A Murder In Passing (4 page)

A knock sounded, not from my door but the one to the hall. Hewitt turned around and stepped to the side. I saw the door open slowly, and a pretty African-American woman stepped inside. She stopped at the sight of Hewitt. Maybe she thought she was interrupting a luau.

“Mr. Blackman?” She spoke my name like an affirmative answer would be her worst nightmare.

I expected Hewitt to make some sarcastic remark at my expense, but he either respected we had a possible client or sensed the woman's timidity.

I stood. “I'm Sam Blackman. Please come in.”

The woman hesitated, and then Nakayla appeared in her doorway.

“Ms. Montgomery?”

“Yes.”

“I'm Nakayla Robertson. We spoke on the phone.”

The woman smiled. She appeared to be at least fifteen or twenty years older than Nakayla. Probably around forty-five. Her skin was a shade lighter and she wore her hair cropped closer to her head. She was taller, and as she walked forward, she carried herself with an ease of movement that reminded me of a dancer. She wore a smartly tailored, dark blue business suit that identified her as someone who took pride in a professional appearance.

She and Nakayla shook hands.

Hewitt stepped forward. “I'm Hewitt Donaldson. I was just leaving.”

The woman's eyes widened. “You're the lawyer?”

“I'm a lawyer. And my office is right next door.” He left, closing the door behind him.

Nakayla gestured for Marsha Montgomery to take a seat. “Would you like coffee or some water?”

“No, thank you.” She crossed the room and chose the leather chair on the right.

I took the matching one to the left, and Nakayla sat on the end of the sofa closest to our potential client. Neither one of us pulled out a notepad. At this point, we were simply having a conversation. I waited for Nakayla to take the lead.

“You said this was about a burglary.”

Marsha Montgomery nodded.

“Have you notified the police?”

“They were notified.”

I caught that Ms. Montgomery didn't specify she had notified the police. My partner was also as attentive.

“Who notified them?” Nakayla asked.

“My mother. Lucille Montgomery.”

“Was she the one who was burglarized?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Where does she live?”

“At the Golden Oaks Retirement Center.”

Nakayla flashed me a quick look. We were both familiar with the site and knew some of the residents. “That's a surprise. The security there is excellent.”

“It didn't happen there. It happened in her home.”

“So she still owns her home?”

Marsha Montgomery shook her head. “No. I live there now.”

“You were burglarized?” Nakayla asked.

“No.” She looked at me and then back to Nakayla. “My mother was the victim.”

Again, Nakayla zeroed in on the question I wanted to ask.

“When did this happen?”

“In 1967.”

“1967?” I blurted out the year, unable to contain my frustration at the prospect of a case with zero chance of a solution.

“I know,” she admitted. “It was a long time ago. But it was the summer, if that's helpful.”

“The summer,” I repeated. “What did they steal? Bathing suits?”

“A photograph, Mr. Blackman.” The ice in her voice was as cold as the glare Nakayla gave me. “A photograph I've just learned might be very valuable.”

“Okay.” I ratcheted down my exasperation. “That's helpful. Do you have a way to prove ownership?”

“I do. You see my mother is in it. The photograph was taken at the Kingdom of the Happy Land. Ever heard of it?”

I looked at Nakayla. Our world had just taken a very interesting turn.

Chapter Four

Nakayla leaned forward on the sofa. “Ms. Montgomery, didn't the Kingdom of the Happy Land disappear over a hundred years ago?”

“Please call me Marsha. And yes, it did. Then the property was sold for back taxes in the mid-teens.”

“Then how old is your mother?”

“She's eighty-five. She never lived in the Kingdom. That's just where the picture was taken.”

“The one that was stolen?” I asked.

“Yes. I know it sounds complicated, but it's really not.”

“Maybe you'd better take us back to the beginning,” Nakayla said. “Assume we know nothing about the Kingdom.”

Marsha Montgomery nodded. “All right, but my knowledge is limited to what my mother knows. She said her mother's mother, my great grandmother was born on the Kingdom sometime in the eighteen-seventies. There weren't any real records kept so we're talking oral tradition. My mother says the Kingdom was founded by a former slave owner from Mississippi a few years after the Civil War.”

“Slave owner?” Nakayla asked. “I thought they were freed slaves.”

“They were. Led by their former master, the first king. My mother says he was the son of a white plantation owner and young slave woman. The plantation owner freed the woman before the birth and the mulatto child was born as his acknowledged progeny. The boy was educated and given his own farm and slaves.” She looked at Nakayla and shook her head. “Seems strange he would own his own people.”

