7. - #2
“He and Alex formed a plan. They waited until a little time had passed and everything had died down so it wouldn’t look like revenge.
Then, Alex followed John Robert every weekend to see if there was a pattern, and of course, there was.
Every Friday night, John Robert and his girlfriend Vivian went to that same dive bar.
He would walk her out at 9:30 pm and then go back inside to drink and flirt with other women.
So, that particular Friday night, they changed into old clothes, donned baseball caps, and waited in the parking lot until John Robert came out.
Alex had a couple of acquaintances in the bar who loved to start fights, so he tipped them off that John Robert had a big chip on his shoulder and thought he could take on anyone, so maybe he should be taken down a notch or two.
David and Alex got lucky twice that night.
First, Alex’s ‘friends’ waited until he walked Vivian out, so there were no witnesses who might be able to identify them or connect them to Alex and David; and it was even better luck that the owner threw John Robert out that night.
He could have easily thrown out one of the other guys.
Anyway, when they saw John Robert stumble out from behind the bar, they jumped out to grab him before anyone saw them.
They dragged him back behind the bar and beat the ever-loving shit out of him.
It’s a thousand wonders that they didn’t kill him.
Of course, I think the goal was to beat him to the brink of death, but make sure that he survived, so that the lesson made the ultimate imprint. At any rate, he hung on somehow.”
I was almost positive then that David had killed John Robert. Most likely, he had meant to drive home the lesson the first time, but something else must have happened that pushed him over the edge. Something that convinced him that the lives of his sister and niece were in grave danger.
“Now, don’t tell your mama that, please. I’ve kept my promise to David all these years, and even though he has passed, I can’t betray him,” Dad said while pulling into the last thrift store loading dock.
I gave him a nod, “I won’t repeat a word, except to Rachel. I don’t keep anything from her,” I replied.
“That’s fair,” Dad had smiled and put his hand on my shoulder.
We unloaded the last boxes and tubs at the Animal Friends Thrift Store. We were done, for the most part. The house was ready to start the repairs and start the process of painting.
Dad dropped me back at Memaw's house to get my car. He had to go home and get dressed so he could pick up Mom from the spa and take her to a fancy dinner. I loved their relationship and was thankful that I had found something like that for myself.
After he left, I went inside to do a quick walk-through and measure the master bedroom windows. Rachel wanted specific curtains, which I didn’t know much about. All I could think about in that moment was David killing John Robert.
Then, I remembered the lock box. I got the key from the old metal lunchbox.
I pulled the key from my pocket. I had put it on my key ring three days prior, when I had discovered it.
The lock box had stayed secure in the trunk of my car.
I quickly ran to my car, retrieved the lock box, and went back inside.
I locked the door and went to the back bedroom, which was the quietest room in the house.
I unlocked the box and lifted the lid. An envelope with “Lewie” on the front stared up at me.
I picked it up and, with shaking hands, I started to open it.
Memaw meant for me to find all of this. And although I was anxious to find out the definitive truth, I was still partially afraid of that truth, for it was something that had lain buried in our family, in this house, literally for decades.
She had wanted me to know what happened and why she spent years covering for her brother.
I opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper that had another key taped to it.
It was a short note that read: “Dear Lewie, If you are reading this, then you have discovered that for years I kept a secret from you. I wanted a chance to explain why, and I hope you will understand. I love you more than you could know, Memaw.”
Taped in the middle of the paper was a large skeleton key, ancient and oxidized. I had never seen anything like this in person, only in old movies. At the very bottom of the page was another note. “At the back of the garden, behind the locked wall, lies a secret beneath angel’s wings.”
Strangely, there were no impressions or visions when I held the key. Memaw had wiped this also. She was leading me to something, and I had a growing sense of dread about reading her admission to the cover-up, but it was something that I needed to know, so I decided to get it over with.
I placed the letter back into the envelope, took the key, and headed back through the house.
Before I went outside, I pulled my phone from my pocket and placed it on the kitchen counter.
I did not need to be disturbed in that moment.
I sent Rachel a quick text and told her that if she called or messaged and I didn’t get right back to her, I was “in the zone.” She always understood.
I walked out the back door into the spacious backyard, then continued steadily across the grass towards Memaw’s old vegetable garden.
It was framed on one side by a large wall of bramble, bushes, and trees.
I didn’t know what she was talking about, unless she meant this large wall of vegetation.
I walked right up to the hedge and started trying to locate a passage or some kind of gate, but it was so thick I couldn’t make any headway.
I moved back into the corner where the bramble ended, and the forest began, and I decided to walk into the woods a bit and then look back towards the yard, just to see if there was something I was missing from that perspective.
It seemed so odd that, with as much time as I had spent here throughout my life, there would be a part of this property that I didn’t even know existed.
I had only taken six or seven steps into the forest when I noticed a low wall to my right.
No, it wasn’t a low wall. It was a stone bench.
As I walked towards it, I noticed a stone wall rising to my right and just on the forest side where the bramble wall ended.
I was seriously dumbfounded that I had never known about this place, but again, for the last few years, we had spent most of our time in the house or the front yard.
The stone wall extended down about forty feet, and a little past halfway down, there was an old wooden gate.
I walked to the gate and instinctively pulled out the old iron skeleton key.
The lock had recently been oiled because the key slid in and turned easily.
I pushed the heavy door open, and it swung silently on antique hinges.
Inside was a small, ornate rock and flower garden with multiple paths and a tall stone angel statue on a concrete pedestal in the back, up next to the back wall.
This had to be the angel to which Memaw was referring.
The angel sat in the middle of a small stone patio and had two stone benches facing it.
I stood in front of the statue and repeated out loud to myself, “At the back of the garden, behind the locked wall, lies a secret beneath angel’s wings”.
Beneath angel’s wings. Beneath. There were about twelve inches between the back of the statue and the wall.
At first, I looked all around the statue, but I didn’t see anything.
I stood to the left of the statue and ran my hand from the back of its neck down and felt along its back, between the wings, and then below.
That was when I felt it. I just threw my head back and laughed, “My bad, Memaw!”
Just under the angel’s wings, low on the small of its back, was a small cubby cut into the statue.
When I reached inside the deep rectangular hole, I couldn’t initially feel anything, but when I slid my hand deeper, I could feel something that felt like fabric.
I grabbed a corner and slid it out. It was something flat wrapped in crimson velvet fabric and tied with a gold piece of silk ribbon.
I was so excited that I couldn’t help but open the fabric parcel right there in the back of the garden.
It was a book, and not just any book, but Memaw’s diary.
There was no imprint. She had wanted me to hear this in her words, it seems, unadulterated and unfiltered.
I slipped the book into my jacket and walked out of the garden, locking the door back as I went.
I walked back into the house, grabbed my phone as I walked through the kitchen, and then I headed into the living room.
I sat on the couch in the living room for a solid half hour, just looking at this simple wrapped package sitting on the plain wooden coffee table.
I sat looking at her diary for what seemed like an hour.
I didn’t know what I was waiting for. I fully suspected that Memaw covered up for her brother's killing her husband, but in the end, could I really blame her? I had to reflect on my years in law enforcement and all of the cases that I had taken part in, and there were a few things that had always conflicted me: Evil people should not be allowed to perpetuate their acts, and sometimes, good people have to do bad things to survive, but the most important realization was that the law wasn’t always right.