Poor Old Grandma 3 of 3 [Adult 4,000]

Conclusion. Story of a con-woman after tve American Civil War.

Note:: To simplify Ethel's schemes, she has two of them going. The first, using locally respected Lawyer Joseph, is to make deals with large planters to sort of put their land in storage then, when things in the South are settled down, sell it back to them. 

Fred, the Military Governor, is trying to confiscate that same land and turn it over to freed slaves. Instead the planters, on their own, agree to rent or lease that land to the slaves. As sharecroppers, the slaves will pay the planters a portion of their crops. The planters, Joseph, and Ethel will share in that profit.

The other, much larger scheme is for Ethel, supposedly with temporary ownership, instead sell the land to the Federal government through Fred. In short, she pays a dollar for each 160 acre package and sells the same for $1,000 to Fred, free and clear. Then, she plans to disappear with all the gold and currency, leaving Joseph, Fred, southern planters, and a lot of pissed off Negroes behind.
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Synopsis: According to her diary, Ethel is on the way to New York City to arrange transfer of gold and Federal currency….
 
A few of my previous customers in D.C. had been involved in the stock market. I brought as much of my cash with me as I could easily handle -- meaning a small woman like I could carry -- thinking that investing would be my best bet, rather than letting it accumulate in Atlanta. A stack of common stock certificates would be easier to leave with than a huge amount of gold and currency and, believe me, both were coming in fast from Fred. At that point, I'd accumulated over $300,000 in Federal funds -- mostly profit, he-he.

The more planters I conned, the more the others clamored for the privilege of being fleeced.

*** 

"So, we're agreed, Mr. Samson. You buy me what you call 'common stock' in companies you pick and I turn over my gold to you. You'll also keep the certificates for me until I come for them?"

"Yes, ma'am, and glad to have your business." He was enthused with the amount of currency I gave him, over fifty-thousand dollars. "And I'll send someone down to Atlanta as soon as possible for your gold."

I had promised him more money and gold to invest for me, but he would have to come to Atlanta to get it, bringing a large guarded wagon for the task. That would save me any number of trips to New York.

I made the same deal with several other stock brokers, splitting the risk. Once they came down to Atlanta and signed for the gold, safeguarding it was their responsibility -- just like money in the bank.

*** 

When I returned to Atlanta in November, Joseph finally caught up to me. Taking money from him was almost an afterthought. He had outlived his usefulness and could keep it, for all I cared. Compared to the Federal money, his was chickenfeed. His last act on my behalf would be to take any blame when the bubble burst.

Of course, he didn't even know about the money from property sales and believed the bit about giving the land back later. After all he had, ha-ha, possession of signed and witnessed papers to that effect.

"Hey, Ethel, honey. We should make out good with this plan. The Federals backed off a couple of weeks ago. It's a relief not to have them sniffing around," Joseph told me, happily.

What that poor lawyer didn’t know was that Freddy had been trying to get something on the planters in order to confiscate their land for his purposes. Now that he was getting it anyway, why bother? He'd backed off from annoying the planters.

Freddy had to look good to his friend, the President, and other legislators. To do that, it was necessary to bring order to his district by settling people down in one place and fighting crime. To someone in Freddy's position, money was only another tool -- such as Union troops. It was something to use in getting his job done.

"Glad to hear it, Joseph. When is the money going to start coming in? I could use some about now?" I lied.

"That's one thing I wanted to do, give you your share of what I've collected so far." He handed over an envelope. "Not much right now, but when the crops are fully harvested and sold we'll get much more." He beamed.

"Thanks. This will pay my rent at least." I didn't bother counting it. "I can't wait. A nice steady income for a change."

I waited until I had about a million in gold and currency, and it didn't take more than another couple of weeks. I knew enough not to be greedy and, to tell you the truth, the pace and pressure were killing me.

After I had the million and it collected by the stock brokers, I rented a large carriage then loaded it with the rest and headed for New York.

Let the cards fall as they may, I was out of it.

*** 

It took a month to liquidate most of my gold. Finished, I picked up my stock certificates. Common stock was like cash and could be sold in any large city. The rest of the gold fit in the back of the new carriage.

Eventually I ended up in this small town in Ohio. A rear wheel on my carriage broke a spoke because of the weight and I had to stop for repairs. Upon reflection, it seemed as good a place as any, and about as far from Atlanta, Georgia as I could get. Which brings me pretty much up to the present. Selling some of the stock in Toledo, I ordered a house built. A large one to fit my new status.

