Apocalypse Burning Page 4

  “His father paid off the judge.”

  Walter shrugged. “That wasn’t ever proved either.”

  “That’s what happened.”

  “That may be. I can’t say. But one thing I gotta tell you, Chaplain Harte. As long as you’re around here, I don’t want you seeing Clarence Floyd. Now normally, the city, why that’s the police chief’s concern. But what with everything going on that’s been going on, the sheriff’s department and the police department are working on a share-and-share-alike basis. We help each other out because we know most of the same folks around here. I brought you into town, and I decided to release you on your own recognizance. That makes me somewhat responsible for you.”

  Delroy sat back for a moment. “This breakfast isn’t turning out the way I thought it was going to.”

  “No, sir.” Walter nodded. “I expect not. Usually these eggs settle on my stomach better’n they are right now. From what I see of you, you’re a good man. Just a little lost right now. In my experience, that’s when men make bad decisions that can haunt them the rest of their lives. I ain’t here to save Floyd’s neck so much as I am to save yours.”

  Delroy didn’t speak, didn’t really know what he would have said if he had been so inclined.

  “You can believe that or not,” Walter said. “But something you can take to the bank is this: If you go out of your way to cause problems for Floyd, I’ll lock you up so fast it will make your head spin.”

  “All right,” Delroy said.

  “Another thing,” Walter went on. “I made some phone calls while I was out and about waiting to get the doc’s report on you. As it turns out, your wife Glenda is still in town.”

  Surprise pushed Delroy’s outrage and pain aside. “Glenda is here? She didn’t … leave with the others?”

  “No, sir. She didn’t leave. She’s here.”

  The world grew silent and still and as cold as a January morning. Delroy couldn’t breathe for a moment. Then he heard the blood roar in his ears as his heart chugged through another beat.

  “Does she …” Delroy’s voice failed him.

  “Know that you’re here?” Walter shook his head. “Not that I know of. I ain’t one to go around jacking my jaws about everything. The doctors and nurses at the hospital ain’t connected you with Glenda. As a matter of fact, I doubt they even know her.”

  “You said the floor nurse knew my name.”

  “Yes, sir. She did. But she don’t know Glenda. She knew stories about your daddy. I also asked her to keep things quiet. She will.”

  “Thank you for that. I don’t know how Glenda would react to knowing I was in town.”

  “You wasn’t planning on stopping in and seeing her?”

  “No,” Delroy admitted, and he felt guilty at once. “All my plans ended at the graveyard.”

  “You thinking about stopping in and seeing her now?”

  “No.” Delroy’s answer was immediate.

  “You two divorced? ‘Cause that’s not the way I heard it was.”

  “Not divorced. At least, not that I know of.”

  “She’s still carrying your name.”

  Delroy knew that was how Glenda was. She’d married him all those years ago, and she’d told him she’d wear his name for the rest of her life.

  “You mind me asking what it is that’s come between you two?” Walter asked.

  “I do mind.”

  “Too bad. I’m asking anyway. Things I’ve heard about Glenda Harte are all good. I wouldn’t stand for hearing that any harm’s come to that woman because I made a mistake about somebody else.”

  Delroy thought about getting up and walking out of the café. His eyes darted to the door.

  “Leaving wouldn’t do you any good,” Walter continued in a level voice. “I brought you to breakfast because I thought we might talk things out like men.”

  “What’s gone on or is going on between my … wife and me is none of your business.”

  Walter sighed and rubbed his face. “Chaplain Harte, you’re carrying around more grief and anger and confusion than any man I’ve ever met in my life. Or at the very least, any man I’ve met in a good many years. And in my line of business I’ve met no few men like that. So I consider myself a pretty good judge of another man’s disposition. Maybe that’s conceit on my part, but I’ve paid my dues for that one. Now, we’re gonna get straight with each other this morning, or I’m gonna bust you and take you in to get some psychiatric help. I ain’t gonna have no loose cannon roaming around this county I swore to protect and defend.”

