The Resurrectionist: A Novel Part 11

The clerk writes it down, scratches his jaw, and then disappears into the shelves behind the counter.

He is gone nearly half an hour, leaving Jacob to sit in one of the plastic chairs that seem to be made expressly for the state government in order to make long waiting times as uncomfortable as possible. Jacob is checking his watch for the fifth time, thinking about the drive back to his office, when the man emerges from behind the stacks. Jacob meets him at the counter and takes the certificate from his hand.

"Nothing personal, huh?"

Jacob cuts his eyes at the man. "No. Just in a hurry," he says, then looks down at the paper.

The man makes a sound that seems meant to convey that Jacob is making his morning difficult. "Copies cost a dollar-fifty."

"I don't think I'll need one," Jacob says without looking up.

He is thinking of Meyer as he holds the old doc.u.ment in his hand, thinking of gut instinct and the dance of possibilities before the elements fall into place, before all the disjointed symptoms cohere into a diagnosis. A likely diagnosis, he reminds himself. But he can almost hear Meyer's voice in his head. What does your gut tell you?

He knows the answer, can feel it in his stomach, in the coppery taste in his mouth. For though the line for "Father" is blank, the birth certificate has been signed in the delicate and precise hand of the attending physician, F. A. Johnston.

WHEN JACOB GETS back to Johnston Hall, Elizabeth is waiting for him at the top of the stairs. She begins to speak, breathlessly, before he is halfway up the staircase.

"Oh, Jacob, where have you been? I was hoping Doctor McMichaels was with you."

"Haven't seen him yet. What's up?"

"These men are in your office, Jacob. I told them to wait, but they barged on in. This man's secretary has been calling all week. This morning she's called every half hour. He said he couldn't wait any longer."

Now that he is level with her, Jacob can see that several long strands of Elizabeth's hair have come loose from her hair band. She tucks them behind her ear like a schoolgirl.

"Who is it?"

Elizabeth looks at a sc.r.a.p of paper in her hand. "Reverend Marcus Greer, from the Ebenezer Methodist Baptist Episcopal Church." She sounds out the unfamiliar cl.u.s.ter of words carefully.

Jacob knows the church. It is the best building on its block, a half mile from Mary's house, immaculately kept and with a neon cross out front that glows twenty-four hours a day, as if in proud defiance of its impoverished surroundings.

"In my office, you said?"

Elizabeth nods.

Jacob is already moving down the hall. "All right. I'll handle it. Let me know if Jim comes in, will you?"

The inside of his office is, for once, cramped when he opens the door: four black men are crowded against the walls, standing with their backs to the window and the bookcases, all of them big men and clad in dark suits that make them look even larger. They are ranged around the room shoulder-to-shoulder, in the stance of the Secret Service, with their hands crossed at their waists. One of them, to Jacob's surprise, is Lorenzo Shanks, whose ma.s.sive chest seems to strain against the fabric of his brown suit coat. However impressive his pectorals, however, Lorenzo's face looks humble, even a bit cowed.

Jacob reaches out a hand to him. "Lorenzo, what a surprise." He looks down at the suit and smiles. "You clean up mighty well."

Lorenzo shakes his hand absently, his eyes over Jacob's shoulder, looking at the man seated in the chair opposite Jacob's desk. The man rises slowly and turns around. He is shorter than the others but wider, built like a football lineman past his prime. Unlike those of the others, his suit is silk, blue and double-breasted, with a faint pinstripe. When he reaches out a hand for Jacob to take, an onyx cufflink emerges from his sleeve. His handshake is cool and fleshy.

"I would say I'm glad to meet you, but we have no time for hollow pleasantries," he says in a baritone. "My name is Marcus Greer, and I'm here to talk with you about the remains of our brothers and sisters in your bas.e.m.e.nt."

Jacob sets his portfolio down on the desk carefully and settles into his chair. It requires some effort not to cut his eyes toward Lorenzo.

"All right. Let's talk, then. As Lorenzo has probably told you, a renovation crew found a number of bones in the cellar earlier this week. The exact number will take some time to determine, but we're confident at this time that the remains are human."

"And African American."

"That is yet to be determined."

"Yet?"

"We have a forensic anthropologist from Clemson University working on the site right now. He has a.s.sured me he will prepare a full report on what he finds."

Greer shifts in his chair to look at the other men. "On the site now, you say? I wonder why the bas.e.m.e.nt is so quiet. We checked the cellar door. It's locked."

Jacob only shrugs. "I don't keep his schedule for him."

Greer pulls a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabs at his forehead with it. "And you-all will be content with this report? When it is published, will that conclude the matter for you?"

"I can't give you a definite answer on that right now. This is a highly unusual situation. At this point, the school is measuring its options as carefully as possible before we proceed. We want to be sure to take the appropriate course of action."

