"Yes, ma"am. Just got here, an" he don"t wanta miss church, so you better go on back." He hitched up his pants with his forearms, then unlatched a half door and led us through a hall to the last room on the left. Giving one rap on the door, he opened it and said, "They"re here."
He stepped back and held the door for us. We walked into the small room, most of it taken up by a desk with two visitors" chairs in front of it. File cabinets lined the sides of the room, and a map of the county was pinned to the wall behind the desk. I took all that in at a glance because my attention was drawn to the lean, craggy-faced man who unfolded himself from the creaky chair behind the desk. He was as far from the picture Etta Mae had conjured up as I was from a Hollywood starlet.
Etta Mae took a deep breath beside me as I realized I wasn"t quite immune to his presence, either. There was an air of competence and confidence about him that was both attractive and off-putting-off-putting because he could be a formidable opponent. His hair had started out brown but was mostly white, as was his bushy mustache. He had sharp, piercing blue eyes that looked us over, then tarried on Etta Mae. His craggy face was lined like old leather, but the closer I looked, the younger he seemed. He certainly wasn"t too old to appreciate a young curly-headed woman, which he was obviously doing.
"Ladies," he said, holding out his hand, "Sheriff Ardis McAfee. How I can help you?"
I shook his hand and introduced ourselves, adding that we were from Abbotsville, North Carolina, so he"d know we hadn"t just walked in off the street, then we took seats in front of his desk. I gave him the same kind of once-over he"d been giving Etta Mae. He was wearing jeans-denim again-and a white shirt. A black sport jacket hung on a coat tree behind him. His black string tie was, I guessed, his concession to church-going attire.
"Abbotsville, huh?" he said, his eyes lazing around as if he were sitting on a porch watching the world go by. "Near Asheville?"
"Fairly," I said with a terse nod.
"I got a niece livin" down that way if she"s not moved again. You know a place called Fairfields?"
"Why, yes," I said, surprised at the connection. If we kept on, we might discover some kinship. "It"s a wealthy enclave about ten miles outside of Abbotsville. What"s your niece"s name? I might know her."
"Cheyenne, last I heard." His mouth twitched. "Real name"s Nellie McAfee, but who knows? She keeps changing it. One of them free spirits, I guess."
"My word," I murmured. Then, "There"re a good many of those around these days, but I don"t believe I"ve met her."
"You"d remember, if you had." His eyes swiveled to Etta Mae again. "What can I do for you ladies?"
"I understand," I said, getting down to business now that the niceties were out of the way, "that you have spoken with Sergeant Coleman Bates of the Abbot County Sheriff"s Department, and from that conversation, he tells me that you may be holding a friend of ours, Mr. J. D. Pickens. We have come to take him home."
The sheriff let a few seconds pa.s.s, then he said, "Well, now, that may not be possible. For one thing, we"re not holding anybody by that name."
"But you are. You just don"t know it. You told Coleman that you have a John Doe, and we think that"s Mr. Pickens. He called me, you see. Or rather he called my husband, who wasn"t home because he"s on a Holy Land tour, and the call got disconnected. Coleman had to track it down, and it led right here. So we"ll identify him for you and take him off your hands."
"Well," the sheriff said again, leaning back in his creaky chair and drawing one leg over the other knee so that I saw he was partial to Dingo boots, too. "Fact is," he said in a lazy sort of way, "we got lots of problems here, which I won"t go into. But because of "em, I have my doubts that the man I have is the man you"re looking for."
"But didn"t he tell you who he is? We"ve heard he has a gunshot wound, but it"s not in his throat, is it? He can talk, can"t he?"
"Oh, he can talk," Sheriff McAfee said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "And he"s said aplenty, all right. Lot of ugly talk, not much of which I can repeat, bein" a church-goin" man and a gentleman to boot. But I wouldn"t be much of a sheriff to just take the word of a stranger, stripped of any and all identification and found in suspicious circ.u.mstances. There has to be an investigation, which is ongoing. We"ll get to the bottom of it sooner or later."
"Sooner or later" didn"t sit well with me, but I let it go for the time being and tried another tack. "Is the man of whom we"re speaking under arrest?"
"No, ma"am, he"s not. But he is injured and can"t get around too good. So while we"re pursuing the matter, the hospital"s the best place for him."
"Etta Mae, here, is a nurse," I said, with a nod in her direction as I elevated her status just a tiny bit. "We can take care of him, don"t worry about that."
