by Joe Derkacht
No doubt, faith can move mountains. But a bitter spirit can accomplish a lot of work in a short time, too. Quickly, far sooner than he thought possible, he stood at the bottom of the stairwell, panting from his exertions, shirttail held to his face to keep from inhaling the airborne dirt sifting from above.
Even as he stood there, he thought he heard a faint knock on the door. Then, John? His imagination. He knew it had to be, as he plugged in the church’s ancient Hoover and hurriedly flipped on the switch. It roared to life with the high pitched whine of a jet engine, echoing from wall to wall of the cavernous stairwell, noise enough to drown out unwanted voices, especially a certain still small voice. As if that wasn’t enough, he began to hum, first with mouth closed and then with it open, the sound rising quickly, to match the vacuum cleaner in intensity, until a mournful wail issued from deep in his belly. It was the only way to truly shut out the voice and along with it every thought he might think--otherwise, he would have to deal with it, it being his conscience. One little crack in his defenses, and the guilt would rush in like a tornado.
Still groaning miserably to himself, he unplugged the Hoover, gathered up his cleaning implements, and rushed up the stairs to cross the balcony to the opposite stairwell. When he pulled the door open, light flashed across his eyes from the darkness below. As he ventured further, he thought he saw it again, this time as if it swung at him from the opposite direction. The Hoover and brooms dropped from limp hands. It swung past once more, before it flickered and dimmed, finally vanishing from sight. It was as though he looked down a dark tunnel, with a train disappearing into the distance. He blinked, forgot to make his childish noises, and wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his shirtsleeve. There it was again! He thought he saw a departing train and heard the roar of its whistle in his ears.
But trains don’t come and go at the bottom of a church stairwell. He had never seen a vision in his life and in fact didn’t believe in such phenomena. And yet, he knew he had just seen one. Not only that, he understood what it meant. Kicking the brooms and vacuum cleaner aside, he sat down and buried his face in his hands. Maybe he was a candidate for a stroke?
No. He knew the truth, that he was in danger of losing a certain moment. Did he really want to do that? Once gone, would it ever return, pass his way again?
Sitting there, he could feel the storm against the steel door of his soul. He might push thoughts from his mind but the Holy Spirit, he was learning, could speak without words if He really wished to communicate with a certain stubborn someone. Jesus could knock loudly on the door of a heart--or of his conscience--to put it another way.
“Why am I keeping you out, Lord?” He whispered into the darkness. He didn’t hear any audible answer. He knew without it being said. Pride, simply pride.
He sighed deeply, pushed himself to his feet, and groped his way blindly down the stairs without attempting to find a light switch. By the time he reached bottom, cobwebs clung to his body with ghoulish abandon.
“God I hate to be wrong,” he muttered, in what was not really a prayer. “Do you think you can forgive me, Lord?”
He found Cedric’s office door was open. Ruby Barnes, Cedric’s secretary, stood in front of his desk, discussing last minute changes to Alliance’s Sunday church bulletin. At the sound of his footsteps, she turned with her customarily warm smile, and shrank back as if horrified by his appearance.
“Reverend Willimon!”
“Miz Barnes,” he said, ignoring her questioning stare. He focused on Cedric. “Do you have a minute?”
Reverend Champion glanced at his watch and smiled curiously at him. “Sure, brother, sure--if you don’t mind, Ruby?”
Ruby veered warily around him, careful to avoid brushing against him in her navy blue dress. She closed the door behind her.
“It’s not like we have a confessional, us being Baptists and all,” Willimon said, uncomfortably shuffling his feet. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to get something off my chest.”
“Do you want to take a minute to wash up first?”
Rev. Willimon looked down at himself, at dusty shirt and pants and the dirt on his hands, and felt the cobwebs in his hair and down the back of his neck. He shivered as though doused with ice water.
“Yeah,” he said, rushing to the door. As he threw the door open, Ruby bolted aside with a yelp, barely saving herself from being run over.
