Harvestman Lodge (25 page)

The worst of it was, he had no idea what was behind it all, and wasn’t sure he really wanted to know.

“AND THIS IS WHAT WE’VE been waiting for,” Eli said, handing a photocopy of the magazine assignment list to Melinda. They were at lunch at the picnic table behind the office building, a table freshly topped with another vinyl tablecloth courtesy of Jimbo Bailey, whose interest in supporting and advancing the couple’s relationship continued unabated. Both Eli and Melinda found his interest and efforts amusing, but also endearing. They both sensed that the older man held a fatherly, protective attitude toward them.

Melinda brushed from her brow a strand of sandy hair that had been annoying her all morning. She’d overslept nearly thirty minutes and had barely been able to adjust for the lost time in getting ready. Though she looked as stunning as ever, in her own self-vision she was a clownish, thrown-together wreck.

“I hardly know whether I should look at this list,” she said. “Mr. Carl viewing me as a competitor and all. And now I’m in possession of his Kincheloe bicentennial secrets.”

Eli took a bite of his tuna sandwich and shook his head. “No secrets on that page. Most of the assignments are exactly what anyone would predict, high-level originality not being one of David’s identifying traits. Besides, you’d have learned them anyway, being on the Bicentennial Planning Committee with me. You know how they’ve been haranguing me to know what the magazine is going to contain.”

“I suppose you’re right … but how do you know I’m not just going to jump ahead of you and do broadcast versions of all these stories before you can get your magazine into print, so that when it comes out it’s like a bouquet of deflated balloons? Hmm? What would Mr. Carl Brecht think of that?”

“You’re not going to do that to me. You’re far too kindhearted and sweet.”

“So glad you noticed. But you should also notice that I’m a tough, modern professional woman, and like you, I’ve got a job to do. The station is starting to push for some ‘heritage’ pieces … you know, profiles of some of the more interesting people and places of Tylerville and Kincheloe County. Things to whet the appetites of all the region for next year’s big birthday celebration coverage.”

He ate a chip and fired a playful glare in her direction. “So you’re not to be trusted, I take it. Ready to sacrifice friendships and even romance for the sake of professional advancement.”

The moment abruptly grew more serious. “Friendship … romance. So which would you say we have, Mr. Scudder?”

Maybe he’d said more than he should have. “I’d like to think both, maybe. One is foundational to the other, don’t you think?”

She received his words happily, and smiled. “Well then, friend, boyfriend, whatever you want to call yourself, are we still on to go poking around abandoned buildings one of these Saturdays?”

“I’m counting on it. And as for what I want to call myself, ‘boyfriend’ sounds good to me. I hope you see me that way. I can’t imagine a greater honor than being a boyfriend to you.” He grinned and patted the tablecloth. “Anyway, we’ve pretty much got to be together. Jimbo obviously sees us as a two-piece set. I’d hate for his matchmaking efforts – and all these vinyl tablecoths he keeps putting out – to be wasted.”

“Boyfriend it is, then.”

She smiled at him and scooted nearer. The kiss that followed was very nearly a spiritual experience and might have gone on even longer than it did had not an old insurance man whose office was near Melinda’s stepped out the back door. He’d come out to smoke his pipe and laugh at the sight of two young folk kissing right there in front of the Lord and everybody. “You kids!” he called, chuckling. “You kids!”

Eli began to ponder that having Melinda alone with him in an abandoned building or two some upcoming Saturday might be a pleasant situation indeed.

The insurance man didn’t go back in his office, so Eli returned to his sandwich, and Melinda to hers. They passed the rest of the mealtime in warm, comfortable silence, hardly able to chew for smiling at one another. Gone for the moment were worries about fictional aunts killed in invented traffic accidents, Melinda’s seeeming lack of candor about personal history, and all such. Just then it simply didn’t seem important.

