Preacher Sam

by Cassondra Windwalker

  “That would be nice. Thanks, Preacher.”

  Sam pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and read the words he’d scrawled there last night.

  “Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the ruler of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

  Amanda’s lashes curtained her eyes. “To stand,” she murmured. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The autumn sun was glinting through weepy clouds and bouncing off the bumpers of cars in the parking lot when Sam exited the jail. He squinted, spotting a familiar figure leaning against his blue Impreza. Slight and unassuming, Detective Adam Nguyen looked as comfortable and casual in his cheap suit as other men did in jeans and t-shirts. His thumbs rested in his pockets—a deliberately at-ease position, Sam noted, but one that kept his hands close to his gun belt.

  “Detective Nguyen,” Sam greeted the other man as he reached his vehicle. He looked around. Sure enough, parked two cars away, idled a dark sedan with another man in the passenger seat, his window down and his watchful face turned in Sam’s direction. That must be Nguyen’s partner, Sam thought.

  “Sam Geisler,” Nguyen rejoined with a smile, extending his hand for a shake. His fingers were cool, his grip firm and light. “How’ve you been?”

  The last time Sam had seen Nguyen had been almost a year ago. At the time, he’d been impressed with the detective’s quietude, a steadiness that had struck Sam as being at odds with the bellowing machismo he associated with cops. That was probably just a stereotype, he chided himself silently, one kept well-polished by reality shows and crime dramas. Cops were just people doing a job like everyone else. That job happened to involve dealing in death more often than most other occupations. But he imagined they still fielded overflowing email boxes, attended painful conference meetings, and occasionally wore dirty laundry to work.

  “Very well,” Sam said. Polite exchanges with the man who was undoubtedly investigating Amy’s murder weren’t meant to be tests of integrity. “You?”

  Nguyen shrugged and grimaced. “Busy, unfortunately. You here to visit Amanda Garcia?”

  “I was.”

  “She actually see you?”

  “She did.”

  Nguyen spread his hands in something like a shrug. “What is it about you, Sam?”

  Sam raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

  “For a guy who’s practically jobless and homeless, you seem to turn up in my investigations with a freakish regularity.”

  “Ouch. And that’s kind of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know, Sam. That business last year, I was willing to chalk up to dumb luck. You sort of just fell into that. But the very next murder that comes along, you’re everywhere I turn. And you and I both know murder is not an everyday occurrence here in Broad Ripple. Most people feel safe even out walking late at night. Not so much these days, though.”

  Sam couldn’t keep a surprised smile from slipping out. “You don’t seriously think I had something to do with Amy’s death, do you?”

  “Oh, no. That seems very unlikely. From what I can tell, you only resurface in your former parishioners’ lives after someone dies.”

  Sam’s smile turned to a grimace. “I can’t argue with that, I guess. But it’s not like I’m hunting people down. They came to me.”

  “And they would be…”

  “It sounds like you already know who I’ve been talking to.”

  “You know cops. We like confirmation.”

  “And you know me. I like discretion.”

  “It’s been hard-won for you, hasn’t it?”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. He was trying to be patient: after all, he wanted Nguyen to find Amy’s killer as much as anyone else, and he knew the man was just trying to do his job. But Sam hadn’t done anything wrong, and he didn’t like the idea that strangers had been dissecting his life over a dirty station desk somewhere.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Nguyen leaned against the dusty hood of Sam’s car. Sam wasn’t fooled by the relaxed pose.

  “Well, I was curious as to why people find you so easy to talk to. That’s a trait we detectives like to foster ourselves. And everyone I talked to in this case had talked to you, too, so I asked them about you.”

  Sam didn’t want to know what Nguyen had found out. He figured he already knew the truth of it, and if he was wrong, he preferred the comfort of his illusions.

  Nguyen raised his eyebrows, waiting for Sam to prompt him to go on. Sam remained silent, but Nguyen pushed on anyway.

  “They said they could trust you, that you had a non-judgmental attitude and that you weren’t a gossip. Now, you’ll have to forgive me, but that’s pretty much the opposite description of every preacher I’ve ever met. Even the priests with their confessional protections can’t wait to hint at all of the secrets they know. But I guess you know firsthand what it’s like to be at the receiving end of all that gossip, huh?”

  That was it. Sam had had enough.

  “Look, detective, I want to help you if I can, but my past has nothing to do with this case. If you don’t have a question for me, I’d like to get back to the shop to help my sister.”

  “Just one question, Sam. You’ve talked to everyone. Who did it?”

  Sam’s face creased in confusion. “Who did it? Aren’t you the one who charged Amanda and locked her up?”

  Nguyen took a step closer and lowered his voice. “I’m not like you, Sam. My discretion is always for sale in service to the truth. We arrested Amanda because she was holding the victim, because her fingerprints are on the gun, because at the scene she said she did it. But there’s more going on here, and I want to know what it is—and I think you can help me.”

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t know anything, Detective. I’m not going to become your informant, but I’m definitely not harboring a murderer, either.”

