by E. C. Diskin
“In fact,” Wilson continued, leaning against the desk, “a woman came to my office back in, what was that, 2006? A complaint about you. About your behavior with her daughter.”
“That’s absurd. I know what you’re implying, and—”
“And that’s just about the time you left First Hope.”
“I left First Hope because I was needed elsewhere. You can check my records. I didn’t run from anything.”
Wilson nodded. “Uh-huh. Remember Darius Woods?”
The pastor looked at Donny as if he needed help placing the name.
“Big movie star now,” Donny offered.
“From Eden,” Wilson finished. “Someone took a shot at him last Sunday. It was national news. You tellin’ me you don’t know about that?”
“It sounds vaguely familiar . . .”
“You knew Darius back when he and Ginny were in high school.”
“Did I? I don’t think he was a member of the congregation.”
“Nope. But you asked him to be in a play at the church, and he came to your office to turn you down.”
The pastor raised a helpless hand. “You’re talking about something that was at least twenty years ago. I’m sure I don’t remember all the teens I met over the years.”
“Aren’t you curious as to why I know about that particular encounter?”
“I suppose,” Pastor Gary said. “It hardly sounds earth-shattering.”
“He wrote about it. Darius Woods wrote a screenplay about his days in Eden, and there’s one character in that story who sounds a lot like you.”
The pastor shook his head. “Well, I can’t imagine that’s true. I don’t remember that boy at all. And like I said, he wasn’t in the congregation.”
Donny finally stood and sat on the edge of the desk beside Wilson. “You have any guns, Gary?”
Pastor Gary scoffed and went to the couch. “Well, who doesn’t?” He dropped down onto a cushion like this was nothing more than a humorous conversation. “I hunt. Sacrilegious not to, right?” He smiled, as if trying to make light.
“What about pistols?” Donny added.
“No. I don’t have any. The church has one, of course. For protection.”
“Mm-hmm. And the make on that?” Wilson asked.
“No idea.”
“Well, how about you let us take a look at it. Where’s it kept?”
“In Pastor James’s office. You’ll have to see him about that.”
“Is he here? I’d like to do that now.”
“He’s not.”
Wilson paused and looked around the room, hoping the silence would unnerve this degenerate. “And where were you last Sunday?”
“Well, I’m sure I was here, of course.”
Wilson stood and moved toward the couch. “I’m wondering where you were in the early evening—say between five and seven o’clock.”
“I don’t recall.”
Wilson gestured to Donny that it was time to go. “I’m gonna need you to remember. You think on that, Pastor, and I’ll be in touch.”
Outside, Donny trailed Wilson to the squad car.
“Hey, slow down,” Donny said. “Can you catch me up? What are you doing?”
Wilson opened the driver’s door and paused to look at Donny on the other side of the car. “Rattling the cage, that’s all.”
“I take it he’s Pastor Ed in the screenplay?”
“Exactly. And everyone who lived in Eden twenty years ago, everyone who had a teen at First Hope Baptist when he was there, is going to realize that too.”
“Well, that’s . . .”
“That’s motive,” Wilson said before climbing in the car. “So let’s find out the make on the church gun.”
Donny got in and shut his door. “Of course, we’re talking about the pastor of a church. And if he didn’t know Woods was in town, if he didn’t know about the screenplay, this goes nowhere. I mean, I get that he’s unsavory, but . . .”
“There is no but,” Wilson said. He put the key in the ignition and turned. “Justice is more than following evidence, Donny. It’s doing the right thing.”
“The right thing according to whom? Sounds a little too subjective if you ask me.”
Wilson shook his head. “Come on. Only one person can tell us who’s read the screenplay. Let’s just hope he’s doing better. If any good comes from that script, it’s the possibility of getting that piece of garbage away from kids.”
