by Ron Levitsky
He shook his head hard, scattering the pennies, and waded through them until reaching a stream, the place he’d fished as a boy. He cast his line and watched it drop lightly below the surface; then he became a fish following it down toward the bottom. He swam freely as a fish, his tail flapping and fins speeding him through the undulating current. He was laughing and heard her laughing all around him, her voice muted by the water. And though all around him, he swam to where the laughter originated. He swam to her.
She was lying naked in the field, her slender arms and long legs stretching endlessly across the grass. He was a fish flopping over her breasts the size of mountains, over her tanned thighs and shoulders, while she laughed. He was laughing with her, slipping from her grasp as she tried to embrace him. Slowly her body, the field—everything—darkened into night. Still her laughter rang in his ears.
Sometime later the blackness dissolved into gray, then light. There was no longer laughter but a slow steady wail like a baby crying. He was shaking . . . someone was shaking him, calling his name.
“Jesse? Jesse, come on, snap out of it.” Rosen was kneeling beside him.
Blinking, he looked around and saw himself sitting on the lawn in front of the house. Two squad cars were parked in the street near Jesse’s Porsche, while an ambulance waited in the driveway. Its siren was what Jesse had heard.
“You all right?” Rosen asked.
“Yes, I think so. What happened?”
“You’ve just experienced your first extralegal mind expansion. As Popper might’ve said, ‘Better living through chemistry.’”
Jesse swiveled his head. “Popper. Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? You mean he’s . . .?”
“No,” Rosen said, laughing. “Not dead. He’s already on his way to police headquarters. You three are all right—even Chief Whitcomb over there.”
Shifting his weight, Jesse saw Whitcomb leaning against the front door. Two policemen supported him on either side as his head lolled forward and his words slurred. The policemen were biting back their laughter, while another officer, barely able to keep his camera steady, took a series of Polaroid photographs.
Rosen said, “I think it’s going to be a long time before Whitcomb forgets this case. At least he’s busted the major marijuana dealer in town.”
Jesse asked, “Are you all right? You weren’t affected by the marijuana?”
“When the smoke started rising, I went upstairs for help. The police dragged the three of you outside. See your Bible on the ground over there? You were clutching it like a baby. I also found this.” He opened his jacket; Popper’s gun was tucked under his belt. “Do you want to try getting up?”
“Uh-huh. I’m all right. I—”
He stopped suddenly, seeing Gideon McCrae standing over him.
McCrae winced before speaking. “Policeman over there told me what happened. Told me ’bout Popper bein’ a killer, about how he used the church t’hide his drugs.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jesse said.
“Ain’t it? All the time, I’m tellin’ folks to watch out, ’cause like Jesus said, ‘Shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.’ And all the time the meanest wolf was standin’ at my side. My own cousin. T’think he killed Brother Lem and Ben Hobbes.”
Rosen said, “He denied murdering Hobbes.”
“One more killin’ don’t much matter, him bein’ my own blood.”
His own blood? Jesse blurted, “Is Bathsheba all right?”
“Guess so. Don’t know where Sheba is. Generally goes off on her own, afternoons she’s not workin’.”
Rosen stood. He started to speak, stopped, then furrowed his brow for a long time. Finally he asked, “What did you call your daughter?”
McCrae blushed violently. The word seemed to crawl from his mouth. “Sheba.”
Jesse said, “It’s just an abbreviation for Bathsheba.”
Rosen was staring at the Reverend. “Is that all it is?”
McCrae tried to look away but seemed unable to. “You know, don’t you?”
“I think so. The question is, how much do you know?”
Jesse struggled to his feet, leaning against his friend for support. “What’re you both talking about?”
Rosen’s hands gripped him hard, too hard to be just for support. “You feel up for a ride?”
“I . . . uh . . . I guess so.”
