The Sacrifice (29 page)

Several people clapped and yelled. The man gave a slight bow and walked over to the water cooler. The show over, the other men returned to their own activities. Perry walked up to Scott.

“What did you think of that?” Perry asked.

“Awesome. Who is he?”

“I can't pronounce his name. He's a fifty-nine-year-old Bulgarian. He was on their Olympic team about thirty years ago and came to the U.S. when things opened up.”

“What's he doing here?”

“He heard about you and wanted to get some pointers about the arm bike. He'll be over to ask you some questions after he rests for a minute.”

“No, tell me.”

Perry sat down on a stool. “He has a job with a company that makes door locks. They advertise their locks as the strongest and most durable in the industry. He's their poster boy. One of the owners of the company has a house on Lake Norman and brought him up for the day. He wanted to work out before he puts on an exhibition at a trade show in Charlotte tomorrow.”

“That was poetry in motion. I couldn't believe how quick he was.”

“It's a lot more speed and technique than most people think.”

“Is he going to do anything else?”

“I don't think so. He wanted to do some regular lifting and offered to put on a brief exhibition. I like to provide extras to my customers.”

Scott watched as the Bulgarian began doing bench presses, his arms moving up and down like pistons.

“What should I tell Linda?” Perry asked.

“Linda? About what?” Scott asked.

“When you mentioned poetry, it made me think of English teachers. When I think of English teachers, I think of Kay Laramie.”

Scott opened a bottle of water and took a drink. “Tell Linda that Kay Wilson and I are friends—period. Her divorce is final in a couple of weeks, and she has been bouncing all over the chart. The other night at the football game she was crying her eyes out. Today at lunch she was talking about God putting a song in her heart and couldn't wipe the smile from her face.”

Perry shrugged. “What's unusual about that? She's a woman.”

Scott chuckled. “Be careful, or I'll report you to the chauvinist thought police.”

“Is she going to go back to Kay Laramie after the divorce is final?”

“I didn't ask her because it wasn't my business.”

“Was it your business when you read her file at the courthouse?”

“Don't badger the witness,” Scott answered. “Just tell Linda that Kay's name will not be Ellis anytime in the foreseeable future. I know better than to consider anything beyond friendship while she's going through a divorce. A lot has changed in the years since high school.”

“And a lot hasn't.” Perry motioned toward the weightlifter. “Some things have enduring strength.”

Sometimes, the sound and appearance of a word reflect its function. Not so with
bomb
. There is a softness to the word that hides its meaning. Spoken in a normal tone of voice, it does not convey a sense of explosive devastation. In a crowded room, it could be confused with a word of healing like
balm.

Bomb.
He'd muttered and written the word over and over and over until it lost any sinister connotations and became a familiar friend. He wrote it on the margins of test papers in silent, hidden warning, but he was always careful to obliterate it before a teacher might see it. He was not a voice secretly crying for help. He was a volcano waiting to erupt.

He revisited the image of the fire-filled hallway until it became a familiar fantasy. When he didn't want to go to school, the mild rush he felt when he walked down the main hallway and imagined the moment of explosion drew him back. He often placed people he hated at the center of the maelstrom. He knew he couldn't control everything about the moment of destruction, but he allowed himself to hope that particular individuals would be in the wrong place at the right time, or from his perspective, the right place at the right time.

The number grew. It never shrank.

21

My sheep hear My voice.

J
OHN 10:27 (NKJV)

T
ao Pang was learning more English words. Most of them related to his work—
trash
,
bathroom
,
mop
, even
disinfectant
. Names were another matter. He was amazed at the length and complexity of Western names. It wouldn't have been much more difficult for him if he'd landed in Russia.

One afternoon he found a school yearbook in a trash can in the school office. The binding had been damaged and the book discarded. Tao recognized the outline of the school building imprinted on the cover and picked it up. He began to look at the pictures. The hundreds of faces on the pages were unfamiliar until he came to a group photograph of the janitorial staff. There were most of his coworkers, standing stiffly at attention in white shirts and dark-colored pants in front of the school trophy case. He continued turning pages, studying photos of the marching band, the chorus, the basketball team, the football team, the girls' softball team. He could tell the yearbook was a record of the people and events at the school, but the significance of many of the pictures could not be understood without the ability to read the captions. Toward the back of the volume, he saw pages of advertisements for local businesses. When he finished, Tao put the book in the large, plastic barrel he was using to collect the garbage.

“Take the book.”

