Plain Heathen Mischief

by Martin Clark

  Scottie steadied himself and fish-eyed Joel. “So the police are sure about it being a break-in? They’ve been called and investigated?”

  “Yeah. We were the fifth house robbed in our area. Number five. They have some promising clues, though, and one of the thieves was cut and left a blood trail.” Joel pretended not to notice Scottie’s suspicious look, chattered on as if the notion of fraud was so foreign it couldn’t possibly enter his mind.

  “Where were you when it happened?” he asked bluntly.

  “At work with Dixon Kreager. My sister was at work, too. Postman discovered the trouble.” Joel was nodding as he spoke. “I’ve got the officer’s card if you need a copy. He seems darn efficient, first-rate. They wiped us out—took everything. At least you don’t have my sister’s claim. I’m terribly sorry about this.”

  Scottie slumped in his chair, picking at a fuzz ball on his sweater. He buzzed his secretary and asked her to bring him a proof-of-loss form and did his best to turn cheerfully professional, but it was difficult to do, knowing as he did the company was going to take a dim view of a smelly two-hundred-seventy-five-thousand-dollar jewelry loss. They might disqualify him from writing their business, might pull out and leave him high and dry, and for sure there’d be no bonus this year, no plaques or banquets or trips to Orlando with the wife and kids. Of all the rotten breaks.

  fifteen

  For Joel, Sophie, and Baker, Christmas was a blessed time, a two-week period of cheer and closeness. Another strong storm hit in mid-December, but the snow suddenly became appropriate and even magical. The sunlight waltzed across the countryside, causing frozen branches to shimmer and the white ground and hibernating mountains to glint brilliant reflections. The town was lit with colored bulbs and decorated with mistletoe, wreaths, garlands and candy canes, and a neighbor from down the road came to visit the Kings in a jolly sled pulled by two huge bay horses and took Baker and Sophie for a ride, everybody bundled in scarves and blankets and sipping from a thermos of hot chocolate, jingle bells shaking with every stride.

  A banquet cancelled at the Station, and Sarah had already paid for turkeys, fixings, cranberry sauce and two hundred dinner rolls she couldn’t possibly use, so she gave all the help a cardboard box heaped with food. Joel was the beneficiary of an eight-pound bird, cranberry sauce, rolls and a tin-foil pan of dressing. She also gave him a twenty-five-dollar bonus, added the extra cash to his paycheck without any fanfare or warning. He thanked her twice, and she said he should send his regards to the good folks over in Frenchtown who’d made a deposit and then called off their company Christmas party. She was as aloof and standoffish as ever when she told him that, and she was quick to mention everyone had received food and a pay increase for the holidays. She turned to march away as she always did—practically a soldier’s pivot—but she stopped unexpectedly and put her hands in her pockets. “Merry Christmas, Joel King,” she said, and then finished her departure without saying anything else or waiting for his response.

  On the last day of classes before Christmas break, Joel drove to Baker’s school and picked him up an hour early. The elementary school air was hot and saturated and smelled like fuel oil, and Joel walked past reindeer drawings done in clumsy crayon and a long lineup of Santas with glued-on cotton-ball beards. He stopped near the end of the Santa row and fingered a cotton tuft, smiled to himself and hoped some of the innocence might transfer, rub off.

  A stout, frenetic lady in a denim dress and running shoes went to find Baker, and the boy was beside himself when he saw Joel, ran to him and banged against his leg, then pogoed up and down, up and down, and asked if he got to leave early, wanted to know where they were going. Joel drove him to a hardware store at the south end of Missoula, and a young man named Billy sold them an old-fashioned wooden sled, a Rocket Flyer with red steel runners and shellacked slats. To Joel’s delight, Baker had passed on the elaborate, newfangled models with plastic seats and steering wheels; he had proceeded directly to the genuine article and pointed.

