Blood Cries: Chapter 28

1977

On the day the Reverend lay in state, a rolling thunderhead blotted out the sun. The temperature dropped ten degrees. The wind picked up as the sky darkened. Some of those who had gathered on the lawn of the funeral home to chat and smoke cigarettes before the viewing turned their faces skyward. Women held the tops of their heads to prevent their hats from blowing away. Others commented on the sudden change in weather.

Most had made the pilgrimage out of a morbid sense of curiosity. Others were young people, friends or acquaintances of Lucy Woods. Some wanted to pay their respects to the Reverend. Some just wanted to be sure he was dead.

Lightening flashed in the distance and, a split second later, witnesses heard a tremendous cracking sound across the street. An ancient pecan tree, swaying in the wind, dropped a heavy top branch into the layer of limbs beneath. The limbs seemed to want to catch their fallen comrade, but sagged under the heavy weight and dropped it once more into layer below.  The happened again and again as the broken limb slowly dropped to the ground, where it jackknifed and rolled into the street.

While a contingency of menfolk climbed down the embankment to clear the road, one man who remained on the lawn told a circle of people, “The Reverend did that,” relieving the tension with a burst of laughter.

One woman maintained her concerned look. “You joke,” she said, “but that was no coincidence. That was a sign. You all saw it.” A few heads nodded while they watched the men clear the road.

“It was just the wind,” said the first man. “We’re past due for a summer storm.”

“Do you think something like this just happens by accident on the day they bury…” the woman’s voice dropped to a whisper, “the Reverend?”

The first speaker’s eyes widened in comic exaggeration. He grabbed the lapels of his friend standing next to him. “She said his name! She said his name! Now he’s going to come for us too!”

There was more laughter among the young people, but the woman looked worried. Maybe what he said in jest was true. Maybe calling the Reverend’s name portended a terrible fate.

The funeral took place the next day at the church in Locust Grove where Reverend Baxter had once preached sermons and was presided over by Reverend Martin, the man who had replaced him in the pulpit.

A sense of excitement permeated the church as men and women filed in dressed in their finest mourning wear, with hair freshly cut or coifed just in case they happened to enter the shot of one of several photojournalists documenting the event.

Television crews set up at the edge of a cemetery across the street from the church and filmed people walking into the church. Newspaper journalists fanned out and took positions both inside and outside of the building. Meanwhile, the sheriff’s department made its presence felt both in the streets directing traffic and in the parking lot where they smoked cigarettes while leaning against their vehicles.

Inside the church, a packed congregation sat and watched as Reverend Martin began his eulogy with a question. “Who was Will Baxter?” he asked. “I believe I knew him as well as anybody, but I still don’t know the answer to that question. I still don’t know what made him do the things he did. I could stand here and state a list of characteristics about the man: he was tall, always sharply dressed, a pretty good-looking guy, who seemed to do well with the ladies.” It was a laugh line, but instead it conjured up thoughts of his first two wives, sending a murmur through the crowd.

Sitting on the front row, underneath a black veil, his third wife Cassandra wailed, “Oh no, it’s not true.”

Reverend Martin cleared his throat and continued. “He was a business man and a preacher…” He paused, as if considering whether or not he wanted to continue, “… and many among us suspected that he was a murderer.”

Again, a wave of murmurs passed through the crowd.  Cassandra cried, “No, no no.”

“I know I’m not supposed to say that. And I apologize to his widow. I am not here to disrespect the Reverend, but I felt I owed it to the man to try and reckon with his legacy, and what I’ve discovered is that try as I have—and I have thought about it for many hours—I can never know truly what was in his heart, and I could never have eyes to follow him wherever he went. None of us can.” Reverend Martin smiled and pointed toward the ceiling, “But there is someone who knows.”

A sprinkling of “Amens” emerged from the congregation.

“God knows who the Reverend was. God knew what the Reverend was doing. No matter what else we think, we have to know that God has a plan, and we are all instruments in His hands.”

