Crown of Thorns (Nick Barrett Charleston series)

by Sigmund Brouwer

  I laughed. “This is all about you, huh?”

  “Meaning?” My laughter hadn’t eased her immediate resentment.

  “It was ‘wow’ as in ‘Zora Starr wow.’ I’ve seen where she lives. She must have wanted to find Timothy Larrabee badly if she came up with that kind of retainer.”

  Behind us came the clatter of the action of the open grill. I heard the waitress shout our order to the cook.

  “This is all I’m going to tell you about Zora,” Kellie said. I noticed she didn’t apologize for her flare of temper. “I didn’t ask her for a retainer. She had a long history with Pops. He’d go to her when he needed help in her community. He owed her plenty of favors. That’s why she came to me. I didn’t charge her a dime for my work either. She’s helped me plenty, too.”

  “A voodoo woman would know a lot that could help in your business.”

  “Yeah, well—” Kellie stopped. “Angel tell you about the voodoo?”

  “Not in so many words. But that’s part of the long version.”

  “Get started,” she said.

  I began with a description of the Van Dyck portrait of Charles I that had disappeared from the Larrabee estate. I told her about Glennifer and Elaine and their request for me to talk to Angel. I paused for a few moments when our food arrived, then continued. Without describing Maddie’s hospital situation or my involvement in paying the hospital fees, I explained how Angel had sent me to Bingo, how Bingo had told me about Zora’s detective report, then sent me to the church. How Shepherd Isaiah had sent me away before I could talk to Larrabee. I didn’t think it was Kellie Mixson’s business that I’d found a baby in my Jeep or that I’d delivered the boy to the hospital, so I kept that to myself, too. I finished by telling her what I had learned from Evelyn during my visit earlier in the morning, how it appeared that Timothy Larrabee had taken the painting and given it to a girl his age all those years ago.

  “So it was Timothy Larrabee who stole the painting from his grandmother,” Kellie said when I finished. “He was a born thief. Things haven’t changed much.”

  “Angel gave me the rest of your report. I read his background. Bad checks, grand theft auto. Various assault charges. Looks like when Agnes died and they had to yank the silver spoon from his mouth, he kept trying the easy way.”

  “He’s found it again in the Glory Church of the Lamb of Jesus.” Kellie pushed away her plate. It was so clean of food a sparrow wouldn’t have bothered to give it a second look. “Do you have any idea of the kind of assets that organization has accumulated?”

  “It wasn’t in the report.”

  “I only gave Grammie what she wanted. But I was curious, given that a man like Larrabee was so heavily involved in a religious organization. So I did the usual boring background stuff. Access public information. Call a contact at the IRS. Credit checks.”

  I nodded.

  “Let me put it this way,” she continued. “It’s a great legal tax dodge. Everyone who joins the church donates all of his or her wages. They work at regular jobs off the church grounds, but all live there in housing provided by the church.”

  I nodded again, thinking of the mobile homes I’d seen scattered in the trees behind the old church building.

  “So if you’re a church member, your taxable wages drop so low as to be laughable. You give up all you make, but the church takes care of every need. You’ve got no worries, because if you lose your job or get sick, everyone else picks up the slack. Now start running numbers from an administrative side. Give or take, there are seventy families in the Glory Church of the Lamb of Jesus. These people are working the low end of the economic scale, so say the average monthly wage is three thousand dollars per family. That means over two hundred grand a month—virtually tax free—goes into the church treasury. That’s cheap land out there, and mobile homes are the most inexpensive type of housing. Buy food in bulk for all the families, disperse some of the money for their other needs, get more tax advantages by home-schooling the kids and use that home-schooling to indoctrinate them so that they remain members of the church when they get old enough to earn wages.”

  “You sound cynical.”

  “I am cynical. It’s about numbers. Compared to revenue, the expenses are nothing. You do the math. Timothy Larrabee has his hand on a yearly purse that, after expenses, gets fatter by close to a million a year, if not more. The church was founded just under ten years ago, started small and grew to its present size about four years ago. Do the math again for the total assets since it was founded. Larrabee is onto something sweet.”

