With gentle pressure on my arm, Amelia nudged me forward, steering me across the street in the direction of a late-model black Chrysler Concorde.
“I already talked to the valet,” she said. “Told him we didn’t need the Jeep. I mean, I’ve rented this anyway, so we might as well use it.”
The smell of new leather greeted me as I opened the passenger door for Amelia. Then realized she wasn’t beside me. She was across the car, already getting behind the steering wheel.
“Sorry,” she said when I got in and closed my door. “I would have put your name down on the rental agreement as an extra driver, but I didn’t have your driver’s license number.”
“No problem,” I said. It was childish of me to feel resentment. She wasn’t trying to take control. She was doing her best to make this a fun evening. “I’m going to sit back and relax and enjoy the ride.”
Automatic climate control sent cool air into my face as she turned the key in the ignition.
“So,” I asked, “where are we going?”
**
Behind the door, Angel heard Bingo’s footsteps clunk toward the kitchen.
Angel spun and ran to a small closet at the back of her bedroom. She shut herself inside and locked the handle. Then, in the darkness, she reached for the digital camcorder she kept on a shelf in there.
The side wall of her closet was the dividing wall between Angel’s room and Grammie Zora’s voodoo room. There was a small hole, nearly invisible from the opposite side, especially when Grammie Zora had her altar lit by candles and the rest of the voodoo room in darkness. This spy hole gave Angel a clear view of Grammie Zora’s voodoo room.
Angel brought the camcorder up to her eyes and began to video Bingo’s actions. He snapped the light switch on and began to pull at the drawers, throwing out the voodoo contents. After all the drawers were empty, he yanked them out completely and checked beneath, in case the painting was taped under one of them. When that didn’t bring results, he kicked the wall in frustration.
Bingo ripped the entire room apart, cursing Angel the whole time, unaware that she caught every moment with digital clarity. When he finally decided it wasn’t in the room, he ran back to the kitchen.
Angel shut off the camcorder, hid it beneath some sweaters on the shelf in the closet, and waited. Seconds later, she heard another grunt as Bingo yanked the sofa away from the door and a crash as Bingo broke down her bedroom door.
“Where are you, you little puke?” he shouted.
Another second passed, and the door handle to the closet rattled. “You’re going to pay for this,” Bingo shouted. He wiggled the door handle with impatience. “You better open up now or I’ll bust this in, too.”
It was the wiggling door handle that inspired Angel.
“Okay,” she said. “You can open it now.”
She watched the handle. It jiggled again. She jabbed the handle with the prods of the stun gun. A blue arc sizzled at the contact of electricity on metal, almost throwing her onto her back.
On the other side of the door was a shriek. And a thump that shook the floor.
Cautiously, Angel opened the door. She didn’t know what to expect. She saw his feet, opened the door wider, saw his legs, opened the door still wider and saw his upper body and his head.
It was like Goliath, down for the count. Bingo was stretched out flat and unmoving.
**
“Amelia, I imagine you’ve heard of those who refuse medical treatment because of faith issues.”
Our salads had just arrived. She’d offered to make me dinner—she was staying at the house on the lower peninsula that she’d inherited when her father died—and I’d suggested a restaurant, telling her that it would be inconsiderate of me to expect her to put together a meal after her travel time. I wondered if she suspected I was simply afraid of the more intimate setting alone with her at her house.
“Of course,” she said. “It’s a difficult situation. Why do you ask?”
“There’s a church outside of Charleston. Its members are like that. Just wondered what you thought of it.”
“In one way, I admire them. Even though some people think belief is a matter of faith and no reasoning, I disagree. I think too often it is just the opposite. An intellectual belief that provides comfort. It takes courage to actually live out what you believe, and these people are doing just that. They say God is in control, so they leave it in his hands. They say the life hereafter is of far more significance than life on earth, and they’re prepared to risk death unnecessarily because of it.”
“So you approve?”
“You did hear me say ‘unnecessarily.’ I’m a doctor. I want
to use all the skills that God has given me, and all the medical knowledge that God has allowed us to accumulate, to help people regain their health. Take their argument to the extreme. God is in control. His will will be done. Don’t operate on me when I have appendicitis because he will decide if I live. Fine. God is in control. He’ll let me live or die and I shouldn’t take action. Therefore, I won’t support the extension of my life with healthy habits. For that matter, I won’t even eat. God will decide my life.”
She paused for breath. “Each of us is on this earth for a purpose. We’ve been given a strong will to live for that reason. My opinion is that medical care is an extension of the care we should provide our bodies in everyday living. Let’s do everything humanly possible—within moral boundaries—to keep our health. Then let God decide. Some people make it through heart transplants; some people don’t. To me, that’s God’s will. But when someone keeps their kid from getting leukemia treatments because healing is supposed to be God’s will, that someone is actually making the choice for God. A choice to let the kid die.”
“Too bad you don’t have a strong opinion on this.”
She laughed. “Yeah, too bad. What prompted your question?”
