Preacher Sam

by Cassondra Windwalker

  Rufus Ffaukes cranked his substantial heft up the altar steps, his gleaming satin black pin-striped suit and slight limp lending him a dignified air. Sam had expected to take a professional interest in the eulogy, but he found his thoughts drifting as Ffaukes’ smooth (and today, distinctly more Southern) baritone rolled over him.

  The simplest solution was the best, right? And according to the crime shows Dani liked to watch, the husband nearly always did it. So what if he assumed the same was true now? Why would Clay have killed his wife? And more importantly, why would Amanda have taken the blame, abandoned her own family to face the possibility of a life in prison?

  Sam rolled the possibilities around in his mind, his attention fixed on that family in the pew up front. The little girls sat bracketed by their grandparents, their small heads erect and facing forward. He couldn’t imagine they had any context for picturing their mother lying in that box a few scant feet in front of them. Perhaps today would be a surreal event for them both, mercifully less final in its import for them than for the adults in the room who were more familiar with loss. Amy’s father’s hand stretched uselessly across the back of the wooden pew, unable to reach the shoulders of his wife who was unashamedly hunched over and weeping.

  The common motivators for murder were sex, money, and revenge. Sam figured revenge was out. Revenge was a luxury reserved for people more removed from each other than married couples could be. Anger relived daily quickly churned into bitterness and resentment, lacking the fluidity required for the fury of revenge.

  Money, maybe. Amy probably had a life insurance policy and Clay was surely the beneficiary. Sam knew that happened all the time, but it seemed too transparent a motive for Clay. As a shooting, anyway. He could’ve given it more play if the death had been an accident. Being a salesman meant that Clay was not only a capable businessman, he was more than reasonably decent at reading and playing people in order to make the hefty paycheck indicated by his cars and his house. Murdering his wife in such a brutal and obvious fashion seemed too crass, too unwieldy, for Clay. On the other hand, if that’s what had happened, he had actually managed to get away with it, so maybe it wasn’t so crass after all.

  Sam forced himself to push aside for the moment the question of exactly how Clay had managed to rope Amanda in as patsy.

  What about sex? Had Amy been having an affair and Clay killed her in a rage? That revived the question of whether Amy and Amanda had been having a secret relationship. If it weren’t for Tomas, Sam could almost buy the idea that Amanda would rather go to prison than admit the truth. Even in today’s more accepting society, throwing away an identity she’d clung to for her entire life could have been too much for Amanda to contemplate. But Sam found Raul’s conviction that Amanda would never abandon her son compelling.

  So maybe the affair had been Clay’s, and when Amy had confronted him—or maybe Amy and Amanda both—he’d killed her. That felt so outdated, though. For better or worse, affairs seemed far too commonplace to warrant killing someone just to keep it quiet. What sort of affair could have been so shocking that Clay would kill before he’d allow it to be revealed?

  Maybe Clay had been the one having a gay affair? Clay wasn’t a man’s man, not in the sense that Raul was, but he was definitely one hundred percent heterosexual on the surface. Sam didn’t think Clay would take too well to being outed as a gay man, if that were true. And who knew to what extent his success as a salesman relied on his ability to navigate the good ol’ boys club? That could point to motives of sex and money.

  Sam regarded the back of Clay’s head thoughtfully. Who would the lover have been? Someone in the church? That seemed too dangerous. Clay had never been the most involved member, anyway, at least not in Sam’s recollection. He didn’t suppose that mattered, though. If Clay had felt a powerful enough connection to another man to warrant risking his life and his livelihood, Sam didn’t figure that would have been contingent on his participation in Bible classes. But it could as easily have been someone from work, someone in the community, maybe even someone in another state.

  But none of that could explain Amanda’s involvement. Or the complete lack of any evidence Clay had anything at all to do with his wife’s death.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Melanie sniffled, drawing Sam back into the moment. He glanced at her, stricken by the tears coursing unchecked down her stoic face. He slipped his hand over hers, squeezing it gently. Her fingers tightened on his.

  Sam was surprised to realize that Chelsea was also quietly weeping on Tony’s other side. Sam felt a pang of remorse for sometimes forgetting that she actually possessed human feeling as well as a crocodile’s appetites. There was no denying she was an avid gossip and a relentless enforcer of what she considered appropriate social norms. But Sam also knew that in spite of her undeniable shallow and petty tendencies, she was a fierce advocate for her two teenage children. Not to mention that for all his grousing, Tony was devoted to her. And that had to count for something. Tony didn’t waste time on people of no substance. Sam liked to entertain himself by imagining that in another life, Tony would have made an excellent mob godfather. His wife’s grief now seemed genuine. Sam didn’t think Chelsea Bromiglia would have deliberately risked her mascara for anyone’s funeral.

  Ffaukes was wrapping it up, with the classic appeal for everyone to treasure the everyday moments of life in an acknowledgement that no length of time was guaranteed to anyone. Standard fare. Redeem the hours, for the days are evil. To Sam’s surprise, that was the close of the service. He had expected some friends or family of Amy to speak too, share some stories, but maybe the shock and incomprehensibility of her death made that impossible for them. He rose along with everyone else in their aisle when the time came, beginning the slow, ordered shuffle toward the family receiving line.

