“If you overhear anything else while you’re working at Reverend Thunder’s estate, I’d appreciate hearing about it right away.”
Art Gilbert gave the chief a small salute and left.
When Ron was alone with the mayor, he told him, “The FBI is back. Horgan might be looking to cause trouble.”
The chief outlined his talk with Horgan: that the FBI agent had talked to Thunder; the reverend’s complaint that Ron was harassing him; Horgan hinting that Ron might be facing a civil suit, or worse, for violating, poor Jimmy Thunder’s civil rights.
“You’re playing everything straight up?” the mayor asked.
“Absolutely. My office contacted Horgan regarding the threat about the church burnings because it felt real to me, and it referred to a string of hate crimes well beyond our jurisdiction. The sonofabitch is using that for cover to try to hijack our investigation. I knew that might happen, but I felt I had to tell him anyway.”
The mayor nodded.
Clay said, “Don’t let him distract you. I’ll start lining up political support. If Agent Horgan wasn’t smart enough to take my first warning, he’ll learn what it feels like to get hit with the proverbial ton of bricks.”
“Leave a couple for me to chuck at him,” Ron said.
Clay Steadman laughed briefly.
“I can’t stop Jimmy Thunder from counterpunching, though,” the mayor said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“You really think it could be him?”
“Could be.”
“Well, if he takes you to court, try not to let that distract you, either. The town will pay for your lawyers.”
“Good.” Ron knew that Clay Steadman understood that a lot of mud might be splattered all over his beloved town if Ron had to arrest Jimmy Thunder for the murder of his son. It was inevitable that charges of racism would be lodged against the chief of police and his department. Ron asked, “You sure you still want the bastard who killed Isaac Cardwell?”
Clay nodded. “More than ever.”
Chapter 26
From the mayor’s house, Ron drove over to Texas Jack Telford’s place on Timberline Drive. He wanted to hear from someone beyond Jimmy Thunder’s inner circle that the reverend was actually at home playing cards on the night Isaac Cardwell was killed. Not that corroborating testimony would remove suspicion from the reverend, but it would give Ron a feel for just how much of what Thunder was handing him was true, and how much was bullshit.
As with many of the residents of Goldstrike, Texas Jack was better than well off, if not actually filthy rich. But unlike many of his economic peers, the five time world poker champ was a character, a maverick. He had a funky old home that he kept adding onto, even though he was the only one who lived there. And he did all the construction himself.
As for landscaping, there was none, other than what nature provided. No immaculate lawns, flower beds or pruned ornamental trees here. Just the idiosyncratic house that Texas Jack built set hard against the wilderness. His home was part of his rough-hewn persona.
When Ron pulled into the driveway, he saw that yet another room was being added on to the house. Studs framing the walls and roof of an area roughly 20 feet square stood adjacent to what Ron thought he remembered to be Jack’s home office. Stacks of lumber, sheets of plywood, rolls of insulation, tools, boxes of nails and all sorts of other construction materials lay neatly positioned next to the construction area.
Ron knocked on the back door because Texas Jack liked to have everyone enter his house through the kitchen. He said that way folks could get right down to eating, drinking and lying to one another. Presently, Texas Jack’s housekeeper, Maria, came to the door. The poker champion’s sense of self-reliance didn’t extend to dusting or doing windows.
The chief had been out to Texas Jack’s when Clay had taken him around, upon his arrival in town, to introduce him to several of Goldstrike’s leading lights. He’d met Maria then, too, and by the look in her eyes as she opened the door, she still remembered him.
“Good day, Chief Ketchum. How may I help you?”
“Texas Jack here, Maria?”
“I’m so sorry, no. He is in Reno for a personal appearance.”
“When will he be back?”
“Perhaps later tonight. Certainly by tomorrow.”
Maria peered around Ron, looking down the driveway.
“You expecting someone?” the chief asked.
“My husband. He comes to pick me up soon.”
Looking at the kitchen clock, Ron saw it was five after five.
“Will you please leave a note for Texas Jack?” Ron inquired. “Tell him I’ve been here, and ask him to call me at his earliest convenience.”
“Of course,” Maria responded. She craned her neck again, this time looking out at the trees. Then she turned her face to Ron and confessed, “I don’t like being out here all alone.”
“Has someone being bothering you?” the chief asked.
