Mystery in Harare

1 Everything Went Black for the Bride

1

EVERYTHING WENT BLACK FOR THE BRIDE

Columbus, Ohio

June 28, 1986

Priscilla J. Austin floated through the handsomely-carved wooden double-doors from the vestibule of her First AME Zion Church. Ever conscious of the power of an entrance, she paused on the threshold for all those who mattered most to her in the world to catch sight of her in this ivory gown and tiara. She had always vowed she would never marry, yet here she was resplendent in her glorious face-framing veil, her bridal bouquet demurely held in her hands. Incredible, just incredible, she thought.

Moments earlier she had gazed in a mirror as her ever-meticulous mother adjusted her tiara and train; the train rolled out seemingly forever. Her elegant gown was laced with fine pearl beads on its collar and across the bodice and shoulders. The broad-gauged satin skirt was embroidered with the old English artwork that her sister Camille, who was one of her bridesmaids, had incorporated into the design of the wedding invitations. Priscilla was aware that she did not look at all like herself—a take–charge executive of a Columbus, Ohio-based PR firm—who dressed in tailored business suits and, on occasion, in earth-tones that complemented her pale “red-bone” complexion. But here she was playing out the part of a storybook bride, and she was not so sure she liked it.

Savor the moment, she told herself. She was determined to make a success of this, like every other role she had taken on. Besides, everyone says this will be the happiest day of my life.

Tremulously Priscilla smiled as she scanned the congregation and spotted her four sisters and sole brother, her aunts and uncles, and her cousins galore from both sides of the family. There were three hundred guests, including so many politicians from all over Ohio that they might have been able to declare a quorum and vote on some important legislation right here in the church. Of course, once she had decided to do this, there had been no question of an elopement or a small city hall ceremony. She was not only a preacher’s daughter but was also about to marry her pastor. So it had been unthinkable not to have a church wedding. Yet, as accustomed as she was to coordinating state-wide special events, even she had been unable to control the scale of her own wedding. There were even a dozen in the wedding party!

As she gazed down the long aisle to her bridegroom waiting for her at the altar, a cold chill shot through her, and her smile froze on her lips.

Jonathan, she thought, and almost she cried out his name.

Sometime later she was to wonder if she had been experiencing a premonition of what was to come.

But, at the time, she shook off her foreboding.

It’s only grief again, she thought. And then: If only Daddy were here! She was so conscious that he was not right there beside her, preparing to give her away. She had lost Nelson five years ago, and mostly she had learned to live with the muddled waves of unexpected grief. But seldom had that loss hurt as much as it did just now, on her wedding day.

Beside her, her ten-year-old nephew Germane tugged at her hand. “Aunt Priscilla, do we march down the aisle now? Is this when I give you away?”

Their eyes met, and again she was smiling as slightly she shook her head, waiting for the organist to strike up the wedding march.

Priscilla felt a sharp, sudden rush of energy coming at her from the sanctuary. Her gaze centered on the man she was about to marry. Fondly, she smiled. Nelson—she had often called her parents by their given name; since her teenage years it had been Nelson and Liza—would have loved Jonathan. The two men—both ordained Methodist ministers—were cut from the same clerical cloth. They were kind, ethical, good men. Jonathan was only slightly lighter-complexioned and shorter than Nelson, perhaps a little slimmer of build, but serious like Nelson. Stalwart. Older, as her father had been older than her mother. Then Priscilla recalled what she had once said to her best friend Julia, who radiated this afternoon in her maid of honor finery. If she ever married, Priscilla had told her, what she wanted most of all was not grand passion but simply someone who accepted her as she was and who would treat her kindly. Jonathan fitted the bill.

“I suppose you know how proud your father would have been to see you marry Jonathan,” Liza had said to her just moments ago in the dressing room adjacent to the sanctuary.

