Water's Edge

by Robert Whitlow

  That evening Tom and Elias ate a creamy chicken casserole for supper.

  “Where do you want to go to church in the morning?” Elias asked.

  “How do you know I want to go at all?”

  “I don’t, but it seemed like a better way to ask the question.”

  “Sunday is my day to sleep late and then enjoy the newspaper.”

  “I don’t get the paper.”

  “And I don’t want to be around a lot of people from the past. Except for Rick and Tiffany Pelham, I’m not in town to socialize.”

  “We could visit Rocky River Church,” Elias suggested. “Not many people there know you, and I should thank the folks who’ve been kind enough to bring food.”

  “Didn’t that church run you off?”

  “That was years ago.”

  Tom hesitated. “I guess I can tag along. But don’t expect much from me.”

  “If you mean asking you to preach an impromptu sermon, you’re safe. The church has a good minister. We’d better get there early if you want a good seat.”

  ______

  The church was on the south side of Bethel, and they had to pass through town to get there. Cars filled the parking lots for the large churches near the courthouse. Sunday morning church attendance was still part of the normal weekly routine for most people in Etowah County. Absence from worship on a regular basis carried a social stigma for which there was no polite excuse.

  The Rocky River Church was two miles beyond the town limits. Located near the golf course, it was surrounded by new subdivisions. The sanctuary was built of smooth stones harvested a hundred years earlier from the stream that gave the church its name. Tom parked between a black luxury car and a red pickup truck with a bale of hay in the bed.

  “That’s Kenny Poindexter’s truck,” Elias said. “His wife is the one who made the chicken casserole we ate last night. They’ve been coming here for years.”

  “Did he vote to kick you out when you were the pastor?”

  Elias smiled. “Yes, but we decided not to stay in that spot for the rest of our lives.”

  People greeted Elias as they made their way across the parking lot. The sanctuary was a long room with a sharply pitched ceiling. Elias led the way down the aisle. Stained-glass windows depicting events from Jesus’ ministry lined the walls. Brass plates beneath each window identified the name of the family that paid for the window. Elias didn’t stop until he reached the first pew.

  “Is this your idea of a joke? We’re early enough to get a good seat.”

  “No.” Elias looked at Tom with a cherubic smile. “I want to sit up front so I can hear better.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your hearing.”

  Elias sat down. Tom joined him. The platform directly in front of them had two pulpits, one on the left and another on the right. A choir with twenty members paraded in and stood in a space in the middle of the platform. The organist hit a loud chord, and the choir began to sing a call to worship. Everyone stood. The minister, wearing a suit and tie, entered from a side door. He was in his midthirties and bore a close resemblance to a lawyer Tom knew in Atlanta who grew up in New Jersey. However, as soon as Rev. Lane Conner opened his mouth, it was clear that the minister wasn’t from New Jersey. He spoke with the melodious accent of south Georgia.

  “Where’s he from?” Tom whispered to Elias.

  “Moultrie.”

  When it came time for Reverend Conner to welcome people to the service, he asked Elias, as a former pastor of the church, to stand. In a slightly tremulous voice, the old man thanked everyone who’d brought food to the house. He then put his hand on Tom’s shoulder.

  “And I’m glad that John’s son, Joshua Thomas Crane, has been here to help me eat it,” he said. “He’s in town for a few weeks to close down his father’s law practice.”

  When Elias sat down, Tom nudged him sharply with his elbow.

  “Joshua?”

  “It’s on your birth certificate,” the older man replied, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

  The service followed a familiar pattern, and Tom grew bored; however, when Reverend Conner began to speak, he understood why people were coming to the church. The minister delivered the sermon with personal sincerity and self-effacing candor. Tom made a few mental notes of the preacher’s techniques that would be effective in jury arguments. Conner’s text was from the sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Tom wasn’t interested in the theology of dying to sin and experiencing resurrection life, but he admired the way Reverend Conner made his points. Time sped by, and when the minister said the message would be continued the following Sunday, Tom found himself wanting to return. After Reverend Conner pronounced the benediction, he stepped down from the platform and shook hands with Elias and Tom.

