Water Witch (20 page)

Woodard held out a hand as though he meant to
stop traffic. “Just look at the
evidence
, Sistah. Just look
at the evidence. The spirit of the Lawd is a good and
healing
spirit. Demons only come to confuse and
destroy
those of us who are true believers. They aim to take
us down to the fiery pit with ‘em.”

“Yeah, okay, but did you consider anything
like psychological trauma? I mean, my sister was really affected by
the fact that your niece and that little boy disappeared. They were
in her class. Don’t you think that could have something to do with
it?”I peered over at Angelle. She was staring at her hands,
obviously not liking the bend in the conversation. I turned back to
the preacher. “Do you have any training at all in psychological
matters? Do you have a Ph.D.?”

He let out a throaty chuckle. “Oh, Sistah
Dunny, the wonderful thing about servin’ the Lawd is that He
provides His shepards with
alll
the degrees they need to
take care of His flock. Your sistah didn’t suffer from any
psychological issues. It was the
deee
mon that went after
her—”

“Pastor Woodard, I—” Angelle began, but
Woodard was too cranked up to be stopped now.

“—such a
good
woman. Such a
pure
woman. Such a big hearted and
givin’
woman. Why
it’s no wonder the demons wanted her. They wanted to take away that
innocence.”

I realized I’d jumped onto a merry-go-round I
had no business riding on. The guy was definitely a fruit loop. I’d
have to grab Angelle later and whack some sense into her for ever
getting involved with the guy. However, judging by her increased
squirming, I figured she was already kicking herself in the ass—and
wishing she could kick his.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“I’m sorry to hear about your niece . .
.Reverend,” I said, intentionally changing the subject. “I’m sure
her disappearance has been very difficult for you.”

For the first time since we’d arrived, the
man held silent. He nodded slightly and lowered his head.When he
looked back up at us, a tear ran down his right cheek. “It’s been
one of the most challenging things I’ve come upon in this lifetime,
Sistah Dunny. I’m tellin’ ya, I’m in my prayer closet almost
twenty-four hours a day, prayin’ for that child’s soul..”

“Has anyone come up with any leads on either
of them?” Angelle asked.

“The only evidence found for either of them
was that young man’s bike. It was parked on the side of the levee.
I just feel in my
spirit
that since those children went
missing together, they were
together
when they were
abducted.”

“Who’s searching for them now?” I asked. “I
haven’t seen a lot of activity going on around town, not like
search parties or anything.”

“I don’t know who’s searchin’, but I’ll tell
ya how I see it, Sistah, the way I
believe.
If it’s the
Lawd’s will to bring her back, then the Lawd will bring her back.
There are times in life when we’ve got to stand tall, no matter the
tender age, and take Gawd’s punishment as it comes. I believe this
is her
punishment
for being with that young man. Heaven help
us, glory.
Glory
be to Jeee-sus. Yes, Lawd. If those two
children were involved in any kind of
sin
of the flesh, then
Gawd will dispense his
punishment
as He so sees fit. It’s
not my business to step in the path of the Lawd. If they are dealt
punishment
for sins of the
flesh
, so shall it be His
will. If they are innocent they will be brought
back
to the
fold.”

I gaped, unable to believe what I’d just
heard. “Wait . . .wait just a minute. Are you saying you haven’t
been out searching for your niece because you think she was . . .
what? Messing around with that little boy?”

He lifted his chin. “I’m sayin’ it’s all in
Gawd’s hands, Sistah. What better
warrior
, what better
police officer
, what better judge of sinner and saint than
Gawd Himself?”

“Whoa,” Angelle said, sitting ramrod straight
in her chair. “Straight out, Preacher—are you’re saying you think
there was something going on between Nicky and Sarah, and that’s
why they’re missing? Because God wanted to punish them for being
together? You actually think that’s why they’re missing?”

“That’s it exactly, Sistah Angelle. That’s
what I’m saying. The Lawd will punish without favor. No matter if
she is the niece of one of his
shepard’s,
He punishes
without favor.”

“That’s a crock of shit!” Angelle jumped to
her feet, her chair rocking back, nearly tipping over.