Clutching her heart, she guiltily looked Cedric’s way and closed the door.
As John threw water over his face, he marveled at how slippery the slope was that he had traversed, how innocently begun, too, to his mind, plunging him into a game of deception that led another person to believe a lie. Not an outright lie, but a lie nevertheless. And it had been two persons, not just one he had deceived. He had not exactly told the truth to Carol, last night, when she interrogated him about what he had been doing at the church, either.
#
One thing for sure that Rev. Willimon had learned from his theological studies was that to God, sin stinks. The Old Testament prophets had always been of enormous interest to him, especially the scene where Zechariah recorded Joshua the High Priest appearing before God in filthy robes. Those filthy robes, he knew, represented sin; he knew also that the translators, for decorum’s sake, had sanitized a Hebrew word that was closer to excrement than dirt. But looking back on his own sin, excrement was not how Rev. Willimon thought of his attempt to spy on Rev. Champion’s services and the lies it spawned. He may have felt like it, if you’d asked him, but he was thinking more along the lines of sin stinking like rotten fish. What an immense relief it was, admitting to Rev. Champion (who he more and more called Cedric) the reason for his strange and abrupt appearnce on the balcony last night, and an even greater relief to find that Cedric understood, both in terms of guilt and his thought processes.
“I think the best thing would be you joining us for church this Sunday,” Cedric told him, his brow wrinkled in thought. “You’re welcome to sit on the dais with my elders.”
Willimon stiffened.
“That too much for you, John?”
“I was thinking of somewhere in the back row,” he admitted.
“You really do want people to think you’re spying on them, don’t you?”
The white minister contemplated his options. He didn’t want anyone to think he was spying or that he was racist, but he had another problem he didn’t like to share with anyone.
“Something else?” Cedric asked. Like any good minister, he was skilled at reading faces.
“Well--”
“Another confession?”
“I often wonder why God ever called me into the ministry,” he answered, looking sheepish.
“What?”
“I don’t like being on stage, it makes me feel like people are staring at me.”
Cedric grinned. “Makes it difficult to preach, doesn’t it?”
“At least I have a pulpit to hide behind.”
“What, you use that thing?”
“I’m sorry, pardon me?” John said, lurching from his chair. “The pulpit is sacred, as any Baptist can tell you.”
“Well, this Baptist uses it to hold the occasional note, or to read announcements from, but I seldom ever preach from it.”
“Y-you--” he spluttered. “You don’t preach from the pulpit?”
“No.”
“But it’s the focal point of the gospel!” He argued, drawing closer to Cedric, who stared up at him from his chair. “That’s why it is placed center stage. To abandon it is to abandon the gospel--brother!”
Brother was an afterthought, but he said it as persuasively as he could.
Cedric ignored the finger shaken under his nose. “I thought the cross of Jesus was the focal point.”
The finger was withdrawn. “F-figuratively, you know what I mean.”
Cedric picked up his well-worn Bible from his desk and held it out to him. �
��Read to me of thy holy and sacred pulpit that I too may preach from it.”
Consternation crossed Willimon’s face. Words seemed about to form on his lips but died in an unintelligible stutter. He handed the Bible back to Cedric. “I-I th-think you enjoy making people look like fools.”
“No,” Cedric said gently. “But sometimes foolishness has to be pointed out.”
Willimon reluctantly resumed his seat. “You make me look as bad as--as bad as Roberts Robertson.”
“At least you don’t make it worse by arguing when you’re wrong.”
Too embarrassed to meet Cedric’s gaze, he glanced around the office. Its solitary shelf was filled with the few volumes someone had managed to recover of Cedric’s library from the fire. There were pictures of Theodora and their two grown sons, too, and an African-themed throw rug in orange and black and purple on the linoleum floor. A variety of freshly cut roses from Cedric’s Theodora were on the desk. By comparison, his own office was starkly cold.
“Some people would argue about how they were too poor in Bible times to own pulpits,” Cedric pointed out good naturedly.
