Brother Ezra Read online

 Brother Ezra

  Nelson Lynch

  Copyright 2011

  ISBN: 978-1-4659-5888-4

  Cover Microsoft Clip Art

  Sheriff Abel watched the squad car careen into the parking lot. The car slid to a stop, throwing up a cloud of dust and barely missing the sheriff’s new four-wheel-drive pick-up. He grimaced slightly thinking what a few stones from the parking lot would do to his beautiful white paint job.

  Deputy Baker snatched open the door and literally jumped into the sheriff’s office. “Guess what happened this morning.” Baker didn’t wait for a comment. “Tom Henry got religion.”

  “Who cares?” He pointed out the window. “Do you realize you nearly hit my brand new truck? Your passenger side mirror is only a few inches away from my driver’s side mirror.” He walked over to the window. “I can’t even open the door and get into my truck.”

  Baker shook his head. “No, no, Tom really got religion. He was at this Revival Meeting ---.”

  The sheriff held his hand out to stop Baker. “Tom Henry? Do you mean that old guy who wanders around looking for handouts? If it’s him, he needs religion. He’s drunk half the time and the rest of the time he’s exposing himself to women.” He paused for a few seconds. “I thought he was in jail.”

  Baker shook his head. “The judge let him out. None of the women wanted to press charges since when he flashed them, he still had his underwear on.”

  “For once I agree with the judge. Anybody that dumb shouldn’t be in jail. He should be in the home for the mentally retarded.” Sheriff Abel walked back to his desk and sat down, putting both feet on the corner of his desk. “What about that robbery and possible rape you went to investigate? What did you find out?”

  “Don’t you want to know what Tom did? It’ll probably be on the news tonight.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “Later. Right now I want to know about the robbery and rape.”

  Deputy Baker pulled a chair close to the sheriff’s desk, retrieved his notebook and sat. “Well, to begin with her name is Hilda Swenson. She is not sure she was actually robbed. She didn’t have but ten dollars when she went out. She didn’t have any when she woke up this morning.”

  Sheriff Abel waved his hand for Baker to stop. “Let me guess. She went out to have a few beers at the local saloon and spent all her money. What about the rape?”

  Baker leaned back and closed his notebook. “She’s not sure about that either. She thinks she was raped sometime after she came home from the saloon.”

  “What did the state police do? Did they take her to the hospital and let a doctor check her out?”

  “They wanted to, but she refused. She said she didn’t want to be examined by any of those doctors at the hospital.”

  Sheriff Abel leaned back further in his chair. “What about her phantom assailant? Did she describe him?” He paused for a moment. “What do the state police think? Was she raped or just had sex with a friend?”

  Baker closed his notebook with an air of finality. “They don’t think either one. The trooper I talked with said the room was neat and the bed showed no sign of another person being in it.”

  “An imaginary lover.” The sheriff grinned across the desk. “The best kind to have, no hassles and you don’t have to buy any presents.”

  Baker nodded. “There was one more thing. She described her assailant. He was a white male, in his forties or early fifties and had a beard. She admits to four or five beers. The bartender said seven or eight plus two tequila shooters at closing time.”

  The sheriff put his feet on the floor and leaned across his desk. “That’s enough alcohol to kill an elephant. How did she get home? I hope she wasn’t driving.”

  Baker consulted his notebook again. “She lives on Walnut Street. It’s less than a quarter mile. The bartender said she left by herself and that it was nothing unusual for her to walk home.”

  The sheriff felt for the reassuring shape of the Maalox bottle in his shirt pocket. “Alright, I know you’re dying to tell me. What did Tom Henry do? Did he handle rattlesnakes?” He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his stomach. “”I’d even throw fifty cents into the donation box to see him do that.”

