Tough as leather . . . Harder than steel.
—Outlaw Riders (movie tagline)
PUZZLED BY TRACY’S answer, which I barely heard, I followed her around the building, where the music faded to a dull roar. When we reached the front, I saw a paved parking lot (empty now) with easy access to a well-trafficked road, a far cry from a forgotten rural route with a rickety old bridge.
The steel building was intended for industrial use but had been transformed—figuratively as well as literally—as revealed by the sign over the door.
THE CHURCH OF LOST SOULS
Reverend Dennis Mahoney, Pastor
“Your brother is a reverend?”
“Denny finished his divinity degree after he got back from Afghanistan,” Tracy explained.
“He was a soldier?”
“Three tours of duty with the Special Forces.”
Tracy unlocked the double doors, and Seymour and I followed her into the church. The waiting room was spacious, but soundproofed it was not. Music again exploded from the opposite end of the building. Rowdy and raucous at first, it thankfully turned soft and melodic.
“What’s the name of the group?” Seymour asked.
“Wheels on Fire,” Tracy replied with a note of pride. “The members are wounded vets. If you want to check them out, Mr. Tarnish, go through that door. They’d love an audience, even if it’s only one.”
“Yeah, I think I will,” Seymour said.
While Tracy brewed coffee from a setup in the corner, I perused the event postings, including advertisements for Wheels on Fire, who’d already played concerts in Providence, Boston, Bangor, Syracuse, Lancaster, and Dayton.
“Is Dennis also a musician?”
“Sure is. My brother carries that guitar of his almost everywhere he goes. Calls it his ‘spirit rifle.’”
Jack, did you hear that? That bulge in the backpack was a guitar, not a baseball bat!
You don’t say.
“Next month, Wheels is going to Atlanta to open for Make a Joyful Noise,” Tracy continued. “Dennis arranged a gig in Nashville, too. He met with the promoter tonight at the Comfy-Time Motel.”
Hey, remember the guest list at that fleabag motel?
I did. And I knew that single male visitor from Nashville could give Dennis an alibi—if it was even needed. I also realized the “hail of bullets” those bikers faced came from their military service, and the “man upstairs” really was the Man Upstairs!
Tracy grinned. “I was so excited I swung by the motel to see if the meeting was over. It wasn’t, but Dennis just called to say he signed the contract. Wheels will tour the South next summer, ten cities, and I’ll be going as a roadie!”
Tracy handed me a cup of coffee. “So, Mrs. McClure, what did you want to talk about?”
“I’d like to ask you about that argument in front of my bookshop with Clifford Conway.”
“Oh, that.” She blushed with embarrassment. “I went a little crazy. Okay, a lot crazy. But I had to say something after all that man’s done to scam me—and so many others.”
“Does this have anything to do with what happened at the reading group the other night, when you were upset?”
“Yes, Mrs. McClure, it has everything to do with that.”
Tracy went on to tell me what she told Conway, but without the rage. She recounted how she’d written and illustrated a fantasy novel. She wanted it published and found Conway’s slick advertisements on the web. Tracy was interested but couldn’t afford the fees. To earn some cash, she naively sold Conway the rights to license one of her best pieces of fantasy art—and that’s when the heartache started.
“I guess most of Conway’s clients aren’t savvy enough to know they’re being cheated. I certainly wasn’t. But apparently, one of his clients did realize her ‘exclusive’ book cover art was on three other novels! When she complained to Conway, he blamed me for reselling my work over and over to some underling at his company who couldn’t tell I’d ‘doctored’ it with superficial changes. It was a total lie. Conway himself bought my art, added different backgrounds and color schemes, and resold it multiple times. I was the honest one. He was the cheat. He hurt my reputation terribly. I was called awful things in social media and thrown out of my favorite online fantasy groups.”
She squared her shoulders. “But I’m not giving up, Mrs. McClure. I can’t afford an attorney to fight for me, so I’m going to post my side of this story, the true story, wherever I can. At this point, people may not listen or even believe me, but I’m going to try my best to stand up for myself.” She took a deep breath. “As for that scene in front of your store, well, I can’t deny I felt betrayed by Mr. Conway, and I wanted to hurt him. But my big brother calmed me down after our shouting match. He explained how it’s better to forgive than to hate, that carrying all that bitterness and anger inside will damage me far more than the man who wronged me. Dennis told me Conway would pay for what he’s done, in God’s time, not ours.”
“Well, Tracy, I have some distressing news to share. If you believe in divine justice, you may have gotten it. Mr. Conway was murdered tonight.”
Tracy stared at me a moment in frozen disbelief. “Murdered?” she whispered, voice barely there. “How?”
“He was beaten to death.”
I waited for her reaction. It was not what I expected.
She burst into tears.