I told her about finding the baby the day before, about taking him to the hospital. About the note. About what I’d seen in the Glory Church.
“That makes me so sad,” she said.
“Me, too. That little boy—”
“Sad you didn’t think I was important enough in your life to call me Sunday night and ask the same questions you are now.”
“I thought you were at work.”
“After I told you Saturday night I had some days off?”
“But—”
She held up her hand. “Sorry. I overreacted. I shouldn’t put you on the spot like this.”
“But—”
“No. You don’t have to defend yourself. Let’s find something else to talk about. How’s it going with Pendleton?”
I grabbed the chance to move on. “He tells me he’s legitimately regretful. Wants to make a deal that is actually in my favor. He says he wants a chance to start over.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know if I believe him.”
“Don’t know if you can believe him?” she asked. “Or if you want to believe him?”
I took a bite of salad.
She smiled to take the sting out of her words. “See, if you can convince yourself he’s running another con on you—”
“Like he’s been doing all his life.”
“—then you’re free of the obligation to forgive. But if he’s truly sorry . . .”
I took another bite of salad.
“Back to living your faith,” she said. “Is it a philosophy or something more?”
I didn’t answer.
“Forgiveness is an act of love,” she finished. “And faith without love is nothing.”
“You’re right.” I spoke softly.
“Enough lecturing, huh?” she said, probably trying to ease the tension. “So, how’s the weather been?”
The conversation continued from there. Not once did she or I get around to exploring why she’d hung up on me during our last phone conversation. She probably thought it was obvious, given that she’d shown up here in Charleston a day lat
er to be with me.
And I was too afraid to get to the issue because of the answers that might be there.
**
With Bingo unconscious, Angel wished she could call the police. But that would lead to other questions.
While she wondered what to do, she was tempted to jab Bingo a few more times with the gun. She wanted to see his body jerk with convulsions. But she told herself that would make her a bully just like him. She raised her leg to kick him but held back for the same reason.
Bingo’s chest heaved as he took ragged breaths. She tried dragging him away but he was too heavy.
Then she heard another voice. She recognized this one, too. “Hey!” the voice called. It was the giant, the one who’d come to visit Grammie Zora with Timothy Larrabee the night Angel went to the cemetery. “You said you’d only be a minute.”
Angel scooped up the stun gun, darted back into her closet, eased the door shut, and locked it. She had never been more frightened in her life. She was glad she hadn’t used up all the charge on Bingo. She waited, holding the gun poised, ready to do the same thing to the door handle when it
wiggled.
But she didn’t have anything to fear from the footsteps that entered her bedroom.
Later, much later, when she finally dared to open the closet door again, Bingo was gone.
**
“Will we see each other tomorrow?” I asked as Amelia drove me back to the Doubletree.
“I’ve got a lot of things to do. Wrapping up all the legal stuff with my father’s estate.”
“I understand,” I said. I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
At the hotel, she leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. I tried to hold her, but after a few moments, she pulled away.
“Good night, Nick,” she said.
I waved as she drove away, but I don’t think she noticed.
Chapter 17
I slept poorly. Each time I woke, the traces of Amelia’s perfume that clung to my hair reminded me of how she had eased out of the hug I gave her in the car in front of the hotel.
**
I made myself some coffee in the hotel room machine. I threw open the curtains and let the early morning sun flood my room. Below me was an elegant courtyard.
I sat near the window and sipped my coffee until eight o’clock, the earliest I felt I could call Richard Freedman.
I finished my call and lifted my coffee again. Before I was able
to take another sip, the phone rang.
I hoped it was Amelia, calling to say she wanted to see me today.
I was wrong.
**
In the hotel lobby fifteen minutes later, Timothy Larrabee introduced himself, transferred his cane from his right hand to his left, and then offered me a firm handshake of greeting. His smile seemed to hold genuine warmth. He wore light khaki pants and a crisply ironed light blue shirt. Because it was summer in Charleston, he could have easily blended in with the attorneys and accountants crowd.
“I hope you have a few minutes,” he said. “I’d appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about several matters.”
“I have a few minutes.”
“Excellent.” His face was drawn tight, the skin candle-wax smooth. As he spoke, there was unnaturalness to the movement of his cheeks and lips. The result, I guessed, of a face-lift. Still, forewarned and armed with a photo of Timothy Larrabee as a child, I might have had a slight chance of recognizing the man. His face was elfin-shaped. He had a large forehead and narrow cheekbones tapering to a tiny chin. This was a genetic imprint no plastic surgery could remove.
It was his voice, however, that provided him a camouflage that was almost impenetrable. He was in his fifties, and, unlike now, there would have been little television in his childhood to corrupt his native tongue.
“We have a lot in common, Nicholas Barrett.” Larrabee spoke softly with cultured tones. This was a man who’d grown up south of Broad, receiving the best that private schooling could offer. “It was in April, wasn’t it, that the Post and Courier ran a few stories about your search for your mother?”
“April.”
Businessmen flowed around us in the lobby, intent on checking out and getting to their next meetings. The tourists would make the next wave.
