CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jethro and I walked up the steps in front of the altar, where there was a narrow door behind the pulpit. This was the door through which Reverend Brook entered the sanctuary each Sunday. The doorknob turned easily in my hand. I let Jethro through and then followed him. The little pig strode down the dark hallway with confidence. If Juliet was now the first lady of the church, I supposed that made Jethro the first pig. It was a title I knew he’d revel in.

I followed the pig down the narrow hallway. To my right was the choir room. The door was open, and navy-blue choir robes hung from metal racks. Two dozen folding chairs stood in a half circle around the room and just as many music stands were lined up in the corner by a large window.

Jethro passed the choir room without so much as a second glance. He was on his way to the reverend’s office. Perhaps Jethro viewed it as his office now, too, with his new title as top pig.

I really didn’t need Jethro as my guide. I had been to the reverend’s office before. The last time I was there I’d caught him playing with Juliet’s engagement ring as he contemplated popping the question. Now, they were married. I was happy for Juliet and I wanted her to have the honeymoon she’d always dreamed of—even if that meant pig sitting for the next week. I couldn’t think of anyone who deserved a happy life more than Juliet. She was one of those people who was pure sunshine. She was rare in that way, especially considering everything that she had been through in her life.

When Jethro waltzed right in, I guessed that meant I could, too. The minister sat behind his desk, looking at his hands as if he had never seen anything like them before. I had found him in a very similar position before, when he had been playing with Juliet’s engagement ring. The one word I would use for the quiet pastor was sad. There was always a melancholy air about the man. Juliet, in contrast, was joyful. That wasn’t to say she was never sad, but overall she was a very positive person. She would have to be to put up with so many of Jethro’s antics.

“Oh!” Reverend Brook said. “I see you have Jethro with you. Juliet will be very pleased.”

“She asked me to meet her at the church to get Jethro’s things. I’ll be watching him while you two are on your honeymoon.”

“She just texted me to ask you to wait. She left the house, then realized that she’d forgotten Jethro’s teddy bear. She had to go back for it. He can’t sleep without it.” He said as if it made perfect sense that a potbellied pig would need a teddy bear to sleep at night.

“The honeymoon is on?” I asked.

“Very much so. The B and B has been very nice about changing our arrival date. The airline was not as helpful. It has been a burden to change the tickets to tomorrow morning, but it’s worth the extra money to see a smile on my bride’s face.”

“Juliet has been looking forward to it.” I stood awkwardly in the doorway. Reverend Brook wasn’t a person I’d spent much time talking to. He was quiet and reserved, and everything I knew about him came from Juliet.

He nodded, and I saw the strain on his face. I knew he had to be in his fifties, but to me, this was the first time he looked every bit his age. He had always had a youthful appearance, but seeing him now, I would think that he was ten years older than his real age. Something weighed on him.

“I’m glad that you and I have a moment to speak before Juliet arrives. Why don’t you have seat, so that we can chat for a moment.” He gestured at an armchair in front of his desk.

I raised my eyebrows but did as he asked.

Jethro walked around the room and snuffled the floor. Seeming satisfied, he finally settled on top of my feet with a contented sigh. He could be cute when he wanted to be.

“I hope we aren’t keeping you away from your candy shop.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “My friend Cass is there. If they need more help, she is more than willing to jump in.” I laughed. “In fact, I have to be careful, because she may have changed where I put everything by the time I get back to the shop. When we worked together at JP Chocolates we could never agree on how the utensils should be stored.”

“Yes, well, that does sound problematic.” He sighed, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

“Does this have to do with Leeza? Is that why you want to talk to me while Juliet isn’t here?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “This does involve Leeza. I made a mistake with her, and now I feel terrible because of what happened.”

“You mean making the anonymous call about the still?”

He nodded. “I should have handled it differently. At the very least, I should have secured her safety before involving the police.”

“Then what made you do it?” I asked.

He put his elbows on the desktop and pressed his fingers together, making a steeple. “Leeza and I had a lot in common. I suppose that’s why I wanted to help her when she came in for counseling. She was at rock bottom that very first session. I know what it looks like, and I know what it feels like, too.”

