Chapter Thirty-One
Sheriff Martin put up a hand to silence me as I was about to speak. He waited a moment in silence, then Lester must have picked up the phone on the other end because he started to talk, a big smile crossing his face. “Lester! Jimmy Martin. How you doin’? Good. Listen, I hate to bother you on a Saturday like this, but there’s something I need to talk to you about. Yeah, mm hm. I’m down here at the station. Can you come down? You were? Great. I’ll see you soon.” He hung up the phone and Sally Ann and I both started speaking at the same time.
I prevailed. “What are you doing? He’s my cousin!”
Sheriff Martin looked at me seriously. “I told you, Carey,” he said, “Lester Macaboo is a powerful man in
this town. I’ve known him for many years. If he knows anything about what’s going on here, I want to know.” “But why have him come down here, daddy?” Sally Ann asked. “Won’t he be suspicious?”
“Lester’s not the sort of man I like to fool with, honey,” he told her. “I don’t believe he’s mixed up in this, but even if he is it’s better to be up front about what we’re doing and what we’re thinking. Do you know what would happen if we snuck around in the shadows making accusations about him and we turned out to be wrong? I’d have lots of time to fish, that’s for certain.”
We talked a bit more and then the stream of conversation started to run dry. A few minutes later Lester Macaboo arrived. He looked pretty much the same as he had the last time I’d seen him, when we’d gone to the country club with Aunt Millie. This time he wore kelly green golf slacks, tan loafers, and a white short-sleeved dress shirt. The monogram LJM was stitched on the shirt pocket.
He was surprised to see me. “Carey! What’s going on here?” He walked over to the desk and shook Sheriff Martin’s hand. “Good to see you, Jimmy. What’s all the excitement about?” I got up from my chair and he sat in it without missing a beat or thanking me. I stood next to Sally Ann.
“Lester, I know you know about the killing at the colored folks’ parade last week.” Lester looked up at me. I looked at Sheriff Martin. I admit I was a little scared of my rich cousin. “Well, I’ve been looking into it here and there and I’ve come across a few things that don’t seem to fit. I thought you might be able to help us out.”
Lester smiled. “What do you mean, us? Since when is your daughter a member of the Ransom Police force?”
Sally Ann blushed and started to speak, but her father interrupted her. “She’s here with me, Lester. The one who’s really been helping out is Carey. Tell him what you’ve found out, Carey.”
I was tongue tied for a moment, as Lester turned in his chair to watch me speak. But I managed to get my story out, leaving out the details of my getting punched at the bakery and Lester III coming to my grandmother’s apartment to intimidate me.
Lester listened to the story and began to chuckle as I told him about the bet between his father and Senior Tompkins.
“You mean to say,” he told me, “that you’ve never heard that old tale before? My daddy told me that many years ago and I don’t think there’s a grain of truth in it. Well, maybe a grain or two, but certainly not a whole sandbox.”
Sheriff Martin laughed and I smiled. “But Lester,” I said, “it doesn’t make sense to me any other way. First, we’ve got Lulabelle Mackenzie getting shot and killed at the Juneteenth parade. Why would she be killed? She was just a kid.”
“How should I know?” replied Lester.
“Then, I find out that her brother Raymond has disappeared. He worked at the bakery and when I went there asking about it,” I hesitated to add that detail to my story.
“You’d better go ahead and tell him, Carey,” Sheriff Martin said.
“Tell me what?” Lester asked.
“The other day, after I saw Lester III at the bakery, one of the workers punched me and threatened me as I was leaving.”
Lester sat up straight in his chair. “A nigger?” He was red in the face and clearly surprised to hear this. “Which one?”
“I don’t know. He told me to stop looking into other people’s business.”
“We’re going to go down there right now and have this settled. He’ll be fired immediately.” He started up from his chair, but Sheriff Martin motioned for him to sit.
“Hold on, Lester, there’s more. Hear him out.”
“Go on, then,” Lester told me.
“Well,” I said, “that naturally got me more interested in what was going on. I spoke to a man out in Powell who said that, before Raymond disappeared, he had been bragging about having something on a white man and that he was due to come into a lot of money.”
“Probably just talk,” Lester said.
“Maybe so,” I added. But then someone came into my grandmother’s apartment looking for something and nearly got her killed.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Lester asked.
“I think someone thought I’d found something and wanted to keep it from getting out. I really don’t know. Then, Peter Crane was killed,”
“Heard about that,” Lester said to Sheriff Martin. “Shame for an old man to go like that. I didn’t know he was killed, though--thought he died on the toilet.”
I spoke before Sheriff Martin had the chance. “We found him there, but he didn’t die there. I went back later and found some unusual items at Crane’s house that might interest you.” I pulled out the slip of paper and handed it to him.
“That’s my old telephone number,” he said. “And Francis’s initials. Why would Crane have that?”
“He didn’t,” I replied. “His wife did, and she’s been dead for years.”
“This is strange,” Lester said, knitting his brow. “What else did you find?”
I took the photo from the sheriff’s desk and handed it to him. He smiled. “That’s daddy alright, and that’s Senior Tompkins with him. Francis’s daddy. I haven’t seen this picture in a long time. Maybe there was more truth to that story about the bet than I thought.” He studied the photo for a minute. “They sure look like they were friends that day.”
“That’s what I thought. Oh, there was one other thing I forgot to tell you. Lester III came to my grandmother’s apartment and told me to stay out of it. I don’t exactly know what he meant, but he was acting funny at the bakery, too, right before I got punched.”
“What are you trying to say?” Lester asked, holding his anger in check.
“I don’t know. But I think Lester knows more than he’s saying and I think that this talk we’ve just had shows that you don’t.”
“Listen, Carey, my boy isn’t mixed up in any of this. You can take my word for it. I raised him to be respectful, and I don’t know why he’s making threats or whatever he’s been making toward you.”
He sank down a bit in his chair and brooded. Then he spoke: “Jimmy, let me use your telephone. Let’s see if we can get Lester down here.”
“Good idea,” said the sheriff, pushing the phone across the desk. Lester leaned forward and dialed. I put the slip of paper and photo back in my pocket and put my hand on the back of Sally’s chair. She leaned back into my arm and it felt good. I had confidence again.
“Tippy?” Lester spoke into the phone. “It’s me. Lester there? No? Where is he? Alright, I’ll see him later.” He hung up the phone.
“He’s not there and he hasn’t been home all day. What should we do?”
Sheriff Martin sat back in his chair and smiled. “I know what I want to be doing, but the fish are asleep for the day now.” We all laughed.
Sally Ann spoke up. “Why don’t we all go home and think about things for awhile. Maybe later Lester will be back and we can figure out what’s going on.”
It was a good idea, and that’s what we all did.
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