The Pariah (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “Most of you,” he began, “are familiar with the format of this weekly service. Most of you, thanks be to the Lord—” He raised his eyes to near camera level, smoothly transitioning from the in-house audience to the TV audience. “—most of you invite us regularly into your homes on Sundays so that we can worship together, giving thanks for this wonder of television, God’s own miracle, that enables us to spend this precious hour together each week.

  “Most of you, as I say, are familiar with our routine, with our way of doing things. We’ve become predictable—comfortingly, reassuringly predictable, the way members of a family, one vast God-fearing family, become predictable to one another. Oh, yes—” Tolerantly smiling, he nodded. “Oh, yes, some will say, I suppose, that it’s dull, knowing what’s about to be said, knowing exactly what comes next. But I don’t think it’s dull, my friends. I think it’s wonderful, being that close. I think—I’m sure, absolutely sure—that God meant us to live like this, in close communion with one another. I think God wants us—commands us—to live like that. However—” He broke off, lowered his eyes to the pulpit, sadly shook his silvery head.

  “However, as it does in all families, there sometimes come breaks in these routines, in these reassuring rhythms of life. And that’s what happened just this last week, to our family—” As he spoke, he turned toward his wife and daughter and grandchildren, all of them standing at their designated places, ten feet from him. The children, he saw, were beginning to fidget. But Gloria was controlling them, her hands knuckle-white. As always, he could count on Gloria.

  “And if I may—” He turned again toward the cameras. “If I may, I’d like to tell you what happened to us—what tragedy befell our family on Friday night. It—it won’t be easy, telling you. I may stumble. But if you’ll bear with me—if you’ll pray with me to find the words—I’d like to tell you what happened on Friday night.”

  Once more standing with his eyes lowered, gripping the lectern with both hands, as if for support, he could sense a welling up of sympathy from beyond the glare of the footlights. He’d been right about this—about the wisdom of coming to this audience, in this city, with this sermon. Because, in spite of themselves, despite all their degenerate sophistication, they were with him, these San Franciscans. Today—now—here—their hearts were with him.

  He raised his eyes, let the silence lengthen as he looked out over the audience. When he finally spoke, he allowed his voice to thicken, allowed his eyes to mist, suggesting tears.

  “Every family has its mavericks, its stubborn, willful sons. And Elton was the maverick in our family. He wanted his own ministry, distinct from my ministry—just as I wanted my ministry, distinct from my father’s. That’s human nature, part of every son’s rite of passage. In the nature of things, the old among us must give way to the young.

  “And so it was that Elton established his own ministry. He established it among the poor, and the downtrodden, and the disheartened. He went out among them, sought out the misfits and outcasts, followed them down their mean streets and dark, dangerous alleyways, doing his best to help them, pray with them, save them for Christ. While the rest of us remained at our ease, safe and secure, doing God’s work, Elton was risking his life, night after night, seeking out sin at its source, praying with the robbers and the rapists and, yes, even the prostitutes among us, doing his eternal best to save them.

  “And so it was, dear friends, that Elton was walking the dark, dangerous streets of the district San Franciscans call the Tenderloin, on Friday night. We’ll—” He broke off, dropped his eyes, cleared his throat, blinked—then raised his head heavily, to look full into the camera. “We’ll never know what happened, really happened, Friday night. There’ll never be proof, not the kind of proof that would convince a judge or a jury. And yet I know precisely what happened. I know that, while Elton was at work, imploring some poor, benighted sinner to take Christ for his savior, another sinner attacked Elton, and killed him, and took the few dollars Elton carried with him. And so—” Struggling for control, he broke off. Then, huskily: “And so, that anonymous sinner took Elton from us, Friday night.

  “And so this service, today, is dedicated to Elton. And I hope you’ll join with me in prayer for the soul of one dearly beloved servant of Christ, who died as he lived, saving souls for God.” He closed his eyes, bowed his head, dropped his voice to its lowest, most solemn register as he began the prayer.

