Carol huffed. “What do you mean, maybe?”
“I mean we have to take it a step at a time. You can’t jump like that. Even if your gut tells you it’s true, and I’m not saying it isn’t, you have to investigate everything slowly piece by piece in order to make a case. You know all this. You need to slow down.”
Carol stared for a moment and then sighed. “You’re right. I have never wanted to get a son of a bitch as bad as I want to get this guy. I don’t even give a shit about that stupid clodhopper rotting in jail because I know he was just a tool. I want to get the guy behind all this, and it’s clouding my judgment.” She held up her hand and began ticking off on her fingers.
“The facts are, Ernest Kelly was in town but we don’t know why. Lowell says Ernest Kelly went to visit Father Grant but did not make an appointment with the secretary and no one knows what, if any, connection there was between those two men. Ernest Kelly and Father Grant were shot. The building in which they were shot was set on fire, and some papers Ernest was reading have gone missing. The man who shot them confessed and is in jail. The motive for shooting Father Grant was that Nicodemus Skaggs believed Grant had converted his daughter to Catholicism, and Ernest Kelly was simply an unfortunate, accidental victim. Skaggs believed he would get a quick trial by jury and be acquitted. He believed this because he had information regarding a thirty-year-old case from Alabama with similar facts. He would not say where he learned those facts nor would he say who gave him the idea that Father Grant had converted Lavenia.”
“Right,” Hick agreed. “The key to this is Skaggs. I think you did a pretty good job of at least getting him to consider talking to us. All we need is the name of the person who told Skaggs about the case in Alabama. Once we talk to that person we’ll have a better understanding of what this is all about.”
Silence descended upon the car as they turned into the parking lot and the church and rectory came into view. While Father Grant’s house remained mostly intact, the left side was scorched, and smoke stains crept from the tops of the now empty window frames and smeared the bottom of the roof line.
Hick parked and they walked toward the opened front door. A young woman suddenly came into view sweeping ash into the yard.
“Ya’ll looking for Father Glennon?” she called from the doorway.
“No,” Carol answered. “Are you Lavenia Skaggs?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We were hoping to have a word with you.”
Lavenia’s eyes widened with surprise. “With me? What for?”
“My name’s Sheriff Hick Blackburn and this is Attorney Carol Quinn. We’re friends of Father Grant.”
Lavenia shook her head. She was a tall, thin, capable looking sixteen-year-old with dirty blonde hair and long limbs. “Poor Father Grant. I can’t imagine what got into my daddy.” Her eyes welled up with tears and she shrugged. “Well, I reckon if ya’ll want to talk, I can make the time. Father Glennon had to go back to Little Rock to talk to the Bishop, but he won’t mind me takin’ a little break. Come on.” She turned and disappeared into the entryway and Hick and Carol followed.
They stepped into the darkened rectory and Hick noted the smoke-stained walls. The smell of charred wood was overwhelming in spite of the front room, which contained a reception area and desk, remaining unharmed. A quick glance toward the closed office door showed black smoke stains around the door frame. Ash and soot had settled thickly on everything.
“I’d ask you to sit a spell but ya’ll’d get dirty on account of the ash,” Lavenia said. A whimpering from the corner surprised Hick and he turned and saw a baby crawling on the dusty floor.
Lavenia picked up the filthy child and said, “This here’s my baby sister, Lettie Mae. She ain’t been feeling well and when she’s sick she don’t want no one but me. I make sure to take good care of her ’cause Daddy says she’s my cross.”
“Your cross?” Carol asked.
“Yes, ma’am. On account of Mama died because I was working for the devil.”
Carol cocked her head and stared at the child. “I don’t understand.”
Lavenia took a handkerchief and wetted it with spit then wiped some of the ash from the baby’s face. “She’s my burden ’cause I knowed better than to come work here, but it was good wages and Mama said Daddy would never find out. But Daddy asked me straight out, and I couldn’t lie to him. He didn’t spare the rod for me or mama and that’s good ’cause we needed the disciplinin’. A lying tongue is an abomination, and he was right. And then when Mama died, Daddy said Lettie Mae was my burden ’cause our sin brought God’s judgment on the family.”
