This Present Darkness Page 3

  Kate unconsciously shook her head. To think of poor Bernice being herded through this place like so much rabble. She must be furious.

  She felt a strong but gentle arm around her, and let herself sink into its embrace.

  “Mmmmmm,” she said, “now there’s a pleasant change.”

  “After what I had to look at downstairs I need some healing up,” Marshall told her.

  She put her arm around him and pulled him close.

  “Is it like this every year?” she asked.

  “No, I hear it gets worse each time.” Kate shook her head again, and Marshall added, “But the Clarion will have something to say about it. Ashton could use a change of direction; they should be able to see that by now.”

  “How is Bernice?”

  “She’ll be one heck of an editorialist for a while. She’s okay. She’ll live.”

  “Are you going to talk to somebody about this?”

  “Alf Brummel’s not around. He’s smart. But I’ll catch him later today and see what I can do. And I wouldn’t mind getting my twenty-five dollars back.”

  “Well, he must be busy. I’d hate to be the police chief on a day like this.”

  “Oh, he’ll hate it even more if I can help it.”

  Bernice’s return from a night of incarceration was marked by an angry countenance and sharp, staccato footsteps on the linoleum. She too was carrying a paper bag, angrily rummaging through it to make sure everything was there.

  Kate extended her arms to give Bernice a comforting hug.

  “Bernice, how are you?”

  “Brummel’s name will soon be mud, the mayor’s name will be dung, and I won’t be able to print what that cop’s name will be. I’m indignant, I could be constipated, and I desperately need a bath.”

  “Well,” said Marshall, “take it out on your typewriter, swat some flies. I need that Festival story for Tuesday’s edition.”

  Bernice immediately fumbled through her pockets and retrieved a wad of crinkled toilet paper, giving it to Marshall with forcefulness.

  “Your loyal reporter, always on the job,” she said. “What else was there to do in there besides watch the paint peel and wait in line for the toilet? I think you’ll find the whole write-up very descriptive, and I threw in an on-the-spot interview with some jailed hookers for extra flavor. Who knows? Maybe it’ll make this town wonder what it’s coming to.”

  “Any pictures?” Marshall asked.

  Bernice handed him a can of film. “You should find something in there you can use. I’ve got some film still in the camera, but that’s of personal interest to me.”

  Marshall smiled. He was impressed. “Take the day off, on me. Things will look better tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps by then I will have regained my professional objectivity.”

  “You’ll smell better.”

  “Marshall!” said Kate.

  “It’s okay,” said Bernice. “He hands me that stuff all the time.” By now she had recovered her purse, press card, and camera and threw the wadded paper bag spitefully into a trash can. “So what’s the car situation?”

  “Kate brought your car,” Marshall explained. “If you could take her home, that should work things out best for me. I’ve got to get things salvaged at the paper and then try to track down Brummel.”

  Bernice’s thoughts snapped into gear. “Brummel, right! I’ve got to talk to you.”

  She started pulling Marshall aside before he could say yea or nay, and he could only give Kate an apologetic glance before he and Bernice rounded a corner and stood out of sight near the restrooms.

  Bernice spoke in lowered tones. “If you’re going to accost Chief Brummel today, I want you to know what I know.”

  “Besides the obvious?”

  “That he’s a crumb, a coward, and a cretin? Yes, besides that. It’s pieces, disjointed observations, but maybe they’ll make sense someday. You always said to have an eye for details. I think I saw your pastor and him together at the carnival last night.”

  “Pastor Young?”

  “Ashton United Christian Church, right? President of the local ministerial, endorses religious tolerance and condemns cruelty to animals.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “But Brummel doesn’t even go to your church, does he?”

  “No, he goes to that little dinky one.”

  “They were off behind the dart throwing booth, in the semidark with three other people, some blond woman, some short, pudgy old fellow and a ghostly-looking black-haired shrew in sunglasses. Sunglasses at night!”

  Marshall wasn’t impressed yet.

