Chapter 3

When Ed entered the library, Leroy closed the book he had been reading with reverence. He sat back in the library chair, looking over at Ed with a thoughtful expression on his face. The material in the book was very inspiring and made him wonder what he was doing with his life. Noticing the expression on Ed’s face, he said, “I’ve been reading the biography of Beth.”

“There is a biography about Beth?” asked Ed unaware that one existed.

Looking at the book in front of him, Leroy nodded as he said, “Yes. Kelly and Linda wrote a biography about Beth.”

“I wonder why I didn’t hear about it,” replied Ed. He thought he had been spending more time around the family and thought that if two of his wives were involved in such a major project that he would have known.

Shaking his head, Leroy replied, “They just kind of did it and put a couple of copies here in the library. I was in here when Linda brought them in, otherwise I wouldn’t have known about it.”

Remembering the words of the doctor that had treated him when the College Killers had cut him, Ed said, “I’ll ask her about them. There’s a doctor that followed the career of Beth quite closely and I bet he would love a copy.”

“I’d bet he would be pleased,” remarked Leroy.

He looked for a minute at Leroy while he considered his words, an action that made the other man uncomfortable. He didn’t know of a good way to express the reason why he had come in the room, but it wasn’t because of the book. Giving up on finding a good way to say it, he said, “I had an urge to come in here to talk to you for a reason that appears to be inspired by the Gods and Goddess. I don’t think it had anything to do with the biography. It has a feeling of a strong hate component.”

“Are you saying that you think I hate someone?”

“No, I think that you know about something that is happening that has a hate component to it,” replied Ed. He wished that he knew better the source of his urge because that would allow him to better explain what he felt.

Leroy was trying to think of anything that might help Ed, but was drawing a blank. Finally, he said, “I don’t know anything about something like that, but my father is having problems back home. To be honest, he hasn’t told me much about them.”

Ed smiled as he felt the rightness of the statement. He asked, “How about we visit your family for a week or so?”

Leroy considered the status of his research and decided that he could take a week away from it. The field mice were in the early stages of dealing with the onset of colder weather.

It would be nice to visit his parents. He replied, “That sounds good to me.”

An hour later, the two men were headed to the airport. Ed was excited about being on the trail of another set of bad guys while Leroy was worried about whether he could help in anyway that would be significant. The jet was ready for them when they arrived at the airport and there wasn’t any delay before they were in the air. The flight was uneventful, but it only got them part of the way to their destination. There was still an hour drive to his parents’ house.

After renting a compact car when they had arrived at the airport, Leroy drove to his parent’s house in a small town outside of Atlanta. The drive was uneventful until they were within a block of their destination. A car was parked in the middle of the street, preventing them from driving to the house. Concerned, Leroy turned to Ed and said, “Maybe we should park here and walk the rest of the way.”

Tilting his head to his side of the car, Ed said, “We might ask the guy with the shotgun to move the car.”

There was a rap on the car window and Ed lowered the window. This would allow him to talk to the man with the gun. The man looked well over six feet tall and was very muscular. A rough estimate by Ed put his weight at a two hundred and twenty pounds with all of it muscles. Ed suspected that he had once played college football by his general build and continued working in a very physical field. In a pleasant voice, Ed said, “Hello. Could you move the car?”

In a strong Georgian accent, the man asked, “What’s your business here?”

“We’re here to visit his parents.” Ed gestured to Leroy sitting in the driver’s seat with a negligent wave of his hand.

The man bent down and saw Leroy. For the first time since the car had pulled up, he relaxed his stance and said, “Hello, Leroy. Didn’t know you were coming. We’d have welcomed you a little better than this.”

Leroy asked, “Hello, Henry. What’s going on?”

Shaking his head, Henry answered, “Let me move the car so that you can get down the street. It’s a little dangerous to be out here at the moment.”

As Henry was about to leave, Ed grabbed the hand that had been resting on the car door. Henry looked down at Ed for a minute trying to decide what to do about this man that dared to grab him like that. With a serious expression, Ed said, “I’m expecting some other people to show up here over the next day or so.”

“Will they be white?”

“Probably.”

Henry said, “We’re not letting anyone in except people that live in the area.”

“I’m expecting Druids. You should let them in.”

Not knowing anything about Druids, Henry’s suspicions returned. It made him wonder if Leroy was here against his will. No one in the neighborhood knew who was responsible for the recent troubles. For all he knew, these Druids could be behind it all. He asked, “How will I know these guys?”

“If you ask them if they are Druids, they will answer yes. To be sure, ask to see their medallion. If they have one, then you’ll know they can be trusted,” replied Ed as he fished his medallion out from under his shirt.

The black man looked at the medallion with doubt. Leroy said, “Henry, you can trust these guys. If you doubt me, you can ask my father. I know he’ll vouch for them.”

Grunting at the mention of the Deacon, Henry said, “So if they admit to being a Druid and have one of those medallions, I should let them through?”

“Yes,” answered Ed.

Henry waved to someone in the house across the street. A young black man came out of the house and went over to the car. Under the watchful eye of Henry, the guy moved it out of the way. Once the car was out of the way, Henry patted the top of the car and said, “Move on out.”

Leroy drove down the road to his father’s house considerably slower than he had ever driven down that street. Along the route, three houses had been burned down to the ground. Curious, Ed looked at the houses and finally requested, “Leroy, pull over here. I want to take a look at the houses.”

