Misstep (The Road's End Series Book 1)

by Deborah Dee Harper

  I’d managed to finally place a call to the state police, and they promised to send a cruiser as soon as they could. Although I assured them we had things under control for the moment and cautioned them not to risk anybody’s life getting to us, I would be glad to see the end of Isaac Benjamin and his buddies-in-crime. Not to mention our twinkling star, Delbert Jackson, who was still staying at the inn, still lying all over Mel’s bedspread, still eating our food, complaining about the lack of alcohol, cussing a blue streak, and making Mel and I, while in his obnoxious presence, ask God’s forgiveness every other minute to atone for our thoughts. I felt my hands were tied and didn’t put him in his place for fear of repercussions, but as the day wore on, a plan began to form. It wasn’t a particularly good plan, as plans go, but it was the only one I could come up with. Seems like I say that a lot. Anyway, my plan was to flat-out beg Jackson to keep his mouth shut, and then bribe him with anything he wanted from Sadie’s Bake House and Egg Plant. Even an obnoxious guy loves baked goods.

  I set my coffee cup beside me on the pew and said, “You know, Bristol, I never had a chance to thank you for all you’ve done over at the inn over the past few weeks. Repairs and such.”

  “No problem. Glad to do it.”

  I nodded. “I probably shouldn’t admit this to a man who can shoot as well as you can, but I did not want to involve you in some of those repairs, especially that bathroom leak a couple of weeks ago. Not that you don’t do a fine job—you always do—but it just seems like there are some things a man ought to be able to do for himself, you know?”

  Bristol grinned. “Like plumbing?”

  “Like plumbing.”

  He forked the last of his pancake into his mouth. “Melanie told me you were bound and determined to do it without ‘professional help,’ as she called it. Overruled you, huh?” He swallowed and got a big, self-satisfied grin on his face.

  “Yep. As usual. And wipe that grin off your face, mister.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it, Pastor. I’m just good at plumbing, that’s all. It’s a gift.” He dodged as I pretended to punch him in the arm. “Besides, I can’t take any credit for it and far be it from me to hold it against you that you want to do your own plumbing. Only natural. I’d love to be able to save souls and give sermons, but I can’t.”

  I took his empty plate, placed it atop mine, and set them both next to me on the pew. “Well, lately I’m not so sure about the soul-saving part. Not many folks around here need theirs saved, thank goodness, except for the one person who won’t talk about it.”

  “Emma River, right?”

  “Emma River.” I leaned back and stretched my legs and sipped my coffee. “She’s a special lady. I’ll say that for her. But stubborn. Good grief, is she stubborn. Put her in the same room with Sadie Simms and Winnie Wyandotte, and I’ll bet we could sell tickets.”

  “No doubt, but I’d hate to be the one who decides the winner.” Bristol stood and stretched. He glanced behind him. The garbage bag gang still lined the wall. “You know as well as I do that Emma scares the spit out of me, but there’s something kinda vulnerable about that little old lady. She’s been through a lot, and I don’t imagine she’s had much support over the years from her so-called friends and neighbors.”

  “That’s what I keep hearing,” I said, “but I don’t know exactly what it is that’s she’s been through, aside from her mother’s and sister’s deaths, I mean.”

  Bristol sat back down, stretched out and crossed his arms across his chest. He looked at his cup. “We have any more coffee?”

  I reached for my cup and stood. “Yeah, think so. Be right back.” I walked to the back of the sanctuary, refilled our mugs, walked back, and handed Bristol his cup.

  “Thanks.” He took a drink then set the mug on his knee. “What I’ve heard is that Emma’s father died at sea while she was away at college. Nobody missed him. In the meantime, the aunt and uncle were still up at Rivermanse, spending a fortune and living high on the hog. Emma came home after college, cleaned house—literally—and sent her relatives packing.”

  “Good for her,” I said. “She never married?”

  Bristol shook his head. “Nope.

  We sat for a few more minutes, drinking and thinking. I drained my cup. “She’s an old woman. She doesn’t have a lot of time to make up her mind.”