  “Jesus Christ,” Friedman muttered, both outraged and awed, “Talk about chutzpah. Talk about the ultimate blasphemy. Talk about the goddamn big lie, this guy’s—”

  “Shhh.” Uneasily, Hastings ignored a hostile stare from the woman seated on his right.

  “What ‘shhh’? Jesus, it’s your hide this guy could nail to the barn. Your hide and Canelli’s hide. He gets down to Los Angeles, he’s going to call another press conference. He’s going to accuse you guys, sure as hell, of killing Mitchell without cause. This time next week, you could be up on charges. Both of you.”

  Watching Holloway finish the prayer, caught up in spite of himself by the sonorous phrases, Hastings made no reply.

  In the control booth suspended high above the audience, Flournoy flicked the switch that silenced his microphone. Softly, incredulously, he spoke to the director, who sat intently before the three camera monitors. The director’s fingers hovered delicately above the toggles that cut between the three live cameras.

  “He’s doing it,” Flournoy said. “He’s never been better. Never.” Marveling, he shook his head. “Incredible. Really incredible.”

  “And now—” Holloway turned to face his family. “Now—without Elton—my family will observe the most meaningful part of this hour we spend with you, joining together to sing today’s featured hymn. Because of the tragedy that’s touched our lives, they’ve chosen “Come to the Church in the Wildwood,” which was Elton’s favorite hymn from the time he was just a—” He broke off, blinked, cleared his throat, finally finished: “—just a little boy.”

  As the organ led into the hymn and the overhead microphones began lowering on their cords before them, Gloria squeezed her children’s hands, then released them, signifying that, in moments, the cameras would be on them, and they must begin singing with her. But, with the organ introduction almost completed and the microphones fully lowered, Gloria saw sudden puzzlement register on her father’s face. Following the disapproving direction of his gaze, she saw her mother stepping forward, leaving her mark, moving toward the pulpit. As Marvella advanced, one slow, stiff, dream walker’s step at a time, Holloway’s puzzled expression changed to vexation, then to mild alarm. With his back to the cameras, urgently, he looked to Gloria for some sign, some explanation. In moments, the organ introduction would be finished, and they must begin singing. But now Marvella was within arm’s length of the lectern. With her eyes on the audience, she was smiling slightly, ethereally, the way she always smiled just before she began singing. Mindful that one of the three cameras could see him as he turned to face her, Holloway extended both hands, as if to welcome her to stand beside him at the pulpit. Marvella put her handbag on the pulpit beside Holloway’s Bible and reached for the microphone, bending the flexible shaft to suit her height. Moving one step aside, Holloway looked at the organist, covertly shook his head. Smoothly, the organist softened his sound, allowed the strains of “Come to the Church in the Wildwood” to slowly fade into silence. Looking out across the audience with empty eyes, Marvella timidly cleared her throat, nervously licked her lips.

  Pushing his lightweight Lucite headset down around his neck, Flournoy leaned intently forward. Frowning, he glanced at the three monitors. Of course, the red light glowed beneath the monitor that focused on Holloway and Marvella, standing at the lectern. Simultaneously, Flournoy and the director exchanged wary, puzzled glances before both men returned their eyes to the monitors. Nervously, the director advanced the volume control as Marvella’s voice began coming over the loudspeaker.

  “There
are about five hundred people,” Marvella said, “who work for my husband. That’s how many people it takes to put on The Hour, and do the direct mailings, and then handle the other mail, and all those checks. And there’s the Temple of Light, too, in Los Angeles. It takes a lot of people just to clean it, and change the light bulbs. And all that’s not even counting the college. That’s another few hundred people right there, in the college.

  “But when I first met my husband, there was just one person working for him—not really working for him, even, because a lot of the time Austin didn’t have enough money to pay him, or have anything for him to do, not really. But they were together, Austin and Lloyd—Lloyd Mitchell, his name was. And they were bound together, he and Austin, bound fast together. Because when Lloyd was a young man, and just married, he found his wife with another man. And he killed them. Both of them, right in the bedroom. He slaughtered them, some said, like cattle. And then he went to the sheriff, and surrendered himself. And he went to prison. For years, he was in prison.”

  “What the hell?” Flournoy muttered. What’s she doing?”

