Preacher Sam

by Cassondra Windwalker

  “Oh, no. Don’t worry.” Clay waved a hand. “Has to be done. It just all has to be done. The sooner it’s over with, the better.”

  Sam wasn’t sure if Clay was referring to this conversation or Amy’s burial. He decided he’d rather not know.

  “Were Amy’s parents there to help you?”

  Clay shook his head. “I thought it better if I handled it on my own. When decisions need to be made, the fewer people involved, the better. And I don’t think Amy’s parents are holding up well enough for discussions about coffin finishes and satin blankets.”

  Sam couldn’t imagine being asked to decide how Melanie would sleep in the ground forever.

  “That sounds awful. I’m really sorry, Clay. I wish there were some way I could help.”

  “That’s why you’re here, right? To help me and Raul close the shop?”

  Sam spread his hands. “I thought it might be easier for you both to have some kind of go-between. For now, at least.”

  Clay laughed, a short, unamused bark. “For now, huh? Raul and I were never exactly buddies.”

  Back when he’d been around, Sam would’ve been hard-pressed to name any of Clay’s buddies. He’d had plenty of acquaintances at church, been just active enough not to be absent, but Sam wasn’t sure if the man had any close friends there. With all the travel Clay did, Sam had figured it was easier for him to maintain relationships with other people in his own field, people who understood the demands of his job and the sort of personality that salesmen tended to have. Now he wondered if Clay had any friends at all—wondered what sort of inner demons compelled a man to eschew real human relationships so successfully.

  “What about work?” he asked out loud. “Have you been back? Do you have a good support system there?”

  Clay’s eyes narrowed slightly in contempt at the words “support system,” but he nodded. “Work’s been good. They’ve given me as much time off as I need. I’ll go back next week, after the funeral.”

  “I guess Amy’s parents will be helping you with the girls when you travel now, huh?”

  Clay shifted, then stood and walked into the kitchen. “Can I get you anything to drink?” he called back. “Soda? Beer?”

  “A soda would be nice,” Sam called back. When Clay returned with two cans, the smell of rum was stronger.

  Clay lowered himself back into the recliner and took a long swallow. “Amy’s parents have been great with the girls. I think, with everything that’s going on, it’s better for them to stay there for a while. Get their bearings. I don’t have any answers for them.”

  Sam nodded. “I understand that.” He didn’t, of course. How could he? “How do the girls feel about it?”

  “They’re fine,” Clay answered vaguely. “So what did Raul say about the shop?”

  “He hasn’t been able to speak with Amanda yet, but if you are agreeable to a sale of the business, then I’ll go see her myself and start the paperwork. I told him I think you two would best be served if you got an attorney to handle the sale itself. That way there won’t be any questions about equity and legality, and you can both be as hands-off in the process as possible.”

  “Hands off,” Clay said heavily. “That sounds good. And I don’t imagine there’ll be much to distribute, anyway. The girls weren’t exactly business geniuses. I mostly want to unload it before it becomes an actual liability. Preferably before we have to pay another six months’ rent.”

  “I totally understand that. Do you know an attorney you want to work with?”

  “I’ll ask my lawyer. Amy and Amanda set up this business entirely off of Google searches and printable forms, so who knows how much trouble they’ll run into trying to off-load it. He should know someone we can trust.”

  Sam wondered why Clay had a lawyer. He supposed it was a reasonable precaution for any murder suspect. Clay might not be an official suspect, but as the spouse of the murdered woman, he could probably use all the advice he could get. Then again, maybe he’d already had an attorney. For financial stuff or something. Sam had never had enough money to worry about that sort of thing himself, but then, the Randolphs were in an entirely different tax bracket than he was.

  “Sure, just give me a call when you get a name. Raul doesn’t know anybody, and he said he’s fine working with anybody you recommend. He just wants this over with, too.”

  “I bet.” Clay closed his eyes. “I heard Amanda’s been talking to you.”

  Sam nodded. “That’s right.”

  “I don’t suppose she’s told you any more than she’s told the rest of us? Why she did it?”

