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  “Yes, and I still believe that. There is a scripture that says, whatsoever is done in the dark shall come to light.” Willie’s genuine smile turned somber. “It pains me to know that someone was hurting enough to set a match to God’s house. I mean, what are we doing if we are not healing the brokenhearted ?”

  “You had plans for the Harvest Baptist Church building that didn’t include another congregation holding service there. Tell me about those plans.”

  “Good job, Milky, cut him to the quick,” one of the technicians said. “I hate fake sincerity.”

  “So who do you think did it?” Danny asked her.

  “Huh?” Alexis asked annoyed. Couldn’t they see she was trying to watch?

  “I got my money on that guy right there. Didn’t the other guy say he got money from another claim and neglected to get the work done on the church?” a second technician chimed in.

  “I asked him that very question if you all would shut your traps and listen.”

  “Yeah, this guy has got way more motive,” Danny agreed.

  Alexis felt the floor of the van shift. She could feel the slant as if she were in a magic house where the floors shift and the mirrors create the illusion that a person is sideways or upside down. It was her story. Did it really favor one over the other? She had never really suspected either one of them of wrongdoing. She figured the matchman was some leisure-suit wearing or hat-wearing member that no one suspected was harboring a grudge about being denied a solo or leadership position.

  “How can you say that?” Alexis defended, hoping to silence further debate so she could finish watching her piece. “I barely had time in the segment to ask him a question. Now, shush.”

  Alexis focused her attention back on the screen.

  “Before you left you had a group of members opposed to the vision and direction you had for the church. What was that rift all about, and what do you think it means to this case?” Alexis asked Willie as the program continued.

  Willie sat back in his chair as if he expected this question was coming. “The rift, unfortunately, sprung from a misunderstanding. I take responsibility as the leader of that church for letting it carry out the way it did. I had to learn that the vision that God had for me wasn’t the vision He had for everyone. It was as simple as that. Your congregation is like your family, you fuss and fight. I love the entire Harvest Baptist Church family. Ultimately, I hated to part from them.”

  “See what I’m saying. You don’t apologize for nothing,” the technician said.

  “It wasn’t exactly an apology,” Alexis lied. She remembered thinking that it was odd to use the interview segment as his opportunity for what seemed like a public apology.

  That was it. Her time was up. A split frame of Willie’s head-shot and a still frame of Abe from the Sunday service filled the screen as she concluded her segment. Ironically, they looked like two mug shots for a line-up.

  The van suddenly swerved to the right as the slow and steady creep forward gave them access to their exit. Bill, the van driver, took the free flow of traffic as permission to test the speed limit. His work day was over fifty minutes ago.

  Alexis was far from through, she thought as she righted herself and held on to the bolted metal editing desk as an anchor. Over the next few days she’d be checking the ratings and viewers’ responses to add to her pitch to continue her story when she met with the Inside 7 producers on Friday morning. She had to get in contact with the infamous deacon and those members who orchestrated the rift.

  She couldn’t help but wonder what Pastors Willie and Vanessa Green felt after viewing the program. Pastor Willie was her link to everybody involved in this story. From their talk, she could tell he really had a pulse for that community. She needed to peel back the layers of a case by possibly interviewing Pastor Willie again. But in her gut, she felt she had ruined her chances of him ever opening up to her again, especially if his wife had anything to say about it. When she should be reveling in the glow of her investigative debut, she couldn’t help but figure that she had just lost her biggest lead in the Greens.

  Chapter 6

  Darkness Becomes Light

  Abe had the most curious morning. Everywhere he went there was someone who recognized him from last night’s airing of the Inside 7 segment. He received plenty God bless you’s on his stops along his route to work. A few wanted to know how they could help the church. Abe was at a loss as to what to tell them. Even at the pawn shop a woman who had been in several times with the same broach, silver pocket watch, and gold wedding rings in a Ziploc bag said she saw the broadcast. This time she accepted his offer of $75 for the entire lot stating, “I don’t feel so guilty now. I never heard of a preacher working in a pawn shop, but I’m sure you’re giving me the best deal you can offer.”

  After she left, Abe sat down at an old desk crammed behind the counter. He didn’t feel like becoming engrossed in inventory and playing with the newly acquired gadgets. He silenced the transistor radio he had set to WAVA Christian talk station. He needed desperately to put together the pieces of his life or at least the last few weeks. He felt oddly like a burgeoning celebrity. He figured he needed to start acting the part. He had brought his Bible to study for future sermons during his shift. This was his time, his rebirth, he thought.

  Thoughts about Alexis, the reporter who interviewed him, and the anonymous note came to mind. Abe had changed his mind about her. She had been so hard-hitting with her questioning that he felt he had been deceived. Was this a set up, asking him about the church debt and the insurance money so that he would look guilty? When he watched it a second time on videotape he saw that it wasn’t just his inquisition, but she was equally persecuting Willie Green, if not more. She had to know the notoriety, and in his case, empathy the broadcast would bring him. She was a reporter. She was used to building up and tearing down images every day. Prepare for the Harvest, the note had said. Maybe she was the one willing to coach him behind the scenes.

