by Randy Alcorn
“Ollie!” Sue Keels, still blond and petite, threw her arms around me. “I’ve really missed you.”
Funny how you know when people mean what they say.
I see Sue only a couple of times a year when I pick up Little Finn and take him to a ball game or a movie, usually with Jake. I got to know her while investigating her husband’s murder. She’s dated a few guys since then, one or two I’ve met at our Thanksgiving gatherings, but she’s never remarried. She’s a sweetheart, and she’d be a great catch for any guy with a high tolerance for talk about Jesus. But with her it’s more than talk. She gives me hope that her beliefs aren’t empty, and that, in the end, maybe Sharon’s weren’t either.
Sue’s daughter Angela and granddaughter Karina were there, with Sue’s grandsons Ty, Matthew, and Jake. (People get named after each other in these families). The three boys are an entertaining little trio—binky-sucker, stair-climber, and fridge-raider.
It wasn’t long before we’d grabbed hands, Carly on one side and Little Finn on the other. I knew what was coming. Different people pray before meals, but usually Little Finn steals the show.
“God in heaven,” Finn said, much louder than necessary, “tank You dat You are dere and here and everywhere else, even under da bed and in da closet and on da roof, and in dat scary corner in da garage by da paint cans. Tank You for takin’ care of me and my mom and sister and niece and nephews, and everybody else’s nieces and nephews and cousins and children and parents and grandmothers and grandfathers and great-grandmothers, and da people they don’t know very well too.”
There were amens and nods and smiles. I know because I was looking around the table, not being much of a prayer guy. One time I closed my eyes in a group setting and opened them to see a gun pointed at a hostage. Since then I’ve made it a habit not to close my eyes in public.
Little Finn was going right on, as if he were talking to a real person.
“Tank You, Jesus, dat my dad’s dere with You and he’s lookin’ forward to seein’ me again just like I want to see him. Please make dat happen soon, Lord. Say hi to him for me, and hi to Unca Clarence’s daddy, Mr. Abernathy, and his sister and niece and say hi to Unca Ollie’s wife, Sharon, who also died. And Carly is going to be joining them soon too, so please tell everybody she’s coming, okay?”
I looked at Jake and Janet and saw tears come to their eyes, and when I looked at Carly, right beside me, I saw a huge smile on her face. She nodded and said a soft “Yes, Lord.”
“And Jesus,” Finn wasn’t done, “tank You for this Thanksgiving dinner and for Aunt Janet and my mom, Mrs. Susan Keels, and for everybody who came with food, including da pie somebody bought at Safeway. And God, we also pray for Unca Ollie dat he repent and come to Jesus and admit that he’s a big sinner.”
Little Finn squeezed my left hand and Carly squeezed my right, and she looked up at me and laughed hysterically. It was contagious, and others started laughing. I laughed too.
Little Finn went right on, “And God please forgive everybody for laughin’ in da midda of my prayer, but we do wanna laugh tonight, just not during da prayer, so help me to finish this prayer so it will be ’kay to laugh. In Jesus’ name …”
“Amen!” Five people said at once, and Little Finn was done. Now he was laughing too.
I looked at him and marveled that he could be in his twenties now and still a child. He reminded me of Obadiah Abernathy, a man I’d known in his eighties, who even then was childlike. It made me long for the childhood I’d left behind too soon. One that my father or Nam or job or the realities of life and death had taken from me.
The meal was wonderful—turkey and dressing and gravy and corn and the most wonderful biscuits drenched in butter and strawberry jam. I had three tall glasses of milk, plus sparkling cider that Finn told me I just had to drink.
Afterward we sat around the living room telling stories. Jake and I talked about our tours in Vietnam. They asked me to tell them detective stories. I obliged, and they seemed interested. The children made everybody laugh, and Champ, Jake’s old springer spaniel, sat at my side, where I scratched him nonstop. Mulch would demand an explanation.
Dogs know the people who love them, and they know enough not to walk away from a good thing. If only we were that smart.
As it got dark, I looked around for Carly but couldn’t find her. The conversation had broken into groups of threes and fours, and I stood and stretched and inched my way toward the hall closet and my trench coat. Jake caught me.
“Carly wants you to say good-bye before you leave. She’s in her room.”
I knocked on the partly open door.
“Come in.”
Carly was lying in her bed, all tucked in, with her right arm outside the covers. Her son Finney’s head was on a pillow next to her. Her smile lit up the room. I know that’s a cliché worthy of the chief, but I don’t care. It did.
“Uncle Ollie, I’m so glad you came.”
“Wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye,” I said.
She whispered to Finney. He jumped off the bed and walked out of the room telling me, “I’m going to have blackberry pie.” I smiled my approval.
“How you feeling?” I asked Carly.
“Not great. I get so tired. But I’m grateful. It could be a lot worse.”
I stood there and stared, like an idiot.
“It may not be much longer,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe you missed that part of Little Finn’s prayer,” she said, grinning. “In case you haven’t heard, I’m supposed to die pretty soon.”
“No, you’re not.” I knew it was stupid the moment I said it. Sometimes I need a filter between my brain and my tongue.
“Sounds like you’ve got inside information. Maybe you could fill me in. And the doctors, too!” She laughed.
How could she laugh?
“Don’t feel bad for me. I know where I’m going.”
“Good,” I said, which seemed better than saying, “How could you possibly know that?”
“Jesus promised He was preparing a place for His followers so we could live with Him forever.” Her voice was light and airy.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Do you believe it?”
“Sometimes I want to.”
“And sometimes you don’t?”
I nodded.
“Aunt Sharon believed in Jesus.”
“Yeah. She changed her thinking a lot before …” I trailed off.
“She died.”
“Before I lost her.”
“When you know where someone’s gone, you haven’t lost them,” she said, sticking her thin, shivering arm under the covers.
“I’m just not as sure as you are.”
“If you knew Jesus, you’d feel differently.”
“I’m not a religious man, Carly.”
“Neither am I. I mean I’m obviously not a man, but I’m not religious either.”
“You sure sound religious to me.”
“Because I believe Jesus and love Him? That’s not religion. It’s just love and trust. Trust in what I’ve seen.”
“You mean what you haven’t seen.”
“No. First, all those years ago I saw what Jesus did to my dad. How He changed him through and through. You’ve known my dad a long time. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
I nodded.
“Then I saw what He did in my mom’s life. And finally I experienced Him myself. He changed me from the inside out. I believe Him. I believe His promises. I believe in the resurrection and the new earth. I believe that He’s going to take away all the pain and wipe away all the tears. Those are His promises. I’m taking them to the bank.”
“Good for you,” I said. I didn’t hear conviction in my voice. I suspect she didn’t either.
“It’s only good for me if God keeps His promises. But I believe He does.”
She pulled out that arm again and beckoned me to come close. I could hear her
breathing now in little puffs.
“Can I pray for you, Uncle Ollie?”
I nodded numbly. I can’t tell you what she said except, like Little Finn, she sounded like she was talking to a real person. I can’t explain it. It was really … well, not religious. She said the names Andrea and Kendra. Not hearing what she said about them, even their names stabbed my heart.
An “Amen” yanked me out of my fog.
“I may not see you again here,” Carly said. “But I hope I’ll see you again there. And if I do, let’s make a date to walk the new earth together, okay? Maybe visit the New Grand Canyon or the New Mount Everest or the New Lake Victoria. Maybe even the New Portland. Without any crime or suffering or death.”
“What would I do for a living?”
She laughed. “You’d be living all right … and you’d find plenty to do. You’d love every minute of it. I know you would.”
I looked at the floor. I couldn’t bear to look at her. She was so much more alive than I was.
She stretched her arms out to me, like an angel but better, and I felt her thin fingers on the back of my neck and something light on my cheek. I heard her say, “I love you.”
I stumbled out of her room and out the front door. Somebody said something to me. I don’t know who or what.
I pushed my way into the cold east wind, weak in my stomach and my legs, feeling something sticking to my face. I barely made it to the car, fumbled with the keys, and dropped them. I swore. I sat in the car a long time before I realized I was shaking. I turned the key and continued to sit. It might have been ten minutes later when I noticed a curtain move and saw Janet looking at me. Afraid Jake would come out, I pulled away.
I went home, thinking of Jake and Janet and Carly and Finney and Sue and Little Finn—and Sharon too. I felt a lingering warmth inside, harpooned by sharp cold.
How could I explain what I’d seen?
How could Carly Woods believe in a God who was letting her just shrivel up and die?
“I’m so happy Carly’s coming soon.”
“So am I.”
“It’s going to be hard on Jake and Janet to lose her.”
“Did you not hear My daughter’s words, Finney?”
“Right. They’re not going to lose her because they’ll know she’s here with You. But they don’t know what it’s like here. I sure didn’t. It’s so much better than I imagined.”
“I’ve told them about this place and much more about the new earth, but somehow they don’t grasp it.”
“Wherever You are, it’s heaven.”
