Officer Laplante looked at me. “Are you with him?”
Oh, thank you, Mr. HD Parker.
“No. I mean, I know his daughter and I’ve met Mr. Par—”
“I recommend to you that you remove this gentleman from the premises. Now would be a good time.”
If HD had tail feathers, they would have gone on full display at that.
Another squawk. A Mel Blanc squawk. “I am not with this boy”—see, I did say he called me “boy,” too—“that is Honey’s pantywaist Preacher Boy and”—HD faced me—“I do not believe for one second you played ball for the U of T.”
What that had to do with anything I don’t know. And I did, too, play for UT.
A female officer, looking big and mad, pushed through the swinging doors in the back and came to stand next to HD and me. She gave me a hard stare, hands on impressive hips. Her badge identified her as Officer Jambulapati.
“What is this racket going on in my waiting room? Do you see there are other people in this room with troubles of their own? Are you under the impression that you happen to be the axis the world spins around? Because I don’t think so.”
I looked around. Three or four clusters of people were watching us openmouthed. I overheard the soft murmur of Spanish. A daughter translating the drama for the rest of her family.
HD put his hands on his own hips and jutted that chin out an inch farther.
“Are you talking to me?” Instead of meeting the newcomer’s eyes, HD’s focus was on her boobs. The ones that matched her hips.
“Are you the one making all the noise?”
“My name—” HD paused for full dramatic effect, but it was spoiled when she interrupted.
“Did I ask you what your name was?”
“—is HD Parker, and I am—”
“Am I supposed to know who that is? Am I supposed to care? And you would maybe like to move those beady little bird eyes up about fourteen inches before I start to think you are being deliberately impertinent.”
HD wasn’t giving up. But he did move his eyes, thank you, God.
“Who I am is—”
“Am I not being clear? I don’t care if you are President Obama’s skinny white grandfather, you have demonstrated a lack of manners to an officer of the law and you will get that skinny white heinie of yours out of my waiting room posthaste. Go wait outside, you can’t keep your voice down. We’ve got work to do here.”
“HD Parker! I am HD Parker!”
Officer Jambulapati slued her eyes at me.
“If that’s your daddy, you get him out of here before I lock him up.”
I said, “He’s not my dad,” exactly the same time HD said, “That’s not my son,” and with the same amount of indignation. For all the perks that money can buy, I would not trade places with Honey Garcia. Mercy.
Officer Laplante intervened. “The situation is this, Mr… . Parker, is it? Your grandson, Alex Garcia, is being questioned because he may have information that could be important to an investigation. Because he is a minor, his mother is with him, and I understand a lawyer is representing him as well. There isn’t anything to be done right now but wait. If you can take a seat, and behave quietly, the way everyone else in this waiting room is, then you are welcome to stay.”
This last was said with a cough as though Laplante were choking on a cherry pit. “Otherwise,” he continued, “you may be more comfortable waiting at home. In my experience, these interviews can take quite a time.”
A long hard stare from HD, then he drew out his cell phone like a gunslinger. He turned his back on us and barked into the phone.
“Fredrick! We’re gonna be here a while. Go get me an Antoine’s sandwich, some jalapeño potato chips, a Shiner Bock, and two of those little balaclava pastries. Tell them to go heavy on the relish but not too sloppy with the mayonnaise. Get yourself whatever you want.”
His phone went back in his jacket pocket and HD stalked over to a seat.
“No alcohol allowed,” said Officer Jambulapati. “And it’s baklava. If you’re going to eat it and not wear it on your head.”
HD’s shoulders stiffened. The phone came out again.
“Fredrick. Forget the Shiner. Get me a sugar Dr Pepper. In the bottle. Make sure it’s not one of those corn syrup ones. Green label.”
He sat, folded his arms, and crossed his legs.
I made hushed apologies to everyone, and got out of Dodge.
I was late, but my hospital visits would be counting on seeing me. Miss Lily, for one.
