He lit up like a road flare. “Oh man, you don’t know about Sophie? No wonder you don’t know what I’m talking about.” He scratched his head again, that glowing, incandescent head of his, and said the strangest thing I’d heard all day—and that was saying something.
“Sophie’s your camel.”
Chapter Sixteen
Why, of course, Sophie was our camel. That made all the sense in the world. What small town pastor doesn’t have a camel delivered via a seventeen-year-old fluorescent orange-haired boy in the middle of a blizzard?
“Camel. You said camel, right?” I said. “A big humps and brown eyes and walking through the desert kind of camel?”
“Hump.”
“Huh?”
“Hump. Sophie’s got just one hump, not two. She’s a dromedary. Like the date.” He chuckled. “Bet you thought I wouldn’t make it, didn’t ya? Huh? Bet you thought this storm’d keep me from getting her here on time, right?”
“Actually, no, Sherman, I had no idea you were coming in the first place. Just why are you delivering a camel to us?” Lord, please have this be a weird dream. Please?
Bristol stepped forward and with a hand on Sherman’s shoulder, he said, “Pastor, I think the camel is for the live Nativity.” He looked at the men standing around us. “Isn’t that right, men?”
Nobody looked especially certain about that, but Dewey spoke up and said, “I’ll bet my wife had something to do with this. Right, Sherman? Did your Aunt Winnie arrange for this … this camel thing?”
Sherman looked pleased with himself and bobbed his head so hard I thought he might waggle it right off his shoulders, and I’d have to watch it roll across the floor and come to a stop at my feet. “Yep, she called my granddad a few days ago and said you needed a camel. We picked Sophie ’cause she’s the only one we got that’s alive anymore. She said it was for some church thing ya’ll got going.”
Thank goodness for Sophie being alive and all. One less thing to worry about. “Well, Sherman,” I said, “you must be frozen stiff and I’ll bet you need to do something with Sophie, right?” Take her back home maybe?
More head-bobbing. “If you’ll just tell me where I can put her, I’ll move her trailer right now ’fore the storm gets any worse. I got my granddad’s four-wheel drive out there. It’s a monster with a plow on the front, so I can put her anywhere you say. But I’d better do it quick-like. You wouldn’t want a frozen camel on yer hands, am I right?”
He’d be right about that. Nobody wants a frozen, dead camel delivered to the doorstep of his church. No-sirree. “You bet. Bring her around over here”—I pointed to the east side of the church—“and between here and the inn over there, you’ll see there’s a little road and a grove of trees next to a shed. You can pull up over there.”
“Gotcha!” He gave a little salute, pulled his stocking cap and gloves back on, and plunged back into the blizzard. Sophie was in good hands.
Bristol was working his way through the crowd of men to the front of the sanctuary. I followed him, and we both sank down on the front pew on either side of the aisle. “Bristol, is it just my imagination or have things gotten a little out of control here?”
“Got that right. Weird, huh?”
“Weird doesn’t begin to cover it.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Neither of us spoke for a minute. Apparently Frank’s shift was over; I could hear him snoring somewhere behind me.
Bristol spoke up. “Something’s been eating at me, Pastor, and I think it’s time I told you about it.”
I looked over at my mild-mannered handyman. He looked pretty beaten down, and I couldn’t blame him. “You’re not gonna tell me some deep, dark secret, are you, Bristol? You’re not CIA or NSA or some foreign spy? You have an elephant stashed away somewhere? Because if that’s the case, I don’t want to know about it. Just let it be, and I’ll forget you ever brought it up. Deal?”
He laughed, but it had a hollowness to it that brought a chill to my already frostbitten neck. “Not quite.”
“Not quite a deal? Or not quite, as in I’m closer to the truth than I want to be?”
“Not quite as in I’m not sure if my past has anything to do with this mess, but it might and if it does, I’m mighty sorry about it, and I’ll do anything I can to get us out of this pickle we’re in so nobody gets hurt over it.” He spat all that out in the time it took me to blink.
