Chapter 3
Scarlett Shackelford stood in front of the stove in her kitchen. An apron splattered with yellow sunflowers was cinched tightly around her slender waist. Steam rising from the stove formed a glistening layer of moisture on her forehead and cheeks. A pot filled to the brim with freshly washed collard greens, crushed garlic, sliced onions, and chicken stock simmered on one burner, and a one-inch-thick rib-eye steak sizzled on another. Steam from a casserole dish of macaroni and cheese bubbling in the oven poured from a vent on the side.
The evening sun reflected off every surface in the bright and cheery kitchen. White-glazed tile countertops held stainless-steel appliances, a neatly lined row of cookbooks, and a ceramic rooster cookie jar that required beheading before it would yield its sugary treats.
The three dishes were all her husband’s favorites. Scarlett was desperate to keep her man, and she knew that one way to any man’s heart was through his stomach. It had been weeks since the fateful day that David had coldly announced to her that he was in love with Samantha Cleaveland. As she stood in front of the boiling pot, she could still see the loathing in David’s eyes. As she stirred the greens and recalled the slap she had planted on his expressionless face, her hand stung.
“Can’t we talk about this? I’ve told you I wasn’t in love with Hezekiah. I love you,” she had pleaded on that day, only three feet from where she now stood. “Why can’t you just accept that and allow us to move on?”
“This isn’t about you for once, Scarlett,” David had responded.
“I told you I lied to you for Natalie, not for myself.”
“I don’t believe that, and on some level I don’t think you believe it, either,” he said coldly. “You lied because you wanted to cover your tracks and preserve the ridiculous victim routine that you’ve used your entire life. You slept with Hezekiah because you wanted to. He didn’t rape you. You were an adult. I don’t buy for a minute your ‘young and naive’ excuse. You knew exactly what you were doing. You wanted him, and Samantha called your bluff and put you back in your place.”
“How dare you? I was the victim. I walked away on my own because I didn’t want anything from them,” Scarlett replied indignantly.
“Correction, darling. You walked away because you knew you couldn’t get the one thing you wanted—Hezekiah. Then the wounded little girl nonsense was the perfect cover for your being slapped back into reality by Samantha. It didn’t matter that I or anyone else didn’t know that Natalie was Hezekiah’s daughter. The important thing was that you knew it, and you could feel like the victim back in your safe little cocoon of self-pity, and since then you’ve been alone there.”
Scarlett raised her hand and slapped David hard on the cheek. His head turned from the blow, but his feet remained firmly planted.
“I guess now I’m supposed to slap you back. Is this a page from your battered wife script?” he said, rubbing his stinging cheek. “I’m afraid you’ll have to remind me what my next line is. I don’t seem to remember this scene.”
Scarlett had been unprepared for his lack of emotion and his painfully pointed words on that day. His cold demeanor had been completely unexpected and had left her at a loss. His words swirled in her head, almost making her dizzy. Was she the perfect victim? Did the world, in fact, revolve around her and not Natalie? Was there some twisted desire to be abandoned and left alone with her scars and wounds? Was this the monster she’d created?
She slapped him again and waited for a response. But she was greeted only with a questioning stare.
“I hate you,” she finally said in a whisper.
“You don’t hate me, Scarlett. You hate the truth about yourself.”
Scarlett looked puzzled. The words stung. For her entire life she felt she had sacrificed her happiness for others, and mostly for her daughter. But in the face of such a damning accusation, she slowly began to realize that in fact she had made all the sacrifices for herself. She needed to be the victim. It was all she knew. It was familiar and where she felt safe and, ironically, in control.
“You’re a coward to leave me over this,” she said, turning her back to him and walking to the sink. “I thought you were a better man than that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong again,” he said with a hint of irony. “I’m not leaving you because you’re a liar. I’m not even leaving you because you’re delusional.”
Scarlett turned from the sink to face David. He had not moved from the threshold. Now the span of the room divided them. Steam from the coffeemaker on the marble island formed a light mist between them. “Then why?” she asked, her question tinged with a dare.
“I’m leaving you for Samantha Cleaveland.”
The painful memory of that day caused her hand to shake as she turned the steak in the sizzling pan. She had lost track of time and hadn’t realized the steak had burned on one side. The charred meat sent puffs of smoke into the kitchen.
David had not left her, and she had never asked him why. He had sat next to her on the pew at New Testament Cathedral the following Sunday morning. Natalie had sat between them while Samantha looked down from the pulpit. He ate at the table with her and Natalie each night. He kept her car filled with gasoline, did the laundry, and paid the bills, just as he had before he learned that the little girl was the illegitimate child of his pastor.