  Baker shook his head. “You know there’s no rattlesnakes around here.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Tom fell to the ground and started having a conniption. While he was wallowing in the dirt, he started speaking in tongues. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Somebody said it sounded like ancient Hebrew.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. Where were you? You don’t mean to tell me that you were at a Revival Meeting.” He opened his shirt pocket. “You didn’t arrest anyone, did you?

  “No, certainly not. I was thinking about giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation for a few seconds but changed my mind when he started yelling and slobbering over everything.”

  The sheriff retrieved the Maalox bottle and set it on his desk. “My gut’s starting to rumble and it’s your entire fault. Why were you at the Revival in the first place?”

  Baker leaned back and grinned. “The barmaid at the Legion wanted to go on her night off so she asked me to take her. She’s decent looking and cooks a mean meatloaf.”

  The sheriff chewed one tablet and washed it down with a Pepsi. “This could have county wide implications. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. You realize 99% of the revival crowd votes for me. I get saved and born again every four years.” He stared at Baker for a few seconds. “You didn’t do anything dumb, did you? You weren’t in uniform, were you?”

  Baker shook his head. “I was in street clothes but I had my trusty nine-millimeter just in case.”

  The sheriff grimaced from the aftertaste of Pepsi and Maalox. “Start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”

  Baker looked at the ceiling for a few seconds getting his thoughts together. “Well, we were sitting in the second row right on the aisle. Delores wanted to sit in back but I wanted to be up front where the action was.”

  The sheriff shook another tablet from the bottle.

  “The preacher was yelling and walking back and forth in front of the pulpit. Then he stopped and looked at each and everyone of us. Then he yelled come up and confess your sins.” Baker wiped at his forehead. “I had to hold Delores back. She had a whole list of sins she wanted to confess.”

  Sheriff Abel nodded his head. “I’ll bet she did.”

  “Then everybody got quiet. I turned around and Tom was walking by me to get to the preacher. He stopped about five feet from me, turned around and grinned from ear to ear. I was expecting him to open his raincoat and flash every one of us. Everybody was leaning forward waiting. Most wanted to see if he had any underwear on.”

  Sheriff Abel chewed furiously on the tablet. “Did you stop him?”

  “I couldn’t have even if I wanted. I was too busy holding on to Delores and making her stay in her seat. Just when Tom had both hands on his raincoat, the preacher, from behind, put one hand on Tom’s head and screamed at the top of his lungs, REPENT! CONFESS YOUR SINS.”

  The sheriff gulped some of the Pepsi washing all the Maalox down. “Did Tom flash everybody right then? The judge will have him in the county lockup for sixty days.”

  Baker leaned back farther. “You’ll never believe it. Before the last word of out of the preacher’s mouth, Tom’s eyes were going around in circles. The preacher lifted his hand and tapped Tom lightly on the head two times, yelling CONFESS! REPENT! Tom smiled and collapsed into a heap at the foot of the stage.”

  “Are you sure you were there and saw all this? What happened next?”

  Baker grinned weakly. “I’m not sure about anything. I lost my grip on Delores. Before I could make up my mind what to do, she was standing in front of the pre
acher. The preacher tapped her head and yelled REPENT! Delores fell like she had been hit by Mike Tyson.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “Did she repent or confess to anything? I’d like to hear that.”

  “Tom was spinning around in the dirt, kicking, swinging at the air and moaning at the top of his lungs. The preacher yelled out that Tom was fighting with the Devil. Everybody there screamed for Tom to hit the Devil harder.”

  “What were you doing all this time?”

  Baker ignored the sheriff’s question. “About then Tom stood up and started speaking a foreign language. He would be talking in a nice pleasant tone and then switch gears into different oriental type language.”

  “Was there anyone else being saved other than Tom and your girlfriend?”

  “There was so much excitement with Tom and Delores that no one else had time to come to the front and confess. Now Delores was standing and beginning to take off her clothes.”

  The sheriff gave Baker a lewd leer. “Do you have this Revival mixed up with a strip joint in Baltimore?”

  “No, no,