Page 6 of The List

B RENT LEFT THE CEMETERY AND CRUISED THROUGH DOWNTOWN.

Concord had been designed by practical men two hundred years ago with little imagination, its streets laid out in parallel grids that once served as an orderly transition from thick forest to town proper.

A blue water tower remained the tallest structure.

Brick row buildings with turn-of-the-century facades dominated, most the result of an extensive remodeling that occurred during Hank’s tenure at city hall.

Persecuted Lutherans, who fled Germany for Georgia in 1734, first settled the area.

His father’s family, the Walkers, were direct descendants of those Salzburgers.

Every kid at Concord Elementary was taught about the two Revolutionary War battles that had raged nearby, the county named for General Robert Woods who led the local militia against the British.

During the Civil War, Sherman miraculously spared most of it from burning on his way to Savannah, its tranquil laziness offering his soldiers a rest before their final assault to the sea.

First Street was part of the old Quaker road James Oglethorpe himself used to connect his colonial towns.

It was once home to a cotton gin and gristmill, and a railroad depot eventually came.

Now all three were local museums, the depot’s centerpiece a historical marker commemorating George Washington’s visit in 1791.

He turned off First Street onto Live Oak Lane.

Another right and two blocks later he was home.

His parents bought the two-story Victorian home thirty years ago, its front facade dominated by a generous covered porch, its side by a detached two-story garage.

The neighborhood had been part of Concord for decades, the homes first constructed when the old Republic Board moved people into the area sixty years back.

Once a haven for managers and superintendents, the solitude now provided comfort to retirees, or families just starting out with the time and energy to tend to a demanding old house.

He turned in at the brick mailbox marked 328. His hybrid Lincoln was parked in the drive, his mother’s Prius nestled behind. He wheeled around both vehicles and deposited the Jeep in the garage, then he walked back toward the front porch and noticed someone standing in the driveway.

A woman.

Dressed casually. Her empty hands at her side.

In the penumbra of light from the street he saw she was about his age, short-haired, her face a mask of no emotion.

Like a ghost.

If he was still in Atlanta he would be much more cautious. But this was Concord. Home. So he approached her. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Brent Walker?”

The voice was low, nearly a whisper, as if someone might be listening.

He considered lying, but decided not to. “I am.”

“We don’t know each other, nor is it important that we do. But I came to tell you to watch yourself.”

He was surprised. “From what?”

“Your job. Be careful. It’s not what you think it is.”

Now he had questions. Lots of them.

But without another word she turned and walked toward a Tahoe parked across the street at the curb, beneath one of the streetlights. He hustled after her and reached for her arm.

Which he gently grabbed. “Excuse me.”

She did not resist or cry out as he turned her around. Instead, her eyes bore into him. “Heed Proverbs 22:3. And may God have mercy on you.”

He was stunned.

She wrestled her arm free, climbed into the vehicle, and drove off. He watched the Tahoe turn the corner down the street and vanish.

What in the world?

He stood there a moment and gathered himself, then walked back to the house, the sweet aroma of the nearby white magnolias nearly overpowering.

Inside, he found his mother in the kitchen cleaning up.

Hard to believe she would be sixty-six on her next birthday.

Her silver hair was close-cropped, her eyes a sparkling sapphire.

Bean-pole-thin and perpetually happy, she would always be, in his mind, a woman who could never sit still.

He decided to keep what just happened to himself, as he really did not know what to make of it. Instead, he told her about dinner and the union meeting, finishing with, “It’s good to see some things never change. Hank is still the same.”

“Most people around here fish or hunt as a hobby. Hank plays politics.”

“And he’s good at it.” He sat at the bar. “Rain’s coming.”

Moths teased the light outside the window over the sink.

“Are you going to miss Atlanta?” his mother asked.

Not really. The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office had been an adventure.

For sure. Lots of twelve-hour workdays and eighty-hour workweeks prosecuting every kind of crime known to man.

