The Devil in Pew Number Seven (7 page)

As well as sparking a sizable ingathering of people from both Sellerstown and nearby communities, Daddy had initiated a host of improvements to the church facility. The sanctuary received a much needed face-lift. Threadbare carpet was tossed and replaced, while a fresh coat of paint offered the walls and ceiling new life. With the installation of fourteen comfortable pews—seven on each side of the aisle—and an improved sound system, there wasn’t a bad seat in the house.

He had done nothing wrong, certainly nothing to merit this sinister treatment. Someone, apparently, felt differently. This same someone went to the trouble of attempting to conceal his identity. Again, who and why? Sifting through the prospects, no doubt Daddy stopped to weigh the possibility that the call might have been instigated by someone very close to home.

* * *

At age sixty-five, Mr. Horry James Watts, who lived across the street from us, was a wealthy, well-connected, and respected businessman—at least as far as the general public was concerned. Typically sporting a pressed white shirt, tie, slacks, and blazer, Mr. Watts was rarely seen in public without his black wool hat. Tufts of gray hair peeked out from around the bottom of the fedora while black, thick-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose.

Mr. Watts was one of five Columbus County commissioners, and he served as chairman for several years. During his two terms in office, Mr. Watts helped facilitate the construction of the new Columbus County Law Enforcement Center, a police headquarters and jail complex. His name, along with those of the other commissioners, had been embossed on a bronze placard and prominently displayed adjacent to the entrance to the facility.

By all outward appearances, Mr. Watts was an upstanding citizen and a happily married, devout family man with nine children. But many of the locals in Sellerstown and the longtime neighbors who knew him well testified that, in addition to his respectable public facade, he had a sinister side.

Mr. Watts had a reputation as a womanizer, a control freak, and a kingpin of sorts, a narcissist who didn’t hesitate to leverage both his influence and affluence to his advantage. Old-timers claimed that, as a youth,
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he had once disguised himself before robbing his own mother’s house. I cannot fathom the sort of person who would pull a stunt like that.

Case in point.

For a number of years, money was tight, and most banks refused to extend credit to the Sellerstown farmers. Without necessary funds for supplies or equipment, their farms would fail. The lending crisis created the perfect storm, and Mr. Watts was quick to swallow the small fish in town.
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Stepping in and offering loans from his own funds, Mr. Watts offered cash at confiscatory interest rates.

The farmers took the bait.
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What choice did they have?

Money was power. He who had money held all the cards. The more money he loaned, the more control Mr. Watts enjoyed. If someone wasn’t making his payment, Mr. Watts hired hatchet men to collect on the debt. One of Watts’s favorite lackeys
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to strong-arm delinquent debtors was Roger Williams, a local bruiser with a less-than-stellar reputation. Roger had served time at the Texarkana, Texas, penitentiary over a firearms violation, making him just the kind of guy Mr. Watts loved to employ in his “informal” collection agency. A show of force was a powerful way to extract cash out of slow payers and nonpayers.

That’s exactly what happened to Donnie Ward. When Donnie fell behind in his loan payments, Mr. Watts enlisted Roger to intimidate Donnie. “With your reputation, all you got to do is talk to him, probably; me and you are going to get along good.” With Mr. Watts behind the wheel, the two men rode together to Donnie’s place to collect. Arriving at Donnie’s house, they found him working in the front yard.

With a tap of the horn, Mr. Watts signaled Donnie to approach the car. Roger leaned out the window and said, “I believe you’re a little late in your payments. It’s time to catch them up—and not be late anymore.” I don’t know whether it was the unexpected personal visit by Mr. Watts, the big brute with a rap sheet doing the talking, or most likely, the combination of the two, but Donnie got the message. He didn’t hesitate to pull a check from his pocket and endorse it over to Mr. Watts.

After cashing the check, Mr. Watts slipped Roger fifty dollars. Then, placing a hand on Roger’s leg in a friendly show of affirmation, he said, “That’s the way to go, buddy.
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We’ll get along good together.” If, unlike Donnie, a borrower couldn’t pay, Mr. Watts wasn’t above compelling them to sign over the deed to their house and property.

