The Choir Director (18 page)

“What is it?” James leaned forward. “Did Aaron make a fool out of himself? Did the choir flop?”

“I wish it was something that simple.” I glanced out the window.

“Then what the hell is it, T. K.?” James was getting more frustrated with me by the second.

There was no other way to say it than to just come right out with it. “Smitty,” I said his name as if that was all James needed to hear. I’d had an easier time telling my wife the bad news than
spitting it out to my old friend. Maybe because I knew James and Smitty were close, damn close, despite the way James had felt about him lately.

“What about that Judas?” James snapped. “I can’t stand that two-faced MF!”

“James, Smitty’s dead.” I shook my head ruefully.

James pulled the oxygen tube out of his nose, sitting up with a grimace. “What did you say?” He looked like he wanted to slap the words back into my mouth.

I lowered my head again, exhaling before I spoke. “I said Smitty’s dead.”

James just stared at me for a moment in disbelief. “How the fuck did that happen?” he cursed.

Maxwell walked into the room as James asked his question. “From what the cops told me, it looks like a suicide, but they can’t rule out foul play until they get gun powder residue and ballistic reports.”

“Damn, here I am talkin’ bad about the guy and he’s dead,” James said. “Poor guy. I hope he’s got some peace now.”

“Yeah,” Maxwell replied sadly. “I hope so too.”

“We all do,” I said.

While we were all hoping that Smitty had found peace, I wondered if I would ever feel peace about this situation. I still felt some guilt about my involvement. How much did my interactions with Smitty have to do with his death? I was starting to think I would carry this guilt with me until Judgment Day.

“You know, this is all my fault. He’d be alive if I hadn’t pushed him so hard.”

“Man, don’t do that to yourself. I loved Smitty like a brother, but the Smitty who’d been rolling around lately was a snake for what he was trying to do to you and the church,” James said. “Besides, you had no idea what the truth was about Smitty. Me, on the other hand, I’d known this about him for years. I had proof of his little secret, but I just never used it until he came after you.” He shook his head. “Mmm-mmm-mmm. The secrets some of our members keep.”

“But he was being blackmailed,” I said in Smitty’s defense. “I think his back was up against the wall. Besides, before he died,
Smitty told me that I needed to watch my back. That this was all bigger than him.”

“He did?” Maxwell raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I’m still not sure what he meant.”

I was deep in thought, and then something dropped into my spirit. “Hey, I have a question for you, Maxwell, since you’re so close to the police and the military.”

“What is it?”

“Can you get me a gun and a concealment permit?”

Maxwell stared at me for a second. “For what?” He folded his arms.

“For protection. I’m worried about my family, man. You do realize a man showed up dead in my church’s parking lot today, don’t you?”

“Yeah, and it was most likely the suicide of a troubled man,” Maxwell replied.

I tried to protest, but he said, “Listen, you don’t need a gun. Let me make a few calls. I can have some of my friends from Blackrock provide you and the first lady with security. You’re the bishop of a church, not a corner thug. You wouldn’t know what to do with a gun if the situation arose.”

“Okay, then you look into getting my wife security. I don’t need any,” I agreed without a fight.

“Look into it for them both, Maxwell,” James chimed in, and I rolled my eyes. “I don’t wanna hear it, T. K. We’ve been talking about getting you a bodyguard for years, ever since you ran for borough president. You can’t be rolling up in the hood like you do without someone to watch your back. We don’t even have to call him a bodyguard. We can call him your driver, just as long as he’s packing heat.”

“Whatever. It’s not the people in the hood I’m worried about,” I grunted. “But if we really wanna get to the bottom of this, you need to put your heads together and tell me who my enemies are in the church.”

“Who your enemies are?” Maxwell said. “Do you even have any enemies?”

“There was a time when I thought the word
enemy
stood only for the devil, but Smitty said that whoever is behind this is out to
get me. That sounds like an enemy to me.” I turned to James. “So, Mr. Know-It-All, who are my enemies?”

“Well, Maxwell’s kind of right. You are generally well liked. You’ve ruffled some feathers over the years, but I can’t exactly say you’ve made staunch enemies,” James offered.

