Hell on Church Street

by Jake Hinkson

  I sulked in the corner of his big truck and didn’t say anything. What was there to say to that? I would lose my job. And, if they could, the Cards would have me put in jail for statutory rape, a jail run by Doolittle Norris.

  Norris drove past my house (“Now, that is your house, right?”) and swung by the Cards’ house as well. He slowed down, grinning at me in the rearview mirror. When we were out of the neighborhood, he cut through the Wal-Mart parking lot a few blocks away and headed back to the church. “Of course, we could avoid all that,” he said. “But you’d have to do something for me.”

  “What?” I asked.

  He nodded. “That’s better. You don’t need to bullshit me about the girl. I don’t care. She’s...what? Sixteen, seventeen. Back not all that long ago, she’d already have a kid or two. Some places in the world they still marry them off at fourteen, fifteen.”

  “What do you want from me?” I asked belligerently. “I don’t have much money, but I can give you a little. Just tell me what you want and leave me the hell alone.”

  He swung the truck over to the side of the road and threw it into park. I lurched forward and thumped my head against the windshield. By the time I’d regained my balance, he’d unholstered his gun and pointed it at my mouth.

  I plastered myself to the door and clawed at the seat with my fingernails. His face was a sick orange from the dashboard. “Real quick now, let’s have a clarification session. You’re a fucking weasel, and I own you. You’re my fucking weasel. You get tough with me, or fuck around with me, and I’ll skip sending your ass to jail. I’ll put a bullet in your skull and stick you out in the woods under a rock.”

  “Okay,” I pleaded.

  “You believe me now?”

  “Yes, sir. Please. Please just tell me what you want.”

  He stared at me for a while and then holstered his gun, put the truck in drive and said, “Good. Don’t want us to misunderstand each other.” He smiled again and reached for his spit cup. “I need you to do a little favor for me.”

  I peeled myself off the door and settled somewhat into the seat. Jesus.

  “You know who Mrs. Eleanor Dyess is?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Old lady in your church?”

  I shook my head, although I wasn’t really trying to remember. I was still thinking about his gun pointed at me.

  “Course not,” he said. “You’re too busy banging teenagers after church to notice. Mrs. Dyess is the widow of Fred Dyess who owned the aluminum plant out on Fenton Road. Now she owns it. Or did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She died a couple of hours ago. Cancer.”

  Then I remembered Brother Card trying to tell me about her the first night I had dinner at his house. I wished I’d been paying attention. “I remember her now,” I said. “She’s been sick since I got here. I never met her though.”

  “That’s understandable, you being so involved with the youth and all,” he said.

  I didn’t reply to that.

  “Here’s the point,” he said. “Mrs. Dyess left something very important with your friend the preacher.”

  “With Brother Card?”

  “One and the same. And he’s got this important document at his house.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He shrugged. “The old lady was a religious kook. She had a falling out with her kids years ago, and the only person she trusted was Brother Card. The lawyer involved in the distribution of Mrs. Dyess’s estate is a…family friend. He was present when your would-be father-in-law put this document in the bottom drawer of his desk at home.”

  “But how do you know it’s still there? He might have moved it.”

  Doolittle Norris shook his head. “It’s there. There’s no reason for him to have moved it. Not until tomorrow morning, anyway.”

  “But—”

  “Stop talking,” he groaned. “Jesus Christ. All you have to worry about is going in there tonight and getting it out. Simple burglary. According to the state, you’re already legally a rapist. You can’t step up to a little B&E?”

  I shook my head. “But how would I even go about it? I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “You’re about to learn,” he said.

  “What is it, this document?” I asked. “What am I looking for?”

  He let that hover in the air between us as he pulled into the church parking lot and stopped at my car. “In his office at home… Bottom drawer on the right hand side. Where he keeps his important church documents. It’s a manila envelop with DYESS written across it in marker. You can’t miss it. I’ll call you tomorrow night.” He jerked his head at the door. “Now get out.”

  I opened the door and climbed out. I felt sluggish and exhausted.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Yeah.” I stopped with my hand on the door.

  He stared at me for a long time. “Come tomorrow night you’d best have that goddamn envelope.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m not talking about going to jail on a statutory rape charge.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good,” he said. “Get to work.”

  Chapter Nine

  I waited until his truck disappeared into the distance before I dragged myself back into the church. I was too smart not to sneak into Brother Card’s office and check through his files. I was hoping like hell he had moved that envelope to the church. His door was unlocked, and I searched his office thoroughly. It was all for nothing, though, and that meant there were no options left to me but to drive home and get ready to burgle the Cards’ home. On the way there, I swung by the hospital to see if Brother Card’s car was in the parking lot. It wasn’t. I assumed he had to have been there when the old lady died, done his consoling, and gone home for the night.

  When I got home, I went to my room and dropped onto the bed and thought things over. I was still looking for a way out.

