Micanopy in Shadow (27 page)

“Morning, Granddad,” Grant said, opening the door for Brandy and stepping up into the porch. Brandy had forgotten how fragile the old man was, how hollow the sockets of his eyes. But they were as moist and lively as before. “We need another look at your father’s papers,” he added.

The old man peered up at Brandy, silent and unsmiling.

Once again, she pulled a plastic chair away from the wall and sat facing him, but not uncomfortably close. “I’m interested in looking at notes the marshall made about the revenue agent’s murder in 1921. I believe the case was never solved.”

The suggestion of a grin flickered across Savage Wilson’s thin lips. “Damn liquor law commenced the year before. I recollect my daddy didn’t like to talk about the case much. Never could put nobody away for it. In a lot of ways, ‘shine made life hard on lawmen. ‘Low brush lightning,’ that’s what they called ‘shine hid out in the piney woods.”

Grant had vanished into the house, and now returned, carrying the same plastic file box he’d looked into ten days earlier. He set it on the floor by another chair, seated himself, and began turning through the records. Grant had said the resourceful Aunt Liz organized them—a woman of unexpected talents. He soon found notes about the questioning of Caleb Stark, skimmed them, and handed the pages to Brandy. The notes included no reference to the bloodstain—a strange omission, Brandy thought. She handed the pages back and recorded the few details, then had a sudden thought. “Is there anything in his notes about Adrian Irons?” Grant would realize she was probing for an official complaint.

The ranger thumbed through the alphabetized folders again. “You can bet there won’t be anything about wife abuse. Wasn’t even considered a crime then. A man could do almost anything he wanted to his wife.”

Brandy nodded bitterly. “Wives were little better than property. They didn’t have the vote yet, so they couldn’t change things.”

Both had almost forgotten the old man, but he wanted back in the conversation. “Danged if I don’t recollect something about Adrian Irons, and that’s the truth,” he said in his reedy voice. “When I was a young ‘un, Irons was a fine gentleman, lived in a big house at the edge of town. While he’d be off taking care of all his property, his wife went a-swishing around town in her fancy clothes. Mama couldn’t stand the likes of her. But Mama did say Mr. Irons treated her mean. Talked mean to her, never took her no place. But she was one independent female.” His grin exposed a set of brown, crooked teeth. “She was a big deal in women’s circles. When Mr. Irons got that big old four-door Oldsmobile, danged if she didn’t up and learn to drive it. After that, she’d take herself places. He couldn’t keep that woman down for long.” A smile lingered at the memory. He seemed almost to admire such a sassy female. Brandy hadn’t seen even a photo of his own mother. Had she also been a woman “hard to keep down?”

But then he swiveled around to glare at Brandy. His tolerance didn’t extend to female journalists. “What you asking about them folks for? They got nothing to do with the Starks. Or,” he narrowed his eyes further, “your great-grandmama’s drowning.” He hadn’t forgotten why she came the first time.

“Oh,” she said sweetly, “but I’m interested in what the whole town was like then. Local color, journalists call it.”

Savage lapsed into another lengthy silence while Grant flipped through the remaining file folders. “Nothing here about the Irons family,” he said. Suddenly he halted. “Here’s something we didn’t see before. It’s a note about the Losterman drowning. It was stuck in a file about the Marshall’s responsibilities.” He pulled a yellowing sheet from a file and read aloud:

“
Had a terrible electric storm on the night of October 2. Lights went out all over the area, even in Gainesville. After the rain died down some, a neighbor near the Smith Street pond saw a light circling the north shore for several minutes; finally went out. Reported it to the Sheriff’s Office, but the investigating officer found nothing wrong in the area.”
Wilson had added a notation.
“Hard rain that night would’ve washed out footprints. The neighbor thought he heard a car stop and later start up again—couldn’t tell because of rain and wind.”

“A curious development,” Brandy said, pulling out her notebook and jotting down the information. “I wonder if it means anything, coming the night after Ada drowned.” Of course, the Marshall could be covering his own tracks.

The old man leveled a more benevolent gaze at Grant. His mind had reverted to the murdered revenue agent. He startled them by chortling. “’Course, some say ‘shine made right smart money for some lawmen.” Brandy stopped writing. She knew bribery flourished in Florida during Prohibition.

