Chapter Twenty-One

McClatchey’s house was quiet. No crime scene tape or anything. It had been searched, though, and pretty thoroughly.

Ransacked might be a better word. I wondered if the police had done this, or if it had been Howard, searching for the money.

For that matter, I wondered what had happened to the money, since I assumed it must have been on Jeffrey McClatchey when the police picked him up. Either that or he’d hidden it so thoroughly that no one would ever find it. If the police found it, I wondered, would they put together the same story that we had?

I began searching the place myself. Lucky for me, almost all the file cabinet drawers had been emptied onto the floor in the study, so I could peruse most of them without even having to try to move them.

Most of it was typical. Bills, flyers from stores, scraps of paper with random telephone numbers on them.

But then something caught my eye. At first, it looked like some sort of promotional flyer, a black-and-white newsprint sheet, the kind that might serve to advertise local garage sales, cars and boats and trucks for sale, that sort of thing.

Except at the top were the words “Racial Unity.” The rest of the flyer was covered up by other paper.

I focused on the paper and pulled on it. Slowly, it slid across the floor and out from under the other papers. I worried for a moment about the amount of energy it was going to take to turn the pages once I got it free of the pile.

I shouldn’t have worried, I quickly realized once I settled down on the floor to read it. It was awful. This was not a paper advocating unity among various races. It was a paper advocating the unity of the “Aryan” race. It was apparently the latest edition, dated for that week. The front page had two articles. Above the fold was an article on the need to prepare for the coming race war by learning how to “live off the land.”

I looked out the window at the Alabama hills in the distance.

Maybe McClatchey had been planning to retreat to the Talladega National Forest when his sister-in-law decided “rise up against the white man, stealing his job, raping his wife, and killing his children.” Below the fold was an article entitled

“The Villain as Hero: The Truth About Martin Luther King, Jr.” I shook my head in disgust.

He must have just about blown a gasket when he realized his brother was marrying a woman who was at least half black, I thought. What an idiot.

So then why wait so long to do her in? I wondered. She and Rick had been married for several years. Then it hit me.

All of it. All at once. I had the whole story and I knew exactly what had happened. I just had to prove it.

I flew back to Maw-Maw’s house as fast as I could.

I was already talking as I came hurtling through the door. “Ashara! Call Stephen! Tell him has to go to Birmingham and ask Rick what Molly was planning to do with the money.”

Ashara blinked at me, then pulled out her cell. “Okay,” she said slowly and hit a button.

“Miss Adelaide,” I said, “I’m going to need you and Ashara to take me out to the old Howard road just one more time. I know it’s dangerous, but this is very important.”

“Well, all right, then,” said Maw-Maw, and pulled herself out of her chair. “Just let me go change out of my nightgown and into something more presentable. Though I don’t see what you got to be in such an all-fire hurry for.”

I shooed her into her bedroom, though I hated to waste the time. If I had my way, no one was going to see Maw-Maw, so it didn’t matter how “presentable” she made herself.

Ashara held the phone out to me. “He wants to talk to you.”

I leaned in. “Hey, Stephen,” I said.

“Hi, Callie. Listen, I’m in the middle of something kind of delicate right now. Can this wait?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “This may give us enough to go to the police, Stephen. Please, please, please go to Birmingham and ask Rick about the money.”

Stephen sighed. “You going to tell me what you’re thinking?”

“Not yet. I don’t want to influence how you question Rick about it. If I’m wrong, then no harm done. If I’m right, then we’ll need to gather everything up and go to the police as soon as you get back to Abramsville.”

“Okay,” Stephen said. “I’m leaving now. I’ll call Ashara once I’ve talked to him.”

“Thank you, Stephen.”

“Hey, I want to help.” He hung up the phone with no further good-byes.

“So are you going to tell us what’s up?” Ashara asked.

“Not yet. Go get dressed. I have to go out to the Howard place.”

“What?” Ashara’s voice went up at least a decibel.

“I’ll explain later,” I said.

“I haven’t even showered yet,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter. No one is going to see you. But we need to hurry.”

Ashara heaved a put-upon sigh. “Okay, fine.”

I stood in the living room anxiously tapping my foot until Ashara and Maw-Maw came back out of their respective bedrooms.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We all piled into Ashara’s car and she backed out of the garage and down the driveway.

“Oh. And we need to stop by Jeffrey McClatchey’s on our way, too,” I said.

“What?” Maw-Maw and Ashara spoke in unison.

“He’s in police custody. It’s not like he’s going to try to stop us,” I said.

“Fine. I’ll just be your driver and take you anywhere you want to go without any explanation at all,” said Ashara.

“Driving Miss Callie.”

I shook my head. “You’ll understand once you see it all.”

At Jeffrey McClatchey’s house, I made Ashara come in and get the “Racial Unity” newspaper, expending more energy unlocking the door than I probably should have. But I had no other choice.

“What the hell is this?” she asked as she picked the paper up.