“Amen.”

“Moses himself was a murderer, forced to flee after killing an Egyptian who had been mistreating one of his people. His own people judged him. They said, ‘Who are you to lead us? Are you going to kill us like you killed that Egyptian?’ And maybe they had a right to ask that question, but God still had a purpose for Moses. Moses was an instrument in God’s hand.”

“Amen.”

“Now I don’t know if everything they said about Reverend Baxter was true…”

“No. No No.”

“I don’t know whether he did everything people said he did, and you don’t know if he did all those things. We may never know the truth about all of it.  That’s the way the world is. We don’t always get to know.” Reverend Martin smiled. “But that’s okay. That’s okay because God knows what He is doing. And that’s all we really need to know.”

“Amen.”

Go to Chapter 29

About This Novel; Chapter 1 ; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Chapter 13; Chapter 14; Chapter 15; Chapter 16; Chapter 17; Chapter 18; Chapter 19; Chapter 20; Chapter 21; Blood Cries at the Half-Way Point; Chapter 22; Chapter 23; Chapter 24; Chapter 25; Chapter 26; Chapter 27

Blood Cries Chapter 25

Except for his forest green suit, Lester remained indistinguishable from the rest of the crowd.  He sat hunched in the first pew with his elbows propped on his knees, holding his face in his hands, and gazing down at the stained hard-wood floor.

Jan sat next to him, closest to the narrow aisle between the pews and the plastered wall, fanning herself with her memorial bulletin.  The preacher’s eulogy was late starting, and she stared up at the empty pulpit as if she could will the service into action.  The sooner it started, the sooner it would be over, and they could all escape this furnace that they called a chapel.

Laverne sat on the other side of Lester, closer to the center aisle.  With her arms crossed over her chest, she reminded him of a coiled snake.  She looked around at foreign faces with an expression of utter contempt, while muttering her judgements.

“Look at all these people.  They don’t even know Lucy.”

“This is a good turnout,” Jan answered across Lester’s hunched back.  “They came to show respect to Lucy and to the family.”

Laverne blew a puff of air threw her lips.  “That’s not why they came,” she said.

The women’s attention was drawn to the front of the center aisle as the last among the viewing line made their way to the casket, including Cassandra, who let out a great mournful howl.

“My baby.  Oh my poor baby,” she wailed.  “I’m not gonna let you go.”

Even Lester turned his head to watch as Cassandra crawled into the coffin.  She was bent at the waist, her top half enveloped in satin, her arms wrapped around her dead daughter’s torso, while her legs kicked the air.  Wilson and another man stood on either side of her, grasping her elbows and trying to pull her out again. 

“No, I won’t go.  I won’t go,” Cassandra cried.  “I have to stay with my baby girl.”

Jan ran over and helped coax her out of the box.  She wrapped her arm around her shoulders and soothed her with quiet words.  Rather than leading the hysterical woman to her pew, she led her back down the aisle and out of the building.

Lester observed the commotion without expression.  He had already paid his official respects to Lucy.  He had looked down at the little girl’s face, swollen with death and whatever chemicals Ernie’s people had used to preserve her for viewing.  He had reached into the casket to caress the turquoise scarf Jan had given her last Christmas, now used to camouflage her damaged neck.  He had felt a flood of anger at the thought of the car coming down on her and he had gripped the sides of the casket so hard that the blood left his fingertips. 

Beyond the open coffin lid, he had seen the object of his rage.  The Reverend was sitting at the end of the second pew, dabbing his forehead with a cotton handkerchief.  The man hadn’t bothered to show respect for yet another disposable member of his family.  He hadn’t bothered to view his handiwork.  But he’d had the nerve to show up at the funeral in yet another flagrant disregard for basic human decency.  He’d come to flaunt his freedom from the tendrils of the American justice system and to thumb his nose at the community that saw fit to judge him.