  “But then,” Marvella was saying, “they let him out of prison, paroled to Austin, as long as his behavior was good. So Lloyd became the first person that Austin ever owned. He—”

  “Marvella—” Angrily, involuntarily, Holloway stepped quickly toward her. But then he heard the single word “Marvella” echo and reecho, and he realized the microphone was still live. And beside the camera lenses, tiny red lights still glowed. Desperately, he stepped back, looked at Gloria, who still stood motionless, holding her children tightly by their hands. Gloria’s expression was blank, utterly blank. She couldn’t help him—or wouldn’t help him. Now he turned toward the part in the curtain, where the assistant director should be showing himself—the assistant director, Flournoy, someone should be there, someone to assume command, someone to come onstage, take Marvella by the arm, lead her gently, firmly away, let him recover the microphone and the cameras. Then, with a single gesture, a single sad, sympathetic phrase, he could suggest that the loss of her child had deranged Marvella, made her—

  “Austin came to the town where my daddy preached,” she was saying, still staring blankly straight ahead, out over the audience, “and Austin made a deal with my daddy, to share the church, share expenses, he said. My daddy never liked Austin, never trusted him, really. But Daddy needed the money, so he did it, made the deal. And for a while, it worked fine. Because, even then, Austin was a good preacher—” For the first time, she took her eyes from the audience, turned to Holloway, stood silently staring at him. Her face was still expressionless, her eyes still utterly empty.

  “Maybe it’ll be okay,” the director was saying. “It could be okay. It could play.”

  “A good preacher,” she repeated, still facing Holloway. She spoke very softly, her voice hardly more than a whisper. But she was close enough to the microphone, Holloway knew, for her words to be broadcast, nationwide, over more than two hundred TV affiliates, live.

  Live.

  Meeting her eyes, he tried to smile. His expression, he knew, must be charitable, must be loving. Because this was the mother of the son he was eulogizing. Until the cameras went blind and the microphone at the pulpit went dead, he must keep his eyes fixed kindly, lovingly upon his wife, must keep the smile in place. Covertly, he glanced at the tiny red light still glowing beside the camera. Meaning that, taking a calculated risk, Flournoy had decided to let the show run, let the camera roll. Because there was a chance—a good percentage chance, probably—that her monologue, poignantly portraying a mother’s grief, would play, live, the way a sermon could never play. And Flournoy was a percentage player.

  But Flournoy didn’t know what he knew—what he and Mitchell, only the two of them, knew.

  “I suppose,” she was saying, finally turning back to face the audience, “that I fell in love with him, with Austin, because he was so much like his daddy. I’ve thought about it a good deal, these last two days, and that’s what I’ve decided. I was only sixteen when Austin came to town. But I was an old sixteen, and the boys in town didn’t interest me anymore. I was ready for a man. And Austin was ready, too—ready for me, just like I was ready for him.”

  “From the expression on Holloway’s face,” Friedman whispered, “it doesn’t look like this is in the script.”

  “He’s trying to look sad,” Hastings whispered. “But he’s looking sick instead.”

  “Hallelujah.”

  “… saw each other in town, at his hotel. So, of course, everyone in town knew, or at least suspected—which is the same as knowing in that town. But I didn’t care. I was in love, really in love, for the first time. And, besides, Austin had promised to take me with him when he left town.

  “But then my daddy found out. And he came to Austin’s hotel room, and he found us in bed together.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Flournoy gestured furiously. “Cut the mike at the pulpit. Keep the camera on them, but cut the sound.” Instantly, the loudspeaker in the control booth went dead.

  “Get the choir singing. Quick.”

  Obeying, the director spoke into his microphone. Onstage, the curtain flicked. Pastor Bob’s eyes moved to the parted curtain. Then Pastor Bob turned to the choir, said something, raised his hand.

  “Come in on Austin’s face,” Flournoy snapped. “His expression, it’s good. Hold on it, with the choir singing.”

  “Right.” On the control console, toggles were flicked, tiny lights came on and off.

