“How long until our share generated $700,000?” asked Luke.
John’s face fell. He was a numbers guy too. “About 5 years.”
Luke shook his head. “That will never do. It’s a matter of precedent.”
“I think we’re done here,” said Miles. “Good luck with Frankie.”
“Wait!” I said. “We might have something you would be interested in.”
I looked at Stephanie. Ten days ago we discovered a treasure trove of unpublished manuscripts by famed author K. C. Waters in the storm shelter in my backyard. He had been living in Oak Valley for 30 years since his sudden success had driven him into hiding. He and his wife had both been killed for the new work. In fact, I performed his funeral on my first day in town.
After Stephanie’s quick thinking saved both our lives, we turned the manuscripts over to the University of Oklahoma, her alma mater.
Except for one. My get away insurance.
I had kept possession of “Rains of Fall,” a sequel to his only published novel. I knew that it was the most valuable of the documents, and if I ever needed to leave the Witness Protection Plan in a hurry I could use the money it would bring.
“Well?” said Miles.
“I have an unpublished manuscript by K. C. Waters.”
“So?”
“Wait a minute,” said Luke, and leaned over to whisper in Miles’ ear.
“A book?” Miles said loudly in disbelief.
“Not just any book,” I said.
“How much is it worth?”
Luke said, “If we sold it on the collector’s black market, it would probably satisfy the debt. But it might be even more lucrative to publish it ourselves. We could divert our other revenue streams into a new publishing company.”
He was talking about money laundering.
“Let’s go pick it up, then,” Miles said. “How long will it take to get to Oklahoma?”
Luke’s eyebrows knit as he hit his computer keys.
“Your regular charter jet can have you there in about four hours, with another hour by car service to…” Luke looked back at the screen, “…Oak Valley.”
“You mean us,” Miles said. “You’re going too.”
“I was afraid of that,” Luke said, then turned to us. “Is there a discrete place we could meet? Mr. Herring does not like to be out in public very much.”
I’m sure he didn’t. Between cops and rival mob bosses, it could be hazardous to his health.
John said, “How about the cemetery north of town?”
“I’m sure we can find it,” Luke said. “We will be there about 6:00 this evening, your time.”
“The writer’s initials are K. C.?” Miles interrupted. “Makes me hungry for barbeque from Kansas City. We’ll stop there on the way back, O. K., kid?”
Luke reached to disconnect the session. “Wait,” I said. “Can you call off McNeill?”
“I’ll call him,” said Luke. “He might not be happy about losing his commission, though, so be careful.”
The screen went blue except for the words ‘Call Ended.’
John leaned back in relief. “Thank you, Peter! I don’t know why you held onto that book, but I’m glad you did!”
Stephanie stood and left without a word. She knew why I kept it.
John said he would be back at 5:30 to pick me up and left.
I went out to Stephanie’s desk. She was gathering her things to leave.
“Please let me explain,” I said.
“That would be a welcome change. Except all you have to say is you are either a thief or you needed a quick way to shake the dust of this place off when you left town.”
“They’re both right, but there’s more to it than that. Please, sit down.”
She did, but under protest.
I perched on a folding chair opposite her. The desk acted as a demilitarized zone.
“My name isn’t Peter Andrews,” I began. “It’s Tony Stratton. If you ever use that name, my life will be in grave danger. Until two weeks ago, I was a chaplain for the Detroit police department. Before that, I was an officer for five years.”
“I thought it was something like that,” she said softly.
“About six months ago, a detective on the force came to me in confidence. He had taken money from the dominant gang in the city to ensure there was no police around when a major coke deal went down. I was bound by confidentiality, so I didn’t tell anyone, but the word got out anyway. It was a huge deal, SWAT was there. They let me tag along, because they trusted me since I had been a cop.
“It was a bloodbath. Most of the gang was decimated, and we lost ten officers. The drugs were seized, but some of the gang’s leadership got away, including the big boss, Carlos Ponty. The next day Carlos and some of his guys caught up with my detective friend. Before he died from their torture, he gave me up as the only person he’d told.
“So they got me out of town. I’ll be a key witness when Carlos goes to trial. I ended up here. The WPP said they could place me as a worker in a retail store or a car salesman – probably at John’s dealership, but I couldn’t stand the thought of not helping people. So when the idea of being pastor of the church came up, I jumped at it.”
I looked down. “I didn’t expect to get quite so involved. I sure didn’t count on you.”
She was quiet for a while. When she spoke, she said, “I understand, but I don’t know you. Why would I want to if you are always a split second from leaving?”
A good point, I thought, as I watched her walk out the door.
I went home and retrieved the manuscript from the bottom of the closet in the room my predecessor had used as an office. I placed it in an old leather satchel that had belonged to him and walked back to the church.
At 5:30, John pulled up in his four-door white pickup. I was waiting on the sidewalk, keeping an eye out for McNeill.
“Are you ready?” he said.
“Let’s do it.”
I got in, then one of the rear doors opened. I turned to see Stephanie slide in and buckle the seat belt.
