Chapter Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
EVEN BEFORE I GET out of the car, I hear the music.
The piano and the guitar are barely audible over the mass of voices, all joined together, droning out “Amazing Grace.” I walk up the steps and look inside the double doors but don’t see Dishman or Will Carpenter.
Instead, I find both of them standing outside the back door, where Dishman is apparently midway through giving Will a lecture.
“You can’t just leave the keys to this place lying around, Will,” Dishman says, and his calm voice makes it all the worse. His disappointment is so much more effective than rage.
Will nods, sheepishly.
“What were you thinking?”
“I just put them down for a minute. They were on the counter, next to the sink and … I mean, I didn’t think someone would take them!”
He looks like he’s about to cry, his big brown eyes wet and his chin trembling.
“I’m so sorry,” he says.
“The parsonage is a crime scene,” Dishman tells him, more softly now. “Don’t let anyone else in there.”
Will nods.
“And keep the keys with you,” Dishman says. “Or we’ll confiscate them.”
Another nod.
“I’m going to go have another look in the parsonage,” Dishman says. Then, to me, he mutters, “Annie, get him inside.”
“Come on, Will,” I say, guiding him by the shoulder through the back door and into the kitchen area, where Thelma is busy pouring cherry Kool-Aid into a hundred little paper cups.
“Sure is exciting,” Thelma says. “I haven’t seen the church this full since the seventies.”
“They all came because they believe Ezra rose from the grave?” I ask her.
“That’s right,” she says, pouring another cup.
I take a step closer to her and whisper, “Thelma, what do you believe?”
Thelma glances around me to where Will had been standing, but he’s disappeared into the sanctuary.
When she’s sure he’s gone, she leans forward and says in a low voice, “Honestly, honey, more than once I had to go banging on Brother Ezra’s door to wake him up on Sunday morning.
The man couldn’t hardly rise for church, so you’ll excuse me for thinking he’d struggle to push through a solid pine coffin and six feet of dirt after being felled by a snake. ”
“So why are you here?”
She raises her white eyebrows at me, her eyes twinkling through her glasses, and says, “Because somebody’s got to pass the collection plate and I know poor Will won’t even think of it.
We still need a new furnace and a new roof and if all these people want to chip in while they sing Brother Ezra’s praises, I’m not gonna be the one to stop ’em. ”
I start to ask her about Ezra King’s tent revival circuit again, but before I can, there’s a commotion in the church.
Someone has shouted something. The guitar and piano music have stopped and the singing, too, gradually dies away.
Thelma and I both rush to the door and look through it into the sanctuary.
There, everyone is turned to face the entrance.
Standing in the open doorway, on the other side of the church, is Crystal, the young waitress from the Dairy who’d skipped her shift the night I arrived.
And, I remind myself, the murdered Dean Griffon’s girlfriend.
The evening light streams in around her and turns her blond hair to a shimmering golden halo.
“What did you say?” someone asks.
I skirt around the stage to stand next to the front row of pews and watch as Crystal walks down the aisle, almost silently, in sandaled feet.
She wears a white cotton dress, and when she gets to the front of the church, she stops.
She looks for all the world like a young bride.
Except her tanned skin is washed out and her face is drawn.
Dark circles underscore her brilliant green eyes, which are shining with tears and uncertainty.
“He came to me,” she says, her voice high and clear, full of emotion.
A murmur spreads through the gathered crowd.
She looks around, blinking. Tears slip down her cheeks.
“Brother Ezra will return,” she says. “He appeared to me in a vision and told me that he has not yet ascended. That he will return and minister to his disciples…”
Excitement ripples outward from her like a thunderclap. The whispers turn to murmurs and then to full-voiced words of praise and so, so many questions.
“He will appear at dawn,” Crystal says, as loud as she can seem to manage. Tears stream down her face.
“Where?” someone shouts, hopeful.
“Hallelujah!”
“Where will he appear?”
Crystal seems to hear none of it. Her eyes are fixed on the wooden cross that hangs above the pulpit. Beside her, Will waves his hands for silence. Miraculously, it works.
“Tomorrow,” Crystal says. “Brother Ezra will return and minister to his flock at dawn tomorrow. He will appear at the summit of Galilee Hill.”
The congregation erupts into a storm of noise, and then suddenly floods into the aisle, hands out, as if they want to touch her, behold this divine messenger up close. Her eyes widen as she turns and seems to see them for the first time.