Hick stared at the little girl in Lavenia’s arms, and his chest tightened. He had an intense urge to reach out and touch her. “How old is she?”
“She’s nigh on one year.”
A memory flooded Hick’s vision. He was at the station and Adam had gone out when Maggie breezed through the doorway, her face lit with happiness. “Guess what?”
She moved behind his desk and kissed his forehead and he pulled her into his lap. “What?” he asked, nuzzling her ear.
“Doc says you’re going to be a daddy again.”
He froze, and then pushed her back, peering into her laughing face. “What did you say?”
“I said we’re gonna have another baby. And this one is a girl, I just know it.”
He’d laughed to cover his true feelings. They already had two children in quick succession and he worried over Maggie’s health. Although her second pregnancy and delivery had been easier, it had still been difficult. Now she would have to manage the fatigue and sickness while caring for two small children. “How do you know it’s a girl?” he asked with a forced smile, hoping his face didn’t betray his misgivings.
Maggie had closed her eyes, turned her head up, and smiled. “Because I do.”
Hick’s spine tingled with a cold shiver as he remembered Maggie’s happiness. And when she was gone, he had understood that he was, in part, to blame. He recalled a young woman and a baby in a farm house in Belgium and felt as if God’s vengeance had been enacted upon him. His shoulders slumped and he sighed. Lettie Mae Skaggs was just a little older than his baby would have been. Now, for some reason Hick felt a deep sadness that they had never talked about a name. He must have been staring at the baby because he felt a hand on his arm and turned to see Carol looking at him with concern.
“You okay, Hillbilly?”
Hick’s heart suddenly began to race and he clenched his fists. A feeling of rage swept through him because he never saw his child and his wife was gone. And he felt a rush of anger toward Nicodemus Skaggs. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said to Lavenia in a tense voice. “That is your sister. She is not a burden and she is not a cross.” He paced away and stared through the open door, feeling enraged because he was helpless—helpless to bring Maggie back and helpless to make people like Nicodemus Skaggs become decent human beings. He had met too many men exactly like Skaggs, and he was tired of all they stood for.
“Oh, don’t you worry none about that,” Lavenia said in a surprisingly calm voice. “I don’t reckon I believe everything daddy tells me. But I do love this here baby, and I like to have her with me. She reminds me of my mama.”
A rush of emotion choked Hick, and he turned and walked out of the church. A crushing sense of loneliness smothered him and he gasped for breath. As acorns crunched beneath his feet, he lit a cigarette and took a deep drag of the soothing smoke. A flock of geese caught his attention, and he looked up through the red leaves of the oak trees surrounding the church. The geese called to one another as they winged home, and the sound was yet another reminder that Hick was alone. He watched a silent great blue heron fly the opposite direction, and then lost sight of it in the bright sunlight. Summer had ended and he could not remember any of it.
One last draw from the cigarette helped to calm him and he let the smoke seep slowly from his nostrils before tossing the cigarette aside. He returned to t
he church.
“… hardly talked to me at all,” Lavenia was saying.
“So Father Grant never tried to convince you to join his church?” Carol asked.
“No, ma’am. Father Grant was real quiet. He typed a lot on his typewriter and he wrote letters. I reckon he was worried about them left behind at his last church ’cause they got no priest no more and can’t hardly get to any other church. I knowed he sent the bishop some letters on that ’cause I heard him talkin’ to some of the folks here about it. The folks here like him ’cause he’s real friendly-like and a good person.”
“What about your daddy,” Hick said, entering the room. “He ever talk to Grant?”
“No, sir, not to my knowledge. I didn’t reckon daddy even knew they was a new Catholic preacher in town at all.”
“And you never said anything to your daddy about Father Grant that might have mistakenly given him the idea that Grant was trying to get you to become a Catholic?”
“No, sir. I never even mentioned Father Grant’s name to him. Daddy liked to pretend the money I give him come from some place else. In truth, it didn’t sit well with him knowin’ his young’uns was being supported by the wages I get here. Once in a while he’d start in with his grousing about eatin’ Satan’s bread, but I reckon even he knowed Satan’s bread was better than none at all.”
