Hell on Church Street

by Jake Hinkson

  Taking that quick shower, I was as objective as I could be. It was like working out an equation. I ran the water hot and scrubbed off good, washing with soap and shampoo. Once the initial shock of killing the Cards had subsided, I was just a man trying to solve a problem. I didn’t have any experience with this sort of thing, of course. I hadn’t planned to kill the Cards, and I had made no preparations for it. I had to improvise, and I needed to do it quickly. By the time I was done with the little shower, I had it all figured out.

  I dried off and went into the Cards’ bedroom and put on a pair of Brother Card’s slippers, some khaki shorts and his red Ask Me About Jesus t-shirt. Then I dug out his darkest clothes: a pair of black dress shoes, black slacks, dark brown sweater and a black blazer. I lay them on the bed, and I walked back to the kitchen. It was a gruesome sight. The Cards were exactly as I had left them, their eyes open, vacant and rubbery-looking. It was bizarre, really, how they were no longer people. They were objects on the floor. They didn’t have breath or thoughts or a future. They were just objects. Messy objects. The whole place was covered in blood: dried blood and sticky blood and wet blood.

  I went out to the garage and rummaged around until I found a plastic container of gasoline three quarters full. I carried it into the kitchen and set it on the table.

  Then I dug out Sister Card’s salad tongs, went down the hall to the bathroom and plucked my bloody clothes off the floor like they were a science experiment. As much as possible, I tried to avoid any blood. I took out the envelope crumpled in my jacket. It looked like hell, but it wasn’t bloody. I left it with the clean clothes in the bedroom. Then I went back to the kitchen, threw the bloody clothes on top of the Cards and walked back down the hall to Angela’s room. It was what I’d thought it would be: girly, smelling of her perfume. There was a writing desk with a pile of school books. A big bed with a white comforter and a pink skirt. The walls were covered in pictures of river otters and dolphins, a map of the world and a poster of a shitty Christian rock band called By His Stripes.

  I opened her chest-of-drawers, went through her underwear, looked at her yearbooks (her photo was glum and made me sad, but there was a crown of hearts around Oscar’s photo and I threw the book down) and searched through her closets. I was hoping to find a diary of some kind, but she didn’t seem to have one.

  I pulled the comforter off the bed, turned off the light and carried the comforter back down the hall to the chamber of horrors. I doused the Cards in gasoline but made sure I didn’t use too much too quickly and didn’t splash any on myself. I ran a line of gasoline down the hall, splashing some in the bathroom on the dry towels and running a line into both bedrooms. I finally ran out of gas pouring it around the Cards’ bed. I looked under the kitchen sink and found some lighter fluid and went into Brother Card’s office and sprayed his papers and books, anything that would burn well. I did the same thing all over again in the living room, making sure to spray some on the carpet and sofa.

  Then I stripped off the t-shirt and shorts and changed into the darker clothes I’d laid out on the bed. I slid the Dyess envelope into the pocket of the blazer and walked carefully back down the hall. I stuffed Angela’s comforter in the oven, soaking it with the last of the lighter fluid. The matches were in a drawer under the microwave. After I’d turned on the oven and the range, I struck a match and dropped it on the Cards.

  Chapter Eleven

  I took my time getting home, staying further back in the woods than I had before, and trying to keep cool. The streets were quiet and I was quiet with them. I knew better than to rush home. Keep cool.

  Lying on my bed when I got home, I looked over the papers in the manila envelope for a few minutes before I tucked them away. I’m not much of a hand at legal documents to begin with, and my damn hands kept shaking, but the papers were pretty straightforward. It was a copy of a will, and it looked to me as if Mrs. Dyess had turned over ownership of the aluminum plant to the church. I couldn’t concentrate very well, but that was what I got from what I read. I also saw the words in excess of four million dollars.

  It was about what I figured. It looked like Mrs. Dyess’s lawyer was a guy named Vandover Norris. I assumed he was the “family friend” that Doolittle had mentioned. I tried to reason my way through it, tried to figure out what the Norrises were up to, but I couldn’t focus. I put the papers in my trunk in the closet under my pornos and, exhausted, flung myself onto the bed and tried to sleep. I was too nervous, though. My mind raced.

  What I’d just done seemed like it had happened in a former life, as if it were some ancient, buried memory instead of something that had happened a few hours before. But it had happened. Two people were dead. Two people who were living were now not living because I’d decided—in a very off hand manner I might say—to take their lives.

  The full importance of this didn’t really occur to me until later on, but as I lay there in the small, quiet hours of the morning—knowing that not all that far away the Cards’ house was a burning hell—I couldn’t get it off my mind. I wasn’t racked with guilt, understand. I wish I could say I was, but I wasn’t. The Cards hadn’t deserved to die any more than most people do, but I hadn’t killed them because they deserved it. It was simply what had happened. And I thought about it on that level. I just couldn’t quite believe it had actually happened. Maybe it had been easy because I’d never liked Sister Card and she’d never liked me. Maybe I was just scared. Why do these things happen, anyway? I don’t know. They just do. If there is a god, I suppose these kinds of things must be part of him and his big master plan. Maybe they’re his idea of a joke, the overlapping ironies of his inexhaustibly complex nature. If there’s not a god, then this kind of wickedness is simply a facet of the human psyche, some glitch we haven’t worked out yet and probably never will.

