19.4 Thistledown

After lunch, Thomas Cyril took her to a private lounge attached to the master bedroom. There were two chaises placed on a thick rug. She sat down sideways and meticulously on the lounger. He came with a handful of albums.

Sidney Martin Cyril was a beautiful woman with strong European features; a soft white face, high cheekbones, a dominant forehead, almond-shaped green eyes, a straight nose, auburn hair in a sleek pompadour and a rare unprovoked smile. Her body shape of physical bone features, broad hips and long legs. These photographs exhibited her in a vintage look either sassy or sexy. Some clothed, some nude and some half-exposed. In this whole collection, it was mostly Sidney posing and Anton behind the camera.

Anton Cyril hid her in a duplex gable in Whiting. He bought her clothes and jewellery though not too many because she didn’t wear them. She usually appeared in a very ordinary style. Her clothes tight fitting in the bodice and so in her nursing dress.

She lived a silent life, a soft-spoken woman who never complained over anything. Physically strong and emotionally weak. She could even survive on biscuits and water. Sidney was a kind woman for the neighbours and as a nurse always ready to help on a call. Though she’d only call two women for a dialogue; Cindy Lockwood and Laura Hudson.

Savon Martin grew up to be a little unruly and at some point, she lost affection. She found it easier to talk with Noth, that too in few words and mostly in keeping his company. And always, unquestionably, she loved him. However, she was a strange kind of woman who couldn’t show it. In their whole relationship, Anton never heard that word ‘love’ from her mouth. And for this reason, she mentioned to nobody who Noth’s father was. There never was a ‘Wellinois’. Nobody could make her talk if she did not want to.

She loved to drive the white vette and the Bronco for fishing excursions.

Wolf Lake was a shallow glacial lake situated in a wetland area, maximum depth of 15 feet and an average depth of 5 feet. Its fishery had developed into a haven for anglers to find some quiet time away from the urbanised vicinity.

Sidney grew her skills in fishing while living near Lake Norman in Cornelius, NC. She discovered Wolf Lake when she came to live in Whiting and enjoyed fishing. In Wolf Lake, the surrounding remained quiet and hardly a soul in sight.

In a couple of pictures, she sat squat beside the lake on the berm of grass, wearing a Gothic purple corset dress knotted on the midriff, in knee-length rubber boots and a bright red underwear. Her legs appeared painfully thin from the side pose. A square scarf wrapped her hair, she sat feeding the fish with bread crumbs.

There appeared a man with bowl cut black hair, his hands in the jacket. “Hello!” he negotiated, “Don’t you feel cold out here? You’re fishing?” And she nodded with an unprovoked smile. “What kind of fish you catch?” She said nothing. She didn’t even move slightly. “Bluegills and Smallmouth…basses…”

A black guy reached from behind and grabbed her by the biceps. She straightened up on her feet, dress knotted on the midriff, her smile provoked. She tried to stand on one leg and the other, trying to undo his force. He began to push her forward to the water. The other guy grabbed her coat by the lapels and threw her down into the freezing cold water. The black guy jumped on top of her, seized her shoulders and dipped her body in water. She was no longer smiling. Her eyes shut and a squeezed face trying to hold her breath. The white guy was in water too, holding her limbs.

In ten inches of freezing cold water, she held her breath until she reached the breaking point. It triggered a gasping response intaking a lungful of water running thin over her face. She opened her eyes, shaking her head and then she suffocated. She lost it. Ultimately drowned. There was no movement in her body. She lay beneath the water inches below the surface.

Paul and George scampered to the ground. They were shivering from cold. “Let’s do it!” incensed Paul.

He ran to the silver Ford Bronco and rolled it up to the water’s edge. They put the body into the passenger seat, other stuff into the back of the pickup. George got into the driver’s seat and drove to high ground. Paul ran to collect his rented car; a red Oldsmobile Cutlass.

They drove in city streets, passing Robertsdale on Brown Avenue, heading north. The Oldsmobile rolling ahead of the truck to show direction. In twenty minutes, two vehicles moved south towards the narrow West Trail, two vehicles couldn’t move side by side down the path. A row of feeder poles and power cables ran above across the lake.

The vehicles stopped somewhere in the middle of the trail. Without wasting time, George and Paul placed the dead body in the driver’s seat. George hanging on the door stepped on gas. The silver Bronco flew over the edge into freezing cold water with George dangling on. George waded back to the shore. In ten feet water, the truck did not fully submerge but the frosty environment obscured a sight. Paul and George hastily climbed the Oldsmobile and drove away.

Those were the clothes she wore on that fateful day; 6^th November 1982. Additionally, she wore a winter jacket and there was ice in the water, snow on the grass.

FBI found that Paul and George flew from Baton Rouge to Chicago on American in October and returned on 15^th November 1982. Again, in 1983, Paul and George returned from Chicago to Baton Rouge on 30^th November by American.

Further, Mother Nature helped that night. On 6^th November, high water levels in Lake Michigan affected the inland lakes to flood, resulting to affect negatively on residents, homes, septic systems, farms and roads. Wolf Lake flooded and the narrow trail submerged into water. Wheel marks were there on the verge but this spectacle caused them to believe she swept off the road at the helm and drowned in the driver seat. If they even looked at the direction she was going, she never had to drive that way on the trail for angling. But that was not even a point to think about.

Seeing another photograph, Natalia exclaimed, “Wow! That’s where it belongs!”

“What?” uttered Thomas Cyril.

“This mask and purple lingerie she’s wearing in this photograph were in the camera case. I did not know where they came from. They are with me now. I forgot to return.”

“How did it end there?”

“Good question.”

A long day with Thomas Avon Cyril at his villa on Trailwood Drive came to end. She picked her bag and stepped out into a sublime sunlight riddling through the young leaves on the springing branches. Natalia climbed the waiting cab and arrived at Cameron Park B&B.