“Papa was a smart cuss,” the old man continued with pride. “Never let no man put nothing over on him. I reckon, if he couldn’t make a case, he’d pocket the proceeds, know what I mean?” Brandy wondered if Wilson’s failure to note the bloodstain resulted from negotiation with Stark. Maybe if the marshall or the Sheriff’s Office didn’t have enough evidence to make the case, the marshall pocketed the proceeds to save Caleb further embarrassment.

“I understand your father was a member of the Ku Klux Klan,” Brandy said matter-of-factly. The Wilsons would surely know how widespread such membership was in the past.

Old Savage Wilson snorted, eyes dancing. “You bet your sweet life, he was. Done a lot of good, the Klan did in them days.”

Brandy remained silent on the subject. Too late for a lecture on tolerance and justice. But she did have another request. She faced him. “I never saw a photograph of your mother,” she said.

The old man shifted in his chair and ran a bony hand across his mouth. Finally he said, “Not many around. Mama was handicapped, you know. Caught that disease the president had later, what they called infantile paralysis. Came on when I was about six.” He glanced up. Brandy couldn’t read the look in his heavy-lidded eyes. “Never got out of a wheelchair after that, she didn’t. Didn’t want her picture took, of course.” He looked over at Grant. “Seems like Liz keeps an old album that’s got the only one there is, and it’s just a snapshot—except their wedding picture, of course. That’s in the album, too. Mama always kept it on her dresser. Reminded her, I reckon, of how she looked once—and Papa.”

“Was she able to move to Tallahassee with your father when he was a state senator?”

He shook his head. “She never wanted to see folks, I reckon. Stayed in their house in Micanopy. Nice big house. There’s a picture of it somewhere in that album, too.”

“You say the album’s in Aunt Liz’s room?” Grant moved quickly to the doorway. He’d better hurry. If Liz returned, she’d never let them see it.

He vanished into the house and Brandy heard him open and close a door. In fifteen minutes he emerged, leather bound volume under one arm. “It wasn’t easy to find. She had it under some blankets on a closet shelf in her bedroom.”

He pulled up a chair and sat beside Brandy while Savage Wilson rolled his chair close enough to peer at the pages as Grant turned them. A black-and-white wedding photograph was pasted on an early page. The tall figure of Zeke Wilson stood a little behind his bride. Brandy noted again his high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and the angles of his face, all reflected in Grant’s.

But this time she was more interested in the young wife, her round, pretty face, shapely nose and mouth, and pale, wavy hair. Her bright smile befitted a bride. She wore a traditional wedding gown, white, lacy, and nipped in tight around a small waist. “Your mother was lovely,” Brandy said.

“You’ll see why she didn’t want no pictures took later,” the old man said. Grant turned rapidly past pages of long dead relatives, pausing over several of Wilson looking fierce as Sheriff and sedate as Senator.

At last he located the one they were looking for. Mrs. Ezekiel Wilson was hard to recognize as the sweet young woman in the wedding photograph. She hunched over in a wheelchair, a shrunken figure in a shapeless smock that covered her legs, her face thin and drawn. One frail hand rested on the large wheel, her eyes wide with surprise. Brandy felt sympathy for the wife and mother who wanted to be seen only as she’d looked as a bride.

The next page showed the couple’s grand Micanopy home, a Queen Anne with wide veranda, gingerbread trim, and a turret rising from the second floor. Savage Wilson shook his head. “Couldn’t keep it up after Papa passed. It finally burned in the fifties.

Brandy was completing her notes when the living room door swung open. The stout figure of Aunt Liz towered in the doorway, as grim and menacing as an Easter Island statue. She ignored Grant, glared at Brandy, and bellowed, “What in tarnation you doing here again? I told you plain as day. Daddy and me got nothing to say to newspaper folks.”

Brandy snapped her notebook closed and thrust it into her bag. “We’re just going,” she said.

“And don’t try to tell me you ain’t poking and prying into our business!” Liz rounded on Grant. “Ought to be ashamed of yourself, helping this woman dig up stuff about your own kin. I heard your granddaddy say the marshall was in the Klan!”

Had she been listening, trying to figure how damaging Brandy’s search could be? Liz, if not her father, seemed to know Klan membership would not elevate her father’s reputation. “Now give me them records and get out.”

Grant closed the lid of the file and stood. “No harm done,” he said soothingly.

