Beyond the Farthest Star (11 page)

“Can’t it wait until mornin’?”

“Nope.”

With a steely eye, she pressed the buzzer and called the deputy.

He emerged from the cell block with an irritated expression. “Senator and I were playing chess. Just fixin’ to share some cookies.”

The dispatcher scratched her cheek. “This fella’s come all the way from Michigan to see Senator Cutter.”

Calvin extended his hand to the deputy. “Calvin Clayman’s the name. I’m an old colleague of the senator’s. Tell him I’m here.”

Keys jangled as Calvin followed the deputy into the holding area.

The deputy stepped aside as Calvin came into the light. “You’ve got a visitor, Senator. He says you’re expecting him.”

Calvin grinned. “Sorry I’m late, Senator.”

“Calvin! Good to see you!”

“Playing chess? Who’s winning?”

“Nobody … yet.”

Waving the folder, Calvin suggested, “With what you’ve got on Pastor Adam Wells, I’d say the game is over.”

T
HE CHIRPING AND FLUTTERING
of birds called Adam to consciousness. The sun was not yet above the horizon when he opened his eyes. He was still dressed and still at the computer, where he had fallen asleep the night before.

The computer screen blinked NO NEW MESSAGES.

He rubbed his face and shook his head, trying to remember why he was in his office. Why still dressed. He had some reason to check e-mail last night … What was it?

The image of Calvin Clayman’s mocking grin jogged his memory. An e-mail Maurene had said she never received …

Adam opened the file menu and spotted the SENT option. He hesitated, then clicked SENT MESSAGES.

The last entry read: TO: Calvin, re: trip to Leonard; FROM: [email protected]:

Adam’s eyes narrowed as he read Maurene’s message to Calvin. Proof of her lie was like a hard blow to his gut.

And then the thunderous wailing of electric guitars and drums erupted, shattering the quiet Texas morning. Maurene’s unexplained deception took ominous shape in Adam’s mind. His fury grew with the pounding of the drums. Anne’s voice was clear, though he could not recognize the words. Adam jumped to his feet as though he had been burned. The chair fell over as he hurried toward the source of the offending music.

Bursting into the garage, Adam took in the scene. Anne was
bright and animated behind a microphone. Adam could not make out the words to the song, but he felt the angry, chaotic message in the music.

Stephen played bass guitar. Clifford was on the drums. Kyle played the guitar and wore a flamboyant rhinestone-studded duster. Kyle’s expression showed that he resented every chord of the Magic Pillow original.

But Kyle’s expression was nothing compared to Adam’s. Jaw set with anger, Adam marched to the sound board. He ripped at the cords, unplugging mic and amplifiers and electric guitars. The feedback squealed.

Anne spun around. “What? What?”

Panting, Adam clenched his fists. “You tell me what, Anne! We had a deal!”

“You had a deal!” she replied defiantly.

He countered, “So I come in here expecting Hymn 567 and get more vampire music?”

“It’s not vampire music.”

“Then what? What is it, Anne?”

She glared at Adam. “Like you care.”

Stephen replied quietly, “A song, sir.”

Adam kept his focus on Anne. “About what, Mister Miller? What is my daughter’s ‘song’ about?”

Stephen looked at Clifford, who stammered without expressing a coherent thought. Anne grabbed her backpack to run from the humiliation of her father’s rage in front of her friends.

Stephen stepped to block her. “Annie, don’t run off. Your dad just wants to know what your song is about.”

“No, he doesn’t!”

Adam interjected, “Yes, I do. I would really like you to tell me.”

Anne waved her hand toward the rafters. “Adam just descended upon us from above, so Adam—”

Adam boiled over. “What’d I tell you, Anne?”

She talked over him. “So Adam could trick us into one of Adam’s sermons about how all rock music is from the pit of—”

Adam gripped her arm hard. “Didn’t I tell you I expect to be called—”

“Dad, I know. You said.” Clearly, she was startled by his rage. “You’re hurting me. Let go.” Shaking herself free from his grasp, she backed out of the garage and ran out the door.

Clifford stared blankly at Adam and then blurted, “Hell. Right, sir? All rock music is from the pit of hell. Right?”

Stephen glared at Clifford. “We’ll git the gear out this mornin’, Pastor Wells.”

“Thank you, Mister Miller.” Adam did not even glance at the boys as he left.

Kyle seemed quietly pleased by the confrontation. “Can git our gig back at the Lazy T. Tried to come over last night, Stephen, ‘cause yesterday—”

“No.” Stephen began to wrap up cords.

“—the principal over at Alamo called about the Bullriders playin’ their Homecomin’ and—”

Stephen glowered. “Said no, Kyle.”

Clifford chimed in. “Yeah. No way, dude.”

“Shut up,” Kyle snapped at Clifford.

Clifford challenged, “It was humiliating being compared to the Oak Ridge Boys.”

Kyle threatened, “Didn’t I say shut up?”

Clifford shrugged. “My granny listens to the Oak Ridge Boys and—”

Kyle roared with rage and jumped on Clifford, pinning him to the floor, punching him in the face. “Didn’t I say shut your mouth, puke?”

