The Sacrifice

by Robert Whitlow

  He placed the yearbook on top of his cleaning cart. Later, he put it on the shelf in the closet where he kept cleaning supplies.

  Scott had a voice mail from Bishop Moore. He returned the call, and the preacher answered the phone.

  “I need your help,” Scott said. “The Garrison case is going to trial in a couple of weeks, and I’d like to talk to some of the people who were outside at the time the shots were fired.”

  “I could give you a list of church members with their phone numbers.”

  “How many are there?” Scott asked.

  “Oh, about seventy-five families. Some of the families are pretty large.”

  “How many of the church members were at the baptism?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess at least three-fourths of them plus visitors.”

  Scott thought about the prospect of trying to interview over a hundred strangers who would be suspicious of his reason for calling. He hadn’t gained the confidence of Bishop Moore until he mentioned Leland Humphrey’s name, and it would be ten times more difficult with the members of the church. But somewhere in the haystack of names and numbers might be another witness who would testify that the shooter on the other side of the stream was a man with black hair. Someone might know more.

  “Okay, send them over,” Scott said. “May I tell them you gave me permission to contact them?”

  “Well,” the bishop hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

  “I wouldn’t try to coerce anyone.”

  “I know, but whether they want to talk to you is their business. Many of the church folks are at their jobs during the week, so it will be hard to reach them. You’d have to call after five o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  Scott hadn’t spent his evenings calling a long list of names since he sold kitchen knives one summer during college.

  “I have a better idea,” Bishop Moore continued. “Why don’t you come when they’re all going to be together in one place?”

  Surprised, Scott asked, “You would set up a meeting so they could talk to me?”

  “Not exactly. We already have a meeting scheduled. You would just show up. I’m thinking about the regular Sunday-morning service. We’re having dinner on the grounds this Sunday, and if anyone is willing to talk to you, it would be your best chance.”

  Giving up a Sunday morning with the newspaper to avoid the drudgery of countless hours on the telephone over the next week would be a small sacrifice. And the food would be good.

  “That sounds like a great idea. What time should I be there?”

  “’bout ten o’clock.”

  “I might ask Mr. Humphrey to come, too.”

  Bishop Moore laughed. “Yes. Leland can tell me if I know more about the Bible than when we were stacking lumber together.”

  Both of Mr. Humphrey’s eyebrows shot up when Scott told him about his plans for Sunday morning, but the older lawyer wouldn’t be able to join him. He and his wife were going to be out of town all weekend. Scott would be the only white face in the crowd.

  Scott heated leftover spaghetti in the microwave and ate supper standing up at the kitchen counter. He was sitting in the backyard drinking a beer in front of the fishpond when the cordless phone on the bench beside him rang.

  “Where are you?” Kay asked.

  “Uh-oh,” Scott said.

  He had forgotten about mock trial practice. He looked at his watch. It was 7:15 P.M. All the students would be sitting at their desks waiting for him to arrive and give instructions for the evening.

  “I’m on my way,” he said.

  “Did you forget?”

  Scott ignored the question. “Tell the lawyers to work on their direct and cross-examination of Pete Pigpickin, and ask the witnesses to write out more questions for the attorneys to consider. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Still wearing blue jeans and a Wake Forest T-shirt, Scott threw his mock trial materials into the front seat of his SUV and drove at high speed to the high school. He dashed up the steps, then walked more normally into the classroom. The students were sitting in groups as he’d instructed. Every eye turned toward him.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said casually. “Busy day at the office. Keep working in your groups while I discuss some things with Mrs. Wilson.”

  Kay looked at him and said under her breath, “Were you working on a lawsuit against a spaghetti manufacturer? You have some sauce on the corner of your mouth.”

  Scott licked the corner of his mouth and tasted tomato with a hint of oregano.

  “I’m busted again,” he said. “With all that’s happening at work, I forgot about the meeting.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to send you to Dr. Lassiter for a paddling.”

  An hour later Scott was testing the knowledge of a fast-talking young man playing the role of Ralph Risky.

  “I made a perfect score on the written test in driver’s education,” Ralph said proudly. “My instructor taught me to always come to a complete stop and look both ways before entering an intersection. If a student in our class didn’t stop, he had to get out of the car and apologize to the stop sign.”

  “Did you ever have to apologize?” Scott asked.

  “No, sir,” Ralph said forthrightly.

  “You don’t know anything about Mr. Pigpickin’s driving history, do you?”

  “No, but I bet it’s bad. He should have apologized a dozen times to the stop sign he ran when he hit Betty and me.”

  Scott reviewed his notes. “Would it surprise you to learn that Mr. Pigpickin has a commercial driver’s license?”

  “He should be in a commercial all right. He’d be the one driving like a maniac in a TV ad for lawyers who promise a lot of money to anyone injured in a car wreck.”

  Scott smiled. “Ralph, that’s going too far. You have to stick closer to the facts given on the handout sheets.”

  “Okay,” the student replied. “We’d talked about that answer the other night and wondered if it would be okay.”