  Sam chose his words carefully. “Amanda knows I wouldn’t reveal anything she told me.”

  Clay opened his eyes and leaned forward, fixing his gaze on Sam with an expression that Sam couldn’t decipher.

  “Is that so? You’d keep her secrets for her? A murderer?”

  “I’m not here to judge anybody, Clay. I just want to help everybody get through an impossibly tragic situation as best they can.”

  “I think you actually mean that, Preacher Sam. I wonder what other sort of secrets you’d keep.”

  “Do you have a secret you need to tell?”

  Clay was silent for a long moment, his eyes dark mirrors rather than windows. Abruptly he laughed harshly, leaning back in his chair and downing the rest of the contents of his soda can. “We all have secrets, Preacher Sam,” he said derisively. “I guess I’ll keep mine another day.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Green beans and Chef Boyardee ravioli made a surprisingly satisfying dinner, Sam concluded, especially when supplemented with a box of cheese crackers. He guessed that Dani’s customers would be surprised to see the baking queen enjoying such processed fare, but then, they weren’t single parents trying to operate a business and raise a seven-year-old at the same time. Sometimes canned food was its own luxury.

  Parker clearly found it satisfactory, anyway. He grinned at his uncle around a mouthful of crackers. “So, how did it go with murdery Amanda’s husband today? Did he do it after all? Or was I right and it was the four-year-old?”

  Dani snorted as her Capri Sun sangria went down the wrong way.

  “This is entirely your fault,” Sam told her severely, figuring he might as well take advantage of her rare inability to speak. “You’re the one raising him on true crime shows. Remember what Mrs. Palmer said about creative and intelligent he is? You’re either raising a serial killer or an FBI agent.”

  “Phooey,” Parker declared. “I’m going to be an archaeologist.”

  Sam may or may not have suffered a brief decline into Indiana Jones movies when he’d first moved in with Dani and Parker.

  Dani quirked her eyebrows at Sam as she continued to struggle for air.

  “Okay, that might be my fault,” he conceded. “But I have to warn you, Parker, I don’t think most archeologists have as much fun as Indiana Jones. I’m pretty sure most of their days consist of sitting in the hot sun moving dust off of bone shards with a tiny paintbrush.”

  Sam wasn’t sure that was true either, actually. His knowledge of how archaeologists spent their days was entirely derived from the History Channel and the Indianapolis Children’s Museum field trip he’d chaperoned for Parker last year.

  “I like bones,” Parker insisted with the immoveable certainty of someone who’d never seen a bone outside of a museum exhibit or a dinner plate.

  “I think archaeologist is a fine profession,” Dani finally managed in a strained voice.

  “We were talking about murdery Amanda,” Parker reminded them both sternly.

  “Actually, only you were talking about murdery Amanda. And no, I have not learned that her husband is the undiscovered killer. We were mostly discussing what to do with the business now that Amy is dead and Amanda is in jail.”

  “How in the world did you become involved in that?” Dani asked. Sam had known her obstruction-induced silence couldn’t last forever.

  “I’m not, not real
ly. I’m just acting as a go-between for Clay and Raul till they get an attorney to take over the sale. Since I’m the only person Amanda is talking to, besides her own attorney, I can get her permission to offer the business. It seems like a bit much to ask the husband of the victim and the husband of the murderer to work together on this.”

  “Oh, I definitely agree,” Dani said. “If I was Clay, I’d probably want to kill Raul just because I couldn’t get to Amanda. And really, how could he not know anything at all? It’s hard to imagine you could be married to a killer and not suspect a thing. Maybe he was in on it.”

  “In on what?” Sam laughed in spite of himself. “The only possible explanation here is some kind of crime of passion. I don’t think even the cops think this was some nefarious, elaborately-planned-out scheme.”

  Dani looked thoughtful. “Unless it was a nefarious plan gone wrong. Maybe Amy wasn’t the intended victim. You have to figure even a crap plan would have included some effort to get away with the crime, not go to prison.”

