No Truth Left To Tell

By Michael McAuliffe

February 1994—Lynwood, Louisiana: Flaming crosses light up the night and terrorize the southern town. The resurgent Klan wants a new race war, and the Klansmen will start it here. As federal civil rights prosecutor Adrien Rush is about to discover, the ugly roots of the past run deep in Lynwood.

For Nettie Wynn, a victim of the cross burnings and lifelong resident of the town’s segregated neighborhood, the hate crimes summon frightful memories of her youth, when she witnessed white townspeople lynch a black man. Her granddaughter Nicole DuBose, a successful journalist in New York City, returns to Lynwood to care for her grandmother. Rush arrives from DC and investigates the crimes with Lee Mercer, a seasoned local FBI special agent. Their partnership is tested as they clash over how far to go to catch the racists before the violence escalates. Rush’s role in the case becomes even more complicated after he falls for DuBose. When crucial evidence becomes compromisethreatening to upend what should be a celebrated conviction—the lines between right and wrong, black and white, collide with deadly consequences.

No Truth Left to Tell is a smart legal thriller that pulls readers into a compelling courtroom drama and an illusive search for justice in a troubled community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Release date: Mar 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781626346987

Book preview

Adin

PROLOGUE

July 1920

Lynwood, Louisiana

Nettie glided along the sidewalk in her best dress, her mother’s creation that would soon be too small. That Saturday, however, the colorful outfit still fit and perfectly complemented her wide smile and earnest stride. The dress was spring blue with flower patterns bursting open into full blossoms, quite like Nettie herself.

She stayed out of the way of the white pedestrians inspecting her with what appeared to be a mixture of curiosity and irritation. What’s that one doin’ here? one woman asked as she passed by. So Nettie hugged the buildings as she moved, trying to disappear against the facades. There was something big going on in the square, but Nettie couldn’t see over or through the gathering, since she was just seven years old.

She had pleaded with her parents to go with her father from their home in Mooretown, Lynwood’s section for blacks, to a nearby town while he delivered a meal to a close friend who was gravely ill. At the last minute, Nettie’s mother had wanted one more item added to the delivery from a store on Lynwood’s downtown square—an establishment that served them only from the back door off an alley. Nettie was supposed to wait in the car, but despite her father’s admonishments, the strange and festive noises drew her out into the nearby crowd where she was protected only by her look of youthful wonder.

Lynwood’s civic core was comprised of an expanse of lawn with a massive oak reigning over the surroundings. Four perpendicular streets framed the lawn, and they had been closed for several hours so people could mingle without regard to sputtering cars. The attendees had obliged the gesture by swarming the entire area by midmorning. The day’s activities appeared to originate across the street nearer the tree, allowing the spectators along the periphery to wander about with more freedom. From where Nettie was she could see the crown of the tree, and she moved in that direction as if pulled by some invisible force.

The day was hot and humid. High clouds had gathered through the morning and darkened the midday sky, but the music played on and people chatted in small groups as if they were at an annual parish fair.

After several minutes of distant rumbling a sprinkle started, and it soon developed into cascading water pouring from invisible pots in the sky. The drenching dispersed the crowd into stores and under awnings. Deserted chairs and soda bottles lay across the lawn.

The scattering of the masses created large openings around the square. What was an impenetrable wall of people became a flat, open field of vision. The oak, of course, remained right where it had begun decades before as a sapling.

Nettie couldn’t run into any of the stores like the others caught out in the street during the rainstorm. So, like the oak, she remained standing, although now she had a clear view of the square. Her dress—dripping and heavy with water—would have distracted her in any other setting, but unanswered curiosity kept her searching the square for clues about the day’s festivities.

The oak tree had long, thick branches, like the heavy arms of a giant. A braided rope was slung over one of these arms, out about ten feet from the trunk. The rope was wrapped once about the branch and secured to a large stake in the ground. The other end of the rope was fashioned into a noose, and suspended from it was the still body of a black man. The man’s neck was grotesquely angled, and the feet were bare. His hands were bound behind his back.

Nettie leaned forward like she was about to rush toward the oak. But she neither ran away nor went to it. She stared up at what had been until moments before a living, breathing person. She was frozen in place and time—alone in the moment when her world changed forever.

Her father came running from behind and snatched her up with such force that the dress ripped along a side seam. He covered her with his protective embrace and spirited her away to the car that waited in the alley. They headed straight home using back streets and little-known shortcuts, the car not speeding despite the urgency of the situation. The trip to deliver the meal basket was abandoned as her father kept swearing that he’d never go to the square again.