“Including the camel?”
“Nope. You’re on your own with the camel.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
We sat in silence for another thirty seconds. I don’t know what Bristol did during that time, but I prayed. Then I said, “All right, let’s hear it. I think I’m ready.”
“We should probably go someplace where nobody can hear us—at least for now, okay? If we have to let the others know, then so be it. But I’d hate to have someone get hurt just because they overheard me.” He jerked his head toward our armed posse scattered around the sanctuary then stood and motioned toward the door to the basement. “How about we check out the basement again? I was down there a few minutes ago and everything was secure, but it wouldn’t hurt to take another look.”
I glanced around and found Leo sitting near the middle of the sanctuary with his pipe in his mouth and his rifle sitting on the pew next to him—barrel upward, thank goodness. I caught his eye and signaled that Bristol and I would be downstairs. He answered with a smoke squiggly and a nod. I’d relaxed my in-house church standards a bit with the pipe and the firearms, but if there was ever a reason for leniency, this was it.
The stairs leading to the basement date back to the construction of the church. Calling them rickety was giving them the benefit of the doubt, so I hung on tight to the railing, which wasn’t in any better shape than the stairs. The basement, a no-frills, dug-out dirt affair was dank and cold except for the corner where the hulking wood furnace threw off some heat. We walked toward it, and Bristol pulled out a couple of rusting metal folding chairs leaning against the wall, gave them a practiced flip of his wrist, and they clanked open. We sat for a minute, staring at the stove, before he spoke.
“Pastor, I’d never purposely lie to you, you know that, don’t you?
“Well, Bristol, I’ve never given it any thought, but I suppose that’s because it didn’t occur to me to doubt you.” Silence. “So what’s up?”
“It’s a long story—and complicated—but you’ve had a hard day, so I’ll give you the short, simple version, okay?”
I grinned and said, “Shoot.”
He took a deep breath. “Funny, that’s exactly what I did.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Before I came to Road’s End, I was in prison for killing a man.”
“Oh.”
This was going to be a long night.
Chapter Seventeen
Emma struggled to recognize the voice calling her name, but it was too hard to marshal her thoughts.
“Emma, are you awake?”
Just let me be. All she wanted to do was sink back into the oblivion of sleep where her heart beat without the pain and her lungs could fill without the heavy anguish that governed every breath she took when she was awake. Living in the inky void of slumber, she was a little girl with a loving mother and a playful sister, even a caring father if she tried hard enough to make it so. In sleep, she lived without the burden of her waking hours, the heaviness that draped her shoulders like a blanket of cast iron, dogging every step and constantly reminding her of her lonely existence. But when she slept, she was free to be who she really was, who she was meant to be.
“Emma. Wake up, Emma.” Someone shook her shoulder gently then laid a cool hand on her cheek. “Emma.” It felt good, caring.
She opened her eyes slowly then closed them again as she fought to recognize the pretty and vaguely familiar face swimming in a sleep-filled haze above her. She felt the gentle nudge on her shoulder again and opened her eyes completely. She blinked. The room was dark; only the light from the
open doorway pierced the gloom.
“Emma, you had me worried. Are you feeling all right?”
She looked around the room, confused, and then back at the woman standing beside the bed.
“It’s Melanie.”
The gauzy veil of slumber drew aside, and she remembered. The Fosters, wasn’t it? Yes, Melanie and Hugh Foster and they lived at the Inn at the bottom of the hill. She was there because that brute of a man had made her come, in a blizzard no less, to stay with them.
“Melanie, I’m sorry. I must have … must have fallen asleep.” She struggled to sit up and took Mel’s arm when she offered to help her stand at the side of the bed. “Oh dear, what time is it?”
“A little after five.” The younger woman glanced out the window. “Looks darker than that, though, because of the storm.”
“Still snowing?”
