The Last Sunday

by Terry E. Hill

  Scarlett looked suspiciously at the little device. She made a mental note to watch her tone and to show no emotion. “Not at all.”

  “How long have you been a member of New Testament Cathedral?”

  “I joined a few years after it was founded. It’s been about eight years now.”

  “At that time it was still a small church. Why did you choose it as your church home?”

  “I was actually an employee at first. I was Pastor Cleaveland’s assistant for a year before I joined the church.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that. What was it like working for the Cleavelands?”

  “I didn’t work for the Cleavelands,” Scarlett replied, bristling. “I said I was Pastor Cleaveland’s assistant.”

  “I see. Well, what was it like working for Hezekiah?”

  “He was a good boss. Very compassionate. Very professional. I didn’t have any complaints.”

  Gideon knew instinctively there was more to the story, and proceeded with caution. “What were your duties at that time?”

  “I was primarily his scheduling secretary. I managed his calendar and made all his travel arrangements for speaking engagements outside of the city, and I handled some personal things, like doctor’s appointments, car maintenance, small things like that.”

  “Why did you quit?”

  Scarlett hesitated. She had not anticipated this line of questions. “I’m not clear what this has to do with Hezekiah.”

  Her slightly defensive tone did not go unnoticed by Gideon. “Understanding your role at the church and with Pastor Cleaveland helps me establish a context. I hope I haven’t offended you in any way.” Gideon watched closely for her verbal and nonverbal responses.

  “I’m not offended at all,” she said as she crossed her legs on the couch. “I left when I married and became pregnant with my daughter.”

  “I see. So that was five or six years ago. Is that when you married David?”

  “No, David is my second husband. He’s not Natalie’s father,” she responded and looked nervously at her watch. “Her father and I divorced when she was two years old.”

  “I’m sorry. How did you become a member of the board of trustees?”

  “Hezekiah asked me personally.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  “I’m not sure. I suppose he trusted me.”

  As she spoke, Gideon looked at the photo of the little girl again, and now it was clear. She looked remarkably like Hezekiah. “She really is a lovely little girl. Was your first husband related to Hezekiah?”

  “No,” Scarlett replied with a puzzled look. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but notice the resemblance between your daughter and Hezekiah.” Her nervousness served as the answer to his questions. “She has his eyes and nose.”

  Scarlett turned and looked at the picture over her shoulder to avoid eye contact. She did not respond.

  “Do you have any other children?”

  “No, she’s an only child.” Scarlett looked at her watch again.

  “What was your relationship like with Samantha Cleaveland?”

  “I didn’t have much contact with her. She had her own assistant.”

  “If I can be frank with you, Scarlett . . . May I call you Scarlett?”

  She responded with an affirmative nod of her head.

  “Thank you. As I was saying, I’ve spoken to several people, and some have told me in confidence how difficult Samantha can be. That the woman the public sees is actually nothing like the Samantha Cleaveland they know behind the scenes.”

  Scarlett did not respond but simply looked down at the recorder that sat on the coffee table between them.

  “This can be off the record if you would prefer,” Gideon said, pressing the STOP button on the recorder. “I would really appreciate anything you can tell me to help me get a true picture of Hezekiah and Samantha. I can assure you that I will attribute nothing to you that you do not approve in advance.”

  Scarlett stood and walked to the sliding-glass door behind the couch. She crossed her arms and looked out into the yard.

  “Samantha Cleaveland is a horrible woman,” she finally said.

  Gideon remained silent.

  “The only things that are important to her are money and power. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the ministry now that she is pastor. I’m sure it will keep growing, but at what cost?”

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Scarlett. Did Samantha have a problem with you working so closely with Hezekiah? Is she the real reason you quit as his assistant?”

  “Yes,” was her anguished reply. “She made my life miserable. Hezekiah tried to shield me from her, but the more he tried, the more hostile she became toward me.” As she spoke, a tear fell from her eye. She tried to wipe it away discreetly, but Gideon recognized the gesture even with her back turned.

