“Vince?”
“Yes.”
“This is Detective Jacobs. We met a few nights ago.”
“Yes, Detective. What can I do for you?”
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.”
“What is it?” His stomach grew leaden.
“Lillian Withers suffered a fatal heart attack late last night.”
At first the words didn’t ring clear to Vince. He stood at the motel room’s desk, holding the receiver to his damp face. Then it registered and he looked at his reflection in the mirror. His haunted eyes stared back at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.” His heart began thudding hard in his chest.
“I’m afraid not.” Detective Jacob’s voice was weary, heavy with the bearing of bad news. “She was found this morning by Reverend Powell.”
Vince was still trying to grasp the concept of Lillian Withers dead. How could she be dead? He’d just seen her yesterday. Had made preliminary plans with her regarding his mother’s funeral service. She’d told him that he was family to her, something he always felt. And now she was dead.
He took a deep breath, the loss burrowing in his chest. His limbs felt numb, shaky. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes to will away the pain that was beginning to pulsate.
“Vince? Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. He opened his eyes. “I’m fine.” He felt far from fine. He felt like he wanted to scream.
“Vince?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”
“Thank you.” Vince hung up the phone. He sat down on the bed and looked out the window. Then he got up and went back to the bathroom and finished shaving. When he was finished, he got dressed and drove to Reverend Powell’s house to begin the long, painful process of burying his mother and Lillian Withers.
ARRANGING ONE FUNERAL was bad enough. Arranging two proved to be tiresome.
Vince Walters spent the entire day arranging both services with Reverend Powell. The Reverend was still in a state of shock over Lillian’s sudden death, but he proved to be a valuable asset in arranging the services. The County Medical Examiner declared that there was no need for an autopsy on Lillian, since his preliminary investigation appeared that all avenues pointed to a heart attack. That left Vince and Reverend Powell to plan the ceremony for the following day at noon at the makeshift chapel connected to his comfortable little house on Mill Lane, a mere mile from his mother’s home. Reverend Powell made the necessary phone calls to the rest of the congregation and the few townspeople Maggie and Lillian were friendly with. Vince spent the day assisting Reverend Powell, ordering the flowers and making arrangements with the caterers for the wake. When he was finished, he waited with Reverend Powell and John Van Zant at the church for the coroner to deliver the bodies. They were delivered in matching coffins—Vince had made the arrangements on the phone for their purchase and put the charges on his American Express card. The undertaker’s description of the caskets was sufficient enough for him. Both caskets were to be oak, painted white with brass fittings and velvet interiors. That was enough to satisfy Vince.
By the time they were finished for the day, he was beat. He retreated to the motel and promptly fell into bed without disrobing.
He couldn’t sleep. He lay in bed, tossing and turning. His mind was just too busy going over the last few days. He felt restless, so he rose to his feet and turned on the bedside light. He had to get this off his chest. He crossed the room to the small desk where he’d stowed his leather knapsack. He pulled out his cell phone, turned it on, and scrolled through the numbers until he found what he was looking for.
He hit auto-dial, hoping she was home.
Tracy Harris answered on the third ring.
“Tracy,” Vince said, relieved that she was home. “It’s Vince.”
“Vince? How are you? You’re in Pennsylvania, right? Hey, Brian told me what happened. I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Thanks.” Now with the phone cradled to his shoulder, Vince wished Tracy were here with him. It was the first time he’d felt such a need for her and he realized with a small amount of fear that he was falling for her in a way he never thought he would. “Did I catch you at a bad time?” He asked.
“No. How’s everything going back there?” Tracy’s voice came through clear. She sounded concerned.
“It’s okay. I guess I just need somebody to talk to.”
“Well, here I am.” He thought he could detect a smile in the tone of her voice.
“Here you are.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” His heart fluttered in his chest, and he realized he was treading into dangerous territory. Am I falling in love with her? And is she falling in love with me? Because if that’s the case, I don’t know if I can handle it.
He told Tracy about everything that had happened the past few days. He left out the grisly details of his mother’s murder, telling her that the detectives appeared to believe a burglar killed her. He hated lying to her, but he wanted to tell her about the strange symbols in person. Doing it over the phone seemed too impersonal. He also told her about Lillian Withers’ unexpected heart attack. Tracy gasped in surprise at the news. “Wow! That’s horrible!” After Vince wrapped it up, she asked the inevitable. “When do you think you’ll be back?”
“The day after tomorrow. We’re having the funeral tomorrow. Needless to say, I guess I’m kinda shaken up.”
“I would say you are. Are you going back to work Monday?”
“I guess so.”
“Maybe you should take the day off. Get a chance to regroup. Rest.”
“I don’t know,” he said, dreading the thought of all the work that would have piled up in his absence. “I’ve already taken a ton of vacation time this year.”
“Forget about what kind of time you have left,” she said. “I think you could really use the rest.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’ll take the day off, too,” she murmured. “We could spend the day together.”
A smile creased Vince’s weary face. “Ah, bribery.”