  Joel and Baker loaded the Rocket Flyer into the Taurus and traveled to a ridge not far from their house, parking the car on the side of the road. The sky was gray but still bright, and they were dressed in heavy coats, warm wool hats and down-filled gloves. Joel tucked the sled under his arm and set off across a field, and before long he dropped the sled onto its runners and held Baker’s hand. The ground crunched under their feet; theirs were the first steps to disturb the snow, and in one spot, tall, colorless blades of grass rose up through their tracks. When they arrived at the height of the knoll, Baker was excited and anxious, his lips trembling from the cold and anticipation, his breathing one rapid puff after another.

  “You’ve never been on a sled, huh?” Joel asked, already aware of the answer.

  “Nope. I wasn’t old enough before, and then Mom said I didn’t need one.”

  “Well, you’ve got one now. Let’s see how she does.”

  At first they rode down the slope together, both of them flat on the sled, Joel on bottom, Baker above him, the two of them hollering and screaming as they went along. Then Baker slid down by himself, and Joel ran behind him for a few steps and pushed him, gave him a big shove to build his speed. Joel slipped and fell once, and his coat and knees got wet in the snow, but he didn’t care, and he didn’t grow any colder because of the accident.

  After Baker mastered the sled and their path to the bottom, Joel retraced their footsteps to the Taurus and gathered a newspaper and several sticks of kindling he’d brought from Sophie’s woodpile. He used the newspaper and a fast-food bag to start a fire on the crest of the ridge, and he and Baker positioned the sled next to the fire and used it as a seat. The fire wasn’t much, was sort of inferior, but that wasn’t the point. They sat mute and watched the flames burn and flicker, the wood turning to ash.

  Joel soon noticed that Baker was mimicking him, the boy sitting exactly as he was with his head bowed, elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. When Joel changed position, Baker would also. Joel sat up and crossed his legs, rested an ankle on his damp knee. Baker did the same. “You enjoy the sled?” Joel eventually asked.

  “Yeah. I want to go again.”

  “We’ll keep at it as long as you like, and as long as your out-of-shape old uncle can pull this thing up the hill for you.”

  The child looked at Joel, wiped his nose across the arm of his coat. “Thank you, Uncle Joel,” he said, and it meant the world to Joel. It was so good to be back to where he’d once been, when he was Preacher Joel and he could do for others and relish life, savor things great and mundane and in-between.

  They didn’t leave the ridge until it was dead dark, took one last chancy, exhilarating trip together, dropping blindly through two hundred yards of night, quiet this time, not a word as they raced along, the fire a distant orange dot when they reached the end of their ride. Sophie admonished them for getting home so late, but she wasn’t really mad, and pretty soon she’d prepared tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for them to eat.

  The following day, Joel bought his mother a blue cowboy hat and took it to her at High Pines, wrapped it in green paper and a gold bow. She loved the hat and didn’t seem to want to take it off, put it on without hesitation and adjusted the brim until it was to her satisfaction. Joel told her it was Christmas, and the mention of the word and the green-and-gold present cleared her eyes for a moment, snatched her from inside herself long enough to look at him with some recognition in her gaze. Joel clutched her hand, and they walked around the halls and she jabbered about her granddaddy’s old mule and a dance at college and the books someone had stolen from the library, volumes she needed to recover or replace without any further delay. He hugged her before he left, told her she’d been a good mother, and she caught sight of herself in a mirror on the wall of her room and said the hat very much suited her.

  He bought Tom McGuane’s fishing book from a store on Higgins Street and gave it to Dixon, inscribed it with three words: “Thanks for everything
.” Frankie received a Delbert McClinton CD, and was so grateful he blushed and sputtered, then became embarrassed because he didn’t have a gift for Joel. Besides the sled, Baker got a new pair of boots and a kid’s spinning rod that Dixon let go for next to nothing. Joel found a sturdy set of tires for Sophie, purchased them on credit, and he paid for her to have dinner at Blackbird’s, wrapped a gift certificate for two in a shoebox and taped on an oversize card.

  He and Sophie and Baker attended the Christmas Eve service at the Baptist church, and they sang “Silent Night” after the minister had delivered his sermon, a short message about miracles and the birth of Jesus. The church was at capacity—sons and daughters and relatives and grumpy husbands who never came were there, everyone content, woes and contentiousness suspended for an hour in favor of goodwill and grace. Listening to the choir while the wind gusted outside and thrashed against the doors and stained-glass windows, Joel was proud to have been a part of this at one time, certain he was inside a mighty redoubt, confident he was where he needed to be, positive about the bedrock strength of his faith.

