The Trust of Old Men: The Coastal Plain Conspiracy

By A. L. Provost

Our saga began with a mysterious hit-and-run accident on a narrow, snow-swept highway in eastern North Carolina at 7:15 p.m. on December 20, 1920.
It ended three months later in a hail of gunfire on the fourth-deck passageway of a Panama-bound steamship in Baltimore harbor.
Could these two seminal events relate to the presumed accidental deaths of seventeen elderly residents of five rural North Carolina Coastal Plain counties, each of whom just happened to be the last surviving member of his or her line? The authorities were mystified.
Perhaps the reader should not expect a happy ending. Interesting? Immensely. Predictable? Absolutely not. Another page-turner? Most assuredly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453595909

A. L. Provost

The author, an attorney and optometrist, resides outside Atlanta with his wife Evelyn, an attorney, their four talented children having gone on to careers in Optometry, real estate and teaching. In May 1961 the author received an undergraduate degree in Physics-Mathematics from Berry College, and in July of that year enlisted in the U. S. Army. He served two tours of duty in South Korea, the last with U. S. Army Intelligence as a Korean linguist and prisoner interrogator. In 1972 Dr. Provost was awarded the degree of Doctor of Optometry from the University of Houston, and in 1980 earned a Juris Doctor degree from Nova Southeastern University College of Law. Dr. Provost is the author of the best-selling memoir, Reflections in an Orphan’s Eye, The Puppeteer, a mystery novel of the wartime South, and thirteen other mystery novels.

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Praise for the mystery novels

of A. L. Provost:

The Tangled Web

Congratulations on a great book that combines

historic detail with suspense and superb

characterization.

Writer’s Digest

The Thirty-seventh Parallel

You did a good job building the suspense and

drawing the reader into the plot . . . I found

myself reading quickly without realizing how

much time was passing.

Writer’s Digest

The Puppeteer

The murder plot that unravels in the novel

is complex and well-developed.

Writer’s Digest

Grand Deceptions

. . . deals with intricate plots that unfold

over a relatively brief period of time.

Writer’s Digest

Introduction

Our saga begins on a narrow snow-swept road in eastern North Carolina on December 20, 1920. A happy University of North Carolina freshman was on his way home to Raleigh to spend the Christmas holiday with his family.

Tragically the lad never saw the young woman dressed in black standing in the middle of the road waving her arms. That is, not until it was too late . . .

A few weeks later, on January 7, 1921 a lonely eighty-four-year-old widower who lived alone in a farmhouse ten miles south of Kinston, North Carolina, about two hours drive down U.S. 70 from Raleigh, received in the mail an unsolicited colorful brochure from Wright Boating and Fishing over on the Outer Banks.

The avid fisherman answered the tour company’s impressive ad and soon was on his way by train to Elizabeth City. The octogenarian felt honored, because he was the only one of his friends to have received a colorful brochure from Wright Boating and Fishing . . .

Although these two seminal events compressed within a three-week span of time would appear to be unrelated—the university student and the old fisherman never had met and were not related—tragically their lives shared a common bond.

In the end it would take the investigative efforts of homicide detectives from Kinston, Raleigh and Baltimore to unravel the labyrinth of deceit and murder in this diabolical plot dubbed by the print media The Coastal Plain Conspiracy.

And caught up in the middle of the drama was an intrepid newspaper reporter who quite literally risked becoming the central player in his own story. A happy ending? Maybe not. Interesting? You could bet a stalk of tobacco on it!

Chapter 1

The Accident

December 20, 1920. Nineteen-year-old University of North Carolina freshman Alan Barksdale peered out the window of his second-floor dorm room at the light snow that had begun falling thirty minutes earlier. He was trying to make up his mind: Should he stay? Or go?

It was 4:00 p.m. This was the last day of class before the second semester began on January 4, 1921. Alan had studied hard, his grades were excellent and he was eager to get home. Home was in an upscale section of Raleigh. From his dorm room at UNC in Chapel Hill to his home it took about an hour and a half. That is, in good driving conditions . . .

It would turn dark at around 5:00 p.m. So if he left now and the snowfall remained light, Alan would have reasonably good visibility and should be driving through only about thirty minutes of darkness.

Alan was a dedicated student. While studying for his final exams, he had seen his family only once during the past six weeks. He was eager to get home.

