by Ninie Hammon
“Something’s wrong with Melanie, isn’t it? And you’ve all been keeping it from me. Tell me. Please, Mac. Tell me!”
The words leapt out before he could stop them. “Melanie’s dead, Mom. Breast cancer.”
Maggie looked like he’d back-handed her.
Why would you say a thing like that? What’s wrong with you?
Maggie gasped, made a rasping sound in her throat as she tried to catch her breath, and then began to shake her head slowly back and forth. No. No! Mac ached to snatch the words back out of the air and erase the agony on the old woman’s face. Her eyes grew wide and instantly brimmed with tears. Her chin and lip began to tremble.
“Oh, Maggie,” he wailed, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean …”
His voice trailed off as her expression began to change. Her features rearranged themselves before his eyes. All the tension and distress drained away and a slow, knowing smile crept onto her lips.
“I promise, I won’t tell a soul,” she said and patted his hand. “Cross my heart.” And she did, lifted her hand from his and made an X motion with it on the front of her cotton nightgown. “But can I have just a little peak at the ring before you ask her?”
Mac’s tongue was a cold stone in his mouth.
“Yeah, sure, Mom,” he managed to say. “It’s out in the car. You wait right here and I’ll go get it.”
He bolted out of the room, then out the front door, staggered over to the swing, and plopped down in it. He didn’t swing, though, just sat stock still, inhaling great lungfuls of morning air perfumed by jonquils and day lilies and the honeysuckle that had threaded its way across the trellis by the steps.
What he wouldn’t give to be crazy, too! To be able to blink and transport himself to a reality where Melanie was just outside the door waiting for him. All dressed up as a beautiful bride.
Of course, that’s what his well-meaning congregants kept telling him. That Melanie was waiting for him. That she was just outside the door.
And that, sports fans, was lunacy. It was fantasy. Believing that was as sad and pathetic as …
Believing in miracles.
They’d all stood in a circle around her bed when she was hospitalized the first time, before the cancer had chewed her insides into ground meat. Bruce Daniels had driven through the night to get back home in time. Cigar-smoking Bill Tucker was there, absent his Havana Supreme. So was Howard Wilson, with his ridiculously bushy eyebrows; short, fat Andy Porter; Lee Davenport, his voice squeaking with laryngitis and bald-as-a-scrubbed-onion Will Hardesty. The entire elder board of New Hope Community Church had reached out as one, anointed Melanie with oil and “laid hands” on her to pray for healing. He’d prayed, too. Oh my goodness, yes, how hard he had prayed!
But the thing was—if he was totally honest, he had to admit it—he hadn’t believed, even then. Oh, if you’d asked him, he’d have told you he did. Maybe he even had himself convinced he did. But deep down in the core of his being, David Allen McIntosh didn’t believe God was going to heal his wife.
Why not? Because the good Reverend McIntosh didn’t believe … well, he didn’t believe a lot of things. First off, he didn’t believe God would do what he asked him to do. And the thing was, Mac couldn’t put his finger on the point in his life when he’d stopped believing that. During the war, maybe? Korea?
A lot of men found God in a foxhole. Maybe he’d lost God there. He’d spent most of the Great War in the South Pacific. Guam, Midway, Iwo Jima. He was a non-combatant, a chaplain fresh out of seminary. But he’d carried a gun and he’d used it, anyway. Had to. Platoons short-handed like they were, his buddies needed him. They all depended on each other for survival. And yeah, he’d killed a man. Several, probably. Not up close, but he’d shot and had seen them fall.
Was that it? Did the act of killing separate him from God in some irreversible way?
And he’d buried so many good men, friends, watched them die horrible, agonizing deaths. Was that when he stopped believing?
Maybe. Or maybe it was in Korea, when nobody was even sure what they were fighting and dying for. When they’d lose five men taking a hill and the next day they’d be ordered to pack up and leave the ground to the enemy.
Was that when it happened?
He didn’t know.
The problem was that he’d kept lying to himself about it for so long he’d missed it, that seminal moment, that train-switch instant when his life had suddenly veered off course, headed down another track altogether, one going in an entirely different direction. He’d missed that, missed the opportunity to face up to the reality of it when it happened. Maybe he could have done something about it then, before the train had gone so far down the track there was no possible way to get back to where he’d started.
And suddenly realizing you didn’t believe God would help you at the precise moment in your life when you most needed his help, that was—
No, it had been more profound than that, more than just not believing God would help. Mac had been forced all at once to recognize the foundational truth of life: God just flat didn’t care, didn’t give a rip about Mac or Melanie or anybody else.
It had been true, all right. His precious wife lay there, gasping for air, in so much pain all over her body he couldn’t touch her anywhere, couldn’t hold her hand, couldn’t even give her a little peck on the cheek. Day after agonizing day! But God decided to pass on helping. God could have healed her. Instead, the Almighty let Melanie Cunningham McIntosh lie there and suffer. And then die.
By the time she finally groaned her last, rasping breath, Mac was no longer shaking his fist at God. He’d figured out by then there was no God.
“Tommy! Tommy, where are you, child?”
