Laree Emrick was a petite woman with curly brown hair. She opened the door with a smile and an order for two cocker spaniels to quit barking.
“I’m Emma Devlin, Mrs. Emrick. You were in the liquor store the night my husband was killed.”
There was no way to soften the words. She blanched and stepped back, but she opened the door for me.
“I’ve always felt it was my fault,” she said slowly as she led the way to the living room. “If I hadn’t cried…I’ll bet you hate me, don’t you?”
“No. Not at all.” And I didn’t. I had thought at one time that I might, but it was ridiculous. She was as much a victim as Frank, or me. “Please don’t think that I’ve come here to start any kind of trouble. It’s just that I have to settle this in my own mind. I want to be sure that Frank’s death was…the worst kind of accident.”
“I don’t remember much.” She motioned me onto the sofa and she took a seat in a wing chair. “To be honest, I’ve tried very hard to forget it all.”
“Maybe we could both forget if we finally examine that night.”
“You sound like my husband.” She sighed and began to talk. Her story was much the same as the statement she’d given the police. She was downtown at an antique store and decided to buy a bottle of wine for dinner. It was happenstance that she went into Robert’s store. The men came in. She did as they said and they started to abuse her. Frank intervened and they killed him. She remembered none of the conversation, none of the details.
“Did it ever cross your mind that those men would have killed my husband no matter what he did?”
She looked up at me. “I don’t know.” She rubbed her hand across her forehead. “You know, there was another customer in the store. The robbers ignored him completely. Now that you mention it, maybe they did seem to watch your husband more.”
“Are you certain, Mrs. Emrick?” I felt a thrill of hope growing.
“I told my husband it was like a train racing downhill. There wasn’t any stopping it once the killers walked in the door.” She hesitated. “Yes, I’m certain. They paid more attention to your husband than anyone else, or anything. Even the money. You know, they never demanded more money. They just took what was in the cash register.”
“Thank you, Laree.” I took my leave. My visit had upset her, but I had another tiny straw of evidence. If it was not real evidence, then at least it was mortar to help build the wall of my new theory.
I thought about going to my home, but as soon as I had the idea I gave it up. I wanted to discuss my ideas with someone. I could have called my brothers or my mother, but it wasn’t them I wanted to see. My brothers would be skeptical, to say the least. Mom would hover and worry. She was already concerned about me, and I didn’t want her to know I was spending my time playing amateur detective. No one could have hated what happened to Frank more than my family. But they’d gone on. For them, it was over. And like most survivors of tragedy, they didn’t want to be dragged back to the abyss.
I took the interstate to Vicksburg. Nathan Cates was the man I wanted to talk to. He’d share my sense of accomplishment. I didn’t examine my feelings in this, I simply accepted them. It seemed that I’d done nothing but probe at myself for the past five weeks. Nathan Cates’s interest in my problems was a luxury I was simply going to enjoy.
Ravenwood seemed too empty when I drove through the gates. It was silly, but I was disappointed when I didn’t see Frisco tied to the camellia near the drive. I hadn’t invited Nathan to return, so I shouldn’t have expected him. I had a sudden inspiration and got back in the van and drove to the battlefield.
Instead of the activities I’d expected, the Vicksburg National Military Park was quiet. I had to remember that it was April, still a month before the siege of Vicksburg actually began. The height of reenactment fever would come in the later months, along with the tropical heat. There was a cluster of young soldiers near some roughly constructed shelters. They carried old rifles and pistols and wore their Johnny Reb caps at jaunty angles. At first glance, they might have stepped out of the pages of history. Of course I knew them for what they were, hired actors who played the role of Confederate soldiers to entertain tourists.
“How are you boys today?” I asked.
“Just fine, ma’am,” one of them answered in a long drawl. “The Yanks are giving us a little peace and quiet for a change. We’re hoping our replacements will be in soon.” He looked at me and grinned. “I haven’t been home in over a year. My wife’s gonna forget what I look like.”
He looked hardly old enough to be out of school, and I smiled back at him. He was a wonderful actor. “I’m looking for a Lt. Col. Nathan Cates, of the Seventh Cavalry. Where might he be?”
The boy took off his hat and scratched his head. “No cavalry around here, that I know. That’ll come later in the summer when we reenact—” He blushed to the roots of his hair at his slip.
Ignoring his faux pas, I continued. “I met Colonel Cates yesterday. I’m sure he was in this area. May I look around?”
“Just watch out for stray bullets,” he said, recovered. “Hate to see a pretty woman like you get wounded.”
“I’ll use great care,” I assured him as I headed back for my van.
A paved road, a favorite of bicyclers and joggers, curves around the park and provides challenging hills and some of the most beautiful scenery in the Hill City. The scars of the Civil War have healed, at least the evidence of metal and fire that once devastated the earth. Green grass covers the hillsides where thousands of men died. The remaining weapons of war have been silenced and are now polished and painted for display.
The entire park is filled with monuments, some enormous and grand, others small and austere. These are the reminders of the high cost of that bloody conflict. Although I’d lived in Mississippi all of my life, I’d never visited the memorial. War and death, there was plenty of it in today’s world. I had no curiosity to probe the wounds of the past. As I drove around the park, I found myself stopping to read the monuments. The cost of taking Vicksburg was high. Thousands of men, gray and blue. Most of the deaths were not easy ones.
What I hadn’t expected was the beauty and the solitude of the park. Fragments of history courses I’d taken in high school and college came back to me. The siege of Vicksburg was one of the most gruesome ordeals of the war. Located on the banks of the Mississippi River on high bluffs, the city was crucial for the South’s survival, and just as necessary for the North to take. Once the siege began, one side had to lose. Some six weeks later, Vicksburg surrendered, after the civilians had been driven into caves dug into the bluffs. They ate rats, and many died of starvation and disease.
As I drove along the scenic parkway, I came upon Shirley House, the only structure that had managed to survive the battle. At one time it was used as a Union headquarters, surrounded by trenches—called saps—where soldiers lived, digging their way to wherever they had to go.
Beside the house was the Illinois Monument, a magnificent domelike structure with a skylight and the names of hundreds of soldiers who died so far from home engraved on every wall. I waited there, trying to shake the feeling that at any moment I would hear the sound of cannon and the cries of wounded horses. Thank God I had not lived in that time.
My own loss, no doubt as violent, had changed me forever. But I had not lost my home and my family and my way