“I thought of that,” he admitted. “But it sounded too stupid even to me.”
“Sister Stella and her son usually stay after for our services. You could sit with them.”
Bemused, the white minister nodded his head in assent. Ironic, to think he was invited to a service in his own church and he didn’t want to go.
****
Chapter 30
It was close to noon when Cedric left Flowers Baptist and headed toward Alliance, where he chose to park his car daily. Despite the ruins, with his car there the neighborhood understood he would one day return to preach, that there was a tomorrow to look forward to and a past to leave behind. As he walked, struggling in his own mind to balance the difference between people, his lips were pursed in restrained laughter: on one hand there was Brother Erwin and on the other there was Brother John. Now there was irony! One man could burn a church down guilt-free: another man could tell a fib and feel like he was the world’s worst sinner.
Three young boys were guarding his Cadillac. He wouldn’t have recognized them as guards (except they told him so), since they were lackadaisical about it, one leaning his bicycle against the car and watching as the other two swooped back and forth in front of him.
He almost shooed them away, like he might shoo swallows away from the church as they attempted to build their nests in the eaves. But that was before the church had burned down.
“Men,” he addressed them gravely. “Why are you out of school?”
“Don’t you know, Reverend?” Asked the boy leaning innocently against the car door. The minister found it difficult not to grin at him. It was one of the Culbertson boys, and on Flowers Avenue all the children called him Mouse because of his buck teeth and because his ears stuck straight out through shaggy, collar-length brown hair. “They done give us a half day off, with the holiday comin’ tomorrow.”
Memorial Day, he meant. “They gave us a half day off, son,” he corrected him, unable to resist.
“I’m happy they done give it to you, too, sir,” the boy responded politely. “Guess I can go now, don’t have to guard your car no more.”
The boy rode off, his friends joining him, all three racing away on their bicycles. Too late, Cedric realized he hadn’t asked why they thought they should guard his car. But he didn’t need to ask. Boys hadn’t changed so much from his own childhood that he didn’t know they could guard a fort against Injuns one minute and fight Martians in the next.
It surprised him to find his car door was locked. He didn’t remember locking it, and in fact seldom ever felt the need to do so. While the neighborhood had its share of rundown houses, it was not the slum that some people thought it was and serious crimes were rare. It wasn’t like he would leave his car on the street with the engine running--any fool knew that would be inviting trouble--especially with young boys around. But there’d never been a problem leaving the doors unlocked. Maybe the boys had taken it upon themselves as a precaution?
He changed his mind as soon as he saw the large manila envelope on the driver’s seat. He powered the windows down to air out the car before bending back the metal clasp. Inside were a half-dozen 8X10 glossy prints, the first of them a building engulfed by flames, his own Alliance Baptist. The others, he knew without looking at them, would be nothing more than a variation on the same theme. There were also smaller photos, of a man inside a white car, with the charred ruins of Alliance in the background.
Re-closing the envelope, he glanced across the street at the Ayers place. The pergola’s vines were in leaf, offering excellent protection from prying eyes. He could barely make out someone’s knee. Sighing, he left his car and crossed the street, envelope in hand.
“I wondered if you wouldn’t just drive off,” Chance Odoms said in greeting. He ground out a cigarette under the heel of his shoe.
“It crossed my mind,” Cedric admitted, waving the envelope to clear cigarette smoke from the air.
“Sorry, Rev.”
He seated himself on the plank bench opposite Odoms.
“So,” he said grimly. “What’re your intentions?”
Chance reached inside his suit coat for his pack of Camel cigarettes, but thought better of it, seeing Cedric shake his head in disapproval. “I guess that’s the $64,000 question, now isn’t it?”
Cedric remained silent.
“You know how it is that I’ve earned my reputation for solving murders in this town?”
The minister hesitated, surprised at the change of subject. Some people were of the opinion that Chance Odoms was skilled mostly at planting evidence. Perhaps now was not the time to mention that little fact.