  “Exactly. Which brings us back to an unplanned crime of passion. Trying to understand a person’s motivations when they are in the thrall of some powerful emotion is nearly impossible.”

  “I just can’t imagine what could have gotten that woman so worked up after so many years of friendship. I still think some sort of infidelity had to be at play. What else could trigger that level of rage? I mean, have they even figured out where she got the gun yet?”

  Sam shook his head. “Contrary to appearances, I’m not privy to the investigation, Dani.”

  “Oh,” she said in disappointment. “I thought you might have asked around. You are trying to find out what happened, aren’t you?”

  Sam was getting more than a little tired of the same questions going round and round and coming to the same non-conclusion. “No, I’m not. I’m just trying to help all these people get through a nightmarish situation. I’m under no illusion that I have anything to offer here.”

  “But you’re the murderer-whisperer,” Parker piped up.

  Sam choked on a growl and glared at his sister, who grinned unrepentantly at him. “See, even the seven-year-old knows that.”

  “He’s just repeating his mother’s nonsense,” Sam protested. “I’m not any kind of whisperer. Now I’m going to go watch anything on TV that doesn’t revolve around dead bodies.”

  He grabbed the box of crackers and retreated into the tiny living room with the shreds of his dignity. “Good luck with that!” Dani called after him.

  Sure enough, his self-determined choices wound up being limited to Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Channel. He shared crackers with his nephew as animated characters with shrill voices filled the screen. In the back of his mind, Dani’s question nagged at him.

  Where had Amanda gotten the gun?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Sam!”

  Yanked out of his mid-morning nap by his sister’s voice, Sam grunted incoherently as he attempted to swim out of the blankets. Fall in Indiana could be cool, and in the interests of preserving electrical costs, they hadn’t yet turned on the heaters upstairs.

  “Sam!” Dani repeated insistently. “Your mistress of death is downstairs. Get your ass down here before I lose my charming disposition.”

  “What charming disposition?” Sam returned, now thoroughly awake at the prospect of seeing Melanie. He shrugged into his jeans and a ragged Dierks Bentley t-shirt as quickly as he could.

  “Very funny. Just get down here. I don’t like playing hostess to her.”

  Socks, shoes, comb, deodorant…Dani wasn’t kidding about how quickly she could jettison her good manners, so Sam didn’t dare spare time to brush his teeth. He settled for a quick swish of mouthwash and then forced himself to walk down the stairs at a normal pace. He didn’t need his heartrate to be any higher than it already was with Melanie around.

  Dani was keeping circumspectly to the kitchen when he reached the shop, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief. There was no telling what Dani might say when she took a notion. The last thing he wanted was any more tension now that they were sorta-kinda friends again. His spirits sunk lower at the mental reminder.

  Melanie was seated at a table near the window, the only customer now that the morning rush was over. He noticed that she hadn’t ordered anything—no doubt a prudent decision not to engage Dani any more than necessary. He grabbed two cups of coffee on his way over, splashing Melanie’s mug with cream and sugar till it no longer resembled coffee at all.

  “Here you go,” he said, sliding her mug toward her when he reached her table.

  She’d been looking out the window, and when she turned to face him the sunlight fell across her face and accentuated the shadows under her eyes, the lines of weariness bracketing her mouth. Love was a strange accountant, Sam thought. No matter what it tallied, all figures fell in the profits margin. Even age and fatigue took on a sheen of loveliness.

  “Kind of early for you to be about, isn’t it?” he said aloud.

  She shrugged, taking a healthy swallow of her coffee with a sigh that made him grateful he’d thought to snag some. “It’s my day off, at least, so I don’t have to work tonight. But yes. This does feel like an insane hour to be functional. Moving, anyway, with my eyes mostly open. I don’t know how functional I am.”

  Sam didn’t want to ask what prompted her visit. He just wanted to sit with her in the morning light and drink coffee. Maybe she felt the same, because several companionable moments passed before she spoke again.

  “Tomorrow is Amy’s funeral.”

  “I heard. Raul told me.”