Woodard gasped so loud, had the window been
open, people from the next parish would have probably heard him.
“Sistah Angelle! I can tell by the
filth
comin’ out of your
mouth, that the demon who defiled you previously is still
present
. We will pray, Sistah. We will pray for your
deliverance
from this demon, pray for the town’s
deliverance, for it runs amuck with the devil’s own. There’s
evidence of it everywhere!
Everywhere!
Even in this church.”
Breathing hard from his fervor, he leaned over as if to relay
confidential information. “Why early this morning I found where
someone had actually
ur-in-a-ted
on the foot of the pulpit!
Can you believe the blasphemy? Can you
believe
it? Even
worse, glory to Gawd, they’d stuck a knife, a knife mind you,
plunged it right in the middle of the cross on the altar.
Blasphemy, I tell ya! A demon from hell was trying to stab the very
heart of
Gawd
. Let’s pray, Sistahs. Let us pray for the
deliverance
of Sistah Angelle and the
deliverance
of
this town!”

“You’re the one needin’ the prayers,
Preacher,” Angelle said. “I’ve had enough of this bullshit.” She
signaled to me that it was time to go.

Way past time,
I thought, gladly
getting to my feet. Just as we turned to leave, a policeman walked
into the office, almost colliding with Angelle. He maneuvered
around her with bothering to excuse himself and walked up to the
preacher.

Angelle signaled for me to follow again, and
I mouthed, “
Wait up.”
” I recognized the cop from the Bloody
Bucket. The metal nametag over his left breast pocket read Officer
Leger, but I remembered Poochie calling him Beeno. I wanted to hear
what he had to say. If there was anything he’d found out about the
kids.

This time Woodard got to his feet. “Officer
Leger, thank you so very much for coming to our aid. It’s always a
pleasure to see you and know—”

“What’s been going on in here, Woodard?”
Beeno said. “Iheard you yelling all the way out in the parking
lot.”

“Officer Leger, I was just….I was just
commenting on the attributes of Gawd. As a preacher, as a
shepard
of his flock
,
I have a tendency to get a
little carried away in my zeal, as you well know.”

Beeno drummed an impatient beat on his right
leg with his fingers. Something about the cop’s attitude, the way
he held himself, the condescending look in his eye, urked me.
Cocky. Full of himself, like a Chihuahua that thought it was ten
feet tall and bulletproof. “Yeah, yeah, I know, carried away. Look,
I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire and don’t have time for one of
your sermons. Just cut to the chase and tell me what you called in
about earlier.”

“Ab-so-
lutely
, Brothah . . . Oh, I
mean,
Officer
Leger.” Woodard hurried around the desk and
motioned Beeno to follow as he headed out of the office. He took
quick, tiny steps, almost as if he was running on tiptoe.

Beeno let out a frustrated breath and
followed him.

I immediately started after them, and Angelle
grabbed my arm, yanking me to a stop. “Let’s get the hell out of
here, Dunny. I can’t believe what that sonofabitch said about
Sarah.” Her face was red with anger. “I don’t want to be anywhere
near that guy or this so-called church. Not now, not ever again. If
I’d known he was anything like that, I’d have never come to see him
in the first place.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Don’t beat
yourself up about it. Sometimes it takes a while for shit to float
to the surface. Hang on a sec, though. I want to take a peek at
what’s going on. Asshole or not, he is Sarah’s uncle. Maybe there’s
something going on that could give us a heads up before we hit the
swamp, you know?”

“Then you go. I can’t stomach being around
that bastard another second. I’m going to go sit in the car.” With
that, Angelle turned on her heels, left the office and stormed down
the hall towards the exit.

I watched her leave, then hurried down the
hall in the opposite direction, where I’d seen Beeno and Woodard
head. The preacher’s constant chatter made finding them easy, and I
was soon peeking around a doorway into the belly of the church.
Woodard was pointing to a dark circle on the floor next to a
lecturn.

“This is the first of the sacrilegious acts I
found this morning, Officer Leger. Imagine it, someone standing
right here, ur-un-a-ting in the house of the Lawd! Can you believe
it?”

“How do you know it’s piss?” Beeno asked.

Woodard’s double blink was obvious even from
where I stood. “I would ask you, Officer, to please use the
appropriate terminology in the house of Gawd. Such crass language
is quite offensive to the ear.”

