The Psalmist

by James Lilliefors

  Chapter 2

  MINUTES AFTER THE door to the church offices closed, Aggie Collins came in carrying a fresh cup of coffee for Luke in both hands. She swapped the new cup with the old, straightening his stapler and turning a page on his desk calendar.

  “Thank you, Ag.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Luke was making notes for his Sunday sermon—­starting again from scratch, exploring the idea that evil can find us anywhere, even in a church sanctuary; and when it does, how should we respond?—­when he realized that Aggie was standing in the doorway with her steno pad.

  “Come on in, if you’d like, Ag.”

  “Oh, thank you.” She sighed and then quickly took a seat. “I just thought you’d like to go over your telephone messages.”

  “Sure.” Luke closed his notebook.

  “Was it a good meeting with Miss Hunter?”

  He nodded, and then answered her real questions—­What did she say? and, Do they know anything? Despite her proper appearance and presentation, Aggie was an avid and accomplished gossip.

  “She didn’t really say much,” he said. “They don’t know a lot at this point. No good leads yet.”

  “Mmm hmm.” She lifted her chin. Aggie had been model-­beautiful as a young woman, and now habitually raised a hand to cover her neck or jutted her chin at odd intervals, as if to hide the physical changes age had sculpted onto her face. She had been a full-­time volunteer at the church for years before Luke hired her for a paid position.

  What do they know? her silence seemed to ask.

  “The perpetrator probably parked in front of the church, they’re thinking,” Luke explained. “He walked around to the parlor and entered through a window, walked back to the church entrance and opened the front door.”

  “Oh. And carried her in?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Hmm.” She smoothed her skirt under her and then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I know I shouldn’t say this—­but she seems awful young to be heading up the investigation.”

  “Yes, although I wouldn’t let appearances fool you. She’s quite sharp, actually.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. I just know the sheriff has some issues with her.”

  “Well,” Luke said. “His real issue should be with the county, I would think. They’re the ones who stripped him of his power.”

  Aggie nodded once. “I hear it’s more than just that, though.”

  Luke tried to make his face blank, hoping the topic would go away.

  “I was told he made a very inappropriate comment to her,” Aggie said. “This was a ­couple of months ago. I can’t repeat what it was.”

  “No, please don’t.”

  “But she supposedly came right back and cut him off at the knees.” Her face and ears reddened as his eyes met hers. “Or at least that’s how it was described to me. Supposedly, he hasn’t spoken to her since.”

  “Well, I imagine he’ll have to now,” Luke said. “Since she’s heading the investigation.”

  Aggie responded by straightening her posture even more, which he hadn’t thought possible. He did the opposite; he slumped back in his chair, getting comfortable, trying to imagine what Amy Hunter could have said to the sheriff that would have “cut him off at the knees.”

  “But anyway.” Luke glanced at his sermon notebook. “Enough whisperings.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” Aggie cleared her throat. Her veneer of efficiency had hardened since her husband’s death some four years ago. Nearly everyone in Tidewater County knew he’d taken his life, but it was a subject no one mentioned. “You had eleven telephonic messages while you were in conference with Miss Hunter.”

  “Okay.”

  She went through them in order. Seven of the calls were congregation members, sending thoughts and prayers. Three were media.

  “The television reporter from Channel 14 wanted to interview you on-­camera this morning. Knowing how you feel about that, I informed him that you had several meetings and unfortunately would be unable to participate.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Also, the Tidewater Times called again. The reporter Nancy Bunting asked if you could comment on what the deceased woman looked like. Then the other reporter, Sandy Bunting, called and asked the same thing.”

  The local paper, the Tidewater Times, had been owned for several generations by the Bunting family. Nearly all of the staff members were Buntings or married to a Bunting.

  “Sandy Bunting said she had heard reports the woman was unclothed at the time you discovered her.”

  “Reports?”

  “Yes. I referred her to the police.”