  She continued as if she was trying to sell him something. “I think I committed a cardinal sin against them: I snapped their picture, and from all appearances they didn’t want that. Brummel was quite unnerved and stuttered at me. Young asked me in firm tones to leave: ‘This is a private meeting.’ The pudgy fellow turned away, the ghostly-looking woman just stared at me with her mouth open.”

  “Have you considered how this might all appear to you after a good bath and a decent night’s sleep?”

  “Just let me finish and then we’ll find out, all right? Now, right after that little incident was when Nancy and Rosie latched onto me. I mean to say, I did not approach them, they approached me, and soon afterward, I was arrested and my camera confiscated.”

  She could see she wasn’t getting through to him. He was looking around impatiently, shifting his weight back toward the lobby.

  “All right, all right, one more thing,” she said, trying to hold him in place. “Brummel was there, Marshall. He saw the whole thing.”

  “What whole thing?”

  “My arrest! I was trying to explain who I was to the cop, I was trying to show him my press card, he only took my purse and camera away from me and handcuffed me, and I looked over toward the dart throwing booth again and I saw Brummel watching. He ducked out of sight right away, but I swear I saw him watching the whole thing! Marshall, I went over this all last night, I replayed it and replayed it, and I think … well, I don’t know what to think, but it has to mean something.”

  “To continue the scenario,” Marshall ventured, “the film is gone from your camera.”

  Bernice checked. “Oh, it’s still in the camera, but that means nothing.”

  Hogan sighed and thought the thing over. “Okay, so shoot up the rest of the roll, and try to get something we can use, right? Then develop it and we’ll see. Can we go now?”

  “Have I ever made any impulsive, imprudent, overassuming mistakes like this before?”

  “Sure you have.”

  “Aw, c’mon, now! Extend me a little grace just this once.”

  “I’ll try to close my eyes.”

  “Your wife’s waiting.”

  “I know, I know.”

  Marshall didn’t quite know what to say to Kate when they rejoined her.

  “Sorry about this …” he muttered.

  “Now then,” Kate said, trying to pick up from where they left off, “we were talking about vehicles. Bernice, I had to drive your car here so you could have it to get home. If you drop me off at our house …”

  “Yes, right, right,” said Bernice.

  “And, Marshall, I have a lot of things to do this afternoon. Can you pick up Sandy after her psychology class?”

  Marshall didn’t say a word, but his face showed a resounding no.

  Kate took a set of keys from her purse and handed them to Bernice. “Your car is right around the corner, next to ours in the press space. Why don’t you bring it around?”

  Bernice took her cue and went out the door. Kate held Marshall with a loving arm and searched his face for a moment.

  “Hey, c’mon. Try it. Just once.”

  “But cockfights are illegal in this state.”

  “If you ask me, she’s just a chip off the old block.”

  “I don’t know where I’ll start,” he said.

  “Just being there to pick her up will mean someth
ing. Cash in on it.”

  As they started for the door, Marshall looked around and let his gut senses feel things out.

  “Can you figure this town, Kate?” he said finally. “It’s like some kind of disease. Everybody’s got the same weird disease around here.”

  A SUNNY MORNING always helps make the previous night’s problems seem less severe. That is what Hank Busche thought as he pushed open his front screen door and stepped out onto the small concrete stoop. He lived in a low-rent, one-bedroom house not far from the church, a little white box settled in one corner, with beveled siding, small hedged yard and mossy roof. It wasn’t much, and often seemed far less, but it was all he could afford on his pastor’s salary. Well, he wasn’t complaining. He and Mary were comfortable and sheltered, and the morning was beautiful.

  This was their day to sleep in, and two quarts of milk waited at the base of the steps. He snatched them up, looking forward to a bowl of milk-sodden Wheaties, a bit of distraction from his trials and tribulations.

