The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles by Ken Kuhlken (speld decodable readers TXT) 📖

quick turn and ducked inside.

Tom approached the porch and waited, hat in hand. The front door opened a crack. He heard women talking in hushed voices. When the door opened, Emma Shaffer studied his face, appeared to find it unpleasant, and said “Follow me” in a voice she could’ve used to host an execution. He walked a few steps behind, across a dark wood foyer, up the half-circular staircase, and into a small sitting room. He smelled lavender.

As Sister Aimee rose to greet him, a flicker of light refracted off her wide-set hazel eyes. She wore a lacy emerald-green dressing gown. Her thick auburn hair was tied up into a spiral with a bun at its peak. Her long, pianist’s hand gripped his more firmly than was common with women. “Thank you, Tom, for coming,” she said, in a voice both melodious and hoarse.

She guided him to a padded bamboo chair, held the back of it until he sat, then perched on the edge of a Queen Anne loveseat that faced him, close enough so they might touch fingers if they both reached out.

“I know your mother,” she said.

“We heard she came here, but I haven’t noticed her yet.”

Sister Aimee smiled as though with sorrowful understanding. “Milly was always so generous. She gave me hundreds of flowers in glorious bouquets and many exquisite dresses she made. Telling her she had to leave us truly pained me.”

“You kicked her out of the church?”

“You’re surprised?”

Tom shrugged and supposed if he hoped to earn the Sister’s trust, he needed to confide a little. “It wouldn’t be the first time she got expelled.”

“Oh?”

“Pastor Seymour kicked her out of Azusa Street. Or so Frank Gaines told me.” He fixed his eyes on the Sister’s. “Frank said the pastor came to believe Milly got filled by a spirit that wasn’t so Holy.”

Sister Aimee gave no hint the lynched man’s name registered. “Well, though we certainly try not to harness the Spirit, neither do we encourage its manifestations during services. We hold many smaller prayer meetings for that purpose. I can’t recall your mother attending those. No, I asked Milly to leave us because she, in my judgment, became too attached to me. You see, she knew quite well our purpose is to sanctify the brethren and send them out into the world. I asked her to leave for her own spiritual good.”

“I’ll bet she loved you for that.”

Now she gave him a conspirator's smile. “Milly knows everything about gardening, flowers and plants of all sorts and uses.” Her eyes zeroed as if to imply some deeper meaning which Tom couldn't begin to fathom.

“Did you know Frank Gaines?” he asked.

“I don’t. Didn’t.”

Tom fetched from his pocket his copy of the Forum with the lynching story, unfolded and handed it to her, then watched her read. After she returned the broadside to him, she lowered her eyes. When she looked up, he saw why reporters at the Grand Jury hearing expressed their amazement at her composure even while accusations flew her way. No doubt she had feelings. Maybe deep ones. But she didn’t waste time on them.

“May I call you Tom?”

“You bet.”

“And you may call me Aimee. Now, let us presume for the sake of argument this Socrates’ account is true. It’s quite possible a motive of the murderers for hanging the poor dear man in our park was to turn a city of precious, impressionable souls away from the gospel. Do you see, Tom, it could well be the same villains who are out to convince the people I’m a liar and a seductress.”

“Could be,” Tom said. “Would you care to provide me with the most likely villains’ names?”

“It’s not my place to accuse.” She appeared to enter a place of rapture in which she looked Florence’s age, and far more guileless. “Villains may be the wrong label. Among them may be those who feel betrayed by me because of the lies about my abduction. Some, feeling betrayed by the Lord who allowed them to believe in me, may have turned to Satan.”

Her cadence and angelic pose were casting a spell. To break it, Tom assumed the offensive. “Thing is, we’ve got two crimes, the murder and the cover up. What do you know about the cover up?”

“Please don’t you accuse me.” Her eyes appeared to retreat as if from a blow, and her rosy lips quivered.

Tom said, “I mean, who do you think is behind the cover up?”

She sighed as though from the weight of his question. “If one of my staff were to ask a favor of the police to thwart Satan’s scheme, I could hardly blame him. They, my people, are devoted to protecting me. They know I’m under more pressure than any woman should be asked to bear. Every day, during this vicious inquest.” She turned to glance at a clock in the corner. “Oh horror. I must leave soon, to go there once again. Tom, every day come more slanderous claims contending that I was not kidnapped but was involved in a tryst. They treat me like a vain charlatan.” She lifted both hands and pressed them to her cheeks. As if an awful fear had just dawned, she said, “You don’t believe them, do you?”

From instinct, he shook his head. “But I haven’t paid much attention.”

“Oh, you are a rare one. I believed every citizen of the world was reading the lies. They are lies of the devil, I assure you.” She moved to the edge of her loveseat and spent moments gazing as though admiring his features. “Suppose you weigh the evidence and consider me guilty.”

“Okay.”

“Tom, would you make me a promise?”

He understood how Sampson got hoodwinked by Delilah. To stifle the answer she wanted to hear took all his will. “Depends.”

“Of course. I only want you to promise me you will never blame the Lord for the transgressions of his servants.”

“That’s a tough one.”

“Yes, it is. But think. All of us are human, we all contend with a legion of passions. Perhaps those of us who give our lives to the Lord do so because our hearts recognize we haven’t, on our own, the power to restrain those passions.”

