Low Road (26 page)

On this sunny February afternoon, though, it's a different story. I've been planning to make this visit to Detroit Memorial Cemetery for about two years. As a matter of fact, I am going there specifically for the purpose of looking at headstones and grave markers. Quite a few of my own people are there. Two sets of great-grandparents. My uncle Robert. Ben Crain, the grandfather who spoiled me until I was ten, and Toy Collier Allen, the grandmother who died before I was born. This is also where one of my literary ancestors was laid to rest. Donald Joseph Goines is buried at Detroit Memorial, but his family doesn't recall exactly where. As a military veteran, he was supposed to be given a headstone to go along with his survivor's benefits; I'm told it was never issued. His marker might be covered with overgrown grass and weeds. This unknown place beneath the soil strikes me as a metaphor for Mr. Goines's life. He kept the people who loved him guessing where he might wind up. I feel ready for the challenge of looking for him, nevertheless. His sisters don't know it, but I had intended to ask them if they'd ride to the cemetery with me. Marie Richardson informed me, however, that they had made a trip there several months earlier. A group of independent filmmakers came to the city to interview her and Joan Coney and to record a short documentary. They showed me a videotape of the piece after we'd all gotten together for dinner one Saturday evening. There is no Detroit Memorial footage in the piece they showed me. They had looked for Mr. Goines's marker with no success.

If not for my research, I wouldn't be any more interested in this visit than in other similar ones I've made, particularly since I'm not certain that I'll find what I'm after. It just wouldn't feel right to me if I didn't make an effort to be in some part of Mr. Goines's presence, having come to know him in the unusual way that I have through papers and memories.

Then, it occurs to me that I may have a problem if I go to Detroit Memorial unannounced and ask questions about the whereabouts of a person who is not my blood relative. I've never done this sort of thing before, and maybe it won't be as simple as just showing up and getting assistance. Presumably, there's a record of the men, women, and children interred there, but how public this record is, I have no idea. I can only imagine that the attendants would be people who have a good deal of patience and consideration, though it's possible that I'm wrong. I decide I'd better make a call before I go downstairs to my car.

*   *   *

The years following Mr. Goines's murder have been marked mostly by financial disputes, additional family tragedies, and significant success that, unfortunately, he can never personally enjoy. Two more books were published in 1975, the year after his death. One that became a personal favorite of mine was
Kenyatta's Last Hit,
in which Mr. Goines kills his alter ego. The book's conclusion is particularly sad for me, not so much because the character dies, but because it seems on some level to be the author's statement about the futility of fighting against oppressive forces in a nihilistic, capitalist society. In a manner similar to the way Mr. Goines left this world, he described Kenyatta's murder:

The guard in the corner of the room pulled the trigger of his .45. The bullet struck Kenyatta in the back of the head, sending pieces of his shattered skull flying against Clement's oak desk. With half his head shot away, Kenyatta tumbled forward and fell onto the superb shag rug.

Posing as a drug dealer, Kenyatta travels from California to Las Vegas just so he can get close enough to Clement Jenkins, one of the biggest pushers on the West Coast, to put him on ice. The fact that Kenyatta meets his death disappointed me on two levels: first, because he was a metaphor for Mr. Goines's desire to overcome his addiction to drugs; second, because it suggests that good can never defeat the larger societal evils that afflict our black communities. Not even in fiction. The other book published in 1975 was
Inner City Hoodlum.
Mr. Goines had been contracted to complete the novel for Holloway House at the time when he was killed. The unfinished manuscript and editing was completed by Carleton Hollander, who I'm told went on to work as a screenwriter in the Los Angeles area. He was brought into the Holloway House project under circumstances that would later be a point of contention with the Goines family. It was my understanding that Hollander took the Johnny Washington protagonist and others in the story to tie
Inner City Hoodlum
's plot together. Mrs. Myrtle Goines became the administratrix for her son's estate, and she was sent a form with the heading of “Release and Consent to Use of Name.” The document requested permission for the publisher to have “the irrevocable right, privilege and authority” to list Mr. Goines as the book's author, despite its identification of Hollander as “the writer of ‘Inner City Hoodlum.'” In exchange for granting this right, the agreement provided 20 percent of the book's royalties to Mrs. Goines. Her name is signed to the document.

