Chapter Thirty-Two

Trudy

 

Paris, Vel, and I hide behind the bushes across the street from the Charleston sheriff’s department. It is a summer of hiding in bushes. The building is small, beige, and rectangular, all on one floor. The police cars are parked to the side, and it is easy to see when anyone comes and goes.

We spot Hoot’s uncle driving up in a patrol car. He looks like an older version of Hoot and Hank, except wearing a uniform.

“Those Macklehaneys all look alike,” Paris says.

“They all look like morons,” Vel says. She repositions a pink barrette in her poodle perm that matches her pink fingernail polish.

In order for Vel to help us, I had to promise to go to the library with her later and help her carry home some books. This means she can check out twelve, which is the maximum allowed. A small price to pay if it helps us get those names.

Hoot’s uncle gets out of his patrol car, and we duck deeper into the bushes. He lights a cigar and talks to another deputy. A set of keys sparkle on his belt in the summer sun. They remind me of Wally’s keys at the State House. Somehow we managed to outsmart Wally, so maybe we can outsmart Hoot’s uncle, too. It helps that this isn’t our first run-in with the “old guard” as Madison Chambers called them. Although it may be our last.

While Paris and I wait in the bushes, Vel begins to execute our plan. As usual, Vel is dressed in pink from barrette to sneakers. She resembles a giant azalea blossom wearing a blond wig. With my nod, Vel poofs her Toni perm and walks up to Hoot’s uncle. Fanning herself, she tells him she is not feeling well. Then she pretends to faint on the grass next to the sidewalk. Earlier this morning, Paris showed her how to do a pratfall without hurting herself.

With Vel on the ground, Hoot’s uncle says a cuss word, like the last thing he needs today is a fainting kid. He leans over Vel to ask if she is okay. I run to her side, pretending to be out for a stroll. With him distracted, I am to unhook his keys. What I didn’t anticipate is when he bends over, his keys totally disappear underneath a roll of flab. There is no way I am putting an arm in there to dig them out.

I whisper to Vel that it is not going to work, and she pops up like she is the Jack in a Jack-in-a-Box and fans herself with her hand.

“I feel better now,” she tells Hoot’s uncle. “I just got a little hot. But that cool breeze really helps.”

The officer and I exchange a quick look. Charleston hasn’t had a cool breeze in months. If anything, the breeze feels like car exhaust without the gasoline fumes.

“Thank you for your help,” I say to him, my smile as fake as Vel’s fainting attack. We walk away and drop into the bushes again.

“Well, that was a disaster,” I whisper to Vel and Paris. “What do we do now?”

We look at each other, empty of ideas.

Just when we are about to give up and go home, Hoot walks around the corner. When he passes us in the bushes, he winks. Has he been watching the entire time?

“If that moron rats on us, it’s your fault, Trudy Trueluck.” Vel’s whisper feels like a shout.

Nobody moves. We wait to see what Hoot’s got up his sleeve along with his skinny arm. If he does rat on us, we will have the entire Ku Klux Klan burning crosses and aiming rocks at us.

When Hoot arrives, his uncle slaps his shoulder in a greeting that nearly knocks Hoot over.

“I’m glad nobody greets me that way,” Paris whispers. “I’d be in the hospital afterward.”

Our eyes stay focused on Hoot.

“Hank says you need your brakes looked at,” Hoot says, loud enough for us to hear. “He sent me over to get your keys so we can pick up your car later.”

Hoot’s uncle takes a step back, probably because Hoot is talking so loudly.

“Hank heard your brakes squealing as you drove by the filling station this morning,” Hoot continues. “You know you can’t be too careful with brakes. Especially if you’re chasing criminals all day.”

Even from a distance, Hoot’s smile reveals his corn kernel teeth.

It occurs to me that his uncle will never fall for something this lame. Then, to my amazement, he removes a key from his chain and tosses it to Hoot.

“We don’t need the car key, we need the house key,” I whisper.

“Why don’t you give me your house key, too,” Hoot says, like he heard me. “When we go to drop the car off I’ll go let your dogs out in the backyard for a little while.”