“Where are your siblings? Do you have anyone to help you?” Carol asked.
“Oh, we’s stayin’ with mama’s people. Daddy’s don’t talk to him no more, and mama’s can’t stand the sight of him, but they’s always been real good to us young’uns.”
“Your daddy have any visitors the last few weeks?” Hick asked.
“Not that I know of. We live out in the hills and don’t many find their way out there to call.”
“He been acting different than usual?”
“No, sir. I knowed he called on Brother Mallon one night last week, but he’s always callin’ on Brother Mallon. Other than that I don’t know who elst he seen.”
“And who is Brother Mallon?” asked Carol.
“Brother Mallon is pastor at the One Blood Church of God and Holiness down Highway 29. It’s right past the co-op by the bridge. Daddy takes great store in what he says.”
“And besides this Brother Mallon you don’t know of anyone he’s seen? No one has been out to the house?”
“No, sir. And daddy just acted normal right up until the night he kilt that man and shot Father Grant.” She shuddered and pointed toward the closed door. “It was right back there in that room where Father Grant works at his desk. Sheriff says he’ll send someone out to clean it up. I ain’t got the heart.” She screwed her face and looked at them. “I don’t understand Daddy doin’ what he done. Father Grant was always real good to me and to all of us kids.”
“Just to be sure, you’re positive you never said anything that might have mistakenly given your daddy an idea that Father Grant was tryin’ to get you to join his church?” Hick repeated.
“No, sir, and I don’t reckon daddy believed it before the night he done the shootin’. I know if he’d a thought I’s a Catholic or even thinkin’ about becoming one, I’d heard something ’cause he’d of whipped me real good. He was home all day Saturday while I was doing the wash and acted the same as always. He even told me I was a good girl and that maybe one day I wouldn’t have to work so hard.”
The baby began to whimper and Lavenia squinted up at the sun. “I reckon it’s about time to feed her. Ya’ll mind?”
“No, I think we’ll go on,” Hick answered. “If you think of anything, anything at all that comes into your mind that might have given your daddy some reason to think Father Grant was trying to turn you Catholic, you let us know. The sheriff knows where to find us.”
“Yes, sir,” Lavenia said, bouncing the now-crying baby. She paused and tears pooled in her eyes. She swallowed hard and said, “Father Grant is a good man. What daddy done was wrong, plain and simple no matter what he believed happened.”
Carol regarded the young girl a moment. “Thank you, Lavenia.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said turning her attention to the baby as Hick and Carol made their way out of the darkened rectory into the sunshine.
“Tough kid,” Carol said, pointing her thumb back toward where they’d left Lavenia.
“Tough life,” Hick responded without turning around.
“Well, we’ve got an afternoon to kill. You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yeah. I believe we’ll take a drive down 29,” Hick said climbing in the car. “I’d like to meet this Brother Mallon.”
7
Tuesday, September 6, 1955
The One Blood Church of God and Holiness sat back from a dusty road next to the co-op. It was almost hidden in a grove of tall oak trees and its slouching porch and moldy siding did not make a good first impression. A smell of trash burning hung heavily in the air as Hick and Carol climbed from the car. A tall, thin man who appeared to be somewhere in his sixties met them on the porch. His face was thin and grizzled with jutting cheekbones and the suit coat he wore was too short for his long arms and hung on his bony shoulders.
“Howdy,” he said in a voice that was neither friendly nor unfriendly. “Can I help you?”
“We’re looking for Brother Mallon.”
“I’m Brother Ulredge Mallon. What kin I do for you?”
“We were hopin’ to ask you a few questions about Nicodemus Skaggs.”
The man shook his head. “That fool. I knowed trouble’d find him one day and it has.” He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, come on in, and we can sit a spell.”
The inside of the church was plain, but clean. There were several rows of hard, white pews, and a worn red carpet down the center aisle ended at a podium flanked by two small potted plants. Brother Mallon led them to a small back room that contained assorted toys, a short bookcase of mainly children’s Bible stories, and a lumpy sofa. He indicated for Hick and Carol to sit and he then sat in a folding chair and faced them.
