Deadliest of Sins

by Sallie Bissell

  Emboldened by his possible good luck, he padded through the den and into the kitchen. The coffee was still warm in the pot and Gudger’s cereal bowl lay in the sink, but the house was empty. Chase’s heart leaped. Gudger was gone!

  Quickly, he headed for the back door. He wouldn’t need a flashlight now. Now all he had to do was get to the back fence, grab his backpack, and get home. He hesitated a moment, remembering yesterday, when Gudger had appeared from nowhere and snapped those pictures of him in his underwear. The man was mean, and sly as a fox. But as he scanned the back yard, he saw that the patio was empty and the door to Gudger’s shed was closed and locked.

  “Come on,” Chase told himself. “Don’t be such a nelly. Gudger’s not here.”

  He took a deep breath and stepped out into the already hot morning. Feeling strangely exposed, he ran across the patio and headed toward the toolshed. He’d just jumped over his mother’s sad little patch of marigolds when a voice rang out.

  “Well, if isn’t Olive Oyl, done with her beauty sleep!”

  His heart caught in his throat as he turned to see Gudger sitting under the eaves of the house in an aluminum lawn chair, drinking coffee as he read the paper. Chase closed his eyes. He should have known better. There was no way of escaping Gudger.

  “Where are you going in such a hurry, boy? You look like your head’s on fire and your ass is catching.”

  “N-nowhere.” Chase felt as if he was standing there naked, even though he’d slept with all his clothes on.

  “Well, nowhere must be a pretty exciting place, if it’s got you out of bed with so much piss and vinegar.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Sam’s phone call had gotten him out of bed; saving his sister had filled him full of piss and vinegar.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you anyway, Olive Oyl. Who the hell were you on my phone with, yesterday?”

  “A computer,” he lied. “It said we’d won a cruise to Jamaica.”

  Gudger frowned. “I’m on the Do Not Call list, Olive Oyl.”

  “Well it called, just the same.”

  “Then why’d you say it was your call?” asked Gudger.

  “I thought it might be Mom,” he replied.

  “She doesn’t call on that line. She always calls my cell.”

  “Well, she could have forgotten.” Riding a sudden swell of defiance, he said, “She could have just wanted to talk to me!”

  “You’re lying, Olive Oyl,” Gudger said. “Just like you lied about going fishing yesterday. I’m gonna straighten you out, boy. I can stand a lot of things, but not a liar. Since you’re so bright and bushy-tailed today, how about you go and grub out that poison ivy along the back fence?”

  He couldn’t believe what he heard. Was Gudger actually sending him to the very spot he needed to go? “Over by Mrs. Carver’s?” He pointed over his right shoulder.

  “Naw, I don’t want you near that old witch. I want you over there.” Gudger pointed to the opposite corner of the yard—a football field away from where he needed to go.

  “I-I’m not sure what poison ivy looks like,” Chase said.

  Gudger spread three fingers. “Three green leaves on one long stem. It’s a vine, coils up around things. Go get a hoe from the shed.”

  “But—”

  “Get up there, boy.” Gudger snapped his paper back open. “I’m tired of your lying nonsense.”

  Chase turned, fighting back tears. Whatever you did, however hard you tried to get past him, Gudger was always there—grinning, leering, grinding him down into something that felt mostly like a fool.

  Miles away, Mary Crow was walking into the office of Richard Drake, district attorney for Campbell County. He was a tall, thin-faced man who buttoned his suit coat as he rose from his chair.

  “Ms. Crow.” He nodded, extending his hand. “How nice to meet you.”

  She shook his hand, wondering what you should say to someone you were supposed to light a fire under. Sorry I have to be here? I know you’re a good lawyer, but the governor thinks you have the balls of a chipmunk and is less than pleased with your performance? She couldn’t decide, so finally she just settled on, “Nice to meet you, too.”

  “Please have a seat.” He offered her a chair, then got right to the point. “I understand that the Honorable Ann Chandler is unhappy with our lack of an indictment for Bryan Taylor’s murder.”

