Detective Meade would have to wait. I called and left a message at the precinct, then marched home and jumped into my Honda Civic.
Neely’s Bend.
With construction-related traffic, the journey took nearly forty minutes. I wasn’t followed; I checked my mirrors to ensure against it. That left me with contemplation time behind the wheel.
Neely … with one L.
As in Agent James Neelly, the man who escorted Meriwether Lewis?
The coincidence seemed too much to push aside. Many family names have changed and dropped letters over the years. Even the owners of Grinder’s Stand, where Lewis died, have been listed as the Griners in numerous publications. This is the South, where oral tradition has passed names along without concern for accurate spelling, where secrets have prompted slight permutations for reasons of a personal nature.
I knew I should have an idea what these mysterious documents were, but my mind was too muddled to dredge up the right information.
I turned up Lightning 100, Nashville’s progressive rock station, and let the music numb my frustrations with road crews and ever-changing detours.
Maybe it’s a trait of my age group or a unique personality quirk, but music tends to occupy one side of my brain so that the other side can get to work. Even as a kid, I did homework better with my earphones in and the volume jacked up.
My subconscious released the info and escorted it to the evidence room.
Last night. Leroy Parker’s voice: I told you those papers were the real deal.
The ICV man: You said that Michaels kid took the papers.
Parker: He did. He swiped ’em from me. I swear it.
And back in Centennial Park, Mrs. Michaels: Darrell and Mr. Parker, they found somethin’ … a gift from above.
There was something else. Something that still eluded me.
The Michaels house seemed more dilapidated than I recalled from my previous visit. A shrunken version of a Southern plantation home, the residence only hinted at bygone glory and was in obvious need of repair. I had to wonder how safe the children were, running through the place.
Juniper and maple trees stood guard at the corners, but the house had been overrun by bushes and weeds that spilled over the pebbled walkway. Weather and age had warped the planking, and the pillars at the front porch stood at a discernible slant.
This time Mrs. Michaels willingly opened the front door for me.
“How d’ya do, Mr. Black?”
She said it with such unaffected politeness that I thrust out my hand. What was the correct procedure here? I mean, I was raised in the Northwest.
She smiled and looked at the offered hand, wrapped in gauze.
“What happened to ya?”
“Got caught playing with fire.”
“Hope you’s smarter next time ’round.”
“Sorry for the delay,” I said. “You know the traffic out there.”
“I’m tellin’ you. Come in, come in.” She looked down and patted twin girls on the head. “Where’re y’all’s manners? Say hello to Mr. Black.”
“How d’ya do, sir?” they voiced in unison.
“Mighty fine, my dear ladies,” I said in mock chivalry. “And you?”
They disappeared in a fit of squeals and giggles.
Despite the home’s rundown condition, Mrs. Michaels had gone to great lengths to make it cozy and livable, and everywhere I looked I saw touches of a mother’s love. She gestured toward the dining table. I wondered when it would be best to tell her about the ICV man’s capture. Would she want to face the man who’d shot her son?
Mealtime started with fruit tea and a basket of warm biscuits and salted butter, followed by turnip greens, corn, country-fried steak, and fried apples.
Hearty fare. Delicious and satisfying.
Throughout, I joked with the kids, getting to know each of them by their nicknames. The youngest were wide-eyed and curious, the older ones quiet and less apt to laugh. Darrell’s death was a reality still settling. Like dust, this type of tragedy is never completely swept away; it sits quietly until stirred by simple words or memories, and on good days it dances through sunlight as a reminder that warmth and hope still exist.
“Now why don’t y’all go play upstairs,” Mrs. Michaels told the children. “Do as you’re told, and you’ll be gettin’ yourselves some cake when it’s ready.”
Although they grumbled, reluctant to leave their guest, they no doubt dreaded the boredom of adult conversation. They crawled over and around me before pounding up a creaking staircase with white banisters.
“Thanks for the food, Mrs. Michaels,” I said. “Sure hit the spot.”
“You saved yourself some room, didn’t ya?” The smell of the cooling red velvet cake wafted through the house, even as she prepared the frosting. “This was Darrell’s favorite, you know that? Always had a sweet tooth, that one.”
I felt honored by this gesture. And sugar? I hadn’t had any since breakfast.
Guilt tugged at me as I basked in this hospitality while Brianne held things down at Black’s. I reminded myself that Johnny Ray was there as a sentinel, and she’d have his helping hand if the situation required it.
“So,” I said, “you have something to show me? The papers?”
Mrs. Michaels pointed with a frosting-coated knife. “I moved ’em right there behind ya, in the bottom drawer.”
I turned toward an antique secretary desk. “Mind if I …
“Go on, go on. Have yourself a look. It’s why you came, ain’t it?”
I detected a rueful tone, yet my attention was on the documents. They sat inside a clear sheet protector, yellowed and brittle. Although tests would be required for conclusive dating, there was nothing to make me doubt they had been penned nearly two centuries ago.
“These were in your son’s belongings?”
Mrs. Michaels nodded.
“Were they hidden? You know, tucked away somewhere inconspicuous?”
