“What was bothering her about the business?”
“What was bothering her? Well, I don’t know—I mean, why did they want those stores so badly in the first place?”
“Tell me.”
He shrugged, and shook his head, meaning he wasn’t going to say. An inmate three tables over stood and walked toward the vending machines with his two visitors; mother and sister, Luke guessed. Jackson exhaled dramatically, his eyes glazing over. He waited until they passed. “But so, anyway, one night we meet outside of work, okay? Meet for a drink. And that’s when I really began to see how scared she was. A very lovely lady, although she made herself hard to see sometimes, if you know what I mean. But a very lovely lady.”
“What’d you think was going on?”
“With the store? Or with her?”
“Either one.”
He shrugged a shoulder and made a face, pushing out his lower lip. “No idea. Drugs? Money laundering?” His eyes did a quick inventory again of the visitors’ room. “I mean, I’ve been around that kind of thing before. It could’ve been anything. But I guess what really made me take notice was the lottery thing. She got very nervous about that.”
“About selling the winning lottery tickets. With multi-million-dollar payouts.”
“Yeah, right. Absolutely didn’t want to talk about it.”
“And did you have any idea what was behind this organization that bought the stores?”
“Later, I did.”
“When, later?” Luke said.
“Months later. I mean, gradually she began to reveal little things here and there to me about the setup. And about the man running the thing. And I began to understand why she was frightened.”
“The man running it was August Trumble.”
“Yeah, right.” He showed a tiny smile, looking at Luke. “Trumble.”
“Why was she telling you this, Jackson? What did she want you to do?”
“Why was she telling me? To get it off her chest. Because she wanted out. It was like, the walls were starting to close in. That’s how she described it.”
“Explain. Why were the walls closing in?”
“Why? I don’t know, maybe she’d outlived her usefulness or something. She was scared of this guy, everyone was, but she also depended on him. I mean, he paid her six figures, right? Took care of her health care. Paid her rent, leased her car. But then they also expected her to behave a certain way. It was like the old song—you sell your soul to the company. But then Kwan decided she wanted it back again. And he didn’t want to give it to her. Thought it was his.”
“Seems odd for a company that owns convenience stores to operate that way.”
“Well, yeah. Exactly.”
“So what happened?”
“Long story short: I offered to help her. As I got to know her, I found out there were a few other people who were just as scared as she was. They’d become this sort of secret alliance, I guess you might say. And so I helped Kwan and the others come up with a plan to get away.”
“Were those the three names you gave me at the church the other night?”
He turned his eyes to Luke and nodded.
“So you made a plan for her to quit and get away, you’re saying.”
“Right.”
“And what about the others?”
“They were on their own. My concern was Kwan.”
“Okay. But something went wrong.”
“Well, yeah, obviously.”
“How was it supposed to work?”
“How was it supposed to work?” He waited for the other inmate and his guests to pass again. “Kwan was supposed to drive to the airport in Cincy, fly to Reagan Monday morning, get on the Metro. I was going to meet her in Virginia. Pick her up, we’d go from there, catch 95 south, I’d arranged a place for her to stay.” He looked at the floor between his knees, his eyes glistening. “Then I get an e-mail Monday evening says, ‘Let’s meet tomorrow morning in Tidewater instead. In front of the Methodist church.’ ”
“And so what’d you do?”
“What did I do?” He gave Luke a sharp look. “I tried to reach her, obviously. I couldn’t. And so finally I came out. Drove through, just in case. Then the next day, Wednesday, I read the thing about the woman in the church. In the newspaper.”
“You didn’t do this, Jackson. Right?”
“I told you, Pastor.”
“Okay.” Luke watched him, trying to understand his expression, and what he wasn’t saying. Jackson Pynne could be something of an omission artist, Luke knew, and this didn’t seem to be the whole story. “How do you think your DNA ended up at the two crime scenes?”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
“Take a guess.”
“Anyone could have followed me and saved my cigarette butts. I have no idea.”
“Could Kwan Park have saved your cigarette butts?”
He shook his head and turned toward the wall, his eyes shining vulnerably again.
“How about the shoe prints? The shoes that made them were found in the garage at your town house here in Tidewater County.”
He blinked rapidly. “I don’t use that town house. It’s a summer rental, the real estate agency handles it. The shoes? No idea. Maybe they were planted there.”
“By whom? Who would have planted them?”
“No idea.” Jackson lowered his head again. “Look,” he said. “The thing is, this wasn’t really about us, okay? Just to be clear. What Kwan really wanted was to blow the whistle. I was going to help her—”
“Blow the whistle on?”
“On what this organization was doing. Not just about stealing money from the government. I don’t think any of us gave a shit about that. But what they were doing to their own people.”
“Their own employees?”
“Yeah.” His face took on a faraway look. “And I guess they must’ve found out what we were doing, and considered it disloyalty or something. Which, to them, is kind of like a capital offense.”
“They who?” Luke said.
