Baptist DISTINCTIVE: An Adam Mykonos Mystery (The Adam Myknonos Mystries) (23 page)

“Let me show you what happens if I roll
this back.”

I watched as the animation rolled me back
in time. I tried in my mind’s eye to fill in the blanks of what the animation
could not. There was Mackenzie standing near the fireplace in the center of the
living room.
 
Argon paused and said.

“Now see here, given the trajectory of the
shot, Mac was standing about here.” He pointed on the screen to right hand side
of the fireplace.
 
“And the shot had to
come from over here.” He pointed to the center right of the living room, near
the foot of the staircase leading up to the bedroom. “Given where the bullet
hit Mac and the angle of the shot, I would say we are looking at the shooter
being around five foot three, a little smaller than Mac’s five four.”

“Ivy is five four as well” I said.

He nodded. “She would be within the height
range. But now watch this.”

He clicked and the focus of the animation shifted
to the body that was supposed to represent Josh. It lay on the floor near the swinging
door into the kitchen.

“The bullet hit Josh in the head, just
under his right eye, and look at the trajectory” He pointed to the laser line
from the now standing animation of Josh.”

“From nearer the front door.” I said.

“Yes as if the shooter came down the stairs
fired at Mac by the fireplace and then walked ten feet over to the front door,
turned and fired at Josh who was near the opening of the Kitchen. Further Josh
was a big man, much taller than you or me, maybe six five.”

“Six six.”

“So the shooter fired up and into Josh?” He
said.

I shrugged. “Could be”

“Yes” said Argon “Expect for angle. Given a
person we have stated was around five three or five four standing by the door,
as opposed to standing on the staircase, I am not sure how they would swing the
shot. The bullet would still then be traveling upward. Expect according to the
autopsy it wasn’t, it was going straight out. Meaning the shooter was at last
average height for man. He wasn’t aiming up.”

I agreed.

“The other thing is it looks like Josh was
moving towards the kitchen and given the way the shot hit him it is as if he
were pivoting back.”

“Huh.”

Argon got up and went to the door of the
office “Okay, this is the door to the kitchen Josh is here, heading out of the
living room, he turns and half steps back toward the living room like so.”

He did a half turn moving the upper part of
his torso back.

“He’s hit and falls where they found him by
the door, since it was a swinging door it swung closed on him in the living,
but I think and I can’t swear to it, but I think he was moving away from the
living room and out into the kitchen when he was hit.”

“But turned back to look at the shooter?” I
asked

“I think.”

I shook my head. “Does Josh strike you as
the type of person who would run out of the room if Mac had been shot, trying
to save himself?”

“It does go against type. “

“So why was he heading towards the
kitchen?”

Argon shook his head. “I don’t know and the
kitchen shot makes the whole thing stranger still.”

“How so.”

He pulled up new animation this one showed
the interior of the kitchen, he pointed and said; “The shot hit here on the
wall directly across from the half window that peered out into the living
room.”

I nodded. “So?”

“That shot was fired from here.” The
animations switched back to where Mac’s body lay.

“That is consistent with what Ivy said; the
gun was on the floor.”

“Yes and Ivy, since we know it is she who
fired this shot at least, fired it from a half kneeling position. As if she
were checking Mac to see if she was still alive.”

“This is what she said she was doing.” I added.

Argon nodded “Right but why would the
shooter need to check whether Mac was alive or not and why fire a shot into the
kitchen. Mac was dead in the living room, Josh in the door path between the
kitchen and living room, who was the shooter firing at out there.”

“Maybe that shot was fired first?” I said.

“Ok, the shooter knells down next to where
Mac will eventually fall, they fire a shot into the kitchen, then they run to
the base of the stairwell, turn to the right and fire at Mac who is standing
near the fireplace, then run the five steps or so to the front door turn and
fire at Josh who is heading into the kitchen.”

“That makes no sense. If I am killing two
people in the same room I am not moving around like that.”

Argon nodded. “Nope you are standing stationary firing at Mac then Josh then
the kitchen or Josh, The Kitchen, Mac or The Kitchen, Mac, Josh etc. for the
combination of the three but you yourself are not moving around.”

“So what do we have then?” I asked.

“You know.” He said with a smile.

“Three shooters.”

Argon and I stood for a moment letting that
sink in, then like all good Albanians our minds went to one place.

“Coffee?” He asked.

“You got Turkish in that little kitchen of yours?”

“Of course.”

Coda
Nine

Brother Adam, I need to pause and thank you for the
indulgence you have shown in reading all this.

I need to get to the heart of what I am trying to
say in this message. I mentioned that I felt for a long time that I had married
the wrong woman, and by giving you a history of not only our movement but what
I felt was my mission at Cavalry how I dealt with that fact.

Paul said that he counted all as lost for the cause
of Christ, and for many many years I felt that way as well. The fact that my
marriage was failing, the fact that my children were troubled, the fact that at
home and in my heart I was an unhappy man did not seem to matter.