“Crystal,” I say. “Over here, come on.”
Her eyes fix on me and she rushes toward me as I gesture for her to come away from the crowd.
She steps away from the altar and Will takes her place.
He says something about how the congregation has been blessed and how miraculous it is that Brother Ezra should return and I don’t listen to any of it because Crystal bounds away from the sanctuary with me, through the door and into the kitchen, where Thelma is still standing.
I shut the door behind us, let out a breath of relief that no one has tried to follow us in here, and then find Crystal leaning against the wall, sobbing.
“Are you okay, honey?” Thelma asks.
Crystal nods but she’s shivering.
“Here,” Thelma says. “Drink some of this. Get some sugar into your system.”
I watch as Crystal takes the little paper cup and sips the drink, then, having had a taste, gulps it down.
“Thank you, Miss Thelma,” she says, then looks at me and seems only now to register who I am. “You’re the investigator woman.”
“That’s right. Can you tell me what happened? You said you had a vision?”
She nods, but when she opens her mouth to speak, she begins to cry. She raises her hands to her face; her many silver rings sparkle in the light. When I touch her shoulder, her skin is cool and slick with sweat.
“She needs to get warm,” I say.
Thelma looks at me, an eyebrow cocked.
“It’s ninety-eight degrees,” she says. “It can’t hardly get any warmer.”
“I think she’s in shock,” I tell her, looking at the goose bumps on Crystal’s skinny arms.
“He said…” Crystal breathes. “He said he has returned. Brother Ezra said he would minister … He will appear and … He said his work in Mount Zion was not finished and … he … he…”
“Good lord,” Thelma says. “Should we take her to a hospital?”
“No—” Crystal says. “Can’t afford it. No hospital, please. He said he … he would appear—”
She breaks down again and I go into the office and dig into the bag of donated winter clothes I’d found during my break-in, find a warm-looking flannel shirt, tug it out, and head back into the kitchen.
The shirt’s a 2XL so I throw it around Crystal’s shoulders like a blanket and rub up and down her arms to get her warm.
“Crystal, have you eaten?” I ask her. “Have you eaten anything real today?”
She shakes her head.
“Okay,” I say. “How did you get here? Did you drive?”
Another head shake and then: “My cousin dropped me off.”
“All right, come on. Let’s go—” I grab her by the shoulders, flannel shirt and all, and tug her up out of the chair. “Come on. We’ll get you some food.”
I ask Thelma to let Dishman know what’s happened, then lead Crystal back out the side door, down the steps, and to the Bronco, where I buckle her in like a child.
She sniffs and whimpers and stares out the front windshield at the church.
The sky is a pale orange color and nearly translucent bugs swim through the gauzy air.
Figuring she spends enough time at the Cherry Dairy, I drive us to the little sandwich shop on Main Street and get us a quiet booth in the back.
In a little while, I’ve got a turkey club and Crystal has a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese along with a steaming coffee, full of cream and sugar, and a big glass of water.
“Feeling better?” I ask.
She nods and dips a crust of her grilled cheese into the soup.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she says. “I would’ve been fine.”
“Well, you seemed pretty torn up.”
Her slender shoulders shrug. She must be in her early twenties, but she seems so small, sitting there in her huge flannel shirt, with her thin, delicate fingers dipping grilled cheese into bright red soup.
“People are saying…” she starts, and then pauses.
“What?”
“People are saying Dean messed with your car … that he messed with your car and that’s why you wrecked. Do you think it’s true?”
I sit back with a sigh and say, “I don’t know for sure. But it looks like it.”
She sets aside the little bite of grilled cheese she was about to dip into the soup. Her frown deepens and tears slide down her cheeks.
I ask, “Crystal, did you ever know him to do anything like that before?”
She sniffs and shakes her head. “Not exactly like that, but … he got scared sometimes. Acted without thinking.”
“Scared?”
“He spent time in juvie when we were kids. He never wanted to go back, but then, right after we turned eighteen, he did. But it was real jail. So it was worse. After that, he was terrified about having go in again. He said he couldn’t do it. He’d rather die…”
More tears come and she presses her face into her hands.
“I don’t think he would’ve been trying to kill you, though. Honest, I don’t think he could’ve killed anybody. He wasn’t like that. You have to believe me, Miss Gore.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s okay. I believe you.”