“Good. Reverend McCrae, you’d better come, too.” They took a step, but Rosen stopped to pick up Jesse’s Bible. “Here, Jesse. I think you’re going to need it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“There’s one thing lawyers have in common with men of God,” Rosen said while driving down Jackson Street.
Jesse sat beside him, with Reverend McCrae in the backseat. Still not completely sure of who murdered Ben Hobbes, he spoke to each as a chavrusa, study partner, while constructing a hypothetical case.
“Both lawyers and religious leaders strive with a certainty of purpose that often defies logic. Reverend McCrae genuinely believes only his church has the correct path to salvation. Whether right or wrong, he has a right to that belief as a matter of faith. Lawyers are supposed to be different, men of reason. But we’re not, and that’s been the trouble with this case all along.”
Jesse asked, “What do you mean?”
“Once the police assembled the evidence pointing toward Claire Hobbes as the murderer, the D.A. assumed she was guilty. Neither he nor Whitcomb entertained the slightest doubt and, therefore, made no attempt to investigate other suspects.”
“But now they have Popper Johnston. He must’ve killed Ben Hobbes, just as he killed Lemuel Banks.”
Rosen shook his head, not to refute Jesse but to keep his train of thought. “I wasn’t much different from the police. Once taking Claire’s case, I was committed to her acquittal. I never considered myself the type of lawyer who defended anyone, no matter how dirty, as long as the fee was big enough. I didn’t always believe Claire, but I never seriously doubted her innocence.”
“You were right.”
“Was I? Maybe, but so were the police.”
“How can you both be right? You’re not making any—”
“Bear with me. We’re almost there.”
Parking around the corner from Claire’s house, Rosen took Popper’s gun from the glove compartment and slid it back under his belt. The three men walked down the alley. Claire’s garage door was up, the car and truck parked side by side. Rosen walked between them, placing his hand on the Corvette’s hood, which was warm.
“The first problem was that of an alibi. The evening of the murder, her neighbor saw Claire’s car returning home shortly after nine, before Ben Hobbes. Claire swore she arrived home closer to ten, after her husband. Of course, the D.A. planned to use the neighbor’s testimony against her. I worked to find another possibility—that night, while everyone was busy caring for Lemuel Banks, someone took Claire’s car keys from her purse.”
“Popper,” Jesse suggested.
Rosen shrugged and put his hand on the wooden table near a pair of work gloves. “Then there’s the question of why her fingerprints and not Ben’s were on the milk carton. The police’s answer was simple—she poured the milk and put the poison in it. But Claire said that her husband fixed his own milk and went upstairs before she arrived home. Only then did she touch the carton. Why weren’t his prints on it?” He tapped the table where it had been discolored. “I had a lab check what made this stain. Milk laced with strychnine. On the night he died, Ben Hobbes brought home lumber to build some kitchen shelving. He must’ve been wearing these work gloves. He leaned the lumber against the sink, poured the milk, walked back into the garage and put the glass down while taking off his gloves and leaving them here.”
“Of course,” Jesse said, “that’s why the carton didn’t have his fingerprints. So far, you’ve given a jury more than enough reasonable doubt. The D.A. wouldn’t dare bring a case ag
ainst Claire to court.”
Rosen opened the door to the house and led the other two men inside. They walked through the kitchen and hallway into the living room.
Jesse whispered, “We shouldn’t be in here. Both cars are in the garage. Claire must be home.”
“I’m counting on it. Remember this?”
He walked to one of the windows facing the backyard.
Jesse said, “Whitcomb pointed this out the morning after the murder. The killer tried making it appear that someone had broken in. You said it was an attempt to fool the police. Popper could’ve done it.”
