Roots of Murder (33 page)

Lizzie couldn't admit she'd enjoyed cartoons, but Josh claimed a good time. Nell was relieved to notice both of them yawning as she drove home.

Lizzie had to check her email, but there was nothing pressing enough for her to spend copious amounts of time replying.
Shortly after she got off the computer, the phone rang. Lizzie snatched it up, with Nell standing by as a reminder that this was late for anything save the most essential—and brief—conversation.

“It's for you.” Lizzie handed the phone to her.

“Mrs. McGraw?”

Nell didn't recognize the voice, although it sounded familiar. “Speaking.”

“This is Harold Reed. I apologize for bothering you at home, but I thought you'd like to know. We've got a match. Buddy is having a press conference tomorrow at ten at his office.”

“Thank you. I appreciate you calling.”

That was the sum of their conversation. Nell briefly debated calling Gwen Kennedy, but it was an hour later in Boston. It would hold until morning.

seventeen

The first thing Nell
did after dropping off Lizzie and Josh was go to the office and call Gwen Kennedy. She answered on the second ring, as if waiting for a phone call.

“Mrs. Kennedy? This is Nell McGraw. The dental records were a match.”

There was silence on the other end, only the sound of breathing. Then Gwen Kennedy said, “I was afraid it would be and afraid it wouldn't. But after fifty years I can't believe she'll come home any way other than this.”

“I'm very sorry,” Nell said. “I know this isn't easy for you.”

But Gwen Kennedy declined Nell's implicit invitation to talk about feelings. “What happens now? When can we … claim the remains?”

“I'm not sure. This is a murder investigation,” Nell said. “They'll have to take every bit of evidence they can before releasing anything. I don't know how long that may be.”

“Can it really matter after all these years?” she asked with a tired sigh in her voice.

“Can it matter? Of course it matters. Can they find the people that did this? I don't know. Even if we can identify who did it, they may well be in their graves by now,” Nell admitted.

“How could anyone do that to … ?” For a moment Gwen Kennedy's feeling threatened to spill out. “Please keep me informed. If nothing else, I'd at least like to spit on their graves.” With that she said goodbye.

In the time between her call and Buddy Guy's press conference, Nell worked on corralling everything that would go in the paper. It had to go to press by the afternoon. When Pam arrived, she gave her some things to lay out. Pam liked the work, and more importantly, was good at it. Nell also read over the story Carrie had left with her. It clearly showed her hurried style of writing, which was a good thing, as when she hurried she kept it closer to bare bones reporting. When Carrie spent time on a story, Nell usually edited out her writerly embellishments. And in the past, she'd had Thom to smooth any ruffled feathers.

She didn't think she'd find out much from Buddy Guy's press conference, but she wanted to be there anyway.

Despite the late notice, the conference room at the DA's office was packed with TV cameras jockeying for good angles. Nell found a place on the side, close to the front. She never quite had the temerity to ask Buddy Guy if that was his real name or if he'd taken a poll to pick what was most likely to get him elected. Rumor had it that he was a much better politician than a lawyer, with just enough sense to hire people like Harold Reed to do the real work.

Buddy Guy was of medium build, with a stomach starting to spread from middle age and a lifestyle that included too many
glad-handing
dinners. He had good hair, blond going silver and still thick, that he kept barely needing a haircut, as if flaunting it to the other men his age with their receding hairlines. The perfect picture of a
hard-charging
district attorney. Rumor also had it that he'd invested time and effort in classes on how to appear on TV.

Wanting to make sure he made all the deadlines, Buddy started the press conference on time. As Nell had guessed, he did little more than confirm what she already knew about the match. However, he did it with visuals, comparison
x-rays
, something for the TV cameras. He didn't give much information beyond that, claiming they were still investigating who the other two sets of bones might be. He also ducked declaring directly that all three had been murdered, merely saying, “We're looking into that.” Nell wondered how he would react when she published the names and photos tomorrow in the Crier. She decided she'd wait until then to find out.

Harold Reed stayed silent in the background. Nell suspected he was there to literally lend color to the pictures of Buddy Guy. The political impact couldn't be lost on such an astute creature, of having a black man visible during the investigation of murders of civil rights workers.

