Crown of Thorns (Nick Barrett Charleston series)

by Sigmund Brouwer

  He stopped. Stared at a pelican that floated overhead.

  “Just like that,” I said. “Everything is over. You’re gone.”

  “Growing up a Barrett in this town is kind of like having an . . . exoskeleton. That’s the word I’m looking for. Exoskeleton. Like insects, they have their skeletons on the outside, but it limits their growth. Sure their skeleton is hard and it’s great protection, but it’s also a prison. Growing up with our money and our name was like having an exoskeleton squeezing me and keeping me from growing. I’m breaking loose, Nick.”

  “What about your wife and daughter?”

  “I’ve left all my tailored suits in the closet. Same with my shoes. We’re pretty close to the same size, Nick. I figured you wouldn’t mind having that kind of wardrobe waiting for you when you moved in. That doctor friend of yours, she likes the fancy stuff, doesn’t she, Nick? She’ll love that fine clothing on you. And if you don’t like it, there’s always the Salvation Army. But I thought I’d give you first chance at it.”

  “What about your wife and daughter?”

  “Ex-wife, Nick. She and I are strangers. Our daughter? She’s not really mine.” He caught the look of surprise on my face. “Oh, biologically, she’s mine. But I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. I haven’t been a father to her. And all the chances she’s given me. I keep remembering her at different times. When she was little, she’d come running across the room every time she saw me, as if I’d been gone for a year, even if I’d just gone to the kitchen to grab a drink. What hurts is remembering how I’d never stop to pick her up. Still, she kept trying. When she was in school, again and again, she’d believe me when I’d tell her that I’d show up for a play or a soccer game, and again and again, I’d disappoint her. She’s seen me do other things, Nick. Drink too much. Yell at her. Yell at her mother. Worse than that. I made that girl grow up far too quickly. And for all practical purposes, without a father.”

  “So you’re running away.”

  He lost his placid, sad expression as the old Pendleton returned. “You know, you should grow a white beard and walk around with one of those shepherd’s crooks. That way you’d not only sound like Moses calling down judgment on sinners but look like him, too.”

  “Sorry.” I meant it.

  “I’m not running from Charleston, Nick. I’m running to . . . to . . . to . . .” Pendleton leaned against the hull. “All my life, I’ve taken the easy way. Leaving here is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. You think I don’t know what’s ahead? Lonely, lonely nights, when every dark hour squeezes your soul like a vise. The same nights I’ve faced here. I hope I get through it, Nick. I hope I don’t end up a bum with a bottle in a bag. That’s the easy way out. But the only way to find out if I’m somebody worth anything is to go looking. Break out of this exoskeleton and find out what’s really me. And if who I am turns out to be worth anything, then I’ll send for my daughter—summers, maybe—and she and I will get to know each other, and then she’ll see that she really does have a father worth loving.”

  “I wish you the best,” I said.

  “Sounds like you mean that.”

  “It’s the reason I came out here.”

  “Ship sails this afternoon, Nick. Guess that’s one good thing about growing up a Barrett. You learn how to handle a boat.”

  I hesitated. What I needed to say was not going to come easy for me. “Remember what you asked me in the restaurant?”

  “Forgiveness? Didn’t think I was going to get it by asking again. Or by waiting. Making sure you got the house and the trust fund that you should have inherited won’t make up for all the rest of it, Nick. But at this point, it’s all I can do. Lets me leave with the clearest conscience possible.”

  “What’s this sailboat worth?”

  “Ten years old. Needed more work than I imagined.”

  “So someone gave it to you?”

  “Broker owed me a favor,” Pendleton answered. “Found it for me at next to nothing.”

  I knew what “next to nothing” was. Ten years old or not, it was still a forty-foot sailboat. Plenty of people didn’t make what

  it cost in a year. I knew it because his attorney had told me. In confidence. Told me about the monthly payments that Pendleton faced.

