The Last Sunday

by Terry E. Hill

  By 10:50 the choir had lined up behind the now closed double doors to the sanctuary. Except for choir members waiting to enter the sanctuary, the lobby was empty. They waited patiently for the first chords from the organ. Singers nervously fastened buttons on their robes and adjusted the sashes embroidered with the name of the church. The doors flew open and the procession began when the chord was finally struck. Parishioners stood to welcome the jubilant march.

  Reverend Willie Mitchell had dropped off the crack-addicted assassin, Virgil Jackson, three blocks away from the church. He had then double-parked his car in the parking lot of the church and had run up the stairs. His seat was waiting for him in the pulpit. As he passed Samantha on the front row, she remembered how he bent over to kiss her check and whispered, “Everything is set.”

  Samantha had decided against pearls for her wrist and had instead chosen a diamond bracelet Hezekiah had bought her for Christmas.

  The worship service proceeded as it had for the past ten years. The choir sang, the people rejoiced, the cameras rolled, and Hezekiah entered the sanctuary on cue. The cameras followed his precisely sculpted black suit as it floated up the steps to the pulpit. He nodded good morning to the choir as they continued their song.

  When the song ended, all cameras focused once again on Hezekiah. Samantha remembered how pious and arrogant he looked on the forty-foot JumboTron screen. The applause subsided, and Hezekiah spoke his first words of the morning.

  She remembered them as if they were etched in her brain. “I know a lot of you are not going to want to hear what I have to say this morning, but praise God, I’m going to say it any way.

  “Brothers and Sisters, it’s time for us to stop lying to ourselves. It’s time we stop lying to each other, and most importantly, it’s time we stop lying to God. He already knows our hearts, so who do we think we’re fooling? Now, please understand I’m preaching to myself just as much as I’m preaching to you.”

  A mixture of laughter and the words ‘”Go ahead, Preacher” came from the far reaches of the sanctuary.

  “Now, one lie is only the tip of the iceberg. Once you tell one lie, you’ve got to tell ten more to cover it up. Pretty soon we don’t even know what the truth is ourselves. We lie about our hair color. We lie about our jobs. We stretch the truth about our income.” Hezekiah extended his arms to illustrate the point. “And some of us even lie about who we love.”

  Samantha shuddered slightly at her office window when she recalled how nervous she was at that point in his sermon. She had looked over her shoulder to the balcony several times, hoping Virgil would act before Hezekiah said something she would regret. She wanted to be remembered as the wife Pastor Cleaveland loved. Not as the woman he had planned to divorce for a man.

  Virgil Jackson had entered the now empty lobby unnoticed and had quietly climbed the side stairs of the balcony. The double doors of the sanctuary were closed, and all eyes and ears were focused on Hezekiah and his cryptic sermon.

  Hezekiah continued, “I will be the first one to say before God and all of you that I’ve told my share of lies. I’m just a man. A man who must humble himself daily before God to confess his sins and to plead His forgiveness.” Hezekiah picked up the handheld microphone and walked away from the podium. “I, like you, have done some things in my life that I am not proud of.”

  Countless amens were uttered. Samantha remembered noticing Hattie Williams rocking with her Bible open and reading. A quiet confusion began to work its way through the pews. This was a sermon like none they had ever heard from the pastor. He had lowered himself to the level of mortals. The faces became troubled by his descent, because they needed him to be better than they were.

  Hezekiah had put one foot on the steps, preparing to walk down, when two loud shots reverberated through the sanctuary. The first shriek came from someone in the center of the church, as Hezekiah fell backward into the pulpit. Everyone was paralyzed for what seemed like minutes. Women began ducking behind pews, while men shielded them. Screams were soon heard from every part of the auditorium. Hezekiah lay bleeding from bullet wounds to the head and chest. The members in Fellowship Hall gasped as they watched the mayhem unfold on the massive flat-screen.

  Virgil stood erect and ran stumbling up the center aisle of the balcony. Samantha saw the shadow of a man running out of the dark balcony.

  Samantha smiled slightly when she recalled how she dramatically broke free from a security guard who was trying to protect her. She ran up the steps to her husband. Some members of the choir dashed from the stand, while others crouched, weeping, behind seats. The organist sat frozen in fear on the bench as several people ran screaming out the double doors.

  Samantha dropped and cradled Hezekiah’s head on the arm of her suit. Her bracelet sparkled from the light in the church’s stained glass. She screamed hysterically. “Hezekiah, baby! Hezekiah, don’t die! I need you.” She resisted the urge to lay her head on his chest, for fear of getting blood on the collar she had so carefully selected. “Hezekiah! Please, God, don’t take him from me!”

  After a respectable moment had passed, Reverend Willie Mitchell and Reverend Percy Pryce gently separated Samantha from Hezekiah’s body and briskly escorted her, crying and thrashing, out the side door. Hezekiah’s lifeless body lay at the top of the steps, clutching the microphone, while the security guard tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him.

  By two o’clock the church grounds were filled with police cars and news vans. Satellite dishes pointed to the heavens, and high heels stumbled over electrical cords crisscrossing the parking lot. The police had emptied the sanctuary of parishioners, and the double doors had been cordoned off with yellow tape. Members were now milling in the halls and outside the church, giving and receiving comfort. The final word had already spread that the pastor was dead.

