A Minister's Ghost: A Fever Devilin Mystery

by Phillip DePoy

  At long last Levi stood and poured the contents of the mortar into the bottom of the French press. He reached for the kettle, poured in the steaming water, and rested the plunger of the press at the top of the glass cylinder.

  “Let it sit,” he said with a nod.

  He replaced the kettle on the stove, sat down, folded his hands as if he might pray, and looked down at the open Bible on the tabletop.

  “Now,” he began, his voice taking on the diction and demeanor of his sermons. “The man you seek has been by this way.”

  Orvid almost fell out of his seat, and I made some sort of surprised noise that didn’t sound human.

  “He said he was a wandering preacher,” Levi continued, apparently oblivious to our response. “Used to happen a lot in the old days. My daddy and granddaddy was preachers in this same church, New Hope, and when I was a sprite, they’d come by this way all the time. Great men of God, burned by hot sun; shivered to the bone by hellish ice on the mountaintops. They would tell of a wide world, a terrifying place filled with devilment and decay. And one by one that world gobbled up those men, and they were gone. I missed them, near as much as I missed my kin when they passed. But this man tonight, I could see the vapor in his eyes. He was not a creature of this earth. I made myself invisible to him, and the demon passed though this place without doing harm.”

  Orvid looked over at me, helpless.

  I did my best to nod reassuringly, then turned my full attention to Preacher Levi.

  “A man visited you tonight.” I chose my words and tone of voice carefully.

  “Did.” Levi didn’t look up.

  “He was dressed in black,” I continued, almost in monotone, “white hair, grizzled, early sixties.”

  “That’s him.”

  “What did he want,” I said quietly, “do you mind my asking?”

  “Said he wanted shelter from the storm,” Levi answered grimly. “But you could see he was a creature untouched by wind nor rain. His eyes was blank. No soul in him. A wandering sheaf.”

  “You were lucky to get rid of it.” I leaned in a little closer.

  “I was that,” he agreed, a little more heartily than he had been speaking.

  “How did you do it?”

  “I vanished,” Levi repeated simply. “I was gone from this place. And the demon passed through without doing harm.”

  “Where did you go when you vanished?” I was careful not to sound overly interested.

  “Beulah Land,” he said, as if it should have been obvious. “Where all my words come from. All my silence goes.”

  “Yes,” I said, quickly agreeing. “And when you came back, when you appeared again, the other preacher was gone.”

  “Was.”

  “Do you know how long it all took?” I ventured.

  “A thousand years are but the blinking of His eye,” Levi muttered.

  “I understand.” I looked at the French press. “That’s a very nice coffeemaker.”

  Orvid’s head twitched. He could not believe I was changing the subject.

  “Makes good coffee,” Levi agreed.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “It was a gift,” he said uncomfortably.

  “I understand,” I assured him. “Is the coffee ready?”

  Levi looked up, gave the press a perfunctory examination, and pushed the plunger down without another word.

  He stood, fetched three spotless white coffee mugs. He poured Orvid’s first, turned the mug around three times, and slid it across the wooden tabletop toward Orvid, handle directly toward him. I got the same treatment. Then Levi poured his own cup last.

  “Don’t keep sugar,” Levi told us, “but I got some sourwood honey that’s good.”

  “I’d love some,” I said.

  Orvid merely shook his head.

  Levi went to the trunk at the foot of his bed, reached in, came back with an unopened mason jar filled with dark amber honey. He pulled a teaspoon from the dish drainer beside his sink and handed the honey and spoon to me.

  “Honey’s a present too,” he explained. “I ain’t had none.”

  “Thank you.”

  We sat for a moment. I mixed the honey into my coffee, Orvid sipped his, Levi stared blankly.

  “I know it’s late for you,” I said to Levi, setting my spoon down on the table.

  “It is.”

  Levi stood, took my spoon away, fetched a dish towel, wiped the place where I’d laid the spoon, examined the spot, wiped again.

  “But I won’t sleep this night,” he continued once he was satisfied with his cleaning work.

