Shadows of Lives Once Lived
by Jeffrey Scott Holland - part 7

Ray squirmed on the old couch as he tried to get comfortable. He finally got the broken spring to stop poking him in the butt and sat still. Lorene Farmer, formerly Mrs. Weston, remarried about three years ago. Her present husband was still at work.

She had just come in from work herself and was getting out of the car when Ray pulled up. She was in the bedroom changing, and he was thinking of what he was going to ask her. He pulled the pictures from his shirt pocket and got them ready to show her upon her return.

She walked back into the room. Ray couldn't help but notice she cleaned up nicely. She looked much better without the hair net and apron that she had on when he first saw her getting out of the car. He recognized her as one of the ladies who worked in the deli at the supermarket. As a matter of fact, she had probably cooked the food that his secretary had picked up for Danny and him on Wednesday. He had to show respect for anyone who could cook like that.

She sat down in an old recliner. "So, what can I do for you?"

He handed her the pictures. "Is that Truman Weston in that picture?"

She nodded. "Yes, and those other two are Jackie Miller and George Mackey."

He smiled. "Yeah, I know. I just wanted to make sure. Did you know Joe Mackey and Cyrus Scott?"

She thought for a second. "Joe is George's nephew, isn't he?"

Ray kept a serious look. "He was. He and Cyrus were killed about two weeks ago. The thing that is puzzling us most is that they were found at George Mackey's old place, and there was another corpse with them."

She asked, "Who was the other one?"

He shrugged. "That's what we can't find out. He had been dead for about thirty years. It was a black man."

Her eyes shifted from him to the floor. "Oh. I see."

He studied her nonverbal actions. "Did you know George enough to know who this other person could be?"

She smiled nervously. "Yes. I can tell you. I guess now that Truman is dead, it won't matter. As you probably know by now, Truman, George, and Jackie used to run around together in their high school days."

Ray nodded. "Yes."

"Well, this was after they had graduated. Truman and me had already gotten married. The other two were still single. George never did marry. Well, they were all sitting around on the porch one night drinking, and this black man was lost from the highway. He was on the back road that went by George's house. It was getting dark and he drove by a couple of times. George said they were going to have to teach him a lesson for being out on the mountain after dark. When he came back by a third time, they waved him down. He pulled over, and George asked him if he was lost. He said he was, and George said that he would draw him a map. The man got out of his car and, when he did, they all grabbed him."

Ray was beginning to put it all together now. "So they killed him then?"

She shook her head. "No. It wasn't exactly that way. They were just going to teach him a lesson. After a while, Jackie and Truman tried to get George to quit, but he wouldn't."

Ray was on the edge of the couch now. "To quit what?"

"I don't know. Truman told me several years later, and all he said was 'quit'." Anyway, George kept on. When they finally took the gag out of his mouth, the man was dead. Truman said he thought the man couldn't breath through his nose and suffocated. They got scared and left, and George got mad at them for running off. He buried the body in his back yard and went on like nothing had ever happened. Jackie and Truman were really disturbed, and they avoided George for a long time."

Ray said, "Thank you. This really helps me out a lot."

Lorene looked up again. "Is Jackie going to be in trouble?"

"Didn't you hear? Jackie died this morning."

She started to shake. "Oh my God! It was true then."

Ray looked interested. "What was true?"

She rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. "It was exactly thirty years ago today that it happened. Years after it happened, Truman saw George; and George told him the black man they had killed was haunting him and wouldn't let him sleep at night. Truman thought that he just meant it as a metaphor or something. George had been in the Klan before this and tormented many blacks, but this got to him so bad that he quit. Ten years from that Halloween night, George was killed. There were shotgun blasts in his door and it had been broke in half. It looked as if George had been tortured. The strange thing was, when they did the autopsy on him to see how he died, he didn't have any lungs."