“Sounds like he didn't abandon them,” Nakayla said.

“No. At the end of the war, Mississippi was in ruins. The plantation house and land had been razed. He gathered the now freed but destitute slaves together and they set off for greener pastures. They trekked across Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina till they came to the wall of mountains.”

“Moses leading the children of Israel through the wilderness,” I said.

“Definitely. They were searching for the Promised Land. In this case, the Happy Land. And they found it when they met the widow of Confederate Colonel John Davis. Her plantation, Oakland, was on the North Carolina–South Carolina border. In exchange for housing and food, the king and his band of freed slaves farmed the land. They also earned money doing work for neighbors. Everything was given to the king to hold in common. He purchased mountain land from Mrs. Davis and the commune members began building cabins. More freed slaves joined the group and an itinerant preacher traveled through South Carolina encouraging others to migrate.”

“How many people are you talking about?” Nakayla asked.

“No one knows for sure. Estimates for that first group range from fifty to two hundred. My grandmother says the wanderers attracted more during the journey. The free men and women were no longer slaves to the masters, now they were slaves to abject poverty. The king promised a fresh start for all who joined him.”

“Why did the Kingdom disappear?” I asked. “Did the king die without an heir?”

“My mother was told the first king died not too many years after arriving. A natural leader had joined the group whom everyone turned to. Robert Montgomery.”

“You're his descendant?” Nakayla asked.

“Not blood kin. But babies were named for him. My great grandmother Loretta was born during his reign.”

Her comment sounded so strange. His reign. Like we were sitting in some castle in England discussing the royal lineage of Queen Elizabeth.

“That's why there's a lot of Montgomery folk in these parts.” She sighed. “But two things killed the Kingdom. Jim Crow and the railroad.”

“How?” Nakayla asked.

“Jim Crow laws were designed to squash any Black independence or upward mobility. They were passed in the eighteen-nineties and had the effect of creating economic slavery with white-only this and white-only that.” She shot me a glance as if daring me to challenge her.

I nodded. “Self-sufficiency would be a threat. And you don't get any more uppity than to call yourself king.”

Marsha Montgomery couldn't help smiling. “You got that right.”

“What about the railroad?” Nakayla asked. “Weren't they allowed to ride the trains?”

“Riding wasn't a problem, if you sat in the back or in a Negro car. The railroad brought a faster and cheaper way to move goods and livestock between the mountains and the low-country. Before then everything came up the drovers' road that went right by the Kingdom. Extra hands and carts were used for the steep ascent. Stagecoaches stopped at nearby inns where servants were needed. The commune took in cash from the innkeepers or bartered for supplies from the drovers. When the railroad passed them by, the Kingdom passed away as well. People wandered off to find work elsewhere.”

“So how did your mother come to be photographed there?” Nakayla asked.

“She said Miss Julia Peterkin brought a photographer friend to see what was left of the Kingdom. Miss Julia knew my great grandmother Loretta was one of the few remaining survivors and the photographer wanted to hear the story from her.”

“And then he took her picture?” Nakayla asked.

“The photographer was a woman. Doris Ulmann.”

Nakayla's eyes widened. “I've heard of her. She was friends with Julia Peterkin?”

I made a T with my hands. “Time out. I admit it. I don't have a clue who you're talking about.”

Marsha Montgomery turned to me. “Julia Peterkin is the only South Carolinian to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. This is going back to 1929. Her novels portrayed black plantation workers as fully developed characters, not stereotypes. No one had done that before.”

“An African-American writer?”

“No. She was the mistress of a cotton plantation called Lang Syne near Orangeburg. But she learned to speak Gullah before she learned English.”

“Gullah?”

“The lowland dialect. Actually more its own language. A hybrid of English and West African tongues that originated on the Sea Islands off South Carolina and Georgia. You've heard of the Gullah people, haven't you?”

“Yes.” I didn't want Marsha Montgomery to think I was totally stupid. I'd heard of them like I'd heard of the Navajo and Eskimos. But growing up in the piedmont of North Carolina three hundred miles from the South Carolina coast and joining the army right out of high school had limited my exposure to the cultural diversity of the region.

“I need to take him on a field trip to Charleston.” Nakayla gave me a sympathetic smile. “And Doris Ulmann was a famous New York photographer in the twenties and thirties who packed up her chauffeur-driven limousine every summer and drove down the spine of the Appalachians to photograph the mountain people.”

