Brownstonelit's Blog

4/13/10
And this was just the beginning…
After we discussed several other issues regarding the notepad drawing, I redirected the conversation and dropped my bombshell. I told them since it was mutually agreed that Charley did not commit suicide that I wished to share something further. I then told them I had been informed by a reliable source that 8 years after Charley’s death, a detective stepped forward (BR) and told my source that he had seen evidence that proved that it was homicide- but that it would not look good for Charley and that he had been shot in self defense. For the first time since we had begun, they fell silent. The man with the black rimmed glasses became openly agitated with me. Not certain what part of my information had inflamed him, I continued to watch his face as I told them that this individual also chose to do nothing with that information as he felt it wouldn’t have done anybody any good. Charley would still be dead and countless innocent lives would be damaged. All around the table, expletives of every sort poured forth. They then began to badger me. Peppering me with the standard; who, where, when…why? At that point I did not feel the necessity to share my source and asked them only to respond to the information. Was it possible? Had they ever heard the same? What did they know about the initial messenger other than the fact that he too was now dead and gone? Would he have been a credible source? Why would it have looked bad for Charley? Who was this source? How had I gotten my information? The queries were endless, the answers finite and limiting. In an effort to let them plow their way through embroiled emotions, I let them simmer on this topic for a few minutes. The man with the crooked teeth then took center stage and produced another theory about moonshiners taking him out. Endless threads of conjecture began to weave themselves into a tapestry of conspiracy and while I shared in many of their suspicions… the clock continued to tick towards closing time and I could not afford the detour of derailment.
Blindsiding them with another blast of information was not my intent, but I had things I needed yet to discover and time was short. I broke through a reverie about the numbers game, bolita and a black nightclub owner who figured prominently into the local scene by introducing the topic of the hidden porn tapes. Faces went blank and I could hear my pulse in the sheer silence that followed. I waited for a second before commenting further about the envelope and the invoice admittedly sent to a post office box in Charley’s name. They looked at one another and then asked if I had actually seen an invoice. I nodded and tried not to feed their embarrassment. There I was in the midst of gentlemen my father’s age and without pause or blush had spoken a word outside their common vocabulary. No one spoke for a second and then I told them of the rumors about the parties over the pawn shop and the ones out at the clubhouse. With that, the clubhouse and its eclectic persuasions of entertainment took center stage and we were off and running again with wild tales of sex parties and illegal gambling. Stories I will remember- stories I will have to investigate further at a later date. As the clock raced past five and we moved towards closing ceremonies of hugs and photos, I thanked them profusely and then asked for one final favor. They held their smiles- had the last two and half hours not been enough? I asked if any of them might act as escort to the Clyattville-Nankin Road where Charley’s body and car had been found. My ally with the booming voice stepped forward immediately and volunteered to act as guardian. With the others set free, we made a promise to meet in the parking lot. Once things were gathered and we were well outside the building, I shared my grim reaper text with J, her son and my husband. J began to put the car in reverse, and then paused to ask if we should be afraid. As we pulled onto the road, I sent a text to R asking that very thing and then laughed- saying, “…not until the psychic tells me we should be!” Ten minutes later we turned onto Clyattville-Nankin Road, heading towards the spot where Charley spent the final moments of his life when my phone hummed again.
“Be aware. Trust your gut instinct.” I checked with my gut, then placed my hands on my knees to stop them from shaking and smiled back at J. “We’re fine” I said. “Just fine- – keep driving” It was the first time I had lied to her since we had started this thing over a year ago.

4/11/10

Looking into the face of death…

Minutes later, I composed myself and walked through heavy wood doors into Valdosta history. Much as I would like to have wandered around and soaked in the experience, I was immediately reminded of the room in the lower level that had gentleman already waiting. It was a beautiful old building, filled with a ripe patina of dust and charm. I made a mental note to spend an afternoon there on my next trip down. Having no idea how the afternoon would go; especially after how lunch had gone. I took the elevator down one level, breathing deep and trying to re-establish my equilibrium. By the time the door opened, my mind had successfully switched gears and I was ready to calmly take in more information—or at least I thought so! From the elevator alcove in the corner, I walked into another large room that held several displays pertaining to local history. Having brought my lap top for reference convenience, I situated myself at a table just above a floor outlet. My husband set his up there as well so that we might research in tandem if necessary any information that my files did not already contain. Furniture adjusted and additional chairs brought in, we were ready.

