Robert Whitlow - Deeper Water

"Hello, Mr. Jones," I said as the door closed with a low thud.

"Yes, missy," he replied as we sat down across from each other. "I be worrying that you forgot about Moses and going to leave him in this place to die."

"No sir, I've been working hard. Your case will be coming up for trial sometime in the next few weeks. I don't know the exact date, but as soon as I do, I'll be here to let you know. There's a chance we will have a different judge."

"That may be help." The old black man nodded. "But I not know what I'm going to say."

"We'll practice going over your testimony until you know everything I'm going to ask you," I replied with more confidence than I felt. "You can't deny tying up your boat at private docks for the night, but we'll let the jury know that you didn't realize it was private property."

"That river, it belong to God who made it."

"Yes, I understand and agree, but that's not our best argument. An innocent mistake on your part will be easier to explain, and we'll also be sure to produce evidence that you didn't damage anyone's property or scare the landowners. Ignorance of the law isn't usually a legal excuse, but the jury can find you not guilty if they think you had an honest misunderstanding. Does that make sense?"

Moses shook his head. "No, missy. You be talking and talking."

"That's okay for now. We'll go over everything and break it down so you can follow."

I laid the folder with the newspaper clippings on the table. When I did, I felt my heart beat a little faster. I cleared my throat. Moses ran his tongue across the most prominent tooth in the front of his mouth.

"Moses, I have something else to show you." I opened the folder and took out the initial article about Lisa Prescott's disappearance. It contained the largest version of the photograph that ran in all the subsequent articles. I slid the sheet across the table and turned it so Moses could see it.

"Do you recognize this girl?" I asked.

He lowered his head closer to the table and tilted it to the side. "She be dead," he said in a soft voice after a few moments. "Where you get this?"

"It's a copy of an old newspaper article. Is this the girl whose face you see in the water?"

Still staring down, he nodded. I leaned forward. "Why do you see her face in the water?" I asked.

Moses let out a long sigh that slightly whistled as it passed through his teeth. "'Cause that's where she be," he said softly.

"How did she get there?" I asked, trying to stay calm.

"There weren't nothing else I could do."

I sat back in my chair. Moses looked at me and blinked his eyes. The old man was about to cry. I'd seen many confessions with tears at the altar of the church in Powell Station, but none that involved a murder.

"Do you want to tell me?"

He put his weathered hands on the table and closed his eyes. "I go fishing. Not in that boat chained to the pole out back, but in an old wooden thing that leaked termite-bad. I be minding my own self when I heated the sound on the bank. I thought it must be a hurt critter and rowed over to see for myself. It be getting dark, but I seen a piece of yellow scrap that caught my eye. I touched the bank and hopped onto the ground. I heard another sound. The bushes were thick, and I got cut bad getting to her."

He opened his eyes and pointed to a two-inch scar on his forehead. "I be bleeding bad my own self by the time I got to her. She was a-hurtin' and bleeding here and here."

The old man pointed to his mouth and ears. "Her eyes be open, but not seeing nothing."

He stopped and bowed his head. I could tell he was slipping completely into silent memory and pulled him back.

"Was she alive?" I asked.

He looked up. "She be breathing. I run up the bank to an old dirty road, but no one there 'cause it way out in the country. I yell and holler. No help be coming. I go back and pick up that girl. She not much heavier than an old blanket. I put her in my boat. We both bleeding together. I row down the river as fast as I could go. It be getting darker and darker. I get to the big water so I can get her to the bridge for the hardscape road to town. Cars be there for sure. I put down my ear to listen." He shook his head. "And she be gone."

"She fell into the water?"

"No, missy. She be dead."

"Did you take the body to town?"

Moses shook his head. "I be black; she be white. We both be bleeding. What happen to me if'n I carry her to town? That night I be hanging by my neck from a tree with nobody asking no more questions."

It made perfect sense.

"What did you do with the body?"

"I take her to the place on the river where I be staying. I don't know what to do. I stay up all night a-crying and walking round in circles. Before the sun comes arising, I tie a rope about her little feet and then onto a big rock. I push off into a deep spot, say a prayer, and that's it. She be there today."

"Did you ever tell anyone what happened?"

"My brother, he knew. And my auntie that helped raise me."

"Are they alive?"

"They be long dead."

"What about Mr. Floyd Carpenter? Did he know you found Lisa Prescott?"

"People talk, maybe my brother, and Mr. Tommy Lee bring me into his office and make me see Mr. Floyd."

"Who is Mr. Tommy Lee?"

"My boss man when I run bolita. Mr. Floyd, he be the big boss man."

"What is bolita?"

"The numbers."

I gave Moses a puzzled look. He held out his hand and rubbed it. "You tell me two numbers and give me a dime. If they be right, I give you five dollars the next day."

"Gambling?"

"Yes, missy. But I never did sell bootleg. I drink it way back then, but I don't haul it. That be my brother. Only ways I go to jail for half a year instead of him."

Moses' connection with the sale of untaxed alcohol wouldn't help me find out what I wanted to know.

"Why did Floyd Carpenter want to talk to you about Lisa Prescott?"

"I be thinking they call me a thief, but I turn in all my money. But all the talk is about the little girl, asking me what I saw, where I been. I be scared and say nothing. Mr. Tommy Lee, he holler at me and lift up his fist, but he don't mean it. Next day, I on the street running numbers, just like before."

"Did Floyd Carpenter suspect you found her on the riverbank?"

Moses shook his head. "I don't be knowing, only I see his face to this day."

"Where?"

"In the water. Why do you think that be so?"

It was an unanswerable question.

"Didn't you tell me Floyd Carpenter gave you a dollar that you threw in the river?"

"Later, he come all the way down on the river where I be staying. I was eating my breakfast when he walk out of the woods with a long rifle on his shoulder. 'Bout scared me half to death. But he talk soft. Give me a shiny silver dollar."

"Why did he give you the money?"

"He say if I be telling the truth, that dollar will make me a rich man. If I be lying, then I won't never have nothing. I be poor my whole life except I got my boat."

"Telling the truth about what?"

Moses pointed to the picture in the paper. "That girl with the yellow hair and blue eyes."

"Did you tell him then that you found her on the bank and tried to save her?"

"No, the voice in my head tells me something ain't right. I just shake my head and act dumb, but I be scared if'n he don't believe me. So I start sleeping more on the river, but he find me there."

"He came to see you in a boat?"

"No, missy. Ain't you listening? His face. It don't need no boat." He pointed again at the newspaper article. "He be like her."

I sat back in my chair and studied Moses Jones in a different way. The old man had lived most of his life haunted by people he'd never harmed.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," I said after a few moments passed. "All of it."