The Devil Walks in Mattingly (16 page)

“That’s a good question,” Big Jim asked. “Evidently the whole town went to pot a few hours ago, and the sheriff never bothered to let me know.”

“Jake’s been a little busy tonight, Mayor,” the man in the suit said.

Trevor turned to him. “I don’t believe we’ve met, Mr. . . .”

“Martin. Alan Martin. County.”

“You shoulda called me, Jake,” the mayor said. “Dang it all, you shoulda called me as soon as you heard about Andy.”

“Andy?” Trevor asked, remembering the calls. “Andy Sommerville? What happened to Andy?” He reached into his back pocket for his notebook.

Big Jim slapped it away. “Leave that stupid thing alone, Trevor. We’re still trying to figure out what happened here.”

From inside the cell, Doc March turned and said, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but could you continue this discussion elsewhere? There is grave work to do, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

“Sure, Doc,” Jake said.

Mayor Wallis led the way to the foyer and sat on the sofa. Trevor and Jake followed. Alan remained behind to survey the
scene. Trevor supposed the county man smart enough to leave small-town business to small-town folk.

If the mayor looked older that night, Jake appeared almost ancient. Trevor knew the town had been whispering that something (that word, again) was wrong with their constable, though no conclusions had been reached. Some speculated Jake had taken to visiting Hollis’s backwoods, others that it was trouble with Kate. Nothing would please Trevor more than the latter. Most every red-blooded Mattingly male between twenty and fifty had crushed on the former Kate Griffith at one time or another. To Trevor’s generation, it was as much a part of crossing the bridge from boy to man as carving one’s name into the rusty gate, even after that nasty thing she did to the McBride boy became public knowledge those years ago.

Yet Trevor had never defined what he felt for Kate as mere infatuation, nor was it a boyhood crush. Some people were for the fairy tale. Trevor always thought Kate was his destiny, but he never got that chance. The thin gold ring on her finger had been put there by Jake instead, and the only thing that grated on Trevor Morgan more was that the man who’d stolen his love had slid into the job of sheriff simply because of his last name. That Trevor’s own uncle had handed over the keys to the
Gazette
just after being elected never entered into the equation. The difference was that Trevor did his job well, and Jake never could.

“Who’s that man in there, Jake?” Big Jim asked.

Trevor reached into his pocket again. This time the mayor didn’t slap the notebook away. Jake began with the call from Timmy and ended with finding Charlie dead. Trevor scribbled with passion, not believing his luck. Murder. Mystery. Mayhem. It was perfect, the story of a lifetime.

Big Jim shook his head. “This is gonna be hard on the town, Jake. Hard on all’us.”

“It will,” Jake admitted. “But the storm’s passed, Jim. We just have to try and clean up so we can all get back to normal.”

Trevor thought that made a good quote and wrote it down, then reconsidered. Even a rookie journalist knew the difference between a source who said what he knew to be true and what he wanted to be true. Trevor thought the good sheriff was engaging more in the latter. He also thought Jake had left a good bit out of his story. If so, then maybe the storm hadn’t passed at all. Maybe this was simply the first head winds.

Doc March, Alan, and the coroner made their way up the hallway.

“What’s the verdict, Doc?” the mayor asked.

The doctor looked at Jake, who offered a weak nod.

“The preliminary examination is that the poor man died of natural causes,” Doc said. “I’d say a heart attack.”

“C’mon, Doc,” Jake said. “That guy was my age.”

“Can happen to anyone, Jacob, not just old fogies like Jim and me. Tell me, what was his emotional state?”

Trevor poised his pen above a fresh sheet of paper.

“He was drunk,” Jake said. “Mad. Scared. I don’t know, Doc. Mostly scared.”

“Of what?”

Jake said nothing, only looked at them. It was enough time for Trevor to set aside his bias and believe on the facts alone that Jake Barnett had gotten into something he couldn’t get out of and was trying to cover himself.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Charlie thought Taylor Hathcock was coming after him. Said he was the devil. He was pretty worked up.”

