“So he’s looking to force a sale of the land and Mrs. Avery, full of noblesse oblige because of her grandfather King, wants you to stop it?”
“You got it.”
“Can you?”
He shrugged. “I can try. I’ll have to check the deed, see if it’s in her name or the church’s and then see if the church really is responsible for her debts.”
He got up for more napkins. Sue’s sandwiches are ambrosial, but messy to eat.
“You speak to Raymond Bagwell this weekend?” I asked.
“No.” He handed me a wad of napkins and sat back down across from me at the long conference table. “Is that what this lunch is about?”
I told him what A.K. had told me last night and watched the play of emotions across his face.
“Why the hell didn’t my client tell me this?”
“Oh come on, Reid. As many times as you’ve taken married women to bed? I’d have thought you’d automatically understand the old male solidarity thing.”
Not keeping his pants zipped outside of their bedroom is the main reason Karen divorced him.
He gave a sheepish smile.
“Besides,” I said. “Didn’t you say Saturday that your client was innocent?”
“Yeah, but that’s what I always—”
The penny finally finished dropping.
“If this alibi holds up—?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It means the arsonist is still out there.”
By the time I went back to court, he’d agreed that maybe A.K. wasn’t wrong after all. Maybe Dwight should be told.
20
“Thou Shalt Not Steal”—Exodus 20:15
—Island Road Baptist
The storm that had been threatening all afternoon finally tore loose shortly before four-thirty as I was finishing up for the day. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed, a stiff wind tore leaves and twigs from the oaks that surrounded the courthouse and rain came down in such heavy sheets that when I looked out through the glass doors, visibility was less than a block.
Naturally I’d left my umbrella on the car.
“A real frog-strangler,” commented Thad Hamilton as he came up and looked out over my shoulder.
Thad’s one of the new breed. The first time he ran for county commissioner, he was a Democrat and finished far back in the pack. The second time around, he switched parties and became the first Republican elected to the county board in this century. He’s about six-one, heavyset and, though only in his early forties, has a thick shock of prematurely white hair that makes his slightly florid face look even more youthful than it would have under ordinary salt-and-pepper.
“Sorry I couldn’t make y’all’s pig-picking, but I was at a fund-raiser for King Richard.”
“We missed you,” I said with sweet insincerity, “but I know Richard Petty’s going to need all the money he can get if he actually wins the Secretary of State race—oh, but wait a minute! Didn’t he say he was going to keep his STP endorsements, win or lose?”
“He won’t lose,” Thad said with the confidence of one who knows his man’s ahead in the polls by double digits. “NASCAR champion versus that lady from Lillington?”
Never mind that Elaine Marshall was a sharp attorney and former state senator. As he travelled around the state, signing hats and T-shirts, Richard Petty couldn’t seem to remember either her name or her title. It was always “that lady from Lillington.” She talked of strategies to strengthen the office and better serve the state’s business interests overseas; he didn’t seem real clear on what the office entailed but was sure it was something that wouldn’t take up more than three days a week.
Of all the Council of State candidates, she was the one I most wanted to win. Unfortunately, Thad was right. To most statewide voters, Elaine Marshall was a virtual unknown and King Richard knew how to win races.
“You’ve got an easy time of it this year,” Thad said. “Running unopposed.”
“Yeah, that sort of surprised me, too,” I admitted. “I thought sure y’all’d put somebody up.”
“We had bigger fish to fry this year?” he said. “But don’t worry. We’ll get down to your level next time.”
He unfurled a huge red-and-white-striped golf umbrella. “Walk you to your car, Judge?”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I think I’ll wait for it to let up a little.”
Water was rushing across sidewalks and street too fast for the storm drains to handle it all and I knew that even if I shared Thad Hamilton’s umbrella, my favorite pair of cork-heeled red sandals would be wrecked before I was halfway to the parking lot.
Fortunately, there was nowhere I needed to be until the Harvey Gantt rally out at the community college at six o’clock. Too, I hadn’t really talked to Dwight on Saturday, so I took the back stairs down to the Sheriff’s Department.
“Sorry, ma’am,” said Deputy Jack Jamison. “Major Bryant and Sheriff Poole got called out to Mount Olive this afternoon and they’re not back yet. I know he plans to swing by here before he goes home. Can I leave him a message?”
“If he gets back before five, tell him I’m in the Register of Deeds office,” I said and went back upstairs to pester Callie Yelverton.
So far as we know, Miss Callie was the first Colleton County woman ever elected to a countywide office and she sort of got it by default since her daddy had held it from 1932 till his death in the seventies. (A county commissioner was the second and a school board member was third. I am the fourth.)
I had expected the records room to be empty, what with the rain and the late hour, but there were at least a dozen people busy with the big oversized books. I recognized a couple of attorneys’ clerks, including Sherry Cobb, the office manager from Lee and Stephenson. Most of the others worked for the bigger developers. With the county’s building boom, developers were knocking on kitchen doors all up and down every dirt lane, chirping, “Hi, there! Y’all interested in selling?”
I couldn’t find anything in the index for Burning Heart of God, so I tried Byantha Williams. She was listed, but that particular deed book wasn’t on the shelf, so I looked up Balm of Gilead instead.
Its origin was as the papers had reported: “Witnesseth, that said Leon Starling, in consideration of five hundred dollars and other valuables to him paid by Augustus Saunders, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, does convey to said Augustus Saunders and his heirs and assigns a certain tract or parcel of land in Cotton Grove Township, Colleton County, State of North Carolina, bounded as follows.”
I wondered if the saintly Augustus Saunders had indeed thrown in the jug of moonshine that Charles Starling impugned him with.
A subsequent deed transferred that parcel to the board of trustees of Balm of Gilead Baptist Church.
Sherry spotted me and motioned me over. “Reid said you were there for lunch. Sorry I missed you.” She was copying from the deed book that lay open on top of the waist-high bookcase in front of us.
“Is that the Burning Heart of God deed you’re copying?” I asked.
“Uh-huh. Were you looking for it, too?”
She moved over a little so that I could read the simple deed in which Langston King did convey to Washington Renfrow “one acre upon which to build a Negro church. And should said church cease to exist or remove itself from that place, then the land shall revert to Langston King or, if he be dead, to his heirs and assigns.”
Twenty-seven years ago, probably at the death of Washington Renfrow, another deed transferred title to Byantha Renfrow Williams, Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Burning Heart of God Holiness Tabernacle Church.
At this point, it could be argued that Sister Williams owned the church outright while an opposing attorney could no doubt argue that the church was a separate entity and owner of the land as implied in the original deed. Each would have a fair chance of winning the case depending on which way the wind was blowing or what day of the week Tuesday fell on.