  “Good job,” Tom said, not sure if that was the proper way to compliment a sermon.

  “Thanks,” Conner replied. “Let’s get together while you’re here. Call me at the church, and we’ll set a date.”

  “I might do that.”

  After the minister moved on, Elias turned to Tom. “Will you?”

  “Probably not.”

  “You should.” Elias looked past Tom’s shoulder down the aisle of the church. “There’s Esther Addington and her daughter.”

  Tom had met Harold Addington’s widow at the funeral home but not the daughter. Esther was a small, thin woman with gray hair and a slightly pinched face. Her daughter was petite but sturdy looking, with short auburn hair and blue eyes. Esther used a cane for support. The two women had been sitting a few rows behind them. Tom and Elias met them in the aisle.

  “Mrs. Addington, how are you doing?” Tom asked.

  “It’s hard, but I’m getting by,” the woman replied. “This is my younger daughter, Rose. She was out of the country when you came to the funeral parlor.”

  Tom shook Rose’s small hand. The young woman had a firm grip.

  “Tom Crane,” he said.

  “Rose Addington,” she replied in a crisp British accent.

  They walked down the aisle.

  “They had to delay the funeral two days waiting for me to arrive,” Rose continued. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for your father’s memorial service. Everyone tells me he was a wonderful man.”

  Tom suddenly felt embarrassed that he’d rushed back to Atlanta and not stayed for the funeral of the man who’d died with his father.

  “How long will you be in Bethel?”

  “Until we sell the house.” Rose gestured toward her mother. “My mum wants to move back to Newcastle so she can be close to my younger brother and older sister. They’re both married with children.”

  Tom remembered the families from the visitation time at the funeral home. They stepped outside into the afternoon sun. Rose took her mother’s arm and started to move away.

  “Mrs. Addington,” Tom called after them. “Could I talk to you for a minute? I have a few questions I need to ask you.”

  Esther and Rose stopped. Tom came over to them.

  “In checking the files at my father’s office, I found a folder with the name Addington written on it, but there wasn’t anything inside. Do you know why your husband may have consulted with my father as an attorney?”

  Esther looked at Rose.

  “That’s interesting,” Rose replied. “We suspected my father may have retained your father’s services as a solicitor.”

  “Why would you suspect that?”

  “Based on a few things Harold said,” Esther replied slowly.

  “What sort of things?”

  “That he was going to talk to your father about a situation at work. Harold never mentioned any details to me, and I didn’t ask, but I remembered it when the government barrister came by for a chat.”

  “Charlie Williams?”

  “Yes, that’s his name.”

  “It was a very upsetting meeting,” Rose added. “He has a way of making everything he says sound accusatory.”

 
“That’s why he’s called a prosecutor,” Tom replied, remembering Williams’s tone at the Chickamauga Diner.

  “If you find anything, will you let us know?” Rose asked.

  “Certainly.”

  Rose reached into her purse and took out a business card.

  “My cell number here in the States is on the back.”

  Tom looked at the card. It bore the name and address of an adoption agency in London on the front and a handwritten phone number on the back. Rose and her mother stepped away. Tom turned to Elias as soon as the women were out of earshot.

  “Did my father ever mention any business dealings with Harold Addington?”

  “Not that I remember, but we rarely talked about his cases.”

  “Did you meet Addington?”

  “Several times but just for a few minutes when they stopped by the house on their way fishing.” Elias paused. “Your father did ask me one night to pray for him and Harold.”

  “What about?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “I wish he had,” Tom grunted.

  ______

  At 3:00 p.m. Tom was sitting in the front room of the house reading Huckleberry Finn when he received a call on his cell phone. It was Rick Pelham.

  “Can you come for supper tonight?” Rick asked. “Tiffany has been bugging me since I saw you on Friday to set something up, and my father came into town last night. He’s only going to be here for a few days and wanted to see you too.”

