Crown of Thorns (Nick Barrett Charleston series)

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “The Jesus room.”

  “What happened in there had nothing to do with Jesus,” Jubil said. “Let me tell you what Timothy told me about his last night in the Jesus room.”

  **

  In his early eighties, Samson Elias was still strong by most standards, and certainly powerful enough to force any struggling ten-year-old boy into submission, especially Timothy, who spent little time playing sports.

  Impassively, Samson held the boy’s hands while the old woman tied one end of a rope around his ankles. “This is for your good, Timothy,” she said. “Soon you will learn obedience to Jesus. Since you are unwilling, I will commit your soul to him. Unless you tell us where the letters are.”

  She repeated it again and again, while tightening the knot with considerable expertise. Something in her eyes suggested the insanity she’d long been fighting to keep from the outer world. When she was satisfied the knot would hold, she moved to the other end of the rope. It ran through a pulley that hung from a center beam of the attic. She pulled it as tight as she could, then nodded at Samson.

  Samson stepped away. He took the rope from her and with the same impassiveness, slowly pulled tighter and tighter, until the boy’s ankles rose off the ground. He kept pulling until the boy was upside down, his hands scratching uselessly at the floor.

  After struggling until he was exhausted, Timothy finally ended his screams.

  Agnes moved to the blazing logs in the fireplace of the Jesus room on the third floor of the mansion. A long-handled piece of iron protruded from the heart of the fire. She pulled the iron out. An iron with the brand of a crown of thorns. The end of it glowed red.

  “No!” the boy screamed, finding new energy. He squirmed, trying to jerk the rope loose. Instead, he dangled helplessly. “No! No! No!”

  “Hush,” Agnes said, unperturbed by the volume of his screams. “No one will hear anyway.”

  **

  “Four separate scars,” Jubil said. “Four little crowns of thorns. From the branding iron that had been used on the Larrabees’ slaves during the Civil War. Think of the life that kid had.”

  “All Timothy had to do was show someone the fresh scars.”

  “Nick, this was 1961. Before crisis lines were set up. When things in the family were kept in the family. Besides, what boy wants to admit to the world he’s been branded like a slave?”

  Our waitress stopped by and took our orders. I grimaced at the fact that Jubil only wanted a chef salad. Then I reminded myself there was a reason he had a flat belly and ordered one myself.

  “He admitted it to you now,” I said.

  “I’d done some routine follow-up,” Jubil said. “Gave me enough leverage on Larrabee to get him to tell the story. One of my calls was to Celia Harrison’s daughter. Remember her, married to a serviceman stationed in Germany?”

  I nodded.

  “When she heard I was a cop from Charleston, she broke down. Seems she’s been waiting a long time to tell her story. Not the one she gave you. But the rest of it. At the hardware store the day she started the fire, she knew why little Timmy did it. He wanted a diversion so he could do some simple shoplifting.”

  I nodded again. Took my coffee, thought of adding cream, thought of why I needed a chef salad, put the cream back, told myself a few extra calories would make life a lot easier, added the cream.

  “She said she never told anyone at the time because she didn’t know why he wanted it. Then, when Agnes was dead, it was too late. She was afraid maybe she’d get blamed, because in a way, she’d helped him. She was a black girl, and here was a rich old white woman dead.”

  Jubil sipped his own coffee. Without cream. “It was rat poison, Nick. Little Timmy shoplifted some rat poison. That’s the leverage I had on him. That’s why he told me about the Jesus room. All of it. More than what Angel learned by listening to him and Grammie Zora.”

  “Samson didn’t poison the old woman; Timothy did?”

  “Yes. But he didn’t intend to kill her. At least that’s his story. He said he went to Grammie Zora to get a hex put on his grandmother. He stole the poison to make Agnes sick, to prove that the hex of a voodoo woman was stronger than what she believed in. After they branded him that night, he was more determined than ever to poison her. When she died the way she did, right in front of him, he panicked. In the confusion that night, he slipped the rat poison into Samson’s room, thinking that if Samson got sent to jail, Samson couldn’t hurt him anymore. Poor kid didn’t understand a black man killing a white woman would face the death sentence. And by the time it got that far, little Timmy was in way too far to turn around and come clean with the truth.”

