Chapter 9
After getting off the phone with Sheriff Petty, Winston called Glenn and then Agent Rollins and told them what he'd learned. Both were happy with the news, but Winston could tell that neither one of them had high hopes that anything at the scene down in Horry County would prove to be connected to their own investigation. Sure, the cocaine from Petty's bust might have been flown in on the airplane that now sat on the runway here in Brunswick County, but without fingerprints or ballistic evidence connecting the two scenes there was just no way to know. So, they'd have to wait until all the samples were turned in and tested and then tested against one another.
"We'll know something sooner or later," Rollins had said, but Winston didn't have any use for later. He didn't want to acknowledge the ticking clock of next week's election, especially not to Rollins, but the ticking was there, even if he was the only who could hear it.
After hanging up with Rollins, Winston heard Vicki raise her voice out in the lobby, speaking loudly as if trying to get someone's attention. "Sir," she said. "Sir!"
Winston leaned forward as if being closer to Vicki's voice would give him a better idea of what was going on on the other side of his closed door.
"Sir!" Vicki said. "You can't go in there!"
Footsteps rounded the corner and pounded down the hallway toward Winston's office. As if commanded by instinct, Winston stood and braced his body for whatever was about to come through his door, understanding that his gun hung just out of reach. Without thinking, he moved from behind his desk and readied himself to face the person that Vicki had been unable to stop.
He winced when the door flew open, not so much because the force of the swing made him blink, but because of the person the door's opening had revealed: Ed Bellamy stood just a few feet away from him, breathing heavily, his face gleaming with sweat, from either anger or exertion, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. Neither man said a word, each seemingly surprised to be in such close proximity to the other after the stir Bellamy's march into the station had caused. Winston could see Vicki standing in the middle of the hallway, her face a combination of fear and anger. Winston looked from her to Bellamy, and then he looked back at her. "It's okay, Vicki," he said. "It's okay. I've got it."
She nodded her head slightly and turned the corner to make her way back toward her office.
Winston watched her go, and then his eyes settled on Bellamy's. He'd left one hand on the doorknob, and with his other he pushed his glasses back toward his eyes, and then he raised a hand and pointed his finger at the dead center of Winston's chest. Bellamy didn't say a word. He just stood there, pointing.
It was clear to Winston that Bellamy was not someone looking for a fight; he was very clearly someone who'd had the fight taken out of him: a father who'd lost a child, a man whose life had been destroyed in the course of a single day. Behind his thick glasses his eyes were damp with tears garnered by grief and rage, and in that single moment of silence that passed between them, Winston understood just how close and inextricably tied together the two emotions are.
Winston did not whisper, but he did speak quietly. "Ed," he said, "you can close the door."
Bellamy stood there for a moment, and then he pushed the door closed behind him, his other hand still pointed at Winston in what seemed like an accusation.
"What's going on, Ed?" Winston asked. He stepped back, felt his desk brush his thighs. He leaned against it as if he were about to relax into a conversation with a colleague who'd stopped by to swap gossip.
"We're not going to do this again, Winston," Bellamy said. He waved his finger as if scolding a child, and then he folded his fingers into a fist. "We're not going to do this."
"Do what, Ed?" Winston said. "I don't know what you're talking about." He gestured to a chair in front of him, and then he bent slowly and picked up his hat where it sat on the seat. "You want to sit down? Talk this over?" He stood slowly and walked behind his desk to give Bellamy more room to do whatever he decided to do.
Bellamy did not sit, choosing instead to put his hands on the back of the chair and grip it as if preparing to throw it against the wall. He leaned toward the chair, his voice coming out even and clear.
"We're not going back, Winston," he said. "We're not going back to night rides and gunshots. We're not going to stand for it."
"Jesus, Ed," Winston said, "what in the world are you talking about? What gunshots?"
"Last night," Bellamy said. "Bradley Frye and all his good old boys. They showed up at Rodney's house and threw something through a window, demanded that boy Jay come out. They were driving through the Grove in the middle of the night in their trucks, revving their engines, shooting off guns. Had their rebel flags flying." He pushed his glasses up again, and Winston saw that his hand trembled. "They came by my house too, and I was waiting for them. Anybody firing a weapon in front of my house is going to take fire in return."
"Wait," Winston said. "Wait, are you telling me that Bradley Frye came to the Grove and shot at people?"