Alan’s father Marvin was manager of Commerce Bank, the largest bank in Raleigh, with branches in Charlotte, Greensboro and Kinston. Alan had two older brothers, Wilbur, a pharmacist and Thomas, a manufacturing executive. Along with their mother Ethel, the five made for a close-knit, loving family.

In 1920 an assembly-line four-door black Ford cost less than five hundred dollars. But then again a large loaf of bread cost but thirteen cents. As a high school graduation present in May 1920 the proud Marvin Barksdale had purchased for his industrious son a brand-spanking-new 1920 black four-door Ford.

Having no desire to remain in the nearly empty dormitory for another night, the impatient lad telephoned his mother and started out from Chapel Hill at nightfall through a light snow.

Thin tires on an icy slick road in thirty-degree temperatures at night make for treacherous driving conditions. Between Chapel Hill and the western Raleigh city limits snowfall intensity increased, and at less than thirty miles per hour the normally hour and a half trip had become a journey. Visibility had dropped to no more than thirty yards and home still was at least an hour away. Alan had made a bad decision and was approaching a dangerous curve on the otherwise straight Cary-Raleigh highway.

The form of a young woman who to Alan appeared to be sitting on the narrow snow-covered tar-and-gravel road was in the headlight beams before Alan could react. The impact of the heavy four-door Ford lifted the woman into the air, and her lifeless body lay crumpled on the roadway in the bright beam of the car’s headlights.

And in the bright beam of the headlights of the car that just so happened to be heading west at the exact time the front bumper of Alan’s eastbound vehicle struck the woman as she sat in the roadway.

It was 7:15 p.m. The increasingly heavy snowfall had kept prudent motorists off the road, so the only person who had seen Alan’s car strike the woman was the driver of the westbound vehicle.

The same driver who had driven his car off onto the shoulder of the road and motioned for Alan to do the same. Following the impact the woman’s body also had ended up sprawled just at the edge of the narrow two-lane road. Within minutes snow would cover the body completely.

Alan and the other driver got out of their cars and met on the road.

I didn’t even see her, pleaded the panicked student. What was she doing out in the middle of the road on a night like this anyway?

I believe that’s her car in the ditch back aways, responded the other driver. She must have slid off the road in the snow and was trying to flag you down. That’s why she was waving her arms above her head like that.

The dazed and confused young college student desperately attempted to sort out what he had just seen and what the driver of the west-bound car said he had seen.

Alan recalled that the last thing he had seen prior to the impact had been the blond-haired woman sitting in the road directly in the path of his car.

If this were true, then why did the other motorist say the woman was standing in the road waving her arms? It did not make sense. At least not to Alan Barksdale.

The man walked over to the woman, who was lying on her side. He pressed the pads of his fingers to the inside of her wrist, holding this position for about ten seconds.

The man then repeated the procedure, this time on the side of the victim’s neck near her jawbone. After another ten seconds he rose from his kneeling position and approached Alan, who was standing nervously about twenty feet away, silently praying that he would not suddenly see headlights on the eastern or western horizon.

She’s dead, reported the man solemnly. Nothing we can do for her now.

I’ll stay here if you drive into Raleigh and telephone the police, offered the distraught youngster.

What’s your name? asked the man, seemingly ignoring Alan’s suggestion.

Alan. Alan Barksdale.

What were you doing out on the highway on a night like tonight? asked the man, assuming an incredulous yet at the same time compassionate tone.

I’m a freshman at UNC, explained Alan. Fall semester just ended and I was trying to return home to Raleigh before the snow got any worse. I know now that wasn’t such a good idea.

Do you live with your parents? asked the man, still ignoring Alan’s suggestion about the man going to telephone the Raleigh police.

Yes, replied Alan.

"What does your father do?’ asked the man.

He’s the manager of Commerce Bank in Raleigh, replied Alan.

Well I happen to know that Commerce Bank is the largest bank in Raleigh, said the man. I have a checking account and a savings account at a Commerce Bank branch office.

Alan did not want to offend this stranger. However the police still had to be notified. The man continued.

We’re both foolish for trying to make it through this ice and snow, lamented the man, who appeared to be in his early forties. But I was supposed to attend a two-day seminar beginning at eight o’clock this morning in Durham. I’ll surely be late for that.

"Should one of us try to drive to Raleigh and notify the police?’ asked Alan.

Two things to think about before we make any rash decision, said the man earnestly. I can vouch for the fact that what happened here was an accident. The girl had no business standing in the middle of the highway during such a heavy snowfall. I wouldn’t have seen her either. Nor would have anyone else.

