Soon After

by Sherryle Kiser Jackson

  “I’m not handing over my notes to this guy. I’m working on another—” Alexis said, ending her sentence abruptly when the investigator reentered the room.

  He was a stocky, hard-nose looking man with an unrelenting unibrow that made her question her last statement. Martie took that as his cue to leave, signaling to Alexis with his eyes that she had been warned. Alexis extended her hand to the empty swivel chair across the room for him to sit.

  “Alexis Montgomery, I’m Chief Herbert Rich. I’ve seen your report. You’re direct and to the point. I like that. You should work for us,” he said. His brow relaxed into a sagging clothes line, which softened his face a bit.

  “Thank you, but I think I’ll pass. My job is stressful enough. What can I do for you?” Alexis crossed her legs at the knee to provide a perch for her arms to rest.

  “I just have a few questions for you. I know you’re busy.” He took out a small memo pad, flipped over a few pages, and then placed it on his lap as if he might have to reference it later. “Since you were one of the first ones on the scene, I need for you to paint a picture for me of what was going on before you went on air.”

  “I just remember it being very chaotic. People were everywhere.”

  “I talked to Danny, your cameraman, before he had to run out. I tell you, real caveman there. He talked a bit about staging the story. I take it you were prohibited from getting too close, but I couldn’t understand much else this guy was trying to say. I don’t think those guys take their eyes away from the eyepiece enough to really see. He’s like, ‘talk to pretty reporter lady, she knows the details,’” Chief Rich said, amusing himself at Danny’s expense. He pointed to the editing monitor before saying, “So, pretty reporter lady, you know how to fire up one of these puppies so you can walk me through this footage?”

  Alexis knew Danny all too well, and knew he would never refer to her like that. This was a man that thought compliments were the currency to buy her favor, she surmised. He pulled his chair up close to hers at the monitor. She got up and called out into the hallway under the premise of getting a technician to press play, pause, and rewind footage at the discretion of the Chief because she didn’t know how to do so, but really, she didn’t want to be alone with him. He went from being menacing to creepy to her in another way.

  The tape started at a distance as Danny tried to set up a clear shot of the damage. He had at least ten minutes of footage of them setting up markers. Alexis pointed at the monitor once she sat down again to illustrate how everyone sort of converged on the scene at the same time. It was deafening because the church members broke out into a jubilant praise. Luckily, the mobile van was able to get a space at the corner as the group led by Pastor Willie Green began pulling up in their individual cars right at the curb past the police tape and walking over. The guys in blue hadn’t taped the entire perimeter and were manually pushing the crowd farther back for everyone’s safety because the building was still smoldering.

  She noticed the chief making notes and couldn’t help making an inquiry of her own. “You found something?”

  “Just noting what the fire looked like in its final stages. The blaze is sending out its last will and testament, but the smoke color and positioning lines up with the physical evidence we’ve collected there.”

  The chief fired off more questions as they watched. Alexis found it difficult to be on the other end of the question mark and hoped that the phone would ring or Martie would come and rescue her with another story scene to rush to. Chief Rich wanted her to ID as many people as she could in the crowd and rationalize why they interviewed who they did that day as opposed to others. More often than not, she simply did not know the answer, and there was no way she knew all the people standing around. Thank God he didn’t want to view the Inside 7 piece too, she thought. He did ask where she planned to go next with the series.

  Alexis played her hand close. She didn’t know how much he had been told already. He could have talked to her producers sometime before or after the production meeting just like he caught Danny, the cameraman, before a run. She thought about her Harvest file in her bag that contained shorthand notes from her conversation with Willie Green and Abe Townsend. There were also leads from her initial report to follow up on in her spiral notebook.

  The technician ejected the tape and turned off the monitor after satisfying the chief’s curiosity. Alexis nodded her appreciation before she left.

  “There is more to this story,” Alexis said, “and I plan to tell it.”

  “You bet your pretty little head there is, and I guess it is both our jobs to uncover it. Hopefully we can work together. In fact, it will be my pleasure,” he said, running his hand through his beard as he inched the wheels on his chair a little closer. “Here’s the deal. I am going to need your notes.”

  “Notes?”

  “Yeah, I have transcripts from the show, but I need your handwritten notes on each story unless you used a voice recorder, then I need that also. It will be returned when the case is solved.”

  “What am I suppose to do without my notes until then?”

  “That’s the thing,” Chief Rich said. He stood as if preparing to bring this interview to a close. “The pastors are hot, which means they are live witnesses of the bureau, which means they are off limits.”

  Alexis laughed at the absurdity and looked at him closely to see if he made that last comment in jest.

  “I have a job to do, Chief. Taking my notes and my witnesses is not allowing me to do my job. There is such a thing as The First Amendment,” Alexis said, thinking back to her undergraduate days. Cops weren’t the only ones that could lean on their shield; journalists had their support as well. She was not going to allow herself to be intimidated.

  “Look,” he started.

  She was waiting for ‘toots’ or ‘dollface’ to follow. She raised her hand to silence him. There would be no more attempts at flattery. She got it. He had come to silence any further reports. “The Federal Shield law protects anyone who helps disseminate news to the public. It says that you have to do more than claim a subpoena before I should feel compelled to give you anything.”

