Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  Rosen drove the now familiar five-minute journey back to Here’s How. He stopped at a service station and, while the attendant filled the tank, called the police as a “concerned citizen” to tell them of Aadams’s murder. He arrived at the bar about four-thirty.

  A few customers sat on stools chatting with the owner, who leaned against the cash register. Rosen stayed by the stairway near the door and motioned to the owner, who hurried over.

  The old man blinked nervously. “I thought you was done here.”

  “Almost. Do you know if Hec Perry’s in his room?”

  “Think so. Saw him go up a little while after you left. Ain’t you finished with the boy yet?”

  “Almost.”

  As Rosen walked up the dark stairway, he couldn’t help wincing, not only from pain, but with the memory of what Aadams had done to him there. Were his bloodstains on the banister and threadbare carpeting? He hurried up the stairs and down the corridor to Perry’s room. The door was ajar.

  Hec Perry sat by the window and appeared to be asleep. He wore a torn plaid shirt with the left sleeve rolled up. His dulcimer and an open suitcase stuffed with clothes lay on the bed. Rosen sat near the pillow. On the night table, beside the whiskey bottle, were a needle, an empty syringe, a piece of rubber tubing, and a small plastic bag. Perry’s naked forearm, mostly bone, showed a fresh needle mark.

  Genesis said that man was made in God’s image. Seeing how Perry had ravaged his own body, Rosen grew disgusted. It was more than a waste; it was a sin, the same as when the Temple had been desecrated. Looking away in contempt, he noticed the dulcimer and remembered how Perry had played his strings with the same sweet longing as David’s lyre. There was still something holy in the musician, as there was in all men—even the detective Aadams.

  Rosen’s hand could almost reach around Perry’s biceps. He gently shook the other man. It took a few seconds before Perry’s eyes focused on him.

  “Oh, it’s the lawyer. Sorry, no concert today. I don’t feel like playing.”

  “How about singing?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Talk to me. Claire came by earlier and gave you money. Does she know you use it to feed your habit?”

  “Claire’s a good friend.”

  “What about you—are you a good friend? You know, she’s in big trouble.”

  “Is she?”

  “She’s being blackmailed, and I think you know why.”

  Perry reached for the whiskey bottle, but his trembling hand almost knocked it over.

  “Let me.” Rosen poured a stiff drink, which the musician brought to his lips with both hands. “Aadams, the big man who was here the other day, has been blackmailing Claire. Why?”

  Finishing the drink, Perry peered into the bottom of the glass. “Why don’t you ask Aadams?”

  “He’s dead. Murdered.”

  At first Rosen’s remark didn’t seem to register. Suddenly, Perry threw back his head and stared at the bed. Struggling to his feet, he put the drug paraphernalia into the suitcase and closed it.

  Rosen asked, “Don’t you want to know how Aadams was killed?”

  “No.”

  “Someone stuck a knife into his gut. The blood must’ve gushed out like an oil well.”

  “T-told you, I’m not interested.”

  When Perry tried to lift the suitcase, Rosen grabbed his wrist, which he could’ve snapped as easily as a wishbone.

  “Where’re you going?”

  The musician tried to pull away. “I got a gig out of town.”

  “Where?”

  “In . . . Knoxville.”

  “You’re lying. You’re afraid of somebody. Afraid you’ll end up dead like Aadams. Like Claire’s husband.”

  Perry shivered violently. “Let me go, mister. I can’t tell you nothing.”

  “Not even to help Claire?”

  Using both hands, Perry twisted free. “Because I want to help Claire.” He dragged his suitcase to the floor. Its weight almost knocked him down.

  Rosen thought about what the bar owner had said; Perry had been out earlier that afternoon. Could he have helped Claire by killing the detective? No, the musician could barely hold a knife, let alone drive it into the gut of a man as powerful as Aadams, even if he’d been drunk. But there was another possibility.

  Rosen said, “Claire’s pregnant.”

  “Yeah, she told me.”

  “Are you the father?”

  Perry laughed so hard his brittle bones almost shattered. “Me and Claire, we were never that way.” He lifted the dulcimer in his other hand. “‘A damsel with a dulcimer in a vision once I saw. It was an Abyssinian maid, and on her dulcimer she played.’ Like I told you the other day, ask the Abyssinian maid.”