A hundred years ago, Miss Lily was my Sunday School teacher, one of my two favorites. Mrs. Grant was my other favorite, but I don’t get to see her as often; she goes to church at Southwest Central in Houston.
Fate or God had decreed that Miss Lily’s daughter, Brenda, a fine, Godly woman somewhere in her early sixties, would buy a house in First Colony, and when Miss Lily got too old to take care of herself, she came to live with Brenda and her husband, and I found myself preaching to my teacher.
It was hard when Miss Lily was diagnosed with cancer. I couldn’t understand why God didn’t let her slip on away; Lord knows she had fought the good fight, and she was so close to finishing her race. Now she had this new trial upon her, and let me tell you, stomach cancer is a real trial. There isn’t much the doctors can do for the pain except dope you into oblivion, but Miss Lily wasn’t having that.
“I want to be awake when I get home, Bear,” she told me in explanation when I got there, releasing Brenda for a badly needed break. I was trying to breathe through my mouth. I hate the way hospital rooms smell, the disinfectant and lousy food and that weird, sweetish smell I always associate with cancer.
“I think you’ll be awake, Lily.”
She patted my hand briskly.
“Smart as you are, Bear, you haven’t made this trip, so you don’t really know, do you, son?”
Then she had a spasm of pain so bad I could hear her teeth grinding and she let a moan escape her. I didn’t let go her hand, but I turned my face away, even though I could feel her eyes on me. The pain passed, and she lay there panting, getting her strength back.
Her eyelids drooped and I thought she was maybe falling asleep, but she squeezed my hand, her eyes closed now, and she said, “Bear, God has put it on me to tell you a hard truth.”
It always makes me nervous when people feel like God tells them to do something. I never get those crystal-clear-in-your-ear messages from God. And why is it God only sends out messengers with hard truths, never the nice, soft truths?
“I can do that, because I know that you know how much I love you.”
That’s another thing. Seems like love gives people permission to do so many hurtful things.
“So you aren’t going to take this as criticism.”
I might, too.
“Bear, part of the reason you want me to take all those painkillers, it’s not because of the pain I’m in, it’s because of the pain you’re in, watching me.”
Okay, maybe God did tell her to give me that message. I felt convicted. What she said was true.
“You always wanted to be saving people, even as a boy. I don’t mean saving them for the Lord. That came, too, but later. You wanted to save them from themselves and from the consequences of their own actions and …” She took some time to catch her breath and gather her energy. I couldn’t help noticing that her scalp was bright pink between the strands of her thinning, snowy white hair. Her teeth looked like old ivory. Merrie tells me my generation will be the last to grow old. Something to do with gene manipulation.
“And you tried to save them from the truth. I think that was because you couldn’t bear to see them in pain. That made a liar of you sometimes, Bear. I don’t mean that harshly. I don’t mean to judge you. If I am, then, Jesus, please forgive me.” When Miss Lily said “Jesus,” it wasn’t an exclamation. She was talking to Him.
My eyes were watering. I blinked. I said, “Lily, would you like to pray with me?”
She said, “I get lots of prayers, Bear. Why don’t you sing for me?”
“Lily, you know I can’t sing.”
She opened her eyes wide, the whites clear as a baby’s, under lavender, wrinkled lids, and gave a husky chuckle. “I know it’s a mercy that Jesus asks you for a joyful noise, not a tuneful one. All the same.” She closed her eyes again. She seemed exhausted. “I’d like you to sing for me.”
“What do you want me to sing?”
She was silent, thinking. “Sing ‘Can You Count the Stars.’ When I was a child, my father would put me to bed at night. He’d read a chapter from Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible. You have that book, Bear?”
I shook my head no.
“You should have a copy. Then he would sing ‘Can You Count the Stars.’ That was a safe, sweet feeling. Can you sing that song?”
It’s a lullaby. My mother sang it to me when I was a baby, too. I sang it through, all three verses.
Can you count the stars of evening
That are shining in the sky?
Can you count the clouds that daily
Over all the world go by?
