Dead Giveaway

25

Noreen Rankin splatted face-first, missing the glass coffee table by inches. The wound under her left shoulder blade was creating a widening round stain on her lovely, expensive suit. Keeping my eyes on Rankin, I bent and checked her pulse at the neck. Dead. I shook my head to indicate this.

"Praise God. Her spirit has left us," Rankin said, dropping the gun.

I walked over and picked it up. Easy as breathing, I thought. And boy, could I breathe again. But though Noreen was definitely dead, B.J. wasn't, so I put the cuffs on him before I called 9-1-1. Meanwhile, Pastor Rankin went over, knelt by his wife's body and prayed, that little high-pitched moan that had offered me a split-second diversion earlier again assaulting my ears.

I sat on the coffee table, rested a hand on the pastor's shoulder. "Why?" I said. "Why did you keep your own daughter a prisoner for nearly twenty years?"

Rankin was rocking, but he wasn't crying as I would have expected. His face was as empty as a clear sky. He used his pulpit voice and said, "Deuteronomy tells us this, Abby Rose: 'But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.' "

"You're telling me you purged your evil daughter from your life by hiding her away, leaving her sick and alone and—"

He covered his ears, rocked faster. "No. I saved her from being stoned to death—stoned as we do so today. With sideway looks and whispers. I saved her, Abby Rose. It was the black boy and the baby who were evil, not Sara. They were the ones who had to be purged, who deserved to be stoned."

I nodded, understanding his ridiculous logic and feeling sick to my stomach. "Okay. I get it."

He looked at me and smiled. "I knew you would."

The man truly didn't have a clue that he was the evil one.

While Rankin resumed his prayers over his wife's body, I called Jeff on B.J.'s phone—and offered him another odd caller ID to wonder about, the third since the case started. "Who is this?" he said sharply.

"Me."

"Abby, where are you?"

"At the church."

"We're at this log cabin, found your car in the garage and—"

"Would you come? I need you."

"You're in trouble?" He was sounding a little panicked—unusual for Jeff. "I'll have dispatch send a squad car."

"I'm okay. Police and ambulance are already on the way. Just get here."

"DeShay," I heard him call away from the phone. "I got her on the line. Let's go."

What I liked most about this last call to him on a strange phone was that he never hung up, even when he could hear the chaos around me as police and paramedics crashed into the office. He just said he needed to keep the connection open.

Yeah. Me too, I thought.

Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in the soft chair with B.J.'s phone still pressed to one ear when a paramedic came over and started parting my hair, examining my head.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"It's about the dried blood on your neck, ma'am. Looks like it came from a—"

"Ouch!" I cried as he fingered the spot where I'd been hit with the gun grip.

"You might need a few stitches. What happened?"

"Yeah, what happened?" came Jeff's voice over the line.

"Just a little smack on the head. Didn't even know I was bleeding until now."

"You sure you're okay?" Jeff asked.

"It's nothing," I answered.

"I'll decide for myself. We just pulled in."

When Jeff strode into the office, he tried to use that damn little cut to make me leave and get stitched up. But if Rankin was talking and making any sense at all, I wanted to hear what he had to say and I told Jeff as much.

"Okay, where's the suspect?" Jeff asked one of the patrol officers who'd responded to the 9-1-1 call.

"Library. Thought you'd want to transport him. Ms. Rose says this is your case. Couple uniforms on him, but he just keeps crying. You might consider a suicide watch when you get to the jail."

"Thanks," Jeff said. "DeShay, Abby. Let's do it."

With only starlight coming in through the stained-glass ceiling, the library seemed far less welcoming. Not that anything about this church was all that welcoming anymore.

The pastor was seated in the study area, hands cuffed behind him. He was motionless for the first time all night, staring into space, his cheeks wet with tears—which I liked a whole lot better than what I'd seen on his face after he gunned down his wife.

The two officers flanking him nodded at Jeff and DeShay.

Jeff read the pastor his Miranda rights, then said, "Are you willing to tell us everything, Pastor?"

"Yes."

"Do you want a lawyer with you?"

He shook his head no.

"Then we'll take you downtown so we can record our conversation. Again, do you understand your rights, sir?"

Rankin stared at Jeff with red-rimmed eyes. "I understand God's will, that this is His plan for me. But I want her there." He nodded at me.

I blinked in surprise.

"You got your wish," Jeff said.

The interview room at HPD was bigger than the one in Huntsville Prison, but still pretty bare-bones. Taping and videoing had been set up, the pastor waived his Miranda rights again and Jeff, the pastor and I sat around a table that I wished had been bigger. Though I wanted to be here, I didn't want to be too close to this guy.

Jeff stated for the record the date, time and who was present, then said, "Pastor, do you wish to give a statement at this time?"

"Can I begin with when I first met B.J.?" he asked. "That's what started everything."

"Begin wherever you want. But can we have full names, please?" Jeff leaned back, arms folded, a wad of gum already going.

The pastor looked at me. "B.J. is Byron James Thompson. He came to me in need many years ago, not knowing I had great trouble in my own heart that night. I believed his arrival at such a dark moment was a sign that God had sent him."

"The night he murdered Amanda Mason?" I said, unsure whether I was supposed to ask questions. Jeff said nothing, didn't shake his head or anything, so I assumed I was okay.

"That's right. Remember how you brought the light with you when you came to question us last week?" He smiled. "I knew then you would find out. You see, I was wrong about B.J. But you? You were on a mission. God is with you, Abby Rose."

I shifted uneasily. "Okay. Back to the night B.J. showed up after he shot Amanda Mason and asked for your guidance."

"He came in off the street," Rankin said, beginning to rock.