  “Shepherd Isaiah,” I corrected.

  She frowned at me.

  “Shepherd Isaiah’s the pastor of the Glory Church. He’s the one sitting on a million a year.”

  She shook her head. “This was interesting enough that I made it a pet project. Larrabee is the brains behind this. Isaiah Sullivan is the believer. They met in prison nearly fifteen years ago. Larrabee is about fifteen years older; he became a mentor of sorts. From my sources, I understand they formed an effective partnership, each protecting the other against the usual predators you’d expect in a federal prison. You might not know it, but the racial tension in there is incredible. Black gangs against white gangs. Larrabee and Sullivan shared the same cell for three years. That’s a lot of time for one man to get to know another, especially if the younger one looks up to the older one like a father. Sullivan was in for involuntary manslaughter. Killed someone outside a bar who tried to fight his younger brother. Saw the error of his ways in prison. Started preaching when he got out. All he needed was a flock. Larrabee helped deliver it. Who knows, maybe they spent all that time in there planning it out. Prison library’s got all the information Larrabee would need to help him think through the tax and investment implications. And what a way to come up with a monthly revenue base.”

  “Isaiah seemed passionate enough in the pulpit,” I said. “That would draw a certain type of person to his congregation.”

  “Passionate? Understatement. And the type of people he draws? Let me put it this way. When you were in the church, did you see any black people?”

  I shook my head.

  “A hundred and fifty years ago,” Kellie said, “some people in the South used the Bible to argue their case for slavery. That’s where Isaiah’s at. Don’t get me started on the use of the Bible as a weapon for white men to hold their power over women and other races.”

  “Not the Bible’s fault how people decide to abuse it.”

  “I told you not to get me started. Especially about the Glory Church. Although I feel sorry, in a way, for Isaiah Sullivan.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “A few years back, before Shepherd Isaiah became media shy, he allowed an interview,” she explained. “I’ll get you a copy of the magazine article. You’ll want to read it. Especially his past. Gives you some insight into how such a man might be formed. The jury knew about it, too. It became the main reason the prosecutor pushed for manslaughter instead of first- or second-degree murder.”

  “The overview?” It was pleasant, sipping coffee, listening to her talk.

  “Born and raised in the Smoky Mountains. His mother was a coal miner’s daughter. His father was unemployed. Both were alcoholic. Both beat Isaiah and Jeremiah routinely. Jeremiah was a lot younger, and Isaiah protected him. When Jeremiah was a baby, his mother would get mad at him for dirtying his diapers. For her, that was enough reason to beat the baby. So Isaiah took responsibility for changing the diapers. And cleaning the house. And cooking. Anything to keep their mother from losing her temper. Father had a worse temper and was so big, the boys knew if they tried to fight back when he whipped them, he’d kill them. When they were teenagers, they ran out and lived in the hills like wild animals, coming into town to steal food from Dumpsters at night. It was on one of those nights that a drunk began to taunt Jeremiah, who was thirteen or fourteen at the time, and dressed in rags and filth and rooting through a Dumpster. Isaiah stepped in, wen
t berserk, like he was fighting the entire cruel world instead of a drunk hardly able to stand. Pounded the man’s head into a car bumper until . . . well, you get the picture. They put Isaiah in prison. Jeremiah ran away, lived in the hills until Isaiah was released from prison and found him again.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Isaiah and Timothy have been out of prison ten years. Like I said, the church grew slowly at first. Last few years they broke through into the big bucks. A weird partnership, but effective.”

  “You interested in learning more?” I asked.

  She frowned slightly.

  “On my tab. I’m fine with your retainer and fee structure. Which is why I asked about it. I’d like you to find the gardener’s assistant—Richard Freedman, if Evelyn’s memory was correct. And the daughter of Celia Harrison.”

  The waitress stopped at our table. Kellie accepted a coffee refill, then turned her attention back to me. “Why?”