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  I slapped my hands on my legs, pushed off, and stood up. “We have to help her. We have to make her make up her mind. And I think I know how we can help her along.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The next few days passed quickly, although not without incident. The men of my trusty congregation stepped up to the plate once again and took turns watching over the bad guys on Monday while I went home to get some sleep. By Tuesday morning, I was in my office for my first official day of work. It felt as though I’d been there thirty years.

  Pastor Parry’s possessions were still in place on the shelves and in the desk drawers, but he assured me he’d have them out of there in no time. I didn’t care; most of the stuff would be left for me, anyway, as it pertained to the church itself. I had plenty of time to make the office my own, and it’s not as if I didn’t have a desk and library at home. Besides, I had a few other things on my plate, namely, a funeral to conduct, a live Nativity performance looming larger by the minute on the snow-mantled horizon, a camel in my henhouse, a church building to renovate, and a discussion I hoped to have with a lady whose soul needed Christ. Not to mention heaps of melted Hummer lying all over town.

  I was standing in the church kitchen with Grace Headley, anticipating my first cup of coffee on Tuesday morning. Grace was the church’s part-time secretary and while I didn’t know her very well, I knew she was a hard worker, had a sharp wit, was well-liked around town, and had her hands full keeping her mother in line. Ruby Mae Headley was not only a stinker on a par with Sadie and Winnie, but she was a vain one to boot. Two days after Dewey accidentally blew her hat to smithereens, she was still ranting and raving around town about the indignity of losing her funeral hat to gunfire.

  Grace poured us each a cup of coffee.

  “We have any milk?” I asked.

  “In the fridge.” Grace pointed to the corner to what may have been the first model of electric refrigerator ever manufactured wedged in the cubbyhole between the back wall of the kitchen and the ancient counter-topped cupboards. I’m amazed it continues to chug along every day. I suppose I can thank Bristol Diggs for that. I reached into the fridge, grabbed the quart of milk, and sniffed it before I poured some into my mug.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” I said, as I nudged a short-haired, silver-furred cat way from the open door with my foot. “Go on, little girl. Go find someone your own size to play with.” I looked up at Grace. “Where’d this cat come from?”

  “That’s Pewter. She belongs to the church, I guess, but I take her home with me in the evenings and bring her to work with me every morning.”

  “Really.” I looked down at the cat leaning against my pant legs and shedding to beat the band. “Why Pewter? Because she’s silver?”

  “Yeah, that and because I found her when she was just a kitten sitting in one of the pews one day, sort of waiting for me, I guess. Pewter just seemed appropriate.”

  We stood for a couple of minutes, blowing on the hot coffee and taking small sips. Pewter yowled. “I think she misses her kittens,” Grace said. “Probably time for another batch.”

  “Is this the cat Pastor Parry told me about? The story about Martha Washington and the kittens?”

  Grace smiled and nodded. “Same one.” Pastor Parry mentioned a few days before about the time he had to stop Martha from advertising Pewter’s kittens, sired by the Washingtons’ tom cat, as “Direct descendants of George Washington’s cat.” She’d already made $150 dollars selling them in a basket out in front of their antique store, Thirteen Colonies, when Pastor Parry caught wind of her scheme and read her the riot act. Said it was
n’t ethical even if it was technically correct since her husband’s name was George Washington. He learned later that she put the remaining kittens on clearance. The sign read, “Kittens sired by George Washington’s cat—2 for $50.00”. They sold in ten minutes flat.

  “Strange town we live in, Grace.”

  “That it is, Pastor Sir. That it is.”

  We stood in silence for a few minutes. “You’ll be happy to know that Bristol fixed my pipes the other day. Did a great job, too,” I said as I raised the cup for a sip. “Ouch! Still hot.” I set the cup down on the cupboard, backed against the countertop and folded my arms across my chest. “We sprung a leak in the bathroom sometime in the night—before all this other stuff happened. He’s a good man, that Bristol. I’m glad I decided to give him a call.” Grace was also hopelessly in love with Bristol Diggs, and it seemed that everyone except Bristol knew about it. She was a striking woman—mid-forties, I’d say, with mahogany skin and the biggest brown eyes I’d ever seen. She could probably have just about any man she set her sights on, but Bristol seemed to be the only one who’d caught her eye. Too bad he was clueless. I think they’d make a great couple.

