The Last Sunday (16 page)

“You're a beautiful woman, Scarlett. Did Samantha have a problem with you working so closely with Hezekiah? Is she the real reason you quit as his assistant?”

“Yes,” was her anguished reply. “She made my life miserable. Hezekiah tried to shield me from her, but the more he tried, the more hostile she became toward me.” As she spoke, a tear fell from her eye. She tried to wipe it away discreetly, but Gideon recognized the gesture even with her back turned.

In a split second Gideon calculated his next move. He weighed the risk of asking her the question he already knew the answer to, and reasoned there was nothing to lose.

“Scarlett, is Natalie Hezekiah's daughter?”

Scarlett was too weak to form a believable denial. The lies, the death, and the betrayal had taken their toll. If only her life could have been as neat and tidy as the perfect living room. She slowly lowered her head and was silent.

Scarlett had arrived in Los Angeles as a young girl from the South. Her mother had wanted a better life for her, so she had sent her to live with relatives in California. She had been smart and beautiful her entire life but had never really known it. Her shyness was often mistaken for conceitedness. Boys found the shy Southern girl captivating. Her naïveté and her soft voice garnered proposals of marriage long before she turned eighteen.

Scarlett thought back to when she was nineteen, to the day she found out she was pregnant with Hezekiah's baby.

Gideon could see that she was crying at the window. He stood and walked behind her and gently placed his hand on her quivering shoulder and asked again, “Is she his daughter, Scarlett?”

Scarlett could no longer contain her tears. She covered her mouth and sobbed, “Yes,” into her cupped hand. “She is Hezekiah's daughter.”

“It's okay, Scarlett,” Gideon said in his most comforting voice. “Your secret is safe with me. Does your husband know?”

The question caused her sobs to intensify. Gideon's heart told him to stop, but his reporter's mind urged him to push harder. Through his touch on her quivering shoulder, he could feel her pain. She was so gentle and fragile, he felt any additional pressure would cause her to shatter into a million pieces on the peach carpet.

Against the gentle pleading of his heart, he pressed on. His instincts told him David knowing about Natalie accounted for a large portion of her pain. “How did David react when you told him?” he asked gently.

“He was furious,” she said through tears. “I can't blame him. I made a mistake by not telling him sooner. He feels embarrassed that Hezekiah and Samantha knew and he didn't. It was stupid of me. I just didn't know how to tell him.” The entire time she spoke, she kept her back to him. “I've made a mess of everything, but I didn't mean anyone any harm. I just wanted to protect my daughter.”

Gideon had interviewed enough battered women to recognize some of the signs. Overwhelming guilt, shuddering under the touch of a man, blaming herself rather than the perpetrator. The signs were there.

“What did he do when you told him?”

There was no answer.

“Did he hurt you, Scarlett?” he asked with the voice of a seasoned therapist.

“No,” she said in a dismissive tone. “David would never hurt me. He's much too gentle to hurt anyone.”

“Then what happened?”

Gideon allowed the words to linger in the air. He knew there was no turning back for Scarlett. Once the floodgates of confession had been opened, few could resist the rushing tide.

“He's threatening to leave me for . . .” She hesitated and seemed to brace herself for the next words.

“Leave you?” Gideon said, tenderly goading her.

Scarlett took a deep breath and said, “Yes. For Samantha Cleaveland.”

Gideon froze. It was unbelievable on so many different levels. The glamorous grieving widow already connecting with another man. The pastor stealing another woman's husband. The board of trustee member giving birth to the pastor's illegitimate child. It was almost too much for him to grasp. Blackmail, love triangles, and murder. The seasoned reporter who thought he had heard everything was now presented with a story so fantastic that even Hollywood would be challenged to do it justice.

“Are you sure?” Gideon asked with the deepest sincerity. “Why would Samantha do that to you?”

“You don't know her,” she replied with a mixture of scoffs and tears. “She doesn't care who gets hurt as long as she gets what she wants. She almost destroyed my life once, and now she's trying to do it again. I c-c-ould . . .” she stammered. “If I had the chance, I would kill her.”

 

 

It was well after midnight. Hattie sat in her favorite floral wingback chair in her living room. The steam from a cup of chamomile tea that sat on the tea table released a wisp of mint into the quiet, dark room. Hattie had raised three children in this house. Her husband had died years earlier, and she now lived alone. The newest piece of furniture in the entire home was a small ottoman that her husband had purchased twenty years earlier so she could elevate her leg and take the pressure off her arthritic knee.