  In a split second Gideon calculated his next move. He weighed the risk of asking her the question he already knew the answer to, and reasoned there was nothing to lose.

  “Scarlett, is Natalie Hezekiah’s daughter?”

  Scarlett was too weak to form a believable denial. The lies, the death, and the betrayal had taken their toll. If only her life could have been as neat and tidy as the perfect living room. She slowly lowered her head and was silent.

  Scarlett had arrived in Los Angeles as a young girl from the South. Her mother had wanted a better life for her, so she had sent her to live with relatives in California. She had been smart and beautiful her entire life but had never really known it. Her shyness was often mistaken for conceitedness. Boys found the shy Southern girl captivating. Her naïveté and her soft voice garnered proposals of marriage long before she turned eighteen.

  Scarlett thought back to when she was nineteen, to the day she found out she was pregnant with Hezekiah’s baby.

  Gideon could see that she was crying at the window. He stood and walked behind her and gently placed his hand on her quivering shoulder and asked again, “Is she his daughter, Scarlett?”

  Scarlett could no longer contain her tears. She covered her mouth and sobbed, “Yes,” into her cupped hand. “She is Hezekiah’s daughter.”

  “It’s okay, Scarlett,” Gideon said in his most comforting voice. “Your secret is safe with me. Does your husband know?”

  The question caused her sobs to intensify. Gideon’s heart told him to stop, but his reporter’s mind urged him to push harder. Through his touch on her quivering shoulder, he could feel her pain. She was so gentle and fragile, he felt any additional pressure would cause her to shatter into a million pieces on the peach carpet.

  Against the gentle pleading of his heart, he pressed on. His instincts told him David knowing about Natalie accounted for a large portion of her pain. “How did David react when you told him?” he asked gently.

  “He was furious,” she said through tears. “I can’t blame him. I made a mistake by not telling him sooner. He feels embarrassed that Hezekiah and Samantha knew and he didn’t. It was stupid of me. I just didn’t know how to tell him.” The entire time she spoke, she kept her back to him. “I’ve made a mess of everything, but I didn’t mean anyone any harm. I just wanted to protect my daughter.”

  Gideon had interviewed enough battered women to recognize some of the signs. Overwhelming guilt, shuddering under the touch of a man, blaming herself rather than the perpetrator. The signs were there.

  “What did he do when you told him?”

  There was no answer.

  “Did he hurt you, Scarlett?” he asked with the voice of a seasoned therapist.

  “No,” she said in a dismissive tone. “David would never hurt me. He’s much too gentle to hurt anyone.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Gideon allowed the words to linger in the air. He knew there was no turning back for Scarlett. Once the floodgates of confession had been opened, few could resist the rushing tide.

  “He’s threatening to leave m
e for . . .” She hesitated and seemed to brace herself for the next words.

  “Leave you?” Gideon said, tenderly goading her.

  Scarlett took a deep breath and said, “Yes. For Samantha Cleaveland.”

  Gideon froze. It was unbelievable on so many different levels. The glamorous grieving widow already connecting with another man. The pastor stealing another woman’s husband. The board of trustee member giving birth to the pastor’s illegitimate child. It was almost too much for him to grasp. Blackmail, love triangles, and murder. The seasoned reporter who thought he had heard everything was now presented with a story so fantastic that even Hollywood would be challenged to do it justice.

  “Are you sure?” Gideon asked with the deepest sincerity. “Why would Samantha do that to you?”

  “You don’t know her,” she replied with a mixture of scoffs and tears. “She doesn’t care who gets hurt as long as she gets what she wants. She almost destroyed my life once, and now she’s trying to do it again. I c-c-ould . . .” she stammered. “If I had the chance, I would kill her.”