  “I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

  Walter held up a hand. “Ain’t nothing wrong with my hearing. I look like a man gone hard of hearing?”

  Delroy said, “No.”

  “My wife’s the only one accuses me of that, and that’s ‘cause I don’t jump up ever’ time she wants me to do something on her honey-do list. But I’m good at law enforcement. I get so I ain’t, I’ll lay it down immediately.” Walter blew on his coffee and sipped it. “Now if I lock you up, it ain’t but one short phone call to the navy. Bet if I told whoever was at the other end of that line that one of their officers was down here acting squirrelly, you’d be back wherever it is you belong in a New York minute.” He brushed biscuit crumbs and gravy from his mustache with his napkin. “Are you reading me now, Chaplain?”

  “Aye,” Delroy responded. “Loud and clear.”

  “Good. That’s real good. ‘Cause that’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t think that’s what will get things done for you here.” Walter leaned back a little.

  “My son’s death separated my wife and me,” Delroy said.

  “I heard your son passed during military action.”

  Delroy nodded, having to force himself to move.

  “Your wife couldn’t get over it?” Walter asked. “I’ve seen people like that. People that couldn’t make peace with a loss. Took me a long time to meet eye to eye with God over the loss of my own boy. I still don’t think it was right, and maybe I stepped away from Him some. I faulted Him a lot for a long time. Maybe that’s part of why I’m still here.”

  Shame burned Delroy’s features. It was hard to admit everything, but at least he felt that he and Deputy Walter Purcell shared something in common.

  “It wasn’t my wife that couldn’t get past it,” Delroy said in a low, soft voice. He thought of Terrence lying in that muddy grave, the ground above him all torn up where Delroy had tried to dig down to him. “It was me. I couldn’t get past the death of my son.”

  Walter stared at Delroy for a long time. Then the big man leaned forward and put a hand on Delroy’s shoulder. “It’s a powerful hard thing to get past. And it’s mighty confusing because you just don’t feel right about moving on through it.”

  “I know. I’ve given a lot of people that speech over the years.” Delroy felt cold and empty inside. “Glenda faltered. I saw her. And I tried to comfort her. That gave me something to do, gave me the chance to turn away from my own pain and anger.” He stopped, lost in the memory and unable to go on.

  “Then she started to come around,” Walter said quietly. “She started healing.”

  “Aye.”

  “And you resented her for it.”

  Delroy tried to speak but couldn’t.

  “It’s an easy thing to do, Chaplain,” Walter said.

  “Not for me,” Delroy said fiercely. “Never once did I ever think I would resent Glenda for anything. I took a vow before God to cherish her always. I didn’t.” His voice broke, betraying the strong emotion that vibrated inside him. “I was supposed to be stronger than that. My father raised me up to be stronger than that.”

  “Your daddy,” Walter stated gently, “wasn’t there. And it wasn’t him asked to give up a son, Delroy. It was you. You were entitled to your grief. Still are. I ain’t finding no fault with that.”

  Delroy brushed tears from his eyes before they could fall; then he willed them to stop. “Not five years of grie
f.” He kept his voice flat and neutral. “I’m being selfish. I just—I just don’t know how to stop. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  “You’re human. Ain’t nothing wrong with being human. Just hard wearin’ from time to time.” Walter shifted. “I seen men what didn’t care about nothin’. Seen ‘em on battlefields and I seen ‘em in law enforcement. Some of them men even wore badges now and again, and that was real hard to witness and not do nothing.”

  “I’m a navy chaplain,” Delroy said. “A preacher’s son. My father taught me my faith.”

  Walter was quiet for a time. “One thing I learned through losing my own son: God’s grace is never known to you till after the fact. Sometimes, I suppose, it ain’t gonna be known till you’re in the hereafter. I still struggle with my own belief, but I believe God is there. Just haven’t figured out my own relationship with Him. I guess that’s why I’m still here. I look around this town, Reverend, and I see a lot of good folks stuck in much the same boat.”

