When Saint Goes Marching In (11 page)

“Hello Mrs. Clayman, I wish we were meeting under different circumstances,” George said as he rose to shake her hand. She returned the shake weakly and looked over at Saint who rose slowly and approached her. She gasped as she looked into his eyes.

“Is something wrong, dear?” Mr. Clayman asked, watching Iris’s reaction.

“He looks so familiar.” She said, pointing to Saint. “Have you ever been to Missouri before?” she asked.

Saint shook his head. “No ma’am, I haven’t. This is my first time.”

“My mind must be playing tricks on me,” she smiled. “Terry, you didn’t even ask these men if they wanted anything to drink I see!” she scolded softly. “Would either of you like some water? Soda? Juice?” she asked as she stood back up.

Saint could see that Iris liked being a hostess so he obliged.

“Yes, some water for George and I would be fine,” he said, making her smile wider as she disappeared into the kitchen.

They heard the clinking of ice cubes in glasses as Mr. Clayman began to talk again.

“So, Iris had said that he told her some pretty disgusting things he was going to do to her. I really don’t want to repeat them,” he said as he looked down.

Saint took notice of the Bible by his side. He then looked back over at the photos and noticed the crucifix hanging on the wall next to them.

“Mr. Clayman, I know it’s uncomfortable, but we need all the clues we can get about this man. Can you just write down what he said then?” George asked as he passed his own paper and ink pen over to Mr. Clayman. The man took it hesitantly and started to write when Iris re-entered the room. She handed each man a glass of water and sat back down next to Terry. The room was silent as he wrote down the information. Iris looked over at what he was writing.

“Uh, this won’t be necessary,” she said. “I can tell you what he said. I know that Terry, my husband here, doesn’t want to repeat it but I know it’s probably important.” She sighed uneasily.

“Mrs. Clayman, you really don’t have to. We can just let your husband write everything down, or you can, and we will read it. We don’t want to make this harder on you than it has to be,” Saint assured.

Iris nodded and turned away, as if relieved to not have to discuss it. Terry finished and handed the note back over to George, who read it quickly. With raised eyebrows, he then handed it to Saint.

Saint exhaled deeply and took the note and read each line.

“I’m going to fuck you real good, you old ass bitch.”

“You need a real man to screw your brains out.”

“I know you’re happy to finally have a real man in your bed.”

“You won’t make it out of this alive but at least you’ll die happy.”

“When I fuck you, I’ll wake your old man up and make him watch.”

Saint shook his head and turned the paper face down on his knee. He wondered, what if this had happened to his wife, and he was Mr. Clayman? His blood boiled at just the idea of the notion.

“Thank you, Mr. Clayman, for writing this down. We definitely wouldn’t want your wife to have to repeat any of this. Again, I’m very sorry about what happened and I know that it has affected you greatly. We’re here because we want justice for you. We believe, and we could be wrong, but it just appears that your local police department is not seeing this as a racially motivated crime but everything points to it being just that. They have refused to speak to us anymore but did state previously that there is no link between the other incidents of other interracial couples being attacked and killed and your experience. They think it was by different perpetrators. We don't believe that. There are too many similarities with all of the stories. We conducted telephone interviews with some of the victims’ families and the suspect is described similarly, his physical description. He changes his clothing, obviously, but his build is the same and in another case, he in fact had a ski mask on. It may have been the exact same one. He has done the same thing to at least six other couples in the last year; you two are the only survivors,” Saint explained.

“Oh my God,” Mr. Clayman shook his head in disbelief. “Please call me Terry,” he said after a pause. You don’t have to be so formal.” He grabbed his wife’s hand and held it. Saint couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that Mr. Clayman somehow knew the man that assaulted him and his wife.

He doesn’t know that he knows him though, that is what’s so strange
.
It is through his line of work, I bet
.

“Mr. Clayman, I mean, Terry, what do you do for a living?” Saint asked.

“I’m a line manager at Mundell. It’s a factory that specializes in tire and general auto parts for all American made cars.”

Saint nodded. “Have you had any altercations with anyone at work in the last, say, six months?”

Terry’s brows furrowed in concentration. “Well, some people don’t like how I run the line. I don’t like people goofing off. It slows down production and we have nightly quotas.” Terry thought for a moment. “There is one guy, Clarence. He is a goofball. He complains about me all the time. All he wants to do is sit there and tell raunchy jokes. I’ve asked for him to be reassigned but our boss hasn’t done anything about it yet.” He shrugged.

“Do you work with anyone that is pretty quiet and no one really seems to notice him or know him all that well?” Saint asked as he leaned in closer.

Terry sat back and thought. Iris looked at him and turned back towards George and Saint.

“Stanley,” she said.

Everyone turned and looked at her.

“Stanley is a guy at Terry’s job who is, I guess you could say, eccentric. I know he wouldn’t hurt a fly but he seems to live in his own world. When I’d come up to my husband’s job to bring him lunch, Stanley would be there, sitting by himself. That’s how I noticed him, actually, only because he was the only one alone. For some reason, he just seems to blend in, like a plant or painting. It’s kind of sad actually.”

