Baptist DISTINCTIVE: An Adam Mykonos Mystery (The Adam Myknonos Mystries) (24 page)

“Hero?”

“No. I would do that. Cause I’m an idiot.
You might do that. But not Josh. He is not a man of action he is a man of
healing and help. He would be looking to help.”

“Help the shooter?”

“I doubt that.”

“Then why?” He asked.

I had no answer.

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

I still had no answers the next morning as
I sat in a booth at Lighthouse sipping coffee and reading my Bible. I was deep
in the book of Job went Ryder Mathewson slide into the booth across from me.

“Mind if I join you?”

“No not at all in fact I was going to hunt
you down anyway, want to tell me what this buying a marketing Agency in town is
about?”

“Higher Calling innovations”

“Huh?” I said

“That is what I am renaming the firm. “

“Bully for you. Any reason you didn’t mention
this at dinner the other night. You made it seem like you were heading back to
Boston on the next thing heading north.”

Roberta came over “Can I get you anything
Sir?”

Ryder smiled, thankful I supposed for the
break.
 
“Yes sweet tea thank you
Roberta.”

She nodded “I think your friend missed you
at breakfast earlier.”

Ryder cocked an eyebrow “Doug is he still
in town?”

Roberta and I answered yes at the same
time.

“Odd. You sure it was him.”

Roberta laughed “White toast, one eggs
sunny side up, two strips of bacon. Medium Orange Juice and two and half cups
of coffee, two creams three sugars, every day for a week now. I’m sure.”

“Ah, my Kid has a talent for memorization.”
I said with a smile.

“No your kid has a talent for remembering
pests. It’s why I think of you so often.” She smirked and walked away.

Ryder and I both chuckled. “Okay” I said “Back
to why you did not mention buying a major business here in town.”

“I’m a business man Adam, when I am close
to closing a deal; I keep my cards close to my vest. I just met you, so….”

I nodded in understanding “Okay. Did anyone
else around here know?”

“Doug, who was the attorney on the matter,
though I am not going to keep using him, he has been acting wonky.”

“Talk to my lawyer Ric Blade, she’s a good
Christian Lady and sharp as her last name implies.”

He smiled “Will do. Josh and Mackenzie knew,
as did Ivy.
 
And likely young Josh and
Miriam.
 
But I can’t see how that would
relate to the murders.”

Neither could I but I had very little else
left. “When did you tell Josh?”

“Months ago when the idea first came to me.
I want to begin a Christian marketing firm, using Biblical Principals to market
and brand churches and Christian Business, from the large like the radio
stations to the small, like this diner.”

“Fubu” I said.

“Huh?”

“For us buy us. It’s a line of clothes for
the African American community but the principal applies here.”

“Yes it does. So as I said I told Josh,
months ago, he had some objections but as much as we batted it around he could
not find a Biblical Principal that I would be violating so I got his reluctant
blessing.”

“So you only spoke with him the once?”

“Oh no we spoke frequently, the last was
the day before he died, we were going back and forth over final arrangements
and in fact we only got off the phone because he had to pick up Miriam for an
overnight. To be frank I showed up at the reading of the will hoping he had
left me the station and the land outright.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No but I can’t find a real objection to
the way he arranged things.”

I took a deep breath and a sip of coffee.
“So your business will be able to go ahead even if we are sitting on the
property that you need?”

“And holding the radio station?” He added.
“Yes, I think in the long run that Pastor Longstreet and Pastor Luke are
reasonable men and the way that Josh arranged things will work out for
everybody.”

“And you suddenly have a big stake in
Hagerstown.”

“I’m looking to fry bigger fish. No offense.”

“None taken but if that is the case why not
stay in Boston?”

“Because when you drop a cold fish into oil
that is too hot it burns.”

I was not sure if the cooking analog was
accurate but I think I understood his point.

“So too much media in Boston.”

“Correct, and to Liberal, here in Western
Maryland
 
we have a generally conservitive-fundemental
area, while still within striking distance of DC and Baltimore.”

“Kind of an edge in the stake hole.”

I had no idea what I had just said but Ryder
Agreed. “Exactly.”

Once again I was gathering information that
was not leading me to who killed Josh and Mac.

“But none of this is why Doug is still in
town?”

Ryder shook his head “No. Doug and I have
come to a parting of the ways.”

“He did not seem to know that yesterday.”

“He’s known since he sided with Longstreet
concerning Miriam.”
 
Ryder said flatly.
“Given that her mother is in prison, the child belongs with her Aunt and Uncle
or at the very least her grandparents.”

“Have you seen her?”

“Only at the funeral.”

“I didn't see you there.”

“I hung towards the back.
 
But I did get a chance to say hi to Miriam
and it was not a good experience.”

“Unresponsive?”

“To say the least.”

“That was what Rita and I thought as well.
The whole thing must have traumatized her.”

We sat for a moment two grown men unable to
deal with the loss that a little girl must feel as her family falls apart.

“She really needs Ivy to come home.” Ryder
said softly.

The implication was that she really needed
me to be able to get her mother out of jail.

Ryder made his fair thee wells and I sat
and pondered. Two shooters or three. Tim killing Dennis because Kitty told him
to, then Kitty killing Tim and none of it adding up to who killed Josh or Mac.
Wheels within wheels as Joshua had written me. And that, that long rambling
letter taking me though the dark history of our movement, laying bear the loss
of his family, his feelings of failure as a husband and father. And.

