The Psalmist

by James Lilliefors

  “I’m fine.”

  He walked to the wall cabinet that functioned as a bar and slowly fixed himself a scotch and ice. Their living room resembled an offbeat museum—­antique French chairs roped off along one wall, classical busts on the glass-­fronted bookshelf and pedestal table, original paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Damien Hirst. Charlotte’s mother was the art collector. Lowell Carrington had once conspiratorially confessed to Luke that he considered her collection “high-­priced yard-­sale-­quality art,” adding that he nevertheless “respected its value” as an investment.

  “You know, we have a rental place down in Turks and Caicos,” he said, his tone faux casual. “It’s going to come available in late April for a ­couple of weeks. South Caicos, directly on the water. Lovely place, really. I haven’t said anything yet to Sharley, but, I mean, it’ll just be sitting there. Jude and I aren’t able to go this year. She has museum business and I’m in the middle of this tax deal.”

  “Ah,” Luke said.

  “So, I mean, it’d be a good opportunity, just the two of you, to get away.”

  “Well, that’s very generous,” Luke said. He pulled out his cell phone and checked, just to make sure he hadn’t missed a call. “Of course, April tends to be a very busy time at the church. Lent, Easter.”

  Lowell’s expression hardened. He seemed to have the idea that Luke and Charlotte just needed a little time alone to discuss their future, and then they’d be able to make the necessary decisions and changes. He was well aware of a pastor’s salary and had offered more than once to help Luke switch his calling to real estate.

  “Well, we’ll certainly consider it,” he said cheerily.

  “You have an assistant pastor, I imagine, who can take care of the ser­vice and things like that?”

  “Yes, although I already had her take over for me for a ­couple of weeks in the fall. When we went on the missionary trip.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes, the assistant pastor is a woman. Melissa Walker.”

  He smiled privately. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yes, in fact she took over when I took the trip to Kenya last fall.”

  “Oh, yes.” He grimaced slightly, as if the taste of his drink wasn’t quite right. Luke suspected it was his mention of “missionary” work in Africa. The Carringtons’ idea of charity was tithing. Going into the streets and helping ­people in a troubled nation seemed show-­offy.

  “So what in God’s name happened out there at your church, anyway?” he asked, lowering his voice as if broaching a forbidden subject. “Was it homicide?”

  “It’s under investigation. I can’t really say much about it.”

  A peculiar sound came from his throat. “We’re family here, Luke.”

  “No, what I mean is, I can’t tell you much because I don’t know much.”

  “Oh, I see.” Lowell sipped his drink. “Sharley tells me they’ve got some young kid running the investigation.”

  “No.” Luke smiled, at Charlotte’s mischief. “She’s in her thirties, I think. Trained with the FBI. Head of the state police homicide unit for the region. Has two master’s degrees.”

  “Well. You and I both know what that and sixty-­five cents’ll buy you nowadays.”

  He winked and went into his laugh, an out-­of-­character, bawdy nasal guffaw.

  The women came in with their drinks then.

  “What’s so funny?” Judy Carrington showed her crooked, surprised smile. She often seemed self-­consciously on the other side of things.

  “We were just having a debate over the future of the Tea Party,” Luke explained.

  Judy stared at him for a moment before breaking into a smile. “You were not.”

  Luke smiled. She didn’t get him, but at least she recognized when he was kidding.

  “Did you tell him about our place down in Caicos, dear?”

  “I just did.”

  Charlotte looked at Luke and rolled her eyes.

  THE DINNER PHASE began with a prayer. Luke asked for blessings for the food and their family and offered thanks for their health and good fortune. The Carringtons bowed their heads, both with uneasy looks on their faces, and half whispered “Amen” before reaching for their forks and knives.

  Dinner conversation centered on the Carringtons’ travels and on Judy’s growing art acquisitions. For a time Lowell tried to talk about his investment properties, but no one carried the other side of the conversation except Luke. Judy smiled strangely as Luke complimented her on the meal. She was a sweet woman but difficult to talk with, particularly after she’d had several drinks.

  During dessert a loud, guttural sound startled everyone. Charlotte’s mother looked at Luke as if he had slapped her. The sound resembled the bark of a sea lion at first, Luke thought; then it morphed into what seemed to be random notes on a French horn, then it sounded as if the sea lion and the horn were mating.

  “What on earth?” Judy Carrington said.

  “Oh,” Charlotte said.

  “Our son,” said Luke, pushing back his chair.

  The cries came again, louder and even more bizarre.

  “Jesus,” said Lowell Carrington.

  “He just wants to join the fun,” Luke said. “Nothing another chewy won’t fix. Excuse me. Thank you, Judy, for a wonderful meal.”

  Luke took Sneakers for a short walk in the small yard behind the Carringtons’ house, which was wet with melted snow. Then he sat with him on the basement floor for several minutes, rubbing his belly with a towel as they watched the old Mary Tyler Moore show on MeTV.

  “I know,” Luke said. “I don’t always like it here, either. Sometimes in life, though, we have to put up with what we don’t enjoy. It builds patience and character and keeps our wives happy. Anyway, we’ll be finished in a little while and then we’ll go for another walk, okay? All three of us this time.”

