Schooled In Lies (17 page)

“I’ll take it. Thanks.” I followed her back to the office, happy that I’d left my work number as well as my cell phone number.

“Dr. Brock, this is Kendra Clayton. Thanks for calling me back,” I said into the receiver. I tried to turn away so Iris couldn’t hear my conversation.

“Since your message said this was about my Righteous Lies documentary, can I assume that this has to do with Calvin Lee Vermillion’s recent release from prison?” Ben Brock’s slightly nasal voice sounded amused.

I told him it was. Not really wanting to get into my specific reasons on the phone, I asked Dr. Brock if I could stop by his office later that afternoon before my dreaded class.

“I shall await your arrival with bated breath,” replied the sociology professor, who hung up on me before I could thank him for his time.

I turned to hang up the phone and caught Iris enthusiastically sniffing her armpits. She caught me watching her and held up both her arms.

“I think my deodorant stopped working. What do you think? Can you smell me?” she asked, getting up and coming over to me, arms still raised over her head.

I almost broke my neck getting back to my classroom.

Ben Brock’s office was located in Oliver Hall on the second floor. It was a dark, cramped corner office with a filmy cracked window and a blurry view of the side of Floyd Library. A large rolltop desk took up most of the office. Ben Brock took up most of what was left. He was a tall white man and large, but not so much fat as hefty, with a shock of brown, curly hair that hung over his collar, with a red bulbous nose that looked like it was always stuffed up. I guessed his age to be late forties. He was wearing faded jeans and an untucked denim chambray shirt. The worn leather sandals on his large feet, which were propped up on a corner of the desk, looked like relics from the sixties. I noticed a woven hemp bracelet on his right wrist. I could hear what sounded like rap music coming from a small boom box by his chair.

“Miss Clayton?” he asked looking up.

“Please, call me Kendra.”

Dr. Brock reached down and switched off the boom box. “Love that Wu Tang Clan, don’t you?” He gave me a sheepish smile. I laughed and he gestured towards a chair by the door. I sat.

The office smelled a little funny and I soon realized it was a combination of Vicks Vapo Rub and the spicy mustard slathered all over the large deli sandwich sitting on his desk in front of a wedding picture of him and his beautiful wife, a cinnamon-colored sister with long bead-laden braids and a nose ring.

“I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted your dinner, professor.”

“More like a late lunch, and, no, you’re not interrupting me at all. And, it’s Ben.” He swung his long legs down from the desk and sat up to give me his full attention. “Now, what can I do for you, Kendra. I’m all ears.”

I explained I wanted to know about the other three Righteous Whites. He blew his nose loudly before answering me.

“Sorry. Summer cold’s got me all stopped up. Anyway, the Righteous Whites,” he laughed. “A sorrier bunch I have never seen. The real power behind the group was, of course, Calvin Vermillion. Those other three idiots were just stupid and unlucky. Lazy, unemployed losers who had nothing better to do than drink and follow Vermillion around. I never got the impression that they seriously subscribed to his views.”

“What happened to them?” I asked.

“Shane Powers died of a massive heart attack back in eighty-five not two weeks after I interviewed him. Donnie and Ricky Boone each got ten years less than Vermillion and Powers. Their lawyers claimed they were both borderline retarded, which I’m inclined to agree with. They got paroled within a few months of each other about five years after I interviewed them. Last I heard, Donnie’s a preacher out in California. Got married and has a houseful of kids. Ricky, on the other hand, got blinded in a prison fight and lives with their younger sister and her husband, a cop.”

“Of course. She was Calvin Lee’s girlfriend and the other person involved in the murder of Maurice Groves.” He took a big bite of his sandwich.

“No. She was a witness.” I corrected him. But Dr. Brock shook his head vigorously. I had to wait until he finished chewing his mouthful of sandwich for him to elaborate.

“Not according to Calvin Lee. He’s maintained all along that Alice Rivers was an active participant in what they did to Maurice Groves. He claims they knocked Groves down and Alice Rivers was the one who started kicking him first.”

I almost fell out of my chair. Ms. Flack a murderer? Was it possible?

