I DIDN’T KNOW what to do. I had to retrieve those folders from the woods, but I wasn’t about to go back there now, not when there was a chance those two men might be lurking around. I told myself that as long as it didn’t rain, the folders would be safe where they were. I glanced up at the sky. The clouds had massed and grown taller since the last time I’d looked up. But they were white, so I wasn’t worried.
In the meantime, I needed to talk to someone about what I had found. Maggie was the only person I trusted, but she was out covering a story and wouldn’t be back for hours. Besides, she’d lived away from Orrenstown for a long time.
I grabbed the telephone directory and looked up a name and an address.
Mr. Standish lived on a street where all the houses were made of brick and had wraparound porches, gingerbread trim and lush lawns surrounded by hedges and fences. The driveway was long and led to a garage that was set back even farther from the road than the house was. Mr. Standish was standing in front of the open garage door when I got there. He was wearing safety goggles and sharpening a hoe. His pickup was parked inside. Next to it was a workbench. Tools hung on the wall, each one in its own bracket. A small door at the back of the garage gave me a glimpse of the backyard.
“What a surprise.” He pushed the goggles up over his forehead and smiled at me. “To what do I owe this visit?”
I dug in my pocket and pulled out the black-and-white photograph. I handed it to him.
Mr. Standish stared at it for a long time. “Where did you get this?”
“That’s Sheriff Beale,” I said. I pointed to a figure on the far right. “That’s Mr. Chisholm. And I’m sure you recognize your friend here.” I jabbed a finger at Mr. Selig. “They look pretty young in that picture, but that’s them.”
Mr. Standish’s nod was almost imperceptible. His eyes remained fixed on the photo for another few seconds. He didn’t say a word when he handed it back to me.
“Do you know anything about this, Mr. Standish?”
This was a shocking picture. In it, a man—a black man—was suspended from a tree by a rope around his neck. His eyes were closed, and his head lolled to one side. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was surrounded by people. I wasn’t positive, but I had a strong hunch that he was TJ’s father. The people in the foreground—there were ten of them, all men, all white—looked directly at the camera. Worse, they smiled for it.
Mr. Standish shook his head. “I heard about what happened. But I wasn’t there.”
He glanced over his shoulder. I heard the sound of a lawn mower coming from somewhere behind the house. He must have someone helping him with his yard work. Probably a local kid earning pocket money.
“It’s an old story.” Mr. Standish stared out over his front yard—the grass, the elm tree, the trimmed hedge, the stone path to the verandah. “A woman—a white woman—said she was accosted by a Negro man. She described him. He was arrested. Her husband was incensed and demanded that something be done. The next thing you know, there was a mob. This was back in, let me see, ’31, I think. The Depression had started. Times were tough. And people thought differently then.”
It definitely sounded like the story Daniel had told me.
“But you can’t hang a person for accosting someone.” The idea was shocking.
“You can’t do it legally, no,” Mr. Standish said. “It was a mob. The sheriff, Sheriff Beale, had to go out of town on business that evening. Or so he said. If I’m not mistaken, he made his getaway just about the time one of his deputies told him that a crowd was forming in the town square. The two deputies who were on duty swear they did their best to control the crowd. They claim they did everything short of shooting, and as one of them put it, there was no way they were going to shoot their friends and neighbors over something like that, by which I assume they meant over a mob trying to get its hands on a Negro man who had assaulted a white woman.”
“There was an investigation. The sheriff—when he got back to town—questioned everyone he could find. There were a lot of people there, as you can see by that picture, but it’s a funny thing. No one saw exactly what happened, no one got a clear enough look at anyone who was involved. No one knew where the rope came from or how it got around that poor man’s neck.”
“But this picture—”
“There were rumors about a picture, but it never surfaced. Where did you get it anyway?”
I dodged the question. “Who was he?”
“The man who was hanged?”
“Lynched.”
“Lynched.” He nodded as he said the word. “His name was William Jefferson.”
“Thomas Jefferson’s father.” Just as I had guessed.
“A lot of folks in Freemount moved away after that,” he said. “But not Lila Jefferson. She stayed. She made accusations—which, of course, no one took seriously. She tried to get the FBI to investigate. They declined. She wrote letters to the NAACP, telling them what happened. But nothing came of it. I think a lot of people hoped that she would pack up and leave too. But she didn’t. She stayed put. I’ll tell you, it galled a lot of people when she’d walk down the street and, instead of looking away or stepping aside when a white person approached, stand her ground and look them in the eye. You’d think someone would have shoved her aside, but no one ever did. If you ask me, I think her presence here made people ashamed of what they’d done. I could be wrong, but it’s the only reason I can think of that no one tried to force her out.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“What about Mr. LaSalle?”
“What about him?”
“Do you know who killed him?”
Mr. Standish shook his head. “I only know what came out in court. And what happened before that.”
“What do you mean?”
“The same kind of people who are in that photo didn’t take too kindly to Jefferson coming back here a supposed war hero.”