  “What time?”

  “Six thirty.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  chapter

  EIGHT

  At 6:28 p.m. Tom turned onto the long driveway that led to Rick and Tiffany’s house. No cloud of red clay dust boiled up behind his car. Carefully shaped Bradford pear trees lined the pebbled concrete surface. To the right was an apple orchard. On the left, the rolling hills were covered with trees waiting to be harvested.

  The large brick home was perched on top of the hill and featured a massive recreation room where Rick and his buddies could watch football games in theater seats or play the latest combat-themed video game in raucous surround sound. So long as she could hang out with her horses, Tiffany let Rick cater to his inner man-child.

  Tom parked beside the white Italian sports car that Arthur Pelham drove when he stayed in Bethel. The vehicle’s unique lines and throaty roar instantly announced Arthur’s presence around town. Most people in Bethel were proud, not jealous, that one of their own had achieved a level of success that enabled him to buy a car that cost more than most houses. By creating local jobs, Arthur proved his loyalty to his roots.

  One of Rick’s black Labradors bounded up to Tom’s car with a red ball in his mouth.

  “Hey, Bosco,” Tom said, rubbing the back of the dog’s strong neck. “If I bring Rover out to play with you, will you wear him out?”

  The dog dropped the ball. Tom picked it up and threw it across the hill toward the apple trees. The dog raced after it. Tom walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. Instead of a simple chime, the bell played the first few notes of the fight song for the college Rick and Tiffany had attended. Peeking through one of the glass panels, Tom saw Tiffany approaching. Age had been good to Tiffany. Her brunette hair was stylishly cut, and she was wearing a blouse and slacks that flaunted her shapely figure. Flinging open the door, she threw her arms around Tom and gave him a kiss on the right cheek.

  “I was so excited when Rick told me the two of you stopped traffic to talk on Friday!”

  Tiffany released her grip.

  “You look great,” Tom said, stepping across the threshold.

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” Tiffany answered with a coy smile. “How are you getting along with that tall blonde who came up from Atlanta for the funeral?”

  “It’s over. She broke up with me and took my cat with her.”

  “What?” Tiffany’s mouth dropped open.

  “It stung, but I don’t think I’ll miss either of them very much.”

  Tiffany grabbed Tom’s arm and led him across the silk rug that covered the foyer.

  “You’ll find someone ten times better, and she’ll be the luckiest girl in Georgia. The boys are in the cigar room.”

  “When did you start calling Mr. Pelham a boy?”

  “Ten seconds ago.”

  “The other day he told me to call him Arthur.”

  “I’m supposed to do the same thing, but it’s kind of weird. I mean, my dad still has to call him Mr. Pelham at work.”

  Tiffany stopped in front of a formal oil portrait of Arthur, Rick, Tiffany, and Arthur’s much younger second wife, the dark-haired Larina.

  “What do you think?” Tiffany asked.

  “Very well done. You could almost be Larina’s daughter.”

  “Shut up. She’s only eight years older than I am.” Tiffany touched the bottom of the painting. “Rick went nuts having to get all dressed up for the sitting. He’s only happy when he’s hanging out with his friends downstairs, hunting with the dogs, and chewing tobacco.”

  “Rick is dipping?”

  Tiffany lowered her voice. “Not really. Hal Millsap got him to try it, but it made Rick sick, and he promised me he wouldn’t get used to it. I saw enough of that stuff from my uncles when I was growing up. The cigars are okay. I’ve smoked a few myself.”

  Tom couldn’t tell if Tiffany was joking or not. They reached the cigar room, a small rectangular area adjacent to the main-floor den. Tiffany flung open the door. Whiffs of white smoke curled out.

  “Someone called the fire department,” she announced. “And look who they sent!”

  Arthur and Rick Pelham were sitting across from each other in red leather chairs. Rick jumped up and gave Tom a hug. Arthur carefully put his cigar in a crystal ashtray and rose more slowly. Taller and thinner than his robust son, Arthur Pelham had neatly trimmed gray hair and intense dark eyes. He shook Tom’s hand.