Alan suddenly felt encouraged by the stranger’s willingness to help him. Then he recalled the man’s comment. "You said something about two things we had to consider?" Alan said expectantly.

Our concern is that regardless of what I say in your favor, the Raleigh police might not see it that way, replied the man. And whether the police call it an accident or charge you with reckless homicide, the publicity will be with you for the rest of your life. It will ruin your father’s chances of continuing as manager of Commerce Bank. So let’s talk this situation through and see what’s best for you and your family.

Once the two strangers weighed Alan’s options, the man convinced Alan that because he could not help the woman, and indeed it had been an accident, the prudent course of action would be to follow the man’s suggestion.

There was still no traffic on the highway, and the heavy snowfall had begun to let up. They walked to Alan’s car. The man started the engine and drove about thirty yards, finding the sturdy four-door Ford to be in good driving condition.

Help me pull the body away from the highway, said the man. Now that the snow has pretty much stopped, the tires of heavy transfer trucks coming along shortly will rid the highway of all this snow. There was a gas station about a mile back toward Raleigh. Let’s take our time and drive there. The station’s closed for the night, but we mustn’t be seen here on the road, such that some passing motorist might remember seeing our cars out here near the accident.

Thirty minutes later the men were parked in a cleared area near the two-pump Esso gas station. The man walked over to Alan’s car, and Alan rolled down the driver’s side window.

Just stay in your car, said the man. When it gets light in a few hours, wait until I drive west toward Durham. Then take your time and drive on home. Try to forget what happened here tonight, and get on with your life. Good luck to you.

They shook hands through the opened driver’s side window, and the man turned and walked toward his own late-model black Ford parked some forty feet away.

As the stranger opened the door of his own car and climbed onto the driver’s seat, Alan suddenly recalled that he did not even know the Good Samaritan’s name. Alan considered walking over and asking the man his name, but recalled the stranger’s cautionary words about not being seen, so Alan remained seated in his own car.

Dawn on the cold and cloudy December 21 came at 7:15 a.m. Heavy truck traffic that had followed the cessation of the snowfall had served to clear the snow from the highway.

At 7:30 Alan peered through the snow covering his windshield as he heard the engine of the stranger’s Ford come to life, and moments later the man’s car merged with the west-bound traffic heading toward Durham.

An hour later a brand-spanking-new 1920 black four-door Ford, sporting a dented front bumper and a cracked left front headlight, pulled into the driveway beside a two-story brick residence in a fashionable Raleigh suburb.

By the time of Alan’s arrival his father was already on his way to Commerce Bank in downtown Raleigh. Alan’s two brothers, Wilbur and Thomas, were set to arrive the following day, December 22, to spend Christmas at home.

Alan decided the more prudent course of action would be to drive his car into the two-car detached garage, and leave it there until his return to the university on January 3.

The Accusation

Alan could have survived the holidays with the cowardly cover-up had it not been for the front-page story that appeared below the fold in the Raleigh News and Observer the morning of December 23.

At breakfast Alan, his mother and his two brothers were seated around the large oval mahogany dining room table, enjoying their Virginia ham, over-easy fried eggs and grits, when the paperboy rode by on his Chinese-red American Flyer and flipped the day’s rolled-up newspaper onto the front porch where it landed with a kerplunk!

Eager to see what was showing at the Carolina Theatre downtown—anything to take his mind off his worry surrounding the auto accident—Alan stood and walked out the front door and onto the porch.

Picking up the newspaper, Alan turned to walk back into the house, at the same time unrolling the paper. Glaring at him from the front page below the fold was the headline:

POLICE SEEK HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER

The headline stopped the young man in mid-stride, and he quickly sat down on the large porch swing. He stared in mesmerized shock as the accusations leapt at him from the printed page: Cary Highway. Snow-covered body found. Anonymous call to Raleigh police. Driver speeding from scene of accident toward Raleigh.

The story related how an anonymous caller, probably a male, telephoned the Raleigh police at 1:00 p.m. on December 21. The caller told police he had been driving west on the Cary-Raleigh highway late the previous night. He observed the speeding black four-door Ford strike the woman, who was walking on the shoulder of the highway.

The caller related how he stopped his car in order to render assistance, but that the driver of the Ford had sped from the scene toward Raleigh.

