Well, almost nothing. Josiah was thumbing through his new book about whales when he found some photos inserted between the pages.
Tom, Mark, and Corrigan tried not to look at him too directly, lest they draw Bledsoe’s attention.
“Like your book, Ruth?” Tom said, reaching across the table to help her find his little note to her on the title page. That physical gesture helped; Bledsoe watched him closely. “See what I wrote? It says, ‘To my darling daughter Ruth. Jesus thinks you’re precious, and so do I!’”
“Hey!” said Josiah. He was looking at the photos. “The lady in the pickup truck!”
That got Bledsoe’s attention immediately. She saw Josiah holding the pictures, studying them with wide-eyed recognition. Her face went visibly pale.
Corrigan asked, “What do you mean, son? Have you seen that woman before?”
Bledsoe jumped to her feet. “Mr. Harris!”
Tom responded calmly. “Hm?”
“How dare you! How dare you!”
Corrigan pressed Josiah for an answer. “Do you recognize her?”
“Sure,” said Josiah. “She’s the lady that was driving that truck we almost hit. She always looks kind of sick, doesn’t she?”
Bledsoe stomped around to where Josiah sat and grabbed the pictures from him. She took only a moment to look at them in outrage, and then defiantly she tore them in half, in quarters, in eighths, and then crumpled them up and pitched them into a wastebasket.
Then she stood there, shaking, glaring at Tom. “Just what are you trying to prove here?”
Mark spoke gently. “Mrs. Bledsoe, you’re upsetting the children.”
She pointed her finger in Tom’s face, and her voice trembled with rage. “You have committed a serious offense! I can make things very hard for you! Don’t think I can’t have your children taken away permanently!”
Tom replied calmly—mostly for the children’s benefit, “Then what are you so afraid of?”
She fought back. “Oh, I am not afraid, Mr. Harris. You don’t scare me!”
Tom gave her a statement he’d rehearsed in his mind for quite some time. “Mrs. Bledsoe, it’s been quite clear to me that you are not as concerned with the interests of my children as with your own interests. In any case, I think you’re abusing your power—and my children, and me—and I intend to find out just whom you’re trying to protect.”
She tried to keep her voice down; after all, shouting was unprofessional. “Why, you—!” With great effort, she relaxed, assumed a professional demeanor, and announced, “This visitation is over. I think your betrayal of my trust was deplorable, and I will keep it in mind when I consider the date for our next meeting.”
“It’ll be sooner than you think,” said Corrigan. He walked around the table, took her hand, and slapped a subpoena into it. “Try not to tear this up. Good day.”
Dear Tom,
I feel different today, and I don’t know if I can explain it. Undoubtedly it stems from my fanciful proposition of the morning, the possibility of my guilt. Being guilty, or even feeling guilty, is not pleasant, of course, but the mere suggestion of it seems to have weakened another nagging emotional companion of mine: despair. It makes me think of a clown hitting his thumb with a hammer to get his mind off his headache: now that I feel guilty, I don’t feel as much despair.
But—and this is purely for the sake of discussion—it could be said that the reasons go deeper than that. As I’ve said before, an all-out plunge into humanism and its total lack of absolutes can leave you groping for fences, wondering where you are, wishing you could know something for sure. Now that’s despair.
Then suddenly, guilt—well, the possibility of guilt—has come upon the scene, and I find myself playing with the thought that I might be standing in the wrong, which means I could have violated a standard somewhere, which means there might be a standard to be violated, which means there might be something out there somewhere that I can know for sure.
So, I guess I said all that to say this: If I really can be guilty, if I really am guilty, then at least I know where I stand. Suddenly, after all this time, I’ve found a fence, a boundary, and just the thought of that dispels that old cloud of despair, so much that I’ve noticed it.
