The Sacrifice (30 page)

“Did you forget?”

Scott ignored the question. “Tell the lawyers to work on their direct and cross-examination of Pete Pigpickin, and ask the witnesses to write out more questions for the attorneys to consider. I'll be there in ten minutes.”

Still wearing blue jeans and a Wake Forest T-shirt, Scott threw his mock trial materials into the front seat of his SUV and drove at high speed to the high school. He dashed up the steps, then walked more normally into the classroom. The students were sitting in groups as he'd instructed. Every eye turned toward him.

“Sorry I'm late,” he said casually. “Busy day at the office. Keep working in your groups while I discuss some things with Mrs. Wilson.”

Kay looked at him and said under her breath, “Were you working on a lawsuit against a spaghetti manufacturer? You have some sauce on the corner of your mouth.”

Scott licked the corner of his mouth and tasted tomato with a hint of oregano.

“I'm busted again,” he said. “With all that's happening at work, I forgot about the meeting.”

“Don't worry. I'm not going to send you to Dr. Lassiter for a paddling.”

An hour later Scott was testing the knowledge of a fast-talking young man playing the role of Ralph Risky.

“I made a perfect score on the written test in driver's education,” Ralph said proudly. “My instructor taught me to always come to a complete stop and look both ways before entering an intersection. If a student in our class didn't stop, he had to get out of the car and apologize to the stop sign.”

“Did you ever have to apologize?” Scott asked.

“No, sir,” Ralph said forthrightly.

“You don't know anything about Mr. Pigpickin's driving history, do you?”

“No, but I bet it's bad. He should have apologized a dozen times to the stop sign he ran when he hit Betty and me.”

Scott reviewed his notes. “Would it surprise you to learn that Mr. Pigpickin has a commercial driver's license?”

“He should be in a commercial all right. He'd be the one driving like a maniac in a TV ad for lawyers who promise a lot of money to anyone injured in a car wreck.”

Scott smiled. “Ralph, that's going too far. You have to stick closer to the facts given on the handout sheets.”

“Okay,” the student replied. “We'd talked about that answer the other night and wondered if it would be okay.”

Scott looked at his watch and spoke to the group. “You're making great progress. I can tell that you've been studying the roles. That's what it takes. Whether you are a witness or a lawyer, it has to become second nature to you. If you know the facts, it frees you to get into character as a witness.”

Kay dismissed the students. Janie and Frank, their heads close together as they talked, stayed at the back of the room for a few minutes.

“Do you need any help?” Scott asked.

“No, thanks,” Janie replied. “Frank is helping me with my opening statement.”

Scott went to the front of the room.

“You were right,” he said to Kay in a low voice. “Those two are getting along better than I thought they would.”

“I've seen them walking together in the hall recently.”

Scott glanced back at the two young people. Janie was intent on writing something, and Frank was almost touching her as he leaned close to her shoulder. Janie finished writing and smiled at Frank. They left together.

When he was alone with Kay, Scott asked, “Have you heard any good songs lately?”

She looked at him suspiciously. “Are you teasing me?”

“Maybe. You'll have to admit that what you told me at lunch yesterday was unusual.”

“I think you described it as a ‘good crazy.' But no, there haven't been any songs today. However, I read a poetic chapter in the Psalms last night and starting writing down my own thoughts. It was random as it came out, but in reading it over I saw a progression from my thoughts toward God and then back again from him to me. It was like a cosmic dance.”

Scott felt the conversation slipping again into the twilight zone of Kay's imagination. He had an idea to bring it back to earth.

“Would you like to go to church with me on Sunday?” he asked.

Surprised, Kay said, “I didn't know you went to church.”

“I don't go regularly, but I'm visiting a black congregation out in the country this Sunday. I've met the pastor, and he invited me to come.”

It was Kay's turn to try and keep up with Scott's thoughts. “Wait. Why were you invited?”

“It's because of a case. I'm representing a young man charged with a crime involving the church, and this is a way to talk to potential witnesses.”

“A church member committed a crime?”

“No, only my client is charged. I can't talk about the details of the case, but he's a student here at the school.”

Kay's mouth dropped open. “Lester Garrison?”

Scott nodded. “Tattoos and all.”

When he returned home from mock trial practice, Frank Jesup had an unnerving experience while talking with his father. He suddenly felt detached from his surroundings and watched his own movements and words as if they were being performed by someone else. He slowly drifted to the corner of the kitchen and looked down on himself and his father as they stood across from each other near the refrigerator. He closed his eyes tightly for a couple of seconds, and when he opened them, everything was normal.

“What is it?” his father asked. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, sure,” Frank answered. “Just a little tired.”

“Don't stay up all night on the computer. I'm going out for a few hours, and I don't want to see your light on when I come back.”

“Rena's condominium?” Frank asked, even though he knew the answer.

His father grunted.

“Why doesn't she move in with us?” Frank continued. “It seems stupid to have to run over to her place every night.”

“I can't move her to Catawba while the divorce is pending. Your mother is trying to crucify me, and I don't need to help her.”

After his father left, Frank tried to watch TV, but nothing held his interest. He surfed through eighty channels without scoring a hit. The computer was drawing him, and he wandered upstairs to his room. He turned on the machine and quickly negotiated the labyrinth of controls his group had constructed to protect the privacy of their warfare. Within fifteen minutes he was in another world. No one detected his entrance through a doorway he'd created the previous week. Frank's mind cleared, and he entered a zone of heightened consciousness and razor-sharp insight. Creativity came easily, and he saw what to do with precision. He could have pounced on the other warriors quickly, but he settled back and began to slowly weave a web of deception that further masked his presence so that when the blows fell his victims wouldn't be able to identify their assassin. That's the way he wanted to do it. Patient, anonymous, deadly.