“So, now that we’re settled, how about you tell me exactly who are you and what you want to know about Nicodemus?”
“My name’s Sheriff Hick Blackburn and I’m from Cherokee Crossing. This is Attorney Carol Quinn from the Justice Department. She’s the one with the questions.”
Mallon squinted at Carol. “Justice Department?” He shifted uneasily. “What’s the Justice Department doing out here in this neck of the woods?”
“Your friend Nicodemus—”
“Hold on there,” Mallon said, leaning back and holding up both hands in protest. “I don’t want to sound un-Christian, but to say Nicodemus is a ‘friend’ is a downright falsehood.”
“Okay,” Carol said, with an edge in her voice. “Your acquaintance Nicodemus Skaggs shot and killed an agent of the U.S. Government in cold blood Saturday night.”
Brother Mallon closed his eyes and shook his head. “Oh, Nicodemus. Why so much rage?” He sighed and then looked into Carol’s face. “I heard he shot two men, but I didn’t know any particulars.” His eyes traveled past Carol and stared out the window at the sunshine filtering down through the oak trees and he seemed lost in thought.
“Maybe you can shed some light on this Nicodemus for us. Not only did he shoot an agent of the government, but his evident target was a Catholic priest,” Hick said. “Skaggs was under the impression that Father Grant was trying to convert his daughter, Lavenia, to Catholicism. Nicodemus never mentioned it to you?”
The older man crossed his legs showing too much white sock beneath a too short pant leg and clasped his bony hands in his lap. “Son, the Word says call no man ‘father’ so if you mean that Catholic preacher in town, the answer is no. Deem never mentioned anything to me about that Catholic Church ’cause everyone knowed it galled his soul that his girl was workin’ there.”
“So he never said anything that made you think Lavenia might be converting? Never mentioned to you the fact that he thought Gran
t was trying to proselytize his daughter?”
“He never did. And he would have tanned Lavenia’s hide good and proper if he thought it. A Christian man wouldn’t sit idly by and let his young-un be seduced by the devil.”
“Would a Christian man be able to rationalize killing to keep that from happening?” Carol asked.
“Ma’am, you’re askin’ me to get inside the mind of Nicodemus Skaggs and I cain’t. I wouldn’t. That’s all I can speak to.” He sighed and shook his head. “Ol’ Deem. I don’t know what evil possessed him to kill.”
“His daughter tells us he visits you often.” Hick said, leaning forward on the couch with his arms on his knees.
“He does,” Mallon said with a nod. He sighed. “They’s a lots of kinds of men in this world. They’s the kind that find God and does good with their lives and they’s the kind that find God and lose the meaning of what good is. Nicodemus Skaggs was not a good man. But he liked to talk and he needed someone to listen to him when he started in.”
“Explain,” Carol said.
Brother Mallon uncrossed his legs. “Ma’am, I’m an old man, and I can speak to this because I’ve seen it all and, God forgive me, I done it all. I recognize that rage in the heart of a man who thinks he’s got what the world needs and the world just don’t want it. He thinks he can fix all he sees is wrong with ever’thin’ but he don’t know how to take in account that ain’t everyone just like him. There’s a special kind of fury in them that thinks this way ’cause they think they got God on their side so they’s right in their own heart, even when they’s wrong.”
He rose from his chair and walked to the window and then turned toward them. “See, what you need to understand is, for Deem Skaggs to admit he’s wrong about things, he gots to admit he’s wrong about the way he believes God works. Most folks in this world just ain’t got the brain or the will to do that, even when they know, in their heart, it’s true.”
“So when Skaggs visited, what did he talk to you about?” Hick asked.
“Mostly he wanted prayer. He was wrestlin’ with the devil, and there ain’t no doubt about it. He wrestled with the notion that other people wasn’t as good as he thought he was. He felt the world was against him. He wrestled with the notion that everyone around him was a sinner and he never could understand he was one, too. The way he treated his family made any decent Christian man sick, and I told him so, but he said there wasn’t no use in molly coddling ’em and hardships in this life make heaven the more sweeter.” Mallon’s shoulders sagged. “In the hands of someone like Deem, religion is nothing but a weapon.”
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