Racing the Devil

by Jaden Terrell

  “I’m sorry about the lady who died,” I said, just as the door was closing.

  The reverend paused. “That woman cheated on her husband and left two young girls at home to fend for themselves. I don’t condone murder, but if Amy repented before she died, then the man who killed her did the work of God.”

  THE DEAD MAN WITH THE velvet voice was a pedophile named Walter Christy. I’d first seen him in front of the child care center he and his wife owned back when I was a patrol cop, driving from one end of my sector to the other, taking calls when they came in and looking for trouble the rest of the time. I don’t know what it was that made me notice him. He was a plain-looking, stocky man already beginning to bald. One hand clutched a Raggedy Ann. The other held the hand of a little girl in a yellow dress.

  As they disappeared around the corner of the child care center, something in his body language set off an alarm. The stroke of a hand on the little girl’s hair. A moment of unguarded eagerness on his face. I honestly don’t recall.

  What I do recall is parking the car and radioing for assistance, following him around to a shed at the back of the building, and finding him with the girl’s dress up above her waist and his hands stuffed down her white cotton panties.

  I remember that my voice was calm as I sent the child back to the house and told Walter he was under arrest.

  And the next thing I remember is Barry Sheldon, who had taken the backup call, hauling me off Walter Christy’s sobbing, shuddering body. My hands were bruised, and I was covered with blood, and most of it was Walter’s.

  He almost walked.

  His lawyer screamed police brutality, and the D.A. screamed resisting arrest. The D.A. screamed louder. Or maybe it was just that no one wanted Walter back out on the street.

  There was plenty of evidence. Walter had been molesting little girls for fourteen years, and he had hundreds of photographs of his victims. The stream of young witnesses took days. His wife and younger daughter were among them, and after the trial, Walter found himself with divorce papers in his hand and a sixteen-year prison sentence. His wife gave up her child care

  license, and a few years later, I heard she had packed up both girls and moved away.

  Remarried. Put the past behind her.

  And that was the last I’d heard of Walter Christy, until ten months ago, when, after an elaborate escape attempt, he’d squealed off in a prison trustee’s SUV and crashed into a gasoline truck.

  The explosion was spectacular.

  I was sorry for the driver of the truck, not sorry at all that the world was rid of Walter.

  I knew my distaste for the honorable Reverend Avery was probably related to his resemblance to Walter. Maybe I was biased, but I pulled over and made a quick call to Frank anyway.

  “Walter Christy,” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “How sure are you he’s dead?”

  “Nobody could have survived that crash.”

  “Could he have switched places with someone else before the wreck?”

  “No time.”

  “ ‘Cause this guy, Avery, he reminds me an awful lot of Walter.”

  “Jared.” Frank’s voice had that patient tone a person might use with a retarded child. “I’m telling you, Christy’s dead.”

  Frustrated, I thanked him and said goodbye.

  All right, so Samuel Avery wasn’t Walter Christy.

  Still, I could imagine his broad, plump hands around Amy’s neck, his fleshy lips twisted with anger and flecked with spittle as his thumbs dug deep into her windpipe. “Repent, harlot,” he might have said. “The wages of sin is death.”

  And I could easily imagine him luring Katrina Hartwell into his office and enticing her to pose for the photos Frank had found in my truck.

  Driving back down I-40 to my office, tugging at the beard and mustache to relieve the itching, I wondered if the reverend had an alibi for the night of Amy’s murder.

  ON SUNDAY, AFTER I’D TURNED OUT Crockett and taken Tex for his morning walk, I called Ben Carrington. Since I’d already used the Ian Callahan persona with Felicity at the travel agency, I gave Ben the same story, that I was researching a book on Amy’s murder and that his name had been mentioned by several witnesses.

  There was silence on the other end of the line. Then he sighed. “You’ve heard the rumors about me and Amy.”

  “From several sources.”

  “It wasn’t what you think.”

  “Why don’t you meet me this afternoon and tell me what it was?”

