Fear Has a Name: A Novel (The Crittendon Files)

by Creston Mapes

  The needle on the gas gauge showed they were below a quarter of a tank; they would have to stop soon. She had to go to the bathroom and he would have to go too. Could she quietly tell someone in the restroom she’d been kidnapped? Should she try to run? Beg the mercy of anyone near them?

  Would he let her call Jack from a pay phone? If so, perhaps she should not try to escape but ride it out.

  Was he planning to drive all night? Where were they going?

  All Pamela could decipher for certain was that he was set on heading south.

  “Old Jackie boy’s gonna be worried.” Granger took a hit of the cigarette—which was burning almost down to his fat fingers—and breathed the smoke swirling out the window.

  “Yes,” she said. “He is.”

  A large maroon Bible sat on the floor at her feet amid a bunch of used tissues; she wondered what on earth it was doing there.

  As the silent minutes ticked past, Pamela was getting the feeling she needed to revert back to her youth. She needed to get her mind off herself, the fright, the turmoil, and get to a place mentally where she could treat Granger as she had when they were kids—friendly, outgoing, encouraging, nonchalant, fun.

  But there was no way she could do it.

  She’d barely said a word and was stiff as a board, not wanting to move, feeling locked to the seat. Her body was tense to the core and everything in her was burning with fear—every organ from her chest to her stomach to her bowels felt as if it was being wrung out like flaming hot rags.

  Now she had a taste of what her mother had experienced.

  That Scripture came to mind, of Jesus telling his followers, “Don’t worry about what you’ll say—my Spirit will provide the words.”

  She reached for the Bible on the floor. “Do you read this?” she managed, her hands trembling.

  He pitched the butt out the window, rolled it up, and eyed her. “I don’t know what that’s doing here.”

  “It’s not yours?”

  “Huh uh.”

  It was like new. She opened it, turned several pages, and found an inscription in bold, slanted handwriting.

  Dear Mother,

  I know how much the words in here mean to you. I hope you will use and enjoy this for many years to come.

  With love from your son,

  Granger

  “You got this for your mom?” Pamela said.

  Granger looked straight ahead and nodded.

  “If you got it for her, why do you have it?”

  “I didn’t mean to take it,” he said. “It was just in my hands when I left.”

  Pamela racked her brain, trying to come up with the right thing to say. Having heard the shot, asking Granger if his parents were both still alive after all these years, or how they were doing, didn’t seem the smartest approach.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened back there?” She held her breath and stroked the soft, thin pages of the Bible.

  “No matter what anyone says, or what you hear, I’m no killer.” He looked over at her. “Will you believe that?”

  Oh, Lord, they were dead. Or at least one of them was.

  But his eyes seemed innocent, virtually harmless. She searched them for darkness and evil but saw only sorrow and dejection.

  “I’ll be honest,” she said. “I don’t know what to believe. You’ve put my family through hell.”

  “I don’t want to talk about your family!”

  So much for harmless.

  “This is our time,” he snapped. “Probably our last time. And I refuse to waste it talking about your other life.”

  “Let’s talk about you then.” She forced herself to stand up to him, to sound upbeat. “Do you still enjoy music? The trombone?”

  “No.” His small mouth shrank, and he shook his head. “I don’t have it anymore.”

  “Well, where have you lived all these years?” Pamela heard the quiver in her own voice. “What have you been doing for work?”

  He looked at her, silent for a moment. “I’ve lived around Ohio, different spots. Favorite job, I know it doesn’t sound like much, was running a putt-putt course in Geauga Lake. It was basically mine. Cleaned it. Took care of all the repairs. Waited on customers. Real family-oriented joint.”

  “That sounds really good,” she managed, still trying to keep her teeth from chattering. “How long did you do that?”

  “Two and a half years. It was rewarding, because you felt like you were providing something nice for families. That was about the best I’ve ever been.”

  “What happened to that?”

  He sighed. “One night a big group a teenagers showed up. Couple big shots in the crowd—football players. Acting crazy. Messing with the windmill. Cussing around families.” Granger stared at the road in front of him, as if he was reliving it in his mind. “I warned them once. Then it just got worse.” He looked at Pamela and shook his head. “I liked that job.”

  “What happened?”

  “I kicked them out. That’s what the owner told me to do if anyone got unruly, and they were. I mean, they were getting obscene in front of these families …”

  “And?”

  “The guys were waiting for me in the parking lot when I closed. Told me I’d made ’em look bad in front of their girls. They’d been drinking. One of them had a bat. What was I supposed to do?” He pounded the steering wheel. “Let them abuse me like they did in school? Let them bash my skull in? I wrung their scrawny necks is what I did. The ringleader ended up in the hospital with broken ribs. That was the end of the job.”

  They rode in silence.

  Every now and then, Pamela could sense him studying her.

  She would not be afraid.

  She would heave it all at God’s feet and trust.

  This was his will. She was meant to play this part.

  “It helps to talk,” he finally said. “I’ve never had that.”

  “It does help. We all need friends.”

  She wanted to give him hope, suggest he get involved in a church where people would love him and accept him for who he was; but who knew what he had done back at that house? And all the things he’d done to her—including kidnapping.