  Again he longed for the informal comfort of a wake. Forcing the family to stand there for an hour or more, on shaking legs, with tearful faces, to grasp hands and make polite noises in response to hopeless and helpless attempts at shared grief and comfort, was a cruelty. But perhaps the routine, the predictability, the ritual nature of the custom, was its own solace.

  How many times had he and Melanie done this over the past years, he wondered. One more repetition aping a relationship irrevocably altered.

  They reached Amy’s father first. Sam thought he was only in his early sixties, but he looked much older today. To Sam’s surprise, recognition broke through the man’s dull gaze and he tightened his hold on Sam’s hand, grasping his arm and calling to his wife.

  “Lenore! Lenore.” The iron-haired woman looked blearily at her husband.

  “Lenore, this is Sam, Amy’s old preacher. Remember? And his wife Melanie. I’m Adam, and this is my wife Lenore. Amy’s parents.” He stumbled over the descriptor, gathered himself, and went on. “We met before—do you remember?”

  Behind their grandparents, Amy’s two blonde daughters sat dejectedly on the pew.

  “I do remember,” Sam assured him. Melanie paused beside him, recognizing that Amy’s parents needed something more from them than the customary handshake and “sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Adam said earnestly. “Amy told us what you’ve been through. It can’t have been easy to come back here for her. We really appreciate that you did.”

  Shame suffused Sam, a sensation that was becoming uncomfortably familiar. Until her murder, he’d barely given Amy a second thought after resigning his position. He certainly hadn’t been sharing her story—whatever that had been—with other people in his life. He wondered what Amy had said. It must have been sympathetic and positive for her parents to recall it in a moment like this. He didn’t deserve that kind of notice.

  He didn’t know what to say, but Melanie saved him. She took both of Lenore’s hands in hers, held them as she must have held the hands of countless family members over the years.

  “Amy was a sweet, beautiful soul. Our only hardship here is missing her.
We are so very, very sorry that we can’t do more.”

  “Maybe you can.”

  Sam consciously ignored the long line of people forming behind them and found his voice.

  “What can we do?”

  “Can we talk to you sometime?” Adam asked.

  Sam reached into his pocket, where a ragged collection of his old business cards still gathered lint. He crossed out all the information on it and scrawled his more recent cell number under his name. “You can call me anytime.”

  Adam took the card, confusion creasing his brow. “Can we email instead?”

  Studiously not looking at Melanie, Sam explained, “I don’t have email anymore, but you can call, leave a message if I don’t answer right away. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  An expression of relief crossed Adam’s face briefly, before sorrow returned. “Thank you.”

  “What do you think that was about?” Melanie asked when they had reached the relative safety of the parking lot. Cold drizzle continued to fall, but the cool air was a relief after the mustiness of the church building.

  “No idea,” Sam admitted as they sat in the car, waiting for the procession to the cemetery to begin. Tony and Chelsea had invited them to go out to lunch. No doubt Chelsea knew her stilettos wouldn’t fare well in the soft loam of the graveyard. Sam had taken pity on her, though, and declined Tony’s tongue-in-cheek invitation.

  “I’m surprised they even remembered us,” Melanie went on. “More surprised Amy took the time to tell them about us. I mean, she was always kind, but we weren’t that close. And her parents were very occasional visitors. I can’t imagine how we even came up.”

  “Maybe we were just the story of the week.” Sam regretted the words as soon as he spoke, hearing the bitterness in his own echo.

  Melanie ignored his tone.

  “Maybe,” she concurred without acrimony. “They sounded kind, though. Sincere. And I don’t imagine they have the slightest interest in spurious gossip while burying their daughter.”

  “No, of course not. That was just mean of me. I’m sorry. This has been…trying.” Sam waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the building. “What I’m really sorry about is how much harder this has been for you than it should have been because of me.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “’Kay.”

  Someone whose entire stock-in-trade had been talk, and Sam couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. He turned on the car instead, cranked up the radio.

  The same song that had been on earlier, when Melanie switched off his country crooning, was playing again. Sam heard the words in spite of his best efforts to ignore it.

  I’m dancing in the dark

  With you between my arms

  Barefoot on the grass

  Listening to your favorite song…

  No wonder Melanie liked this Ed Sheeran guy. Hopelessly romantic, just like her. A woman didn’t have to be helpless ruffles and lace to believe in undying love. Damn it. This day was going to swallow Sam whole. He tapped his fingers on the car door, willed the hearse to leave already.

  By the time they finally parked again on the long side of the cemetery, the silence had become almost unbearable. They got out of the car, walked up the hill to the mound of dirt beneath a green tent. Sam noticed that Melanie’s square heels seemed to be faring better in the soft ground than he thought Chelsea’s would have done.

  The crowd at the graveside was considerably smaller than the crowd at the church building had been, as was typical. A death like this was so unexpected, so deeply uncomfortable in all its implications about life and relationships and mortality, that people were probably even less inclined than usual to observe its final conclusion. “To dust we shall return” might roll glibly off the tongue, but to watch it in action was something else entirely.

