The cold air feels good. I sit on a damp, worn railing, look up at the sky. It’s become cloudy, I can feel the rain closing, see the moon veiled by drifts, stars banked in the fog. The voices from inside recede as I let my thoughts wander, submerging into the chalky darkness surrounding me and the church and the clearing.
“Too much for you?”
I turn with a start; I hadn’t heard anyone coming.
“No,” I answer, looking up at her. “I needed some space. I’m new to this.”
She approaches from the closed door of the church, wearing a man’s old car coat to ward off the chill. I recognize her as one of the snake-dancers. Up close she’s pretty, probably about my age, her face un-lined, freckled even in winter, large green eyes flecked with hazel set in milk-white skin, her middle-of-the-back-length auburn hair now done up in a demure bun. No makeup, not even lipstick. A little work and she’d be close to beautiful.
“Evelyn Decatur,” she says by way of introduction. “Welcome to our church.”
“Will Alexander. Thank you.” Very formal we are.
She nods politely, her greeting.
“They’ve talked of you,” she informs me.
“They?”
“Reverend Hardiman … and Scott.”
“Oh.” My guard goes up; was she sent out here to birddog me?
From her coat she takes a crumpled pack of cigarettes, lights up without offering me one, inhales deeply. She smokes like a European woman, like I imagine Simone Signoret would have smoked, fully and without apology.
“Scott’s a good boy,” she tells me, taking a long drag. “Now that he’s found Christ.”
“Uh huh,” I say noncommittally.
“He made his confession last month,” she continues.
“To everyone?” I can’t hide my surprise and concern. A public confession to several hundred born-again Christians could taint the case somehow. It feels strange; all of this does.
“To God,” she answers, taking another long pull on her weed. She turns, fixing her gaze on me, her open coat revealing her full, shapely woman’s body under her wool dress. I was wrong—she doesn’t need any work, she’s fine just as she is.
“Are you a Christian?” she asks me abruptly.
“No,” I say, almost jumping. It’s not a question I’m used to being asked. “I was born of Christian parents,” I add, feeling some guilty compulsion to explain, “but no, personally, I’m not.” I feel myself flush.
She leans against the railing, her body close to mine but not touching, smoking her cigarette down to the filter, looking up at the now clouded-over starless sky. Men dream, at one time or another, of chucking it all, starting a new life, a new identity. In that imaginary new beginning they meet a woman. When I have those thoughts the woman is earthy, grounded, not a captive of the moment, but timeless. She is this woman next to me, leaning against the railing.
Despite myself, I check her ring finger. Unadorned.
“Are you going to come back in for the healing?” she asks.
“Should I?”
She holds me with a look for a moment, without answering. Then she finishes her cigarette, flicks it into the darkness, goes back inside. I watch her, her bare white legs under the coat, her piled-up hair. They sent their best-looking woman out to make sure I didn’t get away, that whatever they were doing didn’t scare me off.
She was the right one to send. I stand up, follow her in.
“BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING, let me explain something. I am not your lawyer. Anything you say to me is not privileged. I can use it against you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Scott Ray looks at me, unblinking.
“I killed him.”
We’re in the church, down front. Scott Ray, Hardiman, and me. Everyone else has gone. Most of the lights are out.
I’d sat through the miracles. They went on for a couple of hours, healing the lame, bringing sight to the blind, what I’d expected. They were good, but I’d seen such stuff before. I was antsy for my own show.
Finally, it had ended. There was an offering, much hugging and kissing, more testifying. I’d waited in the back until the church was clear so I could hopefully get at what had been tormenting me for more than a year.
Ray and Hardiman are sitting in a first-row pew. I’ve got a folding chair, opposite them, the altar to my back. The only lights left on are coming from some unseen alcove tucked in behind the altar, up high, giving their faces the look of vampire faces in silent movies. It feels like we’re inside a big, drafty cave. I check the time when we start: 1:30 A.M., eastern standard time.
“Until you tell me otherwise,” I inform Ray, “this is going to be off the record. For your protection. Whatever notes I take will be my work-product notes. The state can’t touch them, I promise.”