The hit-and-run driver had left the woman’s body lying in the middle of the highway, according to the anonymous eyewitness. After the driver fled the scene, not knowing whether the woman was dead or alive, the eyewitness claimed he had dragged the woman’s lifeless body off onto the shoulder of the road and out of the danger of being stuck by traffic passing on the busy highway.

By telephone police had questioned the eyewitness as to his reason for waiting ten hours before calling police. The man claimed he had been afraid he himself would be implicated in the woman’s tragic death. However upon reflection he decided it was his civic duty and moral responsibility to see that the criminal was apprehended.

As the hit-and-run driver had not gotten out of his vehicle, the eyewitness was unable to give a description of the driver. Police admitted they had very little evidence to go on in the case.

Alan sat on the porch swing in the thirty-degree early December morning, feeling his world closing in around him. However he did possess the presence of mind to realize he must think the situation through as soon as possible.

The Sir Walter Cafe, located near the capital building downtown, opened for business at 6:00 a.m., as it had since 1899. There he could get lost in the breakfast crowd. He quickly opened the newspaper to the movie and comics section and entered the house.

I’ve got to run into town for about an hour to look for a Christmas present, Alan announced to his mother and brothers as he placed the newspaper on the kitchen table in front of Wilbur. Thomas, since my car’s in the garage and you guys are blocking me in, could I borrow your car for about an hour?

Sure Alan, said Thomas reaching for the newspaper. Just don’t wreck it, he added laughing. If you only knew, thought the distressed college freshman.

Before leaving the house Alan stopped by his room and picked up a pad of Montag lined writing paper. Since high school he had always been able to learn better if he could write out his thoughts clearly. And he definitely needed to keep his wits about him this morning.

Thirty minutes later Alan was seated alone at a small table-for-two at the rear of the landmark café, a fountain pen, Montag writing pad and steaming mug of Maxwell House coffee arranged neatly before him on the table. He arose, purchased a newspaper and returned to his table.

The damage had been done by the wolf in a Good Samaritan’s clothing. Alan had two immediate goals in mind. First he had to locate the liar. Second he had to contact the Raleigh police and explain what really had occurred on that snowy Cary-Raleigh highway on the late night of December 20.

And the thread that wound its way through all of these damming thoughts was: Why? Why had this so-called friend decided to turn on Alan suddenly?

According to the story in the Raleigh News and Observer, the stranger stated he was unable to identify the driver because the driver had remained in his car and had sped from the scene of the accident without stopping to render assistance.

This report was puzzling for several reasons. If the stranger wanted to harm Alan, which now certainly appeared to be his intent, why had the man not given the police the information that would have led to Alan’s quick arrest? Alan jotted a note on the pad.

This information included the fact that Alan was a freshman at UNC, and that Alan’s father was the manager of Commerce Bank in Raleigh. With this modicum of knowledge a rookie Raleigh cop could have apprehended the so-called hit-and-run driver before Christmas Eve. And to top this off, Alan had even given the stranger his full name.

Thus apparently the mysterious stranger had not seen it in his own interest to divulge this critical information to police. In other words he had accused Alan of two crimes, vehicular homicide and hit-and-run driving, yet had not given police the simple information that would have led to Alan’s arrest.

The balance of human interaction is grounded in logic. And if a person’s actions fly in the face of his orderly social intercourse, a reasonable person naturally looks for the cause of the imbalance.

Which is exactly what Alan Barksdale did as he sat alone at a small table at the rear of the Sir Walter Café in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina on that cold and gray late-December morning. Wracking his brain in search of logic. And apparently not making a lot of headway in that regard.

After awhile his mind, unable to figure out the stranger’s reasons for wanting to harm an innocent stranger, put this part of his dilemma on hold and segued into survival mode.

The unfortunate young man’s choices were limited, in the manner of Jason’s confrontation with Scylla and Charbydis, or the latter-day choice between a rock and a hard place. And his naïveté and unworldliness made an untenable position almost impossible.

Alan’s snap decision he had made on the night of December 20, not to notify police of the accident as soon as possible, had been made on the advice of the stranger, whose reasoning at the moment appeared sound to Alan, and founded on compassion.

First of all the incident indeed had been an unfortunate accident. But an accident nonetheless. At least in Alan’s mind.

Second, it was true that nothing Alan could do would bring the poor girl back to life, or to make tangible amends.