While she spoke, her right hand drifted and hovered above a vase and bouquet of white roses on the table beside the loveseat. She turned toward the flowers and fingered some petals. Then she said, “One day, you must go visit your mother, and perhaps forgive her. I don't pretend to know her well, but I believe her soul is quite troubled.” She glanced at the clock and motioned toward it.

Tom stood and reached for her hand. “One last question? A yes or no."

She nodded and he said, "Teddy Boles. You know him?"

After appearing to ponder a moment then shaking her head, she gave his fingers a warm squeeze. “I trust we’ll meet again.” He nodded and turned to leave but stopped in the doorway. “The little I know about the kidnapping and all, here’s why I believe you. See, if I read you correctly, the two fellows who died looking for your body in the waves, if you had them on your conscience, you couldn’t live another day without coming clean.” Her grim stare so gripped his heart, he felt shamed by that last remark.

But she said, “You’re a good man, Tom.”

Which left him to thank her and walk out asking himself if this preacher had conned him.

Emma Shaffer appeared out of nowhere, led him down the stairs, and showed him out. As the door closed behind him, he remembered something he had meant to tell Sister Aimee. He crossed the street, sat on the first bench, and jotted on his notepad, “Fenton Love, one of your ushers, a tall fellow with a deep scar on the middle of his chin and a squinty eye, has been tailing me. He’s LAPD, and one of the meanest, I hear.”

He returned to the parsonage and knocked. Emma Shaffer opened the door. Tom handed her the folded note and asked her to deliver it. Without asking, she unfolded and read it, then closed the door.

Twenty-two

TOM had often driven his meat truck past the Azusa Street mission. He might’ve stopped to go in and remember, except he imagined the happy times would get swamped by memories of cringing in corners, deserted by his mother and mute from terror.

But today he remembered the blessings. The guardian angel voice of Frank Gaines. The women, Emma Gordon and others, who wrapped him in the comfort of their arms and against their dark bosoms. Jennie Seymour, the pastor's woman, was one of them.

When Tom rapped on the mission door, she came and opened it, holding a broom. A dignified woman with smooth russet skin, generous eyes, and a mouth that, even while she studied him, formed a modest smile.

“I’m Tom,” he said. “Milly Hickey’s son.”

She leaned the broom against a wall. “Tommy.” She reached for his right hand and cupped it while she beamed as though his growing into a big handsome fellow was another miracle. When she let go, she said, “Do come in, please.”

Inside, he recalled the music and how the eerie harmony of a hundred voices in dozens of keys and languages sent his terror fleeing, and how passersby heard and entered, their mouths agape.

Jennie Seymour showed him to a slat-backed wooden chair. “Tea?”

“Yes please.”

“Sugar?”

“Okay.”

At a corner table, she poured water from a pan on a hot plate into a cup and lowered a tea bag into the water. “Tommy, you know my William passed away?”

“I heard. I should’ve come and offered condolences. From what I remember, he was a great man.”

“Yes. Powerful. Gentle. Not of this world.” She delivered the tea and sat beside him. “Are you right with the Lord, Tommy?” He thought of telling a white lie, mentioning his attendance at Angelus Temple without admitting his reasons weren’t all that spiritual. But Jennie Seymour didn’t deserve any lies. He shrugged and said, “I came here to ask about Frank Gaines.” She looked away, gave him a profile.

“Is it true?” she asked.

“I believe so.”

“And was it the Ku Klux Klan, as folks are saying?”

“I hope to find out.” He explained that he was investigating, and why. He told her his belief that the cover-up couldn’t have succeeded without Hearst, Chandler, and Police Chief Davis knowing and at least approving.

She agreed. Then she looked him in the eye. “Tommy, do you know the Holy Spirit will never come in his full power and beauty until the brethren of every color and stripe seek him together in selfless love and true equality?”

“Yes ma’am."

She honored him with a beatific smile.

He asked, "Anything you can tell me about Frank?”

She stood, served tea, then sat and stared at the cup in her hands. “I heard, though I do not recall the source, that Brother Gaines was a stevedore. In San Pedro, or was it Long Beach? This was some years ago. He didn’t come to the mission regularly, not since the early days. Once or twice a year, I reckon, he came for a meeting, but he never stayed after. He was a quiet man.”

“I remember.”

“Much like my William, he kept his own council, and bridled his tongue. In William’s opinion, Brother Gaines had not felt right in our company since he began living out of wedlock with the young woman. Oh, what was her name? Harriet.

“William spoke with them at length, when Brother Gaines and Sister Harriet began keeping company. William was not one to preach the dangers of adultery but neither would he withhold his counsel from those who fell prey. Tommy, her being a white lady, could that be a reason for the murder?’

“Miz Seymour, I’m sure you know more about people than I do.”

“I’ve known many people,” she said. “You’ll need to excuse me for a short time, while I use the telephone.”

She stood and crossed the room, went behind the altar, to a staircase Tom remembered. He shuddered at the vision that came. Milly climbing to the room where the pastor and helpers took those who screamed or wept too loudly or thrashed in seductive or other dangerous ways. To blur the vision, he listened to the Sister’s muted voice from the upper room, and made a rough count of the hours he could’ve saved over the past few days if he had agreed to Florence’s pleas and ordered telephone service.

When she returned, she asked, “Tommy, is your mother right with the Lord?”

He wondered if whomever she had phoned inquired about Milly. “As far as I know, she’s never been quite right with