Chapter 32 #3
That was the question. Assuming the victims were not random, that they’d ticked off the killer somehow, there had to be a connection.
By no conscious thought, she drove away from Forsyth Park and her home and past Whitefield Square, where, even in the darkness, she spied the live oaks and blooming azaleas surrounding the square’s intricate Victorian gazebo.
She kept driving, toward the outskirts of town, where she found herself face-to-face with the All Christian Church complex, the place where the bully/pastor Westin Stark held services.
The church itself looked as if it had existed for two hundred years.
White, with a tall steeple, sharply pitched roof, tracery windows, and wide double doors, it stood on one side of an expansive parking area.
Across the lot, a large, low fellowship hall had been constructed more recently.
She drove past slowly and observed the parsonage, a cozy cottage connected to the back of the church by a covered breezeway. While a porch light had been left on, only a single lamp glowed from within the small house.
Though she had no real reason to snoop around the place, she couldn’t resist. Parking down the street a bit, she locked the car and walked back to the church and parsonage.
All the while, she had the uneasy feeling that she was being watched.
The little whispery sensation felt like insect legs tiptoeing across her shoulders.
Your imagination.
That’s all. First, you thought you were being followed, and now you think someone’s watching you. But there’s no one here. No car parked in the carport or driveway, only one light on in the house. And you know Westin Stark is at the pub.
But, a second voice in her mind argued, does he live alone? Is he married? Have a live-in partner or even a housekeeper?
She paused.
If so, though, no vehicle.
Unless they share a car.
She tried to talk herself out of her paranoia, for that’s what it was, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that hidden eyes were observing her. Silently. Almost stalking her. Edging around the house, she kept checking the windows, but no dark figure loomed, no ghostly apparition appeared.
Nothing.
And yet …
Just to make certain that no one was home, that she wouldn’t be caught prying, she stepped onto the porch. While a moth beat itself against the weak porch light, she heard the dulcet tones of an old-fashioned doorbell sound melodically from inside.
Immediately, a cacophony of barking erupted.
Dogs.
Great.
Just what she didn’t need.
“Quiet!” she yelled in her most authoritarian voice, and, miraculously, they stopped barking.
For the moment.
But who knew how long that would last?
Quickly, she walked to the side of the house where the one lamp was burning, visible through the window. A wooden desk was situated in front of open French doors and flanked by filled bookcases. Nothing out of the ordinary, she thought, but who knew what lay behind closed doors?
No sign of the dogs.
In one word, she’d managed to quiet them?
Weird, she thought, but she surveyed the perimeter, walking a few feet away from the house, hoping to keep the dogs from hearing or smelling her.
There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary, other than an empty chicken coop and dog run behind the parsonage.
The coop seemed to have been abandoned long before, as the grass was tall and no feathers littered the wire cage surrounding the henhouse.
However, the matted grass, dirt trail, and half-filled water dish within the long, chain-link enclosure confirmed what she already knew.
As she walked around the back, she noticed an exterior entrance to a basement, now-locked doors that would open, she thought, to a staircase leading into some kind of storm cellar, and though there were a couple of window wells on this side of the house, the basement area was dark, like most of the house.
Aside from the den and the front hallway, where some of the light spilled through the glass doors, the rooms inside the home were in shadow.
Well, what did she expect? Something linking Westin Stark to the Savannah Slasher? Bloodstains? Polished rocks?
She didn’t have time to think about it.
At that moment, a car pulled into the short driveway, beams from headlights washing against the house. Nikki flattened against the siding, hiding behind a scrubby bush, and hoped beyond hope that Stark hadn’t seen her. She wanted to talk to him, but she didn’t want to be caught snooping.
Too late.
“Nikki?” he called, climbing out of his car, a blue sedan of some kind—an import, she thought. His keys jingled as he pocketed them. “Nicole Gillette?”
She shrank inside. How could she explain herself?
Deciding she couldn’t hide or cower, she walked toward him.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked, standing by the front walk, his face half in shadow, half-illuminated by the porch light.
“Waiting for you,” she said.
“Hmm.” He didn’t hide his disbelief. He glanced around the darkened streets.
“At this time of night? Don’t tell me, Nikki, that you’ve had some existential crisis?
Need some reaffirmation of your faith?” He was mocking her.
Taunting her. Dressed in a black shirt and pants, the clerical collar white in the night, like a Cheshire cat’s smile, he asked, “Is that it? You came here for spiritual guidance?”
“I just have some questions.”
“For me?” he asked, placing a hand over his chest. “But you didn’t call? Why am I not surprised?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Mavis Greenlee.”
“You’ll hear all I have to say about her tomorrow at the funeral.” His smile was beatific. And false. Beneath his clerical collar and calm, patient veneer, he was still the same bully he’d always been.
“I don’t think you’ll be talking about her enemies.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Well, no, that wouldn’t be appropriate at the service.”
“So tell me now.”
“You want me to discuss the personal life of one of my parishioners? A woman so recently deceased? Taken from us so heinously?”
“It’s not like you’ve got some kind of client-lawyer privilege.”
“That’s very much what it’s like. In this case, client-clergy, and it would be highly unethical of me to discuss anything about Mrs. Greenlee or any other of my parishioners with you or anyone else. They trust me, Nikki. They know that their secrets are just between us—well, and God, of course.”
“Of course.” It was her turn to sound sarcastic, but she couldn’t believe his convictions. From tough guy on the playground, Westin Stark? It seemed impossible.
People do change.
They grow up.
Some. But not all. She put Westin directly in the latter category.
“I see the look of skepticism on your face, and I guess I can’t blame you. I wasn’t very kind as a youth,” he admitted, and for once, she almost believed him.
“No, you weren’t.”
“Well, yes, I did some very despicable things.” Frowning, he glanced up at the sky, where a few stars were winking awake. “But I’ve atoned for them. Trust me. The Lord has shown me the way.” He reached out and actually put a hand on her shoulder.
She took a step back.
He dropped his hand. “You know, I think you would find peace if you took Jesus into your heart.”
“How do you know he’s not there already?” she challenged and saw the smarmy little smile play at the corner of his mouth again.
“Oh, Nicole. I know you. Remember? I could have been kinder when we were kids, but you were no angel.”
That much was true. She couldn’t argue the point. “I was not a bully.”
“You did your share of damage,” he said. His eyes held hers. “And now you spend your time writing about man’s brutality to man. You make your living off the pain of others.”
“So do you.”
“I offer peace. And solutions. I help people. I heal.” His smile faded. “You, on the other hand, profit.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Just what I read in the papers,” he said, cuttingly.
“Under your byline. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he added, his false smile returning, “I have a eulogy to write.” And with that, he was up the two steps and unlocking the door of the parsonage.
As he did, three dogs scrambled onto the porch.
Mutts, from the looks of them, a hound of some kind, a smaller terrier mix, and one that was part pit bull.
They all started down the stairs, toward Nikki, but a sharp whistle from Stark and they stopped.
“They’re friendly,” he said, but she suspected the gleam in his eyes was from more than the porch light.
“But you should always be careful with animals you don’t know.
A friendly demeanor on the outside belies the animosity within. ”
“A wolf in sheep’s clothing,” she said, staring pointedly at his clerical collar, a white band in a dark night.
“Good night, Nicole. Be careful out there.” He whistled again to the dogs, who shot into the house. Once at the threshold, he said, “May peace find you and always”—he paused, as if for dramatic effect—“may the Father be with you and Jesus bless your soul.”