But this was just plain quiet. No traffic, even. It gave me the creeps.
“Sergeant,” Howard said to one of the MUST members. “We’re going up the hill for a couple of minutes. We’ll be right back.”
“Right, sir.”
We stepped off the asphalt at a military pace, with me a step or two behind Spellman, through the stone pillars on either side of the road, then into the morgue parking lot. There were dozens of century-old trees in the area, their arching canopies shielding us from the sun and casting long, deep shadows over the area. From where we were, you couldn’t see much of anything. But then, as we approached the slight ridge in front of the morgue, where a line of Metro squad cars was parked, we could see the top of the building. Then a long row of RVs came into view. Howard motioned me to stop. I came up next to him. Ahead of us, maybe fifty officers lay hunkered down in flak jackets, helmets, assault rifles.
Fifty feet or so farther down, another line of squad cars faced off against the RVs not more than twenty yards distant.
“My God,” I said. “They’re right on top of each other.”
The line of Winnebagos was bumper-to-bumper in a half circle around the front of the morgue building from left to right, no more, I guessed, than twenty feet from the front door. The morgue sits on a bluff, with the Cumberland River acting as a barrier on the back. The Enochians, I realized, had taken up a virtually perfect and impregnable defensive line.
“It’s going to be tough to get them out of there. That’s why we keep talking.”
I looked at him. “How long can it go on?”
Howard shrugged. “Who the hell knows? They’re not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere. It could last for months.”
“They’ll starve!”
He shook his head. “We’re negotiating now to get supplies into the building. The Enochians will need food and water, too, you know.”
“You’re not going to give it to them, are you?”
“If that’s what it takes to keep them talking, we will. Hell, we’ll have pizza delivered if it keeps the lines open.”
“I don’t see anybody,” I said.
“They’re all inside the RVs. Notice those little panels on the sides of the vehicles.”
I squinted and stared. “Yeah, I can see them.”
“Far as we can tell, they’re gun ports.”
“And it looks like they’ve sandbagged the tops of the RVs.”
“Right, and there’re people lying down behind those bags with automatic weapons. Every once in a while one of them sticks a head up, or climbs down in a shift change. They’ve got the advantage on us, that’s for sure. If we try a direct frontal assault, we’ll get mowed down.”
“So get a freaking tank up here.”
“That’s just what we’re trying to avoid, Harry. But I will tell you this. If it comes down to blowing them out of there, we’re prepared to do it.”
There was a military coldness and precision in his voice that I’d never heard before. What a hell of a lousy position to be in, though.
“Howard,” I said. “This sucks.”
“I’ve got to get you back down the hill. They said they were sending out a negotiator at three. We’re going to talk face-to-face for the first time. You mind walking down?”
“Of course not. So you’re meeting the Reverend Woodrow Tyberious Hogg?”
“Hogg?” Howard asked. “Hell, he ain’t up there.”
“I thought-”
“These are his people. They’re from his group, but he claims he hasn’t got any control over ’em, and he certainly ain’t up on the firing line himself. Hell, he’s probably sitting in his mansion on Hillsboro Road in the Jacuzzi, watching all this on television just like everybody else.”
We walked back to the communications van and Howard radioed the officer at the roadblock that I’d be walking down alone. I didn’t know if that was to protect me, or to make sure I didn’t try to hang around.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” I called as I walked away. He turned in my direction.
“What’d you think about that country-music singer that got waxed last night?”
He waved his hand wearily. “I haven’t even had time to think about it. I gave that one to Fouch.”
So Reverend Woody had decided to skip the fireworks his own people had started. And Detective E. D. Fouch would be investigating the murder of Rebecca Gibson.
I had the sense life was going to get real interesting over the next few days.
I threw my jacket over my shoulder and loosened my tie, then started up Broadway, in shock from what I’d seen. The walk back to my office seemed much shorter, as if I were unaware of what was going on around me or of time passing.
God, how weird.
I stayed in the office just long enough to throw the bricklayer’s file, with an invoice and a copy of the videotape, into a briefcase and to verify that my answering machine was empty. Then it was back to the car and into the traffic.
There was a wreck on Broadway on the bridge over I-40 that was just being cleared away, so I missed the worst of the jam. Some poor sucker in an old Plymouth had turned left to get on the freeway, and what looked like a brand-new Toyota pickup-temporary tag still taped in the back window-had T-boned him on the passenger’s side. Somebody’s day was shot all to blazes.
Getting past that sucked up about ten minutes, so by the time I found a parking space on a side street off Demonbreun Street at the top of the hill next to Tourist Trap Row, my heart was beating pretty fast. I had less than an hour now before my appointment with Phil Anderson at the insurance company, the appointment that I hoped would bail me out financially.
So why was I running around working up a sweat on something I couldn’t do anything about? I couldn’t come up with an answer, so I just kept plowing ahead.
Jericho’s was inside an old, renovated house that perched on the slight rise overlooking Broadway, next door to Gilley’s. The building was two stories high, painted gray, with tasteful maroon shutters on tall, double-hung windows. The name was emblazoned across the front in bright pink neon, with red crucifixes blazing steadily on either side of the crackling light. In two display windows on either side of the door, mannequins dressed in the custom-made clothes stood on mute display.
It struck me as odd that there weren’t a passel of news vans and cop cars outside here as well as down at the morgue. But then the Pentecostal Enochians had always been fairly discreet about owning the place. Unlike some other religious cults who’d opened up storefront retail operations in order to convert the infidels, the PEs had been content to make a fortune quietly.
I opened the door and stepped inside. The air was cool, dry, and scented with that stuffy textile odor I always associate with clothes stores or new carpet. An electronic bell chimed as I closed the door behind me.
The large front room was crowded with clothes racks, with shelves against the walls rising all the way to the top of what must have been at least a twelve-foot ceiling. Jackets, denim or leather mostly, hung on the clothes racks, while the shelves were piled with folded jeans.
And, God Almighty, clothes like I’d never seen before in my life. Pain quite literally came to my eyes and I found myself squinting to cut off some of the sensation. I pulled a stonewashed denim jacket off the rack and examined it.
Every seam had been studded with rhinestones, red and gold and blue and yellow and green. Light twinkled off chrome buttons. The damn thing had to weigh at least ten pounds. And on the back, an airbrushed painting of Christ on a Harley-Davidson, and the words BIKING FOR JESUS! airbrushed with a flourish across the shoulder panels. Jesus was outlined in sequins, and the tires of the bike were gold leaf, either fake or real; I couldn’t tell which.
Then I saw the price tag: $1,200. Damn, I thought, better be real.