‘I don’t know,’ Lamar said. ‘But he was gathering stuff on people, and he was going to let it all out some way.’
‘What kind of stuff?’
‘Racial stuff,’ Lamar said. ‘You know, about the situation here.’
‘You mean things about the Klan, things like that?’
‘Things in the department,’ Lamar said. ‘Police things. He was keeping an eye on what was going on in the department.’
‘But you don’t know who he was reporting to?’
‘No, I don’t, Ben,’ Lamar said. ‘I really don’t. But the way I see it, somebody could have found out about Charlie, and that’s why they did what they did to him.’
‘How do you know about this?’ Ben asked.
‘Charlie told me.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cause he was getting scared,’ Lamar said. ‘Real scared. But I’m not sure it was for himself, you know?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was close to something,’ Lamar said, ‘and it was scaring him to death.’
‘When did you talk to him last?’
‘The night he died,’ Lamar said. ‘He called me up and said he’d sent Susan and Billy out of town for a while. He said he was checking up on a few things.’
‘But he didn’t say what?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ Lamar said. ‘But that night, the one he died, he was really on edge, and he did something he’d never done before. He called me up, he said, “Lamar, do you remember when we used to go caving together?”’ Lamar’s face softened. ‘We used to go caving up in De Kalb County. You know, just boys looking for danger.’
Ben nodded.
‘Anyway,’ Lamar said, returning to the subject, ‘Charlie said, “Well, you know how we used to let somebody know where we was going, just in case we got stuck?” I said yeah, I remembered that, and he said, “Well, this is where I’m going tonight,” and he gave me an address.’
Ben felt his bones grow hard within his flesh, stiffen, turn to steel. ‘What address?’
‘I wrote it down,’ Lamar said. He reached into his pants pocket and handed Ben a folded piece of lined paper. ‘Here it is.’
Ben opened the paper and looked at the address. ‘Have you taken a look at this place?’
Lamar shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m not like Charlie was. I’m an ordinary-type guy. But Charlie, he was brave.’ He smiled quietly. ‘You’d have to be to think the things he did.’
‘What things?’
‘Against the Chief,’ Lamar explained. ‘Against the way things are.’
‘So you don’t think he was doing it for money?’ Ben asked.
‘Informing, you mean?’ Lamar asked. ‘For money?’ He waved his hand. ‘Oh, hell, no, Ben,’ he said. ‘Not Charlie. Whatever he was doing, he was doing it for his own self.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Let me tell you something,’ Lamar replied. ‘When Charlie was just a boy, he lived in a small town in the Black Belt. It was one of those one-horse towns – you know, the kind with one main street, unpaved.’
Ben nodded.
‘When it rained, the place turned to mud,’ Lamar went on. ‘And there was only one narrow sidewalk on each side of the street. And one time, after a rain, Charlie was walking down one of those sidewalks. An old colored woman was walking on it too, walking toward him, an old woman, with her arms full of groceries. And she stepped off into the mud and let Charlie pass by. Without a thought, she stepped right off that sidewalk and went down ankle deep in mud. Charlie never forgot that. So when this whole business started with the colored, he decided to do what he could for them.’
Ben watched Lamar silently while he thought about Breedlove again, about the things he said, the way he joked with the Langleys or slammed Leroy Coggins up against the wall.
Lamar’s right eye narrowed somewhat. ‘Did you see him, Ben?’ he asked after a moment. ‘His body, I mean.’
‘Yes.’
‘I heard it was real bad.’
‘It was.’
‘I hope something can be done about it,’ Lamar added, as if in conclusion. ‘It shouldn’t be left to rest.’
For a moment Ben saw Charlie Breedlove’s ravaged body as it hung lifelessly from the tree, the head slumped forward, concealing the blasted face. ‘It won’t be,’ he said.
THIRTY-FIVE
Ben glanced down at the address Lamar had given him, matching it carefully with the small frame house which faced him from across the street. The house itself looked bleak and untended, and the yard which stretched out in front of it was bare except for occasional clusters of wild onions or crabgrass. A stand of poke salad rose along the sides of the tiny cement porch, but there were no flowers or green shrubbery to relieve the overall feeling of abandonment.
The driveway was little more than two parallel ruts in the muddy ground, but even from his position across the street, Ben could see recently made tire tracks. For a moment he stared at them, as if the pattern of the tread marks might suddenly form itself into a written message. Then, slowly, he settled his eyes once again upon the house.