  “Pendleton,” I said, “here’s how you can make things straight between you and me.” I handed him an envelope. “Promise me you won’t open this until you’ve found the marina you told me about. You know, on the gulf side of Florida.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. And what you asked me in the restaurant.” Funny how difficult it was to even say the word forgiveness. This was my brother. I stepped forward and hugged him. “Yes.”

  “Takes a load off,” he said when I stepped back. His eyes met mine. “You can’t know how much.”

  Holding on to hatred is just as big a burden as carrying the sin that caused it. In the envelope was the deed to the sailboat. He owned it free and clear. When he got to where he was going, he’d be truly free.

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “I do know. When you’re settled, give me a call. Tell me how you’re doing.”

  **

  I reached lower King Street an hour later. Was grateful to find a parking spot almost immediately.

  At the antique shop, Willy stopped me at the front door, just before I stepped out of sunshine, midmorning heat and humidity, and worn-out tourists. He squinted at me suspiciously.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “I opened that package you had sent here for me. Did you make a mistake and give me something you meant for someone else?”

  “Someone else?”

  “Yes.” His squint deepened. “Like a friend.”

  “Trust me. It was for you.”

  “But a first edition of The Catcher in the Rye. How did you know I collect?”

  “I asked Glennifer and Elaine what would impress you.”

  “Why?”

  “They asked the same question,” I said. “I didn’t give them the answer. But you, I will.”

  “And?”

  I dropped my voice to a whisper. He stepped forward. “I need a favor.”

  He stepped away. “What kind of favor?”

  I motioned with my hand for him to keep his voice down.

  I continued to whisper. “Please,” I said, “It’s driving me nuts. Tell me what you know about those two and chewing tobacco. I mean, how much worse can it be than reused tea bags?”

  **

  “When Timothy brought the painting to Grammie Zora as a boy,” I said, “it also held two letters hidden between the canvas and the frame.”

  In the office in the back, Glennifer and Elaine had settled down with their tea, for I’d promised them an interesting story.

  “Angel gave me the letters,” I said. “And they explain a lot.”

  “The letters Agnes was heard screaming about?” Glennifer asked.

  I nodded. “Timothy found them while searching for loose money in her bedroom. As you will see, there was good reason for Agnes to want them back so desperately.”

  I opened two folded sheets. I was on my way to deliver them to Jubil, but I knew Glennifer and Elaine would want to hear me read them first.

  The paper was ancient, the fountain-pen ink faded. One letter in a woman’s dainty handwriting. The other in a man’s blockish printing, words misspelled. But I could read each plainly. And each told the same story. One was signed by Agnes Larrabee, the other by Samson Elias.

  Identical letters of confession.

  And the story they related took place over a hundred years earlier, when Agnes and her sister Mary were twenty years old,

  in a boat on the Cooper River.

  For Mary had not drowned by accident as the newspaper reporter believed in 1890.

  **

  That day, Mary and Agnes sat at the front of the dingy.

  In the center of the dingy, facing the opposite direction, Samson Elias rowed with powerful str
okes.

  “Faster,” Agnes called.

  “Faster,” Mary mimicked. She had a light branch and tapped his broad, muscular back. “Faster!”

  Mary and Agnes had been tippling, as they liked to call it. They’d tippled all through the picnic, not caring that Samson was able to observe. What did it matter to them, the opinion of a black servant?

  As they had become giddy with the wine, they’d begun to comment, giggling softly at first, then more loudly, about the manlike frame of the fourteen-year-old boy. Samson’s mother must have been prescient at his birth, for he’d grown like his biblical namesake.

  On shore, standing and sweating in the formal clothing he’d worn to serve them their meal properly, Samson had become more uncomfortable at their giggles and comments. But he could not run from them, not without causing trouble for himself and his parents, who needed the income provided by the Larrabee family. His discomfort, plus more wine, had prompted more remarks and giggles from the girls.

