Judas Burning

by Carolyn Haines

  “Deputy Sanchez said almost the same thing.”

  “Francisco was poorly treated by Father Diego. He was often cruel.” He shook his head. “I never understood. There are many bastard children born here. Father Diego singled out Francisco for torment and abuse.”

  “And no one stopped it?”

  “The church rules the lives of the people. There is so little to look forward to here. Heaven is the only solace.” He frowned. “Like any other dictator, the church can be benevolent or cruel. Father Diego was cruel, at least where Francisco was concerned. He seemed to take pleasure in pointing out that Francisco was a bastard. He whipped him for the most minor offenses. Even worse, he told the boy repeatedly that he was damned.”

  “That might explain the defacing of church property, but only statues or images of the Virgin Mary have been destroyed.”

  Father Joseph started to speak, then hesitated. “I often wondered who Francisco’s father might be. Maria, his mother, was devout. She was at the church for mass every day, sometimes more than once. Throughout all of my years of school, there were whispers about Francisco’s father, speculation. I remember talk that Maria had no living lover, that Francisco was the son of God. One of my parishioners told me that Maria made this claim when she first became pregnant. She boasted of it, which was why her family turned away from her.”

  “And instead of getting mental help for her they left her to fend for herself and her baby?”

  “To my knowledge, Maria never looked at any men. In many ways, she was as much a bride of Christ as the sisters.”

  “Except for the fact that she had a child. Someone fathered that boy.” J.D. thought about Sanchez’s words. “I heard Maria Chavez was una punta.”

  Father Joseph looked suprised. “Really? She was here at the church all the time. She scrubbed and cleaned the church and Father Diego’s quarters. Her living was minimal, but she managed. She was an attractive woman. There were many men who would have married her even with the bastard child. If she’d sold herself, she would have been very wealthy.”

  J.D. considered. “Father Diego is Francisco’s father, isn’t he?”

  “It would explain a lot,” Father Joseph said.

  “Yes, it would.”

  “I have no proof. Father Diego is in Mexico City. I can give you the address there.”

  J.D. shook his head. “I can’t take the time. I have to get back. If that girl is still alive, I have to find her. If Chavez does have her, and if he is punishing women because of his mother’s sins, I have to find her now.”

  “I can tell you one other thing.” Father Joseph loosened his collar with his fingers. “There is a tradition in this land of hanging and burning the effigy of the oppressor. It stems back to the betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas Iscariot. After Jesus was crucified, Judas, in a fit of remorse, hanged himself. He wasn’t found for several days, and the intestines had filled with gas and ruptured.”

  “This is a version I didn’t hear in the Baptist church,” J.D. said.

  Father Joseph’s smile was ironic. “The Catholic church is steeped in blood and suffering, but there is a point to this story. In the old days, the poor citizens made effigies of the rich. They would hang the effigies on a long pole and parade through the streets with them. When the mob of poor arrived in front of the homes of the wealthy, they would gut the effigy and then set fire to it, crying out for justice. These events were called Judas burnings. The people felt betrayed by the rich, just as Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot.”

  J.D. thought of Trisha Webster, gutted and burned. “Is the Judas burning a Catholic rite?”

  “No, but it stems from Catholic beliefs. Francisco was a student of Catholicism. He studied every day after school with Father Diego. I never understood why he came, each day, for such abuse. Now, perhaps I understand a little better. He hoped each day that he might, just once, please his father.”

  J.D. stood. “Thank you, Father.”

  The priest rose. “The rich had the final word on the Judas burnings. They began to create the effigies themselves, making them comic and stuffing them with sweets and coins. They would dangle them over their high walls to the angry crowds, who would swat at them with sticks. When the effigy was struck hard enough, it would burst and the money and sweets would fall to the street.”

  “The piñata,” J.D. said.

