Sweet Jiminy (17 page)

“Kill Shootabay rides again,” Lyn said softly.

Walton, Jean, and David all turned toward her. She looked startled, like she hadn't meant to speak aloud.

“Excuse me?” David asked.

“The Knights,” Lyn replied. “We knew who they were. Even in their robes, you could still see their shoes.”

She looked right at Walton, who felt deserving of the shame that engulfed him. He welcomed it even, grateful that there was some retribution after all, in a place where people had gotten away with everything.

Jean spoke up. “Some just thought of it as Southern pride.”

Lyn stared at her.

“I'm not saying they were right,” Jean continued defensively. “But to some it was just a rah-rah Southern patriotic thing. Partly.”

The ensuing silence was its own rebuke. David looked from one to the other, enthralled by the tension.

“What was that name you said a second ago?” he asked Lyn, wishing he'd turned on his recorder faster. “You said someone rides again?”

“Kill Shootabay,” Lyn answered. “People made him up—a monster that rides through town burning houses and snatching people. For the kids, to explain things when we had to. ‘K.S.O.' would show up painted somewhere and we knew that someone was gonna be killed, probably shot, because they hadn't obeyed.”

“Kill, Shoot, Obey,” David repeated.

“I'd never heard that,” Jean remarked.

Lyn ignored her.

“They killed my husband and daughter,” she said to David.

“Oh my God, are you—?”

David couldn't remember the name. He knew about the case, and he'd asked Bobby Brayer about it, and now it was escaping him.

“Lyn Waters,” Lyn said.

“Edward and Jiminy Waters!” David exclaimed.

Lyn winced, resenting their names being blurted out like a quiz show answer. It didn't feel like an improvement over their not being mentioned at all.

“Edward and Jiminy Waters,” David repeated in a quieter voice. “Theirs is the case that might be reopened.”

Lyn nodded.

“Do you know who did it?” David asked.

Lyn paused.

“I know it was the Knights,” she said. “But I don't know which ones for sure. For all I know, the ones that did it might be long dead.”

Jean stared out the window. She could see Bo in the hospital parking lot, bouncing a basketball hard against the pavement, as though he were trying to punish one or the other.

“Were any of the Brayers in K.S.O.?”

David posed this question to Lyn.

“Travis Brayer was,” Lyn replied. “Don't know about his son.”

“You don't know about Travis, either,” Jean said automatically, unsure exactly why she felt compelled to protect him.

She'd never particularly liked Travis Brayer, though she'd admired his wealth and standing. Travis had enjoyed her husband Floyd, as everyone had, and he'd always invited Floyd and Jean to Brayer Plantation parties. He'd given them reasons to dress up, which injected excitement into otherwise dull routines. Jean recognized that this was a frivolous reason to defend him, particularly against something indefensible.

“Travis Brayer's a Knight,” Walton said softly but clearly. “There aren't many who weren't, me included. And it's past time we answered for it.”

His admission reshuffled the air around all of them. It blew through the room, and facts settled like leaves in its wake.

Part Three

Chapter 13

J
iminy stood at the edge
of the courthouse steps and scanned the lawn for Bo, whom she felt a bit desperate to find. She wanted to talk to him, alone, away from everything and everyone else. When they were together, she'd felt more like herself than she had her whole life, and she longed again for that sensation.

Disappointed not to spot him, she sank down beside the memorial for Fayeville soldiers killed in battle, closed her eyes, and turned her face sunward.

She tried to clear her mind, determined to have a little part of this day for herself only. A little sunny, quiet part. She needed to sort some things out.

A few minutes later, she sensed someone standing over her. She smiled without opening her eyes.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

It took a lot of willpower to keep her eyes closed, but she hoped the effect was confident and sexy. She wanted Bo to want her back.

“Meeting with the clerk,” Carlos answered.

Jiminy's eyes flew open in surprise.

“Oh! Hi!” she exclaimed.

Carlos laughed.

“Expecting someone else?” he asked.

Jiminy blushed.

“I'm happy it's you,” she replied.

This was sincere. She really liked Carlos. Nothing physical had happened between them since the night he'd almost kissed her, and Jiminy didn't plan for them to be anything other than friendly colleagues. But the alternatives hovered, quickening the pulse between them. She felt them in the way he looked at her, in his crooked smile.

“Busy?” Carlos asked.

