Blood of Angels

by Reed Arvin

  “I did a Nexis search on Towns,” I say. “I got six hits. It’s definitely interesting reading.”

  “Who is she?” Rayburn asks.

  “She took over the Downtown Presbyterian Church about eight months ago. The place has been on the verge of closing for years. Towns showed up, and it’s become a hangout for the hard-core peace and justice types. She’s got the eco-crowd, antiglobalization, the whole thing. It’s more like a political party than a church. Apparently, she thinks a part of her calling is posting bail for murderers.”

  “But how did she come up with the million bucks? What is she, independently wealthy?”

  “She got Bol out on a property bond. And you won’t believe on what property.”

  “It must have been the fucking Taj Mahal,” Rayburn says.

  “It’s the church’s parsonage.”

  Rayburn stares in disbelief a second. “Are you shitting me? Can she even do that?”

  “She had the power of attorney with her,” I say. “The address is 625 Glendale Avenue, Belle Meade.”

  Rayburn whistles. “Belle Meade? The lots alone are worth a fortune over there.”

  “She had the last tax appraisal with her. A million-five. The original deed was dated 1956. Probably cost a tenth of that back then.”

  “OK, so the place is worth the money. How the hell does she sell this to the church?”

  “Towns got a new church constitution passed giving her the right to dispose of church property however she sees fit. And she sees fit, apparently, to use it as collateral against the future court appearance of Moses Bol.”

  “The hell she does.” Rayburn is fuming, feeling things unravel with disturbing unpredictability. “Where did this woman come from, anyway? Does anybody know?”

  “Basically, she’s little Miss Protest. You remember when the state legislature tried to cut funding for low-income housing? That bunch of people who tried to storm the House chambers? She was a part of that crowd.”

  “And she’s a preacher?” Rayburn asks. This offends his sense of order. In his thinking, preachers marry, bury, and stay the hell out of the way the rest of the time.

  “Yeah,” I say. “But the ultraliberal, radical-fringe stuff. Do you know she conducted a funeral in absentia for Bishop Romero?”

  “Who’s Bishop Romero?”

  “Murdered in El Salvador by government death squads during the Reagan administration.”

  “Reagan? That’s twenty years ago.”

  “Romero never got a proper funeral. Towns wanted to give him one. They had a casket, the whole thing. That was at her previous church.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Muskeegee, Michigan.”

  “I bet that went over great in Muskeegee.”

  “They fired her for it.”

  “Good for them. How the hell did she end up in Nashville?”

  “Far as I can tell, she worked for some homeless agencies in Michigan, did a lot of volunteer work. Ended up coming here to work for the Center for Peace and Justice over at Vanderbilt University. That lasted about a year, until the grant ran out—”

  “Friggin’ delusiacs,” Rayburn interrupts. Delusiac—a combination of delusional and maniacs—is his favorite, made-up word for any over-the-top political movement he encounters. “All these friggin’ delusiacs hate the government,” he says, “but they don’t have any problem taking money from it.”

  “Anyway,” I say, “she quit when they ran out of money, and took the job at the DPC. She’s been there ever since.”

  “She’s a nut,” Rayburn declares.

  “Yeah, well, she’s got a degree in public policy from Oberlin and a master’s in theology from Harvard. So maybe it’s better not to underestimate her.”

  Everybody looks at each other a second. Rayburn raises an eyebrow. “Shit.”

  “Care to know what her dissertation was about?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “The impact of the death penalty on race relations in the South.”

  A moment of silence, as pieces of a puzzle slide into place. “Son of a bitch,” Carl says. “You think she’s behind this thing with Buchanan?”

  “Pretty interesting coincidence,” I say. “There’s only one way to find out for sure.”

  “It’s not like you can just walk over and ask her,” Stillman says. I swear to God, if he doesn’t stop smiling, I’m going to deck him.

  “Any reason why not?” Carl asks.

