“Beautiful rehearsal tonight,” Elijah called out as the choir members gathered their belongings. “Remember, we’re singing for the Lord this Sunday, not just for ourselves.”
“In a moment,” Elijah replied, his warm smile creasing the corners of his eyes. “Just need to lock up and grab something from my office.”
Those would be the last words anyone from his congregation would hear from their beloved pastor.
A Community in Crisis
When Lorraine Brooks woke the next morning to find her husband’s side of the bed untouched, cold dread settled in her stomach. Elijah had never stayed out without calling. Their thirty years of marriage had been built on communication, trust, and mutual devotion. Something was terribly wrong.
By noon, the entire town knew Pastor Brooks was missing. His car remained in the church parking lot, keys still in his office drawer. His Bible lay open on the pulpit to Psalm 23—”Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” The irony wasn’t lost on anyone.
The search effort was immediate and overwhelming. Church members, neighbors, and even those who rarely darkened the church door joined hands to comb through Pine Hollow and its surrounding wilderness. The local sheriff’s department, despite its complicated history with the civil rights activist pastor, launched an official investigation.
But Pine Hollow was a town with secrets, where the echoes of the Old South still whispered through the Spanish moss hanging from ancient oak trees. Elijah Brooks had been challenging those whispers, demanding change, pushing for integration in schools and businesses, organizing voter registration drives. In 1977 Mississippi, such activities didn’t make you popular with everyone.
The Search Intensifies
For weeks, search parties traversed every inch of Pine Hollow and beyond. Volunteers waded through murky swamp water, checked abandoned buildings, and followed countless false leads. Police dogs tracked Elijah’s scent from the church to an old logging trail at the edge of town, where it mysteriously vanished.
“It’s like he just disappeared into thin air,” one searcher muttered, voicing what everyone was thinking but afraid to say.