I blinked at him. “What do you mean?”

He took a breath, as if he had to gather his strength. “I’m an alcoholic. I haven’t taken a drop of alcohol in over thirty years, but I’m still an alcoholic. You’re always one. Even if everything else in your life seems to be perfect, you are still an addict and have to fight the temptation. When you have a real addiction, you’re always in recovery.”

My mouth fell open. This was the last thing I had expected him to say.

He licked his lips. “I went to AA for years. The reason I wanted to sign up for Compassion for Crisis was because I know what it feels like to be without a home. I thought I could make a difference in the lives of people like Leeza.”

“Did you tell them that you were a recovering alcoholic, too?”

He looked down at his hands folded on the desktop. “No. I’ve never told anyone in Holmes County before. It was something that I struggled with as a young adult growing up in Iowa. A local pastor helped me and encouraged me to attend the seminary. I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since. I attended seminary in Indiana, where no one knew me.” He took a breath. “That was intentional. I didn’t want anyone to know about my past. I didn’t want to give them a reason to doubt my decision to be a pastor, or watch me to see if I was drinking again.” He swallowed and looked up at me. “By the time I finished seminary, I had completely changed who I was. I was a new man.”

“But doesn’t your family back in Iowa know about your history?”

“I was an only child and my parents passed away when I was a young man. I broke off contact with everyone else in Iowa. I suppose some of my old friends could have looked me up. I didn’t change my name, but I have been careful to stay off social media. I don’t want to be found, and for the last thirty some years, I haven’t been.”

I squeezed the armrests of my chair. “Why are you telling me all this now? You could have easily kept your secret.”

“I’m not so sure of that.” He sighed. “I am a suspect in this case, and I know that the sheriff’s department is looking into my history. I never committed any crimes, but I fear that Aiden will find out and wonder why his mother doesn’t know.”

“You never told Juliet?” I asked, surprised. I knew that he’d said he had never told anyone in Holmes County, but I didn’t count Juliet in that number. They were married after all. Maybe I was naïve in assuming that married couples told each other everything.

As I thought this, I remembered Aiden’s past relationship with Kayla. We weren’t married, but he had never mentioned her. I remembered having a conversation with him about my past relationship, but he’d also met Eric, who’d come to Holmes County with the hope of winning me back during the Christmas holidays. Would I have been so candid with Aiden about Eric if I hadn’t been forced to?

I didn’t have the answer to that.

“I didn’t tell my congregation because I wanted the church to believe I was their mild-mannered minister and had always been that way. That wasn’t my reason for keeping it from Juliet. When Juliet told me about her ex-husband . . .” He trailed off.

I immediately understood. Juliet’s first husband, Aiden’s father, had been an abusive alcoholic. She’d run away from everything and everyone she knew in South Carolina to escape him and to save her son from abuse. It was very likely Juliet would have shied away from Reverend Brook if she knew he was an alcoholic, too.

“Juliet believes that I don’t drink because I am a man of the cloth. She doesn’t know about my recovery. No one in Harvest does. It all happened before I came here to take over the church.”

I shifted to the edge of my seat. It felt as if the armchair was trying to swallow me whole. “Then why are you telling me now? What bearing does this have on Leeza’s death?”

He flattened his palms on his desk. “I suppose I want to explain my reason for calling the police.”

I waited.

“It just made me so angry when I learned about the still. I knew it would hurt people like Leeza, those struggling with drink. I thought I did the right thing by telling the police.”

“Anonymously.” I let the word hang in the air.

“Maybe you’re right and I should have admitted who I was, but I was too afraid it would get back to Aiden that I was the one who’d reported it. I was afraid somehow he would learn about my past because of it. Maybe this wasn’t logical thinking, but there you have it.” He leaned back in his chair, deflated.

“Why don’t you want Aiden to know?” I asked. “He won’t tell his mother if you ask him not to.”

“I don’t want him to worry. And he would worry if his mother married another alcoholic. I had my own fears about it, too. There are times I want a drink so badly I break out into a sweat. I have been able to resist that temptation the last thirty years. Aiden would look at me differently if he knew.”