“Yep, and we’ve got a bunch of it. At least I think we do. Difficult to know just what’s going on out there with all that wind.” Mel stepped back and let Emma stretch. “Are you hungry? I bet you’d like to get out of this room for a while.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think so.”
“Emma, I’m not going to let you stay up here all by yourself.”
“Miss Melanie, I’ve been by myself for most of my life. Another few hours aren’t going to make much of a difference, now are they?” Her words were colored with sarcasm, and she knew it didn’t become her, nor did Melanie Foster deserve the scorn.
Melanie spoke again before Emma could apologize. “I’ve got a fire going downstairs and the ladies have made a nice beef stew. Believe me, there’s plenty to go around and then some. And just between you and me, you’ll like it if you know what’s good for you.” She grinned, and Emma couldn’t help but give a little smile in return. She’s a smart cookie, this one.
“You freshen up, and I’ll be back up here in ten minutes to take you downstairs.” Melanie raised her hand and halted Emma’s next words. “I won’t take no for an answer. Hugh would kill me if he thought you were sitting upstairs in the dark all by yourself.”
“I do know how to turn on a light, you know. I’m not completely witless,” Emma said.
Mel laughed and patted Emma’s arm. “I know, dear. I know.” She walked to the door and turned as she pulled the door closed behind her. “Don’t leave me alone with them any longer. Please?”
Emma snorted and Mel gave her that beautiful smile again.
She waited until the door was closed then walked over to the rocking chair and sat down. Mel couldn’t know how those other women felt about Emma. She wouldn’t do it. Why should she give them any more to talk about? But Melanie was probably every bit as stubborn as her husband, and Emma would end up downstairs one way or the other. Might as well do it under my own steam. She walked to the bathroom, splashed some water on her face, and brushed her hair.
Seventy years was a long time to stay silent. Time to face the music.
Chapter Eighteen
If I heard Bristol correctly, his was the second confession to murder I’d heard in the past four hours. Had to be some sort of ministerial record. And, of course, there was Winnie, our third suspect, whose guilt was mostly a result of the town’s hale and hearty rumor mill. Thankfully, she still enjoyed the same freedoms of the few remaining Road’s Enders not yet charged with murder, although that number seemed to be shrinking. Who’s next? The way things were going, I was afraid it would be me.
“Wow, Bristol, I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s more, Pastor.”
Please, please don’t be a serial killer. “Okay, give it to me straight. I’m all ears,” I said.
“I did kill a man, but it was in self-defense …”
“Good. Well, not good in the sense that …”
“I know what you mean. But not only was it in self-defense, I was a police officer at the time.”
Whew. “Oh, wow,” I said. “Good, good news.” It was all I could do to keep from hugging him. “Then how’d you end up in prison?”
“It started out as a political thing, if you get my drift. The man I killed—I shot him, by the way—was a middleman in the drug business. Unfortunately, he had a second cousin, a local politician, who either owed him big time or thought the world of him for some twisted reason and the case received all kinds of press. When it looked like I was going to be convicted, the DA, who agreed I was working within the law when it happened, came up with a plan that my attorney and I agreed to.”
“Interesting. Go on.”
“We needed to get some info on one of the head honchos in the city’s drug and prostitution business. Flourishing business, I might add, and the guy running it was nasty. One of his flunkies was doing time in prison on a drug-related crime. So we came up with a plan that I’d plead guilty—so the case didn’t go to a jury—and get myself tossed in prison with Mr. Flunky. See if I could get him to talk to me.” He hesitated and ran a hand over his eyes then pinched the bridge of his nose and blinked as if he could rub away the memory. “It took a whole year and a lot of buddying up to that scumbag, but I got the info we needed. Long story short, the big guy’s behind bars now.”
I was relieved beyond words to know I wasn’t sitting next to Hannibal Lecter’s clone. “What happened to the guy who talked?” I said.
“Last I knew he was still alive, but he’s living on borrowed time.”
“Okay, so you went to prison for something you did in the line of duty, but you weren’t really convicted. It was just made to look that way so you could get the goods on the big guy, right?”