Ginny was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee at ten that night, her eyes fixed on the wall clock, watching the dial slowly tick past each minute. The kids were asleep, but she was determined to stay awake. She might lose her nerve to tell Simon everything if she waited even one more day, so she’d called his hospital. He had come out of a surgery an hour ago. He had to be home soon.
When she’d left Pastor Gary’s office after the sheriff arrived, the urge to drown in a bottle was overwhelming. But she’d gripped the steering wheel, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply, pushing the air out slowly, promising that alcohol would never again be her escape. She also promised herself that she’d never walk into that church again. Her life was about to change forever, and maybe she’d even need to move somewhere new with the kids, but she was not going to do anything that could hurt them ever again. She was going to turn her life around and make those kids proud.
A car door slammed shut outside. Her heart began to pound in her chest. It was time. It felt like all blood stopped pumping, her whole system frozen, while she waited for the front door to unlock. Instead, there was a light knock on the door.
She looked through the peephole, seeing only the top of someone’s head resting against the door. She opened it and watched as Gary stumbled and stepped back to an upright position.
“What are you doing here?”
“Did you do it?” he asked. His eyes were bloodshot, his lids a little puffy, as if he’d been crying.
“He hasn’t come home yet. Gary, you really need to go. I don’t think you want to be here when he gets home.”
Gary stepped inside, uninvited, and she immediately smelled the alcohol on his breath. “Ginny, I’ve prayed on this all day. I think your plan is a mistake.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“It’s not just about me. I know you think I’m only worried about myself, but your kids love their dad.” He looked past her to their pictures on the wall behind her. “Do you really want them exposed to a scandal?”
She looked at the pictures too.
“Simon’s the only dad they’ve known. And despite what’s happened between you and me, there are people in that church who need me, who come to me for counseling. You’d be causing a ripple of pain and trouble for more people than you’re thinking about. I know you’re worried that Simon’s going to figure it all out because of the movie, but maybe not. People see what they want to see. He doesn’t want to think those kids aren’t his.”
She was done listening to this man. He’d been spinning rationales and justifications for his behavior since she was a girl. “Just leave. Please.”
The phone rang from the kitchen, startling them both.
She turned to get it, but Gary grabbed her arm hard. “Ginny, I don’t think you want me to tell Simon or the sheriff that you shot Darius Woods on Sunday, do you? Or maybe I’ll tell him that you were the shooter at the clinic all those years ago. If I were to lose my position with the church, what would stop me? And you’d certainly lose those kids.”
The phone rang again. She was paralyzed. “You can’t do that.”
It rang again, and Gary let go, stumbling toward the living room. “I can do anything. And I’m not leaving until I talk some sense into you,” he said, collapsing into a chair.
She wanted to scream. She ran to the kitchen to get the phone, afraid it was Simon with some lame excuse for not coming home.
“Hello?”
“Is this Ginny Smith?” It was a man’s voice.
“It is.”
<
br /> “I’m sorry to call so late. Actually, I assumed I’d get voice mail. I’m just catching up on my calls.”
“I’m sorry, now’s not—”
“Again, my apologies for the timing, but I represent your husband, Simon, and he asked that I call and set up a meeting with you so the three of us can discuss the divorce and custody arrangements. Obviously, if you’d like to retain an attorney, it’s your right. I am representing him, but he suggested we talk about mediation to keep things out of the courts.”
“I can’t do this . . . ,” she began to say. The front door opened and closed again. She hoped Gary had come to his senses and left. “I need to go,” she said before hanging up.
She returned to the front hall. Simon was in the living room, shaking Gary’s hand.
Hearing Ginny walk into the room, Simon turned around and said hello. “Sorry I’m late, honey. Another long day.”
He was obviously going to pretend theirs was a happy home as long as there was a visitor present.
“Pastor Gary said you asked him to come by,” he continued. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. And the pastor was actually just leaving. Thanks for coming so late,” she said to Gary.
“Of course,” he said. “Just remember what I said, and everything will be fine.”