  “I have been a fire marshal almost as long as you’ve been born. I get arsonists off the street so people like you don’t wake up like a human torch, or at the very least, keep your personal effects at home and your degree-laden walls of your offices from being an open barbeque pit. If you think I’d let anything come between me and that responsibility, you’ve got another thing coming.” He was not shouting. His mob boss swagger was helping him prove his point. “Everyone cooperates with Herbert Rich. So yes, I know about your law, just like I know the law that protects the medical community from breach of confidentiality and letting us look at their oh-so private medical records. Let me tell you that doesn’t stop me from dragging one of those non-complying doctors through court for infringement either.”

  You can’t bully me, which was exactly what he was doing. She couldn’t believe this was happening. What would this mean for her story? She was given the go-ahead just a few hours ago. She had to keep the momentum going on her story.

  “The way I see it, the law says I need probable cause that your sworn testimony and documents are necessary for the completion of my case. Sounds subjective to me. There are so many ways around it. I am telling you if you try me and sneeze in the direction of the church and its members while I’m conducting my investigation, you will catch some kind of charge. Now, tell me, darling, do you have time to go through the legal system?”

  “But, but . . .” That left her sputtering.

  “Now, where are the notes, and I’ll be on my way.”

  Alexis pushed over the voice recorder already on the desktop that she prepared to review for brainstorming. She walked over to her satchel like a kid asked to show a parent a bad report card. It wouldn’t do any good to protest. Martie had already shared the station’s position. She was on her own. When she looked inside the bag, she almost smiled
remembering her initial notes tucked inside her spiral notebook. She handed him the folder.

  “Is this it?”

  “Yes, Captain. That’s it.”

  At one o’clock, Abe was playing solitaire on a late model computer when two people entered the pawn shop. One was a possible consigner and the other was a burly investigator from the Fire Marshal’s office. Chief Rich wasted no time getting down to business after scanning the display cases, waiting for Abe to finish with his customer.

  “I think this is so cool, really, a man of Christ like yourself who has time to provide a decent service for the commoners in these tough economic times.” Chief Rich nodded his approval.

  “Yeah, it’s sort of a family business,” Abe said.

  “You don’t say,” Chief Rich said, staring at a pair of binoculars through the glass. “You got much family running the church with you too?”

  Abe bit his lip. “No.”

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking a few questions. I’m sort of on a tight schedule.” He didn’t wait for a response. “Who opens the church on Sundays?”

  Abe hesitated, not because he wasn’t used to investigators, like reporters, coming out of left field by now. He couldn’t think of his Uncle Charley without thinking about what he had witnessed earlier in the week. “That would be Deacon Charley Thompson.” He couldn’t bring himself to call him uncle.

  “Give me a timeframe of a typical Sunday schedule from the time you get to church in the mornings until you lock up.”

  “Since we’ve stopped sunrise service, which was really at seven A.M., we are usually in by 9:30 preparing for eleven o’clock service. Service usually runs a little over an hour and a half and we lock up after that and go home.”

  “What was unusual about Easter Sunday?”

  “Nothing, other than arriving before Deacon Thompson, and since I don’t have any keys, I waited.”

  Abe was taken back to that day. He remembered waiting on the front step of the church like a kid locked out of his own house. He thought about walking away for good at that moment. He remembered he kept timing himself by thinking, If Uncle Charley is not there within the next five minutes. His plan was to get back in his car and go hide out at the pawn shop until the day was over, no explanation or anything. That’s when members of the congregation started showing up one by one. They all had the same question, and Abe anticipated that the chief had the same inquiry.

  “How does a pastor not have his own key?”

  “I do, but I usually don’t need them, so on this particular Sunday I left mine at home.”

  He did not. There was something sad about admitting that he wasn’t given any keys. He was sure the fact of whether or not his Uncle Charley cut him a key or not didn’t affect the case either way, but he felt bad about lying. He didn’t know who he was becoming, or maybe he’d never really had to face who he really was.

  Abe wondered how long this interview was going to last. He watched the chief’s massive hands flip the pages of his notebook, and then tap out a rhythm on the glass display case. The rhythm was methodical. Abe was sure his thinking was equally so.

  “Can I trust you with some information? We think the back of the church is where the fire originated.” He stared at Abe. Waited for that tidbit to sink in. “Anyone can see that the back is where the most damage is. There was only a thin drywall division between the back offices and the sanctuary. Very incendiary.”

  Abe felt more comfortable now that some of the details were finally being leaked. He said, “I think there was only an office and a utility closet back there.”

  “Were there any inoperative alarm systems or sprinklers?” Chief Rich asked.

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “What were the conditions of the doors and windows back there?” Abe shrugged, prompting the captain to simplify his question from fill-in-the-blanks to yes-or-no. “Were the windows and doors broken?”

  “No,” Abe conceded.

  “How often do you use the back?”

  “I don’t, really,” Abe replied.

  “You don’t use your own office,” he said as more of a statement than a question. He did some writing.

  “The previous pastor used that office in the back.”