  He searched his PDA for the number she had given him. The number he had for her had a familiar cell phone exchange. He dialed her number, and she picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello, Ms. Montgomery, this is Abe Townsend.”

  “Oh yes, Pastor Abe, how are you? I take it you caught yourself on television last night.”

  “I sure did,” Abe said, rolling the jewelry pieces out on a cloth to clean and inspect while he talked.

  “Did you happen to talk to Deacon Thompson for me? That’s your uncle, right?” she questioned.

  “Yes, Uncle Charley,” Abe said. Squinting to see the inscription written inside the wedding ring he was shinning.

  “I’ve been calling the number you gave me. A woman picked up once, but I think he’s been avoiding me. He’s not returning my call.”

  “I’ll talk to him, today, as a matter of fact,” Abe said.

  “Good, tell him this doesn’t have to be an on-air interview. I’m just compiling facts now.”

  “I was thinking that maybe we can meet?”

  “You, me, and him?”

  “No, just you and me,” Abe stopped what he was doing. Realizing how suggestive that may have sounded to her, he tried to clean it up. “No, I mean to discuss what I should do next. You know, like in the note.”

  “I’m,” she hesitated. Then there was an awkward silence. “I ‘m not exactly sure what note you are referring to. I usually don’t have time to meet and debrief with everyone that I’ve interviewed. Even now I’m rushing out the door to my next story.”

  “So, will there be another story about the church?”

  “Lord willing, but right now that remains to be determined. Look, I wish you all the best with your church and your ministry,” Alexis concluded. “Oh, but do try to find out how soon you can file an insurance claim and start rebuilding your church since this is an arson case.”

  “Insurance, right. I’ll be working on that today,” Abe declared.

  “I’d be interested to know how
that goes. I’ll get back in touch with you if I need something,” Alexis said, bringing closure to their working relationship.

  Abe relinquished the call with a puff of air. He picked up the wedding bands again to check the weight of gold. The woman’s ring said ‘’til death do us part,’ and the man’s ring had the inscription; ‘love covers a multitude of sins.’ What weird inscriptions for a set of wedding bands, Abe thought. He checked to make sure they were a matching pair and figured this guy must have screwed up royally in their relationship and she was bound until death to deal with it.

  He filed the rings away in the storeroom with the rest of the ware that was on a countdown until they became legal merchandise of Capitol Pawn and sold. He looked around at a few items he wanted to add to his museum after their statute of limitations ran out. He was stalling for time. Insurance, right, Abe thought. Call Uncle Charley. All of a sudden the storeroom was too small. He felt the walls closing in on him. This had happened to him before when he contemplated returning to ministry the first time. He ended up hyperventilating on the tiled floor behind the display counter.

  He escaped the back room and rammed into his desk in an effort to make the front entrance before he met the same fate as before. He was barely outside before he began sputtering like an engine in need of fuel. He sucked in the air as the seat of his grey trousers met the concrete outside.

  Abe felt silly sitting there. What was he doing? He was a preacher working at a pawn shop. A pastor that felt he hadn’t been rationed his measure of daily bread in years. Where was his help?

  He flung his head back hard against the brick base of the shop. He focused his eyes on banner sized ad that made a claim to his patrons to cash tax refund checks up to $5,000 like the banks. With a hefty hidden fee, of course, not spelled out on the flier. It was a flashy promise of fast cash that offered a false sense of security, at least for a while.

  Once again, Abe thought about the note, but also about the church that lay desolate and destroyed no more than twenty minutes from his place of business. He inherited the business like he inherited that church. He had to get in contact with the insurance agency. People expected him to make a claim.

  “I think that is him, Delores. The pastor I was telling you about from that story.” The woman waved her hand at him as if he should recognize her while her friend openly stared. “We’ll be praying for you, Pastor.”

  “Thanks, darling, God bless,” Abe said, jumping up and dusting off his rear end. “All right now, we all fall down, but we do get up.”

  Abe returned the affectionate wave before turning to go inside. He pulled down the banner, balled it up as best he could and tossed it into the trash can before going to the phone again. He called his aunt and uncle to give them the heads up that he would be coming over.

  When he arrived at 912 Monroe Street, as usual, the door was left open for him so he went right in. Abe hoped his Aunt Elaine had left a plate for him as well. Neither of them was in the well preserved front room where his Uncle Charley’s favorite chair and dinner tray were strategically placed to view the television and bay window. His aunt and uncle reminded him of June and Ward Cleaver from the popular sitcom, Leave it to Beaver. He remembered her serving his uncle meals in his chair, which was in the direct path of the kitchen.

  Maybe he didn’t need a publicist, Abe thought. He needed a wife.

  Abe didn’t bother to holler from this distance as he headed up the hallway after peeking in the kitchen. Voices from the back bedroom moved him in that direction. The door was open. There he could see his aunt and uncle engaged in a heated exchange.

  “I asked her if I could help her since you were out and she started asking me all sorts of questions,” he heard his Aunt Elaine say.

  His Uncle Charley quickly closed the gap between them. He grabbed his wife by the wrist and slung her around. They moved from the sink in the adjoining bathroom to the doorway of the small walk in closet. “What did you tell her? I won’t have you defy me. I just as soon bury you if we can’t stand unified.”