Frank's father didn't come home.

22

Abraham believed God, and it was
credited to him as righteousness.

J
AMES 2:23

W
hen he woke up Sunday morning, Scott opened the door of his closet and surveyed his wardrobe. It's always better to be overdressed than too casual, and he didn't want to offend the people at Hall's Chapel before attempting to interview them. He selected a gray suit, white shirt, and a blue-and-red-striped tie. After he straightened his tie, he looked in the full-length mirror attached to the back of his bathroom door. He looked more like a prep-school graduate than a soul-food lover. Immutable things can't change.

Kay's apartment was on the other side of town. He drove down Lipscomb Avenue past the courthouse and into an area where developers had built a few modern apartment complexes. Scott had thought about living in the same apartments that Kay and Jake chose. It would have been less work than maintaining his house, but he would have forfeited the backyard and couldn't have taken in Nicky.

He climbed the steps and knocked on the door. He waited, then knocked again. Kay opened the door. She was barefoot and wearing a long violet dress. Her hair was still slightly damp and on her shoulders.

“Come in,” she said. “I had a late start, but I'll be ready in a minute.”

Kay disappeared down the hall, and Scott sat in one of two chairs at a glass-topped table next to the kitchen. He looked at the other chair and wondered if it was Jake's seat. There was an arrangement of silk flowers in the center of the table. Kay had a few blown-up photographs of beach scenes on the walls. The only personal photo in sight was a small picture on the kitchen counter beside the table. It was Kay at about age eight wearing a pair of shorts and a skimpy top. She was standing outdoors in front of an easel and laughing at the watercolors she'd splashed on the piece of paper.

Scott tapped his fingers on the table. He suspected Kay's minute might be longer than a literal sixty seconds. He walked into the living room area. On the low table in front of the couch were a notebook, a Bible, and a cup of coffee that looked more like the night before than this morning. He glanced over his shoulder and raised the cover of the notebook. It was filled with Kay's handwriting. He let the cover fall closed without reading anything and picked up the Bible. He opened it to the book of Psalms. Kay had marked verses on page after page with a hot pink highlighter. Scott read a few of them without fathoming why they were selected.

Kay came around the corner and saw him. “Getting in the mood for church?” she asked.

Scott put the Bible on the table. “Are you sure it's not sacrilegious to use a pink highlighter in a Bible?”

“You already think I'm crazy because of the song I heard the other day. Using a pink highlighter shouldn't be too hard to accept.”

“I got into trouble once in Sunday school for using a crayon to decorate the margins of a Bible.”

“I don't think there is anything wrong with artwork in the Bible. I've seen pictures of medieval Bibles in which every first letter of a book is very ornate.”

“My scribbling didn't qualify as art. Are most of your highlights in Psalms?”

“Yeah, I've been hanging out with David. He's become my favorite songwriter of the week.”

Scott had heard enough. He checked his watch. “Ready to go?”

“Yes. Bring the Bible. It may come in handy.”

Scott picked up the Bible, and Kay turned toward the door. She looked refreshingly beautiful. As Scott walked past the two chairs at the table, he wondered again why Jake Wilson bailed out of a relationship with this woman.

Carrying the Bible and feeling like a boy going to Sunday school, Scott opened the door for Kay, and she slid into the front seat. Before leaving home he'd tidied up his SUV in preparation for his passenger. His brown briefcase was in the backseat. Inside was a legal pad with a series of questions written on it and a small tape recorder in case he wanted to take a verbatim statement from a witness.

There were swirls of late-morning fog at the edges of the highway, and Scott missed the turn for Hall's Chapel Road. He saw the sign as they passed by and turned around in a driveway. The fog increased as they drew closer to the creek.

“On a clear day you can see the water from the road,” Scott said. “This fog won't last long, and it will be sunny by the time we get out of church.”

They were a couple of minutes late. A family in a minivan pulled into the parking lot in front of them and the mother, father, and three little girls got out. The family was dressed in their Sunday best. The girls had matching blue-and-white dresses, the father was wearing a black suit, and the mother was draped in a flowing white dress and high heels. Scott was glad he'd decided not to come casual. When the oldest of the girls saw Scott and Kay, she tugged on her mother's sleeve and pointed in their direction.

Scott leaned over to Kay. “We're about to find out what it's like to be in the minority.”

Sounds of singing could be heard from within the white building. They walked up the steps, and two teenage boys, also dressed in dark suits, opened the doors to let them in. There was a narrow foyer that led into the sanctuary.

A middle-aged man with a badge pinned to his jacket that said “Usher” came up to Scott and Kay.

“The bishop said you'd be coming,” he said. “We've reserved seats for you. Follow me.”

Scott and Kay walked down the aisle together. It was covered with a deep red carpet that matched the color of the cushions on the pews. There were about 150 adults and children in the room. Everyone was standing as they sang. The floors underneath the pews were polished wood, the walls were white, and the ceiling was painted with billowy white cloud shapes softly brushed onto a sky-blue background. Several ceiling fans stirred the air. At the front of the room on the left was the piano, and on the right was a modern electric organ. Bishop Moore stood on a raised platform beside a white, wooden pulpit. The choir members were dressed in red-and-gold robes. Virtually every man in the sanctuary was wearing a dark suit. Many of the women were dressed in white, but there were plenty of other colors represented.