Through the Storm

by Vanessa Miller

  ***

  When Iona first asked Isaac to go back into his past, he hadn’t wanted to do it. There was too much hurt, too much destruction in his past. But when the Lord gently reminded him that he had left something undone in his past, Isaac eagerly excavated the crevices of his mind, trying to dig up the thing he’d left undone. And then he’d found it. And right now he stood in his backyard with his hands in his pockets, thinking about Leonard Michael Styles. His old friend’s body had never been discovered. To this day, Isaac still didn’t know what happened to Leonard’s body.

  But since Isaac knew that Leonard would never come home again, he had gone to see Clara right after he’d killed his friend. Leny Jr. and Clara’s daughter sat in the living room watching cartoons when Isaac walked in. Clara sat down on the couch and looked up at Isaac.

  “Have you heard anything from Leonard?” Isaac asked her.

  Clara didn’t respond, she just stared at him.

  Isaac pulled a bundle of money out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Clara. “Take this for you and the kids. I’ll make sure you get more as you need it,” Isaac assured her.

  Clara didn’t reach for the money. She continued to stare through Isaac as she told him, “I don’t want anything from you.”

  Isaac started to protest, to tell her that she needed this money to take care of her children, but then he saw what had been in her eyes since he walked into her house; A knowing. Her eyes told him that she knew what he’d done. Isaac would bet his life on the fact that Clara knew that Leonard had been robbing Isaac’s dope houses, and since Leonard had turned up missing for the past three weeks, she’d rightly deduced that Isaac did something about it. At the time, he’d felt justified in putting a bullet in Leonard. Now, as he looked at Clara, saw the grief and hatred in her eyes he couldn’t justify his actions; guilt assaulted the core of his being and he turned to walk away.

  As Isaac opened the door to leave, Clara told her children, “Wave bye-bye to your father’s best friend. We won’t be seeing him ever again.”

  Isaac knew without a doubt that Clara had spoken prophetically. He would never again try to contact her. The guilt in his heart wouldn’t allow it. He had promised Leonard that he would take care of his son, but in the end, he’d turned his back on his best friend’s family. Until today, Isaac had no idea what had become of Clara and her children, but he would soon know the full truth of what his neglect had done to his old friend’s family. Johnny was running their names through the police database to see where they were now.

  Isaac lowered his head and dug his hands deeper in his pockets. Keith stood in the backyard with Isaac as they both held onto old memories. “I hated Leonard for so many years,” Keith admitted.

  Isaac looked to his life long friend. “I knew you were angry with him, so was I, but I didn’t think you hated him.”

  “I blamed him for my mother’s death. If he hadn’t put me on the spot about my mother stealing drugs from us, I wouldn’t have put a stop to it, and maybe she wouldn’t have died like that.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Keith.”

  Keith raised his hands. “Yeah, I know. But she was my mother. And I was selling the very dope she died trying to get. It just doesn’t seem right now – looking back.”

  “Nothing we did back in the day was right. But we were a product of our environment,” Isaac told his friend.

  “Yeah,” Keith agreed. “The best thing we can do now is raise our children in a different environment and pray that they never run into a Spoony or Marko or any of the rest of them guys.”

  “People think they can get in the game, make a little money and then walk out with their souls intact. But it never happens.” He extended his arms, pointing out toward the city. “How many people were taken away from this world because of drugs or hustling? Look at you and me. We may have survived the game, but we still got wounded.”

  Keith put his arm around Isaac’s shoulder as they turned and headed back into the house. Their movements were slower than when they were young punks making their way in life. They were more cautious, wiser, and a great deal more humbled.

  “Yeah old friend, we certainly did get wounded,” Keith agreed.

  Chapter 29

  “Open up this door, JL.” Iona screamed as she pounded on the door. “You better get yourself to this door within five seconds or I’m going to let all your neighbors know what you’ve been up to.”

  The front door swung open and JL stood in front of Iona in a multi-colored bathrobe, boxers, a wife beater and knee high white socks. “What are you out here screaming about?” he demanded.

  Iona glared at him. “Did you murder those three men?”

  “What?”

  She pushed him out of her way and stepped into his house and said, “Don’t play innocent, JL. You wanted my father in jail, so when your two stoolies stopped rolling over for you, you got desperate and started killing people.”

  JL laughed. “That’s very entertaining, Iona. Did you make that up all on your own?”

  Iona had indeed given her life back to God, but she was still daddy’s little girl. She wasn’t much of a talker when it came to situations like this. She much preferred to get the violence started and may the best rumbler win. She would put that on her prayer list tomorrow; today, she lifted her arm and struck JL, then kicked up her legs, swung them around and connected with his gut. JL fell backward and Iona kicked him one more time. The kick sent him reeling back toward the floor.

  “What’s wrong with you?” JL screamed as Iona pulled a gun out of her pocket while standing over him.

  “I don’t like you,” Iona said as she pointed the gun at him.

  “Wait! Wait!” JL put his hands over his face. “Okay, what do you want? Just tell me?”

  Yeah, her men always aimed to please – after she slapped them around a bit. “Did you kill those men and try to frame my father?”