In a matter of years, Mr. Watts seemed to own or control everybody and everything within his power—he even managed to control the church affairs at Free Welcome, which he attended religiously. His favorite pew was the back row, pew number seven. From that comfortable perch, he had the perfect vantage point to mind everyone’s business.

He could note who was sitting with whom, who wore what—perhaps a sign they had spent money on clothes that should have been money paid to him for a debt—and who didn’t show for services—a possible sign they were avoiding contact with him. Even though Mr. Watts was neither a professed believer nor a church member, the church followed his wishes without opposition.That is, until Daddy arrived on the scene.

* * *

Daddy was a quick study. Witnessing Mr. Watts’s stranglehold on the church, Daddy made changes to end his dominance. Making the case that church business should be conducted by the church brethren as a whole—not by one or two outspoken individuals—the church family voted to turn the business of the church over to members only. From then on, stripped of his power, Mr. Watts had no say in church matters.

This came as a blow to Mr. Watts, who had been serving on the building committee. It was understandable that the church would rely upon Mr. Watts’s expertise when it was time to build a fellowship hall and additional Sunday school classrooms. He had, after all, been a key player in the construction of the multi-million-dollar jail facility for the county. His wealth of knowledge and years of experience would be invaluable.

During the design phase of the building, Mr. Watts believed his recommendations should be followed. At issue was whether to build an addition with a flat-topped or a pitched roof. If Mr. Watts had had his way, the church would have constructed a smaller building with a pitched roof. Although more costly, this design would have matched the existing facility.

The majority opinion, shared by Daddy, was to keep costs down by constructing a flat-topped structure. This infuriated Mr. Watts, who was accustomed to giving advice and orders, not taking them. While Mr. Watts went along with the others and voted for the simpler roofline, inside he was steaming as if trapped inside a pressure cooker.

Unconvinced that more space was needed, angered that his counsel had been rejected, he took Daddy aside, lobbying him to change the decision. His plea fell on deaf ears. Daddy was not to be swayed, saying, “Mr. Watts, I get my advice
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from the Lord.” Mr. Watts wasn’t accustomed to being rebuffed, nor did the rejection sit well with him. Mr. Watts had said, “If you don’t need any advice, maybe you should get in your car and go back to Alabama.”

Daddy probably took his comment with a grain of salt.

Everyone was entitled to their opinion, right?

Besides, Daddy and Momma had faced opposition over a building project years before while pastoring a new church. Back when my parents were starting out in the ministry in Alabama, Daddy had been conducting revival services under a tent pitched on a piece of land purchased the hard way: selling chicken and fish dinners. Between the sweltering heat that soaked Daddy from his head down to his socks as if he had been standing in the rain, and the ever-present bugs that seemed to delight in annoying the faithful, his growing congregation knew they had to build.

A handful of neighbors adjacent to the property, however, protested the idea of building a church within a residential community. A public hearing was arranged before the town board to settle the matter. Several councilmen clearly felt pressure to deny the building permit. After reviewing the architect’s drawing, a councilman said, “Mr. Nichols, it doesn’t look
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as if you have enough room for a playground.”

A playground? Talk about grasping at straws. Daddy was quick to counter, “Sir, we aren’t going to church to play but to worship God.”

Another councilman, who underestimated how resilient Daddy was under pressure, said, “Well, Mr. Nichols, with the complaints we have, it looks as though you may be in a hornet’s nest.”

“Sir,” Daddy said, most likely with a wide, disarming smile, “I’ve been in a hornet’s nest ever since I got saved and started preaching against Satan and his evil workers.” The permit was granted, and the church was built. The fact that Mr. Watts was fuming about the style of roof on the fellowship hall was, by comparison, no big deal. But there were other issues compounding the old man’s rage.

Making matters worse, like tossing gas on an open flame, was a decision to remove Mr. Watts’s wife, Ora, from two positions in the church. For years, Ora had been an adult Sunday school class teacher and the church clerk. As teacher, Ora held to the tradition of the old Fire Baptized denomination that believed Christians shouldn’t cook or buy anything on Sunday. Ora attempted to put the class under the heavy burden of such strict convictions at the same time Daddy was preaching about God’s grace. Seeing the conflict of beliefs, members of the church voted her out as teacher.