Left to his own judgment however, Alan’s Christian morals dictated that still the dead woman deserved the respect of the authorities being informed of her death. All too late Alan realized that he should have ignored the stranger’s suggestions and made his way to the nearest telephone to notify police.

However hindsight is always twenty-twenty, and likely if Alan contacted police at this late date, they might well interpret his coming forward only after the story appeared in the newspaper, as evidence supporting the eyewitness’ false charges of hit-and-run vehicular homicide.

Ruminating the possibilities for nearly thirty minutes in the quietude of the rear of the Sir Walter Café, Alan concluded that for him there really was no way to reverse the terrible events.

He, that is Alan Barksdale, knew the true story of that fateful night. On the other hand however the police, as far as they were concerned, also knew the true story, related to them by a civic-minded eyewitness, who it was naturally assumed would have possessed no ulterior motive in making his unbiased (?), anonymous (and belated) report to the police.

After all, presented with both the Alan Barksdale and the police versions of the truth, whose story would the proverbial reasonable observer be more likely to believe? And for that matter, whose story would a twelve-man jury of Southern Baptist men be more likely to believe? His choices appeared to be slim and none.

In the end the anguished lad realized that he could not come forward and tell his story to police. His only hope for justice lay in finding the man who had at first befriended, then maliciously turned on the innocent young man.

Alan ran the tragic events of the snowy night of December 20 across his mind’s silent moving picture screen, desperately searching the one-act tragedy for anything that would serve as a clue to the vindictive stranger’s identity.

First of all the man was heading west in the direction of Durham. However this fact did not prove that the man actually resided in Raleigh, from where he had been coming.

The stranger had offered that he maintained a checking account and a savings account at a Commerce Bank branch office.

Because of Alan’s interest in the banking business, he knew that there were four branch banks in the Commerce Bank system. These branches were located in Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, and Kinston. This fact was better than nothing. Though not by a lot. It might however, possibly narrow the man’s residence down to one of these four towns. But not necessarily, conceded Alan.

Next Alan recalled the man’s automobile. As with just about everyone else in America during the infancy of automobile assembly-line production, Alan was fascinated by Henry Ford and his automobile.

Alan’s car, a May 1920 high school graduation present from his father, was a new black four-door 1920 Ford.

Exactly like the stranger’s car.

And unfortunately for the young man, exactly like literally thousands of black, four-door 1920 Fords. They exploded off the assembly lines like a colony of black ants.

Alan of course had had no reason to note the license plate of the man’s car on that fateful night. Nothing but a useless clue. The man’s car.

Another useless clue to add to those several other useless clues noted on the writing pad resting beside his quickly-cooling mug of Maxwell House on that cold and depressing late-December morning.

The discouraged lad tore off the top sheet on which he had roughly sketched his clues as they came to him. He reworded the items neatly on the clean sheet of paper, numbering them as follows:

1. Man probably not from Durham.

2. Man drives black, four-door 1920 Ford.

3. Man lives in or near Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro or Kinston.

4. Man’s age between 30 and 40.

Suddenly Alan paused, tentatively believing there must be something else he recalled about the stranger. As his hand was poised in the space above the Montag pad, he quickly wrote, as if daring not to forget this essential clue.

5. Man is a Yankee. Not from the South.

Conceding the obvious regional speech variations—for example a native of Mississippi would have a different Southern accent than would a person who grew up in South Carolina—still neither of these Southerners would ever be accused in polite company of being a Yankee.

For one thing Yankees talk too damn fast, like they feared they would run out of breath before they said all they had to say. And this clipped, hurried speech was readily apparent to Alan even though the conversation between the two men had been brief.

And then there was Durham. North Carolinians, especially around Durham and Raleigh, pronounce Durham with a hard r, as though the word were spelled Durram, whereas Northerners pronounce the name of the town as Douram. This might be understandable to Yankees. However to Southerners this was a glaring mispronunciation of the word, situated on the scale of social ungraciousness somewhere between ignorance and insult. Durram and Douram. A dead giveaway every time.

Alan sat back and stared at the five enumerated possible clues to the stranger’s identity. He placed the sheet of Montag writing paper, on which he had originally jotted some disjointed clues, on the seat beside him. He would toss the used sheet of paper in the trash can on his way out of the café.

The pretty waitress had met Alan with a warm smile as she approached his table to take his order when he arrived. At about his age, with the name Amelia sewn in white thread across her blouse pocket, she had returned several times to refill his coffee mug.

