THE HANSLEYVILLE MURDER MYSTERY

THE HANSLEYVILLE MURDER MYSTERY

Hansleyville, Delaware’s location, with its strong link to the past is perfect for the manifestation of ‘Mystery.’

The dead body of Earl Hansley Aldridge was found on the grounds of his estate. How his death really occurred remains on the minds of everyone.

Looking back in time, then landlord Earl Hansley Aldridge promised a large reward for Roy Mills’ part in his bootleg operation. (The loyal tenant picked up a horse and wagon loaded with crates of alcohol coming in from Canada and Ireland and drove the illegal cargo to the shores of Delaware, where agents met him to take the bootleg liquor to Washington DC and other points). Earl Aldridge gave his tenant farmer Roy Mills 150 acres for his service during Prohibition. There is more to say that will explain such an extraordinary compensation. In truth Earl Hansley Aldridge rewarded Roy Mills so generously as a way of the landowner assuaging his guilt. As the man who’d dishonored another man’s innocent daughter, Earl Hansley Aldridge wanted protection from self-contempt and awkwardness over his reprehensible actions. And so he figured that he would compensate Roy and Hattie Mills generously to lessen the tightness of guilt. (Another thing, tenant farmer Roy Mills was someone with whom he certainly could find no fault, and had a decent amount of respect for). He could regain some of his honor as he was alleviating the struggles of the Mill’s family. Economically, the family could attain things they would never have been able to, going from poor to a much higher level. He found ways to excuse his miscreant criminal behavior using the idea that at least he contributed generously to the Mill’s family, something not commonly done. Earl Hansley Aldridge was comparing himself to other men, numbers of men, who illegitimately father children and do nothing about it. Concerning his offspring, when he saw Sarah, she was such a beautiful mixture of him and young Irma that he experienced a sense of pride as he furtively glanced at her. However he never felt compelled to let himself into her life. Anyway he told himself, she was growing up quite well under the auspices of her wonderful, caring grandparents, and didn’t need him in her life. Earl Hansley Aldridge had very important reasons-more than most- for keeping his name clean and clear, political ambition, he wanted to be the next Governor of the state of Delaware. And, he did just that.          

    “Irma, child, how did you get pregnant? Lord Jesus! Who did this to you? Your father and me have to know. Who did this?” Huge tears poured down Hattie Mills’ tired, anxious face. Roy Mills had tears welling up in his eyes, standing there in the living room, but seemingly his emotions were commanded by silence, he could say nothing. “You ain’t nothin’ but a child, barely thirteen. I just can’t believe somethin’ like this.” (A week earlier, Hattie had begun to notice that young Irma kept getting caught on things, everything she passed, the tail of her dress would catch it. “Eula Mae,” Hattie Mills worriedly said to her sister, “I hope my suspicions ain’t right. Irma just keeps catchin’ her dress tail. She don’t pass nothin’ that it don’t git caught.”)

    “Yeah, that’s a good sign a girl done got pregnant alright. But Hattie, you ain’t got no reason to think that about Irma. She ain’t nothin’ but a child. And she sure ain’t loose,’ Eula Mae Whitney had replied. “Did she even git her period yet?” Eula Mae, questioned her sister, to which Hattie dolefully answered ‘yes, she did.’

    “Mama, Daddy, I was raped. It happened one afternoon while I was on my way home from school.” Irma was sobbing so hard she wasn’t easy to understand. “I, I was raped by…a White man I never saw before. He stopped his pickup and pulled me in there and, and he raped me.”

    “Have mercy, Lord. What color was it? The truck I mean? Hattie grabbed hold of a kitchen chair she was standing near, to steady herself. Roy rushed to her side and took her by the arm, helping her in the chair. In the chair, Hattie began rocking back and forth and weeping. Roy rubbed her shoulders as she rocked. “Knowing what the man’s truck looked like ain’t gone help anything. Have mercy, Lord.” Roy said nothing, but his head had dropped and his tears fell to the worn linoleum. “God will help us. He’ll get us through this,” Hattie uttered through her sobbing.

****

“We Thank You, Lord for sending us this chile,” Hattie prayed, kneeling before her bed that evening after Irma had given birth to a healthy girl. A mid-wife had come to their house and delivered the child. Sarah Mills came screaming into the world on a rainy chilly night in November. The mid-wife whose name was Johnnie Mae, smiled, proud of her performance, “She sure is a pretty little thing. And, she’s more White than Black, ain’t she?” the remark directed to the smiling grandparents.

