The red church (26 page)

The sheriff waited until his hands stopped trem-bling, then walked to Sheila's cruiser. She was just hanging up her radio handset when he reached her open door.

"Another unit's on the way, and Hoyle will be out in a half hour." Her eyes narrowed. "Are you okay, Sheriff?"

He nodded, hoping she didn't notice the sweat on his face. "I'm going to ride up to the Day place."

"Good. I'll wait here for backup; then I'm going to pay a little visit of my own."

"Who to?"

"The Reverend Archer McFall."

He came around the door and leaned over her. "Listen, Shei—" He started to say her first name, then caught himself. "Sergeant. We got nothing on him."

"In that case, he won't mind answering a few ques-tions."

"Maybe we should go together."

She shook her head. "We don't have time. Who knows when the killer's going to strike again? We need to jump on every lead we've got."

"Then let me take Archer."

Her eyes shone with defiance. "This is my case, remember? You assigned it to me. What are you so worried about, anyway?"

Ghosts don't exist. Archer McFall is just another preacher, another ordinary person who took up the Bible and
found something in its pages that meant something. That doesn't make him dangerous. That doesn't
even make him that un-usual.

He didn't want to admit that he was scared. The detective would perform a better interrogation with-out him around to muddy the waters. After all, Lit-tlefield had taken his chances with Archer the evening before, and had nothing but a gaping hole in his memory to show for it. Littlefield was losing faith in his own abilities, and that was even scarier than the Hung Preacher's ghost.

"Do you know where he's staying?" he asked.

She nodded. "I checked around. He's rented a room down at the Holiday Inn."

"That's funny. His mother has a place up the road. Wonder why he's not staying with her?"

"With his money, you'd think he'd rent one of those chalets by the ski slopes. You're the one who's supposed to know him, remember?"

He looked at Donna Gregg's cold body. "No," he said quietly. "I
don't
remember."

"Maybe after you talk to David Day, you should get some sleep." Sheila went past him and continued her search of the scene. Littlefield got in his Trooper and started the engine. He rolled down the window as he pulled away. "Be careful," he called over the motor's roar.

She nodded absently, her mind already consumed with analyzing the victim's ragged flesh. Littlefield swallowed hard and headed toward Buckhorn Moun-tain.

It was past four o'clock. David and the boys should have been home by now.

I hope Archer didn't take them early,
Linda thought. The angel of God would be coming for them all sooner or later. She couldn't help but hope it was later. She was going to miss the boys when they were gone. But at least the reunion would be sweet and everlasting.

For the tenth time, she peered anxiously through the curtains. The sheriffs Trooper turned off the river road onto their packed dirt driveway. Linda dropped the curtain, heart pounding. Even though he'd attended last night's service, she didn't trust him.

She waited by the front door until she heard his feet on the porch. She swung the door open and forced a smile. "Hey, Sheriff. What brings you out to these parts?"

The sheriff bobbed his head in greeting. "Bad news, I'm afraid."

Was there any other kind?

She cleared her throat. "It's not the boys, is it?" Hoping, hoping.
Please, God, don't take them yet.

"No." The sheriff looked at her closely, as if they had once shared some secret that he'd forgotten. Then he pointed to the side of the house, where David had nailed a piece of plywood over the window. "Looks like you got a broken window."

"Yeah. Those darned blue jays, they see their re-flection and just got to pick a fight. One of them hit it just a little too hard."

"Is David home?"

"He went to pick up the boys at school. Should be back any minute."

"Mind if I wait for him?"

Linda opened the door all the way and stepped aside. "Please come in." The sheriff sat on the edge of the easy chair and leaned forward. Linda sat across from him, not know-ing what to do with her hands. She straightened the magazines on the coffee table, wrinkled copies of David's
Field & Stream
and her
Woman's World Weekly.

She sat back and cupped her hands over her knees, then pushed her hair away from her forehead.

"Wasn't that a wonderful service last night?"