  “Exactly. The genesis of the piñata is revolt. I would look to the genesis of the abduction of these girls. I can tell you that Francisco was not a man who would harm even an insect. He may have changed, but I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t believe anyone else in Chickasaw County would understand what a Judas burning is.”

  “Maybe not, but I don’t believe Francisco hurt those girls.”

  “Someone did more than hurt Trisha Webster. A lot more than hurt.”

  “Will you call me when you find Francisco?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will come as his advocate.”

  “If he’s involved in this, he’s going to need one.”

  J.D. walked across the wooden floor of the old kitchen. A door led out into a garden where ancient bushes bloomed the dying roses of summer. The scent was heady. In the shade of an arbor, he saw a statue. Mary, mother of Jesus. He walked to it and stared at the ancient stone, pitted by the elements of nature. He could see the suffering and the calm the sculptor had captured. She held her hands raised, as if in blessing. J.D. stared at her, wondering what it was about this woman that might incite a young man to murder.

  He walked to the garden gate and stepped into the street. The sun was beginning to fall from the afternoon sky. Soon, the relentless heat would let up a little, at least for the night, but there was a sense that in Zaragoza nothing changed much. Tomorrow would be the same as today.

  J.D. opened the door of the SUV and climbed behind the wheel. The dog was back in the street, retracing its steps. He watched until it disappeared behind the church and hoped that someone there would have the kindness to feed it. He pulled into the street, images of effigies and fire vivid in his mind.

  The Chavez house was half a mile from the church, and he pulled up into a dirt yard that spoke of poverty and neglect. No one answered his knock, but the door was cracked open. The instant he stepped inside, he smelled the illness. Hospital wards, insane asylums, prisons—each had a distinctive odor that lodged in the back of his nasal passages, close to his throat. This was the odor of death.

  Maria Chavez was on a sofa, covered with a quilt despite the room’s stifling heat. Beside her was an empty glass and a book. She struggled to a sitting position, panting from the exertion. A shaft of sunlight fell across her face, and the sight made him want to weep. Her fine, dark eyes were large and intelligent.

  “Francisco,” he said softly.

  “Gone,” she answered in English.

  “Can you help me find him?”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “To save a young girl’s life.”

  She inhaled slowly. “I don’t know where he is.” She looked down at the empty glass.

  J.D. picked it up and went to the kitchen. He filled the glass from a pitcher of water on the table. When he returned, she was watching him.

  “I’ll take you to the hospital. They have drugs …”

  She shook her head. “I’m ready to die. I’ve betrayed my son, and now he is gone.” She sipped the water. “I pray for death.”

  “Ms. Chavez, your son may have kidnapped a teenage girl. I want to find her.” He didn’t trouble the sick woman with the details of what Francisco might have done to Trisha Webster.

  “Francisco did not harm anyone.” She spoke softly but with emphasis. “He burns with hatred for the church, but he would not harm any living creature.”

  “How can you be sure?” J.D. asked.

  She drew in a long breath. “When he was a small child, I told him that God was his father. When he finally learned that the man who beat him daily was his father, he
realized the full measure of my lies and betrayal.” She swallowed and reached for the glass. “He will try to destroy the church, but he will harm no one.” She met J.D.’s gaze. “If my son has this girl, then it is because he is trying to help her.”

  She began to cough, sank back into the sofa, and waved him weakly out of the house. Like the statue in the churchyard, she was a ruin. This was an illness that knew no gentleness. Even so, the shadow of her beauty was haunting.

  He got behind the wheel of the SUV. If he drove very fast, he could make the eight o’clock flight back to New Orleans.

  The small skiff rocked beneath Eustace’s weight. He’d made sure that the other boats were chained to cypress stumps. He could no longer trust Camille to stay off the river, away from the place where the girls had been taken and one killed.

