3 Days in 63 Read online

  3 Days in 63

  the unsolved murder of FranCES Bullock

  Gregg Clark

  Red Press Co.

  redpressco.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Gregg Clark

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-0000000-0-0

  LCCN 2019942421

  Printed in the United States

  For Jimmy Clark, my father,

  the rock many of us broke ourselves on.

  “I could walk up to the killer right this minute and lay my hand on their shoulder—I wouldn’t live long mind you, but I could do it.”

  —ANONYMOUS FRANKLIN, NC LAWMAN, 1965

  Contents

  Author’s Note ix

  Prologue xiii

  A SONG AND A SILHOUETTE 1

  too late now 17

  woodlawn 28

  We’re Live One 40

  game on 48

  WE’RE LIVE TWO 67

  TWO IN THE RAIN 69

  WE’RE LIVE THREE 83

  blue velvet 85

  we’re live four 96

  blood in the snow 99

  goodnight frankie 103

  we’re live five 113

  STABBED TO DEATH IN THERE 115

  WE’RE LIVE SIX 131

  NEON PUZZLE PIECES 132

  we’re live seven 144

  Louis Louis 146

  we’re live eight 152

  he did something bad 155

  we’re live nine 161

  pillow talk 163

  we’re live ten 178

  halloween 181

  we’re live eleven 186

  3:16 IN THE WINDOW 191

  we’re live twelve 200

  WHITLIN,’ TRADEN’ AND THROWIN’ 201

  we’re live thirteen 210

  a brother comes home 212

  we’re live fourteen 216

  what are the chances 218

  we’re live fifteen 221

  i know things 223

  we’re live sixteen 233

  she needed to talk 236

  we’re live seventeen 238

  ghost Indians and the mob 239

  we’re live eighteen 243

  d.a.r. 247

  WE’RE LIVE NINETEEN 255

  a very southern thing 267

  Appendix 275

  Author’s Note

  In the writing of this book—prior to, during, and upon its completion—three Earth-rattling questions never stopped rocking my mind. First, I asked myself; how do I tell a story as it actually happened with any degree of accuracy when the story is older than I am?

  Second, given the story’s grisly and sensitive subject matter, is it safe or sane to tell the story at all?

  Finally, I asked; what kind of book will it turn out to be? The first question was answered in a most unorthodox way.

  The Frances Bullock story is hands down the most tangled, cryptic, enigmatic tale I’ve ever heard in my life. When all the cards are laid upon the table, there is no way anyone could capture the entire story in book form. All of the deceit, the despair, the secrets, and the concealments weave together in perfect abstraction with no one piece complimenting another except in their contrasts. I realized, before writing a single word, that I needed a platform. I needed a common denominator, a common thread running throughout.

  I had no desire to write a biography of the victim. There was no pull to write a chronological history of her life, murder and the mystery that ensued. I wanted to tell the story that was told behind closed doors. I wanted to tell the story the police officers knew. I wanted to tell the story my father knew. I wanted to tell the story that I knew. I wanted to tell the story through a myriad of unique lenses that spanned half a century, and I didn’t know how to do so—until—the radio show.

  An online radio broadcast out of Little Rock, Arkansas awarded me the platform, the denominator, the thread to be strung from start to finish.

  With the online radio show reasonably answering the—how do I write the book question, I say reasonably for I faced reluctance and suffered self-doubt throughout the entire writing process, I was left with the nagging—should I write the book at all question—and the question of what kind of book it would end up being. The first of these two questions haunted me from the book’s inception.

  Should I write the book at all? Is it safe? Is it sane? I asked myself over and over again, and three answers came back to me like an echo from within a canyon without fail. They came as I began the book. They came while writing the book, and they came upon completion of the book—NO, NO and HELL NO!

  Ever since the body of Frances Bullock was hauled from her home in a slick-zipped body bag in the summer of 1963, her story has remained taboo and dangerous to anyone willing to speak of it, investigate it or write about it.

  Keeping in mind well-known threats that had been previously doled out to others, stories of career loss due to the killer’s pursuit, even unexplained, tragic and untimely deaths that occurred seemingly in connection to those seeking answers, I braved the waters, but much was concealed in that pronoun of I. I say that I braved the waters. I wasn’t willing to have others ride the rapids with me. That would have been unfair.

  Ensuring that I was the sole occupant of my own metaphorical vessel demanded unforeseen alterations to my manuscript, leading me to my third and final question—what kind of book will it turn out to be?

  A fictional work of considerable length and complexity is the loose definition of a novel, so from the beginning, I felt certain I wasn’t writing a novel, for my content was true. My setting was real. The events I was writing about actually occurred.

  After a while though, as I ruminated on the fairness of naming names, the fairness of revealing who had pointed an accusing finger or suggested a salacious theory, I ruled out Creative Nonfiction, Historical Nonfiction, Biography or straight up history in general, as fifty years is not nearly long enough a time frame to name drop—too many people still living—too many of their children still living, so I decided to play Dr. Frankenstein.