“Be careful!” I said. “There might be fingerprints on it.”

“Oh, my God,” Ashara said, dangling the paper from her fingertips as if it were someone else’s filthy Kleenex.

“Jeffrey McClatchey is, like, in the Klan or something.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And his brother married a woman whose father was black.”

Ashara’s eyes grew round. “I wonder when he found out?”

“I don’t think Molly was ‘passing’ or anything,” I said.

“I think she just didn’t think about it much. But it might have been a while.”

Ashara nodded. “This explains a lot.”

“Exactly,” I said. “So now we need to go out to Howard’s place so I can see if he’s on the same mailing list.”

Ashara gasped. “That would explain everything.”

“See?” I said. “See why I’m in such rush?”

We ran back out to the car. I didn’t bother to lock Jeffrey McClatchey’s door. It was just fine with me if someone decided to come in and rob him blind.

Not that that was very likely in such a small town as Abramsville.

But even dead chicks need to dream.

We parked a little ways down from our usual spot on the highway—Howard had seen that one when he helped Stephen change the tire, and we didn’t want to risk him stopping by to check it out again.

“Okay,” I said. “You two wait here. If you see Howard’s SUV, hide. If you can’t hide, run like hell. Go straight to the police station. Going past the city limits sign will snap me back to you, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

They both nodded, their eyes round. I’d never seen them look more alike.

I hit Clifford Howard’s place at my top speed, blowing through the door so quickly that it actually rattled the screen door a bit.

He was in his usual place on the couch. He looked perfectly calm.

Good. Maybe that meant that he didn’t yet know about Jeffrey McClatchey’s arrest.

Loser, I thought. Then I said it aloud, just for good measure.

And I began searching. If Howard was a subscriber to the same paper, if he read it regularly, then it might still be lying out somewhere.

I just hoped it wasn’t in that damned rolltop desk. I’d never find it there. And without it, it would be hard to make the connection between the two men.

It wasn’t in the living room—I searched around the couch and coffee table, snarling at the murderous loser lounging on the couch every time I moved past him.

Not in the kitchen, either. I wasn’t sticking my head in the toilet tank again, I decided. That had been both creepy and unnecessary last time. And besides, it would be a really strange place to keep newspapers.

And as reluctant as I was to go into the creep’s bedroom, it was eventually the only place I hadn’t checked.

But there it was, sitting right out in plain view on the rickety bedside table. The bastard’s night-time reading material.

I nodded. Okay. That was all we needed.

I didn’t even bother to try to take the newsletter. With everything we were about to give them, the police could subpoena a list of the publication’s subscribers.

It was the connection we’d been looking for.

Now all I needed was to find out what Molly had planned to do with the cash.

* * *

Stephen’s call didn’t come until we’d been back at Maw-Maw’s for over an hour.

Ashara told him what we had found and then held the phone up so I could hear him, too.

“She planned to start some sort of college scholarship fund for underprivileged kids in Alabama,” Stephen said.

“Anyone want to guess who she was going to name it after?”

“Mary Rowell and Graham Howard,” I said.

“Got it in one.”

“You know what that means don’t you?”

“Yep,” said Stephen. “Her whole family’s history was about to be made public.”

“Along with the Howards’ family history,” Ashara said. “A history that included a Howard being in love with a black woman.”

“And Molly and Rick were planning on having children sometime soon,” I added. “Jeffrey McClatchey might have been able to stand his brother marrying a black woman—especially one who didn’t look all that ‘black’—but he couldn’t stand the thought of having his family’s blood mixed with hers.”

“You know what this all means don’t you?” Stephen asked.

“That we’re going to have them arrested for murder?” I replied.

“More than that,” said Ashara. “It means this can be classified as a hate crime—even worse penalties than plain old murder.”

“That’s right,” said Stephen. He sounded especially satisfied.

By the time Stephen pulled into Maw-Maw’s driveway, we had all the information pulled together, all the evidence neatly labeled in file folders.

“I think we’re ready to go to the police,” I said.

“Okay,” said Maw-Maw. “Let’s go. I’m ready.” She pulled herself up out of her chair.

“Oh,” I said, dismayed. “You know what? I think it might be better if just Stephen goes.”

Maw-Maw gave me a long, level look. “Because he’s white?”

“Good lord,” I said. “No. Because he’s Rick’s employee. He can say he was investigating the murder on his own because he just didn’t believe Rick could do such a thing.”

“Oh. Well, then. That’s fine.” Maw-Maw nodded, satisfied, and sat back down.

“And I’m going with him,” I said. “They won’t be able to see me, so I’ll be able to remind him of things while he’s setting it all out for them.” I looked at Stephen. “Cool?”

He nodded. “Works for me.”

Ashara nodded, too. “Okay. I’ll stay here with Maw-Maw. Y’all come straight back here as soon as you can.”

“We will.” Stephen reached out and squeezed her hand.