  Finally, they had commanded Samson to remove his jacket. He did, reluctantly. They walked around him slowly, examining him as if he were an exotic animal. He wore a white shirt with his black pants, held up by suspenders, which they plucked and let go. He bore it stoically, staring straight ahead as sweat drenched his shirt.

  “Agnes,” Mary said, “shall we see this magnificent creature at work?”

  “What do you mean?” Agnes asked archly.

  “Why, he can row us across the river. Those big, big muscles of his will be a wonder to behold.”

  It was a combination of the wine, the sense of power, and the hint of engaging in something taboo that became an elixir of danger that afternoon.

  As Samson leaned into the action of rowing, his shirt loosened and worked partway up his back. The waistband of his black pants folded and unfolded with his rhythmic actions. It showed

  a four-inch band of his gleaming black skin.

  And the scar. A crown of thorns.

  “My, oh my!” Mary giggled. “Agnes, do you see?” She pointed at the scar.

  The memory of watching the baby get branded sobered each of them. But only a little. Not enough to stop Mary from reaching forward and touching the scar.

  Samson jumped.

  “Row harder!” Mary commanded. “You belong to us!” She touched the scar again.

  At this, Samson finally set the oars down. He half turned to face them. “It ain’t right,” he said. “What you’re doing ain’t right.”

  “Shush,” Mary said, still giggling. “What’s it any different than patting one of our horses?”

  “Ah was born to a freed man,” Samson said with what dignity he could. “Ah’ve learned to read and write. Ah ain’t no animal.”

  “You still belong to us,” Mary countered, slyly. “Lift your shirt. Show us that scar again.”

  “No ma’am.”

  “You dare disobey!” She said it with mock anger and giggled again. “Lift your shirt!”

  “No ma’am.”

  Mary stood, prepared to pull the shirt loose herself. She was not accustomed to having her way thwarted. She lost her balance and fell. Half drunk, she flailed, but her head hit the side of the dingy and she splashed into the dark water.

  In a flash, Samson leaned over the side. Managed to grasp her long skirt. But his sudden action tilted the dingy too severely, and Agnes toppled into the river, too.

  “Help!” she screamed.

  “Cain’t swim!” Samson grunted. He pulled Mary closer. With great effort, he turned her over, barely managing to keep his balance as he remained in the boat. Mary was unconscious, but at least her face was above the water. “Cain’t swim!”

  “I’m drowning!” Panic and thrashing managed to keep her afloat, but Agnes could feel the weight of her sodden dress pulling her down.

  She kicked toward Samson. “Help! Help! Help!”

  Samson couldn’t let go of Mary to grasp Agnes. Yet Agnes was going to drown, within his reach.

  “No!” Agnes shrieked. “No!”

  She managed to grab Mary’s inert arm and used that to pull herself closer. Had she been thinking clearly, she could have hung on while Samson pulled Mary toward the boat. She could have then transferred her grip to the side of the dinghy and waited as Samson first pulled in Mary, then her.

  But alcohol and panic disoriented Agnes. She climbed half out of the water on Mary’s body and clutched at Samson’s arm. “Pull me in!” she shrieked. “Pull me in!”

  She pushed Mary away to get at Samson. Mary slipped out of his hands, and he grabbed Agnes.

  Agnes sobbed and sobbed as he struggled to pull her into the dinghy.

  And when they turned back to look, Mary was gone.

  **

  “Why the incriminating letters?” Elaine asked.

  “All I can give you is a best guess,” I said. “Each had a letter of confession from the other. The only way to guarantee that each would hold the secret. If one was exposed, the other would be.”

  “And for the rest of their lives,” Glennifer added, “they were doomed to a servitude to each other. Samson was paid far more than any other servant in his position, because she had no choice.”

  Which, I believed, explained their odd relationship to each other for the rest of their lives. Neither could escape the other.