Nettie didn’t look outside the car. She kept her head down and stared at one of the dress’s printed blossoms, the flower part of the pattern ending at the hemline to reveal her trembling knees.

Part 1

1

WHITE NIGHT

February 1994

Lynwood, Louisiana

The bald tires of Frank Daniels’s corroded pickup rolled over a shallow bed of popping gravel and stopped next to two men in pointy hoods. The men huddled together, shifting around an imaginary fire and stomping their feet now and again. Their hoods were for show, not warmth. The other conspirators waited inside the clapboard frame house.

Daniels got out of his truck and acknowledged the security detail with a half salute, which was all the formality he could muster given the late hour. With a rocking gait and fixed grin, he waddled up to the house in oversized boots worn to accommodate his swollen feet. The sentinels followed, hoods now in their hands.

He wasn’t yet much of a Klansman, not compared to Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, but Daniels soon would fix that by leading his own white night. The residents of Lynwood wouldn’t know it right away, but the town’s coming racial reckoning would be the doing of the Klan’s new grand dragon. All revolutions started somewhere, and that Friday evening Lynwood would join Fort Sumter as a cradle of insurrection.

He closed the door behind him and turned to his followers, who all were seated in mismatched chairs and on the bonded leather couch.

Where’s your brother? Daniels asked the obese man, who overwhelmed both his full-cut overalls and the cloth recliner.

Don’t know, responded the man. I think he’s out back.

Let’s get on to it, Daniels said as he surveyed the room. Why y’all just sittin’?

Daniels took the group’s apparent lethargy as an early challenge to his leadership—one that needed to be met with authority before the night ended in a whimper—or worse, a change of heart. As far back as the last Klavern meeting, when he’d first announced his plan for a new race war, Daniels had suspected his fellow Klansmen might abandon the cause.

You oughta be proud of tonight. We done waited too long while our country’s been given away. Daniels gesticulated like he was a neophyte candidate about to give a stump speech, only his would be riddled with insults and racial epithets skewering absent enemies.

Heads nodded, but no one moved. It was cold and dark outside while the room was warm.

They done laid us all off, Daniels said. Look, no one’s ever gonna hire me no more!

Daniels stabbed the air with his lesser hand, the one missing two fingers, their absence just below the proximal joints the result of a well-publicized plant accident. After the accident three years ago, his former coworkers had taken to calling him No-Fingered Frank and worse behind his back.

What if we get caught? a Klansman asked.

That’s not gonna happen, said Daniels, shutting off any more questions. To Daniels, the night was part of a far greater mission, but he first needed his men out of the room. We got everything we need.

Not everyone shared the grand dragon’s desire for a full-on race war, but their presence meant they’d decided to follow the new leader for now.

Who’s got the map? Daniels asked, still eyeing his legion with doubt.

I got one, but just this here, a Klansman said as he waved a large piece of limp, waxy paper. I don’t reckon I know them places so good.

You better not know them, Daniels said. The list?

I’m working on it, yet another Klansman responded. He was outfitted in a fake army jacket with fishing patches arranged like the zigzag path of a drunk driver.

They still needed to settle on the targets.

Where’s them crosses?

We had extra wood from a shed I done awhile back, explained the man who was stuffed into his overalls. There was problems with the arms.

Did you get ’em made or not? Daniels interrupted.

Shit, yeah. We got five of them fuckers.

They’ll do right fine, Frank, added the man in the jacket.

Daniels didn’t like being called by his first name, not since becoming the grand dragon. After all, he was now their leader. It was plain inappropriate being addressed that way in front of the others, but he didn’t say anything. He was dead set on planting the fiery crosses, and the night’s success would get him the respect he deserved.

Let’s load up.

We fixin’ to scare the shit out of ’em, howled the one in overalls as he struggled to get out of the recliner.

Remember the cans. This is nothin’ without the fire. It was the first time Billy Joe Bullock, the grand titan and the Klan’s second-in-command, had spoken all evening. Now, goddamn it, if you get yourself stopped, don’t spill your guts like you’re puking. Don’t admit to nothin’—there’s no plan, no Klavern. Say it’s a big joke. Worst case, you get slapped with some chickenshit like trespass.

Bullock left his stool to continue delivering his instructions. You two there, he said, pointing to the sentinels. Don’t wear those damn hoods. You might light me up instead of the crosses.