  Another brief segregation followed dinner, as Charlotte helped her mother clean up and load dishes. Charlotte was comfortable around her mother, able to laugh and talk easily about personal things. With her father she summoned a sociable, daughterly demeanor but was more guarded. They were still fighting old wars.

  Sitting with him in the living room, Luke saw his chance to raise the subject of August Trumble.

  “You know,” he said, “Sharley—­Charlotte—­mentioned earlier that she thought you may have known August Trumble at one time.”

  “August Trumble. August Trumble,” Carrington said, sounding out the words as he got more comfortable in his chair. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Quite the troubled genius, wasn’t he?”

  “But you knew him?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. I thought Charlotte said you knew him.”

  “Nope.” He sipped his scotch, as if no further explanation were necessary. Then he said, “Oh, we both went to Yale. But at different times. I believe I was an undergraduate while he was in graduate school. Don’t think I ever saw him. Tom Griffin knew him.”

  “Tom . . . ?”

  “Griffin. One of our neighbors.”

  “I don’t think I know him.”

  “You don’t. He lives right up the street.” Luke made a note to pass this name along to Amy Hunter. “Of course, Trumble kind of went off the rails some years ago, didn’t he?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  Lowell raised his glass in a toastlike gesture. Luke was surprised he hadn’t asked why he was interested. “Anyway, I think it’s time Sharley became a little more settled,” Carrington said, “now that she has some momentum with her writing. And you know what?” He twirled his drink. “On this one, I think she actually agrees with her old man.”

  “On which one is that?”

  “Settling down. Buying a place.”

  He gave Luke a
pointed look.

  “Actually, moving about has its merits, too,” Luke said, just for the sake of argument. “I mean, when we moved to the shore five years ago, she became interested in its history, in particular in Frederick Douglass, who was one of the Eastern Shore’s great residents.” Lowell Carrington squinted disagreeably, as if waiting for heartburn to pass. “That’s how she got started on her current book. Quite a project. Jefferson and Douglass.”

  “Well,” Lowell said, with a sinking note of skepticism. “So if your next church assignment takes you out to Kansas, she writes the history of winter wheat in America?”

  “Or, perhaps a biography of Fatty Arbuckle,” Luke said cheerfully. “He was a Kansan.”

  Charlotte’s father looked down and wiggled his glass. “No,” he said. “No. I see her work as more important than that. A little more important than whichever way the wind blows.”

  “I do, too,” Luke said. Unable to resist, he added, “Although, of course, the wind can takes us to some interesting places. As I sometimes tell ­people in the congregation, we shouldn’t try to control too much in our lives.”

  “We should try to control whatever we can in our lives,” Lowell said, as if speaking to a student. “What we can control we should control.”

  “Ah.”

  “You don’t, life passes you by. And then what do you have?”

  “I don’t know. Existential angst?”

  Lowell Carrington surprised Luke by smiling broadly. “You’re a good man, Lucas. And you’re smart enough not to take me too seriously.” He leaned over and gave him a playful jab in the shoulder. Luke looked up and saw Mrs. Carrington, standing in the doorway, holding her drink, a crooked smile on her face.

  DURING THE TEN o’clock news Charlotte drank herbal tea while Luke and the Carringtons refreshed their drinks. Luke checked his cell phone during a stop in the restroom. Still nothing.

  Midway through the news, Judy Carrington went into a series of sneezes, an event that occurred nearly every visit, usually at about the same time.

  “My, I must be allergic to something,” she said.

  By the end of the newscast, Luke noticed, she was asleep, her vodka and tonic still in her right hand.

  Lowell leaned over and plucked it from her. “Well,” he said, “I guess we’ll be calling it a night. Looks like Jude’s gotten a little head start on me.”

  He kissed the side of his wife’s face and she snapped awake. “Oh my goodness,” she said, her eyes turning to Luke and then to her husband. “I must have dozed off for a second.”

  Luke smiled politely and she smiled back.

  “Thanks again, Judy,” he said. “The salmon and the peach cobbler were wickedly good.”

  Once her parents were safely upstairs, Charlotte said, “Go for a walk?”

  “Shall we bring the opera singer with us?”

  “Please.”

  It was a lovely evening, clear and not nearly as cold as it had been the night before. They walked hand in hand through the night shadows down the hill toward the creek, letting Sneakers trot ahead, sniffing at the bushes and lawns but not finding anything worth stopping for.

  “I love this old neighborhood,” Charlotte said.

  “I can tell. I like it, too.”

  They stopped at the bottom of the street and listened to the creek in the woods. He watched Charlotte’s breath rise, misting in the streetlight. As they kissed gently, he felt something buzzing in his pants.

  Charlotte’s face became a frown. “You brought your cell phone? Why?”

  “Oh,” Luke said.

  He pulled it out, his heart racing, ready now to tell Charlotte what had happened.

  Except he saw that this wasn’t the threatening caller from earlier, as he’d expected.

  It was Amy Hunter, of all ­people. By the time Luke got the phone open, he’d missed her call. “Hunter,” he said. “That’s odd.”