  Rayburn sits thinking a moment, then nods. “Thomas,” he says, “I’d say it’s time to see if this preacher keeps office hours.”

  IT’S NEARLY THREE before I can leave for the Downtown Presbyterian Church, or DPC, as it’s known locally. There’s the usual pile of paperwork, and I need to make a dent in it now, before the Buchanan thing takes all my time. The church is only about eight blocks away from my office, and I decide to walk. My experience with preachers is next to nothing, having previously been limited to two: the first, who buried my father in a flat, dusty monotone, and the second, a flowery Episcopal priest who married me to my ex-wife. At least he looked like something, with robes as ornate as his speech. Since then, I haven’t darkened a door to a church. Towns, to me, is still a mystery. Unlike Rayburn, I don’t assume the worst about people without an actual reason. All I know about Towns right now is that we’d have a not particularly interesting argument about presidential politics and whether or not McDonald’s or Disney or whatever other big corporation is the embodiment of evil. Why she’s willing to risk her church on springing Moses Bol is still up in the air, as far as I’m concerned.

  I make it to the church in about ten minutes. I stop at the bottom of the concrete steps, looking up at the structure. The building is framed by two brick, rectangular towers that rise sixty feet on either side of a surprisingly narrow main building. To reach the entryway you pass between two formidable pillars of white stone that rise almost to the roof. Above them is a portico covered in strange hieroglyphics. Behind the pillars are three substantial, aged wooden doors, the kind of doors it would take a battering ram to knock down. The whole is covered with decades of city pollution and grime. Apparently, the wealthy white southerners who once maintained the place have long since retreated to the safety of the gated suburbs. Making matters worse, what was once an imposing structure now crouches forlornly between skyscrapers of metal and glass, and in the face of so much progress, the church looks decidedly out of place.

  There are about twenty steps, and I take them two at a time. I try the middle door, and I’m surprised to find it open. This particular block is fairly well traveled by the city’s homeless community, and I figure in a place like the DPC there are quite a few artifacts that aren’t nailed down. I enter a wide inner chamber with walls of white rock. There’s a bulletin board across the chamber, with a number of broadsheets tacked to it: Inter-Asian Alliance for Justice; Lesbian Council on Reproductive Rights; Latinos Unidos. A dozen or more groups have posted meeting times and agendas. Apparently, the Reverend Towns has put out an all-points bulletin for every victim group in the city, and the downtrodden are answering the call.

  A second set of doors opens to the sanctuary. I pull one of them open, step in, and stare. For a moment, I wonder where I am. The room is dark and brooding—the only light streams in through stained-glass windows badly in need of cleaning—but it’s not so dark that I can’t make out great towers of what look like sandstone rising at the opposite end from the floor to ceiling. Egyptian writing and symbols are visible on the walls, and a substantial molding that rings the entire room is covered in depictions of palm trees. The stained-glass windows depict scenes from the Egyptian desert, rather than the acts of apostles. The ceiling is composed of interlocking panels, each painted as part of the sky. After a few moments, things fall into place: there is the sky above, sandstone pillars around me, scenes of palm trees and Egyptian writing everywhere I look. The sign may say the Downtown Presbyterian Church, but I feel very much as though I were
outdoors, in some kind of Egyptian temple.

  The sanctuary is large and tall, with the ceilings thirty feet above me. The front of the room, where the altar is located, is a good hundred feet away. I walk toward it, the ancient, wooden floor creaking under my steps. Over everything is the palpable sense of dust and abandonment. I can feel in the air that this is a place of the past. The days when this place was filled with the city’s elite are long forgotten. Now, I think, it’s a haven for Fiona Towns and her band of delusiacs.

  I’m halfway to the front of the sanctuary when I hear a sound behind me. I turn, and a disheveled man is standing fifteen feet away, watching me calmly, as though he materialized out of thin air. “You’re Thomas Dennehy,” he says. He’s five foot ten, with gray eyes, black hair, a heavy beard and mustache, inexpensively framed glasses, and a Ft. Lauderdale Beach ball cap pulled down over his eyes. He’s practically invisible, enveloped in a too-large, well-worn trench coat, which makes no sense considering it’s ninety degrees outside. An addict, I think. Hard to tell his age, he’s so weathered. Thirty? Forty-five?

