each other that much, and we lived in a glass house, so when we
did, we were usually doing our best to win an Oscar.”
“All the world’s a stage,” she said.
“Uh huh,” I said. “Finally, with all the pressure of being a pastor of a large church, never having gotten over my last case, and no personal life whatsoever, I began to drink again. Small amounts at first, but then I tried to swim in the bottle, and that’s when I drowned.”
“How did Susan respond?”
“Like an old pro at enabling. She was the best. The silence, the secrets, the excuses, and the justification.”
“Sounds like a perfect setup. What happened?”
“Remember that grace we spoke of earlier-she stepped in. I saw that I needed help, and I went looking for it. I started AA, I read the books, I got a sponsor, and I made one fatal mistake-I became honest about my addiction. Susan couldn’t handle it. It’s funny, but it wasn’t my addiction that split us up, but my recovery. And the church, the last thing they wanted was an honest recovering alcoholic for a pastor. I was too real, too much of a reminder of their own needs.”
She nodded encouragingly.
“Things got worse from there. I was faithful during all of this time. To be rigid enough to be a dry drunk meant that it was not a problem to be rigid enough to not be human. However, Susan and I had never been all that human with each other either, if you know what I mean. We were probably down to once a week, sometimes less. So, when the charges came that I was having an affair with one of the wives of a board member, she believed it. She was always so insecure anyway; that was all she needed.”
In the distance, the hollow tapping of a woodpecker started. It echoed off the trees and surface of the water, sounding like a family of woodpeckers at work.
“Why do you think the woman accused you of adultery?” Laura’s eyes were filled with compassion and understanding. Her mouth stayed slightly parted when she wasn’t talking-desirous, it seemed, to drink in my pain.
“She didn’t. Her husband did. She had come to see me because they were both alcoholics. She wanted help. He didn’t. He fixed her. Not too long after that, she committed suicide, and the papers had a field day. It all hurt like hell, but the worst thing was the way the church turned me out to the wolves.”
“Probably a lot of wolves within your fold.”
“Yes, there were. And every one of them had on sheep’s clothing. I didn’t see it coming, and I didn’t know what hit me.”
“So, you moved to this luxurious home,” she said, looking back at my trailer, “in sunny Pottersville, Florida.”
“Right here,” I said. “All of this came on the heels of a disastrous case I worked on with the SMPD. I quit. I ran away. I wanted to die. But, I didn’t drink, and, somehow, I didn’t lose my faith, in myself or in God. So, I’ve been demoted to a convict preacher.”
“You don’t see it as a demotion,” she said. “I can tell.”
“Well, maybe not. But, it was certainly a demotion as far as everyone else was concerned.”
“I think it’s a grace. The inmates at Potter CI have a priest who knows what it’s like to fall from grace.”
“You’re beginning to see grace everywhere, aren’t you?”
“Obi-wan trained me well,” she said and started to laugh.
“There’s just one thing. Grace was the only thing that I didn’t fall from. I actually fell into grace’s gentle embrace.”
“You’re right. But I was using it as an expression, not literally.”
We strolled back to the trailer in no particular hurry. We laced our fingers together and held hands, weary of traveling alone. When we walked into the trailer, the phone was ringing, and I knew it was bad news.
It was.
It was Merrill. Anthony Thomas had been murdered in the infirmary the night before-stabbed and raped with a surgical scalpel, which the murderer had left in the body.
Chapter 40
“You look awful,” Molly Thomas said when she was seated in the only chair in my living room. She was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, a white oxford button-down shirt, and white leather Keds. The large shirt, probably one of Tony’s, was not tucked in, and the tails were wrinkled. Clasped in her right had was a small wad of tissues that were wrinkled, too.
When she’d knocked on the door, Laura had greeted her like any Southern lady would, not realizing that she was the woman who had accused me of raping her in the chapel of PCI. I agreed with her, I did look awful, but she looked worse. She looked like the grieving widow she was. Her eyes were deep and hollow with big black bags underneath. Her auburn hair was thin and wispy, part of it standing up, but she didn’t care. She had aged ten years in the ten days since I had last seen her.
“Molly, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here,” I said, sounding too harsh even under the circumstances. “I’m very sorry about Anthony, but I’m not the one to help you right now.”
“I’ve got to talk to you,” she said. Her voice was flat and as expressiveless as her face was expressionless. “I know what I’ve put you through, but I’m going to make it right. I’m so sorry.” She began to cry. Women seemed to be doing a lot of that around me lately. “I just didn’t know what else to do.”
Laura stood over near the door, giving Molly room but keeping watch over me. I hoped for Molly’s sake that she didn’t try anything crazy or make any sudden movements. I could picture Laura pouncing on her and, quite frankly, kicking her ass.
“What are you talking about, Molly?” I asked.
She tried to speak, but nothing came. She cleared her throat. “I’m talking about calling the superintendent and telling him that you were involved in the thing in the chapel.” Her voice was weak and sounded hoarse. “I didn’t tell him you did it or anything. I just told him that you were involved. I’m so sorry. I was just trying to protect Tony. I was so scared they were going to kill him.”
When she said “kill him,” she looked as if she had just revealed the most horrible secret. The shocked expression on her face turned to rage and then pain in seconds. She cried for two minutes, her red eyes unable to produce enough tears for more, and then talked the rest of the time through sobs and gasps for breath.
I looked over at Laura. She looked relieved. Her small smile said that her trust in me had been validated. She seemed as proud of herself for trusting in the right man as she was happy for me actually being innocent.
“Skipper said if I accused you,” Molly continued, “he would let Tony out of confinement and take care of him. I just didn’t know what else to do. I was so scared and so alone.” She lifted the wad of tissues to her eyes, her hands trembling like those of an elderly woman. “You were the only one who had ever helped me or even treated me with any decency, and I stabbed you in the back.”
I wondered if she knew how Tony was killed. Judging by her composure when she said “stabbed you in the back,” she didn’t know. I was glad. I wished I didn’t.
“I killed him,” she continued. “If I had not done what I did, he might still be alive.”
I thought the same thing, but I said, “You did not kill your husband. It was probably just a matter of time. He had fallen in with some very bad people.”
“He wasn’t bad when he went to prison. I mean, he had broken the law. He was no angel, but he was no devil either-but that’s what he was the last time I saw him.”
“When you called the superintendent, did you accuse anyone else of being involved?”
“No, not to him, but he had me speak with some sort of inspector. I told him that Captain Skipper was involved, too. But, he only wanted to know about you. He acted as if you were the only one involved. I was making it up, but I didn’t know what else to say, so some of the things that Skipper did, I told him you did.”
“Did you tell him that Anthony was there?” I asked.
