by Abigail Keam
He lifted his eyes as well and made the tattletale connection.
“Did you ever give Jamie some sex magazines?”
He paused.
“If you don’t start telling me something, I’m going to go the church’s superior and lay down some awful tales of innuendo. Now I want some answers. What did Jamie Dunne confide to you?”
Taggert hissed, “He was concerned about his mother. She had financial worries that he felt the Golden Sun Vineyard were responsible for.”
“You are lying. The Silver Creek Vineyard had no such financial worries.”
“I swear to you. I am telling you what he told me. He said his mother was in substantial debt.”
“What else?”
“That’s all.”
“Did you give him condoms? Try to bond with him over some dirty magazines?”
Taggert hesitated. His shiny forehead glistened with drops of sweat. “He wanted to know about sex. He was curious, so I counseled him.”
“By giving him dirty magazines with twisted images? That’s not your job. You’re a youth minister. That is all that you are.”
“You’re wrong. This church does not address the concerns of its youth. It is way behind the times. I am the only one person that these boys have to talk with. They have no one else.”
“Did you give Jamie Dunne condoms?”
“No, of course not.”
“His partner said he got them from someone in this church. I think that person was you. Whether you did or not, I am going to speak with the pastor.”
“Look, if you do that, these young people will just learn off the street. If Jamie was given condoms, it was by someone who was looking out for him. Trying to protect him.”
“Jamie was fifteen years old. He had no business being inducted into adult sex by a church figure whose job it was to insulate him from such conduct. Look, I’m not an old fuddy-duddy. I understand how the world works, what drives us as human beings. I know we are programmed to reproduce, but you have no idea the problems that have been caused by you giving Jamie the green light to have sex. He got a young girl pregnant and now her life is going to be painful no matter what she decides to do about this baby.”
“You can’t prove anything. I’ll sue you.”
“I’ve got those magazines and a condom wrapper. And now I am going to tear his room apart to find more. If I find one of your sweaty fingerprints on those magazine pages, then I am going to turn it over to the police. You’ll have a hell of a time – it’s called corrupting a minor. Then I’m going to ask them to reopen his file. Perhaps, Jamie was going to tell on you and you killed him to keep him quiet. You would have lost your position – everything. You would have been disgraced.”
Taggert stumbled towards me and gasped. “You can’t be serious. His death was an accident. I . . . I’ll take a lie detector test; anything, but I had nothing to do with that boy’s death. I loved him. I would never have harmed him. I may be many things, but I did not hurt that boy or cause his death.” He began choking, “Don’t you . . . dare suggest that. Don’t you dare!”
He grabbed his left arm and fell back upon a chair with a thud. A thick sweat broke out upon his brow. “I think I’m having a heart attack,” he rasped.
Alarmed, I hobbled over to the stairwell to call the secretary, but Mrs. Bell had already called 911 as she had been listening as I suggested. I hurriedly unbuttoned Taggert’s shirt and pants. The secretary shuffled as fast as she could with a blanket. We both waited holding Taggert’s hands until the ambulance came.
“I’d better go with him,” Mrs. Bell said, practically smacking her dry lips. I could see her already rehearsing the story and deciding who to tell first.
“What you need to do is call your pastor and the both of you search Taggert’s office or any place that would be good for hiding things. If you don’t and this guy has really has had a heart attack, then you, the church and I can be sued by this creep.”
Her hand flew to her mouth, “Oh goodness. We don’t want that. What shall be we be looking for?”
“You’ll know it when you find it, but I would check his computer, desk and his car. I would even pull the paneling from the wall. Look up in the ceiling. And make sure you don’t get your fingerprints on what you find. Or he could say it was yours to begin with. I’ll go to the hospital and let you know how he’s doing.”
“Oh dear, this is all so alarming.” Mrs. Bell gave me a look that told me she regretted confiding in me. She knew Ison was a creep, but at least it had been calm before I walked into their quaint little church. Too bad was how I looked at it.