  “Did you see the memorial service on Channel 3?”

  “I saw it.”

  “It was a lousy excuse for a memorial. It didn’t do justice to Amy.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and said, “That’s what I want, Mr. Carrington. Justice for Amy.”

  And for me.

  There was another silence. Then he said, “All right. Why don’t you come to my place? Six o’clock. After dinner.”

  I killed the time by studying the pamphlets Reverend Avery had given me.

  According to the literature, the Church of the Reclamation had been founded seven years ago in Louisiana. The founder, Samuel Zebedee Avery, was a Tennessee transplant convicted by God to combat the decadence and debauchery of Bourbon Street. During his ministry, God had led him to a new understanding of original sin and how Eve’s legacy still ensnared even godly men. In time, he’d been led to establish other churches. He left his original ministry in the hands of his most trusted deacon and returned to his home state to pass on the word.

  There was no web site listed, but I pulled out my laptop anyway, plugged it into the network, and typed “ ‘Samuel Avery’ AND ‘Church of the Reclamation’ ” into the search engine.

  A hundred-and-fifty-two hits. They’d come late to the information age, because the oldest one was dated seven months ago. I read every one. Then I logged into a couple of data providers I subscribed to and began the tedious process of collecting background and financial information on Avery and his church.

  One thing was certain. There were big bucks in the redemption business. Cheating on your wife? It’s okay, it’s not your fault. But just to be safe, send a check to Reclamation Ministries and your conscience can be clear.

  Reverend Avery’s message appealed to a narrow audience, but collectively, they had deep pockets.

  I ran a quick check on Avery’s wife, found a homely woman with a generous inheritance. Avery had covered all the angles.

  Scowling, I exited the program. If the bio on the web was right, Walter had been in prison while Avery was building his church. If it was right and not some manufactured biography. Either way, it ticked me off. People like Avery weren’t real Christians, but they gave Christians a bad name.

  After dinner, I showered and transformed myself into Ian. Dark hair, mustache, tailored suit, Colt tucked into the shoulder holster beneath the jacket.

  At six o’clock sharp, I pulled into Carrington’s driveway. There was a sandbox out front, and a dark-haired girl of about six was sitting on one of the seats, making designs in the sand with her bare toes. When she saw me, she pushed herself up and padded over to me, brushing her long bangs away from her forehead with grubby hands. The gesture left streaks of grime on her face.

  “Are you the man who’s writing the book?” she asked.

  “That’s me.” I held out a hand, which she shook solemnly. Her palms were hot and damp. When she withdrew her hand, I surreptitiously wiped my own on the underside of my jacket. “You must be Corey.”

  “That’s right. Daddy’s inside. He said I could come in and get a Popsicle when you got here, but I can’t stay and listen, because you’re talking about grown-up things.” She grimaced.

  “I have a little boy about your age,” I said. “I don’t let him listen to grown-up talk, either.”

  “Is he six?” she asked, cocking her head to one side. “Why didn’t you bring him?”

  “He’s eight, but he’s small. And I did
n’t bring him because he’s staying with his mom.”

  “I don’t have a mommy,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Next time, bring your little boy.”

  She escorted me into the house, where her father was watching from the window, ensuring, I assume, that I had no evil intentions toward his daughter. Good for him.

  “Mr. Callahan?” he said. “Can I get you something to drink? I have Coke, Orange Slice, and apple juice.” He scooped his daughter up and planted a kiss on her cheek. They looked alike, same fair skin, same dark eyes, same unruly brown-black hair. “And who is this little ragamuffin? What have you done with my daughter, you little pigpen?”

  Corey giggled and squirmed in his arms. “Oh, Daddy. It’s me!”

  He tilted back her chin and scrutinized her features. “I suppose it’s possible there’s a girl in there somewhere. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go get yourself a bath and put on clean clothes, and we’ll make popcorn before bed.”

  Her forehead puckered. “What about my Popsicle?”