Leroy stopped the car and the two men got out. Ed walked to within ten feet of the house and squatted to examine the ruins. His eyes roamed over the burnt supports taking in features that suggested how the fire had started. Shaking his head, he said, “It looks like somebody threw a Molotov Cocktail in it.”

The comment caused Leroy’s stomach to perform a flip. Just to make sure that he understood the situation, he asked, “You mean someone burned them out?”

“Might be worse than that. Someone may have been killed in the fire,” replied Ed as he examined the structure. Like most of the houses here, this was probably a two-story building with the bedrooms upstairs. The wood framed house would have gone up in flames in minutes. If this happened at night, Ed doubted that anyone would have escaped.

Paling, Leroy said, “Let’s get to my Dad’s place. He’ll tell us everything he knows about what is going on.”

Looking closer at the house, Ed realized that there was no sign of furniture. He said, “I just noticed something strange about this. There’s no furniture in the house. It was empty when this happened.”

Looking around, Leroy noticed a number of neighbors moving out onto their porches. Almost all of them had guns, even the old women had small caliber rifles. He said, “Ed, we’ve attracted some attention.”

Ed stood up and turned to look at the houses lining the street. There were a lot of scared people watching them and he hoped that none of them had an itchy trigger finger. He yelled, “Can anyone tell me what happened here?”

Looking around at the faces of his old neighbors, Leroy knew that if the shooting started that Ed would be the first target. Moving carefully, he positioned himself to shield Ed as much as he could. He shouted, “I’m Leroy Jones, Junior. Can anyone tell us about what happened here?”

One of the old women came across the street walking with the slowness of old age. Grey hair, bent back, and swollen joints gave testimony to a hard life. Her thick glasses suggested that she couldn’t have made out their identity from across the street. About half of the way across the street, she asked, “Is that you Leroy?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” replied Leroy as he moved towards the old woman. He recognized her from his youth. With a smile, he asked, “How are you doing, Mrs. Whitt?”

“Are you still stealing strawberries?” asked the woman with a smile.

“No, Ma’am, I learned my lesson a long time ago.” She had caught him stealing her strawberries when he was about nine years old. Dragging him by his ear, she had taken him straight to his dad. He had gotten a major whipping from his dad that time.

Now that she was closer, she could see Ed. Looking from Leroy to Ed, she asked, “You takin’ up with a white boy?”

“Yes, Ma’am. I’ve got two husbands and three wives. He’s one of my husbands,” answered Leroy not sure how the old woman would react to that news.

“I’m not sure if I like that, boy.” She frowned in the direction of Ed. It was clear that she didn’t approve of the cowboy.

Watching the exchange, Ed knew that it was time to get the topic back on track. He said, “Deacon Jones mentioned to Leroy that there was some trouble here. I’ve come to help.”

She looked at him and asked, “Why would you do that?”

“He’s family.”

That answer actually impressed the old woman as she came from a generation where family was very important. She asked, “You came alone?”

“Others shall be coming, Ma’am,” answered Ed. He pointed back to the house and asked, “Can you tell me what happened over there?”

“The old man that lived there died. His son had an estate sale and was going to sell the house. My grandson was going to buy it, but someone burned it down before the sale. The house down the street was for sale, but after someone made an offer it was burned down,” replied the old woman. She pointed to the other burned house and said, “Then that one burned in the middle of the night. A family died in that fire. There was another fire on the block over. The people inside were hurt, but they lived.”

Quiet for a moment, Ed asked, “Any letters or threats?”

“No. Folks are scared that their house is going to be next.”

Ed looked around and said, “That’s real odd. It’s hard to say what the motive is, but something is definitely wrong.”

After a little more polite conversation, Ed and Leroy returned to the car and drove the half block to the deacon’s house. Getting out of the car, Deacon Jones and his wife, Cleo, came out of the house to greet their son and son-in-law. Smiling, Deacon Jones asked, “So why are you here?”

Leroy pointed over to Ed and said, “He had a feeling that something was wrong over here and suggested that we come out to lend a hand.”

Looking around, Ed added, “More Druids are coming.”

At that, Deacon Jones reached to his chest and caressed the small wooden cross that hung around his neck. It was a present from Jesus Christ, given to him in a small church in New Mexico. The Goddess had sent him there, to meet with his savior on Easter Morning at sunrise. There, he had been charged with the sacred duty to help bring about peace among the various religions. Deacon Jones replied, “I’m glad to hear that.”

The group went into the house to talk about recent events. The deacon went through the activities of the past two months and answered Ed’s questions with care not to speculate. After they had talked for about two hours, Deacon said, “Let me go talk to the neighbors and spread the word that you are here. I’d hate for something to happen to you.”

Laughing, Ed said, “That would be a good idea. I think I’ll wear my robes while I’m here so that people will know that I’m supposed to be here.”

Ed put on his robe and went outside to sit on the porch as Deacon went through the neighborhood. Several neighbors came over to talk to Leroy to find out how the young man was doing in college. There were a number of comments about his unusual marriage arrangements, but Leroy was able to handle them with ease. More difficult to handle were the racist comments about being married to a bunch of whites.

Without responding to the blatant racial slurs against whites, Ed just sat there and watched the street. When the newspaper came, Ed opened it and read the newspaper very carefully. One item in the news caught his attention. Frowning, he read the article about a number of housing developments that were going up in the area and how the man in charge was a financial wizard. The article struck him as a lie, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Looking up from the newspaper, Ed said, “Leroy, tomorrow I’m going to the IRS. I think I have an idea and need to verify it.”