Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

The county clerk, flushed from an inner office, was a quick little man, thin-haired and squeaky. “Yessir? What can I do you for today?” Told what the gentleman was seeking, he titillated his staff by winking when he said, “Excuse me, girls, while I go peruse them terrible murders we got stored up for our perusal outside the gentleman’s toilet in the basement.” When eventually he reappeared, he whisked from behind his back a thick file packet stuffed with yellowed papers, presenting it with a small bow and flourish. “We got us a E. J., all right, but the victim was Mr. D. M. Tolen, and it ain’t nineteen ought seven, it’s ought eight. That close enough?”

On a public bench out in the hall, Lucius entered the old pages with dread and elation. Though the neighbor cited in that Herlong clipping had specified Sam Tolen, the file concerned the murder less than a year later of Sam’s younger brother Mike. Furthermore, E. J. Watson had a codefendant, a black man named Frank Reese.

He scribbled notes. In the year previous, the circuit court had indicted Reese for the murder of S. Tolen on the basis of a D. M. Tolen affidavit. Why had Mike Tolen accused Reese, not Cox or Watson? Why had he never heard about this man indicted in both Tolen killings? Were black men so bereft of status in those Jim Crow days that even Negro murder suspects went unmentioned?

Another mystery: on April 10 of 1908, based on the coroner’s inquest in late March, Julian and Willie Collins had been arrested as “accessories after the fact in the murder of D. M. Tolen.” Had his cousins provided testimony that led to the indictment of his father?

All courtroom testimony had apparently been sealed, but a few scraps from a grand jury hearing in Lake City on April 27 accompanied the court documents. Most intriguing was a cross-examination of one Jasper Cox, who testified on behalf of the defendants. In helping the defense attorney establish the fact that no fair trial could be held in Columbia County, this witness declared that on March 26, three days after the murder of Mike Tolen, he had been approached at the courthouse by a jury member who told him he “was helping to get up a mob to get these men and asked if I didn’t want to assist them, and I told him it was out of my line of business.”

Q. These defendants here are under indictment for killing Mike Tolen, are they not?

A. Yes.

Q. And your nephew is under indictment for killing the other one, the brother of Mike Tolen?

A. Yes.

Q. There was no charge against Leslie Cox at that time-

A. No, sir.

This exchange-the only mention of Jasper’s nephew in the thick packet-established that Leslie Cox, not Watson, had been arrested for Sam Tolen’s murder, and Watson, not Cox, for the murder of Mike Tolen the following year.

Included in the sprawling file were contemporary clippings.

LAKE CITY, MARCH 23. Mike Tolen, a prominent farmer residing between Lake City and Fort White, was murdered by unknown parties on his farm about 8 o’clock this morning.

News of the murder was immediately brought to the city and a posse, headed by bloodhounds, were soon off to the scene. The authorities suspect certain parties of the murder and it is believed that arrests will be made tonight and the prisoners brought to this city. Sam Tolen, a brother of the dead man, was murdered by unknown parties last summer. The trouble is the outcome of a family feud.

– Jacksonville Times-Union, March 24, 1908

The special term of the Circuit Court called for Madison County convened Monday for the trial of a murder case on change of venue from Columbia County, the defendant being E. J. Watson, a white man, and Frank Reese, a negro, indicted for the murder of one Tolen, white, in Columbia County. The case is one which excited the people of Columbia greatly, all the parties concerned being prominent.

The defendant Watson is a man of fine appearance and his face betokens intelligence in an unusual degree. That a determined fight will be made to establish the innocence of the defendants is evidenced by the imposing array of lawyers employed in their behalf. At this writing a jury is being chosen.

– Madison Enterprise-Recorder, December 12 , 1908

On December 19, the jury found the defendants not guilty and they were discharged.

Lucius telephoned Watson Dyer, who was in the state capital on official business but had asked to be kept posted. He was not in the least curious about Frank Reese. “All that matters is, E. J. Watson was found innocent. ‘Innocent until proven guilty’-that’s the American way.”

“I suppose so. At least when the accused is the right color.”

Ignoring this quibble, Dyer said, “And if he was proved innocent of killing Samuel Tolen, he may well be innocent of other allegations. In our book we can say-”

Irritated by that “our book” even before he’d figured out what was objectionable, Lucius interrupted sharply, “Let me repeat. My father was charged with killing D. M. Tolen. Mike. The man indicted for the murder of Sam Tolen was Leslie Cox.”

“Is that a fact?” Surprise rose slowly in Dyer’s voice like the first thick bubble in a pot of boiling grits.

“It’s possible, of course, that both were involved in both those murders.”

“Or that neither killed either. There’s always that nigger, right?” Dyer said he could not talk now, being late for an appointment at the governor’s office. He would be driving south tomorrow and would stop by Lake City for consultation and an early supper.

The interview with L. Watson Collins, Ph.D., in the newspaper next morning attributed to Professor Collins precisely what he had denied-in effect, the reporter’s notion that E. J. Watson, “formerly of this county,” had been the mass murderer of his era.

Lucius rushed to the newspaper office to demand a retraction, knowing it would do no good. Any hope of cooperation from his cousins had been blighted. But wonderfully, feckless reportage had pierced Collins defenses where earnest entreaty had failed. A note hand-delivered to the newspaper stiffly disputed the visitor’s observations and opinions.

Sir: It is very doubtful that you spoke to the Collins family because those who knew of Uncle Edgar are of an older era when family business was just that and was not told to strangers. I am writing to tell you that I greatly resent Uncle Edgar being compared to a mass murderer. If you’ve done any research at all, you would know that my uncle could be a very considerate and courteous neighbor…

Indignant that old family detritus had been stirred into view like leaf rot from the bottom of a well, a Collins had broken all those years of silence. What’s more, Miss Ellen Collins did not hang up on him when he telephoned to apologize, so determined was she to chastise him. “Is Collins your real name? Or are you passing yourself off as kin just to snoop out scurrilous information?”

Taken aback, he felt a start of panic. “I am a relative,” he said. Still gun-shy from Julian’s rejection, desperate not to lose this precious chance, he withheld his real name, awaiting a better moment. “And I’ve been talking to another relative,” he added hastily, lest the conversation lapse. “Mr. Arbie Collins.”

The anticipated outcry- Cousin Arbie!? -was not forthcoming. “R. B., you say?” If this R. B. was a bona fide Collins, he was a distant one indeed, her tone implied. “I don’t suppose you mean R. B. Watson ? Whose mother was a Collins?”

“Oh Lord, I’d forgotten that! Do you recall her name?”

His eagerness kept his flapping kite aloft: Ellen Collins was still there.