All Her Little Secrets, page 23
I paced down the hall to Max’s office suite, quietly opened the door to his office, and flipped on his lights. Willow was right. Walking into his office was like stepping back in time. Every executive on this floor selected the decor for their office. From the looks of it, Maxwell Lumpkin had selected Early Antebellum as his decor theme. Lots of heavy dark wood and boys’ club atmosphere, from the beadboard paneling to the heavy mahogany desk, lamps fashioned to look like replicas of hurricane lanterns and the huge bald eagle bust lodged on top of it. Anchored on the wall behind his desk, an oversize American flag. It nearly covered the entire wall. I bet if I peeked under it, there was a Confederate flag there too.
On the credenza behind his desk was a photo of Max shaking hands with David Duke, another of him posed in between two American flags shaking hands with Donald Trump, and a third of him holding a bible, smiling broadly into the camera. In the corner of the credenza, a neat stack of National Review magazines. This guy didn’t hide who he was.
I pulled away the huge leather chair and searched through a couple files on top of his desk, looking for anything related to Sam or my secrets. Nothing. Everything was quiet, except for the soft hum of the computer. His computer was still on. I peeped toward the office door before clicking the escape key on his keyboard. The screensaver, a picture of the emblem from his lapel pin—the two intersecting gold flags and the red heart—popped up on the screen. His club again. I hit the Outlook icon and his email sprung up on the monitor. He didn’t even lock his computer.
Idiot.
I glanced toward the door again before I started scrolling through his in-box. The first few emails yielded a lot of traffic between Max and other employees in Operations. Nothing unusual. I tried to keep my eye on the door as I continued clicking through the emails. Nothing. I did a search for Michael Sayles. Several emails popped up. I scrolled through them and then opened the one with the subject line: Our Discussion.
December 28
6:39 pm
To: MaxwellLumpkin@Houghton.com
From: MichaelSayles@Houghton.com
Re: Our Discussion
Perhaps you should focus more on the protesters in front of the building instead of things like this! I’m not interested!! But maybe the authorities will be!!
I scrolled down further . . .
December 28
5:55 pm
To: MichaelSayles@Houghton.com
From: MaxwellLumpkin@Houghton.com
Re: Our Discussion
Michael,
I hope you’ve reconsidered. Our organization could benefit from your broad experience and the wide reach of your business network.
I think you could be a very useful general in our efforts to restore order where others have sown chaos.
The fight continues.
Max
General? The fight continues? What did any of this mean? Why was Max trying to recruit Michael for some fight?
I searched for a few minutes more, but there was nothing else related to Sam or Michael or me. I scanned the desk again. This time, I spotted the edge of a document peeking out from underneath the blotter on top. I slipped the paper out. A flyer for the Tri-County Outfitters gun shop. The exact same flyer I found in Michael’s duffel bag at my house. Why would Max and Michael have the same flyer for a local gun shop? I lifted the blotter but there was nothing else underneath. I slipped the paper back under the blotter.
I moved on to the drawers in his credenza. More dead ends. I slipped open the pencil tray on his desk. A slew of business cards, pens, and other minutiae were scattered about. And I almost missed it. But sitting there within the desk clutter was a silver-and-black thumb drive. Along the side was a single name: Ellice Littlejohn. My stomach tumbled. I placed it in my pocket and left.
I hustled back to my office, grabbed my belongings, and headed for my car. Working beside me would be the least of Maxwell Lumpkin’s problems when I was done with him.
* * *
I wound through late-evening traffic in Midtown. A cold, icy rain pelted the hood of my car. Every time I thought about Max, my head shook with fury. I had only given him credit for being a racist. His being a murderer had never occurred to me. I turned off Peachtree Street onto Collier Road, barely making it through a yellow light. A silver sedan and a black Escalade followed me right through the light. Atlanta traffic.
I drove for a bit when I noticed the Escalade was still on my tail. Suddenly, I remembered the black Escalade that had been parked in front of Sam’s house the night I was attacked. My pulse quickened. It was nightfall and the dark tint of the windows and the glare from the headlights made it impossible for me to make out the driver. I made a right turn onto Northside Drive. I slowed down, waiting for the car to pass me. It didn’t. I sped up. The Escalade sped up. I drove faster, weaving in between a minivan and a Range Rover. I blew through another yellow light. The car never let up on my tail. Who was in the car behind me? Sam’s killer?
If Max or Jonathan wanted to play games, then I could play games too. Slick currents of rage and fear ran through my entire body. I gripped the steering wheel and floored the gas. The car hummed with the steady climb in speed as I raced through traffic. The Escalade never lost pace. I raced past the Atlanta Girls’ School and through the intersection of West Paces Ferry Road. I sped through another light before I suddenly hit the brakes. Tires screeched behind me and I watched in my rearview mirror as the Escalade swerved to the right to avoid rear-ending my car. A few seconds later, the hulking SUV backed up before speeding around to the side of my car.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” A young blond guy stuck his head out the driver’s-side window of the Escalade. The guy sped off but not without a parting good-bye. “Crazy bitch!”