At this point I noticed a fellow who stood with starched shirt, necktie and pleated pants reading a display. He was straight out of the sixties and this G-man look made me think he had to be one of my guys. When he turned and I saw a shirt boasting a pocket protector and a face hosting black rimmed glasses, there was just no other way to it! I smiled, shook his hand and found out he had come along at the request of another man I had been talking to on a regular basis. Once seated, another man joined the fray. This second man has been my most staunch ally; a noble fella with a booming voice. Introductions made, I asked them to take a seat. Two men down, I turned and spied another tall man who had entered the room. He now stood alone in front of a display case. Tall, fair and athletic in build he kept his back to me for several minutes as he studied the wall before him. I hesitated, but Saturday afternoon perusing a storyboard about the history of cotton did not look like this guy’s natural bailiwick so I sallied forth to introduce myself. Once identified as one of my guys, I invited him to sit at the table with the others while I waited for more.

When we were certain that no one else would be making an entrance I began the discussion by thanking them for their time and efforts. Everyone comfortable and recorders on—I introduced Charley’s daughter. A brief silence filled the air and then suddenly a flurry of smiles and handshakes rounded the table. I covered the basics of the case first. What had been public fodder, what they knew, what I knew… and what they didn’t know I knew; I kept to myself. I next asked for clarification on some issues I had not been able to ferret out myself. While they conversed, I secretly texted the name of my first suspected “Red” herring to my psychic/detective. The initial name had been given to me by one of the men in the room. The tall, athletic one who had once been a carrot top himself. I thought this prudent before I placed a larger target on a back of another new soul. It came back with a negative- not only from her, but after introducing the name to the rest of the group at the table, they concurred- no relevance. No one even knew such an individual, but the man with the athletic build who had suggested him in the first place. Curious, I threw out my new second name- the one we had tracked from the diner photos and back pages of the funeral book. Eyes flashed with instant recognition- another ah-ha moment. Conversation broke loose with details and fuzzy recollections. Yes he too had red hair. Yes he was from the others side of the river. Yes he had huge business- very wealthy, lots of power. As they bantered about one another’s reveries, I sent this new name into the cosmos for my psychic to review. Minutes went by as we discussed other details of the case and then a buzz tweaked my jeans. I begged them to continue, then sat and holding my phone under the table lip, read the reply privately.

“I am shown a hammer and a nail. Not sure- could be hitting the nail on the head or another meaning.” I kept pace with the conversation and while J spoke to them collectively about her father and that night. At a lull in the conversation, I texted back. Could it mean- “The final nail in the coffin?”

I had no idea when or what the response would be and so moved the conversation forward. As I listened and took notes, more details started to pour from lips both innocent and soon to be recognized as tainted. Both sides of the table were hedging- it was time to break loose. I motioned to J and she took the floor. She thanked them for their time, and then spoke about her knowledge of her parent’s marital problems to ease the flow of information from men who were obviously uncomfortable sharing what they believed might be gossip and hearsay. In the interest of allowing them latitude to introduce the possible motives of passion or jealousy, I inserted that I knew more than we had been sharing thus far. My reference was to the instability of the marriage, but before I could add such a suffix the tall, athletic gentleman across from me leaned in smiling and said… “So do we.”

It was an eerie sort of smile that felt acrid and patronizing. My phone hummed distracting me for a second. I produced a thin smile in response and he sat back into his haunches, glaring. To stall, I asked them to discuss collectively what they had heard about the layout of the crime scene that night. While listening with half an ear, I checked my phone for R’s reply to the ‘nail in the coffin’ suggestion. It held one word- “possibly”.

I kept this to myself and redirected the conversation to the man whose crooked smile had unnerved me. In previous conversations, he had claimed to be the very first responder. Print media and hearsay contradicted one another, so I needed further documentation. Knowing that in less than 24 hours I would have my hands on crime scene photos to confirm or deny, I wanted more. I wanted eye witness testimony to round out my theory of cover-up. If his description matched the papers but not he photos, then we had reason to believe in the staging and cover-up theory. This guy said he was first on scene and had the goods, so I let him take the floor. Unknown to them I also had R’s interpretation of the scene Charley had described in our first session for reference to bounce against. To clear up any confusion, I handed Mr. Crooked Smile my notepad and asked him to recreate the scene he walked into that night. The location of the vehicle, the distance between the body and the bridge, the exact placement of the arms, hands and gun, etc.. My caution for him to be precise was well founded. He took it with a grain of salt and began to draw the margin lines of the road. I watched intently his placement of the car within the framing of the scene. Since the beginning this man’s testimony didn’t jive with what information was on record. As he spoke about what he had seen, a fellow participant asked him to confirm the identity of another first responder that night. The answer came swift. There was no other first responder other than himself and another gentleman no one recognized. When my ally insisted that he had been a neighbor of this additional man and believed him when he told him he had even inspected Charley’s revolver with the odd placement of the spent shells- the man with the forced smile rather forcefully insisted that such confidences had been nothing but an act of bravado and all lies. (A record of this is on tape… along with his drawing.) With increasing angst I texted another name to R and waited for her reply. When the sketch was complete and the verbal description recorded, my phone hummed once again and I let my attentions follow while they all discussed the differences of what they had heard and what had been drawn.  I picked up the notepad, took a closer look and then down at my side to see what she had written.

