He held on there for a time, and then the water yanked him free. He knew he would have to swim to shore, and shore could not be far away. He knew he would have to swim in the direction of the current. He swam into the smaller branches of a great tree which, undermined, had fallen halfway across the creek. He made swimming motions, ever more slowly until his lungs filled and he rested there, entrapped, deceased, his head and shoulders upstream, his legs swinging slowly back and forth in the changing pull of the muddy currents.
Ten minutes later a deputy sheriff, returning to the rural station in West Carrolton, came upon the car parked over on the shoulder on the wrong side of the road, just before the Knoll Creek bridge. As he pulled in to park nose to nose with it, he could see the driver's door was open, the dome light on. He got out with his big flashlight in his left hand, and unsnapped his holster before he moved toward the dark Buick. He walked slowly and cautiously all the way around it, shining his light in the windows. Keys in the ignition. Unfolded map in the seat beside the driver. Local tags. No luggage. A Meadows Center parking sticker on the rear bumper and another one on the front side of the rearview mirror.
If the car had run out of gas, it would have been on the proper side of the road, and locked. Same if some mechanical problem had occurred. The deputy's name was Walker Hendry and he had been six years in the department, long enough to feel uneasy when he came upon something in the night that did not make sense. The misty rain had stopped. He moved back around to the open door and shone his bright beam down the abrupt brushy slope, and saw a fresh scar in the clay, as might be made by the heel of a leather shoe. He saw two branches freshly broken. With care, he eased his way down the slick incline and, at the bottom, on the bank of the creek, he came upon a pair of eyeglasses with heavy black frames. The frames were twisted and the left lens was cracked. Had they been in that exact spot during the time of the heavier rains earlier in the evening, they would have been spattered with mud.
It was beginning to take shape in his mind, a process of cause and effect. Somebody, alone, in a big hurry to stop and get out, and that was why the car was on the wrong side. Too much growth too close to the hardpan on the other side. A drunk sick to his stomach, or a case of diarrhea, or an emergency bladder problem. So he slipped and pitched down the slope, landed hard and rolled into the creek. In the focused light the creek looked like sudsy chocolate milk.
He climbed back up to the car and walked out onto the bridge, thinking that the poor son of a bitch would be a couple of miles downstream by now. The rains had turned every trickle into some kind of Niagara. He stood at the iron railing and shone his light downstream. There was a big tree that had fallen at an angle, blocking half the creek. The body was in dark clothing and he could not determine its position until the light picked up half an ear out of water and the white temple.
Walker Hendry sighed and spat, and wished he had taken the other road in. This was going to hold him up for an hour anyway, to say nothing of the damn forms and reports. It would be nice, he thought, if it turned out to be somebody unimportant. It would take less time. As he reached to try the key to see if the Buick would start, he hesitated and pulled back. There was always the chance the whole thing had been staged, and the man caught in all those little twigs and branches of the great tree had been thumped on the head and dumped in. He went back to the county vehicle and his radio and called in, saying to the dispatcher, "Guess what I got, doll."
Twenty-One On Saturday morning at eleven o'clock the Reverend Doctor John Tinker Meadows met with the press and the television and radio people in the fourth-floor conference room at the Manse and read the statement prepared for him by Jenny Albritton, Spencer McKay and Walker McGaw, assisted by Alberta Macy. They had begun work at midnight on Friday, and at six on Saturday morning, after Alberta had gone home, they rehearsed John Tinker, correcting the script wherever the lines did not sound quite right.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the media, I want to thank you personally for appearing here on such short notice. There will be no need for any of you to take notes. Mrs. Albritton has seen to it that enough extra copies of this statement have been prepared to give one to each of you.
"As all of you doubtless know by now, my trusted and valued First Assistant Pastor of the Eternal Church of the Believer, the Reverend Doctor Walter Macy, drowned in an unfortunate and terrible mishap last night while on an errand of mercy. His grieving wife, Alberta Macy, has told us that Walter was quite distressed all day yesterday, worrying about a family of members of the Church who live in West Carrolton.
They have had bad fortune recently, and they have written me several times, asking if the Church might be able to help them. I had asked Walter to look into it when he had a chance.
"Those of you well acquainted with the area know that West Carrolton is on County Road 88-Z, a dozen miles west of the next exit north on the Interstate. Mrs. Macy has told us that Walter said to her that he was going to go visit with that family and find out how the Church might help. It was quite dark last night, with a persistent drizzle and ground mist. What we are assuming is that Walter got his direction confused when he came down off the Interstate and headed east rather than west, as was his intention. After ten miles or so, he apparently began to realize that he was not passing any familiar landmarks, and so he pulled well off the narrow road it was County Road 88-Z-by a small bridge that crosses Knoll Creek and one must assume that he studied his road map. It was open on the seat beside the driver's seat when the alert deputy came upon the empty vehicle with its lights out, engine off, and the driver's door open.
