Free Hanging Curve by Troy Soos

thought Crawford’s killers were probably Klansmen, too, but there were a couple of aspects of the lynching that I didn’t understand.
    Karl frowned. “It seems obvious, doesn’t it?”
    “Yeah, but you said yourself, they usually brag about it when they lynch somebody. Why not this time? And before now, it’s mostly been in the South, right? Why suddenly here?” In the Midwest, the Klan was generally seen as just one more fraternal organization with funny names and secret rituals. It even staged public parades and rallies.
    “That’s the worry,” Karl said. “What if it’s spreading here?”
    “I don’t know.” But I didn’t want to find out; I had other matters on my mind. “Sorry, Karl. Wish I could have been more help.”
    “Maybe you—”
    I cut him off. “I don’t have to get on my knee, do I?”
    He blinked behind his thick glasses. “Pardon me?”
    “When I ask Margie to marry me. Do I have to get on my knee?”
    “I don’t know.” Karl was clearly at a loss. “They do in the movies ... but I don’t believe I’ve ever read anything authoritative on the matter.”
    For the rest of the ride home, Karl proved as useless in advising me how to propose as I would be in advising Ken Williams how to hit home runs.

CHAPTER 7
    K arl Landfors paced himself over the next few days. He began by mentioning his lawyer friend once or twice, then a few more times, along with some casual suggestions that I’d probably enjoy meeting the man. Before I knew it, Karl had set a time and date.
    Early Wednesday morning, Karl and I were on Market Street, in a predominantly colored section of downtown St. Louis. At the corner of Twenty-first Street, the Comet Theatre was showing Oscar Micheaux’s The Gunsaulus Mystery, billed as “The Greatest Colored Photoplay Yet Made.” Next to the movie theater was an ancient, but well-preserved, brick office building.
    We walked into the front office of F. W. Aubury, Attorney-at-Law, and were greeted by his receptionist, a pretty Negro girl with bobbed hair. “Mr. Landfors,” she said with a prompt smile, “you’re right on time.” Reaching for the telephone, she nodded a greeting in my direction, and informed the person on the other end of the line that we’d arrived.
    She then showed us into a small office that was sparse on furnishings but flush with papers. They sprouted from the open drawers of an oak file cabinet, and spilled over from above the law books that lined the back wall. There were also teetering stacks of papers on the desk, piled so high that they almost hid the slim colored man seated behind them. If not for his calm demeanor, I would have guessed that the office had been ransacked.
    “Mickey,” Karl said, “this is Franklin Aubury.”
    “Good to meet you,” I said.
    Aubury stood, rising to a height of about five-eight, and we shook hands. “My pleasure. Karl has told me quite a bit about you.” The lawyer’s speech was clipped and precise, and his appearance was equally fastidious, although not fashionable. His stark black suit and stiff-collared white shirt were so similar to Karl’s that the two of them might have shared the same tailor. They were also similarly devoid of hair, Karl having lost his to nature while the lawyer’s head was shaved. Besides skin color, and the fact that Aubury had some muscle under his, the most noticeable difference between the two men was in their choice of spectacles: Aubury wore gold pince-nez that made him appear older than the thirty or thirty-five years I estimated him to be.
    He gestured to a couple of chairs and invited us to sit down. Karl and I had to clear off so many newspapers and journals before we could that I wondered when Aubury had last had a client in his office.
    “What kind of law do you practice?” I asked. “Karl mentioned you work for the NAACP.”
    “I work with them on certain issues,” he said. “But I do not work for them. I work for all people of the colored race, and with