Page 68 of The Lost Hours
“Look at the cause of death,” he said.
My gaze went back to the correct box. “Suicide. By hanging.” I closed my eyes for a moment, and shook my head. “He was only twenty-six years old. What would have made him want to kill himself?”
“Piper, it was Georgia in nineteen thirty-nine and Freddie was a black man. It’s entirely possible that it wasn’t a suicide. Your grandmother mentioned in her scrapbook that he was involved in registering black voters. Back then, men would have killed for less.”
I sat back, my mind spinning. “Josie’s daughter—what was her name?”
“Alicia Jones.”
“We need to see if she still lives here—and it should be easier because we have the street name, too. I know I’m pushing my luck, but let’s look in the phone book and see if we can find her. If not, I’ll go online. I hate to pay for that kind of information, but if I need to, I know a great search engine.”
He stood and reached for my hand. I took his and let him pull me up. “You’re pretty good at this stuff, Piper.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling oddly pleased. “A lot of it is dull and routine, but every once in a while you’re given a little bit of a mystery to solve, and it makes everything else worthwhile.”
Tucker didn’t move away. “I have a feeling that you’d be good at anything you set your mind to.”
I looked away, embarrassed. “Come on. Let’s get back to the house to find what Helen and George turned up and to see if I can locate Alicia Jones.”
We walked the short blocks back to Taylor Street, and I didn’t think once about how hot it was or even if my knee hurt. I was too busy thinking about what Tucker had said.I have a feeling that you’d be good at anything you set your mind to.
I practically bounded up the steps when we reached the house and then fumbled impatiently with the keys to get inside the front door. Helen was laughing, although it sounded a lot closer to giggling, in the front parlor, and when I walked in I found her and George sitting on the love seat and her hands were clasped in his. He didn’t even have the decency to drop her hands when he spotted us.
“Hello, Earlene,Tucker. We were wondering what was taking you so long. I was just telling Helen about a few of my court cases, some of which have been rather humorous.” He patted Helen’s hand and then stood. “So, did you find out anything new?”
I plopped down in my grandmother’s armchair. “Quite a bit, actually. I discovered that Josie and Freddie were my grandmother’s half siblings. Apparently my great-grandfather had a longtime relationship with their mother and employed her as his housekeeper to keep it simple.”
“I wonder if Malily knew,” said Helen, a line between her eyebrows.
“From what I’ve read in the scrapbook pages, I don’t think she knew,” I said. “But we need to ask her. Might make her tell me more than what’s been written.”
Tucker sat down next to me in my grandfather’s chair, the one positioned to directly face the empty medal wall. “Helen should go with you. Malily’s never been able to tell her no.”
I nodded, then turned to George. “Were you and Helen able to find anything new?”
George gave me a smug smile. “As a matter of fact, yes. We make quite the team, I’ll have you know. She takes excellent shorthand and has a very precise memory. I told her she should be working in a law office somewhere to utilize her skills.”
I forced myself not to grit my teeth. “What did you find out?”
“After going through miles of microfilm—it’s very hard on the neck, you know. . . .”
Helen interrupted George with a hand on his arm. “We found the burial record and plot for Margaret Louise in Bonaventure. She was buried in nineteen twelve, which predates the magazines that are up there, meaning the room served another purpose after Margaret Louise died.”
“Any luck with more news articles about the baby found in the river?” Tucker asked.
George shook his head. “No. Archives for theSavannah Morning Newsfor the time period we’re looking for are sketchy at best. A bad flood destroyed about a year’s worth of stored newspapers prior to them being stored on microfilm. Some of the major news stories, obits, and the like could be found in other sources, but not so much the little news tidbits.”
I swallowed my disappointment, focusing instead on the one last piece of information we’d learned. “We found Justine’s obituary, and it said she was survived by Josie’s daughter, Alicia Jones on Tattnall Street. There’s a chance she could still live there, so I’m going to go see what I can find, starting with the phone book.” I stood, heading for the kitchen.
Helen stopped me. “Did you find out anything else about Freddie?”
I paused on the threshold. “That he died when he was twenty-six. The death certificate says suicide by hanging.”
Her cheeks paled. “How sad. After reading about him, I was starting to feel as if I knew him. I didn’t expect . . . that.”
“Neither did I. Although Tucker pointed out that a black man, especially one with his background, found hanged wasn’t all that unusual back then. Paying somebody to fudge the cause of death wouldn’t have necessarily been a big deal.”
“No,” she said softly,“it wouldn’t have been.” George took her hand again, and I left the room to make a phone call.