"There is little point in speculating on why Doctor Macy got out of the car. It is sufficient to say that careful expert examination of the scene shows that he slipped on the clay bank, fell to the bottom, struck his head on a shelf of shale rock and rolled into Knoll Creek, where the water has been high and fast for many days. The cause of death has been established as accidental drowning.
"This is another sad blow to all of us. Last week we lost Molly, the wife of one of our valued executives, Mr. Rolf Wintergarten, in an automobile accident. And just recently, though there was no connection to Meadows Center and our work here, the body of one of the members of the press was discovered, long dead, in the bottom of a well within twelve miles of here. It has indeed been a tragic summer thus far in the annals of the Eternal Church of the Believer.
The Reverend Doctor Walter Macy will be buried up on the hillside behind the Manse next Wednesday at high noon.
There will be a small service at the chapel on the hill and at the grave site, and the whole community will be present at the candlelight memorial service at dusk that same day.
"We are sorry to lose these people out of a life of piety and service and self-sacrifice. But we know they have, in the midst of life, been harvested by the Lord and taken to His kingdom for life everlasting.
"I am prepared to answer any questions."
"What's the name of the family he was going to see?"
"I'm sure you all understand why I must keep that information confidential."
"Don't you think that sounds as if you're covering up something?"
"I am. I am covering up their identity to save them from harassment and embarrassment."
"Do you know if there are any clues in the case of Linda Owen?"
"I haven't heard of any new developments. My personal guess is that it will never be solved. The trail was, as they say, too cold."
"How much money will the Eternal Church take in this year?"
"Next question?"
"Do you have a replacement for Reverend Macy?"
"I am appointing a search committee from among the pastors who head the affiliated churches. Perhaps one of the men on the committee itself will be found suitable. In the meantime my sister and I will shoulder the entire burden."
"Can your father take over any part of it?"
"Regrettably, no. He is not up to it. He is willing, of course, but his voice is too far
gone for that kind of strain."
"Is it true that you fired your administrative officer?"
"Mr. Efflander? Not at all. He was told by his doctors that he had been under too much strain for too long. So we agreed to his taking a leave of absence. We all hope he will decide to return when he is feeling better. He developed a strong staff during the time he was here and so things are running smoothly."
"There is a rumor about a hospital here and a medical school and school of nursing. Is that in your plans?"
"All I will say is that if it is indeed in our plans, it is too far in the future to be discussed at this time. I believe that we do not have time for any more questions. I would like to close by telling you that I have been in consultation with Alberta Macy and it is her desire and mine that the Church, in conjunction with the University, set up a special faculty chair in Biblical History. Mrs. Macy will take an active role in helping establish this memorial fund and I need not add that she will remain on as a valued member of the Meadows Center family. Thank you all."
The bright lights were turned off and John Tinker slipped through the door that led to his own suite. He closed it and locked it and leaned against it for a moment with his eyes closed. It seemed to him that it had gone well. Better than he had any right to hope, the way Alberta Macy had reacted at first. It had taken a long time to convince her that it was beneficial to the Church to have a story everyone would accept. And as Tom Daniel Birdy had refused to come aboard, the scenario of Walter Macy storming out of the house, enraged and sick at heart at being displaced, would just not play. Every effort would be made to make life pleasant for the bereaved.
And Spencer McKay, with the backing of Jenny Albritton, had been right in saying that there was no point in stating, as had the accident report, that the condition of Macy's clothing indicated that he had gotten out of the car to relieve himself.
Spencer had composed the sentence that said there was no point in speculation. It made the whole thing more dignified.
In the heavy heat and silence of Saturday afternoon, Eliot Erskine and Rick Liddy parked where the abandoned Buick had been found, and got out of the cool security car and walked out onto the bridge. Three little kids, scrawny and sun-browned, were standing by the rail looking down toward the tree where the body had been.
The tallest one looked at them and said, They pulled a drownded man out of there, stuck in that tree. He was pissing in the river and fell in."
"You got it about right, kid," Rick said, 'but you should learn better language."
The smallest one said, "There was a horse drownded in there a long time ago. A big horse."
"You kids stay out of fast water," Erskine said.
"It's tricky.
It'll get you."
They walked back and got into the car and turned the air on high and drove slowly away, Liddy at the wheel.
"Cold beer?" Liddy asked.
"Fine by me. Now what?"
"What do you mean by this "now what"?"
"Isn't there still a chance they'll try to make Moses for the Owen thing? What's to keep the new guy from moving on him when Dockerty takes off the end of the month?"
"I think it's all over."