“Deeply. Can't you tell?”

He lay down in the grass next to her, leaning back on his elbows.

“This is the best part of my day so far,” he said.

The night they'd been interrupted by the ambulance whisking Jiminy's grandmother past them to the hospital, when Walton had spotted them and pulled over his car to tell them what was happening, Carlos had watched Jiminy struggle to process the news. He'd watched her blame and then absolve herself, all amid shock and grief. He'd fallen a little for her in that moment. His ex-wife would say it was because of the drama and the sirens and the overall chaos. She'd say the turmoil was what he was attracted to, and that he was simply cultivating affection for a woman who could conveniently embody it. And if that was true, then he would tire of Jiminy once the excitement had passed. He didn't plan to overtly pursue her; he intended to focus on the work at hand. But her company was a pleasant perk of the job, and he allowed himself to imagine further possibilities.

“Any luck today?” she asked.

They'd run into roadblock after roadblock trying to persuade various Fayevillians to speak openly about what had happened to the Waters. Thus far, the defunct 1966 almanac had been more forthcoming about what may or may not have transpired that year than any living breathing human had. People didn't even want to discuss what the weather had been like, or the crop yield. They just went silent and blank. Some seemed ashamed, others depressed, a few defiant. A surprising number seemed amnesiac.

Carlos sighed.

“None to speak of. You?”

Jiminy shook her head.

“No. Though I can't get my mind off of those photos, especially the self-portrait of my granddad and the shot of Lyn. There's something so haunting about them,” she said.

“You and your pictures,” Carlos replied.

Jiminy took Polaroids of everyone they spoke to—quickly and without asking permission. It often caused immediate discomfort, but Jiminy couldn't help herself. Carlos had given up trying to dissuade her. At night, she arranged the photos across her bed in a celluloid lineup.

But it was the album of her grandfather's decades-old photos that continued to preoccupy her. Carlos had threatened to confiscate it, to force her to focus on activities that might actually advance their case. Jiminy thought of this now, as the sun beat down on them. She felt herself getting overheated.

“Can we get out of here?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Carlos replied.

He stood and pulled her up after him. Just ahead of them, Bo walked out of the library. For a split second, Jiminy simply froze. Then she dropped Carlos's hand to move toward Bo.

“There you are!” she exclaimed.

“Hi,” Bo said, in a tone that stopped her short of the hug she might have been going for.

He hadn't meant to sound so curt. Bo had seen the look that crossed Jiminy's face when she'd spotted him. It had been thrilled and confused and worried all at once. But he'd also seen her holding hands with Carlos, and now he just needed to get away from them. He didn't want to hate Carlos, or resent Jiminy, or second-guess himself. He wanted to be bigger than all of those emotions.

“I've been looking for you,” Jiminy said.

Bo stayed silent.

“I've actually gotta check on something in the library,” Carlos interjected as he moved easily past them.

Jiminy kept her eyes trained on Bo.

“I need to talk to you.”

Bo heard the plea in her voice, but didn't let himself weaken.

“I can't now, I've gotta get somewhere,” he replied.

Jiminy nodded slowly, upset. They both were.

“So you must've taken the MCATs,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“I won't know how I did for a while, but thanks,” he answered.

They stood looking at each other, hamstrung by awkwardness.

“I really miss you,” Jiminy blurted.

She was embarrassed, then resolved.

“I do,” she continued with a shrug. “A lot. I miss being with you. I know you don't think we can be together in this place, but I just want you to know that I wish things were different. I'm trying to make them different.”

Bo took this in, swallowed, breathed.

“Thanks,” he replied. “But you seem to have moved on pretty well.”

Confusion flashed through her features. Despite himself, Bo felt an urge to lift his hand and trace the outline of her lips. He looked away.

“I really do need to get going,” he said.

“You've got the wrong idea,” Jiminy protested. “There's nothing—”

“I gotta go, J,” Bo interrupted. “It's okay, it's all okay.”

He smiled to cover the ache he felt, then moved past her, close enough to smell her coconut hair. He held his breath until he was in the clear.

Chapter 14

W
alton hadn't intended
to abuse his ongoing privileges at the hospital to sneak into Travis Brayer's room. Still, there he found himself, sitting bedside, scribbling in his notebook and looking at his old friend.