Life seemed almost normal each day, until it was time to retire to bed. It was then that the chasm that had developed between the two became the most apparent. David, as he always had, would pull the covers over Natalie’s shoulders as she drifted off to sleep, kiss her forehead, and whisper, “I love you, little princess.” From there he would walk into the spare bedroom and close the door behind him. Scarlett would not see him again until the next morning at breakfast.
He hadn’t touched her in weeks. His words were succinct and civil, but strictly utilitarian. “I’m on my way to the market. Do you need anything?” or “I will be home late for dinner tonight,” was the typical length and depth of his communications to her.
Until Hezekiah’s death Scarlett hadn’t realized just how much she had loved him. The love she felt had been so heavily camouflaged by respect, admiration, and nostalgia that she herself hadn’t recognized it for what it was.
Scarlett had been smart and beautiful her entire life, but she had never really known it. Her shyness had often been mistaken for conceitedness. Boys had found the attractive Southern girl captivating. Her naïveté and soft voice had garnered proposals of marriage long before she turned eighteen.
At nineteen she became Hezekiah Cleaveland’s secretary. Scarlett was professional and efficient. Hezekiah was immediately attracted to the young beauty and pursued her from the start. She was flattered by the attention from the handsome minister but flatly refused his constant advances. She often cried after work and wondered what she had done to elicit such carnal responses from the man she admired.
After a year Scarlett could resist no longer. She gave in to the pastor and began a two-month affair. Hezekiah was the first man she had ever been with. He was gentle and attentive and never made her feel cheap. Scarlett soon learned she was pregnant. Hezekiah offered to put her up in an apartment until the baby was born. After that, he told her, she would have to give the baby up for adoption.
She was devastated. Not because she was pregnant, but because the man she had fallen in love with did not share her joy. Samantha soon learned of Scarlett’s condition and immediately fired her. Scarlett then married a man who had pursued her since she was fifteen. It wasn’t easy, but she convinced her new husband that the baby she was carrying was his.
For five years the couple lived a turbulent life filled with physical abuse and mistrust. Her new husband never believed the cute little girl was really his. In a violent argument he threw Scarlett and Natalie out on the street. Scarlett had never loved her husband, so the divorce came as a relief, but the pain of her secret lingered. She still held it close to her chest, like an unwanted family heirloom that she had been entrusted to protect.
Scarlett rejoined New Testament Cathedral after her marriage ended and soon became a trusted and valuable member of the church. Eventually, Hezekiah, who had never lost his deep affection for her, appointed Scarlett to the board of trustees.
She had harbored loathing for Samantha Cleaveland for years, and now it intensified. She had always suspected that Samantha would want to take over the church if Hezekiah ever died, and Scarlett vowed to do all within her power to prevent it if she ever tried.
Scarlett thought she had put all the love, pain, and rejection behind her, until she saw Hezekiah lying on the pulpit with blood pouring from his head and chest. The carnage released emotions she assumed had long passed. Now she realized that David was right. She had been in love with Hezekiah and grieved his death as a widow would. The feelings took her by surprise and left her a quivering, whimpering bundle of nerves, one who would burst into tears at the thought of him. The feelings were accompanied by a staggering dose of shame and embarrassment. Not over the fact that she had had an affair with a married man or that she had lied about Natalie. She was ashamed about the fact that she had not realized herself just how much she loved him and how much his rejection had shaped the fragile woman she had become.
Scarlett coughed from the billows of smoke that were again rising from the burning steak. Once again she had lost track of time. She quickly removed the charred meat from the pan and dropped it with a thud onto a waiting bundle of paper towels. She looked at the greens and discovered they were bubbling over the rim of the pot and spewing liquid onto the stove’s surface. The beeping oven timer then caught her attention. It had run ten minutes past the time she had set. She immediately swung the oven door open and was greeted with another plume of smoke. The macaroni and cheese had bubbled over the sides of the casserole dish and had formed a pile of smoldering goo on the floor of the oven.
The meal was ruined in spite of her best efforts to please her husband. Just like my marriage, she thought as a tear fell from her eye. Just like my life.
The death of Pastor Cleaveland had served to reopen the wounds that had taken her years to heal. Feelings for Hezekiah had flooded back, as if she were nineteen again. Over the years, however, she had never stopped hating Samantha, the woman who had treated her so cruelly. The woman she had once admired.