My phone read:

“Dark. Wow. I actually got grim reaper which I have never seen before.”

My knees began to buckle. Bile rose like a geyser in my throat, but I swallowed it down hard and tried to keep it from others in the room. I looked up and across the table at the man who was just putting down my pen. He looked me square in the eye and grinned. “ This is exactly the way I found him.”

3/28/10
Dining with the devil…
It has been a crazy week. Husband still on the mend and a family crisis partially under my belt and I am still reeling from recent research events of a week ago. It feels almost surreal in the way all this continues to unfold, one clue and one confirmation at a time. Numerology figures rather significantly into this if you follow such. Note; murder was committed in 1966. Daughter was only 6 in 1966. The fourth horseman of Revelation 6 is Death. Charley and Hazel were married 19 years. Hazel lived for 19 years after his death. Charley was 44 when he died. It has been 44 years since his death. If one were patient and knowledgeable enough to do an in depth numerical study of this – I imagine the resulting patterns might stagger the mind. What’s more, master numbers continue to figure into reception of clues and confirmations. I will try to relay some of what has transpired, but will continue to play the better part close to my chest as things are now beginning to move at accelerated rates.

Warned ahead of time that no one I would meet throughout my trip would be by chance, I kept mindful of all introductions made and hoped they would prove fruitful. Thus far, we had been in town less than two minutes and I had agreed to an interview with the caller who claimed to have the original case file, including crime scene photos. Having scheduled that, I moved forward settling into our room and getting interview materials ready. The long drive hadn’t left me a lot of time in between obligations. Once lodging was secured, there was little more than an hour before the next meeting so we headed into town to get our bearings and a quick lunch. As it turned out, there was a place just a couple of blocks from the Historical Society building. It was a diner J had found a year ago on her last “fishing” trip. Pressed for time and a decent review we committed to a light lunch to tide us over till later that night. As we entered, I tried to bear in mind the warning. Half way through lunch while I was drooling over an antique type writer they had once used to type out daily menus, my husband pointed out a photo three feet to the left of it. It was a man in uniform. A law enforcement uniform. It was too obvious- I asked who it was. The waitress gave us a brief history of the diner. She said it was her grandfather, who had been in the police department at the time. I looked closer at the photo and asked what year it had been taken. Just then my phone received a text from my psychic detective. The waitress replied he would have been a lieutenant (Lt.) then as the photo had been taken back in the 60’s. My head began to swim. Tall, dark, handsome and in his fifties, this uniformed figure glared back at me in mock defiance. R had cautioned me. If you are wracking your brain over clues, then you are not on the right track. It will be an ah-ha moment. That’s how this thing works. Information will come to you when it is time- it will be as though someone had dropped it in your lap. I looked again at the photo. A lieutenant- the abbreviation is Lt.

Could this be Charley’s reference to LT from the first session? I noted the time and the direct line of vision to me from the photo across the counter and decided that R’s warning had been right on the mark. I had a sinking, but exhilarating feeling that nothing this weekend would be by chance-nothing! Everything that would happen to me in the next 48 hours must be looked at with the same discerning eye. I took a deep breath. It wasn’t my lap, but it was pretty darn close. Seven feet from it, to be exact! Suddenly I lost my appetite and left most of my salad wilting away on my plate. The waitress asked me if something was wrong. I lied and told her I was full, then waited patiently till we got outside before I mentioned my suspicions to J. It made me sad in a way. Although I relished the shot at another clue, these were really nice people who had no idea what was going through my mind. I kept a smile on my face as I studied the photo and returned my text message. The rest of my crew finished their lunch in good humor, unaware of what had just been imparted. I made a mental note to get more information about the diner at the Historical Society. There was only 12 minutes left to make it on time and I did not want to be late. While they took care of the bill, I used the restroom then headed towards the door. Focused so much on the upcoming meeting, I completely missed the last photo on the wall as I walked out. Thank God my husband and C did not- it bore the name of the man in the uniform and another man by the same sir name receiving some sort of an award. The boys mentioned it when they got in the car and asked if the name rang a bell for either of us. I said no, but the abbreviation for Lieutenant sure did!