"Reverend McFall sure knows how to preach up a storm. I'll say that for him." The sheriffs eyes focused behind her. She turned to see what he was looking at. It was a knitted sam-pler, one Grandma Gregg had made for her, which read MAY GOD PROTECT AND KEEP THIS

HOUSE. A litle farm scene was stitched below the words.

"We're mighty blessed that he came back," she said.

"Came back?"

"To the mountains."

The sheriff nodded. The room was cramped with silence. The air smelled of the trout she had cooked for lunch.

"So what do you think of this weather?" she asked.

"Pretty nice."

"Yeah, we've got to get our pole beans planted. Been in such a commotion lately, we got behind on our chores."

"How's Ronnie?"

"Ronnie? Oh, he's fine. Good enough to go back to school today. I got to take him to the doctor next week to get his stitches out, but he won't have a per-manent hump on his nose or anything."

"That's good."

Another long silence. The sheriff looked at the wall again. "What's that?" he asked. Linda's heart warmed as she looked at the small metal ankh on the wall. She had put the symbol of the temple in place of the old wooden cross David had nailed there. "It's a joyous time, isn't it?"

"Linda, what's going on at the church?"

She swallowed some air and nearly choked on it. "You heard Archer last night. It's time for a cleans-ing, time to pay for iniquities."

"People are getting killed."

"Archer says sins have to be paid for in blood."

"Jesus did that for all of us by dying on the cross."

Linda held her breath.
Blasphemy.
Archer had al-lowed this nonbeliever into the church?

Archer must have his reasons. Who was she to doubt his holy ways?

Outside, a vehicle pulled up. She jumped up from the sofa and ran to the door. The sheriff followed her out onto the porch. David and a glum-looking Ronnie and Tim got out of the Ranger. David cast a hostile look at the sheriff. "What do you want?"

The sheriff looked at the two boys, then back to David. "It's about Donna Gregg." Linda put her hand over her mouth. David turned to the boys. "Why don't y'all go play in the barn for a while?" he said to them.

"What's wrong?" Tim asked. His glasses sat askew on his nose. He pushed them up with a thin forefin-ger.

"Come on," Ronnie said to Tim. "Let's get out of here."

As Ronnie turned, Linda saw the large bruise on his temple. "What happened?" she asked David.

"He got in a fight."

Ronnie? In a fight? He wouldn't hurt an earthworm.

"Something bad happened, didn't it?" Tim said to Linda. "You always send us away when you want to talk about bad stuff."

Ronnie took his brother's arm and led him across the uneven stretch of green lawn. The sheriff waited until the boys had disappeared inside the barn, then said, "Donna's dead." David looked at Buckhorn Mountain as if he wished he were walking its ridgeline. He always wanted to be away, alone, in troubled times. Linda tried to fake a sob, but failed.

"I found your jacket at the scene," the sheriff said to David. "And a receipt made out to Day Construc-tion. That kind of evidence is enough for me to take you in for questioning, but I'd just as soon do it here."

"She was still warm when I found her," David said, his voice as hollow as a potato barrel in spring.

"Must have been about two in the morning."

"Why didn't you report it?"

"You were around. I figured you knew about it before I did."

"Did you see anybody?"

"Depends on your definition of 'anybody.' "

Linda tried to signal David with her eyes. Then she realized she didn't know whose side to be on. The sheriff was one of the flock, but somehow
wrong,
Jesus-tainted and closed-hearted. And David was . . . well, she didn't know what David was.

"Tell me what you saw," the sheriff said.

"Probably the same thing you saw." David folded his arms. "After all, you're one of them, ain't you?"

"One of what?"

He nodded at Linda. "Them. Archer's little an-gels. I saw you at the church last night." Linda looked from the sheriff to David, as if she were watching a badminton match being played with a live grenade. She chewed at her fingernail. Blood rushed from the ragged quick and filled her mouth with a brassy sweetness.

"Three people are dead," the sheriff said. "All of them were somehow connected to the church."

