Page 47 of The Last Straw

He hated death notifications, but they were part of the job, and after going through the address book they’d found at Raver’s house, it hadn’t taken much research to find out that Samuel Raver, who was the first name listed under R, was Jeremiah’s older brother. So he took a quick sip of his coffee, then punched in the numbers and waited as it began to ring.

Maisie Raver was in the kitchen frying bacon.

The scent was one of Samuel’s favorite things in the world, and he was anticipating the breakfast she was making as he finished his shave. When he heard his phone begin to ring, he turned off the water, wiped his hands and ran back into the bedroom. He grabbed the phone from the nightstand, glanced at caller ID and then sat down on the side of the bed before his knees went out from under him.

“Hello?”

“Hello, this is Special Agent Vance, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. May I speak to Samuel Raver?”

“I’m Samuel.”

“Mr. Raver, I’m sorry to disturb you this early in the morning, but it is my duty to inform you that your brother, Jeremiah, is deceased.”

Samuel’s heart sank, but guilt swirled with the shock, because he also felt a measure of relief that worrying for him was over. He cleared his throat a couple of times before he got himself together enough to speak.

“I’m sad, but I can’t say I didn’t see this coming,” Samuel said.

“When was the last time you spoke to him?” Vance asked.

“He was here for a few hours two days ago, I think. He wanted to stay, but we told him we didn’t want his troubles. I told him we’d pray for him. He left. Why is the FBI involved, and how did he die? Did y’all kill him?”

“No, we didn’t kill him, but we did go to his house to serve arrest and search warrants, and found him deceased in his yard. He’d been shot.”

Samuel groaned. “Lord, Lord, Lord, I feared something like this, but hearing the words just breaks my heart. Do you know who did it? Do you think it has anything to do with that woman he threatened?”

“Inadvertently, maybe. She had nothing to do with his death. But his public desire to see her dead likely called too much attention to himself. It appeared he was packing up to leave. The trunk was up. The car was about half-full of stuff, and there were two packed suitcases beside his body.”

Samuel’s eyes were full of tears, but he kept thinking, if he hadn’t told Jeremiah to leave, whoever killed him might have come to their house looking for him and killed Samuel and Maisie, too.

“What were y’all going to arrest him for?”

Vance hesitated, but the facts would soon be public knowledge.

“Money laundering and threatening bodily harm.”

Samuel groaned. It was just as he and Maisie had feared.

“Do you know who killed him?” Samuel asked.

“Sorry, this is an ongoing case. I can’t say more.”

“When do we claim the body?” Samuel asked.

“Someone will call you when the ME releases it. I’m very sorry for your loss,” Vance said and disconnected.

Samuel was in shock. He didn’t know what the hell Jeremiah had been mixed up in, but he had to call the rest of the family and give them the news.

He got up from the bed, finished shaving and then went to find Maisie. She was his rock, and the calm in every storm life had ever brought to him.

When he walked into the kitchen, she turned around, smiling. Then she saw the look on his face, remembered hearing the phone ring and took the bacon off the stove.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

And so he told her.

The people in the community where Jeremiah lived had seen the black SUVs with the government tags. They’d also seen a van with the medical examiner emblem on the door. They put two and two together and got nine, and while Samuel, who lived way out in the bayou, was just receiving the official word of his brother’s death, most of his parishioners already had it figured out before they’d gone to bed the night before.

They didn’t know exactly what had happened, but they were ready to blame the government—until the morning news. It appeared their guesstimates were wrong.

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