  “Claire?”

  Their eyes locked for a moment, then Perry bolted for the door. It would’ve been easy to stop him, but Rosen let the other man leave, his suitcase banging against the hallway wall. Perry wouldn’t talk, not while he thought he was somehow protecting Claire. Maybe staying in town put him in the same danger as Aadams—better he go away for a while.

  He’d be back soon. Heroin was a bad habit, and Claire gave Perry something that meant much more to him than friendship. She gave him money.

  Chapter Eighteen

  tuesday morning

  Holding the Federal Express envelope in both hands, Jesse stood over the bed and glanced at the clock. 10:07. His hand reached down to wake his friend, then hesitated. Enough light seeped around the shade to reveal how badly Rosen’s face had been bruised. He probably needed as much rest as possible. Laying the envelope on the night table, Jesse slowly backed away.

  He hesitated at the doorway, as Rosen stirred, then settled back into his pillow. Jesse had been home all yesterday reading the Bible when, late in the afternoon, his friend walked stiffly into the house. He’d refused to discuss the beating he’d taken and, struggling upstairs to his bed, fell asleep with his clothes on.

  Jesse wanted to learn what had happened yesterday and to apologize for not being there to help. He was responsible for his friend. All along Rosen had known why he’d really been asked to Earlyville—not for the serpent-handling case, but to help Jesse win Bathsheba. However, things were getting out of hand—Ben Hobbes and Lemuel Banks murdered, and now this. He should’ve been with his friend, yet Rosen would understand why he hadn’t come; that was another reason why they needed to talk. In law school, no matter how late at night, Rosen would sip his tea and listen. Slow to judge . . . always listened. They were both outsiders; they’d always had that in common.

  Walking into his study, Jesse sat at his desk and took the Bible from where it lay beside an unopened package of cigarettes. Cigarettes he might never smoke again, just as he might never again drink or take the Lord’s name in vain. The nicotine cravings were bad, but so far he’d resisted for nearly two days.

  He opened to the verses from St. John he’d reread several times that morning: “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.” Then Jesus “. . . spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Si-lo-am. He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.”

  Jesse leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes. He’d been like that all his life, stumbling through the world as blind as a man selling pencils on the street corner. Whatever his parents had considered important—money, power, and, above all, adding luster to the Compton name—he’d been unable to attain. At the courthouse, that statue of the Confederate soldier, his great-granddaddy and the first “great” Compton, seemed always to have pointed his rifle at Jesse’s back, prodding him to be like his father. Something he never could . . . never wanted to be.

  “He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.”

  Sunday had changed everything. He turned to Acts and read about Saul of Tarsus being struck blind while on his way to threaten Jesus’ disciples, and how God
’s love had restored his sight. Jesse had been worse than Saul. Instead of cursing the Lord in anger, he’d played the dispassionate social scientist, examining God’s church as if it were a colony of ants.

  But Sunday changed everything, just as the light from heaven shining upon Saul had changed his life forever. Feeling the power seize him, Jesse had taken up serpents without fear, because he knew, the same as God whispering in his ear, that he’d be safe. He just wanted to be sure the feeling was real, that for him the glory was truly everlasting.

  Running a hand over the Bible, Jesse thought of Saul, a Jew who had mocked Jesus. Maybe Rosen wouldn’t understand after all. Rosen had been religious, but that had been a long time ago. “A lifetime ago,” as he used to say. And the faith in which Rosen had been raised . . . maybe he wouldn’t understand. Jesse reopened the book to Acts and continued reading.

  The doorbell startled him. Glancing at his watch, Jesse realized he’d been reading for almost an hour. The bell rang again. Usually people just walked into the popular culture center. Sighing, he walked downstairs and opened the front door. His hand froze on the knob.

  “Good mornin’, Brother Jesse.”

  Gideon McCrae stood in the doorway. He was dressed in his work clothes, shirt buttoned to the top, with traces of sawdust on his collar and shoulders. He held a Bible with a worn leather cover.

  “I come at a bad time?”

  “Why, no.”