“I remembered your face when I saw you in our church Sunday, but I couldn’t quite place it until Shepherd Isaiah told me about your conversation with him and how to find you here. Quite the tragedy, the events of your childhood.”
He smiled sadly. “You probably know, then, that we have childhood tragedy in common. I grew up not far from you. My grandmother was Agnes Larrabee. She was murdered when I was a young boy. Does that sound familiar to you?”
“Yes.” I said. “You lived on East Bay. Your grandmother Agnes was poisoned to death by one of her servants.”
“Hard to escape the past.”
“Indeed.”
“I like you. I like the way your face hides so much. We never really escape our childhood, do we? Always hiding, one way or another.”
“I doubt this was one of the matters you wished to discuss, Mr. Larrabee.”
“Are you always this guarded?” He touched my arm before
I could answer. “Please, let’s sit. I do know about your leg, and I’m sure it’s not comfortable for you to stand for long periods of time. The courtyard . . .”
Larrabee pointed to the same courtyard that I had looked down upon before his call. I followed him through the breakfast area and into the warm morning air. An elaborate fountain was in the center of the courtyard. He took a seat on a bench, and I sat on the opposite end.
“The newspapers had surprisingly little to say about the events of last April. I had to inquire elsewhere to learn more about you,” he began. “My first call was to your half brother, Pendleton.” Timothy Larrabee leaned his cane against the front of the bench. He leaned in my direction. “Please have patience with my curiosity. I’ll explain shortly.”
“It must have been interesting, your conversation with Pendleton.”
“There you are again. With that blandness in your face that makes it impossible to decide what you are really thinking. Fascinating.”
“Far more fascinating that you now belong to a backwoods cult and wish to purchase a Van Dyck stolen from your family decades ago.”
“Hah!” He grinned. “Finally. A reaction. And I’ll get to that soon enough, too. In answer to your comment about Pendleton, no, it was not an interesting conversation. He seemed very protective of you. Which surprised me. I had gathered from the newspapers that you two were not the closest of brothers. What little he said was high praise.”
That was a surprise to me, too. But curious as I was about Larrabee’s reason for visiting, I was determined to play the waiting game.
“To make a long story short,” he said. “I really couldn’t learn much about you.”
“Not much worth learning.”
“That’s where you are wrong. I thought it would help before I approached you. I wanted to know what was important to you. What you want in life. I find that’s the best way to understand someone. Or perhaps the most important way for people to understand themselves.”
He lifted his cane and tapped it against the courtyard stones at his feet. He stopped and stared at the water fountain for what was nearly a full minute. “For me,” he said softly, “I’ve come to realize what’s most important to me is regaining my heritage.”
“By joining the Glory Church?”
He smiled. “Isaiah Sullivan and I met in prison. I will tell you frankly that he is a man of deep faith. Misguided, I believe, but passionately and deeply faithful to the God that he found in prison. He loves the Bible, that man. Finds in it everything he needs.”
“And you?”
“My god is wealth. Should you ever meet Shepherd Isaiah again, I would prefer that you keep that statement to yourself, although it would not surprise him. But I won’t lie to you. I
like what I can make from religion. To me, it’s a business. Shepherd Isaiah and I have an arrangement that allows me a certain portion of the church’s proceeds. Once I am financially able to maintain the proper Charleston lifestyle, I will leave the Glory Church and resume my rightful place among the elite of Charleston.”
“Charming,” I said.
“Not my intent. I simply wish for things to be very clear between us. The people of Shepherd Isaiah’s flock are very content. They get what they pay for: a belief system that serves their needs. I am a facilitator. Without me, the church would not exist. I get paid for that, one way or another. For me, it is simply very convenient that his flock wants to believe in an invisible God who holds them in judgment for their wrongdoing.”
**
An invisible God who holds them in judgment for their wrongdoing.
My mother was gone from my life well before I reached my teenage years. It was without her continued gentle guidance then, that I formed my opinions about God and religion.
First, I allowed the god of science to fool me. I believed what I had been taught in school. Even if some of the answers were yet to be found, science could explain everything. And so I bought into a naturalistic theory of existence, going as far as reading the classic Religion and Science by outspoken atheist Bertrand Russell, who said that before the Copernican Revolution, it was natural to suppose that God’s purposes were specifically concerned with Earth, but now—after what science has shown us—
it has become an implausible hypothesis. Learning what I did in high school science, I accepted this.
Hiding behind the false god of science, then, it was very easy for me to decide that the God presented by religion was simply Santa Claus on a grand and omniscient scale. After all, I thought, when children are taught that there’s an invisible God who sees and knows everything they do and is displeased when they do wrong, it is a very convincing method for ensuring their obedience. And once you get them to believe that, you can keep adding all the rules and regulations that are needed to keep them in place as they grow older.
And as I grew older, with a seed of rebellion against religion growing inside me, all I had to do was learn history to become more bitter in my near hatred of religion.
Crown of Thorns (Nick Barrett Charleston series) Page 17