The max porter box set, p.50
The Max Porter Box Set, page 50
Max’s chest chilled. “We are not going to talk about what I think you want to talk about.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it. But here’s the hard truth — people change. We both are nothing like the naive couple who moved to the South with practically nothing to their name. Back then, you knew nothing of ghosts and witches and curses. None of this world existed for you. But now it does, and that has changed you. I’ve seen you become stronger, smarter, more passionate about your life. I’ve seen you develop the closest friendship I’ve ever known you to have.”
“With Drummond?”
She let her fork fall to the plate. “So what if it’s with a ghost? That just shows you how much this new life of ours has changed you. Have you ever given much thought to what it might have done to me? Or did you expect me to stay stagnant and never grow beyond the lovesick girl you first met?”
“Of course you’re going to change. I know that.”
“Then you’ve got to be open to those changes.” She placed her hand atop his. Max wanted to see that as a positive sign, but her words did not match the sentiment. “Do you remember Christie Mund?”
“From Michigan? She was part of your Lady’s Gang.”
Many years back, after college, Sandra and four other women gathered for brunch once-a-month. A casual get-together meant to help keep their friendships alive. They called themselves the Lady’s Gang.
“Christie had a tough job as a social worker. Real heart-wrenching stuff. And every now and then, she’d unload some of it at our brunches. Listening to stories of abused and neglected children never made for a light morning, but we let her say what she needed to. You could see it in everything about her — that once she finished, her smile returned only brighter, her laughter returned but a little bit louder. By getting those stories out of her, she suddenly could face the world again.” Sandra patted his hand. “Patience, hon, there is a point.
“See, her husband, Rex, never liked that she worked. I don’t think you ever met him, but he was a Neanderthal with a brain forged in a rural backwater circa 1930. To him, women belonged in the home — possibly barefoot and pregnant — and men earned the money. It’s worse than that really, but we don’t need to go into it right now. Just know that he was an awful human being who saw his wife as his property.
“The only reason Christie worked was because he didn’t earn enough money. Until he got promoted. Then he decided she needed to change. He put their marriage on the chopping block — either she do what he commanded or the marriage ended. So, she left her job. We saw her twice more and neither time did she look well. She had no more horrible stories to share but she did not smile or laugh or anything. And then she stopped coming at all.
“I don’t know if she ever got the courage to leave him, but watching her I saw that no marriage can survive one spouse forcing the other to change in a specific way. The couple may technically stay married, but the love vanishes and it’s replaced with resentment. I don’t want to become Christie Mund. I don’t want to resent you.”
Max pulled his hand away. He hated to do it, but this conversation could not be smoothed over. “Your friend, and the many out there like her — they’re not you. Christie didn’t grow to resent her husband from that one instance. He clearly dominated her life, probably every aspect of her life, to the point that going out and fighting for other people’s children gave her the bit of breathing room she needed. Being forced to quit that job may have sent her over the edge but her husband’s behavior before that — it brought her to that edge. That’s not you. You aren’t stifled on all sides, controlled by dictatorial rule in the house, or anything like that. And if you feel that way, we need to have a much different conversation.”
“I don’t feel that way. That’s not what I’m saying.”
Max tapped the table. “I listened to you. Now, please, hear me out. You aren’t being abused and nobody is trying to control your decisions. You know that. But you also don’t get to make unilateral decisions that change the nature of our marriage, of our existence. We’ve both made that mistake before, and we shouldn’t be doing it again.”
“Damn, you absolutely refuse to see this for what is. You want me to listen to you? Listen to yourself. Every single time that you make a unilateral decision, you give your reason and apology and then that’s it. I’m expected to accept it. But if I do it, I’m destroying us. That’s the subtext between us way too often. Then you have the nerve to tell me it’s all in my head. You fucking gaslight me with all this nobody’s trying to control you.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not trying to do anything like that.”
Sandra snapped out her napkin and wiped her mouth. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going back upstairs. I’m taking a shower. And then, I’m going out to talk with the witches I know. I’ll see what I can dig up on this man Grandma Mobley made her deal with, the book she used, and that kind of thing. I suggest while I’m getting ready, you go to the office and research whatever the hell you want to research. You want to help with this case? Great. Do that research. But I know you want nothing to do with this part of my life, so if you’d rather take on a cheating spouse case or something more mundane, be my guest.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You’re right about that. You haven’t been fair to me about any of this.”
“Honey —”
Sandra stood, her chair making a racket as she pushed back. “If you have any sense of what’s good for you, you won’t speak to me for a while.”
As she marched upstairs, Max kept quiet. He cleared the dishes and replayed the last few minutes in his head. None of it made much sense to him.
Chapter 18
DRIVING TO THE OFFICE, Max’s morning worsened when his phone rang and he saw Mother on the ID. Thankfully, that call went swiftly and with limited insult to his newly-formed parenting abilities — she only wanted to brag about how well things were going with the boys under her care. Max would happily endure her hubris if it meant getting a lid on that situation. Besides, she loved mothering PB and J even if it meant disciplining them — perhaps, especially when it meant disciplining them. Having been on the receiving end many times in his life, Max figured tomorrow the boys would be begging to go back to school.