“And you believed him? He’s a racist and convicted murderer,” I needlessly pointed out.

“The only people who know for sure are the people who were there that night. But, Shane Powers, and the Boone brothers, also backed up what Calvin Lee told me. The three of them had a falling out with Vermillion and he was no longer speaking to them months before they were all arrested. They had no reason to back up his story unless it was true.”

“But why in the world wasn’t she charged with murder?” I still wasn’t sure I believed anything a man like Vermillion said. I’d known Ms. Flack for more than a decade, and until recently, she’d never seemed anything but caring and helpful.

“Miss Clayton, you already answered that question. Who was a jury going to believe, an innocent looking fifteen-year-old girl or a racist who had a rap sheet as long as my arm? Besides, there was a lot of pressure on the district attorney’s office by community leaders to get a conviction and put an end to the boiling racial tensions in the town. They needed Alice Rivers to testify against the other four. My guess would be that the DA figured sending four out of five people to prison was better than not getting any convictions. I bet they offered her immunity for her testimony.”

I filled him in on Ms. Flack aka Alice Ivy Rivers’s probable murder and her fear of Calvin Vermillion finding out where she was. Now it was his turn to be shocked.

“Wow. I saw that on the news. I didn’t know it was her. Is that why you asked me about Powers and the Boone brothers? You thought one of them could have killed her?”

“Seemed logical to me that one of them could have finally tracked her down and made her pay for sending them to prison while she was scott free. If they didn’t do it, then Calvin Lee could have paid someone to kill her and make it look like an accident,” I said.

“Not if he thought she was already dead,” he replied.

“What?” I leaned so far forward in my chair I almost fell out. Dr. Brock laughed when he saw the shocked look on my face.

“Two years ago, Calvin Lee’s sister, Mildred Perry, contacted me and asked if I’d be willing to do another follow-up documentary on her brother’s conversion to Christianity. Seems after my original documentary aired, Mrs. Perry was consumed with saving her brother’s soul. Calvin Lee was obsessed with getting revenge on Alice Rivers. It’s what he was living for, and his sister knew it would ruin his chance for parole. Mildred claimed she did the only thing she could do to get him to let go of his hatred. She lied and told him Alice Rivers was killed in a car accident. Since Calvin Lee’s illiterate, it was unlikely he would find out otherwise. He believed what his sister told him. As for the Boone brothers, I seriously doubt either one of them killed her. If you’d met them, you’d know what I mean. Emotionally, they were a lot like children. They didn’t hold grudges.”

But if none of the Righteous Whites killed Ms. Flack, then who did? It was getting late. I thanked Ben Brock for his time and headed off to class.

“What was it like?” Cherisse Craig asked me later that evening at dinner. She’d been waiting for me at my car when I’d gotten out of class.

I was so conflicted about Ms. Flack’s supposed involvement in the Groves murder that I wasn’t really in the mood for company and tried to politely put her off. But she said she needed to talk to me. When she offered to buy me dinner, and since I’m not about to turn down a free meal, we ended up at Estelle’s.

“I’ve never seen a dead body before. How bad was it? Did she look like she suffered?” I was a little freaked out by her morbid interest in the state of Ms. Flack’s body. Maybe if we hadn’t known the woman I’d have been more eager to share.

“She just looked like she was sleeping.” I took a long sip of my chocolate milkshake to hide my annoyance. I could tell she didn’t believe me. But at least she dropped the subject. I was still no closer to finding out why she wanted me to have dinner with her.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” I finally asked. She stopped eating her taco salad and wiped her mouth before speaking.

“Ms. Flack was the one who got me the job with Julian,” she said bluntly, watching for my reaction.

“Really,” I said slowly. I suddenly remembered her telling me that the woman Julian was seeing had helped her get her job with him. Ms. Flack and Julian Spicer had been a couple? Cherisse nodded knowingly when she knew I’d figured it out.

“They were seeing each other? For how long?”

“About a year,” she said. “They tried to hide it. But I knew. Hell, I couldn’t help but know. She would come by and they’d have these long two hour lunches in his office. But, girl, the noises coming out of that office weren’t anything G-rated. He had her ass speaking in tongues.”