Part II

Rising Angel

Chapter Fifteen

THE REV. Kyle ‘TOUCHY’ Feely received the call at 5 a.m., but the hour didn’t matter; he’d been awake since 4, studying toward the coming Sunday’s sermon. His best inspirations always came early. He darted into the kitchen and grabbed the phone fast, unwilling to let it disturb his wife, still sound asleep in their bedroom down the hall.

On the line was Karen Corbin, one of his parishioners, and he winced as he heard her emotion-strained voice. Karen’s husband, Jonas, was a very ill man, suffering, in only his forties, the final stages of a mostly untreatable brain tumor. It was likely he would depart the world at any time. Feely expected that he was about to hear in this call that Jonas Corbin’s passing had finally come.

But not so, not yet. Karen Corbin struggled hard, got her emotions under control, and said, “Preacher, Jonas is asking to see you.”

“How is he?” He was alive, at least, and that alone was cause for momentary relief.

Her voice lowered in volume. “He’s getting worse, Preacher. Fast. I don’t think he’ll be here much longer, and I think he knows it.” She made a small, weepy, choked noise through the earpiece.

“I’m so sorry to hear it. Is his pain bad?”

“Worse all the time. He has a headache now that never stops. He’s trying hard to put up a brave front, but he’s crumbling. He says he needs to talk to his pastor. He’s getting ready for the end, I think.”

“When do you want me there?”

“Can you come today?”

“I’ll be there. Is 2 o’clock this afternoon good?”

“Nothing in this life is good anymore, Reverend. But 2 o’clock will work.”

HE LOOKED BAD INDEED, LYING back in his big reclining chair, his previously broad and ruddy face now gaunt, his eyes carrying that particular glare that comes from battling chronic pain. Rev. Feely sat down in a chair beside Jonas Corbin and laid his hand on the ailing man’s thinning wrist. “Jonas, I’m sorry to see you like this,” he said. In situations like this one, Feely usually let his instincts guide him in what to say and what demeanor to put forward. Instinct at this moment told him it would be not only pointless, but in its way insulting, to try to pretend Jonas Corbin was looking good and turning a corner. Life’s last corner had already been turned, and both of them knew it.

“Preacher, I want you to know I’m not afraid,” Corbin said. “My bags are packed and I ready to climb on the train and travel when my name is called.”

“I can’t tell you how good it is to hear that,” Feely said. “I hope when my own time draws near, I’ll face it with the grace you’re showing.”

“I don’t know that I’ve got ‘grace,’ Preacher. Except for the grace of the Good Lord, which is what I’m clinging to get through this. If hitting the end of the line counts as ‘getting through.’”

“You and I both know, Jonas, that there is no real ‘end of the line.’ We go on.”

“I know. But it’s the end of the line as I’ve so far known it. What I’ll find beyond the end is something I can’t see yet.”

“Jonas, Karen told me on the phone you were asking to see me. Is there something in particular you had in mind you want to talk about?”

Jonas Corbin’s jaw tightened and his chin and lip trembled. His rheumy eyes flooded and he moved his wrist out from beneath Feely’s hand, then laid his hand atop Feely’s. He was too weak to grip hard, but he tried, and Feely felt his own eyes growing damp.

“Preacher, Karen’s out of the house, right?”

“She went to the grocery store. She said with me here she felt like she could leave a few minutes. But I had the feeling she maybe mostly wanted to be away so you could talk more freely, in case there was anything you might want to say to me you wouldn’t want her to listen in on.”

The frail man nodded. “She’s wise that way. She can tell what I’m thinking every time.”

“There’s a reason folks talk about ‘woman’s intuition,’ Jonas. I’ve been at this pastoral business of mine long enough to believe there’s something to it. It comes, I think, from their instincts as mothers.”

“Can I ask you something, Preacher?”

“Anything.”

“Is what I say to you private, just between you and me?”

“Absolutely. Just like when you talk to a lawyer or doctor. Whatever I hear from you I assume to be private and privileged, unless you specifically tell me you want something shared.”