"Look, Mrs. Murdoch," he said, sitting up straight while the chair complained loudly. "My deputies found this man shot and in shock way up in the hills. There wasn"t a smidgen of ID on him, nothing to tell us who he is or what he was doing out there. When we brought him in, he was cold and wet and not making good sense. Now I"ve got feelers and queries out, and we ought to get confirmation of who he is in a few days. Then we can talk about what comes next. If, that is, you want to stick around that long." He cut his eyes toward Etta Mae. She ducked her head and blushed.
"But I can confirm who he is! I"ve known him for years."
He shook his head. "No"m, gotta be official. There"s lots more going on than you know about, things he might be mixed up in. I can"t just release a John Doe on your say-so."
"Well," I said, thinking furiously, trying to come up with something that would move this stubborn man. "Well, what if I told you that"s his name."
"What?" he asked, a smile playing around his mouth. "John Doe?"
"Well, we call him J.D. for short."
Etta Mae"s head snapped around and her mouth dropped open. Sheriff McAfee laughed. "Got me there," he said, "but it won"t wash. Listen, ladies," he went on, his face hardening, "you just be patient, enjoy our little town, do a little fishin" maybe, and give us a few days. We"ll get this straightened out one way or the other, then we can proceed."
"Proceed to what?" I asked.
"Well, I"ll either arrest him because he"s part of a crew we"re roundin" up or I"ll release him "cause he ain"t."
"And meanwhile," I said with some asperity, "you"re just going to keep him closed up in that hospital, far from his family and friends, while you go about your business."
He nodded. "That"s about the size of it."
"I think that"s against the law, Sheriff."
He shook his head. "No, ma"am. He"s injured. He needs medical care, and that"s what we"re giving him. Even if he turns out to be an innocent bystander, I"d be remiss if I didn"t take care of a potential witness to a crime.
"Now then," he said, standing up and reaching for his jacket, "it"s time for church, so I got to be going."
"One last question, if you don"t mind. We"d like to see if your potential witness is who we think he is. Would you tell the hospital to allow us to visit?"
"Can"t do that," he said, shrugging into his jacket. "The only way to keep him safe is to keep him isolated. Can"t have any and everybody going in and out over there, and I don"t have the manpower to stand guard."
That stopped me. "You mean he"s in danger?"
"Could be. Depending on what he saw and what he knows, and if he"s not part of some illegal goings-on, he could be. Let"s just say he"s in our own homegrown witness protection program for his own good."
None of it made sense to me, except one thing. "What it comes down to, then, is that you don"t believe a word he"s said. You don"t believe he"s J. D. Pickens or that he"s a private investigator or that he"s as law-abiding as, well, you are. If you are."
He gave me a frosty smile and opened the office door, indicating that the interview was over. "Just waitin" on confirmation. Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I have to get to church. I got the scripture readin" this morning."
Thinking to myself, I hope it does you some good, I stood, feeling completely stymied, and dejected because of it.
Etta Mae, who"d not said a word during the whole interview, sidled up beside the sheriff on our way out and asked, "You a Baptist, Sheriff?"
"Church of G.o.d," he said. "Be happy to have you go with me."
Etta Mae glanced down at her jeans-clad self, her pointy-toed Dingo boots peeking out at the bottom of her boot cuts, and said, "Well, I"m a Baptist myself, and I"m not exactly dressed for church. Thank you all the same."
"Looks fine to me," the sheriff said, ushering us out of his office.
"Maybe another time," Etta Mae murmured and followed me down the hall to the lobby.
"Whoo," she said, fanning her face with her hand when we got into the car. "What a man!"
"What a stubborn mule, you mean," I said, slamming the door. "All that slow, down-home country talk he was doing didn"t fool me. We didn"t get to first base with him, so we"re right back where we started. Which is nowhere."
Etta Mae cranked the car and, watching carefully, pulled out onto the street. She began to drive aimlessly around the town and, from the look on her frowning face, was giving something a lot of thought. I hoped it wasn"t the sheriff she was mulling over.
"Miss Julia," she said at last, "what if it"s not J.D.? What if we wait around and finally get in that room and it"s somebody we don"t even know? What if we"ve come all the way up here and we"re in the wrong place?"