  But what could I do but go into the house and try to get that envelope? I suppose I could have slinked out of town, disgraced, or maybe I could have even attempted to explain things to the Cards. But it wouldn’t have done any good. I needed to stay, to be close to Angela, and to do that I had to get Doolittle Norris off my back. If it meant crawling around in the dark, so be it. If they caught me, I’d be screwed. I’d lose my job for sure, but at the very least I’d have Norris in my corner when they called the cops. The risks were huge, but the only other option held nothing but grim certainties.

  I picked myself up and changed into the darkest clothes I had. Jesus, I thought as I was changing, this is crazy. I’d never done anything like this before, never snuck around at night, never broken into a house. But as I set myself to doing it—slipping a small flashlight and utility knife in my pockets—there was a slight change in my attitude. Despite the fear, or maybe because of it, I felt wide awake, and I was hyperaware of my skin and bones. I felt alive.

  It was cold out, of course, but I was too nervous to feel it much. Through the shadows of my backyard, I crept along the edge of the woods, just behind the houses on Church Street. Every backyard I passed scared the hell out of me, but no one was out. A couple of dogs barked at me, but those damn dogs were always barking at something. The neighborhood was asleep. I stayed just inside the shadows and trees, and took my time with it. When I got to the end of our block I had to cross the open road that intersected Church Street. I took it at a light trot and entered the woods on the other side. From there, I crossed a few lightly timbered acres and arrived at the edge of the Cards’ neighborhood. I crept along behind houses and stayed as much as I could in the woods. The houses were dark; the neighborhood was in bed and sleeping soundly. From there on out, I didn’t even run across a barking dog. When I got to the back of the Cards’ house, I was not surprised to find all the lights were off.

  Behind me, the woods seemed to take a breath. Branches creaked, and pine needles scoured the night air. I crouched down and scanned the yard.
There was a good bit of space between the Cards’ house and their nearest neighbor. I tried remembering the setup of the house. The living room window was on the left and looked out onto a dozen-or-so feet of grass and a six foot wooden fence. The fence seemed to exist only as a demarcation line between the properties of Card and his neighbor.

  Card had told me once that his office didn’t have a workable window because he didn’t want to be distracted in prayer. That made the living room the best place to scope out the inside of the house, so I slid up to the window and peeked inside. The sill was a little high, but I could see okay. The room was dark, of course, but I could make out the couch and the large television draped in shadows. The house was asleep. I snuck around to the back door and tried it. Locked, of course. I went back to the living room window and tried it. It wasn’t locked.

  My bladder suddenly felt as if it might burst. My scalp tightened. Going around to the back of the house, I looked for something to stand on. I found Brother Card’s chopping block by the woodpile and put it under the window. Then I eased up the window as quietly as I could, sliced open the bottom of the screen, and pulled the screen frame out. I dropped it on the grass and struggled to pull myself up and through the window. It was difficult to do it quietly, and I don’t exactly have catlike stealth, but I lowered myself onto the living room carpet without making too much noise.

  The house seemed hot after walking through the frigid night air, and I crouched there beside the window for a while letting my fingers and toes thaw out. I wasn’t really cold until that moment, and then I was shivering in the warmth of the Cards’ home.

  The house had that fragile silence all places get at night. Every move I made seemed magnified a thousand times. When I finally picked myself up and started to cross the room, I felt as if I were walking over a sheet of glass.

  From the kitchen the refrigerator hummed, but otherwise the house lay silent. Creeping past the kitchen, I inched down the carpeted hallway. I took each step as if the floor might break. I passed the bathroom door, which was closed. Beneath the door, no light. The office door was open, and I went in. Shut the door. Delicately. Turned on the flashlight. Across the room to the desk. Crouched behind it. Eased open the bottom drawer. Delicately. And there it was.

  It was a long manila envelope with DYESS written in magic marker. I slipped it into my coat and was raising myself up when I heard a toilet flush and the bathroom door open.

  Dropping down again, I knocked over a paperweight on Card’s desk and the goddamn thing hit the carpet with a thud. I fumbled with the flashlight but clicked it off.

  Then there was silence.

  Loud silence.

  Nothing.

  I didn’t breathe.

  Then there was the sound of movement, the sound of weight moving away from me and toward the kitchen.

  I eased up just a little and saw nothing, of course, but the door of the office. It was possible that the toilet flush had obscured the paperweight. Whoever it was in the bathroom might not have heard it. They might not have seen the light.

  My body was tense—but not in a useless way. I was coiled, ready. I wiped sweat from my face and felt more sweat drip from my armpits.

  I waited.

  Every second weighed a thousand pounds.

  I kept waiting.

  There was no sound coming from the kitchen. Nothing.

  Were they on the phone to the cops? Doubtful. You’d investigate a sound like the paperweight before you’d dial up the cops. Had they seen the light? Had they passed by and gone on to bed? It was possible I’d misheard and just thought they were going to the kitchen.

  The longer I waited the more likely that seemed.

  One thing was for sure: I couldn’t just wait. The longer I waited, the more chance I had of getting caught. The office did have a small window, but Card, more concerned with books and solitude than the view of his backyard, had obscured it with two heavy bookshelves. To make matters worse, the shelves had long ago sunk into the carpet. Even if I didn’t care about the noise, I couldn’t get those shelves out of the way to get out the window.