  I tried to think about Angela, but she started to seem small compared to what I’d done for her. That made me angry for a moment, but I let it pass. No use getting mad at her. She hadn’t done anything. Just then she was at a friend’s house, sleeping soundly probably, with no idea her parents were dead. Silly of me to get mad at her.

  In a way—and I’m fully aware that you may have trouble making this leap, but do me and favor and try—it seemed like some real good might come from what I’d done. I mean, in a sense, things for me had just improved. The Cards had always been the only real obstacle between me and Angela. Except maybe Oscar, but he was just some pathetic little basketball player. Had she ever even loved him? I doubt it. Love at that age, what is it really? Nothing but hormones colliding with insecurity in a limited pool of options.

  I actually loved her.

  Or I thought I did. Many people would say I didn’t. But let’s put it this way: I killed for her. I didn’t plan on it, but when the challenge came, I took it. I actually murdered people for her, like Abraham ready to sacrifice Isaac to prove he loved god. God himself demanded that kind of love. How demented could it be? I wasn’t desperate after I killed the Cards, I was glad. I was locking it in. No matter what, I would be joined with Angela forever. She would need me now more than ever.

  The more I thought about her, though, the more that something tugged at me. The last obstacle.

  Doolittle Norris. I didn’t want to think too much about him or about our inevitable confrontation. Thinking too much will always mangle your mind. I needed to be clear when I saw him. I decided not to think about him.

  Which left me with nothing but the really Big Questions, the moral implications of what I’d done. Well, who wants to think about that shit? I watched a porno instead and finally fell to sleep.

  The doorbell rang about three hours later. It was early, and sunlight was just beginning to splinter the night sky. When I opened the door Doolittle Norris shoved his way in, threw me to the floor, and slammed the door shut behind him. He stalked over to the curtains and peered outside.

  Then he spun around.

  “What the fuck happened?”

  I motioned
at the door. “Did anyone see you come in?”

  He glared at me like I was a fool. “No. Do you think I want people seeing me come in here right, now?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think you do.” I couldn’t help but smile when I said it.

  He stared at me for a long moment and took a step back and leaned against the wall. He crossed his arms. “Well,” he said, “you little motherfucker. You little piece of shit.”

  I shrugged and pushed myself off the floor.

  “Care to sit down?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Then let’s get down to it,” I said. “I have what you want. I’ve done something for you, now you can do something for me.”

  “Killing the preacher and his wife and burning their fucking house to the ground wasn’t my idea. That was yours.”

  “True. That’s why you’re called an accomplice,” I said. “I bet when they give me the lethal injection, you don’t do more than ten or fifteen years. But I doubt you want that. I doubt you want to go to jail at all.”

  Violence simmered in his eyes and his ruddy cheeks were hot with blood, but Norris hadn’t become the criminal he was by beating the shit out of people when it didn’t benefit him. He stared at me and said, “Be careful with what you say.”

  “I will,” I said. “But you can see I’m right. I’m sitting on a few million dollars for you. However you plan to get it, I’m the key. I have the will. You need it, and I have it.”

  “What makes you think I need it now? I could just say it burned up in the fire.”

  I shook my head. “C’mon, don’t treat me like that. We both know why you’re here. If you didn’t need me, I’d be in jail or dead already. You can’t throw me in jail because you know I’ll name you as an accomplice, and you don’t want to kill me because I have the key to old lady Dyess’s money.”

  He did. He stared at me and thought, and I could tell he knew I was right. “Where’s the envelope?” he asked.

  I grinned at him disappointedly. He shrugged.

  “So,” he said, “you’ve got it stashed away somewhere. Now what do you want?”

  “Two things. Not big things either. First, I want you to take care of this little mess we have.”

  He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes. “It’s a hellish nightmare over there.”

  “Can you pass it off as an accident?”

  “Christ, no. It looks like a murder scene. I’m not the only one there, you know. Anyone who sees it can tell it’s a murder scene.” His face screwed up in revulsion the more he thought about it. “Accident! Are you out of your mind, you sick bastard? There’s a guy with a fucking knife in his skull.” He shook his head. “I can’t pass that off as an accident.”

  I shrugged. “So it’s a murder. Investigate it like a murder then. But you know where it can’t lead.”

  He pursed his lips and weighed the chances of success. “It’s not going to be as easy as you think.”

  “That’s your problem now,” I said.

  I don’t know why I was needling him, but he didn’t respond to it at all. He only scratched his chin and asked, “What’s your second condition?”

  “That you see to it Angela stays here in town.”

  “Angela…”

  “The preacher’s daughter.”

  “Oh,” he said, stretching the syllable out. “The preacher’s daughter.” He shook his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “She’s got an aunt in town,” I said. “See to it she stays here. I don’t want them sending her down to Texas to stay with her grandparents. Say she needs to stay here. Throw some police jibberish at them.”

  “And then what?”

  I shrugged. “As soon as the case closes, you get your papers.”