Hoot’s uncle hesitates. Is he on to him? We hold our breath. But then the big man shrugs and tosses Hoot the house key, too. We exhale one long breath while Hoot walks away. After his uncle goes back inside, Vel and I take off after Hoot, who waits at the corner for us.

“I thought we should have a backup plan in case yours didn’t work,” Hoot says to me.

I resist telling him it was a brilliant idea since I don’t want him to get any more ideas about holding my hand.

“I told my brother this morning that Uncle Ray’s brakes were squealing,” Hoot says, “and just like I thought he would, Hank told me to go get Uncle Ray’s keys.”

He looks proud of himself, and I give him a smile for payback, like carrying Vel’s library books.

“Well, let’s go over there and get that list,” I say.

“But I thought you said there were bulldogs,” Vel says. “How will we get past the dogs?”

We look back at Paris, who is still in the bushes. He motions for us to follow him.

A few minutes later we arrive at Paris’ house and go inside. He asks Miss Josie if he can pack up several of her leftover barbequed ribs, and she agrees, wrapping them in a big piece of aluminum foil. She doesn’t seem the least bit suspicious. In the meantime, Hoot acts totally weird, like he has never been in a colored person’s house before. His shoulders are practically even with his ears, and he keeps looking around, like he can’t believe how normal the house looks.

Before we leave, Miss Josie offers each of us one of her homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. Hoot says no at first, but then he changes his mind when he sees how much we enjoy them. By the time we leave, Hoot’s shoulders have relaxed, and he thanks Miss Josie for the cookies. He even calls her “ma’am.”

“Maybe Dr. King should take oatmeal raisin cookies on his Civil Rights marches,” I say to Paris. “They sure won Hoot over.”

Paris laughs.

We walk west for several blocks and stop short of a rickety house near The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. We hide in another set of bushes and watch Hoot’s uncle’s house like we are on a stakeout. A lawn ornament stands at the end of the driveway. It is a little colored man dressed up like a horse jockey. I think of how much trouble colored people would get into if they had little statues of white people in their yards.

While Hoot tries the key, Vel and I stand on the porch, and Paris waits behind the small garage a few feet away. My neck hurts from all the looking around to make sure nobody sees us. The door opens easily. As soon as we inch ourselves inside, the growling starts. It sounds like two saber-tooth tigers are trapped in the bedroom determined to get out. They sniff the crack under the door with so much force I am reminded of Hoover vacuum cleaners.

Vel’s eyes are as wide as the silver dollar-sized pancakes my mom makes sometimes. Vel has never liked dogs, even friendly ones, and these don’t sound the least bit friendly.

“I just can’t do this, Trudy.” Vel sounds like she might cry any second, even though she isn’t the type to cry.

Instead of being angry, I tell her to go home and wait for us. In a rush of pink, Vel dashes for the door.

With Vel gone, Paris and Hoot and I stand in the living room with our backs to the wall. A huge Confederate flag covers an entire wall in the living room. Over the television are two swords crisscrossed with “C.S.A.” carved into the blades. Next to that, in a glass case under the picture window, are Confederate pistols and rifles next to a whole collection of Confederate caps.

“This is like a museum,” I whisper.

“A Confederate museum,” Paris whispers back. He shudders, and I put a hand on his shoulder.

To the right of the television is a large photograph of Fort Sumter, the birthplace of the Civil War. A place nearly every school kid in South Carolina visits on field trips.

Meanwhile, the dogs get wilder by the second. Paris approaches the bedroom door and opens the paper bag containing the ribs. He waves one of them in front of the crack at the bottom of the door. The dogs stop growling and clawing and take deep sniffs of the ribs.

“Are you ready?” Paris says.

Hoot stands by Paris and reaches up to the top of the door-jamb. He finds another key that’s for the bedroom door. He slowly turns the key in the lock until we hear a loud click. Hearing the click, the dogs lurch at the door. Hoot holds it closed with two hands, a desperate look on his face.

My heart beats so loudly I can hear it in my ears.