  But there were unanswered questions. Glennifer spoke some of them out loud. “Were these letters why Samson poisoned her in the end? And why then, after all those years? Was he afraid with the letters missing that it would finally all come to light and that he needed to get rid of the only other witness to the drowning?”

  “That’s something I doubt we’ll ever know,” I said.

  “My, oh my,” Elaine said. “This is all so interesting.”

  “Interesting, Laney? That’s a word we reserve for the excruciating times that someone forces us to listen to their child perform

  a horrendous rendition of a violin piece. All of this goes far beyond interesting. Poor Timothy Larrabee. Poor Samson. And all the others who have been hurt. It goes far beyond interesting.”

  “Let me remind you of an ancient curse,” Elaine said, drawing herself up straight. “ ‘May you live in interesting times.’ I am not insensitive to all the tragedy here. But I think, as that curse indicates, my adjective suffices. To think, it all began when we sent Nick to search for a small painting.”

  “It began with Agnes Larrabee and whatever happened in her life. Poor crazy woman. It unraveled when we sent Nick to that young girl’s house.”

  “I think,” Elaine countered, “that next Sunday I shall let you win at least one chess game. I always seem to suffer when you hold your bitterness throughout the week.”

  “And I think I shall make some more tea. Nicholas?”

  “No, thank you, Glennifer. I told Jubil I’d meet him at the Sweetwater in half an hour.”

  “Well, that gives you plenty of time. It’s just down the street.”

  “But a half hour? To walk that short distance?”

  “Best excuse I could think of to leave now,” I said. “I know you want to discuss your Sunday chess games.”

  “Satisfied?” Elaine said to Glennifer. “Your quibbling has driven this handsome young man away.”

  “My quibbling?”

  I grinned. “I’ll be back. I can’t imagine life without the two of you.”

  “Hmmph,” they said in unison.

  “Go then,” Glennifer told me, waving me away. “Before you get sentimental on us.”

  “Just so you know, I think there’s still more to this,” I said. Which was why I was meeting with Jubil.

  “Really?”

  “Give me a day or two.”

  “Certainly, Nicholas. We’ll have tea waiting. Guest tea.”

  “One last thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “After all that I’ve gone through to satisfy your questions about the painting,” I said, “won’t you at least finally tell me about the chewing tob
acco?”

  Both of them giggled.

  Chapter 27

  “This explains their motivation,” Jubil said after reading the letters.

  The table I preferred—at the window—was already taken. So we sat in a booth at the wall, beneath Billy Holiday, who looked down us from a large poster.

  “Motivation?”

  “Timothy told me about the Jesus room,” Jubil said. “The true version. Of course, by then I’d found more than enough leverage on him to get him to talk.”

  “True version? More than enough leverage?”

  “Didn’t have much to begin with. The digital video footage that Angel showed in the church shows that he was likely unaware of the vigilante action. Prosecutor would have a tough time nailing him with that. But he was using Isaiah, and Isaiah was using him, and all of them were using the Glory Church.

  “For Larrabee, we had to chase the money trail. We’ve been busy, Nick. The accounting people have been ripping apart the Glory Church’s books. Turns out Larrabee hadn’t done anything real fraudulent. At least in the eyes of the law. He paid himself an enormous salary, kept it from the church members. Also diverted funds into real estate investments that were starting to snowball in a big way. Those guys were getting rich. There’s enough to prove it was not a charitable or religious organization.”

  “No surprise.”

  “Maybe this will surprise you. Through a third party, Timothy Larrabee had already purchased the old Larrabee mansion. He was ready to bolt the church and start his Charleston life all over again.”

  “In a way,” I said, “I feel sorry for him.”

  “I’ve been a cop too long to feel sorry for people. I figure people make choices. When they end up in trouble, they should only blame themselves. Not the government. Not their family. Nothing. But . . .” Jubil let out a long breath, looked out on the street, then turned his gaze to me. “I see Timothy Larrabee today and I think of him as a little boy, and I’ll admit there were a lot of reasons for him to be messed up.”