  “What do you want me to do, Charley?” she asked.

  “Think,” he yelled. “Keep your mouth shut and help me for once.”

  “I always want to help you.” Her words strung along in a heart piercing whine like a child in front of a parent anticipating her punishment.

  What is she getting so upset for? Abe thought. Why is either of them reacting this way?

  “Lord, Charles, what am I suppose to tell them if you won’t talk to them. First it was the reporter lady, now it’s an investigator.”

  With a firm grasp still on her wrist, Charley bent down and raised a shoe to her. She shielded her head with her free hand. She didn’t make another appeal. She just wept openly and awaited his assault. Abe could not believe his eyes. He felt like a little boy whose innocence had been robbed by what he was viewing. The reality of what was happening left him temporarily paralyzed.

  “You promised, not again,” she whimpered.

  Abe looked at the solid heel of his uncle’s lace-up shoes aimed at the bull’s eye of his aunt’s head and found his voice. “Uncle Charley, no!”

  Abe made eye contact with his uncle for a second before Charley turned his attention back on his wife. He looked at her wrist in his hand as if it were a foreign object.

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone,” Charley said, giving his wife a final shove before pushing past both of them. His footsteps could be heard down the hallway and out the door.

  Abe stood firmly in the doorway this time. He waited to hear if he would return before dealing with the aftermath. Instead, they heard the noisy engine of his uncle’s car crank up and pull away.

  “He said it would never happen again,” she offered by way of an explanation. She backed farther in the closet as if she didn’t want to see Abe’s face as she talked. He allowed her that space. His Leave it to Beaver image was already shattered.

  “When did all this come about?” Abe said, reminding her he was still there.

  Just then he knew. This was not some one time occurrence with his Uncle Charley and Aunt Elaine. This is what his mother and father whispered about at family reunions when they thought he wasn’t listening. This was why Abe could never spend the night at their house. This was why their only son, Marshall, joined the Navy and stayed in Europe after his tour of duty there and never came home. Abe had no idea it was this bad.

  He stepped forward and waited for her reply. She cowered in the corner. She stared curiously at something tucked back there and used the tail end of her skirt to pull it forth to make an unsteady stoop. Perched there she caught her breath and wiped her face.

  “It’s all right. It’s just the stress that makes him act this way. I done right by your uncle, but something always comes along that makes it hard for him to return the favor. He had stopped for a time.” He wondered if her soliloquy was for him or what she needed to tell herself. “I nursed him through a hernia, gout, and cataract surgery. Shoot, those were the good years. Then the unification put an end to my lucky streak. He’s just been so angry.”

  He looked at her vacant eyes that were brought back to life by a wash of fresh tears. He didn’t know whether he should hug her or kneel down and pray with her, so he did neither.

  “He doesn’t want to talk to anyone, so we won’t,” she said.

  What he was witnessing was unmerited submission rather than support, Abe thought. “How can I help you, Aunt Elaine? He can’t keep. . . Lord have mercy, this can’t continue.” He kneeled in front of her.

  “He’s an old man. He doesn’t have that much fight left in him.”

  “I know but—”

  “Please, Abe,” Her entire body trembled with each word. “Forgive us. You’re a preacher; just pray. God will take care of the rest.”

  This time she stood and made her exit, leaving behind a discolored and slightly disfigured metal box that she had sat upon.

  Chapter 7

  Three White Lies and a Gag
Order

  At ten o’clock Friday morning, Alexis was given the green light for another Inside 7 exposé in her series, the Easter Church Inferno. The viewers’ response had been tremendous, and she left the conference room with the viewers’ emails printed and piled in a folder. She was amazed at the sentiments and generosity expressed toward Pastor Abe Townsend. Apparently a churchless congregation plucked a few heartstrings. Even a few people mailed in a love offering, hoping the station would be able to deliver to a church that presently had no address.

  She dipped inside a private editing room to process it all and to begin structuring her next story. She had not been in there more than twenty minutes before Martie Hamilton escorted an official looking gentleman into the room wearing a bomber jacket that bore the shield of the Maryland State Fire Marshal’s office. He was introduced as Chief Herbert Rich, assigned to investigate the Harvest Baptist Church fire case.

  Alexis didn’t have a good feeling about this visit. No sooner had he gotten into the room before the production manager, Mark Shaw, was calling him back into the hallway, leaving Alexis alone with Martie. She could see Mark handing a bulging padded envelope to the man through the vinyl vertical blinds.

  “What’s the deal with this guy?” Alexis asked.

  “He wants to see everything that you have done on the Harvest story,” Martie said.

  “He’ll have to wait on part two,” Alexis said cockily.

  “He says he can get a subpoena, Alexis. Mark said for us to just give him whatever he asks for. He says he doesn’t need the headache.” He continued in hushed tones as if the man could hear through the cinderblock walls. “Mark is probably giving him a copy of your report from Easter to see if it will produce still markers of the scene and the crowd watching. He also wants the unedited version of your Inside 7 piece too, as well as your notes. I have a feeling he’ll be here for a while, but first he wants to interview you.”