Ginny looked over at Simon, but he’d already lost interest in the conversation. “Good to see you, Pastor,” he said, walking back into the hall.
Ginny walked to the front door and held it for Gary. “Take care,” she said. She was about to shut it behind him when she became distracted by Simon, who was rifling through the hall closet. “What are you doing?”
Simon was looking up at the shelf. “Where’s my gun?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AT TEN THIRTY, BROOKLYN WAS on the train, starting her long journey back to Eden. She’d need to ride sixty minutes and transfer twice before arriving at Kennedy airport for her one o’clock red-eye back to Saint Louis. It was going to be a long night, but she didn’t care. She was sleepy from all the tequila, but still giddy about her day.
She’d practically skipped the eight blocks home from the callback, grinning as she sprinted up the six flights of stairs to her apartment. The director, his assistant, and the producer had asked her to speak some Spanish after her reading. She’d overstated her abilities on her résumé—calling herself “near fluent” under “special skills”—but hadn’t thought to prep for that. She laughed as she often did when terrified, then, as if her life depended on it, she frantically spit out a Spanish poem she’d once memorized for class in high school. They all laughed. The director said he had no idea what she’d said, but her accent was great.
No one made any promises, but his assistant asked if she had a passport. “No,” she said, sitting taller, trying to appear serious, “but—”
“Get one,” the director said before dropping his pen, like the matter was resolved. “Just in case,” he added after she flashed a wide grin. “They can take a couple of months.”
It was hard to focus after that comment. She was going to get the role. She could feel it. They talked about the shooting schedule, she guaranteed her availability, and they said there were a couple of other contenders and they’d be in touch within the week.
She’d returned to an empty apartment and turned on some music, pushing away concerns about her dad, lingering on the hope that she still had a chance to live her dream. She sent Ginny a text, thanking her for insisting she do the callback and sharing her excitement about how it went. Everything okay there? she finally asked.
Ginny’s answer was immediate. Fine. Congrats.
Brooklyn didn’t follow up, desperate to stay in her good mood.
Her phone pinged moments later, but the next text was from Tony: Thinking of you. When you coming back?
There was no time to see him now. He might be a serious mismatch, but it was nice to think he was still out there somewhere, thinking about her, that her life in New York wasn’t slipping away. Soon, she wrote. I’ll be in touch asap.
When her roommates returned home, the celebrating began. They’d all had little bit parts and gigs here and there, but this job, if Brooklyn got it, would be the biggest thing that had happened to any of them. She didn’t even want to consider that the role might not be hers. It felt like destiny.
It wasn’t until she was waiting at the gate for her plane that her thoughts returned to her family again. She pulled out her phone. The weight of what she faced back in Eden began pressing toward the front of her mind. She spotted a penny on the carpet near the trash bin and stepped over to it, silently asking if everything was okay at home. She needed to see a heads up.
Tails.
Wilson sat at the kitchen table at midnight, drinking coffee. There was no way he’d sleep anyway. When he’d gotten out of bed that morning, he never would have imagined that the day would end as it had. He hoped his wife, looking down on him, understood why he’d done what he did.
He picked through the shoebox full of old photos in front of him, searching for that little boy he’d loved so much. The youngest child, the sweet, shy kid who used to sit on his lap and beg to go fishing and say that he wanted to grow up to be a policeman like his dad. It felt like that boy had died. Or at least been kidnapped. Wilson didn’t know the man Eddie had become, and he still couldn’t believe that loving him and helping him had never been enough.
He and Donny had left Pastor Gary and driven to Burns to finally interview Woods. But when they got there, Eddie was on the floor in the hall outside Woods’s room, shouting, and one of Wilson’s officers had him pinned, a knee on his back, putting Eddie’s wrists in cuffs.
“Hey, hey! What’s happening?” Wilson had asked, rushing to his son. “Eddie, what’s going on?”
“This creep jumped me,” Eddie said. “I wasn’t doing anything.” He was bucking under the man’s weight, writhing around as if he could escape.