  I decided to piece, stitch, clamp and bolt genres together. Blending Biography, Nonfiction, Narrative Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, History, and Fictional dialogue together, the book became a cohesive single unit—though a howling beast it still may be—for it had been born of multiple perspectives spanning two entire generations. In the end, the book took on novel form.

  The amalgamation of genres for the sake of Cohesion came at a steep price though. The novel, unlike a work of Creative Nonfiction, demanded that I change the names of suspects, investigators, past and present police officers who played a role, no matter how minuscule—It demanded that I alter the names and sometimes genders of friends, family and a wide array of others whose names peppered the pages of my book so as not to force them down the white water with me, especially those with breath still filling their lungs. In a nutshell, I was ethically forced to alter the identities o
f many of the living, while, with the exception of suspects, police and special familial investigators, I was able to allow the identities of the dead and those with no ties of any sort to the case to remain intact.

  I realized too, upon close scrutiny, that I, out of necessity, had had to create dialogue and gestures, weather and nuance to bind fifty years of facts, rumors, speculation and disjointed stories from multiple perspectives into a single readable narrative, so calling the book a novel was no great stretch in the end.

  If the Frances Bullock story is new to you, the necessary alterations to protect the innocent and the living will mean absolutely nothing. If you know this story backward and forward, you’ll enjoy the puzzle of decoding who’s who amid the pseudo names and genders. Either way, the necessary alterations are meaningless to the story itself, and for every name that has been changed, there are three that have not—hopefully in their static form, creating rich nostalgia for those who look upon this story as a piece of their past, a piece of their history.

  In conclusion, the book you are about to read is the unvarnished, unburnished true tale of Frances Bullock’s murder and beyond, culled from hundreds of hours of personal research spanning a quarter of a century and thousands of hours collectively when the research of others is considered.

  The creative license taken for the sake of the story, sequence and comprehension adds, in a sense, another layer of mystique, if I may be so bold. So take this book for what it is, a true story mashed together from many people’s memories—some still living, some dead—meant to tell the most comprehensive version of the story possible— a story, that if I’ve told it right, just might cast out some demons from the shadows or call down some angels from on high.

  Prologue

  “We’ll call five minutes before we go live; that’s just so we can chat for a minute, go over the protocol again. You might want to have a list of stories you’d like to tell or things you’d like to talk about handy just in case you get a little stage fright, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem, you being a teacher and all. Dale’s been poring over your website and Facebook page, and he’s already made a long list of possible topics that he might bring up or ask about as well, so you’ll be fine. Just between you and me, Gregg, what brought on an interest in such things, enough to start tours and all?”

  “I’ve had the interest since I was a little boy, but actually Where Shadows Walk was my wife Pauletta’s idea,” Gregg informed, Tony, the DJ from the popular online radio show, Behind the Veil, out of Little Rock, Arkansas, who, along with his partner, Dale, would be spotlighting Gregg and Pauletta’s Where Shadows Walk stories on their show in two weeks. “We were camping the next county over from ours. We had rented a cabin. Pauletta had picked up a flier in town earlier in the day advertising a ghost storytelling event the next night. She literally tossed the paper to me as I was building a campfire out back. I picked it up out of the grass, looked at it for a minute and tossed it into the fire.”

  “You could do that in Franklin you know,” she said, “with all the history we’ve got.”

  “Long story short—I did.”

  “Yeah Dale’s been teachin’ me all about that history—Gem Capitol of the World, site of the final surrender of the Civil War, French and Indian War battles, Trail of Tears. Franklin sounds like one Hell of a place. I guess that’s where all the ghost stories come from right?”

  “Maybe so. Been enough death, that’s for sure.”

  “One death, in particular, Gregg that Dale’s been consumed with, and I’ll guarantee he’ll ask about in two weeks is Frances Bullock. That story’s all over your newsfeed, and he found where three different newspapers had interviewed you about it, something about some presentations you did last month.”

  “I’d be happy to talk about it. There’s a ghost story in it too, but it’s more of a murder mystery. I don’t know how interesting that would be to you guys, seeing as you wouldn’t know the characters or the settings.”

  “Well, Dale won’t leave it alone, so we’ll see I guess. Tell me more about Franklin. To tell you the truth, we’ve never done a show about small-town ghost stories. Last week on the show we had an actual exorcist from Rome. No pressure!” Tony jokingly relayed.

  “Rome, Georgia?” Gregg facetiously came back at the DJ.

  “Rome, Italy smart ass,” Tony replied with a healthy laugh chasing his words.

