Rescue

use scrubbing floors.’ I knocked on the aluminum door, its screen having too many holes in it to provide much barrier to insects. No answer.^ With the toe of my shoe I moved the bucket to the side to try the door. Locked.
    Following the tire tracks behind the trailer, I saw them stop just short of the patio arrangement. Three folding chairs stood in the dirt around a piece of plywood laid over trestles of more concrete blocks, forming a makeshift picnic table. The chairs were ahiminum-piped but not the lawn variety, the back of them stenciled with the name of a funeral home. All the chairs were rusty, but only one looked well used, and it was at the end of the plywood piece that had the most food stains on it. There was a homemade barbecue a few feet from the table, a filthy piece of iron grating serving as a grill between—surprise, surprise—more concrete blocks.
    Next to the back door, a section of old, elbowed stovepipe came out and up from the wall, a crude patchwork of shingle and tape around the hole cut to accommodate it and a little coolie hat of tin crimped over it. Under the pipe was some ribbed camouflage cloth, the words PORTA ROOF on it. I pictured Severn during hunting season, putting the thing up against a tree like an umbrella and huddling under it with a rifle.
    The back door wasn’t favored with a stoop, so you’d have to swing yourself up to enter it like a tractor cab. I reached at chest level to try the handle. Also locked. I thought about breaking in, then decided to go back to the car and try another tack first.
    The church was white clapboard on the outside, looking freshly painted. It rested on a foundation that somehow seemed older than the building it supported. The structure was blocky, and instead of a steeple, the top of the facade over the main entrance ended abruptly and horizontally, like a giant widow’s walk on the home of a sea captain.
    The chunky stones of the parking area crunched under my feet as I passed the sign with white plastic letters on a black velvet pushboard, advertising SUNDAY WORSHIP and announcing EVERYONE WELCOME. In more modest lettering underneath was REV. VANN TUCKER, PASTOR.
    I opened the front door of the church. The interior was fairly dark, the woodwork fairly light. The center aisle felt wide for the proportions, perhaps twelve rows of pews to either side of it. No colorful decorations, even the window above the altar just plain glass.
    A head appeared over the surface of the altar table, then a »an stood up under the head. About five-ten, he was a little heavy, with comsilk blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses. The white collar affixed to his shirt was reversed, but the sleeves were rolled up, and it was obvious that he was doing house-deaning.
    “Can I help you in any way?“
    “Reverend Tucker?“
    “Yes.“ He adjusted his glasses and came down off the altar. I’d overestimated his height some. Once level with me, he Was no more than five-six or so, with the tails of the shirt tucked into baggy beige jeans. He wiped his right hand on jeans and extended it to me. “Vann Tucker.“
    We shook. “John Cuddy, Reverend.“
    Prom Boston, by any chance?“
    The accent kind of gives it away.“
    “Oh, only some. More the way you’re dressed. A little... formal, perhaps, for Elton.“ As though reminded, formality crept into his voice as well. “Are you police of some kind?“
    “Not for a while, but Chief Pettengill did suggest I might talk with you.“
    “About what?“
    “A case I’m working on. Do you know a man named Lonnie Severn?“
    Tucker sucked in some air before saying, “I do.“
    “I’d like to ask you a few questions about him.“
    Tucker looked around, as though perhaps we weren’t the only ones in the small church. “Let’s sit here. It’s as good a place as any for the truth.“
    He led me to a pew. There was no kneeler to trip over or flip up, and the benches were all covered with burgundy cushions, about the only color in the building.
    Tucker’s glasses had slipped a bit as he sat, and he adjusted them again. “What are your questions?“
    “It might help if you could tell me something about Severn generally.“
    “Generally. Very well. Generally, he used to be a destructive alcoholic. Would have cost him his job at the circuit factory if the computer company that owned it didn’t decide to close the whole thing anyway. Then he found the strength to resist the addiction through the Lord, and as far as I know,