  “No! I’m a prosecutor. I put killers in prison,” JL screamed at her.

  “Then why are you coming after my father?”

  “Because he’s a murderer,” JL spat the words at her.

  “You’ve got the wrong man,” Iona told him.

  “Go ask him.”

  Iona stared at JL in the same way she looked at her clients when trying to determine guilt or innocence. At that moment, Iona knew that JL really did believe her father was a murderer. But that didn’t explain his behavior before the murders occurred. “Explain yourself,” Iona told him.

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Why did you force Diana to chase after Donavan and why did you encourage Johnny to spy on my father.”

  “Okay, maybe I wanted to catch him doing something wrong. But I wasn’t going to plant anything on him.”

  Iona hit JL in the head with the butt of the gun. She leaned in close to him. “Let me explain something to you. If you think my father is a murderer, you better know that I’m every bit daddy’s little girl and I will blow you away before I let you harm him. Now tell me why you’re doing this to my father.”

  JL’s eyes bugged out as he looked into Iona’s cold dark eyes. He started to sweat and then raised his hand. “I’ll tell you – just move that gun away from me.”

  Iona took two steps back and lowered the gun. “Speak.”

  JL sat up and scooted against the wall while holding his head. “Your father destroyed my mother.”

  Iona opened her mouth ready to denounce JL for the liar he was, but then she remembered that many years ago, before her mother married Keith, Cynda had claimed that Isaac had ruined her life also.

  “If my father did anything to your mother, it was over thirty years ago. Why are you after the man now, when he is nothing like the man he once was?”

  “People don’t change,” JL assured her.

  “That absurd statement proves that you don’t know my father at all.” She shoved the gun back in her pocket and headed for the door as she said, “I’m going to speak with Judge Landis tomor
row and have you removed from prosecuting my father’s case, and if you say anything about my visit, I’ll report you to the bar association for what you did to Diana.”

  “You’re crazy! You’re not going to get away with this.”

  “Shut up, JL. Just be glad I didn’t shoot you,” she said as she walked out the door.

  ***

  “I got that information you asked me to check on, Detective.”

  “Hold on a second. Let me pull over,” Johnny said while holding his cell phone to his ear. He pulled into the Churches Chicken parking lot on Gettysburg and pulled out a note pad and pen from his glove compartment. After Iona left him on the ground, Johnny was too humiliated to go back into the church, so he called the precinct and asked Fred, the computer specialist, to run Clara’s and Leny’s names through their database as Isaac had asked him to do. Fred was always quick, so Johnny knew he wouldn’t have long to wait before knowing something. “Okay, Fred. I’m ready. What did you find out?”

  “Let’s start with the woman, Clara Jones,” Fred said. “She died in prison nineteen years ago. And the son, Leonard Michael Jones, died in a failed bank robbery five years ago.”

  If both of them are dead, then who is stalking Pastor Walker? Was Pastor Walker even thinking about this the right way? Maybe there was someone else out there with an ax to grind – there had to be.

  “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, Fred. I just wish you had some better news.”

  Johnny closed his flip phone and left his parking spot to get back onto Gettysburg. Heading north, he passed the street his father’s church was on. Then he thought about Iona saying that he didn’t know how to love and got angry. Maybe he’d know how to treat a woman right if his father had treated his mother the way she deserved. Even if the man didn’t want anything to do with the woman he’d impregnated, how could he so easily forget that he had a son? Johnny turned his car around and drove to his father’s church. He was tired of being on the outside looking in. So this time he got out of his car and sauntered up the walkway. He stood in front, looking at the massive wood double doors. When he was a child, those doors had been so intimidating and heavy that he couldn’t open them. His mother always had to open it for him.

  But Johnny was a man now, capable of opening his own doors and solving his own problems. He pulled the door open and headed for his father’s office. Service had ended more than an hour ago, but the old man always stayed long after everyone else had gone. Lord only knows what he was doing. Maybe he was trying to make another baby that he wouldn’t do a thing for.

  Johnny knocked on the office door and heard, “Come in.”

  He opened the door. His father was standing in front of the big picture window in his office. It faced the parking lot. He was looking down as if in a trance. He didn’t turn around to see who had walked into his office. All he said was, “Hello, Son.”

  ***

  Iona got back in her car, put the gun into her glove compartment and headed back to her father’s house. Her mind was racing trying to figure out what was going on. Her father was a man after God’s own heart just like King David had been. But just as King David’s life had been turned upside down by sins he committed earlier in life, so too was Isaac Walker’s.

  Iona was trying to put everything together, but nothing was making sense. What did she know? Her father had done something to JL’s mother, and JL wanted him to pay for it, but he said he wasn’t willing to frame Isaac. He preferred to wait until he had something on him, because JL didn’t believe that people could change.

  If JL was telling the truth, there had to be someone else out there with an ax to grind over something Isaac Walker had done to them. Iona was convinced that whatever it was, it was a past offense. Since she came to stay with Isaac and Nina, the only Isaac Iona had ever known was the one who lived to minister and help bring wayward souls to the kingdom.