“I wouldn’t trust Popper Johnston with the proceeds from a Girl Scout cookie sale, but he does qualify as an expert on crime. If he wanted to make this look like a break-in, he would’ve done a convincing job. This was the work of a rank amateur.” Rosen shook his head. “Jesse, when you give a multiple-choice test, don’t you tell your students to go with their first response?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“That’s what I should’ve done—gone with my first instinct. Listening to Ben Hobbes on your tape, not what he said about the threat, but the way he said it. At first the police blamed Claire. Maybe she was in love with Reverend McCrae and, under his Svengali influence, killed her husband to gain his estate for the church. Later Simon Hobbes swore there was a second will disinheriting Claire. That was a strong motive. For a while I thought a private investigator named Aadams had found the will and sold it to Claire. Now there’s a drug connection between Popper Johnston and Danny—and Ben Hobbes may have discovered the marijuana field a few days before his death. The police are ready to believe Popper killed Ben to protect his dope. You are, too.”
“Sure I am.”
“What about you, Reverend?”
McCrae stood a few steps from them. He looked Rosen in the eyes but his chin trembled slightly. He didn’t answer.
Rosen continued, “I don’t think Popper did it. He wouldn’t have risked waiting a few days to poison Ben. He’d have shot him right away, as he did Banks. No, I should’ve gone with my first instinct. On the tape, the bitterness in Ben Hobbes’s voice. He felt betrayed as a man. Something so humiliating he couldn’t say out loud what happened, but you knew what he was talking about, Reverend.”
This time Rosen waited and, after a long time, McCrae finally answered. “I can’t . . . I can’t say nothin’.”
Jesse shook his head. “I won’t believe the Reverend’s involved in murder.” He turned to McCrae. “You can’t be. Everything that’s changed in my life is because of you.”
“No. Any good that’s come is ’cause you seen the Light. Ain’t got nothin’ t’do with me.”
“But, you can’t—”
“Wait,” Rosen said. “We’re not done yet. Not until we’ve seen Claire.”
The three men walked back into the hallway, and Rosen led them upstairs. Hearing Claire’s voice from inside her room, he paused at the top step to listen. She was reading something—one of her poems.
“You’re filled with so much charm and grace,
A perfect smile upon your face.
But if to me any perfection’s due,
It’s only in my love for you.”
She continued reading verses so bad they were almost laughable, but Rosen didn’t laugh. There was a fervor in her voice, and for a moment he wondered if Bess had ever felt that way about him.
Claire finished, cleared her throat . . . did she say something softly . . . and began another one. No, it wasn’t her voice.
“Who’ll take a thread of sunlight
And weave it for my glove;
Who’ll bring a rose in winter
And be my own true love?”
Jesse leaned against the wall and moaned softly while, beside him, McCrae stood perfectly still. Reluctantly they followed Rosen into the bedroom.
A smell, heavy with perfume and sweat, filled his nostrils. The same odor as when, days ago, he’d first examined her room. Only this time there was another scent intermingling, something from McCrae’s church. The image before Rosen’s eyes was as incomprehensible as an abstract painting with colors the shades of blood; what it whispered the body heard long before the mind understood. The room was whispering something to him now, something that bristled hairs on the back of his neck.
“Yetzer ha-ra,” it whispered in his father’s voice. “The evil impulse”. . . the one that lowered man into beast.
Taking a step forward, Rosen turned his head. The whispering stopped, while the room came into focus. Claire sat on the bed, legs drawn under her, holding a sheaf of papers, her poems. She wore a frilly white nightgown with a strap fallen from her shoulder, revealing the dark cleft between her breasts. Her hair was loose, a few strands teasing one cheek. The soft curve of shoulders and her throat were pinkish, reminding him of a rabbit, as did the frightened look in her eyes.
Her lips trembled but said nothing. Instead, she held the poems like an offering, just as the children of Israel, dirtying themselves in sin, had made offerings to Baal in the desert.
Lying beside Claire, under the covers with an elbow propped on the pillow, Bathsheba stared at him, her mouth twisted into a small smile. Her face was framed perfectly by coal-black curls, and her eyes were as dark. She touched Claire, who nuzzled like a cat against her hand.
Looking past Rosen, Bathsheba repeated the verse.
