“What now, boy?” She asked, anxious to see what he would do, when it seemed as though he was caught in a freeze-frame like you see in the movies. “You mean to do something or just hold them like that from now until eternity?”
Eternity it might be, since he either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer her. Finally, with another prayer for Angel on her lips, she decided it was time she returned to her work. Watching from her ironing board, she clucked her tongue in frustration. What was wrong with the boy? Why didn’t he do something? Had she misunderstood, should she take the hammer and chisel from him?
She tilted her head and cocked an ear. What was the strange sound she heard? At first she mistook it for honeybees, which were a plentiful fixture around Stella’s yard. But there weren’t any bees in the house, not unless she had lost her eyesight, which she knew was not the case. Gradually, she realized the sound emanated from the direction of the sofa. Was there a musical quality to it?
She sat her steam iron on its heel and came around the ironing board to stand next to Angel. Bent over with her ear close to his lips, she was finally able to reassure herself that the sound came from him. Angel was humming! A minute later, she reached Stella by phone at the offices of the Calneh Bus Lines Company, Inc. When she hung up, she joined in, whistling instead as Angel hummed the tune to one of her favorite old hymns. It was Beulah Land.
****
Chapter 27
Rev. Champion smiled at his guests across the dinner table, past the centerpiece of yellow roses floating in water, careful to avoid a lingering glance at Erwin’s wife. Sharese was a surprise, if bit of a shock. For one, she was much prettier than he would have expected of Erwin and, for another, her coloring was fair enough for the casual observer to mistake her for a white woman--an incongruous choice for a man whose dislike, if not outright contempt, for whites, was well known in Calneh.
Both ministers were dressed in their usual black suits, white shirts and black ties, while Sharese and Theodora wore full-length cotton dresses in pastels befitting mid-May.
Erwin dabbed carefully at his newly acquired pencil-thin mustache with a cloth napkin. His thin build and fine features, along with his jerry curls, made him a dapper looking figure.
“What a fine meal,” he spoke agreeably in Theodora’s direction. “We would be indebted if you shared your recipe with us.”
“I’m so glad you liked it.” With a wink for her husband, she added, “You should come more often. Cedric’s always harping on his fruits and vegetables.”
“They’re very important for maintaining proper digestion, Theodora,” Cedric said in his own defense. “Especially at my age.”
“Let’s not get into that again, not at the dinner table, Cedric.”
“I’ve always adored beef stroganoff,” Sharese gushed.
Theodora stood and gathered up an armful of dishes. “Why don’t we leave the men to their talk, dear?”
After the women had gone, the two men remained seated. Erwin sipped from his coffee cup.
“Wonderful meal,” he said. He set the cup, white English bone china, in its saucer, and sighed exaggeratedly. His gaze swept the room. Theodora had decorated it simply, yet the sideboard, the dinner table and chairs, and other furnishings, were quality pieces.
“You have a nice little cottage here, Cedric.”
Cedric ignored the slight. “We like it fine--just about right for the two of us, since the boys left and can’t visit much.”
For a moment, the two men locked eyes. Rev. Champion smiled, as Erwin lifted his coffee cup and took another sip. Did the man’s hand shake just a little, or was it his imagination?
“We could take our coffee outside to the back porch,” he suggested. “I always like a breath of fresh air after a big meal.”
Erwin immediately pushed back his chair.
Once outside, Cedric parked himself on the top porch step and leaned against the wrought-iron railing, which was painted in black enamel, contrasting with the house’s all-white exterior and picket fence.
“Sit down, sit down,” he urged the younger man.
“I just picked up this suit at the drycleaners today,” Erwin said.
“Oh for heaven’s sakes, sit down son, the steps are clean. You can’t be worrying all your life about a little dirt.”
Reluctantly, Erwin sat, doing his best to look comfortable under Cedric’s watchful eye while, if at all possible, levitating above the painted surface.
“Isn’t that better?” Cedric asked. “You can always brush off your pants you know.”
Letting his gaze wander over the shallow back yard, its perfectly groomed grass and the rose bushes that bordered the fence, Erwin tugged at his shirt collar and sipped from his coffee cup.
“Loosen your tie if you’re uncomfortable,” Cedric suggested helpfully.
“It’s fine,” he answered, with a sideways glance. “I didn’t know you had such a nice back yard. I’ll bet you have thirty rose bushes.”
Cedric took a deep breath, savored the fragrant evening air. “Thirty-seven,” he said. “I love springtime, don’t you, with the roses finally blooming?”
“Do you take care of ’em, or Theodora?”
“Theodora. They’re like children to her, always out here fussing over them. Myself, I wouldn’t have them.”
“Why?” he asked, surprised.
“They’re too much work, like some people I know--never receive enough attention. You have to water practically every day, fertilize every few weeks or spray them with some evil smelling oil, deadhead and trim them constantly--then there’re the diseases.
“You know about rose diseases?” He asked the younger man. “I know more about roses and their diseases from Theodora than I do about mumps and measles and chickenpox. There’s black spot, or rust, or mold or powdery mildew on them. Then there’re the aphids and the thrips and armyworms--and leafrollers. It all makes for a good analogy, too--too good, really, for fighting the devil and his pests in the church. They’re a constant battle.”
