Praying for Peace

by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  Jack was there, just closing the door to his car.

  “He’s got a gun,” I screamed.

  Jack drew his gun as Newton tumbled down the stairs. He aimed it right at him. Pushing me to the side, he said, “Get behind the car.”

  I did as I was told and watched as he aimed the gun straight at the man. “Not another step, Alabaster. Not another step.”

  Newton Alabaster collapsed onto the ground.

  “It was Alice Mae. She’s inside,” I said. “She killed Acel.”

  Jack rushed into my house as I stayed near his car.

  Jack came by my house later that night after he’d finished doing whatever it was detectives did when they arrested someone. I’d asked Justin’s parents if Austin could stay the night even though it was a Sunday. After explaining to his mother what had happened, she said she’d bring him by in the morning to get ready for school. I thanked her and cleaned up the den. I had no idea what I’d say to my son, but he’d know something happened soon enough, so the best I could do was tell him the truth.

  I’d found my phone in the kitchen and sent Jack a simple thank you message, knowing I’d see him in the morning for my official statement. He responded, saying he’d be by in a bit. I appreciated the company. I didn’t want to be alone in my own home.

  “So, what’s going to happen to Georgia Alabaster?”

  He shrugged. “She won’t be arrested, it was an accident, but she’s not well, and with Alice Mae and Newton both going to jail, she’ll probably end up in a home.”

  “Newton knew Alice Mae killed Acel. He knew she was trying to protect his mother. Is that a crime?”

  “Accessory to murder for Acel’s death is, and we’re shooting for attempted murder with you.”

  “Alice Mae claims she’s innocent. She was talking all kinds of nonsense. Said not to believe anything Georgia said because she’s mentally unstable. Even went as far to say that Georgia claims to see people who aren’t there. Always mentions two women at the cemetery, but the women she described died years ago.”

  That they did, I thought.

  “Crazy talk from a murderer trying to disqualify anything anyone might say to verify her crime.”

  “But Alice didn’t really commit a crime with the fire, did she?”

  “She interfered with an investigation. Had she come clean, the city wouldn’t have wasted money investigating the fire, and Georgia Alabaster could have gotten the help she needed a long time ago.”

  He sat next to me. Closer than I’d expected, and I wasn’t sure whether to be nervous or comforted. “I owe you an apology, Chantilly.”

  “Yes, you kind of do.”

  He smiled. “Well, I—”

  I stopped him. “Except I wasn’t exactly right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought it was Newton that killed Acel.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You knew it had to do with the fire, but I wouldn’t listen.”

  “It’s okay.”

  He touched my hand with his. “No, it’s not. I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.” He entwined his fingers with mine.

  Jack Levitt was holding my hand. I sucked in a deep breath, which he heard, and quickly let go.

  “Too soon?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not that. It’s…it’s nice.” I leaned my head on his shoulder.

  “Yeah, it’s nice.”

  14

  Charlie Sayers made an appearance at my house the next morning. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of spirits coming to my home, but I liked Charlie, so I gave him a pass.

  “It’s time.”

  “Now?” I’d just gathered my things in my bag to head over to the mayor’s office to discuss the church restoration project. “I’m kind of in a hurry.”

  “She’s not doing well. Please, she needs to know this isn’t the end of us.”

  I walked out the front door, locked it, and drove straight to Thelma’s house. When I knocked, I heard her shuffling through the rooms inside, but she didn’t answer the door.

  I knocked again. “Thelma, it’s Chantilly.”

  Still nothing.

  Charlie had been right next to me, but he disappeared through the front door. Seconds later, he returned. “She’s coming.”

  I raised my eyebrow. “Okay.” I had no idea what he’d done, and I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to know, either.

  The door opened slowly, and Thelma peeked between it and the frame. “I’m not much up for company this morning, Chantilly. How ‘bout we chat tomorrow at Del’s?”

  My eyes shifted from my friend, who had on the same pajamas from the other night, and a scarf tied over her head to her dead husband.

  “Tell her you have a message from me.”

  I gently pushed on the door. “I have a message from Charlie.”

  Her eyes widened, and a light I hadn’t seen in days sparkled in them. “My Charlie?”

  I smiled as she opened the door. “Yes, sweetie, your Charlie.”

  “Bless his heart, I’ve been asking him to talk to you for so long now, I wondered if he’d heard me.”

  I followed her into the small kitchen at the back of her house. She had a newspaper spread out on the table, and a cup of coffee sitting next to it. “Would you like some coffee?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Tell her I heard,” Charlie said. He smiled as he examined the kitchen. “I sure wish she’d get the wallpaper off the walls. It’s older than the sun.”

  As I sat at the table, I laughed.

  “Is he here now?”

  I smiled and nodded. “He says he wishes you’d take down the wallpaper. He thinks it’s older than—”

  “The sun.” She said it at the same time I did.

  “Yes, the sun.”

  “He really is here. Charlie, do you know what special day was this past week?”