  “Pretty good Christians.” Captain Mark Falkirk’s final words aboard Wasp’s flight deck echoed in Delroy’s mind: “The most dangerous man on this planet is the person who believes he is a pretty good Christian.”

  “That’s as good a term for it as any other,” Walter said. “Good people that, for whatever reason, just didn’t make the final cut. Now, I believe the world was raptured. I’m sure you do too. So that means we got a limited time to make a difference. Not just in our lives, but in the lives of others. Me, I’m a man what’s always stood on the right of things. Straight and narrow. That’s how I’ve lived ‘er. When I could. And I could most of the time.”

  Delroy met the other man’s gaze with difficulty.

  “Now, I usually ain’t one to go around taking chances,” Walter continued. “Before all this happened, before I started opening up my Bible and reading Revelation, why if I’d come across you in that graveyard, found out the man who murdered your daddy and your ex-wife was living in this town, I’d have had you locked up for observation in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Just to keep the peace.”

  “I would never hurt Glenda,” Delroy said. “I give you my word on that.”

  “And now I believe you about that. But you see, I know she’s got her own grief she’s dealing with. She didn’t just lose her son; she lost her husband, and weren’t none of that her fault. Might be her that started something, and I’d end up with the same problem.”

  The deputy’s words cut through Delroy. He couldn’t imagine Glenda doing something like that. But after what he’d done, after what they’d both suffered—No. She still wouldn’t do anything like that. The deputy just doesn’t know her.

  “I know how she probably feels,” Walter said. “Because that’s how my own wife felt. I know that ‘cause she cared enough about me to get riled up and tell me about it over and over. Till I owned up to it and pulled my head back on straight.” He sipped his coffee. “Now, it ain’t been easy, but I worked at it. Still do.” He held his left forefinger and thumb about an inch apart. “Little bit ever’ day. Reckon I always will. And as long as I have to, I’ll see that it gets done.”

  Delroy glanced out the big window overlooking the street in front of the café. Sluggish morning traffic passed by only occasionally.

  “I can’t go see my wife,” Delroy said.

  “Wasn’t suggesting that you do. In fact, I’m thinking it might be better for the both of you to wait until you get your head together.”

  “I can’t guarantee that will happen either.”

  “Didn’t expect you to. The kind of changes you’re gonna have to make are gonna take years.”

  Years. The word sounded like a prison sentence to Delroy.

  “But I will remind you of one thing,” Walter said. “These changes you gotta make? You’re running out of time. Way I read my Bible, there’s only—”

  “Seven years,” Delroy said.

  Walter nodded. “Less than that already. Figured you’d know. Don’t help with the clock ticking, but I guess that’s how it’s gotta be.”

  “It’s hard to care.”

  “Yes, sir. I expect it is. But you listen to me, Chaplain. Whatever chance you got of seeing your boy again—whole, hale, and hearty—why it’s through the sacrifice Jesus made to take our sins on and the grace of God Almighty that you’re gonna get it done. The way I figure it, you still got His work ahead of you.”

  “There’s a reason I didn’t go back to my ship,” Delroy said. “I don’t belong there. Those men are involved in a war zone. There are chaplains aboard Wasp that can do what they need done. I’m not the rock they need.”

  He felt guilty when he said that. He’d signed on to take care of those responsibilities. For the last five years, though, he’d hidden aboard Wasp more than he had attended to God’s work. The Lord had been given lip service and short shrift. And if that won’t send a chaplain straight to hell, I don’t know what will.

  “Wasn’t talking about you taking care of nobody else,” Walter said, breaking into Delroy’s thoughts. “I was talking about you taking care of your own self. Man’s drowning, why he’s gotta make sure he’s safe enough to save ever’body else. It’s always been that way.”

  Delroy waited for a moment, then asked the question he didn’t want to ask but he couldn’t leave it alone. “What am I going to do if I’m not strong enough to save myself?”