Much later, feeling frisky, I bought my way into a fledgling horseless-carriage industry. New companies like "Ford" and "Oldsmobile" seemed to me to have potential, along with the idea of riding in such a vehicle.

Caught up. Now, all I have left is to explain those damned bloody pages....

***

Katy read until early in the morning, totally engrossed in the diary. Eventually, she switched to a novel for a spate of light reading before going to bed. Even her mother had no idea how Great-Great-Grandma Ethel had made her money. Here her Granny had been a big crook, and nobody knew but little Katy.

It seemed against her nature, but she couldn't wait to tell her brother and show him the book. For the first time she could remember, she had something he might be interested in reading. Unlike Katy, reading was one of Jimmy's worse subjects in school.

Jimmy beat her to it. He was passing her room on his way down to breakfast when he saw the notebook lying on her bed.

That's mine, he reminded himself. It was in my bundle.

He picked the diary up and took it back to his room. The boy wasn't about to let his sister steal it from him. Jimmy hid it under his dresser where he had also hidden the revolver and old photos. He had cleaned the revolver up as much as he could, even shining and replacing the cartridges. The little derringer was still under his pillow, all but forgotten.

Like most young children, he didn't have much of an attention span. Those things were old news. He had found many other treasures in the attic since that day. He'd even built a secret bat-cave up there, finding a cape somewhat like the superhero wore.

When Katy accused him of stealing the diary from her, he denied it.

"I haven't seen that old thing, and it's mine anyway," he reminded her. "Maybe Helen took it. Probably full of dirty pictures or something."

Helen was a part-time maid his father hired to come in three times a week to do the laundry and cleaning. She was a middle-aged local woman looking to make a little extra money. Helen didn't do very much, and wasn't really expected to.

Tom spent most of his time in his home office writing while the kids were at school, and rarely even saw the maid. She normally left about the time they came home, so they saw little of her either.

With her schoolwork and new friends, Katy soon forgot about the notebook. She knew that she'd get it back eventually.

Their semi-private lake had been cleaned out by mid-spring and the lawn fixed up. Now that they didn't have to worry about stepping on nails and old boards, the children spent more time outside.

A colony of black snakes had been cleared out. The reptiles had helped keep Katy inside and been an attraction to Jimmy. Having become familiar with and named each one, he missed them.

***

The most important happening for the family was in early April, when their mother finally returned. She was driving a large new Cadillac, and it was filled with expensive clothing.

She even brought a few presents for the kids. "You'll never know how much I missed you," she told them.

Actually she had spent most of her remaining inheritance on her boyfriend before breaking up with him. No longer being able to afford an apartment of her own, she was forced to return to her family. 

To Tom, she seemed more like a stranger encroaching on his life. Of course he had no allusions as to her faithfulness.

Many arguments ensued while the children were in school or playing outside. The latest one was over her, on a rare cleaning spree, finding a pistol under Jimmy's pillow.

"Is this the way you take care of my children?" She confronted him, shoving the weapon in his face, her own livid as she accused him. "Are they so afraid of you they need guns to protect themselves?"

"I had no idea he had it." Tom took the gun and examined it. "It's ancient. I wonder if he got it at school? Maybe traded for something?"

"I just wonder if he has more. I'm afraid to check. The poor boy might have booby traps up there, to protect himself from you. A fine home you run where even little kids are afraid to sleep at night." She sneered at her husband, as if urging him to hit her, then left the room.

Tom hurried upstairs to search Jimmy's room. He noticed the stepladder in the boy's closet, leading to a dark hole in the ceiling.

That must be where he found the gun? Tom figured. He, himself, had never gotten around to checking the attic out. He figured that as old as the house was it would be full of discarded junk. He searched the bedroom and found Jimmy's stash of notebook, photos and large revolver. Not knowing what to do with them, and curious, he carried them downstairs to his office.

"Well, what did you find up there, an arsenal?" Sharon was right behind him. 

He showed her the revolver.

"I found one more. They were probably in the attic," Tom told her. "I'll have to go up and search the place. God only knows what's been stored up there in the last hundred years. And it had to come from your relatives, not mine." 

For a brief period, the air turned blue with accusations and threats.

When she left the room, he put the pistol and revolver down on a corner of his desk. Curious, he checked over the daguerreotypes.

Like Jimmy, Tom noticed the resemblance right off. The woman in most of the photos was a spitting image of his wife and an older version of Katy. Her family must have dominant genes in that respect, he thought.

The others were unknown to him and probably not public figures in their time, at least none he remembered seeing in his studies. He couldn't recognize many of the locations, which wasn't surprising, either. There were a few of that same house, looking new in the photos and without the garage. 