Uh-oh. I hoped he could hold it together, stay halfway coherent.

"You didn't know him?" Jeff asked.

"He was a complete stranger. So upset, so angry with himself and seeking God's forgiveness. I was very troubled about Sara, and it seemed we had much to offer each other in the way of comfort."

"Troubled because you knew she loved Lawrence?" I asked.

"You see why I wanted you here, Abby Rose? There are things you don't understand. She thought she loved the black boy." His cuffs had been removed and he placed his palms on his balding head. "Noreen was so upset. Sara had called her right before B.J. wandered in off the street and told her mother that she and Lawrence were planning a life together with their baby. Said she had the black boy's car and was leaving town. Can you fathom what that phone call did to us?"

She'd told them the truth. What a huge mistake. I said, "You must have been devastated... desperate," pretending to sympathize to keep him talking.

"Yes. And it is in our desperation that Satan finds a way inside us. B.J.'s arrival was the answer to a prayer—or so we thought. We were wrong. I know that now. Abby Rose, you came and showed me the way."

This guy was slap-assed crazy. I might be persistent about my cases and adamant that justice be served, but I wasn't God's messenger. If you asked me, Rankin just needed an excuse to end the major guilt trip he'd been on for a couple of decades.

Jeff said, "You gave B.J. Lawrence's address, maybe told him to return to the dead girl, grab some evidence and plant it at Lawrence's house. That about right?"

"I left those details to Noreen. She is so much better at those things."

"Was so much better," said Jeff. "You shot her, remember?"

Rankin straightened, squared his shoulders. "At God's urging. I prayed for guidance while Noreen and B.J. spoke of death and murder in my office tonight, and His voice came to me, told me to rid my life of Satan. Cleanse my soul."

"Did God tell you to rid the world of Verna Mae Olsen? Was she part of Satan's brigade, too?" Jeff's voice was hard, his eyes cold.

"I knew nothing of that until after she was gone. Mrs. Olsen was my sister's best friend, and I would have had serious questions about their methods."

"Whose methods?" Jeff asked.

"Noreen and B.J.'s decision," said Rankin. "It was only later I learned how Mrs. Olsen had come to Noreen, said she had met our daughter's child. That foolish Olsen woman thought she needed to tell this tarnished young man the truth—tell a bastard born of sin the truth. Stupid woman. B.J. was supposed to convince Mrs. Olsen she was wrong. From what I understand, he was unable to do so, and she had to die."

Jeff leaned forward. "From what you understand? Do you have any idea what he did to that woman?"

Rankin shrank back in his chair. "Noreen kept the details from me. I didn't want to know, anyway. The images of death and sin might have tarnished my next sermon."

"Yeah, you wouldn't want that, would you?" Jeff leaned back again, chewing hard on his gum.

"Tell me about Sara," I said. "How did you find her after she ran away?"

"We hired detectives. We were certain that once she knew Lawrence had killed someone she would accept our plan. We could place her in a home for... for girls in her condition and then she would return to us afterward."

"Where and when did you find Sara?" I asked.

"If I recall, Noreen found her right after the black boy had been sent to jail."

Right after Lawrence, the first evil, had been purged, I thought.

He went on, "She was in a shelter in Dallas, living like a street person with other harlots."

"You picked her up?" asked Jeff. He kept his tone even, but a muscle in his jaw was tight with tension.

"Noreen and Olive went."

"Your sister's name is Olive Rankin?" I asked.

"Yes. Have you met her?" He smiled the smarmy smile he seemed to have reserved for me. He simply had no clue how serious this all was and probably thought God had another plan to get him out of this mess.

"Remember? I was introduced in the library," I said.

"That's right. Olive is an absolute saint. Helped Noreen take Sara to a... place of confinement."

"A home for unwed mothers?" I asked.

"No. Sara wouldn't agree to that. She wasn't right in the head after being touched by so much evil. She kept saying she was going to marry the black boy, and we kept telling her he was in jail, that God had protected her by sending him away. She wouldn't believe it."

"You said she wasn't right in her head. Did they take her to a psychiatric hospital?"

"No, no, no. They keep records. We chose a wilderness camp, one I'd heard about from a parishioner. With their counseling, we thought she'd have time to reflect on her mistakes."

"You sent a pregnant sixteen-year-old to wilderness camp? Did her counseling include prenatal care?" I asked.

Rankin looked down at the table. "Olive had to go get her in September. That's when we learned she was sick, might be lost to us forever. Her sins had caught up to her."

"What was wrong?" Jeff asked.

"A blood pressure problem. After the bastard child was born, Noreen and I were certain we'd done the right thing, put the black boy father in the right place. It was his fault Sara became ill. And God made sure that through us, he was punished. You must understand, that after our arrangement with B.J., the help we'd given him to elude the police, we couldn't tell the truth about exactly how we lost Sara, couldn't tell anyone."

"But... she's alive," I said. "I saw her."

Jeff looked at me, confused. "You did?"

"At the cabin. You didn't?"

"There was the nurse's aide and a lady with a walker—looked like she had a stroke. Couldn't seem to talk. That's her?"

"That's Sara." I looked Rankin in the eye. "Not totally lost, huh, Pastor?"

He hung his head.

Instead of saying, "You make me sick," like I wanted to, I opted for, "I need some aspirin."

As I left I heard Jeff move on to questions about Noreen's death. I didn't need to relive those events right now, so I was glad to be gone.

DeShay, who'd been watching through the two-way mirror, had water and aspirin waiting when I came out. "I thought you might need this. You took a good crack to the head tonight, I hear."

"Thanks, DeShay." I gulped down the pills and water. "Now can someone take me home?"