Page 113 of The Secrets We Hide
Emmy swiped again, but her finger left a streak of sweat. Her hands were suddenly shaky. Her vision blurred on the screen. She didn’t understand what was happening until she recognized the wrongness flooding back into her body. A current of low-levelanxiety. A niggling fear that she had missed something important, said something wrong, done something stupid, and it was too late to fix any of it.
She turned her head toward the wall so that nobody could see her face. She squeezed her eyes closed. Clenched her fists. She couldn’t tell if the incessant ticking sound in her head was from the clock on the wall or from her memory of the electric motor lowering her mother into the ground.
Myrna would’ve been so annoyed with Emmy for losing her shit. Her father wouldn’t have been too pleased, either. He’d always told Emmy that his version of Prozac was to put his head down and do his job.
She opened her eyes. Wiped her palms on her legs. Tapped open Life360. Cole was still at the courthouse. She took a photo of the obituary and sent it to him with a text message:
Call to see if Mitch Bellingham’s belongings are still in the building. Also verify if he died of natural causes asap.
Emmy’s finger hovered over the arrow to send the message. This wasn’t delegating. This was being a coward. The thought of calling anybody at the place her mother had died made Emmy feel physically ill.
She sent the message.
The spreadsheet that listed all of Bernadette Grayson’s campaign donors had finally downloaded. Emmy had to wipe her hands again to click it open. There were several pages because the election had gone to a close runoff. Emmy recognized a lot of the names. There were several Cliftons alongside the usual families that were involved in politics. Most of the amounts were in the fifty-to-one-hundred-dollar range. Then she got to the third page.
Gilchrist, Ezekial: $5,100.00
Emmy happened to know more than she wanted to about campaign contributions for state and local candidates in Georgia. The limit was capped at $3,300 for primary and general elections, plus another $1,800 for runoffs.
Gilchrist had maxed out on both.
She scrolled through the rest of the spreadsheet, looking for PACs and businesses. The Clayville Chamber of Commerce. TheSociety of Georgia Litigators. Gilchrist Logistics. Gilchrist Shipping. Clifton Tool and Dye. Southwest Georgia Car Dealers Association. The ECGM Trust.
Emmy opened her browser. Searched for the ECGM Trust in Clifton County.
The Evelyn C. Gilchrist Memorial Trust.
The photo on the homepage showed a woman around Emmy’s age with thick, blond hair. Narrow face. High cheekbones. She looked like she’d been a model, which made sense. From everything Emmy knew about Ezekial Gilchrist, he liked to collect fine things.
She clicked through to more photos and found several with the couple together. Fundraisers, balls, political events. Ezekial always had his hand at the small of Evelyn’s back or arm wrapped around her slim waist. Some people might have thought he was being chivalrous. To Emmy, it looked like he was claiming a prize.
She went back to the spreadsheet for Bernadette’s campaign. The total amount of money on hand was around $150,000. That was a staggering amount for a small municipality like Clayville. Emmy happened to know that her cousin Carly had raised around three grand during her last election for North Falls mayor, and half of that had come from Penley.
Bernadette was clearly building a war chest. Everyone knew she had larger political ambitions. In two years, she would probably run for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. From there, she could launch a campaign for state senate, then work her way up to the governor’s office.
Which meant that Emmy had to tread very carefully. She couldn’t pick up the phone and ask Bernadette if she remembered serving on a jury in 2002. Calling the remaining jurors was a dicey proposition, too. They might still be in touch. Asking questions too soon could trigger all kinds of panic. The sort of panic that had gotten Allison killed.
“Coming through,” Julian said. He had one end of the couch. Levi had the other. The seat was too wide to fit through the door. “We might have to take the legs off.”
Emmy thought about something Celia had said regarding thefresh crop of senior boys at the high school. All the toxic masculinity of their grandfathers. None of the life skills.
She said, “Turn it sideways.”
“Oh.”
Emmy waited for them to back up so she could leave. She took a left toward the ladies’ room. She hadn’t realized how full her bladder had gotten until she sat down on the toilet. She dropped her head in her hands. Closed her eyes. Tried to focus.
Ezekial Gilchrist had clearly been paving the way for Bernadette Grayson. She was a smart woman, but all the money in the world couldn’t raise you up from being a waitress to a lawyer with a top firm unless you were clever enough to make it work. The campaign donations proved that Gilchrist’s hand was still at Bernadette’s back. The relationship wasn’t wholly one-sided. Having a future congresswoman or governor in your pocket was a good idea for a man who made money off agriculture, which was heavily regulated by the state, and Port Bainbridge, which was controlled by the Georgia Ports Authority.
Emmy flushed the toilet. She washed her hands at the sink. Took out her phone. She found the website for Bernadette’s law firm. Clicked through to her bio.
Bernadette Booker-Grayson is passionate about transportation law and agribusiness. She has served on the Governor’s Roads and Rails Initiative and the Leadership Advisory Board to the Georgia Ports Authority. During her nearly twenty years of practice, she has represented clients as diverse as the Farmers’ Land Rights Council and the Christian Diocese of Southwest Georgia. In 2018, Bernadette took on the role of primary outside legal counsel for the ECGM Trust. She has proudly served as the mayor of Clayville, Georgia, for the past three years.
Emmy went to Contacts and pulled up Bernadette’s cell phone number. She leaned against the basin as she listened to the tinny rings echo around the bathroom.
“Sheriff,” Bernadette answered. “I was about to call you for an update. I don’t know if you’ve been monitoring social media, but people are angry. They’re saying the sheriff’s department is letting a known wife beater get away with murder and attempted murder. We need a resolution.”
“I’m working on it.”
