Redemption Road

by John Hart

  Not even the house of God requires five walls.

  Beckett drove until he saw the church on a distant hill. When he crested the ridge, he circled the east side and parked where he’d parked before. Light slanted through the trees. A hot wind blew.

  “Shit.”

  The tape was down. The door stood open.

  He got out of the car, and his hand settled on the butt of his weapon as he studied blank windows and blind corners, the dark trunks of massive trees. There had been movement at the church. No kind of doubt. He took the stairs, the sun hot on his shoulders. He met the same dark inside, the same smell. He pushed through the narthex, into the nave; and for an instant it was as if no time had passed, either.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Beckett crossed himself from old habit and pushed deeper into the nave, thinking, Wrong, wrong, this is so fucking wrong.

  The woman was dead on the altar and hadn’t been that way for long. No flies or discoloration; the hair still shone. Even then, he caught the first hint of a sour smell. It was oily and familiar, a death smell; but that’s not what made Beckett’s stomach turn. He tried to lift one of the victim’s arms; found her in full rigor with no sign of dissipation. Three hours at least. No more than fifteen. He lifted the linen to confirm she was nude beneath, took a final look at her face, then pushed outside to find fresh air. The stairs were worn smooth, yet he almost fell going down. From the bottom, it was a twenty-yard stumble, the Johnson grass and dog fennel as high as his waist, the day already different from what it had been. Beckett drew in a breath that burned, then bent as if he might vomit. He closed his eyes, but the world kept spinning. It wasn’t the church that made him sick. It wasn’t the red eyes or crushed neck, or even its being the third woman dead on the same damn altar.

  Beckett knew the girl.

  He knew her really well.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, he had the same team back at the church: techs, medical examiner, even Dyer.

  “What do we think about this?” Dyer had already asked the same question a dozen times. “Why the church? Why this church?”

  Beckett had been there a dozen times, too, as if repeating the same thing over and over might offer some magical revelation. He shrugged. “It was Adrian’s church.”

  “It was mine, too. Same with five hundred other people. Hell, I saw you here once or twice.”

  “I don’t have snakes in my head. I’m thinking Adrian does.”

  Dyer didn’t respond. He circled the body as if unsure what to do. Even now, he had the team on hold outside. He wanted Beckett, alone in the church. The two of them. The body.

  “This could start a panic,” Dyer said. “You realize that.”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s no maybe. The town is already on edge. Any chance we can keep this quiet?”

  Beckett thought of all the people outside. Fifteen? Maybe more? “I don’t see how.”

  “So we make no mistakes. We go by the book.”

  “’Course.”

  “You say you knew her?”

  “Lauren Lester. She worked day care at St. John’s, lived on a side street in Milton Heights. She used to watch my kids. My youngest still talks about her.”

  “Are you too close to this, Charlie?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Tell me again about the caller. ‘Five walls’? He had to mean Adrian.”

  Beckett shrugged. “Or wants us to think he did.”

  “It’s the closest thing we have to an ID.”

  “‘Five walls. House of God.’ It’s not an ID, Francis. It’s crazy talk.”

  “Whoever called knew there was a body.”

  “Or put it there.”

  “I want Adrian in for questioning.”

  “Amen to that.”

  “Tell me what you need.”

  “Everything, Francis.” Beckett dropped a hand on Dyer’s shoulder and squeezed. “I want everything.”

  * * *

  Beckett got the cadaver dog an hour before sunset. It came in the back of a marked cruiser, a black Lab named Solo on loan from the SBI office in Charlotte. “Hey, Charlie. Sorry about the holdup.” The handler was a young woman named Ginny. Early thirties. Athletic. She opened the back door and let the dog out. “You know that helicopter crash up in Avery County?”

  “The tourist thing?”

  “We’re still pulling bits and pieces off the mountainside.”

  “Jeez…”

  “Yeah, I know. Quite the production you have here.”

  Beckett examined the scene with fresh eyes. Nineteen cars. Two dozen people. The body was gone, but crime-scene techs were scouring the church even as uniformed officers combed the grounds.

  “Where’s Captain Dyer?”

  “I don’t know,” Beckett said. “Some kind of PR push, probably. You understand what’s happening here?”

  “Just that you found another body.”

  “I want to make sure it’s the only one. Dog’s not too tired, is he? The crash and all?”

  “You kidding? Look at him.”

  Beckett did. The animal was bright-eyed and eager.

  Ginny seemed eager, too. “Just tell me when.”

  Beckett studied the sky, the line of dark trees. The sun would be down soon. The dog whined. “Do it,” he said.

  Ginny slipped the leash.

  * * *

  He watched it happen from the same knoll across the valley. The dog. The way it moved.

  Please, God …

  He pushed the binoculars against his eyes. This part was not supposed to happen. The body on the altar, yes. But not his special place.

  Not the others.

  The dog moved up one side of the church, and back down the other. It stopped, backtracked, continued. The handler tracked it, light and quick herself. The dog’s agitation was unmistakable.

  The church.

  It was all the animal cared about. Back and forth, head down.