Nell caught up with Harold afterward in the hallway outside his office. He was content to leave Buddy the
follow-up
schmoozing. Yesterday, she'd had several copies made of the photographs Marcus had found.

“Thought you might like these,” she said, handing him the envelope with one set of copies in it.

He opened it up and looked.

“Ella Carr, Dora Ellischwartz, and Michael Walker,” Nell said unnecessarily.

“Where did you get these?”

Nell gave him a quick rundown of Marcus's methods, with a promise that she'd have Marcus himself give Harold the exact details.

He nodded, then slipped the photos back in the envelope. He cleared his throat and said, “J.J. Jones' lawyer has put in for a continuance. He claims he needs more time to research the case.”

“Damn it!” Nell burst out. “Sorry, but I don't like that bastard running around loose.”

“Quite frankly, neither do I. I'll do my best to get it denied, or at least kept to a minimum. We were hoping to get it to trial next month, but this might take it into next year.”

“While he runs around free on bail.”

“I didn't think this would be good news.”

“Is there anything I can do? Get a restraining order?”

“If he's threatened you.”

“I think his brothers have, but the police have little interest in looking into it.” She gave Harold a brief recap of what had happened to Josh.

He kept his professional demeanor, but Nell saw a flash of anger in his eyes as she told her tale.

“A fingerprint or two might have been helpful,” he said acerbically when she'd finished. “Okay, I'll lean hard on the judge not to change the trial date. At least we're getting rid of Whiz ‘Do Nothing' Brown soon.”

“Soon enough?” Nell asked, but it was rhetorical. She said a quick goodbye to Harold as several other people came to claim his attention.

“Damn, damn, and damn again,” she cursed softly as she made her way back to the car. The trial date had been a talisman, something she had to get past before she could go on to … she didn't even know what, but the date had loomed so large that nothing save the
day-to
-day plodding along seemed possible. To change it to several months later—especially with J.J. Jones out on the streets—was infuriating. Maybe Marcus and I will have to make weekly vandalism runs, Nell thought as she headed back to the Crier office.

The rest of the day was spent in a flurry of getting the paper out, everything from mundane birth announcements to checking and rechecking the facts on the main stories.

Carrie had indeed shown up at ten and added a few extra paragraphs to her story, all in her hurried style so Nell had little editing. She even volunteered to get lunch for everyone, since, with her story turned in, she had less to do than the others.

Marcus had managed to gather a few more details of the lives of the young civil rights workers. Ella was nineteen when she was killed, Dora was
twenty-three
, and Michael was
twenty-two
.

Nell read the front page stories over one more time as Dolan was standing in the door waiting to take the paper to press. With a glance at her watch—and deciding she could squeeze in the trip without endangering her children—Nell handed him the disk, than grabbed her jacket. They ended up going en masse, leaving only Ina Claire and Pam to handle the office. Dolan's car, the biggest, was used, with Jacko, Carrie, and Marcus crammed into the back seat and Nell riding shotgun with what would turn into tomorrow's newspaper cradled in her lap.

When they returned, she had to jump out of Dolan's car and into hers to get Josh and Lizzie. They both grumped at the idea of the library, so Nell brought them back to the office.

When she got there, Jacko suggested he begin work on Marcus's archives/stack of dusty old boxes. Nell gave the okay, but told him to start the next morning. Knowing Jacko, he had the energy and interest to be up all night, and Marcus had a debate this evening. Carrie left a message with Pam that she was going to the debate, so she was taking time off now. That sounded reasonable to Nell; she was content to have gotten the story she needed out of the young woman.

Jacko went back to the property records; he was too wired to sit around and rest on putting the paper to press. Nell waved him off with an admonition not to stay all night. She let everyone else out early. They would have enough to do tomorrow.

After supper, she commandeered the TV remote to watch the mayoral debate. Lizzie made noises about something she really, really wanted to watch, even pushing by pointing out they wouldn't have this problem if she had a TV in her room.

Nell suggested she save her allowance and buy one. “It'll only take about six months” ended the discussion. Lizzie grabbed the racy novel and flounced off to her room.

In the greater scheme of things, the issue of who was going to be mayor of Pelican Bay wasn't a major newsmaker. That the debate was being held on a local access cable station was evidence of this.

