The Devil in Pew Number Seven Read online

  We have wanted you so much for a little over six years now. But, God has a timetable and we had to wait until He was ready to send you. Our Heavenly Father always knows what’s best for us. Your Daddy prays that you will be a good-spirited baby, and your mommy prays that you will be healthy.

  You are coming from Heaven and I pray too that after your life is fulfilled on this earth that you will return from whence you came. Our greatest desire is that your name won’t only be written in this book, but that it will be written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life, the great record book in Heaven.

  May God Bless Our Little Angel

  The joy Momma and Daddy experienced over my birth was shared by the entire church family. I was welcomed into the world as if I were one of their own kin. These dear friends showered gifts and homemade meals, like a heavy downpour, upon our home. A steady stream of visitors flowed in and out of the parsonage, seeking a peek at the miracle baby or dropping by to lend a hand as needed.

  My parents couldn’t have been happier.

  Life was good. Very good.

  At least for the first eighteen months of my life.

  And then the telephone rang.

  * * *

  A jarring clang ripped through the night air. An unseen hammer in the belly of the phone beat against a metal bell with repeated blows as if prodded by a hot poker. Unlike modern phones, this one didn’t have a selection of personalized ringer tones to customize the sound of an incoming call. No playful rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, or Für Elise. Not even a few bars of a favorite pop tune. The black rotary-dial telephone had a single, raspy voice delivered in one of two volumes: dull loud or loud.

  A second ring pierced the silence.

  This unsophisticated, low-tech communication device, the great-grandfather of the iPhone, didn’t offer Internet access, caller ID, or even a mute feature. At the time, phone customers who loathed being awakened in the middle of the night had to invest some degree of effort to preserve the peace. By design, simply unplugging a phone from the wall wasn’t an option for the simple fact that most phones were hardwired to a wall jack.

  For a quiet night, it was necessary to remove the receiver from the cradle, creating a perpetually busy signal for would-be callers. Then, unscrewing the three-inch-round earpiece was necessary to avoid the shrill warning tone furnished by the phone company within thirty seconds of inactivity.

  With rare exceptions, his role as pastor prevented my daddy from ever taking the phone off the hook anyway—even with a baby. Daddy knew his role as a leading figure in the community meant expecting the unexpected. Day or night, a parishioner might call for prayer, comfort, a listening ear, parenting advice, conflict resolution, or a request to visit a patient at the hospital. If so, he had to be ready to meet the need.

  Without a full-time church receptionist to contact, some people would even telephone the parsonage seeking details regarding an upcoming churchwide picnic, fish fry, or hunting trip. In some respects, a country pastor was as “on call” around the clock as was the country doctor.

  It just went with the territory.

  The high-pitch jangle beckoned for a third time.

  There was nothing unusual about receiving this particular late-night call, at least not at first. Although readying himself for bed, Daddy was prepared to grab his Bible and head out the door should someone be in need of a visitation. Even at this late hour, sleep could wait if necessary. Daddy lifted the receiver, placed it to his ear, and offered a friendly greeting.

  “Hello?”

  Without identifying himself, the anonymous man proceeded to deliver a threat to our family.

  Daddy waited, eyebrow raised, listening for more. No response.

  The phone went dead.

  * * *

  Daddy rested the receiver in the cradle. Could the call have been a prank? A couple of kids fooling around, getting their kicks after dark by startling random people? Maybe. However, the voice didn’t have the high pitch of youth. If not a young person making mischief with a juvenile stunt, who could it be? What kind of man would place a threatening call under the cover of darkness?

  The people he had met during his first year in Sellerstown weren’t mean-spirited. Quite the opposite. They’d be quick to give the shirt off their backs, bring a home-cooked meal, or lend a hand if needed. The Sellerstown he had experienced was a place where neighbors helped their neighbors.

  If someone had a disagreement with him, why not just face him in the daylight, man-to-man, to air out their differences? That was the way it was usually done in Sellerstown. Receiving a telephone threat suggested he had been contacted by a disturbed individual with deep psychological issues.

