At Home in Mitford (38 page)

“At night, I roamed downstairs, used the toilet, looked in the refrigerator, found the food supplies in the basement. And I always wore gloves. Just in case.

“One day in December, my shoes fell off the platform and landed at the bottom of the bell tower.” Grinning, he looked at his feet, then at the congregation. “Every time a box came in for the rummage sale, I was downstairs with my flashlight. But I’ve yet to find a pair of size elevens.”

A murmur of laughter ran through the congregation. Hal Owen continued to stand by his pew, watching, cautious.

“One afternoon, I was sitting in the loft, desperate beyond anything I’d ever known. It made no sense to be here when I could have been in France or South America. But I couldn’t leave this place. I was powerless to leave.

“I heard the front door open, and in a few minutes, a man yelled, ‘Are you up there?’

“I was paralyzed with fear. This is it, I thought. Then, the call came again. But this time, I knew the question wasn’t directed to me. It was directed to God.

“There was something in the voice that I recognized—the same desperation of my own soul. I told you the sound from down here carries up there, and I heard you, Father, speak to that man.

“You said the question isn’t whether He’s up there, but whether He’s down here.”

Father Tim nodded.

“He told you that he couldn’t believe, that he felt nothing. You said it isn’t a matter of feeling, it’s a matter of faith. Finally, you prayed a simple prayer together.”

Remembering, the rector crossed himself. A stir ran through the congregation, a certain hum of excitement, of wonder.

“That was a real two-for-one deal, Father, because I prayed that prayer with you. You threw out the line for one, and God reeled in two.”

The congregation broke into spontaneous applause. The rector noticed that Cynthia Coppersmith was letting her tears fall without shame.

George Gaynor came down the altar steps and walked into the aisle. “After I prayed that prayer with two people I had never seen, to a God I didn’t know, I came down, Father, and stole your Bible.”

He looked plaintively at the rector, who smiled at him and nodded.

“As I read during the next few weeks, I began to find the most amazing peace. Even more amazing was the intimacy I was finding with God— one-on-one, moment by moment.”

The man from the attic moved to the first pew on the gospel side and leaned on the arm rest.

“I come to you this morning, urging you to discover that intimacy, if you have not.

“I also come to thank you for your hospitality, and to say to whoever made that orange cake— that was the finest cake I ever ate in my life.”

Esther Bolick flushed beet red and put her prayer book in front of her face, as every head in the congregation turned to look where she sat in the third row from the organ.

“Father,” said George Gaynor, “thank you for calling someone to take me in.”

The rector looked at his senior warden. “Hal, go over to First Baptist and get Rodney Underwood.” Then he looked at his congregation.

“Let us stand, and affirm our faith,” he said, “with the reading of the Nicene creed.”

After the confession of sin, Father Tim saw Hal, Rodney, and two officers walk in and wait at the rear of the nave. The rector knew his senior warden would not come forward with the police until the signal was given. How grand to have a man like Hal Owen by his side, he thought. Harry Nelson would have had the entire force storming the aisles with cocked revolvers.

During the final hymn, he went to George Gaynor, who was sitting in the front pew, and took his hand. Together, they walked down the aisle behind the crucifix, toward the rear of the church.

Ron Malcolm, head of the nursing-home building committee, stepped out of the pew in his sock feet and handed George Gaynor his shoes.

A look passed between the two men as George took the loafers. He put them on without a word. They appeared to fit perfectly.

At the rear of the nave, the rector turned and proclaimed: “Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord!”

“Thanks be to God!” chorused his amazed congregation.

While Father Tim, Hal Owen, and one of the officers drove George Gaynor to the Mitford jail, Rodney and another officer collected his things from the bell tower, including a Gatorade jug containing the jewels.

J. C. Hogan, who heard the news from a breathless Lord’s Chapel member at Lew Boyd’s Esso, rushed to the church, but found it was already locked. He arrived at the jail as lunch was being served.

“Is that him?” J.C. asked Joe Joe Guthrie. J.C. had one eye on the prisoner, who was sitting in a cell with Father Tim, and one eye on the rolling cart that contained Sunday lunch.

“That’s him, all right.”

“Fried chicken?” asked J.C.

“Fried eggplant,” said Joe Joe.

J.C. took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. “I was goin’ to see if you had extras today, but I just got over it.”

“Eggplant’s all right if you soak it,” said Joe Joe, who was leaning against the wall in a straight-back chair the department had bought at a library yard sale.

“I hear this guy’s been hidin’ in the church attic over at Lord’s Chapel.”

“Had a big job in economics. Turned hisself in during church service, preached ’em a good sermon.”

“What’s th’ deal?” asked J.C. "I hear he stole some jewels worth th’ moon.”

“Four or five million is what I hear,” said Joe Joe, taking a meal off the cart as it passed. He took the plate with both hands, held it under his nose and smelled it, then looked it over carefully. “Checkin’ t’ see if there’s any onions in this deal. I’m goin’ out tonight.”

“Who with?” asked J.C.

“That’s for me t’ know and you t’ find out, buddy.”

Rodney came down the hall, adjusting his holster. "J.C., how can I he’p you?”

“I’d like to talk to your prisoner, if it’s all right with you.”

“Well, it ain’t all right with me, number one. Number two, this is a federal offense, and he’s not in my jurisdiction. Go talk t’ somebody who was at Lord’s Chapel this mornin’, that’s a whopper of a story right there.”