Bellamy's face changed suddenly, and Winston saw that, for the first time since he'd burst into his office, Bellamy was angry. He stepped out from behind the chair and pointed at Winston again. His voice was louder, more defiant.
"I'm telling you that he came into the Grove like the goddamned golden days of the Klan." He stopped, his breathing coming rapidly, his forehead again damp with sweat. "And I'm telling you this too: we will not be run out of our homes. Not again. Not by him."
"Jesus, Ed," Winston said. "I had no idea."
"You should've," Bellamy said. "I called 911 last night. It took some fat-ass deputy of yours over an hour to get out there; they'd all left by then. Your deputy didn't even get out of his damn car, Winston; wouldn't even come up on my porch and talk to me. I was out there with a rifle. He made me set it down, threatened to arrest me if I didn't. He said the night looked quiet as far as he could see."
Bellamy turned and looked at Winston's closed office door. He lifted his finger as if pointing through it. "And I've called her about five times this morning trying to get you on the damned phone, and every time she tells me you're busy. And I get here and find you sitting on your ass while my son—" He stopped, choked back something, and then continued. "While my son is sitting up in the funeral home because his widow can't stop crying long enough to make a decision about when to lay him to rest. And now she's got a bunch of white boys shooting off guns in front of her house in the middle of the night, busting out windows. We're not going to stand for it, Winston. I'm telling you. You listen to me now."
"I'm sorry, Ed," Winston said. "This is the first I've heard of what you're telling me."
"Jesus Christ Almighty," Bellamy said. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and took his glasses off and cleaned the lenses.
"You know as well as I do that Bradley Frye is an asshole," Winston said. "He's always been an asshole."
"Yeah," Bellamy said. "He was a little asshole back in high school when he was loading up white boys to drive up to Wilmington to jump Black kids in the parking lot at the junior high school. He was an asshole when he was throwing eggs at our houses and cars and burning bags of shit on the front porch." He finished cleaning his glasses and passed the handkerchief over his forehead and then stuffed it back into his pocket. "But he's a man now, and he might still be an asshole, but he's an asshole with a gun and a truck and a rebel flag and a whole bunch of other assholes who'll do anything he tells them to do."
Winston attempted to say something, but Bellamy held out his hand to stop him, and he continued.
"And here's what he's telling his people, Winston, the people he's convincing to vote for him: he's telling them that my son was flying drugs into the airport, that Black people in this county are responsible for every bit of crime or violence or drugs that goes on here. And he's terrorizing the people in the Grove to try to get us to do something stupid, and, Winston, I'm ready to do it.
"You know he's developing that land on the water that backs up to the Grove. That's what this is going to end up being about. If he can terrorize us, turn people in this county against us, force us to sell our land and move, he'll be sitting on a whole lot of land, and when he uses this to get you voted out, he'll be sitting on a whole lot of power."
Winston's vision narrowed to the fine point that Bellamy was making, and he knew without reflection that everything Bellamy was saying was true. As a kid, Bradley Frye had reveled in the racial violence that trickled south like a poisoned stream from Wilmington, where there were fires and shootings and attacks on Black students and Black communities. It had been a war, and many of the battles had been waged by Bradley Frye and his buddies right here in Brunswick County. For people like Frye, angry boys who'd grown into wealthy men, the war was still raging, but now it was being fought with checkbooks and votes instead of fists and baseball bats.
"A deputy came out to your house last night?" Winston asked. Bellamy nodded his head yes. "You remember his name?"
"No," Bellamy said, "and I don't think he told me, even though I asked for it after the bullshit he pulled."
"And you called here today?" Bellamy again nodded his head. "And you spoke with Vicki out there, and you told her about what happened last night." Another nod. "Excuse me," Winston said.
He stepped around Bellamy and opened the door, and then he closed it softly behind him. He knew Vicki was back at her desk; he could hear her moving papers around as if she had suddenly become as busy as she had ever been. Winston walked down the hallway, turned the corner, and stopped at the open glass window in front of her desk.
"Vicki," he said. She paused in her work and raised her head slowly. They made eye contact for a moment, and Winston could not recall ever looking at her as clearly or as seriously as he looked at her now. She sighed and sat back in her seat as if knowing a long conversation was about to unfold. Winston finally spoke. "Ed Bellamy in there says he's been calling all morning, Vicki. Is that true?"
Vicki moved her hands into her lap, and Winston saw her interlock her fingers. She crossed her legs. She leaned her left elbow on the arm of her chair.