Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction (16 page)

Finally, Rainey says, more evenly than I expected, “All I did was tell her about Christian Life and invite her to attend. She wasn’t bound and gagged last Sunday.”

I squeeze the receiver in frustration.

“She’s a seventeen-year-old kid who got caught up in a wave of emotion. The Bible isn’t any more literally true in some places than a Grimm’s fairy tale. It’s not science; it’s myth, and you know it as well as I do. I’m sick and tired of pretending it doesn’t matter to me what she believes, when it’s clear she isn’t thinking rationally about this.”

Rainey remains maddeningly calm.

“Faith isn’t rational Gideon. That’s what scares you about it. The idea of Sarah having enough faith to commit her life to something other than a career or a man frightens you to death. After all, you can’t commit yourself to anything or anybody, because you can’t get over your wife dying sooner than she should have, and you’re terrified of losing someone again.

“As long as Sarah remained under your thumb, it was easy to be wise and tolerant, but the moment you can’t control her you want to blame me. If you think Sarah isn’t thinking with her head as well as her heart, you’re sadly mistaken. Of course she is. For the first time in her life she’s being offered something more than, here, take a number, buy this, buy that, and keep smiling until you find a job and a husband. Sure, we’re taking a risk. At Christian Life we know we’re ridiculed. You saw Inherit the Wind. The character based on William Jennings Bryan was made to look like a senile old fool, and people such as yourself haven’t gotten any kinder since then. Sarah’s not dumb. She knows you’re upset by this, and she knows that you’ll react by making her feel as guilty as you possibly can.”

I feel myself on the verge of throwing the phone through the kitchen window. I have never heard Rainey sound more condescending. There have been times when I thought she was going to be the answer to every problem I’ve had since Rosa died. We used to talk about everything; she was the one person who would always be there no matter how bad I showed my ass.

Once, when I was fired, she offered to dip into her savings. I’ve been there for her, too. During her breast cancer scare, I was the one waiting at the hospital for the surgeon to come out of the operating room. Granted, I nearly wimped out when she first told me and probably would have if it hadn’t been for Sarah, but I was there. I’ve listened to innumerable complaints about the state hospital and worried more than I ever admitted that she would lose her social worker job when the inpatient census was drastically reduced. Now, however, she is not the same person. Although she was never dogmatic before, these days she is almost a zealot. It seems every conversation we have revolves around Christian Life.

“Maybe you ought to let Sarah speak for herself. I haven’t made her feel guilty. As a matter of fact, she’s up at the church right now. For all I care, she can move in so she can be there twenty-four hours a day if she wants to.”

Rainey laughs, as if I can’t possibly be serious.

“You want to cut her throat for going up there at all. If you would let her go gracefully, she’ll come back. Kids her age have a hard time staying committed to anything.

There’s so much else for them to do.”

I shout into the phone, “That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. If she were our age, she would at least have tried to live a normal life. Now she won’t even be able to say she tried.”

Rainey’s voice becomes impatient.

“That’s just dumb.

You’re overreacting as usual! You make it sound as if she wants to become a preacher. Listen, I have to go.

Calm down, and she’ll be all right.”

Never have I heard her so patronizing. Her smugness is making me sick to my stomach.

“This is in confidence,” I warn her, “but I’m going to tell you what I told Sarah. Before you write him in as saint of the year, you need to know that the great Shane Norman is a suspect in his daughter’s murder case.”

There is stunned silence on the other end. Finally, her voice shrill, Rainey says, “I simply can’t believe that!”

It is my turn to laugh. I say savagely, “Why the hell not? You can believe God took one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman out of it; you can believe that after six days of making a world God needed a rest, so he called the next day Sunday. The trouble with people like you is that you think it’s perfectly wonderful to pick and choose your beliefs. If it makes you feel good, you can swallow a whole book. In the real world insensitive slobs like me don’t have that luxury. While you’ve got your eyes squinched shut reciting some prayer to give you more faith to believe what Norman tells you to, dumb clods like me have to consider the very real possibility that he shot dead his son-in-law. Maybe, though, I ought to just take his word that he didn’t do it. If I just pray hard enough, any disturbing thoughts I have about the man will go away.”