“Open it on the count of three,” I say, thinking we can’t give up now.

The sniffing continues, like the dogs are going to sniff the floorboards right off the foundation.

I begin the countdown and debate whether to continue. What if it doesn’t work? What if the dogs go for our throats instead of the ribs? I should have told Nana Trueluck my plan so she could have talked me out of it. But it is too late to turn back now.

Paris stands behind Hoot, ready to throw the meat.

I yell “Three!” Courage and cowardice surge in equal amounts.

Hoot opens the door, and the dogs run out at the same time that Paris throws the meat across the living room floor toward the front door. When the dogs lunge for Miss Josie’s barbeque ribs, we rush into the bedroom and slam the door behind us.

Safely inside, the three of us lean against the wall. Deep claw marks are etched in the back of the door and puddles of drool are everywhere. After my heartbeat returns to normal, I realize the bedroom is a museum, too. The walls are covered with old photographs of Confederate generals who watch our every move. Thick curtains cover the only window making the room dark and musty. It looks more like a burial chamber than a bedroom.

For several seconds we are silent.

“This place is full of ghosts,” Paris says.

“Tell me about it,” I say. I tell Hoot to hurry up. I am ready to get out of here.

He tries to open the gun cabinet, but it is locked. “I don’t know where he keeps the key to this,” Hoot says. He feels around for a key on top of the chest and comes up with a handful of dust.

“You mean we needed a key for the gun cabinet, too?” I ask.

“I bet it’s somewhere in this room,” Paris says. “Somewhere close.”

I turn on the overhead light, and the three of us look around the small room. We look in drawers and under the bed. The dogs have finished the ribs and now sniff at the bottom of the door like they would like to chomp on our ribs next. As they growl and claw, the door dances on its hinges. Then they begin to bark.

“That racket is enough to wake General Robert E. Lee from the dead,” Hoot says. To the side of the gun cabinet is a framed black and white photograph of a white-haired man with a beard, the general himself. A brass plate at the bottom gives his name.

“We’ve got to hurry,” Paris says, “With all this noise, the neighbors may call the police.”

The search for the key continues, except faster. I wish Nana Trueluck were here. I wish I’d confided in her and told her my plan. A plan that at this point appears doomed. We search on top of things, inside drawers, under the bed. All we find is a great big nothing. By now we have to yell at each other to hear over the dogs’ barking. We sit on the bed that is lumpy enough to have dead bodies under the mattress.

“What’s his most prized possession in this room?” Paris asks Hoot. “Sometimes people hide things there.”

Hoot looks at the photograph over his uncle’s bed. The engraved nameplate underneath says that it is a photograph of Nathan Bedford Forest. A black funeral ribbon is attached to the top right corner of the frame.

“He must really like that guy,” I say.

“Who is he?” Paris asks.

“Bedford Forest started the Klan,” Hoot says.

Paris shudders again.

Hoot stands on the bed and runs his fingers along the top of the frame, sneezing from the dust. He then takes the frame off the wall and turns it over. He smiles. The key to the gun cabinet is in an envelope taped to the back of the frame.

Hoot tosses the key to me, and I catch it easily. I test it in the keyhole, and it opens. Inside the gun cabinet are several rifles and shotguns. I have never seen so many weapons in one place, and I refuse to touch them. Some look new and some look very old. The old ones have C.S.A carved onto the barrels. I have no idea what the initials stand for, but it is not like I have time to look it up in a dictionary. At the bottom are two long drawers. I open the top drawer. It is full of boxes of different bullets. The second drawer is full of knives.

“Your uncle could fight the entire Civil War from his bedroom,” I say.

“That’s the whole point,” Hoot replies.

“There’s nothing here,” Paris says, rummaging through the knife drawer.

“There must be a list of members somewhere,” I say.

“What if he’s not the one who has the list,” Paris says.

He could be right. We are almost ready to give up again when Hoot finds a secret drawer behind the knives. He pulls out four sheets of yellowing paper with names and addresses written on them.

“Pay dirt,” Hoot says.

In the next second we hear sirens.