Blood on the Leaves Read online

  “The man acted in self-defense,” argued Vanzant.

  “That’s for a jury to decide,” responded Reynolds.

  “You really expect this office to issue an indictment against a seventy-two-year-old man who was frightened out of his wits?” Vanzant said with more energy.

  Lauren Sinclair moved toward the window of Vanzant’s office. “Melvin, if we don’t do something, it’ll seem like he got away with murder a second time and nobody cared.” She looked at Reynolds for support, but he wanted out on this one. “At least bring it before a grand jury,” she continued. “If they decide there’s enough for us to go forward, a trial will get out all the facts.”

  “We already know all the facts,” answered Vanzant. “We got us a bunch of terrified old men sleepin’ with loaded shotguns who’ll blow away any stranger who sets foot on their property!”

  “Any black stranger,” corrected Reynolds.

  “By all accounts the guy’s been a model citizen. He’s given his time and money to all kinds of charitable organizations, black and white.” Vanzant walked toward Reynolds, who was seated in the far corner of the room. “James, you look me straight in the eyes and tell me you think any jury is gonna convict that man.”

  “Wasn’t that the criterion used fifty years ago?”

  “Goddamn it!” shouted Vanzant. “This is the twenty-fuckin’-first century!” He’d resorted to swearing, once again hoping it would mask his fear.

  Reynolds stood face to face with his boss. “Even in the twenty-first century, you shouldn’t be able to kill a black teenager for carrying a fishing pole.”

  Vanzant didn’t budge. “Maybe you need to go back to law school. Brush up on the sections dealing with state of mind and criminal intent.”

  “By any chance, is that near the sections on reasonable force and involuntary manslaughter?”

  “Gentlemen, we’re not going to resolve this by giving each other law exams,” Sinclair intervened.

  Vanzant approached her. “From Chester Grayson’s point of view, did he or did he not have reason to fear for his life?” He turned around and pointed his finger at Reynolds. “Why don’t you ask that question of your professor friend?”

  “He’s not my friend,” replied Reynolds.

  “Then what the hell were you two doin’ drivin’ all over the city?” Vanzant asked.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “We got a court order to follow his ass!”

  Reynolds looked accusingly at Sinclair. She turned away. He waited for a moment before addressing Vanzant. “Was I the only one in the office who didn’t know?”

  Vanzant didn’t feel the need to respond, so Reynolds headed for the door. “Where are you goin’?” Vanzant asked.

  “To a funeral.” Reynolds opened the door and faced Vanzant. “Wouldn’t it be easier if you ordered surveillance on my ass, too?” He left, slamming the door behind him.

  Vanzant proceeded to his desk and opened a small pouch. “Let Grayson have the weekend,” he said resignedly. “We’ll issue a warrant for his arrest on Monday.” He sat down and inserted a wad of tobacco inside his cheek.

  Sinclair took a seat near the window and removed her eyeglasses. “How long are we going to keep Professor Matheson under surveillance?” she asked.

  Vanzant rested both feet on the corner of his desk. “We could only get authorization for seventy-two hours. Right now he’s free as a bird without a worry in the world.” He balled up a piece of paper and tossed it at the wastebasket. It hit the rim and bounced out.

  The thudding sounds became more intense and far more desperate. Matheson struck the large leather punching bag that hung from a metal-reinforced stand. He wore only gray sweatpants, sneakers, and small red boxing gloves. The perspiration glistened off his back and chest under the hot lights of the university’s gymnasium. The rubber soles of his shoes squeaked against the blue mats covering the hardwood floors. His body moved quickly from side to side as he leveraged his full weight behind each fierce and unforgiving punch.

  He grunted every time he struck the bag, this followed by a deep, mournful release of air and pain. His fists rhythmically pounded the oversized bag, low then high, low then high. Suddenly, he stopped and stared at the listless bag that swung slowly back into place. He looked ready to fall to his knees, exhausted, nearly defeated, but he forced his body to continue. He took a step back, then, with new energy summoned from some hidden reservoir, leaped into the air and rapidly spun his right leg into the unsuspecting bag. The bag lifted off the secured hinge and crashed to the floor.

  Nine-year-old Joseph Johnson collapsed into his mother’s arms at the sight of his beloved brother resting peacefully inside a walnut-colored casket. He screamed and wept as Mrs. Johnson led him to a seat in the front pew. Reynolds sat near the rear of the church and heard the boy, in between his despairing sobs, plead for someone to “kill that white man!” who took away his only brother and best friend. Some members in the congregation nodded their heads, either in mourning or agreement. Turning, Reynolds spotted Matheson a few pews over, seated alone with his head bowed.

  The minister spoke, but Reynolds heard nothing other than the weeping of the young boy. After a while he blocked out the sounds and saw only the visible signs of grief: people dressed in black, a woman’s tear-stained face covered partially by a veil, a child’s clenched fist.

  The innocent had once again suffered, he thought. They always did. Matheson’s great crusade would be bloodier than imagined and claim more victims than those listed on a single sheet of paper. Reynolds was now sure of that. He closed his eyes and wondered how he could bring an end to all this. When he opened them, he noticed that Matheson was no longer in his seat.