  “Go ahead. Call her back.” Charlotte was standing on a rock now by the creek. Sneakers lowered his head and tentatively licked at the water. “I’ll just hover about and pretend I’m not eavesdropping.”

  Luke smiled.

  “I mean, unless there are some personal issues the two of you need to iron out. Maybe you had a tiff before you left?”

  “Funny.”

  She walked alongside the creek, giving him a little space. Sneakers was beside her. Hunter answered right away.

  “Hi, it’s Luke Bowers.”

  “Yes, thanks for calling back. I just left you a message.”

  “Oh, okay.” It grew quiet. Luke looked back up the hill, saw the lights upstairs in the Carringtons’ house, someone moving behind a curtain. A dog barked twice. Sneakers’s head rose and tilted alertly; he was considering whether to go into his growl.

  “I wanted to tell you: They’re bringing charges in the Kwan Park case. Probably tomorrow.”

  “Really,” he said. “Federal?”

  “No. Local.”

  “Not against Robby Fallow?”

  “No,” she said. “Not Fallow. Against your friend, Jackson Pynne.”

  “Oh.” Luke suddenly felt ill. The silence seemed to thicken. “Well,” he said, “they may have a difficult time finding him.”

  “No, they won’t,” she said. “He just turned himself in.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. And he’s asking for you.”

  “Me.”

  “Yes. He says you’re the only one he’ll talk to.”

  Chapter 38

  TUESDAY, MARCH 21

  THE VISITING ROOM at the Tidewater Correctional Facility was stark white, newly painted, with metal tables and benches bolted to the floor, fluorescent lighting overhead. Luke Bowers had done prison ministries here for several years, and as he walked through the series of doors from the processing center to the visiting area, he was struck, as usual, by the contrast between the bright surfaces and the hardened, diminished demeanors of so many of the inmates.

  Jackson walked in wearing an orange jumpsuit. They sat across from each other at a small square table, maybe two feet by two feet. Pynne had refused so far to talk with the state police and the sheriff’s office and insisted that his meeting with Luke could not be recorded. So it wasn’t an interview, just a conversation. Although, of course, Luke could ask whatever he wanted.

  “Hello, Jackson.”

  He nodded hello, his face expressionless.

  “You look good,” Luke said. An inane remark, although he wanted to start with something positive. In fact, Jackson didn’t look so good. He needed sleep and a shave.

  Jackson shifted his feet, then folded his hands together. His eyes took in the room, the other two inmates who were meeting with family members, the two guards.

  “Would you like to pray first?” Luke asked.

  He shrugged and leaned forward, arms on his knees, looking up from under arched eyebrows. Luke lowered his head and prayed for him.

  Jackson seemed to be staring at him when Luke opened his eyes again. “Tell me what they have,” he said in a small voice. “Evidence, I mean. What’s the case?”

  “Well, they’re charging you with speeding, I’m told, and interference in official acts. Resisting arrest. And they may be adding a weapons violation. You were carrying an unregistered handgun?”

  “Kwan’s murder,” he said brusquely. “What evidence do they have?”

  “Oh.” Luke cleared his throat. “From what I’m told, your DNA and shoe prints were found at the church and also at what they’re calling the murder scene—­a cottage at Oyster Creek—­”

  “What’s the DNA?”

  “Cigarette butts. Chesterfields.”

  He nodded slightly, keeping his head down, like a boxer absorbing punches.

  “Jackson, you told me you didn’t do this, right?�
��

  “Right.”

  “So do you want to tell me what happened, and what’s going on?”

  His eyes lifted, but he avoided looking at Luke. There was something slightly off about him, Luke thought; Jackson wasn’t quite as upset as he should be.

  “Abridged version?”

  “Okay.”

  “All right, abridged version.” He took a deep breath and began. “It goes back three years—­or, let’s say, more like two and a half, okay? I started a company with two partners. They came to me, actually, I’d worked with them before. We took over the operation of four Quik Gas stores, two in Ohio, one in Delaware, one in Maryland. It was basically hands off for me. Just a place to park some cash. The stores did all right—­gave us a steady income for most of that time. I was planning to start a new development company in north Florida at the time, eventually sell my interest in the stores. But before that happened, this attorney contacts us, last summer, says he’s representing an investor. Offers to buy the stores. His offer was good, too good to turn down.” Jackson coughed, a smoker’s hack.

  “I met Kwan at our Sharonville store,” he went on. “She started there, like, within a week of when we sold it. I stopped in a ­couple of times, just to pick up some cigarettes, lottery tickets. Shoot the crap, just friendly back and forth. I admit, I took a liking to her right away. There was something about the lady that was very intelligent, very classy. But at the same time, kind of aloof, if you know what I mean. Private, in some ways, and I guess that sort of interested me. Anyway, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that something wasn’t right about the setup.”

  “What do you mean, wasn’t right?”

  “Just something about the business, something that was bothering her.” He shuffled his feet. “And so, anyway, before long we sort of became kindred spirits. I mean, I’m fifty-­six years old, right? She’s what, thirty-­two?” His eyes misted with emotion as he looked off. “But it was one of those things, had nothing to do with age, really.”