“Leukemia,” I said. “Colonel Randolph or Wesley?”
“No,” Fenton replied. He slid another sample under the microscope. “Look here.”
I did, and a peculiar shape of cell was prominent.“I’m not familiar with this cell deformation,” I said.
“We’re learning to identify this. It’s a hereditary blood disease called sickle cell anemia. The red blood cells lack normal hemoglobin. Instead, they contain hemoglobin S and the cells become deformed—they look like a sickle. Because of the awkward shape, the hemoglobin S blood cells can’t flow like normal cells and they clog up capillaries and blood vessels. Those traffic jams are extremely painful to the sufferer.
“But there’s a less serious condition in which red blood cells have half normal hemoglobin and half hemoglobin S. Someone with this condition has the sickle cell trait, but he won’t develop the disease.
“However, if he marries someone else with the trait, their children stand a twenty-five percent chance of inheriting the disease. The risk is very high.
“We don’t know why, but sickle cells occur among blacks. Occasionally, but rarely, someone of Greek, Arab, or Indian descent will display the trait. The whole thing is baffling.
“You know all those jokes about Negroes being either lazy or having hookworm?—well, in many cases we’re realizing they had sickle cell anemia.”
I didn’t know what to say, as I have observed since childhood that the white race delights in casting harsh judgments on the black race. So, I looked at the blood sample again.
“Did the Negro from whom you obtained this blood die?”
“The man this blood was drawn from is alive but failing from cancer. He has the trait but not the disease.” Dr. Fenton paused. “This is Colonel Randolph’s blood sample.”
Stunned, I blurted out,“What about Wesley?”
“He’s safe, but he carries the trait.”
As I drove back home I knew I’d have to tell Colonel Randolph and Wesley the truth. The happy portion of the news was that the colonel was in no immediate danger. The unhappy portion of the news is obvious. I wonder what Larry will make of this? I want to take him down to Dr. Fenton to see for himself.
Larry pushed the book away.
Jim Craig was murdered March 6, 1948. He never got to tell Larry anything.
Legs wobbly and eyes bleary from so much reading, Larry Johnson stood up from his desk. He put on his hat and his Sherlock Holmes coat, as he called it. He hadn’t paced the streets of Crozet like this since he tried to walk off a broken heart when Mim Urquhart spurned him for Big Jim Sanburne back in 1950.
As the sun rose, Larry felt his first obligation was to Warren Randolph. He called. Ansley answered, then put Warren on the phone. All the Randolphs were early risers. Larry offered to drive over to see Warren, but Warren said he’d come over to Larry’s later that morning. It was no inconvenience.
What was inconvenient was that Larry Johnson was shot at 7:44 Saturday morning.
58
Harry, Miranda, Mim, Fair, Susan, Ned, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker watched with mounting grief as their dear friend’s body was rolled away under a sheet on a gurney. Deputy Cooper said Larry’s maid, Charmalene, had found him at nine, when she came to work. He was lying in the front hall. He must have opened the door to let in the killer and taken a few steps toward the kitchen, when he was shot in the back.Probably the man never knew what hit him, but this was cold comfort to his friends. The maid said the coffee he’d made was fresh. He’d made more than usual, so maybe he expected company. He was probably awaiting the arrival of his killer, who then ransacked his office. Sheriff Shaw climbed in the back of the ambulance and they sped away.
Tucker, nose to the ground, picked up the scent easily enough, but the killer wore crepe-soled shoes which left such a distinct rubber smell that the dog couldn’t catch a clear human signature. Unfortunately, the ambulance workers trudged over the footprints, for the killer, no fool, tiptoed on the sidewalk and put a foot down hard only in the driveway, probably when disembarking from the car.
“What have you got, Tucker?” Mrs. Murphy, worried, asked.
“Not enough. Not enough.”
“A trace of cologne?”
“No, just this damned crepe-sole smell. And a wet smell—sand.”
The tiger bent her own nose to the task.“Is anyone else doing construction work? There’s always sand involved in construction.”
“Sand on a lot of driveways too.”
“Tucker, we’ve got to stick close to Mom. She’s done enough research to get her in trouble. Whoever the killer is, he’s losing it. Humans don’t kill one another in broad daylight unless it’s passion or war. This was cold-blooded.”
“And hasty,” Tucker added, still straining to place the rubber smell. She decided then and there to hate crepe-soled shoes.
Fair Haristeen read Larry’s notes on a piece of blue-lined white paper as Cynthia Cooper held the paper with tweezers.
“Can you make some sense of this, Fair? You’re a medical man.”
“Yes, it’s a kind of medical shorthand for sickle cell anemia.”
“Don’t only African Americans get that?”
“Mostly blacks are affected, but I don’t think there’s a hundred percent correspondence. It passes from generation to generation.”
Cooper asked,“How many generations back?”
Fair shrugged,“That I can’t tell you, Coop. I’m just a vet, remember.”
“Thanks, Fair.”
“Is there a nut case on the loose in Crozet?”
“That depends on how you define nut case, but it’s safe to say that if the killer feels anyone is closing in on the truth, he’s going to strike.”
59
Diana Robb swept aside the ambulance curtains as Rick Shaw pulled the sheet off Larry Johnson.
The bullet had narrowly missed the right side of the good doctor’s heart. It passed clearly through his body. The force of the blow, the shock, temporarily knocked him unconscious. When Charmalene discovered him, he was awakening.
Rick Shaw, the instant he knew Larry would live, bent over the older man who, just like a doctor, was giving orders as to how to handle him.“I need your help.”
“Yes.” Larry assented through a tight jaw.
“Who shot you?”
“That’s just it. I left the front door open. I was expecting Warren Randolph sometime late morning. I walked out of the living room into the front hall. Whoever shot me—maybe Warren—must have tiptoed in, but I never saw him.” These five sentences took Larry a long time to utter, and his brow was drenched in sweat.
“Help me, Larry.” The doctor nodded yes as Rick fervently whispered, “I need you to pretend you’re dead for twenty-four hours.”
“I nearly was.”
Rick swore Charmalene to secrecy as well as the ambulance staff. When he crawled into the back of the vehicle he had but one thought, how to bait and trap Warren Randolph.
60
Back in the office Rick Shaw banged his fists against the wall. The staff outside his office jumped. No one moved. Rarely did the man they obeyed and had learned to admire show this much emotion.
Deputy Cooper, in the office with him, said nothing, but she did open a fresh pack of cigarettes and made a drinking sign when a fresh-faced patrolman snuck by. That meant a cold Coca-Cola.
“I let my guard down! I know better. How many years have I been an officer of the law? How many?”
“Twenty-two, Sheriff.”
“Well, you’d think I would have goddamned learned something in twenty-two years. I relaxed. I allowed myself to think because of circumstantial evidence, because the bullet matched the thirty-eight that killed Kimball, that we had an open-and-shut case. Sure, Samson protested his innocence. My God, ninety percent of the worst criminals in America whine and lie and say they’re innocent. I didn’t listen to my gut.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. The case against Samson looked airtight. I was sure a confession would be a matter of time, once he figured out he couldn’t outsmart us. It takes time for reality to set in.”