  Nguyen stepped back and Sam read defeat in the other man’s dark eyes. “All right, Sam.” He proffered a card. “Call me if you do hear something I should know. I’m not soft on killers, male or female, but I have no interest in locking up the wrong person.”

  Sam tucked the card in his pocket and moved past Nguyen to open his driver’s side door. “I will.”

  As he drove away, Sam’s mind was spinning through the things Nguyen had said—and the things he hadn’t. So, even the police were questioning the veracity of Amanda’s guilt. Determinedly Sam chose to focus on Amanda and Amy and not on what the policeman thought he’d learned about Sam himself. Logically he knew that Nguyen was trying to push his buttons, to shake him up in the hopes of rattling loose some new information, of eliciting any secrets Sam might be keeping for the people who wouldn’t keep his.

  But I don’t have any secrets, Sam reminded himself. His once-hidden shame had been dragged out into the sunlight and revealed for what it was a long time ago. The irony was that the reason people trusted him wasn’t because they knew firsthand how flawed Sam was himself. People had trusted him—depended on him—long before they knew his struggles. In fact, many of those very people were the ones who had felt so betrayed—so tricked—by the farce of his virtue that they’d turned against him completely.

  Truth was, people trusted him because he was trustworthy. Back when the only person who could’ve recognized the face of his personal demon was Sam himself, he’d at least acknowledged to himself how wretched and torn he was. He’d had no inclination to condemn others, no difficulty finding compassion for people who could not find the strength to overcome. Knowing how painful it was to bare one’s wounds to the salt of anyone else’s tears meant that bet
raying a trust was not even a possibility for him. It wasn’t his place to judge or dictate. All Sam wanted to do was help people find their way out of the darkness and back into the light. If they needed him beside them on the path, lifting them over rocky places and holding their hand at the precipice, he would do that.

  Fruitlessly he wished someone could have done that for him. “Thy word is a lamp to my feet,” he murmured, navigating the close streets with an ease born of long experience. Sometimes the only companion who could help was the Lord. Sam wasn’t sure that the Lord was paying him much mind these days. He felt adrift, alone, abandoned. Part of him didn’t want comfort, though. He knew Melanie had felt the same way, because of choices that he’d made. Maybe he didn’t deserve comfort.

  And maybe, just maybe, if he suffered enough, Melanie would come back.

  Sam sighed. He was such a fool.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dani’s half-hearted attempt at a scowl didn’t fool Sam. The remnants of the lunch rush were scattered around the café tables, reading, sipping coffee, or engaged in low conversations. Parker’s corner had been reclaimed by paying customers, now that he was back in school. Sam knew Dani could’ve used his help, but she thrived on the hurly-burly that was full-capacity Meats & Reads. Thoroughly Type A from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, Dani wasn’t truly happy unless stretched to her limits. Sam wondered if she realized how much of her own drama she created just to stay in her comfort zone.

  He certainly wasn’t going to enlighten her if not. He’d been accused of having something of a dramatic flair himself.

  “Well, do you have your own television show yet?” she asked by way of greeting.

  “What?”

  “You know, like the Indianapolis version of Father Brown. Or Miss Marple.”

  “You watch too much BBC.”

  “There’s no such thing as too much BBC.”

  “Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure you have to actually solve crimes to be on TV, and this crime is solved already. Sort of.”

  “Sort of?” Dani wrinkled her nose and paused in her wiping down of the countertops to shoot Sam a quizzical look.

  Sam shrugged, reaching past her to the platters of cookies waiting to be plastic-wrapped. His long fingers expertly folded just the right amount.

  “By all accounts, there is no mystery here. The only real unanswered question is why, and that’s a question that’s left unanswered far more often than most people realize. I mean, even motive doesn’t usually answer why. So a jealous husband kills his cheating wife. Why? He’s angry, hurt, he loves her, he thinks he owns her—whatever he’s feeling can’t explain how killing her salves any of those wounds.”

  “Then what’s the issue here?”

  “I honestly don’t know. There must be enough physical evidence, or the police wouldn’t have arrested her. The detective told me as much himself. We know Amanda was there when Amy died. We know her prints were on the gun. We know she confessed on scene. So why doesn’t anyone believe her? Even the police seem unhappy with their own arrest.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “One of them—Detective Nguyen, the same guy from last year—was waiting for me when I came out of the jail. Wanted to know what Amanda had had to say to me.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  Sam shrugged. “I didn’t have anything to tell.”

  “Really? The murderer-whisperer came up empty?”

  “First of all, if Amanda had told me anything, I wouldn’t betray her confidence by turning around and telling the police. Or anyone, for that matter. And secondly, being a murderer-whisperer only works when talking to an actual murderer.”

  He winked. Dani scrunched her face in disgust and threw a half-hearted punch at his shoulder.

