Here is part seven of The Ties that Bind, a Deep South mystery. If you’re here by mistake, you can find the rest of the parts here.
Recap part six: Lee follows the SUV into the forest, violence ensues, and he has a choice to make.
In part seven: Lee talks to his grandmother and learns something important.
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Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash
Oh, the storm and its fury broke today
Crushing hopes that we cherish so dear
Clouds and storms will in time pass away
The sun again will shine bright and clear
-The Carter Family
The miles and hours slipped easily under the Land Cruiser’s tires as caffeine, chips, and willpower kept Lee awake as he made the 5 hour journey to Mobile, AL. I-65 to Highway 98 to Government Street to the Oakleigh Garden District. More turns now into the historic neighborhood: George Street to Savannah Street to Oakleigh Place. He’d only been here once, but the circumstances had been so extreme that the route had been burned into his memory.
The road was pockmarked with potholes and canopied by hundred year old water oaks. Crepe myrtles lined the sidewalks and every other house seemed to have an Historic Registry plaque out front. Most of the homes had the patinated look that comes with age and high humidity, the creeping green that traces the flow of water over the house in heavy rains. His grandmother’s house was no different, though her front yard was tidier than her neighbors’.
Virginia Blackwell, or Virginia Maynard since she reverted to her maiden name, owned a small two bedroom, one bath house with a small stoop of a front porch, and the requisite water oaks in the front yard. The house was well maintained, every window had a set of shutters and a window box with flowers spilling out over the edges. The house was quaint and unassuming. Not the kind of place you would expect the former social front of a magic-abusing organized crime family to live.
Lee parked the Land Cruiser in front of the house and before he stepped onto the sidewalk, the front door opened inward and the screen door flew open, the springs protesting with a screech. Out stepped an older woman with gray hair pulled back in a loose braid. Virginia had a gardening apron and gloves on. Dirt speckled her shirt and face and she wore a pair of well-used sandals. She had an expectant look on her face and, with the slightest of smiles, gestured for Lee to come inside.
“That took about three years longer than I expected,” she said as he strode through the front doors. “Gone and head out back to the garden, I won’t stop working on account of you showing up unannounced.”
“Hey grandma,” Lee said sheepishly. He’d always had a special relationship with his grandmother. She invited him into whatever she was doing and that made him feel like he was on the inside-crowd with her. And when he decided to leave the family he found a ready accomplice with the know-how and resources to make it happen.
“Grab yourself a bag and get to weeding this planter box I’m working on.”
“Yes ma'am.”
They worked in an easy silence for a half hour before Lee spoke. “I need some help.”
She looked at him, her blue-gray eyes having lost none of their sharpness or mischievousness, “Well I figured as much. Let’s pack this up and head inside. I haven’t eaten yet. I was trying to get some work done before the sun got too hot. We’ll talk over breakfast.”
They put away the gardening tools and went back inside. As he stood at the sink washing his hands he heard her humming “tops and bottoms, tops and bottoms”. She fried up a few eggs and some bacon and he brewed a pot of coffee. Her kitchen table was small and round with two white wicker chairs. They both sat down and began doctoring their food and coffee before starting to eat.
Lee hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he polished off his eggs and bacon in what felt like two bites. His grandmother smiled and passed him her bacon before sitting back with her coffee cup and eyeing him appraisingly, expectantly. She communicated more in that look than most people in five minutes of talking.
“Do you think I can come back?” Lee asked.
Virginia cocked her head in confusion. “To the family?” she asked.
“No.”
She paused before responding softly, “I believe there’s always hope. Sure as spring comes after the darkest winters, hope returns like the tide.”
“I just don’t see how that’s possible given what I’ve done. I don’t know how to tip the scales back in my favor.”
“Well that’s the funny thing about hope now isn’t it. It’s not really about what you see. I find hope more often than not surprises me, and it can’t very well surprise me if I saw it coming.”
Lee’s brow furrowed. How was his grandmother so confident in this? She should be in the same situation as him. For decades she had been the smoke screen for the family’s crime organization. She played the city socialite, involved in all manner of clubs and committees. This provided an air of legitimacy to her, and by extension her husband, that kept most folks from assuming the worst. Far from it actually. By all accounts, Virginia Blackwell had been an upstanding citizen and a close friend and confidant to several of the area’s most important wives. She was also one of Grandpa Blackwell’s most useful means of gaining intelligence on the men in power.
Her hands were far from clean, and yet the only darkness Lee could see on them were some sun spots and a small bruise on her wrist. She seemed to anticipate his thoughts. “Some folks carry their shame in a different place.” She said, “and some folks carry more than their due.”