Lester’s eyes locked onto him as he made his way back to his seat—a seat almost directly in front of the Reverend.  He watched him dab the side of his face with the handkerchief and some part of Lester hoped it was more than just the temperature that made him sweat.  He hoped it was panic akin to that of a rat trapped by a pack of hounds, but sadly there was nothing in the Reverend’s eyes that indicated fear.  He was just hot.  And bored.  And he knew that there was nothing and no one in the chapel who could, or would, touch him.

As Lester sat down, he could feel the evil presence against his back.  It was the reason he leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor.  He had to keep himself together, for Lucy’s sake.

The minister, Reverend Tisdale, rose in the pulpit to deliver the eulogy.  “Good morning,” he began.

The congregation murmured a response.

“Today is a sad day,” Reverend Tisdale said.  “Nothing can be as sad as the death of a child, but we must remember to allow some joy into our hearts because today the Lord calls another angel up to Heaven.”

A sprinkling of “Amens” emerged from the congregation, but the words sank into Lester’s belly like a dagger.  Joy was not an emotion he could feel, only the pain of loss.

“It wasn’t the Lord that sent Lucy to Heaven,” Laverne hissed. 

Only Lester and her mother Hannah, sitting on the other side of Laverne, heard the remark.  “Quiet girl,” Hannah said.

“How can I stay quiet when he’s sitting in this room?  Sitting in the pew right behind us?”  She looked at Lester.  “At the end of the pew, with a cushion of space between him and anyone else.”

“You’re interrupting the sermon,” Hannah whispered.

Lester tilted his head to the right, tried to see the Reverend with his peripheral vision.  He could see the man had his arm stretched across the back of the pew, just as relaxed as he could be.  He tried to shift his focus back to the preacher in the pulpit, but all he could think about was the man sitting behind him, the man who called himself a preacher, but who adhered to principles other than those espoused by Christianity, to selfishness and personal enrichment.

“I know we aren’t in regular services,” Reverend Tisdale continued, “but today I’d like to share a lesson from Genesis.  We are all familiar with the story of Cain and Abel…”

A mild restlessness seemed to pass through the congregation as individuals looked around at neighbors and shifted in the pews.

“We know that both Cain and Abel had delivered offerings unto the Lord.  We know that Cain had offered a share of his crops and Abel offered meat from his flock, and we know that Cain became very jealous when the Lord preferred Abel’s offering.  The Lord saw this and said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? If you only do what is right, will you not be accepted? Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”  Reverend Tisdale paused to allow the last sentence to sink in, before he repeated it.  “Sin desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Lester had known Reverend Tisdale for many years.  He had started as a youth pastor at his church when Lester was a young boy, back before he started running around with friends and broke free from the routine of regular church attendance.

Tisdale, Lester recognized, was the type of pastor to use the Bible to try to influence his congregation in a very real way.  He sought not to teach general lessons or trumpet abstract ideals, but instead to apply a sermon to a specific person or problem within the community.  Lester felt as if the man was speaking directly to him.

If Tisdale was the angel on his shoulder, what did that make Laverne? Lester glanced over and saw her mumbling her argument under her breath.  He could see the muscle movement beneath her lower lip as she leveled her eyes at the man in the pulpit.  If Tisdale hoped to influence her, then she was having none of it.

“But we know how Cain responded.  He was a petty and jealous man, who wanted to Lord’s attentions all to himself, so he invited Abel to the fields and murdered him.  Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel?’ and Cain replied, ‘I do not know, Lord.  Am I my brother’s keeper?’”

Reverend Tisdale gazed down to the second pew, where another Reverend was sitting.  Lester turned his face to the side and peeked back at the next pew.  He knew he couldn’t look at the man directly, but he had to see the reaction on Baxter’s face when he was called out in the sermon.  But Baxter only sat there, his arms draped across the back of the pew, looking up at the preacher—a real preacher—and wearing the same smug look on his face.

“The Lord said, ‘What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.  The ground will no longer yield your crops and you will be a restless wanderer on the earth.’ 