  Maybe if she could get him to turn himself in, she and Jack could drop the charges—he could start over. But the odds were so against him. His whole life was marred. He would likely never change. That was the hard truth.

  But God could change him. After all, why was she there, riding next to him in that car? Why had he been so obsessed with her all those years?

  Pamela leafed through the Bible and found one of her favorite verses. “‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you,’” she said, feeling an incredible sense of rightness about reading the words aloud. “‘I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.’”

  As they rode on into the waning afternoon, Pamela silently prayed those words and asked that such supernatural peace would permeate Granger’s soul—and hers.

  “We’re stopping up here,” Granger announced.

  He took exit 6, a town called Selby, but Pam wasn’t sure if they were still in Ohio or in West Virginia. Once off the exit, he headed right. Soon he flicked the blinker and the car slowed as it approached a convenience store and gas station. There were a few cars in the parking lot—and a vacant pay phone.

  “I’m gonna let you make one call,” Granger said, “but I’m gonna be right there. All you’re gonna say is, ‘I am okay. The more people who try to find me, the worse danger I’m in.’ That’s it. No more, no less.”

  “Thank you.” Pamela’s insides raced. “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re staying in the car while I fill the tank.” He eased the car up to one of the pumps, put it in park, and turned it off. “After I fill it, we’re pulling up to the store and going in, arms linked, like a nice happy couple. We’re sharing a restroom. We’re getting some food. We’re back on the road.”

  Granger opened his doo
r, and the car rocked as he got out. Then he bent down and looked back in at Pamela. “Don’t say a word to anyone.” He patted his waist beneath his T-shirt where a gun might be tucked. “Not one word.”

  Jack checked his phone again: nothing. A heavy mass of dread sat hard in the pit of his stomach. He had done all he could—phoned Pam’s parents and let DeVry know he hadn’t heard from her and was worried. Beyond that, he was helpless. If he didn’t hear from her soon, he would throw some things in an overnight bag and drive up there. Then, if she did call, he could always turn around and come home.

  As the tense meeting with Wendy and Sherry continued to unfold, Sherry told them that Evan believed Satterfield and the two elders were purposefully attempting to railroad him out of the pulpit, and would stoop to doing anything to achieve their goal. Evan realized Satterfield paid more than a colleague’s natural attention to the senior pastor’s schedule and activities and had even once caught Satterfield snooping through his files.

  “But you know Evan,” Sherry said. “He always gives people the benefit of the doubt.”

  Jack saw Wendy wince at the other woman’s implied knowledge of her husband and was about to redirect the conversation when Sherry spoke again.

  “There was more going on than just some kind of professional jealousy or a personal vendetta. Evan suspected Satterfield and two elders of skimming money from the church.”

  That aligned with what Hank Garbenger had said. Jack rifled through his notes and found the names Hank had given him. “Would those elders be Ryan Seeger and Bruce Trent?”

  Sherry nodded.

  No wonder she’d stopped giving to the church.

  “What I didn’t realize before,” Sherry said, “is that Evan blames himself for allowing those funds to be taken. He was in such a state of depression, he just couldn’t mount any kind of counterattack.” Sherry looked from Wendy to Jack. “You know he’d stopped taking his antidepressants?”

  Jack nodded.

  Wendy deflated and settled back into a silent daze. It was obvious she felt even further wounded by the personal things Evan had confided in Sherry.

  “Evan knows he’s called to a higher account, being the pastor,” Sherry said. “He feels he failed because he let all this happen on his watch, and he was too sick to do anything about it. He had even begun to believe Satterfield was right, that a pastor shouldn’t have to rely on medication.”

  Wendy shook her head and covered her mouth.

  “Evan was distraught,” Sherry continued, “that he had allowed Satterfield and two of the men under him to be led so far astray. He said he could never prosecute his own elders—”

  “The darn elders should know better!” Wendy said. “They have a responsibility to God, not just Evan. This whole thing is sick.” She stood and paced and chewed at a thumbnail.

  There was a long silence.

  “There’s something else,” Sherry said.

  Wendy sat down hard. “What?”

  “Satterfield has a rental house on Lake Hudson, and a boat,” Sherry said. “He’s using church funds to pay for both. He justifies it as a second office, a place to study and pray. He makes it look like he lives at the little house he has here in Trenton City, but he spends most of his time at the lake. Evan thinks he’s going to milk the church for as much as he can and disappear—do it all over again someplace else.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Wendy tilted her head in wonder and peered at Jack.

  “I just came from there,” Jack said, nodding. “Hank Garbenger told me about it.”

  “Evan thought only Seeger and Trent knew about it,” Sherry said.

  “Apparently not,” Wendy said. “How do you know about it?”

  Sherry looked down at her hands and twisted her rings. “Evan found out a few days before he left. In his mind, that was just one more thing that blew up under his nose.”

  “He blames himself again,” Jack said.

  Wendy nodded. “That’s Evan.”

  “I think Satterfield knows Evan is onto him about the money laundering, the lake house, the boat—everything,” Sherry said. “I think he had Evan followed to the cabin and realized the photos of us would give him all the evidence he needed to oust Evan as pastor.”

