One Deadly Sin (21 page)

“Or it means the water kept it from setting in,” Doc said. He was measuring water temperature, comparing it to the preacher’s body temperature. “We’ll see.”

There were no signs of struggle or violence, except on the preacher’s face. It had frozen into a grimace of fear or death or both. Natural causes or something more sinister? Ferguson knelt over the side, lifted Parsley’s hands. No damage to the wrist area. No puncture wounds on the neck or face either.

“What do you think?” Holt asked.

“Can’t be sure.” He got off his knees, dried his hands on some paper towels. “Like I said, water sometimes disguises things. But on first glance I’d say it looks natural enough. He hasn’t been dead long. An hour. Maybe two.”

That would put time of death somewhere between four-thirty and five-thirty. A start.

“Heart attack?” Holt asked.

“Won’t know until I get a closer look.”

“He have a history of heart problems?” Holt said.

“He went out of town for his medical advice. Can’t say I heard he did, but there’s no telling.” He looked around. “Okay if I get him out of there?”

Holt agreed and got the two men Doc had brought from the volunteer fire department. It took all four of them to heft the body out of the water and into a waiting body bag.

Holt watched them wheel the minister out, hoping the two men would be discreet about what they’d seen, and knowing word would get out no matter what he hoped.

He let out a breath. Time to talk to the witnesses.

Inside the preacher’s office a desk and chair occupied one wall. Sam perched on the corner of the desk, arms crossed, gaze vigilant. In a corner, two armchairs were separated by a small table. The secretary was hunched in one of the armchairs, clutching a knot of tissue in one hand. Bookshelves lined the walls. Terry Bishop was slumped against one of them.

“Terry.” Holt nodded to him.

“Chief.” Terry nodded back.

“You want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

He looked even more sullen, if that were possible. “Like I told Sam, I was here to pick up my aunt.”

“So late in the day?”

“It’s Tuesday,” Terry said. “We always come on Tuesday. Same time. Ask anyone.”

Holt looked to Sam, who murmured the woman’s name.

“Miss Garvey?” He sat in the opposite chair. “That true?”

The secretary picked at a tissue in her hand. “I always come Tuesday evening. To do the bulletin for Wednesday’s prayer meeting and to type up Reverend’s sermon. Then Terry comes and sometimes we go to Claire’s for dinner. And then we go home. He lives with me, you see. Only this time…” She worked the tissue again, unable to continue.

“Why does Terry pick you up? Don’t you drive?”

“She drives,” Terry said. “She lets me use her car while she’s here.”

“That true? Miz Garvey, is that true?”

The woman stared at Holt, but he had a feeling she wasn’t seeing him. “He was just… there. Floating. Like he was on vacation.” She shuddered and the glaze in her eyes went stormy. “He shouldn’t be swimming in the baptistery.” A tear leaked down one cheek, and she dabbed at it absently with the clump of tissue.

Holt tried again, taking her hand, and asking gently, “How did you get here today?”

She shuddered, but answered. “My nephew picked me up.”

“Is that unusual? Can’t you drive yourself?”

Terry took a step forward “I told you—”

“Shut it.” Sam moved to intercept him.

“It’s all right, dear.” Miss Garvey seemed to get control of herself. She turned to Holt. “Terry’s car needs a few repairs, so we have this arrangement. He takes me here, has the use of my car for a few hours, then picks me up.”

“And what time did he drop you off?”

“A little after six.” She collapsed against the chair again. Looked at Holt with watery eyes. “We’ll have to clean the baptistery, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, Miss Garvey.”

“Purify it.” She looked at her hands. A tear plopped into the tissue.

“Was there anyone else here when you arrived tonight?”

She shook her head.

“You’re sure?”

She nodded.

Holt turned to Terry. “How about you? See anyone when you got here?”

“No.”

“And when you found the preacher, he was face down in the pool?”

“I didn’t touch him,” Terry said. “I left him just the way I saw him.”

“And how did you manage to be passing by the baptistery? It’s not on the way to the office.”

“It is if you come in the back.”

“The back? Did your aunt let you in?”

He exchanged a look with his aunt. Reluctantly he said, “I have a key.”

Holt scowled. “A key? What are you doing with a key to the church?”

“He cleans in the morning,” his aunt said defensively. “Vacuums and such.”

“You don’t seem like the church-cleaning type,” Sam said.

“The church needs cleaning,” his aunt said. “It’s honest work. And he needs the income.”

“For those repairs,” Sam said ironically.

Holt turned to the older woman again. “Any idea why the preacher was in the baptismal pool?”

She shook her head. “Unless he was trying to fix the drain.” She sniffed. “We had a baptism on Sunday. Little Aaron Tewksbury. Do you know the Tewksburys? Such a nice family.” She exhaled a shuddery sigh. “It was beautiful. Truly. I wish you could have seen that little angel—”

“And something happened at the baptism?”