There was a chill in the air. The only light came from the dial of a transistor radio sitting on a hutch across the room. A minister she had never heard before chirped his message of damnation to insomniacs, who were either enthralled by his words, too tired to turn the dial, or otherwise preoccupied.

No need to turn on the heater,
she thought while pulling her terry-cloth robe tight around her chest to ward off the cold.
Lord willing, I'll be asleep soon.

It was in the midnight hours like this that Hattie had been guided through decisions that shaped her life. Alone and in the dead of night. The world was asleep, and the air was clear of the blizzard of thoughts that often distort the mind.

Her philosophy was that since the beginning of time there had only ever been one man and one woman. Adam and Eve. There was only one mind, and we all drew our wisdom, inspiration, and creativity from the same source. If one person had an idea, then every person on the planet had access to that very same idea. If one person suffered, then we all suffered. If one person succeeded, we all succeeded.

Hattie had inherited the gift of empathy, and the particular wisdom that accompanied it, from her grandmother. It placed Hattie in the unique position of knowing the hearts of people and being able to anticipate their actions. Only a few people knew she had this gift. Her grandmother knew the moment she laid eyes on the gurgling little baby girl. Pastor Cleaveland realized it when she told him he was going to be one of the most famous men on earth.

Now, on this quiet night, Hattie could feel the universe had something to tell her. She sat patiently in the chair, tolerating the ranting preacher on the radio. If my arthritis wasn't acting up on me, I'd get up and turn him off, she thought. But it was, so she sat captive to his misguided perspective on the Gospel. Her defense was to reduce his voice to nothing more than white noise as she sipped the herbal tea and quietly hummed one of her favorite hymns.

“Walk in the light, beautiful light, come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright. Oh, shine all around us by day and by night, Jesus is, Jesus is the light of the world.”

Hattie knew her Bible, and she knew the truth. She had never relied on anyone to tell her God's will. “If one man knows the truth, then we all know the truth. God ain't telling one man a secret that he ain't willing to tell everybody,” she often noted. Hattie discounted any preacher who said, “God told me to tell you . . . ,” because she knew it wasn't true and would invariably be followed by him or her reaching into her pocketbook. “God don't have favorites,” she often said. “If he has a message for anyone on this earth, believe me, child, he will tell them personally. God doesn't need a middleman.”

“If the gospel be hid, it's hid from the lost, my Jesus is waiting to look past your faults. Arise and shine, your light has come. Jesus is, I know that He is the only light of this world.”

As the hymn fell almost silently from her lips, she felt a familiar stirring in her stomach. This always meant that either a vision was coming or she would soon need a sip of Metamucil. Considering she had had only cottage cheese and a few slices of canned peaches for dinner, she assumed a vision would soon play out before her.

She gently placed the cup of tea on the table and looked straight ahead into the darkness. Hints of furniture and the shadows on her drawn shades from the trees standing guard outside her window were all she could see.

Slowly, a form began to appear in the middle of the room. At first she couldn't see what it was, but as the moments passed, it became clear it was taking the shape of a human. She freely opened her heart and mind to what was to come.

Before the image was fully formed, she knew exactly who it was. The room took on a ghostly glow, which emanated directly from the form. She felt a rush of cold sweep through her body. Hattie gripped the armrest to brace herself for the visitor. She felt waves of hate rush over her as the image became clearer.

Then, in an instant, Samantha Cleaveland was standing in the room. Hattie had never seen an image so clearly. Samantha was looking directly at her with a foreboding glare. There was something threatening in her stance. Her feet were firmly planted on the oval braided rug in the center of the room. Her shoulders were square, and her fists were clenched at her sides.

Hattie looked calmly at the figure and waited for it to reveal the purpose of its visit. She could feel the hate. She'd felt it before on so many Sunday mornings. Then Samantha slowly raised her hand and pointed directly at Hattie. The gesture sent a shiver down Hattie's spine. Samantha took a step toward Hattie.

“Don't come any closer,” Hattie said out loud.

Samantha stopped as Hattie's voice sliced through the cold in the room. Her expression said she wanted to come closer, but she could not.

“What do you want?” Hattie asked firmly.

There was no response. Instead, Samantha took another bold step forward. Hattie sat upright in the wingback chair. She reached to her left and took a leather-bound Bible from the table and rested it in her lap.

“I know what you did to Pastor Cleaveland,” Hattie said in a clear attempt to provoke the spirit. “God knows what you did.”