Eew! I hadn’t wanted to think about Ms. Flack’s dead body, but I really didn’t want to think about her spread and ready on Julian Spicer’s desk, either.

“They were both grown folks. It shouldn’t have mattered that they were an item. It wasn’t anybody’s business,” I said. Cherisse rolled her eyes.

“All I know is it’s not fair that everybody thinks that Julian missing out on that contract was the only reason he was upset and fell off his roof. He broke up with Ms. Flack the day before he died. I’m not the only one he was mad at; of course, no one knew about them so I got all the blame. And you know what?” she asked lowering her voice and leaning forward.

“What?” I asked, leaning in, too.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she pushed him off that roof.”

“Why would she have killed Julian? Because he dumped her?” I asked wearily. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear more negative things about a woman I’d so recently admired.

“Julian was planning on being a big contributor to her campaign for mayor. But I think he must have found something out about her because he not only broke up with her, he cut ties to her campaign. The day before he died I heard them arguing in his office. Ms. Flack was crying and begging him to believe her about something. Julian threw her out of his office and told me that he wouldn’t be taking any more of her calls.”

Could Julian have found out about her past? I told Cherisse about Ms. Flack’s connection to the Righteous Whites but left out what Ben Brock had told me. I still couldn’t believe it. I could barely finish what I was saying before Cherisse cut me off.

“See. I told you so,” she whispered excitedly, waving her napkin in the air. “I knew it. He must have found out. Kendra, she was planning to run for mayor. If people knew she’d been involved with a white supremacist who killed someone, she could not only kiss her chances of becoming mayor goodbye, she might have been fired from her job as well. I bet she pushed Julian off the roof to keep him from telling everyone.” Cherisse sat back in the booth looking excited.

I couldn’t argue with her logic and didn’t try. It just opened another big can of worms. If Julian had found out about her past, who told him? And did whoever told him kill Ms. Flack? Cherisse excused herself to go to the bathroom, and I finished up my burger and fries, eager to get home so I could be alone to think.

“Well, if it isn’t Nancy Drew. I thought that was you over here,” said a sarcastic voice near my ear. I turned and looked into the doughy face of Dennis Kirby and rolled my eyes. I knew he could tell I didn’t want him to sit down but he did anyway.

“I’m about to leave.”

“Well, Cherry’s plate is still plenty full.” He gestured towards Cherisse’s half-eaten salad. “What’s wrong? Is the food here bad? Is she in the bathroom puking?” He laughed loudly when he saw the pissed look on my face.

“Please go away. Your sense of humor wasn’t funny back in high school and now it’s just pathetic.” He looked like I’d slapped him and for some strange reason I instantly felt bad.

“Man, I was just kidding. Just trying to lighten the mood. I…oh forget it,” he mumbled and got up to go.

“I’m sorry.” I said, stopping him. He grinned and sat back down. I noticed that his wrist was still bandaged from the accident in his garage.

“Hey, I’m sorry, too. I saw you and Cherry, ah, Cherisse through the window when I was walking by and I figured you guys were probably talking about Ms. Flack. Heard you were the one to find her. That must have been awful, huh?”

Not wanting to get into any details, I simply nodded.

“I was the one who had to identify Julian after his accident. My folks were too broken up to do it,” he said in a gruff voice. “It’s not anything you ever forget.” I could see the start of tears glistening in his eyes and looked away. This wasn’t a side of Dennis I was used to seeing.

“How are your parents doing?” I pushed my empty plate aside to give him my full attention.

“They’re okay. Mom’s arthritis is getting worse and Dad’s heart is bad. I got a line on a job as an assistant athletic trainer with the Kingford College baseball team. If I get it, I’ll be busy working and traveling with the team and won’t be able to keep an eye on them. I’m trying to talk my folks into moving into a smaller house all on one floor. But so far they aren’t going for it.” I knew firsthand from my dealings with Mama just how stubborn older people could be and couldn’t offer any advice.

“Dennis, could you do me a favor?”

“What?” He gave me a surprised and suspicious look.