Ray nods. “I got nothing to hide.”
“Even so, I don’t want my case tainted because of a procedural mess-up. I can’t have some technicality screwing this up, you understand?”
“I ain’t concerned with no technicalities,” Ray says, looking at Hardiman for approval.
“He wants to walk with the Lord,” Hardiman says. “That’s all he wants now.”
“I want to get straight with Jesus,” Ray affirms. “I can’t go to my Maker with a murder hanging over me.”
“He’s got to live by holy scripture,” Hardiman says. “He’s got to square himself with the Lord’s commandments.”
“Thou shalt not kill,” Ray tells me, his face expressionless.
“I agree,” I say. “Even if it didn’t say so in the Bible I’d still feel that way; wouldn’t you?”
“He’s got to do this by scripture,” Hardiman says again.
What the hell does that mean? Maybe you do it that way in the Middle East, where the Koran is literally the law, but this is America, where the courts are secular. Do they understand that?
“I hear what you’re saying,” I tell them gingerly. “But what you’ve got to understand is that getting straight with the Lord, Jesus, whoever, isn’t the same thing as being on trial in the United States. Religion isn’t part of the judicial system in this country. I realize you’re intelligent men and you know that, but I have to make it clear. We can’t be muddying the waters by making this a religious experience.”
They look at me dubiously.
“God may forgive you, but the state of New Mexico may not, is what I’m saying,” I tell them.
“God’s forgiveness is all we want,” Hardiman says. “If the state demands its pound of flesh, so be it.”
“Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s,” Ray tells me.
“As long as we understand that,” I say.
“And by thy confession will ye be cleansed of your sins,” Hardiman says.
Shit. I should’ve taken a crash course in the Bible before I came here. They’re going to scripture me to death. I’ve got to get this on track before we fall off the deep end. I look Scott Ray right between the eyes—hold him with my stare.
“You were in Santa Fe,” I say.
He nods.
“When did you arrive?” I ask. “How many days before Richard Bartless was murdered?”
It’s like swimming in molasses. Wearying to the bone. But little by little, the story emerges. And the more I hear, the deeper and deeper I’m sucked in.
“I’d been drifting around, not doing much of anything, just bumming around. I’d been down in Mexico, Texas, Arizona, all over the place, hanging out. Dealing drugs was what I was doing mostly. Nickel-and-dime shit, nothing big, nothing could get me in trouble with the big boys. That and getting laid, more than anything else. Fucking. Any cunt would let me stick my dick into. Fresh young snatch, the younger the better. Sometimes I’d do a daughter and her mother, too. The older ones, they really like it. They appreciate a young, hung stud. One time I did two sisters and the mother. Better’n a three-dog night in the Yukon. Dealing drugs and scoring pussy, life in t
he fast lane …”
“It was an abomination unto the Lord,” Hardiman says fiercely.
“Amen to that,” Scott replies. “I know that now; if there’s one thing I know it’s that. I was evil, pure and simple.”
“To fornicate outside the vows of marriage is a sin,” the preacher intones.
“That is for sure,” Scott affirms. “Which is why I am now celibate,” he tells me, “and will be until the right woman comes along, who is willing to forgive this sinner and join me in marriage.”
He says it all with a straight face. I’m having trouble keeping one; that he actually believes what he’s saying makes it even harder.
From somewhere in the back, Evelyn Decatur materializes, so quietly she’s almost upon us before I notice her. The other woman who had been on the pulpit, dancing with the snakes, is with her. They carry trays of coffee and sweet rolls.
Hardiman puts a massive arm around the other woman’s waist. She smiles down at him.
“This is my wife, Rachael,” he tells me.
“Hello,” she says, turning the smile on me.
“And this is her sister, Evelyn, who you’ve already met, I presume.”
“Yes,” I say, looking at her, smiling politely, being smiled politely at in return. My guess is she’s younger.
“She is herself unmarried,” Hardiman says.
“That’s too bad,” I say. “For the men around here.”