That’s the downside of being engrossed in one’s troubles. One tends not to pick up on the subtle intentions of a pretty girl who’s just refilled one’s coffee mug for the fourth time. Attempting but failing to make eye contact.

Amelia Martin was a nursing student at Raleigh Memorial Hospital. Between semesters she worked as a waitress at the landmark Sir Walter Café.

Amelia had seen the good-looking boy in the café once before. He had been with his two brothers, and Amelia had been attracted to him to the extent she had asked the older waitress Judith if Judith knew the boy’s name.

Sure honey, those are the three sons of Mr. and Mrs. Barksdale. The father’s a bigwig over at Commerce Bank. I believe the younger brother, the one you can’t seem to keep your eyes off of by the way, is named Alan. He’s a freshman over at UNC.

So Amelia had looked forward to the Christmas holidays and a chance to see the handsome student again. If the situation arose, she would make some excuse to introduce herself.

However this had not worked out the way the eager nursing student had daydreamed it. When the boy entered the café he had asked for a table at the rear of the eatery. Almost immediately he had placed his Montag writing pad and expensive gold-tipped Schaeffer fountain pen on the table before him, whereupon he hunched his shoulders and commenced half-writing, half-doodling, never looking up from his task. Certainly not a scene conducive to friendly introductions.

Meanwhile the focus of Amelia’s interest (could it be adoration?) was hard at the mental task of considering his immediate response to the damning revelation contained in the newspaper article. He had added several additional thoughts to his notebook paper.

Alan had to play for time until he could work out a way to determine the identity of the stranger. As soon as he arrived home he would cause the day’s issue of the Raleigh News and Observer to conveniently disappear. In the meantime he would work hard at trying to figure out why the stranger had accused him.

Finally Alan screwed the top of his blue gold-inlaid fountain pen onto its base. He placed the pen into the inside breast pocket of his expensive woolen coat. He rose, left the money for his check and a generous tip on the table, picked up his Montag writing pad and walked to the front door of the Sir Walter Café.

It was only after he had exited the café that Alan realized he had left the newspaper on the table, folded with the accusatory article facing up.

Chapter 2

The Inquisitive Waitress

Back in the café, a disappointed Amelia Martin walked over to clear Alan’s table. As she leaned over to wipe clean the table, her gaze fell on a sheet of paper resting on the seat of the chair.

Just where Alan Barksdale had placed it after discarding it for a revised, clean sheet of blue-lined writing paper. The paper contained some apparently mindless doodling, a short numbered list of four items, and four seemingly disjointed words, none of which made any sense of order to Amelia. She folded the paper twice, placed it inside her apron pocket and continued her work.

It was the policy of the café management that items left by customers would be held in the manager’s office for a period of thirty days before being discarded as unwanted.

However in the instant case, because Amelia liked the handsome student, she decided to keep the sheet of paper herself. If the boy returned for the paper, and the manager asked Amelia about it, she would claim she had placed the folded paper in her apron pocket and had not discovered it until she returned home. Sounded plausible to Amelia anyway.

The misplaced sheet of notebook paper would provide Amelia with her sought-after excuse for meeting Alan Barksdale. Hopefully he would notice he had misplaced the paper, and would return to the café. If not, then when he came in again she would remind him that he had left the paper the last time he had been in the café.

Amelia did not pay much attention to the other item Alan had left lying on the table—the day’s issue of the Raleigh News and Observer.

Newspapers were not included in the thirty-day save policy. It was assumed that customers no longer wanted any newspapers left on their table. However as Amelia reached for the newspaper, her eye caught the article about the hit-and-run driver. She glanced at the article before tucking the newspaper under her arm and continuing her work.

When Alan arrived home he apologized to his mother and his brothers for his delay in returning home. He suggested the three of them take in the Buster Keaton moving picture show down at the Bijou Theatre later that afternoon. At least it would keep the troubled lad’s mind occupied for an hour or so.

Those Damming Notes

Amelia Martin’s shift ended at 6:00 p.m. She bundled up against the biting twenty-mile-per-hour wind and walked the twelve city blocks to her home. She greeted her parents, told them she had already had supper at the café, and walked upstairs to her room to change out of her brown work uniform.

The tired waitress emptied her apron pockets, placing the stubby No. 2 Yellow pencil, her order pad and the folded sheet of paper on the small sewing table in one corner of the room.