“Well, how about Deacon Brown and Trustees Duncan and Whitmore?” Maxwell said. “They all seemed to be hell-bent on blocking us from hiring the new choir director. They sounded like they wanted to destroy you, Bishop.”

“Followers, that’s all they were. What we need to do is get control of those boards and the women’s groups,” James said pointedly. As weakened as his body had become, James continued to show that his mind was still sharp. “We control them, then we pretty much control the entire church. Then can’t nobody hurt you in the church.”

“Well, I know from the way she spoke at the last meeting before the vote that Simone is on our side,” I offered.

James gave a little snort of disgust. “Keep your eye on that woman, T. K. She may be acting all nice now, but a tiger don’t change her stripes. She’s only cool as long as she gets what she wants. Let’s hope that the choir director of yours she’s been chasing keeps her occupied.” I wondered how James knew about Simone’s interest in Aaron, but now wasn’t the time to ask him about his sources.

“Maxwell, I know you have a lot on your plate, but with Smitty dead, I think it’s time you took over as chairman of the deacons’ board,” I said confidently.

Maxwell tried to conceal a grin. I knew he relished the idea of taking a position of leadership at a church he loved as much as James and I did. Still, he didn’t reveal his enthusiasm. “Bishop, you know I’ll do whatever it takes to help you and the church, but I’ve been gone a while. I’m not sure folks won’t like me trying to bully my way in. Some might even see it as me taking advantage of Smitty’s death.”

James scratched his skinny chin. “Bishop, when I was in the church, I had more enemies than you—many of them female. I can’t remember anyone particularly disliking you. Sure, we all have haters, but not enough to do this.”

My phone rang, signaling a call from my wife. Although it could be quite embarrassing for me at times, she liked me to have Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman” as her ringtone. She figured with that song playing on a grown man’s phone, I’d be quick to take all her calls. I reached down to my waistband to pull out my mobile phone.

“Wait just a minute.” I held up a finger to James and Maxwell, and then excused myself by turning away. “Hey, baby,” I said, talking into my cell phone.

“How’s James?” Monique asked.

“He’s doing okay.”

Monique paused. “I have to ask you a question.”

“What is it?”

“Did you by any chance buy me three dozen roses and those Godiva chocolate truffles I love?”

“No. Why? Was I supposed to?” I searched my mind to see if I’d forgotten anything important like a birthday, holiday, or anniversary.

“It would have been nice, but someone beat you to it.”

“What?” I said it so loud that both Maxwell and James turned toward me.

“Yep, someone left a huge box of truffles and roses on my car seat. I found it once I got home. And that’s not all. Whoever this somebody is left a card that was typewritten. It reads …” I heard Monique rustling a piece of paper. “‘I just wanted you to know that I live and breathe for you.’”

“Monique, I’ll be right home. Somebody’s playing games,” I said, then hung up the phone. I usually remained calm under pressure, but this thing was getting sinister. Who could be giving my wife gifts? Were they actually giving
me
a sign? I worried that somehow her secret admirer was connected to this thing that Smitty warned me about.

I turned to James and Maxwell. “Y’all think about what I asked you. I have to go home. I have an emergency.”

“Everything checked out okay, but I’d still like to keep you overnight for observation,” the doctor said as I sat on the examination table in a paper hospital gown.

“Oh, please,” I replied, jumping down off the table and heading over to the chair that held my clothes. “I know what that means. It’s code for ‘you’re in perfect health, but we’d like you to stay so we can bill your insurance company a few thousand dollars for a sleepless night.’” I snatched up the outfit I’d chosen specially that morning to catch Aaron’s eye. “No, thanks. I think I’ll go home to my own bed.”

“In all honesty, Mrs.—”

I cut him off. “It’s Ms., and I don’t need honesty right now. I need to get out of here.”

“If you insist on leaving, you’re going to have to sign a waiver.”

“Well, then give me the form, because I insist,” I replied sharply. There was no way I was going to be cooped up in this place any longer than I had to be. I was still trying to piece together the incidents that led me here, and I couldn’t do that if I was stuck in a hospital bed. Images of Jonathan Smith’s bloody body in his car kept flashing in my mind. I needed to get back to the church, or at least talk to someone to find out what the hell was going on.

