Sintown Chronicles I: Behind Closed Doors (29 page)

“That's what I thought at first. She was trying to blackmail you. She might have had something on Matt."

“You don't think that now?"

“No. When the SBI guys were at the house, I walked them back to their car and asked them point blank about it. They have eliminated him as a suspect because of the time of Cathy's death. My guess is they have evidence of Matt's location when she died."

“What then would cause him to want to commit suicide?"

“I have nothing to base it on except speculation, but either he was having domestic problems or something was going wrong in his department."

“Poor guy."

“Maybe, maybe not. But whichever is the case, I owe the man."

“You owe the man? I'm the one who owes him. Tim, you know as well as I do that he could have put me on trial along with the rest of the Van Fans."

“That is exactly why I owe him,” Tim said firmly.

“I don't understand."

Tim looked at her incredulously. “Don't you yet know that I love you? I mean I really love you. We have become a team. I need you. What hurts you hurts me."

She took the cigarette out of his hand and stubbed both of them out in the ashtray. She held out her arms and said, “Come here, Dude."

Hand in hand, they returned to room 312. A nurse was leaving and left the door open for them. Matt looked terrible in his casts and bandages. They tried not to show their true reaction. He seemed not to know them and accepted their statements of concern with an occasional blink of his eyes, but no words. They thought that perhaps his injuries kept him from speaking. It was an uncomfortable five minutes, and both Tim and Sandra saw no reason to delay their early departure.

“Wait,” he said weakly just as they turned to leave. “Please shut the door."

Tim quietly complied and returned to Matt's bedside.

Matt spoke slowly. He avoided eye contact. “As Sheriff I stepped on many toes. I helped many people too. You are the only two who have visited me. You are the only ones who have sent flowers."

They followed his eyes and noticed for the first time the small potted plant in the windowsill.

“I remember you folks. I remember you, Sandy, because you are the most sensuous looking woman I have ever seen. No offense, Tim. You are one lucky son-of-a-bitch."

Sandra picked up Matt's uninjured hand and held it. “You've been in ICU with no visitors allowed. When the word gets out, your friends will come."

“No,” he replied, looking at her for the first time, “I have no friends. The one friend I thought I had betrayed me. Now even she is gone. My wife left me. I made one stupid mistake, and I am paying dearly for it. They fired me. They're going to make it official when I get out of the hospital. They're waiting until the county insurance has paid most of my medical bills. I'm grateful for that."

His eyes diverted to the window. He paused, but both Sandra and Tim remained mute.

“What did you mean, Tim,” Matt continued, still looking out the window, “when you said you were going to help me?"

“I don't know exactly,” Tim honestly replied. “The gift you gave me—Sandy and me—is worth more than all the money I have or ever will have. We'll help with medical bills, the costs of getting you back on your feet, a job—whatever."

Matt smiled grimly, still looking towards the window. “They tell me I'll never walk again—that I am paralyzed from the waist down. What kind of job can a man in a wheel chair perform?"

“I don't know,” Tim replied. “I've never needed to think about it. But I do know that there are many people out there who are handicapped and gainfully employed."

The grim smile returned.

“Matt,” Sandra's voice filled the silence. “This is awkward for all of us. I apologize in advance if what I am about to say is off base, but I believe you may be contemplating the completion of what you tried to do in the spider car on Highway 13. I think you are not terribly concerned about paying bills. I think what you are worried about is a life without significance. Am I wrong?"

The big man continued to look towards the window, but without really seeing it. “You are not wrong,” he finally said. “Law enforcement was not just my job. It was my life."

“Okay,” she continued, forcing a smile to her lips, “think about things that you will be able to do, not the things you will no longer be able to do. We'll do the same, and we'll do some research. Investigation should be right up your ally, so you do some research too. Talk with your doctors and nurses. We have time. Together we'll dream dreams and when we find a dream that trips your trigger, we'll help you turn that dream into reality."