  “You’re Thomas Dennehy,” he repeats. “Assistant district attorney of Davidson County.” The man has the pungent odor of a man a long time between showers.

  “Do I know you?”

  He smiles. “No. I help out Fiona. Odd jobs. There’s no staff anymore, you know.”

  “Big place,” I say. “Must keep you busy.”

  He looks at me silently for a while. “I’m not the janitor,” he says.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s OK, Skippy. Sum me up by the clothes. Never mind.” Behind the glasses his eyes are angry, glittery dots.

  “Listen, can you tell me if Ms. Towns is around?” I ask. “I’d like to speak to her.”

  He points to a door behind the altar, his gray eyes not blinking. “There’s a hallway to the pastor’s study,” he says. “Just knock.”

  “Thanks.” He turns and glides away to the other side of the church, then passes through a doorway and vanishes.

  The floor at the front of the church is covered with worn carpet the color of blood. At the altar, I pass a large Celtic cross sitting on an old wooden table. The cross is made of iron, and there are runes written on it in a language I don’t recognize. I press open the door behind the altar, stepping through into a dingy but ordinary hallway beyond. The floor is industrial tile, and although it’s clean, it’s well worn. Only half the lights are illuminated. Saving on electricity. Word is there’s practically nobody left in this money pit. I walk forward, not sure where I’m going. Along the wall there are pictures of previous congregations, dating all the way back to some monochrome pictures from the early nineteen hundreds. The early crowds are dour and grim, dressed in dark clothes and serious expressions. Things get better in the forties and fifties; the congregations look happier, and the flattop haircuts in some remind me of my father. He would have looked at home in that crowd, except for the Bibles. In the late sixties the crowds become noticeably smaller, and by 1980 what was once a thriving enterprise is down to less than a hundred souls. They have a determined look, but there’s no denying the grim realities of so few in such a large space. The last picture is in 1987. Almost twenty years ago. Apparently, it got too bad to want to preserve in a photograph.

  I go up three short steps, turn left, and confront a large door made of dark, polished oak. I reach out and rap on the door, making a sharp echo in the empty hallway. I hear a female voice. “Come in.”

  I open the door, and Fiona Towns, who is balancing precariously on her tiptoes on a short stepladder, her right arm outstretched with a book not quite high enough to be replaced on its high shelf, her left arm straight out for balance, artlessly, noisily, and over several agonizing moments, loses her footing, and—frozen for a moment in midair, which gives her the chance to make angry, surprised eye contact—proceeds to tumble to the ground in a cacophony of books, arms, legs, and dust. She looks back up at me from the floor. “Ah. It’s Mr. Dennehy, from the government.”

  Nice beginning. Very low-key. “I’m sorry. It happened so fast, and I just—”

  “Stood there,” she says, still on her butt.

  She’s right; for some reason, I was rooted to the floor, unable to move. “Sorry. Really, I’m sorry.” I step forward reflexively and reach down to help her up. She ignores my hand and gets on her knees. “Do something useful for a change, Mr. Dennehy. Pick up books.”

  I crouch beside her, picking up volumes and stacking them on the desk beside her. I glance at a couple of titles: Father Pio, Mystic, Confessor; Saint Anthony of Padua, followed with something by the Society of Psychical Research in England. She has a light musk scent; it’s subtle, but there’s enough to convince me she wants it noticed. “A little light reading?” I ask.

  She pulls the books out of my hand. “I had a feeling I’d see you, but not today. You really are Johnny-on-the-spot, aren’t you?”

  “Sorry I startled you.”

