Hunting History: Select Southern Author Series, #4

By Roland O'Conner

Best friends forever?It might not be as easy as you think.When the powerful pit one against the other.Most of us have no idea how they use us.There are consequences.And they may cause the death of a loved one . . . .Once Jim Crow laws separated black and white but ole Jim is dead now. Today others pull the same old strings. Heather and Angeline grow up in sleepy little Bowdon, Georgia, both in homes of modest means. They enter college together in nearby Carrollton and life begins. Things go well until an inapt cop kills an innocent black man and the powerful stir the pot to make a bad thing worse. . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dancing Crows
• Release date: Jul 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393313540

Book preview

Chapter 1

Austin, Texas 

July 23, 20016

Good morning, Barry, Attorney Willian Morris said as he approached the ornate brass elevator doors of Austin’s Norwood building. Elegant, he thought. I hate modern architecture. He had the same thought every morning. The Norwood building was a sixteen-floor Gothic office building built in 1929. Save for the state capital, more deals affecting Texas, and even the rest of the country, had been made in this building than any other building in the state. The building housed Lyndon Johnson’s cronies during his time. Today, his daughter owns it. 

Good morning, Mr. Morris. Barry and Morris rode the elevator to the six-floor while chatting about a case Barry was litigating. William opened the door to the offices of Morris, Whitman and Alexander, Attorneys. He held it for Barry to enter. William Morris was an unpretentious man, a man from a humble beginning, a Texan with a glad hand and a slap on the back.

I need Harriot Jenner’s file, he said as he walked by Alice Carmichael’s desk.

I think you have already pulled it, she said.

I’ll look, but I don’t think so.

It’s not in the filing cabinet or in the stack on my desk, she said.

You sure?

Yes, I needed it earlier but couldn’t find it. You must have taken it.

No, I didn’t get it. I didn’t need it until just now.

Look for it . Someone must have misfiled it. He said, Someone, but he meant, you. Alice had given him good service for ten years.

A screwup now and then is to be expected. I’ll give her a pass on this one. He went to his desk.

At four o’clock, Alice came into William’s office. I have looked high and low. I can’t find Harriot Jenner’s file. I swear it is not in this building.

Has to be.

I’m not so sure.

Why?

The files on my desk were not as I left them this morning. The cleaning crew has never touched them before. I didn’t think much about it. I figured they may have toppled them while cleaning and restacked them as best they could.  Let’s have a look at the security video.

Alice, I think you are out of your mind, but for you, I will do it.

The timer in the left corner of the video read 2:07 a.m. The door opened. A man with a key and a stocking over his head came in, looked through the filing cabinets, then shuffled through the files on Alice’s desk, took one and left.

Should I call the police, she said.

No, it wouldn’t do any good. They’ll never figure this one out. There was nothing of value in her file, just the modest will of an old lady and the addresses of the people she asked us to send copies of her manuscript to. We should never need them again. We have a digital copy of the will, don’t we?

Yes, we have it backed up. I can recover it.

On second thought, call the police. That way, our ass is covered. I guess we had better let Harriot Jenner know, too.

The burglar opened the door with a key. How did he get a key? Do you think it was one of our guys. If it was, who? It didn’t look like anyone I know. Who was it? Alice said rapid fire one statement after another, confused and with tension in her voice.

Hell, no, our guys are all fatter than he was.

Alice laughed.

And, besides, why would they break in? They could have gotten the file during the day when no one was looking. Better get the locks changed.

Next day, Alice called Harriot Jenner. Her reaction to the burglary was not what she expected. Alice went into Morris’s office. You will never believe what she said when I told her.

Try me.

I’m not surprised. . . . She said ‘I’m not surprised.’ When I asked her why, she wouldn’t say. I wonder what the deal is. What does all this mean?

I don’t know and I think it is better to not know. Did you read any of the manuscripts we sent?

I read a little from the middle of one. It was a story about an exotic dancer in New Orleans. All three were the same.

I haven’t got a clue what is going on. This whole thing smells like trouble to me, and if lawyers know anything, they know trouble, William Morris said.

* * * * *

Atlanta, Georgia

July 25, 2016

At 413 Greenwood in Atlanta, a man stole a large envelope from Tara O’Neal’s mailbox while she was at work. Tara had no idea it was ever there.

* * * * *

Austin, Texas

July 25, 2016

I swear, someone always wants me to read something, especially since I retired. They think I’ve nothing better to do. Dr. Jeffery Mazur pulled a large envelope from his mailbox. No one was with him to hear the comment. No one was at home at all. He read the return address: Morris, Whitman and Alexander 601 Norwood Tower, Austin, Texas. What the hell? I hope I’m not being sued. He opened the envelope. No cover letter, no nothing, I’ll look at it later.

But as he walked back to his house he began reading. Nice writing but what does it have to do with me?

Seated at his home office desk, he pulled the rest of the manuscript from the envelope, then threw the envelope in the wastebasket next to his desk. Pictures and a set of negatives fell out. He picked them up, held them at the proper length for viewing, then focused through his bifocals.