“Stop moving, Eddie. You’re gonna end up with a broken arm.”
“Sir, I’m sorry,” the officer said to Wilson, still holding Eddie down. “He was trying to get into Woods’s room. I’d stepped over to the nurse for just a second. I spotted him at the door and asked him to stop. That’s when I saw the gun in his hand.”
“He’s got it all wrong,” Eddie said.
Wilson could see that Eddie was high on something. “Don’t say another word,” Wilson said.
The other officer stood, leaving Eddie cuffed and lying on the ground.
“I’ll take him.” Wilson pulled Eddie by the arm until he was standing.
Donny looked at him, one eyebrow raised. Wilson knew what Donny had to be thinking . . . that Eddie might have been Woods’s shooter and that Wilson wanted to sweep it under the rug.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this, Donny. You get in there and talk to Woods. If there’s a reason Eddie wanted to hurt him, Woods’ll know. He might even be able to tell us more about what he saw or heard the day he was shot.
“Come on,” he said to his son, pulling him by the elbow down the hall. Neither spoke until they got in the elevator.
“What in God’s name is going on?” he finally asked.
“Nothin’,” Eddie slurred, as if the whole conversation were too exhausting. “I just wanted to talk to him.”
“With a gun in your hand? Where’d you get that, anyway?”
“It’s yours. Found it in the garage.”
“Great.”
“I wasn’t gonna do nothin’. He’s causin’ trouble round here, Dad. I was gonna encourage him to get the hell outta town.”
“Eddie, please don’t tell me you shot Darius Woods.”
He looked at his dad and smiled. “I did not shoot Darius Woods.”
“I read Woods’s screenplay,” Wilson said.
“Yeah, me too.”
“What?”
“You left it on the coffee table this morning. Couldn’t help myself.”
Wilson felt the ai
r catch in his throat. “You can’t still be upset about what happened between you two back in high school. You can’t be so petty as to go after him all these years later.”
“I’m not. Jeez, Dad. I just came here for some pills. Security was too tight. I thought I’d pop in on the local celebrity, that’s all.”
Wilson didn’t know what to believe. He thought back to Sunday, when he got the call about the shooting. Eddie, gone all day, had walked in moments after the phone rang. Soaking wet, his clothes dripping onto the kitchen floor, that story of fishing in the rain. “Best time to catch ’em,” he’d said, even though he’d come home empty-handed.
Wilson had left, passing Eddie’s muddied sneakers at the front door, not giving it another thought. His son was safe. But Woods’s shooter would have been soaked and his shoes muddy.
Wilson said nothing more until he pulled into the station parking lot.
“What are we doing here?” Eddie asked.
Wilson pulled the keys from the ignition and turned to his son. “You realize that as of tomorrow, I’m officially no longer the sheriff? I can’t continue to get you out of trouble. I can’t be sure that you don’t get a DUI, like I did last year. I can’t continue to smooth over your chaos.”
Eddie let his head fall back against the seat rest and closed his eyes. “I promise, Dad, I’ll do better. Just drop me at a meeting. You can pick me up later. It’s all I need. Really. I promise.”
Wilson got out of the car, went around, and pulled Eddie out of the squad car. “I know you’re gonna do better. I’m gonna be sure of it.” He began pulling him toward the building.
“What do you mean? Seriously, Dad! I’m your son. Stop!”
Wilson said nothing more until they were inside. When he spotted an officer, he waved him over. “Put him in lockup.”
“Goddammit, Dad! Stop. Seriously! You can’t do this!” Wilson ignored his son while the officer walked Eddie down the hall. Eddie needed to get out of his own way. And maybe jail was the only thing that would let sobriety take hold—at least for a few days.
After Eddie was gone, Wilson pulled the gun from his jacket and gave it to another officer nearby. “Send it to the lab. I need this checked against the bullets pulled outta Woods.”