8/19/11
OK… so it happened again last night! Anxious to pick back up the threads, I rushed home, ate and then went straight to my laptop. Those of you who write know that a muse is a cruel mistress and if denied… will snub you and move on to someone more flexible within their response. The words simply poured from my fingertips and when September of 2010 chapter was finished, I moved on. While I was reviewing notes from last October for the book, several long lost tid bits came to my attention. With hindsight now 20/20 in my rear view mirror… I began to parse and sent a few questions to R. I knew she was busy and so did not expect to hear back from her any time soon and that was ok, because I was on a roll. Clue after clue flashed before my eyes and happy to be under the spell, I wrote like a woman whose hands were on fire. Several questions later, I had to go back to my email files and in doing so found that R had apparently hopped on line. I opened the email and my jaw dropped to the floor. Those who have been silent for these past weeks have finally found their voice again and the rapture of their cacophony was sweet music to my ears. Earlier in the evening I had been reviewing the Google Earth site of the final resting place of Rox’s bones and an information exchange now 10 months old:
TA: “…How did they get here to this pond with the trees? Truck? Car? How did they get her into the water? Boat- or is it shallow enough that __________and the others could have walked through it to bury her in just his boots? Is this why they wore flannel? To keep from being cut up in the cypress trees? Or pretending to go hunting with one another to bury her? Why is there blood left on the shovel? Did they hit her first- or strangle her first? Why the compass? So they could find her again if they had to move her?” Her response was chilling.
R: “…Interesting. What was the significance of that compass? ___________ knew about the compass right? I feel like the water was right near where they would have killed her. I can tell you they simply rolled her into the water. Concentrate on the ___________ guy, There is more there…”
I have often referred to the rear window approach in this investigation… Hindsight baby! Hindsight is a beautiful thing! We now know that e shovel and the compass were tied to Jessica… not Rox. So when I finished with that, I sent several other questions that came to mind after reviewing even older information; I sent her this, referencing the above dialogue in a series of inquiries that happened on October 12th, 2010. Last night I sent her the following:
TA: “…Remember this? Can ____________give us anything more about the compass and the bloody shovel? Was her husband,______________ one of the 4 in flannel??? He was with all those guys: F_______, C____________, P_________, S__________…? If the MOT will not speak… can we learn why? If he cared for Roxanne… why won’t he help her now? Can we find out what happened to the watch he got from Rox? Does __________say if Theodore __________ (the purple orchid brooch thief!) is still alive… in Valdosta??? Just curious…”
It was really nothing. It’s just part of my process to ruminate over things, put them down and come back weeks or months later when I have more to add to the pile and the process starts all over again. Sometimes I communicate with her about just small nodules of regurgitated concerns and pander shamelessly for further confirmation and/or clarification on specific scenarios that remain unsettled in my stomach. What came back though was vomited from a place I cannot access directly…
R: “…I am not going to respond to direct questions but just open it up to anyone and anything…
Who was the sheriff at the time of Charley’s murder?
___________may be the one who entered Charley’s office that night.
____________may be the one who killed MOT…
__________had an, ‘… if you want something right do it yourself…’ attitude.
He volunteered to do these things like he was the one who could do it right.
December 23rd…
Grim may get in a car accident, but will only be injured…
_______________says she repeatedly heard them talk about it over the years, more in whispers like they did not think she could hear but she could.
Cherry Street – what is this? Have we talked about it before? Feels tied to Roxanne.
The man by the fence that passed says something about he might have seen a group out in the field around October 12th.
Ok I know this sounds weird but is there a piece of paper in Charley’s stuff that looks like it has weird symbols like hieroglyphics? It’s something Hazel had that she put in with other items. She keeps saying, ‘the whole time I had it…'”
The whole time she had what???!!! With a response like that, I paused in my efforts and immediately began to dissect every box, bag and envelope in my Charley arsenal. What did Hazel consider as mock heiroglyphics? To paraphrase a line from my favorite film, The Field of Dreams (How apropos?), ‘When the universe is speaking, it is best not to quibble over details!’ So, I didn’t! What I did do was canvass every bit of information I had that I could connect to Charley. In doing so, I kept a keen eye out for every white envelope- knowing the two must be tied somehow. ‘A white envelope that had marking like hieroglyphics.’ What were the odds?
My mouth began to salivate as I found the first of two letters that were written in old shorthand. The structure was odd and exotic looking. I could not read it, but there were a few words that appeared within the script in legible format… “killed”… the number “3” and a few others. As excited as I was, it felt wrong. Hazel had known shorthand. Hell, every woman back then knew it as most ended up employed in offices where dictation was required and shorthand became second nature. And after another fifteen minutes, I found several onion skinned letters to Senator Talmage and another person echoing some of the same words in the approximate sentence structures and decided my gut had been right- the heiroglyphics of shorthand were not what I was supposed to be looking for. I decided to set them aside and continued my search.
Forty-five minutes and thirty nine other white envelopes later, I found a white envelope that had squiggles on it…not like the shorthand though. This was more like someone had picked up a pen and it ran out of ink and they kept swirling it about to get more ink to flow. I immediately discounted it, as it did not meet my bar of ‘hieroglyphics’ association.
Curious though, and remembering Charley’s remanding to “open the white envelope- just open it…” I did. I pulled out the paperwork within. Nothing struck me as unusual until I saw what it was, the dates and something else that tripped a light in my head! This was a Georgia Department of Labor form on a man 61 years of age who had worked for Charley as a carpenter from March of 1966 till May of 1966. His name? Not necessary for you to know… but Charley wanted me to know. I stared at this paper for more than ten minutes, trying to divine segue and then it hit me. A clue that went back even further than the notes I had been working on rushed back into my head. “Do you understand the man who dies of a heart attack in bed? He is in his 60’s. He dies sometime around the time of Charley’s death? The trail will lead to MOT…” Now no one is more accustomed to the twists and turns of this case than me. I have been hit over the head by the cosmos so many times; I have nothing left to buffer my brain from their divine intervention. Even now I chance to look up at Charley’s 8×10 and wonder just what the hell is going on. If my intuitions are correct… and I have yet to have them proven so far from the path… Damn. I am even reticent to put this in print. What if the records were wrong on purpose? What if the man on the death certificate is not who we think he is? What if the MOT is not the same as the sir name printed? What if the body found in the Daniel Ashley hotel, beaten to death is not the same name of the paperwork and that is why they rushed and went from discovery to burial in less than 24 hours? And that includes a transfer of the body from Valdosta to Augusta? Was this is why I have never been internally pressed to follow the trail of the Mot further. Why after several initial searches for the MOT’s family name in the Augusta area… I came back empty handed? Is this the reason why they “quarantined” his body? Because it wasn’t even who they said it was?
My head hurt at the possible ramifications? Another body? Another search? Another round of inquiries and another set of dead ends? (No pun intended!) If the trail leads to the MOT… then who really was the MOT? I thought I knew. I thought the man was correctly documented on the funeral home papers? But what if that was a lie too? What if the Mot wasn’t who I have been led to believe he was? What if the MOT is another man whose identity was hidden from view until now??? Frantic for more information, I continued to read and write until about 1:00 am and then when I could see no more… I tried to go to bed.
When I went to get undressed, I pulled my shirt off over my head and there in my face was another black silhouette and I screamed. Ok, so even though I continue to ask for physical confirmation… I basically suck at this thing. Here I was; my head about to explode with multiple plausibility and I was trying to be quiet as possible and not wake up my husband or the dogs and then I scream like an idiot and wake everybody in the house! LOL
Today I will write and think and research and pray that one of the few, step to the plate and save my head before I spontaneously combust!
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