“Eeeuw,” Ali said. “What’s that smell?”
I caught it too, said, “Urea.”
“You mean like in pee?” Jannie asked, disgusted.
“Animal pee,” I said. “And probably animal poop too.”
“God, what are we doing here?” she said with a groan.
“Where are we staying?” Ali asked.
“Naomi made the arrangements,” Bree said. “I just pray there’s air-conditioning. It’s gotta be ninety, and if we’re downwind of that smell…”
“It’s eighty,” I said, looking at the dash. “We’re up higher now.”
I drove on by instinct, remembering none of the street names but somehow knowing the way to downtown Starksville as if I’d been there the day before and not three and a half decades ago.
The town center had been laid out in the early 1800s around a rectangular common that now featured a statue of Colonel Francis Stark, a local hero of the Confederacy and the son of the town’s founder and namesake. Starksville should have been a place you’d describe as quaint. Many of the buildings were older, some antebellum, some brick-faced like the factories at the edge of town.
But hard economic times had hit Starksville. For every business open that Thursday—a clothing emporium, a bookstore, a pawnbroker, a gun shop, and two liquor stores—there were two more that stood empty with their front windows soaped over. For Sale signs hung everywhere.
“I can remember when Starksville was not a bad place to live even with the Jim Crow laws,” Nana Mama said wistfully.
“What are Crow laws?” Ali asked, scrunching his nose.
“They were laws against people like us,” she said, and then she pointed a bony finger at a defunct pharmacy and soda fountain called Lords. “Right there, I remember there were signs that said ‘No Coloreds Allowed.’”
“Did Dr. King take those down?” my son asked.
“He was responsible, ultimately,” I said. “But to my knowledge, he never actually came to—”
Jannie cried, “Hey, there’s Scootchie!”
Chapter
3
My niece was on the sidewalk in front of the county courthouse arguing with an earnest-looking African American man in a well-cut gray suit. Naomi wore a navy blue skirt and blazer and clutched a brown legal-size accordion file to her chest, and she was shaking her head firmly.
I pulled over and parked, said, “She looks busy. Why doesn’t everyone wait here? I’ll get directions to where we’re staying.”
I climbed out into what was, by Washington, DC, standards, a banner summer day. The humidity was surprisingly low and there was a breeze blowing that carried with it the sound of my niece’s voice.
“Matt, are you going to fight every one of my motions?” Naomi demanded.
“Course I am,” he said. “It’s my job, remember?”
“Your job should be to find the truth,” she shot back.
“I think we all know the truth,” he replied, and then he looked over her shoulder at me.
“Naomi?” I called.
She turned and saw me, and her posture relaxed. “Alex!”
Grinning, she trotted over, threw her arms around me, and said quietly, “Thank God you’re here. This town is enough to drive me mad.”
“I came as soon as I could,” I said. “Where’s Stefan?”