  Scott looked at his watch and spoke to the group. “You’re making great progress. I can tell that you’ve been studying the roles. That’s what it takes. Whether you are a witness or a lawyer, it has to become second nature to you. If you know the facts, it frees you to get into character as a witness.”

  Kay dismissed the students. Janie and Frank, their heads close together as they talked, stayed at the back of the room for a few minutes.

  “Do you need any help?” Scott asked.

  “No, thanks,” Janie replied. “Frank is helping me with my opening statement.”

  Scott went to the front of the room.

  “You were right,” he said to Kay in a low voice. “Those two are getting along better than I thought they would.”

  “I’ve seen them walking together in the hall recently.”

  Scott glanced back at the two young people. Janie was intent on writing something, and Frank was almost touching her as he leaned close to her shoulder. Janie finished writing and smiled at Frank. They left together.

  When he was alone with Kay, Scott asked, “Have you heard any good songs lately?”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “Are you teasing me?”

  “Maybe. You’ll have to admit that what you told me at lunch yesterday was unusual.”

  “I think you described it as a ‘good crazy.’ But no, there haven’t been any songs today. However, I read a poetic chapter in the Psalms last night and starting writing down my own thoughts. It was random as it came out, but in reading it over I saw a progression from my thoughts toward God and then back again from him to me. It was like a cosmic dance.”

  Scott felt the conversation slipping again into the twilight zone of Kay’s imagination. He had an idea to bring it back to earth.

  “Would you like to go to church with me on Sunday?” he asked.

  Surprised, Kay said, “I didn’t know you went to church.”

  “I don’t go r
egularly, but I’m visiting a black congregation out in the country this Sunday. I’ve met the pastor, and he invited me to come.”

  It was Kay’s turn to try and keep up with Scott’s thoughts. “Wait. Why were you invited?”

  “It’s because of a case. I’m representing a young man charged with a crime involving the church, and this is a way to talk to potential witnesses.”

  “A church member committed a crime?”

  “No, only my client is charged. I can’t talk about the details of the case, but he’s a student here at the school.”

  Kay’s mouth dropped open. “Lester Garrison?”

  Scott nodded. “Tattoos and all.”

  When he returned home from mock trial practice, Frank Jesup had an unnerving experience while talking with his father. He suddenly felt detached from his surroundings and watched his own movements and words as if they were being performed by someone else. He slowly drifted to the corner of the kitchen and looked down on himself and his father as they stood across from each other near the refrigerator. He closed his eyes tightly for a couple of seconds, and when he opened them, everything was normal.

  “What is it?” his father asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Uh, sure,” Frank answered. “Just a little tired.”

  “Don’t stay up all night on the computer. I’m going out for a few hours, and I don’t want to see your light on when I come back.”

  “Rena’s condominium?” Frank asked, even though he knew the answer.

  His father grunted.

  “Why doesn’t she move in with us?” Frank continued. “It seems stupid to have to run over to her place every night.”

  “I can’t move her to Catawba while the divorce is pending. Your mother is trying to crucify me, and I don’t need to help her.”

  After his father left, Frank tried to watch TV, but nothing held his interest. He surfed through eighty channels without scoring a hit. The computer was drawing him, and he wandered upstairs to his room. He turned on the machine and quickly negotiated the labyrinth of controls his group had constructed to protect the privacy of their warfare. Within fifteen minutes he was in another world. No one detected his entrance through a doorway he’d created the previous week. Frank’s mind cleared, and he entered a zone of heightened consciousness and razor-sharp insight. Creativity came easily, and he saw what to do with precision. He could have pounced on the other warriors quickly, but he settled back and began to slowly weave a web of deception that further masked his presence so that when the blows fell his victims wouldn’t be able to identify their assassin. That’s the way he wanted to do it. Patient, anonymous, deadly.

  Frank’s father didn’t come home.

  22

  Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

  JAMES 2:23

  When he woke up Sunday morning, Scott opened the door of his closet and surveyed his wardrobe. It’s always better to be overdressed than too casual, and he didn’t want to offend the people at Hall’s Chapel before attempting to interview them. He selected a gray suit, white shirt, and a blue-and-red-striped tie. After he straightened his tie, he looked in the full-length mirror attached to the back of his bathroom door. He looked more like a prep-school graduate than a soul-food lover. Immutable things can’t change.

  Kay’s apartment was on the other side of town. He drove down Lipscomb Avenue past the courthouse and into an area where developers had built a few modern apartment complexes. Scott had thought about living in the same apartments that Kay and Jake chose. It would have been less work than maintaining his house, but he would have forfeited the backyard and couldn’t have taken in Nicky.

  He climbed the steps and knocked on the door. He waited, then knocked again. Kay opened the door. She was barefoot and wearing a long violet dress. Her hair was still slightly damp and on her shoulders.

  “Come in,” she said. “I had a late start, but I’ll be ready in a minute.”

  Kay disappeared down the hall, and Scott sat in one of two chairs at a glass-topped table next to the kitchen. He looked at the other chair and wondered if it was Jake’s seat. There was an arrangement of silk flowers in the center of the table. Kay had a few blown-up photographs of beach scenes on the walls. The only personal photo in sight was a small picture on the kitchen counter beside the table. It was Kay at about age eight wearing a pair of shorts and a skimpy top. She was standing outdoors in front of an easel and laughing at the watercolors she’d splashed on the piece of paper.

