“You have a good memory.”
“I wrote out his obituary.”
“What about his brother?”
“Now, Josh was a different story. Around here, he’s what we call a bad black. Hotheaded, arrogant, trying to be better than he was. Now, I’m not prejudiced or anything and I don’t tolerate the use of the n word in my presence, but if I did use that particular word I’d use it to describe Josh Harms. He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.”
“I read that he fought in Vietnam and was actually a war hero.”
“Sure, that’s right,” Barker conceded quickly. “He was the most decorated war hero to ever come out of this town, by a long shot. People were damn surprised about that, let me tell you. But he could fight, I’ll give the man that.”
“What else?”
“Well, Josh actually graduated high school.” Barker’s voice changed. “But where he really showed up everybody was in sports. I’m a one-man shop here and I cover all the news. Josh Harms was the greatest pure athlete I have ever had the privilege to see. White, black, green or purple, that boy could run faster, jump higher, stronger, quicker than anybody else. Now, I know the coloreds can do all that really well anyway, but Josh was truly special. He lettered in just about every sport there was. Do you know he still holds about a half dozen state athletic records?” He added proudly, “And you know Alabama’s got more than its share of great athletes.”
Sara sighed. “Did he play at the collegiate level?”
“Well, he got a slew of scholarship offers for football and basketball. Bear Bryant even wanted him at ‘Bama, that’s how good he was. Probably would’ve been a star in the NBA or the NFL. But he got sidetracked.”
“How so?”
“Well, you know how so. His government asked him to defend his country in the war against communism.”
“In other words, he got drafted and was shipped to Vietnam.”
“That’s right.”
“Did he come back home afterward?”
“Oh, sure. His momma was still alive, but not for long. See, right about that time was when Rufus got in all that trouble. I actually think Rufus volunteered for the Army because of Josh. Maybe he wanted to be like his older brother, you know, a hero. Really I think he just wanted something to go right with his life for a change. After his daddy died there wasn’t anything for him in this town. Of course, it ended up going about as wrong as it could. Anyway, Josh came to see me, to see if there was anything I could do. You know, the power of the press, but there wasn’t anything I could do.”
“Did Rufus killing the girl surprise you? I mean, had he ever been violent, that you knew?”
“He never hurt anyone that I know of. A real gentle giant. When I heard about the little girl I couldn’t believe it. Now, if it had been Josh, I wouldn’t have blinked twice, but not Rufus. But with all that, the evidence was clear as could be.”
“Did Josh keep living there?”
“Well, now you take me to a particularly troubling part of this town’s history.”
“What’s that?”
“I’d rather not say.” Sara thought quickly. What was the journalistic phrase? “It can be off the record.”
“Is that right?” Barker sounded wary.
“Absolutely. It’s off the record.”
“I want you to know that I just recorded what you said. So if I read in some newspaper what I’m about to tell you, I’ll sue you and your paper for every last cent you got,” he said sternly. “I’m a journalist, I know how these things work.”
“Mr. Barker, I promise that whatever you’re about to tell me will not be used in any way for a story.”
“All right. Actually, I guess so much time has passed that it doesn’t matter anymore — legally, anyway. But you can never be too careful in this old world.” He cleared his throat. “Well, the story of what Rufus had done got around town, no way it wouldn’t. A bunch of boys started drinking, got together and decided to do something. Now, they couldn’t do anything to Rufus, he was in the custody of the United States Army. But they could do something about the other Harms living here.”