“Well then, there you are.” Doc folded his wrinkled hands behind his back as though waiting for applause. “It’s fight-or-flight, of course. The body’s natural way of protecting itself.
If one is faced with a life-threatening situation—and from what you say, Jake, Charlie Givens certainly believed he was in one—the body responds by supercharging itself with adrenaline. That chemical is extremely dangerous in large amounts, especially in unhealthy people. Most deaths are due to damage to the heart. My opinion, and this good man beside me concurs, is that’s what happened here. Charlie was in a cell, so he couldn’t flee. Fear was all he had, and that was his end.”

“Wait,” Trevor said. He’d written all of that down, but he needed Doc to say the right words. “You’re saying the man in there was . . . scared to death?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Jackpot.

Alan spoke up: “Your doc’s findings line up with the coroner’s prelims. I’m gonna get this guy outta here for you, Jake. I’ll need that tape too.” He turned to Big Jim. “We have roadblocks set up all through the area, Mayor. We’ll find Taylor Hathcock. Just a matter of time.”

Trevor excused himself. He had to get back to the office, make some calls. Vicki Chambers, the
Gazette
’s receptionist, then Steve Ramsey, the cub reporter. The Sunday paper would be late, but it would be worth it.

Jake met him at the door and held it closed by pressing his hand against the fresh paint.

“Listen, Trevor. This all might make you giddy inside, but it’s gonna put a scare in people come morning. I know you have to write something, and I won’t stop you. But you do it right, you hear me? Just the facts.”

“Sure, Jake. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Trevor smiled on the outside, hoping Jake couldn’t see the cackle oozing up from behind his teeth. Unlike most everyone else in town, Trevor Morgan knew the sheriff was not his father’s
son, at least when it came to temperament. That almighty Barnett name only carried so far. This was the story he’d always prayed to catch, and it was one he could milk for weeks.

But first he’d have to write it.

Huge letters for the headline. An editorial for the op-ed page too, the title of which came to him on the way back to the newspaper. And it was so perfect, so utterly wonderful, that he thought it’d been sent via heavenly messenger.

Part III

The Devil Walks in Mattingly

1

K
ate slept alone that night, though this time it wasn’t because of her husband’s dreams. Jake had stayed at the office. Too tired to drive home, he’d said over the phone. Kate suspected it was something else when Jake told her of Charlie’s death and what Doc March had said was the cause. He also told her that Trevor Morgan had made an appearance. She knew what that meant. There would be one doozy of a story in the
Gazette
come morning.

The newspaper box was empty when Kate and Zach left the house, confirming her fears. It was early, though—just after six o’clock, and Kate soothed herself by saying the paper never came before six thirty. She had little time to worry, though. Church would start in three hours, and she had to make it across town and back before the church bells rang. She ran her errand (which turned out to be quite a nice bit of police work, if she said so herself) and pulled into First Church lot just in time.

The First Church of the Risen Christ—the marquee out front of which continually announced OUR DOORS ARE WIDE
OPEN AND OUR MINDS ARE MADE UP—had stood for over a century on a stately plot of tree-lined earth three blocks from the town center. Though the Lord had His pick of spots to reside in Mattingly (there were eight churches within the town limits alone; “One for every color of the rainbow,” Kate liked to say), most were of a common accord that He dwelled in First Church most often. Reverend Reggie Goggins had both the largest congregation and the mayor’s ear, a powerful combination. The lot was expansive, but on that morning the crowd was such that Kate had to park in the grass between two blooming magnolias. That was her first clue that word had already spread; even the backsliders packed the pews when the world bared its claws.

Kate wiped a streak of strawberry Pop-Tart from the corner of Zach’s mouth and tried not to look at his black eye. A crowd had gathered at the steps leading into the sanctuary. A dozen people or so, all attired in their Sunday best. When Kate saw all those people, she wished she’d driven slower. Or stopped at the sheriff’s office to pick up Jake first. But there hadn’t been time for that, not with the quick trip to Andy’s house and the talk Kate had with a murdered boy’s brother.

“When’s Daddy comin’?” Zach asked.

“Soon, baby.”

They moved in the grassy places among old cars and dirty trucks, where the ground was peppered with blooming dandelions. Kate stepped through these as though navigating a minefield, careful not to let a single yellow flower brush against her. She knew she looked like a fool even as tremors of nausea built in her stomach. It was a running joke between Kate and Jake, the way she hated those weeds. It would remain funny until the moment near the rusty gate when she remembered true. Zach willed his body forward, trying to keep up. Kate’s
blue dress ruffled in the breeze. A county police car drove by. The crowd followed it with their eyes.