A couple drivers honked their horns now that I was blocking traffic. I dropped my head onto my steering wheel.
I was becoming unhinged.
Chapter 31
My heart was still pummeling by the time I arrived inside my condo. The first thing I did when I stepped inside was to slip off my coat and heels in the foyer and pull out my laptop at the kitchen table. I inserted the thumb drive from Max’s office. Two files popped up on the screen. One titled “The Brethren” and the other titled “Ellice Littlejohn.”
My stomach was a knotted mess. I clicked on the file with my name and there it was. The sordid and shameful past that I had spent nearly my entire life running from. This was the Savannah dossier that Jonathan was talking about. Newspaper articles in the Tolliver County Register about Willie Jay’s disappearance and his fourteen-year-old stepdaughter as a person of interest, along with the sheriff’s investigation report with police photos from that shack on Red Creek Road. Just like he said, Jonathan’s investigators had even collected my school transcripts going back as far as Coventry Academy, along with my transcripts from Georgetown and Yale. Birth certificates for me and Sam. A death certificate for Martha. Sam’s assorted arrest records and a tax assessment on his house. They’d even collected my medical records for an appendectomy ten years back. All the peaks and valleys of my entire life.
And Jonathan’s Savannah friends were thorough too. They’d collected information I’d never seen before. There were mug shots of my mother before her life with Willie Jay, a myriad assortment of solicitation and DUI arrests. And scattered in the midst of all this, a 1967 black-and-white mug shot and arrest record for Violet Richards—or as I knew her, Vera Henderson—from Monmouth Parish in Louisiana. Manslaughter. I studied the mug shot for a minute—the same picture left in the envelope in Vera’s room at Beachwood—then clicked on the arrest record. Vera had been arrested for killing a man whom she reported as her rapist. She’d obviously skipped bail and made a run to Georgia.
Everybody has a secret.
My entire life was corralled onto this small digital device. Every secret I ever kept, every lie I ever told, every shame I tried to bury was stored here. The violation was obscene. Jonathan and Max, working together, peeping through all the cracks in my perfect little lawyer life. The two of them working in concert to bring me to my knees and make me a part of their criminal enclave. It wouldn’t work.
I closed the file on my sordid life and clicked on the file marked “The Brethren.” A Word document sprang to life. The first thing that caught my eye, an emblem of two waving flags and a red heart between them. Max’s lapel pin, the same pin worn by the board members, the senators, and the Fox News commentator at Nate’s party. The rest of the document nearly took my breath away:
Brethren of the Elite Order
The Brethren are a select group of executives and leaders in upper echelons of business and politics. Our mission is simple—to recruit pure race executives and leaders like you to assist us as we work to eliminate all impure races and religions and restore the prominence of the white race as the superior and dominant human force on the face of the earth.
Your inclusion as a general in the Brethren will ensure that you are not exposed to the threat of lawsuits or blackmail because of our exclusivity and covert requirements. We also have our own legal and financial teams that support our efforts.
Our silent crusade to restore conservative values and order is conducted under the following strict guidelines:
Keep the generals free of controversy so that they may establish conditions ripe for creating a pure society.
Arm the foot soldiers with weapons for the fight and provide logistical support.
Connect pure pastors and religious leaders with conservative politicians who will push forward the mission of the Brethren.
Avoid the use of racial slurs, swastikas, Confederate flags, KKK symbols, and other images that may be sympathetic to our cause, as our fight is more strategic.
Destroy the fake liberal Jew media by giving them misinformation or avoiding them altogether.
Females in the pure race may be helpful but must be kept in servient roles to ensure they do not become sympathetic to the plights of the enemy.
Infiltrate the enemy races by befriending them, hiring and promoting them in very limited quantities, to avoid arousing curiosity or attention to our cause.
The Brethren are growing in numbers and power. We sit in meetings and boardrooms right beside you. Join us in this important endeavor for the continued purity of our race.
The fight continues.
I went numb. The Brethren? The Elite Order? Max was recruiting for a white supremacy group. And not just any white people. He was seeking business leaders. Men with money and power. The generals.
I typed in “Brethren of the Elite Order.” Nothing popped up. I tried several other iterations of the words, but it only produced a string of event planners and caterers. I typed in “Tri-County Outfitters,” the name from the gun shop flyer. The store, located in the Atlanta suburb of Shelton, sold guns and hunting equipment. Was this place tied to Libertad’s gun-trafficking operation?
My God. I stood from my chair. I thought I was going to be sick, so I sat back down again, still staring at the manifesto. All this time, I’d been played by the likes of Jonathan Everett and Maxwell Lumpkin. Men who had power and money to do extraordinary damage in this country.
Now, it became clear why Michael was killed. He threatened to expose Jonathan’s money-laundering scheme. And he refused Max’s invitation to join a racist hate group and threatened to go to the authorities. What had I gotten myself involved in? Max was against the protesters in front of Houghton. Hell, Max was against me sitting across from him in the boardroom. Did Max kill Sam to get back at me?
What to do now? Think Ellice. Think.