“I think you aren’t giving Aiden enough credit, or Juliet either, for that matter. Everyone has demons they have to wrestle with. No one is perfect,” I said.

“Maybe so, but whether it is fair or not, the church holds pastors to another standard. We may not be perfect, but we are supposed to be close to it. Please promise me that you won’t tell Juliet or Aiden. It may be that I will have to tell them myself, but I need them to hear it from me. They deserve the whole story. Juliet most especially.”

“If Aiden asks me outright, I won’t lie to him,” I said.

He nodded. “That’s fair.”

“Tell me more about Leeza.”

He sighed. “When I first met her, she had just started drinking again. Not heavily, she said, but as any recovering alcoholic knows, it doesn’t take more than a sip to fall back into the pit.”

“Did she tell you why she’d started drinking again and how long she was sober?”

He shook his head. “She was sober for almost seven months. She refused to tell me why she began drinking again. However, she did tell me the business she was in.”

“The still?”

“Yes, she admitted that she was a runner for the still. I suppose that was what really spurred me to tell the police. It made me so angry.” He looked at his hands again. “I shouldn’t have taken it personally. That is the first thing they teach you in pastoral counseling. What the other person is dealing with isn’t about you. I was supposed to be a sounding board for her as she worked out her problems and decided what to do next, but I couldn’t be just that. It’s people like her that make it so easy for people like me to slip up. And moonshine is powerful drink. It wouldn’t take much to fall off the wagon with a drink like that. It made me furious that she, who struggled with drinking, too, would tempt people away like that.”

I bit the inside of my lip. “So what did you do?”

He looked up at me again. “I knew I had to do something to stop it. She couldn’t continue to lead people astray. It wasn’t right. The next time she came in, I talked to her more about the still. She was certainly under the influence of alcohol then. She was more forthcoming. She told me the still was in Harvest Woods. Not the exact location, but I thought it was enough.” He frowned. “That’s what I wanted to learn. After I left the community center that night I made an anonymous call to the sheriff’s department and told them about the still. However, I didn’t mention Leeza.”

“Did the department act on your tip?”

“I believe they did. In church the next Sunday, my parishioners were chatting about a raid that took place in Harvest Woods.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“I felt relieved when I heard. I felt I had done the right thing.”

“This was why she called you a traitor at the wedding?”

He frowned. “I believe so. She must have surmised that I was the one who tipped off the sheriff’s department.” He paused. “But I don’t even know how she knew who I was. We didn’t talk about my church or what I did for a living. I certainly wouldn’t have told any of the people who I counseled that I was about to get married.”

“She must have found out who you were some way. It wouldn’t be hard.”

“I suppose not.”

“Do you think this was why she was killed? Because of your tip?”

“It is my fear, yes.” He folded his hands. “I’m afraid that moonshiners retaliated for losing their still and killed her. They left her body on my church steps to send a message.”

It was a decent theory.

“The worst part is, I need to tell Juliet all this. Telling her about my past had been my greatest fear ever since I met her.” He rubbed his forehead. “I suppose wrestling with whether or not I should share this secret was why it took me so long to tell her how I really felt. When I counsel engaged couples, I always tell them that honesty is the most important thing in a relationship. I know that’s true, but I couldn’t bring myself to be honest with Juliet. I thought I could keep the secret. And now that we are married, I will be forced to tell her anyway. What’s worse, I should have told her before we ever took our vows!” He put his face in his hands. “I don’t know if she will ever be able to forgive me.”

“Juliet loves you,” I said. “I knew that a year ago when I first moved here, even before she admitted it to anyone.”

The minister lifted his head.

“Yes, it’s very possible that she will be upset,” I said. “But if it’s real love, you will get through it.”

He gave me a small smile. “Have you thought of being a counselor?”

I smiled. “No, I have too many jobs as it is.” I leaned forward in my chair. “You have to tell her.”

“Simon?” Juliet’s voice called from the hallway. “Is Bailey here?”

I leaned back in my seat. “And now is your chance.”