“No, ma’am, I didn’t. I have reason to believe the boy you gave up to Elias Hillington has grown up to become a killer. Elias is dead. So is a man named Cole Marshall and seven young Black boys and girls. And last night someone nailed a lamb to my front door. I need to catch him before he hurts anyone else or himself,” Titus said.
Polly Anne sipped her water, then set it on the table. “I love my children, Sheriff, but none of them are what you would call good people. Two of them are spoiled, arrogant brats who only recognize dollar bills as an expression of love. The other one, well, you know what he is. I wonder how much I had to do with that. How much of it was the sins of the mothers and fathers come to nestle in his soul.” Her voice quavered, and for a moment Titus thought she might begin to sob. But she just shook her head reproachfully.
“Sheriff, have you ever made what you thought was a good decision only to have it cast shadows over your life for years?” Polly Anne asked.
“Yes, ma’am, I think I have,” Titus said. He saw Red DeCrain on his knees begging for the handcuffs.
“When I was nineteen, I met Horace Cunningham at Washington and Lee University. He was the most handsome, intelligent, charming man I’d ever known. A year later I had dropped out and we were married. Horace was a kind and gentle soul. He was wealthy, but he didn’t flaunt it like the rest of his family. He graduated and we moved here to Blue Hills. He went to work managing the fish house and I tried my best to be a good partner for him. I learned how to entertain and make polite small talk. And every night I lay down next to my husband and I prayed that he would turn over and kiss me and hold me. But he never did.”
“Horace was gay,” Titus said.
Polly Anne smiled. “He liked to say he enjoyed a different kind of love. Eventually his father demanded we produce some heirs. Horace cried before and after. And during, he closed his eyes and then I closed mine, and I think we both were far, far away. After I had Scott and Alanna, we came to an … understanding. We would be husband and wife in every way but one. He was free to find a different kind of love … and so was I.”
“The boy, he was of mixed ethnicity,” Titus said gently. He wondered when was the last time Polly Anne had talked to someone not named Natalie or Crutch. He wondered how her regrets weighed on her soul. He wondered if this confession was giving her absolution.
“I majored in history in college. I never ascribed to the racist dogma that most of Horace’s family embraced. I used to go to the Honey Drop and Club 24 and Gardner’s. I would find … friends there. Was I protecting myself? Using my privilege as a white woman to find affection in the arms of men I could never have been seen with in public? Yes, but I truly considered the people I met there as my friends. Jojo Ware, Ruth and Jimmy Packer, Gene Dixon, I even knew your father, Albert. I hope you don’t judge me too harshly, Sheriff. I was a lonely woman, and those nights in the company of folks who didn’t question my presence, who treated me like a woman, not an ornament, were some of the happiest times of my life,” Polly Anne said.
“You knew my father?” Titus asked. He cocked his head to the right.
Polly Anne let out a short laugh. “Not that way, Sheriff. Albert liked his whiskey and he liked to cut a rug, but he loved your mama. Don’t you ever trouble yourself about that.” She took another sip of water.
“In the summer of 1987 Horace started losing weight. He was a big burly man, so losing a few pounds didn’t concern either of us. Then he started having these terrible night sweats, where he’d leave the bed just soaked. By January of 1988 he was dead. And three months later I got pregnant.”
Polly Anne looked past Titus at a picture hanging on the far wall. Titus had noticed it when he entered the room. It was one of the more recent photos. Horace Cunningham when he was a young man. For a moment the wrinkles in her face smoothed and a smile played at the corners of her lips.
“He was so careful, but I fear someone wasn’t careful with him. And so, you see my dilemma? I was a widow who was pregnant long after my husband had been buried.”
“And you decided to give the child up to the Hillingtons? Why? Did you know how they were? How they could be?” Titus asked.
Polly Anne shook her head.