“Right.”
“So what’s that got to do with our mess in Road’s End? And how did you end up here in the … wait a minute! The vandalism. That’s what you’re talking about. Is that about you?”
“Could be. See, the guy I shot had a big family—several brutes for brothers, a couple of gung-ho, Rambo-type cousins. Real nice guys. When I was convicted, each one of ’em told me I was a dead man, that they’d find me no matter how long it took.” He took a deep breath, laced his fingers behind his neck, and leaned back against the wall. “Shortly after I got out of prison, I left the force. I was sick to death of the violence and horror I saw every day of my life. Prison was bad enough—you wouldn’t believe what goes on in there—but when I got out and back on the job, I remembered why our prisons are filled with these thieves and murderers—all these rapists and child molesters and drug dealers and pimps. It’s because our society breeds them. We manufacture these people just like they’re a commodity of some sort.” He sighed then leaned forward; the front chair legs thumped into the damp soil of the floor. “Too much corruption, too few people to fight it. And it’s too exhausting to try for so long.”
“Hey, I don’t blame you for leaving,” I said. I patted him on the back a few times, as if having a pastor thump him heartily would make the pain go away. “So you think these guys have tracked you down somehow? Why didn’t they come sooner than this? I mean it’s been years. At least eleven. That’s how long you’ve been here, right? More than that since you actually killed the guy, so why now?”
“Not sure. Dumb luck on their part, I guess. And I do mean dumb. I guess they just finally tracked me down.” He dropped his head into his hand. “But I tried. When I came to Road’s End, I changed everything about me. I took this job as church caretaker, changed my name, my habits, my speech patterns, my whole way of life. I wanted to forget everything about life in the big city. I craved peace and quiet, and believe me, Road’s End—up to now at least—was perfect.” He looked at me, and I could have sworn there were tears in his eyes. “I never thought they’d find me. Never. I thought they’d given up long ago. And if I’ve brought them here, and if anybody gets hurt, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Hey now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We can’t be sure that this has anything to do with the vandalism. Could just be a bunch of kids with an extra can or two of spray paint and too much time on their h
ands.”
“Not likely.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, torn from a spiral notebook and folded in quarters. “This was on my door this afternoon. Either they stopped by today and we missed them, or they left it last night and I didn’t see it until now.” He handed the note to me, and I unfolded it. In smudged red ink, someone had scrawled the word “IbBack.” I didn’t get it.
“What’s ‘ib-back’ supposed to mean?” I looked at Bristol. I must have looked as confused as I felt because he smiled for the first time all day.
“It’s not ‘ib’, Hugh. That’s short for ‘I be’. I be back.”
“I be back? I don’t get it.”
“One of Hobie’s brothers—Hobie was the guy I shot, by the way—had a brother named Isaac Benjamin. Benjamin was the last name. He used the initials I.B. Used to say ‘I be back’ instead of ‘see you later.’ He thought it was pretty clever, and considering who we’re talking about, it was. Anyway, I think he left the note—who else could it be from?”
I thought about what he said. “Yeah. Makes sense.” I put my hands on my knees and pushed off the chair. We climbed the shaky steps again and entered the sanctuary, still guarded by our senior brigade. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or scared out of my mind.
I turned to Bristol and said, “Okay, so let’s see what we’ve got here.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “A blizzard, a vandalized back wall, a church full of old guys with guns, a camel, someone out to kill you, and my wife at the inn with a bunch of women gluing feathers on angel wings.” I started toward the back of the sanctuary. “If I weren’t a pastor, I’d take up drinking.”
Two seconds later, I lay with my nose pressed flat to the carpeted aisle between the pews. One minute I was walking in the glow of the sanctuary lights that kept the gloom of the raging storm outside where it belonged; the next I was flat on my face in utter darkness. “Power’s out.” I groaned. “What next?”
Misstep (The Road's End Series Book 1) Page 10