“Ummh.” Erwin’s eyes had glazed over.
Cedric set his coffee cup on the porch. “The fragrance is worth it all, though, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes,” Erwin answered, breathing deeply of the rose-scented air.
“It’s the same pastoring,” Cedric pointed out. “Reminds me of Paul, when he said we are a fragrant aroma to those being saved, and the odor of death to those who are damned.”
“Good preaching material,” Erwin said, his head tilted forward and affecting a smile.
“Of course, hypocrites have a smell of their own, too,” Cedric remarked casually.
Erwin’s eyebrows rose and he sniffed involuntarily. “Talk about hypocrites,” he said, “how’d you ever persuade them to let you use their church?”
“Oh, God has his ways of working these things out for us, brother.”
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable with them white crackers.”
“I wasn’t looking for comfort,” Cedric told him. “Not to say there haven’t been problems here and there.”
Erwin answered with a barely audible grunt. He stared into the bottom of his coffee cup, and set it down next to Cedric’s.
“What have you heard about the investigation? Or are they just takin’ their own sweet time about it?”
“Oh, they’re doing all right,” Cedric said. Leaning back, he scratched at his stubbled chin and pretended to search the evening sky for its first stars. “Not that it matters much, really.”
“How do you mean?”
“I still have to do as I preach.”
“Meaning?”
“‘Forgive as your Father in heaven forgives, and you shall be forgiven. Pray for your enemies and bless those that persecute you.’ Abundantly clear, isn’t it?”
A twitch crossed Erwin’s face. Feigning a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet.
“Think I need to stretch my legs a little,” he said.
Once he crossed the lawn, he made a pretense of examining the roses more closely in the deepening twilight.
“They do have some good leads on our arsonist, I’m told,” Cedric commented from the porch steps.
“Oh?” Erwin bent over at the waist and tugged at a red rose.
“Yeah. Seems there was a white car seen leaving the church after the fire started, and some folks saw the same white car a couple of days later, with somebody in it taking pictures.”
Erwin’s back stiffened. “Really,” he said. He sauntered to another bush and pulled a variegated yellow rose to his nostrils. “Lotta white cars out there.”
“That’s true. You know what the police tell me? They tell me criminals often like to return to the scene of the crime. Something about they like to gloat over their handiwork--can you believe that, perversion like that in a man’s heart?”
Erwin continued to sample the roses, sniffing at them as though he were a renowned expert on their individual fragrances and might be expected to comment shortly upon the merits of each.
“They’ll be accusing one of the brothers any day now, I suppose,” he said.
“From what I hear, they put their hands on the man’s pictures and that’ll about wrap up the entire case.”
Erwin hissed and drew back from the roses.
“You all right, brother?” Cedric asked, hurrying across the lawn to join him.
Erwin sucked at a finger pierced by a thorn. “Stuck myself,” he muttered. He looked up and gave the older man a scowl. “Why’d you ask me over for dinner tonight anyhow, Cedric?”
“Just wanted to bless you, brother. Just wanted to bless you and Sister Sharese. Do you need a Band-Aid for that?”
“No, you know I don’t need no Band-Aid. A man would have to be a real sissy to worry about a little ol’ bite from a rose bush, now wouldn’t he?”
Cedric raised one hand in a non-committal gesture.
“I should be saying goodbye anyhow,” Erwin told him. “There’s a meeting with my elders tonight over something real important. They’re talkin’ about raising my salary.”
Mutely, Cedric watched as Erwin mounted the steps to the porch and let the screen door slam behind him. A minute later, Theodora appeared. Cedric had reseated himself, his back to the house. His coffee cup was stacked on top of Erwin’s.
“Cedric, what was that all about?” She demanded.
“They gone?” He asked, his gaze on the sky.
She looked down at him accusingly. “Yehss!”
He was silent, offering no explanation. She sat beside him, and he put his arm around her shoulders to draw her close.
“Wasn’t that a nice dinner?” She demanded. “And isn’t Sister Sharese a sweet girl?”
“Uh-huh,” he nodded. “And it was good for you and you were having yourself a good time.”
“So why did you have to go and ruin it?”
“Just lettin’ the Lord do His work, I s’pose.”
She sighed. “Chapter and verse.”
“Romans 12:19-20,” he said. “Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,’ saith the Lord. ‘Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.’”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Him?” She asked, putting two and two together.
“Sad to say, it’s looking more and more like it.”
“Do the police know, Cedric?”
“Didn’t I just tell you, Theodora, it’s in the hands of God?”
Sparks flew from her eyes and her breath came in short gasps. She would have withdrawn from his encircling arm, except that he held on tighter. Gradually, as he watched, she regained control of her emotions.
“Just the same, I’d rest easier if I knew the police knew it too,” she said. Clucking her tongue, she added, “I never did much like that boy.”
Gathering up the coffee cups, she rose and went to the screen door. “Such a shame, that nice, sweet girl married to that piece o’ work.”
“Theodora.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want you telling anyone else about this. Not even Teddy. Do you understand?”
“Let God handle it?”