Tom also recognized the photo of the basement, since he had been down there several times by then. The horse-collar was gone and the table moved, but he recognized the section of wall. That portion had a different brick pattern, as though it had been built separately to completely shut off a portion of the room. He'd never given it much thought, supposing an old cistern used to store water or something of that sort on the other side.

He put the photos in a desk drawer where light wouldn't hit them, and turned to the notebook.

Tom immediately recognized the stains as dried blood, or at least suspected it. He had seen bloodstains on a book before, when he'd bled on a schoolbook and couldn't get it off. Being a much faster reader than his daughter, it didn't take him as long to get caught up with the story....

*** 

25 October 1920

I returned home the other afternoon to see an automobile parked behind the house. It was a bright-red roadster. A small part of the front was showing as I drove up the winding driveway. Cautious, I took my little pistol out of the car and, checking the load on both barrels, shoved it into the top of a stocking under my garter. I was expecting no visitors -- especially a hidden one.

Entering the house as usual, I hung my jacket and went into the living room. A man was sitting on one of the stuffed chairs. It took me a few moments to recognize an older Joseph the lawyer. He held a huge revolver pointed at me.

"I finally found you, you heartless b***h." He raised his weapon to center on my face. "Come in and sit down. You try to run and you're dead," he warned me. 

Feeling weak, I sat as he ordered. As he stood to approach me, I could see him shaking in anger. He came over, lifted my head up to look me in the eye and spit in my face, followed by a hard slap on the cheek.

"You left me to take the blame, and almost get killed," he screamed, slapping me again. Returning to his seat, he cocked the hammer on his weapon and aimed it at me again. I wiped my face and stared back.

"After all these years, you still look lovely," Joseph told me. "But that's going to change." 

We sat staring at each other for at least a couple of minutes.

"What happened? Why are you so angry? I had to leave, but you kept all the money. It's not my fault if you got caught later. You're a grown man and should have known when to quit.” I forced a grin. “It's hardly my fault if you didn't."

"Bullshit, Ethel. I was not only blamed for our scheme but for your larger one, too. One I had no idea was happening. You left me to take the blame for the whole damned mess." 

He looked ready to cry. I knew that, as emotional as he was getting, if I kept my head I could handle him.

"Why don't you tell me all about it, baby?" I asked, sympathetically. "Just what happened that you blame me for?"

"Everything went well for years, eight or nine in fact." He stopped to wipe his eyes with a handkerchief. "Your friend left after a couple of years, sent back to Washington, and a new Governor came in. He too left when Georgia returned to being a state. 

"The trouble started when a Negro was elected to the state senate. When a planter tried to evict one of the tenants, called sharecroppers by then, the man went to the senator to complain. They checked and found out what we were doing. The government had still assumed those people owned their farms, and didn't know they were only renting.

"The state came down hard on the planters, who excused themselves by saying that you were the owner. The planters then became livid when they found out that you had sold the property out from under them, to the hated Federals -- and that they weren't about to get it back, either. Of course, you were nowhere to be found. As your representative and lawyer, I was.

"My excuses of working for you fell through when it came out that I was the only one with the money, and no one had seen you for years. They asked how you could be involved without receiving any of the illegal profits? 

"Now the Feds are looking for me, blaming me as the instigator of the whole damned thing. They even accuse me of killing you to get you out of the way. I put up bail and have been running ever since."

"I'm sorry, honey," I said. "I thought you were a big boy and could handle it. Guess I was wrong." I was getting myself together. "Since you were supposedly at fault, why don't you let me give you some of the big money?" I offered with a smile. "There's plenty for both of us. It might be more satisfying than killing me?"

I could see him thinking it over. Probably that he could as easily kill me after getting the money as before. Joseph was, after all is said and done, a simple man and easy to figure out.

"Where is it?"

"Down in the basement. You put the gun away and we can go down and get your share, enough to last for the rest of your life."

"Let's go." He stood up, still watching me closely.

"Put the gun down first. I don't trust you holding that big monster on little old me," I sort of simpered. "Leave it on the table there. A big guy like you can handle a little old woman, can't you?

My heart fluttered, sweat running down my dress from my armpits as I could see him mulling the matter over in his mind. Finally, greed won out over vengeance. He laid the weapon down on a table and we went to the basement, me in the lead.

Now, on a certain section of wall there's a brick that when pushed in and the wall shoved hard, will open a secret doorway. Not completely trusting banks, or bank vaults for that matter, I keep stocks, gold, and other securities in that room. Besides, if I have need for a quick egress, I'll have something to take with me.