Rainey asks so quietly I can barely hear her, “Do you really have some evidence he might have done it?”

I bluster, “You know I can’t go into that, but tell me what I should do, Rainey. If there is enough evidence that Shane Norman killed Art Wallace, should I just sit on it, and let your beliefs guide me in this case? If he says he is innocent, do you think that ought to be the end of it? After all, he’s telling you to swallow the Bible whole. Shouldn’t his word that he didn’t kill his son-in-law be enough?”

She says weakly, “I just can’t believe he is capable of murdering anyone. You don’t know him. I know what your point is, but until I see some evidence, I just can’t accept he might have killed Art.”

I laugh triumphantly.

“Evidence! What do you want evidence for? There’s a ton of evidence the world wasn’t created in seven days, and you couldn’t care less about that. If Leigh goes to prison for the rest of her life for a crime her father committed, I guess that’s okay, because facts only matter when you want them to.”

“You’re not being fair,” Rainey says, her voice almost fading out.

“It’s not the same thing.”

Who is fair? Is anything or anybody fair?

“No, I guess you’re right,” I say sarcastically.

“Unless you can look it up in the Book of Genesis that Shane Norman killed Art Wallace, it could never have happened.”

Rainey says, her voice tremulous, “I have to go.”

With this, she hangs up, leaving me feeling almost gleeful. It’s about time she and Sarah learned they can’t have it both ways. They’ve both been so obnoxious it’s made me want to puke. Even if Norman’s got an alibi, they’ll never feel the same way about him again. Even if the son of a bitch didn’t have the guts to do it, he had murder in his heart. That’s got to be a sin in his book.

Shades of Jimmy Carter. These people drive me up the wall. The phone rings, and I pick it up, knowing it is Rainey. She’s decided she wasn’t in such a hurry after all. She’s too smart to stay in la-la land indefinitely.

“Hi!” I say, more cheerful than I’ve been all day.

“Gideon,” Chet says, his voice scratchy but full of life, “we’ve finally got something on Wallace that might lead somewhere. I’m down at my office with my investigator. Can you come down? I’m finally feeling a little better.”

“Sure,” I say, looking at my watch. I’ve had the feeling Bracken has been avoiding me. It’s about time I heard from him.

“I’ll be right there.”

I scribble a note for Sarah. For once this week she will be waiting up for me. Woogie, sensing I’m going out, thinks he may be getting a walk and begins to bark and jump up against my legs.

“You’re not going,” I explain.

“No!”

Frightened by my tone, he slinks away into the hall.

Though I am glad that Chet seems to be finally doing something on this case, I am disappointed he isn’t calling me to tell me about Norman’s alibi. Woogie turns and gives me a look that leaves no doubt he is pissed off at me. Lately, somebody’s always mad about something in this house.

Downtown is not a fun place after dark, and tonight is no exception. What little life there is gives me the creeps. I am no stranger to criminals, but the older I get, the more I like to see them sitting politely by me in a courtroom filled with cops. The shadowy figures walking the streets tonight are possibly candidates for future clients because there is absolutely nothing going on here after 6 p.m. that will find its way into the hands of a tax collector. The dream to revitalize the downtown center dies harder than the Terminator. As I drive down between the Layman and Adcock buildings on my way to chet’s office, I view the remains of the latest mall. A Wal-Mart would have to open up down here before real shoppers would come back downtown, and that is about as likely as Paul Simon doing a concert in my living room.

Bracken owns his own small one-story building near the courthouse, but with its barred windows, it looks more like a reconverted bunker from World War II than a law office. Dressed in jeans that fit him only slightly better than the jeans he was wearing the night I ate dinner at his place, he lets me in the heavy metal door, saying “Glad I caught you at home.”

I have been to his office once before, on the Sarver case. The law books in his library, overflowing before, seem to have multiplied. In fact, there is little in his office except books. Lawyers as famous and rich as Bracken usually cover their walls with crap that lets clients know how great they are. His walls are bare. Who will get his books? He probably pays more in updates and supplements than I make in a year. Many criminal lawyers, myself included, hate research. Judging by his library. Bracken must love it. I go to the law library at gunpoint.