“She also came to the lowlands,” Marsha added. “She and Julia Peterkin worked on a book of photographs and text called
Roll, Jordan, Roll.
That's when she came to the Kingdom with Miss Julia.”

“And that's why you think the photograph is valuable?” I asked.

“That's correct.”

“Did you ever see it?”

“Yes. It was on a bureau in my mother's bedroom.”

“Do you mind if I ask how old you were when it was stolen?”

“I was five.”

“And you remember this one photograph?” I couldn't keep the skepticism out of my voice.

“Yes. My mother and I would look at it together. I was five and in the picture she was five. Her mother and her grandmother were in the photograph as well. It made an impression on me. That my mother was once a little girl like me.”

“Her grandmother, that would be your great grandmother Loretta, the one born on the Kingdom.”

“That's right. Miss Ulmann wanted to meet her.”

“Did she and Julia Peterkin use the photograph in their book?”

“No. And I only learned about Doris Ulmann being the photographer a few weeks ago. I'd taken a copy of
Roll, Jordan, Roll
from the library and thought my mother might find it interesting. That's when she told me she knew both women.”

Nakayla leaned forward, her brow knitted in concentration. “What do you expect us to do after more than forty-five years?”

“I thought your investigations might have established connections to art dealers who would keep records if a signed Ulmann photograph came into their possession.”

“Aren't there duplicate prints?” Nakayla asked.

“Maybe. I've looked through the online catalogue at the Getty Museum but I didn't see it. There are several colleges that have her work but those prints came from her estate. I think whoever took this would have tried to sell it.”

“Just your mother being in the picture doesn't prove ownership.”

“She still has the letter Julia Peterkin wrote when she mailed the print.”

“That's good,” I said. “Any other witnesses see the picture in the house? Is your father still alive?”

Marsha Montgomery's jaw tightened. “I didn't really know my father.”

I looked at Nakayla, hesitant to venture into sensitive territory.

She spoke softly. “I'm sorry if we're getting too personal, but we're only trying to determine if we can help. Did your mother and father divorce? Is there a chance he could have removed the picture?”

“No. My mother says that wouldn't have happened. And there was no divorce. They were never married.”

“Oh. I understand.”

Marsha Montgomery gave Nakayla a sharp glance. “I don't think you do. My father was white. Back then, they couldn't have married. It was against the law. But he loved my mother and he loved me.”

“Then what happened to him?” Nakayla asked.

The older woman shrugged. “One day he just went away. Mother said he did it to protect us. There were people who didn't like seeing a white man and a black woman together.” She looked at me. “I suspect you get too far out of Asheville and you find things haven't changed all that much.”

“Do you have any idea what the photograph's worth?” Nakayla asked.

“No.”

“Then our fee might be more than the value of the photograph.”

“I've looked at some recent auction prices. They've ranged from ten to thirty thousand dollars.”

I whistled softly. “Wow. Doris Ulmann must have been good.”

“She chose good subjects. Each photograph was like a story frozen in time.”

“And what was the story of your mother's photograph?”

“The end of the Kingdom. My mother, grandmother, and great grandmother were standing in front of one of the few remaining stone chimneys left from the cabins. The light streamed through the pine boughs like beams from the Kingdom above. Their faces were radiant. She captured a very striking image. My mother looked like an angel. They all did.”

The end of the Kingdom, I thought. The cachet of the setting would probably add value to the print. And if it were the only one. “Who would have known the value of that print back in 1967?”

“Nobody. It was just an old photograph.”

“Then was anything else taken? Something that might be easier to trace?”

“Some jewelry. We didn't have a TV or record player. And they took my father's gun.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Nakayla tense.

“What kind of gun was it?” she asked.

“I don't know. He used it for hunting and left it with Mother for protection. I remember he taught her how to use it.”

“Shotgun?” I asked.

“No. He had a shotgun but he kept it at the cabin on his family's property. I'm pretty sure it was a rifle. Mother said he used it during deer season.” She looked from me to Nakayla. “You think someone might have pawned it?”

“Maybe,” Nakayla said.

I knew Nakayla was thinking of another possibility. The same one that took hold of my mind. Maybe a missing rifle, a missing father, and a skeleton in a hollow log were linked together.

One thing was certain. Marsha Montgomery's arrival was no coincidence. We were being played. And I wanted to know why.