Chapter 36

 

Things moved quickly following the arrest of Judge Travis and his two henchmen. The ATF and FBI wasted no time clearing the island of skinheads, and collecting pertinent evidence. When they finallyfinished, the Government took an assignment of Aunt Emma's life insurance claim and returned the island to Buck. After receiving the insurance claim for the burned marina, he continued his aunt's dream in earnest.

Several days after returning to the island, Brice and Buck sat on the veranda of the lodge at Fitzgerald Island. Brice had taken a short vacation. He and Sally were spending it on the island. The old lodge hummed with activity, five carpenters and painters having arrived, two remodeling the lodge and three rebuilding the marina with the help of Ray and Raymond. As Brice and Buck chatted, Pearl appeared from the kitchen.

“Lordy, it's like a beehive in there,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “How long will we have to put up with this, Mr. Buck?”

“Two weeks or more, I imagine.”

“Two weeks? I think I may take a vacation.”

Pearl gave them a fresh carafe of coffee before returning to the kitchen. Tiger lay sleeping between Buck's legs, Cyclone curled in the corner, gnawing a bone.

“Thanks for all your help,” Buck said. “I appreciate everything you did.”

Brice shrugged. “You had it under control all along. You accomplished everything you set out to do. Everything except solve the mystery of Bessie McKinney, that is.” When he saw Buck's smug smile, he said, “Is there something you haven't told me?”

“I know what happened to Bessie.”

Brice cocked his head, looking for a sign that Buck might be pulling his leg. Seeing none, he said, “How's that?”

“Deduction, induction, and the metaphysical.”

“Okay, I'll bite. What’s the story?”

Buck grinned. “We've had all the pieces of the puzzle since we've been here. I just needed a little prodding, so to speak, to put them together.”

“I'm going to prod your head with a baseball bat unless you tell me right now what you think happened to Bessie McKinney. Who killed her?”

“No one killed her,” Buck said. “Her death was an accident. The person responsible was her father, Larkin McKinney, and not the young man hung for the deed.”

“What accident? There were no marks to suggest an accident. You told me yourself.”

“Something so strange, it’s bothered me since I heard it. The searchers used the word petrified to describe the condition of her body. They found her sitting on a fallen tree, her hands in her lap, staring out across the lake as if alive. There were no marks of violence, but her skin was cold and clammy.”

“And what does all that mean?”

“She died in the summer of 1872. July, the same month as now. Have you been cold even once since you arrived here?”

Brice shook his head. “What are you getting at?”

“No one killed Bessie. She froze to death.”

“You kidding me? Even if her skin was cold and clammy, it doesn't mean she froze to death. Where did you get that idea?”

“Bessie told me.”

Brice's face turned red. “Bessie!”

Buck held up his palm. “Hear me out. Bessie did speak to us the night we visited Mama Toukee's. The message didn't make sense then. Now it does.”

Brice's head bobbed slowly up and down. “Refresh my memory.”

“She said 'Mother, father, daughter, death. The answer lies in an icy grave'.

Sarcasm laced Brice's reply. “And what do you presume that gobbledegook means?”

“I learned from the respective dates on Bessie and Elizabeth McKinney's graves that Elizabeth McKinney wasn't Bessie's birth mother. Elizabeth died in 1858, four months before Bessie was born. Elizabeth wasn't Bessie's mother, nor was Francine Bessie's sister.”

“And how do you know that?”

Buck fished in his pocket, removed the brooch, and handed it to Brice.

“Read the inscription.”

“To my loving daughter, E.M.M., 1872.”

“Elizabeth McKinney died in 1858, fourteen years before her real mother gave her this brooch. Elizabeth wasn't Bessie's real mother. Bessie knew it.”

“Then who was?” Brice asked, still eyeing the brooch.

“Francine was. I found her name scratched in the family Bible in blue ink. I believe it's the reason Elizabeth McKinney killed herself and Larkin McKinney drank himself into an early grave.”

“How do you know all this?”

“The story started making sense when I found out how Bessie died. I spent the night on Fitzgerald Island locked in the basement. The temperature was below forty degrees. I walked, jumped up and down and even drank a couple bottles of wine to keep warm. I never really gave up, though I lapsed into a semi-conscious state. I know this sounds crazy. I had an out-of-body experience and saw myself sitting on the bench, hands in my lap, staring at the wall. That's when it occurred to me Bessie froze to death. When I left the island, I realized even though Bessie had no marks of violence on her body, Darius, the young man hung for her murder, did.”

“What marks?”

“According to Wiley, the doctor that examined Darius's body after he was cut down from the tree, reported burns on his face and arms. Ice burns from carrying Bessie's frozen body from Larkin McKinney's ice house.”

Brice's mouth dropped, and he leaned back in his chair. “How did she get trapped in the ice house?”

“Not trapped, locked in intentionally by her father, Larkin McKinney.”

“But why?”

“Lila mentioned to me her father always threatened to lock her in the ice house whenever she was bad. He never did, of course, but according to Dorothea Richardson, Lila's grandmother, the threat was a carry-over from Larkin McKinney. He actually used the ice house to punish his slaves, his servants, and even his daughter.”