  “Are you planning to go?” She was looking down now, as if her half-empty mug held some special fascination.

  “Yeah, I think so. I’m not looking forward to walking back in that building, of course, but I think I owe it to both Raul and Clay to be there.”

  The service would be at Broad Ripple Community Church, with graveside following at the cemetery. Rufus Ffaukes was delivering the eulogy. Sam had been in the position himself more times than he could count—sometimes for a dear parishioner he’d known long and well, sometimes for near-strangers whose family simply craved the comfort of a religious service. It was a strange task, almost as if he were ushering the suffering to the verge of their farewell and bidding the absent soul to take its leave. He knew that, in reality, funerals were nothing so mystical, but human good-byes are strange things, their edges impossible to define or describe. Rituals become arbiters of meaning.

  Privately Sam thought the old Irish tradition of a wake was healthier and more helpful than the stilted funereal customs of the American Protestants, but that wasn’t his place to judge. Still, he hoped that when he died, there’d be more rejoicing and storytelling and less speech-making and restrained tears. Laugh loudly, weep hard, and don’t try so hard to compartmentalize death into a safe place where it will never remain, anyway. That was his thought, for the two bits it was worth.

  “I’m going, too,” said Melanie, still not looking up. “I thought maybe we could go together.”

  Sam gave in to temptation and reached across the table, his long fingers settling gently over Melanie’s own. I’ll go anywhere with you, he wanted to say. But that sounded distinctly more lover-like than friendly.

  “I won’t say no,” he said instead. “But you know the gossip-mongers will have a heyday with us showing up together. I wouldn’t put it past some of them to ask us outright where things stand with us now.”

  Melanie’s eyes shot up to meet his, and he couldn’t hold back a smile at the raw rebellion he saw burning there. “Let them,” she said fiercely. “Tomorrow isn’t about us. And it’s not about them. Besides, even if we show up separately and don’t say a word to each other, they’re going to talk. That’s just what some people do.”

  “You’re definitely right about that. As long as you’re comfortable with it, I’d love to go with you. I’m pathetic enough to admit it will feel a little better not walking the gaunt
let alone.”

  Melanie laughed weakly. “Yeah, I share your pathetic-ness. I haven’t been back there in…oh, a long time. Practically forever.”

  “You know Ffaukes though, right? I guess I was assuming you’d been going to church there.”

  “Oh, that.” To his surprise, Melanie looked a little uncomfortable. “Actually, Rufus and I go way back before all this.”

  “Really?” Sam was surprised to find that he could be jealous of an old, pastry-bellied widower. Apparently he could be jealous of anyone who had a relationship with his wife-who-wasn’t. Another attractive personality trait to note, he told himself drily.

  “He and his wife would visit the church I grew up in sometimes. My parents had them over for dinner now and then. He, uh, he was probably one of the earlier proponents of a ministry specifically for people in the church struggling with sexual addictions, so when all our stuff blew up, I reached out to him. Actually, I was the one who suggested he apply for the position here when, um, when it opened up.”

  “That wily old scoundrel. He led me to believe all he knew of me was old gossip.”

  Melanie shrugged, her mouth twisting wryly as the color in her cheeks slowly faded. “He’s more discreet than he pretends to be.”

  “I’m beginning to realize that.” Sam spoke with reluctant admiration. He’d been well and truly played, clearly, but he couldn’t summon any actual resentment.

  “Does that bother you?”

  “I think I’m just surprised. I’m not upset or anything. I’m glad you had someone to talk to. It just feels…weird.”

  Sam swallowed. He didn’t want to say the next words out loud, but he felt compelled to know the answer.

  “So…does he have that sort of ministry going on at BRCC?”

  Melanie nodded. “I don’t go myself, of course.” Sam didn’t think there was any of course about it, but he wisely kept that opinion to himself. “But he says it’s been very successful. I think once the initial outrage subsided, there must have been a lot of people who were encouraged to get help because of what happened to us. To admit they weren’t perfect either. We got to be the lucky ‘don’t do what they did’ object lesson.”