I was so sure of the rightness of what we were doing that I hadn"t given that possibility much thought. But I did so then-gave it several thoughts, in fact. "No, Etta Mae," I said, finally and decisively, "we"re in the right place and it is him. We know that because of the phone call he made to my house, which Coleman was able to trace. And that highway patrolman he talked to pretty much confirmed it. If we start second-guessing ourselves now, we"re in bad trouble. We just have to keep after the sheriff until he lets us in to visit the man he"s calling John Doe."
And with that and a few more minutes of thought, I had an inspired idea. "Tell you what, Etta Mae. Let"s go to church."
Chapter 17.
Etta Mae pinched up a plug of her stretch-denim boot cuts. "Like this?"
"Well, I wouldn"t ordinarily approve, although you can see everything in church these days. But I"m not talking about actually going to church, I"m talking about going and waiting for church to be over. See, Etta Mae, we can catch the sheriff again when he comes out, and if he"s ever in a compa.s.sionate and amiable mood, it ought to be right after he"s heard a good sermon." I paused as Pastor Ledbetter pa.s.sed briefly through my mind. "Let"s hope his pastor has chosen an appropriate text, like visiting the prisoner."
"Yes, but what"re you going to say that you haven"t already said?"
"I"m going to give him another option. Instead of asking to let us visit Mr. Pickens or Mr. Doe, whichever it is, I"ll suggest that the sheriff go with us and open the door-just crack it a tiny bit-just enough for us to peek in and see what the patient looks like. If it"s Mr. Pickens, why, I"ll tell the sheriff that we"ll wait patiently for the official identification, and if it"s not, why, then, we"ll leave and not bother him anymore."
"That might work," Etta Mae murmured, turning down another side street. "Miss Julia, I"ve seen two Baptist churches and one Evangelical Mission Church, but I"ve not seen a Church of G.o.d anywhere."
"Oh, it"s out on the highway, Etta Mae, on the way back to Pearl"s. I"m sorry, I thought you"d seen the sign."
"Okay," she said, rounding the block to head in the right direction. "It"s getting close to noon, so we should have time to find a shady parking place to wait, I hope. It"s sure getting hot here in the middle of the day."
"The mountains are so close that the middle of the day is the only time it can get hot. I mean when the sun shines directly down.
"Go slow, Etta Mae," I went on, leaning forward to watch her side of the road. "It"s a little way past the hospital turnoff. There it is! See the sign?"
Etta Mae turned off the highway onto a gravel road, then stopped to peer at the wooden sign with painted letters. "I"ve never heard of that kind before. Have you?"
CHURCH OF G.o.d WITH SIGNS FOLLOWING, I read. "Well, he said Church of G.o.d, so this must be it. Except I don"t see a church."
"I"ll go a little farther in," Etta Mae said, and eased the car onward. She went a little farther and a little farther, twisting and turning on the gravel road, until I didn"t think we could go much farther without topping the mountain. The only sign of habitation was a cl.u.s.ter of cabins partially hidden by trees and bushes.
"Would you look at that!" Etta Mae said, slowing even more as she pointed at a handwritten sign nailed to a tree.
I gasped as I read: WARNING!!.
DRUNKS WITH GUNS LIVE HERE.
YOU LOOT, WE SHOOT.
"My word," I said, stiffening at the possibility of being mistaken for looters. "Move along, Etta Mae. If there"s a church up here, let"s get to it."
"I"m beginning to wonder if there is." She eased the car past the sign as gravel from the road tinked against the car.
"That must be it," I said, as the road ended in a wide level clearing bounded by trees and underbrush. A dozen or more vehicles, mostly pickups, some with camper sh.e.l.ls, a few vans, and one dump truck, were haphazardly parked in the gravel lot. Looking for all the world like a neglected tenant house, a small wooden building, painted white, hunkered down on concrete blocks in the middle of the clearing.
"That"s a church?" Etta Mae said, as she stopped the car and stared.
"It must be. See, it"s got a big red cross on the door. No porch, though, or steeple. No stained gla.s.s windows, either. These are poor people, Etta Mae, and they"re probably doing the best they can."
"I guess." She didn"t sound convinced. "Uh-oh, somebody"s coming."
A thin, almost gaunt, man, wearing dungarees and a long-sleeved shirt b.u.t.toned to the neck, walked between the cars and approached the driver"s side.
"Don"t tell him anything, Etta Mae," I whispered. "Just say we"re visitors. He doesn"t need to know our business. He might warn the sheriff."