“Trumble. Trumble’s security people.”
“Is that who’s after you?” Pynne shrug-nodded. “Why you, Jackson? You weren’t part of this organization, were you?”
“Never. It’s because of what I know—or what they think I know. And because I helped plan this thing. I was part of the betrayal.”
“You need to tell this to the police, Jackson. They need to know what you just told me. Okay? You need to talk to Amy Hunter, the lead investigator. Will you do that?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t need to. Because I feel safe here, okay? I walk out of here, I wouldn’t make it to the county line. Guarantee you. That’s why I turned myself in.”
“Then stay here. But you still need to tell your story. So they can find who actually did this.”
Jackson said nothing. He looked back at the floor. He seemed to be waiting for Luke to disappear now. Luke finally signaled the guard across the room.
“Anything else, Jackson?”
“Yeah, one thing,” he said. He sat up straighter. “What did she look like? When you found her?”
“She looked beautiful.” Jackson was watching him attentively. “Until I got up close.”
“Then what?”
“She still looked beautiful. But then I could tell that she’d been hurt.”
He nodded, as if this was what he’d wanted to hear. Both men stood, Luke first. Then Jackson reached to shake his hand.
“She was beautiful,” he said, holding on weakly. “I can’t believe anyone would think I could’ve hurt her. I mean, I’d be the last one. The last one.”
Chapter 39
THAT SOMEONE HAD been detained overnight for the church killing hadn’t made the newspaper or television news, but it was all over the streets of Tidewater County that morning. At the wooden booths and Formica-topped breakfast tables on Main Street, patrons kept their papers folded, sharing the real news over coffee, bacon-egg specials, and crab omelets.
Luke picked up a carry-out coffee at the Blue Crab Diner and fended questions from several of the regulars, surprised that no one seemed to know, yet, that he had just talked with Jackson Pynne.
Driving in to the church, he called Amy Hunter. The late morning sun was bright, melting the patchy remnants of Sunday’s snow.
“How was he?” she said.
“He was pretty open. About Kwan Park, anyway. Not about everything else.”
“Where are you?”
“Headed to the church.”
“I’ll be right over.”
AGGIE COLLINS, DRESSED in a brand-new navy pinstripe suit with a purple print scarf, went through the usual formalities before allowing Hunter to enter Luke’s office, to be seated in front of his desk.
“Could I get either of you anything to drink?” she asked. “Coffee? Water?”
“No thanks,” Amy said.
“I’m fine,” Luke said.
“You sure?” Her eyes went back to Hunter. “Tea?”
“We’re fine,” Luke said.
When the door finally closed, they shared a smile. Then Luke began to tell Hunter all that Jackson Pynne had told him at the jail that morning. Hunter looked on without reaction, her eyes alert.
When he finished, she looked out the window and grimaced.
“So?” Luke said. “Will they have enough to bring a case against him?”
Her eyes were back with his “They think so. It’s a tricky case. The evidence is all circumstantial, of course, but there’s a lot of it. We’re dealing with a serial killer and we need to connect the four crimes in order to show what really happened. But the state’s attorney is resisting that. He has what he considers a strong case against Jackson Pynne now and he wants to proceed, get it over and out of Tidewater County.”
“Without involving the other three murders, you mean?”
“Yeah. And what you just told me, about them being lovers, only makes it stronger.” Hunter sighed. “The wild card in all this is what the FBI is going to do. And for some reason, I don’t have a very good feeling about that, either.”
Hunter looked away out at the marshlands, thinking private thoughts. Moments later she stood and moved toward the door. Luke could see she had something else to say to him, although he couldn’t imagine what it might be. She stopped by the door, her hand on the knob, her eyes roaming his office.
“You know what,” she said at last. “There’s something I said to you the first time we talked here that I’ve regretted a little ever since.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
Somehow, Luke knew what she was going to say next. “You don’t mean about being a devout secularist?”
“That’s right.” She showed a rare smile. “How’d you know?”
He shrugged.
“It just seemed a little flip,” she said, “and also not entirely true. I guess I’m not really sure what I believe.”
“Nothing wrong with that. I’m not a proponent of absolute certainties,” he said. “Or of anyone following a religion that doesn’t have some deep-rooted meaning for them. The nice thing is, we can come to faith from many directions.”
“Yeah.” Hunter smiled again, her hand still on the doorknob. “Good,” she said.
Luke thought of several things he might’ve said then, questions he wanted to ask about her life. But this didn’t seem like the time for it.
“Anyhow,” she said. “Talk with you later.”
LUKE HAD PROMISED himself that he would address the short stack of congregants’ comments before lunch. Many were cheery observations about the church staff, his sermon, or the music selection, although there were always one or two challenges in the deck. Germaine Holland, for instance, requested that the church ask the Mickelson family—although she didn’t refer to them by name, only as “the newcomers”—to “refrain” from sitting in the second-row pew, which had been Germaine and Bob Holland’s “regular” seat for close to ten years. Luke moved her note to the bottom of the stack.
