by K. Gresham
“Good morning, Mrs. Fullenweider,” he called out as he entered the dark lobby. He allowed his gaze to trail up to the steeple high above him, and wondered at the cost of installing windows to brighten the dreary interior.
“Good morning, Pastor Hayden,” she said as he entered her outer office. Matt imagined Ann Fullenweider had been something of a catch in her younger days. Her hairstyle might have come straight from the fifties and her make-up was a little overdone, but her clothes were professional, and she had a style that reminded him of Jackie O. “You have a visitor,” she said, her well-penciled eyebrows raised in interest.
“A visitor?” Matt echoed.
“I let her in your office. I hope you don’t mind. She was so distraught—”
“Pearl Masterson?” Matt walked quickly toward his office and pushed open the door.
It wasn’t Pearl who greeted him, however. Dorothy Jo Devereaux jumped to her feet as he entered. “Pastor Hayden.”
“Dorothy Jo,” he said in surprise.
“Pastor, you’ve got to do somethin’.” Dorothy Jo wore a dress that looked like it hadn’t been worn in years. She’d even pulled her long gray hair back and attempted to pile it on her head.
This was an official visit, Matt realized.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Sheriff Novak came last night. At ten o’clock.”
“To your place?”
“No, no.” She waved impatiently. “To the Fire and Ice House.”
“What did he do?”
“That’s what you’ve got to fix,” Dorothy Jo said. She sat down hard in the chair. “I was afraid this was goin’ to happen.”
“He arrested Bo.” Matt said, understanding dawning.
“No,” Dorothy Jo sobbed. “Angie. He took Angie away and put her in jail for the murder of Ernie Masterson.”
***
“Look, Preacher, this is police business. Everything checks out.” James W. sat in the leather chair behind his large pine desk and glanced out the window of his second-story office. The Wilks County municipal building housed the sheriff’s offices, the fire and utility agencies and the two-room basement jail. “I had to bring her in last night. I had reason to believe that she would attempt to flee the area.”
Matt Hayden sat in the straight-back chair across from the sheriff’s desk. “James W., I can’t believe that Angie O’Day is responsible for Ernie Masterson’s death.”
“I got the coroner’s report right here, Pastor. Maybe it started out more as an accident. The blow to Ernie’s head wasn’t that severe, but apparently, he did lose his balance and hit his head good against the bumper. Turning the ignition in that van, though, well, that makes it murder.”
Matt shook his head. “Did the coroner have an estimate on the time of death?”
“He put it between nine and eleven p.m. I can make it closer than that. Ernie sold his last gallon of gas at ten-oh-five p.m.—to Ann Fullenweider, your secretary, I might add. Pearl found him at ten-thirty.” James W. folded his hands over his stomach. “Angie O’Day left the Fire and Ice House before ten o’clock. She’s got no alibi.”
But she did, Matt thought frantically, and he was it. Why hadn’t Angie told the sheriff that she had come to the parsonage?
“May I see her?” Matt asked.
James W. let out a frustrated sigh. “Why do you insist on getting involved in this? People don’t want their minister goin’ to a bar for lunch. They don’t cotton to preachers hangin’ around with the likes of those that hang around bars. Hell, I’m a fair man, and I’m beginning to wonder if you’ve got a thing for that girl.”
“Jesus broke bread with the people who were considered unworthy,” Matt reminded him.
James W. blinked. “You’re tryin’ to evangelize her?”
Knowing it would get him into Angie’s cell, Matt lied. “Yes.”
Chuckling, the sheriff rose from his chair. “I’ll let you in, then,” he said. “Watch I don’t have to charge Angie with another murder besides Ernie’s.”
***
“What are you doing here?” Angie O’Day sat across from Matt in the small conference room. Her face was redder than her hair and her hands were fisted on the table. Matt couldn’t tell if she was angry, embarrassed, or both.
“I came to talk some sense into you,” Matt said. He knew darn well he was angry.
“Sense?” She glanced nervously at the window in the room’s door. “Sense?” she repeated, lowering her voice. “You of all people have no right to talk to me about sense. Do you know what your congregation would say if they knew you were in here right now?”
He couldn’t sit. He was too angry to sit. He pushed away from the table and paced. “Angie, you were with me when Ernie Masterson was murdered. Why haven’t you told that to the sheriff?”
Angie shook her head. “And you were goin’ to talk to me about sense.”
“I’m going to talk to you about truth. As in telling it. If you don’t, I will.”
“No, you won’t,” she said sharply. “I was there for spiritual advice. You can’t betray that confidence.”
“Spiritual advice, my foot,” Matt snapped. “You came over to find out why I thought your mother was murdered.”
“I didn’t stay there the whole time that Ernie might have been killed. Even if I did tell James W. I was at your place, I still would have had time to go over to the Sinclair Station and bop Ernie over the head.”
“Angie—”
“No, listen! Why risk your reputation when it wouldn’t do any good, anyway?”
Matt finally sat in the chair across from her. “It’s not something I’m ashamed of.”
“You should be. A single man havin’ drinks with a suspected whore is bad enough. When that single man’s a preacher—hell, Preacher, this town will crucify you.”