  Camille had been acting strangely. Earlier in the day, she’d read the tarot cards, and they’d sent her to bed shivering. Eustace had lifted the cloth that Camille had laid over the cards. The first one he turned over was Justice, a stern woman with an uplifted sword. His heart was pounding, and he could look no further. He’d replaced the card, covered the deck, crawled in beside Camille, and fallen asleep holding her.

  In her sleep, she’d moaned and cried. Over and over again she’d begged for someone’s life to be spared. When he’d gently shaken her awake, she’d clung to him as if her life depended on it, and she’d wept so bitterly that he felt his heart breaking away in chunks.

  So he had come to the river to do what must be done.

  He pushed the skiff away from the bank with the paddle and guided it, with a few powerful strokes, into the current. Once away from the cabin, where Camille still slept, he started the motor and turned the boat upstream. Though it had been three days since he’d run his trot lines, he was not going fishing. He was going to Hathaway’s Point. Law enforcement officials had combed the area looking for traces of the Mexican. Eustace was going to look for evidence that Camille had been there.

  Dixon was walking up the courthouse steps for a final try at finding J.D. when her cell phone rang. Few people had the number; she answered it immediately.

  “Ms. Sinclair?” The voice was soft, tentative.

  “Zander.” There was no point beating around the bush. The young man had been following her for weeks now. Either he would talk or not.

  “My auntie said you called.”

  She kept her voice level. He had no right to expect anything of her. Willard Jones was in prison for murdering her father. “That’s right. When can we meet?”

  “Why do you want to talk to me?”

  “I thought it was you who wanted to talk to me. If you don’t want to talk, stop following me and calling me. Stay off my property. If you continue to harass me, I’ll have the law pick you—”

  “Wait. I have something to say.”

  “Meet me at the newspaper at eight tomorrow morning.”

  “Not the paper. I don’t want to go there.”

  “Where then?”

  “Can we meet at your house?”

  The boy’s voice was so soft she wasn’t certain he’d spoken. “You want to meet at my house?”

  “If that would be okay with you. We could talk without other people hearing us.”

  Meeting the son of the man convicted of her father’s murder, alone, on a secluded lane, wouldn’t be the smartest thing she’d ever done. But in her bones, she knew that Willard Jones was innocent. She knew because she bore the guilt for her father’s death. She’d been late. She’d been in bed with a married man, Mark Barrett. Now Senator Mark Barrett. Her father had waited at the newspaper for her. If she’d been on time, her father would have been out of the building and safe when the bomb went off.

  “Okay,” she said. “Seven o’clock. I have to be at work at eight.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  The line went dead, and Dixon turned the phone off. She sat down on the steps and thought about what she’d agreed to. Zander was a strong boy, almost a man. He spoke softly, but what did that guarantee? He’d already trespassed once on her property, and he’d been following her, stalking her.

  She stood up and went into the courthouse. It might not be such a bad idea to tell J.D. a little about her plan, if he ever got back to his office.

  The courthouse was closed, but the door to the sheriff’s office was always open. She went inside and walked down the short corridor to the metal-and-glass door. She tapped and entered.

  Waymon sat at his desk, feet propped up and a magazine covering his face. He dropped his feet to the ground and quickly tucked the magazine into a drawer, but not before she saw the September bunny on the front cover. She liked the fact that Waymon’s face turned a bright red.

  “Waymon, I like your taste in reading material.” Waymon sometimes liked to play it close to the vest, but she had ammunition now.

  “The sheriff ain’t back,” he said. “Have you heard from him?”

  “He’s in San Antonio. He says he’s got an eight o’clock flight back home. He told me to get the dog handler from up at Parchman back down here to start another hunt.”

  Dixon felt a rush of anticipation. “Sounds like he found out something.” She frowned. “What’s in San Antonio?”

  “The Alamo, for one thing.” Waymon nodded. “I had this thing for Davy Crockett when I was a kid. He died at the Alamo. I know just about every fact you ever would want to know about the Alamo.”