I showed him how to open the door, while I stood back. He went in first. I came behind, holding the lantern. By the time he was inside and turned around, I was also holding my little pistol.

Not feeling any need for further conversation, I shot him twice in the face, right between those wide eyes. I'm not a large woman and if I had done it upstairs would have had trouble carrying a body around, not to mention the blood to clean up.

Then I simply closed the door and went back upstairs. The next day, I searched his red automobile and removed anything that might be incriminating or point to him or me, and sold it to a friend who needed one.

In the excitement, I got blood all over myself by pulling the body around in order to close the door in the wall. I didn't even notice until writing in this book, but I had smeared the stuff all over the inside cover and first few pages. Since they were illegible, and to keep the stink down, I tore them out and decided to write from the beginning -- in a more legible format.

It was a largely wasted effort, since I've just now realized how incriminating this journal could be. Better to get rid of it and the weapons. Better yet, save them for posterity. I'll find some place to hide them for future generations to find. They should get a kick out of my experiences.

Ethel Simpson.

***

Excited by the lure of fortune, Tom hurried down to the basement, rushing past his wife who was watching television. Since reading the diary and remembering that photograph, he knew right where to go. The key-brick was fairly easy to find and shove in, but he couldn't get the wall to move, only feel a little loose at one corner. The mechanism might be rusty, he figured, shoving harder.

Finally, almost giving up, he wedged a sliver of wood alongside the depressed key-brick, holding it in place. Then Tom found a long wrecking bar and jammed it between the concrete floor and the wall. He had to add a piece of iron piping for leverage, but finally forced the wall to move an inch.

After that first jerk, it moved easier as he forced the metal fulcrum downward. On the other side of the open space he could see a portion of a human skeleton dressed in rotted clothing. Joseph? 

A cabinet stood along an opposite wall, itself supporting a large metal box. What looked like a pile of dirty bricks sat on the floor. The gold?

Excited, Tom stepped over the skeleton to face the cabinet. He tried to open the box. It was rusted shut, so he hit it with his wrecking-bar, breaking the lid loose. Inside lay a thick wad of crumbling paper. His hopes rose as he found it to be only an outer wrapping; oiled paper, now stiff and flaky with age. 

The box was too heavy to easily carry, so he went back out to a worktable in the other room and found an electric trouble-light with a long cord. Propping it up over the container, he wiped his hands on his pants. 

From the diary, he thought he knew what was inside but didn't want to take a chance of destroying them if they were crumbling. 

Hearing a noise, he looked back to see Sharon had come in behind him. After glancing at her, he worked slowly on the package with a pocket knife, scrapping, flaking and prying at the stiff wrapping.

It finally cracked down the middle, coming loose to reveal a stack of faded papers. The gold of pasted seals glowed at the bottom of the one on top. He could barely read the words, “Ford Motor Company” at the top of the page. It was stock in Henry Ford's first successful company.

“Those must be worth millions,” he heard Sharon exclaim. “How did you find them?”

Tom was still flabbergasted at his find.

“Many, many millions,” he whispered, not daring to touch them in fear they would turn to dust. “We can live the rich life for sure now,” Tom told her, happily. He turned to face his wife. 

She now held the old revolver from his office in both hands and had lost her smile.

“We?” She growled at him. “You mean me. Me and the kids. Why should I share it with you?” Her thoughts were of sailing into the sunset, to places like Monte Carlo and the French Riviera. Her and some new lover. Those were her thoughts as she jerked on a rusty trigger.

The resulting explosion threw Tom back against the cabinet that held the strongbox. His head hit the edge, causing a momentary blackout. That enforced pause was just long enough to save himself the memory of seeing a blast of flame, metal fragments and shreds of her right hand tear his wife's face off as the rusty revolver exploded, the metal of the cylinder weakened by rust and time. 

For long minutes, he stood silently, groggy and not able to think. Tom could barely hold on to the cabinet while standing with shaky legs ... unable to think of what to do. 

No tears came to his eyes when he looked down at his wife's sprawled body. Senses returning, he saw her husk sprawled over the old skeleton and remembered Ethel and the diary. Like grandmother, like granddaughter, he thought.

Recovered, using stiff shaking fingers, Tom carefully peeled several stock certificates off the top of the stack. He next picked up an extremely heavy darkened brick, revealing a shiny yellow one under it.

Closing the secret door behind himself, leaving both bodies inside, he walked slowly up the stairs -- to a new life. 

The End. 
Charlie hvysmker.