  Mary smiled, grateful that the man was brave enough not to shillyshally around. Still, she tried to be diplomatic. “The governor is always troubled when murder indictments are overly long in coming. But I think she’s even more dismayed by the anti-gay sentiment in this county. She thinks it sullies the state’s reputation and she’s particularly concerned that this Reverend Trull is feeding the flames with all his sermons against homosexuals.”

  “I don’t like Trull any more than Ann Chandler does,” said Drake. “He’s a fanatic who’s embarrassed the county with that ridiculous video. But Trull notwithstanding, the majority of people in this county are conservative Christians. They believe homosexuality is a choice and a sin.”

  “And does this belief extend to violence toward gay people?”

  “Of course not. Most folks here take ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ to heart.”

  “Well, clearly, someone beat Bryan Taylor into a very early grave.”

  “But we don’t know whether his killer had any connections with Reverend Trull.”

  “But you don’t think Trull has upped the ante here? His YouTube video advocates an internment camp for gay people. Last night I heard him advise parents to use corporal punishment should their children show any homosexual tendencies.”

  Drake shook his head. “Ms. Crow, you know as well as I do that I can’t charge Trull with anything. A sermon is protected speech, and the current hate crime statute doesn’t even include sexual orientation. Even the great Ann Chandler can’t regulate what people say in church.”

  Mary sighed. This is exactly what she’d told the governor—Trull hadn’t broken any law, the way the current law was written. Shifting in her chair, she switched the subject from the theoretical to the reality at hand. “Then what’s the status of the Taylor case?”

  “It’s a priority. We are moving with due diligence.”

  “Any arrests?”

  “No. I advised Chief Ramsey that I’d need a totally airtight case, so he and his staff are going slowly.”

  Mary frowned. “Why would you need a totally airtight case?”

  “Like I just told you—the folks who put me in this office believe homosexuality is a sin. If I go to trial without a smoking gun, they won’t convict. They didn’t in Sligo County, and they won’t here. It’s time to walk softly, Ms. Crow. Tempers are hot. Everybody hates all these outsiders with their picketing and their YouTube videos and, frankly, they’re not real crazy about Ann Chandler sending you to whip us into shape.”

  “I’m sure Governor Chandler would have preferred sending me elsewhere,” said Mary, “except Reverend Trull is about to cost this county hundreds of new jobs. Ecotron is a Dutch company that doesn’t discriminate against gays. They won’t come here if their gay and lesbian employees might be in jeopardy.”

  “Corporate bucks get the governor’s attention right fast, don’t they?” Drake gave a tight smile.

  “This county’s twelve percent unemployment rate gets it faster,” Mary snapped back.

  “Tell your boss to get Raleigh to add sexual orientation to the hate crimes statute and I’ll go to town down here. Until then, I can’t prosecute people for breaking laws that aren’t on the books.”

  Drake pulled a sheet of stationary from his lap drawer, scribbled something on it. “I’ve told you all I know, Ms. Crow. I suggest you go down to the police department and talk to Victor Galloway. He’s a new hire, working undercover on the Taylor case. Maybe he can convince yo
u and the governor that even here, in Bible-thumping Campbell County, we still believe in equal protection under the law.”

  Eight

  Detective Victor Galloway was law enforcement’s yang to District Attorney Drake’s cool, intellectual yin. Galloway wore a tattered Atlanta Falcons T-shirt instead of a suit, red Asics running shoes instead of leather brogans, and kept his police badge fastened on his belt rather than pinned over his heart. When Mary knocked at the entrance of his cubicle, he had his feet up on his desk, sipping a bottle of orange Jarritos soda.

  “Victor Galloway?” she asked, not seeing any name plates or name tags or name anything.

  “Sí, senorita.” He grinned and winked. “Que pasa?”

  She smiled. Away from the mountains of Western North Carolina, people often mistook her Cherokee black hair and olive skin for Latina. “I’m Mary Crow,” she said, stepping into his office. “From the governor’s judicial task force.”