Myrtle Theresa Goines died in 1991. Not long passed before Marie Richardson took the opportunity to see if there was any way she could have the
Inner City Hoodlum
agreement nullified. A letter from a New York lawyer she contacted states: “In the confused set of facts, it seems that Holloway House is taking advantage of the name Donald Goines in exploiting books not written by him, and the monies that would otherwise be due to Mr. Goines's estate is being paid to the person they have hired to write under the name Donald Goines.… In my experience with book publishers, unless specifically agreed to by the original author, I know of no case where the original author's royalty, or any portion thereof, was paid to a writer who was retained by the publishing company to edit and/or re-write an author's works. It generally is paid out of the publisher's share of the monies received.”

It was after Mrs. Goines's death that suspicions about the handling and disbursement of royalty revenue led to tension among Mr. Goines's survivors. Ms. Richardson spoke to me a lot about money, perhaps more than she realized. She told me she felt that, along with Holloway House, there were companies and newspapers all over the world that received profit from her brother's name, and she and her sister failed to benefit from this. No
legitimate
news publication, of course, would gain from the mere mention of any person, apart from the price of purchase by customers who picked it up. It became obvious to me, however, that Ms. Richardson saw the family's relationship to her brother as a matter of entitlement, as far as any profits were concerned. Perceived entitlement to money was the apparent cause of the distance that developed between Mr. Goines's siblings and his children.

They wound up seeking different probate lawyers after Mrs. Goines passed. She had been in charge of distributing the royalty payments to family members, in accordance with her son's will. With Mrs. Goines gone, room for conflict emerged. There were accusations that Mr. Goines's original will was altered. After almost ten years, I was told when I began my research, bad blood remained, literally and figuratively, between the relatives. Given different circumstances, it would have probably been simple enough to ask Ms. Richardson or her sister how to contact their nephews and nieces, but it was repeatedly explained to me that they had no communication with “the kids.” Ms. Richardson said they hadn't done anything with their nieces and nephews, hadn't shared any good times with their brother's offspring since a family reunion in Little Rock during the early '90s. Ultimately, a court appointed co-trustee attorneys to represent the two sides of kin in a seven-year money quarrel. At one point, as much as $28,000 in royalties was withheld as the matter was sorted through. The closest I could get to any discussion of Mr. Goines's legacy by any of his sons or daughters was a quote from the November 2002 edition of a Chicago newspaper.

“I hear some people tell their kids they should not read this garbage,” Donald Goines, Jr., reportedly told the weekly. “That's when I know they are misinterpreting. It's very educational for teenagers. Before they get started doing anything in the streets, they'll see what the consequences will be in the end.” Regrettably, I wasn't able to locate him or any of his siblings to ask them for interviews. Not only was I late finding out that one daughter, Angela, who he had not named in the will, was listed in Mr. Goines's obituary as a survivor, I learned that at least one other of Mr. Goines's sons had become a habitual criminal, at one point serving in the same Jackson penitentiary that his father had, but he was reportedly attending school to get his life on course as of late 2002. Donna Sailor, the daughter of Mr. Goines and Shirley Sailor, was living in California, according to the last information any of my various sources could provide, but I could find no telephone listing or other record for her in the Los Angeles area. I noticed other Goines names in the metropolitan Detroit directory. When I tried to match them, however, the numbers were disconnected or assigned to new customers. I wanted to talk with them not only about any memories of their father, but also about who they felt might have been responsible for his death.