“Now Cain could not bear this punishment.  He was scared.  He begged the Lord to let him stay.  He thought people would seek revenge and come and kill him.  But the Lord said to him, ‘You are safe.  Anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over,’ and he put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.”

Tisdale reached out into the air, directing his hand at Reverend Baxter. He made an x in the air with the pad of his thumb, delivering unto the Reverend the mark of Cain.

“So that’s the way it has to be,” Tisdale continued.  “That’s the way it always has to be.  Any man who kills his brother will be made to suffer, but it is not man’s judgement to give but God’s.  God will deliver his judgement.”

“That’s not good enough,” Laverne said.

As Tisdale moved on to the benediction, Lester turned to Laverne.  “What have you got to say?”

“How many more of us will die while we wait for the Lord’s judgement?  Maybe the Lord will act through one of us.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” Lester said.  People were standing now, moving out of the pews.  Lester shook his head.  “What is seven times vengeance?”

“What?” Laverne asked.

“Nothing,” Lester said, “Let’s go.”

They stood then, and Laverne turned to Baxter, still lounging in his pew, waiting for the crowd to thin, so he could stroll out of the chapel and into freedom.  The look of contentment on his face was more than Laverne could bare.  Tension entered her face and neck and she pointed down at him and cried out, “You killed my sister and you’re gonna pay for it.”

Baxter didn’t even look at her.  There was a slight shaking of his head, and he smiled. 

He never saw anything else, maybe a flash of movement, the blur of Lester’s green jacket, the glint of gun metal, and then nothing.  He never heard another sound.  The first bullet passed through his brain before sound could reach his ears, and he was already dead when the next two rounds entered his body.

Go to Chapter 26

About This Novel; Chapter 1 ; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Chapter 13; Chapter 14; Chapter 15; Chapter 16; Chapter 17; Chapter 18; Chapter 19; Chapter 20; Chapter 21; Blood Cries at the Half-Way Point; Chapter 22; Chapter 23; Chapter 24; Chapter 25

Blood Cries Chapter 24

1977

A meeting took place in a smoke-filled room in a back office of the Jackson City Sentinel.  Marvin Rosenbush sat behind a desk, chewing on the end of a cigar.  In his cowboy boots, bell-bottom jeans, and Aerosmith t-shirt, he wasn’t the stereotypical image of a newspaper editor.  He looked too young both for the desk and the cigar, and to Jim—only a year younger, just as shaggy-haired and unshaven—it felt as if the inmates had taken over the asylum.

“What about the link to the voodoo group down in New Orleans?” Marvin asked.  “What are they called?”

“The Seven Sisters,” Jim said.  “I haven’t been able to find anything.  I think it’s a hoax.” 

Not many years ago, the editor of the town’s only newspaper would have been a middle-aged white man, probably bald, and wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses and a button-down shirt and tie to the office.  Ostensibly, he would be a Christian, though he might hold the views of an agnostic or an atheist in private.  Never would he be a person in his early twenties and never a Jew.  Never a Jew!  But this was different world and people were starting to do things differently, even in the South.  It seemed to Jim that they were able to make it up as they went along.

Like Marvin, Jim failed to adhere to stereotypes.  He was pudgy both in face and body.  His hair was thick and curly, approaching a state of ‘fro, and he sported the earliest traces of a beard on the edge of his chin and jawline.

“It’s the kind of hoax that sells newspapers,” Marvin said.  He swiveled in his chair in little half-circles, anchored in place by his boots propped on his desk.  He blew a plume of smoke into the air above his head.

“If it’s not true then I don’t think we should report it,” Jim said. 

“I see,” said Marvin.  “You’re a moralist.”

“It’s just so random and stupid.  I never heard anyone talk about voodoo until this week, and now suddenly I’m hearing about it everywhere.”

“Well, if it is being said, then you can report that it’s being said.  That still qualifies as journalism.” 

Jim shook his head as he looked down at his notes.  “Okay, so what about the funeral?”

“Cover that too.”