  “Just like Celia Harrison’s daughter,” I said.

  “Just like Celia Harrison’s daughter. We’re going to have

  to reopen the case, but I doubt the prosecutor will do anything with it.”

  “And Samson,” I said, “he was just doing what he was told in the Jesus room.”

  “No.” Jubil said it sharply. “He had no choice either. He

  was her slave. You and me, we’re friends. But you’re not black. There’s some things you’ll never really understand in your gut, where it matters.”

  I couldn’t argue, so I didn’t.

  I was glad when the salads arrived. I could concentrate on eating, make it a distraction, let the tension settle. I searched my mind for a subject change and came up with one easily.

  “Any word on Grammie Zora?”

  “Just what Angel has said again and again. That sometimes Grammie Zora leaves for weeks at a time and doesn’t explain where she’s going or when she’ll be back. Angel said it’s voodoo stuff.”

  “I don’t buy that. Zora admitted on the video footage that she doesn’t believe in her own voodoo.”

  “Opium for her people, huh?” There was bitterness in Jubil’s tone. “ ’Course, that wasn’t much different than what Shepherd Isaiah was giving to his flock.” Jubil set his fork down. “So you tell me. Why’s that different from the faith you have?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “I think when you truly follow Jesus, it’s not for what you get outright, it’s for what you get when you give. And you don’t understand it truly until you’re there.”

  “You understand it then. You’re there?”

  “I’ve got a long ways to go.”

  More silence as we ate. It felt like Jubil had been happy to take me away from my questions about Zora. I could be as stubborn as he was. “So,” I said, “you’re not worried about finding Zora.”

  “Angel seems fine.”

  “That wasn’t my question. You’ve got a material witness. Gone.”

  “If she doesn’t come back, I’ll have to file a missing person report. And if that happens, the state will move in and Angel and Maddie will become part of a foster-parent program. In the meantime, Angel seems fine living as she is. Camellia’s family is right down the street. I mean, Angel’s been fine for the last few months. What does it matter if I leave her where she is? Especially since I’m going to make it a point to stop by two or three times a week. And she has my cell phone number if she needs

  me quick.”

  “You sound defensive, Jubil.”

  “I’m not.” Anger. “Let it go.”

  “In the meantime, what does Angel do for money?”

  “I said let it go. She’s fine where she is. She’ll get a good chunk of change when the painting sells. And for now, we don’t need Grammie Zora. When we find Jeremiah Sullivan, he’ll face prosecution for murdering Bingo, even if the only thing we have is his confession to you. The tax people are working on getting the goods on Timothy Larrabee. And because Angel had a backup DVD, we’ll get enough on Isaiah and his white supremacist group to do some big damage there, too. My only worry is the media’s really playing up the torture and branding, and setting a bunch more white idiots out to copycat the Glory Church.” He grimaced. “And no apology for that ‘white idiot’ remark.”

  “S
o you’re not worried about Angel.”

  “Nick, one more time: Let it go. She’s not your problem anymore. What are you going to do, adopt her? You’d need a wife first, and you chased the best prospect you had out of town.”

  “Funny.”

  He turned the conversation away from Angel, and I didn’t fight him anymore on it. We finished and moved out to the street.

  “Thanks for lunch. See you later. Don’t call me. I’ll call you. Good-bye.” And he left me alone in front of the Sweetwater. In

  a hurry to leave me and my questions about Grammie Zora.

  **

  I was to move into the Barrett mansion the next day. Tonight would be my last night in the Doubletree. As midnight approached, it was little consolation against a loneliness that was as familiar to me as my own skin.