“Yeah, he is kind of strange but he does a good job and he just isn’t very talkative. Matter of fact, I don’t know anything about him, as far as his personal life, and he has worked there for over five years.” Terry chuckled. “Why did you ask me that?”

“Well, we are just trying to see, especially since this is such a small part of town, who some of the people are. I just wanted to get a feel for who you worked with; see if anyone had it out for you, just basic investigation preliminaries,” Saint said as his mind behind the scenes moved a million miles a minute.

“We don’t want to take any more of your time. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” George said as he stood up from the couch. Saint followed suit, placing the piece of paper in his pocket.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Iris asked. “I know it’s late, but I decided, you know, just in case you two hadn’t eaten, that I’d fix something.”

Saint could see the loneliness in her eyes.
She’s afraid to be alone. She wants the company
. He looked over at Terry.
He is here, but he is emotionally absent. Their marriage is struggling
.

The therapist in Saint wanted to whisk them away to their dining room table, sit them down and begin counseling.

“We’ve already…” George began.

“Sure. We’d love to stay for a late dinner.” Saint interrupted. George looked at Saint and frowned.

“Oh wonderful.” Iris stood, clasping her hands together. “Just give me a second to get it all on the table and I’ll call you in.” She disappeared out of the room, leaving the three men together.

Saint broke the silence. “You know, Mr. Clayman, I’m sorry, Terry,” Saint smiled. “Besides working in this organization, I’m also a therapist. You said your wife is romantic, that is really nice.” Saint folded his hands together as he stood, his height more obvious than ever in the low ceilinged room.

Terry nodded. “Yes, she is always trying to spice things up. I guess, I’m just boring,” he said as he looked away.

“Well, I know that this isn’t why we are here, but if you want to talk about ways to…”

“Saint, don’t,” George interrupted as he leaned close to him and whispered, “That isn’t what we should be focusing on right now. For God’s sake, they were violently attacked. The romance in their marriage is, I’m sure, the least of their concerns right now!”

Terry interjected. “I don’t know what you two are saying but I’m interested in what Saint has to say,” he said softly, coughing into his Kleenex again.

George sighed and slowly sat back down. Saint gave him a knowing smile and looked over at Terry.

“I know you’re a modest man, Terry. I know that issues regarding romance and intimacy probably make you a little uneasy but I bet, even with everything your bride has been through, she still wants to be close to you, now more so than ever. She wants you to comfort her. I can see you two love each other very much and…I want to ask you something. You don’t have to answer but I just want to get how you feel about it.” Saint sat back down.

“Yes, please go right ahead,” Terry urged.

“After you saw her being assaulted, how did that make you feel towards her?”

From the corner of his eye, Saint saw George’s jaw drop. “I can’t believe you’d ask him something like that!” he exclaimed, his low voice fierce in his ear.

Saint held his finger up at George. “Just wait, I’m going somewhere with this,” he assured.

“Well, I felt awful,” Terry said in a flabbergasted tone.

“No, I didn’t ask how
you
personally felt. I asked how did you feel about
her,
your wife?” Saint reiterated.

The color drained from Terry’s face, and he looked terrified. Saint watched Terry’s body language closely – the fidgeting, the knuckle cracking, the crossing and uncrossing of his ankles.

“Terry, just tell me the truth. I’m just trying to help you, and I can, if you let me,” Saint said in a soothing and even tone.

Terry’s expression eased, as if a sense of peace came over him. “Like she was a whore,” he blurted out. He looked down into his hands and burst into tears. “She’d never been with anyone else in that way, but a part of me blamed her. It’s crazy, isn’t it? I’m an awful person. How could I think that of her?”

George looked over at Terry in astonishment.

“OK,” Saint said calmly. “I want you to understand that your reaction is not uncommon. We, as men, want to protect our wives and when we can’t protect them, we sometimes blame them when something bad happens because we have problems living with the fact that they were hurt on our watch and we could do nothing to stop it. You said you were in the navy and that you used to fight a lot and you enjoyed alcohol a bit too much back in the day. You probably came across as very macho and that is what you prided yourself on. You’ve probably taken care of Iris and made sure everything was fine as far as putting a roof over her head, paying the bills and keeping the kids clothed, but there was always something missing, you had a guard up. You don’t like to show emotion. You don’t want to be vulnerable.”

Terry put his head down and stared at the floor.

“You love her more than you love yourself and you really aren’t angry at her, you hate
yourself
for not being able to help her, so you’ve projected,” Saint explained. “You mentioned the guy was pretty average as far as height and weight, yet he was strong. That let me know that you noticed very clearly that he was stronger than you, and the ramifications were great, since you’d never experienced that before. It was a blow to your ego and then you had to sit there and witness your wife being hurt.” Saint stood and slowly walked over to Terry, and sat down next to him. Terry nodded in agreement. A tear rolled down his cheek. He quickly wiped it away.

“George, can you hand me that box of tissue over there?” Saint asked, pointing to a light blue and white box next on a side table where George was sitting. George grabbed the box and handed it to Terry.