I checked in at the emergency room telling them that I was Taggert’s aunt and was allowed into his cubicle. I peeped between curtains and, seeing he was not there, took the opportunity to search his pants, which were hanging on a chair. But I just found change, twenty-three dollars and his car keys. Hoping that Mrs. Bell had had more success, I called the church.
Mrs. Bell answered.
“Find anything yet?” I asked crossing my fingers.
“I’ll let you talk to the pastor,” she replied, muffling the phone.
“Uh oh,” I thought. I hoped I wasn’t going to be scolded.
“Hello, who’s this?” asked an authoritative deep bass voice.
“Mrs. Reynolds, who is this?”
“This is Brother Morris. How are you connected to our youth minister?”
I gave him a brief rundown on how I had been asked to look into Jamie Dunne’s death and my theory on who had given the boy the dirty magazines and condoms.
“So you see it was just a process of elimination. His reaction was hostile from the get-go. No one else was like that. It has to be him. Did you find anything?”
There was a slight pause.
“Brother Morris. Please don’t cover anything up. If you have found something, then you have a wolf among your sheep. It will cause you nothing but grief if you try to put a lid on this, because I’ll be behind you stirring the pot.”
He took a deep breath. “You will keep this confidential until the church can formulate a plan of action?”
“Yes sir.”
“We found church property in the trunk of his car and several boxes of condoms in his locker.”
“He can say those condoms are for his use.”
“Either way, it’s bad. Our church doesn’t approve of pre-marital sex. We don’t hire staff who won’t abide by our policies. We called in one of our members to go over the church computers and a locksmith to unlock his car.”
“That is an illegal search on his car.”
“The church financed the car for him and the loan has not been paid off yet – so technically, the church owns the car. Also one of our members is an officer on the Richmond police force. He is on his way over – in an unofficial capacity, of course. Some other members are going through his office and choir room searching. Once they report back to me, I will call the deacons of the church and together we will decide what to do.”
There was static on the phone. He was pacing as he talked. “This is most unsettling. Most unsettling,” Brother Morris said.
By this time, I had walked back into the emergency waiting room while talking on the cell phone. A nurse motioned for me to turn my phone off. “Just make sure that whatever is found, you are very careful handling it. You don’t want your fingerprints on anything or else it can turn on you.”
“I will make sure everyone understands this.”
I heard someone call the minister’s name.
“Look, I gotta go. If you see Brother Taggert, tell him that I will be there in a couple of hours to be with him. After all, he is still a member of our flock and I am his shepherd.”
“Sure thing,” I replied, but I had no intention of seeing Taggert. After I hung up, I approached the nurses’ desk.
“I am Mr. Taggert’s relative. Is there any news on him yet?”
The nurse looked at her computer screen. “I think an evaluation is
just about finished. He is being relocated to a semi-private room now. Let me call his doctor for you.”
She made the call. Within a few minutes, she ushered me into a private consultation room. A young emergency room doctor strode into the room and shook my hand. He looked nine.
“Because of our guidelines, I can’t go into specifics with you, but your nephew is resting comfortably and should be released tomorrow morning. We are just keeping him for observation, just in case.”
I blinked. “You are letting him go tomorrow? You let people who have had heart attacks leave the hospital less that twenty-four hours after admittance?”
The doctor sighed. “I really shouldn’t be discussing this with you.”
“He doesn’t have a wife, just kinfolk. We need to know how to help. Please don’t keep us in the dark,” I pleaded, my eyes threatening to cry. I rummaged through my purse looking for a handkerchief.
“I can assure you that Mr. Taggert has not had a heart attack.”
“Really? It looked like a heart attack.”
“It was simply a bad stress attack which can sometimes mimic a heart attack. But these stress attacks can be serious. He will need to take it easy for the next couple of days.”
“I can assure you, Doctor, that I will do everything possible to stay out of his way for the next couple of days. I think his minister will be here the next hour.”
The doctor smiled. “That will be good. Having a comforting presence is always good for the patient.”