“I’ll give you a nice long back rub.”
“And?”
“Make long slow love to you.”
Hearing that brought a sudden flush of warmth through him. This was the first time that physical intimacy was mentioned in conversation between them. So she wants me as much as I want her, then, Vince thought. “I think you’ve convinced me.”
“Wonderful.”
“I’m glad I called. I feel better already.”
“Good.”
He leaned back in the chair. “This trip has been so weird, Tracy. Maybe taking Monday off will be a good thing. It’ll take the whole day just to tell you everything that I’ve found out.”
“Such as?”
“For the first time in my life I’m curious as to where I really came from.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was eight my mother packed me up in the middle of the night and we left the house we were living in with my father and just took off. No word of explanation. I don’t think we took anything with us, just the clothes on our backs. My mother had money and she bought us new stuff, but…it was just so weird. I’ve never thought about it ’til now.”
“Does your father know your mother’s been killed?”
“I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know if he was my father. We moved to New York and then we moved to Canada the following year. Mom found God, and things were never the same.”
“Your mom became a religious fanatic? You never told me about this.” Tracy sounded very interested.
Vince shrugged, cradling the receiver in his ear. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you about myself. Some of it I’m just now starting to learn.”
There was a long silence on the other end. Finally, Tracy said: “You don’t know who her family is, do you?”
“No.”
“And you do
n’t know much else about your past before she left for New York with you.”
Vince sighed. “No.”
“Have you found anything out?” She sounded like she was treading on soft ground, as if she knew this was a touchy subject.
“Not yet,” Vince said. “But I’m determined to find out everything I can about my mom’s past. About my past before we moved to New York.”
“Are there any photo albums or anything she left that might help?”
“Nothing. Whatever she had she either destroyed, or she didn’t take with her when we moved.”
“You might want to stay longer then,” she ventured. “Maybe talk to some of her friends.”
“That’s out of the question, at least for now.” Vince stood up. He finally felt relaxed enough to go to bed. “I really do need to get back home. But I also want to find out everything I can. After the service, I’m going to go through the house again and collect whatever information I can find and bring it home. If I have to, I’ll hire a private detective to help me.”
“When will you get in on Sunday?”
“I’ll call you tomorrow with the flight schedule,” he said. He was on a standby call at Philadelphia on Sunday and wasn’t sure when he could leave. “You’ll pick me up?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Okay,” Vince said, getting that tingly feeling again for her. “Thanks for listening.”
“That’s what girlfriends are for, right?”
Girlfriends. “I guess so.”
“Well…we have other uses too, which I’ll be more than willing and happy to perform for you when I get you home.”
Vince laughed. “I love you, Tracy.” There. He’d said it.
“I love you, too Vince.”
“I’ll talk to you Sunday.”
“I’ll be here.”
“‘Bye.”
“Goodbye.”
He hung up the phone, his chest swelling with the sound of her voice saying I love you. Had he really told her he loved her? And had she really said she loved him, too? They had, and he’d finally crossed the line he never thought would be crossed. The line that was drawn when he proclaimed his love to Laura seven years ago, the one he’d drawn himself, declaring he would never love another woman the way he’d loved Laura. He never thought their marriage would end in her untimely death, never thought he would get over mourning her loss, never thought he would ever have the capacity to love another woman again. He wondered if his relationship with Tracy, which was the first relationship he’d had since Laura’s death, was simply a rebound, an outlet for the sexual energy that had been building up. Now they were proclaiming their love for each other and they hadn’t even slept together, much less made out. Was this all going just a bit too fast?
Vince turned off the lights and climbed into bed. He pulled the sheets over himself and lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling. The night was comfortable, refreshing and still, and he thought about Laura and Tracy constantly, their images chasing him as he descended to sleep.
Chapter Six
REVEREND POWELL’S LIVING room was large and spacious. It merged into an equally large den and a roomy kitchen. It was here that the wake was held, and the congregants at the church service were in attendance. The caterers Vince hired had put out their spread while the gravesite services were commencing, and when they returned the large kitchen counter was lined with various meats for sandwiches plus all the trimmings: shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, slices of Swiss and jack cheese, mustard and mayonnaise, wheat and white bread. There were three different plates of chips and multiple bottles of assorted sodas, plus a large bucket of ice. Two buckets of potato salad were also present, and most of the guests filled up on that and the sandwiches. Vince scurried about, making sure everything was in order before he made himself a ham and sliced turkey sandwich and helped himself to a serving of potato salad. Then, with a fresh Coke with lots of ice, he retreated to Reverend Powell’s back porch just off the den.
He sat down on the deck, feet planted on the second step that led to the Reverend’s back yard. He set his drink down and balanced the plate in his lap while he ate. He was ravenous.