Oh, my God, this proves it, he said. No one heard that comment, he thought. He was wrong.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket to call his protégé, Marrs. Before he could punch the button, he felt the barrel of a pistol at the back of his head. The barrel’s cold, hard steel was the last thing he felt.

Blood splattered the wall and everything on the desk. A hand reached around him, picked up the manuscript and the pictures then put them in a brief case. The assailant walked out, got into his car and drove away. A few heard the shot. No one was alarmed by it. No one was sure from where it came, and no one called the police.

Dr. Brad Cameron found the body. He often visited his former doctorial advisor in the late afternoon. At twenty-nine, Brad was much Dr. Mazur’s junior. Brad was five-ten, dark headed, and nice looking, or so he had been told. He didn’t believe it and he didn’t care. He never thought about it much.

The bond of common interest held them together. Both were students of Texas’s history, and both like to have a beer at the Workhorse Bar in the Victorian Hyde Park neighborhood in which Dr. Mazur lived. The beer and the words flowed when they sat in front of a pitcher of Austin Amber Ale, and they often did.

Finding a friend in a pool of his blood shatters a man. Brad was no exception. His brain buzzed. He shook and almost threw up. He leaned against a wall and slid down it. He stared. He looked away. He trembled but managed to phone for help. When the police arrived, he still leaned against the wall. They thought he was the murderer. He was too shaken to care. In time, they believed his story. They had no other.

Brad noticed the envelope in the wastebasket. From the size of it, he knew it contained several pages. Probably someone’s dissertation or perhaps a manuscript of some sort, he thought. He saw nothing like that on Dr. Mazur’s desk. Brad gave the envelope to a uniformed officer who showed it to Detective Lovvern. Lovvern was in charge of the case.

I think I’ll go down there tomorrow and see what was in this, Detective Lovvern said. He read the address aloud, Morris, Whitman and Alexander 601 Norwood Tower.

Good idea, the officer said.

No shit, Brad thought.

All Dr. Mazur’s colleagues were shaken. They knew Brad and Dr. Mazur were close. None were surprised when he took the day off.

That afternoon, Brad got a call from Detective Lovvern. Do you know a Tara O’Neal who lives at 413 Greenwood Rd, NE in Atlanta, Georgia?

Never heard of her, why?

Morris, Whitman and Alexander sent a similar package to that address from the same person.

Who sent it?

A woman named Harriot Jenner here in Austin. She lives in H 218 Continental Retirement Community. You know her?

What was that again?

The defective repeated her name and address. This time Brad wrote it on a pad.

What was that girl’s name in Atlanta again, and her address?

Tara O’Neal 413 Greenwood Rd, NE in Atlanta, Georgia.

Brad wrote it down as well, then said, No, I don’t know either of them. Do you know what was in the envelope?

A secretary read a little of it. She said it was a novel or memoir or something like that. You know anything about it?

No, not a thing.

After the detective hung up, Brad called a friend, Ronald Rosser, a computer geek who Brad believed could find out anything about anybody.

I need a couple of phone numbers, he said in a hurried, curt voice, but not so curt that it offended his friend.

Use 411, Ronald said. 

"This ain’t 1987, just get ’em for me, please.

Say please, again.

Please, please. Just get them for me, please, please . . . asshole.

What are the names and address?

Brad told him. . . .

Chapter 2

Ronald Rosser typed the names Brad had given him into his computer. Nothing to it when you know what you’re doing, he thought.

Ronald was a black man of twenty-eight and a computer science graduate student at the University of Texas. He worked on an artificial intelligence project. Brad didn’t understand it. Only Ronald and his associates did. He wore dark-rimmed Clark Kent glasses and his hair in a long twist, which gave him the computer geek look he wanted.

In a few minutes, he called Brad. I’ve got the numbers. He read them to him. Brad wrote them on a pad.

He called Harriot Jenner first because she was local. After introducing himself, he asked.

Did you know Dr. Jeffery Mazur?

No.

How about Tara O’Neal?

Why are you asking?

Dr. Mazur has been murdered. It’s been in the news.

Murdered? By her voice, Brad could tell she was shaken. I didn’t know. Why are you calling me?

We think the package you sent him had something to do with it.

It may have. I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. What is your interest in this?

Dr. Mazur was a good friend. That’s all. He was my doctorial advisor.

Are you a historian?

Yes,

A close associate of Dr. Mazur’s?

Yes, I found his body, he said as his eyes watered.

Come over. I’ll make coffee.

On the way to Harriot’s, Brad called Tara’s number but no one answered.

* * * * *

Tara was in the shower, thinking. Jesus, that asshole sucks. I hope he gets run over by an eighteen- wheeler. Then she chided herself. You know it’s wrong to wish ill on someone. You know how karma works. I’m hurt, that’s all. I’ll get over it. Oh, screw it. I hope he gets run over by an eighteen-wheeler.

The thought gave her satisfaction. Tara had broken up with her boyfriend, Don, a coworker at Eli Lily where Tara was a pharmaceutical