  “You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it. Just take one step at a time for right now. That’s plenty fast enough.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Walter shrugged. “Onliest answer I got. And the way you get started on that is to finish that breakfast. They go to a lot of trouble to fix a good plate here, and ain’t fitting for them to throw it out because you’re denying your appetite. You gotta eat and keep your strength up. You’re a military man, Chaplain. You eat what’s put before you to keep yourself fit because that’s part of a soldier’s standing orders. Right now, God and the navy own you, and you’d best see that they get their investment back.”

  Delroy worked to turn off his feelings, his doubts, and his fears and concentrated on his plate. He got both jobs partially done. When he pushed the plate back, food remained but Walter Purcell seemed satisfied.

  “Settle up the check,” Walter said, grabbing his hat from the table. “I’ll give you a ride.”

  Delroy paid the bill, left a generous tip, and joined the deputy outside the café. The wind blew cold and clean from the north, but it carried a taint of woodsmoke and burned rubber.

  “Hotel’s not gonna have you,” Walter said as they climbed into his cruiser.

  “Why?” Delroy asked.

  “Because I ain’t taking you there. I got a room in back of the house I can let you use for a few days.” Walter cranked the engine over. “Till you figure out what you’re gonna do.”

  “So I’m under house arrest.”

  “I wouldn’t call it that.”

  “What if I want a hotel room?”

  Walter looked at him. “You gonna insult my hospitality?”

  Delroy didn’t know what to say. Walter Purcell surprised him at every turn.

  “You wasn’t listening back in the café when I told you I had a couple of things I wanted to make sure of.” Walter put the transmission in gear and pulled out of the parking lot into the street.

  “You didn’t want me to see Clarence Floyd and Glenda. I got that.”

  Walter nodded. “Yep. You heard that right enough. I don’t aim to see you hurt nobody in my town.” He paused and shifted gears. “But I also want to make sure you don’t hurt yourself either.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Says the man who looks like he shoved his face into a wood chipper.”

  Delroy remained silent as he looked over the town. So many things seemed different, but so much of the area looked the same. Memories of his father played inside his head. He remembered the rough feel of his father’s hand holding his when he was sm
all, and the smell of his father’s cologne when he was older.

  Lord, I was wrong to come here. I was wrong to test You. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, but this is the wrong place to do it. My daddy’s all over this town. I’m going to see him everywhere I go.

  He knew he’d be trapped into remembering Terrence as well. Delroy had brought his family to Marbury often to visit his mother. Terrence had played in the same park he had, had spent time in his father’s church after the new preacher had taken over, had eaten breakfasts in Hazel’s Café.

  “You okay?” Walter asked.

  “Aye,” Delroy answered.

  “You ask me, that sounded a tad weak.”

  “Regretting coming here.”

  Walter nodded and pulled to a stop at the red light. “I can see how you’d feel that way right now.”

  “I do appreciate your hospitality, Walter. There aren’t many men who’d do what you’ve done.”

  “No, sir. I expect not. A few days ago, before all them people disappeared, I wouldn’t have done it.” Walter glanced at Delroy and grinned. “I called my wife, told her I was bringing you home. She thinks I’ve lost my mind.”

  “Then why are you doing it?”

  “Because it feels right.” Walter shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. “Kinda following my heart on this one. And way I feel, I don’t think I could walk away if I wanted to.” He looked at Delroy. “Why’d you take me up on it?”

  “I had a choice?”

  “You coulda made me make that call. Coulda spent the night in jail and probably got you a navy escort out of here first thing in the morning.”

  “I could still slip out the window tonight.”

  Walter laughed. “Maybe we’re both fools then, Chaplain.”

  “Call me Delroy. Chaplain … just doesn’t feel right at the moment.”

  “Fair enough, Delroy.”

  “I’ll probably trouble you for the bed today and tonight,” Delroy said. “More than likely, I’ll make a phone call to the navy tonight and be gone first light if I can get a rental car.”