  All those high-flung principles had an exception, though. Once upon a time, Sam would have told Melanie what Amanda had said. Back when he told Melanie everything (almost everything), their voices mingling together in the darkness and the bedsheets. He could tell her now—she’d asked for his help, after all. She would be happy to hear anything he could tell her about Amanda’s state of mind. Probably expected it. But she was other now, no longer an extension of his own heart and soul, and to tell her would be as much to betray Amanda as to tell anyone else.

  “Aha!” Dani drew him back into the present with a smart thwack to his backside delivered via hand towel. “I knew it! You don’t believe she’s an actual murderer either.”

  Sam grinned reluctantly. Dani lived for this stuff. Amanda and Amy, all the people from church, were nothing more than characters in a book to her. She devoured every scrap of gossip she could get like a Spanish grandmother watching her “stories” on afternoon television. Every now and then, Sam couldn’t resist feeding her addiction.

  “Did I say that?”

  “Yes! Yes, you did.”

  “Maybe I’m having as much trouble accepting this as everyone else. I’m not sure it matters, though. As long as Amanda isn’t talking, she’s probably going to go away for a very long time.”

  Dani sobered. “I just can’t imagine what would bring any mother to abandon her child for prison. He’s not even in kindergarten yet, is he?”

  “I don’t think so. He’s four.”

  “What could possibly be more important than the well-being of her own son?”

  Something jangled in Sam’s mind, something trying and failing to fall into place. “I’m not sure. Speaking of which, should I go pick up Parker after school?”

  “Oh, definitely. I’m sure his teachers would rather see you than me.”

  Sam smothered a laugh. “Have you been yelling at teachers again?”

  “Not this week. It’s more the devil-glare I give them when I approach in the hopes they won’t come tattling to me anymore.”

  “I think when teachers tattle to parents, they prefer the term ‘communicating.’”

  Dani sniffed. “Well, then, they shouldn’t be so gleeful about it. I mean, I’m not even in the classroom. If they can’t control him when they’re standing right there, what do they think I can do from here? Mind control? Telekinesis?”

  “All right, I’m definitely picking him up. And hey, at least he hasn’t gotten kicked out this week.”

  “Don’t speak too soon,” Dani cautioned grimly.

  Sam enjoyed the walk to Parker’s school amid the colors of the autumn afternoon.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sam couldn’t help the pang he felt watching the kids tumble out the school doors, even if he wasn’t entirely sure where it originated from. Maybe it was just the surplus of emotion erupting in one place. The glee of release was the cliché, but only the shallowest sort. It didn’t take much closer examination to see the shoves and sneers, the dejected shuffles, the dread of home, the bleak expectation of those who simply marched from one misery to the next. I could never have been a schoolteacher, Sam thought. Too much looking on grief with no expectation of easing it.

  Was that so different from being a preacher? Sam considered the idea then discarded it. As a preacher, he didn’t have to care about how well people were doing at their lessons, or keeping track of their attendance, or telling them to sit up straight and mind the story when he could see the tear-tracks on their faces. He could sit down, hold their hands, and talk about the tears.

  He missed that. Missed feeling useful. Feeling as if he could ease pain and not merely bear witness to it. Oh, he wasn’t pretentious enough to imagine that was the divine purview of preachers only. It was just that now, all he had to offer were his own weak shoulders and his own poor heart. Back then, he could offer them the power of Christ, the strength of the cross, the compassion of the Spirit. To offer that now felt like the worst kind of hypocrisy, and he’d rather be silent for the Lord than dishonor His name with the lips of a sinner.

  Something bit at Sam’s spirit as the thought intruded, but he shoved it aside. Maybe Dani was right. Maybe he was insisting on this hair coat too
long, but right now he needed the pain. Craved the discomfort. The only thing worse than losing the life he’d loved would be building a new one, absent Melanie.

  He caught sight of Parker. The kid was tromping forward, hands resting in the straps of his backpack, face set in resignation. At least that was an improvement on the stark despair Sam saw on some of the children’s faces. Sam waved.

  “Yo! Parker! Over here.”

  Parker’s face brightened and he picked up his steps.

  “Uncle Sam!”

  Sam tossed Parker’s fair hair, well aware that it drove him crazy as he ducked out of reach. “So, no teacher trailing you today with tales of woe?”

  “I can be taught, you know.”

  “Taught to be good or taught to get away with it?”

  “I’ll never tell!”

  Sam laughed. “Your mom’s gonna be disappointed. She thought I was going to get the teacher lecture in her place.”

  Parker’s face darkened slightly. “Good to know she has faith in me.”

  “Hey, now. Your mom thinks the world of you. That’s why she’s so hard on you. And you have to admit, you’ve been giving her some cause for concern lately.”

  “I guess.”

  Sam shortened his gait so Parker wouldn’t have to jog to keep up. They were already well away from the teeming hordes, although the neighborhood sidewalks were fairly busy this time of day. There was an anonymity in the city, though—a city sidewalk was as good as an invisibility cloak, in Sam’s experience.

  “I can tell something’s been bothering you, bud. Wanna talk about it?”

  Parker was quiet. Sam let him stay that way and had nearly given up on a response when Parker ventured softy, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Uncle Sam.”