“Who’ll take a thread of sunlight
And weave it for my glove;
Who’ll bring a rose in winter
And be my own true love?”
Jesse stood transfixed by her gaze, the image before his eyes carved so deeply into his mind it might never fade away.
But McCrae’s face was more chilling. It showed no anger, no rage about to burst like a thunderclap upon his daughter. There was nothing, nothing but a great stillness deeper than sadness. Rosen had seen that look once before, when his own father had closed the door between them, and he’d endured that same feeling. Every now and then it came back to him, like the slow pulsing pain of a bullet lodged near the heart, a bullet too cruel to kill quickly but one that could never be removed.
Rosen said to the two women, “Tell me about Ben Hobbes’s murder. The truth this time.”
Claire shook back the hair from her face. “What makes you think I know anything more than I told you?” Her blue eyes shone back clear and empty.
“I ignored my instinct, that this was a crime of passion, because I didn’t believe you could do such a thing. I was wrong, because I was right.”
She laughed nervously. “What?”
“You didn’t do it, but your . . . lover did. Reverend McCrae’s world and the one I once lived in are circumscribed by rules carried down from Mount Sinai. In those righteous worlds nothing evil is permitted to enter, like the proscription of Leviticus: ‘If a man lies with a man, both have committed an abomination.’”
Bathsheba cocked her head. “You call it evil, just ’cause the love’s ’tween two women?”
“No. It’s true I didn’t think of you as Ben Hobbes’s murderer, because I couldn’t comprehend you as Claire’s lover. Maybe your father believes evil is inherent in this kind of love, but I don’t. I’ve seen too much of the world beyond my father’s walls. It’s the way you’ve twisted what you call love. Yetzer ha-ra.”
She leaned forward, revealing most of her breasts. “Tell me all the evil I done.”
“You were the one, not Popper Johnston, who took the keys from Claire’s purse and drove to her house. Claire had told you about her husband’s habit of drinking a warm glass of milk, that only he drank from the acidophilus carton. You brought the strychnine from the church and put it into the carton. Your clumsy attempt at a break-in was to protect Claire.”
“Why would I do all that?”
“Because he knew you were Claire’s lover.”
She said nothing, only tilted her head up as if daring him to continue. He wanted to stop, for Jesse’s sake and McCra
e’s, and because he wanted to leave the room, which nearly overpowered him with its smell of evil. But he had to continue; there was no one else to do it.
“Ben Hobbes suspected his wife of having an affair, so he hired a Nashville detective named Aadams to follow her. Aadams discovered the truth about you two. Claire had a history of rejecting male lovers, like Danny or the owner’s grandson at the restaurant where she used to work. Even Hec Perry said their relationship wasn’t physical. That’s why Ben was so upset when he confronted McCrae at the service. Your lesbian affair only confirmed what he’d believed all along, that the church was some sort of perverse cult taking control of his wife. He, too, was a religious man, and that’s why he couldn’t say aloud what had happened. Maybe Ben Hobbes would never have told, but he would’ve stopped your affair and tried his best to destroy the church.”
Bathsheba stirred, like someone in a peaceful dream, and the covers slipped down to reveal her dark round nipples. He tried not to look at them. Watching his struggle, she grinned. “Ben was gonna send Claire away ’n’ get rid of the church, too. Couldn’t have none a’ that.”
“No.” He felt the sweat sliding under his collar. “That’s not all you did, is it?”
“You tell me.”
“When I first arrived in Earlyville, your father said his house had been burglarized and your room had been ‘messed with.’ My guess is that Aadams did the job and found evidence of your affair.”
“What evidence?”
“The papers Claire’s holding in her hands. For a while I thought Aadams had found the second will that Simon Hobbes was so sure existed. What he’d really found were those love poems to you. I’m sure when the police lab examines them, they’ll find some of Aadams’s fingerprints. He blackmailed Claire into buying them back, but you wanted to be sure. Or was it that you started to like killing?”