He’d started out handling burglaries, but graduated to violent crime and then spent the last few years trying nothing but murders.

He hoped he never saw another bloody corpse again.

“I never thought I’d work at the paper mill.”

“Neither did your father.”

He could still hear the lecture, delivered at least once every few months.

His father had been a self-taught machinist who worked all his life for somebody else, punching a time card and collecting a paycheck every other Thursday.

Three weeks of vacation a year, sick days accrued, health benefits guaranteed, and a retirement check waiting when he finished.

A good, decent living.

Just one thing, though.

He didn’t want his only child following in his footsteps.

“Under the circumstances,” his mother said. “I’m sure he’d approve.”

But neither of them voiced what they both knew.

His mother was sick. She’d noticed it coming on for a while, but had said nothing to him until three months ago.

Her mind was slipping. Enough that she’d seen a doctor who confirmed the early onset of Alzheimer’s.

Medication had been prescribed, which could only delay the inevitable, so his place was back here with her.

His demons be damned.

“I shouldn’t complain,” he said. “I’ve got a decent salary, medical insurance, retirement plan, and a title. Assistant corporate counsel to a multi-billion-dollar corporation. Who knows? Maybe even corporate counsel one day.”

“What about Hank, he okay with that?”

“I was waiting for him to mention something at dinner. But nothing. I know he’s going to expect things, though.

Inside information. A heads-up for trouble.

In the old days I’d spend an hour or two every day tied down with him plotting and planning something against the company.

Contract negotiations are just around the corner, so I’d say he’s going to become a problem. ”

“You don’t forget who you work for now.”

“I know. I only hope Hank won’t either.”

Strange, really. Ten years ago he was a young lawyer in a small town hustling a living from courthouse to courthouse. Then he became a criminal prosecutor in a big city. Now he was an assistant general counsel for a paper company. Forty years old and already with three different careers.

Who would have thought?

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked his mother.

“I don’t know, son. I truly don’t.”

“You scared?”

“I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t.”

“I’ll be here. All the way.”

He caught the loving look on her face that expressed her thanks better than words.

“Southern Republic’s a good company,” she said. “They’re lucky to have you.”

He stared out the window.

Rain started to fall.

He hoped she was right.

Brent readied himself for bed, still troubled by the visit to the cemetery and the stranger who’d clearly sought him out. The sad, forlorn look in her eyes had jarred him.

And what she said.

Proverbs 22:3.

He was no scripture scholar, though he’d once been a regular and dedicated church member. Not so much since Paula died. He wondered if his childhood Bible was still there, so he opened the drawer of the nightstand.

There it sat.

A gift from his father long ago.

He lifted the book out and opened to the page where his father had written, I PRAY THIS BIBLE WILL BE A BLESSING AND COMFORT TO YOU. DAD.

He gently caressed the page above the ink, as if somehow that would connect him to his father. Hard to believe he was gone.

He then leafed through the thin pages and found the cited passage.

A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.

He’d been around ten when his father had given him the Bible. It was an annotated study edition that contained a multitude of footnotes explaining the various passages. The notes on Proverbs 22:3 pointed out that

God in His mercy has denied man the knowledge of the future.

In its place He has given man hope and prudence.

By hope man is continually expecting and anticipating good.

By prudence we derive and employ the means to secure it.

There are many evils, the course of which we can neither stem nor divert.

Prudence shows beforehand the means to be used to step out of their way, and hide oneself.

The simple, the inexperienced, the headstrong, giddy, and foolish, they rush in without prudence to regulate, chastise, and guide them.

Thus they commit many faults, make many miscarriages, and suffer often in consequence.

He considered the words and warnings.

What was the woman trying to say?

And why direct the message at him?

Both were good questions.

10:35 P.M.

H ANK NAVIGATED THE DARKENED STREETS OF C ONCORD AND HEADED for the paper mill. He had one more errand to run before the night was done.

One he preferred to keep private.