"It's not Archer," Linda said too quickly and force-fully.

"The old families," Littlefield said. "Houck. Pot-ter. Gregg."

"They needed cleansing," Linda said. "Archer says we all need cleansing."

"Shut up," David said. "I'm sick to death of 'Archer this' and 'Archer that.' I had enough of that the first time."

"The first time?" the sheriff asked.

"Yeah," David said. "In California."

"What's California got to do with what's happen-ing now?" Linda asked. David slowly shook his head. "You don't get it, do you? He was a lot smarter out in California. Or maybe he just didn't know his own power."

"Don't bring your blamed old jealousy into this."

"You didn't see him," David said, his voice rising in pitch. "You didn't see him carry the bodies into the so-called temple."

"What are you talking about?" Linda said.

"The Temple of the Two Suns," he spat. "You didn't hear about the murders out there. Who misses another lost drifter on the Santa Monica freeway? Even a half dozen. Plenty more where they came from. Now I just got to figure out why Archer came back."

Linda shook her head. What was he saying? Archer didn't kill anybody. It was
God
who performed the cleansings. Archer was merely the savior, the earthly vessel.

"You're saying that he committed murders in Cali-fornia?" she heard the sheriff ask David.

"Saw it with my own eyes. How do they taste, Linda?"

Linda looked in horror at the gnawed flesh of her fingertips.

"How do they taste, Sheriff?" David asked.

"What the hell?" the sheriff asked.

"Communion. The body. The bread of life." David walked to the Ranger. The sheriff looked questioningly at Linda, then called to David, "I'm not through talking yet."

"Well
,
I am." David pulled his rifle out from under the Ranger's seat.

"Don't do it," the sheriff warned. He fell into a crouch, like one of those television cowboys in a showdown. Except Linda saw that the sheriff wore no firearm.

David laughed. "Don't worry. I won't waste good bullets on the likes of you and her. These are for Archer. I'm going to kill him as many damned times as it takes. This time, I'm going to blow him back to hell for good."

SEVENTEEN

"What's going on?"

"Shh." Ronnie pressed his cheek against the board so that he could see through the knothole. The air was thick with dust. He wondered what would happen to the packing in his broken nose if he sneezed. Could he even sneeze if he couldn't smell?

Dad strode back to the Ranger, leaving Mom and the sheriff standing on the porch. When Ronnie saw the rifle, his heart stuttered in his chest. "No," he whispered.

"What?" Tim said.

Dad went into the house. Mom said something to the sheriff that Ronnie couldn't hear. The sheriff got in his Trooper and drove away. Mom looked around, then also went into the house. Ronnie moved away so that Tim could look through the knothole. Tim stood on an overturned bucket to get eye-level with the hole.

"I don't see nothing," Tim said.

"They're in the house."

"Is it bad?"

Tim's not dumb. He knows what's going on. I guess this is the part where I have to play brave big
brother.

Ronnie tried to sound nonchalant. "Dad's home, isn't he? How bad can it be?"

"I'm scared."

"It's daytime," Ronnie said, though the shadows and dusty cobwebs and the creaking planks of the barn made him nervous. "Monsters don't get you in the daytime."

"No, I mean scared about Mom and Dad." Tim stepped off the bucket and sat on a bale of hay. Ronnie stared into the row of wooden stalls that lined the far side of the barn. They didn't keep cows anymore. Dad said with beef prices being so low, it was cheaper to buy meat at the supermarket than to raise it. Ronnie almost missed taking care of the ani-mals
,
putting them up at night and making sure they had hay in the winter. Dad and Ronnie had slaugh-tered cows, too, hung them up by a chain and cut them open, the steam rising from the animals' in-sides. Ronnie didn't miss that part of it.

"Mom and Dad will work it out," Ronnie said. "They have to."

"What if they don't? What if she makes him mad again and he leaves? Who will protect us then?" Tim's lower lip trembled.

"Look, I saved you from Whizzer, didn't I? You have to trust me."