  “Since when do you care why a client wants information?”

  “Most of the time someone comes into my office, I know exactly what motivates them. Security issues. Or someone is behind on payments. Or they want to prove a spouse has been cheating. I can’t see what’s in it for you to find out about Larrabee. And that makes me a little gun-shy.”

  Why?

  I thought of Angel bravely standing up to the taxi driver. I thought of Maddie, clinging to Angel. I thought of a woman who was so desperate to help her child get away from the Glory Church that she had placed him in the vehicle and care of a man she hadn’t met. I thought of the demons I carried with me from childhood, and the ones I’d finally driven away.

  Private demons.

  “Look,” I said. “Are in you interested in the retainer or not?”

  “That’s your answer?”

  “That’s my answer. Want the retainer?”

  “Well,” she said after a short hesitation, “you know what they say. Money talks. But I won’t do any work until the check clears.”

  Chapter 14

  “Jubil.”

  “Got some news for me? You’re down to a day and half.”

  I spoke as I walked. Despite the heat, after breakfast with Kellie at the Sweetwater, I’d decided to take the short walk to the hospital from King and Market. I wanted time to think. And in general, I tried to walk as much as possible. At least in short stretches, when the pain of my prosthesis pressing against the stump of my leg was bearable. The longer I walked, however, the more noticeable my limp.

  “No news.” I’d called Jubil’s cell phone from mine. I had the plastic pressed to my ear as I dodged tourists wandering in and out of the shops. “Another favor.”

  Jubil’s laughter was tinny. “Must have a bad connection here. Sounded like you were asking for another favor. I’m taking enough heat already about delaying this report. And if the media finds out this one was buried—”

  “There’s a couple of kids in the Citadel district hawking stolen electronics. I’ll bet if you stop them, it’ll cut down on your B-and-Es.”

  “So now you talk like a cop?”

  “So now you talk like a Mafia tough guy?”

  “Where are these kids? I’ll send a patrol car.”

  “No.”

  “No? You talk like a cop and you act like my chief.”

  I dodged a large woman who was trying to push her husband into a used-book store. “I’m asking you to go yourself. Confiscate what they have and give them such a scare they decide what they’re doing is not such a good idea.”

  “You talk like a cop and act like my chief, but your heart bleeds like a social worker. What’s next, an imitation of my wife?”

  “Jubil, in high school you told me plenty of times how easily your life could have taken a different direction. All I’m saying is, you have a chance to do the same for these kids. Tour them through a penitentiary if that’s what it takes for them to decide on a different direction.”

  “I get it. Kids in that district are black. I’m black. So they’ll listen to me.”

  “Racist,” I said. “One’s white.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re a cop. You have a badge, a gun, and a shiny new car with lights that flash and a siren that makes big noise. More effective than a WASP like me with a boring lecture on why it’s bad for kids to steal.”

  “You made your point. Tell me where to find them.”

  “That’s the easy part,” I said.

  I told him about Bingo and the bright red Chevette with jacked-up wheels and when and where to find it.

  “If that was the easy part, what’s the hard part?” Jubil asked when I finished.

  “Let me put it this way. Make sure you flash your badge real early in your conversation with him.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The kid’s handy with a switchblade.”

  **

  Retha had been gone for about an hour when she first heard the hounds. At first, she thought she was hallucinating. The mosquitoes swarmed her in frenzied clouds. She’d wiped her face of their crushed bodies and her warm blood so often that she’d tired of carrying the gym bag and had left it in a hollow log, tucking one tube of lipstick and her cash in a roll inside her back pocket. The torment of the mosquitoes, the constant buzz in her ears, the gagging as she breathed in the husks of their bodies—all of it drove her into near madness.

  So when the eerie music of the hounds on a trail reached her, she thought it was simply another sound inside her head. As the chorus grew closer, however, she picked out the individual voices of their baying, and it jolted her back to her surroundings.