Beeno, who was standing with his back to me,
shifted his weight. The body language equivalent to an eye
roll.“Fine, Woodard. How do you know that it’s
urine
on the
floor?”

“Why, from the smell.”

“I don’t smell nothing.”

“You’ve got to get up close, Brothah…I mean,
Officer Leger. You’ve got to get up close.”

“You mean to tell me you stuck your nose down
in it?”

“Now, Officer, how else would I be able to
figure out what some heathen put around this lectern?”

“Well, you either smelled it or you stuck
your fingers in it, then stuck your fingers in your mouth. That’s
what I’m thinking, anyway.”

I put a hand over my mouth to keep my laugh
in check.

“No, sir, no, sir. It was the smell, I’m
tellin’ ya.”

“Fine,” Beeno walked over to a wooden cross
that hung on a backdrop behind the altar. There was a red-handled
knife stuck in the center of the cross. After pulling a
handkerchief out of his back pocket, Beeno used the cloth to work
the knife out of the wood. Once it was freed, he held it up and
examined it with what seemed like avid appreciation. “A Koji . . .”
man, I haven’t seen one of these in years.I don’t know anybody
around here who’s got one like this.”

I’d never heard the term Koji before, so I
assumed he was referring to a brand name. To me, the knife looked
like an exclamation point with a blade stuck on the end of it.

Beeno shook the knife in Woodard’s direction.
“I’ll find out more from this knife than I will that piss…I mean
that
urr
-ine. So you can go ahead and clean up around your
lectern.I’ll take the knife with me and see if I can come up with
anything.”

“Sure, Officer, whatever you need. You do
your work for the good state of Louisiana, and I do my work for the
good Lawd.”

Beeno shifted his weight again to another
foot.“Yeah, okay . . . look, did you hear any strange noises out
here last night? Maybe real early this morning? Dogs barking all of
a sudden, anything at all? What about strangers walking around the
church parking lot or around your house out back? See anything like
that at all?”

“Not a soul save for the
precious
lambs from the Lawd’s flock.”

Beeno blew out another exasperated breath.
“Fine. I’ll get in touch with you if I come up with anything.” With
that, he turned, so quickly I couldn’t duck out of sight fast
enough for him not to see me. He paused for a half-beat when he
spotted me watching them, then headed for the front doors of the
church without saying a word.

I stood dumbstruck, watching him retreat,
back military-straight. His investigation had to have been the
oddest in police procedural history.

“If you will excuse me, Sistah Dunny.”
Woodard’s voice was too close to my ear. I turned, nearly bumping
into him. I hadn’t even seen him walk my way. He put a hand on my
back, as if to encourage me out of the building. “This way,
Sistah.”

I was more than happy to oblige.

As Woodard led me outside, he babbled on and
on about the
lawd.
To my surprise, he followed me all the way
to the parking lot. Pesticide probably couldn’t get rid of this
guy. I’d had enough of him, wished him away, wished I hadn’t stuck
around just to see some stupid knife stuck in a cross and piss on
the church floor.

He stayed by my side as I approached
Angelle’s car. I saw my sister sitting in the driver’s seat,
watching as I approached. Her face darkened when she saw Woodard.
If her anger was any greater, she’d be spitting fire and brimstone
all over the preacher’s ass.

Woodard continued to ramble, but my attention
was drawn to Dale’s Trading Post a couple blocks away and the tall
man walking out of it, carrying a grocery sack. There was no
mistaking the black Stetson and long black coat. Although he walked
alone, it was as if someone had nudged him to let him know I was
watching because he stopped, turned, looked my way, and nodded a
greeting.

“…and the Lard will provide to those
who…”

I offered Cherokee a quick nod in return, and
for some odd reason, suddenly became aware of how dressed-down I
was in jeans and a t-shirt. What did it matter what I was wearing?
He’d seen my hand. In fact, I could still remember the strange
comment he’d made as he passed me . . .. “
I’d be careful with
that if I were you.”
Even stranger was that he hadn’t stopped
to ask a single question,never followed me to find out what the
finger was about and what I was doing out by the bayou. The warning
he’d given me had been more matter-of-fact than ominous. Like
someone saying, ‘If you aren’t careful playing with that fire, you
might get burned.’ What a strange man . . .