  “Good, thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” Aggie said. “I know you don’t like being bothered by the media.”

  Luke smiled; he didn’t mind talking to the media, but he often preferred not to talk on the record. Someday, he’d have to tell Aggie about that.

  “And finally, Mr. Frank Nayak, Sr. called, from the Nayak Company? He just said to tell you that he thought you and he ought to have a chat.”

  “Really.” Luke chuckled. “Since when?”

  Agnes frowned at her notes. “Since nine forty-­three, I guess. That was when he called.”

  He smiled. Sometimes, Aggie took his questions too literally.

  “You know what, Ag?” he said. “I’ll return the calls later. I think right now I’m going to go out and try to do something worthwhile with my day. How does that sound?”

  “Oh,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “That sounds just fine.”

  JACKSON PYNNE TOOK a long drink of carry-­out coffee, then studied the headline on his screen, as if somehow it might have changed over the past forty-­five seconds:

  woman’s body found in church.

  Pynne gazed up at the traffic. He took another sip and looked again. Finally, he clicked the link.

  His thoughts ricocheted wildly as he read and reread the brief news account that appeared.

  Police are asking for the public’s help to identify a woman whose body was found yesterday morning at Tidewater Methodist Church, 7 Bayfront Drive.

  The Sheriff’s Department reports that the church’s head pastor discovered the woman when he arrived at work shortly after 7:30 A.M. The woman was reportedly seated in a pew inside the church sanctuary and looked at first to be praying. Police believe she had been dead for several hours.

  Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Kirsten Sparks described the woman as Caucasian, between 30 and 40 years of age, with dark brown hair, brown eyes, 5’ 6” inches tall, weighing 115 pounds. The woman had a small tattoo of a serpent on her left ankle.

  Officials did not release the cause of death and would not speculate on why she was in the church. Sheriff Clay Calvert declined to discuss specific details of the case but said, “This is an active investigation and we’re looking at several leads.” Pastor Luke Bowers, who discovered the woman, was unavailable for comment.

  The case is being investigated by the county’s new Homicide Task Force, which includes members of the Sheriff’s Department, Tidewater Police Department, and Maryland State Police. The task force is under the direction of State Police Sgt. Amy Hunter.

  Hunter yesterday referred all media inquiries to Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Kirsten Sparks.

  Each time Pynne read the story, he got stuck in the same place: “Caucasian”

  But, of course, that might’ve just been a mistake.

  He looked out at the highway and reached for his pack of Chesterfields. Either way, he knew that he had to go back. He could think of no other option at this point. He tapped out a cigarette and pushed it between his lips, struck a match and inhaled. And then, just briefly, he felt better.

  Chapter 3

  THE EBB TIDE Inn had the faded look of an ear
lier time. Once, Amy Hunter imagined, it had been an inviting oasis beside the highway. Twelve clean rooms, affordable family rates, chairs beside each door, a small aqua-­colored swimming pool. Picnic table out back, a shady oak tree, horseshoe court, grills, hammock. A short drive downhill to a hard sand beach and a boat launch.

  But independent highway motels, and the type of family vacations that supported them, had become relics of an earlier time. And lazy, whimsical names like Ebb Tide had been abandoned in the rush for ser­vice and connectivity.

  Robby Fallow, too, seemed left over from another era—­a small, gritty man with brooding features who lived alone in a small wood-­frame cabin at the highway end of the motel. Anytime she passed the place at night, Hunter would see the light of his television flickering on the walls. Fallow worked the grounds during the day, although the motel’s appearance never seemed to improve; its name was fitting, Hunter thought, as she pulled into the entrance drive—­the tide going out, not coming in.