“I can believe McKinney locked his daughter in the ice house to punish her. Why didn't he let her out before she froze to death?”

“Because he was an alcoholic. He was also, by all accounts, a very cruel man, often using his bull-whip to discipline both servants and family. After his wife's death, his alcoholism became chronic, and he became a self-destructive recluse. The only respite from his increasing brutality was when he passed out from the alcohol. His condition when Bessie died of hypothermia.”

“Still, you haven’t explained how you know Elizabeth killed herself, and Francine was Bessie's mother.”

Buck grinned. “Hold your horses, Mr. Prosecutor. I’m getting to it. Dorothea Richardson, Lila's grandmother, told me about Elizabeth's demise. It's a family secret, a skeleton in the closet, so to speak.”

“Then why did she tell you?”

“Just like her son, the old lady likes an occasional nip of bourbon. We shared a bottle before I went to the island. It loosened her tongue. She told me that Elizabeth, distraught over Larkin's continuing affair with Francine, poisoned herself with a fairly potent mixture of arsenic laced moonshine.”

“Where did Francine come from? If she wasn't Larkin's daughter, then who was she?”

Buck grinned again. “Unfortunately, I didn't get the old lady drunk enough to tell me that, although I'm sure she knows very well. I checked the courthouse, hoping to answer that question for myself.”

“And?”

“There's no record of Francine being a member of the McKinney family in any of the detailed records of the white community from that period.”

“The white community?”

“That's right. No record exists because Francine wasn't white.”

“How do you know, if Lila's grandmother didn't tell you?”

“Because I found Francine's name on a slave manifest.”

Buck took a piece of paper from his wallet and handed it to Brice. “It’s a photo-copy of the manifest for a shipment of slaves from New Orleans. The fourth name on the list tells the story. The date on the manifest is 1856, two years before Bessie's birth. The fourth name on the manifest is Francine’s. It describes her as late twenties, mulatto.”

Brice's head continued to bob. “There's no record of Francine in the family or historical records because she was a slave?”

“Absolutely,” Buck said. “Larkin McKinney bought her right off a river boat from New Orleans at the slave market in Jefferson. She was a mulatto, a person of mixed ancestry. He became immediately enamored with her and took her as his mistress.”

“Wasn't that common then? Do you think it was enough to cause Elizabeth McKinney to kill herself?”

“Francine was white as we are. Larkin fell in love with her and wasn't content to visit her only at night. She lived in the mansion with them. He even told visitors and townspeople that she was his daughte. She continued the story after his death. Larkin's aberrant mental state was prevalent even then. Maybe he thought Francine really was his daughter. Whatever, it eventually caused Elizabeth to take her own life.”

Brice was silent, considering the ramifications of what Buck had told him. “So, Larkin McKinney, feeling guilt and despair after his wife's early demise, drank himself into an early grave.”

“Yes, but not before creating a hell on earth for those around him. He locked Bessie in the ice house during a drunken rage for some real or imagined transgression and must have collapsed into a stupor, forgetting what he had done.

“Darius, Bessie's friend, looked for her. When he found her in the ice house, he carried her to the lake in hopes of reviving her in the warm water. Finally, realizing the futility of his plight, he sat her on the fallen tree and waited in a state of shock until the searchers found them.”

“And hung him,” Brice said.

Buck nodded. “Larkin was a monster but he loved Bessie. He died soon after. He had few, if any, friends. After his death, Francine continued running the plantation as she had the last years of his life. The townspeople accepted her, without question, as his daughter. She married Alton Richardson, the returning Civil War hero, and the rest is history.”

“I wonder who added Francine's name to the family Bible.”

Buck shook his head. “We may never know. It could’ve been Clayton, his mother, or anyone in the family before that time.”

“Simply amazing.”

“And ironic. Clayton Richardson is a bigot, yet he is part black himself. He has a black mistress, and a black daughter. And Ray, a young black man with a doctorate in black history, is the son of the most notorious white racist in recent times in east Texas.”

“And now, he's engaged to marry Clayton's daughter.” Brice said.

“Like Dorothea Richardson said, there's black and white in all of us.”

***

Later that night, Buck paced the veranda, staring at the moon. Brice had long since gone to bed. He was alone, listening to frogs and crickets down by the lake. In the distance, a noisy outboard motor melded with other sounds of night. Trotting down the wooden steps, he walked briskly to the water's edge, stopping a hundred feet from the bank. Outboard motor sounds grew louder as he waited, the front of a small boat finally disappearing around the cypress brake.

When it was gone, bullfrogs took up a throaty chorus across the lake. A single diaphanous cloud, looking for all the world like a smiling Bessie McKinney, passed in front of the moon, momentarily blocking its golden aura. Knowing what it all meant, Buck smiled and waved. As he did, the cloud evaporated into a multicolored prism of reflected light, and disappeared forever.

 

 

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Born in northwest Louisiana, not far from fabled Black Bayou and Caddo Lake, Eric Wilder continues to pen short stories and murder mysteries. He now lives in Edmond, Oklahoma with wife Marilyn, daughter Katelyn, three dogs and two cats. Please connect with him at Eric’sWeb and check out more of his books and stories on his Homepage at Smashwords.com.