The service had gone well. It had been held in the little chapel in Reverend Powell’s home and it had been packed with members of the church and a few people from town that mom had grown friendly with. Chief Tom Hoffman had been present; so were Detectives Michaelson and Harvey. Unlike most of the services Reverend Powell presided over, this one hadn’t gone into a two-hour tirade against the ways of the world, but had focused on the virtues of the two women being honored. Vince had remained seated as various people got up and said a few words in memory of Maggie and Lillian. Vince briefly debated getting up and saying a few words, but decided not to. He was still battling with his feelings of what had happened, as well as his relationship with his mother. It was probably best to remain silent for now.
The wake was going pretty well and when it was all over he was going to help Reverend Powell clean up, then go back to his hotel room to pack for his flight the next morning. He’d used Reverend Powell’s phone in the kitchen to place a quick call to Tracy. How did the service go? she’d asked. Good, he replied. She told him she loved him again before they hung up.
Vince was almost finished with his sandwich, enjoying the late afternoon sun, when he heard the sliding glass door open behind him. “Hello, Vince,” Reverend Powell’s voice called out. “Mind if I join you?” The sliding door closed.
Vince motioned toward the space on the wide steps that led to the backyard. “Have a seat, Reverend. I was just enjoying your backyard.”
Reverend Powell hunkered down on the top step next to Vince. He was carrying a can of Pepsi. Reverend Hank Powell hadn’t changed much since the last time Vince saw him; he was a big barrel-chested man, with a square jaw and large, calloused hands. His hair had gone gray and it also appeared he’d toned down some of the hellfire-and-brimstone rhetoric of his persona. When Vince was a kid Reverend Powell seemed scrutinizing and judgmental, and to a certain extent he was. When he met with the man to arrange the services he’d felt his scrutinizing gaze on him a few times. Vince had ignored it and pressed on.
Reverend Powell had been dressed in an immaculate black suit during the service. When he sat down beside Vince on the back deck of his home, Vince saw he’d changed into more casual slacks and a cotton shirt. “Yes, it’s a nice view, isn’t it?”
“How far does your property go?”
“Not that far, actually.” Reverend Powell motioned toward a small grove of trees fifty yards ahead of them. “My property ends where those trees begin. It extends to the right where that little gully is, and to the left by my driveway. I’m fortunate enough to have the house built on this little ridge here. Gives me a nice view.”
“It does,” Vince said, taking a sip of Coke. “I bet it looks beautiful during sunsets.”
“Oh, it does. It’s very beautiful.”
There was silence for a moment as Vince finished his sandwich and Reverend Powell sat beside him, looking out at his backyard and the land beyond it. After a moment Reverend Powell said, “You and Lillian had quite a talk, I gather.”
“We did,” Vince said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. He set his plate down on the porch and took a swig of coke.
“What did you talk about?”
“My mother.”
“Hmm.” Reverend Powell sounded like he expected this answer and was dwelling on it. This raised a red flag in Vince’s mind.
“Why do you ask?” Vince asked.
Reverend Powell looked at Vince with an apologetic look on his face. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound nosy.”
“It’s all right,” Vince said, trying to feign normalcy. “We just talked about…old times, mostly. And about what we’ve been doing with ourselves the last fifteen years.”
“Catching up, in other words.”
“Something like that.”
Re
verend Powell paused for a moment and to Vince it seemed like the man was struggling to say something. As if he was wrestling to bring up a subject he didn’t want to touch but had to out of some obligation. Vince was just about to steer the conversation into something more mundane when Reverend Powell asked. “Did Lillian give you anything?”
“Give me anything?”
“Yes. A box. Something she would have kept for your mother?”
“No. Why?”
Reverend Powell appeared troubled by this answer. This made Vince concerned. He tensed up, thinking something happened he didn’t know about, that something was being hidden from him. “I was afraid of that,” Reverend Powell said.
“What is it?” Vince asked. He glanced back toward the den and the Reverend turned to look himself. The wake was still going on, but it wouldn’t be long before somebody traipsed out to join them.
Reverend Powell rose to his feet. “We need to talk, Vince.” He set off down the deck steps and into the backyard.
Vince watched him, dumbfounded for a moment. Then he rose and followed the minister into the backyard and to the grove of trees that bordered the property. “What is this all about?” Vince whispered.
Reverend Powell looked back at the house to make sure nobody else had come out, and when he looked back at Vince his expression had changed. Gone was the look of confidence, of sympathy. It had been replaced by fear. Reverend Powell looked like he had the knowledge of the world’s most evil secret and that keeping it to himself would be worse than telling it. “I have to tell you something Vince, and you have to promise me you won’t reveal to anybody that we had this conversation. Okay?”
“Hank, what’s wrong?” Vince exclaimed, troubled now by the reverend’s demeanor. “You act as if you’ve seen a ghost or—”
Reverend Powell’s hand shot out and gripped Vince’s shoulder, his strong fingers pinching him like a vice. “Promise me!”
“Okay, okay—”
The fingers tightened again. “And keep your voice down.” He whispered fiercely.
“Fine,” Vince hissed. The reverend released his grip and Vince massaged the area the bigger man had gripped. His stomach became a hollow pit of fear as he stood at the end of Reverend Powell’s backyard.
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