The crowd hushed when they saw Kate and broke away from the stairs toward her. Reggie Goggins led the charge. Kate reached down and lifted Zach up, holding him close. He yawned and settled his face into the crook of his momma’s neck. The preacher extended both hands as he neared and took the free one Kate offered.

“Hello, Kate,” he said.

“Reverend.”

The people pressed in, friends with worried eyes and harried faces. Kate took their questions one by one, wanting to get inside but not wanting to deepen their fears by turning them away.

Yes, Andy was hurt and his friend Eric had been murdered.

Yes, Timmy was hurt too, but he was going to be fine.

Yes, Jake had gotten one of the men and the other was still loose, but he was likely far away by now.

Yes, the man Jake arrested died overnight.

Kate said all of these things, pausing for the Sweet-Jesuses and Lord-have-mercies the crowd offered, all the while knowing she wasn’t really comforting anyone and Zach was hearing it all. She cupped her boy’s head too late for him to un-hear, but it was soon enough to block the words Hollis Devereaux then spoke.

“Ol’ Jake’d never let anyone get away with somthin’ like that,” he said. “Bet he took care’a that fella afore the courts could. Prolly used Bessie to do it.”

There were nods and more than one amen to that notion, which offended the preacher at least partway and Kate completely.

“Jake did no such thing, Hollis Devereaux,” she said, “and how dare you say otherwise.”

The old man tilted his head downward, pushing his beard into his wide chest. Edith Devereaux, who was so deaf that her ears served only to hold up her thick glasses, patted her husband on the arm and asked what was wrong.

“Jake is a good man,” Kate said.

“That’s what I’m sayin’,” Hollis told her. “He’s a Barnett, Kate. That’s all.”

The bell tolled, summoning them all inside. Hollis apologized for whatever slight he’d offered. Kate took the hand that Preacher Goggins released and put it on Hollis’s back. She told him it was fine and she was sorry, that they’d all had a long night.

She and Zach sat in the Barnetts’ accustomed pew, midway along the left side of the sanctuary. Word spread from those who’d been outside with Kate to those who hadn’t. The soft sound of organ music mixed with even softer smells—the oil on the pews, the musty pages of the hymnals, the perfumes and colognes of the congregants.

The buzzing ceased when Jake stepped inside the sanctuary and removed his hat. He kept his head low and walked the outer aisle to where Kate waited. His clothes had gone unchanged since the morning before, and his hair was a tangled bird’s nest that somehow complemented the look on his face. He smiled. To Kate, it was the same nothing-to-see-here grin that had greeted her and Doc March at the office the day before. She reached up and took hold of him.

Jake settled between her and Zach, who hugged his father and said, “Didja get the bad man, Daddy?”

“I did.”

Reverend Goggins rose as the organ finished and began his welcome. Kate leaned over and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Been better.”

Heads bowed for the opening prayer. The preacher thanked
the Lord for the blessing of a new day, however hard that day was, and asked for protection over the town and a healing for the broken. After that came a moment of silent reflection. Kate, having prayed herself out sometime between Jake calling about Charlie’s death and her idea of how to get in touch with Eric’s family, looked at her husband instead.

Jake’s eyes were clenched shut, lips pursed into a look of pain. He lifted his head only partway when the reverend said his amen, keeping his eyes angled down to the hymnals in the rack. Such was the way Jake Barnett always conducted himself in the presence of God. Kate believed it was her husband’s deep piety that rendered him such when in the presence of the Lord, though that particular day she gave it more to his deep exhaustion.

She leaned over and said, “I got hold of Eric’s brother.”

He turned to her. “How?”

“Came to me last night. I figured he knew Eric was with Andy, them being so close. And I figured that if Eric never came home, his brother’d call Andy’s house. I went over there with Zach this morning. Door was unlocked. There were four messages on Andy’s phone, all from him. Their last name’s Thayer.”

“You talked to him?”

Kate nodded as the preacher spoke of the week’s events—the Tuesday night softball game against Mattingly Methodist, the Bible study Wednesday night, the cookout next Saturday afternoon. All important things that now seemed unimportant to everyone, Preacher Goggins included.