This Present Darkness (5 page)

“Well, what did you tell them?”

“The same thing, all over again. We did just what the Bible says: I went to Lou, then John and I went to Lou, and then we brought it before the rest of the church, and then we, well, we removed him from fellowship.”

“Well, it did seem to be what the congregation decided. But why
can’t the board go along with it?”

“They can’t read. Don’t the Ten Commandments have something in there about adultery?”

“I know, I know.”

Hank set down his spoon so he could gesture better. “And they were mad at
me
last night! They started giving me all this stuff about judging not lest I be judged—”

“
Who
did?”

“Oh, the same old Alf Brummel camp: Alf, Sam Turner, Gordon Mayer … you know, the Old Guard.”

“Well, don’t just let them push you around!”

“They won’t change my mind, anyway. Don’t know what kind of job security that gives me.”

Now Mary was getting indignant. “Well, what on earth is wrong with Alf Brummel? Has he got something against the Bible or the truth or what? If it weren’t this, it would certainly be something else!”

“Jesus loves him, Mary,” Hank cautioned. “It’s just that he feels under heavy conviction, he’s guilty, he’s a sinner, he knows it, and guys like us will always bother guys like him. The last pastor preached the Word and Alf didn’t like it. Now I’m preaching the Word and he still doesn’t like it. He pulls a lot of weight in that church, so I guess he thinks he can dictate what comes across that pulpit.”

“Well, he can’t!”

“Not in my case, anyway.”

“So why doesn’t he just go somewhere else?”

Hank pointed his finger dramatically. “That, dear wife, is a good question! There seems to be a method in his madness, like it’s his mission in life to destroy pastors.”

“It’s just the picture they keep painting of you. You’re just not like that!”

“Hmmmm … yes, painting. Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

Hank drew a breath, sighed it out, then looked at her. “We had some visitors last night. They—they painted a slogan on the front of the house.”

“What?
Our
house?”

“Well … our landlord’s house.”

She got up. “Where?” She went out the front door, her fuzzy slippers scuffing on the front walk.

“Oh, no!”

Hank joined her, and they drank in the view together. It was still there, real as ever.

“Now that makes me mad!” she declared, but now she was crying. “What’d we ever do to anybody?”

“I think we were just talking about it,” Hank suggested.

Mary didn’t catch what he said, but she had a theory of her own, the most obvious one. “Maybe the Festival … it always brings out the worst in everyone.”

Hank had his own theory but said nothing. It had to be someone in the church, he thought. He’d been called a lot of things: a bigot, a heel-dragger, an overly moral troublemaker. He had even been accused of being a homosexual and of beating his wife. Some angry church member could have done this, perhaps a friend of Lou Stanley the adulterer, perhaps Lou himself. He would probably never know, but that was all right. God knew.

JUST A FEW
miles east of town on Highway 27, a large black limousine raced through the countryside. In the plush backseat, a plump middle-aged man talked business with his secretary, a tall and slender woman with long, jet-black hair and a pale complexion. He talked crisply and succinctly as she took fluid shorthand, laying out some big-scale business deal. Then something occurred to the man.

“That reminds me,” he said, and the secretary looked up from her memo pad. “The professor claims she sent me a package some time ago, but I don’t recall ever receiving it.”

“What kind of package?”

“A small book. A personal item. Why not make a note to yourself to check for it back at the ranch?”

The secretary opened her portfolio and appeared to make a note of it. Actually, she wrote nothing.

IT WAS MARSHALL’S
second visit to Courthouse Square in the same day. The first time was to get Bernice bailed out, and now it was to pay a visit to the very man Bernice wanted to string up: Alf Brummel, the chief of police. After the
Clarion
finally got to press, Marshall was about to call Brummel, but Sara, Brummel’s secretary, called Marshall first and made an appointment for 2 o’clock that afternoon. That was a
good move, Marshall thought. Brummel was calling for a truce before the tanks began to roll.

He pulled his Buick into his reserved parking space in front of the new courthouse complex and paused beside his car to look up and down the street, surveying the aftermath of the Festival’s final Sunday night death throes. Main Street was trying to be the same old Main Street again, but to Marshall’s discerning eye the whole town seemed to be walking with a limp, sort of tired, sore, and sluggish. The usual little gaggles of half-hurried pedestrians were doing a lot of pausing, looking, headshaking, regretting. For generations Ashton had taken pride in its grass-roots warmth and dignity and had striven to be a good place for its children to grow up. But now there were inner turmoils, anxieties, fears, as if some kind of cancer was eating away at the town and invisibly destroying it. On the exterior, there were the store windows now replaced with unsightly plywood, the many parking meters broken off, the litter and broken glass up and down the street. But even as the store owners and businessmen swept up the debris, there seemed to be an unspoken sureness that the inner problems would remain, the troubles would continue. Crime was up, especially among the youth; simple, common trust in one’s neighbor was diminishing; never had the town been so full of rumors, scandals, and malicious gossip. In the shadow of fear and suspicion, life here was gradually losing its joy and simplicity, and no one seemed to know why or how.

Marshall headed into Courthouse Square. The square consisted of two buildings, tastefully garnished with willows and shrubs, facing a common parking lot. On one side was the classy two-story brick courthouse, which also housed the town’s police department and that somewhat decadent basement cell block; one of the town’s three squad cars was parked outside. On the other side was the two-story, glass-fronted town hall, housing the mayor’s office, the town council, and other decision-makers. Marshall headed for the courthouse.

He went through the unimposing, plain doorway marked “Police” and found the small reception area empty. He could hear voices from down the hall and behind some of the closed doors, but Sara, the secretary, seemed temporarily out of the room.