“Supposed?”
“Some people didn’t believe him. Lyle Nearing, Maggie’s father, did some research and ran an article in the paper backing up everything that Jefferson said. Some people will tell you that made things worse. They’ll say it made Jefferson puff out his chest even more and strut about like a rooster in a henhouse. Those people made it tough for Jefferson whenever he came into town. Made it tough for his friend too.”
“Do you think someone—someone white, I mean—killed Mr. LaSalle?”
Mr. Standish stared out over his lawn again for a long while before answering.
“I know that LaSalle stopped coming to town for a while before he disappeared.”
“So people really thought he’d gone back home?”
Mr. Standish shook his head. “He showed up again after that. I never heard anything about where he’d been spending his time. When he went missing again, Jefferson looked for him all over. He must have asked everyone in town if they’d seen him.”
“And that was used against him,” I said. “Everyone thought he did that to cover up the murder.”
“So they say. Then Brad Hicks found the body on his way to work one day. Jefferson was arrested. He confessed to murdering LaSalle. That’s what Sheriff Beale testified to in court, under oath. And that’s what got Jefferson convicted.”
“Sheriff Hicks was on his way to work? So he wasn’t looking for Mr. LaSalle?”
“As far as I know he wasn’t. No one was. Why would they? If anyone thought about him at all, they assumed he went back to where he came from. At least, they did until Hicks found him.”
“Did Sheriff Hicks live near where the body was found? Is that how he happened to find him?”
“Near?” He shook his head. “He lives about five miles out of town. Drives back and forth on the river road at least twice a day. Sometimes more often.”
The rest I already knew. I slipped the picture back into my pocket. As I did, I noticed that something had changed. The lawn mower had stopped. Mr. Selig was standing in the door to the garage, looking at us. I wondered how long he had been there.
Mr. Standish looked skyward, and I followed his gaze.
“There’s going to be one heck of a storm coming through here,” he said.
“Storm?”
“See those anvil heads?” He pointed at the clouds. “That means we’re going to have thunder, lightning, the whole nine yards.”
I thought of the folders I’d stashed under a layer of leaves. One was empty, since I’d taken the photograph. But the other one…It would get ruined in the storm. And if there was wind…
I had to go back and get it. Now. Before it rained.
I wished Maggie were home. I would tell her everything and get her to come with me. But I had no idea where she was.
I raced home and jumped on the bike. I flew over the paved roads to the junction, keeping watch that no one was following me. I didn’t see a single car or truck the whole way. I slowed down when I got to the turnoff and the washboard road. This time I hid the bike so well that there was very little chance of anyone finding it. I retraced my steps, my eyes searching the ground for my marker.
Something snapped in the underbrush behind me. I spun around and found myself face-to-face with Sheriff Hicks.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. Where had he come from? I was sure he hadn’t followed me. Had he come back out here ahead of me? But why would he do that?
“I might ask you the same thing. Seems to me I just got you out of trouble out here. A smart girl would have stayed in town where she was safe.”
“I—I guess you’re right,” I said. I turned to retrace my steps.
He caught me by the arm.
“Come on,” he said. “Why don’t you show me what you found?”
What I found? How did he know I found anything?
“You’ve been snooping around for days. Helen at the real-estate office told me you were asking about Lorne Beale’s cabin. What did you find?”
“Find? Nothing. I just—I really have to go. Maggie will worry.”
“Maggie’s in Princeton. She won’t be back until later tonight.”
I tried to dart around him, but he caught me by the arm and held tight. Too tight. His fingers dug into my arm.
“Show me where you put it,” he said. There was no smile on his face. No kindly concern for my well-being. He was deadly serious. He shoved me ahead of him. “Show me and I’ll see that you get on a bus for New York City today.”
The hardness in his eyes told me not to trust him.
I stumbled forward.
“No tricks now,” he warned. He maintained his grip on my arm.
I kept walking, worried that I wouldn’t be able to find the hiding place, until suddenly there it was, right in front of me, the rock I had set near the tree and, beyond it, the fallen log. They looked so obvious to me that they seemed to flash neon. I glanced at Sheriff Hicks. He didn’t seem to have noticed anything.
I slowed my pace. I had to get that folder. I also had to get away from him.
Thunder grumbled overhead. Lightning illuminated the sky like a gigantic camera flash.
“I wrote everything down,” I said. “I always write everything down. If anything happens to me, your secret will come out. Everyone will know what you did.”
His lips curled in amusement.
“Is that right? And what is it that you think I did, little lady?”
“It’s not what I think. It’s what I know.” I injected as much confidence as I could into my voice, but the truth was that I was shaking all over. He was a big man. With a gun. I was just me, Cady Andrews, aspiring intrepid reporter.
“You lied about how you found Patrice LaSalle. And I think Sheriff Beale knew you lied. I think there was some kind of conspiracy going on to frame Thomas Jefferson for murder, and you were part of it.”