  “You can have a half of one before your bath. But no coming in while Mr. Callahan and I are talking. And no listening around the corners.” He gave her another kiss. “Okay, sweetheart. Go on.”

  I waited to laugh until she’d padded up the stairs.

  “I’m sorry,” Carrington said. “I guess I spoil her.”

  “I spoil mine too,” I said. “A son.”

  A little of the tension lifted, and he gestured toward the living room. “Have a seat. What can I get you to drink?”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  He came back a few moments later with two Cokes over ice and sat down on the sofa. I had chosen an overstuffed chair that sat kitty-corner to the couch.

  “You wanted to talk to me about Amy,” he said, and suddenly the tension was back, so thick you could almost taste it between your teeth.

  I nodded. “You know about the rumors that you and Amy were . . . involved.”

  He studied his drink. “Amy and I were friends.”

  “You didn’t have a sexual relationship with her?”

  His fingers tightened on the arm of the sofa. “We did. For about a month. Then the stress got to be too much.”

  “What stress was that?”

  He laughed, more nerves than humor. “You’ve obviously never had an affair.”

  “Humor me.”

  “The girls, for one thing. If Cal found out about us and she lost custody.”

  “The girls.” I tapped at Ian’s mustache. “I understand Katrina wasn’t hers. That there was tension between them.”

  “Amy had a hard time bonding. Not just with Katrina. With anybody.”

  “That have anything to do with why she ended the affair?”

  He didn’t meet my gaze. “Maybe. She had intimacy issues.”

  “And it didn’t bother you? That she stopped sleeping with you?”

  “I had mixed feelings. She was married, after all.”

  “But you kept seeing her anyway.”

  “She was thinking of leaving him. I could wait.”

  “Mr. Carrington,” I said, “was Amy in love with you?”

  He swirled the ice in his glass for a long time. “I believe she was,” he said, finally. “She said she was. I was certainly in love with her.”

  “And this other man? This Jared McKean?”

  “She wasn’t sleeping with him.”

  “You’re sure of that.”

  “If she were going to cheat on Calvin, it would have been with me. Does that sound arrogant?”

  “Not really.”

  “She had her issues, Mr. Callahan, but she had a good heart. Maybe this guy told her he was in trouble and she was trying to help. Maybe she’d been trying to help him out for a long time and he killed her when she wouldn’t give him more. But she wasn’t having an affair with him.”

  “Her sister said she was.”

  He looked like he’d just been gut-punched. I felt like a heel for saying it, but it needed to be said.

  “She was mistaken,” he said at last, his voice weak.

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “She may have said she was seeing him. Like going to see him. Not sleeping with him. No.”

  “But her marriage was troubled. Do you know how long she and Calvin had been having problems?”

  “From the beginning. She was pregnant when they married, and he . . .”

  “He what?”

  “He held it against her. Like she was the only one in the bedroom. She was seventeen. He was twenty-four. So whose fault do you think it was?”

  “But he married her.”

  “For what it was worth. He cheated on her from the very beginning.”

  “She cheated too. With you.”

  He looked away. Blinked. “I know. But it was years later, and she ended it. I’m not saying it was okay for her but not for him. And I’m not saying Calvin’s a bad man. But he was bad for Amy.”

  “You said Amy had issues. What were they?”

  He squeezed his eyelids together and took a deep breath. When he looked at me again, his eyes were wet. “Intimacy issues, like I said. Trust issues. Guilt issues. You name it. She couldn’t believe I loved her, because she didn’t believe she was worth loving.”

  “Any idea where she got that notion?”

  He rattled the ice in his glass. “Where does anybody get that notion? From her family, I assume. Or maybe she got it from Cal. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Warmth. In fact, when I heard Amy had been . . .” He stopped, choked on the words. “That she was . . . gone . . . I thought he’d done it.”

  “And yet, you didn’t think he was a bad man.”

  “Amy said he wasn’t. She said he tried to be a good man. He just couldn’t keep . . .” He gave an embarrassed laugh. “He couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants.”