Samantha took another step forward. It happened so quickly that Hattie noticed only that the distance between them had become shorter. She opened the Bible in her lap. This was no ordinary vision. Up until now she had witnessed only visions that seemed as though they were playing on a television screen. This time was different. She could actually feel Samantha in the room. It was almost as if she could reach out and touch her. Hattie was, for the first time, a part of the vision.

She knew the spirit was trying to intimidate her, but she was not afraid. “Don't hurt anyone else,” Hattie said boldly. “This has got to stop. Stay away from that boy, Danny. Hezekiah loved him. He won't let you hurt him.”

Samantha began to laugh. There was no sound, only the mocking expression on her face. Her presence was so strong in the room that Hattie had to brace herself so as not to become overwhelmed by it. She was determined, however, to stand her ground.

“God is going to stop you,” she said. “I'm praying with every ounce of me for God to stop you.”

Samantha took another defiant step closer. She was now standing only four feet away.

Hattie stood from the chair. Her arthritic knee functioned as well as it had when she was twenty years old. She looked Samantha directly in the eye and said, “This has got to stop now.” Hattie raised the Bible between them and began to pray. “In the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. I bind you by the power of God.”

She said the words over and over. The intensity of her speech increased with each repetition. As she spoke, Samantha took a step backward. One after another, Hattie unleashed a barrage of scriptures and declarations. The more she spoke, the farther Samantha moved away. But Hattie was relentless. With every step back that Samantha took, Hattie took one step forward.

The hate pouring from Samantha did not diminish. The room remained cold, and her finger stayed fixed on Hattie. Then, as slowly as the figure had appeared, it began to fade away. The two women's eyes remained locked the entire time. After a few moments, the figure disappeared completely. The last thing Hattie saw was Samantha's eyes peering at her through the darkness.

Hattie made her way back to the wingback chair and collapsed onto the seat. Suddenly the pain in her knee shot through her entire body. She realized she was panting for breath and her hands were shaking. She felt a bead of perspiration roll down her cheek.

In all the years she had been having visions, never once had she been presented with an image that frightened her as much as this one had. The sight of Samantha standing in her living room, pointing at her, had made Hattie's heart pound against the walls of her chest.

She clutched the Bible to her breast and said, “Lord, you have to stop her.”

New Testament Cathedral felt like the center of the universe this week. The campus was filled with tourists who had traveled from far and wide to witness the opening of the new sanctuary. Mobile homes, tour buses, cars, and limousines were lined up at the entrance, waiting for their turn to drive along the campus's cobblestone streets and to come that much closer to Samantha Cleaveland. Each vehicle was greeted with a hearty “Welcome to New Testament Cathedral,” from the armed security guards. “Would you mind stepping from the vehicle while we search it? We can't be too safe these days.”

No one protested. Everyone understood that there was still a killer on the loose and that every measure had to be taken to protect Samantha Cleaveland. The first few steps into each new building took guests through metal detectors. Visible gun bulges could be seen under the arms of discreet men and women in black suits and dark sunglasses as they talked into their wristwatches while walking the grounds and looking inconspicuous.

It was now only three days until the first Sunday morning in the new sanctuary. All the hotels within a ten-mile radius of the church were fully booked. The opening was being covered in the media like a long-awaited movie premiere. It was a phenomenon due to the dramatic fashion in which Hezekiah had died and the theatrical way in which Samantha lived.

Samantha stood at the window of her glass office, surveying the grounds. From there she could see people pointing up at her office on the fifth floor, above the main entrance of the sanctuary. She could see them all clearly, but fortunately, they could not see her through the heavily tinted windows. If they could, they would have been offended by the disdain in her eye and the dismissive slant of her mouth as they craned their necks to see her.

Samantha's world was governed by deception. As a child, she had to be perfect at all times. She was the daughter of a pastor, and her mother would accept nothing but the best from her and for her. She was a beautiful little girl. Long, naturally wavy hair, perfectly chiseled features, and eyes as black as onyx, which seemed to look straight through you. She played with the other children at church in the hallways, in Fellowship Hall, and on the lawn at the back of her father's church, but her mother on many occasions had reminded her, “Samantha, you're not like the other children. Always remember you're better than they are. You're the daughter of Pastor Herman Jedediah Armstrong. Don't ever forget that.”

It was a working-class congregation. The members came from the poor neighborhoods and the housing tenements that surrounded the church. The faithful would come every Sunday, and on the first Sunday of each month they would give 10 percent of their monthly earnings to Pastor Armstrong. Ten percent from one person's salary in that neighborhood didn't amount to much, but 10 percent from over three thousand households allowed Pastor Herman Armstrong and First Lady Adeline Armstrong to drive his and hers Mercedes-Benzs, live in the city's upper-middle-class neighborhood, and send Samantha to the finest private schools.