  He had known trouble before. His father had been a pastor while Hank was growing up, and the two of them had lived through a great many glories and hassles, the kind that come with pioneering churches, pastoring, itinerating. Hank knew from the time he was young that this was the life he wanted for himself, the way he wanted to serve the Lord. For him, the church had always been a very exciting place to work, exciting helping his father out in the earlier years, exciting going through Bible school and seminary and then two years of pastoral internship. It was exciting now too, but it resembled the exhilaration the Texans must have felt at the Alamo. Hank was just twenty-six, and usually full of fire; but this pastorate, his very first, seemed a difficult place to get the fire spread around. Somebody had wetted down all the kindling, and he didn’t know what to make of it yet. For some reason he had been voted in as pastor, which meant somebody in the church wanted his kind of ministry, but then there were all the others, the ones who … made it exciting. They made it exciting whenever he preached on repentance; they made it exciting whenever he confronted sin in the fellowship; they made it exciting whenever he brought up the cross of Christ and the message of salvation. At this point, it was more Hank’s faith and assurance that he was where God wanted him than any other factor that kept him by his guns, standing steadfast while getting shot at. Ah well, Hank thought to himself, at least enjoy the morning. The Lord put it here just for you.

  Had he backed into the house again without turning, he would have spared himself an outrage and kept his lightened spirit. But he did turn to go back in, and immediately confronted the huge, black, dripping letters spray-painted on the front of the house: “YOU’RE DEAD MEAT, _____.” The last word was an obscenity. His eyes saw it, then did a slow pan from one side of the house to the other, taking it all in. It was one of those things that take time to register. All he could do was stand there for a moment, first wondering who could have done it, then wondering why, then wondering if it would ever come off. He looked closer, and touched it with his finger. It had to have been done during the night; it was quite dry.

  “Honey,” came Mary’s voice from inside, “you’re leaving the door open.”

  “Mmmmm …” was all he said, having no better words. He didn’t really want her to know.

  He went back inside, closing the door firmly, and joined young, beautiful, long-tressed Mary over a bowl of Wheaties and some hot, buttered toast.

  Here was the sunny spot in a cloudy sky for Hank, this playful little wife with the melodic giggle. She was a doll and she had real grit too. Hank often regretted that she had to go through the struggles they were now having—after all, she could have married some stable, boring accountant or insurance salesman—but she was a terrific support for him, always there, always believing God for the best and always believing in Hank too.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked immediately.

  Rats! You do what you can to hide it, you try to act normal, but she still picks it up, Hank thought.

  “Ummmm …” he started to say.

  “Still bothered about the board meeting?”

  There’s your out, Busche. “Sure, a little.”

  “I didn’t even hear you come home. Did the meeting last real late?”

  “No. Alf Brummel had to take off for some important meeting he wouldn’t talk about and the others just, you know, had their say and went home, just left me to lick my wounds. I stuck around and prayed for a while. I think that worked. I felt okay after that.” He brightened just a little. “As a matter of fact, I really felt the Lord comforting me last night.”

  “I still think they picked a funny time to call a board meeting, right during the Festival,” she said.

  “And on Sunday night!” he said through his flakes. “I no sooner give the altar call than I get them calling a meeting.”

  “About the same thing?”

  “Aw, I think they’re just using Lou as an excuse to make trouble.”

  “Well, what did you tell them?”

  “The same thing, all over again. We did just what the Bible says: I went to Lou, then John and I went to Lou, and then we brought it before the rest of the church, and then we, well, we removed him from fellowship.”

  “Well, it did seem to be what the congregation decided. But why can’t the board go along with it?”

  “They can’t read. Don’t the Ten Commandments have something in there about adultery?”

  “I know, I know.”

  Hank set down his spoon so he could gesture better. “And they were mad at me last night! They started giving me all this stuff about judging not lest I be judged—”

  “Who did?”

  “Oh, the same old Alf Brummel camp: Alf, Sam Turner, Gordon Mayer … you know, the Old Guard.”

  “Well, don’t just let them push you around!”

  “They won’t change my mind, anyway. Don’t know what kind of job security that gives me.”

  Now Mary was getting indignant. “Well, what on earth is wrong with Alf Brummel? Has he got something against the Bible or the truth or what? If it weren’t this, it would certainly be something else!”