  “Ben, I have to ask you this. Where were you on the night Amy was killed?”

  He took a deep breath and calmed himself. “I took Corey out for pizza, then we rented The Lion King and came back home. She went to bed at nine, and I stayed up and read until eleven. Why?” Every muscle in his face tensed. “You don’t think I killed her?”

  “McKean said he didn’t do it.”

  “Well.” He shook his head, bewildered. “Of course. What would he say? But they said on Channel 3 the cops have DNA, and DNA doesn’t lie.”

  I decided not to educate him on the time it took to get back DNA results. “Don’t you think Amy would have told you if she was trying to ‘help’ this man? The police say she’d been seeing him for months.”

  Ben studied his cola intently. “I would have thought so,” he said quietly. “But I guess I was wrong.”

  I returned to something he’d said earlier. “Mr. Carrington, you said Amy had guilt issues.”

  “That’s right.” His nod was wary.

  “What did she have to feel guilty about?”

  He picked at a loose thread in the upholstery of the sofa. “She wouldn’t go into details.”

  “But she told you something.”

  He looked away, the little net of lines around his eyes tensing. “There were sexual issues. She wouldn’t talk about it, but I wondered if maybe she hadn’t been raped.”

  “Calvin?”

  He didn’t look surprised, so I figured he’d thought about it. “I don’t think so. She didn’t talk about him that way.”

  “And she never said who?”

  “Like I said, she never even said that’s what happened. It’s just a feeling I had.”

  “She was in love with you, but she never talked about it.”

  He looked away. “Seems like lots of things she never talked about.”

  AT SEVEN FORTY-FIVE Monday morning, I parked half a block from the three-story brick house where G. Mathis lived. There was a royal blue Ford Escort ZX2 in the driveway. I hoped it was hers.

  At eight twenty-two, she came out of the house wearing a cranberry skirt cut modestly below the knee a
nd a white blouse with lace at the neck. In one hand, she carried what looked like a black leather Bible, and in the other was a turquoise vinyl case that might have held her lunch. Her purse was slung over one shoulder. Very demure. Nothing like the wildcat who had greeted Hartwell at the door.

  I followed her down West End, onto Twenty-First Avenue North, and to a little shop shaped like a log cabin. Angel Food Cafe, the sign out front read. Christian Books and Gifts. Coffee. Sandwiches. Desserts.

  I drove past the shop, bought a Coke at a McDonald’s on West End, then tooled back down Elliston Place and back to Twenty-First, where I parked across the street and three buildings down from the Angel Food Cafe.

  I waited until ten, when most of the breakfast-and-coffee people had gone, then girded up my loins and went inside. (I have no idea what that means. Prepared myself, I think it means, maybe for a kick in the balls). There were two customers inside, a chunky woman who looked to be in her mid-fifties, and a pretty young woman about eight months pregnant. While I waited for them to finish up their Danishes and coffee, I browsed through the racks of contemporary Christian music, inspirational literature, stickpins, jewelry, and knickknacks bearing images of every kind of angel imaginable.

  G. Mathis glanced up from the magazine she was reading behind the counter. “May I help you?”

  I looked at her nametag. Glenda, it said.

  “No, thanks. Just looking.”

  At ten fifteen, the older woman left with an Amy Grant CD and a cranberry muffin. At ten twenty-six, the young woman paid for a tape of Christian lullabies and a baby quilt with Precious Moments angels stamped all over it. When it was just me and G. Mathis, I picked up a small gold angel pin and sauntered to the counter, as if to pay.

  Her smile was cheerful, practiced. “Will that be all, sir?”

  I smiled back. “Not quite. Glenda Mathis, isn’t it?”

  Her forehead furrowed. “How do you know my last name?”

  “Glenda Mathis.” I rattled off her address.

  She picked up the phone, knuckles white, nails filed short and coated with clear polish. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Sure.” I nodded pleasantly. “No problem. I bet they’d be real interested to know about your affair with Calvin Hartwell.”