Daniels straightened and moved in front of the titan. He didn’t see the need to share the stage, however small. I want crosses at the office where the coloreds’ lawyer works and the courthouse where them goddamned judges hide out.

Daniels was familiar enough with the courthouse, having been arrested a dozen times over the previous four decades. The arrests were for minor offenses, with the exception of the domestic battery charge from his first marriage. Daniels had taken his lawyer’s advice to plead no contest to simple battery and enroll in an anger management course. As soon as he showed up for the first class, Daniels regretted admitting to anything. He skipped out on the course, but no one seemed concerned except for his soon-to-be ex-wife. At his next court appearance, Daniels lied twice by telling the judge he was sorry for his actions and that his unpredictable work hours prevented his continued course attendance. He was excused with a stern warning about keeping his temper at bay, and walked out of the courthouse with a hefty fine. Daniels cursed his lackey lawyer for years.

Where else? he added now.

The men had lurched around for years seeking an emotional elixir, and now they’d found it in night, wood, and fire. The room brimmed with hate—the natural outcome of communal resentment passed on like family heirlooms.

Jews. We need to get the Jews.

Spics. What about them?

Arabists, or whatever they fuckin’ called.

Fuckin’ camel humpers, I say.

Mexicans, and goddamn Canadians too.

What? Canadians?

They got socialist everything.

I don’t reckon Canadians got a spot here.

Better check.

Don’t be a fuckin’ idiot.

The Klansman who proposed the Canadians had his baseball cap knocked off his head as summary punishment for his bad idea. Undeterred, he made the very next suggestion.

What about the Mexicans?

What about ’em?

Aren’t we gonna get ’em?

We only got five.

Let’s shoot it up.

Tonight’s just for crosses.

A short man, the only one not wearing jeans and facial hair, raised his hand as if he were a student seeking permission to speak in class.

I seen the blacks laid off same as us, the man said. And when my Dorothy got sick awhile back, a foreigner neighbor took her to the hospital.

Why you sayin’ shit like that? Daniels demanded.

Wondering if we gotta be against everyone else all the time?

Being against them is what bein’ for us is all about. Daniels suspected somebody would back out. You pro-white?

Sure, the man responded.

He had missed the goddamned whole point, thought Daniels. The guy should be cut off clean like an amputation, but the grand dragon realized that might leave them one short for the night’s mission.

Nobody’s our equal. That’s the whole fuckin’ thing! Daniels yelled. Why you here?

Same as everyone. The man shifted from one leg to the other while looking at everyone in the room except the grand dragon.

Not sure about that, Daniels said. Maybe you oughta go on home.

I just was talkin’, Frank.

I told you, we are done past that. They’re stealin’ from you and me—from all of us whites. They want what we got. Only question is whether you gonna let them have it.

The man backed up and tried to disappear in a corner.

Goddamn stay, but don’t say nothin’ more—not a word.

Daniels announced, in addition to the NAACP office and the courthouse, they were going to burn crosses in the black neighborhood called Mooretown, outside a Jew building—preferably a temple if one existed, but at least a Jew bank—and a place connected with the Arabists.

Now get them addresses wrote down, the grand dragon ordered.

. . .

The pickups were outfitted with a veritable cross-burning tool kit: crosses, two three-gallon red metal cans filled with gasoline, an assortment of rags in plastic shopping bags, several pairs of thick leather workman’s gloves, two posthole diggers, three flashlights of varying degrees of brightness, a collection of matchbooks from different kitchen bowls, a loaded .30-06 Winchester rifle hanging against the grand dragon’s back window, and a loaded semiautomatic handgun under Bullock’s seat.

The titan sped off first, his pickup loaded with accomplices and crosses. Daniels left shortly after, driving a long-bed truck with a cracked exhaust pipe that announced itself to a slumbering world. The noise raised the danger for everyone, but there was no way Daniels was going to be a passenger in his own hate parade.

In Mooretown, Daniels picked a home on Crescent Street because it didn’t have any outside lights on. They held an impromptu voodoo dance to will the thick cross to a fiery afterlife. Once lit, the nascent flames wrapped around the sharp edges of the beam, and embers rose to touch the cold, dark sky. At first, most of them fell back to the ground and vanished. However, one and then more of the embers reached the home’s aged wood roof, landing together like parachuting soldiers. Within minutes, the roof was smoldering, but the Klansmen already had moved on to the next victim.