“Right,” Jim said.  “Anything else?”

“Maybe you should bring a camera.”

“To a funeral?”

“I’m hearing a lot of talk.  Besides, it’s Ernie Smith’s funeral home, and that place has a sordid reputation.  There’s a chance something could happen.  We don’t want to miss an opportunity.”

“Don’t you think, with my complexion, I’m going to stick out enough as it is?  I don’t need a camera around my neck too.  Besides, the police will be there.  I seriously doubt anything will happen.”

“You’re probably right.”  Marvin held the cigar in his mouth, spinning it between his thumb and forefinger.   “But if, on the off chance, anything does happen, we’d have a major competitive edge if we had a camera there.”

Jim was right to think he would be noticed.  When he stepped into the funeral home the next day, it seemed to him that two hundred people turned their heads and stared.  His was the only white face among the sea of mourners.  He was the only reporter.  And he was certainly the only person carrying a bulky leather haversack.

“It looks like a purse,” he’d complained to Marvin when it was given to him.

“It’s the seventies.  Men where purses now.”

“Not to a funeral!”  His head dropped into his hands.  “Why am I arguing about this?  I’m not going to carry a camera and I’m not going to wear a purse.”

“You’re right,” Marvin said.  “It’s not a purse.  It’s a haversack.”

Jim tried to ignore the stares as he searched through the crowd for a place to sit.  Every pew in the chapel was jammed with people, fanning themselves with their bulletins. 

The heat outside was bad enough, but inside the brick building, without the benefit of air conditioning and stuffed with people, it felt like he’d stepped into an oven. Or Hell.  Already, water beaded on his forehead and he could feel the stains growing in the pits of his shirt.  His necktie gripped him in a chokehold. 

Beyond the pews, it was standing room only, with at least three muddled rows of acquaintances of the family and other assorted gawkers.  Jim thought he spotted an empty space along the back wall, and he headed in that direction. 

“Excuse me,” he whispered.   He pinned the haversack against his back hip with his hand as he slid through little openings in the crowd.   He monitored the annoyed glances and grimaces on the faces of those who allowed him to squeeze passed m, until finally he landed in a small patch of floor he could call his own.  It was just beneath a stained glass image of the arch angel Gabriel.

He viewed the chapel in the space between the heads of the people in front of him.  The pulpit stood on a podium on the right side of the room.  On the far left side was the organ, where some invisible organist played the introductory music.  In between, placed on high in the center of the back wall, hung a large wooden cross.  Below that, on the floor level, where it could be viewed by the walking multitudes, was the casket.  One section had been opened, so that those who could get close enough could view the deceased.  

He turned to his left toward a loud clanging sound and a ripple in the crowd.  Two hundred other heads turned in unison and watched as a police officer burst through the open doorway with his hand on his holster.

“It’s nothing,” someone said, waving him off.  “It was just a chair.”  The message passed in waves through the crowd.  “It was just a chair.”  “A metal chair.” “Someone dropped a folding chair,” until everyone was satisfied that there was no cause for excitement.  The policeman relaxed his shoulders and removed his hand from his firearm.  With order restored, he returned to his post. 

“Why am I even here?” Jim wondered.  “What does Marvin think will happen at a funeral?  Who would sully the memory of a sixteen-year-old girl on the day she is put to rest?” 

He already knew what he was going to write: people were sad, the preacher said a few words. (He would have to listen to the eulogy long enough to pull a quote or two.) Everyone paid their respects to the girl.  Everyone was sad.  The end.  It hardly qualified as news.

As the buzz of conversation faded, Jim noticed craned necks and heads turning toward the center of the room.  He bounced from toe to toe jockeying for a position to see what was going on up by the casket. 

A line had formed and stretched from the open coffin to the chapel’s entrance.  At the front of the line, someone wept loudly.  Jim locked in on what appeared to be the mother of the deceased leaning over her daughter’s body.  She wore a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, with a black scarf twisted around her neck.   She was theatrical in her grief.  She threw herself into the casket and wrapped her arms around the girl.  “My baby,” she cried.  “Oh my poor baby.”

