Redemption (32 page)

“
Even with—” Joe smiled and took Overton’s hand, shaking it wildly. “Then let me be the first man to congratulate you.”

“
Not so loud,” Overton whispered, his face burning. “It isn’t official yet.”

“
Well, make it official, man!”

He pulled his hand back from Joe’s. “I will.” Joe returned to the crowd, and Overton stepped next to Autumn. “Or
you
will, right?”

“
Already have it written,” she said. “I’m thinking it’d look good on the front page, maybe with a few pictures. Have to have one of you two kissing. Probably be my all-time best-seller. What do you think?”

“
You’d lose your white readers.”

Autumn smiled. “Not all of them, but the
Beacon’s
almost history anyway.”

“
It is?”

“
Yeah. Soon as all this is over and properly documented, I’m starting a new life.”

“
As Mrs. Isaiah Poindexter?”

She batted her eyes. “I already
am
Mrs. Isaiah Poindexter.”

The crowd roared and backed away from the house.

Overton tried to move closer, but Autumn grabbed his arm tightly. “Don’t,” she said. “Mazie’s just fainted. The heat, you know.”

“
How could you see—” He stared at Autumn. “Wait a minute. This is all part of some script, right?”

Autumn nodded. “You’re pretty sharp for an old white guy.” She laughed. “If Jimmy Lee doesn’t accept the check, she’s supposed to faint. If he
still
doesn’t, and we think the peckerwood actually might, she’s supposed to have a seizure. A few women will carry her up onto the porch, fanning her, calling for a doctor, calling for her medicine, calling for an ambulance. Very dramatic.” She smiled. “Mazie’s on the porch now.”

Overton saw Mazie laid out at Jimmy Lee’s feet. “What happens if—”

“
Shh. Just watch.”

Overton could see several women around Mazie, one holding her hand, two others shouting to the crowd, their words lost in the general commotion. Mazie’s head wobbled back and forth, her feet drumming the porch, her free hand wildly waving the cashier’s check. Jimmy Lee shrank back to the front door, Travis shouting something through the loudspeaker about medicine.

“
It looks so ... real,” Overton said.

“
Doesn’t it?” Autumn said. “Mazie’s a natural, huh?”

“
And you think this will work.”

“
It has to. We’re bringing back some awful memories for Jimmy Lee.”

“
Memories of what? J?”

She laughed. “No. Jimmy Lee’s mama, Grace Sellers. We know
everything
there is to know about Jimmy Lee Sellers, Junior. Every little damn and damned thing.”

51

Jimmy Lee wasn’t seeing Mazie Gray thrashing at his feet. He didn’t see or hear the crowd at all. He was standing in the Gold Bathroom watching his mother die, too scared to move, too paralyzed to take the top off a little bottle of heart medicine pills, too fascinated to run to a phone ...

“
Mr. Sellers.” Travis was whispering at him. “Jimmy Lee. Take the damn check, for God’s sake.”

“
What?”

“
Take the check, Jimmy Lee.”

He tried to focus on Travis. “But Mama needs her medicine.”

“
They’re gettin’ it for her,” Travis said. “Just take the check. If she dies, we ain’t gettin’ off this porch alive.
Take the damn check!
”

Jimmy Lee heard voices now, loud voices, saw faces shouting, their mouths wide, teeth flashing, hands fluttering. “The check?”

He felt himself being pushed toward the voices, the shouts, the flashing teeth, the fluttering hands. He saw a piece of paper waving back and forth in front of him. He reached down and took it.

“
S
old!
For three thousand, four hundred, fifty-seven dollars, and fifteen cents to
Ms. Mazie Gray!
”

The woman at his feet stood and smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said crisply, and then she waved at the cheering crowd.

“
Let’s go, Jimmy Lee,” Travis said, taking Jimmy Lee’s arm and steering him down the steps through a smiling and laughing crowd.

“
Go where?”

“
To the next property.”

“
The next—”

“
Annie’s. I’m drivin’ you to Annie’s.”

Jimmy Lee smiled. “Oh yeah. Crazy Annie. Nice lady.”

52

“
Let me guess,” Overton said to Autumn as the crowd streamed to cars and trucks for the drive to Annie Mitchem’s house. “Travis Dillard is in on this.”

“
You’re not nearly as dumb as I used to think you were,” Autumn said.

“
And Jimmy Lee looks lost in space. What if he still didn’t take the check?”

“
We had a hearse ready to roll.”

“
Really?”

“
Same exact hearse McSorley’s used for his mama’s funeral, same exact casket, too. I think it’s parked around here somewhere.”

“
Y’all are certainly prepared.”

“
Us country folks is puttin’ on a clinic,” Autumn said with a country twang. “Ain’t you learnt nothin’ yet, Sheriff Overton?”

“
I’m trying,” Overton said. “But I still have something called the law to deal with.”

“
So deal with it. Arrest Jimmy Lee.”

“
It isn’t that simple.” He stopped at Autumn’s car. “I still need that diary.”

“
Do you really?”

Overton didn’t respond.

“
Oh, can I give you a ride?” Autumn asked. “After all, we’re almost family.”

