Free Rivers to Blood by Michael Lister Page B

killer is. Be brilliant if he’s black.”
    I nodded.
    As we stood there near the street, Dad waved to every vehicle that passed by—whether log truck or gold-trimmed SUV with spinning rims. Not his usual understated wave, but his big I’m-your-best-friend politician wave. I felt self-conscious and embarrassed, and I questioned why he had asked me to meet him here, which added guilt to the other experiences I was having.
    From an early age, I had been as comfortable around black people as white, and I was sensitive to and angered by the rampant racism in Pottersville. It was probably due in part to the fact that the woman who cared for me during my most formative years was black, partly because of my relationship with Merrill, and perhaps partly because of an innate and intense hatred of injustice, but it had separated and at times even alienated me from my family.
    My parents were of the “you can work with them, even be casual friends with them, but shouldn’t get too close to or even think about dating or marrying them” generation. Their formative years were prior to the Civil Rights movement. They were in school at the time of integration. Much of the conflict Dad and I had during my teenage years was related to my anger at his subtle and not so subtle racism. He was different now, having rid himself of much of the residual racism still present in Jake, but he still wasn’t as accepted or as comfortable as I was among the people of color of Pottersville, and I wondered if he had asked me to meet him out here because he wanted to remind them that I was his son.
    “We should have a more complete autopsy in a day or two.”
    He could have told me all of this on the phone. Maybe I was right about why he had asked me here.
    “Still no ID?” I asked.
    He shook his head. “If he’s in the system we’ll have it in a few days. If he’s not … I don’t know what we’ll do.”
    I looked over at the old white wooden AME church on the other side of Ma Monroe’s house. It was small and leaning, and needed to be painted, its tiny steeple spotted gray and black with mildew. I shivered slightly when I looked at the woods beyond it and thought of the horror it held for Merrill.
    “Do you know anything about a preacher from Marianna being killed back in those woods?” I asked.
    His eyes narrowed, his expression one of alarm. “What? When?”
    “Ever,” I said. “But specifically twenty-nine or thirty years ago.”
    “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Why?”
    “Merrill saw him get killed when he was little.”
    He shook his head. “I was a deputy back then. I would’ve known about it.”
    “Not if it was never reported.”
    “True. He would’ve been, what, three or four? He sure?”
    I nodded.
    “I’ll check into it,” he said, “but I can’t imagine it hasn’t come out by now if there was anything to it.”
    “If Merrill says he saw it … ”
    “I’ll look into and let you know,” he said. “Speaking of Merrill … I need your help.”
    My eyebrows shot up.
    “I need you and him to help me with the black vote,” he said. “Would you talk to him?”
    I hesitated. He was putting me in an awkward position. I hated politics and I felt uncomfortable even asking Merrill for his own vote, much less to work on Dad’s behalf, but there was no way I could refuse this man who had done so much for me for so long, no way I could not do all I could to help him in any way I could.
    “If you don’t,” he said, “I’m going to lose the election.”

Chapter Twenty
    O rdinarily Carla and I had Rudy’s to ourselves late at night, but with rotating teams of officers and deputies searching for the escaped inmate around the clock, the cowbell above the door kept clanging, the jukebox kept playing, and the coffee pot kept emptying.
    I wasn’t even sure why I came. Carla didn’t need looking out for now that she was no longer spending all night every night alone in an open diner on the side of a rural