18

On Thursday night November 3, the night police recovered Michael and Alex’s bodies from the bottom of John D. Long Lake, David Smith finally left the home of his wife’s parents and headed back to his two-bedroom apartment on Lakeside Drive. He had barely spent any time there in the nine days his sons were missing. His father and stepmother went with him, and a little later, his sister, Becky, and some of his friends from Winn-Dixie stopped by, too.

About nine P.M., Becky’s estranged husband, Wallace Tucker, knocked timidly on the apartment’s front door. He’d gotten off work at Helig-Meyers furniture store, where he drove a delivery truck, around six o’clock, about the time word was spreading of Susan Smith’s arrest and the fate of her children.

Wallace had thought about it for a while, and then decided to stop by David’s. He’d always liked his brother-in-law. These days, with his marriage to Becky on the rocks, he didn’t see him often. But they bumped into each other now and again, and Wallace felt a familial bond.

David met Wallace at the door and the young men embraced. David motioned for Wallace to follow him, and they went into David’s bedroom to talk. Wallace tried not to notice the other bedroom, replete with toys, a crib, and a small bed.

Wallace told David that he was sorry he hadn’t stopped by the Russell house during the week the boys were missing. He said he felt funny—he was black, and, after all, there was all this talk about a black carjacker. It made him a little queasy.

“I’d be there, the only black guy … I thought they’d look at me funny, know what I mean?” he said.

“I understand,” David told him. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel comfortable.”

Sitting on the edge of his bed, David Smith told his brother-in-law that he felt nothing, just a hollowness, an empty space inside.

“It might seem strange that I’m not crying,” he said. “I’m just in a deep, heavy shock. It still hasn’t hit me that my babies are gone, that my wife killed our children.”

Wallace nodded. He wasn’t sure what to say.

“Were you with her when she confessed?” he asked.

“No,” David answered. Over the course of the investigation, he explained, the sheriff and FBI had taken them to different places around town to talk. They’d been talking to Susan a lot but he hadn’t known they were meeting with her that day.

“That day, she left and she said she was going to take a letter somewhere,” David told Wallace. “After two hours, I figured something’s wrong.”

Wallace asked David if David’s mother was on her way to Union. He said she was. Barbara Benson was expected to get into town around eleven P.M. Shortly after Sheriff Wells left the Russell home, David had called her at home in Surf City. Sobbing uncontrollably, he tried to tell her what the sheriff had said. Barbara Benson couldn’t quite make out her son’s voice. Then she heard him say the words she had been dreading: “Sheriff Wells just confirmed it. Susan confessed. She killed the children.”

*   *   *

Sitting in his bedroom that night, David told Wallace what a complete shock it had been to learn that Susan had murdered their sons. “I believed her,” he said, shaking his head. “I believed her right until the end.”

David got up and picked up a framed photograph atop his bureau. It was taken before Alex was born so it was just David, Susan, and Michael, all smiling.

“Susan,” David said, staring at the photo. “How could you do it? How could you kill our little boy?”

David’s eyes were dry, but the moment was too much for Wallace. The young man brushed away tears.

David turned to his friend. “I would have gladly taken them,” he told Wallace. “If it was too much for her, I would have taken them.”

Wallace knew that was true. In the three years he’d been married to David’s sister, he’d seen how close David was to his boys. He remembered how David talked about fixing a room for the boys in his new apartment, how he wanted to make sure they felt the apartment was their home, too. Wallace thought back to the last time he’d seen his nephews, when he’d bumped into Susan, David and the children at the Union Agricultural Fair a few weeks earlier.

He could still picture the little family: David carrying Alex, Susan holding Michael’s hand.

Before Wallace left, David told him that officials had asked him to come down to the Holcombe funeral home the next day to identify the bodies of his children.

Wallace did not say anything. Later, he talked to Becky about it on the steps outside David’s apartment.

“If it was me, I wouldn’t do it,” he said.

Becky was surprised.

“You wouldn’t want to see your kids one last time?”

Wallace shrugged. Perhaps he would, if he was in David’s place. He felt lucky he wasn’t.

*   *   *

Minutes after learning that Susan had confessed to killing her children, Bev Russell called the home of Reverend Mark Long, the pastor of Buffalo United Methodist church. Long’s wife answered. She explained that her husband wasn’t home—he’d already left for Union City Hall where he was to meet other local ministers and make their planned public appeal to the carjacker.

Once Margaret Long heard the news she immediately drove to Union. By the time she’d parked and hurried to the courthouse Sheriff Wells’s statement to the media had ended. Margaret Long pushed through the crowd still milling along Main Street. She scanned the sea of troubled faces for her husband. She finally found him, talking privately with several other pastors.

She gently tugged at his sleeve. “You need to go to the Russell house,” she told her husband. “They need you.”