"It isn't over until it's over. Yogi Bear."
"We're going to be around, aren't we?"
"Far as I know, Rick."
"The best chance is the new sheriff will clean up his area to save future trouble, and Moses will get the usual roust and become somebody else's problem five hundred miles from here. But if it doesn't happen that way, we keep an eye on it.
And if they ever try anything that dumb, we can tilt the machinery a little."
"Mind telling me how?"
"What are you? Some kind of total straight-arrow warrior?
It would take one of those notes made with letters cut out of _ the newspaper.
"Oh, sir, it has been on my conscience so bad, waking up in that busted-down barn and seeing that big preacher that drowned carrying a body to that well and dumping it in and covering it over with boards from the barn." | "Won't that open up the whole mess?"
"Doubt it. Charley Winchester would be in on it, and that note would go into the back of a safe in his office. Nice and quiet. And you can't try a dead man. And if Walter Macy and the rest of the preachers are right about what's waiting in the next world, old Walter is up to his glottis in boiling lava, bellowing his lungs out. That place ahead look okay for a quick beer?"
"I did it to him, Rick. I shook him loose from his life. I turned myself into Crazy Lew Yolen and pushed him into the creek and out of this world into the next one. Makes me feel weird."
"I asked you if the place ahead looks okay for a cold one."
"Okay, okay. All right already!"
"What's to yell at me about, Elly? The hotter it gets, the better cold beer tastes."
The Reverend Doctor John Tinker Meadows stood silent and motionless at the pulpit of the great Tabernacle of the Eternal Church of the Believer, staring at the stained-glass window at the far end of the building, and listening to the murmur and rustle of the enormous congregation as the sounds slowly diminished.
Once again the vast space was filled for an early-morning service, even in the heat of the sun belt in August. The three broad aisles which sloped down toward the altar rail at a slight angle cut the congregation into four equal portions, fifteen worshippers wide, sixty rows deep. Another thousand were over in the University theater, watching him on the big screen in closed-circuit color, and he knew that up in the control booth to the left of the stained glass, high above the entrance doors, the production manager and the director were watching the monitor sets, cueing the camera stations. The sound was being mixed with due regard for whichever camera was being used.
He felt a trickle of sweat on his ribs, under the cassock and surplice, and reacted with familiar exasperation toward the so-called experts who had designed the subterranean air conditioning. It had proven ample for the giant space even in midsummer, but had a built-in low-frequency rumble which made it impossible to use it at full throttle when taping. Finn Efflander had put someone to work on a filter that might keep the rumble off the recording. But even were it working properly, he knew that by the end of the sermon his clothing would be sodden. He perspired heavily whenever and wherever he preached. His face would be wet and shiny in the close ups partially defeating the efforts of makeup to give him the look of a younger Charlton Heston.
He was aware of a slight change of the light off to his left and realized that someone in the control booth had pressed one of the buttons which controlled the movement of the huge translucent, fire-resistant draperies, to move one of them slightly to cut off an edge of morning sun, making the interior light whiter and more luminous.
He heard some whispering from forty feet behind him and a dozen feet above him, and he well knew the stare his sister would direct at the offenders. The choir of fifty young women, the Meadows Angels, was a chronic disciplinary problem. Had they been selected more for voice quality and less for beauty, he guessed the problem would be lessened a bit. When he thought of beauty he remembered his sister's recommendation regarding her oldest Angel, Tracy Bellwright.
John Tinker Meadows turned just enough to see the far right end of the loft, where he knew she would be. He looked directly at her and she saw him and began to smile and changed her mind, and then blushed bright pink. A lovely young woman indeed.
But he knew it was impossible, and did not know why. He saw her as though through glass, as though she lived in another world, or another time and place. It was like seeing in the oncoming traffic, stopped for a red light, an attractive woman driving a car. You saw her through the windshield. There was a mild pleasure in looking at her and a mild curiosity about her life, her problems, her joys. And then the light changed and you never saw her again anywhere, ever.
John Tinker Meadows knew that many in the congregation each Sunday were seeing the service in person for the first time, after ye
ars of faithful membership, generous tithing, much television viewing. To them the thrill of being in the same space, breathing the same air, as the famous John Tinker Meadows and his sister, Mary Margaret Meadows, was only slightly dimmed by their being such tiny figures so far away, unlike the living-room screen at home. And as the service proceeded, they would begin to realize that it ran longer than the fifty-minute version edited for cable.
It was time. When a child coughed, the cumulative silence made the small sound carry. He looked at them, feeling their tension and their excitement. He was a tall slender man with gray-blonde hair worn long at the sides, brushed back. He tried to fuel his own energies from their expectancy, from their belief.
John D MacDonald - One More Sunday Page 42