The Scroll

Chapter Eleven

Cue Ball regretted having to send Flat Top out in the Transit van but he knew that he had no choice. As the van drove off he had wondered whether it would be better to just walk away from the job, even a job as well paid as this. He quickly dismissed the thought. Cue Ball had never walked away from anything or anyone in his life. He looked around the courtyard. It was empty. The Reverend John was probably busy somewhere, with his friend no doubt, and Clyde was no-where to be seen. Cue Ball knew that he should go and find him and somehow try to restore the boy's shattered ego. And of course there was the small matter of the missing body.

Templer! Suddenly all of the instincts that Cue Ball relied upon were sounding alarm bells.

Templer! He had a bigger part in all of this than just being the missing body. Cue Ball knew that he was a friend of Marilene's and that she had asked him to go to the Reverend John. Did the Rev and Templer have a past? Reverend John was, in Cue Ball's opinion, highly strung and scheming. But a murderer? Cue Ball didn't think so. The Rev was the kind of person that got others to do his dirty work, which, Cue Ball reasoned, was why he and Flat Top were here. So what had given Reverend John the courage, which he did not normally possess, to kill a man? It had to be more than simply being asked to return an heirloom. It must be something that would affect Reverend John's plans, and the Alliance.

Templer! Cue Ball swore, it had been there all along. Ever since Reverend John had discovered Marilene's heirloom he had become even more agitated than usual. Templer knew what he was doing and that scared the Rev, even though Templer was dead and therefore out of the way. Cue Ball stopped. What was it he had said to Flat Top this morning? "Does he think there's a dead guy walking around out there enjoying the air?" Cue Ball couldn't believe what he was thinking.

Templer! He was alive. Cue ball looked up at the door behind which he had left Marilene, and ran.

Cue Ball took the stairs two at a time, took a deep breath at the top, and then pushed the door open. Marilene looked up as he burst in. Cue Balls eyes quickly scanned the room. Nothing. He pushed open the bathroom door, nothing. Cue Ball lent back against the doorframe. What had he been expecting to find? A dead guy rescuing Marilene, or perhaps just an empty room. He looked down at Marilene. She was still sat calmly in the chair twisting a rosary around her fingers.

Cue Ball sat on the edge of the bed. "Templer's alive, isn't he." It was more of a statement than a question. "When did you last see him?"

Marilene starred at her rosary. What should she say? Could she trust Cue Ball? He seemed so different now than he had been this morning in the woods. "I saw the Reverend John and that other man burying him. What makes you think that Templer's alive?"

Cue Ball watched Marilene as she spoke. She did not appear to be shocked or upset, either of which Cue Ball would have expected. "Why do you call him Templer? Doesn't he have a christen name?"

Marilene looked up. "I don't know. I suppose that he must have but he just calls himself Templer. Perhaps that's his christen name." Marilene smiled. She hesitated for a moment and then continued. "I think that I saw him this morning. Where the car crash was. That poor couple. I think he was going to their car to help. I waited until the police and everyone had left but by then he was gone." Marilene's voice trailed off, her fingers gripping the rosary. "If it was him?"

"And then we came along and brought you here."

"Yes. Why do you think that he's alive?"

Cue Ball could hear the hope in her voice. "I can't explain it really, call it instinct if you will. There is something happening here that we weren't hired for. Whatever it is your friendly local vicar is suddenly in a hurry. And it all ties in with Templer's murder. That, of course, isn't proof that he's come back from the dead, but." He paused. "Perhaps he wasn't dead when they buried him."