”

Christine thought for a moment. “I know he was born in 1900, so he would have been midforties.”

“Seriously, 1900?”

“Yeah, we used to hear stories that he was Watervalley's most eligible bachelor. He was always a trim, fit, handsome man. He married my grandmother when he was in his early fifties and she was barely twenty-nine. Kind of scandalous at the time, but I think the community got over it. Anyway, they stayed married till he passed away in 'seventy-nine, a number of years before I was born. Grandmother Cavanaugh died in 1999.”

“John Harris told me that Raymond Simmons was president of the bank.”

“My grandfather Cavanaugh retired somewhere in the early sixties and stayed on as chairman emeritus till his death. Simmons took over running everything around that time. I don't think they ever got along that well.”

I set this folder aside and began thumbing through the file labeled “Oscar Fox.” Frank Sanderson had detailed a timeline of Oscar Fox's life. Yellowed photocopies of deeds, land transfers, and newspaper clippings, all with handwritten notes scribbled at the bottom or on attached note cards, had been methodically arranged in chronological order. The document also included a list
of benevolences and community charities in which Oscar was involved. At the end were several pages of handwritten notes, including a notation that Oscar traveled out of town often. It was the final page that caught my attention.

Written in print were the following items, each with a dash in front of them.

—All transactions paid in cash

—No driver's license

—No voter card

—No draft card or enlistment status

—No previous medical records

—No known previous address in North Carolina

—No North Carolina birth certificate

I looked wide-eyed at Christine. “No wonder Frank Sanderson was so curious about Oscar Fox. He apparently had significant wealth and yet no documented history prior to coming to Watervalley.”

“Okay, Bradford. This just got really interesting.”

“Didn't it, though? I've talked with a lot of people about Oscar Fox. Nobody has mentioned these details. For some reason Frank Sanderson kept this to himself.”

Christine exhaled deeply. “Well, whoever Oscar Fox was, he had a lot of secrets and left a lot of unanswered questions.”

“You know what else? Everything we have read here about Oscar Fox and everything that your grandmother said portrays him as a class A good guy, not a vicious murderer.”

“That's true. But those pictures were pretty grisly.”

“Something's not right.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking I wish I could find Oscar's autopsy report.”

We proceeded to sift through all the files again to see if by chance the report had been misfiled or become stuck to another document. But after thirty minutes of searching, we had nothing. It simply wasn't there.

We had been poring over file documents for a couple of hours and weariness was setting in. I glanced at my watch.

“Wow. It's working on midnight.”

“Really? Hey, stay there. I've got a little surprise. I left it in the car. I'll be right back.”

Christine grabbed her coat and exited, pulling the door shut behind her. I stared at the stack of papers heaped in front of me, trying to understand all that we had read.

I grabbed the last unexplored item, Frank Sanderson's spiral-bound notebook. It contained mostly random names and dates, summaries of meetings, and details from interviews. Half of the notebook was blank. I skipped ahead to the last entry.

The word written at the top of the page caught my attention: “Autopsy.” What followed were the notes from a meeting with Elise Fox, dated June 3, 1962, a full eighteen years after the murder.

The narrative was scribbled in his rough cursive hand.

“E. Fox finally agreed to meet. I asked her about her husband's suit. She stated that Dr. Hinson had given the suit to her after the autopsy. It was covered in dried blood and she threw it away immediately. Dr. Hinson had told her that Oscar had been shot in the hip and that the bullet had nicked his renal artery. I asked if she remembered a bullet hole in the coat. She said she recalled seeing a hole in the back right side. She assumed the coat had been twisted around him in the struggle. I asked her if she had seen the shirt. She had not. Dr. Hinson had discarded it. I told Elise that I never saw Oscar's body up close. The sheriff and Dr. Hinson had loaded his corpse into the back
of Dr. Hinson's pickup truck and taken it to the clinic for autopsy. I also told Elise that it was Sheriff Lewis who had instructed me to go get her and take her to the clinic and stay there with her. The sheriff handled the murder scene at the bandstand. 6/3/62.”

I read the document again. Questions poured through my head. Why was there no bullet hole in the front of Oscar's coat? Why would Frank Sanderson tell Elise that he never saw Oscar's body up close? And why was he interviewing her again after all those years? Something here was definitely wrong.

Christine returned carrying a pie with an unlit sparkler in the center. I rose swiftly and hurried toward her, my voice full of excitement.

“Nice! You made a pie. What kind is it?”

“After that shellacking in basketball, I'm going to say humble.”

“It looks great. But can I ask you to do something first?”

“Sure.”

“I want you to read this.”

She read through the words.

“What do you think it means?”

“It means that Oscar Fox was shot in the back. It means he killed the guy in self-defense, not the other way around. Think about it. The guy's throat was cut. There's no way he could pull a gun and shoot Oscar after that. Oscar was walking away from the guy and was shot in the back. After that, Oscar came back at him and took him out with the knife.”

“But all my life Oscar has been known as the one who initiated the attack. Even the police report we just read states that.”

“I don't understand it either. But the absence of Oscar's autopsy report sure makes that whole business look suspicious. For some reason, someone wanted to frame Oscar Fox as the bad guy.”

As soon as I spoke these words, the clock on the tack room
wall bonged midnight. We stood silently until the final chime. Christine looked up at me.

“Valentine's Day is almost over and I think I'm tired of playing Nancy Drew for one night.” She reached for my hand and looked at me. In her gaze was a subtle request. No further clue was needed.

I tossed the notebook on the floor and pulled her toward me, slipping my arms around her. She drew her body delightfully against me. The embrace was effortless, natural.

Christine whispered softly, “Happy Valentine's.”

“Yes. Happy Valentine's.”

After a long, intoxicating kiss, Christine buried her face against my chest. It was a moment in heaven.

Then her whole body stiffened and she pushed me lightly from her. “Luke, I think you're going to want to see this.”

She bent down and picked up the spiral notebook. When I had tossed it to the floor, it had randomly opened to the very last page next to the cardboard backing. In bold ink, three names were written in the corners of a large triangle: Haslem Hinson, Crawford Lewis, and Randall Simmons. In the middle of the triangle was a single word followed by a question mark.

Diamonds.