  Gulping his soda, Galloway whipped his long legs off the desk and stood up. “I’m sorry,” he sputtered, his face turning red. “I haven’t worked here long enough to know who to salute yet.”

  “Well, you don’t have to salute me.” Mary handed him the carte blanche letter the DA had written for her. “I’m looking into the Bryan Taylor case.”

  As Galloway scanned the sheet of paper, she scanned Galloway. Like her, he had olive skin and black hair. Unlike her, his eyes were a fierce blue, his body rangy and muscular. She felt, oddly, that she’d seen him somewhere before.

  “Okay.” He looked up from Drake’s letter. “Have a seat and I’ll get you up to speed.”

  She lifted a heavy packing box from his one chair and pulled it up to the desk.

  “Sorry about all the clutter,” he said. “I just moved up here from Georgia.”

  “Really? Where in Georgia?” asked Mary.

  “Cobb County. I got my detective shield in Marietta.”

  Mary smiled. “I used to be a prosecutor in Deckard County. How’d you wind up here in Carolina?”

  “Got tired of Atlanta traffic and Marietta politics.” He laughed. “When two newer guys got promoted over me, I saw the writing on the wall. This little force put out a call for a detective who could hablo Español, so I answered the ad. Took a big cut in pay, but at least I’m not spending three hours a day stuck in traffic.”

  “Why Español here?”

  “Lots of Latino-on-Latino crime along Jackson Highway. The chief got tired of his conviction rate sinking because his cops had misunderstood the Spanish.” He shrugged. “Aquí estoy yo.”

  She nodded, wondering if Galloway shared the same macho distaste for investigating gay crimes that most cops did. “So they put you undercover, in the middle of a gay murder investigation?”

  Galloway smiled. “I was perfect to go deep—too new for anybody to recognize.”

  “Okay—what can you tell me about this case?”

  He rifled through a stack of papers on his desk and pulled out a thick envelope. “You can read it, or I can tell you the basics.”

  “Let’s do both,” said Mary. “You start first.”

  Galloway opened the file. “Bryan Taylor, twenty-seven-year-old white male, found dead along Jackson Highway. He was a resident of Brooklyn, New York, here visiting his parents.”

  He handed Mary two photographs—one of a handsome young man with sandy brown hair and several days’ worth of beard on his cheeks. The second was a crime scene photo where that handsome face was bloodied beyond recognition. “Geez,” said Mary. “Did someone take a tire iron to his head?”

  “We think it was a baseball bat. He’d just subbed in a church league softball game. Bryan had played on St. Alban’s team before and was a pretty good short stop in high school.”

  “So did he make the winning play at second base and then get beaten to death?”

  “Actually, his team lost,” said Galloway. “After the game they went over to Clancy’s Grill—it’s a popular place with ball players. His teammates said Bryan ordered a hamburger, drank a couple of beers, and then left. We think somebody followed him, killed him, and dumped his body a couple of miles down the road.”

  “He wasn’t killed at the scene?” asked Mary.

  “No, he was dumped. Wasn’t a shred of evidence along that highway.”

  “Had he hit on anybody at the bar?”

  Galloway shook his head. “According to his teammates, he ate, drank his beer, and left. Said he had an early flight back to New York the next day.”

  “Where was his car?”

  “Here’s the odd part … his car was parked at an I-85 truck stop, twenty miles east of his home. And no,” he continued, answering the question Mary was about to ask, “it hadn’t been wiped. It was lousy with his and his mother’s fingerprints … it was her car. There was also a partial print of somebody who isn’t in the system. And a single black hair was found on the driver’s seat.”

  “Pubic hair?”

  “Nope. Head hair. But we didn’t get any of the root, so no DNA there.”

  Mary asked, “You think he drove to the truck stop for a brief encounter and got more than he bargained for?”

  “That’s a possibility,” admitted Galloway. “Except he never showed up on any of the lot security cams. Didn’t buy gas or go in the store, or go to the men’s room.”