Overton sighed. “I’ll drive. Get in.”

“
Why thank you, future cousin. Or will you be my uncle?”

The long line of cars snaked through Snow to 115, reminding Overton of a long wedding parade. Horns honked, radios blared, and folks even danced in the backs of pickups.

“
Quite a show,” he said eventually.

“
Yep.”

“
So, is Travis family?”

“
Callie says so. She’s a whiz at genealogy. She spent five years at it.”

The missing years on my chart, no doubt.
“Am I related to anyone
I
don’t know about?”

“
Nope. Your people came down out of Canada this century and didn’t have any doin’s with blacks, if you catch my drift. You’re
new
blood, Miles.”

“
Is that a compliment?”

“
Yeah. You and Callie would have made pretty babies.” She pointed to the right. “Parking’s over there.”

“
Joe Graves is letting y’all park in his field?”

She smiled. “Let’s see. He’s my second cousin by marriage, so he’s Callie’s second cousin twice-removed or something like that.”

Overton smiled. “So he couldn’t marry Callie.”

“
Sure he could. He isn’t a blood relative either. You worried about Joe Graves hookin’ up with Callie?”

“
No.”
But I am worried about losing perspective here. I have some people to interrogate, a few laws to uphold.
“What’s supposed to happen at this one?”

“
You’ll see.”

The crowd at Annie’s was more boisterous and jovial than the one outside Darcy’s Cut Hut, but it wasn’t as difficult getting toward the front. Travis had set up his table where the untamed bushes used to be, a group of black women had tables loaded with baked goods on Annie’s gravel driveway, and a few children had a booming lemonade stand going. Even Jimmy Lee seemed to have recovered, shaking hands here and there with the few white people in attendance.

“
This is like a carnival,” Overton said.

“
Isn’t it though?” Autumn said, and she waved at a few folks.

“
Who do y’all have bidding here?”

She grabbed his arm. “Hate the suspense, huh? Just watch, okay? And enjoy yourself. Hell, make a bid if you want to.”

“
And spend my ring money? Not a chance.”

This auction went as most auctions did, with the bidding starting at fifty thousand and creeping upwards in thousand-dollar increments, the white folks closest to the table making all the bids.

“
I have sixty-two, uh, sixty-two, uh, sixty-two, I said ...”

Overton looked behind him. None of the blacks in the crowd seemed to be paying attention at all ... except for one, a thin man in a black three-piece suit.
I know that man. Isn’t he—

Autumn jerked his arm to face her. “Pay attention.”

“
Hey, isn’t that—”

“
Shh.”

“
Is he a—”

“
Shh.”

Overton blinked and looked back at the man.
What’s a preacher doing here?

53

Jimmy Lee’s smile widened when the bidding crossed sixty-five and headed for sixty-six.
We beat the assessment, and we’re gettin’ more!

He shook off the earlier fiasco, chalking it up to the heat, lack of sleep, and a vicious hangover.

That old lady didn’t know what she was talkin’ about, sayin’ my daddy stole her house from her. My daddy loved black people, loved them to death, even helped make one of the little bastards. He wouldn’t have taken what wasn’t his. I did her a favor takin’ that little welfare check from her.

“
Seventy, seventy, seventy, uh, I said we have seventy ...”

For this dump?
He looked hard at the white folks making the bids.
Well-dressed, nice watches, decent shoes—but no clue as to what this place is worth
.
They expect to find oil or gold here? Ain’t nothin’ but a brick house and some dirt. What some people consider a dream home.

“
Seventy-one, uh, seventy-one, uh, I said we have seventy-one, uh. Do I hear seventy-two, seventy-two, seventy-two ...”

Bored, Jimmy Lee scanned the crowd, the yard, the massive trees, and saw a boy sitting on a thick branch halfway up an oak near the road.
Wonder how he got up there.
The sun streamed around him through the leaves, and for long moments he seemed to float in the glow.

“
Seventy-four, uh, seventy-four ...”

Jimmy Lee put on a pair of Ray-Bans and examined the boy more closely.
Handsome kid. Good jaw, cheekbones. Muscular.

“
Seventy-four-five, uh, do I hear seventy-five...”

Jesus, let’s get this over with.
Jimmy Lee motioned to Travis with a spinning hand. “Speed it up,” he said, and he looked for the boy in the tree. Instead of a boy, he saw ...
a scarecrow? What the hell—

“
Seventy-five, uh, I have seventy-five, who’ll go eighty?”

“
Eighty!”

Jimmy tore his eyes away from the tree and looked at the latest bidder, a finely-dressed black man. He looked at the white folks in the front row. Instead of bidding, they shook their heads, shrugged, and walked away.
Where are y’all goin’? Come back!

“
Eighty, uh, I have eighty, I said eighty, going once, going twice ... Sold! For eighty thousand dollars to
Reverend Silas Kemp!”

The crowd went wild, surrounding the old man and ...
singin’? They’re singin’? A nigguh spends too much for a piece of shit property, and everybody sings?
He looked up in the tree, and the branch was empty.
I know that I saw a scarecrow!