The fact that the Lord did not seem to be willing to
bless me with true friends or loyal companions was I assumed part of the
mission he gave me. But as a companion to what Paul said, Our Lord and Savior
also said what good is it to gain the whole world and loss your soul. On the
one hand that statement clearly applies to salvation, but there is more. The
Lord had given me my children as arrows in a quiver, and I foolishly left them
astray. I was given stalwart companions such as my brother, Luke and You and your
brother-in-Law Argon, and I let that slip though my fingers. In short I was
losing my soul. And then Mac came into my life. I want; I need you to
understand brother that there was nothing improper in our relationship. However
I would lie if I said there was no attraction. Still as time went on we had
resolved ourselves to an absent longing

And then Beau Longstreet made his power play. Why
did he do so? I think the answer is simply, I was not leading cavalry in the
direction he wanted it to go. Does that mean right he was wrong or vice versa?
I am no longer sure of that. What I am sure of is that he exploited a moment of
weakness in Ivy, that he manipulated her parents into believing something that
was not the case and that he used the power of the pulpit to great effect. And
he did so for a love of the ministry.

Now you may think it strange that I say that, but I
believe that. Pastor Longstreet sees that this city is changing that there are
forces coming into play which will forever effect how and why we do the things
we do. Pastor Longstreet has made a conscious decision to protect what is on
his hill and to hunker down and wait. It is the choice many Christians are
making.

We know that scripture says that things will get
worse and worse and in response to this good saved man are abandoning the cause
of outreach and instead doing what is necessary to protect their own. Is this
wrong? On a gut level I would say, we have the great commission, we must win
souls, we must storm the gates of hell, we must bring all whom we can to
Christ, we must stand as a moral bastion in a world gone mad. We must. And then
I look at my broken children and wonder if the 'we', I speak of, must include
me.

And so shortly after I left Calvary and even before
I began a public relationship with Mac, I set in motion several wheels of my
own which if I have done them correctly will protect Guiding Light but sadly
make your life increasingly difficult.

You must believe that I never intended to place you
on the front lines of the current battle. I appreciate how hard you have worked
on the happiness that the Lord has given you. But I also know from my
conversations with you and especially with Miss Millicent that you had
potential far beyond running that comic book shop.

I knew that there were people who would never be satisfied
with me living a peaceful life. I cannot say for sure that these lead to my
death, what I can say is that people like Doug Hallman and My Father-in-Law and
even to a lesser extent Pastor Longstreet would never let me lead a peaceful
life. The fact that I exist is an affront to them. I had planned to married Mac
and then fade into obscurity and had an alternative plan for what you are now
facing. But as we both know I am dead, that did not happen, and instead we are
here where we are.

I asked for you to be my executor instead of Luke because
I wanted the full wraith of those who would oppose me to fall on you and not
him. His job as Pastor is to protect and nurture those people at Guiding Light.
By altering my will, and Mac’s and binding Guiding Light to Calvary I have
assured that Longstreet will not move to destroy Luke’s ministry. He will be
forced to protect it from the likes of Hallman and others who would have swallowed
it whole.

Instead Luke and the people at Guiding Light can
continue to win souls to Christ. As a new church Luke is looking at ten to
twenty years before he is the size of Calvary and needs to make the choices that
Longstreet is making now. You will be there to help him. In the meanwhile I
have curtailed Longstreet and Calvary’s power by dividing the radio station
between the two churches forcing Longstreet to keep doing outreach because that
is what Mathewson demands of his stations. By now you have meet Ryder, he has
plans and a totally different take on the current end times than either I or
Longstreet but his plans are good and I urge you to cultivate a friendship with
him. He can give you wise advice. But I caution you to always remember that
Luke is your Pastor and Rita your wife and that their advice is the best that
God will send to you.

I am deeply sorry that I have placed you in the
middle of this. Sorry that I failed my ministry and my children. Please be
careful, there are no more dangerous people than those who believe that they
are within the will of God. What I have done by giving you this information is
to make you one apart. Never again will you hear of a sermon by Bob Jones
without the knowledge that you now have, the words of John R Rice and Billy
Sunday will be tempered with wisdom, and the ministry of Joshua Lexington and Beauregard
Jefferson Longstreet will never seem the same to you. While others at Guiding
Light will hear the music of the “Singing Pastor” and smile, you will doubt. I
have set you apart forever from your friends and I am sorry.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Argon and I sipped Turkish coffee from
small demitasse cups.

“Adam?” Asked Argon. “The police could have
all this same information why have they not looked into it.”

“Because they have made an arrest and the
process is now about proving that they were right in their choice and not that
their choice may be incorrect.”

“Just like back home under Hoxha.”

I shrugged “Not that bad but” I let it
tapper, maybe it was that bad.

We each sat in thought for moment. Then I slapped
my hand on my knee “Okay we just deal with the fact that the police are not
going to handle this matter. What do we know?”

“Three shooters.” He said

“Right.
 
Let’s assume that Ivy is telling us the truth and that she was the one firing
into the kitchen.”

“From a prone position checking Mac’s body.”
Argon stated.

“Right so now we have two shooters.”

“Okay, pick who got shot first?”

Argon shook his head. “Not sure.”

“Okay the reports indicated Mac, but it is
really too close to call, so let’s be devil advocate and say Josh first; it is
the only way I can explain him being at the kitchen door. He was simply leaving
the room. The first shooter fires at him and then drops the gun and runs out
the back.”

“Hoping over the body?”

“Sure.”

“Then why wasn’t Mac going towards Josh?”

I couldn’t answer. Mac not moving from the
fireplace to Josh’s body makes about as much sense as Josh moving away from
Mac’s body and towards the kitchen.

“I don’t know Argon. Say Mac was shot first
what would make Josh run towards the kitchen?”

“That is where the shooter fled.”

I nodded “Okay I can buy that, Mac is shot
first, the first shooter then runs towards the kitchen, but why does Josh go after
them and not over to help Mac?”