No one should ever have to bury a child, Jim thought.  His own mother had said the same thing to him after they put his brother in the ground.  His eyes followed the woman, Cassandra, back to the second or third pew, where she disappeared from view.

Without the benefit of an unobstructed view, Jim’s imagination would have to fill in the blanks.  She probably fell against the red velvet cushion and covered her face with her arms.  He could still hear her loud sobbing.  Her husband would scoot next to her and stretch his arm around her, allowing her to bury her head against his neck and shoulder.

The Reverend.  Would he even show up?  He’d always maintained his innocence, but if you asked a hundred people in town who was the man that placed that girl under the axle of a ’74 Lincoln Continental, ninety nine of them would name the Reverend. 

The common narrative was that he’d placed her under the car, lined up her neck perpendicular to the rotor, so that it practically took off her head when he kicked away the jack stand, and the car came crashing down on her.  In all likelihood, she was already dead by then, strangled or suffocated.  Nobody goes under the car to change a tire.

As the last of the line finished paying their respects, the other reverend in the room, Reverend Tisdale, began his service.

“This is the hard part,” Jim thought, “Paying attention to a Baptist minister during a sermon.”  He tried to focus on the words coming out of the preacher’s mouth—something about Lucy going home to meet the Lord—but church wasn’t a part of Jim’s constitution.  His mind and his eyes traveled back to the place where Reverend Baxter was most likely sitting, holding his wife—the mother of the girl he had just murdered—, but he couldn’t see anything because of the crowd.

Jim rubbed the sleeve of his jacket across his forehead and sent drops of saline raining down to the floor.  “That’s it,” he thought.  “I’ve had enough.”  If Arnold wanted someone to suffer through a sermon in Hell, he should have done it himself.  Nothing here was newsworthy.  As quietly as he could, he slipped through the crowd and headed toward the exit.  The front doors were propped open to let in a breeze, and went through them like he was entering the Promised Land. 

Then he heard something, a scream.  There was a great commotion behind him, and suddenly there were more voices, more screams.  There was a quick clap clap clap of gunshots.  Jim ducked instinctively as he turned back toward the chapel.  The doorway swelled with people.  As soon as they hit the open air, their formation broke and they ran in all directions.  The noise rose to a hysterical pitch.

Jim’s reportorial instincts kicked in then.  “You have to go back in there,” he told himself, but for the moment his loafers remained cemented to the sidewalk.  He took a breath, and forced himself to move.  He would have to fight his way through the descending mob.  He bounced into the current of panic-stricken mourners like a surfer wading into the ocean.  All around him, people screamed and pushed and fought and elbowed passed, and for a moment, Jim felt he would be swallowed in the melee.  A smaller man would have been trampled. 

He made little progress until the crowd dispersed, but it wasn’t long.  The chapel evacuated in less than a minute.  A pair of uniformed officers waited with him, and as soon as there was room, they charged inside with pistols drawn. 

Jim’s hand slid into his handbag as he made his way into the chapel.  It looked like Marvin would get his picture after all.

Go to Chapter 25

About This Novel; Chapter 1 ; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Chapter 13; Chapter 14; Chapter 15; Chapter 16; Chapter 17; Chapter 18; Chapter 19; Chapter 20; Chapter 21; Blood Cries at the Half-Way Point; Chapter 22; Chapter 23

Blood Cries Chapter 14

1975

Kevin handed the bottle to his guest and then continued pacing the viewing area in the front of the chapel.  After circling around a floral arrangement, he ran his hand down top of the mahogany coffin. 

J Christopher slid down in the front pew.  He peeled the wrinkled paper bag back far enough to read the label of the Tennessee mash.  He nodded his approval.  A good brand was worth drinking just about anywhere, even in a funeral home.  He pulled off the bag and let it fall to the floor.

“You worked here a long time,” he said as he unscrewed the cap.