  It made sense. Satterfield knew Evan was in no condition to put up a fight or press charges against him. In fact, for all Satterfield knew, Evan was indeed going to see his plan through to take his own life.

  And wouldn’t that play right into Satterfield’s scheme …

  Just then Jack received a call from his friend Archer Pierce, the investigative reporter for TV-10 News, and excused himself to talk to him.

  Hank Garbenger had phoned Archer to let him know Jack was working the missing pastor story. Archer was about to broadcast an in-depth piece of his own on Evan’s disappearance and wondered if they could compare notes.

  When Jack told Archer where he was, Archer asked if he could join them, for he had yet to manage an interview with the missing pastor’s wife. He also had some information he thought Jack and Wendy would find of interest and hoped to confirm some things he had discovered. Wendy agreed to the meeting—with the TV coverage, perhaps someone would spot Evan and notify the authorities.

  When Sherry stood to leave, they all meandered out to the driveway. It was then Jack realized he’d forgotten to show the women the photos he’d taken of Satterfield and the other man on the boat.

  When he turned on his camera, shielded the screen from the sun, and directed it toward the ladies, Sherry said, “That’s Ryan Seeger.”

  Wendy nodded slowly. “He’s an elder.”

  “Hank told me he’s one of the ones who counts the offering; is that right?” Jack said.

  Once again Wendy nodded as she crossed her arms and inhaled deeply.

  As Jack moved his car out of Wendy’s driveway so Sherry could back out, Archer pulled up to the curb in front of the house. He was driving the white TV-10 News van, complete with the recognizable yellow-and-blue News 10 logo on the sides and the mast and microwave dish on top.

  With Sherry gone, Jack made introductions between Wendy and Archer, and the three of them sat in white wicker furniture on Wendy’s front porch. Archer was a slight man with brown hair that resembled Bobby Kennedy’s—cropped close on the sides, longer on top. Although Archer could be fiercely intense when questioning people for his stories, Jack knew him to have a wonderful sense of humor and to be thoughtful and strongly committed to his family.

  Wendy offered lemonade, but everyone seemed to want to get down to business.

  Jack started by leafing through his notes, touching on some key main points, and conferring with Archer to see if he had similar information.

  When Archer inquired about the note Evan left behind before he disappeared, Wendy admitted he had done so but gave no further details, and Archer was enough of a class act not to pry. Wendy made it clear that her story now—to Archer, Jack, and all of the media—was going to be a plea for help for her beloved husband who struggled with depression and had run off.

  “We know he was heading south several days ago,” Wendy said, “and we beg the public to be vigilant in helping us find him and get him safely home.”

  “I would like to have you say that on the air,” Archer said. “After we’re finished here, we can tape a brief interview and you can say what you want, make an appeal. I can assure you, a lot of people will be watching.”

  Wendy agreed.

  Jack gave an inward sigh of relief that Archer seemed to have found nothing about Sherry Pendergrass.

  Then the newsman spoke again. “So … do you think it possible anyone else was involved in your husband’s disappearance?”

  Wendy’s eyes immediately shifted to Jack.

  “Why do you ask?” Jack said.

  Jack and Wendy looked at each other and waited.

  Archer combed his thick hair with his fingers repeatedly, then looked at Wendy. “I keep stumbling over this Andrew Satter
field.”

  Wendy cleared her throat. “Go on.”

  “Well, in addition to the accusations I’ve heard about his suspicious activities at the church,” Archer said, “I just found it so screwy that he went public about Evan taking meds with him and leaving behind what he blatantly called a suicide note. I would have thought they would have kept that under wraps as long as possible.”

  “Tell me about it,” Wendy murmured.

  “So I did some research on this guy,” Archer said. “Did you know Satterfield was let go from his last job at a church in Denver?”

  Jack looked at Wendy, who sat frozen, eyes locked on Archer.

  Archer continued. “What I came up with via email and a few phone calls was that they let him go for reasons”—Archer made quote marks with his fingers—“in the best interest of the church.”

  “I hadn’t heard that one yet,” Jack said.

  “Sounds like he was on a power trip–greed trip type thing,” Archer said. “They actually caught him embezzling funds. I have reason to believe the same thing might be going on at Evan’s church. I’m not sure if Satterfield is after Evan’s job, or if he wants to skim as much money as he can and skip town.”

  “Did they file charges against him in Denver?” Jack said.

  “Nope.” Archer leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “Didn’t want the negative publicity. Ran him out of town on a rail instead.”

  31

  Something startled Evan. What? Rapping at the window just above his head. He remained still, blinking, stirring himself, getting his bearings. He’d slept, but had no idea how long. He was in the backseat of his car somewhere in North Carolina, waiting for a bus to take him to Florida. The knock came again, and he was wide awake but stayed still. He felt someone looking down in at him.

  Police?

  His gun was in the duffel on the floor.

  The sun had shifted. It was close to evening.

  He was sickened at the prospect of being taken in, of facing Wendy, the boys, the people back home. If he remained still and it wasn’t the police, maybe whoever it was would move on.

  Not if it was a library employee—they might call the police.