  She’d been thinking about Pastor Bowers on the drive over. Hunter had a good feeling about him. She liked the matter-­of-­fact way he’d told her about the shoe prints—­heavier coming in than going out. And she liked the knowing, slightly wry look in his eyes. He was someone who might be able to help her. Hunter was a meticulous but quirky investigator; at times she sought counsel from unlikely allies. Pastor Bowers seemed like he might be one of those. It was just a feeling she had. In theory, the county’s new Homicide Task Force, which she headed, was a seasoned team with a broad set of skills and experiences. But in fact it was two teams, the old guard and the new; the sheriff was captain of one side, Hunter of the other. Wendell Stamps, the large, even-­tempered state’s attorney, although always at pains to appear neutral, was clearly on the sheriff’s side. It would make for some interesting problems.

  Robby Fallow was bent over the engine of a huge Oldsmobile 88 at a clearing among the birch trees, wearing an old knit watch cap, layers of flannel, oil-­stained jeans. He’d inherited the motel from his father in the early nineties when it was still frequented by families. The clientele now were mostly drifters or else freelance watermen, working a few weeks during the winter oyster season or the summer blue crab season. Developers had tried for years to buy the property from Fallow, in particular the Nayak family, the largest landowners in Tidewater County. But Robby Fallow wouldn’t even talk with them. The motel—­never an “inn,” despite its name—­was Fallow’s pride, and his source of identity; it was all he had, really.

  Fallow’s son, the only other permanent resident at the Ebb Tide, lived on the wooded end, the last of the motel rooms. He worked there tending the property, and was known to have an affinity for marijuana. In summer, when highway traffic was heavy, Junior Fallow, as he was called, sometimes sat for hours in a lawn chair beside the highway, waving at passing motorists. Some travelers referred to him as the “Waving Man.” Junior’s mother had died years earlier, in an alcohol-­related drowning in the motel pool.

  Hunter had spoken with both Fallows during a cold case investigation she was assigned over the winter, but without much success. The victim was a twenty-­four-­year-­old unemployed woman named Andrea Dressler, who’d stayed at the motel with her boyfriend thirteen days before she was found in a Delaware cornfield, strangled to death. For weeks the Sheriff’s Department had treated Junior Fallow as the primary suspect. Later they named the boyfriend a “person of interest.” But they never collected enough evidence to bring charges. Months after the sheriff had given up on the case, Hunter learned that a Delaware middle school custodian had been stalking the woman off and on for weeks. DNA tests eventually proved that he had raped and killed her.

  Robby walked out to greet her now, as if he didn’t want her getting too close to his business.

  “Help you?”

  “Good morning, Mr. Fallow. Amy Hunter. How are you today?”

  “We’re all closed up right now, ma’am,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag that seemed greasier than his hands.

  “Yes, I’m aware of that.” Hunter held out her ID. He nodded, but didn’t look. “I wonder if I could ask you a few questions?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, cordially. “Not today.”

  “Not today.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Can I ask why not?”

  “Well, that would be a question, ma’am,” he said. An unexpected twinkle came into his small, sunken eyes. “Any questions, you’d have to talk to my attorney.”

  “Okay.”

  Hunter looked away. The door to a rusty shed was open in the birch woods behind his car. It was like peeking at another time: a 1960s Evinrude on a block, a ­couple of Johnson Sea Horse outboards, banged-­up water skis, discolored yellow vinyl tow ropes.

  “So you know why I’m here?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I’m investigating the death of a woman who was found in the Methodist church yesterday morning. Some ­people have said you may know something about it.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You spoke with the sheriff about it, though, didn’t you?”

  He looked down, rubbing his hands more earnestly in the rag.

  “I’m the lead investigator in the case, sir,” she said. “I have no reason to think you were involved. I’d just like to eliminate you as a suspect. Which we can do very quickly.”

  “Uh-­huh,” he said. “Any questions, you’d need to talk to my attorney.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that.”

  Hunter took a breath and looked down the highway at an uprooted stretch of forest and the sign: FUTURE HOME OF WAL-­MART.

  “Okay. And who is your attorney?”

  “Mr. Louis Gunther.”