He laughed.
“You’re a real piece of work,” he said. “I found LaSalle, all right.”
“You drove back and forth along the river every day to get to work,” I told him. “I’ve been there. I saw where the body was dumped. It’s impossible to see anything in the river there. It’s too muddy and too deep.”
“There was a big storm. The body floated to the surface.”
“No, it didn’t. It couldn’t have. It was secured to a pulley at the bottom of the river by a cable that was only a couple of feet long. There was no way it could have floated to the surface—unless someone cut the cable.”
“Well then, I guess that’s what happened,” he said smoothly.
“You cut it.” I was feeling more confident, thanks to the folder I’d found at the cabin. “The police reports say that the body was attached to the pulley with a rope, and that the rope broke. But that’s not true. It was attached by a thick cable. I’ve seen pictures. There’s no way that cable could have broken unless someone cut it. That’s what you did. You knew where the body was. You cut the cable, retrieved the body, and then you and Sheriff Beale framed Thomas Jefferson for murder. But why? Because he wanted to be treated just like everyone else? Is that a crime around here?”
Sheriff Hicks was still smiling. He was still holding me in his grip.
I walked forward until I was almost on top of the file. With my next step, my ankle went out from under me. Kind of on purpose. I fell. I grabbed as much dirt as I could, and when Sheriff Hicks caught hold of my arm again and pulled me up, I threw the dirt into his eyes. He staggered back, cursing. I grabbed the folder and ran.
I ran as if my life depended on it. Because it did. I heard Sheriff Hicks bellow behind me, and I poured on the speed. I did my best to keep moving east, so I wouldn’t lose my bearings. I leaped over tree trunks and rocks. I ducked under fallen branches. I kept running even when the rain started to patter on the overhead canopy. I was still running when the sky opened up with such fat, heavy raindrops that they tumbled through the foliage and beat against the ground below. I didn’t stop running until the lightning started.
I had to get out from under all those trees.
I ran until I reached the extreme edge of the woods. I ran until I tripped on an exposed tree root and went flying, landing face down on rock and mud and slick leaves. Down and hurt and staring into an opening of some kind. A gap between some rocks. A little cave. I crawled inside and pulled some brush over the opening. Then I held my breath and waited.
I heard heavy breathing. I heard footsteps. I heard cursing. They grew loud and then faint again. I heard Hicks shouting my name in the distance.
The sky was black, lit now and again by sheet lightning. The rain hammered down. I clutched the folder to keep it dry. I started to shiver.
I don’t know how, but despite the wind and the rain and the damp that seized me and held me like a giant wet, cold hand, I fell asleep. When I woke up, everything was quiet. Cautiously, I uncovered the opening of my cramped hiding place. The woods were dark save for a sliver of moonlight. I stayed put, barely breathing, until my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness and I was sure there was no one out there waiting for me. I crept out on my hands and knees and slowly unfolded myself and stretched. I was shaking all over from the cold and the damp. I knew I couldn’t stay where I was. I had to get back to town.
There was no sign of Sheriff Hicks.
I stumbled around for what seemed like hours before I finally happened upon the trail again. Heaven knows I didn’t find it as a result of searching for it, because the truth was that I had no idea where to look. I followed it back to the dirt road. Maggie’s bike was exactly where I had left it. I climbed on and started to ride, scanning all around me, half terrified that Sheriff Hicks would appear out of nowhere, gun in hand.
He didn’t.
When I got to the junction, I was more nervous than ever. What if he was waiting for me here? What if he was waiting just down the road or around the corner? What if…?
It was coming on dawn by the time I made my way to Freemount and knocked on Mrs. Jefferson’s door. She didn’t have a phone, but she dispatched Daniel to town to get Maggie while she fed me chicken and gravy with biscuits and a big glass of milk. I tried to make myself eat slowly, like the lady Mrs. Hazelton wanted me to be. But it was too hard. It had been more than thirty-six hours since I’d had anything to eat. And the thirst—down went the first glass of milk, followed swiftly by the second.
Daniel finally returned, Maggie in tow.
“The sheriff was sitting in his car outside Maggie’s house,” he reported. “I had to go around the back, and then I had to convince her to sneak out so he didn’t see us.” The impatient expression on his face told me this had not been easy.
“What on earth is going on?” Maggie asked when she saw me. “Where were you? I was so worried. And why do I have to slink around like a criminal?”
In answer to all her questions, I pushed the thick file folder across the table to her. She opened it and frowned, then she sat down and started to read. Mrs. Jefferson made coffee. Maggie sipped it gratefully while she worked her way through the file.
“Where did you get this?” She looked at me, a stunned expression on her face.
“The only thing I can’t figure out,” I said, “is why he used cable instead of rope. It’s like he didn’t want the body to be found at all and then changed his mind. But why?”
But Maggie was focused on something else.
“Sheriff Beale lied.” She looked at Mrs. Jefferson. “He lied. Your son never confessed.”