“What I want to tell you about is something that can’t go any farther, not even to your own wife. And most of all, never, ever to mine, even after I’m gone.” Jonas lowered his voice. “Are you sure Karen’s left the house?”

“I am. But I’ll check anyway.” Wondering with some trepidation just what he was about to hear from his dying friend and parishioner, Feely rose and moved quickly through the house, then glanced into the driveway to confirm Karen Corbin’s car was gone.

“She’s not here,” he said as he sat back down. “You can talk freely.”

“HAVE YOU EVER DONE SOMETHING, Preacher, that you look back on and wonder how you could have even considered doing something like that?”

“Who hasn’t, Jonas? We are all sinners.”

“Don’t talk preacher-talk right now, Kyle. Just talk to me like a friend. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“No offense?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Good.” Then silence.

“What’s on your mind, Jonas?”

“I’m working up to it, Preacher. Give me a minute.”

Feely was getting scared. What was he about to be told? Corbin’s manner hinted at something significant and serious.

“Preacher, I’m going to ask you again, just to make sure you hear it, to keep this secret. Just me and you.”

“I’ve already told you, it’s confidential. Now, if you tell me you’ve been slowly poisoning Kathy or the people next door, or have put a bomb in the local elementary school, or something like that, something involving ongoing danger to someone, that would throw a different light on the matter.”

“Do I look like a poisoner or a bomber to you, Preacher?”

“Not at all. But you’re building this up to where you look like you’re about to confess to being the grassy knoll gunman.”

Jonas Corbin actually chuckled, though it made him wince to do it.

“No, not that,” he said. “It’s about something that happened right here in Kincheloe back in my days as a new, young fireman. It’s been a burden to me since.”

“I’m listening.”

“There’s a secret in my life going back to those days. One Kathy has no idea of, and I pray to God never will. But it’s a secret that isn’t mine alone. There’s quite a few local men who were around this town in the ‘60s who carry the same burden. Mine’s worse, though, because of something I did that nobody else has, except for one who was involved with it along with me.”

“I’m getting confused here, Jonas, because I don’t have any idea at all of what you’re trying to tell me.”

“Just listen, Preacher. I won’t want to repeat this. It shames me to tell it even once.”

“I’ll just shut up, then. If I don’t follow you on something I’ll wait until you’re through to ask you to clarify.”

“Fair enough. Preacher, you ever heard the name Millard Tate?”

Feely thought hard a couple of moments. “I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Millard Tate was an old lump of a fellow who lived in a rough little place out on the Sadler two-lane. Had him a wife, who died, name of Maude, and a couple of sons, Roger and Roy. Roger got killed in a car crash back in the 1950s, along with a woman who was, I guess you’d say, his common-law wife, or at least his live-in girlfriend. Roy was a little younger than Roger. Roy’s still around, working as a mechanic in the Ford dealership Jimmy Sadler owns. He’s about my age, maybe a year or two younger.”

“I know him,” Feely said. “He replaced a radiator for me once, when I had that old Fairmont.”

“Roy’s a capable mechanic. But he comes from rough stock. A checkered past, as they say. But that comes natural, considering who his daddy was.”

“Millard Tate. That was the name you said, right?”

“That’s right. Not a good man, that one.”

“How so?”

Jonas Corbin closed his eyes a few moments, fighting his endless headache. “Here’s where the story gets harder for me to tell, because we’re coming up on the part I’ve held in secret for a couple of decades now. The part I can’t be proud of.”

Feely had nothing to say to that, and so merely gave what he hoped was an encouraging brief smile.

“Millard Tate’s oldest boy, the one who died in the crash, had him a woman named Sadie and she had a little girl shortly before the time she and Roger got killed. They called her Junie, if my memory is right. After Roger and Sadie’s deaths, Tate and Maudie raised the girl. When Maudie died, Tate took over care of the girl on his own.”