  “And Daddy went crazy. He just went crazy. It was like his sermons on hellfire and damnation, everything he ever preached, had all come together. It was at night, I remember, a Thursday night. And he stood before us, and called down the wrath of God on us, and damned us for all eternity. And then he said he was going to take me home, and lay his belt to me, and then lock me in a closet. And then he was going to go to the sheriff, he said, and swear out a complaint against Austin for rape. And on Sunday, from the pulpit, he would do it again, damn Austin for eternity. And he would damn me, too, for a fallen woman.

  “And that’s what he did. He took me home, dragged me home, really, like he did when I was little, and he was going to whip me. He dragged me home, and he made me lean over the dining room table, just like he always used to do, and he whipped me. And between every stroke, he’d call up to God, and recite from the Bible, too—whichever verse fitted. And then he locked me in the hall closet, just like he said he would, and he set off to find the sheriff. I don’t know why he didn’t phone. Maybe that wouldn’t’ve been appropriate, he didn’t think, for something so serious. But, anyhow, I heard him leave the house. And I remember thinking that he’d gone insane, really crazy.”

  “Look at the press section,” Flournoy grated. “They can hear her. They’re hearing every word, every goddamn word.”

  “And then, because I’d cried so much, and hurt so bad, I pushed the shoes out of the way on the floor of the closet, and I went to sleep. And the next thing I knew, I was awake, and trying to understand where I was, and what’d happened, and who was calling to me, calling out my name, like they were scared for me. And then I realized that it was the sheriff that was calling for me. So I hollered back, and they let me out. It was still dark outside—it was in the wee hours. And—” Her voice fell, hushed by the pain of distant recall. Gripping the pulpit with both hands, looking squarely at the nearest of the three cameras, she spoke softly, without inflection. “And they told me that my daddy was dead, that he’d been killed while he was walking to town, along the path that led through the fields. He’d been hit in the head—hit in the head and robbed. And right away, I knew what had happened. So I went to Austin, the first chance that I got, and I told him that I knew Mitchell had killed my daddy. Of course, Austin never let on, never admitted that I was right. But he didn’t deny it, either. He just never answered me, and never talked about it, ever again. And I was pregnant, even though I didn’t know it then, and so Austin marr
ied me. I don’t think he would’ve done it, married me, if it hadn’t been that I was pregnant. Because I could see, just looking in his eyes, that he was already tired of me. But maybe he was thinking about what I’d said, about how my daddy died. Maybe he was worried about what I’d say if he left me.”

  As the choir began to sing, loud in the speaker, the director turned to face Flournoy. “Let’s cut away from Holloway. He sees the red light on the camera, but he doesn’t know the sound’s off. There’re no lights to show whether the sound’s off. He’s getting uptight.”

  “Of course he knows the sound’s off. The fucking choir’s singing,” Flournoy flared.

  “But—”

  “And his expression’s okay. Still okay. He looks like he’s taking her confession, for Christ’s sake.”

  “But—”

  “Give it a few more seconds,” Flournoy ordered. “Then cut to the choir. I’ll tell you when.”

  “So we got married. We left town, and we got married, up in Chicago. And it was just about then that Austin started in radio, and then later in TV. And before any of us really knew what was happening, Austin was famous. There’s five years’ difference between Gloria and Elton. But by the time Elton was born, Austin was famous, or at least getting famous. And I was glad for him, too. Even though we’d grown apart, and never saw much of each other, except sometimes when he’d come to me in the dark, into my bed, I was glad for him. And, of course, all that time, I tried not to think about my daddy, and about how he died. And I tried not to think about Elton, either. Because Elton—” She drew a deep, measured breath and dropped her eyes to the pulpit, to the purse she now held with both hands. Almost inaudibly, still with her eyes lowered, staring at the purse, she said, “Elton was never really right. Even when he was little, just a little child, he was always a stranger. Sometimes, to myself, I’d call him my little stranger, and I’d pray that he’d be all right. I—” She shook her head, tightened her fingers on the purse. “I didn’t think I had a right to ask God for more than that, because of why my father died, how he wouldn’t’ve died except for me, except for what I did when I was sixteen with Austin.