  He pushed himself off the wall and said, “I’ll be in touch with you. Don’t you call me. Expect me to show up.”

  “Okay.”

  He nodded and went to the window and peered out. Then, without saying anything else, he slipped out into the breaking dawn.

  Looking back on it, I think he’d already decided to kill me.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next few days were consumed with managing the reaction to the Cards’ deaths. The chairman of the deacons called me crying in the early hours of the morning of the murders to let me know what had happened. He was an old man, but I don’t think he’d ever experienced anything like this.

  I reacted like he would expect me to react. I was daunted, shaken, horrified, but brave and ready for what lay ahead, assuring him that we needed prayer and supplication before the Lord now more than ever. I asked him to arrange a meeting with the deacons for that night.

  “The important thing for us in a time like this,” I said, “is to stay close to the Lord and close to each other.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said.

  “How many people have you talked to?”

  “Just a few. Nick Hargrove called me and let me know.”

  The bright young man was moving forward already. It figured. “How did he find out?” I asked.

  “Well, his brother-in-law, as you may know, is the sheriff,” the chairman told me.

  “I didn’t get the impression they were on good terms.”

  “I don’t believe they are,” the chairman said, “but I believe the sheriff felt compelled to tell his sister that her pastor was dead.”

  “I see. And you didn’t talk to too many others before you called me,” I said.

  “I made one or two calls, but I assume the word is all over by now.”

  “That’s a safe bet,” I said. “That’s one very good reason for the senior staff and the deacons to meet.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “I’m sure Nick will feel the same.”

  After I hung up, I made the rounds. I went by the music minister’s home, went by the home of the Senior Adult minister, and stopped by the church to help the secretary field calls for a few hours. Then I went by and saw Nick Hargrove.

  The bright young man had a nice house in a new subdivision up by the school. There was a new car shining under a basketball goal in the driveway. As I walked up to his front door, I could see the edge of a swimming pool jutting out from behind the house.

  Nick’s wife answered the door. Lacey Hargrove was a rosy-cheeked blonde with a cute overbite, but she had a crying baby on her hip and she looked grim.

  “He’s in his office,” she said.

  I tried to see the similarity between her and Doolittle Norris, but there wasn’t any. Nothing about her marked her as a Norris. Whether that was genetics or the work of the Holy Ghost is anyone’s guess.

  She led me through the house, and I watched her ass as she went down the hall. The baby stopped crying and watched me watch its mother’s ass. I shrugged.

  “Nick,” she said, tapping on the door.

  Nick sat at his desk and turned when we came in. He stood up. “Hey there.” He kissed his wife on the cheek and shook my hand.

  “Could you take her?” Lacey asked.

  Nick grimaced but took the kid without a word. Lacey left.

  “Have a seat,” he said.

  I sat in a hard-backed chair by the desk, and we exchanged some words of remorse about the Cards. I went on autopilot and said everything you’re supposed to say. While he talked, I looked around the office a little.

  It was neat and clean. There were two bookshelves full of history, religion and politics. Paintings of flaxen-haired angels and sun-kissed clouds hung along the walls, and above his desk, next to a partial list of Southern Baptist missionaries, a tack-filled map of the world gave Nick his view of the big picture.

  He stopped talking and held the baby to his chest. The kid looked ready to cry.

  Nick smiled when he saw me looking at the kid. “She likes me. It’s funny,” he said. “She’s more at ease with me than her mother.” He shook his head. “Odd.”

  “It is,” I said.

  “Have you thought about
kids?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I’ve thought a little, I guess, but right now I’m married to doing what the Lord wants me to do.”

  Nick nodded, but he looked down at his baby daughter instead of at me. He knew, on some level, that I was full of shit. I wanted to laugh. He and I could not have been more different. He was energized, handsome, a devout family man, politically active with several conservative groups, athletic and outgoing. He was the future of the church and everyone knew it.

  But the church was up for grabs now.

  “Have you been by to see Angela?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  Nick frowned. “I would have thought that would be your first step,” he said.

  “Well I, I wanted to discuss church matters with you,” I stammered.

  “There’s a meeting scheduled,” he said. “We’ll be discussing ‘church matters’ for days and months to come. Don’t you think you should be tending to your flock?”

  The truth was I was scared as hell to see Angela, but how could I say that?

  “I’m going by there,” I said, trying not to get pissed at him. “I just wanted to drop by and discuss your thoughts on where we should go next with the church.”

  He sighed and patted his daughter’s tiny back. “I think we should start looking for a new pastor as soon as possible,” he said. “I think that’s the most important thing, but, honestly—speaking of first things first, I think you should go see Angela. I think that’s where you’re needed.”

  There was nothing to do but nod and get up. “Just wanted to stop by,” I said. “I was on my way over there.”

  He grinned. Of course. “We’ll talk soon,” he said.

  “Count on it,” I said, with just a little too much force behind it.

  I had no choice in the matter now. I had to go see her. The funny thing is, I hadn’t even realized I was avoiding talking to her, but now my hands were shaking. I went out to my car and drove over to the house of Brother Card’s sister. She was a skinny blonde woman with tiny teeth and large gums, and I could tell she’d been crying when she answered the door.