I explained the man in the photo hit several of the high water marks of Charley’s reference. He was older than G by approximately 20 years. He had been affiliated with law enforcement. He had position, influence and some money. When I texted his name to R, it came back. “…animal references- tied to G”. I made a note in my binder then asked if J still had the funeral book with her. She nodded and motioned towards the rear of the vehicle. C took it from behind his seat and began to flip pages, searching for the registry. Most of the handwriting was difficult to read, but he finally found a match. Then out of the blue, J announced she had seen the same last name with a nick name in front of it-the nickname of “Red”. I was confused for a minute. Had the photo across from me at the counter been the photo of Charley’s LT, or the red headed man who he presented as being the go to guy- the man who helped the shooter do the cover up of his murder? While C searched for more names, I thought about the photo. Even though it had been in black and white this man could not have had red hair- the grain of ink had been too dark. The light changed, the car pulled out of its slip and my spirits waned. How was I to decipher all this properly if every time I got close, another truck load of misinformation got dumped into the mix? Just then my husband said, “Could it have been the other man?” The car grew silent. “What other man?” I asked. “The second man in the photo on the way out the door- the one you and J missed in your haste to get back on the road.” My heart jumped- another photo? I had been chasing the identity of the man with the red hair for several weeks. C looked again for the name starting with “Red” but could not find it. Frustrated, I begged him to look once more. I told him to check the very back pages where they had listed the floral arrangements. Bingo! There he was in ink.

“# (77) Wreath with white mums, red bow signed – from “Red __________ and family.”

Oddly enough it was just one page over from this entry…
# (90) Wreath with white mums, 2 glads, red carnations and bow signed from- “A Friend”. (G)

We pulled into the parking lot of the Historical Society as I tried to catch my breath.

3/27/10
3/27/10

If yesterday was any indication of how the rest of the weekend would be, then there would not be enough coffee to get me through it. The drive down was filled with both relaxing and anxious moments. I filled in most of the bald patches of scenery with conversation and quiet reverie. Reviewing interviews in my head and mulling over tid bits of information received which had yet to be clearly understood. I concentrated on the holes of that night. There were still too many inconsistencies between several sources that needed to be laid out upon the proverbial table and vetted before I felt I could move forward with any confidence. Some gave a different view of the body and placement than what has been recorded in print. Some had no idea at all and others stood defiant that there’s was the empirical true representation. Was this a case of over active ego–misguided intentions, misinformation and/or blatant deception? This many years out it is hard to conjecture why so many variations on the theme. I kept private score to myself and tallied the amount of times I revisited each of the descriptions that made no sense. Mile markers clicked their way past my peripheral vision, as I made another mental invitation for Charley to step up to the plate and guide where and when he willed. When we left at 8 in the morning with coffee in hand, the day was pleasant with a touch of cloudiness that lifted the longer I drove. By the time we hit Tifton, the sun was bright and I had received my first phone call. Someone was overheard chatting up a storm at the local barber shop about somebody in the deceased’s family wanting the case reopened and somebody else thought that I should know about it. This individual was reported as saying, he didn’t know why no one had bothered to contact him yet as he had information. First hand information about that night. I was cautious to alert Julie and took down the information to consider my options. I had been warned- not once, but twice to back off and leave this thing alone. I wondered just how serious the consequences of the warning might be, but this person had information that I had been unsuccessful in garnering elsewhere. In fact he might be holding the only remaining file on this case. I thought about the caller who had initiated the warnings. Well intentioned or not, a warning had been made, but I was willing to risk whatever consequence to retrieve what this man had. How ironic…The one person I wanted to approach but had been told to avoid turned out to be the one person I should have been searching for all along. I hung up with my informer and took a deep breath.

I pulled over into a parking lot and took the information from my source and made the first of two phone calls. The first number volunteered no response. With no voice mail attached, I moved to the second number. Heart pounding, palm sweating I punched the numbers in eyeing the traffic from the side of the road. It rang several times before an answering machine kicked in. Disappointed but somewhat relieved I could now compose myself better, I left a brief message and asked for a return call if interested. Many miles later, my contact returned the call.

Just as I pulled off the ramp to head into downtown Valdosta, a deep voice reverberated through the phone with hesitant, but certain compliance. Yes there was a file on Charley. Yes there were photos of the crime scene that night. Yes there was further information he could share with me and yes he would show it all to me if the family wanted. While he spoke about other cases of local renown, I forced myself to breathe and stay in the lane. The last place I thought I would find the missing links in this investigation turned out to be the first place I should have looked. By the time I pulled into the hotel parking lot, I had secured the opportunity to meet with him the following day. The rest of the afternoon was for another important meeting- the first of many. A meeting which would bring some of the most fascinating men and clues to the forefront of my investigation. Men whose entire lives had revolved in and around the law. Men who worked through the insanity of the 60’s, the bug tickets of Bolita, the stills of moonshine, illegal gambling rackets and corruption of every conceivable perversion. Men who shared two common threads… they were all still alive and they had all known Charley!