God the Lord, who doth not slumber
Keepeth all the boundless number
But He careth more for thee
But He careth more for thee.
Miss Lily smiled when I finished, and gave my hand another squeeze, but she didn’t open her eyes. I sat there holding her hand until Brenda got back, then I made the rest of my rounds.
It was four thirty when I hit Highway 59 headed south for Sugar Land. Four thirty lands you solidly in rush-hour traffic. I’m deliberately using the word “solidly”—I mean it as opposed to liquid. The traffic seems not to move. There was a taxi-yellow Hummer in front of me and I could swear it was jouncing from side to side with the boom of the bass. I’ll bet you would expect me to be foaming at the mouth, preacher or no preacher, but I wasn’t.
Some time ago I was visiting with Carol Thompson after services, and I had expressed the enormous frustration I feel when I’m caught in traffic. If you live in or near Houston, traffic is a fact of life. Carol is a family therapist; the church refers a lot of people to her, so even though I hadn’t been looking for advice when I made that offhand comment, I listened to what she had to say.
“For a temperament like yours, I think the frustration stems not so much from the delay, which, intellectually, you can accept as a necessary and unavoidable consequence of living on the outskirts of one of the nation’s largest and most sprawling cities, but from the waste of your time. Men like you tend to get their sense of self-worth out of what they accomplish. Sitting in traffic, they aren’t getting anything done.
“You might try a couple of tactics. One is to check out The Teaching Company series from your local library. It’s an audio series, very good. The professors don’t talk down and you could learn a lot on any number of topics—Darwinism, mythology, biography, economics, tons of history—in short, you’re feeding your brain, continuing your education even as your engine idles on the freeway. Another tactic my patients have found effective is to learn a new language. You can go to Sam’s Warehouse and pick up any of a number of good CD language programs.”
I thanked her, trying not to be too conscious of the line backing up behind her; there are always members who want to let you know how well you gave your sermon, or whether they felt it was worth giving at all. Carol noticed my concern and gave my arm a squeeze.
“That consultation was on me, Bear. You won’t get a bill in the mail.”
Carol had been dead-on with her advice. Since then, I’ve been alternating between The Teaching Company and the Modern Scholar series and a Spanish language program—it was soothing listening to an educated, well-modulated adult voice confiding to me the intimacies of Winston Churchill’s life, or asking me, “¿Qué te parece?”—“What do you think?”—about el restaurante, el libro, or los jóvenes.
I didn’t want to puzzle out what Miss Lily had been saying. I’m not a liar; I know that for sure. Soy un hombre veraz. I slipped in a Spanish CD and started ordering a make-believe dinner from the make-believe waiter’s suggestions. I started with albondigas. Yo gusto albondigas.
In spite of the traffic, I spent a relatively pleasant forty minutes chatting with the waiter, the camarero, who couldn’t hear me. I felt relaxed and collected when I pulled into the church parking lot. That didn’t last.
Detective James Wanderley was waiting for me.
Fourteen
Detective Wanderley was sitting cross-legged on the lawn, his back against the edge of the seat of one of the park benches the church had dotted around the lawn. I can’t remember the last time I could get my legs in that pretzel configuration.
He was reading a coverless paperback. He glanced up at my car, his hand shielding his eyes from the low sun, and he got up slow and easy, not using his hands, just unfolding. It made my knees hurt to watch him. He stuffed the paperback into his jacket pocket, and strolled over to meet me as I got out of the car.
“Ah. It’s the friendliest man in Sugar Land. You have a minute, Bear?”
Probably I was reading into it, but that sounded snarky to me. “Friendliest man.” It was one thing coming from Annie Laurie—I was already sorry Annie had given that young man permission to use my nickname. Wasn’t any way I could stop him from using it now without looking like a tight ass.
“Is it going to take a minute?”
He stared at me, his face shadowed now that his back was to the dying sun. I was having trouble reading his expression, with the sun being right in my eyes. I wondered if he had deliberately maneuvered me into that position, some sneaky cop trick he’d learned from TV.
