“I saw you there, in the office early that morning. The morning Michael was killed. You have a brother nobody knows about, you show up at work with a black eye, and now this? Ell, why are you all caught up in this thing?”
I jumped up from the bench. “I gotta go.”
“Ell! Ell!” Rudy called behind me. I never looked back.
I might be arrested and charged with murder, and this time, I didn’t do it.
Chapter 36
Large fluffy snowflakes hit my windshield then melted before the wipers swooped across the glass and erased their watery residue. The swish-swish sound was like a mechanical lullaby as I mentally compiled a checklist of all the ways I’d been so stupid and na?ve. Sam was dead and it was largely my fault. I should have trusted my instincts, my God sense, and never accepted the promotion to the executive suite. And now there was no way in hell I’d stay at Houghton and continue to work with the same people who killed Sam and threatened Vera. But if I left, they’d ruin my career. I’d never work as a lawyer in Atlanta or anywhere else. And even if I didn’t leave the company, I might be arrested depending on whether the Brethren reached the top of the Atlanta Police Department. If I were arrested, who would care for Vera? I was all she had.
Thinking of Vera made me think of Sam. Of course, it was hard not to. I’d been crying off and on ever since the police showed up at my door. Every time I thought about our last conversation at his house, it broke my heart. His talk of being tired of Atlanta and moving back to Chillicothe prompted me to honor his last wishes of sorts by having his services there. Besides, funeral services for Sam back in Atlanta might stir up the media or, worse, make Rudy and Grace feel compelled to attend. I could hardly afford to add pity to the already heavy baggage I dragged around with me. I’d only been back to Chillicothe a handful of times since I left for boarding school. The last time was to move Vera to Atlanta and the time before that was to attend Martha’s funeral.
Another wave of sadness engulfed me as I cruised into Chillicothe, Georgia. Things had changed since the last time I’d been here, nearly two years ago. The main strip was still anchored by the Tolliver County Courthouse on one end of Church Street and the VFW Hall at the other end. But in between them, little shops and cafés had sprung up, replacing the old country diners and dilapidated storefronts. And the hallmark of civilized convenience—a spanking brand-new Starbucks. The Piggly Wiggly, with a storefront refresh, still stood across from the VFW Hall, but the Greyhound bus now picked up and dropped off passengers at a small station a quarter mile past the grocery store. It was as if someone had given the town elders permission to dust off the grime of Chillicothe’s past and join everyone else in the twenty-first century.
Still standing just beyond the VFW Hall were the remnants of an old abandoned gazebo, a seventy-five-year-old fixture in the middle of Chillicothe’s Town Circle. The southern bars and stars of the Confederate flag had hung alongside the American flag from the gazebo arch until 1998 when a young Black woman, driving through town, spotted the flag. Witnesses say she pulled it down from the gazebo, set it on fire, and got back in her car yelling, “That’s what I think of your fucking white heritage!” No one knew who she was, and the Confederate flag was never replaced.
I rounded the circle, past the gazebo, before turning onto Pulliam Avenue, a narrow cobblestone street dotted with modest frame houses. I parked my car in front of the blue three-story Victorian house perched neatly behind a short black iron fence. The black-and-white sign in the yard read GRESHAM & SONS MORTUARY. For as small as the town was, Chillicothe had two funeral homes—one for white people and one for Black people. One of the last vestiges of the segregated South. Gresham & Sons handled all the Black funerals in town.
The solitude inside the funeral home was deafening. The heavy scent of floral sprays made me feel both calm and queasy. It creeped me out to stand in this building, ghoulishly filled with lifeless bodies. But Vera used to say, Don’t waste your time worrying about dead folks; it’s the crazy-ass living ones you need to worry about. I waited patiently, reading the plaques above the various viewing rooms off the foyer. The Slumber Room, the Rest Well Sanctuary, the Heavenly View Chapel, and the Cherubs Corner.
“Ms. Littlejohn?” A petite Black woman in her seventies wearing a conservative blue suit and sensible shoes extended her right hand. “I’m Lila Gresham. I’m very sorry for your loss. I’ll be assisting you with the arrangements for your brother.”