She explained about the phone call from Bev Russell. Reverend Long left immediately for the Russell house; his wife joined him there minutes later.

The Longs stayed at the Russell house from seven o’clock that night until almost ten. The minister led the family in prayers. Everyone—Linda and Bev, David, Scotty and Wendy Vaughan, and other family and friends—wept unabashedly.

That night, the coroner, William Holcombe, called and spoke to David. He asked the young man what funeral home he wanted to use.

The answer was obvious, but Holcombe had to ask.

“We’d like Holcombe,” David said.

They agreed to meet the following day. Then, David Smith and his in-laws asked Long to perform the funeral service for Michael and Alex at Buffalo United Methodist. The children had attended Sunday School there. It seemed the right place to say their good-byes.

*   *   *

At noon on Friday, November 5, David, his parents, Bev and Linda, and Scotty and Wendy Vaughan met with Holcombe for about an hour and a half. Through tears, the family of Michael and Alex Smith outlined how they wanted to tell their boys good-bye. They asked Holcombe to lay the boys out together, in a white casket with gold trim and set up a time for visitation at the funeral home for the next evening, from seven until nine. The casket, they insisted, would remain closed.

The funeral, to be held the following day, would begin at 2:00 P.M. at Buffalo United Methodist Church, with four local ministers officiating. The Rev. Mark Long, they said, had been asked to offer the final eulogy. Afterward, the boys would be buried in the cemetery behind Bogansvilie United Methodist Church, right next to the grave of Danny Smith, David’s older brother and the children’s uncle.

“We want it dignified and respectful,” one family member told Holcombe. “Please give it reverence.”

William Holcombe nodded. Speaking in a soft voice, he assured the family that Holcombe Funeral Home would provide a sensitive and comforting atmosphere for their family and friends in their time of need.

The family then discussed the media. They realized that after the extensive national attention the nine-day search for the children had received, they had to expect an onslaught of reporters and camera crews as they laid their boys to rest. They did not want any photographers permitted at the visitation or at the funeral and only one pool photographer at the burial.

Later, Bev Russell and Rev. Long proposed an audio feed of the funeral so that mourners who could not get into the church because of space limitations could listen to the service outside. That seemed to appease the journalists, who called Buffalo United Methodist Church relentlessly about arrangements for the Sunday service.

*   *   *

The Rev. Mark Long normally prepared a brief outline for his Sunday morning sermons, then spent the day before the service jotting notes and checking Bible verses.

But when it came to offering a eulogy for two little boys whose death had touched so many people, the minister knew that the words would come freely from his heart. In the day he had to prepare for the service, his mind raced with all the things he wanted to say, the words he imagined would comfort the family and bring them a measure of peace.

He decided he would not discuss Susan and forgiveness. That message, he believed, was best saved for another time.

Rev. Long made up his mind to use a text from the Old Testament’s second book of Samuel, to tell the story of how King David reacted to the death of his infant son. He also wanted to quote from Psalm Eighty-eight, a psalm of pain and agony, of questioning the faithfulness of God. From there, he would lead mourners to the comfort of the Twenty-third Psalm and its message of hope and faith, that the Lord would be with them always.

It was his purpose, the reverend believed, to reassure the family of Michael and Alex Smith, and all others who shared their grief that while the world is sometimes a place of great pain and tragedy, that does not mean that God is not there. It does not mean God does not care.

*   *   *

The day after he met with the family at the Russell house, Long called the other three ministers the family had asked to participate in the funeral service. He gave them each a suggestion of what topics to focus on.

The Reverend Joe Bridges, Interim Minister of the Tabernacle Baptist Church, he had decided, would speak first, about Jesus and his special love for children. Rev. Doug Gilliland of Bogansville United Methodist Church would lead the congregation in the Lord’s Prayer. Rev. Bob Cato would talk about faith.

On Saturday evening, Resident Bishop of the South Carolina Conference United Methodist Churches Joseph Bethea called Rev. Long at home. He told him that he would like to attend the funeral, not to participate, but to give him support. Rev. Long thanked his superior and told him he appreciated it.

When he hung up, the minister made a mental note to make sure the bishop had a seat.

*   *   *

Visitors began showing up at Holcombe Funeral Home at ten A.M. Saturday, even though the visitation was not scheduled to begin until seven that night. In all, more than 1,000 people came through that night, signing the registry, leaving flowers and mass cards. Some 700 gifts of flowers were delivered, including one from President Bill Clinton.

Throughout the visitation, a tearful David Smith hugged hundreds of people and talked quietly with friends. At one point, David pulled aside his grandfather, Jim Martin, who had flown in from California for the funeral, and asked him not to speak badly of Susan. Martin had been approached by reporters, and David was concerned about what he might say.

“Don’t trash Susan,” David said to him quietly.

Despite the horror of what she had done, Susan was still his children’s mother.