“She pretty alright, and she White too,” exclaimed Roy Mills, beaming with joy over his new infant granddaughter Sarah. Hattie just couldn’t stop grinning. Irma though in the bed where she’d just given birth, appeared stiff and detached to infant Sarah beside her. 

“Irma, what you doin’? That’s your baby…God blessed us, that’s our Sarah,” Hattie said in an almost pleading voice to her daughter Irma facing the wall, her back turned to her own child. Throughout the pregnancy, it had been the same with Irma, no interest, separated from what was growing inside of her. Hattie and the rest were hopeful that her emotions would change once the baby was born. Sadly, that did not happen.

Sarah was just three months old when Irma Mills decided to leave her infant daughter. Irma was never heard from again.

****

   Governor Earl Hansley Aldridge was doing his favorite thing to do at his homestead, riding one of his thoroughbreds on this a fine afternoon, in late autumn. When he felt a couple of raindrops he didn’t give it much thought for he was enjoying the wilderness of the Back Bay. He’d left the farm about an hour ago and come here for the marvelous solitude and natural wild beauty that still ranged over this secluded area just outside of Hansleyville. His horse he’d named Pride, and the surroundings made a perfect combination, it soothed the many things that perplexed the sixty-five-year-old Governor of the state of Delaware. Earl Hansley Aldridge had been Governor for two consecutive terms, serving his last. A loud blast, if you can imagine this, as might come from a ‘musket’ as the Governor was coming around a corner in the narrow road. He felt the horse and he tumbling down a steep embankment.  

Later that day, a hunter shooting fowl in the area discovered the dead body of the Governor. The Governor’s horse Pride had died of injuries and was alongside of him. That day just before he was on horseback as he so loved doing, Governor Aldridge mailed a letter, special delivery. The letter was addressed to Sarah Mills Thompson, his daughter.

“Dear Sarah, this letter is written with the understanding that you will be saved from ‘never’ knowing the identity of your father. I regret all of the years that I withheld such information from you or anyone. It happened, nevertheless. I, Governor Earl Hansley Aldridge would like to inform you that I am the person responsible, with your mother, Irma Mills, for your conception.

Please find it in your heart to forgive me”

 “Governor Earl Hansley Aldridge my father. This makes no sense. All of these years I thought Irma was the worst person in the world for abandoning me. She was molested, raped by a pillar of the community, and probably scared to tell Mama Hattie and Poppa Roy. They never knew the truth. Couldn’t they see that I looked a lot like those Hansley/Aldridges? I didn’t see it myself, why am I knocking them. It just occurred to me that I look like them. I feel so sorry for my mother. I wish I knew where Irma is.” Sarah broke down crying, her heart aching, her spirit lifted and dumped at the same time.

****

“Hey Bill. That bastard’s dead. I can tell the world now. I can see my chile, Sarah again,” Irma told her boyfriend, as she read a Delaware newspaper on the passenger side of the car. She wanted to read and reread the headline that said ‘Governor Earl Hansley Aldridge found dead in a ditch’.

“That’s something alright, Irma, I don’t know why you didn’t tell everything ‘fore now. You didn’t haveta wait ‘til that Son-of –a so and so was dead, to see Sarah again, and let the truth out.

 “Is this all we got left? I thought we’d brought three bottles. Bill, you musta killed one bottle by yourself.” Irma was taking out a bottle of liquor from the glove compartment. “Drive faster, Bill. I can’t wait ta see my baby. I wonder what she look like. Hem. When she was born, she looked just like those Hansley/Aldridges. I had tag it outta Hansleyville ‘cause I thought that one day somebody would look at Sarah and say, ‘you know what, that chile belong to the Aldridges.’ And what would I do? I mighta been tempted ta tell the truth, and that woulda meant that my daddy coulda lost everything. You know what I mean?” The two people continued along the highway leading to Hansleyville until their car crashed into a bridge rail, tossing both people into the dark waters of the Atlantic, where they lost their lives to drowning.

    The landscape produced quiet fields, farmland, pasture and woods. Restful countryside scattered with houses and bungalows and feeble displays of nurseries, markets and several churches also appeared. Corn was still parceled, but not in the broad way it was before Irma had left Hansleyville. Dickerson high school was now a college, and an agricultural museum had been built since she left. Much had changed. However, much had stayed the same.

The End