  “It’s all right. I’m still moving in, really. I’ve only been here…God, it’s been eight months. I’ll have to come up with another excuse.” We pick up books together, stacking them into precarious piles. The whole place looks like the overcrowded study of an Oxford don who hasn’t had the room cleaned in years. It smells of dust and memories. At one end is a series of wooden carvings of African figures. We finish stacking and stand up. I stick out my hand. She stares at it a second, still not taking it. “I don’t have to talk to you,” she says.

  “Correct.”

  “So tell me why I should.”

  “It might help.”

  “Who? You or Moses?”

  “The options aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. I have nothing against the kid, personally.”

  “Except for thinking he’s a murderer and a rapist. You’re wrong about that, by the way.” She pushes an errant strand of hair out of her face and tucks it behind her ear.

  “All evidence to the contrary.” She gets a tired look, as though things like evidence and testimony are somehow beside the point. “That was a bold move in court today,” I say. “It wasn’t very smart, but it was bold.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “Not smart?”

  “You embarrassed the judge sitting on Bol’s case. For somebody who wants to help the kid, it might not have been the smartest idea.”

  Her expression clouds briefly. “It’s not as bad as leaving him in jail,” she says. “The important thing is to get him away from you.”

  I laugh. “You mean, from me personally?”

  “From the government. The people who want to kill him.”

  “Look…what should I call you? Pastor? Reverend?”

  “Towns will do.”

  “Well, Towns, nobody in my office enjoys it when somebody dies. Personally, I hate the thought of it.”

  “Until you hate it enough to actually stop doing it, I don’t see that it makes much difference.”

  I smile, in spite of myself. She would have made a good lawyer. “Place is a little empty,” I say. “Not much staff around.”

  “There isn’t any staff,” she answers. “There were two, but they quit in protest when I took the job.” She looks hurt, which surprises me; I had pictured her a Joan of Arc, impervious and warlike. “There’s only me now. I stay busy, so maybe you should just come to the point.”

  “It doesn’t look very good for Mr. Bol,” I say. “The evidence against him is substantial.”

  “You mean the semen and blood evidence.”

  “If you’re comfortable discussing that kind of detail, yes.”

  “Comfortable?” She gazes at me. “You don’t know anything at all about my work here, do you, Mr. Dennehy?”

  “I’m here to listen.”

  “Each one of these boys has seen more death than the most hardened criminal in this state. When they watched their families being slaughtered before their eyes, they were all less than twelve years old. A bloody handprint is of no more consequence to them tha
n opening a window. And now death has followed them here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The first was Peter Gurang, shot at the Sahara Club. Then Chege and Iniko Basel, two brothers who managed to survive five years of starvation, disease, and civil war, only to get killed in a gang battle in east Nashville.” She pauses. “These boys come from a gracious and beautiful culture, Mr. Dennehy. They have no context for life here. They’re drowning in our consumerism, defenseless against the crudeness of our society. One of them actually showed up the other day with a new car. Some unscrupulous salesman at a dealership got him qualified for a loan. The boy doesn’t even have a driver’s license.”

  “There are bad people around, Towns. That’s what we have the justice system for.”

  “You’re missing the point, Mr. Dennehy. In Sudan, these boys had a context for living. They did noble work. Here, they sweep floors. They don’t belong here, and they can’t go home. It’s no wonder some of them get lost all over again.” She turns away, retreating behind her desk, and looks out the window onto the street. “I’m not going to lose Moses, Mr. Dennehy. Not him.”

  “I have the victim’s blood in Bol’s car,” I say quietly. “I have a phone call from her apartment to his less than two hours before the murder. I have witnesses who claim Hartlett and Bol argued vehemently on at least two occasions, and evidence indicates they fought brutally with each other that night. Against which, he presents no credible alibi.”

  With one sentence, Towns turns the case upside down. “I am his alibi, Mr. Dennehy.”

  “Say again?”

  “I was with Moses that night. We were here, five miles away from the crime. So it’s impossible for him to have committed the murder. You have the wrong man.”