  It was well after midnight. Hattie sat in her favorite floral wingback chair in her living room. The steam from a cup of chamomile tea that sat on the tea table released a wisp of mint into the quiet, dark room. Hattie had raised three children in this house. Her husband had died years earlier, and she now lived alone. The newest piece of furniture in the entire home was a small ottoman that her husband had purchased twenty years earlier so she could elevate her leg and take the pressure off her arthritic knee.

  There was a chill in the air. The only light came from the dial of a transistor radio sitting on a hutch across the room. A minister she had never heard before chirped his message of damnation to insomniacs, who were either enthralled by his words, too tired to turn the dial, or otherwise preoccupied.

  No need to turn on the heater, she thought while pulling her terry-cloth robe tight around her chest to ward off the cold. Lord willing, I’ll be asleep soon.

  It was in the midnight hours like this that Hattie had been guided through decisions that shaped her life. Alone and in the dead of night. The world was asleep, and the air was clear of the blizzard of thoughts that often distort the mind.

  Her philosophy was that since the beginning of time there had only ever been one man and one woman. Adam and Eve. There was only one mind, and we all drew our wisdom, inspiration, and creativity from the same source. If one person had an idea, then every person on the planet had access to that very same idea. If one person suffered, then we all suffered. If one person succeeded, we all succeeded.

  Hattie had inherited the gift of empathy, and the particular wisdom that accompanied it, from her grandmother. It placed Hattie in the unique position of knowing the hearts of people and being able to anticipate their actions. Only a few people knew she had this gift. Her grandmother knew the moment she laid eyes on the gurgling little baby girl. Pastor Cleaveland realized it when she told him he was going to be one of the most famous men on earth.

  Now, on this quiet night, Hattie could feel the universe had something to tell her. She sat patiently in the chair, tolerating the ranting preacher on the radio. If my arthritis wasn’t acting up on me, I’d get up and turn him off, she thought. But it was, so she sat captive to his misguided perspective on the Gospel. Her defense was to reduce his voice to nothing more than white noise as she sipped the herbal tea and quietly hummed one of her favorite hymns.

  “Walk in the light, beautiful light, come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright. Oh, shine all around us by day and by night, Jesus is, Jesus is the light of the world.”

  Hattie knew her Bible, and she knew the truth. She had never relied on anyone to tell her God’s will. “If one man knows the truth, then we all know the truth. God ain’t telling one man a secret that he ain’t willing to tell everybody,” she often noted. Hattie discounted any preacher who said, “God told me to tell you . . . ,” because she knew it wasn’t true and would invariably be followed by him or her reaching into her pocketbook. “God don’t have favorites,” she often said. “If he has a message for anyone on this earth, believe me, child, he will tell them personally. God doesn’t need a middleman.”

  “If the gospel be hid, it’s hid from the lost, my Jesus is waiting to look past your faults. Arise and shine, your light has come. Jesus is, I know that He is the only light of this world.”

  As the hymn fell almost silently from her lips, she felt a familiar stirring in her stomach. This always meant that either a vision was coming or she would soon need a sip of Metamucil. Considering she had had only cottage cheese and a few slices of canned peaches for dinner, she assumed a vision would soon play out before her.

  She gently placed the cup of tea on the table and looked straight ahead into the darkness. Hints of furniture and the shadows on her drawn shades from the trees standing guard outside her window were all she could see.

  Slowly, a form began to appear in the middle of the room. At first she couldn’t see what it was, but as the moments passed, it became clear it was taking the shape of a human. She freely opened her heart and mind to what was to come.

  Before the image was fully formed, she knew exactly who it was. The room took on a ghostly glow, which emanated directly from the form. She felt a rush of cold sweep through her body. Hattie gripped the armrest to brace herself for the visitor. She felt waves of hate rush over her as the image became clearer.

  Then, in an instant, Samantha Cleaveland was standing in the room. Hattie had never seen an image so clearly. Samantha was looking directly at her with a foreboding glare. There was something threatening in her stance. Her feet were firmly planted on the oval braided rug in the center of the room. Her shoulders were square, and her fists were clenched at her sides.