This thumb drive wasn’t privileged or confidential company information. I could turn it over to the police. Should I delete the Littlejohn folder first? Detective Bradford didn’t need to know my secrets, or Vera’s. The officer could piece the breadcrumbs together the best way she could. I was just about to hit the delete key on my laptop when I thought about everything I’d been through in my life, all the things collected on this device.
I had to believe that I was more than my worst mistake. Every one of my secrets had been a painful lesson that I should have been learning from instead of running from. Until I stood up and owned them, they would continue to hold me in this impossible grip of fear.
I pulled up Vera’s mug shot again: her eyes glowering at the camera; her beautiful face etched with a stoic frown; random numbers emblazoned across her chest. She was arrested for serving justice by her own hand against a man who violated her. I had done the same thing, too. Jonathan and Max weren’t the only “bad guys.” Vera and I had our issues too. Each one of us a killer. Each of us capable of doing the unthinkable for reasons we believed were right. But were any one of us less culpable than the other? Was it Vera’s place to determine the justice for her rapist? Was Willie Jay’s life any less valuable than Sam’s or Michael’s? Were my actions any less despicable than Jonathan’s?
Still, the fact remained, in the midst of wrangling with these racists, my brother was murdered. Anger crawled up my spine like a copperhead snake seeking its next meal. How dare they try to blackmail and beat me into submission to commit a crime.
The last time I’d felt this angry was decades ago, when Willie Jay Groover went missing.
* * *
The Brethren kept me awake the entire night. Somewhere around four o’clock in the morning, I finally dozed off, having decided the only way I could end this nightmare was to explain everything to Detective Bradford, including their blackmail scheme of me. I would turn over the jump drive, the “Ellice Littlejohn” folder included. Sam was dead and my keeping secrets hadn’t served either of us well thus far. I was prepared to deal with the consequences if it meant Jonathan and Max would go to prison for Sam’s death. The only thing that still troubled me—why did they kill Sam?
I woke to the sound of my cell phone ringing at 6:30 A.M. I rolled over and tried to clear the frog from my throat. “Hello?”
“Hey, Ellice, it’s me, Rudy. Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”
“Rudy?” I sat up in the bed. “What’s going on?”
“I know you get busy and I wanted to catch you first thing this morning. I’ve found something I think you need to see right away.”
Chapter 32
I was a frazzled mess by daylight. I didn’t remember getting dressed or driving into the office. In fact, I was halfway into work before I realized I hadn’t even combed my hair. Luckily, I found a headband on the back seat of my car that I used to pull my hair back on the few occasions I ventured out to exercise. I snapped it across the front of my head and tried to finger-comb my hair before I walked inside the building. When I arrived at my office suite, Rudy was standing at Anita’s desk talking, folder in hand. They both looked at me in astonishment.
Anita asked, “Ellice, is everything okay with you?”
“Yes.” I knew I looked like hell.
“You look a little rough around the gills, girl.” Anita said.
I ignored her comment and proceeded into my office. “Come on in, Rudy.”
He followed me inside. “Are you sure you’re all right? I mean, you just look . . .”
“You said you had something urgent?” Maybe Anita had told him about Detective Bradford’s call about my brother. I decided not to address it. That was my personal business.
“Yeah, right. You remember that meeting you sent me to out in East Hell—oops, I mean the Operations Center in Conyers?”
“Yes.” I didn’t have it in me to laugh at Rudy’s joke. I took off my coat and hung it in the closet. My mind wandered. As soon as Rudy left my office, I would call the detective, meet her, and give her the flash drive. Next, I needed to resign. Maybe I should ask Rudy about the Brethren. But I would have heard about it a long time ago if he knew anything. Besides, he was Jewish and not likely to know about their hate-filled bigotry. I’d just take the stuff to the police and let them figure it all out.
“. . . so that new manager is right. Something screwy is going on with the orders. There’s no contract for the account and the manager can’t reach the company that placed the order,” Rudy said.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind. What did you say?” I took a seat behind my desk and motioned for Rudy to sit down.
“There’s no contract for an account we’re handling, and we can’t trace the source. Apparently, we pick up a monthly shipment of fifteen boxes out in Shelton. Five are shipped to an address in southern Ohio, five to southern Illinois, and five to an address in Upstate New York.”
“Okay?”
“The shipments started about four months ago. But they started increasing in frequency over the last two months.”
I shrugged. “So a business has picked up some extra orders.”
“I don’t think a business is involved. They’re shipped using a PO box address in Shelton.”
“A post office box? We don’t pick up without a physical street address.”
“Exactly.”
“Who’s shipping?”
“Something called Cavanaugh Industries. But that’s not the best part. We can’t find any such company in Shelton or anywhere else in the state of Georgia. And the shipments are paid through a PayPal account. But here’s the part I think you’ll be most interested in. Two months ago, a shipment of ten boxes went to San Diego, California. An address right on the US-Mexico border. That shipment was addressed to Libertad Excursiones.”
“What?!”
“Yep. I can’t find any corporate address for Libertad in San Diego. The boxes are delivered to a warehouse address there.”
“What the hell? What’s in the shipments?”