  “Hello, Tom. Remember what I told you,” the older man said.

  “Hello, Arthur.” Tom forced his lips to form the word. “Good to see you.”

  “Excellent,” Arthur replied, patting Tom on the shoulder. “That makes me feel ten years younger.”

  “Can I call you Arthur?” Rick asked.

  “No, that would make me think you’re not going to obey me.”

  “That’s certainly not an option,” Rick replied, rolling his eyes at Tom.

  Rick took a long puff on his cigar and put it out in an ashtray.

  “I thought cigars were for after supper,” Tom said.

  “This is warm-up. It depends on the leaf,” Rick replied.

  “Don’t get them started on that,” Tiffany cut in. “The poor little tobacco plants in Cuba have no idea all the arguments they’re going to start about when, where, and how they should be burned up.”

  Tiffany led the way down a hallway. They passed the formal dining room. Unlike the kitchen table at Elias’s house, the table in Tiffany’s dining room shone with unblemished beauty. When they entered the kitchen, Arthur’s cell phone rang. He slipped it from the pocket of his shirt and answered it.

  “Go ahead,” he said, waving the others forward. “I’ve been waiting for this call.”

  “Since it’s just the four of us, I thought we could eat on the veranda,” Tiffany said.

  A door at one end of the long kitchen opened to a veranda built onto the rear of the house. The glass walls of the veranda could be opened during warm weather to catch the breeze that often blew across the top of the hill, then closed during the winter when a garden fireplace in the middle of the room provided extra heat. The weather was mild, and the windows were cracked open. From the veranda Tom could see the horse barn. Beyond the barn was an outdoor riding ring.

  “Did you ride today?” he asked her.

  “Every day. The barn is my happy place.”

  “My four-wheeler is my happy place,” Rick said.

  Tiffany stepped back into the kitchen. “Mar
y, we’ll eat here.”

  “You have a cook?” Tom asked.

  “And a full-time maid, plus a groom at the barn, and a guy who works three days a week on the yard,” Rick responded sheepishly. “I enjoyed cutting the grass with my tractor, but Tiff didn’t think I did a good job.”

  “You have more important things to do, honey,” Tiffany answered, patting him on the arm. “And I don’t want you turning the tractor over on top of yourself. Besides, Junior needs the work. He has two babies and a third on the way.”

  “Junior?” Tom asked. “What kind of truck does he drive?”

  “Uh, I think it’s an old Ford,” Rick answered.

  “What color?”

  “It used to be white, but it’s pretty scuffed up. Why?”

  “It has to do with one of the files I was reviewing at my dad’s office.”

  “Is Junior in trouble?”

  “No, no. My father’s client was a pedestrian hit by a car. He thinks a man named Junior may have seen what happened.”

  “I don’t know Junior’s real name, but his last name is Jackson,” Rick replied. “He’ll be here in the morning, and I’ll tell him to call you next week.”

  “Thanks. If he’s the right guy, I need to pass the information along to my client so he can give it to his lawyer.”

  “Why don’t you help the man who was hurt?” Tiffany asked.

  Tom shook his head. “I’m here to shut down my father’s practice, not continue it.”

  “I wish you’d move back,” Tiffany answered with a slight pout.

  “Me too,” Rick said.

  A middle-aged woman with bleached-blond hair entered the veranda with plates and silverware in her hands.

  “Thanks, Mary. I’ll get the glasses,” Tiffany said.

  Tiffany left. Mary quickly positioned the plates and silverware on a glass-topped table and left. Tom leaned closer to Rick.

  “Did Larina come with your father?”

  “She hasn’t been to Bethel since Christmas. My father loves the Parker-Baldwin house, but she gets bored here in thirty minutes. It’s a sore subject. But I’m always relieved when she doesn’t come. Larina makes Tiffany feel uptight about committing some massive social faux pas.”