  “I understand. I’ve met the man who was here tonight. He frightens me too.”

  Levi laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. It was a noise filled with rebuke.

  “I have no fear of the demon,” Levi said, his voice rising. “I shun sleep tonight in case of his return. I cannot have him soil this place, the home and place of worship of my congregation and my family. I stand a sentinel.”

  “And we’re disturbing you,” I said hurriedly.

  I gulped my coffee, burned my tongue, and urged Orvid to do the same. Orvid’s eyes were filled with questions, but I admired his trust in my instincts.

  Levi stood, ready to see us out.

  “I believe that the man will not return,” I said, taking my cup to Levi’s sink. “You sent him away. He’s gone.”

  “When he come in my door, the sun was just set.” Levi’s voice had calmed. “When he left, it was dark like now.”

  “Thank you,” I said, not looking at him.

  Levi went to the door, opened it, looked down. Orvid got out quickly. I lingered in front of Levi a moment.

  “Will I see you again?” I asked.

  It was a ritual parting, I’d done it with Levi several times before. I wasn’t prepared for what happened.

  His head shot up and his eyes pierced mine. His gaze locked me into my place as surely as if I had been bound by iron. He probed every corner of my being with an overwhelming stare, and I felt a sting of electric shock across my face and down my arms.

  “Yes,” he pronounced finally. “But time will pass, and we will be older.”

  He looked down again, and I took a small step backward unsteadily.

  “Good-bye, Preacher Levi,” I managed.

  “Doctor,” he whispered.

  As soon as I got out, the door closed silently behind me.

  Rain washed my face.

  Orvid couldn’t contain himself long enough to make it to my truck.

  “What the hell was that?” he whispered under his breath, more amused than anything else.

  “You mean his prediction when I left?” I whispered back. “Wasn’t that something?”

  “I mean the whole thing,” Orvid answered. “What is that guy?”

  “Get in the truck,” I insisted.

  We climbed into my truck, soaked.

  I was backing out onto the road that led to the highway before Orvid tried again.

  “All right,” he declared, “let’s start with the basics. What’s wrong with the man?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him,” I explained as we drove out onto the highway. “He’s a fourth- or fifth-generation preacher in the same church as his father and grandfather, he’s never touched a woman, and he regularly drinks poison and handles rattlesnakes. These are things that are bound to make a person colorful, but other than that, he’s perfectly normal.”

  “Like you or me.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Your definition of the word normal is so broad, I see now,” he accused, “as to render the word meaningless when you say it. I therefore reject his normalcy in favor of my opinion: that he is a loon.”

  “Really,” I shot back. “The guy’s been bitten a hundred times by snakes that would kill you or me.”

  “That makes it worse,” Orvid insisted. “He’s seriously abnormal.”

  “And he lives in that sparse trailer because all the money
he gets in his collection plate is given away to people in this community who need it, sick people, old, hungry children. I’d say we could use a few more abnormal citizens of his type. I mean in the world.”

  “Well,” Orvid responded, somewhat meeker, “I’ll give you that.”

  “And P.S.,” I pressed, “he saw Hiram Frazier and recognized him for what he was.”

  “He thought Hiram Frazier was a demon,” Orvid said, back to his incredulity.

  “Do you think that’s incorrect?” I asked, pulse increasing. “Let me tell you that most folk motifs are based on hyperbolic observation. I would say that a phrase like demonic possession is just another way of saying irresistible compulsion or dissociative behavior. Since language is only a system of symbols trying to explain observations, I’d say that calling Hiram Frazier a demon is more accurate than calling him schizophrenic. I know you agree with me to some extent because when I first met you, your choice was to make a very theatrical entrance based on the folklore of your stature. A little person is just a little person until hyperbole makes him supernatural, with extrahuman attributes. Unless you actually do live under a hill and forge miraculous iron.”

  Rain pelted the truck as we headed west.

  “Are you finished?” Orvid said after a moment.