Despite bordering a residential area, the NAACP’s large yard sign was continuously lit by floodlights from below so its presence was obvious to all who passed by. Once the cross in the yard was on fire, they tried to ignite the signage. However, when the sign wouldn’t cooperate in its own demise, the Klansmen abandoned the effort and left.

The conspirators couldn’t find the synagogue at first. They had never met a Jew—or someone they thought was a Jew—much less seen where they worshiped. After casing the block three times, Daniels spotted the six-pointed star affixed above the main entrance door of an otherwise unadorned building. Daniels inched the truck under the shadow of a massive birch tree’s bare canopy and stopped. The Klansmen spilled out of the truck and collected the cross. They tied it to the streetlight pole in a forced marriage of metal and wood, and lit it up. The flame’s heat reached the synagogue’s thick front entrance, but the massive door protected the centuries-old parchment inside.

At the only published address for the Islamic center, the titan and his crew carried the cross to a low line of sickly hedges in a surface parking lot. They stopped and turned toward the main boulevard as two police cars sped by silent but with red and blue lights flashing. Within seconds, a massive yellow ladder truck followed in close pursuit with a feverish wail. Two Klansmen dropped the cross like they were abandoning an unwanted pet and bolted. Bullock, however, remained a moment longer to light the cross so it would burn like a brush fire.

At the courthouse, they planted and doused the cross on the front lawn. Unlike the previous ones, this cross didn’t just light up—it detonated with such force that the Klansmen checked to see if they had been singed. Once reassured, they ran away baying to the sky, one waving his white hood above his head and one firing a rifle across the empty lawn.

With their dark outing done, the conspirators made their way to their homes just as the streets started to course with activity. Dazed residents, bundled in mismatched clothing, came out of their homes into the frigid night, summoned by the ominous kaleidoscope of sights and sounds. On a dormant, moonless stage, Lynwood’s season of fear and disquiet had begun.

2

HEAT OF HATE

Friday unfolded for Nettie Wynn like an often-read book, with ease and comfort. She cooked herself a breakfast of a poached egg with two pieces of brown toast. After she finished, she called family members or took their calls, speaking of nothing and everything.

She lived in a modest, tidy, one-story brick rancher. She had been born in that home. A four-door gray sedan hibernated in the driveway, its roof still topped with leaves from last fall’s shedding.

Once or twice a week, friends visited or a home health worker checked in on her, but more often she spent her time alone. She watched an occasional program on television, though she couldn’t hear much without the hearing aid, an item she regularly and conveniently forgot to put in her ear. She waited a great deal, but didn’t mind, and made only modest demands on the world.

. . .

How are you today, Mrs. Wynn? asked the home health aide, a woman in her midthirties from Kingston, on her scheduled visit later the same morning.

Dear, I’m just fine. How nice of you to visit, Wynn said, repeating the greeting she’d delivered for the past two years.

I’m going to check your vitals, the woman said. We’re having some cold weather of late. You keeping warm enough, Mama?

Oh, yes. I’m snuggly as ever, Nettie answered, extending her arm.

You need anything? The aide wrapped Wynn’s arm in a blood pressure band.

No, dear, thank you.

How’s the family?

They tell me they’re just wonderful, but I don’t see them enough to know. They wouldn’t tell me anyhow.

Secrets—from you?

Best if I don’t know too much, Wynn said in mock complaint.

Mama, you know more than they think, but you’re too much a lady to let on.

My granddaughter Nicole, you’ve met her—she lives in New York City—always says she’s happy, but her way of sayin’ it tells me she’s not. I worry about her the most.

She gonna visit soon? The aide filled time with polite questions.

She’ll come when she can, Wynn responded. She’s awfully busy. You know she’s a writer for a big magazine.

The aide stepped back. The blood pressure numbers are almost perfect today. You must’ve done somethin’ right for—

"You can say it, dear. I’m O-L-D," said Wynn, the agreeable conversationalist.

How’s it you’re always so good to me? the woman asked.

I’ll tell you something, dear. Being nice to folks isn’t so much about them—it’s about you.

The woman nodded as she packed up. All right, Mama, I’ll be back next week.

I hope so.

. . .

Nettie Wynn awoke from a deep slumber that night to the siren calls of the fire engine. She grasped the corner post of the full-sized bed and lifted her small frame. She shuffled toward the offending noise, and as she drew back the heavy floral curtains, the cycling lights sprinted into the room and around the walls. She reached out and tried to touch the truck’s folded ladder, but her hand hit the windowpane instead.