A bus filled with Japanese tourists drove onto the sacred grounds of New Testament Cathedral. Once the tourists set foot on the pavement, their digital cameras recorded images of the building and sounds of astonishment escaped their lips. They had traveled halfway around the world to see Disneyland and the new glass cathedral.
“It is magnificent!” one exclaimed in a distinct Hokkaido-ben dialect. “It is more beautiful than I imagined.”
An army of groundskeepers, in green overalls emblazoned with the church’s logo of a bejeweled gold crown with a cross running through the center, carefully maneuvered golf carts filled with fresh sod, blossoming perennials, shovels, and other supplies through the throngs of visitors, who had come from around the world to marvel at the building.
Reverend Percy Pryce stood at the fifth-floor window, looking down on the carnival below. His new office was twice the size of the one he had occupied in the old building. Two walls of intricately woven glass panes offered him unobstructed views of the walkway to the main entrance, a massive satellite dish pointing toward heaven, and the outdoor amphitheater, which could seat five thousand souls.
Percy found no joy in the beauty sprawled at his feet. Every click of a tourist’s camera, every exclamation of “It’s the most beautiful building in the world,” and every plunge of a groundskeeper’s shovel into the earth only served to remind him of the unthinkable act he and Associate Pastor Kenneth Davis had committed on the eve of Hezekiah’s death.
The memory played like a horror movie in his mind, over which he had no control. He would never forget that Saturday evening when he and Kenneth had arrived at Lance Savage’s little bungalow on the canals in Venice. It was a small, cluttered house with a permanent dampness in the air.
Lance had answered the door, wearing faded jogging shorts and a wrinkled T-shirt. “Hello, Kenneth,” the Los Angeles Chronicle reporter had said, greeting them at the door. “You didn’t say you were bringing Reverend Pryce with you. Is he here in an official capacity?”
“No, he’s not,” Kenneth had said as they entered the bungalow. “And neither am I. We’re not here to speak on behalf of New Testament Cathedral or Hezekiah. We only represent ourselves.”
“Have a seat, gentlemen. Can I get you a beer or something stronger?”
Percy recalled, as if it were only yesterday, the irritatingly casual tone in which the reporter had spoken to them.
“No thank you,” Kenneth responded. “We don’t plan on staying long.”
Lance retrieved the beer he had already begun drinking and sat on a leather sofa next to Percy. Kenneth lowered his body into a chair in front of them and sat a briefcase filled with money on the floor at his feet.
Kenneth began calmly. “We would appreciate it if whatever we discuss does not leave this room. As far as anyone is concerned, this meeting never took place, and if you ever repeat anything we say, we will deny it.”
“Fair enough,” Lance said, setting the beer on a side table.
“First of all, we’d like for you to tell us exactly what it is that you know about this affair Hezekiah is allegedly involved in,” Kenneth said.
“All right. It will soon be public information, anyway. Your pastor has been involved with a Mr. Danny St. John for the last year. They see each other no less than twice a week. Usually, they meet at Danny’s apartment in the West Adams District, but they also have lunch together on occasion at various restaurants around the city. Danny is a social worker in downtown Los Angeles. He’s twenty-nine, and quite a looker, I might add. Is there anything else you‘d like to know?” Lance replied smugly.
“Yes,” Percy said. “Everything you’ve just told us sounds relatively innocent. It doesn’t prove the relationship was sexual.”
“I agree,” Kenneth said, chiming in. “There’s no moral law against Hezekiah having a male friend. He’s been to my home dozens of times, and we often dine together. That doesn’t make us lovers.”
Lance stood up and walked to a desk under a window overlooking the canals.
At that moment Percy recalled the sounds he had heard from a flock of ducks just outside the bungalow window. The story played on in Percy’s mind as he stood at his office window, looking out at the church grounds.
Lance opened a drawer and retrieved a stack of papers held together by a metal clasp. He thumbed through the stack, pulled a sheet out, and handed it to Percy.
Percy read the e-mail silently.
My Dearest Danny,
Last night with you was wonderful. I love holding you in my arms and tasting your soft lips. Each time I kiss you feels as sweet as my first kiss. Feeling your body against mine gives me more pleasure than I ever thought possible. Caressing your soft skin makes me feel like the luckiest man in the world. I’m not a poet, and I know it. But I want you to know that I love you with all my heart.
I pray I can hold you in my arms forever.
Love you always,
Hez
Percy handed the e-mail to Kenneth, who in turn proceeded to read it silently.