“No. Probably thirty minutes. Maybe more. You might want to ask some questions, too.”
I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to ask Wanderley, or hear from him, either, unless he was looking for more parenting tips on how to raise a daughter, and I didn’t think that was why he was here. Nevertheless, I led the way up to my office, passing Rebecca on her way out. She usually leaves for the day around five because she doesn’t think it’s good for the “boys” (those would be her pugs) to be on their own too long; I try to work until seven. Normally those two hours after the office has closed are when I write my sermons and work on my next book, but on Tuesdays we had special programs at the building.
Rebecca looked startled to see Wanderley. She didn’t say anything, just nodded to him and told me she’d left a pile of messages on my desk.
Wanderley and I had gotten off on the wrong foot at our first meeting. That wasn’t my fault, but I felt it was incumbent upon me to start this meeting in a more positive direction, try to talk to Wanderley like Molly’s dad, instead of the smart-mouthed detective he had seemed at first. I was praying in my head, over and over, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, oh Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” You’d be surprised how many different situations that Psalm covers. Especially the “words of my mouth” part. Rebecca once recommended I quote Psalm 39 instead, and “put a muzzle on my mouth.” She was quoting out of context, but I refrained (see?) from pointing that out.
As I passed Rebecca’s desk, I pushed a button on her telephone console to make sure we wouldn’t be interrupted by calls.
I thought if I didn’t put my desk between us, it might help things out some. Maybe make the situation less adversarial. I sat down on the easy chair and gestured to the love seat. It would be interesting to see if Wanderley could turn the love seat into a fun house ride the way he had the swivel chair.
Wanderley plopped down and swung a leg over the arm, knocking askew the lamp shade on the side table lamp. Didn’t seem to faze him one bit. He spread his arms out over the back of the love seat, slumped down, and looked as comfortable as a man dressed in briefs on his own living room couch. When his wife was out of town.
I said, “Have you had a chance to check out the preschool Chloe is looking at
?”
“Are you ready to tell me what was covered during your Monday meeting with Garcia?”
So it wasn’t Molly’s dad I would be talking to right now. It was Detective Wanderley.
I went ahead and told him. He had a right to the information; I knew that now. In the Church of Christ, though we hold confidentiality in high regard, if there is a criminal matter being investigated and we have information that might be pertinent, we’re going to tell. It’s that way in most Protestant churches. Keep that in mind if you decide to go confessing to a minister instead of a priest.
He wanted to know who the other woman was. I told him I didn’t have a clue.
I said, “Don’t you have any suspects besides Alex? I mean, he’s a sixteen-year-old kid …”
“Lots of sixteen-year-old boys are killers. Hormones are high, they get worked up over nothing; they don’t have all the options an adult usually has. They act before they think. But yes, we’re looking around. I shouldn’t tell you this, but I took notice of the fact that someone from Garcia’s law firm showed up at the house yesterday afternoon to ‘pick up’ Garcia’s laptop and ‘work-related’ papers. He said they were firm property and might hold confidential client information.”
“And you let that fellow walk off with that stuff? Don’t you watch Law and Order?”
Wanderley shook his head reprovingly and grinned.
“No, Bear, I did not let the guy ‘walk off’ with all that info. I’d had all that packed up before you ever got to the Garcias’ yesterday. I wouldn’t have even known about the firm’s request if the clever Mexican maid hadn’t called me to fill me in on it.”
I bristled. “Cruz isn’t Mexican, she’s Colombian, and she’s not a maid, she’s—”
Wanderley jerked upright and interrupted, “What? She’s what? She’s wearing a maid’s uniform and cleaning the Garcias’ house for free because the Pope sent her an edict saying that all the brown-skinned people in the world should do what they can to help their poor, suffering white brothers and sisters?”
“She wears those uniforms because they’re cheap and easy to clean. I asked her. She’s more like a housekeeper,” I finished.
Faithful Unto Death Page 11