When he leaves the garage, lugging the box of decorations, he spots a white van parked on the street in front of his house, its rear bumper blocking part of the driveway, the words PLEASANTVILLE METHODIST CHURCH written beneath the back windows. He stares at the white van, his mind doing somersaults, as he turns for the house. Inside, it’s quiet, a thick silence. He hears nothing, not a single sound, even after he calls his daughter’s name. “El?” he says, setting down the box on one of the couch cushions. The TV in the den is still on, a rerun of 227 playing, the canned sitcom laughter echoing through the empty room. Jay doesn’t hear his son either. “Ben,” he says, turning off the TV and walking through the kitchen, where their dinner is still sitting on the table, plates of chicken bones and buttered rice, even though Jay asked Ellie to clear the dishes before he went out to the garage. He knows almost instantly that something is wrong. He walks into the living room at the front of the house.
Ben and Ellie are on the couch, their knees touching, not far from the Christmas tree.
Pastor Keith Morehead is standing in the living room, hovering over them. He’s in civilian clothes, black jeans and T-shirt, the front of which is stained with a dull grayish brown splotch. “That’s a pretty little family you got.”
Ellie tries to explain. “I answered the door, and he pushed his way in.”
She is gripping her brother’s wrist, keeping him as close to her as possible.
“What’s going on, Dad?” Ben says, his lower lip trembling.
“Ben, Ellie, go into the den.”
Morehead shakes his head, weaving a little on his feet as he reaches out to grab Ellie’s wrist. He’s drunk, Jay realizes. The stain on his shirt is red wine.
“Let them stay,” Morehead says.
Jay steps between the man and his kids. “Ben, go with your sister.”
“I said let her stay,” Morehead slurs, making a move toward the kids.
Jay shoves him back, and it seems to loosen something in Morehead, giving him just the provocation he needs to unleash himself on Jay. He clocks Jay under his chin. Jay, stumbling back, hears his son shouting for Morehead to stop.
Morehead hits Jay again, this time in the gut.
Ellie runs for the kitchen phone, and that’s when Morehead reaches for something in his waistband. “Stop!” Jay screams. “Don’t move!” he tells his daughter. Morehead stands back, his hand still lingering under his shirt, fingering something Jay can’t see. “I just want to talk.”
“Leave my kids out of it.”
Morehead stares at Ellie and at the boy.
He blinks his eyes a couple of times, as if he’s seeing double.
Jay stands upright and tells his kids to wait for him in the den, but not before reaching out to squeeze his daughter’s hand, secretly pressing the keys to her mother’s Camry into it. She grips them as her dad looks over her shoulder, through the kitchen to the sliding glass door in the back. “Go,” he whispers. “Just drive.” Ellie, shaking, walks her little brother into the den.
Jay turns his attention to the drunk pastor.
Morehead sits on the edge of the embroidered sofa, pulling out the palm-size .22 automatic that was inside the waistband of his jeans. He rests it on his right thigh, eyes cast downward, to the carpet. “It was you, wasn’t it?” Jay says.
“No,” he whispers as he starts to cry.
“What I don’t understand,” Jay says, “why mess around with the girls’ parents, why hold their hands, knowing all the while what you did?”
“I feel bad for them,” he says, tears falling. “You don’t think I feel bad?”
“I don’t think you feel anything. Sidling up to the parents, that was all just a cover, just like calling in the story about Alonzo Hollis trying to kidnap a girl at the truck stop.” Local preacher, those were the words in Lonnie’s handwritten notes, words she copied, in quotes, from Resner’s file. It was a call that had come into the Northeast station last year, a message left for the detective; a police report was filed, but nothing came of it. “It was you.”
“I said no!” Morehead says, standing, pointing the .22.
Jay, on reflex, raises his hands in front of his chest, trying to think his way out of the room, knowing what a fight with this man will cost him. This. This is why the last one was different, he now understands. Alicia Nowell fought. The other girls, they knew the pastor. He was their coach. They trusted him. But Alicia fought like hell. Morehead, as if following the same thought, lowers his head. He weeps openly. “Deanne and Tina, it wasn’t the way you think. It wasn’t nasty the way you think. It was something between us, something special. But I should never have touched the Nowell girl. I should have known better. But once I saw her . . . it’s like the devil got to whispering in my ear. It’s like I couldn’t stop. I got her in the van, got her all the way to the west side of the neighborhood when she ran. The lock in the back, it ain’t ever worked exactly right and she got out of the van and ran, straight into the weeds along the railroad tracks. I had to stop her,” he says, looking up, as if he expects understanding from Jay, compassion even, all while pointing the pistol at Jay’s chest. “Whatever it took, I had to stop her, right there by the railroad tracks. By the time it was done, I heard music coming from the church, choir practice, and I was too scared to move her that night. Then the cops started coming around, and I just froze,” he says, as if stunned by the entire sequence of events that led to tonight, the gun in his hand. “I just froze, and now I’ve got to fix this. I got to fix it.”