  It didn’t occur to her to be surprised or angry that Shepherd Isaiah had chosen to find her this way. Shepherd Isaiah always said loudly that a man had to do everything possible to protect his property. If that meant running her down like she was a mule busted out of the fence, so be it.

  It did occur to Retha that there was only one way to escape the hounds. She knew from listening to endless stories of her own father, and of Elder Mason, and of all his friends. She’d have to take to water.

  She was afraid of the dark still pools, the moist mud that would suck at her feet and ankles, the cottonmouths or water moccasins that might rise from the disturbed waters to curl around her thighs and waist.

  But her anger at Shepherd Isaiah and Elder Mason and Junior, and her desperation to get to Billy Lee, outweighed her fear.

  Without hesitation, she turned toward an opening in the swamp grass. Cypress trees cast serpentine shadows onto

  the water, but she ignored the ominous signs and waded forward.

  It was a small pool, and she crossed it in less than five minutes.

  She stepped out, water coursing down her body, long-dead rotted vines clinging to her hips. The hounds wouldn’t take long to circle it and pick up her scent on the far side. Retha ran hard, branches crashing against her face, cracked ribs searing her at every jolt.

  Then she reached it. A small river, slow current.

  She jumped in, startling a pair of sunning turtles into slapping the water beside her and disappearing into a trail of bubbles. If

  she stayed in the water and moved with the current, the hounds wouldn’t find her. And soon enough, she’d find a bridge. The bridge would get her to a road. And tonight, in the dark, she’d follow that road to her new life.

  She swam with the current.

  **

  “Here she is, my mama before she died,” Angel said. “Would you like to see her?”

  I was at the opposite side of the hospital room. It was semiprivate, with only two beds. I’d been looking down on Billy Lee. He was sleeping, half covered with bedsheets. He seemed far too tiny for the bed, and far too alone. The sides of the bed were up so that they formed a crib. He wore green hospital pajamas, and that institutionalization bothered me too. I made a note to get him some flannel pajamas with cartoon characters. I still didn’t know if I was going to call the woman who had signed her note ‘
Retha,’ or just show up later in the day and offer to drive her here to the hospital.

  “See your mother?” I said in answer to Angel’s question. “Yes, I would.”

  I stepped back from Billy Lee and moved across the room to Maddie’s bed.

  Angel sat cross-legged on top of the sheets of the bed, with a laptop computer between her legs. Maddie, her black skin and black hair a contrast to tan-colored Winnie the Pooh pajamas, was propped against a pillow beside her. Although an IV tube was still hooked up to her matchstick-thin arm, Maddie’s eyes were bright and alert. At my entrance into the room, they had been staring at the computer screen. When Maddie noticed my approach, she had clutched Angel and held tight until Angel told her everything was fine.

  Angel had plugged the laptop into the nearest outlet. The hard drive whirred as her fingers ran over the keyboard. She tapped the built-in mouse pad a few times, running a DVD program.

  As I looked over Angel’s shoulder, the screen brightened into life.

  “Was easy to do,” Angel said. “Ran video from my digital camcorder to my laptop, then made a home movie and burned it on a DVD disc. Now I can take the clips anywhere. At home I’ve got this projector that hooks up to my laptop. I project it onto a wall, and me and Maddie watch it all the time.”

  I kept a straight face as I did the mental arithmetic. Laptop, DVD burner, projector, digital camcorder. Not bad for a twelve-year-old in a low-income neighborhood. Bingo, I was sure, had given her a lot of inadvertent help in securing the electronics. Was it my business to step in and lecture her about the morality of stolen property? Or should I remain what I had been all my life? An observer, staying detached with whatever limited participation I grudgingly gave.

  “See,” Angel said, “I don’t want to grow up poor. What I figure is I’m smart enough that I can go places. I just got to learn as much as I can. If I don’t know anything about computers, I may as well just get ready to live with cockroaches all my life.”

  I nodded. There was truth in that. Enough truth that I told myself now was not the time to discourage her aspirations, even if they rode upon what had been stolen from the people who live in the neighborhoods she wanted to claim someday as her own.