Gnosis (4 page)

“Not good enough. Anyone in your situation is going to say exactly that. Your second reason needs to be much better or we have nothing else to discuss.”

“The gun. Do you really think I would leave the murder weapon at the scene? Do you think I’m that stupid?”

Dantzler shook his head, said, “That’s still not enough.”

“Check the
Herald-Leader
for the past two weeks. The obits. You’ll find your answer there.”

“The obits?”

“Dead people do tell tales, Detective.”

“That’s it? Check the obituary page? That’s all you’ve got?”

“It’s all you need. Trust me.”

Dantzler stood. “Whose obit am I looking for? And why?”

The Reverend shook his head and closed his eyes.

“Why not give me the name?” Dantzler asked. “If it’s that important?”

“Those circumstances I mentioned earlier? The change was positive, not perfect.”

“So, you won’t give me the name? Or you can’t?”

The Reverend shrugged.

“Are you afraid of someone?”

Silence.

“What you are giving me is awfully thin, Reverend.”

“No more talk, Detective. I’ve given you enough. You either do it or you don’t. Won’t make much difference to me, because I’ll likely be dead by the time you figure it out. It would be nice to see my name cleared before I’m gone, but if it doesn’t happen, so be it. When I face my Maker—your Creator—I’ll have to answer for my share of sins. But murder will not be in the book.”

“You’re smooth, Reverend. I’ll give you that. I almost believe you.”

“Look into it, Detective. If you don’t, you’re letting a murderer run free.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.”

Dantzler turned and walked out of the light and into the darkness.

“Oh, Detective,” the Reverend said. “You
do
believe me.”

Dantzler made it back to Lexington just after nightfall. As always, the Saturday night in-town traffic was a nightmare, a whirling mass of far too many people in far too much of a hurry to get to far too many places. Everyone, it seemed, was always in a rush. Always on the go. Dantzler often wondered if Americans were somehow wired for constant movement. Maybe it was part of our DNA, like the color of our eyes. Whatever the reason, the evidence was clear that taking life easy, stopping to smell the roses, or appreciating Nature’s beauty were quaint concepts that had long ago vanished in this mad-dash country. 

He gave brief consideration to making an appearance at the police station, but decided not to. It was out of the way, and he didn’t want to fight the traffic any longer than necessary. Also, he knew there was no need to check in, not in today’s cell phone, text message, Twitter world. Had anything happened demanding his attention, he would have heard about it ten seconds after it occurred.

After making a quick stop at the Liquor Barn on Richmond Road to buy a bottle of Pernod and some orange juice, he headed home, the small ranch-style house on Lakeshore Drive he bought in the mid-1990s. Home sounded good, especially after the craziness of the past few months, in which there had been four homicides and three suicides. God knows, he could use the down time, the quiet, being alone. There were books to be read, music to be listened to, tennis to be played, personal issues to be dealt with. In the blur of work, too many important items had been neglected or pushed aside. Like most Americans, he seemed to be trapped on a speedway going nowhere fast. It was a feeling he didn’t like.

With each passing year, he became more aware of the reality that time charges relentlessly forward, never yielding, grabbing your life by the throat and carrying it toward its inevitable end. We are all weary and reluctant travelers hanging on as best we can, engaged in a futile attempt to outrun the clock, to win the mad dash to the finish line. But no matter how hard we fight it, how strong our resistance, or how swiftly we run, time always wins the race. Time is undefeated and always will be. That will never change.

An hour later, sitting at home alone, he recalled a line written by the great T.S. Eliot:
all time is unredeemable
. The old poet got that one right, Dantzler had long ago concluded. True, work was important, and what he did mattered, but . . . he had to pay more attention to life outside the job. Time lost is time gone forever.

He wanted off the speedway.

Maybe that was why he felt such ambivalence toward his meeting with the Reverend. Did he really want to open that can of worms? Dig into a crime now almost thirty years old? Help a man who would surely be dead within a matter of weeks, possibly even days?

Did he really want to invest his time and energy in a closed case?

Dantzler’s silent answer to every question was no. And yet . . . he couldn’t simply dismiss it outright, no matter how much he might want to. The old man was right—Dantzler tended to believe him. Dantzler had interviewed his share of liars in the past, but the Reverend, though smooth-tongued enough to be a superb liar, was hitting at some truths.

The detective instincts in Dantzler were screaming that this was a case with legs. It was, Dantzler conceded, and he admitted this with some reluctance, one he would probably look into. Like it or not, his interest had been piqued. His detective juices were flowing.

There was yet another, ever greater reason for his interest—the possibility that an innocent man was in prison. That was unacceptable.