He laughs the appreciative laugh, the mutual knowing of two men who understand women and the need men have for them.
“That’s true. That’s very true. But her standards are high.” Teasing her: “very high.”
She smiles at him. No blush, no girlishness rising to the bait.
“How do you take your coffee?” she asks me.
“Black,” I tell her. “At this time of night.”
She pours for me, hands me the cup, our fingers touching for the briefest of seconds. She doesn’t notice. I feel like a schoolboy, trying to screw up the courage to ask the prom queen out for a date. Hardiman has his arm firmly around his wife’s waist. His wife snuggles close to him, a happy and contented woman.
We have our coffee and rolls, the women joining us. Everyone else takes cream and sugar with their coffee, heavy on the sugar. The rolls are homemade, very sweet. I eat two; Evelyn eats half of one, gives me the other half. I try to taste her fingers on it where she tore it, but it’s too sweet.
The women leave, as suddenly and quietly as they came. Scott turns to Hardiman. The preacher nods. Scott starts his account again, where he left off.
We go until dawn. Slowly, laboriously. As the hours pass Hardiman gradually becomes more central to the narrative, interjecting, reminding, changing. Scott acquiesces at every turn. And the biblical shit is maddening, it’s like a mind-fuck, like whatever is real isn’t, unless there’s a biblical quotation or phrase to buttress it. And then it’ll turn back on itself, every argument has a counter-argument, because in scripture you can find two sides to virtually any issue or problem, it’s kept millions of scholars in business for millennia: In First Corinthians so-and-so said this … but then in Jeremiah, so-and-so said this, which is the complete opposite. On and on, all night long, I have to strain to separate the wheat from the chaff, what is acceptable in American jurisprudence and what will have to be settled by an authority higher than all of us.
Slowly it comes, inch by inch, detail upon detail. By the time Ray finishes telling his story, I’m convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that he’s the killer I’ve been looking for.
What’s worrisome is Hardiman’s complete control over him. It could be a real problem if and when I ever get Scott Ray into a courtroom. He is no more acting out of his own free will than Rita Gomez was when she gave her original testimony. If Robertson picks up on it, and he’s no dummy, he’ll see this for what it is, it could blow us all out of the water. I’m going to be doing some fancy dancing to keep Hardiman buried in the background.
But that’s not the issue. Scott Ray is guilty. His story is utterly convincing; he knows too many things only the actual killer could know.
Sheriff Jenkins puts me in touch with a local lawyer. He seems like a good man, small-town, but knows his stuff well enough. I explain the situation to him, and after his initial shock he agrees to represent Scott Ray so far as taking his testimony goes.
They meet alone for an hour. Hardiman wants to sit in, invoking clergy-parishioner privilege (I’m surprised at his knowledge of the law), but the attorney and I refuse. I’m not sure of their relationship, Hardiman and Ray, but I don’t want to take a chance on anything’s being thrown out on a technicality.
Hardiman and I cool our heels in Jenkins’s office, down the street. After fidgeting for several minutes, Hardiman turns to me.
“I don’t want to lose this boy,” he says to me, his voice anguished. “He’s a soul worth saving now.”
I nod but don’t answer. I don’t know how much of him there’ll be left to save when this is all over.
The lawyer formally tape-records Scott Ray’s testimony. It takes most of the day, by the time the transcribing is done. He locks the tape in his safe, gives me two cleanly-typed, notarized copies.
Hardiman and Ray escort me to the Charleston airport.
“Good luck,” Hardiman offers, shaking my hand.
“Thank you. For all your help.” I mean it sincerely.
“It was the only thing to do,” he says.
Scott Ray shakes my hand, too. He seems fine, unworried, not a crease in his brow.
“Thank you for coming,” he says. “I’m going to be able to get straight with Jesus now, because of Reverend Hardiman and you.”
I nod. He’s probably crazy, certainly his brain has gone through some major hoops, but I know he’s speaking with complete sincerity.
“I’m glad,” I say. “And my clients will be, too. Very glad.”