  I did have one certainty in my life. After an adult life of rootlessness, I’d decided not to resist the siren call of Charleston. It was my home. I loved its history, the Old World feel of the lower peninsula and my sense of belonging to it. I would live here in the Barrett mansion, even if my coexistence at times might be one of mutual suspicion with those neighbors south of Broad that I regarded as hoity-toity. But my judgment of them, too, was snobbery of sorts; perhaps in the end I wasn’t much different than those who had surrounded me in my childhood.

  Earlier, I’d drafted a resignation to the community college in New Mexico. I’d decided my love for astronomy would simply be that of an intense amateur. Later, when I told Elaine and Glennifer about my decision, they made noises about a nearby antique store for sale, one that specialized in Civil War artifacts. After all, I did love history.

  I’d met Retha after lunch and spent most of the afternoon with her. At the Sweetwater Café, of course. She’d talked and talked and talked, then surprised me by giving me a gift, a coffee-table book with photos of Charleston. It wasn’t that I needed the book; it was the fact that I knew it would have taken a substantial part of her family’s cash to pay for it. She and Junior were embarking on a new life, and that cash would have been very helpful.

  Jubil and the authorities, of course, were taking care of the aftermath of the dissolution of the Glory Church. But I still had my final questions, and I ran them through my mind as I tried to fall asleep in the quiet darkness of the luxury suite. Strange, how the trappings of wealth did so little to console the soul.

  When the phone rang just after 1:00 A.M., I wondered if

  it was Amelia to tell me she was sorry. And I was vaguely surprised that my heart didn’t jump on its roller-coaster ride

  at the thought.

  “Hello.” My voice had congealed because I’d spent so many hours in silence. I cleared my throat. “Hello.”

  “Mr. Nick?”

  I blinked. Placed the voice.

  “It’s Camellia,” she said tentatively. “Angel’s friend. She sent me running out the back door with Maddie to call for you. It’s that big man. He’s at her house.”

  “The police—”

  “No. Angel said not the police. Anyone but the police. She said you. Can you come over?”

  **

  The front door was slightly ajar and I smelled gasoline. I walked in, carrying a tire iron from the Jeep. The house was dark, but I knew immediately where to find Jeremiah Sullivan. I knew by the sound of Angel’s voice.

  “I’m not scared no matter what you do,” she was saying. “I’m going to heaven.”

  “You’re running out of time. Tell me or I light this match and you’ll burn with the house.”

  “Then you’ll never know where it is. And you can ask me for another half hour and I won’t tell.”

  The voices came from the kitchen. I didn’t hesitate. I pushed forward through the small living room and rounded the corner, forcing my mind not to think about what I needed to do. It is not something to contemplate—the act of smashing a man’s skull. His outline was easy to distinguish, and I roared with primal rage to give myself the courage. The tire iron caught him across the side

  of the head as he half turned in surprise.

  And that was it. He fell hard, scattering chairs on his way down.

  “Angel!” I turned on the light.

  Elder Jeremiah had remained true to his MO. She was taped to a kitchen chair, arms behind her, legs to the legs of the chair. There was a can of gasoline at her feet. A baseball bat on the floor.

  “I tried hitting him,” she said, “but he was too strong.”

  The smell of gasoline was nauseating. He’d splashed it everywhere. Blood trickled from his scalp into a puddle of the gasoline. It didn’t mix.

  “The police,” I said. “We’ve got to call them.”

  “No.”

  “Angel—”

  “No. Untie me. I’m going to kill him. I’ll make his body go away. I’ve done it before.”

  I would not let her kill him. But I would not tell her that. Once I had her out of the house and away from Jeremiah, I would call the police.

  I began to rip the tape loose. My hands shook with delayed fear. She didn’t complain as I yanked the tape off the bare skin of her wrists.

  “Let’s go,” I said when she stood.

  She ignored me and picked up the bat. “I owe you now,” she said. “Someday I’ll repay you. But go away. I can do the rest.”

  I took the bat from her hands. “You’re not going to kill him.”

  “If I don’t, he’ll come back.”

  “That’s what the police are for.”

