The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [70]
Bradshaw had been exiting his rear office with Mr. Yellowjacket and two other homely-looking individuals when Max crossed their paths, and when the pastor identified himself, Max flashed his own I.D. in a showcase of walleted clear plastic in turn, announcing he was a private detective and had just visited the motel crime scene.
Which, for the record, wasn’t exactly a lie.
Although in Bradshaw’s distracted worry and Max’s distracting official demure, it was an opportune moment for Max to get information while there was still time enough to get it.
And while there was still time enough for this information to get him to Simon Boleve.
Fate would take it from there. After that.
After Bradshaw’s concerned entourage had departed to Max’s insistence, the two were alone at last.
***
The transpired fumes of Max’s Marlboro crept and expanded along the surface of the office ceiling. The bathroom-sized window and series of overhead air vents failed to provide the smoke with a route of escape, and it drifted freely through the air like clouds on film in elapsed time. The pastor was on the brink of asking the private detective to please show some courtesy ‘til we’re through, and he normally would have, but things were so overwhelming this morning that rude manners were excusable for any man who could help him.
The pastor’s office had clearly once been an automotive service office now straining for reverential respectability but falling far short. Max half expected to see remaining calendar photos of half-nude super models straddling sleek custom Trans Am’s. Books upon books neatly lined the walls on mounted shelves. A pushbutton phone rested beside a green blotter and tarnished desk lamp situated upon a mahogany desk. A traditional bearded Jesus hung smugly from behind framed glass over a tall metal file cabinet and was flanked by framed artless countrysides. A poster to Max’s right depicted a swirling mixture of electric guitars and crucifixes around words of bright white…ROCK SOLID WITH THE SOLID ROCK!
Pastor Bradshaw had the appearance of a resolute man, a man in charge of things, a man in his mid-fifties with greying hair who, when he looked at you, appeared as if he was sizing you up to either make a judgmental remark or to sell you something. But his eyes exhibited a mixture of sincerity and remorse and Max assumed that this was partly due to the worries of his missing daughter and her wrongfully departed boyfriend, but Max could not dismiss the feeling that those heartfelt eyes were somehow always that way.
“My wife and my eldest son are waiting to meet me to pray,” he told Max. “But any insight I can give you that I haven’t already shared with the other detectives...well, you understand. For the sake of any insight that you could give me, I am at your disposal. Who did you say you were?”
“Max Polito,” Max said, and together their hands met for a shake across the desk. “I’m very sorry about your daughter’s boyfriend, Pastor. I’m sure Alice will be back with you soon.”
“We’re trusting in the Lord,” the pastor said, and was about to continue, but lapsed into silence.
After a moment, the pastor went on, “Ben was a bright young man, however he faltered in his walk with the Lord. I believe utterly that he’s with Jesus right now. He and Alice had been seeing each other for...oh, a little while now. Alice always had trouble with authority.” He caught himself, “Has trouble. I mean, nothing illegal, although my wife caught her smoking marijuana in the backyard once and then there was the half-empty bottle of whiskey in her bottom dresser drawer. But this isn’t a generation gap kind of thing. I understand young people and these things are just learning experiences that young people go through. We tried to raise her right and these later years have found her making her own decisions with only herself to answer to and not really to my wife and me anymore, except of course what happens under my own roof. You know what I mean?”
“Of