Priscilla had nodded and wondered again why it was—her mom’s nagging tone or maybe even her habit of always stating the obvious—that, compared to her adored father, Liza had so often been a source of irritation. Nelson had most always been relatively easy to please, but Liza more often had been critical. Take her choice of husband, for example. Not only her mother but her sisters and her friends had made it their business to share their deep reservations about whether she loved Jonathon enough to marry him. Even her father—in the last real words they had shared before the cancer took over and he slipped away and died—had confided that he wanted her to make her own choices and live her own life to please herself, and not—as so often had been her penchant—to please him. “Be happy,” he had told her.

Steadily she returned Jonathan’s smile. Priscilla was not one for reflection and second-guessing. But, with this marriage, was she following her father’s advice to be happy? She had most certainly known passion, but she believed a good marriage could be built on other factors like compatibility and shared values. Yet her thoughts trailed to that one day with that one man—that delectable surprise of a man she had known that way only once, and then put out of her life. Better not think of him. This was her wedding day. Jonathan, concentrate on Jonathan. In time, her love for him would grow. They would have a fine life together. She nodded to herself in finality.

Priscilla had thought everyone was in place and that, any second, she would be walking down the aisle.

But no. Ohio state Senator Daniel P. Callahan was taking what seemed to Priscilla to be carefully measured steps escorting her mom down the aisle to her front row seat. Priscilla’s smile widened at the sight of the senator and Liza together. The senator had long since been Priscilla’s mentor and friend; but for years before that he had also been her lover. But, on this her wedding day, she was pleased seeing him in the role as a member of her extended family.

She had to admit that her mom was aglow in a bright floral-print dress against a black silk gown which complemented her sparkling, prematurely salt-and-pepper hair. It was easy to understand why Nelson used to call her “my little angel.”

As the senator escorted Liza down the aisle, they both nodded regally at the many familiar and happy faces, because they both relished being the focus of attention.

Ah, Priscilla sighed when she saw her mom sit down. But then, for some unknown reason—maybe, Priscilla thought later, the gesture was simply the automatic habit of the politician always to shake hands—he swiftly stepped toward the altar. Then, just as the organist struck up the wedding march, the senator extended his right hand to the groom, the Reverend Jonathan Morgan. That single gesture alone seemed to unleash a bolt of rumbling thunder.

A piercing cracking flash hurled across the sanctuary. An uninvited guest—an unknown implacable god—entered into the midst.

Priscilla watched in horror as a massive portion of Jonathan’s head erupted. She raised her hands and covered her mouth, for she could not believe her eyes. Her pulse quickened. Her heart pounded. Her eyes glazed over and widened. She saw dark-red blood and clumps of dreary grey matter drench his morning suit and spill down to the white runner covering the red carpet. Then she saw him fall down to the floor beside the white-linen draped altar rail.

Priscilla heard another clap like thunder hurling from overhead.

“No!” She clutched Germane’s hand. Surely, this isn’t happening! No, this can’t be real!

The second jaded bolt ripped through the holy arena, striking the senator’s right temple. When he reached up and tried to touch his bloody head, he slumped and fell unconscious onto the floor. Red liquid splattered his face and the white robe of the bishop who was one of the concelebrants. The bishop dropped his Book of Discipline and froze in place.

The mother of the bride stood up abruptly, speechless and confounded.

The guests nearest the altar sat aghast. Those seated from the midsection to the rear of the sanctuary turned around and faced what they seemed to think was the direction of the flash, where, at the top of the inclined aisle beneath the balcony, stood the bewildered bride and her young nephew.

Unlike almost all others in attendance, who were focusing on her, instinctively Priscilla was looking up, in the direction of the stairwell.

Just as she was pulling her nephew back through the huge wooden double-doors, she caught a clear look at the face of a man with a black leather satchel descending the stairs and sprinting through the vestibule and out one of the side doors.

That face! I know that face! Although Priscilla could not remember when or where she had seen that man, she knew she had seen him somewhere before.

She had just enough time to glance down at Germane and to see that he, too, must have seen what had to have been the assassin, when someone grabbed her from behind and with phenomenal precision covered her nose and mouth with a damp cloth. As she inhaled the strong toxic substance, she had one clear thought. Chloroform.

And then everything went black for the bride.

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