With her sleep-blurred vision, Wynn thought she saw a tree on fire in her yard. The tree’s impending demise would be yet another unexpected loss for her. Just last month, Shirley, her neighbor of thirty years, had stopped visiting after she was moved into a nursing home. And six months ago, despite a legion of dedicated customers and decades of service, the grocer down on the corner had closed his tiny shop. The new economy didn’t have any room for him, he had said.

She stared out the window for the ten thousandth time but didn’t, or couldn’t, easily see that she was looking at the branded expression of hate. She wasn’t made that way. So she stood awhile longer before she recognized the true nature of the spectacle before her.

Oh, my—Lord, help me.

She couldn’t breathe. She raised her trembling hand to her mouth and backed away from the window. She heard someone beating on the front door. After all these years, the Klan had come for her. In an instant, the past had snatched away the present. She fell straight to the floor like a dropped stone of hail in a storm.

Outside, water shot from massive cannon hoses. It tore away the roof ’s wood shakes and saturated the ancient wood underneath. When Nettie didn’t answer the pounding on the door, a fireman broke through the simple lock and entered the home.

. . .

Rabbi Jonathan Steiner, wearing a saggy gray suit and wide tie, closed the door of his modest stucco duplex and headed out for the temple. He walked up Evergreen Avenue, the street that connected with Washburn Street a block from the synagogue. The early morning air was crisp, nippy even, and that Saturday morning carried a faint scent of burnt pine. When he approached the synagogue, the rabbi noticed a crowd had gathered. He quickened his pace to find out why. Maybe his lingering disappointment over the congregation’s recent poor attendance at services was premature after all.

Steiner put on his officious smile to greet the crowd. He searched for familiar faces, but saw only gawking strangers. He had just reached the synagogue’s entrance when an officer approached.

Are you with the synagogue? the officer asked.

Yes, I’m Rabbi Steiner.

Is there anyone in the building?

No, I’m the first to arrive. At least, I think I’m the first. We have services at ten.

There was an incident last night, the officer said, looking back over his shoulder. Follow me.

The officer led the rabbi over to the light pole. The crowd parted as the officer and the rabbi navigated the short distance to the streetlight.

This, the officer said, pointing to the blackened cross still lashed to the pole.

The wooded arms wore handcuffs of charred wood where the rags had been wrapped. The rope that encircled the cross had slipped down enough to escape the worst of the flames.

The rabbi glared at the skeletal remains. He hadn’t noticed it before because of the crowd. He glanced over to the temple’s entrance to judge the distance.

Sir, can we go somewhere? asked the officer. I need to ask some questions—whether the temple has received any threats or odd calls recently. Stuff like that.

Let’s go inside, the rabbi said. The services can start without me.

Lead the way, sir.

Why now? Rabbi Steiner asked aloud to no one in particular. There’s been no trouble for so long.

Maybe some delinquent’s idea of a prank.

This is no prank, the rabbi responded. This is why one of our congregants wears long sleeves—even in summer—to hide the Auschwitz registration numbers on his forearm.

A newspaper reporter standing nearby overheard the exchange and scribbled into her notepad. She started to ask the rabbi a question, but the officer cut her off and steered the rabbi away.

. . .

Nathaniel Rollins slept under a thick embroidered down comforter with his wife close by. The ring of the bedside phone upset the peaceful still of the room. He looked at his

Reviews for No Truth Left To Tell

[lorisbook · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

No Truth Left to Tell is an intense legal thriller that displays multiple layers of cause- and - effect. The story begins with a maimed Grand Dragon, Frank Daniels, plotting to create a Race War and we quickly learn he'd already used the legal system to his advantage. Nettie Wynne suffers a heart attack, during the hate crime, Daniels induced and Nettie's granddaughter Nicole DuBose returns to Lynwood to take care of Nettie. In steps, special agent Lee Mercer with the FBI and federal civil rights prosecutor Adrien Rush. All men on the extremists' lists are looked at closely. Meanwhile, Adrien falls for Nicole.Detective Jimmy Bastiste gets involved with the case and his deviant behavior leads one to look at issues of authority and influential culture and constitutional rights. McAuliffe tells it like it is and has an incredible way of expressing situations with compelling characters. I was immediately invested in the story and had strong emotions throughout the trial and impending conclusion. The ending chapter's were a wise choice, but rather hard to take, which made for an excellent storyline.I received the advance reader copy from Senior Publicity Manager, Anna Sacca, with FSB Associates.