The Killings Read online

  Something in the book she was carefully paging through caught Carmen’s attention. Her heart skipped a beat as she paged back carefully to read from the previous paragraph.

  “One such feared queen of the black arts was Sable, a female born in Tennessee and sold by her owner when she was a child of five to a plantation owner in Cobb County, Georgia, in 1804. By the time Sable was fifteen, rumors of her dreaded, dark power were already circulating among her fellow slaves ...”

  1804? Carmen thought. Did I read that correctly?

  “Sable was described by the Whites who ran the plantation and her fellow slaves as a hard worker but quiet. She apprenticed as a nurse under the guidance of another slave, Willa, who tended to the medical needs of the plantation’s slaves. Sable learned fast, and by the time she was twenty her medical knowledge rivaled that of the general practitioner in nearby Atlanta, then a small but growing town.

  “In 1832 a horrible fire broke out in the mansion owned by Gregory Richardson, the owner of the plantation where Sable had been working in servitude. The blaze was fierce and spread quickly, killing Richardson and his family of six children, along with his wife, mother-in-law, and various extended family members. During the blaze, half the slaves fled into the night. Most were picked up within days of their escape. A few made it to New England and were never heard from again. Sable herself attempted escape but was quickly returned to DeKalb County on a chain gang with twelve other slaves from various landowners. By the time she was captured, rumors about Sable’s involvement in the blaze that killed Gregory Richardson had already begun to circulate among the other slaves. These rumors never reached the ears of the general community and remained confined to the slaves. I was fortunate enough to obtain firsthand recollections of that time by another former slave, a man named Abraham, who-”

  Carmen flipped through the pages of the book, scanning the events quickly. The section on Sable continued on for another ten pages.

  “Is there any way to get photocopies of this book?” she asked the librarian.

  “I can’t allow you to photocopy the pages yourself,” the librarian said. “But if you note the page numbers you’re interested in, I’ll put in a request to have somebody make the required photocopies for your use.”

  “How long will it take?”

  The librarian shrugged. “A few days.”

  “How much?”

  “I’ll check at the front desk.”

  It turned out the fee was five dollars per page, a reasonable expense for such a fragile, rare volume to be copied by a professional who knew what he was doing. Carmen filled out the required form at the front desk and paid the fee. As the librarian was closing the transaction, Carmen asked, “Do you have any records on when that book was last requested?”

  The librarian checked. “Thirty years ago,” he answered. “Looks like a college professor took a peek at it.”

  “What school?”

  “University of Georgia.”

  “Can you give me a name?”

  The librarian smiled pensively. “Sorry. Can’t do that.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Carmen sighed. She did some quick thinking. It was a long shot that the professor in question was still teaching, but if he was, and if he were still at the same school, he’d most likely have tenure. That would make him easier to find.

  Carmen hoisted her laptop bag over her shoulder and gathered her purse. “Thanks for your help,” she told the librarian. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “My pleasure,” the librarian said.

  ***

  That had been a few days ago. The librarian had called her that afternoon to tell her the photocopies were ready. She’d picked them up and raced home, eager to read them. She read through them carefully, absorbed in the story, now completely convinced that the slave identified as Sable in this book was the same Grandma Sable Wayne Williams had referred to in her conversations with him.

  It sounds crazy... that means she would have been in her eighties when Yoruba Magic in Georgia was published. She would have been one hundred and seventy years old or so when Wayne Williams said he saw her as a child. How is that possible?

  But then Carmen thought about the very subject of Yoruba magic and Vodun, how Sable was described as having unprecedented power, feared even by her peers for her ability to curse those who crossed her. The woman’s reputation was legend during slavery and reconstruction. Carmen put those thoughts aside and began making notes to track her thoughts. Start with the historical facts, she thought. Then we can start drawing conclusions and theories.

  Following her recapture in 1832, Sable made five other attempts at escape. Each time she was recaptured. While most slaves who escaped and were recaptured suffered horrible punishments ranging from whippings, brandings, beatings, being hobbled, and in extreme cases, hangings, Sable was never punished. She was already something of a legend in the slave community by this point, revered for her knowledge of medicine but feared for her relationships with the dark gods.

  Carmen read: “I have talked to numerous former slaves who knew Sable during this time. All of them speak of her with great respect and equal fear. They do not fear her for what she might do to them. Rather, they fear her for her very nature, for, as one former slave, a woman roughly Sable’s own age, says, ‘She has a relationship with the dark father, an unholy communion with things that crawl and slither and stalk. Some say she friends with Satan himself.’ Indeed, other former slaves whispered this same thing to me, even going so far as to say that this power Sable has was handed down to her from Satan’s father, who existed as a god long before the days of Christianity and Judaism and was mentioned as ancient myth by the Assyrians. Men talk about her communion with the crows, the rats that infest the cotton fields, the snakes that live in the creek. Women talk about how she handles the most cumbersome infant or scolds the most rambunctious child with nothing more than a few simple words and a look. Despite that, children see Sable as a calm force, a guiding force, a woman of maternal love, acceptance, and discipline.”