"Okay," she said, lowering her window and plastering a smile on her face. "I hope we"re not disturbing anyone," she said as the man leaned down to look at us. "We"re visiting from out of town and had hoped to attend a service. I know we"re late, though, so we"ll just wait out here."
I quickly chimed in to clarify what we"d wait out here for. "Maybe we can speak to your pastor when the service is over."
"You ladies"re just as welcome as you can be," the man said, holding the small of his back with one hand as he leaned in, smiling painfully. He rested one gnarled and atrophied hand on the windowsill. "My name"s Chester Fields. I"m one of the deacons here. Most folks call me Chet, or just plain ole Deac-it don"t matter. An" the afternoon service ain"t even started yet. Y"all get on out an" eat with us. We"re havin" dinner on the grounds over yonder behind the meetin" house."
"Why, that"s very nice of you," I said as my stomach reminded me it was lunchtime. "But we wouldn"t think of intruding. Besides, not knowing about dinner on the grounds, we didn"t bring a covered dish."
"Lordamercy, ma"am," the deacon said, "don"t let that stop you. We got enough to feed a army. Come on back with me. We"ll just be tickled to have you."
I looked at Etta Mae and she looked at me. "Neither one of us ate much breakfast," she whispered. "And we might catch the sheriff before we have to attend anything."
With that prospect in mind, we got out of the car, thanking Deacon Chet profusely, and following him as he led us a zigzag path through the parked trucks. As we walked toward the back of the meeting house, I caught a glimpse of a vehicle with a dark red roof, convincing me that we were in the right place-unless there was more than one dark-red-roofed vehicle in town.
As we turned the corner, I saw a group of people gathered around two long tables, covered not only with what I later realized were white sheets but also with platters and Pyrex bowls and ca.s.seroles, bread baskets, and cake plates-all filled with food-and huge jugs of iced tea. The aroma of fried chicken made my knees weak.
And a good thing we were as hungry as we were, or out of courtesy, we might have begged off, thereby missing the best food I"d had since leaving Abbotsville. Deacon Chet picked up a rock and rapped the side of a metal bowl, getting the attention of the few who were not already staring at us.
"Brethren, the Lord has been good enough to put some strangers down in our midst. An" strangers is always welcome where the word of G.o.d is preached. Say amen!"
And they all did-loudly. Then we had to introduce ourselves and tell where we were from, and several of the ladies, all wearing cotton frocks down to their shins and hair down to their waists, came forward and urged us to fill our plates. "It"s already been blessed," one of them said. "So dig right in."
So we did, edging along sideways around the tables, heaping our plates and marveling at the amount and variety of food fresh from the garden. There was even a huge bowl of green beans cooked the way Lillian did them-slow and with a chunk of fatback. I had to hold my paper plate under the bottom to keep it from folding up on me.
We were ushered to two kitchen chairs in the shade, while another lady brought over two jelly gla.s.ses full of sweetened tea. I ate like I hadn"t had a decent meal since Friday night, which I hadn"t. And Etta Mae groaned with each bite, it was all so good. When I didn"t think I could hold another thing, we were offered our choices of pies and cakes.
"Etta Mae," I said softly, "this is a real dinner on the grounds. No wonder Sheriff McAfee was eager to get here. But I haven"t seen him, have you?"
She shook her head, pointed at her full mouth, then swallowed and said, "No"m, I haven"t. But all the men are sitting way over yonder, some of them in the sun, so I can"t see them too good. He may be with them."
About that time, Deacon Chet banged the bowl with his rock again and announced that if everybody"d had their fill, it was time to start the service. The women had already begun to wrap tinfoil and Saran wrap around the dishes and stack them in baskets. Some of the men came over and took the baskets to the trucks while the women folded the tablecloths. In just a few minutes, remnants of the feast were all put away and people began to move toward the meetinghouse.
We had been so warmly welcomed and fed so generously that I could see no way to skip their services without being uncommonly rude. Thinking again of some of Pastor Ledbetter"s monotonous sermons, I looked forward to a little catnap in the pew.
The interior of the meetinghouse pretty much matched the exterior, lacking the paint job. About six short rows of wooden pews were on each side of a center aisle that ended at a handmade lectern with a microphone on it. High on the wall behind the lectern hung a large wooden cross outlined with white blinking Christmas lights. It was my first clue that this would not be a Presbyterian service.