The funeral was well attended. His brother had been a local hero in the Hispanic community, and he had won admiration and friendship in all his endeavors. Besides the family, there were old high school classmates, war veterans, neighbors, and even the odd local politician. All were soaked in the downpour, struggling in the strong wind to hear the words of the service.
Father Lopez had called a priest friend to assist. He had given up trying to carry that load by himself. As the second priest spoke, he looked over the scene: his brother’s casket, family, friends, and others. Lopez knew every face: Madison, Alabama was not a big place. Faces old and young. Many heads were bowed from grief or weather. Forms huddled together, playing out a ritual to the dead that archeologists had shown was shared even by humanity’s Neanderthal cousins. Irrational. Emotional. Superstitious. Pagan, thought Father Lopez. Did not the Church teach that death was only sleep? Did he not believe in the Resurrection? If so, why the grief? Why the black colors of mourning? Damn the theology, it was necessary.
At the edge of the mourners, like a light in a sea of dark gray, a pair of bright eyes flashed toward him. Such intensity. There was a magnetic pull deep inside him, but all he could see at first were the eyes, the face and body shrouded under a raincoat and hood. He felt nearly in a trance, the eyes drawing him in like some spell.
Lopez struggled with himself and turned away, but before a minute had passed, he found himself drawn back toward the form. He looked over quickly to make sure he was not deceived. Still there! Still staring! He could see the shape a little better now, the hood slightly pulled back, a thinning in the clouds brightening the day subtly. It was a woman, young, pale in appearance, a cyan glint hopping across her burning gaze. This was a face he did not know. And yet, her eyes engaged his, a personal space was violated across the distance separating them. She was seeking him! Sending a message.
What message? It seemed so inappropriate, so out of place at this time, during this ceremony. But still she stared, refusing to look away, pursuing him with her eyes. Demanding.
He tore his gaze away and resolved this time to ignore this strange and disturbing woman. Whoever she was, he didn’t know her, and a pair of haunting eyes was not going to make him try to change that. He wanted this dreadful ceremony over, the priest to shut up, and his brother’s body to be given the rest it deserved. He wanted to go back home, pull out his thirty-year-old bottle of Springbank scotch, and get good and drunk. He’d just as soon kill a million brain cells and forget this day. Forget the emptiness. Forget the ghostly blue eyes.
The last stragglers were coming by and paying their respects. The rain had abated somewhat and now seemed more a fine mist in the air than precipitation. Father Lopez accompanied his parents to their car, along with his brother’s widow. He forced himself to look at her daughters, his young nieces, to give both a faint smile and hug, and try not to fall apart in front of them. Relief swept over him as he closed the door and the car pulled out. The tires dropped into a pothole and splashed a wave of muddy water over his shoes. It didn’t matter.
He walked slowly back to his car, the gravestones around him dotting his peripheral vision. In the midst of it was his brother’s grave, the ground bare and the dirt fresh. The headstones gave him a chilling impression of a dead army, rising, closing in on him. Images of bone and flesh like the terrible prophecy of Ezekiel flooded his mind; he forced them away. Never again did he want to see what he had seen on the floor of the cabin in Tennessee. He reached into his pockets and retrieved car keys, fumbling with them in some growing, irrational panic. Trying hard to see only a warm bottle of eighty proof at home.
“Father Lopez!” cried a voice. He jumped, dropping his keys into the mud.
“Mother of God!” He spun around toward the voice, straightening up. It was the pale woman from the funeral.
“Who are you? What do you want?” he asked with visible irritation, scooping his begrimed keys from the ground.
“Losing our Southern manners, Father?”
She dared mock him now? “Look, I’m tired. I just buried my brother. You scared me half to death with that yell. How can I help you?”
“I want to help you.” Her blue eyes were still very bright.
Father Lopez suppressed a sigh. “Why do you think I need any help?”
“Because you’ll need answers soon. Answers to your brother’s death that you won’t find alone.”
Francisco Lopez became very still. He didn’t know whether to hit this woman or just walk away. “Heck of a time to be talking like this.”
“I’m sorry. There isn’t a good time.”
“I’m not going to need your help, because I’m not going to be asking any questions. I’m an overworked parish priest, not a detective. The police are handling this. They can do much more than I ever could. Go talk to them if you want to help.” He turned back to his vehicle. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, if I can get this damned key in the slot, I’ll be getting home.”
“You can’t trust the police.”
He sighed, the key missing and scratching the paint. “They seemed competent enough to me.”
“They’re compromised.”
“Oh for God’s sake, woman!” he found himself shouting. “Compromised? Are you some kind of nut?”
She stepped forward, her hood sliding down and revealing her high cheekbones and gleaming golden hair. Her blue eyes were intense, focused, and undisturbed by his shouting.
“My name is Sara Houston, Father Lopez. I worked with Miguel for many years, before he returned here. I know things that you don’t. There is a larger context to his death.”
She was standing very close to him, her face nearly touching his. Lopez was unnerved by the pulse of life in her. “Larger context? What on earth are you talking about? What does Miguel’s work in Washington have to do with this?”
“Your brother was certainly murdered, but it was not a random crime. You can’t trust the police; they’re blind pawns in a much bigger game. Soon you’ll understand that, and then we’ll talk again. You’ll need my help. Remember that, when the time comes.”
She pulled the hood fully over her head again, concealing most of her features, and turned, striding away from the car. It was like a light had been turned off, her piercing, unusual gaze and bright hair snuffed out, her white face turned away, replaced by the dark gray of her hood.
“Wait a minute!” shouted Lopez. “You can’t just say something like that and walk off!”
But she did not heed him or give any indication that she had heard. Lopez stood rooted in the mud for several moments, debating whether to pursue her or let her go. Who was this strange woman? How could she be trusted?
Lopez watched her silhouette merge with the mist and struggled to prevent himself from following her. It was preposterous. He wiped the rain from his face as if to clear his vision. He had seen the police take up the case aggressively before he left Gatlinburg. He had met the officers. He trusted them. What was he thinking to go after her? He shook his head and got into the car. He would not be talking with that woman again.