Just consider, Tom, what great lengths I’ve gone to all through my life to quell despair. The Young Potentials program at the Omega Center presented a possible escape; I dove into everything they offered: yoga, TM, diet, folk medicine, altered states, drugs, and a lot of mental trips about my own divinity and ability to create my own reality. It was a long excursion into insanity, I admit it. What good did it do to make up my own truth? I was lost and drifting to begin with, and any reality born in my head could be no better off. I and the universe I created were lost and drifting together.
And then there was Jonas, my “consummate friend.” He was a marvelous salesman with a lot of good lines, remarkably skilled in flattery. We took many long walks together during my yogic trances, and he did have me convinced that all reality—including death—was an illusion to be manipulated, and that I, being God, could form reality to be whatever I wanted it to be.
And for a crucial season, I believed that. I believed I had formed a reality to serve me and supply what I wanted. I believed I had formed a man who gave me pleasure without guilt. I believed I had formed a child that asked me to send her on to her next life, leaving me free to continue where I left off.
But did I form the prison bars too? I was talking about fences, wasn’t I?
I lived behind that fence for seven years, and Jonas never came to visit me. I did resent that. I did blame him for Rachel’s death. It was, in my thinking, his idea. He was the one who took control of my body and snuffed out her life. He committed the act. He was to blame.
But I don’t think that now. I changed my mind at some point; maybe it was this morning.
“Amethyst” was right; I killed my baby.
Sally put away her notebook and went out, her mind full of thoughts, turning things over, sorting things out. She felt a change coming, though she had no idea what it could be or which direction it would go. But this walk of hers right now was going to be part of it; she was going to track down a memory and find another missing piece to the puzzle of her life.
As near as she could remember, it was an old red brick building not far from the motel, and there was an alley, an old, cobblestoned alley with a stream of water running down its center and a grate over a drain. Oh, where was that?
Tal followed right behind her. Nathan and Armoth hovered just above, swords drawn, eyes looking warily about. Destroyer was getting close. Time was short.
Keep going, Sally, said Tal. You’re getting warmer.
She turned down a side street. This sidewalk looked familiar; these potted elms seemed to match the memory, though they were much bigger now.
A noisy garbage truck roared and rumbled out of an alley behind an old brewery, nosed its way into traffic, and then growled through its gears, heading down the street.
Sally headed for the alley.
This had to be it! The same, narrow, cobblestoned alley, the same, towering, red brick walls of the old brewery! She was walking into the past. The drain was still there, the moss on the brick walls was still the same, the smell of garbage was right out of her memory. She quickened her pace. It was somewhere along here, a loose brick in a window-sill . . . She was remembering more and more as she ran along, looking carefully at each window, hoping for any detail that would trigger a memory.
Tal could see the angelic sentries ahead, guarding the spot. There were four of them, bold and brilliant, all grim with dedication, their swords ready. They’d been at this post, watching it, preserving it for ten years. At the sight of Sally Roe approaching, they raised their swords and let out a cautious, muffled cheer.
She approached the rear corner of the building. It had to be here somewhere; she seemed to remember it being near the corner.
There was one last window, and
the brick sill was at eye-level. She stopped and looked around. She was alone in the alley. She touched the sill, ran her fingers along it. It had to be the same one. Was that loose brick on the right side or the left? She put her thumb under the brick on the left end and gently pressed upward.
It budged. For the first time in ten years, it budged. The light of day flooded the cavity underneath it.
Sally’s heart leaped. She could see a faint glint of gold. She lifted the brick further.
There lay the ring. It was like a miracle. Sally’s emotions rose to such a pitch that a faint cry escaped from her. She reached into the niche and grabbed the ring between her thumb and forefinger. She pulled it out into the light, and let the brick sink back into place.
Ten years later, the ring was still remarkably clean except for some gray spiderwebs. She rubbed it against her shirttail, and the shine returned. She pulled the first ring out of her shirt and held the two together.
Yes, they were the same. Now there were two little gargoyles, snarling at her with identical expressions.
Tal dismissed the sentries.