  “I think so,” I told him, pulse slowing.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little odd that we decide to visit Preacher Levi and, mirabile dictu, the man we’re after has been to visit only a few minutes or hours earlier?”

  “I have a theory,” I announced.

  “I can’t wait.”

  “I believe that Hiram Frazier wants to be caught. I think he’s deliberately leaving us a trail.”

  Orvid sighed.

  “That old chestnut,” he said, shaking his head. “Cheap police psychology. The criminal always wants to be apprehended.”

  “No, I think it’s deeper than that with Frazier. I think he wants something more than apprehension. He wants release, and he’s somehow gotten the idea that I can give it to him.”

  “Wait,” Orvid said, deliberately taking in a deep breath. “What on earth makes you think that?”

  “He thinks we’re kindred spirits,” I offered uncomfortably. “Brothers.”

  “Why?” Orvid was clearly baffled.

  “He’s the dark matter, I’m the light matter. Equal opposites.”

  “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Frazier’s looking for something. And he’s looking everywhere. Didn’t it occur to you that Frazier and Preacher Levi are potentially kindred? With one or two shifts in the hazard of life’s events, one could be the other.”

  “There but for fortune.” Orvid nodded.

  “Right.”

  “Let’s start over.” Orvid’s voice changed again, this time all business. “Several things about Preacher Levi, do you mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  “First, then. He had a cross with a snake on it. Isn’t that a satanic symbol?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said firmly. “Jesus tells us in John three:fourteen. ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.’ The goldsmith Hieronymus Magdeburger created a series of coins in the sixteenth century called the Serpent Lifted Up with Jesus crucified on one side, and a serpent twining the cross on the other. And in a fifteenth-century painting by Piero di Cosimo called St. John the Evangelist, St. John is blessing a Communion cup that holds a coiled snake. This kind of iconography abounds.”

  “Fine. Dr. Know-it-all.” Orvid cleared his throat. “What about the fact that you insisted on leaving just as Preacher Levi began revealing that our quarry had been in his trailer?”

  “Preacher Levi was in the middle of a trance-prayer when we barged in on him. I’ve seen it before. That’s the reason he seemed sullen, or vague. He was barely conscious. He was really anxious to get back to his altered state. It was hard for him to move, talk to us, wash a spoon.”

  “All right, I give up.” Orvid was doing his best to take it all in. “So explain the fact that the man doesn’t seem to have electricity but does possess a very chic coffee press.”

  “Most of the things that Levi has,” I said, smiling, “are gifts from parishioners. Some of them are things he can give away, but some are given to him in such a way as to make him obliged to use them. I don’t understand his rules concerning which is which, but I’ve observed in previous meetings with him that some of these things, though they embarrass or inconvenience him, absolutely must be used in the course of his daily life. The French press was obviously one of those things. He does have electricity in the trailer, by the way. He just doesn’t like to use it.”

  Orvid stared out the window for a moment, watching a landscape drenched in black and green fly by.

  “And you somehow have the idea that Frazier is leaving us a trail?” he finally asked. “You’re pretty sure?”

  I looked at him for a second, admiring the way he had obviously assimilated the information I’d given him, made judgments, and arrived at conclusions.

  “I am.”

  “Then we’re on the right path, I suppose.” Orvid laid his head back. “Do you still want to stop at the Dillard House?”

  “I’m still hungry, but I think it would be best to stay on the road now. Hiram Frazier’s in Adairsville.”

  Orvid laughed.

  “Already?” he asked. “Did he fly?”

  “I’m serious.” I stared at the black highway. “I have a feeling about it. He’s there now.”

  I didn’t want to tell Orvid about the visceral tug in my chest, a part of my solar plexus that seemed drawn to something darker than night. I didn’t want to admit to myself that it might have been Hiram Frazier calling me.

  I don’t know if Orvid thought that the sound of my voice was convincing enough, or if he finally decided that I was out of my mind.

  Either way, he didn’t say another word.

  I drove fast. He closed his eyes, appeared to sleep until we were all the way to the outskirts of Adairsville, and the moon was at the top of a gray, gravel sky.