“No problem,” I say as another man walks into the room. As little direction as Bracken has provided I would have driven to Memphis for this conversation.

“This is Daffy McSpadden, my investigator on the case,” Chet says, introducing me to a short, dumpy guy in his thirties with slightly crossed eyes. He is wearing a gray suit and striped tie and, except for his eyes, looks normal enough, until I notice his feet. He is wearing sandals. Though I get only a glance, I swear his toes are webbed. Surely not.

“How are you?” I ask, unable to call him Daffy. His hand feels like the skin of a reptile. This is one guy who didn’t get his job on his looks.

Instead of speaking, he nods, which makes me fear that he can emit only quacking sounds. I look uneasily at Chet. Maybe he is beginning to suffer dementia.

Daffy seems like a character out of a Batman movie.

Chet commands, “Daffy, tell him what you’ve run across.”

Daffy nods eagerly as we seat ourselves at a small conference table in the library. Speaking in a rapid monotone, he says, “Among Mr. Wallace’s other business interests, all legitimate so far as I’ve been able to tell, is evidence of a deal for pornographic videos produced in the Netherlands which probably went sour with a buyer in New York. Wallace found a distributor in San Francisco who later accused him of cheating on the price. The distributor, who reportedly has connections with some pretty tough customers, was obviously leaning on Wallace to come up with two hundred thousand dollars in cash to make things right. Wallace was acting as broker on the money transaction but apparently not an honest one.”

Art, you old sleazoid, I think. Yet a little extra profit on that kind of deal would be easy enough to conceal.

It’s not the kind of market that puts out a big Christmas catalog.

“How do we know all this?” I ask Daffy, but it is Bracken who answers.

“I had him,” Bracken says, nodding at Daffy, “do some digging on a series of phone calls Art made to San Francisco the month before he died. On the surface it appears legitimate, but if you represent enough crooks, you begin to sniff a distinct odor. The paperwork behind the calls didn’t check out; and, with a little work. Daffy heard enough rumors about the buyer to guess at a connection. I wasn’t certain about the skimming until Leigh admitted it to me this afternoon after I confronted her. She said Art had been threatened, but she was afraid to tell me. Art said they would come after her, too, if she talked. He was still trying to come up with the cash when he died.”

I lean against the table and look at Daffy’s crossed eyes with grudging respect.

“The cops don’t know about this?”

Daffy answers, with a snicker, “Are you kidding?

They might have spent five minutes checking out his phone bill.”

Poor Leigh, I think. No wonder she looked so grim.

If I were in her situation, I’d keep my mouth shut, too, and count on Chet Bracken to do his magic.

“Why didn’t Wallace pay off?” I ask Chet.

“I thought he was loaded.”

Daffy volunteers, “Two hundred thousand takes a while to come back from the laundry. The problem is that some guys get their feelings hurt when they’re taken and aren’t very understanding of international currency laws. Wallace knew how to keep his money working, but that kept it from being as liquid as his creditor in this case would’ve liked. Rub-out guys aren’t paid to have a lot of patience.”

Rub-out guys. Great. I’m out of my league. Is this for real? The closest I’ve gotten to international currency was down in Colombia in the Peace Corps, and it seemed like play money, it bought so little. I look around Bracken’s library a little dazed. I didn’t sign on to spend the rest of my life wondering if I’m going to have an unexpected dinner guest some night. I ask stupidly, “Do we call the cops?”

Across the table. Daffy coughs politely, and Chet tells him he can go home now.

“I’ve got sole custody of my five kids,” Daffy explains.

“I need to get to the house.”

Five kids! I have to wonder what the ex-mrs. Daffy looks like. And the children. Chet accompanies him into the hall and reaches for his wallet. I suspect Daffy is not averse to working off the books occasionally. With that many mouths to feed, he doesn’t have a lot left over to feed Uncle Sam, too. Chet walks back into the library and gives me a wan smile.

“So you want to turn this information over to the police, huh?”

I lean back in the leather chair and try to think, “We can’t protect her.”

Chet sits down across from me and pushes his thick brown hair back from his forehead.