Mac straightened at the sound of Maggie’s voice.
“You come here to me this minute, do you hear me? Tommy!”
He’d best get in there and soothe her before she got all worked up. Tell her some lie to make her feel better. Mac was good at that, had been perfecting that skill from the pulpit for years.
Chapter 10
“Havin’ trouble sleeping, are you, Jonas?” George asked.
George Stovall was the pharmacist at the Graham Rexall Drug Store. He and Jonas had known each other for sixty years. Maybe longer.
“Yeah, just can’t seem to drift off.”
Jonas hoped he didn’t look as uncomfortable as he felt. He knew it was paranoia, but it sure did seem like everybody in the whole store had turned and looked at him as soon as he opened his mouth and started talking.
He’d fiddled around, walked up and down the aisles for half an hour, working up his nerve to go collect the prescription he’d gotten Dr. Bradford to write for him. Stood looking at the shampoos for ten minutes. Why on earth did a body need two dozen different kinds of shampoo? For dry hair and oily hair, shampoo to cure dandruff, green shampoo, pink shampoo, and yellow shampoo.
He used bar soap—rubbed it on his head when he took a bath. And Maggie’s hair always just smelled clean, that’s all.
He’d wandered through the toothpastes and the cold medications, through the Ace bandages and insoles—anything to put off what he’d come here to do.
Trouble was, he just wasn’t used to lying. He’d never been deceitful, couldn’t ever remember doing that, even as a child. Oh, he had character flaws, that was a lead pipe cinch. Lying just didn’t happen to be one of them. And he knew he wasn’t any good at it, no good a’tall.
He’d stuttered and stumbled when he asked the doctor for something to help him sleep even though he’d rehearsed the speech in his head half a dozen times. All about how he was up most of the night some nights, how he needed his rest so he could look after Maggie. But when it came time to deliver the spiel, he couldn’t remember none of it, got tongue-tied, barely able to choke out any words that made sense. Didn’t seem to matter in the end. The doctor just scribbled something on the pad and handed it to him, easy as pie.
But then he had to get the prescript
ion filled. And he got flummoxed all over again.
George didn’t appear to notice a thing, though. He picked up the bottle of pills and taped the label snug on the outside of it. Then he dropped it down into a sack and handed the bag across the counter to Jonas.
“What’d you do to your hand? That’s a nasty scratch. You put anything on it?”
George was a world-class busybody. Well-meaning, but nosey all the same. One of the claw marks from Maggie’s fingernails extended out from under the cuff of his long-sleeve shirt and George had spotted it. The nurse had tended to Jonas’s wounds in the doctor’s office. Dr. Bradford said scratches like that from a human hand were more likely to get infected than if an animal had attacked him.
Before Jonas could stop him, George reached out and grabbed his hand.
“Want me to put something on that? You don’t want to get blood poisoning.”
Jonas extracted his hand from George’s grasp. “Naw, it’s all right. My granddaughter’s cat got me, but I’ve already had it seen to. Guess I need to put some more mercurochrome on it.”
“Iodine’s better. Burns worse, but it’s better.”
“Iodine it is, then. Well, it was good to see you, George. I—”
“Whoa, hold up there, Jonas. I need to talk to you about these sleeping pills.”
George had a tendency to speak too loud. Part of the problem was he was a little hard of hearing. But mostly, he was just a loudmouth. Right now, it seemed like he was near shouting and Jonas glanced from side to side. Nobody was paying any attention.
“What about the pills?” Jonas spoke in a quiet voice and hoped George would follow suit. He didn’t.
“You need to be careful with them is all. They’re a narcotic, you know. That’s why you can’t get them without a prescription. They’ll knock you out all right, they’re strong stuff. But they could be addictive.”
“Oh, I’m not going to do a thing like that.”
“Nobody ever is! Never met a man yet said, ‘You know, I think I’ll just go out and become a drug addict.’ But it happens.”
“Thanks for the warning, but I—”
“What I’m saying’s you might get where you can’t go to sleep without taking a pill. And that’s a misery you don’t need. These things are good for the short term—just be careful.”
“I will, George, promise. Thanks for the advice.”
Jonas turned and headed toward the front of the store to pay for his purchase. He was already three steps away from the counter when George called after him, hollered where everybody in the store could hear.
“And for Pete’s sake, Jonas, don’t take more than the prescribed dose! Take too many and those pills will kill you.”
* * * * *
Not getting to run made Mac irritable. He needed the physical release. And the psychological one, too, he supposed. He had planned to run after he got home from looking after Maggie, but there’d been a message on his answering machine informing him that he had an 11 o’clock appointment. That made him even more irritable.
This one was just the latest in a growing list of appointments his ever-vigilant secretary had made for him without his knowledge or consent. He knew she was trying to take up the slack of his inattention, but her practice of booking him to see someone—just a name, Sam Bartlett—with no further information was maddening. He needed to speak to her about it.
But why bother? It wouldn’t matter after Sunday.