“No. After Horace passed, his brothers stepped in and tried to take charge of our lives. Lemuel, his oldest brother, set it all up. I never even got to see my child’s face. They forbade me from ever contacting him. I think if I had seen him when he was a baby, I would have tried to keep him. But the Cunninghams would have never allowed me to raise him with Scott and Alanna. They considered him impure.” Polly Anne went to take another sip, but her hand started to tremble. Titus got up and put his hand under the bottom of the glass to steady it.
“I went to see him once. I had Crutch drive me over to the island. We parked a little ways away from the church. He must have been nine. It wasn’t until Lemuel died that I found myself on that island,” Polly said.
She paused.
“He was outside, alone. I was just about to get out the car when I saw him take a blue crab out of a trap and then crush it with a rock. A live crab. He smashed that rock into its shell again and again. I got back in my car and went home. I never saw him again,” Polly Anne said, and this time the tears did come slipping down her face like a thief running off into the night.
“I think … so many times I think if I had kept him, if I had raised him, that I could’ve changed him. If I hadn’t let the Cunninghams intimidate me I could have helped him. Those poor children, that Marshall boy, even Elias … their blood is on my hands,” Polly Anne cried.
Natalie came rushing back into the room, but Titus held up his hand. She stopped, then retreated.
Titus took Polly Anne’s hand in his own. It felt as insubstantial as smoke. Her sobbing subsided.
“The blood is on the hands of the one who spilled it. You’re not to blame for what he’s done. But if you help me, I’ll try to make sure he gets the kind of help he needs. Do you have any pictures of him? Do you know what the Hillingtons named him?” Titus said.
“I don’t have any pictures. I’m ashamed to say I can barely remember what he looks like. But I know they named him Gabriel.”
“After an angel,” Titus said.
* * *
Titus was about to step off the porch when Natalie came to the door.
“This is all gonna get out, isn’t it? About the baby and all that,” Natalie said.
Titus put on his hat and his glasses. “Yeah, it will. When we catch him.”
“She’s been wanting to tell this story for years. Scott, he was a teenager when she had that baby. For some reason he blames her for his father’s death. He won’t like all this becoming public knowledge. Just so you know,” Natalie said.
“I don’t think there’s anything I care about less than what Scott Cunningham likes or doesn’t like. I hope she’s okay with it, though.”
“I think it’s a relief for her, honestly.”
“Good. She’s been through enough.”
“I’m not used to cops being kindhearted,” Natalie said.
Titus put on his sunglasses. “‘We all fall short of grace.’ That’s what my mama would’ve said. You have a good day, now.”
He went to his SUV and called Trey.
“Hey, boss, I talked to Jessica. She said Dallas and Cole weren’t really that close. She and Dallas’s wife been good friends since kindergarten. She did say he liked to pal around with Denver Carlyle sometimes and he was cool with Jasper and that crew at the Watering Hole. I talked to Dallas, but he has an airtight alibi for the night of the murder. He was in Harrisonburg picking up a load for his tractor trailer. Denver refused to talk to me. Jasper denied really knowing him all that well,” Trey said.
Titus rapped his knuckles against the steering wheel. Just another dead end. Another pathway to nowhere.
“Go back to Denver. Bring him in as a material witness. I’ll be back at the station in about thirty minutes,” Titus said.
“Can we really do that? I mean, he isn’t really a witness to anything,” Trey said.
“He doesn’t know that,” Titus said. He hated how the words tasted in his mouth, but the time for niceties was over. They had to find this killer, and if he had to lean into the darker aspects of his position and his status, then so be it. He could chastise himself later.
* * *
Jamal Addison was sitting on the hood of his Prius when Titus pulled in to the sheriff’s office. As Titus exited the SUV Jamal slid down and came over to him.
“Reverend,” Titus said.
“Sheriff, they told me you’d be back soon. I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time,” Jamal said. Titus noticed he seemed subdued, the piss and vinegar seemed to have gone stagnant.
“Reverend, I’m sure you know our time is limited. We have a killer to catch,” Titus said. A cool breeze came rolling from the east, snatching away the warmth from earlier in the day.
“That’s what I want to talk about. Have you given any consideration to canceling Fall Fest?” Jamal said.