The Souls of Clayhatchee by Anthony Carlisle

Author:Anthony Carlisle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: african american fiction, african american authors, black authors, mystery and detective, african american urban fiction, racism fiction, fiction about the south
Publisher: Hidden Shelf Publishing House

Chapter Twelve

Who would want to kill the ghost? Who wouldn't want to kill him? Red Mansfield did a lot of dirt through the years. But that was years ago. Most of the Black folks he antagonized were dead or too old to remember, too old to care. For those my age, he was the bogeyman—a reminder of the past when Blacks lowered their eyes in the presence of white people. I needed to talk to someone who knew the ghost when he was flesh and blood and all hell. But first I needed some background information. It was time to do some reporting.

I started by going to Clayhatchee's county clerk and found out that Red Mansfield had numerous run-ins with the law—public drunkenness, lewd behavior, assault. Red was a rich man, but he lived and acted like poor white trash. Most of his acts involved Black women, although he was arrested in 1946 for attacking Delores Tibit, a white woman. Tibit might as well have been Black; white trash as many folks would have called her then. She was easy prey for Mansfield, who never seemed to get into any real trouble with the law. Quite possibly, his money and connections were getting him out of a lot of scrapes, even with a white woman.

I followed with a trip to the library so I could log onto the internet to find out more information on Mansfield. Many of his arrests were reported in the local newspaper, but generic such as this one dated Oct. 6, 1944—"Red Mansfield arrested for misconduct involving a colored girl." In fact, the only time, Red was in any danger of going to jail was when he was arrested and set to go on trial for the Tibit attack. It didn't take long, however, for the jury to exonerate Red. In the newspaper clipping, dated May 1, 1946, there was a picture of a smiling Red coming out of the courthouse. There was another picture of Red Mansfield smiling as well, just six months later. He was coming out of a church with his new bride, the socialite Victoria LeBeuth. Her daddy had owned Stockdale Insurance Company.

When I had asked Aunt Dee about Red Mansfield’s wife, she answered, “Miss Victoria… now, dat was a good woman. Gawd bless her soul.”

I wondered why the LeBeuths would give their only daughter, the cream of southern white womanhood, to the likes of Red Mansfield. Of all the eligible men, they chose a serial rapist, or at the very least, a serial abuser of women, for their daughter to share a bed with for the rest of her life.

There was more to the story.

After some more digging, I found that Victoria's father—Theodore LeBeuth—had been a successful businessman whose family had left the slave and cotton business. The LeBeuths built a fortune with investments. However, when the stock market crashed in 1929, the family's fortune went with it. Although Theodore pulled his family from the ashes of the Great Depression, his wealth was never the same.

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