Stephen pulled Kyle off Clifford, pressing his face onto the
coarse concrete floor with his knee. Kyle’s lip and chin were bloodied, and in that instant their friendship was broken forever.

Stephen released Kyle cautiously. He stood slowly, dusting his hands. Finished. “Magic Pillow’s gonna find someplace else to practice, Kyle, and if you don’t make some kind of attitude adjustment, someone else to play guitar.” He tossed Kyle a handkerchief.

Kyle roared, “Ya’ll can’t kick me out of my own band, Stephen!”

“Then call it Cliff and me quittin’ one band and joinin’ another.”

Kyle spat the words bitterly. “You don’t mean that.”

“Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it, Kyle.” Stephen resumed packing equipment. “Now you gonna help us pack up or not?”

Kyle’s eyes were wild. “Not gonna let you do this.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Not gonna let you jus’ throw away our dream of getting’ our palm prints—”

“Suit yourself, Kyle.”

Kyle stood there, the outsider now, and watched as Stephen and Clifford continued to pack in silence. Tossing the bloody handkerchief at Stephen, Kyle spun and ran out of the garage.

Where was Anne? She was not in the house, and Adam was not finished with what he wanted to say to her.

Adam hurried into the driveway, searching both directions on the street. Was that her, rounding the corner?

Just then the garbage truck screeched to a halt in front of him, blocking his view. The garbage collector leaped off the truck and grabbed Adam’s garbage can. Adam caught a glimpse of a burgundy binding as the man lifted the can to his shoulder.

“Wait!” Adam called. Reaching into the garbage he retrieved the hymnal from the coffee grounds.

So this had been Anne’s final act of defiance as she fled.

Backpack over her shoulder, Anne hurried up the street. She caught a fleeting glance of Stephen hauling an amplifier to his pickup as Adam dug through the garbage for his precious hymnal.

Around the corner, she lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, feeling a sense of relief. She did not know where to go. Anywhere but here. The bus stop? She had a little cash. She could buy a ticket to as far as her cash would carry her.

The low, boatlike rumble of the Porsche rolled up beside her. The man from the night before—her mom’s old boyfriend … it had to be, Anne had figured, from the way her mom was acting—was behind the wheel.

Window down, he called to her as she took another long drag on her smoke. “Does the Ad-man know you smoke? Can’t imagine he’d approve.”

She glanced over at him. “He couldn’t be more pleased.” She continued walking, saying nothing else.

“Know who I am, Anne?”

She hesitated at the mention of her name and then quickened her pace. Calvin’s car followed slowly.

When she did not look at him, he tried again. “Did your mother tell you?”

“Some boy she knew in high school. Whaddya you want?”

The ice was broken.

“Wanna know if you want a lift.”

“A lift?”

“To school. I’ll let you drive. A hundred miles an hour.”

Anne stopped and considered the Porsche and the man inside the car. “So … a hundred miles an hour?”

Adam smiled and waved the hymnal at the garbage collector as the truck hauled off, nearly hitting Kyle. With a fierce glare at Adam, Kyle jogged up the street.

Maurene, keys in hand, considered Adam. Who was this man? Waving at the garbage collector after throwing kids out of his house? What had happened to the predictable, steady man she’d married?

“You grabbed her, Adam.”

He turned and his smile faded. “Maurene …”

“Why would you do that?” Not waiting for his reply, she strode toward her minivan.

“Have a meeting in town, Mo, and my car’s in the shop. So you’ll need to drive me if you’re taking the van.”

The driver’s door ajar, she opened her hand, revealing Anne’s prescription. “We have to leave right now. She won’t take them on her own.”

“Need to get my briefcase.” Adam seemed not to notice or care as Stephen and Clifford hauled a load of musical instruments down the driveway to Stephen’s pickup.

Stephen’s eyes locked on the prescription bottle in Maurene’s hand. His brow creased with concern as he continued with his task.

A
S
A
NNE PUSHED THE
P
ORSCHE’S PEDAL
to the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust on a desolate farm road, she laughed out loud at the roar of the motor and the sharp tang of the cold wind on her face.

“Slow down,” Calvin warned.

“A hundred miles an hour, you said,” she shouted against the noise.

“On the freeway, okay? Not on a dirt road.”

She laughed again, certain she would never need her medication again if only she had a silver Porsche in her hands.

“Slow down,” he warned again.

“I never want to slow down!” She glanced at him. “Ninety!”

“Please.”

The fear on his ashen face made her happy. “Who are you, again?” she asked.

The Wellses’ minivan stopped in front of the police station. Adam, unable to meet Maurene’s accusing glare, opened the passenger’s side door but did not get out.

Maurene reminded him, “Need to find Anne.”

Snapping open his briefcase, he pulled out the hymnal and set it on the dashboard. “Please return this to her when you do.”

“Okay, Adam,” she agreed in a weary tone. “Whatever you—”

“Thank you.”