  Then again, Daddy might not have been quick to dismiss the possibility that the call was just a harmless prank. Daddy was, after all, married to a practical joker who didn’t miss an opportunity to play a prank, even on her own husband, like the time months before when Daddy planned an early morning hunting trip with several men from church.

  The men had gathered at the parsonage with their gear just as the timid sun was peeking over the horizon. Right before they set out into the woods, Momma offered the men glasses of sweet tea, which they gladly guzzled.

  When the men returned, with a twinkle dancing in her eyes as if she were privy to a private joke, Momma inquired about the success of the hunt. As she could plainly see, the hunters had returned, for the most part, empty-handed. Daddy, sensing Ramona was up to one of her old tricks, explained how the men had been unable to do much in the way of hunting for one simple reason: They had been lined up at the latrine most of the morning taking care of business.

  Momma could hardly catch her breath from laughing so hard. Regaining her composure, she confessed she was the responsible party. She admitted to spiking their sweet tea, slipping castor oil in when they weren’t looking. Momma had this playful philosophy about humor. She was fond of saying, “The Bible says laughter is like medicine. So, maybe if we laugh for a while, we’ll all be well!”

  As to the wisdom of playing a joke on men armed with rifles, I’m not so sure. Seems to me that pulling a prank on a women’s Bible study would be a safer bet. Nevertheless, the men were good sports about it because they knew how Momma was. According to Aunt Pat, who lived next door, Momma kept more people “cleaned out and regular” than anyone she had ever known.

  I should mention that Aunt Pat wasn’t really our relative, we just called her that because in many ways she was family to us. Perpetually kind and graceful, she gave me the freedom to drop in at the drop of a hat. Her pantry was an extension of our pantry; snacks and drinks were served with a smile and a friendly tousle of my hair while I ate. Aunt Pat was one of Momma’s closest friends. So, yes, if Aunt Pat said Momma kept folks “cleaned out” with one of her “special” drinks, she’d know.

  But could this phone call have come from one of the disgruntled hunters seeking to get back at them for the castor oil incident? That would be a stretch. Everyone knew Ramona was the guilty party, not Daddy. He had been duped, too, spending time in the latrine with the rest of the men. How, then, had he offended anyone enough to provoke a threatening phone call?

  For the better part of his first year, the church had been growing by leaps and bounds under his pastoral care. Husbands were now sitting side by side with their wives who, in the past, attended church solo as if widowed. A large number of young married couples were getting saved and filled with the Spirit. Even the numbers participating in Sunday school shot up, from thirty to approximately one hundred.

  As well as sparking a sizable ingathering of people from both Sellerstown and nearby communities, Daddy had initiated a host of improvements to the church facility. The sanctuary received a much needed face-lift. Threadbare carpet was tossed and replaced, while a fresh coat of paint offered the walls and ceiling new life. With the installation of fourteen comfortable pews—seven on each side of the aisle—and an improved sound system,
there wasn’t a bad seat in the house.

  He had done nothing wrong, certainly nothing to merit this sinister treatment. Someone, apparently, felt differently. This same someone went to the trouble of attempting to conceal his identity. Again, who and why? Sifting through the prospects, no doubt Daddy stopped to weigh the possibility that the call might have been instigated by someone very close to home.

  * * *

  At age sixty-five, Mr. Horry James Watts, who lived across the street from us, was a wealthy, well-connected, and respected businessman—at least as far as the general public was concerned. Typically sporting a pressed white shirt, tie, slacks, and blazer, Mr. Watts was rarely seen in public without his black wool hat. Tufts of gray hair peeked out from around the bottom of the fedora while black, thick-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose.

  Mr. Watts was one of five Columbus County commissioners, and he served as chairman for several years. During his two terms in office, Mr. Watts helped facilitate the construction of the new Columbus County Law Enforcement Center, a police headquarters and jail complex. His name, along with those of the other commissioners, had been embossed on a bronze placard and prominently displayed adjacent to the entrance to the facility.

