“That was my fiancée,” I say softly.
“Oh, no. Lord Jesus.” The Cat Lady lowers her head. “Now I see. So much pain in this world.”
“But you knew something,” Serenity says in an incisive voice. “Didn’t you? Dolores remembered something about those men, or she saw something, and you kept it from the FBI.”
Mrs. Booker watches Serenity for a while without speaking. Then she says, “The FBI told me they found some of Sam’s bones under that tree. They used DNA to identify them. My pastor’s gonna do a pretty service at the church after they get released to me.”
“Mrs. Booker,” Serenity says insistently. “Miss Cleotha. You know something, don’t you?”
The old woman just stares straight ahead.
I take a folded page from the Examiner from my pocket, then get up and kneel beside her. “Mrs. Booker, there are over a dozen unsolved murders from the 1960s in this area, including your son’s.” I unfold the page, revealing headshots of Snake Knox, Brody Royal, Sonny Thornfield, and half a dozen Double Eagles. “These men are suspected in many of them. I think they might have been behind those masks the night your son was murdered.”
The old woman doesn’t look down at the page.
“My fiancée and a very brave journalist did a lot of work to try to punish the men who committed these crimes, Mrs. Booker. They died for it. And a young woman was hurt the other day for trying to carry on their work.”
“I believe I heard about that, yessir.”
“Will you look at these pictures? I know you’re afraid, and you’ve had reason to be afraid for a long time. But things are finally changing, Mrs. Booker. Several of these men are dead already. I killed one myself, though I can’t say that outside this room. Maybe the worst one.”
At last she turns to look at me, piercing brown eyes set in sclera so yellow they look jaundiced. “God bless you, child.”
“But that man’s uncle is still alive. He’s still hurting people like that young reporter.”
The old woman closes her eyes, then gently pushes the calico off her lap and fixes me with an unsettling stare.
“I know things are changing,” she says. “But they don’t change everywhere at the same speed. Down here time moves on a different clock. Down here it’s still forty years ago, in some ways. Back then, I knew if I told those FBI men something, and they started questioning people around here—or up at Natchez, or across the river at Ferriday—word would get out that somebody had talked. And sooner or later, those devils would come back around here. The FBI men always promised protection, but they couldn’t protect anybody. They weren’t gonna move into this house with Dee and me. And Lem was already dead when all this happened. If we’d told anything, we’d have died within a month. And nobody would have made a fuss, either. In white folks’ minds, Sam and Dee had upset the natural order of things, and they got what they deserved.”
I remember my father telling me how his fear of retaliation kept him from telling the FBI things he’d known about the Double Eagles. If a white physician couldn’t summon the courage to talk to the FBI, how could anyone expect a poor black woman to do it?
“What happened to Dolores?” Serenity asks. “Did she go back north after that happened?”
Mrs. Booker pets the cat distractedly. “Eventually. I tried to get her help here.” She nods at me. “I took her to several doctors, but she wouldn’t open up to any of them. Not even Dr. Cage. Your father tried hard, son . . . but nobody could break through that darkness. Dee finally went back to Detroit, with her parents. But she never really got away from that tree. She was beyond mortal help, you see? And she’d given up on God. She had no way back to the light.” The old woman lowers her head. “Dee took her own life about a year after she got back home. Laid down in a hot bath and slashed her wrists. I got a telegram from her daddy. Two lines, that was all. Her family never forgave Sam for bringing their baby south.”
I look at Serenity, who, to my surprise, has tears pouring down her face.
“Why don’t we talk about something else?” I suggest. “We shouldn’t have put you through this for so long.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, baby,” the Cat Lady says, laying her other hand over mine. “It’s Sunday. Pastor Sims will come by and check on me this afternoon. And I’ve got my babies to talk to.” She makes a cooing sound in her throat, and a large gray cat silently springs from some unseen shadow into her lap, taking the calico’s place. The big cat seems to land with purposeful gentleness, as though aware that its owner can’t take much weight.
Serenity gets to her feet, then leans over and kisses the old woman’s hair. “You take care, Auntie. We’re going to leave you in peace.”
Mrs. Booker looks up at Serenity with more alertness than I’ve seen in her eyes for several minutes. “You children are doing good work,” she says. “I can see that. But please be careful. Justice is God’s business. Nothing ever balances out equal in this world. Only in heaven.”
“We’ll be careful,” Serenity promises, and she starts to turn, but the old lady holds her hand tight. “And take a little advice from an old country woman. Most people get snakebit because they tried to kill a creature they should have left in peace. You think about that when you make your plans.”
As Serenity and I walk to the car, the Cat Lady stumps out onto her porch, gripping her walker. Surrounded by circling felines, she watches us like a mother making sure her children are safe until they leave her sight.
After I shut my car door, I say, “The worst story in the world?”
“Not even close,” Serenity says, buckling her seat belt. “But for something that happened in the good old U.S. of A., it’s right up there.”
“I don’t think Mrs. Booker heard the whole story. I think Dolores spared her a lot. The Double Eagles were cruel sons of bitches. They liked to take trophies from their victims.”
Serenity looks at the old woman watching us from the rickety porch. “Too bad Dolores offed herself.”
The coldness in Tee’s voice puts me off, but I sense that she meant no harm by it. Brutal frankness is just her way. I wave at the Cat Lady, then turn the key and start the engine.
“What is it?” Serenity asks. “Why aren’t we leaving?”
Cleotha Booker is still standing on her porch, watching us like she plans to spend the rest of the day standing there.
“Penn?” Tee prompts.
“Give me a second,” I say irritably. “I’ve interviewed a lot of witnesses in my time. After a while . . . you develop an instinct about people.”
“And? What are you saying?”
“Why is she still standing up there?”
“Because she’s a lonely old lady. And we made her think about some horrible shit.”
I shake my head, still focused on the old woman’s hollow eyes. “She’s afraid.”
“Of course she is.”
“Not of the Klan, though. Or the Double Eagles. She’s afraid of us.”