The reverend replaces his handkerchief carefully before he looks up at Jacob. "I think your preferred course of action is inaction, Mister Thacker, just as it has always been. Or should I say, inaction where the citizens of Rosedale are concerned. Just this week I have had my secretary calling the dean's office since Monday afternoon, when Brother Shanks came to talk with me. Not a single call has been returned."

"I was not aware of that. Had I known of it, I would have contacted you myself."

Greer arches an eyebrow. "Is that a fact?"

"It's my job."

Jacob begins to say more, but Greer cuts him off with a wave of his hand. "I know the party line. I know you could go on all morning about the old Negro hospital, the Charity Hospital, the free clinics. But all of that is just covering, just a salve on the wounds of racial injustice that are as much a part of your school's history as the buildings themselves. A salve over an old wound-a wound that your bas.e.m.e.nt tells me has been festering for a hundred years."

One of the men by the bookcases makes a noise of agreement. Things are getting out of hand. Jacob reaches for his portfolio on top of the desk gratefully and takes out the envelope from the archives. He opens it and pa.s.ses the photocopy of Nemo Johnston's picture across the desktop.

"Take a look at this, if you will, reverend, and tell me what you see."

Greer takes the paper and glances down at it for a moment. "I see a brother from another time, an ancestor, a grandfather. A man with dignity in spite of the trials and tribulations that show on his face."

"I agree with you. But what you also see there is the man we think is responsible for every bone in that bas.e.m.e.nt. Nemo Johnston was his name. He was the school's resurrectionist, a body s.n.a.t.c.her. What they used to call the men who procured the specimens for gross anatomy. So this matter isn't as simply black-and-white as you seem to think it is."

The reverend's face darkens a hue. He hands back the photocopy as if it has contaminated his hand.

"He stayed on with the school after the war, after emanc.i.p.ation," Jacob says, letting the silence in the room gather weight. He looks down again at the photocopied image of Nemo Johnston before he puts it back in the envelope with the others, carefully, willing his hand to stop trembling.

The reverend is speaking with an effort at composure. "I am not here today to debate what a brother may have done, or been forced to do," he says. "I am here today to demand a hearing-a public hearing-about the remains of our brethren downstairs. Since your dean has been so reticent in meeting with me, he will meet with the public." Greer shoots his cuffs and places his hands on his knees, leaning forward in his chair.

"Sat.u.r.day morning my congregation will a.s.semble at Ebenezer at dawn. We will march down Gervais, past the statehouse, to the very door of this building. Our banners will proclaim the event as a reparations march. I will tell the press that since dialogue has failed us, we have no recourse but to pursue civil litigation. I believe the news coverage will be extensive."

Jacob can feel the sweat, which had begun under his arms the minute he entered the office, begin flowing in earnest.

"If you think coming in here and hot-boxing me with these guys is going to change how the school conducts its business, you're mistaken. Your march won't do much better."

Greer leans back in his chair and smiles. "And there we have it. Your business. Your business has been conducted on the backs of my people for generations. But the times have changed, Mister Thacker. Your business is now our business."

"Doctor," Jacob says, hating himself for it but unable to keep his tongue. "It's Doctor Thacker."

"Doubtless it is. But from where I stand, a white coat and a white hood don't look all that different." The men-all but Lorenzo-chuckle as Greer rises from his seat.

"I implore you to talk with your dean about this. If we can get no justice from official channels, we must agitate in the streets. Thirty-six hours from now, we will march. And the march will have a historic impact. Your school will feel it for years."

He turns on his heel and steps to the door, already being opened by one of his men. They follow him in silence, single file. Lorenzo is the last out the door, lingering on the threshold.

"Didn't know you were a religious man, Lorenzo," Jacob says.

"I meant to come by yesterday," he says, almost apologetically. "But Bowman's got us working over on the East Campus."

"You do what you have to, I guess," Jacob says, trying to smile. "I've seen you down at the gym. h.e.l.l, I'd want you in my corner too."

"Brother Shanks!" the reverend calls from the hallway. With one last glance at Jacob, Lorenzo is gone.

THE BMW CLINGS to the curving driveway of the Dean's Mansion like a lover, its humming engine echoing off the low stone walls that border the neatly sealed blacktop beneath a canopy of dogwoods and magnolias. Except for its narrowness, this route could be confused with a road, stretching as it does over a winding quarter mile from the estate's iron gates on Beltline Avenue to the circular turnaround in front of the antebellum manse, where the asphalt gives way to pea gravel that is neatly raked each morning by the grounds crew. As often as he has been out to the mansion, Jacob can still hardly believe the grandeur of the place.

Yet this evening, with the day ebbing into plum-colored twilight, he has anything but beauty on his mind. All afternoon he tried to reach the dean, who has steadfastly refused to carry a cell phone or beeper since the day he left private practice. On his way home from the office, Jacob tried the mansion once more from his own cell phone, breathing an audible sigh of relief when the familiar voice of Bitsy McMichaels answered and told him that Jim was just back from the golf course and would see him if the matter was urgent. He a.s.sured her that it was.