  Carmen learned much that night. Her fingers flew over the keyboard of her laptop. When she was finished, she saved the file and sat back behind her desk. She had a long road of research ahead of her. And her first step was to start hitting the pavement.

  ELEVEN

  August 2, 2011, Atlanta, Georgia, Old Fourth Ward

  It took a few days, but on the afternoon Carmen Mendoza left work early after turning her latest assignment in to her editor at the Atlanta Constitution, she was finally able to talk to somebody in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood who also knew Grandma Sable.

  Other writing assignments at the paper that required considerable effort and resources beckoned. Her editor Jacob Little knew that her investigative research on the Wayne Williams case was a side project and he was okay with it. “Long as it doesn’t interfere with your other work at the paper,” he’d told her when she’d first broached the subject last spring. He’d grinned at her from across his desk, the silver tooth he wore in his mouth gleaming in the harsh fluorescence. The silver tooth replaced the one that had been knocked out while covering the Los Angeles riots in 1992 as a young reporter. “Do some good work, and if I like what I see in your proposal, I will seriously consider running your piece.”

  “Really?” She’d been surprised by the offer. As a condition of her employment, the paper had first refusal rights on all her non-fiction pieces anyway, but Jacob had let her publish a few things in other venues - a piece in Salon.com, an article in Boing Boing, an essay in Latino magazine; she was aiming for a piece in Rolling Stone and originally thought her article on Wayne Williams might be the perfect piece for that publication.

  “Yes, really.” Jacob had moved into a forward position, bent over his desk. He was tall and skinny with white pasty skin and a gaunt frame; he looked like a human praying mantis. But Jacob was sharp, and he was fair. He was also very much an old-school newspaper editor. He insisted that all of his reporters wor
k by a strict code of ethics - three verifiable sources to the story or it doesn’t get printed, period - was his motto, which was sorely lacking with most news journalism these days. He demanded a code of ethics for all his reporters. That included getting information honestly, without resorting to lies, trickery, or participating in activities that were borderline illegal, much less crossing that line into acts the paper would deem an actionable offense.

  Carmen respected that, and the stories she submitted to him for editorial review were always placed prominently in the paper, often as the lead story on the front page.

  “You’re a hell of a reporter, Carmen, and you’re a great writer. I feel like one of those cliched elder statesmen for saying this, but it’s true - you’ll make a fine investigative journalist someday. You keep going and someday you’re going to win a Pulitzer Prize for something. I can feel it. You’re halfway there now. I know you’re still pulling stringer duty when needed-”

  “And even that’s not a long way from doing that kind of work on a freelance basis,” Carmen had said.

  “No doubt.” Jacob had smiled at her. The two had traded war stories on the early parts of their careers when they started in the business as freelancers, covering town-hall meetings and writing obituaries. “If you need to utilize any of our resources for this potential story, you know where to find it. Our archives are your archives. Dig all you want.”

  And that had been Jacob Little’s way of giving her his carte blanche to proceed with her Wayne Williams story as she saw fit, so long as it was done after all other editorial matters pertaining to her work with the newspaper were met first.

  Jacob had kept his word on the research end too. Three times she’d stolen down to the archives section and looked through old microfilm of earlier editions of the paper during the height of the murder spree. She’d paid particular attention to the 1979-80 range, when it was still thought by many in the Black community that the killings were being perpetrated by the Klan. She tried to read between the lines. And despite the pervading rumors of the day, she found it hard to believe that an organization like the KKK could be responsible for the killings. No, those murders were committed by a Black man, somebody from the neighborhood. Wayne Williams might have been convicted of two of the murders, but was he responsible for all of them? Carmen still didn’t have an answer to that. Her gut told her yes.

  On nights Carmen didn’t stay late at the office, she took trips into the Old Fourth Ward and wandered the neighborhood. When the opportunity rose, she struck up conversations with the people there - folks hanging out on front porches, at bus stops, in front of corner markets. She went out of her way to be friendly and approachable. She was always honest with the residents she spoke to.

  “I’m a journalist investigating a story about a former resident of the neighborhood who had lived here in the 1960s - Grandma Sable; did you know her?”

  One after another they shook their heads, denying any knowledge of the old woman who’d lived among them for generations. Carmen took great pains to only ask this question to people who looked older than fifty, but half the people she asked were much younger.

  “I know I look old, but I ain’t over fifty, that’s for sure!” one woman laughed. The woman later admitted she’d just turned thirty. Years of hard living on the streets and crack cocaine can do a lot to age a person.

  And then today, Wednesday afternoon ...

  Carmen strolled cautiously down Sixth Street. The proprietor of Greg’s Grocery and Produce on the corner of Lincoln and Elm had directed her to a house on this street. He told her the man who lived there had been living in the neighborhood for seventy-eight years and he knew everybody. “The man can’t tell you what he had for breakfast, but he remembers everybody who lived in that neighborhood from the dawn of time,” he’d said. “If he can’t help you, nobody can.” Those words echoed through Carmen’s thoughts as she stopped at the address she’d written on the scrap of paper. It was only two blocks away from the home Wayne Williams once shared with his parents when he was a child in the late 1960s. And it was directly across the street from the home where Wayne Williams said Grandma Sable had lived.