“You can’t come,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Steph, get out,” John pleaded.
She stared straight ahead, wordlessly, her arms crossed.
John looked at me and shrugged. He put the truck in drive and we headed to the graveyard.
The cemetery was a couple of miles from town and it was raining when we got there. I saw the fresh mounds covering the graves of K. C. Waters and his wife Vera. The precipitation hit the dirt like bullets.
For a while we were the only vehicle there. After ten minutes or so, a black shape pulled up behind us and disgorged a figure in a rain poncho. As it approached, Stephanie suddenly sat upright. “It’s the black Taurus from the hotel!”
The figure pulled a gun from under the poncho and fired twice. Both rear tires hissed and the truck settled back like a dog on its haunches.
I could see in the rear-view mirror it was McNeill. He walked to the passenger side where Stephanie and I were sitting and said, “Everybody out of the truck.”
He took a step back to allow us to exit and still keep us covered. We both left the doors open as we stepped into the rain.
“Didn’t you get a call from Herring?” I asked. “Your contract is cancelled.”
“Oh, I got a call, all right, from his bookkeeper,” McNeill said. “But nobody calls me and tells me to forget the commission on $750K. I understand you have something of value to satisfy the debt. Give it to me and no one gets hurt.”
John had not gotten out of the truck. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pull the satchel off the floor. “Peter, I’m so sorry!” he said as he flung the satchel out of the cab and gunned the truck’s engine. The bag twirled though the rain until it hit McNeill in the chest. He dropped his gun. I lunged for it as John threw the truck into gear and tore off down the cemetery road, tread flying off the rear tires and sparks dancing with the raindrops.
I came up
with the gun, but McNeill had Stephanie pinned in front of him, a six-inch knife pointed at her stomach. She stomped at his feet and tried to bite his arm, but he held her firmly.
“Drop the gun,” he said.
I didn’t want to, but I did. The clatter it made as it hit the asphalt was swallowed by the storm.
He backed toward his car, dragging Stephanie with him. She wasn’t making it easy on him. “If you would be so kind as to bring that briefcase over here.”
I picked it up and walked over to the car. “Put it on the hood,” he said.
I lifted it onto the car, then swung it as hard as I could toward him. Stephanie ducked her head and I connected with his face. The satchel dropped to the ground. McNeill spun Stephanie away from him, slicing her stomach as she lost her footing and fell to the road.
I rushed to Stephanie. Blood was seeping across her rain-soaked shirt. I called her name, then I felt my side explode with pain as the blade entered. Through the searing heat, I was rolled off the road and McNeill’s car sped away.
I came to rest against a tombstone. I pulled myself into a sitting position. A few yards away, I could see Stephanie. She wasn’t moving.
I called her name, but I don’t know if the sound ever came out. I had to get to her, but I couldn’t move. I wasn’t sure if I would ever move again.
My mind flashed back to the operation against the Ponty gang. I was no stranger to bloodshed, but I had never seen anything so horrific. I remembered putting my hand on a shot cop’s chest to stem the flow but felt the life leak out of him.
Through the rain, I saw shapes around Stephanie. There was pointing and someone came toward me.
On that day, emergency workers had set up a triage to treat the wounded, but there were just as many times where they zipped up the body bags.
I heard Miles Herring’s voice say, as if from very far away, “Luke, call for an ambulance, then we have to leave.” Through what seemed like a curtain, I saw John tying McNeill to an adjacent gravestone. The collector’s face was as bruised as the sky, and his left leg jutted at an odd angle.
I watched John as Herring’s voice seemed to float from above. “Mr. Gray, are you able to stay until help arrives and not leave your friends – again?”
He nodded as I blacked out for good.
I awoke to find Stephanie looking at me. “Hello, sleepyhead.”
I looked around at the hospital room. I had visited sick church members at what passed for a hospital in Oak Valley, and I knew this wasn’t it.
“You’re in Oklahoma City at Saint Anthony’s,” she said. She saw me look at the flowers that filled the room. “All from your congregation. Many said they were disappointed you wouldn’t feel up to preaching for a few weeks. Makes me think you ought to give a sermon on lying when you come back.”
“John?” I asked weakly.
“Don’t think too badly of him. He feels terrible about trying to ditch us. He panicked thinking about Cynthia and the baby. When the chips were down he came back and stayed with us.”
I nodded. “How are you?”
She smiled. “Finally you ask the important question. I have some stitches across my stomach and my bikini days may be over, but otherwise I’m fine.”
“I think you would still look great in a bikini.” Maybe it was the morphine drip talking, maybe it wasn’t.
“Why, Reverend. I am scandalized.”
I dropped my head back onto the pillow and closed my eyes. “What about the manuscript?”
Her hesitation made me open them again.
“It’s gone. Herring has it, and he said John’s debt was satisfied.” She turned her head away, watching my monitor. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand about you keeping it for yourself. I don’t know what you’ve been through, I just know you were willing to give it up to help someone else, and you even used it to save me. If you hadn’t hit McNeill with it, I’m sure he would have killed me.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “A brave, foolish thing to do. Now look at you.”