No—behind the receptionist’s formica-topped counter a huge file was slowly rocking back and forth, and grunts and groans were coming
up from below. Marshall leaned over the counter to see a comical sight. Sara, on her knees, dress or no dress, was in the middle of a blue-streak struggle with a jammed file drawer that had entangled itself with her desk. Apparently the score was File Drawers 3, Sara’s Shins 0, and Sara was a poor loser. So were her pantyhose.

She let out an ill-timed curse just as her eye caught him standing there, and by then it was too late to rebuild her usual poised image.

“Oh, hi, Marshall …”

“Wear your Marine boots next time. They’re better for kicking things in.”

At least they knew each other, and Sara was glad for that. Marshall had been in this place often enough to become well-acquainted with most of the staff.

“These,” she said with the tone of an articulate tour guide, “are the infamous file cabinets of Mr. Alf Brummel, Chief of Police. He just got some fancy new cabinets, so now I’ve inherited these! Why I have to have them in my office is beyond me, but upon his express orders, here they must stay!”

“They’re too ugly to go in
his
office.”

“But khaki … it’s
him,
you know? Oh well, maybe a little decoupage would cheer them up. If they must move in here, the least they can do is smile.”

Just then the intercom buzzed. She pressed the button and answered.

“Yes sir?”

Brummel’s voice squawked out of the little box, “Hey, my security alarm is flashing …”

“Sorry, that was me. I was trying to get one of your file drawers shut.”

“Yeah, right. Well, try to rearrange things, will you?”

“Marshall Hogan is here to see you.”

“Oh, right. Send him in.”

She looked up at Marshall and only shook her head pathetically. “Got an opening for a secretary?” she muttered. Marshall smiled. She explained, “He’s got these files right next to the silent alarm button. Every time I open a drawer the building’s surrounded.”

With a good-bye wave, Marshall went to the nearest office door
and let himself into Brummel’s office. Alf Brummel stood and extended his hand, his face exploding in a wide, ivory smile.

“Hey, there’s the man!”

“Hey, Alf.”

They shook hands as Brummel ushered Marshall in and closed the door. Brummel was a man somewhere in his thirties, single, a one-time hotshot city cop with a big buck lifestyle that belied his policeman’s salary. He always came on like a likable guy, but Marshall never really trusted him. Come to think of it, he didn’t like him that much either. Too much teeth showing for no reason.

“Well,” Brummel grinned, “have a seat, have a seat.” He was talking again before either man’s cushion could compress. “Looks like we made a laughable mistake this weekend.”

Marshall recalled the sight of his reporter sharing a cell with prostitutes. “Bernice didn’t laugh the whole night, and I’m out twenty-five dollars.”

“Well,” said Brummel, reaching into his top desk drawer, “that’s why we’re having this meeting, to clear this whole thing up. Here.” He produced a check and handed it to Marshall. “This is your refund on that bail money, and I want you to know that Bernice will be receiving an official signed apology from myself and this office. But, Marshall, please tell me what happened. If I had just been there I could have put a stop to it.”

“Bernie says you
were
there.”

“I was? Where? I know I was in and out of the station all night, but …”

“No, she saw you there at the carnival.”

Brummel forced a wider grin. “Well, I don’t know who it was she saw in actuality, but I wasn’t at the carnival last night. I was busy here.”

Marshall had too much momentum by now to back off. “She saw you right at the time she was being arrested.”

Brummel didn’t seem to hear that statement. “But go on, tell me what happened. I need to get to the bottom of this.”

Marshall halted his attack abruptly. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was out of courtesy. Maybe it was out of intimidation. Whatever the reason, he began to rattle the story off in neat, almost news-copy form, much the way he heard it from Bernice, but he cautiously left out the
implicating details she shared with him. As he talked, his eyes studied Brummel, Brummel’s office, and any particular details in decor, layout, agenda. It was mostly reflex. Over the years he had developed the knack of observing and gathering information without looking like he was doing it. Maybe it was because he didn’t trust this man, but even if he did, once a reporter, always a reporter. He could see that Brummel’s office belonged to a fastidious man, from the highly polished, orderly desk right down to the pencils in the desk caddy, every point honed to perfect sharpness.

Along one wall, where the ugly filing cabinets used to stand, stood a very attractive set of shelves and cabinets of oil-rubbed oak, with glass door panels and brass hardware.

“Say, moving up in the world, huh, Alf?” Marshall quipped, looking toward the cabinets.

“Like them?”

“Love them. What are they?”

“A very attractive replacement for those old filing cabinets. It just goes to show what you can do if you save your pennies. I hated having those file cabinets in here. I think an office should have a little class, right?”

“Eh, yeah, sure. Boy, you have your own copier …”

“Yes, and bookshelves, extra storage.”

“And another phone?”

“A phone?”

“What’s that wire coming out of the wall?”

“Oh, that’s for the coffeemaker. But where were we, anyway?”

“Yeah, yeah, what happened to Bernice …” And Marshall continued his story. He was well practiced in reading upside down, and while he continued to talk he scanned Brummel’s desk calendar. Tuesday afternoons stuck out a little because they were consistently blank, even though they were not Brummel’s day off. One Tuesday did have an appointment written down: Rev. Oliver Young, at 2 P.M.

“Oh,” he said conversationally, “gonna pay my pastor a visit tomorrow?”

He could tell right away that he had overstepped his bounds; Brummel looked amazed and irritated at the same time.

Brummel forced a toothy grin and said, “Oh yes, Oliver Young is
your pastor, isn’t he?”