Tao stopped and turned around. The voice was so clear that he thought someone had spoken to him from one of the offices. Then he realized the message was in his own language. No one in Blanchard County other than his family members knew those words. He picked up the yearbook from the trash container and looked at it again.

This time he turned the pages more slowly, searching for the reason behind the command. The first section was devoted to seniors whose formal pictures were twice the size of the rest of the student classes. Tao could tell these were the older students. Nothing he saw on the pages caused him to pause. A third of the way through the junior-class pictures, he stopped. He recognized a young woman's face. She looked like one of the girls who sat at the cafeteria table where the angels had assembled.

“Does this have to do with her?” he asked.

He studied the picture more closely. The girl had short, dark hair and a gentle smile. She had good eyes—clear eyes that had lost the need to hide what lay behind them. Yes, the girl with the good eyes was one of the students at the table.

“Pray for her.”

Tao didn't look around this time. This was a command he understood. He'd heard the Voice directing him to pray for a specific individual before. The identity of the person was the first step. Knowing what to pray was the second.

“What do I pray?”

Not for her salvation. The girl was a Christian who attracted the attention of heaven—a fact proven by the angelic messengers surrounding the table. But there was a role for him to play as well. He waited.

“Hold her close to your heart.”

Tao put his hand on his chest. How could he do that? When he touched his shirt, he felt the outline of his empty pocket.

On the receptionist's desk was a cup containing an assortment of pencils, pens, and a small pair of scissors. Tao picked up the scissors, carefully cut out the girl's picture, and put it in his pocket—close to his heart. The rest would come as he needed to know it.

He placed the yearbook on top of his cleaning cart. Later, he put it on the shelf in the closet where he kept cleaning supplies.

Scott had a voice mail from Bishop Moore. He returned the call, and the preacher answered the phone.

“I need your help,” Scott said. “The Garrison case is going to trial in a couple of weeks, and I'd like to talk to some of the people who were outside at the time the shots were fired.”

“I could give you a list of church members with their phone numbers.”

“How many are there?” Scott asked.

“Oh, about seventy-five families. Some of the families are pretty large.”

“How many of the church members were at the baptism?”

“I don't know for sure, but I'd guess at least three-fourths of them plus visitors.”

Scott thought about the prospect of trying to interview over a hundred strangers who would be suspicious of his reason for calling. He hadn't gained the confidence of Bishop Moore until he mentioned Leland Humphrey's name, and it would be ten times more difficult with the members of the church. But somewhere in the haystack of names and numbers might be another witness who would testify that the shooter on the other side of the stream was a man with black hair. Someone might know more.

“Okay, send them over,” Scott said. “May I tell them you gave me permission to contact them?”

“Well,” the bishop hesitated. “I'm not sure.”

“I wouldn't try to coerce anyone.”

“I know, but whether they want to talk to you is their business. Many of the church folks are at their jobs during the week, so it will be hard to reach them. You'd have to call after five o'clock in the afternoon.”

“Whatever it takes.”

Scott hadn't spent his evenings calling a long list of names since he sold kitchen knives one summer during college.

“I have a better idea,” Bishop Moore continued. “Why don't you come when they're all going to be together in one place?”

Surprised, Scott asked, “You would set up a meeting so they could talk to me?”

“Not exactly. We already have a meeting scheduled. You would just show up. I'm thinking about the regular Sunday-morning service. We're having dinner on the grounds this Sunday, and if anyone is willing to talk to you, it would be your best chance.”

Giving up a Sunday morning with the newspaper to avoid the drudgery of countless hours on the telephone over the next week would be a small sacrifice. And the food would be good.

“That sounds like a great idea. What time should I be there?”

“'bout ten o'clock.”

“I might ask Mr. Humphrey to come, too.”

Bishop Moore laughed. “Yes. Leland can tell me if I know more about the Bible than when we were stacking lumber together.”

Both of Mr. Humphrey's eyebrows shot up when Scott told him about his plans for Sunday morning, but the older lawyer wouldn't be able to join him. He and his wife were going to be out of town all weekend. Scott would be the only white face in the crowd.

Scott heated leftover spaghetti in the microwave and ate supper standing up at the kitchen counter. He was sitting in the backyard drinking a beer in front of the fishpond when the cordless phone on the bench beside him rang.

“Where are you?” Kay asked.

“Uh-oh,” Scott said.

He had forgotten about mock trial practice. He looked at his watch. It was 7:15 P.M. All the students would be sitting at their desks waiting for him to arrive and give instructions for the evening.

“I'm on my way,” he said.