“No,” he said, “but I am interested in finding out how you mean to connect the dots here.”
“It’s all a matter of knowing who’s mad at whom, simple as that--at least on your side of town.”
Cedric’s nostrils flared.
“I know you think that’s racist, Reverend--”
“How could it not be racist?” He rumbled.
“Simple,” he said, reaching again for his cigarettes. He flipped open his battered steel lighter, emblazoned with USMC and the seal of the Corps. His eyes swiveled until they met Cedric’s. Reluctantly, he closed the lighter and dropped it back into his pocket, the unlit cigarette still dangling from his lower lip.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “It’s a filthy habit.”
“Go on. You wanted to explain how you’re not racist.”
“It’s the way it is. On your side of town, most times somebody finds himself murdered, everybody knows who was mad at the poor bas--at the poor man,” he said, catching himself. “It makes everything easy for me, when all the clues and all the fingers point in the same direction--not that everyone just comes out and volunteers information, mind you.” His eyes glittered with self-satisfaction. “There are always opportunities to make use of my skills at reading people.”
He took the cigarette from his mouth and examined it closely. “Now on my side of town, things--people, I mean, are more deceptive. A woman kills her husband, say. Instead of doing it in a fit of rage, she plans for months, maybe even years, and when everything looks great to the neighbors and all--blam! He’s dead but she couldn’t have done it. Everyone knows they had a model relationship.
“I dig a lot more, take more time, you see what I mean?”
“More dirt, I guess,” Cedric answered, still unsure of where the conversation was headed.
“In general terms, yes,” Chance said. “Some people--”
“Mine or yours?” Cedric interrupted.
“Mine,” the detective said. “Some people are better at hiding their feelings, at concealing the evidence, are cleverer at deception. Other people--yours, I mean--don’t seem to hide their feelings so much.”
Cedric waited patiently, recognizing C
hance had finally worked his way around to revealing what he really wanted to say.
“That’s what was different about this situation, originally, other than it not being a homicide case.”
“Ah,” Cedric said, nodding his head in understanding.
“You didn’t have enemies I knew of, no one was immediately aware of anyone who was angry with you.”
“No jilted lovers, nothin’ like that?”
“I hadn’t thought of that, Rev,” he said, squinting in mock seriousness. “Do you have something to tell me?”
“Just wondering how far you were goin’ with this, if you were hopin’ for something juicy.”
Chance had been playing with the unlit cigarette as they spoke, passing it back and forth between his hands, but now he crushed it in his fist and let it drop to the ground.
He shook his finger in the air for emphasis. “Without the usual signs, so to speak, I woulda been stuck. That’s why I started sitting out here at night and coming by any hour I could in the daylight with my camera those first couple days, watching for suspicious activity. As you know, that’s how I caught Erwin on film the morning you and I met here.
“Once I had my suspect, all I had to do was ask around to see if anyone remembered him in particular having words with you or if maybe there was some kind of long-standing feud I’d missed hearing about.”
Cedric pursed his lips and shook his head in denial.
“Maybe you weren’t feelin’ it on your side,” Chance said. “But there were people who witnessed him cursing you right here in front of your church. That kind of thing doesn’t go unnoticed.
“And after talking to your brother-in-law, I could place Erwin here the night of the fire. He remembered seeing him before the practice and he remembered a white Chevy was still in the parking lot when he drove out, too, even if he didn’t necessarily remember it was a Monte Carlo.”
“So what happens now?”
“Like I said, that’s the $64,000 question.”
“And?”
“It depends on you.”
“On me. Really.”
“That’s right,” Chance said. He patted the manila envelope. “You know, it wasn’t easy, laying my hands on copies of Erwin’s pictures.” His gaze turned to the street. “The worst part was the wait, hoping he was fool enough to have them developed.” Unconsciously, he reached into his pocket and pulled out cigarettes and lighter. Seconds later, he took a deep pull on the filterless Camel.