“Maybe I’ll just wait for the father.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” said Rodney, without explanation. “If I was you, I’d talk to Ron Malcolm. He gave th’ prisoner th’ shoes off his own feet. That’s a human-interest angle.”

“This town is full of human-interest angles. I’m lookin’ for hard news,” said J.C., who turned on his heel and left, slamming the door.

“I’d like to give ’im some hard news,” said Joe Joe.

He was sitting with the prisoner in a small cell that was spotlessly clean, containing a bed, a chair, a floor lamp, a sink, a toilet, a hooked rug, and a table with an orderly stack of
Southern Living
magazines.

“I didn’t know you’d found the jewels in the urn. I kept moving them around, just in case. But the day you came up to the attic, I could sense trouble.

“I’d been sitting in the loft, reading your Bible, when I heard you pull the stairs down. I was scrambling for my place behind the bell, and the wrapper dropped out of my pocket. When I got to the door of the tower, I turned and looked back, and there was the wrapper in the middle of the floor. It looked as big as a football.”

“I like Almond Joy, myself,” the rector said, agreeably.

“A lot of the time up there, I was starved for a decent meal. The box from 7-Eleven emptied fast, then I found the canned stuff in the basement. All those stewed tomatoes got to me after a while. Then, around Christmas, your coffee hour picked up for about a month. I remember coming down one Saturday night and sliding the top layer of pimento cheese sandwiches right off the platter, clean as a whistle.

“For Thanksgiving, I ate a jar of pickles and a can of stewed okra. For dessert, I mixed a pint of half-and-half with Sweet’N Low. I came down from your attic with a new heart and a cast-iron stomach.”

The rector laughed. “A priceless combination in today’s world.”

“I have a great feeling for Lord’s Chapel. Strange as it seems, it was a true home to me, in many ways. Since I could hear what went on in the church and parish hall through the heating vents, I began to feel close to the people. It was like family.”

“The Holy Spirit moved and worked through you in a wonderful way this morning. It was the finest sermon He’s delivered to Lord’s Chapel in a long time.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow and the next day and the next. For as long as you’re with us.”

“I’d like to be baptized.”

He embraced the man from the attic. “Consider it done,” he said.

“Where you been at?” A glowering Dooley Barlowe was sitting on the study sofa, wrapped in a blanket.

“At the jail.”

" ’is ol’ phone’s rang off th’ hook. I like to th’owed it out th’ window.”

“Help yourself.”

“I ain’t had a bite t’ eat.”

“Feed a cold, starve a fever is what I’ve been told.”

" ’at’s easy f’r you t’ say.”

He took off his jacket and sat on the sofa. Barnabas sprawled at his feet. “Who called?”

"Y’r doc.”

“What did he want?”

“Said come up there when you can.”

“Who else?”

“Walter.”

“And?”

“Said call ’im up tonight after some ol’ TV show.”

“
60 Minutes.
What else?”

"Y’r neighbor. Cynthia.”

“What did she say?”

“Call ’er up. Ol’ cat’s stuck in th’ basement.”

Come here. Go there. Do this, do that.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Baloney.”

"Baloney, yourself,” said Father Tim, getting up from the sofa.

On Monday, he made breakfast, got Dooley off to school with a bag lunch and thirty-five cents for juice, and greeted Puny, who appeared to be all smiles. He gave her a quick recap of Sunday’s great drama, and, since he had seen nearly all of the hospital patients on the previous afternoon, he walked quickly toward the office with Barnabas on his red leash.

At the Oxford Antique shop, Andrew Gregory was just opening up.

“Andrew, my friend!” said the rector, with unmistakable joy. He proceeded to give the antique dealer a great slapping on the back and a vigorous, interminable handshake. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you! You will never, ever know how glad.”

What a homecoming! thought a pleased Andrew, as the welcome fragrance of his shop greeted him at the door.

He had seldom been happier to lock up the office.

The phone hadn’t stopped ringing the livelong day. J.C. Hogan had dropped by twice, and the Associated Press had called after a parishioner had given the story to the editor of the Wesley
Weekly
. The Wesley TV station had prowled around the village all day, asked him to open the church for tape footage, and trained glaring lights on the Mortlake tapestry.

Puny had called to say the sink had stopped up and Dooley was “ill as a hornet.”

He had visited George at the jail, Olivia and Russell at the hospital, and feebly attempted to work on his sermon.

For a change in their routine, he and Barnabas crossed the street and walked past Mitford Blossoms in the deepening gloom. As they approached the corner, the streetlights came on. Easily an hour early, he thought, looking at the overcast sky.

Suddenly, Barnabas growled viciously and lunged at a car that had slowed down in the lane next to them. It was the only car on the street, and they were the only pedestrians.

Before he could take it all in, someone opened the back door of the car and grabbed Barnabas by his collar, yanking the leash from his hand. “That’ll learn you to steal our dog, Preacher Man!”

An arm shot through an open window and struck him in the chest. He reeled away as Barnabas was dragged into the backseat and muzzled.

He grabbed for the door handle, but he was shoved again, so violently that he crashed against the lamppost and fell to the sidewalk.

“VAT,” he read on the license plate, as the car roared away. He tried to rise, but the breath had been knocked from him.

The rector nodded to the police chief, who hitched up his holster belt and took a deep breath. “I present George Gaynor,” he said in a loud voice, “to receive the sacrament of baptism.”

“Do you desire to be baptized?” the rector asked the freshly shaven prisoner.

“I do.”

“Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?”

“I renounce them.”

“Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”

“I renounce them.”

“Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?”