“No. I don’t believe in the death penalty.”
“Well, you’re definitely the odd one out.”
She was watching Cordelia closely, trying to discern something. She had similar bone structure to Betty’s and Willa’s. But the family resemblance ended there.
“Is that why you’re here?” Cordelia asked. “On such a beautiful morning?”
“I’m here because we have a DNA match,” Ruby said. “Not to any remains, at least not yet,” she quickly added. “But you are related to someone in our system.”
“Who?”
“Mitchell Brown.”
She watched the news hit the woman. The first sign was in her carmine lips, painted with an Avon shade. Ruby had seen that color before, and smelled the scent of her youth.
“But...” Cordelia said, flabbergasted. “He’s the one who...”
“Or so they said.”
“He’s my relative? So that means... he was related to Betty, too?”
“Apparently, yes. Exactly how we don’t know yet.”
“But... he’s a Black man.”
“Many Black Americans have some white in them.”
“I know that. I just...” The woman was confounded.
“That’s why I came,” Ruby said. “To figure it out.”
“Okay. Let’s do that.” Cordelia clasped her hands together.
They walked the room like it was a museum, and Cordelia explained the connections. The first Dubois, recruited into the Quaker faith after watching slave catchers mutilate a Black man. A wedding party outside a Quaker meetinghouse. Country streets, somnolent afternoons. A family reunion with people sitting around tables.
One photo was of the Pickleweed Motel. It had been taken in better days, when the sign was new. A little boy was sitting on the curb outside, playing with a stick in the dirt.
“What can you tell me about the motel?” Ruby asked.
“Well, I know that Betty bought it. She was always smart with money. But she had bad luck, all the same. The gas station. That was a bad move. She buys the place, the county builds a new road. Gets the motel, the economy crashes.”
“What about Willa and Frank?”
She looked uncomfortable.
“What about them?”
“They’re cousins of Betty’s, right?”
“I don’t know much about them, besides the gossip.”
“Tell me the gossip, then.” Ruby smiled.
“Well, their dad was a cousin of Betty’s, which makes them distant cousins, I suppose. Their mom died young, and their dad... well, they got words for men like that now. Bad words. But back then, why, they didn’t do much. I think people were afraid of him.”
“Why?”
She looked uneasy. “Because of what he was. A bad man, like I said.”