Amelia took off her waitress’ brown uniform dress and put on her cotton robe in preparation for taking a bath. Idle curiosity caused her to unfold Alan Barksdale’s sheet of blue-lined Montag notebook paper. She pressed out the creases and sat at her small table, perusing the words written on the paper.

Suddenly she caught her breath. She read the four items that Alan had jotted down on the paper. Then she rose slowly, slipped her bare feet into her slippers and walked downstairs. Minutes later she was back in her room, carrying the day’s issues of the Raleigh News and Observer.

Amelia sat at the small table. She folded the newspaper to where only the hit-and-run article was visible. Then she placed the notebook paper beside the folded newspaper, and moved her steady gaze back and forth between the newspaper and the notebook paper. Like she was a sponge, soaking up the words.

Suddenly Amelia felt light-headed. She wished she never had seen either the sheet of notebook paper or the newspaper article. But she had seen them both. Alone neither was of great significance. However when read together they pointed to a shocking accusation.

The notations that almost caused Amelia to retch were as follows:

Why did he wait to tell?

Why didn’t he give my name?

What does he want from me?

What a stupid thing I’ve done.

The four disjointed words were:

Kinston-Raleigh-Charlotte-Greensboro

Staring at the two items before her, the inescapable conclusion could only be that Alan Barksdale was the hit-and-run driver who had killed the young woman. There simply could be no other explanation.

Amelia Martin was too stunned to think clearly. Suddenly a terrifying thought struck her. Surely Alan Barksdale would quickly recall where he had left the newspaper and sheet of notebook paper. The notebook paper that contained the distinctive neat handwriting of one Alan Barksdale.

Suddenly Amelia feared for her safety. Her only way out was to deny she had ever seen the incriminating sheet of notebook paper.

However this jumbled thought segued quickly into one involving Amelia’s responsibility for informing the police of the sheet of notebook paper, that when read in conjunction with the newspaper article clearly implicated Alan Barksdale in the crimes of leaving the scene of a fatal accident (hit-and-run driving) and vehicular homicide.

In North Carolina in 1920 conviction on these two charges carried a maximum sentence of forty years to life in state prison.

Amelia Martin’s Conundrum

Amelia Martin was about to make a decision based on a questionable assumption, this being the honesty and veracity of the purported eyewitness to the fatal accident.

A second iffy assumption followed hard on the heels of the first, this being that the notations made on the notebook paper by Alan Barksdale were made by someone who believed in his own guilt and was desperate to escape responsibility.

Amelia Martin’s decision would change forever the lives of four innocent persons, one of these lives being her own.

The troubled and confused nursing student sat at the small table for nearly an hour, pondering her double bind. Initially she knew that she could not simply ignore the complicated problem.

An innocent young woman had been killed, though certainly not on purpose. However her body had been left lying on the shoulder of the highway at night, covered with a blanket of snow.

This fact alone begged for justice for the young victim. And Amelia appeared to be the only person who could connect the crime with the perpetrator.

Amelia read the newspaper article once again. Then she placed the folded News and Observer on the edge of the round table and stared at a definite indefinite point in space between herself and the far wall.

Something about the article puzzled Amelia to no end. This was the feeble (in Amelia’s mind anyway) explanation of the reason the eyewitness had waited a full ten hours before notifying police of the tragic accident. Something about his story just didn’t jibe with the expected actions of an honest person.

On one hand the eyewitness stated he had dragged the victim’s body off the highway onto the shoulder after the other driver had run over the woman and fled the scene. Standing alone such conduct would appear quite admirable indeed.

On the other hand however, this ostensible Good Samaritanism did not mesh with the man’s own admission that he waited a full ten hours to notify the police as to where they could locate the woman’s body covered in three inches of snow.

Thus the eyewitness’ fear of being implicated in the hit-and-run accident and waiting ten hours before reporting the accident, did not comport with someone calling himself a compassionate person. Not by the proverbial long shot.

Furthermore because the so-called eyewitness chose to remain anonymous after delaying his report for ten hours, certainly he could have telephoned the same anonymous report to police as soon as he witnessed the incident. The man’s refusal to become involved would have been the same in either case.

Before long Amelia’s mind was in a muddle. What had begun as a seemingly cut-and-dried set of facts had become anything but.

And something else about the case bothered Amelia. Ten hours is a very long interval of time, regardless of what one is doing. It made absolutely no sense of reason to Amelia that the eyewitness would have