“Not someone. Something. Every time I look out a window, I think I see that mountain lion. Even when I know I am imagining things, it still scares me. You’re going to catch him soon, aren’t you, Chief Ketchum?”
“We’re doing our best,” Ron replied.
Before returning to headquarters, Ron decided to do an impromptu patrol to get a sense of the town and the surrounding area. The decision made him think that he should have drawn a rifle from the department armory. Not that he could tell one mountain lion from another just by looking at it. If he saw one at all. On the other hand, should he come across the beast they wanted, confronting, attacking, maybe
eating
someone, he’d want to go after it with more firepower than just his sidearm. He decided to issue an order that all patrol units would carry a rifle from now until the lion was killed.
He should have thought of that sooner.
He laughed to himself. All those years on the LAPD had prepared him for dealing with just about any predator imaginable — except the four-legged kind. Live and learn, he thought.
Ron couldn’t help but notice that for a beautiful early evening at the height of summer everything was unusually quiet. There were no hikers about. No cyclists on the roads. Not even any cars pulled over at the scenic overlooks. As he came into the built up areas of town, he saw that there wasn’t much vehicular traffic on the streets or pedestrian traffic in the open air malls. At only two cafes did he see patrons sitting at sidewalk tables, and of these there was only one couple snuggling together at the first cafe, and a single man reading a newspaper at the second.
The only thing the chief could think was that Texas Jack’s housekeeper wasn’t the only one with the mountain lion on her mind. But people wouldn’t stand for being held hostage for very long. The pressure on him to kill the beast would mount.
It was no small irony that at that moment the chief wouldn’t have minded seeing some of the media horde that had descended upon the town out and about enjoying themselves.
Oliver Gosden followed Isaac Cardwell’s trail to the serene setting of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. The building was a tastefully done modern interpretation of a small country church. The predominant building materials were quarried stone and redwood. The deputy chief pulled into the parking area at the side of the church and walked to the front of the building. A display sign there carried the church’s name. Since August constituted the doldrums of the liturgical calendar, the only message on the sign was:
Everyone welcome.
Oliver stepped inside to see if anyone was taking advantage of such a democratic invitation.
The electrical lighting inside was dim, and the sun was lowering by now, so it took the deputy chief’s eyes a moment to adjust to the relative darkness. At first, he thought he was alone, but then he saw a crown of white hair fringing a pink scalp in the front row of pews. He started that way and was about to speak up when he noticed the old man’s head was bowed in prayer. He also saw that the old guy wore a clerical collar. Probably just the man the deputy chief wanted.
Mindful of his manners and good department-community relations, Oliver took a seat across the aisle. He looked up at the altar and the figure of Jesus upon the cross. Helluva way for anybody to go, he thought, whether you’re the Son of God or a poor black minister from Oakland.
Offhand, he couldn’t remember the last time he was in a church. Probably for some unlucky cop who bought it in the line of duty. No, wait. It was for his cousin’s wedding, and that had to be … four years ago. Some cops went to church, of course, but they were usually what Oliver thought of as the hard-on religious. Those militants not only had to believe for themselves, they’d try with all their might to get you to believe, too. The deputy chief had always seen those types as just looking for one more way to establish their authority over someone else.
Lauren was a bit more of a churchgoer than he was, but not too much more. She’d seen a lot of good people die on the operating table. Cops and surgical nurses encountered death too frequently not to wonder if there really was a God. Or if there was, did he really have a Plan — the capital P kind? And if he did have a plan, was it all one big practical joke?
In his darker moments, that was the view Oliver subscribed to: the Lord wasn’t mysterious at all; he was just a real kidder.
After all, from a celestial point of view, how could human beings mean more than cartoon characters meant to everybody else?
Still, Lauren had told him that when he’d been shot she had prayed, and prayed hard, that he wouldn’t die. She didn’t want to be a widow, and she didn’t want Danny to grow up without his father. Even after Oliver had been taken to the hospital and been operated on, it had been touch and go for seventy-two hours. Lauren said she’d prayed the whole time.
Some made it and some didn’t, but he did. Who was to say that Lauren’s prayers hadn’t helped? If they had, he certainly was grateful for all the extra time he’d been granted with the two people he loved most in the world.