  “He knows. I just met him the other day when I was at the church. He talked about you. Said he used to walk to town a few times a month to get you lavender and carnations. He called you Dolly. At first, I didn’t realize it was him.” I shook my head. “I should have got the reference to Dolly, but I didn’t. Then Del had those flowers in Community Café, and you said it was the anniversary of your first date.”

  She sniffled and used her napkin to wipe her nose. “He always brought me the prettiest flowers.”

  She’d sat at the table too, and I leaned toward her, taking her frail hand in mine. “Thelma, Charlie wants you to know your story isn’t over. The two of you will be together again.”

  She stared up at me. “Soon?”

  I eyed Charlie, not sure what to say.

  He chuckled. “Ask her what I always used to tell her about aging.”

  “He wants you to tell me what he used to say about aging.”

  She smiled. “He said he went to bed one night when he was eighteen, and when he woke up the next mornin’, he was eighty. Said time went fast, and we had to live every moment because one day we just wouldn’t wake up.”

  Charlie smiled. “Tell her it’s like that, her time. She’s got to live every moment, enjoy herself, not worry about me, because even though it seems like a long time, life’s never really long enough.”

  “He said it may feel like a long time, but you’ll be together again, and for now, he wants you to keep living your life.”

  “I do. I have you and Olivia. She likes to come over at night sometimes and sit with me while I watch my shows. She even introduced me to the bachelor. He’s a cutie pie, that one.”

  “Wait, Olivia’s got a boyfriend?”

  She laughed. “Bless your heart. I’m talking about the one on the TV.”

  I laughed, too. “Oh, that bachelor.”

  I got me a full life, even got me a best friend in Del, even though she’s got a burr in her saddle most of the time.” She smiled.

  “It’s endearing, don’t you think?”

  She laughed. “Like a rooster duri
ng his prime.”

  Charlie chuckled again. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

  Thelma sighed. “It’s hard sometimes.”

  I squeezed her hand tighter, though I did it gently. “I can’t imagine how you must feel, but Charlie wants you to know it’s not over. He’s waiting for you. He told me to tell you it’s like a pause. It’s not the end.”

  “Is he still with me?”

  I referred to him.

  “I’ll always be with her. When she needs me, I’ll be here.”

  I let her know what he said.

  “But that don’t mean I want her fretting and not going on.” He stood behind his wife. “You tell her she’s got a job to do here, and she needs to keep doing it. I don’t want her getting lazy.”

  I laughed. “He said that doesn’t mean you get to be lazy. You’ve still got work to do here.”

  She smiled. “That’s my Charlie. Always telling me what to do.”

  I laughed. “He loves you a lot, Thelma. That hasn’t changed. I can tell.”

  A tear fell from her eye. “I love him, too. Can you tell him that?”

  “You just did.”

  Mayor Tyson sat at his conference table, his eyes scanning my plans and corresponding photos for the church restoration project. “This all looks great, but I’m not sure we need the memory of the bad things happening there staining the church any longer.”

  “Perhaps it’s less of a stain and more of a rebirth.” I showed him a photo from when the church was first built. “This building was all but destroyed in that fire and look.” I pushed over a photo from after the rebuild. “Here, it shows no signs of that fire. Sure, it’s not the same building in many respects, but it’s still the same church. It survived, it’s still here, resurrected from those ashes of that fire, both physically and emotionally. People kept coming, and they still come today. Look at Castleberry. What would have happened if, after the Civil War, the town decided to fold?”

  “The people here, they loved Castleberry. They wouldn’t have let that happen.”

  “And those people went to this church. Their families go to this church. They would want it to be restored. The living want it restored.”

  “But tearing it down and rebuilding something new, that’s a rebirth, that’s a fresh start.”

  I sighed. I wasn’t winning my argument. “It’s not about starting over, it’s about the strength in what lies before us. That church has been through a lot, yes, and the parishioners, they’ve been through it all right along with it. Give them back their worship space, wiped clean of the negativity, but with the soul of the church still within. That will clean the slate. Starting over just pretends nothing bad ever happened, and everyone knows that’s not the case.”

  He rubbed the bottom of his chin. “I do like the look of the old church. Reminds me of my childhood, from years before the fire.”

  “And it makes you happy, doesn’t it?”

  A smile threatened to appear on his face. As he examined the plans further, that smile did show. “You’re right. We can’t learn from our history if we don’t embrace it.” He nodded. “Let’s submit this to the council. I’ll recommend the plan go through, and we’ll see if we can help fund it in the budget.”

  We stood and shook hands. “Thank you, Mayor. You won’t regret this.”

  I walked out of city hall and to my car where Jeremiah Alabaster waited. I exhaled, unsure of what to say about everything that had transpired over the past few days. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “There is always a plan, and we don’t always know what that plan is until later.”

  “You didn’t want me to find out though. You wanted to protect your family.”

  “It was not my place, and I know that now.”

  “I wish things could have been different.”

  “Georgia will get the help she needs, and when the time is right, she will be free of her burdens. That is God’s plan.”

  “And what about your son?”

  He sighed. “He must deal with his demons. I cannot help him.”

  I couldn’t imagine how that felt, not being there to help your own child. “Can I ask you a question?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you see Acel after he…he died?”