  By all outward appearances, Mr. Watts was an upstanding citizen and a happily married, devout family man with nine children. But many of the locals in Sellerstown and the longtime neighbors who knew him well testified that, in addition to his respectable public facade, he had a sinister side.

  Mr. Watts had a reputation as a womanizer, a control freak, and a kingpin of sorts, a narcissist who didn’t hesitate to leverage both his influence and affluence to his advantage. Old-timers claimed that, as a youth,3 he had once disguised himself before robbing his own mother’s house. I cannot fathom the sort of person who would pull a stunt like that.

  Case in point.

  For a number of years, money was tight, and most banks refused to extend credit to the Sellerstown farmers. Without necessary funds for supplies or equipment, their farms would fail. The lending crisis created the perfect storm, and Mr. Watts was quick to swallow the small fish in town.4 Stepping in and offering loans from his own funds, Mr. Watts offered cash at confiscatory interest rates.

  The farmers took the bait.5

  What choice did they have?

  Money was power. He who had money held all the cards. The more money he loaned, the more control Mr. Watts enjoyed. If someone wasn’t making his payment, Mr. Watts hired hatchet men to collect on the debt. One of Watts’s favorite lackeys6 to strong-arm delinquent debtors was Roger Williams, a local bruiser with a less-than-stellar reputation. Roger had served time at the Texarkana, Texas, penitentiary over a firearms violation, making him just the kind of guy Mr. Watts loved to employ in his “informal” collection agency. A show of force was a powerful way to extract cash out of slow payers and nonpayers.

  That’s exactly what happened to Donnie Ward. When Donnie fell behind in his loan payments, Mr. Watts enlisted Roger to intimidate Donnie. “With your reputation, all you got to do is talk to him, probably; me and you are going to get along good.” With Mr. Watts behind the wheel, the two men rode together to Donnie’s place to collect. Arriving at Donnie’s house, they found him working in the front yard.

  With a tap of the horn, Mr. Watts signaled Donnie to approach the car. Roger leaned out the window and said, “I believe you’re a little late in your payments. It’s time to catch them up—and not be late anymore.” I don’t know whether it was the unexpected personal visit by Mr. Watts, the big brute with a rap sheet doing the talking, or most likely, the combination of the two, but Donnie got the message. He didn’t hesitate to pull a check from his pocket and endorse it over to Mr. Watts.

  After cashing the check, Mr. Watts slipped Roger fifty dollars. Then, placing a hand on Roger’s leg in a friendly show of affirmation, he said, “That’s the way to go, buddy.7 We’ll get along good together.” If, unlike Donnie, a borrower couldn’t pay, Mr. Watts wasn’t above compelling them to sign over the deed to their house and property.

  In a matter of years, Mr. Watts seemed to own or control everybody and everything within his power—he even managed to control the church affairs at Free Welcome, which he attended religiously. His favorite pew was the back row, pew number seven. From that comfortable perch, he had the perfect vantage point to mind everyone’s business.

  He could note who was sitting with whom, who wore what—perhaps a sign they had spent money on clothes that should have been money paid to him for a debt—and who didn’t show for services—a possible sign they were avoiding contact with him. Even though Mr. Watts was neither a professed believer nor a church member, the church followed his wishes without opposition.That is, until Daddy arrived on the scene.

  * * *

  Daddy was a quick study. Witnessing Mr. Watts’s stranglehold on the church, Daddy made changes to end his dominance. Making the case that church business should be conducted by the church brethren as a whole—not by one or two outspoken individuals—the church family voted to turn the business of the church over to members only. From then on, stripped of his power, Mr. Watts had no say in church matters.

  This came as a blow to Mr. Watts, who had been serving on the building committee. It was understandable that the church would rely upon Mr. Watts’s expertise when it was time to build a fellowship hall and additional Sunday school classrooms. He had, after all, been a key player in the construction of the multi-million-dollar jail facility for the county. His wealth of knowledge and years of experience would be invaluable.