  He looked around and found the professor holding the grief-stricken Joseph. The boy’s body no longer shook. His weeping had stopped. Even his calls to punish the man who killed his brother had ceased.

  Matheson placed his arm around the boy’s shoulders, and Joseph sat taller, more erect. He leaned the side of his face against the professor’s chest. The boy’s parents gratefully moved aside to give Matheson additional room to comfort the child.

  Reynolds wanted to pray but couldn’t. As an alternative, he bowed his head and kept it that way for the rest of the service.

  CHAPTER 21

  CHESTER GRAYSON STUDIED his naked body in the mirror of his locked bathroom. Intensely vain as a young man, he could no longer deny what time had done to a once firm physique. Old age is a cruel master, he’d discovered. He turned off the water that filled three-quarters of his newly tiled tub, then tested it with his right hand—his left had flared up with arthritis and remained unreliable. The steam from the basin together with the fog on the mirrors usually served as better barometers than his weather-beaten skin.

  He placed his right foot into the hot water and forced himself to tolerate the pain. He placed his other foot into the tub and sat down as quickly as his tired body allowed. He leaned back, letting the water engulf his skin, which immediately turned bright pink under the extreme temperature. He’d already poured several capfuls of his wife’s moisturizing lotion into the water. Under normal circumstances he’d rather stay filthy than subject his body to such feminine devices, but he assumed the softener would prevent staining. Bad enough if his wife should find him there, it would be particularly unkind if she had to scrub whatever residue he left behind.

  He picked up the pearl-handled straight razor that had belonged to his grandfather and admired the detail, the craftsmanship. People used to care about their work back then. They knew they were creating a legacy and wanted to feel proud about it.

  He slashed his left wrist, then submerged the gnarled hand beneath the oiled surface. His eyes darted toward the ceiling, disinclined for the moment to see the water changing color. The sight of blood had often sickened him. It reminded him of the day he’d become a savage, egged on by a crowd and intoxicated by too much to drink and his own overwhelming fear. Someone had plac
ed a knife in his left hand and dared him to “stab the nigger.” He’d meant to slice the black man across the leg, thereby proving his manhood and loyalty to friends he would never speak to again. When he raised the weapon over his head, the man had looked at him and pleaded, “Tell my children I love them. Tell them I—” Grayson had let the knife fall before the man could finish his request. Then he became a madman, cutting, slashing, and screaming in an effort to drown out the man’s cries.

  He stared at the bathwater and thought about how long it had taken him to wash off the man’s blood. There were times when he still saw traces of it hidden within the wrinkled birth lines of both his palms. He later learned the man had studied to become a doctor. Imagine that, he thought, smiling.

  Grayson intended to leave behind a note to his wife, to his two sons, and especially to his granddaughter, Melissa. He wanted to say he loved them, but he couldn’t write the words. After all, he’d never delivered the message to the man’s children as requested, and payback seemed only appropriate. He owed the man at least that much.

  He lifted his left hand from the bloody tub and placed it onto his chest. He’d suspected that God had rendered the hand useless as punishment, a constant reminder of his terrible deed. Blood pumped from his wrist in rhythmic squirts, graphically painting the surrounding porcelain canvas. The color faded from his face and lips. He wondered if the man’s widow found the money he’d stuffed inside her mailbox the Sunday after her husband’s funeral.

  The room darkened. The ceiling swirled, then opened. The sky beckoned, but he knew the heavens wouldn’t welcome him. He’d devoted much of his life to seeking repentance, only to fail when tested. His cowardice had caused another tragic death and claimed the life of a newspaper boy. He dared not ask for forgiveness again. He slowly sank deeper into the water and heard a voice from the past or perhaps the future: “Tell my children I love them. Tell them I—”

  The doorknob jiggled. His wife wanted to know if he needed anything. His eyes remained open as red liquid slowly buried his face and seeped into his ears and mouth.

  News of the suicide spread rapidly throughout the DA’s office, and when it reached Vanzant he released a sigh of relief. The death freed him of the obligation to conduct a controversial trial. News organizations around the country had deluged his office with requests for interviews. He’d even received phone calls from the international press. The possibility of putting Grayson on trial had caused his migraines to return. If ever anyone had been caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place only to receive a last-minute reprieve, it was District Attorney Melvin Vanzant. He could now reassume his daily duties without the added pressure of having to seek a murder indictment against a frightened old man.

  Vanzant left his office early and treated his wife to an unexpected lunch at her favorite restaurant. He ordered the finest bottle of imported wine on the menu and drank it slowly. He didn’t know how long his luck would continue—probably not very long at all. But for the moment he’d enjoy his good fortune even if it happened to coincide with a tragic death. You took your victories where you found them.

  By contrast, Reynolds brooded over Grayson’s death the entire day. He postponed a lunch appointment and two staff meetings in favor of sitting alone at his desk. He pressed his fingertips together and rested them on his lips as he contemplated the sheer magnitude of events. Everywhere he went, people discussed the professor’s course, the revenge murders, the justice system, the American way, and now, of course, the man who took his own life. “Too late,” some argued. “Too sad,” countered others.