“That's a solemn promise,” Tim added. He was proud of Sandra's ability to turn a hopeless moment into one of promise.

A nurse entered the room with a cheerful, “Time for your meds, Mr. Dilson."

Matt held out his good hand. Instead of shaking it, both Tim and Sandra held his hand for a few seconds. “Thank you,” he said. It was not an expression of appreciation. The Dollars knew it was the acceptance of a sacred covenant, as binding as a notarized signature on a legal contract.

When they reached the hospital lobby Tim said, “Sandy, since you are here, I want you to go with me someplace. I'll bring you back to the hospital parking lot so you can get your car. It won't take more than an hour."

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“It's a surprise. I was going to save it for Christmas, but I've changed my mind."

He drove her directly to a little jewelry store as cold rain began to fall. “Mr. Weiner,” Tim said to the smiling owner, “this is the lady I have been telling you about. Sandy, this is Ted Weiner."

“Ah, Mrs. Dollar. It is so nice to meet you,” said Mr. Weiner extending his hand.

“I would like to show Sandy the rings."

“Of course, Mr. Dollar. I have them in the safe. I'll be right back."

“Tim, what's this all about?” Sandra demanded.

“Will you marry me?"

“Tim, we've been through this before."

“I know, but Dudette, I love you. More than anything else in the whole world I want you to be my wife."

He was going to say more, but Sandra sealed his mouth with her lips. He had finally spoken the magic words.

“...men know best about everything, except what women know better.” Sandra laughed heartily after reading these words in
Middlemarch
, and scribbled them down in the notepad she constantly kept by her side while reading. She was nearing the end of the long novel and was already thinking of the review she would write for the
Courier
.

Although Brahms was playing softly in the background, she could hear Tim pacing in his study. She knew he was concerned about the town meeting but she also knew there was nothing she could do to calm him down. She glanced out the window and saw that the rain was still coming down. On the way back from Charlotte, she listened to the weather report on the Cavalier radio. A cold front out of Canada was pushing its way into the area while a low in the Gulf of Mexico was moving northward. There was a good chance that the two would combine over the Charlotte area producing an early snowstorm. More likely, the weather prognosticator said, the precipitation would turn to freezing rain producing the dreaded black ice road conditions that are so prevalent in the southern part of the United States during winter months.

Tim also heard the report and it increased his concern that few, if any, people would show up for the meeting.

The telephone rang once, then a second time. She reached for it, but it was no longer ringing and she knew Tim had answered it. She returned to
Middlemarch
, but soon she sensed Tim's presence, standing in the doorway.

“Dudette, Deacon Jones is on the telephone. He's trying to avoid an awkward situation. After the service tomorrow the church is going to vote on hiring Mack as their minister. He doesn't think Mack should be present to hear the discussion. It seems the Deacon thinks there will be some strong opposition. Since we are not church members and cannot vote, he would like for us to invite Mack here for lunch tomorrow."

“Its okay with me,” she said, remembering her fantasy with a bit of embarrassment. “I'll run into Dot and pick up a chicken. It'll give me an excuse to stay home in the morning."

They both smiled. He returned to the telephone in his study and she read to the end of the chapter.

Driving back from the Dot Grocery, she noticed ice beginning to form on trees and shrubs. Just before arriving at her driveway, a dog darted across the road. She hit the brakes too hard and the car fishtailed. She had not realized ice was forming on the road. So that's what they mean by black ice, she thought.

Tim joined her in the kitchen while she put away the groceries. “Dudette, it's probably going to be pretty late when we get in tonight. Would you like to read a little in
John
while you're fixing dinner?"

“Dude, about the meeting. Maybe you should postpone it. The streets are already beginning to get slick."

“I've thought about that. How do you propose we contact everybody? I thought maybe if only a handful of people show up we'll set a new date then. It's the only thing I know to do."