He nodded. Admirably, he thought, she managed to shut the door behind her without slamming it. For a long while, he gazed up at the evening stars, grieving not for his own flock and the loss of a building but for the soul of a gifted young man slowly eaten away by bitterness and hate. Finally, Theodora returned and called for him to come inside.
He sat for another half hour, deep in prayer, until he felt convinced God would deal with Erwin as He saw fit. For both the young man’s sake and those who followed him, he hoped Erwin’s resistance would be short-lived. Though certain of God’s mercy, he knew just as well that God cannot be mocked, that a man reaps what he sows. If Erwin continued in his ways, especially in preaching hate, he might one day find himself in the hands of the God who is also a consuming fire.
#
A small square of paper greeted him from under the windshield wiper of his Cadillac the next morning. Rather than wait till he reached his temporary office at Flowers Baptist, he read it in the privacy of his car under the dome light, while the engine warmed.
Rev--
Since you didn’t kill him last night, I’m hoping a certain priest wasn’t spilling the beans to another priest about Scotland Yard’s activities.
“Barriers to righteousness” come to mind.
Sherlock
“What on earth--?” He muttered in surprise. For a brief moment he felt stunned, as if struck hard between the eyes. Recovering himself, he snapped off the dome light with one hand and refolded the square of paper with the other to shove it into his suit coat. He glanced around, worried someone might have seen him reading the note, then snorted derisively. This early in the morning the street was as empty of life as a mausoleum. Who would understand the note even if they were to read it? For a second or two, it had been too obscure even for him.
He wondered where on the street Chance Odoms had parked last night and in what sort of vehicle, to see Erwin entering and exiting the house. What must the man have been thinking while he waited for their little supper party to end? Had his imagination run wild with visions of murder, even as Theodora and Sharese traded recipes and he held forth on rose diseases for Erwin?
“What’s the answer, Jesus?” He whispered in prayer, as he put the car into reverse and backed it from the driveway. Had he obstructed justice, put up “barriers to righteousness,” as Chance expressed it? There was no denying he had told the man the investigation was closing in on the arsonist and that his film was incriminating evidence.
How to negotiate the thin line, though, between cooperation with civil authority and divine authority? Civil authority was derived, even established by divine authority--there was no questioning that biblical truth in his mind. What he questioned, though, was how divine authority meant to mete out judgment; would it necessarily involve the machinery of civil authority? Or would Heaven judge apart from civil authority? What about when civil authority commonly abused its powers toward a certain minority of the populace?
Reverend Champion smiled as he parked his car as usual in front of Alliance Baptist. Not because he felt he had adequately settled any of the questions of divine and civil authority, though. He smiled at the irony of the situation, how those officials investigating the fire were likely ignorant of a power higher than their own, one interested enough to involve itself in a case of arson. He doubted they would even acknowledge the existence of the divine authority.
As for him, the divine authority was no less real than the civil authority with its buildings in Calneh and Montgomery and Washington. It didn’t matter that the divine authority was located in Heaven, in a celestial city unseen by human eyes. He had read the Book and experienced enoug
h of its truths to trust in the King who ruled it eternally and yet concerned Himself about the affairs of men.
He was mistaken, though, to think that no one in civil authority would so much as acknowledge the divine authority. The truth was, there were those who would be awfully disappointed if the divine authority failed to help them bring a certain arsonist to justice--surely, burning a church provoked Heaven’s attention.
They probably would have been surprised at Rev. Champion’s answer to such an assertion, and at how much more complicated the situation was for him, too, than it was for them, and not just because of the questions regarding divine and civil authorities.
****
Chapter 28
Rev. Willimon looked guiltily over his shoulder before he took the red and white can of 3-in-1 oil from his jacket pocket and gave the brass lock a squirt to loosen up its inner workings. A moment later he inserted the key and found it turned smoothly. Step one, he thought to himself. So far so good. Now for step two. Old paint covered the door hinges and filled the spaces between door and frame. After three lunges with his shoulder, each with more weight thrown into it, the paint split and he was able to force his way in. One last, cringing look backwards, to make sure no one had seen or heard, and he closed the door.
An involuntary shudder went through him as cobwebs settled around his head. Madly swiping at his face and hair, he immediately regretted what he was about to do. He hated spiders and was sure they hated him, having engaged them in battle for as far back as he could remember.
Be a man, he told himself. They’re little bugs, they’re more afraid of you than you are of them. Still, he hesitated, unmoving in the dark, like a climber momentarily paralyzed by unreasoning fear at a great height. Truth be told, he wasn’t much fonder of pitch blackness than he was of spiders. Spiders in the darkness, waiting for him to advance, like lions lying in wait...
He shook his head and told himself he was being ridiculous. He did not fear the dark, it was a Thursday night in Calneh, he stood in an unused stairwell in his own church, and a few little spiders weren’t going to stop him from doing what he had to do. He swung out with his left hand in search of the wall, and recoiled at sudden resistance that felt like a thick, gauzy film made of air. The place was thick with spiders and their webs--spiders with venom-dripping fangs, spiders with hour glasses tattooed on their backs, spiders now sprinting up his sleeve in a race to bite his neck--