  No, no, no …

  He broke cover; couldn’t help it. Beckett was involved, now. He was unmistakable. The size. The shaggy head. His arm went up, and uniformed officers jogged for the church. Where was the dog?

  No!

  The dog plunged into a clump of bushes. Beckett was there. The handler.

  No! No!

  The dog was in the bushes.

  Scrabbling.

  Digging.

  * * *

  “All right. Back him off, back him away.” Beckett was in the bushes, the dog scratching at a small door in the foundation of the church. Two feet by two. Peeled paint. Wooden. “You have him?”

  Ginny clipped the leash on the collar. “We’re good.”

  When the dog was clear, Beckett examined the door. It was warped, and swollen. He dragged it open and peered into the dark space beyond. “Crawl space. Looks big.” He stood; found Ginny. The dog, beside her, was seated but intent on the door. Another whine sounded deep in its throat. “Your dog’s impatient.”

  “That’s not a big enough word.” She ruffled the dog’s coat. “He wants under that church in the worst possible way.”

  21

  Faircloth Jones could not remember the last time he’d felt so fine. It was the purpose, he decided, the warm-in-his-bones belief that people needed him.

  An old client.

  A pretty woman.

  He watched her across the rim of his glass. She was worn out. “Can I get you anything else? Another drink? Are you hungry, yet?”

  They were in big chairs flanking the cold fireplace. Elizabeth had her shoes off, her feet drawn up beneath her. She smiled, and the old man felt another flutter.

  “I think I’ll sleep,” she said. “Just for a bit. Will you stay?”

  “Do you know what should happen?” He leaned forward, put his glass on the hearth. “A gathering.”

  “There are just the two of us.”

  “Exactly.”

  He stood, grinning.

  “Are y
ou going?”

  “Adrian should be here.” Faircloth removed a quilt from the cabinet and clutched it to his narrow chest. “It’s five o’clock now. You sleep for a few hours. Take a shower if you like. I’ll rescue Adrian from the tragic ruins in which I am certain he sits and collect takeout on the way back. We can have the dinner we should have had before. A celebration of life.”

  “I’m not really in the mood to celebrate.”

  “Yet even the most put-upon must eat.” He spread the quilt on her lap and lowered himself beside her. “You’re safe here. There’s nothing you need to do. No one is looking for you.”

  “What about Channing?”

  “Your young friend is beyond our reach for now; but tomorrow is another day, and her father’s lawyers are very skilled. I’ll approach them in the morning and suggest a council of war. There is a path, my dear. I assure you of that, and of every possible effort.”

  “Thank you, Faircloth.” Her eyes drifted shut. “Thank you so very much.”

  * * *

  The old lawyer crossed the drive, his cane snapping out as the limousine driver climbed from the car. “A short drive,” Faircloth said. “A few more hours, then I’ll have you home to your family.”

  “No family.” The driver opened the rear door. “No rush at all.”

  “Very well.” Faircloth settled into the soft leather. “Highway 150, then north.”

  The driver worked the back roads to Highway 150, then circled the city and followed directions to the blacktop that ran to Adrian’s farm. Faircloth watched the sun flash red in the gaps between the hills, the shadow and light like days flicking past. “Just over the next hill. A long drive on the right.”

  The limousine crested the hill, slid down the back side until the road leveled. “Sir?” Faircloth leaned forward as the driver pointed through the glass. “Is that what you mean?”

  Faircloth saw the drive, a half mile of crushed gravel that ran through the fields and under trees. Hints of the ruined house were just visible. The car, however, was crystal clear, a gray sedan that blocked most of the drive. Faircloth was pretty sure he’d seen it before.

  The driver’s foot came off the gas. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Pull up behind it. Right on the bumper.” The driver did as he was told. They could see men in the sedan, the driver watching in the rearview mirror. “Let’s sit tight for a minute. I want to see what they do.”

  The moment stretched. No one moved.

  “Sir?”

  “All right.” Faircloth pushed his door open. “Let’s see what this is all about.” He got a single foot on the ground before the sedan’s engine caught.

  “Careful,” the driver said, but his voice was nearly lost as an engine revved and the sedan surged onto the blacktop.

  Faircloth choked on dust as it sped away, the metal of it glinting beneath a falling sun. “That was interesting.” The lawyer settled back into the car.

  “I got the plate number if you want it.”

  “Good man. Hold on to it for now.”

  “Down the drive?”

  “Indeed.”

  The limousine moved slowly over cattle guards and washed-out gravel. It crossed a creek and passed beneath an oak tree larger than any other Faircloth had ever seen. The ruined house was desolate in the gloom. Faircloth saw a hint of fire, and then Adrian, very still in the place a wall had once stood. There was no welcome in his face.

  “I’ll tell you what.” Faircloth handed the driver $50. “Go get yourself some dinner. I’ll call when I’m ready to leave.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The man accepted the money. “You have my card?”

  The old lawyer patted his coat pocket. “I’ll call you.”

  “Sir?”

  Faircloth hesitated, one hand on the door.

  “Are you sure about this?” The driver meant the gloom and the ruins, the car they’d chased away, and Adrian’s murky form. “It’ll be full dark soon, and he doesn’t seem the most trustworthy sort. No offense if I’m wrong, but this doesn’t feel like the right place for a man like you.”