Darn.

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

I took out my cell phone and dialed
Christina.

“Denmark.” She said as way of hello

“I need to see Ivy. Today.”

“You got something?”

“Hives.” I said.
 
“Clear me to get in and see her, right away
I’m on my way to the county lock up.”

I heard actual concern in Christina’s voice
as she asked. “I thought you didn’t do the inside of jails anymore?”

I cringed, I was so jacked by my thought
process I had forgotten my own fears.

 
“I’ll
make do.” I hung up sweeting.

Fifteen minutes later I stood at the front entrance
of Washington County Jail. Now a county jail is different than a prison. As a
visitor I was going to enter thought the main entrance, a doorway that looked
like any other government buildings door. Inside the main room would be a large
atrium with fake plants and government sofas. I would fill out some paperwork,
show my ID and then be lead down a large hall to the visitor’s room. On the way
I would make a fast stop at the duty officer’s desk and check some information
that, I knew in my head would be there, but that I needed to see with my eyes.
Then I would continue on down to the visitor’s room. Before entering I would be
searched and put through a metal detector. Not all that different than going
into a courthouse or sadly a school.

It was beyond the door to the visitor’s
area that things would change. There would be long metal tables, with chairs
bolted to the floor. Ivy would be lead into one of the private conference rooms;
I worked for her attorney after all, in her dark green jumpsuit. A Corrections
Officer would be with her. He would uncuff her and tell her to sit. Then I
would be let into the room. The same C.O. would tell me to sit across from the
inmate, to avoid physical contact and to bang on the door when we were done. He
would then stand directly outside the door. I would go into the room and the
door would slam behind me and then, and then the Officer would lock the door.
And I would be in prison again.

The door slammed. The lock turned. I looked
over at Ivy who sat school girl still at the table, her hands folded in front
of her. She watched the sweat begin to drip off my face.

“Does it ever go away?” She asked sadly.

“I don’t think so.” I said as I sat down.

“So you did five years right?”

“Six, counting county.”

“And it gets to you like this. I wonder how
I will be after twenty-five or more.”

“You’re not going to do twenty-five.”

She gave a wan smile. She looked older, the
week measuring decades not days. Her hair was already showing signs of gray and
without make up her eyes were hang dog and her cheeks deep.

“You know something I don’t.” She said with
a weak laugh.

I leaned back in the chair, trying to fake
comfortable. It didn’t work, neither of us was fooled, so I sat forward and
folded my hands on the table across from hers. “No, Ivy, you know something I
don’t.”

She smiled and for the first time the
confidence came back to her voice. “I was a pastor’s wife there is a lot I know
that you don’t know.”

I grinned and gave her a small hand wave
“Fair play to you Ivy, as my Irish mother would have said. But I am talking
about specifically what happened the night that Joshua and Mac were killed.”

“I told you all I knew.”

I shook my head. “You need to remember that
I am on your side.”

She shrugged.

“You said that you went over to the house
because Mac and Josh called you.”

“Yes”

“But you never said why.”

“I am not sure; they were not in a position
to talk when I got there.”

“No suspicions?”

“Something to do with the kids.”

“That’s as close to the truth as you have
told me Ivy.” I said, and then before she could interrupt I went on. “Specifically
it had to do with Miriam who was visiting with Josh that week end and who was
with him at Mac’s place.”

She sat up straighter.

“Why not tell me that Ivy?”

“It had no bearing. Miriam was not there
when I got there.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“I am sure that it was quite traumatic on
you to realize that it was your own daughter in the kitchen when you fired at
the noise you heard in there. Tell me did you figure out it was her right after
you fired, or did Pastor Longstreet tell you when he came to visit you?”

She jumped to her feet, thought better of
it and sat back down.

“Ivy?” I said kindly. “Tell me what is
going on?”

“I didn’t know that it was Miriam in the
kitchen when I fired. I heard the noise and panicked. Pastor Longstreet came
and told me that it was Miriam; she had bolted out the back door and ran all
the way to Nancy’s house. That’s how she ended up with them; it was simply the closest
house she knew of.”

Country people have a weird idea of close.
Nancy’s house was at least a half a mile away. A decent subway ride for a New
Yorker.

“How did you found out she was there?” Ivy
asked.

“It just started to make sense. Sometimes I
talk too much and I don’t listen or pay attention. I believed you when you said
someone was in the kitchen. But when I checked the grass it was flat. Now we have
not had a lot of rain and it was dry back there behind the kitchen door, but
still a person would have to be very light not to leave some imprint for me or
the cops to find. Miriam is what 75 pounds soaking wet?”

Her mother smiled. “85”

I nodded “And running almost leaping. No
wonder there was no indentation in the grass. I imagine the cops would find it
if they looked but why bother.”

“When they had me in jail.” Ivy made it a
statement.

“Yep. Then Ryder mentioned that he had
spoken to Josh but that Josh had to call him back because he had Miriam overnight.
I was so busy talking about other things it took me a minute to register that
statement.”

“And now you know she was there.”

“Yes.” I stopped got up and walked for moment.
Ivy sat very still and quite. I sat back down across from her.