“Would you like to see more?” Lance asked. “That’s one of the tamer ones. There’s a few in there that give you the size of each of their dicks and one in particular that goes into great detail about how much Danny likes it when Hezekiah sticks his finger up his ass when he’s about to—”
Percy quickly held up his hand and said, “No, that won’t be necessary.”
“One thing I can assure you of is none of the more graphic details of their relationship will be in the article. I don’t think the public is ready to hear how much Hezekiah loves to have his dick sucked in the shower,” Lance said with a sly smile.
“This is so unseemly,” Percy said in disgust. “I can’t believe the Los Angeles Chronicle would stoop to gutter journalism like this. It’s no better than the supermarket tabloids.”
“Pathetic, isn’t it?” Lance said sarcastically. “But it’s a new day in journalism. The public craves shit like this, and if we want to stay in business, we’ve got to keep up with the times. No pun intended.”
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” Kenneth said angrily. “You don’t seem to realize how many people will be hurt if this story is released. Hezekiah will be ruined. His wife and daughter will be devastated. The future of New Testament Cathedral will be placed in extreme jeopardy. Millions of people all over the country will lose faith in a man they deeply love, and many will possibly lose their faith in God as well.”
“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but Hezekiah should have thought of all that before he got involved with a man,” Lance said as he sat back down. “I’m a reporter, and I report the news. And this is definitely news.”
Kenneth proceeded diplomatically. “You are obviously aware that the story would cause immeasurable damage to Hezekiah and New Testament Cathedral.”
“I am,” was Percy’s recollection of the smug little reporter’s response.
“Is there any way we can appeal to your conscience?” Kenneth asked passionately. “Surely you must feel some moral obligation to your fellow man. Hezekiah made a mistake, but who among us hasn’t? I’m sure you’ve done things that you’re not proud of. How would you like it if they were splashed all over the front pages?”
“I would hate that, but you fail to recognize a few significant differences between Hezekiah and myself. I don’t claim any sort of moral authority. I’m not married. I’m not the head of a multimillion-dollar empire, and even more important, I am not on television twenty-four hours a day around the world, preaching about the evils of sin. Nobody gives a shit about who I’m fucking.”
“Point taken,” Kenneth conceded. “Then let’s approach this from a different angle. Obviously, we want to put this entire ugly situation behind us as soon and as quietly as possible. To that end, we are prepared to pay you one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars to forget you ever heard the name Danny St. John.”
It was at that point that Kenneth retrieved the briefcase from the floor and placed it on the coffee table. He opened it to reveal stacks of hundred-dollar bills bound by white paper strips.
Lance sat erect. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, laughing. “You think saving your boy’s ass is worth only a hundred seventy-five thousand dollars?”
“That’s all we are able to come up with,” Kenneth replied.
Lance stood up and walked toward the door. “You and I both know that’s not true. New Testament Cathedral brings in more than that just from the interest you earn on the money collected in the Sunday morning offering plate,” he said. “Gentlemen, I think you’ve wasted enough of my time. I would appreciate it if you’d leave my home. I’ve got a story to finish.”
Percy jumped from the sofa. “You parasite,” he said, pointing his finger. “Now it’s clear to me what this is all about. You’re trying to get rich off the back of Hezekiah and New Testament Cathedral. That whole speech about ‘the news’ was a bunch of bullshit. You don’t care about the news,” he said angrily. “It’s all about money.”
“That’s some strong language for a man of God,” Lance said. “I’m impressed.”
“Screw you,” Percy continued. “If you have half a brain, you’ll take the money and forget about this whole thing.”
“It’ll take a lot more than that for me to forget Danny St. John. Try half a million, and then maybe we can talk.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Percy said, “if you think we’re going to give you half a million dollars.”
“I think that’s a fair amount, Reverend Pryce, especially considering it was your wife who got you into this sordid mess,” Lance replied as he opened the front door. “Now, if you don’t mind.”
Standing at the window of his office, Percy felt a stabbing sensation in his gut as he remembered the stunning revelation from the reporter. How could Cynthia have done this? he thought.
The scene played on in his mind. Stunned, Percy looked at Lance and then slammed the door shut. “What are you saying? My wife isn’t involved in this.”
Lance walked away from the door to a nearby telephone. “Are you trying to tell me you didn’t know she is the one who leaked the story?”
Percy bolted across the room and grabbed Lance by the shoulders. “Cynthia had nothing to do with this. You’re lying! Kenneth, don’t listen to him. He’s trying to get more money out of us,” he shouted.