Mac slipped in the side door of the church where the administration offices were located and Lillian was sitting primly at her desk outside his office door. For some reason he couldn’t quite nail down, the sixtyish woman had always reminded Mac of a robin. It was something about the black-rimmed glasses parked on a pointed nose, or her considerable bosom that extended in a solid mass from her neck to her waist. Or the fact that the back of her head was flat. Her mother must have let her sleep on her back too often as a baby. At least, Mac had read somewhere that’s what caused such things. He had no actual experience with babies, of course. Joy had been a toddler when he and Melanie adopted her.
They’d discovered her sitting quietly on the front pew in the church sanctuary early one Sunday morning, thought at first she was a little boy. The child was contentedly marking up a hymnal with a pencil. Not a thing wrong with her except she was “thirssy,” wanted a drink of water. Lying beside her was one of the Visitor’s Cards from the rack on the back of the pew. Written on the blank side of the card in an odd, backward-slanted handwriting were the words: Got no plase for her so plees giv her a gud hom.
That was it.
In the beginning, they’d planned to tell her she was adopted. But the right time just never seemed to present itself. And to be honest, a lot of folks didn’t hold with adoption back then and they didn’t want people to look down on her, think she was any less their daughter just because she wasn’t their flesh and blood. It had been easy to let the issue slide. Since Joy had brown eyes like Melanie and red hair like his, people automatically assumed they were her biological parents.
“Why, good morning to you, Pastor McIntosh,” Lillian said.
No amount of coaxing could convince the woman to call him Mac.
“Morning, Lil.”
“Your 11 o’clock appointment is waiting in your office.”
Right. The mystery meat.
Mac opened the door and found a man reading a newspaper, his booted feet crossed atop the coffee table. He spotted Mac and hopped up off the sofa like burnt toast popping out of a toaster.
“I’m Sam Bartlett.”
“David McIntosh.” Mac extended his hand. “Call me Mac.”
“Your secretary told me I could wait in here.”
The crew-cut man in his early thirties gestured to the newspaper he’d dropped on the coffee table. “Hope you don’t mind if I read your paper. Can’t help being a news junkie.”
“News junkie?”
“Well, yeah. Didn’t your secretary tell you? I’m a reporter for the Oklahoma City Daily News.”
Mac crossed the room to his desk and sat down in the chair behind it. When he had counseling appointments, he always sat in the chair opposite the sofa. It was less formal. People were more willing to open up in a homey atmosphere, at least that’s what Melanie said. She was the one who’d added the little touches that made his office comfortable. Even hung yellow curtains to match the yellow in the floral design of the chair. Mel thought of everything.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Bartlett?” Mac said from the back side of the wide expanse of oak desktop. He wasn’t interested in making the newspaper reporter feel comfortable and chatty.
The man looked confused. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, but I suspect I know why you’re here. If I’m right, I could have saved you a long, boring drive.”
“And you think I’m here to ask about …?”
“Emily Prentiss, the woman who’s scheduled to be executed on Friday. Is she the reason you’re here?”
“Yes, she is. I want—”
“I don’t have anything to say about Emily Prentiss.” Mac started to rise.
“Wow, that was quick! I haven’t been here ninety seconds and you’ve already passed judgment on me. Can’t you at least hear me out before you kick me out?”
Mac reluctantly settled back in the chair. “I’m listening.”
The man crossed to the desk and sat down in the straight-backed chair next to it. He ran his fingers over his close-cropped hair and let out a long breath.
“I’m going to give it to you straight up. I’ve been writing classifieds and obits for almost a year now. Just got out of college—night school on the GI Bill—and this is my first story.” He must have spotted the dubious look on Mac’s face because he hurried on. “Hey, listen, you are looking at a walking encyclopedia on Emily Prentiss! I’ve read all the old clips, the trial transcripts—both sets—even dug up the original grand jury depositions. I’ve read the appeals briefs and—�
��
Mac cut him off.
“Why’d you go to all that trouble?”
“Lots of reasons,” he said expansively. “I want to do better than a simple twenty column-inches on ‘child-killer gets hers.’ I want to do something more real, more personal, more—”
“And the other reasons?”
He’d been on a roll, but the bravado suddenly sighed out of him and he looked sheepish. “Truth?”
Mac nodded.
“It was the only way I could get them to give me the story.” He looked at his shoes. “I’m not the lead reporter, either. Another guy’s coming down the end of the week to cover the actual execution.”
“You’re freelancing.” It wasn’t a question.
The young man shrugged. “How else am I ever going to get a chance to show them what I can do?”
Mac said nothing.
“I’ve been requesting interviews with Emily Prentiss for months, but she won’t talk to me. Then I came down yesterday, noticed on the prison log that’d you’d seen her, and I thought maybe you could help me.”
“Help you how?”
“Ask her if she’ll talk to me.”
“She won’t.”
In truth, Mac wasn’t sure of that. He wondered why she’d turned down the man’s requests for an interview in the first place. Surely, even talking to a reporter was better than talking to the walls.
Fact was, Princess would probably come off sounding so crazy in a newspaper story somebody might just decide she wasn’t mentally competent to be executed. If that even mattered at this stage of the game, and he didn’t know if it did.
“Will you at least ask her to talk to me?”
“No.”
“Then tell me about her, about your conversations with her.”