Lee looked up at his grandmother’s face, searching it for an answer that would steady his hand on the rudder of his heart. He had to know if it was worth it. “I think that in order to do the right thing, I have to lose myself.”
“What have you gotten yourself into, child?” she replied.
Lee proceeded to explain the case. He stepped through it with an investigator’s eye for detail, not skimming over anything. He explained the light in the clearing, Rico’s torture, the panic in the girl’s mother, his own beating, killing the men, and the dead-end of clues that led him to her doorstep in hopes of some guidance.
After he finished talking, Virginia took a deep breath. She studied him for a moment before responding, “I never knew you to be such a coward.” Lee went white, but before he could argue, she continued, “You have at your disposal a tool that every single law enforcement officer who has ever lived would give his left leg for, and yet you are afraid to use it.”
“I’m worried what it will cost me!” he shot back.
She cocked her head to the side like a confused puppy. “What it will cost you? Dear, it costs you nothing.”
“But my hands,” he stammered, “my soul. The things I’ve done. How can you say that it doesn’t cost me anything when every time I used the Gift I looked more like my father.”
Pity tumbled like a landslide into his grandmother’s eyes. “Oh child. It isn’t the Gift that corrupts. It’s the actions you take every day. Do you take part in destruction or redemption? That’s what taints the soul. What do you actually know about the Gift?” she asked.
“That it runs through certain bloodlines, mostly criminal families, and that it allows anyone who has it to see truth.”
“Well that is functionally correct. But what do you know of the history of the Gift? Its purpose?”
“Purpose? I think I just always assumed it was chance. That somewhere along the lines, my ancestors spent too much time around a magical source and it changed their DNA or something.”
It was Virginia’s turn to stare incredulously at Lee. “Of all the–” she bit off the sentence and took another deep breath. “Why do you think it’s called the Gift, sweetheart?”
“Because we have it and others don’t?”
She shook her head gently. “It’s called the Gift because it was given. Every family line that possesses the Gift can trace their lineage back to some form of leadership. Clan, tribe, kingdom, it doesn’t matter. These families in power were given the ability to see truth so that they might rule rightly. You cannot have wisdom without truth, and your ancestors sought wisdom. Now, we’re not sure exactly how the power was transferred over, but we do know that the original intent of the Gift was a just one.”
She sighed, shaking her head softly, “but unfortunately the heart of man is dark, and even the most noble of men can be swayed by greed, or power, or notoriety. That is why you had families turning from serving their neighbors to exploiting them. But it is not the Gift that corrupted them. The Gift is just a tool. They were corrupted by their own hearts, the rot spreading slowly from the inside, out.”
Lee stared at her, dazed. This at least explained why things felt right when he used the Gift. This also might be the life-line he needed.
“You have spent so much time trying to sever yourself from your past. To put as many miles between you and your father as possible. But honey, you’re blood, and your past is of your own creation. Remember, it is your actions that flow from your heart that corrupt you. Redemption is not in severing. Redemption is in repenting. You can’t move because you bear the weight of your choices. They were awful choices. There is a reason you see your hands the way you do.”
Lee grimaced. She continued.
“But you cannot step into who you are if you continue to reject who you were. You must seek, find, and walk that road of redemption, just as sure as you walked that road of destruction.”
Her last sentence hung in the air like smoke, a wisp of truth that promised hope.
“Have you used the Gift since you searched the girl’s house?” Lee snapped out of his brief reverie.
“No. Trying to preserve my soul and all.”
“Use it on the photo.”
“You can’t use it on photos.”
“I think that one of us has clearly shown much more knowledge in regards to the Gift,” her response was sharp but not unkind.
Lee shrugged, slightly abashed, and dug out the photo. He activated the Gift, feeling the familiar warmth in his eyes and seeing the saturation of colors around him. He glanced at his grandmother. She glowed softly. Her hands and feet were brighter than the rest of her body. Lee smiled. Then he turned his attention to the girl in the photo.
She was shining bright like the noonday sun.
“What the hell?”
“What do you see?”
“She’s glowing. Like really brightly. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Well, except at her house.”
“Lee,” she said. The tone of her voice caused him to look up, concern on his face, “you must find this girl, and you must find her quickly. And, if I know your father like I think I do, you need to start with him. You need to go now.”
She abruptly stood and began hustling him out of the house. “I don’t understand. I’ve already seen him. He doesn’t deal in kids.”
“She’s not just an ordinary girl. She’s something else, and you can bet that he has her.”
Lee climbed into the Land Cruiser and turned the key in the ignition. Before he shut the door, she placed her hand on his arm. “Remember when you talk to your father that while you cannot separate yourself from what he is and what you’ve done, you can always create a new path for yourself.” She smiled softly and blew him a kiss as he closed the door and drove off.
Into the lion’s den.