  “Jesus loves him, Mary,” Hank cautioned. “It’s just that he feels under heavy conviction, he’s guilty, he’s a sinner, he knows it, and guys like us will always bother guys like him. The last pastor preached the Word and Alf didn’t like it. Now I’m preaching the Word and he still doesn’t like it. He pulls a lot of weight in that church, so I guess he thinks he can dictate what comes across that pulpit.”

  “Well, he can’t!”

  “Not in my case, anyway.”

  “So why doesn’t he just go somewhere else?”

  Hank pointed his finger dramatically. “That, dear wife, is a good question! There seems to be a method in his madness, like it’s his mission in life to destroy pastors.”

  “It’s just the picture they keep painting of you. You’re just not like that!”

  “Hmmmm … yes, painting. Are you ready?”

  “Ready for what?”

  Hank drew a breath, sighed it out, then looked at her. “We had some visitors last night. They—they painted a slogan on the front of the house.”

  “What? Our house?”

  “Well … our landlord’s house.”

  She got up. “Where?” She went out the front door, her fuzzy slippers scuffing on the front walk.

  “Oh, no!”

  Hank joined her, and they drank in the view together. It was still there, real as ever.

  “Now that makes me mad!” she declared, but now she was crying. “What’d we ever do to anybody?”

  “I think we were just talking about it,” Hank suggested.

  Mary didn’t catch what he said, but she had a theory of her own, the most obvious one. “Maybe the Festival … it always brings out the worst in everyone.”

  Hank had his own theory but said nothing. It had to be someone in the church, he thought. He’d been called a lot of things: a bigot, a heel-dragger,
an overly moral troublemaker. He had even been accused of being a homosexual and of beating his wife. Some angry church member could have done this, perhaps a friend of Lou Stanley the adulterer, perhaps Lou himself. He would probably never know, but that was all right. God knew.

  CHAPTER 3

  JUST A FEW miles east of town on Highway 27, a large black limousine raced through the countryside. In the plush backseat, a plump middle-aged man talked business with his secretary, a tall and slender woman with long, jet-black hair and a pale complexion. He talked crisply and succinctly as she took fluid shorthand, laying out some big-scale business deal. Then something occurred to the man.

  “That reminds me,” he said, and the secretary looked up from her memo pad. “The professor claims she sent me a package some time ago, but I don’t recall ever receiving it.”

  “What kind of package?”

  “A small book. A personal item. Why not make a note to yourself to check for it back at the ranch?”

  The secretary opened her portfolio and appeared to make a note of it. Actually, she wrote nothing.

  IT WAS MARSHALL’S second visit to Courthouse Square in the same day. The first time was to get Bernice bailed out, and now it was to pay a visit to the very man Bernice wanted to string up: Alf Brummel, the chief of police. After the Clarion finally got to press, Marshall was about to call Brummel, but Sara, Brummel’s secretary, called Marshall first and made an appointment for 2 o’clock that afternoon. That was a good move, Marshall thought. Brummel was calling for a truce before the tanks began to roll.

  He pulled his Buick into his reserved parking space in front of the new courthouse complex and paused beside his car to look up and down the street, surveying the aftermath of the Festival’s final Sunday night death throes. Main Street was trying to be the same old Main Street again, but to Marshall’s discerning eye the whole town seemed to be walking with a limp, sort of tired, sore, and sluggish. The usual little gaggles of half-hurried pedestrians were doing a lot of pausing, looking, headshaking, regretting. For generations Ashton had taken pride in its grass-roots warmth and dignity and had striven to be a good place for its children to grow up. But now there were inner turmoils, anxieties, fears, as if some kind of cancer was eating away at the town and invisibly destroying it. On the exterior, there were the store windows now replaced with unsightly plywood, the many parking meters broken off, the litter and broken glass up and down the street. But even as the store owners and businessmen swept up the debris, there seemed to be an unspoken sureness that the inner problems would remain, the troubles would continue. Crime was up, especially among the youth; simple, common trust in one’s neighbor was diminishing; never had the town been so full of rumors, scandals, and malicious gossip. In the shadow of fear and suspicion, life here was gradually losing its joy and simplicity, and no one seemed to know why or how.