  Hattie looked calmly at the figure and waited for it to reveal the purpose of its visit. She could feel the hate. She’d felt it before on so many Sunday mornings. Then Samantha slowly raised her hand and pointed directly at Hattie. The gesture sent a shiver down Hattie’s spine. Samantha took a step toward Hattie.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Hattie said out loud.

  Samantha stopped as Hattie’s voice sliced through the cold in the room. Her expression said she wanted to come closer, but she could not.

  “What do you want?” Hattie asked firmly.

  There was no response. Instead, Samantha took another bold step forward. Hattie sat upright in the wingback chair. She reached to her left and took a leather-bound Bible from the table and rested it in her lap.

  “I know what you did to Pastor Cleaveland,” Hattie said in a clear attempt to provoke the spirit. “God knows what you did.”

  Samantha took another step forward. It happened so quickly that Hattie noticed only that the distance between them had become shorter. She opened the Bible in her lap. This was no ordinary vision. Up until now she had witnessed only visions that seemed as though they were playing on a television screen. This time was different. She could actually feel Samantha in the room. It was almost as if she could reach out and touch her. Hattie was, for the first time, a part of the vision.

  She knew the spirit was trying to intimidate her, but she was not afraid. “Don’t hurt anyone else,” Hattie said boldly. “This has got to stop. Stay away from that boy, Danny. Hezekiah loved him. He won’t let you hurt him.”

  Samantha began to laugh. There was no sound, only the mocking expression on her face. Her presence was so strong in the room that Hattie had to brace herself so as not to become overwhelmed by it. She was determined, however, to stand her ground.

  “God is going to stop you,” she said. “I’m praying with every ounce of me for God to stop you.”

  Samantha took another defiant step closer. She was now standing only four feet away.

  Hattie stood from the chair. Her arthritic knee functioned as well as it had when she was twenty years old. She looked Samantha directly in the eye and said, “This has got to stop now.” Hattie raised the Bible betwe
en them and began to pray. “In the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. I bind you by the power of God.”

  She said the words over and over. The intensity of her speech increased with each repetition. As she spoke, Samantha took a step backward. One after another, Hattie unleashed a barrage of scriptures and declarations. The more she spoke, the farther Samantha moved away. But Hattie was relentless. With every step back that Samantha took, Hattie took one step forward.

  The hate pouring from Samantha did not diminish. The room remained cold, and her finger stayed fixed on Hattie. Then, as slowly as the figure had appeared, it began to fade away. The two women’s eyes remained locked the entire time. After a few moments, the figure disappeared completely. The last thing Hattie saw was Samantha’s eyes peering at her through the darkness.

  Hattie made her way back to the wingback chair and collapsed onto the seat. Suddenly the pain in her knee shot through her entire body. She realized she was panting for breath and her hands were shaking. She felt a bead of perspiration roll down her cheek.

  In all the years she had been having visions, never once had she been presented with an image that frightened her as much as this one had. The sight of Samantha standing in her living room, pointing at her, had made Hattie’s heart pound against the walls of her chest.

  She clutched the Bible to her breast and said, “Lord, you have to stop her.”

  Chapter 10

  New Testament Cathedral felt like the center of the universe this week. The campus was filled with tourists who had traveled from far and wide to witness the opening of the new sanctuary. Mobile homes, tour buses, cars, and limousines were lined up at the entrance, waiting for their turn to drive along the campus’s cobblestone streets and to come that much closer to Samantha Cleaveland. Each vehicle was greeted with a hearty “Welcome to New Testament Cathedral,” from the armed security guards. “Would you mind stepping from the vehicle while we search it? We can’t be too safe these days.”

  No one protested. Everyone understood that there was still a killer on the loose and that every measure had to be taken to protect Samantha Cleaveland. The first few steps into each new building took guests through metal detectors. Visible gun bulges could be seen under the arms of discreet men and women in black suits and dark sunglasses as they talked into their wristwatches while walking the grounds and looking inconspicuous.