“That’s one way of puttin’ it. He was my boy, you realize, and he weren’t ever a bad kid at heart. Over the years, though, I learnt his ways. He put things where he figured his mama wouldn’t know what he was up to. S’pose it was nosy of me, but I done it for his own good, and that’s the Lord’s honest truth. After I moved the four young uns here from Memphis, that’s when I put my foot down, told Darrell and his older sister there weren’t gonna be no more of that in my house.”
Pressing the plastic against the historic documents, I tried to make out the words on the first sheet and detected a date and signature, just as she’d relayed on the phone. I thumbed carefully through the others.
“So when I started goin’ through his things this mornin’, I figured it was only smart to check his ol’ hiding places. Sure ‘nuff, found them papers taped in plastic folders on the back of one of his posters. I’d found money there before, and other things. A little bag of powder once, which I was just sure was more of them drugs.”
“In the news, they said Darrell’s PO had been giving him clean reports.”
“Uh-huh. Mr. Leroy Parker. And what’d I tell ya ’bout that man?”
“That he’s dishonest,” I said.
I’d reached the last document. It was a personal letter.
Mrs. Michaels continued. “Had my doubts about him from the get-go. Know what I think? He was usin’ my boy to help him with this Lewis nonsense.”
“You still think it’s nonsense?”
“Don’t rightly know, Mr. Black. Just know I don’t trust that Mr. Parker.”
“He’s dead now. He attacked a lady last night, and she shot him. Twice.”
Mrs. Michaels dropped her chin, then leaned over the kitchen sink on both arms, her dimpled back pressing against her blouse. My hand was still on the letter. “God rest that man’s soul,” she murmured, “for things he done and for things he ain’t that he shoulda.”
Seemed to be a fitting eulogy. She must’ve thought so too, because when she turned back, she had shirked off any sympathy or shock and had chosen to help me in my search. She scooped up a magnifying glass from atop the desk, lowered herself into the seat beside me, and moved the instrument over the top paper.
“See for yourself, Mr. Black.”
I dropped one arm under the table and leaned closer, peering through the glass. In ink scratched across fibrous parchment, the spidery signatures came to life. One belonged to Justice of the Peace Samuel Whiteside, the other to a doctor whose name was indecipherable.
I thought of my brother’s comments at the memorial site in Hohenwald: A coroner’s inquest was never even filed … Papers like that were the personal property of the justice of the peace, but these just disappeared … Whoever had them could’ve just thrown them in a box and stuffed them in an attic.
This was that inquest!
These pages could rewrite the history books. Here, in black and white, the coroner’s conclusion was that Governor Meriwether Lewis had unequivocally and without question been murdered. His death was a result of multiple gunshot wounds—with bullets from separate weapons. Furthermore, he’d suffered knife wounds and a slit across his throat. The trajectories of the bullets suggested an attacker, or attackers, standing over the governor. And, most telling, Lewis’s own hands had no trace of gunpowder upon them.
“A gift from above,” I whispered.
“Mr. Black?”
“Do you have an attic?”
“I ain’t never been in it, not that I’d fit up there if I tried.”
“Didn’t your son and Mr. Parker say they found something that was a gift from above? What if these papers were originally hidden up there? Maybe Darrell was looking for a new spot to stash his paraphernalia and—”
“Stash what?”
“Never mind. I think Agent James Neelly stole this inquest to cover his guilt, and he held on to these other documents as leverage against his superior, General Wilkinson.”
“You done lost me completely.”
“How old is this house?”
“Built before the war. For a time Union bigwigs used it as a headquarters and even added on out back. Built themselves a stable for their horses.” Mrs. Michaels rolled her eyes in dramatic fashion. “Least that’s what the real-estate fella told me, but they ain’t got no record of the original owner.”
“Neelly moved here. Maybe even built the place. Then he concealed the papers and took his secret to the grave.”
“The grave.” Mrs. Michaels quivered at that, then said in a voice husky with grief, “And that’s where this all oughta stay, don’t ya think? My son got mixed up in this and got hisself killed for it. Spanish gold? Murder? No more, not in my house. We put this back where it came from and leave the dead in peace.”
“What about the truth?”
“This here’s my home, Mr. Black. And my family, my kin. I don’t bother no one, and they don’t bother me. Sure, I see we got a mystery on our hands, but it’s our mystery, and I reckon I can live with it stayin’ that way.”
“What about the Lewis family?”
“What of ’em?”
“Don’t they deserve to know the truth about their forebear? He was an American figurehead. The schools should be teaching kids what really happened. It’s possible I’m even a descendant.”
“No.” Mrs. Michaels pulled herself to her feet and returned to the cake, where she sliced tall slabs and laid them on plates. “What’s done is done,” she said, “and it ain’t my job to step in where the Lord’s already been.”
My hands trembled at the thought of letting this go. She’d called me here, letting me in on a secret and finding a measure of understanding regarding her son’s death. Was there any way I could go against her wishes on this? No. This was her family and her home, a place of refuge from the things life had thrown her way.
And overriding all else, this is the South, where outsiders ought not tread.
I’d already waited too long. With this host of revelations still spiraling through the air, she deserved to know that at least one mystery had been solved. Darrell’s murderer had been apprehended and booked into the county jail.
She was handing me dessert and a fork.
“Mrs. Michaels?” I set the utensil down and took her hand.
She searched my eyes, then took a deep breath and sank into her chair.