I stood and shook hands with the doctor. I could have kissed him. I could have danced a little jig if my leg had not been hurting so. A little stress attack was not a major lawsuit, especially if the church kept finding icky stuff. I was almost in the clear legally.
Walking out of the emergency room, I realized I was a major cynic. The truth was I didn’t care what happened to Taggert as long as it didn’t involve me. He was just taking up space as far as I was concerned. He was one of those careless people that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about. It’s wasn’t that I didn’t think adults shouldn’t provide some sort of guidance for teenagers; it that I found his methods too raw and primitive for sensitive, impressionable young boys. He either didn’t understand the consequences of his actions or didn’t care. Either way, he was dangerous to young minds.
Or was it just Jamie that got special treatment? Was it that Taggert was jealous? As a plain man, he could have been envious of Jamie’s good looks and youth. Did he want to destroy the boy’s happiness by putting ridiculous thoughts into his head such as burning down a winery and having sex with the hired help? Each episode would have blighted Jamie’s Huckleberry Finn existence and tarnished his relationship with his loving but stern mother.
The truth about Jamie would never be known. He left no written record nor trusted any friend with his thoughts. Did he have sex with Bloomie because of Taggert’s unnatural influence? Or did he actually care for her? Even Bloomie didn’t really know. Now he was dead and she was in a bad way.
And I was in a bad way.
I was an hour late returning home, and I hadn’t checked in plus had turned my cell phone off. Cody must be frantic, especially if he tried to locate me through the GPS on my hearing aid and discovered that I was in a hospital. I needed to get home.
Checking my phone, I found four messages. I called Cody’s cell phone from the parking lot.
Jake answered. “Why the hell are you in a hospital?”
Startled, I almost dropped the phone. “I’m coming home right now. I can explain.”
“You stay right there. I am coming for you.”
“No, I’m coming home.” I hung up. Boy oh boy, was I going to be in big trouble. I felt nauseous and my body was racked from pain. I needed my medication. I kept a secret pill in my wallet in case of emergencies. Pulling it out, I rolled it in my palm, sitting in the car looking out at the parking lot. Silently and with great regret, I put it back in my wallet.
Something was calling me to the river. I was already in trouble. I might as well go for the brass ring. I felt a pressing need to get on the water. I massaged my right leg. It was limber enough to allow me to drive, so I took the old Tates Creek road home slowly and arrived at the Butterfly without incident. Once home, I went inside to get my files on Jamie and then drove down to the dock.
Thank goodness neither Jake nor Cody were home. They were probably on I-75 hoping to intercept me. It wouldn’t take them long to realize their mistake and head home. I had to get on that pontoon boat before they could catch me. Something was tumbling around in my mind about what someone had said. I knew if I could catch it and study it in my mind’s eye, I could solve the mystery. But what was it?
I was now in full-blown agony. Reaching up under my shirt, I pulled off the pain patch and threw it on the floor. It had been used up. Each bump in the road caused me to groan as a wave of pain slapped over me. Finally, I made it to the dock. Throwing open the car door, I grabbed my purse, my cane and the files, and snatched the boat key from its hidden place. Limping severely now, almost dragging my left foot, I undid the pontoon lines and crawled on board.
Something was really wrong. Even with the pain patch used up, I should have had some residual pain medication in my body. Was Jake giving me fake pain patches so he could wean me off the pain medication? What a time to discover that! Still, I wouldn’t give up. I took my pain pill out and broke it in half, knowing my mind would still be sharp enough with half a pill. I forced it down, swallowing it dry.
Starting the boat, I eased it from the dock and down the quiet river. Sitting in the captain’s chair with my legs extended gave me some relief as I putt-putted down the green ribbon of river, which had once been a mighty commercial thoroughfare and now largely forgotten. I made it without incident to the Silver Creek dock. Turning the boat off, I sat down and studied my notes. Hearing a noise, I looked up to see a young man who worked for Sarah, investigating my presence. As the pontoon boat was starting to drift, I threw him the lines. “Can you ask Miss Sarah to come to me, please?” I asked. “I need to speak with her.”