But it was Daddy who wanted to take away Ora’s duties as clerk once he realized how surreptitiously Ora handled the church’s funds. Mr. Watts seemed to feel his wife’s position gave him control over the church’s finances. In fact, when the members voted in a new clerk, Ora never turned over any records—only a new checkbook and the current balance.

Bit by bit, Mr. Watts and his wife were divested of their dominant roles in the congregation. This enraged Mr. Watts, who, at first, had welcomed the new preacher. During one heated exchange, Mr. Watts stood up in the worship service and told my Daddy, “You had better not tell my wife
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that she could not vote in the business.” Before sitting down, while the stunned crowd looked on, he groused that Daddy had bought too many songbooks.

Could Mr. Watts be so upset that he was the one behind the call? Was he really willing to stoop to such juvenile behavior just because he couldn’t have his way? Then again, the voice on the other end of the line wasn’t the low-pitched, resonant voice of Mr. Watts. It had a distinctly dark timbre, much like Al Pacino with a sore throat. Besides, the caller sounded younger.

Of course, it might have been a wrong number.

The caller never mentioned Daddy by name.

* * *

The late-night menacing phone call Daddy received wasn’t the last one he’d get. Far from it. During the days, weeks and months ahead, someone hiding behind the cover of anonymity would call our home, and quickly hang up—or call, wait for a few long moments, and then terminate the call. Some days there would be several dozen hostile calls designed to create fear in the hearts of my parents.

These acts of intimidation didn’t end with the phone. An unsigned letter arrived at our house on December 23, 1972, two days before Christmas. This time the anonymous author pointed a finger of guilt at my mother, asserting that Momma had told a lie in a phone conversation. The letter went on to say she lied a second time to cover up her first falsehood. The accusation was ridiculous. Had the writer said Momma ran a moonshine operation under the cover of dark, he would have been just as wrong.

Momma wasn’t a liar.

She didn’t even like to tell a fib.

If Momma had one driving goal in her life, it was to live in such a way that she would bring glory to the Lord. Lying, stretching the truth, massaging the facts, dabbling in deception—all would have been as foreign to her as speaking an unfamiliar language. What’s more, she made a point of raising me to respect the truth, tanning my hide on more than one occasion for daring to tell a white lie.

Filled with fragmented sentences, repetitions, and typos, the letter, which had been typed in all capital characters, went on to ask,

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO EXPLAIN TO THE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY? WILL YOU TRY TO COVER UP AGAIN? MRS. NICHLOS [sic], YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A SUPPOSED TO BE HOLLINESS PREACHER’S WIFE. BUT, WHAT DO THE CHURCH AND COMMUNITY HAVE TO LOOK FORWARD TO? SHAMEFULLY, WHAT A PITY.

The end of the letter defied logic:

SIGNED BY MORE THAN 25 CHURCH MEMBERS, NEIGHBORS, AND CITIZENS.

One problem. There were no signatures. Certainly not twenty-five. The note contained this postscript:

P.S. HAVE YOU WOKE UP YET?

I’m not sure how my parents would have initially viewed such a message. Were they tempted to toss the letter without giving it a second thought? Did they dismiss it as a tasteless joke? Did they wonder whether someone had consumed too much spiked eggnog and, in an unguarded moment, dashed off this error-filled note? I’ll never know for certain, although my hunch is that they rolled their eyes at such foolishness.

Daddy had been polishing his Christmas Eve message while Momma had been busy preparing for our family vacation. There were clothes to pack, presents to wrap, and last-minute Christmas cards to mail. If someone was too cowardly to put his or her name on the claims, and if that same someone was so vague that he or she couldn’t even spell out what Momma’s alleged lies were, then there was no point wasting time or energy over a nonissue.

At the same time, this wasn’t an isolated event.

On December 29, 1972, Momma wandered down the driveway and, with a neighborly wave, greeted Aunt Pat, who was likewise retrieving her mail. Momma emptied the mailbox and returned to the kitchen table to leaf through the assortment of correspondence, bills, and supermarket circulars.