  Dixon started to point out that the Alamo probably held few clues to the disappearance of two Mississippi girls, but she bit it back. Waymon was trying to be helpful, and there would come a time when she would need his help.

  “Maybe we could talk about the Alamo later. If J.D. gets the eight o’clock flight home, he should be in around midnight, right?” She needed to talk to him about Tommy Hayes and Zander Jones.

  “More like about two. He has a layover in Dallas. He left his Explorer at the airport, so he doesn’t need anyone to get him.”

  “That’s good,” Dixon said. She wandered around the office, staring at the coffeepot that looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in the last five years. “Mind if I help myself?”

  “I should have offered,” Waymon said. He pulled open his desk drawer. “Ruth Ann made some sugar cookies. She brings something good up here all the time.” He frowned. “If I didn’t know better I’d think she was trying to court me or something.” He flushed slightly and busied himself bringing out the cookies and floral napkins. “I put ‘em in my drawer because the dispatcher is diabetic and shouldn’t eat them. If she sees ‘em, she can’t resist.”

  There was a certain charm to Waymon, Dixon conceded as she took her Styrofoam coffee cup and sat down. “No thanks on the cookies, but you could help me with a little background on Tommy Hayes.”

  Waymon’s smile faded. “Why are you interested in Tommy?”

  “I think ‘interested’ is too strong a word. I tried to talk to him several times, and he wouldn’t call me back. That intrigues me.”

  “Maybe he just didn’t want to be in the paper. Some folks don’t like it. I mean, J.D. hates the medi—” He grimaced. “I didn’t mean it like it sounds.”

  Dixon nodded and smiled. “I understand. And you’re probably right about Tommy Hayes. All I wanted to ask him was what kind of student Angie Salter is. You know, if she had expressed any special interests to him.” She felt a little bad, pumping Waymon, but not bad enough to stop.

  “When we talked to him, he said that Angie had problems. He said he worried something like this would happen to her.”

  Dixon schooled her face not to show her reaction. “Isn’t that tragic. So he was worried that something like getting kidnapped would happen to her?”

  “No,” Waymon said, rolling his eyes, “something like being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I see.” She sipped the coffee and thought she might have to spit it out. Not only was it old, it was burned, bitter, and strong. “Do you know Tommy?
”

  “Some. We both go to the Methodist Church, only I go more regular than he does. He sure seems young to be a teacher, but he was top of his class, from what I heard. He’s up at the church a good bit. I think he takes a lot of comfort from Reverend Smart.”

  Dixon rose and stretched, putting her coffee on the edge of Waymon’s desk. “Would you leave J.D. a note and ask him to call me? Doesn’t matter what time it is.”

  “You sure? Could be three or four in the morning before he gets up here.”

  “That’s fine,” Dixon said. “I’m often awake then.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Dixon sat on her front steps with a glass of iced tea and listened to the thrum of the crickets, interspersed with a low bullfrog cadence. It was a sound from childhood. This was the time, on hot summer nights, when her family had gathered for a late supper. She’d loved those evenings, when her mother lit citronella candles on the back porch and they shared a meal as night crept over them. Her father had been there, and she’d felt safe.

  The blue hour was passing, and full night was falling in the east. Dixon caught the scent of grape Kool-aid on the breeze. The kudzu, with its blossoms so intensely purple scented with grape, had bloomed early.

  Her heart twisted as she remembered childhood evenings when she’d sat in the swing with her father and made wishes on the evening’s first star, wishes he’d promised would come true.

  “… wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.” She paused. “To find the truth about my father’s murder.” She spoke the words and stared up at the sky until two other stars blinked into life.

  The hoot of an owl drew her focus to the woods. A man stood there, a black silhouette against the darkening sky. She let out her breath when he drew on a cigarette and she realized it was Robert.

  “It’s a good thing I don’t have a gun, or you’d be dead,” she said, meaning it. “I don’t know how folks act in the big city, but around here they don’t creep up on another person’s property.”