“Angie, that’s not the issue here.”
“Yes, it is.” She banged her fist on the table, then immediately shoved it into her lap. “Do you think I killed Ernie Masterson?”
“I know you didn’t,” Matt said with conviction.
“Then you have to have faith that the truth will come out.” Angie lowered her voice and calmed her breathing. “The truth will come out,” she repeated. “Somebody did kill Ernie. When I find out who it was, I’ll probably shake their hand. But I didn’t do it, and I know I’ll be found innocent.”
Matt stared at her. His faith was in God, but she was putting her faith in people. Somehow her faith seemed as naive to him as he was sure his faith seemed to her.
That was something to consider.
“I come from a cop family, remember?” he said.
She nodded.
“I know how these things go. Once they’ve got one suspect, they stop looking for others. They spend all their time and effort trying to convict the bird they have in hand.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to do the lookin’, Preacher. For now, anyway. I’m not goin’ to give that church a reason for ditchin’ the first good pastor they’ve ever had.”
Matt swallowed hard at the compliment. “You’re giving me too much responsibility,” he said. “You need to put the facts before James W.”
“Yeah, I’m givin’ you plenty of responsibility. If you don’t think the sheriff’ll look for the truth, you find it and give it to him.”
Matt felt like swearing for the first time in months, but he fought off the urge. “Don’t do this to me, Angie.”
She sat back in her chair. “I’m the one in jail, remember? What am I doin’ to you?”
“You’re . . . different.” He swallowed hard. “You’re not one of my parishioners.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
“I don’t want to be responsible for you. Not like that.”
“What do you want, then?”
Matt stood abruptly. “This is ridiculous.”
“No.” Angie’s voice was quiet, but firm. “Face it, Preacher. You feel different about me t
han you do anybody else. That’s how I feel about you. It’s there between us. A match that’s waitin’ to be lit.”
“Damn you.” He went to the door but didn’t knock to be let out.
Angie’s mouth twitched. “Would that be to hell, Preacher? Is that where you want me to go?”
“No.” He didn’t turn from the door.
“Is that why you came in here today and told me to throw your career out the window to save my skin?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want?”
He shrugged. It was useless fighting any longer. He knew the truth as well as she did. He turned. “You.”
Her smile wasn’t victorious, nor coy. It was shy, like a flower whose bloom first touches sun. The vulnerability in her soft eyes ripped through him.
“I don’t trust people very much,” she whispered. “But I trust you. Get me out, Matt. Please.”
He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to take the fear out of her gaze and kiss away her sadness. He knew she wanted the same. He could feel it in her breathing as it quickened when he stepped nearer.
She drew back, however, darting a quick glance at the door’s window. “They’re comin’,” she said under her breath.
He held his hand out to her, and she took it. It was a simple touch, yet the sensation of her skin against his sent a rush of warmth up his arm. He’d never figured a woman as strong as Angie would have such a delicate hand.
The door behind Matt opened, and Richard Dube stuck his head in the small conference room. “Time’s up.”
“Thanks for the visit, Preacher,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “Don’t come around again. I won’t see you.”
Matt gave her hand a squeeze before walking away. When he turned to her from the doorway, his gaze was dark. “You won’t have a choice.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Pastor Osterburg
Matt Hayden got behind the wheel of his aging Ford Tempo and turned the ignition. He felt like he’d been sucker-punched. He stared at the county municipal building blindly, seeing neither the tan brick of its exterior nor the United States and Texas flags that blew evenly from their poles.
Nor did he see James W. staring down at him from the sheriff’s second-story window.
Finally, Matt put the car into reverse and edged out of the parking lot. By rote he drove past the square and across the bridge to Grace’s paved lot. He parked in front of the church but didn’t get out.
The responsibility he felt on his shoulders was huge. He had neither the energy nor the inclination to go into his office and start on a sermon eulogizing Ernie Masterson. The business of the last week had gotten out of hand. Way out of hand. He had to put an end to it. Maeve’s disappearance, her mortal wound, her funeral, Ernie’s murder, Miss Olivia’s heart attack, and now Angie’s arrest. Two months ago he hadn’t even known these people. Now it seemed as though their justice rested on his shoulders.
Funny, he thought. He’d become a pastor to escape the need for justice in the case of his father’s death. Angie had been halfway right about that on Wednesday night. Becoming a pastor might have been a bit of a cop-out for him. He’d seen it as a solution. Loving God released Matt from anger, giving him a purpose that still served mankind.
But now, loving God would put him in a position to look for justice all over again. Only this time he would do so not to manifest hate, but to show love.
He leaned his head against the steering wheel. So many questions. About himself. About the facts. Where could he start to prove Angie’s innocence?
“You look at the gray,” Miss Olivia had said. “Then the black and white becomes obvious.”
Matt put the car into reverse. At least he knew where to begin fulfilling his responsibilities. Plenty of questions needed answering. Issues needed clarification. He’d start with the questions of three days ago and work his way forward.
He put the car in drive, listened to it grumble at the order and prayed it would get him to and from Houston in one piece.
***
Matt had the good sense to call ahead to Pastor Fred Osterburg. His old professor not only gave him an appointment, but directions through the tree-lined streets of the University of St. Thomas area.