  The afternoon of the twenty-fifth, Baker wore his new boots and pretended to fish behind the sofa with his rod and reel, and Sophie cut chunks and slices of leftover turkey and stored them in a Tupperware container. Sophie and Baker had given Joel an electric blanket—the biggest package beneath the tree—and he slept warm in the basement on Christmas night, small currents of heat washing over his neck and chin.

  And so it went—they were blessed and happy for two weeks, the best they’d had in months.

  But it was a short, brief blessing, and it halted rudely, came to a sudden end and was replaced by misery and tests that flew at Joel with freight-train ferocity, almost beat him down for good.

  sixteen

  The first round of torment arrived in early January, when Joel was once again summoned for a meeting with his probation officer. He’d fed a new chunk of wood into the stove and was sitting on the sofa, reading the Missoulian and finishing a second cup of fresh coffee, all his chores completed, the house cozy, Tut and the hen pecking at a scoop of scratch, the kitchen tidy. Jack Howard called early, at nine on the button, and Joel was unhappy about having to interrupt his morning, asked twice if he could come later on his way to work and save himself a trip. Howard was having none of that, was churlish and hateful over the phone, insisted Joel get his ass there and quit backtalking him. Joel didn’t ask why he needed to report, simply assumed it was to discuss Karl and Lisa’s case, and he poured his coffee into a tall thermal mug, collected his coat, scarf and gloves and drove to town.

  When Mrs. Heller opened the door to Howard’s office, Joel didn’t see Lynette Allen, and didn’t recognize the people clumped in front of Howard’s desk. There were two men wearing suits—dark, respectable suits with cuffed trousers—and a woman whose hair was plaited and gathered and pinned into an insolvable bun.

  Howard himself was visibly delighted about something; he smirked and folded his arms and popped Joel with a cynical, mean-spirited look the instant he got the chance. “Guess who’s here to see you, Jimmy Swaggert?” he crowed as Joel entered the office.

  “I don’t know.” Joel’s eyes began a kinetic hop, twitching from person to person like two captured summer crickets in a child’s Mason jar.

  “Important visitors,” Howard said, coming around his desk to join them. Oddly, Joel didn’t feel the same degree of panic he’d experienced when he’d been put through the wringer with Lynette Allen. This time, he didn’t need to speculate as to why these ominous, serious people wanted an audience with him—it didn’t matter, the reason. It was going to be bad, very bad, that much was apparent, and Joel went straight to despair, stood under the doorway with his eyes going berserk and the rest of him petrified and shackled, the fear hollowing him out. “I don’t know,” he said through stiff, deadened lips.

  “Well, I’ll tell you.” Howard’s tone was soaked with sarcasm. “To my left is Special Agent Hobbes from the FBI. That would be the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He rode all the way from Helena to meet you.”

  “Morning, Mr. King,” Hobbes said, his voice bland, his posture flawless.

  “Hello, sir,” Joel answered, and he thought about running, just wheeling on the lot of them and busting out the door and sprinting across the snow until they caught him and subdued him and dragged him away in handcuffs.

  “Next to him,” Howard continued, “is Special Agent Woods from the Montana State Police.”

  Woods said hello. He invited Joel to join them and requested that he shut the door.

  Joel pushed the door closed and managed a halting, tentative step forward. This had to be about the jewelry. Had to be. He tried to pray, to recite the words in his head, but it was impossible—nothing would come.

  “And on the end is Anna Starke. She also works with the FBI—flew here from our nation’s capital.”

  She acknowledged Joel but didn’t speak.

  Howard took hold of a chair with both hands and drew it toward Joel. “Like the man said, Mr. King, take a load off.” He was sideways to Joel, talking from half a face.

  Joel stared at the chair and saw it transmuted—Eucharist wafer into flesh, grape juice into blood—into a trap, a tar pit, a four-legged, state-issued crucible. He sat down with Howard still looming behind him, brushed the weasel’s arms and could smell Old Spice as he lowered himself into the seat.