As he watched Travis sleep, Walton thought back to the night when he'd been brought the bodies of Edward and Jiminy, and Henry had implored him to treat them with the dignity he'd show any others. Any others who were white, he'd meant.

“There's no difference,” Henry said.

“Of course there's a difference,” Walton argued. “And you know the boys won't like it if I do this. Edward and Jiminy are gone, their people will bury them, that's it.”

“No,” Henry said fiercely. “This matters.”

“I know you were close,” Walton said, putting his hand on Henry's shoulder. “I know he was almost like a brother to you—”

“Do you?” Henry interrupted. “Do you really have any idea how close we were?”

Walton looked away, at anywhere but into Henry's furious, anguished face.

“And Jiminy—” Henry exclaimed, his voice cracking.

This was the moment Walton had decided to agree, to help, to do no further harm. He'd set about cleaning and dressing Edward's and Jiminy's wounds, keeping his head bent, aware that Henry was watching silently, tears pouring down his face.

Walton hadn't quite finished when Lyn came into the room, but he'd at least made them presentable—if it's even possible to make the bodies of loved ones presentable to people who only want them to be alive.

Considering how Lyn behaved, Walton was relieved that he hadn't let her see her husband and daughter when they'd been in any worse shape. Henry had been right: this mattered. There was no difference.

He watched Lyn's excruciating reaction, and how Henry moved instinctively for her, as much to comfort himself as to offer support. She wanted none of him, that much she made clear. Her rejection was absolute. And unthinkable under any other circumstances. When she'd left the room, Henry collapsed against the wall, wracked with shuddering sobs.

Walton hadn't known what to do. He waited for Henry to collect himself, which took an uncomfortably long time. Then Edward's brother came to retrieve the bodies, and Henry helped move them out to the car. Henry never said goodbye to Walton that night; he simply came over and wordlessly took Walton's hand in his.

Less than a year later, at the age of thirty-two, Henry was dead. Walton had seen his body as well, and it had also been too late. He'd been asked to perform an autopsy to help discover what had killed a man so young and seemingly healthy. He found the giant blockage in the main artery close to the heart, wrote “massive pulmonary embolism” in the chart, and sewed up the incision he'd made, with a sense of wonder and loss. Literally seeing the insides of men changed a person's perspective. Walton thought about this as he stitched up the body. He thought of many things. Of whether this blockage had started as a tiny speck the night Henry had sobbed and raged and been rejected by Lyn. Of whether there was any way to see this death as a blessing. Of what would happen to Willa now; and to their daughter, Margaret, the little girl he'd delivered; and to Lyn, who had emotionally shut herself down even though she technically remained among the living. But most of all, he thought about how much Henry felt like Edward to the touch.

Walton remembered this now, as he stared at Travis Brayer's sleeping form. He resisted an urge to reach out his hand to feel Travis's skin. To get a sense of the shape of his muscles and bones, beneath what everyone saw on the surface. He wanted to do this, and he wanted Travis to wake up.

Suddenly, stridently, the phone on the bedside table rang. Startled, Walton picked it up.

“Trav?” a familiar voice asked from the other end.

“No, he's sleeping,” Walton replied.

“Walton? Is that you?”

Walton recognized Roy Tomlins's voice.

“Hey, Roy,” he replied. “I'm glad you called.”

“What's going on there?”

“Just sitting here with Trav, scribbling down everything I remember about June of '66,” Walton replied.

Roy stayed silent.

“Remember that month?” Walton continued. “We were all upset about the marches. Folks wanted to drive over to Jackson and shoot that Meredith boy. I remember you showing off which shotgun you'd use.”

“I don't recollect that, Walton. Tell Trav it's me calling.”

“And we were outraged that Jiminy Waters had dared to enter that state leadership essay contest, remember? How'd we even find out that she submitted something? She mailed it I guess. Did you open her letter, Roy? Did she drop it off herself at the post office, or did Edward?”

“Put Trav on the phone, Walton.”

“I told you, he's asleep. But I'll be sure to give him the message.”

Walton hung up the phone just as Travis started to stir. Walton wondered how much he'd heard or understood, if any at all. He thought about how easy it would be to turn off the machine that was keeping him alive. He knew exactly which switches to flip.

“Can you hear me, Travis?” Walton asked.

Travis nodded, a shaved-head little-boy nod.

“Good,” Walton replied. “Because we have a lot to discuss.”