  From her window in the church Samantha could see reporters, with microphones and cameras in tow, cornering members for their reaction to the tragedy for the local and national news networks. Television programming around the country had been interrupted to report on the assassination of Pastor Hezekiah T. Cleaveland. The hats, the fresh haircuts, and the pain at New Testament Cathedral were beamed live that day to televisions throughout the world.

  Samantha fondly remembered seeing the covered body of her husband being removed from the church. Cameramen scrambled to get a shot of the gurney as it was being lifted into the rear of the van. Crying women, children clinging to their thighs, provided a dramatic backdrop for the parting shots of the vehicle.

  Samantha sobbed into a crumpled tissue on the sofa inside Hezekiah’s office. The suit jacket Hezekiah had worn that morning was draped over her lap, and blood from his head had dried on her sleeve. Reverend Pryce and his wife, Cynthia, sat on either side of her.

  Jasmine had not attended church again that morning. Samantha had instructed Etta to let her sleep in. She hadn’t wanted Jasmine to witness her father’s assassination. Samantha called home shortly after being taken to the church office. “Jasmine, honey,” she said. “This is Mommy. Something terrible has happened. Daddy has been shot. He’s dead.”

  Suddenly Samantha’s office door swung open, and Jasmine appeared in the threshold. The whoosh of the door startled Samantha from the fond memory of that wonderful day two months earlier. She turned abruptly from the window, revealing the gun, her friend.

  “Jasmine, you startled me,” she said with uncharacteristic surprise. “Why didn’t you knock?” As she spoke, she slowly put the gun into a desk drawer.

  “I didn’t know you were in here. I came in to get one of your cigarettes,” Jasmine said, watching the gun as it disappeared into the desk.

  “I’ve told you I don’t like you smoking. It’s a filthy habit.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “Because, honey, your mother is under a lot of pressure and—”

  “How much longer are you going to pretend I didn’t see that gun you just put in your desk?” Jasmine asked suspiciou
sly.

  “I’m not pretending. I know you saw it.”

  “Then would you mind telling me why you have a gun? I thought you and Daddy hated guns. Are you planning on using that on someone?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I have it for protection.”

  “Protection from what?” Jasmine scoffed. “This place is crawling with armed guards. Sometimes I feel like I live in a prison. I don’t believe you. What is the gun for?” she asked insistently.

  The two women locked eyes. There was silence in the room. Throughout Jasmine’s life she had never felt she knew fully what damage her mother was capable of doing to those she considered a threat or an enemy. She had seen Samantha send employees running from rooms in tears. She had had a front row seat in the theater that was their life. For years she had seen how Samantha manipulated her father. She had sometimes sat in disbelief after witnessing how abusive her mother could be to the house staff and security.

  Now seeing her mother standing there with a gun, she realized there was yet another level of cruelty she was capable of. The picture did not surprise or shock her. The image of her mother standing at the window, the blue sky enveloping her in an ethereal glow, actually filled in a missing piece in her view of her mother, the woman with the French-tipped fingernails holding a gun.

  “Have you ever used it?” Jasmine asked without any hint of doubt.

  “Of course I haven’t.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Samantha replied.

  “I think you know,” Jasmine said coolly.

  For the first time Jasmine saw a third dimension to her mother, and it frightened her. She knew all too well the cardboard cutout of the pastor’s wife and the loving mother that had always repulsed her. She knew the cruel woman who seemed oblivious to the feelings of others. But now she saw the dangerous woman who, without question, had it in her to kill. In that light, at that window, and with that gun, her mother could not hide her true self.

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Samantha said, closing the desk drawer. “You should leave.”

  “You killed him, didn’t you?”

  Samantha froze for a millisecond. “Killed who, darling?” she said, as if indulging the furtive imagination of a precocious child.

  “Daddy,” Jasmine said, looking her directly in the eye. The original intent of the question was simply to irritate her mother, but as the words floated between them, they took on a distinct air of possibility and even truth.

  “Why would you say a horrible thing like that?” Samantha replied incredulously. “Are you on drugs again?”

  “No, I’m not on drugs. I haven’t used drugs since I came back from Arizona. Now answer my question,” Jasmine said firmly. “Did you kill Daddy?”

  “Honey, you know perfectly well I was sitting in the audience when your father was killed.”

  “Is that the gun he was killed with? Did you pay someone to do it?”

  “I want you to stop this nonsense right now.” Her tone shifted from that of an indulgent caregiver to that of an accused killer. “I don’t want to ever hear those words come out of your mouth again. Do you understand me?”

  “For the first time I feel I really do understand you. You had him killed. Why?” Jasmine said, taking a step closer to Samantha. “Did you want to be pastor that bad? Did you finally realize you didn’t need him anymore? That you could do it all on your own.”

  Samantha took a step toward her, narrowing the space between them to only a few feet. Her shoulders stiff and her hands at her sides, as if squaring off with an equally worthy opponent, she said, “I loved your father. I could never do anything to hurt him.”

