“Technically, the church didn’t remove itself,” I mused aloud.
“But it’s sure ceased to exist,” said Sherry as she continued copying the deed’s provisions in her rapid shorthand of hooks and curlicues.
“The building’s ceased to exist,” I agreed, “but the church itself is a body of worshippers, not walls and roof.”
“You know, I never thought about it like that, but you’re absolutely right. You see all you need to?”
I had.
As she slid the thick canvas-bound book back into its place on the lower shelf and went off to look up something else, I was left to think.
How about if Sister Williams declared Burning Heart of God legally defunct or else removed permanently to the storefront in Cotton Grove? She could let the land revert as specified in the deed and, since Mrs. Avery was the only surviving child of Langston King’s only child, the land would then be safe from any immediate judgment. At that point, Sister Williams could declare bankruptcy and she’d have no assets a creditor could attach. If and when the church raised enough money to rebuild, Mrs. Avery could restore her grandfather’s legacy.
“You’re a judge now,” the preacher inside my head reminded me. “You’re not supposed to give legal advice, remember? Besides, Reid’s smart. He’ll probably come up with the same idea.”
“And if he doesn’t,” said the pragmatist, “you can always give him a little nudge tomorrow.”
“But what about the poor man who lent Sister Williams money? Declaring bankruptcy to avoid her debts is the same as stealing from him.”
“His reward is in heaven,” said the pragmatist.
Dwight was in his office and on the phone when I dropped by a second time. He motioned me in as he finished the call, hung up the receiver and leaned back wearily in his swivel chair. The chair was old and creaked as if it couldn’t hold up under his six-three frame, but he didn’t seem worried. He pulled the bottom desk drawer out with the tip of his boot and propped his size elevens on the ledge till he was nearly horizontal. His boots were caked with mud and so were the cuffs of his pants. His short-sleeved blue shirt was wet from the rain and there was a dark smudge on the shoulder.
I took the armchair across from him and saw the weariness on his face. He was supposed to have driven Cal back to Virginia yesterday and he’d probably gotten home late. “Rough day?”
“Yeah, you could say so. What’s up?”
“Nothing much. Just wondered if you’d talked to Reid this afternoon?”
“Not yet.” Dwight fanned some message slips with Reid’s name on them. “You know what all these are about?”
“I probably ought to let him tell you.”
“Probably. But all I’m getting is his answering machine, so why don’t you go ahead and tell me yourself?”
Dwight listened in silence till I got to the part about Bobbie Jean Last-name-unknown being afraid of what her husband would do to Jerry Somebody if he found out they’d gone bass fishing together somewhere up in Massachusetts.
“Bobbie Jean Pritchett and Jerry Farmer.”
“You know them?”
“Be nice if Bagwell had told us this before,” he sighed.
“Before what?”
“Before Cecil Pritchett gave Farmer three broken ribs, a concussion, and a broken jaw.”
“What?”
“Last night around nine. Pritchett made bail this morning. Farmer’s over in Memorial Hospital. Bobbie Jean’s hightailed it. Probably to her sister in Massachusetts for real this time.”
“Can Farmer talk?”
“Could when he finally came to last night,” said Dwight. “His jaw’s wired shut right now, though.”
“Can he communicate well enough to corroborate Bagwell’s story?”
Dwight gave a palms-up gesture. “Who knows? I’ll tell Ed Gardner, but I wouldn’t count on him turning Bagwell and Starling loose anytime soon though. Starling might not’ve struck the match, but that’s sure his printing on the walls.”
“But if those boys didn’t do it,” I said, “you’ve got an arsonist running around loose.”
“But if they did do it, we don’t have to worry about any more fires right now God knows we’ve got enough on our plate as it is.”
“What?” I asked, realizing that he was more weary than a late drive home should have caused. “Something else has happened, hasn’t it?”
He nodded. “Guess you might as well know. It’ll probably be on the six o’clock news if it isn’t already. They found another body out at Mount Olive.”
21
LIVING WITHOUT GOD
IS LIKE DRIVING IN A FOG
—Nazarene Church
“Who is it?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Dwight said. “At the moment, all we’ve got are charred bones.”
That explained the dark smudges on his shirt.
As Dwight described it, work had begun today for Mount Olive’s reconstruction. Two members of the church were bulldozer operators and a construction company had given them the use of some earthmoving equipment to clear the site. Others had volunteered to come help, too.
With that low pressure system moving in from the west, they were double-timing to get as much done as possible before the rains got here.
Starting at sunrise this morning, two big yellow bulldozers worked to push off the remains of the fellowship hall and send it to the landfill in heavy-duty dump trucks. By lunchtime, they were ready to start the more delicate operation of pulling off the burned parts of the main building, beginning with the old Sunday School classrooms and the choir stall where the sexton’s body had been found. One forkload of burned choir benches and collapsed flooring went into the dump truck. When the second forkload swung up over the truck bed, a piece of debris fell from the air and landed a few feet from the man supervising the operation.
It was a leg bone.
The supervisor stopped the forklift in midair, took a look into the hole, and sent someone to call the Sheriff’s Department.
“And we put a tarp over it, then called the Medical Examiner and the Feds,” said Dwight. “Déjà vu all over again.”
“You didn’t recognize the body?”
“I wasn’t exactly down there nose to nose.”
“Male or female? Gunshot wounds or blunt trauma?”
“Give it a rest,” he said with a big yawn. The chair creaked again as he sank deeper into it.
I thought of how hot it’d been all week and wrinkled my nose. “Must have been quite a stench.”
He didn’t bite.
Of course, he didn’t just fall off the watermelon truck last week either. Before he and Jonna split, Dwight was with the D.C. police force and before that with Army Intelligence. I had the feeling he was holding something back, but he could keep his mouth shut when it suited him.
“The sexton was found in the choir loft, too,” I mused. “Wonder what they were both doing there? Hunt did die of smoke inhalation, didn’t he?”
“So the ME says.” Dwight yawned again.
“But he could have been hit over the head first.”
“Not according to the ME. Alcohol level was point-nineteen. Probably just passed out there,” he said sleepily.
His own eyes were half-closed. Another minute and he’d be gone.
I was ready to go see if the rain had let up enough to get to my car when Cyl DeGraffenried suddenly appeared in the doorway. She wore a tailored rose-colored dress today with a string of white beads and low-heeled white pumps.
“I just got a call that a skeleton’s been found at Mount Olive,” she said. “Is that true?”
A skeleton?
I kicked the desk drawer shut and Dwight lurched forward so abruptly that the chair almost slid out from under him. “You didn’t say skeleton. You said body.”