Samantha's clothes were always a little nicer than those of all the other children at church. Her education was better, and the food on her table much finer. She soon learned the value of the masses. They were there to meet her needs. The parishioners who filled the sanctuary each Sunday were there for her. They were there to buy Samantha her first car at sixteen. They were there to purchase her mother a new fur coat each winter. They were there to wrap her father's wrist in Rolex watches and adorn his pinkie finger with diamonds.

Church was the family business. Pastor Armstrong christened the babies, married the young couples, and prepared the dead, in the family-owned and family-operated mortuary, for their final resting place. The church even had its own credit union. It was the first in the community, which meant the Armstrongs held the deeds and pink slips to many of the members' homes and cars. The church was a one-stop shop, and all the proceeds kept the Armstrong family cradled comfortably in the arms of luxury.

Samantha had always known she could never inherit the family business, because she was a girl. She did, however, inherit something much more valuable. Her mother's ability to manipulate and control the men in her life. Pastor Armstrong was a strapping and elegant man. His pearly smile and fiery sermons would seduce the women and inspire the men each Sunday morning. But behind closed doors it was apparent who ran the business. Adeline Armstrong managed all the church and family finances, which were one and the same. She dressed her husband in the finest Brooks Brothers suits and draped him in gold-embroidered robes. Sunday morning was theater, and Adeline was the director and producer.

Samantha Cleaveland was already a master at the game by the time Hezekiah Cleaveland entered the picture. He didn't have a chance against her. On the first day she saw him, as a young visiting preacher in her father's church, he wore an ill-fitting suit. But there was something about him. The women in the audience hung on his every word. The men looked on with envy, admiration, and a healthy tinge of jealousy. In an instant, she decided he would be her husband. He would be the man who would serve as pastor of her church. He would be the man who would father her children. This was the man who would keep her in the finest clothes, cars, and homes. He was raw and unrefined, but he was charismatic and beautiful. Just the right man to play the role in the production that was to be her life.

She wasted no time in re-creating him. He was immediately integrated into the Armstrong dynasty and taken under her father's wing. Adeline coached her on the fine art of training him to be the man who would keep her in the only life that she knew.

But Samantha's skills surpassed those of her mother. The difference between the two women was that Samantha was willing to do whatever it took to get what she wanted. Adeline had limits. Oral sex was not a part of the equation. “Ladies don't do things like that,” she had once told her daughter. But Samantha mastered the toe-curling and eye-rolling skill and used it as yet another tool to control. “Don't ever steal, honey. God hates a thief,” was another of her mother's instructions. Samantha, however, felt that if she wanted something, she had a right to have it, no matter who it belonged to.
It's not really stealing if it was always supposed to be mine,
she had often thought.

“Marriage is a sacred bond, darling,” Adeline told Samantha on the night before her wedding. “Always be faithful to your husband, no matter how much you are tempted.” Samantha was never tempted by sex or passion. She could take it or leave it. She did, however, know that sex was one of the easiest ways to persuade men to do her bidding, whether it was Hezekiah, Reverend Willie Mitchell, David Shackelford, or any other man she needed at the time. If money wasn't enough to convince them, then she always had her body as the ultimate bargaining tool.

Adeline didn't believe in divorce, and she instilled the same belief in Samantha. “Now, honey, you know we don't believe in divorce in our family,” she told Samantha on the eve of her wedding, dispensing more motherly advice. “When you say ‘until death do us part' tomorrow in front of God and all those witnesses, make sure you mean it. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother all buried their husbands. I plan to bury your father someday, and now you have to plan on doing the same with your husband. There's no turning back now.”

“I will, Mama,” Samantha replied, gently touching her mother's hand. “I love Hezekiah. I will never divorce him.”

At the young age of sixty-five, Reverend Herman Jedediah Armstrong died of a heart attack in his church office, on top of his forty-six-year-old secretary, with his pants around his ankles. The funeral was lovely, and Samantha noted that her mother had never looked more radiant.

“Excuse me, Pastor Cleaveland.” The voice on the intercom startled Samantha as she looked from her office window.

“Yes? What is it?” she asked curtly.

“I'm very sorry to disturb you, Pastor Cleaveland,” the assistant said timidly. “Trustee Scarlett Shackelford is here to see you. She said it's very important. I told her you were not available, but she insists.”