  An old man was seated on the porch, watching her as she climbed out of her vehicle. He waved. Carmen waved in return. She opened the rusty wrought-iron gate and entered the driveway, closing the gate behind her. She walked up the driveway toward the porch, putting on her best smile. “Are you Mr. Brown?”

  “Do I owe you money?” the old man asked. It looked like he wasn’t wearing his dentures. His mouth was sunken-in like an orange after days in the sun, but he had a mischievous grin on his face. His eyes appreciatively darted over her figure.

  “No, you don’t, sir,” Carmen said. “I’m Carmen Mendoza, Atlanta Constitution. I’m researching a story and was hoping you could help me out.”

  “Whatever it is, I don’t know nuthin’!” The old man cackled.

  Carmen chuckled. “Have you lived here a long time?” Sometimes it was best to get people to start talking about themselves. It worked with Mr. Brown.

  “Lived here all my life. Was born here. Took care of my momma and my sisters and brother and then entered the military in ‘51. I served in Korea. Medic.”

  Carmen raised her eyebrows. “Really? My grandfather served in Korea too.”

  “Your grandfather was a good man. How about you? Did you serve?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Carmen answered. “But my younger brother did. He did two tours of duty in Iraq.”

  “It’s a damn shame, that war,” the old man said. He made a shooing gesture with his hand, as if dismissing the very idea of the Iraq war. “Don’t know why we even went over there. We had a reason to go into Korea. Had to stop the goddamn communists. Ain’t no communists in Iraq! Just a bunch of poor people living under that asshole Hussein. And look what we done to them. Blowed ‘em straight to hell.”

  “Yes, sir,” Carmen said. The old man was starting to babble. She would have to get back to topic if she didn’t want to be stuck here all night. She had the firm impression that Mr. Brown was the type of man who could talk your ears off if you let him. “Do you remember everybody who lived in this neighborhood?”

  “I sure do! I can tell you who lived in every house on this block since 1942.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Brown said.

  She was referring to him in her mind as Mr. Brown, even though he didn’t admit that’s who he was.

  “Barb and Tom Smith, they lived just over thataway.” He gestured to the house next door. “And next to them, there was Jerry and Wilma Reynolds. He was a smarmy bastard. His kids were always settin’ off them bottle rockets and firecrackers, even when it wasn’t Fourth of July. Across the street from them was Reverend Sims and his wife, Martha. Their kids were just hellhounds, as you can imagine - most preacher’s kids are. Their son Dale was a piece of work. Then up the street that way there was-”

  Carmen listened, smiling patiently and nodding. She already knew from her initial investigation that this section of the city had been sparsely populated, with small neighborhoods consisting of small houses until about 1940, when the city began expanding outward.

  Mr. Brown went on to explain that after the war and a trip through one semester of college, he’d taken on a job as a janitor at the local high school. It was a position he held for the next thirty-six years. “I was completely in charge,” he said, grinning proudly. “I had three other fellas workin’ under me. And the school system, they took care of me. Employers did that back then. They don’t do that now. Don’t give a shit about you these days. Where you work, young lady?”

  “The Atlanta Constitution, sir,” Carmen said, smiling.

  “Oh, that’s a fine paper. I get the Sunday edition. I like my crossword and the comics and the editorials. There’s some good columns in there. You read the Sunday morning editorial pieces, ma’am?”

  “I do,” Carmen admitted. She knew all the columnists, t
oo. Even had a chance to meet some of the syndicated columnists, such as Lawrence Pitts, who worked for the Miami-Herald.

  “Did you read that piece that young man wrote about the president?” Mr. Brown asked. “He’s such a smarmy ass sonofabitch. Claimed the president was a misguided fool who-”

  “Did you ever know the people who lived in that house over there, across the street?” Carmen asked him, cutting him off mid-sentence. She gestured to the house almost directly across the street from his, to their right. It was a small cottage, with fading brown paint and white trim. An old elm tree stood in the center of the yard, providing ample shade over the garage and part of the driveway. It didn’t look like anybody was home yet, but Carmen knew from previous trips and discussions with Wayne that this was the house he claimed Grandma Sable had lived in during the late 1960s. It was the house she’d researched in the County Records department at city hall.

  “That house?” Mr. Brown peered at it. Something in his face changed. It was so subtle that Carmen thought she was imagining it at first. It was the look somebody got when they thought of something unpleasant, like a dark secret that was best left buried. As quickly as the look came it was gone. Mr. Brown dismissed the house with that shooing gesture again. “That house gone through so many owners, they all seem the same to me. Mr. Washington was a good man, though. He owned the place from 1985 until 2002 or so.”

  “What about the owners before that?”

  Mr. Brown shrugged. “I remember all of them back to when I first moved here in 1942. The family who lived there when we came here, they was Cassidy, I think. Another family bought the place in 1950.”