He pulls into the turnaround a little too fast, pea gravel clattering in the convertible's wheel wells. Hurrying up the steps, he has a hand out to ring the bell when the great door swings open from the inside to reveal Bitsy standing in the great foyer. She is, as ever, immaculate, a former debutante who has never quite lost the easy grace of her youth, though her sandy blond hair is now streaked with gray and her suntanned face is beginning to show wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. When she smiles, the wrinkles first deepen, then disappear.

"Jacob, please come in," she says, extending a hand. "I have to say, you've got me worried, though. I'm afraid something terrible has happened."

"No, no, nothing terrible," he says, straining to smile. "You know how the first week of school goes. Lots of little fires to be put out."

She leads him through the ballroom, where the catering services staff is setting up tables and chairs for tomorrow night's year-opening banquet. Their voices reverberate off the high ceilings of the room.

"Jim is in his study, having a drink," she says, and gestures toward a high oak door that has been closed against the noise of the caterers. "Go on in, and I'll bring you boys something to eat in a minute."

He begins to tell her not to bother, but she cuts him off and places a hand on his arm, light as a bird. "You know it's no trouble, sugar. Make yourself at home."

Jacob finds Jim in the study, which is paneled in oak from floor to ceiling, with built-in bookshelves of the same wood flanking a brick fireplace. The dean is hunched in an old leather armchair that looks like it has been sandblasted, pulled up close to a small television set on one of the bookshelves. On the screen David Ha.s.selhoff is being held at gunpoint in a locker room. Ha.s.selhoff wears his trademark red swimming trunks and nothing else; his hair looks like a living thing.

"Jake, have a seat," Jim says, eyes never leaving the screen. "Mitch is in trouble."

"Baywatch? You should be grateful I'm not a donor. Not the kind of fare one expects from the dean."

Jim leans over and cuts the television's volume. "I don't watch it for Mitch," he says. And as though to corroborate his claim, within seconds the screen fills up with the mutely bouncing curves of Mitch's colleagues, jogging to his rescue.

Jim is looking at Jacob and grinning. "Guess you noticed the improvements in our bas.e.m.e.nt today."

"It's quiet. And padlocked."

Jim leans back in his chair and stretches out his legs, clad in Scottish plaid golfing pants, before him. "Quiet, and it'll stay quiet. I had to call in a whopper of a favor, but by G.o.d, our property's going to stay ours."

"Sanburn's gone?"

"For good. We ran his a.s.s back to Clemson this morning. I'm sorry you missed it. You know Buddy Armistead?"

Jacob smiles. "I've never met him. But I know who the lieutenant governor is."

"Right. Well, Buddy and I go back many years, all the way to Charleston Academy. He was good enough to walk over from the statehouse and have a sit-down with this Doctor Sanburn. Seems Clemson's Anthropology Department is looking at some potentially serious budget cuts next year. Buddy volunteered to intercede on its behalf."

"Jesus," Jacob says.

"Yep," McMichaels says. "He's on our side, son." He rattles the ice in his gla.s.s and looks out the window. The television flickers, and Jacob realizes it is the only light on in the room.

McMichaels rises and steps to a wet bar set into the bookcase next to the television. "Get you anything?"

"Sure. Whatever you're having."

McMichaels speaks over his shoulder while he pours two gla.s.ses of scotch. "So that's today's good news. I have a feeling you're here to tell me about another kind of news. These things come in threes, don't they?"

"I guess they do. A black preacher came in today. Name's Marcus Greer."

McMichaels shakes his head as he hands Jacob his drink. "Never met him."

"He's the pastor at Ebenezer M.B.E., over on Pulaski Street. Somebody told him about the bas.e.m.e.nt and he's all over it. Says he's got a march set up for Sat.u.r.day morning."

"A march, for Christ's sake?"

"He called it a reparations march, from the Ebenezer church to the front door of Johnston Hall."

"The f.u.c.k he will."

"We can't keep him off the campus if he gets a permit."

"And how in h.e.l.l is he going to get a permit by tomorrow?"

"I guess he's connected. Maybe he goes way back with someone at city hall."

McMichaels shoots him a look, then walks over to one of the tall windows that overlook the back gardens. He stares out on the palmettos and azaleas as though looking for a solution outside, in the gathering dusk.

"I know," Jacob says. "Bad for the school."

"Very bad," McMichaels repeats, shaking his head. "What kind of man was this Greer?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, how was he dressed? How did he act?"

"He's a dandy. Double-breasted suit. French cuffs. Lots of rings."

Jim almost smiles. "Just how Elizabeth described him. He's the one. We had some trouble with him back in the eighties. Some kind of dustup over the physical plant laborers." McMichaels nods slowly at the window.

"I thought you'd never met him."

"I haven't. But it's my business to know a little about everybody. I had Austin Malloy pull together a file on this Greer today."

Jacob takes a deep breath and makes an effort at speaking calmly. "That raises some significant confidentiality issues."