Hell on Church Street by Jake Hinkson

Author:Jake Hinkson [Hinkson, Jake]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Crime
ISBN: 9780982843673
Publisher: New Pulp Press
Published: 2011-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Days passed and I heard nothing from Doolittle Norris. The papers carried the story and made a big deal of it, but they didn’t say anything I didn’t already know. A local minister and his wife had been brutally murdered in their home, and the home burnt to the ground, by an unknown intruder or intruders. One thing the paper did say was that investigators had determined the intruder had come in through a window in the living room because the charred remnants of the window revealed it had been left open. They’d also found a distinct—albeit mashed up—footprint on the ground nearby.

I went on about my work. I was nervous, of course, and I knew Doolittle Norris was a shaky foundation to build my future on, but I trusted him to be greedy enough to do what had to be done. After all, all I wanted was the girl; I wasn’t asking for a piece of his pie. I’d made it clear I knew the stakes were higher for me than they were for him, and besides, what good would it do him to cross me? As long as he didn’t find another angle, I’d be okay.

I avoided Angela as much as I could and stuck to the business at the church, going over the books, visiting the nursing home crowd and shut-ins, dropping by the hospital to see one of our teenagers who had fallen off a four-wheeler and messed up his knees. I also stayed in contact with Brother Herschel, the chairman of the deacons, and let him know, ever so subtly, that I was out there working my ass off for the church. Brother Herschel was impressed as hell and told me, “I thank the Lord for you every day, brother. I praise him for sending you here to us.”

I said I was just doing what the Lord led me to do.

I even preached the Cards’ funeral. That was an eye opening experience. The church was crowded and weepy, with grown men—middle-aged men in business suits—standing along the back wall, sobbing like children. I didn’t even look at most of them, but the sobbing filled the sanctuary and you couldn’t escape the palpable anguish, the true, ragged grief that was pouring out of people.

Did I feel guilty?

Well, let’s say I felt bad. I felt bad the Cards were dead. I felt bad that people were crying, that the love of my life was crying on the front row, holding onto her brother, Gabe. He was a quiet looking guy in glasses and a dark suit. He was crying as much as she was. Everyone was crying. Hell, I cried a little, too. So, yeah, you could say I felt bad. But people were acting like the Cards were perfect, which they were not. In life, they were loved by some, tolerated by some, and loathed by the rest. It’s not as if Higher Living Baptist Church had been a fucking playground before the Cards died. There’d been a fair share of backstabbing and gossip and bitching and moaning.

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