  During the design phase of the building, Mr. Watts believed his recommendations should be followed. At issue was whether to build an addition with a flat-topped or a pitched roof. If Mr. Watts had had his way, the church would have constructed a smaller building with a pitched roof. Although more costly, this design would have matched the existing facility.

  The majority opinion, shared by Daddy, was to keep costs down by constructing a flat-topped structure. This infuriated Mr. Watts, who was accustomed to giving advice and orders, not taking them. While Mr. Watts went along with the others and voted for the simpler roofline, inside he was steaming as if trapped inside a pressure cooker.

  Unconvinced that more space was needed, angered that his counsel had been rejected, he took Daddy aside, lobbying him to change the decision. His plea fell on deaf ears. Daddy was not to be swayed, saying, “Mr. Watts, I get my advice8 from the Lord.” Mr. Watts wasn’t accustomed to being rebuffed, nor did the rejection sit well with him. Mr. Watts had said, “If you don’t need any advice, maybe you should get in your car and go back to Alabama.”

  Daddy probably took his comment with a grain of salt.

  Everyone was entitled to their opinion, right?

  Besides, Daddy and Momma had faced opposition over a building project years before while pastoring a new church. Back when my parents were starting out in the ministry in Alabama, Daddy had been conducting revival services under a tent pitched on a piece of land purchased the hard way: selling chicken and fish dinners. Between the sweltering heat that soaked Daddy from his head down to his socks as if he had been standing in the rain, and the ever-present bugs that seemed to delight in annoying the faithful, his growing congregation knew they had to build.

  A handful of neighbors adjacent to the property, however, protested the idea of building a church within a residential community. A public hearing was arranged before the town board to settle the matter. Several councilmen clearly felt pressure to deny the building permit. After reviewing the architect’s drawing, a councilman said, “Mr. Nichols, it doesn’t look9 as if you have enough room for a playground.”

  A playground? Talk about grasping at straws. Daddy was quick to counter, “Sir, we aren’t going to church to play but to worship God.”

  Another councilman, who underestimated how resilient Daddy was under pressure, said, “Well, Mr. Nichols, with the complaints we have, it looks as though you may be in
a hornet’s nest.”

  “Sir,” Daddy said, most likely with a wide, disarming smile, “I’ve been in a hornet’s nest ever since I got saved and started preaching against Satan and his evil workers.” The permit was granted, and the church was built. The fact that Mr. Watts was fuming about the style of roof on the fellowship hall was, by comparison, no big deal. But there were other issues compounding the old man’s rage.

  Making matters worse, like tossing gas on an open flame, was a decision to remove Mr. Watts’s wife, Ora, from two positions in the church. For years, Ora had been an adult Sunday school class teacher and the church clerk. As teacher, Ora held to the tradition of the old Fire Baptized denomination that believed Christians shouldn’t cook or buy anything on Sunday. Ora attempted to put the class under the heavy burden of such strict convictions at the same time Daddy was preaching about God’s grace. Seeing the conflict of beliefs, members of the church voted her out as teacher.

  But it was Daddy who wanted to take away Ora’s duties as clerk once he realized how surreptitiously Ora handled the church’s funds. Mr. Watts seemed to feel his wife’s position gave him control over the church’s finances. In fact, when the members voted in a new clerk, Ora never turned over any records—only a new checkbook and the current balance.

  Bit by bit, Mr. Watts and his wife were divested of their dominant roles in the congregation. This enraged Mr. Watts, who, at first, had welcomed the new preacher. During one heated exchange, Mr. Watts stood up in the worship service and told my Daddy, “You had better not tell my wife10 that she could not vote in the business.” Before sitting down, while the stunned crowd looked on, he groused that Daddy had bought too many songbooks.

  Could Mr. Watts be so upset that he was the one behind the call? Was he really willing to stoop to such juvenile behavior just because he couldn’t have his way? Then again, the voice on the other end of the line wasn’t the low-pitched, resonant voice of Mr. Watts. It had a distinctly dark timbre, much like Al Pacino with a sore throat. Besides, the caller sounded younger.