Sandra noticed that Tim brought the
New Jerusalem Bible
to the kitchen with him. “That's a good idea,” she said nodding towards the Bible that now lay on the kitchen table. “You read and I'll ask the questions."

“Okay, now where were we?” He asked the rhetorical question while reverently opening the book. “Here goes."

In all truth I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a bandit. He who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the flock; the gatekeeper lets him in, the sheep hear his voice, one by one he calls his own sheep and leads them out. When he has brought out all those that are his, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow because they know his voice. They will never follow a stranger, but will run away from him because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.

Jesus told them this parable but they failed to understand what he was saying to them.

“I don't understand either.” Sandra dropped two pork chops into the cast iron skillet. The hiss of the meat hitting the hot iron made Tim's mouth water.

“Well, hold on a minute,” Tim said. “There's more."

So Jesus spoke to them again:

In all truth I tell you,

I am the gate of the sheepfold.

All who have come before me

are thieves and bandits,

but the sheep took no notice of

them.

I am the gate.

Anyone who enters through me will

be safe:

such a one will go in and out

and will find pasture.

The thief comes

only to steal and kill and

destroy,

I have come

so that they may have life

and have it to the full.

“Hold it, Dude. Jesus is talking about sheep, a sheepfold, a shepherd and a gate, but he says he is the gate. I don't get it."

“Perhaps I haven't forgotten everything I learned in Sunday School,” Tim smiled, reminiscing. “The way I recall it being explained to me goes something like this. In Palestine in those days, raising sheep was the way lots of people made their living. Everybody was familiar with this occupation. Shepherds would take their flock out on the hillsides to graze during the day, and bring them back to the sheepfold for safety from wild animals at night. The sheepfold was like a solid fence with one opening. There was no gate, as we think of a gate. The shepherd lay down to sleep in this opening. He literally became the gate. The only way a wild animal could get to the sheep was through this opening, and the beast would have to go through the shepherd to do so."

“That makes more sense.” She began to mash the potatoes. “So Jesus is the good shepherd who protects his sheep, Christians I guess, both in the pasture during the day and in the sheepfold at night."

“Precisely."

“So what Jesus is saying is that Christians are going to be wealthy and safe from all harm that may come their way."

“No, he's not saying that at all."

“Didn't he say that his sheep would always find pasture?"

“Well, yes."

“Read that last line again."

I have come

so that they may have life

and have it to the full.

“The word ‘they’ has to refer to the sheep which you agree are Christians. He says he has come so they may have life and have it to the full. Sounds to me like he's talking about wealth—the good life we call it."

“Not at all, Sandy. He's talking about eternal life. You know, life after death."

“If he's talking about eternal life, why didn't he say so? Even if he is, when does eternal life begin? At the point of death or at birth, or during the new birth we read about the other night when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus and told him he must be born again?"

“At the point of death, I imagine. I've never given it much thought, but you're right, it isn't very clear.” Tim closed the Bible.

“Maybe,” Sandy said stirring flour browned in pork drippings to make gravy, “the full life has nothing to do with wealth or even health. Maybe it has to do with something like inner peace."

“That sounds right,” Tim agreed. “As I said last night, when I get to heaven I have a plethora of questions to ask St. Peter. I'll add this one to the list."

“Mack agreed to preach a series of sermons on
John
. I think we may get a quicker answer if we ask him to explain this point in one of them. Come on, Dude. Let's eat."

“When do you want to get married, Sandy?” Tim asked after swallowing his first bite of the delicious mashed potatoes covered with gravy.

“Christmas Eve,” she replied without hesitation, “and I want it to be snowing."

He laughed. “Christmas Eve we can handle, but I don't know about the snow. We could go to Charlotte and get a judge to perform the ceremony, or we could fly out to Las Vegas and get hitched in one of those Marriage Chapels."

“I want to get married right here and I want Mack to perform the ceremony. I want it to snow and I want all the people in Dot to be present. I want to screw you just after midnight so that our first married sexual experience will be on Christmas Day."