Sally leaned against the brick wall and thought about the day when she planted the ring in this hiding-place. She was desperate, afraid she would be betrayed. Perhaps it was a stealthy, conniving act to steal that man’s ring and hide it here, but as it turned out, she was betrayed, and now, ten years later, this ring could be a key to reopen the past, to view it all again, to find out what went wrong.
She thought of Tom Harris and those Christians at that little school in Bacon’s Corner.
Have I done wrong? If so, then let me do something right, just this once.
She unclasped the chain around her neck and placed the second ring beside the first.
BACK AT THE Schrader Motor Inn, the office door swung open; the electric eye beeped that someone had come in.
The lady behind the counter looked up. “Hello. May I help you?”
Mr. Khull smiled most pleasantly. “Good morning. I’m looking for my wife. She said she’d rented a room here . . . uh, number 302?”
“Oh!” She pulled out the registration. “Are you Mr. Rogers?”
Khull broke into a wide grin. “Yes, yes! All right, I finally found her!”
She was curious. “Well, how did you know where to look?”
“Oh, we’ve rented the room before. We love it. We stay here every time we come through. I was detained at home for a few days, but she called me and said she’d found the same room. I was hoping it was the one I was thinking of.”
“Well . . .” She found a problem. “Uh, she only rented it to herself. I guess she misunderstood.”
Khull got out his wallet. “Yeah, that’s a mistake. Let me make up the balance. Is she up there right now? I think I might surprise her.”
“Well, no, I think she went out. But I can give you a key.”
“Great.”
“Why don’t you fill out another form here so I can get my records straight?”
“Sure.”
He filled out another form and gave their names: Mr. and Mrs. Jack Rogers. He had a good size wad of bills as well, and paid her the balance still owed.
She looked at the address he gave. “So how are things in Las Vegas? Is it as wild as they say?”
“No . . .” He laughed. “Well, in certain places it is, I suppose. But it’s not a bad place to live.”
“Well, here’s your key . . . Oh dear. I guess she has the only duplicate. Well, come on, I’ll just go up and let you in.”
“Thanks. Hey, don’t tell her I’m here. She isn’t expecting me until tomorrow!”
ACROSS THE STREET, crouching atop the hardware store, and across the motel parking lot, hiding on the roof of Nelson Printing and Bookbinding, squads of filthy warriors puffed a cloud of sulfur when they saw Khull follow the lady up to Room 302.
Destroyer watched from his vantage point above the flower shop. “They guessed right,” he hissed. “She’s here!”
CHAPTER 23
“PRAISE GOD,” SAID Tom, so excited he couldn’t sit still. “I can’t believe it! Progress!”
“Well, a hundred different pieces maybe,” said Marshall. “But give it time—it’ll fall together.”
Tom, Marshall, Kate, and Ben were having another powwow with Wayne Corrigan in his office, not too long after that rather explosive meeting with Irene Bledsoe.
Ben had gotten over his excitement. Now he was pensive, probing. “She’s alive. Sally Roe is alive, and Mulligan knows it.”
“And Parnell too,” said Marshall. “I’ve got him on my list.”
“But what are they trying to pull, and why?” asked Kate.
“That’s what I’m still waiting to hear,” said Corrigan. “I love all this stuff, guys—I’m really enjoying it, but sooner or later—and let’s hope sooner—it’s got to add up to something. We need a case we can present in court, and so far I don’t see anything that directly applies to the lawsuit.”
“Right,” said Marshall, looking through some notes. “So far it’s all indirect, peripheral stuff. But we’re getting closer. Here are the names of the people I got from that Motor Vehicle Report on the license plates. The following people are possibly involved in this LifeCircle outfit, and some of them fit right into this: Mr. Bruce Woodard, the elementary school principal, and, no surprise, our plucky Miss Brewer.”
Kate inserted, “And as for Mr. Bruce Woodard, I talked to him on the phone again today, and he still assures me he’ll find that curriculum so I can look at it. But if you ask me, he’s stalling.”