In that spirit, and with nobody looking, Oliver quickly played the supplicant himself. He asked that the Lord keep his family safe and well. And asked that the Lord give Oliver and his wife a daughter. And if it wasn’t asking too much, let him catch the bas — the person or persons responsible for nailing Isaac Cardwell to that lightning-struck tree.
The deputy chief’s communion with the Almighty was interrupted when he felt someone looking at him. Which made him open his eyes, surprising him that he’d closed them in the first place.
“I’m sorry. Did I disturb you?”
It was the minister across the way. He’d finished with his own prayers.
“No, no,” the deputy chief assured him. “Must have dozed a little, that’s all.”
“Oh, I thought … well, never mind. I’m Reverend John Brantley, the pastor of St. Mark’s.”
“Oliver Gosden, deputy chief of police.” Oliver crossed the aisle and shook hands with Brantley. “I’m afraid I’m here on official business. Is there somewhere we could talk?”
“Of course. Let’s step outside. Follow me, please.”
The pastor led the deputy chief through the sacristy and out the back door of the church.
“What a lovely evening,” Brantley said, smiling. “How may I help you?”
Oliver thought the man’s expression was almost beatific. He’d just renewed his faith. Then he’d stepped outside into one of nature’s better neighborhoods. And now a cop was going to ruin the man’s day.
Well, it wasn’t as though he had any choice in the matter.
“Pastor Brantley, do you know who Isaac Cardwell was?”
“Yes, of course.”
The man’s smile disappeared, but there was still a sense of serenity in his eyes.
“Did he ever come to your church?”
“Yes, he did. On three or four occasions. He introduced himself to me on his first visit. He impressed me as a very fine man.”
“Did you talk much with him?”
“Usually just for a few minute. Social protocol, you know. But once I invited him into my parsonage and we spoke for almost an hour.”
“What did you talk about, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“We talked about the challenges we faced in our respective ministries. And … “ Brantley paused, plainly trying to decide if he would be breaching a trust to go on.
“Please, Pastor, help me. I’m trying to find the man’s killer.”
Brantley nodded. “Yes, of course. I’m not sure that it will help you, but he told me he was trying to save a particular soul. And he was in some anguish that he might fail.”
“Did he say whose soul?”
The pastor shook his head.
“When was the last time you saw him?” Oliver wanted to know.
“He stopped in to pray the night before he died.”
“Do you remember the time?”
“It was shortly before sunset. I lock up the church just after dark.”
“Do you know where he went from here?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Was there anyone else in the church who might have seen where he went?” Oliver had a small lead here and he didn’t want to let it peter out.
“There was one other person at the back of the church while Reverend Cardwell and I were up front?”
“Do you know that person’s name?”
“I wish I could help you, but I’m afraid this person wasn’t much more than a blur. I think it was a white man, but even that would be guesswork. I have cataracts, you see. I’m scheduled for surgery next week.”
Now, Oliver noticed there wasn’t only a sense of peace in the man’s eyes, there was a milky haze symptomatic of his condition.
“I wish I could be of more help,” Brantley said. “Reverend Cardwell touched my life only briefly, but I feel I’m the better for having met him. I’ve heard all the news reports, of course, and I think of what his final moments must have been like quite often. I wonder if at the end …
The old man’s voice trailed off.
Oliver said, “Pastor, from everything I heard, if anybody’s gone to Jesus, it’s Isaac Cardwell.”
John Brantley nodded. “Oh, certainly. Of that, I have no doubt. No, I was wondering if at the end Reverend Cardwell asked God to forgive his executioner, just as Jesus did. I rather think that he might have.”
The pastor excused himself and found his way back into his church.
That
idea had never occurred to the deputy chief: Forgive the guy who nailed you up? Not him. He never took his Bible lessons that seriously.
But when Oliver walked to the parking lot from the rear of the church, he noticed the sun shining off something golden, something under the bushes not ten feet from his patrol unit. He walked over, squatted, and peered at the source of the reflection.
A pair of wire frame glasses.
Isaac Cardwell’s glasses were missing and hadn’t been found. Until now. Oliver would bet his pension that those glasses had belonged to the slain minister. And he’d never have seen them if he hadn’t come out of the church the back way. And if the sun hadn’t been shining at just the right angle.
Hadn’t he just asked — prayed — for help in finding the killer? And now he’d found the spot where Isaac Cardwell probably got bashed on the head, at least the first time. It was enough to make a man stop and think. But not for too long, at least not right then.