  “’Cause I was able t’get away from the factory. Almost lunch and all. Sheba told me you lived at the college, but it sure is a bigger place than I thought. Had t’ask a few folks how t’get here.”

  Bathsheba. Had Reverend McCrae come to talk about his daughter? Had Jesse done something wrong, in some way offended him? McCrae neither smiled nor frowned, just waited patiently.

  “I can come in, then?”

  “I’m sorry, of course.”

  After entering the hallway, McCrae looked into the center’s work area.

  Jesse asked, “Would you like to see what we do here?”

  “If it’s no trouble.”

  While Jesse waited by the worktable, McCrae slowly walked around the room’s perimeter—eyes taking in everything, hands touching nothing. He lingered over some of the old records and the music posters on the wall. Reaching Jesse, he measured himself a small smile.

  “I remember some a’ them folks back in West Virginia—Pete Whitley, the Granger brothers. Ain’t heard ’em in years.”

  “That’s the purpose of the popular culture center, to preserve our Southern heritage. Without this program, a great deal of our stories, music, and art would be lost forever.”

  “Course, that was in my cuttin’-up days, when I danced ’n’ sinned before findin’ the Lord.”

  Jesse’s face grew warm. Had he offended the Reverend?

  “Sheba said you’re doin’ some writin’ on our church. Said that’s how you ’n’ she met up.”

  “That’s right.”

  Jesse glanced down at the table. A file of his notes on McCrae’s church lay near a tape recorder, where some of them had been transcribed. Before Sunday, he would’ve been happy to show the Reverend what he’d accomplished, even ask for an interview. Now he was ashamed. Not of what he’d written—the notes were an honest representation of the church’s views, but they’d been written by an unbeliever. The man he used to be, before Sunday, was now a stranger.

  McCrae said, “So you’ve been wantin’ t’know the Lord.”

  “Yes, but it didn’t begin that way. I was simply doing research for a book on Southern religion. To be honest, I didn’t plan for it to happen.”

  “Ain’t none of us able t’pick the time or place or way we meet the Lord. That’s what I come t’talk about. I figgered you might need somebody t’set ’n’ talk.”

  “Oh yes, if you would.”

  “Well, then, here? We could clear a piece . . .”

  “No. One of my students might interrupt. Let’s go into my office. We’ll be more comfortable there anyway.”

  Climbing upstairs, Jesse wondered if McCrae could smell the tobacco that, over the years, had permeated the wooden balustrade and doors. He should’ve put his cigarettes away; what would the other man think? He hurried ahead and slipped the pack inside a drawer just as McCrae entered the room. The Reverend ran a hand over one of the two rocking chairs.

  “This here’s a Hobbes rocker. Made some of them myself. Ain’t no prettier piece a’ work than one of these.”

  “Please sit down. Unless you’d rather take the chair by the computer?”

  “No, thank you.” He rocked slowly, hands folded over the Good Book.

  Sitting beside his desk, Jesse fingered his own Bible. He didn’t know what to say, so he asked, “You enjoy working at the furniture factory?”

  “Always liked workin’ with my hands. Makin’ somethin’ useful from a piece a’ wood gives a man real satisfaction.”

  “I’m a little surprised that Simon Hobbes let you remain at the factory. I mean, after his brother’s death and the way he feels about the church.”

  McCrae’s rocking chair slowly came to a halt. “I just come every day ’n’ do my job. Ain’t run into Mr. Hobbes. Seen his wife, Miss Ruth, plenty a’ times. She just nods and goes about her business.”

  “Maybe Claire’s insisted that you stay on. You know, she’s pregnant, and Ben’s will gives her the right to half the company. Nate Rosen says—”

  He stopped suddenly. He shouldn’t be talking about the case. After all, Rosen believed that the church was somehow involved, and with Reverend McCrae its leader . . . He shook his head and almost laughed aloud. Why was he talking to McCrae as a lawyer and not a fellow Christian?

  “I’m sorry, Reverend.”

  “For what?”

  “For a lot of things, I guess. Maybe for my whole life. As a child, I used to pass a pumpkin patch on the way to school. I’d see those pumpkins grow big and firm, then be harvested just in time for Halloween. There’d always be a few left behind. They’d grow bigger for a spell, then slowly soften until they collapsed into a rotting pile. Seed planted, grown the same as the others but, in the end, good for nothing. I feel that’s been my life.”