  Jasmine laughed slightly. “You hated him. He hated you, and I hate you too.”

  As the last word escaped her lips, Jasmine felt the sharp sting of Samantha’s open palm on her cheek.

  “You will not speak to me in that way,” Samantha said as Jasmine recoiled from the blow. “I’m your mother, and don’t you ever forget it.”

  “Or what?” Jasmine said, holding her burning cheek. “You’ll kill me too?”

  Samantha immediately raised her hand and, in a flash, leveled another blow with even greater force. “If you insist on speaking to me like a grown woman, then I will treat you like one. You don’t seem to realize how much I indulged you and your behavior only because your father protected you from me. Now that he’s gone, there’s nothing standing between us. You don’t know what I’m fully capable of, and trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  “I think I know now,” Jasmine said defiantly. “I know you’re capable of murdering the only person in the world I ever loved.”

  “I’ll attribute your ranting to your drug-addled brain. But trust me, if you ever say that to me again, or to anyone else, you will see for the first time exactly who you’re dealing with.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Chapter 9

  Percy Pryce made every effort to perform his duties as assistant pastor to the best of his now limited abilities. Conducting marriage ceremonies for young, starry-eyed couples. Officiating over funerals and comforting the families of the dearly departed. Today’s tasks included counseling a parishioner who was contemplating suicide after losing his home to foreclosure and, shortly after that, his wife.

  The man, whose name Percy could hardly remember, sat across from him in his office at New Testament Cathedral and poured the troubled contents of his heart onto the desk between them.

  “The day after I received the foreclosure notice, she just got up, packed a bag, and left. Her mother was waiting in the car out front. The bitch didn’t even say good-bye. I’m sorry, Reverend, but this has got me so upset.”

  “That’s all right . . . umm, Brother. I understand,” Percy said on auto pilot. “Go on.”

  Percy could not stop his mind from wandering as the man spoke. The troubled parishioner’s words soon turned into a bothersome buzz in his ears. Even though Percy looked at him with sympathetic eyes, he could see only the faint blur of a brown suit and a head with glasses.

  Percy’s mind drifted to the first day he had heard the name Danny St. John and to the events that followed.

  “Hello, Catherine. Sorry I’m late,” he had said on that afternoon, when he entered the office of Catherine Birdsong, the church’s then chief operating officer.

  Percy remembered Catherine’s troubled face when he saw her that day.

  “You look terrible. Is there something wrong? Have you been crying?” he had asked, approaching her with an outstretched hand. “What has Samantha done to you now?”

  The comment was initially said in jest, but as he walked closer, he detected the faint remnant of a tear in the corner of her eye.

  Catherine extended her hand and allowed it to be enveloped by Percy’s hearty grip. “I’m fine, Reverend Pryce,” she said, pointing to the chair in front of her desk, inviting him to sit. “What did you want to see me about?”

  “Catherine, you can’t fool me. I know something is wrong. We’ve known each other a long time. I think of you as a friend, and I hope you feel the same about me. Has Samantha done something to upset you?”

  Catherine looked away, avoiding his sympathetic gaze. There was silence for a moment, and then she spoke. “Percy, something terrible has happened, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Then tell me about it. Maybe we can figure it out together.”

  “It’s about Hezekiah, but he told me to not discuss it with anyone.”

  Percy threw his head back and laughed aloud. “How many times have we both heard that over the years? But we each know that sometimes it’s necessary to discuss our concerns with others we trust to make sure our perspectives are clear and unclouded by fear. Now tell me. What’s going on? Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”

  Catherine proceeded to recount the antagonistic meeting with Lance Savage
. She told him how the reporter had confronted Hezekiah with the information he had on his affair with Danny St. John.

  Percy listened attentively, shifting several times in his seat and occasionally interrupting to ask questions, such as “What did Hezekiah say?” and “When is the story supposed to run?”

  Catherine concluded her tale with, “I’ve never been this worried about anything in my life.”

  Percy’s last question was, “Who else knows about this?”

  “I made the mistake of telling Kenneth. He’s threatened to call Lance and sue the Chronicle.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Kenneth.” Percy then flashed a comforting smile and said, “Catherine, it doesn’t sound all that bad. You know these crazies come out of the woodwork every few years. This St. John person is probably some nut who’s obsessed with Hezekiah. I’ll bet if I put a little scare into him, he’ll stop spreading these lies.”

  “That’s just it, Percy. I’m not convinced it’s a lie. Hezekiah never denied it and swore me to secrecy. Why would he do that if it wasn’t true?”

  “What kind of mood was Hezekiah in this afternoon?”

  “I have no idea,” she said fretfully. “He canceled all his appointments. I haven’t seen or heard from him all day.”

  “That’s not like him. I’ll see if I can reach him on his cell later this evening.”

  “Please don’t tell him you spoke to me,” Catherine pleaded. “Tell him you ran into Lance in the hall and he told you.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I won’t even mention your name. In the meantime we should meet first thing in the morning with Kenneth and see if we can come up with a plan for damage control, just in case the story does eventually run. Will you set that up?”

  “Are you sure he can be trusted?” she asked. “How do we know he didn’t leak the story in the first place?”