  “So maybe he just got lucky in the parking lot. You know, in the back of a semi.”

  “That was my first thought, except for this.” Galloway pulled another picture from the file—this one of Bryan with his arm around another young man. “This is Leo Maiello, Bryan’s husband. They got married in New York six months ago. Bryan was a newlywed and, according to his parents, very happy.”

  “Too happy to go prowling around truck stops?”

  “He texted Leo at nine thirty-four that night, saying he was on his way home. Can’t wait to see you was his last message.”

  “And Leo was in New York, equally thrilled that Bryan was coming home?”

  Galloway nodded. “Leo checks out. He’s the stage manager at some Broadway theater. He was at work that night. No less than Bernadette Peters backed up his story.”

  “You really talked to Bernadette Peters?” Mary was impressed—on her last trip to New York she’d seen the red-headed actress bring down the house in a Stephen Sondheim play.

  “I did,” said Galloway. “She was really nice. Sympathetic, you know?”

  Mary flipped through the file, looking at the crime scene photos, notes of the interviews with Taylor’s parents and friends. She stopped at a group photo of the ball team, grinning at the camera. “All of his teammates check out?”

  “They do. The rest of them stayed at the bar until the Yankees game ended, then they went home. A typical night in church league ball.”

  Mary frowned at the picture. “Who was St. Alban’s playing that night?”

  “This is where it gets interesting.” Galloway grinned. “Reverend Trull’s One Way Saints team. I happen to be their newest left fielder.”

  Suddenly, she remembered where she’d seen him. At church last night, sitting toward the front, along with some other broad-shouldered young men. “You were there last night, at the church service, weren’t you?”

  His brows lifted. “How do you know?”

  “I was there, too. The governor called me yesterday and I booked it down here in time for the Wednesday night prayer meeting.”

  “Can I ask why the governor is so interested in this one particular crime? Is she a friend of Taylor’s family?”

  Mary wondered what she should tell him—she wasn’t sure how much of her agenda Ann Chandler wanted known. “The governor’s concerned about the number of crimes against gay people in this state. Since that Trull video went viral, businesses are starting to look elsewhere to expand, simply because they fear their g
ay employees won’t be safe.”

  “They sure as hell wouldn’t be safe around here,” said Galloway.

  “Do you think Reverend Trull has anything to do with that?”

  “I think Reverend Trull has a lot to do with that, Ms. Crow. I grew up Catholic, thought I’d heard every weird interpretation of Christianity on the planet. But this guy spins it in ways that would make Jesus blush.”

  “What’s this Warriors for Christ group?” asked Mary. “They mentioned it last night at church.”

  “From what I can gather, they’re God’s own shock troops of mercy. Anything bad happens—a flood or a tornado or a blizzard—they load up this van and take food and medical supplies. You’re supposed to be able to drop everything and leave at a moment’s notice.”

  “What about people who have jobs?”

  “They need to have jobs they can leave,” said Galloway. “It’s a pretty elite group.”

  “So you don’t think there’s a connection between them and Bryan Taylor?”

  Galloway shook his head. “The demographic’s wrong. The Warriors are older—men and women established enough in their careers that they can take time off, or retirees with nothing but time on their hands. The baseball team’s more likely to hide a killer.”

  “Tell me about that,” said Mary.

  “They’re young, full-of-fire guys who played in high school and probably could have played in college, if they’d been smart enough to get in. They hunt, fish, distrust strangers, and—”

  “Hate gays?” Mary interrupted.

  Galloway studied his orange Jarritos bottle. “Let’s just say a gay person would not be welcome on their team. Whether or not Reverend Trull spurred one of them to kill Bryan Taylor is still up for grabs.”

  Mary realized Galloway had just returned her to the gray area of law that Ann Chandler considered black-and-white: whether a preacher who advocated action against a particular group could be held responsible when and if one of his flock took matters into their own hands. She reached for the thick file that lay on Galloway’s desk. “Would you mind going over this with me?”