CHAPTER 80 MATT

80

Matt

MATT HAD WATCHED THE video twice and was nearing the end for the third time, his heart knocking against his rib cage. The first two times, he'd watched it straight through without stopping. This time he'd slowed the video down, paused it in several key places, and attempted to find anything to prove it was a fake.

Ellie's laptop was older than dirt. The resolution was terrible, and the hard drive whirred so loudly that it would have drowned out the audio from the file if it had any. There was no sound, though, only video, and if it was a fake, it was a damn good one.

Had to be a fake.

Matt clicked back to the beginning of the video and hit Play.

The footage was grainy. Probably not shot digitally but on some old film like 8mm transferred to digital at some later point. When Matt was a kid his dad had one of those 8mm cameras, and it didn't have any audio. The lighting was terrible, too. Too bright on the left side of the screen and nothing but shadows on the right, most likely from a single bulb just off camera. Matt knew filmmakers on a budget used some of these tricks to conceal shams and falsities, things that couldn't be hidden when filming in high def.

The camera was stationary, most likely on a tripod. It faced the front of an old wooden desk in what looked like a basement, but not a basement Matt recognized. The walls were paneled in dark brown. What little was visible of the drop ceiling was covered in dark water stains. Matt couldn't see the floor, but his mind's eye put shag carpet there, orange or green. The entire space was a time capsule caught back in the 1960s or '70s. The walls themselves were disturbing. They were covered in photos, newspaper articles, what looked like military medals, and a single poster near the center with words that struck Matt in his gut: JOIN THE KKK AND FIGHT FOR RACE AND NATION!

For the first twenty seconds of the video, there was no movement. Then a man dressed in a white gown and pointed hat entered the frame, leaned in close to the camera lens, then settled in a chair opposite the camera behind the desk. His face was concealed behind a mask, eyes nothing more than dark pinpricks visible through holes. There was a red cross in a circle on his left breast.

The man sat there, unmoving for nearly a minute, those blank eyes looking into the camera, before reaching to his side and holding up a Birmingham, Alabama, newspaper dated September 16, 1963. The headline read: FOUR CHILDREN DEAD IN 16TH STREET BAPTIST CHURCH BOMBING: KKK SUSPECTED

Matt knew of the bombing; he'd studied it in school. The KKK had placed several bombs under the church and detonated them moments before Sunday school was meant to let out. Four girls died, all Black, between the ages of eleven and fourteen. Four men were suspected of carrying out the bombing, but the first wasn't tried until the late seventies. Two others finally were sentenced in 2001 and 2002. The last man died before facing prosecution. Although their various attorneys insisted the four men acted alone, most believed others were involved. What happened next in the video backed that theory.

The man in the video set the newspaper down and stared at the camera again from behind his mask, as if unsure of what he planned to do next. Then he drew in a deep breath and held up a sheet of paper with I'M SORRY scrawled across it in big, blocky letters. By the time he set that paper back down on the desk, his hand was shaking so bad it was nearly unreadable.

The man tugged off his mask.

Stu Peterson stared directly into the camera lens.

Even though the footage was poor quality, Matt could make out the red puffiness around Peterson's eyes, either from lack of sleep or tears or maybe both, there was no way to know for sure. Peterson looked no older than he did today, which meant this was filmed recently and the newspaper was some kind of relic or reprint. The video itself was made to look as old as that story, and that's why it was all wrong.

Matt knew from Peterson's gun permits the man was sixty-seven. That meant he was only seven years old when the church was bombed in 1963. Was it possible a seven-year-old Peterson was somehow involved in that bombing? Sure. Matt had heard far worse stories about the KKK.

But then there was the calendar.

It was hanging on the wall behind Peterson, partially blocked by his left shoulder.

January first through the eighth were crossed out. The year at the top of the page was 1964. That could easily be a prop, too, but something about it made it feel authentic.

Matt shook his head. The calendar couldn't be real, nor could the footage. None of it could be real because of what happened next.

Nearly a minute slipped by with Peterson staring at the camera before he picked up the gun. A silver-plated Magnum, one Matt recognized from those registered by Peterson.

Stu Peterson placed the tip of the barrel under his chin, thumbed the hammer back, and pulled the trigger.

No flash.

No bang.

No sound.

The camera continued to roll as Peterson's hand dropped away and his body slumped. The top of his head was missing, and the KKK poster behind him dripped with gore.

The camera rolled for about twenty more seconds after the shot, then stopped. The footage ended. There was nothing else on the USB drive.

Matt was mentally preparing himself to watch the video again when Addie came down the stairs slowly, her face a mix of confusion. "I got someone on the radio, but what they said didn't make any sense."

In the corner of the room, Josh tossed the phone aside. "Well, I haven't gotten shit. I'm done with it."

Matt ignored him and asked Addie, "What did they say?"

"It was a young girl, she barely spoke English." Addie lowered her gaze and put some thought into what she said next. "She told me she lived just outside Warsaw, in Poland, and she needed me to send help because the Nazis were coming. She just kept repeating that. Said her father told her to."

Gabby came in from the other room, busily tapping away at her phone. Without looking up, she said, "Riley reached my mother. She's driving in to pick her up from the rec center in Barton. She's going to stay with her until this is over." Gabby finished typing, looked up, and let out a relief-filled sigh. "At least she's safe."

Matt had been so busy with the video, he hadn't realized the sun had gone down. He reached to a lamp at his side and flicked the switch. The bulb flashed and blew, went dark.

"I saw a box of bulbs in the pantry." Gabby started back toward the kitchen.

She said something else from the other room, but Matt didn't hear her. He'd removed the lampshade and was staring at something he found clipped to the underside.

A bug.

Some kind of listening device.