“Okay, then,” the doctor said as he wrote something on my chart, “it will be noted as a discharge against doctor’s order.”

“Fine.” My nerves were on edge, and at this point, I didn’t give a damn what this young doctor thought of me. “Write whatever you want. I just wanna get out of here.”

With a look of exasperation, the doctor exited the room, hopefully to go fill out my discharge papers. I finished dressing, then sat on the bed until a female orderly entered the room with a wheelchair.

“Hi. I’m here to take you out.”

I looked down at the wheelchair. “Really? I mean, is all this necessary? All I did was faint, for Pete’s sake.”

I could tell I intimidated the poor girl. She didn’t know what to say. And as a matter of fact, I didn’t want her to say anything. I just wanted to get out of there. Hospitals gave me the creeps. That was probably one of the reasons why I refused to visit James—that and I hated his guts.

“It’s … it’s … hospital procedure,” the girl stammered.

A nurse came in with a clipboard in hand. “I know you’re anxious to get out of here,” she said. “I just need you to sign off on these discharge papers, and then Sara here will escort you out.” The nurse looked down at the wheelchair. “Oh, and you must be special. I see Sara brought the ten-passenger stretch.”

Okay, obviously the doctor had filled this nurse in on my attitude, and she was giving it right back to me. Her little comment was cute, but I wasn’t in a joking mood. I took the clipboard, scribbled my John Hancock, and handed it back to the nurse.

“Your friend is in the waiting room. Sara will wheel you out now.”

I was glad to hear that Monique was waiting for me. Now, that was a true friend, spending her afternoon in the hospital when there was so much drama to be tended to back at the church. I couldn’t wait to see her so she could fill me in.

I plopped down in the wheelchair and said, “Okay, Sara, let’s go.”

Sara wheeled me down the hall toward the double doors that led to the waiting room. Rather than enter that room in a wheelchair and look even more pitiful in front of Monique, I stopped her at the doors and announced, “It’s okay, Sara. I can take it from here.”

She didn’t bother to inform me of hospital policy this time. She stopped the chair and offered a weak, “Hope you feel better.”

I stood up from the wheelchair and turned around to give her a slight nod of thanks. She disappeared quickly, probably glad to be away from me.

I turned around and entered the waiting room, where I got a surprise I never could have predicted. Aaron was waiting for me.

“You ready to go home?” he asked.

“Wha-what are you doing here?” After the events of this day, Aaron’s appearance was almost more than my already-confused mind could handle. “Where’s Monique? They said my friend was out here waiting for me.”

He shook his head. “I know things have been a little weird between us, but now I’m not even considered your friend?”

“I, uh, didn’t mean it that way. I just …” I struggled to get myself together. I had been trying too hard to get Aaron to talk to me. Now that he was here, I couldn’t let the drama at the church render me stupid.

“Never mind. I’m just here because I promised First Lady I would make sure you were okay. What happened out there in the parking lot anyway?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” I answered. “I have no idea what happened after I passed out.”

“All I know is you came into the church screaming about someone being dead. I have no idea what was going on in the parking lot, because I stayed with you until the EMTs came, and then I followed the ambulance to the hospital.” He shook his head. “It was chaos up in that church. Bishop came to the hospital later and told me and the first lady that it was Deacon Smith in the car.”

“I know,” I said quietly.

He cocked his head to the side. “What were you doing out there in the middle of the service anyway? Seems like right before that you were in the aisle feeling the Holy Spirit.”

Oh, so he did notice me!
I thought hopefully. I was flattered, but at the same time, I was concerned by his question. I couldn’t admit my reason for being outside. I tried to stop him before he tried to probe further.

“Look, Aaron, I really don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

I must have put a little too much attitude in my tone, because
a look crossed over his face that let me know I’d just lost any sympathy points I might have been gaining. Maybe I should have let Sara bring me out in the wheelchair after all.

“Whatever, Simone,” he snapped. “Let’s just go.”

Aaron turned and stalked toward the exit without another word. I let out a little huff. I’d heard of giving someone the cold shoulder, but damn!