  “Okay.” Gunther was a Tidewater native who represented mostly DWI and “personal injury” cases. He was well-­known locally for his fifteen-­second summertime TV commercials. “If you should change your mind, please give me a call,” she said.

  Hunter took a business card from a pocket of her army jacket and held it out, but Robby Fallow made no motion to take it.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

  He turned and walked back toward the Oldsmobile.

  Hunter put the card away and returned to her car. She knew that she was being played, but not by Robby Fallow. She wondered what the sheriff might’ve said to Fallow that would have spooked him this way.

  Chapter 4

  ALL MORNING THE dream that had awakened Luke overnight kept replaying in his head, its details so vivid that he seemed to be remembering an actual event.

  He enters the church sanctuary through the choir door, exactly as he had done on Tuesday morning. He watches the play of stained-­glass light across the pews and eventually notices a woman, seated in the next-­to-­last row, just as on Tuesday. As he approaches, she lifts her head and seems to recognize him. Her expression changes several times before he reaches her—­surprise, pleasure, sadness, and finally several degrees of pain.

  The woman tries to stand but can’t, her eyes indicating that her legs are broken. Luke nods, but urges her to try again anyway. On her second attempt she manages to hoist herself up unsteadily and begins to walk toward him, her legs jerking and buckling. For just a moment she stops and her eyes seem very happy; her arms begin to flap and Luke wonders if she’s trying to dance. Then she loses her balance and he rushes forward to steady her. They hold each other, her face braced in his hands. Her skin is damp, as if she’s just come in from a drizzle. When he pulls his hands away, he sees that pieces of her are sticking to him.

  That was when he woke and saw Charlotte sleeping beside him. He looked past her at the clock on the bed-­stand: 3:17. He closed his eyes and listened for a while to the deep breathing of Charlotte and Sneakers, in alternating rhythms, as if they were nocturnal jazz musicians riffing off of one another other as they slept.

&nb
sp; SOME RUMORS TAKE their time; in Tidewater most travel quickly, especially during the off-­season. Only the sparest details about the “church killing”—­as ­people were calling it—­made the Tidewater Times or the local TV news. But several versions of what had happened were circulating through the gathering spots on Main Street. As ­people came and went, they exchanged the currencies of what they had “heard”: that the victim, an Asian woman, was most likely a high-­priced escort, possibly from Baltimore, who’d advertised her ser­vices on Craigslist; that the sheriff and homicide detectives had “been out to talk with Robby” two or three times already; and that the pastor “knows something.” This last rumor, based on nothing, had caused ­people to look at Luke a little funny ever since Tuesday morning.

  Tidewater County was a sprawling, largely undeveloped place with three thriving industries—­fishing, farming, and tourism—­and two incorporated towns—­Tidewater and the simply named, more traditional old town of Bay. In summer, tourists packed the quaint streets of Tidewater, once a fishing village, now an enclave of Victorian-­style homes, souvenir and curiosity shops, dockside crab and oyster restaurants, and seafood packing plants.

  Luke’s parents first brought him to Tidewater as an impressionable eight-­year-­old, and he had been instantly charmed: the breezy bay views and seafood smells, the wood-­planked waterfront, the working harbor, and, especially, the generosity and fetching backwoods accents of the locals—­which he’d later determined were a blend of Old South and English brogue. He and his parents had taken a skipjack ride into the windy Chesapeake that morning, then wandered Main Street much of the afternoon, exploring the shops and sampling the seafood. Finally they’d discovered the commercial docks, where crabs and oysters were picked and packed, and watched as a crew unloaded fifteen bushels of oysters onto giant stainless-­steel pans.

  Luke’s parents were travelers who’d nurtured in him a capacity for wonder and a healthy sense of curiosity. When he was a boy, they’d taken him to remarkable places—­Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Niagara Falls, Mt. Rushmore—­as if wanting to impress upon him how large and enchanting the country really was. As an adolescent, though, he often turned his curiosity inward, and pondered his own heritage.