Redemption (16 page)
Authors: H. M. Mann
Deputy: When did Jeremiah arrive?
Williams: Six, maybe seven. Near sundown.
Deputy: You fill it up?
Williams: Yes sir.
Deputy: Anyone with him?
Williams: No sir. He was by himself.
Deputy: Was he looking nervous?
Williams: Not that I noticed.
Deputy: Did he seem like he was in a hurry?
Williams: A little. He kept looking back to see if I was done.
Deputy: Did he say anything to you?
Williams: Just to keep the change.
Deputy: Any other business that night?
Williams: What?
Deputy: Any other customers?
Williams: No sir.
Deputy: Did you see which direction J went?
Williams: Wasn’t paying no attention.
Deputy: Can you tell me anything else that might be useful? You
know anyone who might want to harm Jeremiah?
Williams: No. All this is just a damn shame.
A damn shame. That’s what it was.
He opened and read Sharese White’s interview:
Deputy: Were you and Jeremiah supposed to be out on a date?
Sharese: (crying) Yes, but he never showed up.
Deputy: When was he supposed to be by?
Sharese: Nine. He was never right on time, but (crying) he was never real late.
Deputy: When was the last time you spoke to him?
Sharese: Friday at school.
Deputy: What did he say?
Sharese: Just that he’d pick me up at nine on Saturday.
Deputy: Where were y’all going?
Sharese: He said it was a surprise.
Deputy: Any ideas?
Sharese: No.
Deputy: Where’d you usually go?
Sharese: Sometimes up to Calhoun to see a movie, sometimes to
Pine for a party, a couple of times to the lake.
Deputy: You ever double-date?
Sharese: No. That wasn’t J’s style.
Deputy: Do you know anyone who would do this to Jeremiah?
Sharese: No. Everybody liked him. Everybody ... (crying)
Deputy: Y’all were pretty serious, huh?
Sharese: Yes. We were planning on getting married after college.
Deputy: You think maybe that was the surprise? That he was gonna
ask you to marry him?
Sharese: (crying too much to continue interview)
Overton winced.
I shouldn’t have asked that question. That girl really loved him.
He read through several other reports and added to his list:
21 J detoured from date between 6-9 P.M.
22 Car found in lake in late August near dam by rescue crew dragging lake for drowning
victim; no apparent damage to car; gas tank empty; leaked into lake?
23 J’s body found on statue 17 miles from lake.
24 Church burned five miles from statue, 12 miles from lake.
The distances had always bothered Overton.
Did they sink the car, burn the church, and then dump the body? Or was J alive to see the church he attended burn? Was that part of his punishment? Was J killed at the church? Or did they kill him somewhere else, dump the body, then burn the church, and then sink the car? And if they were outsiders, as Sheriff Hughes had claimed, how would they know about the statue? How would they have known about the church? How would they have known that the dam end of the lake was the deepest?
He added to his list:
25 This was an inside job; whoever did this had an intimate knowledge of Pine County.
There had never been a sign for the church, and the narrow, rocky dirt road that led to it was hardly inviting. Most church members had parked out on 115 and walked to church to protect their oil pans and mufflers. And winter was the only time you could see the road or the church clearly from 115 because of all the oak tree leaves.
He hesitated before adding his next entry to the list.
26 J’s killer could have been black.
He sat back from the workbench.
Were we looking in the wrong direction the entire time?
Other than Senator Sellers, who had given the church the land, few white people, if any, had ever attended Mt. Zion.
How many white people in Pine County knew that Mt. Zion even existed? What are the chances that a group of white supremacists would drive down a treacherous, unmarked dirt road to a church they couldn’t see and maybe didn’t even know existed?
He put a star next to number twenty-six then read Annie’s interview, Sheriff Hughes asking the questions:
Sheriff: Go ahead, Annie. We’re listening.
Mitchem: I seen these lights from my back window. Bright lights.
Sheriff: What kind of bright lights?
Mitchem: In a row. White then yellow then yellow then white again.
Sheriff: Were they up in the sky, Annie?
Mitchem: Yes. They was just floating in the air.
Sheriff: What time was this?
Mitchem: Late.
Sheriff: How late? I need a time, Annie.
Mitchem: I don’t know. I didn’t check.
Sheriff: Did your daughter see the lights?
Mitchem: No. She was out on a date.
Sheriff: When did she come home?
Mitchem: Later. Drunk, too.
Sheriff: So you’re the only one who saw them.
Mitchem: I saw what I saw. I ain’t lying.
Sheriff: Didn’t say you were. You say they were yellow and white?
Mitchem: White, yellow, yellow, white.
Sheriff: Was this before or after you saw the smoke?
Mitchem: They was coming out of the smoke. White, yellow, yellow, white.
Sheriff: Did it take off into the sky then?
Mitchem: No. It floated a bit not a hundred yards from my house. It was glorious. Then the
lights went out, but not all at once. White white, then yellow yellow. Then poof.
It disappeared into the smoke.
Sheriff: What do you think you saw, Annie?
Mitchem: You know what I saw, Sheriff.
Sheriff: Just tell us, Annie.
Mitchem: I saw a spaceship. That spaceship must have landed on that church, burned it up,
then flew away. They knew I’d be watching.
Sheriff: How’d they know you’d be watching?
Mitchem: Cuz I get their signals.
Sheriff: Uh-huh. So it just disappeared into the sky.
Mitchem: Yes, and without a sound, too, like it was there and then poof. Like magic.
Sheriff: You say Darcy had been drinking?
Mitchem: Yes. She’s just like her father.
Sheriff: And you?
Mitchem: I ain’t nothing like Creed.
Sheriff: No, Annie, were you maybe doing a little drinking last night?
Mitchem: No. (long pause) I ain’t a drinker. I’m a good Christian woman.
Sheriff: But you claim to have seen a spaceship, Annie.
Mitchem: You don’t believe me?
Sheriff: Well, Annie, we’ve been hearing about your UFO’s for years now, and, well,
human hands set that church on fire, so ...
Mitchem: Deputy Overton, you believe me, don’t you?
Deputy: No ma’am, I don’t.
Sheriff: Come on, Annie. I’ll drive you home.
Mitchem: I know what I saw, and it’s the God’s honest truth.
Sheriff: If you say so, Annie.
White, yellow, yellow, white. She says it four times. She sounded so sure of herself, and she did admit to a sheriff that her underage daughter had been drinking. What kind of mother tells a sheriff that?
Overton tried to put himself in Annie’s back room.
It’s smoky. She sees lights coming out of the smoke, as if they were floating in the air. It had to have been a big vehicle, a jacked-up truck maybe, with fog lights. Then they go out, white then yellow, then silence. They cut off the engine and pushed it? It has to be a “they" now. One man couldn’t push a truck that big that far if there was even a truck there at all.
He added to his list:
27 J’s killers possibly
drove a vehicle with high ground clearance, maybe with a light bar.
“
I believe you now, Annie,” Overton said aloud. “But if I believe this, I have to believe ... that J’s back.”
And that’s not something I
can
believe.
He heard the phone ring and dashed up the stairs, snagging it on the fifth or sixth ring. “Hello?”
“
Am I interruptin’ somethin’, Sheriff?”
Callie!
“I was in the basement.”
“
What for?”
“
Just straightening up. How are you?”
“
Fine, just fine. You lookin’ at that file again, and don’t you lie.”
She knows me too well.
“Yes. Habit, I guess. Did you find Isaiah?”
“
No, but I got a good idea where he is. You get the ring yet?”
And they say men have one-track minds.
“No. I couldn’t decide. I found four that would look good on you. I want you to pick it out.”