*****

Dantzler spent Saturday night drinking Pernod and orange juice and listening to Leonard Cohen CDs. On Sunday, he rose early, put himself through an hour of torture on the treadmill and Stairmaster, showered, and read the newspaper. After paying a couple of bills, he gave thought to playing a few sets of tennis with Randall Dennis, but quickly brushed them aside. He also toyed with the idea of phoning Laurie, but cast that notion out just as quickly. Their relationship had cooled during the past few months, which, both of them agreed, was for the best. Richard Bird, their captain, was in equal agreement. He was dead set against co-workers being involved romantically, and he had not been afraid to make his feelings known.

Instead, Dantzler opted to dig into the stack of unread books, beginning with Harold Bloom’s
Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine
. He had read several of Bloom’s books and had always found the celebrated Yale professor and literary critic to be interesting, provocative, and enlightening. An hour into this one and Dantzler wasn’t disappointed. It was, he felt, Bloom’s best book to date.

By three-thirty, however, Jesus and Yahweh had been usurped by Eli Whitehouse. Dantzler couldn’t get the Reverend’s words out of his head:
I didn’t kill those two people, Detective
. He set the book aside, looked up Charlie Bolton’s number, grabbed his cell phone, and punched in the numbers. Charlie answered after the first ring.

“Jack,” he yelled, “if this isn’t life-or-death important, I’m gonna shoot you dead.”

“You’d do better to shoot those fish you’re trying to catch. From what I hear, you can’t land one with a rod and reel.”

Charlie laughed. “Much as I hate to admit it, there’s a good deal of truth in that statement. I’m an old man who can’t see.”

“Clever, Charlie. Didn’t know you were up on your Hemingway.”

“Hell, Jack, I met him once. Down in Key West a couple of years before he ate the shotgun. Shook his hand.”

“You and Papa. Hard to envision.”

“I only shook the man’s hand, Jack. We didn’t share a beer.”

“I assume you’re at the lake. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“When will you be back?”

“Tonight, around midnight. Why? What’s up?”

“Meet me at Coyle’s tomorrow. Say around one-thirty. Lunch is on me.”

“What’s this about, Jack? Something important I need to know about?”

“Relax, it’s nothing big. I simply want to talk to you about a few things.”

“That has an ominous sound to it.”

“You worry too much, Charlie. There’s nothing ominous about it at all.”

“Worrying is what made me a good cop.”

“See you tomorrow, Charlie. And don’t smell like fish when you show up.”

*****

After hanging up, Dantzler returned to the Bloom book, spending the next hour reading and contemplating the author’s suggestion that Yeshua of Nazareth and Jesus Christ were not only different personages, but were, indeed, totally incompatible with one another. According to Bloom, one was a rather dark and mysterious human, the other a theological God. One longed for his father, the other was his father’s anointed son. The great irony, Bloom was quick to point out, was the transformation of Yeshua, the Jew of Jews, into the centerpiece of a new religion—Christianity. Bloom took that paradox even further, saying that had Yeshua of Nazareth somehow survived the Crucifixion and lived on into old age, he would have regarded Christianity with amazement. Dantzler found himself in complete agreement with Bloom’s assessment.

At six, with more than half the book finished, Dantzler’s growling stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten all day. Yahweh would have to wait, Dantzler decided. Food, not esoteric literature, was now the top priority.

He quickly threw together one of his instant “left-over specials,” this one consisting of spaghetti and meatballs, and what remained of a Caesar salad. Not an award-winning meal by any standards, but at least it was filling.

There was nothing in the house that would even remotely pass for dessert, so he mixed another Pernod and orange juice and was about to head for the deck when his phone rang. He put his glass on the counter and picked up the phone.

“Jack Dantzler.”

“Forget everything the Reverend told you,” a man’s voice ordered. “That’s for your own good, and I will not repeat myself.”

“Who is this?” Dantzler asked, but the man ended the call without answering.

Dantzler punched in the caller ID, only to be informed by a mechanical voice that the number was not accessible.

He hung up the phone, stood there for several seconds, then grabbed his Pernod and orange juice and went out onto the deck. The night was warm and breezy, the sky filled with countless stars. A gold moon reflected off the lake that bumped up against his back yard. Damn near a perfect night, he thought to himself.

Dantzler sat in a lounge chair and pondered the phone call. Specifically, the questions it triggered. How did the caller know about the meeting with the Reverend, which took place less than thirty-six hours ago? What was the caller’s relationship to the Reverend? To the crime itself? Was he a family member? Could it have been Colt Rogers, the attorney? And how did he get Dantzler’s unlisted home number?

One other question had to be considered: could the call have been instigated by the Reverend as a way of increasing the odds Dantzler would get involved?

Dantzler had no answers to any of his questions except the last one. He discounted the possibility that the call was made at the Reverend’s behest. The Reverend had made it absolutely clear during the meeting that he didn’t need outside assistance. He was certain Dantzler would re-open the case.

With that one out of the way, Dantzler was left with one final thought, one that had nagged at him since leaving the prison: an ever-growing belief that the Reverend may well be an innocent man.