“No harm done, my foot!” She advanced onto the porch. “A few minutes ago, I heard this poor old man practically accuse his own daddy of taking money from them moonshiners. Now get, the lot of you!”

Grant was lifting the file box in her direction when they heard refined voices coming from the front yard. “Could stand some mowing out here,” a woman complained.

In a softer tone, a man said, “I expect Old Man Wilson keeps his daughter busy enough.” There was a knock on the screen door.

The woman called, “Hello there!” She was tall and her torso wedge-shaped, as if stuffed into a too-tight corset. A lapel of her tailored navy suit featured a gold pin in the shape of a schoolhouse.

“I’m Mrs. Rice, the new principal of Ezekiel Wilson Elementary School,” she announced as Grant stepped forward and opened the door, “and this is the Alachua County school superintendent, Mr. Dunn.”

She had derailed Aunt Liz’s tirade. Liz drew herself up, preening, and smoothed down her print cotton housedress. After a disparaging glance at Brandy and Grant, she smiled broadly at the new guests. “Do come right on in,” she said. “I reckon you’re here about the ceremony.” She handed a thick cane to her father. He lurched up from his chair and hobbled forward with a bemused expression.

Mr. Dunn, a short, tubby man of middle age with an ingratiating smile, said, “Oh, indeed we are.” He glanced at Grant and Brandy and hesitated, as if anticipating an introduction.

When none was forthcoming, he took Mrs. Rice’s arm and began guiding her through the door into the living room. Grant steadied his grandfather, then nodded at Brandy and spoke up, “This is Brandy O’Bannon. She’s a journalist lives here. She might be interested in covering the story.”

Mr. Dunn turned an alert glance toward them again. “We want to honor Mr. Wilson’s father, Ezekiel, for his excellence in law enforcement and government. Of course, he was a native of Micanopy.” He looked again at Aunt Liz. “We’d like you to fill us in on his career. I plan to introduce the school’s new principal here”—he directed his gaze at Mrs. Rice—“and then give a short speech about the school’s namesake. We’d certainly welcome news coverage.”

“They were just leaving,” Liz said firmly.

When she opened the living room door, Brandy caught a glimpse of a Victorian parlor stuffed with heavy furniture—large sofa, its frame carved in foliage and scrolls, fireplace where gas logs spurted a blue flame, matching armchairs with rounded contours, a pink-topped marble table laden with knickknacks. It looked as if Zeke Wilson’s furnishings had been preserved in his son’s more modest house.

The superintendent turned to Brandy. “I knew a Hope O’Bannon years ago,” he said. “Is she a relative?”

“My grandmother.”

“We taught together.” He beamed. “I was still wet behind the ears. She was a fine fourth grade teacher. Headed an organization of elementary school teachers that petitioned Senator Wilson in Tallahassee.” He chuckled. “She was a stem-winder in those days, even if he turned her down. Be sure to ask her to come. I’d enjoy seeing her again.”

Brandy nodded. “Be glad to.”

Dunn gave the principal his arm. As they stepped into the next room, he added, “She could represent teachers who taught in the former school.”

Liz planted herself in the doorway after they passed through, glowering at Brandy. His suggestion disturbed her. She gripped Brandy’s arm. “Stick to the script, young lady!” she hissed. “I’ll not have gossip spread about the marshall. And warn your grandmother. I know her. She’ll say whatever comes into her head.”

Brandy yanked free and glanced down at the red finger marks on her arm before escaping with Grant into the front yard. They hurried through the thick grasses and swung open the metal gate.

Clouds had closed together since that morning and hovered like a gray quilt above Hawthorne Trail and the prairie beyond. Brandy stopped on the paved path. “I’ve never walked much beyond this point. I’d like to see the overlook. It’s not a lot further, is it?” She wanted to digest the tidbits she’d learned at the Wilsons. She could still be home for a late lunch.

“Maybe a quarter of a mile.” Grant began strolling east between rows of turkey oaks, white oaks, and palmettos. In about fifteen minutes, he turned right on a path that led south toward the overlook. When they reached the end, Brandy still couldn’t see much. The prairie and a sinkhole of standing water were fenced off and low shrubbery encircled the area. They seated themselves on a covered bench, a map of the state preserve on a large board at their backs. Brandy glanced at her notes and silently ticked off information in the marshall’s files.