  “Right, no pressure there,” Gregg repeated with a laugh of his own. “Franklin—what can I tell you about Franklin?” Gregg rhetorically asked the DJ hundreds of miles away. “Well, Franklin, North Carolina is what you want it to be, meaning if you want it to be a backwoods prison that you blame for holding you back in life, never letting you breathe, it can be that; however, if you want it to be a hidden treasure, a salvation, a respite, a port in a storm, a place to grow and change, it can be that too.

  It’s a town where the Mayor wakes up early to take pictures of heavy snow or hard rain or pastel dawn breaking and has the pictures posted on Facebook before most people are even awake. It’s a town of old buildings and fractured sidewalks, a town of graveyards and church steeples that stretch just high enough. It’s a town with deep roots and unlocked doors. It’s a town of waterfalls and crooked trails leading everywhere and nowhere at the same time—again depending upon how you choose to walk them.”

  “Damn Gregg! I wish we’d been on the air for that. Remember that, and say it just like that on the show in two weeks!”

  “I’ll try,” Gregg’s words rolled comfortable and quick.

  “I understand the history and the ghosts being of interest Gregg, but what got you all bound up with a fifty-year-old murder case? You weren’t even alive when Frances Bullock died. Hell, I wasn’t even alive.”

  “Well, I’d been hearing about the murder from my dad all my life, but what made me want to create a presentation, actually do a show of sorts, came from the craziest place, a Bob Dylan song.”

  “What? A Bob Dylan song? Dylan wrote about the murder?”

  “No, no, nothin’ like that. Bob put out an album out in 1986 called Knocked Out Loaded. He had a song called “Brownsville Girl” on that album. I’d heard it many times before, but sometime last year, I really listened to the lyrics, and they just fit—something in Bob’s words fit the story, fit the time, fit me, and I started piecing it all together, making something cohesive out of it. The song served as muse or inspiration somehow.”

  “Well, hopefully we’ll hear some of the story in a couple of weeks. Gregg I’ll let you go. Remember, we’ll call five minutes till show time, and have that list ready just in case alright.”

  “Will do Tony. You have a good evening,” Gregg finished.

  Gregg had been picking up sticks in his yard the entire time he’d been talking to the DJ in Little Rock. One at a time he’d been tossing them into the tall grass at his yard’s edge. He’d also been watching the mail carrier.

  From where Gregg lived, he could see his mail carrier’s white Jeep stopping and starting in the distance through the breaks in the trees, silently inserting bills, coupons, letters, and packages along the way.

  As she noiselessly glided from box to box, Gregg’s mind, like a ladle raised from hot soup, filled up with faces, among them, his own grandmother and a passel of others who’d long since filled caskets in cemeteries fixed on sunny hillsides and down dark crooked roads. The mail carrier had been important to them, vital in fact, someone they’d waited for.

  They’d take folding chairs and tall five-gallon buckets of green beans to snap and string as they waited. They’d sit in their cars two or three hours prior to expected arrival times. At Christmas, tucked inside their mailboxes, they’d leave baked goods, rolls of Nickels or hand-knitted garments for their carriers. In spring and summer, they’d come prepared with boxes of okra, peppers, tomatoes, and squash to hand through their carrier’s window, even if their carr
ier had handed them a hefty bill in turn, and if they couldn’t be there at their mailbox, they’d leave boxes of the fresh produce for the carrier non-the-less.

  As the carrier’s Jeep squeaked to a stop at Gregg’s own mailbox, he tossed the last stick he’d lifted from the warm summer grass and made his way over to her. Smiling, Gregg jogged the last twenty feet, assuming Sonya, his mail carrier had decided to place the mail directly into his hand as opposed to the mailbox since she’d stalled in her action and was holding his mail up in the air like a torch; however, as Gregg reached her window, he realized in quick time that it hadn’t been his propinquity to the box so much as an obstacle in the box that had altered Sonya’s normal routine.

  “You’d better get this back in the house before Pauletta goes missin’ it,” Sonya said while gesturing with her letter-filled fist to the obstruction that had prevented her from placing the mail inside the box. The smile that accompanied her warming was as old as woman-kind, warm, yet earnest.

  Gregg placed his free left hand on the carrier’s warm car hood and crooked his head so as to see inside the box. He then smiled as well. Sonya, a delightful middle-aged woman with a contagious smile, feigned she was swatting at Gregg’s head with the stack of mail she still clutched tight in her hand before placing it into his right hand.

  “It’s a Southern thing I reckon,” the carrier said through clenched teeth and eyes closed nearly to slits— a glowering visage of comic disapproval that followed her initial warm smile. “How’s your momma been gettin’ on?” Sonya asked, changing trails in a blink—her face no longer contorted with maternal judgment and half-hearted scorn.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A SONG AND A SILHOUETTE

  Something about that movie though,

  well I just can’t get it out of my head.

  I can’t remember why I was in it

  or what part I was supposed to play.

  All I remember about it was

  Gregory Peck and the way people moved,

  and a lot of them seemed to be lookin’ my way.