“If he is, try these names: Jerry Mason, Betty Hanover, and John Kendall, three members of the Bacon’s Corner school board, all three most likely connected with LifeCircle.”
“Hence the Finding the Real Me curriculum at the elementary school,” said Tom. “It fits right into their worldview.”
“And their agenda,” said Marshall. “These people are just as evangelistic about their religion as we are, and they’re wasting no time.” He raised an eyebrow at the next set of names. “Jon Schmidt and Claire Johanson. Schmidt doesn’t impress me yet, but Johanson is big stuff, a direct connection with the ACFA. Oh, and who was that other guy? Oh yeah. Gordon Jefferson was there too, so now we have a link-up with the ACFA for sure, not to mention . . .” He scanned down the page. “Lenore Hofspring, from California. Check the ACFA California roster, Kate. I’ll bet she’s on it. They’re bringing in some bigger guns from out of state.”
“It isn’t fair!” said Tom.
“Have faith. We’ve caught so many fish today our nets are breaking. Here’s another fish right here . . . Surprise, surprise. Lucy Brandon. What a recipe. Take a mother involved in this cosmic mystic group, add the cosmic mystic group controlling the school board and pumping cosmic mystic curricula into the local school, then get a well-meaning, crusading teacher fresh out of . . . what was that teacher’s college?”
Kate answered, “Bentmore.”
“Right, one of America’s finest, they say. Miss Brewer learned everything she knows from them, and now she’s cramming it into the kids. These people have the whole system sewn up from the top down.
“Anyway, throw it all into the pot, stir it all up, and what do you get? A little girl channeling a spirit just like all the moms and pops and uncles and aunts out there at the big white house.
“We’re talking about a lot of moles, a lot of demons connecting this whole thing: Lucy Brandon, LifeCircle, the school board, the school, the ACFA, and even the little girl.”
Ben was puzzled. “But . . . are you saying they purposely enrolled Amber in our school just to force a confrontation?”
Marshall laid the notes on the desk and thought about that. “No. Maybe Lucy Brandon really wanted something better for her kid. Maybe the trouble that popped up was something the others—Life-Circle, the ACFA—saw as an opportunity. What do you think, Tom?”
Tom was intrigued with the notion. “When she first enrolled Amber, she seemed
concerned about the changes Amber had gone through since being in Miss Brewer’s class. At the time, I honestly thought that Lucy Brandon wanted a more basic, ‘traditional’ education for her daughter.”
“That’s the feeling I get,” said Marshall. “It’ll be interesting to talk to her and find out what she’s really thinking, and if she’s doing her own thinking at all.”
Kate reported, “Alice Buckmeier told me about Debbie, the girl who works with Lucy at the Post Office. Debbie was there that day and saw the confrontation between Amber and Sally Roe. She might be able to tell us something more about Lucy.”
“Sounds good. And now . . .” Marshall spread some sheets of paper out on Corrigan’s desk as the attorney watched. “Here’s the best part, I think. It could make this case bigger than just Bacon’s Corner . . . and it could blow it wide open. We don’t know yet.”
The others gathered around.
“That address bothered me, the location of the Omega Center that published that curriculum. That was in Fairwood, Massachusetts, right?”
Kate had that information. “Right. I got the address from Miss Brewer.”
“Ben, where did you get that arrest record, the one that included the mug shots of Sally Roe?”
Ben was stunned as he doublechecked the document. “Fairwood, Massachusetts!”
“So . . . a lady gets arrested for murder clear across the country, but then shows up in this little place for no apparent reason. In the meantime, a curriculum is published in the same town where she was arrested and finds its way here . . . Maybe it’s just a coincidence, except for some more molehills: a little girl who ends up demonized, most likely because of that curriculum, later confronts Roe in the Post Office, and the little mole sticks its head up out of the ground and says, ‘I know you, you killed your baby!’” Marshall smiled and shook his head at his own conclusion. “That demon was in Fairwood; it knew about Sally Roe.”