Matt parked his car and listened to it cough as he turned off the engine. He might make it back to Wilks, and he might not. He slammed the door shut, studied the red brick building before him and jogged up its cement steps.
Pastor Osterburg was waiting at the top of the stairs. Matt smiled at the slightly built man with the Lincoln-trimmed beard and hearty laugh.
“Matt Hayden.” Pastor Osterburg’s bass voice resonated. “This is a pleasure.”
“The pleasure is mine.” Matt smiled and shook the pastor’s extended hand. “Thank you for making time in your schedule to see me.”
“It’s a beautiful Friday for a walk, don’t you think?” Pastor Osterburg said, surveying the blue, cloudless sky. “Let me show you St. Thomas.”
Matt cheerfully walked along as the spry, older man led him around the campus. Though seventy years of age, Fred Osterburg was ageless. His hair was still mostly black, his steps easy. Their walk encompassed half a mile at least of park-lined sidewalks and landscaped walkways. Outside the walls of the campus, the busy traffic of metropolitan Houston zoomed by.
“You didn’t come here to talk about the university,” Pastor Osterburg said as they finished their circle of the quad. “You came here to ask me some questions. How are things in Wilks?”
Matt cleared his throat. “Fine, Pastor.”
The old man threw his head back and laughed. “Wilks is a little town with big issues,” he said knowingly. “Things are seldom fine. And you can call me Fred. I’m not your professor any longer.”
***
Fred Osterburg’s office was on the third floor of Hovey Hall, overlooking the quad. A small, functional room, it held an oak desk and two chairs and a couple of bookshelves on either side of the lone window, none of which matched. Apparently, the University of St. Thomas spent little effort in furnishing the offices of their visiting professors, Matt thought.
“Maeve O’Day,” Pastor Osterburg said, shaking his head. “Strong-willed woman. Hate to hear that’s how she died.”
“It was gruesome,” Matt agreed.
“She had a child, a daughter, I think.” Fred leaned back in his wood chair.
“Angie. Angel O’Day.”
“That’s right.” Fred’s chair came down with a thud. “Maeve opened the Fire and Ice House when she was expecting her baby.” The old pastor grinned. “It being directly across the river from the church sure lit a fire under a few members.”
“Not you, though,” Matt could plainly see.
Fred shrugged. “Maeve O’Day’s place fed more hungry folk than Grace ever did.”
“Not all of the members of Grace look at it that way.”
“No.” Fred’s expression sobered. “Some of them are downright unpleasant. That little girl, one time she came to Sunday School.” He shook his head. “I didn’t hear about it until afterward. I taught the adult class, you see. I went over there to apologize.” He puffed out his cheeks and Matt knew the incident still bothered him. “Maeve O’Day met me at the door with a butcher knife. Can’t say as I blamed her.”
Matt suppressed a smile. Fred Osterburg confirmed all the stories he’d heard about Maeve O’Day.
“I understand you went to all of the city council meetings when you were at Wilks.”
“Involvement in that community is important,” Fred said with a nod. “Are you thinking of doing the same?”
“Perhaps,” Matt allowed. “But I was wondering if you were at the meeting where they opened the bids for the old firehouse. When Maeve O’Day bought the place.”
Again, Fred’s smile flashed. “Most of the people in that room were related to the Wilks in one way or another. Or employed by them. There was quite a furor.” He chuckled.
“Yet, Maeve
O’Day managed to get a liquor license out of that same city council.”
Pastor Osterburg frowned. “I guess she did.” He thought hard, then looked up somewhat surprised. “It passed without a vote against it that I can remember.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Matt asked.
“Guess so.” Fred scratched at his beard. “There was so much going on at the time. Our people had been taken hostage in Iran. TV thought it would be over so soon they made the mistake of having a nightly special about it and numbering the days. Around two hundred, there wasn’t much more to say. Then we found out about Roth. Cash disappeared. I guess having a bar across the river didn’t faze me.”
“The community must have been stunned.”
Fred’s expression grew grim. “One of the worst times in my pastoral career. Tragic.”
“Miss Olivia took it pretty hard, I understand.”
“Now there’s a strong woman.” Fred punched the air with his forefinger. “The Marines called me with the news about Roth. Asked me to go with their representative over to the mansion to tell the family.”
The older man shook his head. “I remember that petite little woman opening the door. She was dressed all in black. All I could think of was that we were about to make her life a thousand times worse.”
Matt nodded. Even now, Fred Osterburg looked older at the telling of the story.
“She took the news of Roth’s death with such dignity. Her back straight as a rod. She kept a control of her emotions that I didn’t know a person could keep. She was silent for an entire five minutes after we told her. I watched the time tick by on the mantel clock.” Fred shook his head. “When she finally spoke, her voice was so quiet we could hardly hear her. She asked me if we had told Pearl yet, and I said no, and she said I should bring Pearl to the mansion after I gave her the news.” Fred sighed deeply. “I thought that was pretty decent of Miss Olivia. In her opinion, Roth had married beneath his station. That had been quite a bone of contention between Miss Olivia and Cash, I can tell you.”