  Sixteen

  The streets leading to the historic downtown section of Adairsville were empty; everyone was asleep. Though the moon was barely visible behind charcoal clouds, light rain laid a shroud over everything, obscuring light and softening shadows. I had no desire to look at my watch; I thought it must be past one o’clock in the morning.

  “Frazier seems to follow the rail lines,” I said sleepily, hoping to rouse Orvid. “I believe he’s been a train hopper for some time, so he would know that the tracks lead to Adairsville. It’s a famous station, the beginning site of a great Civil War train chase. In some ways it’s the mother of Georgia train stations, especially to old-timers. And it’s on the way to Chattanooga, which would send Frazier toward Pistol Creek, his home.”

  “He’s not really going home,” Orvid said to me, stirring.

  “No,” I countered a little impatiently, “he’s headed in that direction so it will be easy to follow. Easy for me.”

  “Oh, for Christ sake,” Orvid muttered.

  “Somewhere in what’s left of Frazier’s mind is a realization of what he’s done. Maybe there’s enough preacher still left in him to force him to stand up to what he’s done.”

  “I reject that. There’s nothing human left in the guy. I know these people. They’ve burned out anything worthwhile with a careless combination of drugs, alcohol, and a complete lack of accountability.”

  “I see.” I made my voice as cold as I could. “Well, if I were in their shoes, I would hope for a more charitable assessment of my situation.”

  “Not every wandering spirit is a romantic figure, Doctor,” Orvid said, his voice hissing. “Mostly they’re criminals and mental patients, you understand that.”

  I slowed the truck.

  “I understand that we disagree about this.” I shot him a look. “But you and I both believe that he’s
here, or headed this way. It was your idea to come here in the first place, remember?”

  “Frazier would follow the rails.” Orvid shrugged. “And the fact is that he probably did tell the guys at the trestle in Pine City that he was going to Adairsville. We didn’t give them time to think up a good lie, these guys are always slow on the uptake.”

  “Then why are you arguing with me about his being here?”

  “I just don’t see how he would have gotten here this quickly.”

  “He was ahead of us at New Hope,” I insisted. “How do you think that happened? He presents a pathetic figure in the rain. I picked him up hitchhiking; others would do the same.”

  “Maybe. Or could he have hopped a train?” Orvid suggested. “A train would have gotten here faster than we could, given the rainy conditions.”

  “And the fact that the roads I took curve around very strangely, but the rails are a straighter shot here.”

  “So maybe it is possible that he’s already here.” Orvid seemed to be waking up. “Where do we start?”

  “The old train depot downtown was turned into a welcome center or something,” I said, thinking, “but it seems to me there’s an abandoned textile mill, further down the tracks, that some of the old-timers told me about on one of my collecting tapes. It would be the perfect place to get out of the storm until morning. It’s secluded, and its very close to the tracks.”

  “Great place to wait for the next train, in other words. You’re sure you know where this mill is?”

  “Not exactly”—I peered into the night—“but I can find the historic depot. It’s right downtown and Adairsville’s old main street is only a block long or so. We can follow the tracks north from there.”

  “Worth a try.”

  I headed for the old center of town. The first thing we saw was the station house. It had been nicely restored, painted yellow, and it was the only thing lit up. No one was there, of course, but it was cheery. A sign told us that we had arrived at the town welcome center, a tourist bureau, and start place for the reenactment of “the Great Chase” involving the General, a Civil War train.

  I had a moment of odd reflection. I thought of how the centers of most towns in the mountains were occupied by Civil War memorials. The vanquished always feel the sting of war more than the victors. And when Grant was in the White House, a Southern sense of hopelessness was exceeded only by a dark, righteous-seeming rage. That president had been commander of the conquerors, a Union general who had approved of Sherman’s burning scar in the land where our homes and lives had once dwelled. Still, I wondered if replacing the brooding sense of loss with a bright, shiny tourist center wasn’t somehow eroding a bit of the character of the South.