Shades of Midnight (13 page)

Eve was quiet again, thoughtful, her eyes on the bell tower ahead. Once again she was tied up and proper, in dull green and sensible walking boots, her hair pulled back and up and secured with tortoiseshell hairpins.

Lucien knew he could say no more about the sensitive subject she had broached, and Evie would ask no more. While she was always receptive to his infrequent bursts of conversation that veered away from work-related subjects, she never pried. She had never been one of those who leaned in, hungry-eyed, and whispered, "What's it like?"

But if this was the woman he'd spend his life with, she needed to know more. She needed to know everything.

"I actually like churches," he continued. "God is everywhere, but it does seem that sometimes he can be felt more distinctly in a church. There's peace in a proper church. Serenity." He saw the unspoken
why
on her face. Evie knew he had an aversion for dealing with religious types.

"When I was five, my mother started taking me to preachers who might be able to fix me." Lucien took a deep breath.

"Fix you?" Eve asked incredulously, casting him a sideways glance.

"I was broken, after all. I had obviously been born wrong. Who better to repair a damaged soul than a man of the cloth?" He made the statement dispassionately, as if it no longer mattered.

Evie pursed her lips, bless her, and while she didn't say a word he saw the anger and disbelief on her face.

"For four years, she dragged me from one preacher to another, from one town, one church, one traveling revival tent to the next. I was blessed time and again, baptized nearly unto drowning, starved, burned..."

"Burned?!"

He glanced at the woman beside him. Eve wasn't curious; she was livid.

"My hands and feet. My hands healed well but you can still see the scars on my feet. They're faint, though. Almost completely gone."

They continued to walk, were passing by the first of the shops in town. Eve seemed not to notice that people stared at them as they passed. She was fairly new to Plummerville, and didn't know everyone well. He himself was a perfect stranger. Of course people stared.

"That's so horribly wrong," she said angrily. "How dare they... how dare she... Lucien..." Eve wasn't in tears, but she blustered and her eyes shone too bright.

Should he even bother to continue? This was a discussion he'd never had, not with anyone. He usually preferred to keep his past buried, where it belonged. But since he'd started, he might as well finish.

"When I was nine years old, she took me to a revival tent. She had great hopes for this one. This particular preacher was... different. More..." Intense? Powerful? Insane? Lucien shook off the need to describe the man. "When he found out what I could do, he wasn't afraid like the others. He saw a nice bit of profit in a child who could communicate with the dead. He wanted to make me part of his show." When he thought about it, he could still smell the tent. He could still smell that awful man.

"He got me on stage, but not being a showman, I didn't say what he wanted me to say. I refused to lie. I tried to explain to him that spirits came to me in their own way, and that it was different every time. Some I could see, others I could not. Some I heard as if they whispered in my ear, while others I could hear only in my head. He wanted me to draw down spirits on command, which I could not and would not do.

"But he insisted, so I did my best to comply. I told him his mother was crying in heaven because her son was a liar and a cheat and a murderer. I asked him why he'd killed his wife and buried her in the grove. She was a very unhappy woman, I can tell you, watching him play holier than thou only months after burying her in the woods behind their home."

"Oh, Lucien," Eve said softly. Did she know what was coming?

"He told his congregation, a tent full of sweating, noisy, frantic people, that I was the spawn of the devil, a fountain of spiteful lies, and as a man of God it was his duty to beat the devil out of me. He tried to do just that, on a raised stage, while the men, women, and children who had come to hear him preach clapped and shouted amen."

For a moment, all was silent, then Eve whispered, "What did you do?"

"I tried to run," he said logically and without outward emotion. "There were men who caught me quickly, though. I didn't even make it off the stage. They dragged me back to the reverend. They held me. I fought, I fought hard. I kicked and struggled and shouted until my mother ran onto the stage." The memory still brought a lump to his throat. A coldness to his heart. "I thought she had come to save me, for a moment, but then she put her hands on my shoulders and helped those men hold me down, whispering all the while that this was for my own good. That when this was over, I'd be better. After that, I didn't fight anymore. I just stood there while the unholy preacher shouted his blasphemous prayers and beat me until everything went black."

Eve looked away from him and raised a hand to her face. Was she wiping away tears she didn't want him to see? "Tell me that's not true," she said softly. "Tell me you made that awful story up simply to shock me."

"I'm afraid it's all true."

When she looked at him there were tears and fire in her eyes. "And the preacher? Where is he today? How can a man like that live with himself?"

"He didn't have to live with himself long. A year or so later a fallen woman he decided to beat the devil out of, after he'd spent several hours with her, of course, pulled a knife and stabbed him in the heart. Eight times."

"His death came too quickly, then," she said angrily. "He should've suffered."

"When I heard he was dead, months after the fact, I was just... relieved. I used to have nightmares that I'd come awake and he'd be there by my bed, with his whip and his fists, and his damnable smile." His mother was always there in those nightmares, to hold him down.

"And your mother?" Eve asked angrily.

"I told her, after that night, that there would be no more preachers. No more churches. And I said it in such a way that she was terrified of me until the day she died, six years later."

"What a... a..." Eve sputtered.

"Say it, Eve," he prodded.

"What a stupid woman! I'm sorry, Lucien, I know I shouldn't say such a thing about your mother, but... how incredibly stupid!"

"More ignorant than stupid," he said, more kindly than he would have a few years ago. "She didn't understand."

"There are a lot of things I don't understand, but I would never... I can't imagine..." She stopped suddenly, stopped speaking and walking as the Baptist church loomed before them. "Oh, Lucien, I can't ask you to go in there with me to talk to the Reverend Younger."

"And I won't allow you to go in there alone."