  “You’re kidding me, right? He isn’t enshrined back there is he? It’s just an office, geez. What, this guy, uh,” Chief Rich paused while he looked for the name, “Willie Green, is he your bitter enemy or what?”

  “No, not at all, he’s my predecessor. I like to think of him as a mentor.”

  “’ Cept you never told him, right? I have a feeling this wasn’t a pass the torch kind of deal. In fact, you probably don’t even know the guy. Whose idea was it for you to take over for him?”

  “I know of him. There are many pastors I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting, but I have . . . uh, studied their ministry,” Abe replied, ignoring the chief’s question.

  Abe wondered why they were standing as the chief tapped out another rhythm. Abe was beginning to see a pattern. Each time he referenced his pad he aimed from a different direction. He wondered if he could stand much more. He thought about Pastor Green and the poise of many other pastors he had studied. He remembered to stay in character.

  “It’s been more than a week and you haven’t called in an insurance company claim,” Chief Rich said as if he were thinking aloud. “Strange.”

  “Come again?”

  “I said that’s strange, Reverend. People typically call the insurance company immediately. An interview with the claims agent is usually the first stop on the road to recovery.” Chief Rich said, “It’s almost as if you don’t want to rebuild. I guess that saves me a trip to the agency. Oh wait, no, I still have to talk to the agent who wrote the policy. Who’s the policy with anyway?”

  Abe faltered with a response. He had looked briefly at the contents of the metal box that he had taken from his Uncle Charley’s house. Sure enough, his aunt had unknowingly handed him what he had come to the house for to begin with. The name of the insurer would not come to mind. He was too busy still trying to figure out how his aunt and uncle had possession of something that obviously should have been left for the fire officials to find.

  “Just as I suspected,” Chief Rich proclaimed. “Do you like your job, Reverend?”

  Abe was unsure as to what job he was referring to, but he knew enough to nod in the affirmative.

  “I love my job, but sometimes it’s agonizing when these arsonists are on the loose. I lost quite a few friends when I was a firefighter in New York-219 engine in Brooklyn. Was there for eleven years. So many friends went down or were injured that I had to relocate to clear my head. I decided to be a fire marshal down here. I lived in hell. The fires in my own personal hell seem to burn so bright it outshined a heaven. Call me cynical, but I’m not certain if heaven exists.”

  Abe kept quiet, figuring the captain needed to vent. He could only imagine his loss. There were many days that he felt he was in hell himself, or worse, in purgatory.

  “Insert sermon here,” Chief Rich said, pointing both fingers back at himself. “Wow, not too many pastors could resist that lead in. Don’t quit your day job, and please don’t volunteer for any suicide prevention hotlines.”

  Now, he’s was patronizing him, Abe thought. If that was a test, he had just failed like he did at saving his aunt from his uncle. He was still haunted by the need to do something more. He felt as if he, himself, should be arrested. He wondered if anything he had said today or failed to say labeled him as a real suspect in the chief’s mind. He knew he would definitely feel the heat if the captain ever found out he neglected to tell him about the metal locked box. He just didn’t know what to do.

  As if reading his mind the Captain asked, “Do you know where any of the church papers are?”

  “Yes,” Abe was proud to say, “at home.”

  “I need a copy of the insurance packet. I’ll come by tomorrow to pick it up.” He took one last look at his notepad, an
d tapped out a ditty. “I better get the key as well for physical evidence.

  Abe stared blankly as if to say, you caught me.

  “Let me guess, Deacon Thompson has it?” He shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it. You, on the other hand, are not to talk to anyone about the details pertaining to this case—no reporters of any kind, got me? Oh, and by the way, don’t take any unexpected trips.”

  At eleven o’clock, Saturday morning, Willie interrupted his study time to entertain questions from a Maryland State Fire Marshal. The chief looked as if he had been up all night and his earthy smell made Willie believe he had just left the fire scene. Willie introduced the chief to Vanessa, but got the impression he only wanted to speak to him. They settled downstairs in their home office. After a brief discussion with the two of them the chief sent Vanessa upstairs to write down members in the enlarged photos of the fire scene on Easter Sunday, while requesting a fresh brewed batch of coffee. Willie hoped that if and when she returned with the chief’s cup, that it didn’t accidently end up in his lap.

  “We haven’t quite figured out who discovered the fire and thought that you could help us out,” Chief Rich said, looking uncomfortable on such a low couch. His girth hung over the edge as if at any minute he would fall off the end. Finally, he sat catty-corner against the arm of the couch and continued, “Who alerted you of the fire?”

  Willie threw his head back in thought.

  “A man or a woman?” the captain asked, prompting him.

  “A man, no wait, a woman,” Willie said. “I believe a man asked to speak to me, and then he passed it off to a woman. It was definitely a couple.”

  “Did you recognize the voices?”

  Willie shook his head as he thought. He was more interested in what was said than who was saying it at the time. He knew almost two weeks later that he couldn’t remember.

  “I have to do many interviews, Reverend; everyone seen in that photograph is a potential witness. That is a lot of digging in rubble, and in this case, digging in church records, like the church telephone records.”