  Scott tapped his fingers on the table. He suspected Kay’s minute might be longer than a literal sixty seconds. He walked into the living room area. On the low table in front of the couch were a notebook, a Bible, and a cup of coffee that looked more like the night before than this morning. He glanced over his shoulder and raised the cover of the notebook. It was filled with Kay’s handwriting. He let the cover fall closed without reading anything and picked up the Bible. He opened it to the book of Psalms. Kay had marked verses on page after page with a hot pink highlighter. Scott read a few of them without fathoming why they were selected.

  Kay came around the corner and saw him. “Getting in the mood for church?” she asked.

  Scott put the Bible on the table. “Are you sure it’s not sacrilegious to use a pink highlighter in a Bible?”

  “You already think I’m crazy because of the song I heard the other day. Using a pink highlighter shouldn’t be too hard to accept.”

  “I got into trouble once in Sunday school for using a crayon to decorate the margins of a Bible.”

  “I don’t think there is anything wrong with artwork in the Bible. I’ve seen pictures of medieval Bibles in which every first letter of a book is very ornate.”

  “My scribbling didn’t qualify as art. Are most of your highlights in Psalms?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been hanging out with David. He’s become my favorite songwriter of the week.”

  Scott had heard enough. He checked his watch. “Ready to go?”

  “Yes. Bring the Bible. It may come in handy.”

  Scott picked up the Bible, and Kay turned toward the door. She looked refreshingly beautiful. As Scott walked past the two chairs at the table, he wondered again why Jake Wilson bailed out of a relationship with this woman.

  Carrying the Bible and feeling like a boy going to Sunday school, Scott opened the door for Kay, and she slid into the front seat. Before leaving home he’d tidied up his SUV in preparation for his passenger. His brown briefcase was in the backseat. Inside was a legal pad with a series of questions written on it and a small tape recorder in case he wanted to take a verbatim statement from a witness.

  There were swirls of late-morning fog at the edges of the highway, and Scott missed the turn for Hall’s Chapel Road. He saw the sign as they passed by and turned around in a driveway. The fog increased as they drew closer to the creek.

  “On a clear day you can see the water from the road,” Scott said. “This fog won’t last long, and it will be sunny by the time we get out of church.”

  They were a couple of minutes late. A family in a minivan pulled into the parking lot in front of them and the mother, father, and three little girls got out. The family was dressed in their Sunday best. The girls had matching blue-and-white dresses, the father was wearing a black suit, and the mother was draped in a flowing white dress and high heels. Scott was glad he’d decided not to come casual. When the oldest of the girls saw Scott and Kay, she tugged on her mother’s sleeve and pointed in their direction.

  Scott leaned over to Kay. “We’re about to find out what it’s like to be in the minority.”

  Sounds of singing could be heard from within the white building. They walked up the steps, and two teenage boys, also dressed in dark suits, opened the doors to let them in. There was a narrow foyer that led into the sanctuary.

  A middle-aged man with a badge pinned to his jacket that said “Usher” came up to Scott and Kay.

  “The bishop said you’d be comi
ng,” he said. “We’ve reserved seats for you. Follow me.”

  Scott and Kay walked down the aisle together. It was covered with a deep red carpet that matched the color of the cushions on the pews. There were about 150 adults and children in the room. Everyone was standing as they sang. The floors underneath the pews were polished wood, the walls were white, and the ceiling was painted with billowy white cloud shapes softly brushed onto a sky-blue background. Several ceiling fans stirred the air. At the front of the room on the left was the piano, and on the right was a modern electric organ. Bishop Moore stood on a raised platform beside a white, wooden pulpit. The choir members were dressed in red-and-gold robes. Virtually every man in the sanctuary was wearing a dark suit. Many of the women were dressed in white, but there were plenty of other colors represented.

  Scott and Kay followed the usher all the way to the front pew of the church. He picked up two “Reserved” signs that had been placed on the red cushions, and Scott and Kay took their places.

  The sound of the instruments and the singing reverberated from the wooden walls and ceiling. A heavyset woman was playing the piano on the left, but Scott’s attention was drawn to a slender man in his thirties who was playing the organ. Apparently, he was also the choir director because he would play the keyboard furiously for several seconds, then leap to his feet and wave his arms in front of the choir. When he would point in their direction, the singers would increase their already significant volume. The leader would then sit down and let his fingers fly over the keys for several moments before he jumped up again. Everyone in the sanctuary was clapping their hands. It was a triumphant song that talked about God’s deliverance of his people. Bishop Moore, who had his eyes closed with his head slightly tilted up as he sang, occasionally stopped to listen, then joined in again.

  Scott and Kay didn’t know the song, but someone down the pew handed them a hymnbook opened to the appropriate page. They held the book between them and mouthed the verse in an effort to catch up, but it was no use. Trying to follow the printed words while stiffly holding a hymnbook didn’t have the ability to communicate what was happening in the room. Kay looked at Scott and shook her head.