  Faircloth looked at Adrian, scarred and thin in ill-fitting clothes. “It’s the perfect place. You go have a nice dinner.”

  “Yes, sir.” The driver nodded with great hesitation. “If you say so.”

  “Go ahead, now. I’ll be fine.”

  Faircloth climbed from the vehicle and watched it leave. When the dust settled, he hunched above the cane and watched Adrian approach. “Hello, my boy. I thought I’d find you here.”

  “Where else would I go?”

  “It’s a large world, is it not?” Adrian moved out from beneath the trees, and Faircloth met him on the edge of the drive. “I should think you, of all people, might dislike how history lingers in places such as this.”

  “Maybe I have unfinished business.”

  “Do you?” Faircloth lifted an eyebrow in what he knew from long years at trial to be his most penetrating gaze. “Perhaps we should speak of that, as I just saw the same, gray car stationed at the end of your drive.”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “You honestly think I should tell you?”

  “You’re upset.” The old lawyer was genuinely surprised. Adrian carried tension in his shoulders and in the line of his jaw. The normally warm eyes were anything but. “We’re friends, are we not?”

  Adrian’s head turned, and Faircloth watched him stare across the choked-out fields. The hardness was all in him, as if he’d somehow frozen solid. But, there was sadness, too, the bitter reflections of a deeply wounded soul. “You never visited.”

  “I tried.…”

  “Not the first month, Crybaby. Those were dark days, my choice. I mean the thirteen years, after. You were my lawyer, my friend.” No forgiveness was in his voice. What he said was fact, indisputable.

  “I was too old for that level of appellate work. We discussed as much.”

  “Were you too old to be my friend?”

  “Listen, Adrian.” The old man sighed and faced him straight on. “Life changed for a lot of us when you went away. Liz threw herself into life and the living of it. For me, it was the opposite. I didn’t care to see colleagues or be with friends. I didn’t care to care. Maybe, it was depression. I don’t know. I felt as if the sun had cooled or the blood in my veins had somehow thickened. I’ve become adept at analogies and could offer a hundred. Yet, it was my wife, I think, who said it best. She stuck it out for two years, then told me that, even at seventy-two, she was too young to live with a dead man. After she moved out, I barely left the grounds. I had my food delivered, laundry taken out. I drank, slept. Until this week, I’d barely left the house in ten years.”

  “Why?”

  “Why, indeed?” A ghost of smile touched Faircloth’s lips. “I think maybe I was heartbroken.”

  “Not over me.”

  “Over the law, perhaps, or the irretrievable failings of a system I could not improve. Maybe I lost faith. Maybe I just got old.”

  “I sent letters asking for help. Heartbroken or not, how could you ignore me?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did.”

  “You misunderstand, dear boy. I never got any letters.”

  Adrian thought about that; nodded once. “The letters were intercepted.” He nodded again. “Of course, they were intercepted. They would have had to do that. Stupid. Stupid.”

  He was talking to himself at the end. Faircloth keyed on something else.

  “Who do you mean when you say they?”

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  Adrian flashed the dark eyes, and Faircloth thought he understood. He knew prison; had other clients take the long walk. There was always a certain amount of disassociation and paranoia.

  “I didn’t imagine it,” Adrian said.

  “Then, let’s talk about it. The letters. This mysterious car.”

  Adrian stepped more deeply int
o the gloom. Faircloth saw his back, the tilt of his head.

  “Adrian?” The old man shifted above his cane. “My friend?”

  * * *

  Adrian ignored the question and looked out at the gathering dark. Without living it, no one could grasp the full truth of what had happened inside. Even Adrian lost track of what was fact and fiction. Was the sky really so dark? Was the old lawyer even there? He thought the answer was yes to both, but he’d been wrong before. How many times had he felt green grass and a warm wind only to open his eyes and find the blackness inside a boiler? The cold and close of a half-frozen pipe? Even friendship itself smelled of false promise. His wife had left him. His colleagues. His friends. What reason did he have to trust the old lawyer’s intent?

  Only the guards were real.

  Only the warden.

  Adrian thought again he should kill them. How could he live if they lived, too? How could he ever heal?

  “Where are you going?”

  Adrian stopped walking; unaware he’d even started. “I’m not the best company right now, Faircloth. Give me a few minutes, okay?”

  “Of course. Whatever you want.”

  Adrian didn’t look back. He walked into the field because the sky was largest there, the night’s first stars the brightest. He thought the openness would help, but it made him feel small and voiceless, a forgotten man in a world of billions. Even that was okay for a moment. He understood voicelessness and knew more than most about being alone. Survival boiled down to resolution and will; and when such things failed, it hinged on stillness and Eli’s words, on the simple act of going away. But Adrian didn’t want to do that anymore. He wanted his life back, and to confront the ones who’d carved it down to such a thin, poor thing.

  What would that look like?

  A conversation?

  He doubted it; and doubt was the reason he spent his hours in the shell of what had once been a proper life. The rage was so great it was a living thing, a creature in the cage of his chest. He wanted to hurt and kill, and then bury it all.

  But, there was this thing.