“My mother is a sixty-eight-year-old diabetic who lives alone in our old homeplace. You go near her and I’ll sue you for harassment,” Scott said. He was back on surer ground now, handing out bombastic threats.
“I’m going to talk to her. Today. And if you try to stop me, I’ll arrest you for obstruction. Then I’ll make sure the magistrate is occupied so you get to cool your jets for a few days in holding. You’re not the only one who can hand out threats, but mine come with a badge and gun,” Titus said.
“If my father was alive—”
“He’d call me a racial slur and try to threaten me the same way you did, and I’d ignore him too. I can’t believe I have to tell you this, but this isn’t 1949. You’re the chairman of the Board of Supervisors. You’re white and what passes for rich around here. And I don’t give a damn about none of that. You’re a blood relative to a man who tortured Black boys and girls to death. If I was you, I’d be less concerned about me talking to your mama and more concerned what the fallout from that is going to be.”
“Stay away from my mother,” Scott said. He stomped out of the office.
“Treat people bad, bad comes back to you,” Titus murmured. It was one of his mother’s favorite, most prescient sayings.
TWENTY-THREE
Blue Hills Plantation had been in the Cunningham family for more than two hundred years. The sign at the head of the road that hung from a broken chain attached to the arm of a weathered post said it had been established in 1816. It had survived hurricanes, floods, and the end of the Civil War. The Cunninghams had transitioned from producing tobacco, to opening a seafood factory, and later a flag factory, as smoothly as a ball bearing sliding through mercury.
During a pause in vacation Bible school years ago Mrs. Jojo had told Titus’s class a dark story about how Hollis Cunningham, wounded from the war and full of hatred and venom, had locked his few remaining slaves in a barn and set it on fire as the U.S. Army approached Charon.
“He would rather see them burn than see them free,” Mrs. Jojo had intoned in her razor-sharp articulation.
They haven’t changed much, Titus thought as he turned down the pea-gravel-covered driveway. Enormous magnolias with dead brown petals lined the road, wild arboreal entities that reached out toward their brothers across the driveway with thick twisted branches that brushed against the sides of Titus’s SUV. The road curved to the right, then slunk back to the left, until it ended in a circular driveway in front of the main house.
Titus parked and shut off the SUV. Time hadn’t been kind to Blue Hills. The three-story building was two good storms away from being decrepit. The railing that ran along the outer edge of the wraparound porch that extended three-quarters of the way around the house was missing so many spindles it seemed to have a gap-toothed smile. The shutters were faded and had started to split. Hydrangeas and bougainvillea were on the brink of engulfing the front steps that went up for twelve risers. There was a late-model pickup truck parked off to the side of the house next to an antique Chrysler Fifth Avenue in pristine condition.
Titus got out and walked up the steps to the front door. The wood groaned beneath the weight of his 235-pound frame. He rang the doorbell and heard it reverberate through the structure. How many people who looked like him had seen this building in their nightmares? Seen it in all its glory and known that they would never be allowed the same rights and privileges as the men and women who considered them property?
Titus thought the stain that was slavery was soaked into the bedrock of the place he called home. A curse of blood that no amount of money nor charity could wash away. A curse that people like Ricky Sours refused to believe in and refused to atone for in any meaningful way.
A young Black woman he didn’t recognize opened the door.
“You must be Sheriff Crown,” she said. She was wearing nursing scrubs. The name tag on her chest read NATALIE BIVENS RN.
“Yes, I am. I’d like to speak with Mrs. Cunningham if I could, Ms. Bivens.”
“Miss. It’s Miss, and Scott already called and told me not to let you in … but Mrs. Polly said she wanted to talk to you,” Natalie said.
“Is Mrs. Cunningham … lucid? Her son said she had a lot of medical issues.”
Natalie smiled. “She is sixty-eight. She isn’t in the best of health and she uses a wheelchair to get around most days, but her mind is sharp as a tack. Like I said, she wants to speak with you.” She turned and walked into the house. Titus shut the door behind him and followed her.
The wood-paneled walls of the house seemed to absorb the light from the octagon-shaped dormer windows. Generations of Cunninghams peered down at him from behind the gauze of sepia-toned daguerreotypes. They walked up a two-step rise from the foyer to the parlor. They walked through that room and entered a cavernous living room with cathedral ceilings. The walls were lined with bookshelves that were interspersed with the petrified remains of taxidermied racoons and rabbits and foxes.
Polly Anne Cunningham sat in the center of the room, in a recliner, parallel to a love seat that Titus was sure was at least fifty years old. There was a wheelchair nearby that appeared just as old. Titus took off his hat and his sunglasses.
Polly Anne regarded him coolly. She still had bright, inquisitive blue eyes. Long, lush white hair spilled over her shoulders and over her chest. Her face bore the marks of time, but those marks gave her a gravitas and maturity. In her pale blue and white floral housedress Titus thought she resembled an Old Testament prophet, if women had been allowed to assume that mantle.
“Sheriff. I must say I never thought I’d see the day a Black man wore that badge,” Polly Anne said. Her voice was clear and strong, the kind of voice you heard at PTA meetings and fundraisers for the UDC or the Sons of the Confederacy.
“Does that disturb you?” Titus asked.
“Not hardly. I just never thought Charon would let it happen. Goes to show what I know. Please sit.”
Titus sat on the love seat. It had a lived-in aroma, not sour or unpleasant, just earthy and raw, the scent of thousands of hours of use, of sweat and tears and the touch of skin.
“Natalie, could you help me into the chair?” Polly Anne said. Natalie came over and slipped her arms under Polly Anne’s armpits and transferred her from the recliner to the wheelchair with little trouble. Titus thought Polly Anne must not weigh more than a baby bird.
“Now, let me properly face my guest. Could you tell Crutch to bring us some water?” Polly Anne said.
“Sure,” Natalie said. She left them alone.
“Ma’am, I don’t know if your son told you why I wanted to talk to you, but it concerns a … delicate matter, and I know this might be difficult to talk about, but there are lives at stake, and—”
“You want to talk about my son. The one I gave away,” Polly Anne said.
Titus blinked. “Yes … yes, ma’am. I know this is a sensitive subject, but I need to hear your story. He may be involved in the murders that have taken place, recently and in the past.”
An older Black man in khakis and a white button-down shirt came in carrying a tray with a pitcher of ice water and two glasses. He set the tray on a small circular table next to the wheelchair. He filled both glasses. He handed one to Polly Anne and the other to Titus.
“Thank you, Crutch,” Polly Anne said.
“Of course. Don’t push yourself too hard,” Crutch said. He exited as quietly as he had entered.
“Crutch has worked here since Scott started high school and Alanna was a Girl Scout. He’s the only thing keeping me out the nursing home. I hope the water is fine, Sheriff. It’s basically all I can have these days. I lost my toes to the dangers of Southern living. Too much sweet tea,” Polly Anne said.
Titus glanced down at her feet. They were ensconced in compression socks. Where the toes should have been, the foot just rounded off like a potato.
Titus made a mental note to get his glucose checked.
“Scott wants to put you in a nursing home?” Titus asked.
“He’d rather have me there while he waits for me to die. Then he could sell this place and the twenty-five acres it sits on,” Polly Anne said.
“You don’t seem like you need a nursing home to me,” Titus said.
“It’s not a matter of need, Sheriff. It’s want. My son, the one I kept, wants me in there. But me and old Crutch, we keep foiling his plans. But you didn’t come here to talk about that part of my dysfunctional family.”