  “Good choice, Pastor Man,” Grace said. “Bristol’ll fix you right up every time. No sense having you mess it all up before he even has a chance to fix it right the first time.” She grabbed the quart of milk. “You need any more of this? Someone—and I’m not pointing fingers here—but someone, kinda tall, getting balder by the minute, someone who’s gonna be giving the sermons ’round here come Sunday didn’t put the milk away this morning.” She opened the refrigerator door. “Could have spoiled. Good thing I keep an eye on things around here.”

  “Mess it up? What are you talking about? It’s obvious you’ve never seen me in action with a wrench, young lady.” I returned her mock glare. “And I’ll have you know I did not leave that milk out this morning. This is my first cup.” I grabbed my mug and headed out the door toward my office. Grace followed me to her office door, and I stopped long enough to let her pass by as she walked to her desk. I continued across the foyer to my office. “I left it out yesterday morning.”

  “I heard that. Too bad old Roscoe’s not here. He’d take you down a peg or two.”

  I chuckled and plopped into my worn leather office chair—a gift from my parents when I reached the rank of colonel. Melanie had insisted on helping me lug it over that morning, adamant that I couldn’t start work without it. I leaned back, closed my eyes and thought about the events of the past few days. I’d been in Road’s End for less than a month and the pastor of Christ Is Lord Church for two days and already one of my parishioners had died, the church choir was up in arms over a collective insult by the rest of the congregation on their unremarkable talent, and I was still no closer to a solution to either of my main problems—increasing church membership and raising enough money to start immediate repairs on the building and grounds.

  Of course, those last two problems got dumped in my lap only thirty-six hours before. But still, there they were. I had a busy day ahead of me. I righted my chair and pulled a legal pad from the stack of magazines on the corner of my desk and got to work. I had Sunday’s sermon to write, a funeral to conduct this afternoon, and four felons sitting in my sanctuary trussed up with plastic ties and being guarded by trigger-happy senior citizens. Grace had big plans for them, though. She told me her mother and the other ladies were going to lead them to the Lord. Good luck with that, ladies. At least they’d have a captive audience.

  I leaned forward and peeked out the office window that overlooked the cemetery. Yep, Roscoe was buried under the snow, all right, clearly flat on his back. It was likely he’d been that way for several days. Pastor Parry told me that sometimes someone would take the time to enter the small cemetery and right him; other times, days would go by before anyone thought to lift the aging headstone to its upright position. Roscoe was just another reminder of the church grounds’ disintegration. Bristol did all he could to keep the building and grounds in good condition, but time is a powerful and unrelenting adversary. Truth be told, Bristol’s fighting a losing battle. And that meant I was too.

  But Wilford “Bill” Manning’s funeral was this afternoon at 2:00 p.m., so preparing a few words was first on my list. It would be a big one, as funerals went in Road’s End, since most everybody in the village knew Bill in one way or another. He was a cranky one in life. I smiled when I thought of the glorious change in my new, and now dearly-departed, friend’s outlook now that he was in his heavenly home. I’m happy for you, Bill. I’m not ready to go just yet, but when I do, getting ready to eat fried chicken is as good a way to die as any, I suppose.

  I jotted down a few words and reached for my Bible on several occasions to verify scripture verses. I hadn’t known Bill very well, and my last conversation with him a few days ago had turned into a shouting match. The focus of his call was to insist that the church choir, of which his sister Winnie was an avid member, be disbanded. His reason? They couldn’t sing. Not a lick. And he was right. When Bill found out that Winnie and the other members of the choir were planning to enter a contest in Richmond and would represent Road’s End under the name “High Roaders,” it sent him right over the edge. I’d wondered over the past two days whether or not Bill’s ranting and raving that day, just before collapsing and dying on his kitchen floor, had hastened his demise. I hoped not; I didn’t want to be a cause, in any way, shape, or form, of someone’s death. But if Bill Manning died as a direct result of his bad temper and ongoing feud with his sister, well, that was between Bill and his Maker.