  “They’ll ask why he came here.” She tried to pull the bat loose from my hands. “I can’t have that.”

  I picked her up and began to carry her, fireman-style over my shoulders, with her legs dangling in front of my chest. “I’m going to call Jubil.”

  She beat at my back and shoulders with her bare hands. She squirmed and wiggled. It was difficult enough for me to carry her in the first place; her resistance made it next to impossible.

  Then, in the living room, I heard a whoosh behind me and

  a yellow light flared.

  I spun and saw movement and fell backward, with Angel tumbling to the floor.

  That’s when the baseball bat whistled sideways over my head and into the wall. It had been swung with such force that the bat was stuck in the plaster.

  As the attacker pulled it loose, I pushed awkwardly to my feet.

  It was Jeremiah Sullivan, aluminum bat raised high again. Fire roared from the kitchen. I never would have believed a man could rise from the blow I’d delivered with the tire iron, let alone had the presence of mind to light a match before pursuing us.

  “Angel! Go!” I shouted. She had grabbed his arm.

  The bat came around again. Not at Angel, but at me. In the growling light of the fire, his blood was a mask down the side of Jeremiah’s face. He swung in silence and I was barely able to dodge backward. Again the bat smashed into the wall. He pulled it loose and advanced again. He was calm and methodical, and it was terrifying.

  I didn’t speak to Angel. Just pulled her in the direction of the open door behind us.

  But Jeremiah stepped sideways and with his massive body, blocked our escape. “You’re dead,” Jeremiah said. Same terrifying calmness. “Both of you.”

  I shoved Angel toward the kitchen. “Run.” My voice was suddenly hoarse and guttural from the surge of adrenaline that washed through me.

  She didn’t run. That distracted me.

  He’d learned from his first two misses. He did not swing at my head with the next move, a move relatively easy to duck or jump away from. Instead, he grunted and swung the bat sideways at my knees to cripple me. It was a move more difficult to dodge, and once I was crippled, writhing on the floor in agony, it would be a much simpler task to smash my skull.

  With two healthy legs, I wouldn’t have been able to jump

  or dive out of the way of that swooshing bat. Jeremiah hit me with a fully extended blow, directly at the knee. Had he been on the other side of me, it woul
d have shattered the side of my knee.

  Instead, the force of the swing carried his bat all the way through my leg, an unexpected lack of resistance that jerked him off balance. And my prosthesis popped loose, sliding out from the bottom of my pants leg and across the floor into the wall.

  It startled Jeremiah just enough to distract him as badly as his loss of balance.

  Angel chose that moment to attack. She jumped onto the baseball bat and wrapped her body around it. He brought his fist down on her back, and she screamed in pain.

  With only one leg, I had no stability, nothing for a base to make an effective swing. But I had two good arms.

  Jeremiah raised his fist again, staggering at the weight of Angel’s body on the bat that she refused to relinquish. His back was toward me, and I leaped feebly upward.

  I wrapped my forearms around his neck, squeezing hard against the cartilage of his throat.

  He staggered backward, ramming me into the wall. I kept my head forward, and my shoulders took the brunt of the blow.

  Jeremiah dropped the bat and clawed over his head, trying to get a grip on my hair. Then he rammed me into the wall again, driving us through the plaster. A support beam hit me square between the shoulder blades, sending agony into my ribs. I almost let go at the audible crack of separating bone.

  He reached for my forearms as he staggered forward again, trying to rip them loose from his throat. I clutched harder, amazed at the strength of his fingers on my wrists. But with my body weight pulling me down on his back and his massive hands straining to pull my arms apart from the front, I felt myself slipping.

  How much longer before he passed out?

  My arms began to slip apart. He grunted with satisfaction and rammed me backward again. I was a rag doll, flopping nearly uselessly, sliding down his back, unable to endure the searing pain of my broken ribs taking another blow. As I slowly lost my grip, I heard the sound of death. My death. He took a ragged gasp for air, a horrible sound of triumph for him. I knew I’d lost.