In the absence of eyewitnesses to the double killing, I sought feedback from other sources. As the weeks immediately following Mr. Goines's and Shirley Sailor's deaths passed, Mrs. Goines and her daughters heard rumors that two Polish brothers with whom the family had become acquainted from the neighborhood were behind the crimes. It was suspected that they went to 232 Cortland with plans to rob the author, thinking that he was accumulating wealth from book sales. But investigators never appeared to find such leads worth tracking. One of the men choked to death at the dinner table years later, Ms. Richardson was told. Apart from such theories, however, she and Ms. Coney remained in the dark about suspects. Out of a basic respect for the lives that were lost, and hoping to bring more details to the public light, I consulted an acquaintance for his qualified interpretation of the autopsy reports. Included with the findings were these investigative summaries, which placed Shirley Sailor in the kitchen and Mr. Goines in the living room:

subject lying on kitchen floor face up, fully clothed—large smears of dried blood under body, dried blood on clothes—body cold & stiff—signs of struggle in home … Location is home of Shirley Sailor & Donald Goines, who apparently live together and have 2 children—Police received anonymous phone call that 2 people were dead in this location—at time of police arrival—2 young siblings were in house with dead bodies—Police found identification of bodies in house—Police found large quantity of drug paraphernalia on premises—Police also recovered 1 shotgun, not believed to have been used in incident, although 1 spent shell casing was found outside of house. Also recovered were 2 38-cal revolvers from hallway floor—1 weapon had a capacity of 6 rounds—all of which were fired—2nd weapon had capacity of 5 rounds, of which three were live and 2 were fired.

Male subject has 5 wounds in body—2 in head, 1 in neck & 2 in chest—female subj. has 2 wounds in head—Police recovered I spent slug on floor in room … subject lying face up on floor in living room of home—fully clothed—body cold and stiff with large quantity of dried blood present on body and on floor under it—furniture in disarray—signs of a struggle

Contradicting the police report, the autopsy found that Shirley Sailor had been shot five times in the head and face. Craig Ciccone, a historian and student of political assassinations, told me this was one of the more significant findings. Ciccone lived in Highland Park, just blocks away from where the murders were committed. At the time we discussed the Goines and Sailor killings, Ciccone had devoted ten years to investigating the cowardly Chicago assassination of Black Panther Fred Hampton, who was shot to death by police while he slept in bed. Ciccone pointed out something about the medical examiner's findings related to Shirley Sailor that I had not considered: Her face and head were the only apparent targets of each wound she sustained.

“The grouping of the shots in her body is the greatest indication that this was a crime of passion,” Ciccone said. “She was shot in the head, and they turned her over and shot her in the face. You'd have to be pretty stupid to shoot somebody in the face three times and not think they were already dead.”

The description of her facial wounds suggests that Sailor was either lying flat or sitting with her head positioned flush against a surface, Ciccone explained. All of this raised a possibility that not one of the people I had interviewed about the murders ever suggested: that Shirley Sailor, not Donald Goines, was the primary target. There was nothing I ever read or heard that implied this to me, but without certainty of a motive, it had to be weighed. No information I received led me to believe that Ms. Sailor had even made any enemies, let alone enemies who might want to kill her. Nonetheless, Ciccone elaborated on his belief, which upon reflection I shared, that Sailor was murdered in a manner that emphasized the crime.

“The Mafia did that, too, especially for squealers,” added Ciccone. Informers who were shot in the mouth, for example, were used to send a message to others who could potentially pose a problem in court. “It's an old sign that ‘You're not gonna talk.'” Although Ms. Sailor was not shot in her mouth, the wounds to her face were inflicted at close range, in a fashion most commonly associated with retribution or the desired effect of horror.

“Either she was the target, or they were trying to send a message to Donald,” Ciccone told me.

Mr. Goines was shot an identical number of times, but his face was unharmed. His body was displayed open-casket at Pope Funeral Home. A few of his novels were placed inside the burial casing. Holloway House later reproduced a gruesome-looking photo of his suited cadaver for next-edition covers of the first biography,
Donald Writes No More.
Most of the bullets that struck Mr. Goines went into his body, with one entering the head and another entering the neck. The presence of what are described as near-contact wounds, combined with the odd trajectory of the bullets in some places, suggests that Mr. Goines put forth a struggle. One chest wound in particular lends strength to the belief that he may have attempted, at one point, to rush the person pointing a pistol at him.