  Halfway through my morning Grace came to my office door and whispered, “Winnie’s on hold on line one.”

  “Why are you whispering? And don’t you mean Winnie’s holding on the only phone line we have into this church?” I knew she was only trying to be professional, but I couldn’t miss the chance to tease her. “We don’t even have a ‘hold’ button, for that matter!”

  Grace glared. “Yep, but bein’ the only line into the church would still make it line one, now wouldn’t it, Colonel-Know-It-All Pastor? And I’m whisperin’ for the very reason that we don’t have a ‘hold’ button, smarty pants. She can hear everythin’ I’m saying if I’m not careful. That woman has the ears of a coyote.” She marched indignantly back to her office.

  I called after her. “Does she want to talk to me?”

  “She sure does, Your Highness. And she’s on line one.”

  By the time I’d hung up, I had another problem to add to my already way-past-long list. Winnie, disconsolate and grieving, had wailed into the phone that she wanted to honor her brother’s memory in the best way possible. I closed my eyes and mouthed a quick prayer when I heard her words. Please, dear Lord. Not the choir. Not the choir. Not the choir.

  It was the choir. Winnie and the High Roaders had decided that morning at a pre-funeral breakfast hosted by Sadie Simms and Martha Washington that singing at Bill’s funeral would be the very best—perhaps only—way to make poor Bill’s funeral a memorable and fitting tribute. I hung my head. Memorable, maybe. I was helpless to prevent the choir from singing at this poor man’s funeral—the final gathering to honor the man who, according to Winnie, she loved more than anyone else on the face of the earth—Dewey the exception, of course—when she wasn’t screaming at him at the top of her lungs.

  Grace found me fifteen minutes later, head in hands, thinking. Okay, moping. “What’s up, Colonel Foster?” No Smarty Pants this time. I must be back in her good graces.

  I looked up and sighed. “The choir’s singing at the funeral.”

  Grace burst into laughter, turned on her heel, and staggered back to her office. She laughed for the next ten minutes.

  I gave her ample time to gloat then took a break and walked into the sanctuary and sat down. I breathed in the musky scent of churches the world over—old hymnals, well-worn Bibles, candle wax, wooden pews, furniture polish, and the faint traces of decades of potlucks, coffee,
and dish soap forever imprinted into the very walls of the historic building. Home again. I had to admit it felt good to be back in the pulpit.

  The sanctuary is an intimate room, filled with the usual wooden pews that would probably seat a hundred or more people if they sat shoulder-to-shoulder, although I don’t suppose that’s happened for a while. Large, arched windows flank the room along both sides. I watched tiny specks of dust dance in the beams of light streaming into the room through the wavy glass. It was peaceful despite the presence of the four men lounging against the wall grumbling to beat the band. Beyond the windows, stately oaks and maples, some nearly as old as the building, stand guard beyond the small yard that surrounds the church. It’s probably breathtaking in the spring and fall.

  Joe Rich, current man on thug-duty, assured me he had everything under control, and they’d tuck our prisoners away before the start of the funeral.

  I wandered down the hall to Grace’s office. “Hey, what’s that you were saying earlier about Roscoe?”

  Grace was leaning down to pet Pewter who was sprawled out on the desktop, flat on her belly with her chin resting between her outstretched front legs. “Hey, Pewter baby,” she said, “how’s it going today, huh? You look mighty comfortable. Are you a happy kitty? Going to be a gorgeous day to work for the Lord.”

  I stepped into the room and looked at the cat. “Same cat, I hope?”

  “Yep.

  “Beautiful animal,” I said. Pewter stood up, arched her back and stretched her legs, then nosed her face along Grace’s arm and butted at her hand until she got her ears rubbed. After a few seconds of undivided attention, Pewter jumped down from the desk, ambled toward the door, and stalked past me. I’m almost certain she held her breath as she passed.