Easier to handle was this anonymous comment: For two weeks, the same dead cockroach has had been lying in a corner at the very back of the church. Please REMOVE before Sunday!!
Luke decided he’d handle this one himself, before taking on Germaine Holland.
He pulled a tissue from the box on Aggie’s desk. “I’m going off on a mission,” he told her mysteriously, and then he walked off into the church. He spent several minutes trying to locate the offending bug, but without success. Maybe Martha Cummings, the church custodian, had beat him to it.
As he headed back to the offices, Luke felt his cell phone vibrating. The ID read: UNKNOWN CALLER.
He stopped in the darkened corridor between the sanctuary and the offices, his heart thumping.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Preacher.” It was the thick voice from the day before. “Did you visit our friend Jackson Pynne this morning?”
Luke said nothing.
“It’s funny, because I thought you told me you didn’t know where he was”
“I didn’t. Police called me last night and said he wanted to talk with me.”
“And what did Mr. Pynne tell you?”
“Not a lot.”
“What did he say happened to the woman? Kwan Park.”
“He doesn’t know.”
“You’re not leveling with me now, are you, Preacher? What did he say happened to Kwan Park?”
Luke remained silent.
“You don’t think someone other than Jackson Pynne killed this woman, now do you, Preacher?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I sure hope you don’t think that.” Luke could hear him breathing. “Because that would be a big mistake. If you did. Big mistake.”
Luke thought of Charlotte. “That’s really not my business,” he said. “That’s police business.”
“Yes, exactly right. That isn’t your business. So don’t try to play hero now and become involved any more than you already have. Because if you do, you might discover some carvings on your wife’s body.”
“What?”
“I think you understand what I’m saying, Preacher. She’s a very pretty lady,” he added, a chuckle in his voice. Then the line went dead.
Luke stood there staring down the dusty wooden corridor.
Then he called Amy Hunter.
“Hi,” he said. “You probably didn’t expect to hear from me again so soon.”
SEATED IN HUNTER’S small office at the Public Safety Complex, Luke reconstructed his two conversations with the anonymous caller. The threat against Charlotte had immediately changed the equation for him. After the first call, he’d prayed and wrestled with what to do. But not after the second. Even if this was someone associated with the sheriff trying to scare him away from Jackson Pynne, the caller had crossed a line by threatening Charlotte.
Hunter watched him with the quiet empathy of an experienced listener. It was almost as if their roles had become reversed, Luke’s intensity absorbed by Hunter’s calm. She’d been around, he could see. She’d been through things she didn’t talk about.
“I guess I should have told you right away,” he said when he finished.
“It’s tough to know what to do sometimes. Just don’t let this get to you,” she said. “Go about your normal day-to-day activities. We’d like to send regular patrols by your house, if you don’t mind. And I’d also like to put a trace on your phones.”
&nbs
p; “Sure,” he said. “Thanks.”
“It’s probably best that you don’t involve yourself in the case anymore, in any way, from here on out. Don’t talk with Jackson Pynne again. If he calls, refer him to us.”
“Okay.”
Luke watched her, feeling humbled. .“Who do you think this is?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It could be someone connected with the sheriff, as you say. Or it might be someone involved with this organization that Kwan Park worked for. Either way, the motive’s the same.”
“They want to make sure Jackson is prosecuted for the murder.”
“Right, that’s what it seems like. Which is sort of interesting in itself.”
“It is,”
Hunter showed a cautious smile. Luke could see from her eyes that she was way ahead of him, already playing out the chess moves in her head. He felt a little sad that he wasn’t going to be involved anymore; but he also knew that’s how this had to go. His only role now would be to pray. And to wait.
GIL RANKIN WATCHED the pastor’s wife from a distance as she walked from her BMW to the front door of the cottage, carrying a small bag of groceries. She’s a stylish woman, he thought, pretty and slender. Nice hair. Comports herself nicely. If he’d had to rough her up, he would’ve enjoyed doing it.
But it was too chancy to start on anything like that at this stage. Until they knew for sure what was happening with Jackson Pynne, he needed to be more careful. He’d shaken up the preacher now, that was good enough.
Rankin knew that his problem was too much empty time again. He needed to work out, to get his mind on something else.
You do as you see fit, that’s not my business, his client had said. I just need to ascertain the end results.
I wish we didn’t have to do it this way, Gilbert. These people, they were like children to me, you know that. But they have that stench now. Betrayal has a smell. So, we have no choice anymore.
Rankin started the engine of his Jeep. It wouldn’t be long before police began to monitor the pastor’s house. He couldn’t come near here again.
Driving back toward Jimmy Creek, he turned up the radio to drown out the Client’s voice playing in his head
But it was still there, as tangible as the road and the fields: You do as you see fit, that’s not my business. I just need to ascertain the end results.
The Psalmist Page 21