Adam knew she had lied to him about Calvin’s e-mail. He watched her drive off past a small group of protestors gathered under the scorched star of the nativity. He felt no emotion for her. Not pity. Not resentment. Just nothing but being fed up with the drama that had run his life into the ground. As far as Maurene shoving Anne’s medicine down her throat, what good had any of it done? They were walking on a high wire, balancing their lives day by day as Anne continually threatened to jump off and take them with her.

Adam caught his reflection in a dusty storefront window. He was still wearing yesterday’s suit. A day’s growth of beard. No tie. His lip curled in disdain for Maurene, for Anne. He reached into his pocket and felt something: the tie Calvin had given him. He thought, “Look what they’ve done to me.”

He paused before entering the sheriff’s office.

The dispatch area was buzzing with the growing nativity controversy. The place went silent as Adam entered and approached Sheriff Burns.

“Here to bring ‘destruction of private property’ charges against—”

The sheriff continued sorting papers. “‘Fraid we’re not gonna be able to oblige you on that matter just yet, Pastor.”

“If it’s your intention to obstruct the law by denying the church our right to—”

Mayor Hillman interrupted bitterly. “You got your public hearing, Pastor. News cameras. National uproar.”

“When?” Adam demanded.

Sheriff Burns interjected, “Tonight. ‘Round seven. And you will be given opportunity to speak, Pastor.”

The mayor raised his chin defiantly. “Opportunity to try and
talk the folks of our town into their own end. And by their own hand.”

Sheriff Burns attempted to calm him down. “All right, Harold.”

“‘Cause losin’ Cutter’s restoration project will be jus’ that to this community!”

Sheriff’s tone sharpened. “That’s enough, Mayor.”

The city official pressed on. “Suicide, Pastor Wells … if you don’t mind that?”

So the small-town rumor mill had made the connection between suicide and the Wells family.

Sheriff Burns’s lips were grim as the mayor and Adam faced off. “Just go now, Mayor.”

Mayor Hillman snorted in disgust and left as Burns took Adam’s elbow. Ring of keys in hand, he led Adam to the heavy metal door leading to the cells.

“My wife, Esther, and me, our first date, so to speak, was in that nativity Cutter burned. Insisted I meet her family ‘fore we went to the movies is how she put it.”

Unimpressed, Adam checked his watch. “I have a ten o’clock, Sheriff. Was there something else?”

Burns stared at Adam, then turned the key and opened the door. “Told John Cutter I was expectin’ you. He asked if I’d show you in. Buzzer’s on the wall when you want out.”

Adam hesitated before entering the cell-block area.

Behind him the dispatcher said, “That was a beautiful story ‘bout Esther, Sheriff.”

Then the heavy door clanged shut.

The cell-block area consisted of an open corridor spanning two small cells. Adam fixed his gaze on the silhouette of John Cutter,
who stood by a small cement-block window bathed in morning sunlight.

Bittner, the ACLU attorney, spoke first. “Pastor Wells—Adam—we weren’t expecting you but … do you know the senator?”

“The senator’s wife attends my church.”

Bittner seemed surprised. “Really. I didn’t know Missus Cutter attended the pastor’s—”

Adam interrupted the small talk. “What is it you need, Mister Bittner? Why did your client ask to see me?”

It was clear from Bittner’s expression that he had no idea why. He answered all the same. “Well, my client would like to know if the church has made a decision. To remove the star … or will you rally the faithful to follow it to the Supreme Court?”

Adam replied, “There’s a public hearing tonight. Is that all?”

Cutter addressed the issue of his wife. “She was ‘saved’ in his church. Doesn’t just attend.”

Bittner said, “I’m sorry, John, is there another matter?”

Cutter, an official-looking file in his hands, stepped to the bars and addressed Adam and Bittner. “My wife, Mister Bittner, got ‘born again’ in his church. Isn’t that right, Pastor?”

“Yes,” Adam answered.

Cutter smiled coldly at Adam, then held up the file. “Know what’s in this file, son?”

Adam scanned the label: WELLS, ADAM: STERLING INVESTIGATION AGENCY, WASHINGTON, DC, CASE #098654.

Bittner, suddenly alarmed by his client’s actions, hissed, “Would like to know where you’re going with this, Senator. That file is—”

Cutter addressed Adam. “Opposition research.”

“—privileged,” Bittner finished.

Cutter did not take his eyes from Adam’s face. “‘Bout you, son.” Cutter handed the file to Bittner. “Read the highlights aloud, if you would, Mr. Bittner.”

Bittner hesitated. “Like I said, John, the information in that file is—”

Cutter argued, “The privilege of the one who paid for the investigation.”

Adam defended, “I don’t know what you think you have in your file, but I’ve been preaching the gospel since I was—”

Cutter filled in the blanks. “Six. Braces at thirteen. Busted femur bone at ten. Lost mama to ovarian cancer at eight. Daddy died eleven years after your wedding day. Know more about you and yours than you know yourself. Can assure you of that. Even know what had you in and out of the Taylor Police Department records room three times last year.” Cutter knew he was striking Adam close to home. “Just read what’s in the yellow, Mister Bittner.”

Bittner opened the file. Adam saw the yellow highlights throughout the document.