As I walk across the tarmac to my airplane, Hardiman calls out to me.
“He won’t run,” he shouts. “He’ll be here when you need him. I’ll see to that personally.”
I nod, wave as I’m climbing the steps into the plane.
I take my seat and look out the window. They’re still watching.
I LEFT IN WINTER; I come home to spring. It’s not like in most parts of the country, where trees are suddenly green, flowers in bloom. It’s more a feeling, partly a smell, warm spring high-desert smell, warmth in the air.
There’s a surprise waiting for me right out of the box as I walk off the airplane in Albuquerque. Mary Lou’s there—that’s expected, I’d called ahead and told her my flight. It’s nice to see her; she looks good, even across the blacktop, I’d forgotten what a fine-looking woman she is. A week out of town and I forget something that important.
Claudia’s the unexpected one. She’s standing next to Mary Lou, her head rising above Mary Lou’s shoulder, she wasn’t that tall the last time I saw her. It hits me that she’s almost a teen-ager; it’s a jolt. A middle-aged father and his teen-age daughter. And what’s she doing here, it isn’t school break yet.
“Mom quit her job,” Claudia announces before the kiss.
I look at Mary Lou. She shrugs. Claudia hands me a sealed envelope.
“She took off,” Claudia continues, dancing around me as we walk to the car. “So I’m going to live with you for the rest of the school year. Isn’t that great?”
Yes and no. For me, yes. For Patricia, I don’t think so.
Mary Lou drives, Claudia in front with her, the two of them listening to Elvis Costello on the tape deck as we drive north in Mary Lou’s Acura. I sprawl across the back seat, digesting Patricia’s letter.
Patricia hadn’t, in the end, been able to hearken to my call. She’d resigned. The firm gave her a great parachute, considering the short amount of time she’d been with them: three months at full pay (a blatant payoff, some of which, I’m sure, is coming directly out of Joby Breckenridge’s pocket), and had gotten her an
other job, relatively similar, at least as far as pay is concerned, at another Seattle firm, starting when her sabbatical ends. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a mercy fuck—smart female lawyers don’t grow on trees. She won’t have to move again, and she unexpectedly has the sudden wherewithal and security to take her first grown-up vacation in years. She’s in Paris, them on to Rome, Milan, parts north and south. Open-ended, but she’s gone for awhile, so Claudia’s with me, from now until the end of the school year. Everybody’s happy, at least temporarily.
(All this is contained in the letter. It’s more formal than I would have expected, as if she feels guilty about it—all of it, the quitting, the sudden taking off: it all happened in a week’s time, dumping, her words, Claudia on me, the works.)
It’s amazing how lives can change so much in a few days. Hers and mine both. I guess she’s happy—she’s not confrontational, she’s always run from a fight, the daily game-playing would have devoured her, her nerve ends are too raw. Still, I wish she had stayed and faced it down. For her, for her daughter.
The three of us have dinner together, then Mary Lou drops us off at my place. She misses me, I can feel it even though she didn’t say anything, and she’s dying to know about the trip, every single detail. I give her the highlights, enough to satisfy her curiosity. She’d love to hear it all, right now, but she won’t intrude on Claudia and me tonight. I kind of wait to see if Claudia will include her in, but she doesn’t. She wants me to herself, she’s been with Mary Lou two days. Patricia had detoured to Santa Fe on her way to foreign locales, and finding that I was gone, had brazenly asked Mary Lou ‘since her father’s gone and I didn’t know, would you mind?’ To her credit Mary Lou had said ‘I’ll be glad to,’ even though she was under no obligation, she did it out of love, so they spent two nice days together, my daughter and current woman; but now, for Claudia, this is at the heart of the treat of being back here: her and daddy, a twosome.
Mary Lou and I kiss goodnight. There’s real hunger on both sides. We’ll have breakfast tomorrow, after I drop Claudia at school, where she’ll be reunited with her old friends, which thrills her no end. I missed Mary Lou; maybe it took some juvenile lusting after another woman to make that come clear.
Against the Wind Page 43