  Nothing was happening outside that door. No whispers. No patter of feet. No dialing of the phone. Nothing.

  I had to move.

  I eased up and crept, weightlessly it seemed like, to the door and listened. Listened hard. But there was nothing, goddamn it. I’m telling you, there was no sound. I decided to go for it. If one of the Cards were up and about, I’d just have to run for the window. There was no other option.

  I eased the door open, and it made the slightest sucking noise, like a vacuum being released, and I opened it wider. The hinges squeaked. I paused.

  Nothing.

  I stepped into the hall. The bedrooms were at the end, across from each other, and both doors were open slightly, but everything was dark and quiet.

  I crept down the hall toward the living room. Past the bathroom. The door was open, and a little nightlight shone alone in the dark.

  Inching along, I passed the darkened kitchen. Quietly. I was almost to the living room window when I realized there was someone in the kitchen watching me.

  Chapter Ten

  It was Sister Card.

  She stood there frozen. Wearing a long t-shirt and pink ankle-high socks. And holding that goddamn butcher knife. When I turned, she tried to scream but nothing came out. She looked so absurd trying to scream I could have laughed, but I didn’t.

  I rushed her. I didn’t have a plan. I wasn’t thinking. I just did it. I leapt at her and punched her in the face. I’d never struck anyone before, and when the impact hurt my hand, it startled me. Sister Card toppled over. The poor woman never even raised the knife. I guess she was just too scared. I don’t think she ever even realized it was me.

  I wrested the knife away from her. Then I stuck it in her chest and stomach and throat. I did it over and over without thinking until she stopped kicking and the scream which never did emerge from the back of her throat finally bubbled away and she was dead.

  And that was it.

  I was a murderer. The whole thing probably took less than two minutes. Sister Card had lived for forty-odd years—was born, grew up, fell in love, got married, had sex, made babies, gathered friends, lost friends…and in two minutes I’d murdered her.

  I knelt there beside her body, feeling the linoleum sticky with blood beneath me, and looked at her.

  Dead.

  I was thinking about that when Brother Card screamed. He’d heard us thumping around in the kitchen and had run up the hall to find his wife dead on the kitchen floor next to me. His hair stuck out like a wild man’s and he wore a plain orange t-shirt and white briefs. He lunged at me, screaming. He did know it was me. I could see the recognition—clouded by horror as it was—on his face. He must have thought he was in a nightmare, or maybe hell. He slipped a little in his wife’s blood as he came at me, and I stuck the knife into his throat, going through his Adam’s Apple and up into his head. It happened quickly, quicker than with Sister Card, although Brother Card made more noise. He screamed, a high pitched, almost female scream, but the knife tore up his throat too bad. He tried to strangle me, but I just kept pushing on the knife, trying to get it up to his brain, and the handle cracked but I kept pushing. He kept trying to get at me and although he didn’t know it, the more he tried to get me the more he helped me, and the whole time I kept pushing. Finally, he couldn’t take it and started clawing at his throat, but by then it was too late. He was choking on the knife. I kept pushing. And finally he stopped moving.

  When it was all over, I lay covered in their blood, shaking like a newborn baby. I pulled myself off the floor and slumped onto a kitchen chair and looked at them. Brother Card lay at his wife’s knees, still clutching his throat. Sister Card stared at the ceiling. Blood soaked everything like someone had dumped a bucket of it on us.

  I don’t know how long I sat there. Too long to be smart, I suppose, but nothing happened. I just stared at them, and they
just stayed dead.

  “Jesus,” I said finally.

  I said it as a curse, of course, but when it came out, it just sort of sat there: Jesus. I looked at the Cards. Nothing. They were a bloody pile of meat and bone, just like me. I was sitting on a wooden chair at a wooden table someone had carved out of a tree. Everything seemed heavy and solid. Even the name: Jesus. All of a sudden it seemed like there was a god. It was as if I’d always been a little off center and someone had bumped me and, just for a second, I was on center and everything seemed thick and hard and real.

  I shook that out of my head and got up. I had some important things to think about. Focus. What if Card had made a phone call before he came in and the police were coming? I went to the front window and parted the blinds. Nothing. The street was empty and quiet. I turned around, and then I saw something that made me smile. I walked over to the couch and picked up the cordless phone resting against a cushion. The only phone in the house.

  After making sure all the windows and blinds in the house were closed, I strolled back to the bathroom and turned on the light. Underneath a damp red sheen, my face was pale. I ran some warm water and washed up, and pink water swirled down the drain and splattered on the sides of the sink. I looked in the mirror again, and my face was still bloody. The more I looked at the blood, which an hour before had been running through their veins and soaking their muscles, the more disgusting it became. I stripped off my bloody clothes and got into the shower.

  Maybe taking a shower right then sounds crazy to you. Maybe it was, and maybe I am crazy. I don’t know. What I do know is that I have never been more rational than right after I killed the Cards. It was late and the neighbors were probably asleep. I had no reason to think the cops were on their way, and I calculated that staying and showering was a smarter risk to take than traipsing back through the woods soaked in DNA. Better to wash as much of the evidence down the drain.