Kenneth bounded to his feet and said, “Let him go, Percy. At this point it doesn’t matter who leaked the story.” He then looked at Lance and said, “Half a million dollars is a lot of money. It’ll take us some time to come up with it, but—”
“It matters to me,” Percy interrupted. He then pushed the now shaking reporter against the wall, causing a picture to crash to the floor. “I’m not going to let this asshole extort that kind of money out of us.”
“Reverend Pryce, you would be surprised at just what your wife was willing to do to ensure that you become the next pastor of New Testament Cathedral. But trust me, she knows her way around the backseat of a car.”
Lance began to walk away, but Percy grabbed his neck. The two men struggled.
“Percy, stop it!” Kenneth said, grabbing Percy by the shoulders. “Let him go. Let’s go.”
But the scuffle only intensified. A lamp fell from a table. Stereo equipment and CDs lurched from shelves from the impact of slamming bodies. Lance struggled to get out of Percy’s grip as Percy pushed him to the floor.
His head banged against the coffee table when he fell, causing the briefcase and all its contents to topple onto the floor. The reporter lay motionless with bundles of money strewn around his body.
“Oh God!” Kenneth said, kneeling next to Lance’s body. “What have you done? He’s not breathing.”
Kenneth tried to revive Lance, while Percy panted over his shoulder.
“Wake up,” Percy said through anguished breaths. “He tripped. Make him get up, Kenneth.”
Kenneth shook Lance’s shoulders, causing his head to flop from side to side. His arms hung limp and unresponsive, despite the additional abuse at the hands of such a large man.
“He’s dead,” Kenneth finally said. “You killed him.”
“I barely touched him. You saw it. He tripped. Oh God. I don’t believe this is happening. What are we going to do?”
Without responding, Kenneth carelessly dropped the mass of flesh and immediately began gathering the fallen money, throwing it into the briefcase.
“Quick,” he finally said. “Get all the money. We have to get out of here.”
“We can’t just leave him here. We have to call the police.”
“Are you crazy? You just killed a man! Let’s just get out of here. Hopefully, no one saw us come in. They’ll think he was killed by a burglar. Now, pull yourself together and help me pick up this money.”
Kenneth surveyed the scene once the briefcase was filled. Much of the room’s contents lay scattered on the floor along with the crumpled body. To his satisfaction, it looked like the classic robbery scene he had seen so often on prime-time crime shows.
“If we pass anyone on the street, don’t make eye contact with them and try to look natural,” Kenneth ordered.
Percy looked again at the devastation his hands had caused, and cried, “I don’t believe this is happening.”
Kenneth ran to the kitchen at the rear of the house and retrieved a dishtowel from the sink. He wrapped his hand in the towel and smashed a pane of glass in the back door. With his hand still covered, he swung the door open and then stuffed the towel into his pocket.
The two men exited the apartment through the door they had entered. Cars raced down the busy street at speeds that permitted no more than cursory glances. No pedestrians were in sight as they drove away.
“This never happened, Percy,” Kenneth said, looking directly ahead. “Do you understand? This never happened.”
Percy was in shock and did not respond.
“You have to put this out of your head. We were never there.”
“What if a neighbor saw us?”
“No one saw us,” Kenneth replied impatiently. “We were never in Venice. Don’t ever mention this to anyone. Understand?”
“I won’t mention it. I understand. But I can’t get his face out of my head. Why did he make me do it? I just snapped. I don’t know what happened. He shouldn’t have said those lies about Cynthia. She would never do anything so cruel. She loves Hezekiah and Samantha. This would have never happened if he had just taken the money.”
Kenneth deposited his shaken passenger at the main entrance of the church. It was 5:10 p.m., and a tide of fleeing employees was streaming from the building.
“Are you going to be all right?” Kenneth asked as Percy exited the car. “Go directly to your office, get your things, and go home. And for God’s sake, don’t talk to anyone.”
“I won’t,” Percy saidr. “But what about the story? If the editor doesn’t hear from Lance, they’ll run it.”
“It’s too late to worry about that now. It’s out of our hands. We’ll just have to brace ourselves for the worst.”
Percy’s brow was now damp as he stood at the window, recalling that fateful day. His hands shook nervously in his pockets. Now the throng of sightseers and the scurrying groundskeepers were a source of irritation for him.
Percy closed his eyes tightly and thought, They wouldn’t be so impressed if they knew how much this place really cost.