  Half way home, Iona checked her voice mail. Vivian and Neil had left messages. Neil’s message said that he hadn’t located Larry Harris yet, but he knew who had bailed Larry out of jail a couple weeks ago. Iona deleted Vivian’s message before listening to it so she could hurry up and call Neil back.

  She tried Neil three times and didn’t get an answer. Iona left him a message and then dialed Vivian. She hadn’t talked to Vivian since she left town last week and was feeling a little guilty about not checking on her. She dialed Vivian and when she answered Iona asked, “Hey girl, how are you doing?”

  “I’m okay. I was calling to check on your mom. How is she doing?” Vivian asked.

  “It was touch and go there for a minute, but she’s actually on the road to recovery now. God is good.”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  “Hey,” Iona said. “I’m only going to be in town tonight, I’m heading back out tomorrow so why don’t you come hang out with me at my dad’s house.”

  “I really don’t feel like going anywhere tonight. I just moved back into my apartment, but I’m still not comfortable here.”

  “Aw hon, I hate to hear that.” Iona had a thought. “Why don’t I come hang out with you for a little while?”

  Chapter 30

  Johnny closed the door and walked into Bishop Thomas Tewiliger’s office. It wasn’t a huge space; just enough room for a desk, chair, credenza and file cabinet. There was no couch or fridge that held bottles of water and juice for guest. Just this small room with a man standing at the window, looking down toward the parking lot.

  “Have a seat, Son,” Bishop Tewiliger told him.

  There was that word again, ‘son’. He’d never heard those words when he was a child and needed so desperately to have this man call him son. It would have been nice if his father had stood in his pulpit and announced to the congregation, “I have a son and he attends this church.” Bishop Tewiliger had seven whole years to announce to the congregation that his son was a member of his church. And after his mother took her life, Johnny would have been so grateful if his father would have come to the hearing the day he was made a ward of the court and announced, “He is my son, I’ll take him home.” But he hadn’t been a son to Tewiliger then and he certainly wasn’t going to stand for the man calling him son now.

  “My name is Johnny,” he said, then put his hand on the chair in front of his father’s desk, refusing to sit like an obedient dog. “Call me Johnny.”

  Still looking out the window, Tewiliger said, “I’ve watched you from this window on so many occasions. You looked so lost as you sat out there in your car just staring at this building. I wanted to go to you, hug you and make amends for what I did to you and your mother.”

  Johnny felt a cold wetness stream down his face. He wiped the unwanted tears away as he said, “I came in here today to let you know that I discovered that I am no better than you. A woman loved me, and I deceived her too. All my life I blamed you for what happened to my mother. I said that I would never be like you, but now I see that you and I are cut from the same cloth. We don’t deserve to be loved by a dog, let alone a good woman.”

  Tewiliger turned to face Johnny. His eyes were hollow and full of pain as if he had paid a lifetime for the sins he’d committed. “If you’ve wrong some woman, please go to her, Son. Make it right. If something happens to her, you won’t be able to live with yourself.”

  “Looks like you’re doing okay.”

  “No, Son. You don’t want to end up like me. Even though I rejected you and your mother, I still lost my wife, and I’m about to lose this church. The deacons are having a board meeting tomorrow to have me thrown out.”

  Johnny wished he could muster enough sympathy to feel sorry for his father, but he didn’t have it in him, not just yet. He turned away from Tewiliger hoping that this meeting had been enough and that he would never need to see this man again in life. That’s when he noticed the eight by eleven inch framed photo on Tewiliger’s credenza. Actually, there were several photos on the credenza, but the one that caught his eye was of a woman that
he was acquainted with. He pointed at the picture and asked, “How do you know her?”

  Tewiliger walked over to the credenza and picked up the frame. There was a sad expression on his face as he said, “She’s my wife’s niece. She used to attend church here.”

  “I didn’t think she was into spirituality.”

  “She tried,” Tewiliger said, “But after her mother and brother died, she had so much hatred in her heart that she couldn’t stay with the Lord.”

  In a way, Johnny could understand that. When his mother died and his father didn’t come for him, he no longer wanted anything to do with God either. Then he met Pastor Isaac Walker. Thinking of Pastor Walker got his mind back on the right track. He asked Tewiliger, “Did you say that her mother and brother are dead?”

  Tewiliger nodded.

  “Do you know how they died?” Johnny asked.

  “Her mother had a drug problem, so she was in and out of prison because of it. The last time she went to prison, she died in a riot. Her brother died trying to burglarize a home.”

  Johnny opened the office door and started walking out of the church without saying another word to his father. He opened his flip phone and called Isaac.

  Isaac answered on the first ring and said, “Hey Johnny, did you find out where Leny Jr. is?”

  “Where are you, sir?” Johnny asked.

  “I’m at home,” Isaac answered then asked again, “Did you find out anything about Leny?”

  “There’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’m just going to come right out with it.” Johnny took a deep breath before saying, “Leny got killed in a failed burglary attempt several years ago.”

  Isaac was silent for a moment then he said, “I should have stayed in contact with him. I just deserted the boy.”

  “Look, Pastor Walker, I’ve seen kids that grew up in the best of homes and still ended up in the prison system. Leny made his choices. You had nothing to do with them.”