  Sam was surprised to see Raul standing on the edge of the little crowd, Tomas’ dark head resting under his hand. Sam watched as Clay Randolph shifted uneasily under the other man’s steady regard, seeming to deliberately avoid meeting Raul’s eyes.

  Sam thought it odd that it was Raul whose jaw was clenched in naked hatred, while Clay just looked uncomfortable. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Unless Amanda really was innocent, and Clay was the only one who knew what was happening and why.

  The graveside service was mercifully short, a short prayer and the requisite rendition of Amazing Grace choked out between tears and sobs. Melanie was crying again, but she was closed off to him now, shut up in her private grief and clearly not needing him at all. Sam kept his hands to himself this time.

  He handed her the keys and motioned silently for her to go on to the car when Raul approached him as they were walking away.

  “I didn’t know if you’d be here,” Sam told him.

  “I loved Amy,” Raul said, and there were tears standing in his brown eyes. “She might as well have been Amanda’s sister. And I owe it to Amanda to be here, too. It’s going to kill her that she didn’t get to say good-bye.”

  Sam looked at him quizzically, spoke without thinking. “Didn’t she?”

  Tomas looked between his father and Sam, his face somber from trying and failing to take in the day’s events. This conversation was no more comprehensible to him than anything else had been.

  “What has Clay told you?” Raul demanded, ignoring Sam’s question.

  Sam spread his hands. “I don’t have any answers, Raul. You know I’d go straight to the police if I did.”

  “Would you?”

  “I’m not a priest. I’m not even a preacher anymore. I’m under no obligation—or inclination—to protect a murderer. I want justice for Amy and Amanda, too.”

  Raul sighed, scrubbing at his face with a square-fingered, oil-stained hand. “I know. I’m sorry. I just…somehow, I know this is his fault. I don’t know how. I don’t know why Amanda won’t just tell me what is going on. But it can’t end this way. It just can’t.”

  Sam’s earlier question popped back into his mind. “Say, Raul, the gun used…” He looked askance at Tomas, decided there weren’t any gory secrets to be revealed in his question. “Was it one of yours?”

  Raul shook his head decisively. “The cops already asked me that. And even though I’m a vet, I have fewer guns to keep track of than they expected. A 9mm for my CCW, a .45, and a shotgun for home protection. I’m not a hunter, and I don’t find target practice much fun anymore. With this one around,” he jerked his chin at his son, “we keep them all locked up in a safe, even the shotgun. None of them had been touched.”

  “So whose gun was it then?” Sam mused aloud.

  “I don’t know,” Raul answered grimly. “The cops aren’t exactly sharing details with me. But it wasn’t mine. And Amanda was comfortable enough handling my weapons—I trained her in case of an emergency—but she’s never had an interest in carrying one of her own.”

  “So you think the gun was Amy’s?”

  Raul shrugged. “I don’t think we ever discussed guns. And I never saw Amy with a firearm. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t have one. Just that she didn’t wave it around.”

  “Did they have a weapon at the shop, in case of a robbery of anything?”

  Raul shook his head decisively that time. “No, that I can answer.”

  “And you’d definitely know?”

  Raul looked at Sam like he was crazy. “Yeah. I’d know.”

  “Okay, okay.” Sam raised his hands. “Just asking. I know this is a hard day for everybody. I better get back to the car and drive Melanie home. I’m sorry, Raul…sorry for everything. If there is a way I can help, I swear to you I will.”

  “Thanks,” Raul returned shortly, dropping his hand to Tomas’ shoulder and propelling the youngster back to their own vehicle.

  “What was that all about?” Melanie asked when Sam reached the car. After their long silence, the sound of her voice was a relief. Sam saw she’d used the tissues from the glove compartment—tissues she m
ust have put there herself God knows when—to scrub her face clean.

  “Raul is looking to me for help I don’t have to give.”

  Sam could have sworn he felt Melanie’s hand on his arm, her cheek against his shoulder as it had been a thousand times before when he’d been feeling ill-equipped for the task God had set before him. But Melanie was still firmly on her side of the car, and God wasn’t his boss anymore.

  Still, Melanie couldn’t resist a stab at reassurance. “Raul knows that. He’s grasping at straws. He needs to feel he’s doing something, anything, that might help his wife. Even if it’s just bugging you. Let him cling to that illusion a little longer.”

  Sam tilted his head, shifted the car into drive.

  “I know you’re right. But illusions left too long can become their own torment.”

  His words hung in the air between them until he pulled up in front of her house. He knew he should ask her if she wanted to grab some lunch, get a coffee, but he didn’t know if he could bear another moment of being so close and so far away at the same time.

  Her cool, unexpected kiss on his cheek just before she slipped out of the car answered that question conclusively.

  No.

  He couldn’t bear it.

  Chapter Thirty

  Dani took one look at Sam’s face when he walked into the shop and wisely held her tongue. It looks like a hopping afternoon, he thought distractedly as he walked around crowded café tables and glanced over at the bookshelves on the other side of the shop. A compartmentalized segment of his brain registered that as good news for his sister even as he headed up the stairs toward his cramped bedroom.