He scratched his ginger hair. “Well, she’s real busy right now.”
“I SAID GO GIT HER, BOY! NOW!”
Startled, he replied, “Okay, but you don’t need to be so rude.”
My teeth were grinding. “Go on. Fetch her for me.”
Several minutes later, Sarah hurried down the hill. Climbing into the boat, she seemed anxious and bewildered. “Is anything wrong?”
“Other than feeling like road kill, no. Have a seat for a minute. I need to ask you a question that has been on my mind for some time.”
Sarah sat obediently looking at me wild-eyed.
“You tell me that you are financially solvent. Business has been slow, but you are not in any major debt that would have caused Jamie to worry.”
She nodded.
“Then why do I hear rumors that you are in debt?”
“Who told you that?”
“It doesn’t matter. Are you in trouble financially?”
Sarah leaned forward. “The only thing I have is a standard $30,000 business loan which I take out every year because of a cash flow problem in the early spring, but the loan is always paid back by December. It’s just a standard business loan because I don’t want to dip in my savings.”
“Did Jamie understand that?”
“He didn’t know anything about it. Why would he?”
“Could he have stumbled upon some loan papers or heard you on the phone with a loan officer? You know thirty thousand dollars sounds like an awful lot to a kid. He could have misunderstood.”
Sarah’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh dear. Thinking back now, there was something. They got my payment book wrong again for the third time in a row this year, so I called the bank manager and gave him what for. Maybe Jamie overhead me.”
“Were you angry, maybe talking loud to the bank manager?”
“Yes, I just gave him heck on the phone. I was frustrated th
at I had to keep correcting the payment book.”
“Sarah, I think Jamie overheard you on the phone.” I stopped myself from saying anything else. It didn’t take an Einstein to realize the likely sequence of events.
Sarah sat back in her chair staring at me for several minutes until realization illuminated her sorrowful eyes. “Oh no. You must be wrong. He wouldn’t jump to that conclusion, would he? It was just a stupid loan. It was only for thirty thousand. It was nothing. Oh my poor baby.” She looked at me with alarm. “It was just a simple loan. I was just angry about the paperwork not being correct. Jamie. Jamie. Why?” Sarah threw her head into her worn hands.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bloomie running down the hill. “He thought by burning down the vines of your competitor, he was helping you. It was just being teenage dumb. He did it out of love, Sarah. He did it out of love.”
Bloomie climbed onto the boat.
“Help her into the house, Bloomie, and stay with her. She’ll tell you what’s wrong in her own good time. Perhaps, you might have something to share with her as well. Just a thought,” I said.
Bloomie helped Sarah up the hill and turning, she looked at me with doubtful eyes.
A blue heron flew over. Somewhere a horse neighed. And the river rhythmically lapped upon the shores, the music created by the waves sounded almost happy. But then, the river was happy. Jamie loved the river. The river had returned Jamie’s love, and like a selfish lover, she had laid claim to him. I knew the river held the secrets to my questions. Could I get the river goddess to give them up?
I started the boat and headed down the water. Traveling several miles, I turned off the boat and let it drift slowly on the river. Something was still nagging at me. I reread the files, paying close attention to the newspaper accounts. Closing my eyes, I replayed every conversation I had had concerning Jamie. A half hour later, my eyelids fluttered open. I knew. Yes, I knew what had happened to Jamie Dunne.
21
Still, I had to be sure. There might be some physical evidence I could discover. But I could not go beyond that. I would have to tell Irene my theory and let her take it from there . . . if she wanted to. And there was a chance I could be wrong. I was about to turn the boat around when I spied Rodney Tavis’ boat tied up to a tree. It was empty. I cast around looking for Tavis, but he seemed nowhere near. Pulling on the limbs of trees near the bank, I swung the pontoon boat near his.