  The three visitors were in front of him, between Howard’s desk and the uncomfortable chair, virtually on top of him in the undersized office. Agent Hobbes began the inquiry, his manner formal and crisp, the military apparent in his bearing. “Mr. King, as your probation officer mentioned, my name is Len Hobbes, and I’m a special agent with the FBI. We’re here to ask you some questions about an issue we think you can help us with. You’re not under arrest, and you’re free to leave at any time. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, I suppose,” Joel answered. “What’s this about?” he croaked, but he wasn’t very convincing, sounded guilty and shifty when he spoke, his eyes still spastic.

  “Yes, well, we’ll get to that. Although you’re not in custody, I’m going to read your Miranda rights.” And he did, read a list of sentences from a laminated card and frightened Joel even more. When he finished he asked if Joel understood what he’d just recited, and Joel nodded yes. In fact, the warnings were a buzz of disjointed words jetting through his brain, bad-guy clichés his nerves hashed into incomprehensible mumbo jumbo.

  “Good,” Hobbes said. “Then let’s talk. I’m not one for beating around the bush.”

  “Okay,” Joel answered. His eyes were finally slowing, the giveaway darts and skips becoming less obvious.

  “In August of last year, you purchased an insurance policy for thirteen articles of jewelry from an agent James Scott here in Missoula, correct?”

  Joel offered him a dumb look and didn’t respond.

  “Cat got your tongue, Reverend?” Howard chided him, and Agent Hobbes melted the probation officer, scowled and glared and blistered him with a blast-furnace stare.

  “We know, obviously, that you obtained the policy,” Hobbes continued. “We also have the State Farm agent’s photographs of the items and the written descriptions of each piece.”

  Joel deflated through his chest and shoulders, rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his chin into his palms. He was going to jail again. No doubt—he was going to jail, and his sister and Baker would be heartbroken. He should’ve listened to Sophie and walked away. He peeked at the agent’s black shoes—they were immaculate, buffed and spiffy.

  “You all right?” Hobbes asked.

  “Yeah,” Joel sighed.

  “In November of last year, you filed a theft claim for these same thirteen pieces of jewelry.”

  “We were robbed,” Joel volunteered. “You can confirm that with Officer Holman at the police department.”

  “Don’t doubt it,” Hobbes said, his cadence not changing. “Don’t doubt it for
a minute.”

  “Okay,” Joel said. He lifted his chin and laced his fingers in his lap. From day one, no matter how much sophistry and rationalization he’d allowed himself, no matter how much bluster he’d directed at his sister, and no matter how often he’d sprinkled holiness over his profane dishonesty and swore it was made righteous, there’d always been a rank kernel of guilt he couldn’t dislodge, a nagging throb he couldn’t paper over or ignore or talk away or slip by on little cat feet. And now the toll was due, his reckoning at hand. “My,” he said almost inaudibly, drowning in his own thoughts, the room and people a blur of background, barely there.

  “We know you’re not the rightful owner of the pieces you had insured. We know that. We also know you’re a defrocked minister who took advantage of an unstable girl in your congregation. We know your history. And we know your mother didn’t give you the items in the photos.”

  “How do you know any such thing?” Joel asked, the agent returning to focus, the room solid again.

  Hobbes looked at him. “Today, Mr. King, is the day. Today is when you have to decide if you want to help us out or face the consequences. You’re either with us or against us—your choice. You get points for being honest and contrite, and punishment for telling falsehoods and stonewalling. Like I said, your choice.”

  “What are you accusing me of?” Joel asked. “My mom gave me the jewelry.”

  Anna Starke had been half sitting on Howard’s desk. She stood and spoke for the first time, in a voice that was silky and nuanced, sultry. “Mr. King, I work with the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. My special interest is art theft. I’m not a police officer as most people understand the term. I have a doctorate in art history and also a master’s in museum studies. I devote a great deal of my time to our NSAF program—the National Stolen Art File. We catalogue the theft of certain significant art objects, specifically those of particular historic or artistic importance with a value of more than two thousand dollars.”