Kevin nodded.  “A good job is a hard to come by.”

“Good and job are two words that don’t go together.”  J Christopher said and then laughed at his own witticism.  He took a long swig from the bottle and winced at the taste.  “Damn,” he said, staring at the bottle as if it could unlock some mystery.  He wiped his mouth with the back of his shirt sleeve.  He held the bottle out to his host, but Kevin shook his head.

“No,” he said.  “I feel good.”

“It ain’t about feeling good,” J Christopher said.  “It’s about feeling right.”  He took another long swig.  “I’m starting to feel right.”  He let out a loud cackle.  “I ain’t there yet, but I’m getting close.”

Kevin flashed a set of square white teeth.  “I heard that,” he said.  He backed up against the coffin, pressed his palms against the lid for leverage, and then hoisted himself into a sitting position on top.

“You shouldn’t sit on a casket,” J Christopher said.  “It’s disrespectful.”

Kevin tilted his head toward the head of the coffin.  “He don’t mind.  Besides, I like it up here.”

J Christopher’s face twisted.  “You mean there’s a body in there?”

Kevin shrugged.  “This is a funeral home. What’d you expect?”

“Don’t know,” said J Christopher.  “But I’ve heard some stories.”

“The dead can’t hurt you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” J Christopher said.

“The dead aren’t the ones you have to worry about,” Kevin said.

J Christopher took another swig of mash.  “I heard your old boss got sent up to the state pen after a same-day funeral.”  He laughed again.  “He tried to bury the evidence, but got caught.”

“Naw,” Kevin said, still smiling.  “Ernie’s okay.”

J Christopher drained the rest of the bottle.  “If there’s one thing that man ain’t, it’s okay.  He’s as bad as they come.”  He gestured toward Kevin with the empty bottle.  “He’s the one you have to worry about.”

“Ernie’s got his fingers in a lot of pies, that’s all.  A funeral home is a handy thing to own when you got your finger in a lot of pies.”

“Pies, shit.  You talk like you own it,” J Christopher said.  He dropped the empty bottle on the pew beside him.

“I don’t own it,” Kevin said, shaking his head.  “I never owned it.  I just ran it for him while he was away.”

“What do you mean was?”

“Hello, J.” 

The voice came from the doorway.  All of the mirth drained from J Christopher’s eyes as they dropped from Kevin to the casket in front of him.

Kevin hopped down and strolled to the back of the room.  He greeted Ernie with a half handshake, half hug. 

J Christopher never turned around.  He just kept staring ahead at that mahogany casket. 

Ernie strolled to the front of the room, slid into the pew beside J Christopher.  He picked up the empty liquor bottle.

“Still like Jack Daniels, I see.”

J Christopher looked down and away from Ernie.  His hands fidgeted in his lap.  “When did you get out?” he asked after a long pause.

“Sunday.”

Kevin called from the back of the room.  “J Christopher was just telling me he couldn’t wait to see you again.”

“Is that right?” Ernie put his arm around J Christopher, almost like a man comforting a mother who has just lost a child.  “Well, you can thank my lawyer then.  You see, a life sentence don’t really mean life anymore, and a 15-year sentence don’t mean you’ll do the whole stretch.  It’s the nature of our legal system.”

For the first time, J Christopher peaked at Ernie out of the corner of his eye.

“You ain’t gonna burn me up, are you?” he asked.

Ernie let out a long, loud laugh.  “No,” he said.  “I learned my lesson.  Fires attract too much attention.”

He made a motion to Kevin in the back of the room and Kevin disappeared.

J Christopher turned and tried to follow him with his eyes, but all he could see was an empty doorway.  “Where’s he going?”

“Relax,” Ernie said.  He squeezed J Christopher’s shoulders.  “He just went to get you another drink.  Wouldn’t you like another drink?”

J Christopher’s hand’s and head began to shake.

 “A drink would settle you down,” Ernie said.  “You’re all nervous.”