Samantha looked curiously at the phone but did not respond. In all the years she had known Scarlett Shackelford, she had never been in a room alone with her. There was no need. She was the mother of Hezekiah's bastard child, and because of that, Samantha was resigned to the fact that Scarlett would always have a piece of Hezekiah that she could never buy, steal, or control. For this reason alone she had always hated Scarlett.

“Shall I make an appointment for her at another time?” said the intercom.

“No. Send her in.”

A slight gasp of surprise could be heard from the intercom. Samantha rarely saw anyone without an appointment. “Yes, Pastor Cleaveland.”

Samantha continued to look out the window as she waited for the door to open. Pretty, delicate, meek, and mild Scarlett was, ironically, the only woman on the planet who caused Samantha to doubt her beauty. Of all the affairs Hezekiah had had, Scarlett was the one that had affected him the most. On the day Samantha found out about the affair and the baby, she told Hezekiah to end it immediately. For the first time, he protested about ending a relationship. Not because he thought there could ever be a future for him with Scarlett, but rather because he knew that she would be devastated, and he never wanted to hurt Scarlett.

On so many Sundays mornings after the child was born, Samantha could see Hezekiah scanning the church audience from the pulpit for the mother and child.

Scarlett entered the room and closed the door behind her. Samantha took a seat at her desk facing the window.

“So you finally told David about Natalie. I had assumed you and I were going to take our little secret to the grave.”

“He had a right to know,” Scarlett said, standing in the middle of the spacious office.

“Why? What good did it do you, Scarlett? It only hurt him and destroyed your marriage. You know he's very angry with you now. You should have kept your mouth shut.”

“The truth didn't destroy my marriage. You did.”

“You overestimate me. The moment you told David was the moment your marriage ended. I had nothing to do with that,” Samantha said and turned to face Scarlett. “You made that decision on your own, and now you have to live with the consequences.”

“Consequences?” Scarlett scoffed. “What do you know about consequences? You've never had to pay for any of the damage you've done to anyone.”

“Oh . . . and how do you know that much about my life?”

“Because you splash your entire life in front of the world every opportunity you get,” Scarlett said, looking directly at her.

“Don't believe everything you see on television, my dear.”

“Don't ‘my dear' me. You forget, I know who you are.”

“Did you come here to insult me or to discuss this like adults?”

“You're sleeping with my husband, and you expect me to discuss it calmly, like an adult?”

“Your husband would have never come to me if you hadn't opened your mouth. You never once considered how your affair with my husband affected me, did you? It was all about you and your delicate feelings. Well, fuck you and your feelings. He was my husband, and you had no right to touch him, and now you and your daughter are paying the price for it.”

“Is that what this is all about?” Scarlett asked, taking a step forward. “Revenge?”

“I suppose in a way it is. You tried and failed to take my husband, and I tried and succeed in taking yours. Don't worry, though. When I'm done with him, I'll send him back to you, at least what's left of him.”

“I came here to speak with you woman to woman, Samantha. I apologize for what I did to you. I know it was wrong.”

“Apologize?” Samantha said indignantly. “You have my husband's child and then blame me for how your life turned out, and all you can do is
apologize
five years later. You're not the victim, Scarlett. Hezekiah and David bought that whole poor Scarlett routine, but I don't. You're nothing more than a manipulator. I offered you money, and you turned it down. I offered to relocate you to another city, and you turned that down too, because you wanted Hezekiah. Hezekiah is dead, so now you can't dangle that little girl in front of him anymore. Now you just have me to contend with. Take your best shot at me, and you'll see just how little the world will care about your bastard child.”

“I'm not here to threaten you, Samantha.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To try to appeal to you one woman to another. You've made your point with my husband, and I guess on some level I deserved it. I'm asking you to not take advantage of him or our situation. David loves me, and you know that. You have everything and can have any man you want. Don't do this, Samantha. I'm not asking for myself. I'm asking for Hezekiah's daughter. Don't make her suffer for our mistakes, and whether you like it or not, she's here and she deserves a chance at happiness.”

“I don't owe you or your love child anything,” Samantha sneered. “You should have thought about all this before you slept with my husband. Now I want you out of my office. As a matter of fact, I want you off the board of trustees and out of this church. Consider yourself excommunicated.”

“You can't remove me from the board without a unanimous vote of the members, and you know that.”

“And just how difficult do you think that will be for me to get?' Samantha replied coldly. “They'll vote exactly how I tell them to vote.”

“You know you can't control Hattie Williams.”