She was determined to argue. "All I'm going to do is ask a few questions..."

Lucien took Eve by the shoulders and looked her in the eye. Green eyes, beautiful and bright and intelligent. "If I'm right about Alistair and Viola being murdered, and the Reverend Younger was indeed involved with the lovely Mrs. Stamper, then he is a logical murder suspect."

"Surely not," she said softly. "He's a..." The words died on her lips.
A preacher. A man of the cloth.
In the end, simply a man like any other, and capable of anything, as any man is capable of anything. "How can I ask you to go in there after what you just told me?"

He gave her a smile. "In case you haven't noticed, my dear, I'm not nine years old any longer. I'm not afraid of your reverend, or anyone else." His smile remained steady. No, he wasn't afraid. But every now and then he looked at a man in a collar and experienced a bone-deep chill.

* * *

Lucien was almost a foot taller than she was; he was definitely stronger. So why did she keep stepping between him and Reverend Younger? Lucien hardly needed to be protected from a white-haired, rail-thin preacher with a receding hairline.

Eve shook, deep down where she hoped no one could see. She was furious! Incensed! Not for Lucien, she tried to convince herself, not for this infuriating man she did
not
love, but for the child he had been. A man who would beat a child deserved a death more excruciating than a quick knife in the heart. A mother who would allow that to happen didn't deserve the gift of a child.

Reverend Younger led them into his office, where he motioned to the two hard chairs on one side of his desk. He had a rather smug smile on his face. Eve knew what the good reverend suspected; a couple visiting him during the week usually meant they'd be making arrangements for a wedding. Not this time.

She curtailed those suspicions quickly. "Reverend Younger, this is my colleague, Lucien Thorpe."

The preacher's eyebrows raised slightly at the term
colleague.
"A pleasure to meet you," he said as he offered his hand across the desk. After a moment's hesitation, Lucien shook his hand. "That name is familiar. Have we met?"

"No," Lucien said simply.

The reverend brushed off the familiarity of the name. "What can I do for you today?"

They all took their seats, and Eve calmed herself with a deep, stilling breath as she perched on the edge of her chair. "You know that I purchased the Stamper house last summer."

"Yes. Mrs. Younger has commented more than once how much nicer the place looks these days. You've done a wonderful job with the landscaping. It had been so terribly neglected." The preacher laid his eyes directly on her. "Have you hired someone to help you with the yard or are you doing the work yourself?"

"I'm doing it all myself." She straightened her spine. "I've always longed to be somewhat of a gardener."

Lucien turned his head and glared at her. "You have?"

"Yes," she said, only slightly testy. Heavens, there were so many things she longed for, and Lucien knew nothing about them. Nothing at all. "But that's not why I'm here," she said, ignoring Lucien and leaning purposefully toward the desk and the preacher behind it. "The people who lived in the house before me..."

"The Andersons," Reverend Younger interrupted. "Lovely couple. Goodness, that was years ago. They didn't stay in Plummerville very long, so I'm afraid I did not get to know them well."

"Not the Andersons," Eve said. "The Stampers."

It could not be her imagination that the reverend paled and the twinkle in his eyes dimmed. "I imagine they died well before you were born."

"Yes, they did."

"I suppose you already know... what happened?"

Many people would be distressed to learn there had been a murder/suicide in their home, she imagined. "I do," she said plainly.

"I imagine that's upsetting news, for you," the reverend offered.

"Not at all. In fact, I've been quite intrigued by the story," Eve said. "When I heard that you knew Mrs. Stamper, I thought I might stop by and ask a few questions about her."

This time there was no mistake. The reverend definitely paled. "That was so long ago," he said in a lowered voice. "It serves no purpose to dredge up ancient history. Enjoy your new home, Miss Abernathy. Forget the unhappy past."

"Sometimes the past will not be forgotten," Lucien said darkly.

Eve would not be dismissed. "So, you did know Viola Stamper?" she continued.

"Yes," Reverend Younger admitted.

"Did you know her well?"

"Not particularly."

"What can you tell me about her?"

The preacher took a deep breath. "She was a kind woman. Had a smile for everyone and was very active in church activities. I was new here, then, but I don't believe she missed a single Sunday service."

"None of that is very personal," Eve noted. "What about the woman herself?"

"Miss Abernathy, I see no reason to dig up the past this way. Viola Stamper is dead. She's been dead a very long time. No good can come of your... your meddling."

"Meddling?" Eve asked. "I ask a few questions about the previous owners of my house, and you call it
meddling?"

The reverend's thin fingers twitched. "I have nothing to tell you."

Eve smiled. Oh, this man knew something! "I'm sorry to have bothered you, then. I suppose I'll just have to resort to the second step of my plan."

His lips thinned. "Second step?"

Eve nodded. "An advertisement in the weekly paper. I thought I might offer a reward for anyone who's able to provide information on the Stampers."

The reverend looked defeated. So, whatever he knew, he wasn't the only one. This town has its secrets. Well-kept, deep secrets. But for a reward, what might she discover? Too bad she hadn't thought of that idea earlier, so an ad could be run before Halloween.

"If you will promise discretion," Reverend Younger said in a low voice, "perhaps I can share a tidbit or two."

"How very kind of you," Eve said sweetly. "Of course, we will be most discreet."

Reluctantly, the preacher continued. "Viola Stamper was truly a lovely, kind woman, and she was devoted to her husband, but..." he stopped.

"But what?" Lucien prodded.

Reverend Younger sighed. "I suppose it matters little, after all this time. Viola Stamper adored her husband, to all outward appearances she was a very happy woman. But she was desperate for a child, and the hunger ate at her every day."