A flash of defiance entered J Christopher’s expression.  “I ain’t nervous,” he said.  “I ain’t afraid of what’s coming.”

Kevin entered and handed J Christopher a glass of whiskey over ice.

 “That’s right,” Ernie said.  “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

*      *     *

Deputy Sheriff Ford leaned against his cruiser and watched the paramedics load the body.  He shook a cigarette out of his packet and used his elbow to shield the flame from the wind. 

A van pulled up behind him.  The reporter, Jim Easton, climbed down from the driver’s seat and walked up beside the deputy.  “Morning,” he said

Ford cranked the flint, but his Zippo was out of fluid.  After ten more tries failed to ignite, he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it in his shirt pocket.  He continued to roll the flint with the pad of his thumb.  “You’re out awfully early.”

“What’s going on?”  Jim nodded to the two stretcher bearers lifting a still figure out of a patch of yellow grass.

The deputy stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. “Some nigger had too many and wandered out into the cold and froze to death.” 

“How did he freeze?” Jim asked.  “The low temperature last night was 37.”

“Too much to drink then.  Either way, he shouldn’t have been wandering the highway in the middle of the night.”

“Who is it?”

“Who is what?” asked the deputy.

“The man who died.”

“The deceased has not yet been identified.”

“You mind if I take a look?” Jim asked.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt him any.” The deputy sheriff cupped one hand over his mouth and called out to the two paramedics.  They had the body lowered onto the ground to open the back door of the hearse.  “You two bring him over here for a second.”

The two paramedics looked at each other and then did as they were told.  They carried the body over to the sheriff and the other white man.

Even on a windy morning, Jim detected the odor of liquor mixed with a pungent body odor emanating from the stretcher.  No sheet covered the body, and so nothing hid the contorted expression brought on by rigor mortis.  Jim could barely stand to look at the corpse, but Ford appeared to revel in the deceased man’s apparent anger.  “You had yourself a hard night, didn’t you brother?”  He asked the body.

Jim looked up at one of the two paramedics, both of whom stood waiting patiently.

“Hey Kevin,” Jim said, looking up at the taller, more slender of the two attendants.  “Got yourself a new partner?”

Kevin grinned.   “Yes sir.  This is Evan.  He’s a new hire.”  The other man said nothing.  He was a large man, maybe 6’4” and 300 pounds, and wore a blank expression.

Jim forced himself to look at the dead man.  “Wait a second,” he said.  “I know this man.” He looked at Kevin.  “Isn’t that Christopher Baxter?”

Kevin shrugged.

 “You two friends also?” Deputy Ford smirked. 

Jim pointed at the corpse.  “That’s Christopher Baxter,” he said.  “That’s the Reverend’s brother.”

*        *        *

The toxicologist’s report landed on Sheriff Maddox’s desk.  He opened the folder and studied the numbers printed on the paper. 

Ford walked in.  “Is that it?” he asked.

Maddox glanced at his deputy.   “Toxicology report.”

“Let me guess.  The man had alcohol in his system.”

Maddox continued to read the report.  “The man had a lot of alcohol in his system.  In fact, I don’t think there’s a human alive that could consume as much alcohol as this man had in his system.”

“You never met my cousin Henry,” Ford said, cackling.

“This is serious,” Maddox said.  “I believe this man was murdered.”

“So what if he was?” Ford said, turning serious.  “It ain’t like we can do anything about it.  We ain’t got any evidence.  We ain’t got any case.”

Sheriff Maddox closed the report, dropped it on his desk.  “I don’t like it.  People thinking they can disregard the law.”

“We all know who done it, Sheriff.”

“You think so, huh?”

“I know so,” Ford said.  “And he’s gonna keep on doing it too.”

“I won’t let that happen.  There’s no such thing as the perfect crime.”

“What are you going to do about?”  Ford asked.  It was just a question, but Maddox took it as a challenge.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but I’m going to do something.”   

Go to Chapter 15

About This Novel; Chapter 1 ; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Chapter 13