As he entered his office, he cleared his mind of his mother and his wife so that he could focus on the case at hand. Despite Sandra’s biting remarks, Max had no intention of bailing out. He would never leave her to fight alone. They were a team. No matter what.
While his laptop powered up, he pulled out his notebook and reviewed the little he knew. The second he could jump online and get to the search bar, he typed in the name he had been itching to research since the day before — George Black. The rest of the morning blurred by as he learned of this man’s life and his work. Nothing could distract Max from his pursuit in research.
“I’ve been in front of you for three minutes. You ever going to look up?”
Nothing except that. Marshall Drummond floated a few feet from the desk like he had returned from a luxurious vacation.
“You okay?” Max asked. “Lena said she had sent you to the Other, so we weren’t too worried, but still —”
“Don’t get all choked up with your concern.” Drummond thrust his pale hands into his pockets and drifted toward the window. Gazing across the city, he said, “It didn’t feel too good being thrown off like that. Not as bad as touching the solid world, but I wouldn’t want to have to go through it again.”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been hurt by witches before. Anyway, she did send me to the Other. I figured you’d be a while, so I made friends with Bernice, a dark-haired flapper killed by a mobster in 1927. At least, that’s what she told me. We talked a bit but not too much. She worked a little magic on my bruises.”
“Magic?”
“The kind that involves privacy and a lack of clothing.”
“Someday, when my curiosity overcomes my revulsion, I’m going to have to get some details on how ghosts do that. Seems like you should pass through each other.”
The corner of Drummond’s mouth lifted. “Not at all. It’s colder than you’d expect, but —”
“I don’t want to know. I’m truly glad you’re okay, so let’s leave it at that.”
“Fair enough.” Turning back to the desk, he pointed to the notebook. “I know that look in your eye, and I see your scribbling, so out with it — what do you got?”
Unable to be coy about his work, he jumped to his feet, hooked the notebook in his arm and paced the office as he revealed his research. “George Black was one of those people every town has — a guy who lived an amazing life, did something incredible, and almost nobody knows who he is or anything about him.”
Drummond flicked his hat back. “Gee, Professor, go ahead and enlighten me.”
“Pay attention, there might be a quiz. George Black was born in 1879. His parents were former slaves, and after the war and emancipation, Black’s father bought five acres of land in Randolph County. Get this — he bought it from his former master’s plantation.”
“I’m sure the ol’ master cringed through that sale — lost the war and now he has to sell his land to the people he abused. That’s some sweet revenge.”
“I doubt George’s father saw it that way.”
“True. No amount of revenge could ever make up for slavery, but it’s still a nice image to have in my head.”
“Anyway, they lived in a tiny cabin, and when I say they, I’m talking about the parents, their four boys, and one grandmother. It was a life you would expect for the time period — everybody working and not much time for education. Heck, even the grandmother did laundry for the white families and she lived to be a hundred and seventeen. George went to school long enough to learn the basics — the alphabet, some numbers, not much more though.
“In 1889, when George was ten, there was some trouble — or there wasn’t. This is a fascinating guy because there’s conflicting stories. One story says that George’s half-brother had previously moved to Winston-Salem to make money in town, but instead, the boy started carousing with the wrong sort. So, George’s father walked fifty miles to get the boy and stumbled into meeting a brickmaker who offered the father and son good work at a good price. The father moves the whole family to Winston-Salem, and though he died in 1890, the family stayed and the boys started working for the brickmaker. They hauled bricks from the mud mill — that’s where the bricks are made from molds — and took them to pallets to dry. All day long. But other stories suggest that at ten years old, George, his father, and one brother walked to Winston-Salem because they heard they could make $1.50 per day working bricks together. And yet another story says he worked for the Hitchcock Brickyard where he went right into learning brickmaking.”
“Either way the story ends up in the same place.”
Max wagged his finger. “I don’t agree. I mean, yes, the stories do technically end up at the same spot, but the motivation is different in each case.”
“Is that important?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping you’ll be able to hear something in all of this that I’m missing.”
Drummond puffed up. “I’ll do my best.”
“However it went down, the whole family ended up living in Winston-Salem — eleven people by that point, all crammed into a one-room tenement. Fast forward to the 1920s. Black’s been working the same for decades and all throughout those years, he’s been learning his craft. He’s also wondering why he has to struggle to live.
“The story goes that on one occasion, he said to his brother, ‘They can pay us pretty good money, we do the work, and they make more money than we make. How come we can’t make brick and get it all?’ As luck would have it, his boss had an old, broken mud mill and gave it to Black to use for firewood. But George fixed that mill and started using it to make his own bricks.
