“I’ve read where people confess to crimes they haven’t committed,” Susan thoughtfully mentioned as she slowed for a curve on the old gravel two-lane road.
Olivia’s tears slowed. “Why? To save someone else?”
“That, or for attention,” and Susan. “And then there are always those who are crazy, flat-out crazy,” she added.
“Frank would seem to fit the bill,” Olivia softly replied.
“Being a drunk makes someone deceitful, shrewd even, but not necessarily crazy,” Harry said.
“Alcohol kills brain cells. Sooner or later, the mind unravels.” Olivia stared out the window. “Frank had a good mind. He remembered all those complicated football plays. How he could run, how he could run and fly through tackles as though they weren’t there.” She sighed at the memory. “And he was a good history student. Daddy liked him until we started dating.”
“Somehow, seeing someone with a good mind, with athletic talent, ruin themselves with alcohol, it seems worse than if they were average.” Susan pulled to the side of the road.
“Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have become a drunk. Think of all the brilliant people who destroy themselves and everyone around them by drinking,” Harry replied.
A flash of humor enlivened Olivia. “Harry, you sound like Carrie Nation!”
“I’ll bring my hatchet next time.” Harry was glad to see Olivia bouncing back just a touch. “She wasn’t really wrong, but Prohibition was. You can’t legislate human behavior. Murder. Right! The Ten Commandments: ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal,’ but we’ve been fleecing one another for thousands of years. And how does one circumvent ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’?”
“Nations always come up with a reason. Daddy used to say there are times when the only answer is war. Without that, some problems will never be settled.”
Harry’s curiosity rose up. “Did he mention murder?”
“Funny you ask that, because I was trying to remember if he talked about that, and I don’t think he did. Oh, if there was something in the news, he would discuss it, but other than something like that, no. Dad concentrated on the grand sweep of history, on the lives of our ancestors. Sometimes he might talk about the crime rate, such as after the Revolutionary War.”
Susan turned around to head back toward town. “There is a difference between murder and war. At least I think there is.”
“Volume, for one thing.” Harry tossed that off.
“There is that,” Olivia agreed.
“For whatever reason, Frank’s confession is peculiar,” said Susan. “Peculiar, unbelievable, some weird fantasy.”
Harry turned sideways to put her right leg up on the rear seat. “Did Sheriff Shaw say how Frank tried to kill himself?”
“Rat poison, but he didn’t take enough. He also said that all that retching only brought up alcohol. Frank hadn’t eaten for days, and that seems not to have been unusual.”
“Forgive me for asking this, but it could be important.” Harry leaned forward. “Did you ever sleep with Frank?”
“Oh, my God, no! Not back then. I mean, if I had, and Daddy had found out, he would have killed Frank.” Harry looked into the rearview mirror and saw Susan looking back at her.
Harry changed the subject. “Ginger, as always, was hard at work on something. He said that he was returning to the Revolutionary War and immediately after. He also said that he had to have lived this long to ask the right questions.”
Olivia smiled, remembering her father’s enthusiasm. It was like a kid’s. “Oh, Daddy would say to me when we talked on the phone, ‘Before now, I never wondered how those who secretly thought we were wrong to separate from England accepted the new order. The really passionate ones fled to Canada or returned to England.’ ”
Harry knew something about early history. “It is interesting, but apart from the Whiskey Rebellion, people did accept the new ways. Trying to figure out how to run a new country, how to make money, no doubt took up everyone’s time,” she mused.
“Your father really was enthusiastic,” said Susan. “He bubbled over. When I was in school, they’d focus on the wars only, and you had to memorize the dates. But the periods leading up to war and then their aftermath are critical. If you don’t get it right, boom!, another war, or at least some form of collapse.” Susan smiled. “That’s what Ned says. He’s the reader, not me.”
“Maybe we all need to go back and read about that time,” Harry suggested, although she couldn’t understand what had set off Ginger’s killer. Sometimes, nearly anything sets off a new idea or radical course of action.
April 17, 2015
Nelson Yarbrough, Marshall Reese, Paul Huber, and Rudy Putnam sat in Frank’s hospital room.
When the admitting doctor had asked Frank his next of kin, he had given Nelson Yarbrough’s name. Despite being no relation, Frank put Nelson’s name down, as he’d always looked up to the quarterback. As a kid, he had worshipped him. Nelson, shocked to receive the call from the hospital physician, called the alumni in town. With the exception of Willis Fugate, who was in D.C. that day, they all showed up at the hospital in support—of Nelson Yarbrough rather than Frank Cresey.
Gasping for breath, hooked up to an IV, Frank couldn’t believe his bloodshot eyes as he looked at this gathering of football players: his childhood heroes, all of whom had tried to help him over the years. “Will you all bury me?”
Nelson answered simply, “Frank, you’re going to live.”
Frank flinched. “Why? I’ve made a mess of it, and I killed Professor McConnell.”
Paul took a chair beside the hospital bed. “That doesn’t seem possible.”
But Frank just nodded.
His four visitors exchanged glances.
Paul Huber said, “Frank, what you did was swallow rat poison, but not enough. You’ll come through this. This is a blessing in disguise. You can come back. I know you can.”
“He’s right.” Nelson seconded the idea.
“Better I die. I don’t want to go on trial.”
Not one of the men thought Frank had killed Ginger McConnell. Too many gaping holes in that scenario.
Marshall grinned, trying to jolly Frank along. “You drank too much, buddy. We all know a Wahoo can drink, but you are in a class by yourself.”
Frank smiled weakly. “Not this time.” Then, suddenly animated, he sat up and spoke louder. “I saw her. I saw her, and she was beautiful.”
They all knew who, even though they didn’t know of the incident with Olivia on the mall. The four stayed another half an hour. At last Frank, wearied, fell asleep.
The men stepped outside into the hall.
A nurse walked by.
Marshall whispered, for they were in a hospital. “No way in hell he could have killed Professor McConnell. Christ, he couldn’t hold a gun without it shaking. He’s delusional. Do you think he really saw Olivia?”
“He thinks he did,” Nelson noted.
“Complicates things. If he pulls through, where does he go? Back on the mall?” Paul hated seeing a former All-American in this condition.
Rudy folded his arms across his chest. “No. We’ll think of something.”
“He might come up with something,” said Marshall. “I’ll call Lionel.”
Lionel had returned to L.A., but was coming back to Charlottesville for the professor’s funeral. Good thing he was successful, as those coast-to-coast flights cost a bundle.
“There’s a halfway house, city owned, on the east side of the mall,” said Paul, who volunteered, “I’ll check into it.”
“I don’t think he’ll live with other people.” Marshall gratefully sank onto the bench along the wall. The others took seats as well.
“Everything at once.” Rudy’s shoulders sagged. “But the endowed chair seems to be coming along.”
“Tim Jardine knows money better than anyone,” said Nelson. “I think we should each give Frank’s physician and the nurses on this floor our cell numbers. If he does anything foolish, tries to leave, makes a scene, one of us might be reached. I also think we could make a schedule so that one of us visits him every day until he’s discharged. With luck, by then the police should know more about who shot Ginger.”