I took her hand, trying to ignore the sharp pain I felt every time I moved.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, and for the first time in an eternity, I thought I would be.
chapter 3
Blessed are the Pretenders
The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry detached from General Blunt’s Union Army and advanced toward the depot at Honey Springs in the Indian Territory. It was July 17th, so it was hot, but rain had complicated the movements of both sides.
General Cooper thought he had the numerical advantage, and could easily defend the Confederate supplies stored at the wagon station. Unfortunately, his company of Native Americans and Texans were armed with ancient flintlock rifles that allowed the rain to soak their gunpowder.
In the face of the Union advance, Cooper’s men retreated, abandoning the depot and the supplies, and made a last stand at Elk Creek Bridge. At the end of the battle 134 killed and wounded lay on the ground.
“Cut!” said the director, Marshall West. “Re-set. We’ll go again after lunch.”
He turned to me. “Watch this, Preacher. That was nothing compared to the advance on craft services.” Stephanie and I watched as both armies made their way to the tables filled with sandwiches, fruit, and cold drinks. The casualties got up and joined the end of the line.
All but one.
“Is he deaf?” West wondered aloud, and walked to the figure still laying in the mud. We followed him.
“Hey, buddy, it’s lunch time.” West nudged him with his foot, but the actor didn’t move. West knelt and turned him over.
The bullet hole was real. His grey uniform was soaked in blood.
Stephanie fell to her knees beside the body. “It’s Benjamin Holbert!”
West said, “Who would want to shoot our writer?”
I was on the set for two reasons. First, as a kind of good luck charm. The production company wanted the support of “community leaders” and as the newest pastor in the area, I drew the short straw. Besides, the Lutheran’s guy was too old, and the Baptists were still apparently upset about the outcome of the Civil War in general, so I was the obvious choice.
Second was Stephanie’s participation. She was a volunteer assistant to the group that had written the script for the documentary re-enactment of the historic Civil War battle. The writers were colleagues or past students of Professor Holbert, chairman of the history department of the community college in Muskogee, the nearest large town to the battlefield.
Anyway, if Stephanie was anywhere, I wanted to be there too. She was the secretary of Oak Valley Community Church in the small town where I had been deposited by the Witness Protection Program four months earlier, and the only person to whom I had confided the details of my previous life as a chaplain on the Detroit Police force. Together we had solved the mystery of famed author K. C. Water’s missing manuscripts and thwarted a mob hit man sent to collect on a debt owed by one of our friends in town. We’d also had a gun fired at us and I had been stabbed in the side, Stephanie in the stomach. So much for quiet country living.
I stood with her as we watched the Emergency Medical Technicians load Holbert into the ambulance and drive away slowly. We were joined by the remaining writers, two of whom were in uniform as a perk for their behind the scenes work. Kevin Figueroa was in Confederate grey. “That’s awful. A real loss to the Civil War academic community.” Kevin had been a student of Holbert’s and now taught high school history up the turnpike in Tulsa.
“Who would have done such a thing?” said Anna Lambert, a writer-in-residence from Holbert’s college. She was in business casual. Not many women soldiers in the Civil War.
William Martin said, “One of the prop people didn’t know a gun was loaded, or something. Terrible.” A tall, distinguished man with neatly groomed white hair, he looked like he belonged in the Union Captain’s uniform he wore.
Stephanie looked up at him and said, “Daddy, do you really think it was just an accident?”
We were interrupted by West, the director. “Good, you’re together. Listen, safety is shutting us down for the afternoon while they and the law investigate. We have to change the shooting schedule and do the depot scene so we have something inside to do tomorrow.”
“And?” asked William.
“I was hoping you guys could take another pass at it and, you know, punch it up a little.”
The writers groaned as one.
“We’re a little upset, here,” said Anna.
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” said West. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you.” He was gone before anyone could contradict him.
William seemed to be in charge. “I guess we should head back to the city. We can work in my office.”
“All the way back there?” said Figueroa. “We just have to come back early tomorrow.”
I saw the chance to make some points. “You are all welcome to work at the church. It’s not too far from here.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Stephanie. “We can set up a work space in the Fellowship Hall. There’s plenty of room. Please, Daddy?”
Getting only shoulder shrugs from the others, he agreed.
Within a few minutes of arriving at the church, Stephanie had a work table set up and a screen to project from the writers’ laptops. They took their seats and began to unpack their computers. Stephanie changed into jeans and a U2 tee shirt and called the local diner for delivery of coffee and dinner.
I settled at my desk and prepared to get caught up on e-mails, etc.
Through my office door, I saw Anna Lambert connect her laptop to the projector. “While Kevin drove, I took the liberty of roughing out some ideas for the scene.” Her revisions showed on the screen.
“Thank you, Anna, but our normal process is to work on this together,” said Stephanie’s father.
“Oh, William, we don’t have to do it that way all the time,” she said. “Besides, who died and left you the boss?”
Sooner Fled Page 4