“Oh, no, it was perfect. Went off without a hitch. But we drain the pool after each baptism, you see, and this time the pool wouldn’t drain. I guess… I guess he went in there to see what the trouble was.” Her voice cracked and she blew her nose.

“Don’t you have a custodian to do those kinds of things?”

“We’re a small church. Most of us volunteer. Money for repairs is always scarce.”

“What about your nephew?”

“I… I don’t know.” For a moment she looked confused and looked to Terry for help.

“I was getting around to it,” Terry said defensively.

His aunt’s expression firmed. “Yes, he should have waited for Terry.” She began to cry again. “I don’t know why he didn’t wait for Terry. He liked doing things himself, but he should have waited.”

“What about heart problems?” Holt asked. “Seizures? Anything that could explain what might have happened to him?”

She shook her head. “None that I heard of.”

He asked the next question carefully. “Do you know anyone who might want to hurt him?”

“Hurt the preacher?” The thought seemed unimaginable to her. Then her eyes filled with surprise and fear. “You don’t think—dear Lord, you’re not saying—”

“Had he received any threats? Had any arguments with anyone?”

Her face paled.

“What?” Holt leaned forward. “What is it?”

She hesitated, and he exchanged a look with Sam. “If you know anything, anything at all…”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s probably nothing.”

“You let me decide that.”

She rose on shaky legs, leaned on Holt, while Sam opened the door. The two of them escorted her to the desk outside the minister’s office, and Terry followed. She unlocked the top desk drawer and took out a small padded envelope, which she handed to Holt. He hefted it, feeling nothing more than the weight of the envelope. Whatever was inside, it wasn’t much.

The top of the envelope had been slit open and taped back together. Holt grabbed a pair of scissors from a cupful of pens and cut the tape. Spilled the contents onto the desk.

A small black angel rolled out.

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T
hough she’d seen it before, Miss Garvey gasped and covered her mouth as if the sight of the angel surprised her as much as it did the rest of them.

“Sweet Jesus.” Terry took a step back.

“I’ll be damned,” Sam muttered.

Holt said nothing. His throat was too tight for speech. Three deaths, three black angels. Way too many for coincidence. Whatever had happened to Reverend Parsley, it was no accident.

Holt turned the envelope over, saw Parsley’s church address. Showed it to Sam.

“It’s addressed to Reverend Parsley,” Sam said. “What’s it doing in your desk?”

Miss Garvey looked shamefaced. “I didn’t want to upset him, so I was waiting for the right time to… well, to give it to him.”

“When did this come?”

“Last week,” Miss Garvey said. “I do the mail on the days I’m here.” She was wringing her hands again. “Did I do wrong? If I’d known…”

Terry rubbed her thin shoulders. “It’s all right. I’m sure it wouldn’t have mattered when you gave it to him.”

“How do you know it wouldn’t have mattered?” Sam asked sharply.

Terry flicked her a surly look. “I just meant if the reverend was marked for death, he was marked for death. Whether she gave him the marker or not.”

His aunt gasped and started to shake again. Sam groaned, and Holt said, “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk around town, Bishop. No one is marking anyone for death.”

Terry shrugged and pulled his aunt closer. “Can we go home now? Aunt Ellen’s tired.”

Holt hesitated. As long as he knew Red’s hours he knew where to find Terry, and his aunt did look weary. But he was loath to let them go yet.

Terry growled with impatience. “Look, Chief, you want to find out what happened to the preacher, just ask your girlfriend.”

A jolt of astonishment rocked through Holt. “What?”

“You heard me. Your girlfriend—the tattooed lady.”

Holt scowled. Leave it to Terry to pull a name out of the air and toss the blame there. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“She was here. This morning. I caught her rummaging around the reverend’s office.”

The air inside the office exploded with heat. Holt jerked forward. His hands reached for Bishop’s throat. Miss Garvey screamed. Sam leaped between the two men.

“Chief!”

Holt ignored her, surging forward. “You shut your mouth,” he said to Terry.

“Truth’s truth,” Terry taunted, safe behind Sam. “She even told me to watch out for the reverend. Like she knew something was going to happen to him.”

“Shut up, Terry. Easy,” Sam said to Holt, a hard hand on his chest.

Into the brief impasse, Holt’s phone rang. He glared at Terry. Didn’t move. The phone rang again. And again. The sound brought a semblance of normalcy, and Holt relaxed under Sam’s hand.

“Get them out of here,” he growled to his deputy, and walked away. By that time, the ringing had stopped. He reached for the phone to check the ID. Edie.

He pictured Terry. Heard his words. And somewhere deep inside Holt Drennen, a dark cloud shifted.

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