  Jesse looked down at his Bible, ashamed of his weakness, but he felt the power of McCrae’s eyes like a magnet. The Reverend’s face was set tight, and his brow furrowed. But those eyes, eyes that could blaze with the righteous anger of the Lord, were soft. The words were also soft.

  “I know what’s been goin’ through your mind, Brother. That’s why I gave you a day t’yourself before comin’ here. The same kinda thoughts that goes through all that’s found the Lord. Thoughts like, ‘Did I really feel His power?’ That’s been troublin’ you, ain’t it?”

  Jesse swallowed hard but could only nod.

  “You ask yourself, ‘Did it really happen?’ That’s a question, ain’t it?” He lifted the Bible for a moment. “As holy a book as this is, it ain’t gonna tell you. Sure, the power’s in the Word, but it don’t come to you by readin’.”

  “Then how?”

  “No man can tell another what you wanna know. One a’ my cousins married a Catholic gal. They had a mass before the wedding. The priest was all dressed up special, like it was a party for God and only he was invited. He’d talk to the Lord, then tell everybody what they was talkin’ about. That ain’t the way it works. No feller can come between you ’n’ the Lord.”

  “But how do you know?”

  McCrae smiled. “‘Reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and don’t be faithless, but believing.’ That’s what Jesus, after bein’ resurrected, said to Doubtin’ Thomas. ‘Because thou’s seen me, thou believes. Blessed are them that haven’t seen but believe.’ Brother Jesse, what does the Lord have t’do t’make you believe?”

  “Is it that you . . . feel different?”

  As soon as he’d asked the question, Jesse was sorry. Maybe his questioning showed he also doubted too strongly and that those
doubts proved everything was false. However, Reverend McCrae seemed to expect the questions, like a parent patiently explaining something puzzling to his little boy.

  “Course you feel different. That’s how you know. Sometimes it turns you right around, like a tornado hittin’ you broadside. That’s what happened to me. Changed my wicked ways, praise Jesus. Sometimes it’s real quiet-like. I think maybe that happened to you. Deep down inside you surely do know.”

  “So you think . . .?” Jesse hesitated, then, for a moment, closed his eyes. He saw Bathsheba handing him the rattlesnake, remembered what it was like taking it from her. How he’d felt, not fear, but a joy so powerful, drowning and lifting at the same time. “Yes, I know, Reverend. I do know.”

  “I believe you do.”

  Jesse should’ve been heartened by McCrae’s words; for the past two days that’s all he’d wanted to hear. But something about the way the other man’s eyes narrowed troubled him.

  As McCrae shifted in his chair, the Bible almost slipped from his hands. “Your friend, Mr. Rosen, I got a strong feelin’ he’s a good man.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “Bein’ a good man ain’t enough for the Lord’s salvation. ‘He that believeth shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.’ You know that’s what the Lord says.”

  Jesse said, “Nate’s my friend.”

  “Your friend but not your brother.”

  Jesse’s hand drummed nervously upon the desk. “What is it you want me to do—disassociate myself from Nate? That would be pretty hard to do. After all, I invited him here to represent you, and now he’s defending Claire Hobbes against a murder charge. I wouldn’t be able to handle things on my own. We all need Nate’s help, if Claire’s going to be—”

  “Now, don’t go worryin’ yourself. I’d have t’get over Fool’s Hill before sayin’ good-bye to as smart a feller as Mr. Rosen. It’s just, best remember who your family is. I mean your new family.”

  What did he mean? Jesse could only shrug helplessly.

  McCrae suddenly clapped his hands together, like his cousin, Popper Johnston. “Ever hear two old sisters go at it? First one says some little thing like, ‘That was a sorry excuse of a peach cobbler you made for the church social.’ The other one replies, ‘At least my husband kept his eyes off all them pretty young things.’ Pretty soon they’s goin’ at it like a moonshine war, tellin’ Lord knows what kinda tales ’bout their family for the whole world t’hear. Lawyers is like that. They start diggin’ into something, like your friend Mr. Rosen’s doin’ right now with Sister Claire, and pretty soon lots a’ things come out. Things best left alone.”