All four official candidates were there, with Aaron Dupree and Hubert Pickings in the center. Sensibly, Everett Evens was to the far side of Pickings, and Marcus Fletcher was on the other side, so they were as separated as they could be. Nell considered them arranged from sensible to nutcake.

The debate started off with the usual drone of what each would do if elected. Nell knew she was somewhat biased, but she thought both Marcus and Aaron made a lot of sense, having reasonable yet progressive goals. They both emphasized education, Aaron in the direction of better schools all around and Marcus focusing on bringing the children of poverty more into the mainstream. Hubert, for his part, had to claim that everything was perfect and he would keep it that way. Everett nattered away on the need to bring back the old days. The moderator managed to cut him off just as he was getting wound up on the importance of heritage; in his case, decoded to mean the Confederate flag and all it stood for.

There were three reporters, all from local TV stations, Nell noted, feeling the slight for all her print colleagues, with a professor from the local college moderating. All, save for Marcus, were white and male.

The first question was directed to all the candidates and was about their backgrounds. The men dutifully listed their educations, experience, and whatever else they thought might be impressive. Nell learned that Everett was a cousin, several times removed on his mother's side, to P.G.T. Beauregard, a Confederate general, whose name still inspired reverence among the hardcore “heritage” folks.

Hubert Pickings, jumping into the spirit of things, managed to segue from how important heritage was to wondering why “black folks just can't get beyond slavery.” Nell cursed the TV questioners for not asking the obvious
follow-up
: why did one group of people have to totally divest themselves of that heritage—slavery, lynchings, and Jim Crow—but it was important for another group to hold on to the whitewashed side of that heritage?

Marcus managed to get in that slavery had nothing to do with the roads not being fixed in the black part of town.

Everett took advantage of a pause to get back on his heritage bandwagon. The moderator either was far too polite for his job or didn't have the skills to shut up a
motor-mouth
like Everett.

Nell took a bathroom break and came back in time to hear one of the TV reporters—the cutest one, she noted—ask, “Mr. Mayor, what explanation do you have for the sudden change in the value of the land you donated for a state park in 1985 from $22,000 to $120,000 in just over a year, and just in time to be the value at the time of the donation?”

Hubert Pickings looked like a man who needed
twenty-four
hours and five advisers to have a prayer of answering. His first try was, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

The camera cut back to the reporter and Nell was gratified to notice Carrie standing behind him. From his looks, she didn't think flirting had been a terrible hardship. “Your family somehow acquired the property in the early sixties for $3,000 even though it was appraised at over $30,000. For almost the next twenty years it was appraised at around $20,000, then suddenly jumped significantly just before you donated it to the state park.” Hubert, foolishly, still didn't answer, so the reporter continued. “You know, the place where the skeletons of those civil rights workers were found.”

“Damn you, Nell McGraw,” Hubert sputtered before thinking better of it. “You're repeating rumors and lies. I won't dignify that with an answer.”

“It's public record,” Marcus said quietly, his voice filling the silence.

“There are public records and there are public records,” Hubert Pickings fumed nonsensically. Luckily for the audience and the spectacle, Hubert didn't have enough sense to realize that silence, as inadequate as it was, was still his best defense. He turned to Aaron. “This is your doing. Think you can win this election by repeating all these ugly things about me and my family, when your dad was out there doing worse than we ever did. At least my family never joined the Klan.”

“Don't think you can tell lies about me to cover up the truth about your background,” Aaron shot back.

“Damn you, Aaron Dupree! We weren't doing anything everyone else wasn't doing back then!” Hubert Pickings' face, despite the makeup he'd put on, was turning red and sweaty.

Nell would bet money that only powerful white people were doing it, but that might have qualified for “everyone” in the world of men like Hubert Pickings.

“Yeah, we got the land cheap,” Hubert blustered out. “But so did a lot of people. Back then—”

Suddenly a voice out of camera range shouted, “Shut up, Hubert!” Nell thought she recognized the cold authority of Festus Higgins, but the second camera, whipping around the room, couldn't catch him.

From there the debate devolved into pandemonium. Hubert shouted, “I don't have to take this shit!”—the curse word, live on camera, no less—and stalked off.