  “I did not, but Acel was a good man. I do not question his faith, and I believe he’s with God.”

  I sure hoped so. Knowing what I knew about the afterlife, I understood the need for opposites, and I had no doubt in Heaven and Hell. “What happens to you now?”

  “Me?” He laughed. “I’ve faced my demons. I’ve done what I felt necessary, and now it is my turn to take responsibility.”

  I was afraid to ask what that meant, but I didn’t have to. A bright light formed around him, and a warm breeze surrounded me. The sky, just filled with clouds a moment ago, opened up, the sun shining brightly down on me. I gazed up at it, and as I did, a burst of sparkles shot up into the rays and disappeared. When I glanced back to Pastor Alabaster, he was gone.

  I clicked the button on my key to unlock my car and smiled up toward the sky. “Guess we won’t be seeing you on the haunted historical tour after all, will we?”

  THE END

  Continue for a Look at Carolyn’s Other Books!

  Keep reading for an introduction into Carolyn’s Deal Gone Dead, book one in her Lily Sprayberry Realtor Cozy Mystery Series.

  Chapter One of Deal Gone Dead

  Deal Gone Dead

  Myrtle Mae Redbecker said she loved to cook with her cast iron skillet so, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was her plan the day someone decided to whack her over the head with it.

  I found my elderly client lying on her old, worn linoleum kitchen floor at ten o’clock Monday morning, the exact time of our regularly scheduled weekly coffee appointment.

  “Don’t be late,” Myrtle said early the day before. “Promptness is important to me.”

  I understood that about the older woman, and I wasn’t late, but it was the last time I’d have to rush to a coffee appointment with my crotchety client. My heart ached for Myrtle, but promptness wasn’t my best quality, and the eighty-five-year-old woman wasn’t the most comfortable client to work with, so it wouldn’t be a lie to say a tiny part of me didn’t feel a touch of relief about that. When I realized that sense of relief, it was quickly replaced with guilt. My momma would be horrified to know her little girl felt something just south of joy because of someone else’s misfortune. Her voice echoed through my head. You were raised better than that, it said. I silently responded, yes, I was. I apologized to my deceased client, hoping she could hear my heart speaking to her.

  I breathed through my mouth and stopped myself from squeezing my nostrils shut as I stood outside Myrtle’s old farmhouse along with the gathering crowd. The strong smell of ammonia lingered from what I assumed was the neighbor’s chicken coop. The old man likely hadn’t cleaned it well or recently, and I worried about the poor chickens. The stench was hard on their little lungs, not to mention the hens’ egg production.

  The front part of the property was already filled with rubberneckers, but that wasn’t hard to do since the house rested on a narrow plot of land that butted up next to its neighbors. The rest of it though extended back for what felt like several miles. It never made sense to me, how my little county was designed. Instead of wide open spaces of land, our lots were piled up close together next to our roads extending behind them to either the next country road or the next plot of land. Closer to town, of course, was different, the lots were normal, but the older properties on the outskirts of the county reflected the original landscapes of when settlers first made it to Bramblett County. My mother once told me she thought that whoever drew up the plot lines in Bramblett County must have sipped a little too much moonshine before deciding where one property ended and another began. Practically every other county in the state had square lots but ours. Ours were so unique that one year at the annual county fair we ran a county competition t
o see who could come up with a county tag line using that theme. They were all horrible, and the judges couldn’t pick. As a real estate agent, I was relieved. Long narrow lots weren’t the first selling point I lead with when showing a property to a prospective buyer, and I preferred the county not brag about something I saw more as a hindrance than a benefit.

  I ignored the whispers and gossip wandering through the expanding crowd and let my eyes wander over the home of my deceased client. I closed them for a moment and let my mind wander back to my childhood when I’d piddle down the old country road and see the home during its better days, before Myrtle and her husband had aged and couldn’t take care of it. I wanted to remember the house that way before it was destroyed and replaced with townhomes or condos.

  I adored old southern homes. Each of them told a story, their place in history set in the memories of their town, their families, and the people that knew them. The white wrap around porch with the swing and rocking chairs where the family sat and talked or just spent time together instead of ignoring each other for the bright light of the TV or the hypnotic thrill of the Internet. I adored the rows of matching sized windows with black shutters, how they spoke to me of structure and familiarity. I love the weathered white painted wood siding because I grew up in something similar, and just being near Myrtle’s reminded me of mine and the memories of days long gone. My heart ached for my client, but it hurt for something long gone, too; my childhood.

  I would have stayed lost in the moment but was immediately jolted out of it when the Bramblett County Sheriff, Dylan Roberts sauntered over.

  My heart raced and tiny beads of sweat pooled at my hairline. The familiar fresh and clean, manly soap scent hit my nose and overtook the ungodly ammonia smell right away. My nose was happy, but my heart sunk into the pit of my stomach.

  Yes, I’d made the 911 call, and yes, I knew that meant that law enforcement would arrive, so to think it wouldn’t be the county sheriff was ridiculous but was it wrong for me to hope a deputy showed up in his place?