“I don’t know whether it was the care he put into his bricks, the molds he created, or something else, but George Black’s bricks became the most desired bricks around. They were considered better quality and more durable than anybody else’s. And when you consider how many bricks are needed to build a city —”
Drummond whistled. “That ain’t no small thing.”
“Another story about him says that sometime after Black had started his own brickmaking business, R. J. Reynolds rode out on horseback to visit. He ordered five hundred thousand bricks. After seeing the result, he came back and ordered a million more. I mean, that’s a lot of bricks, but that isn’t all of them. These bricks are all over Winston-Salem — mansions and homes, Old Salem is filled with them, especially the fire house, the Salem College Library, and tons of other places.
“Even after technology changed and the process became more and more automated, or at least, mechanized, Black insisted on doing it all by hand. Then things took another big turn in 1971. Charles Kuralt interviewed him for The CBS Evening News. This brought a small amount of fame to Black. People wanted to hear from him. He traveled to Guyana to teach villagers how to make bricks, he spoke to numerous groups, and even got invited to the White House. It was Nixon at the time, but still, that’s pretty cool.”
“And the old man was in his nineties at the time.”
“That’s right. He went on to be over a hundred. Amazing life. A really unique life.”
“But?”
“I can’t find anything that suggests he was involved with the occult, the supernatural, witchcraft, or any of it. I thought maybe he provided the bricks for one of the early homes of the Mobley Coven, but there’s nothing. Not even a hint that he ever came into contact with them.”
“Maybe he did without knowing.”
“I thought about that. According to the coven, Eunice Mobley had her spirit bound to the North Carolina red clay and that’s the key ingredient to his bricks.”
“Also Candace’s dying word was Black. So, it seems pretty clear.”
Max wrinkled his face. “It’s not enough. All we have are the stories people are telling us. The research isn’t backing it up. In fact, the research isn’t pointing to anything verifiable.”
“When has that ever been an issue for you? I’ve seen you connect dots so far apart they might’ve been in different states. Where’s your trusty intuition?”
“Maybe that’s what’s bothering me. It isn’t kicking in. Something doesn’t add up.”
Drummond pursed his lips as he circulated through the room. While passing over Max’s desk, he paused. “What’s that list?”
“Addresses of buildings verified to have used George Black’s bricks. There are quite a few still in existence.”
“And you don’t see the connection?”
“I haven’t had a chance yet to really look at it.”
“Third one from the top — the Latino Community Credit Union.”
Max picked up the paper. “What about it?”
“It’s located at 658 Waughtown Street.”
“Isn’t that where the pharmacy is?”
“Now it is. But a bunch of years ago, it was the credit union.”
Max pressed the paper against the desk, examining each address closely. His shoulders drooped. “I don’t see the Science Center listed here.”
“You wouldn’t. That part of the building we were in was secret and old. Probably a remnant of a different building altogether.”
Though he did not fill up with confidence, he saw no better avenue to follow. “Okay. I need some lunch, but afterwards, I’ll get started researching these addresses. If Sandra will talk to me ever again, we can get her to call upon her real estate contacts for more details, if we need them.”
Drummond snickered. “Sometimes, Max, you’re a bit slow.”
“Gee, thanks. That’s all I need today — to be insulted by a ghost.”
“You don’t have to get Sandra’s help and you don’t have to sit at your computer for hours. For this, we need to do it the old fashioned way — honest detective work.”
“And that means what?”
“We’re hoofing it.”
Chapter 19
THE IDEA OF BEING an old school detective for an afternoon actually held some appeal. But after a short lunch and driving all over the city, walking around brick building after brick building, Max discovered that “old school detective” meant aching feet, a sweaty back, and no progress. For his partner, however, the day had been a thrilling nostalgia trip.
“I tell ya,” Drummond said as Max drove to the last location on their list, “this is what the gig should never have gotten rid of. You spend so much of your time at a computer or in the library, but this is where the real work is. Getting into the grit of it all.”
“What grit? We haven’t found anything useful.”
“Trust me. We’ve found more than we know. It’s like your research — you read and read, and it seems like all of what you’ve learned is not really helpful. Then something happens and it all connects.”
Max tagged his fingers as he counted off. “Former Wells Fargo bank, seven private homes on four different streets in three different neighborhoods — all very nice houses, the pharmacy, Old Salem, even the YWCA, and not a single place has had anything to help us.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. They all had bricks made by George Black. That’s got to be something.”
“The man made millions upon millions of bricks in his lifetime. Finding a building with his bricks ain’t that hard.”
“That only makes it harder on us to find the right bricks. Come on, pull yourself together. This kind of pessimism doesn’t look good on you.”
“Yeah? Well, optimism is a weird look on you.”
“Will you allow me to find a few enjoyable moments in a case I wanted nothing to do with? Sheesh, I thought you’d like doing onsite research like this. Are you grouching because of your fight with Sandra?”
“Probably.” Max turned onto 25th Street. “I wish I understood why she’s pushing back so hard.”