  Reynolds flipped through his Rolodex and located a number. He picked up the phone and dialed. Surely, he thought, after all this suffering, even the professor would listen to reason now.

  Matheson ignored the ringing phone and sat quietly in his den organizing his work. He listened to a woman’s professionally dispassionate voice on the radio: “In another bizarre twist to an already tragic tale, Chester Grayson committed suicide at his home yesterday evening, shortly after the funeral services of Robert Johnson, the thirteen-year-old he was accused of shooting to death.”

  Matheson moved aside a plate of food that had gone untouched and studied several photographs of black children on stretchers being removed from the basement of a burned-out church.

  “Johnson reportedly was delivering the morning newspaper as a favor to his younger brother,” the impersonal voice continued. Matheson read news clippings of the church firebombing.

  “No motive for the killing has been officially established. . . .”

  The phone stopped ringing.

  “Neighbors interviewed immediately after the boy’s death suggested Grayson had grown increasingly troubled after his name was linked to an unsolved civil rights murder that occurred nearly five decades ago, when the reformed Klan member was in his early twenties.”

  Matheson searched through a file folder.

  “According to family members, Grayson denounced his former racist behavior and had led an exemplary life since the mid-sixties. Ironically, he’d been unaware that his name had been deleted from Professor Martin Matheson’s newly distributed list of suspected murderers less than twenty-four hours before the shooting of the young newsboy.”

  Matheson turned off the radio and removed an eight-by-ten photo from a manila envelope. He wheeled around his leather chair and faced a large bulletin board attached to the wall just behind him. The board was covered with photos. On one side hung pictures of black victims—lynched, burned, mutilated. Directly next to them rested a poster filled with photos of white men.

  Matheson retrieved a silver thumbtack and, in a recently vacated space under a neatly hand-printed banner that read, UNPUNISHED MURDERERS, attached a photo of Earvin Cooper.

  CHAPTER 22

  RUTH PLACED SEVERAL heaping spoonfuls of steaming hot vegetables with melted cheese on her husband’s plate. Earvin Cooper didn’t have much of an appetite. He’d been unable to eat much ever since that black policeman visited him with the news that he’d been placed on some crazy professor’s list.

  “You want butter for your vegetables?” Ruth asked.

  He slid the plate away and muttered, “They’re too soggy.”

  Ruth rolled her eyes and released one of her customary “What am I going to do with this man?” sighs. “They’re exactly the way I’ve made ’em for the last forty years, which is exactly the way you’ve always liked them,” she snapped.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Earvin, is everything all right?” she asked. “You been actin’ strange for almost—”

  He threw his napkin onto the meat platter in disgust and rose abruptly, knocking over his glass of milk and spilling the contents across the dining room table. “What’s the damn world come to? A man can’t even get his food made the way he wants!” He stormed into the kitchen and headed for the back door.

  “Earvin, where you goin’?” Ruth’s voice betrayed fear.

  “Check on the animals!” he snapped.

  “You ain’t never checked on the animals this late.” She tried to reach him, but he’d already made it outside into the warm night air.

  Cooper entered the darkened barn after making a brief stop inside his garage. He held a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. He slowly searched each separate area, starting with the stables. His two horses ignored him and used the time to nibble at some grain in their feed troughs. A cow looked at him with its large brown eyes and casually swished its tail, turning away from the bright yellowish beam.

  The hens didn’t appreciate the interruption and fluttered aimlessly in small circles. Cooper shined his light at the vacated nests and discovered several eggs. He tucked the gun into his waistband and proudly stuck out his chest. “’Bout time you started earnin’ your keep,” he uttered with a grin.

  A noise distracted him. He grabbed the handle of his gun, prepared to remove it quickly if need be. He traced the left corner of the barn with the light, the
n moved it to the opposite corner. He noticed one of the bales of hay had fallen from its stack. He pointed the light higher and found a newly made, elaborate web constructed inside all four corners of a window frame. A large black spider worked its way toward a captured moth until the light temporarily froze it. Its body pulsated for a moment and waited for Cooper’s next move. He removed a gold Zippo lighter from his trousers and flicked it twice.

  “Can’t have a picnic without barbecue,” he remarked, then extended the flame toward the center of the web. Just before his hand reached the intended target, Cooper noticed a shifting image in the glass, followed by a shadow that concealed half the silver web. His fingers tightened around the flashlight’s thick cylinder just as the lighter was viciously knocked from his hand. He swung the flashlight but missed the assailant, who punched him in the face.

  Cooper removed his gun, but it was kicked out of his hand with lightning speed. It landed on a vacated nest and crushed several eggs. Cooper threw the flashlight at the stranger, then rushed him with the football skill he’d acquired decades earlier. They tumbled over several bales of hay. Cooper lashed out in a desperate frenzy and struck the intruder on the head and chest.

  The lighter had ignited a small fire near the stables, which spread quickly, fueled by dry straw and brittle wood. Cooper landed hard on his back but immediately recovered and locked his arms around the stranger’s waist in a tight bear hug. Their two silhouettes wrestled near the flames as horses kicked furiously and hens scampered hysterically.