“It’s okay, Dr. B,” she said. “You don’t need to make me feel better. I do have white guilt, and I should have white guilt. My whole life is one big exercise in white privilege.”
I didn’t know how to argue with her, or whether to argue with her, so I kept quiet. She turned from the river, looking up the gentle slope of downtown Montgomery: the old business district, the white marble capitol, the sleek tower of the SPLC. “Incredible,” she repeated. “Montgomery is like an American Jerusalem.”
“How do you mean?”
“Sacred to two warring factions. Holy ground to die-hard racists and civil rights crusaders.”
I didn’t always agree with Miranda’s politics—she tended to be far more liberal on virtually every issue than I was—but I had profound respect for her intelligence, idealism, and compassion. Our work together had exposed her to some of the worst of human nature, yet she still believed in the basic dignity and decency of people, whatever their color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or immigration status. Miranda wasn’t a churchgoer—not even a believing Christian, as far as I knew—but she embodied more of the teachings of Jesus than most Bible-thumpers I’d encountered over the years: people who made a big deal of religious faith yet seemed never to have heard or heeded Christ’s teachings about charity, forgiveness, and kindness toward the poor, the sick, the hungry, the homeless.
She turned to me. “Hey,” she said, “speaking of people oppressed by the white man, did you ever manage to see The Revenant?”
I shook my head. “I checked the movie listings, but I didn’t find it. I don’t think it’s playing anymore.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “It has been almost a year since it came out. Oh well—you would’ve hated it. All those Arikara Indians. Not to mention the bear attack. You would’ve been bored out of your skull.”
“Hmm,” I grunted.
“Hey, boss?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry I freaked out about Waylon killing the bear. I guess if the bear was charging him, he didn’t really have a choice.”
“I guess not,” I said. “Not unless he was willing to die so the bear could live. Besides, I think the government has a policy of killing bears that have killed people. They’re afraid the bears’ll get a taste for humans and become habitual offenders. Seems a shame, but I can see their point.”
She nodded. “Hey, boss?”
“I’m still right here.”
“I’m glad we came to Montgomery. But it creeps me out, too. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. But all the way back to Knoxville, as the sun set and the moon rose and the auto traffic gave way to heavy trucks, it felt as if we hadn’t left Montgomery entirely behind; as if we’d brought some of it with us, in the form of ghostly stowaways, polluting the air with exhalations of secondhand hate.
I still didn’t know what version of hate had killed our Cooke County victim. But after Laurie’s introductory course—Hate Groups 101—I now agreed with Miranda. This had to be a hate crime. But what kind of hate crime? We needed help finding out.
CHAPTER 9
IT WAS WITH DECIDEDLY MIXED FEELINGS THAT I dialed the local FBI field office and asked for Angela Price, and I felt more than a twinge of regret when my call went through to her, rather than to voice mail. “Special Agent Price,” she said, her tone brisk and businesslike, wasting neither time nor warmth. Then she simply waited, apparently not wanting to waste words, either.
“Hello. It’s Dr. Bill Brockton, from UT,” I said, awkwardly adding. “Good morning.” I didn’t call her by name, because it felt awkward to say “Special Agent Price.” I knew most of the local FBI agents, and I called the others by their first names, but Price was different. Even though I’d known her for years, and had worked with her on several cases, I didn’t feel entitled—or permitted—to call her Angela.
“How are you, Dr. Brockton?” Her tone warmed. By a fraction of a degree.
“I’m good. Keeping busy, which I like, except for the fact that it means people keep killing people.”
“We do depend on the dark side of human nature for our livelihoods, don’t we? How can I help you, Dr. Brockton?”
“I’m wondering,” I began, with less confidence than I liked, “what your criteria are for opening a hate-crime investigation?”
“First off,” she said dryly, “there has to be a crime.” Duh, I thought, parroting Miranda’s standard response to patently obvious statements. “Second, there needs to be reason to believe that hate or bias—against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity—was a motivation for the crime, in whole or in part.”
“How much reason?”
“Excuse me?”