“So it is, Finney. But the best is yet to come. I will relocate all of this, all of us, to a new realm. There you and your people will at last reign over the earth, exercising dominion as I intended from the beginning when I made your planet and the morning stars shouted for joy.”
Finney Keels entered into the Carpenter’s joy, He who was the maker and repairer of people and worlds. Finney felt his companion’s arm rest on his shoulder, an arm that felt extraordinarily light considering it had created the universe.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 9:00 A.M.
“Chandler? Phil Oref, criminalist detail.”
“You finally got that fingerprints report?”
“On the gun in the Dumpster? Not my assignment. I’m calling about your gum wrapper.”
“You can get me results in two days when you’ve already taken a week on the gun?”
“I’ll say it again. I have nothing to do with the gun. We’re understaffed, Detective.”
“What you got on the gum wrapper?”
“One thumbprint, 60 percent of a whole, and a partial finger, both yours.”
“Mine?”
“Yeah. That’s what you were expecting, right?”
“Right. Nothing else though?”
“Just yours. Must have dropped from your pocket. You want me to put this into the evidence room with the rest of the stuff?”
“No,” I said a little too emphatically. “I better get it back. I was a dope to touch it with my glove off.”
“Yeah, you were.”
“At least I didn’t contaminate a blood sample.”
“It was 3:00 a.m., okay? I’ll have it here in an evidence bag, inside a manila envelope with your name on it, for you to pick up. Won’t have a case number since it’s outside the system. I could get in trouble for this. So could you. You owe me, Detective.”
“Actually, we’re even now.”
I drove ten minutes to the Property Evidence Warehouse at Seventeenth and Jefferson, by Lincoln High School. It’s an old cement building with ramps that looks like it was a giant auto repair shop in a previous life. Once you get past signin and back to the evidence viewing room, the tables and chairs are bare and uninviting. But rather than go through the hoops of checking out evidence and having to bring it back, I decided to set up camp and tackle four evidence boxes we seized from Palatine’s file cabinet the night of the murder. With help, I found the boxes stacked in P-8, on rack shelving like Costco or Home Depot.
It took me two hours to go through three boxes of papers. Talk about panning mud and rocks. I nearly gave up, partly because the evidence viewing room is within smelling range of the two vaults in the back of the warehouse, which contain guns and drugs. I couldn’t smell the guns but caught periodic whiffs of marijuana. The primary offender, though, was crank, or meth, which smells like cat urine with a touch of fingernail polish. A couple of hours is all I can take.
In the back of the final box, which had the contents of the lowest file drawer, was a thick folder labeled “Special papers.” On top was a student’s five-year-old paper with a red grade on it: A+. Under it was a paper two years old, another seven years old, and fifteen more student papers, all marked A or A+, with dates ranging from fifteen years to three months ago.
I started reading these papers one by one. I’m no philosopher, but I’ve read great writers—including Rex Stout, Mickey Spillane, Dashiell Hammett, and Ross Macdonald. I’m talking the giants. So I know good writing and bad writing when I see it. Most of these papers were not good writing. No one would accuse these students of plagiarism.
Some papers had numbers penciled after the grade. The highest was a ten, the lowest was a one, and most were in between.
It was then I realized that not one of the papers was written by a guy.
I picked one paper I’d read, a treatise on a dude named Hobbes, with a red smiling face next to the A+, and a penciled number 3 next to that. The paper was written by a Cassandra Fields. I barely stayed awake while reading and decided to track her down to find out why the professor gave her an A+ and a smiley face for such mediocre writing.
I drove back to the Justice Center. If you want to find out about somebody quickly, it helps to be a cop. Within fifteen minutes I had a fax of Cassandra’s college transcript, knew where she lived and with whom and that she worked in the Multnomah County library, just a few minutes away. After another call, I found she’d be at work for three more hours. She agreed to meet me in a library conference room during her break, as long as I had proper ID.
Cassandra was attractive, though she’d put on weight since college. I knew this because I recognized her flaming red hair. She was one of dozens of young girls in the professor’s pictures.
She led me to a conference room with an ancient Greece theme, including a model of the Parthenon.
“As I said, I’m investigating the murder of Professor William Palatine. We’re talking to former students. You remember him?”
“Yes.”
“You remember what grade you got in his class?”
“I had him for two classes. I think I … got As.”
“Did you usually get As in your classes?”
Her face flushed, and she looked down. “Sometimes.”
“Well,” I said, looking at the top paper in my file, “in four years at the university, you got a total of three As. Two were from Professor Palatine. The other was a PE class.”
“You have my transcript?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” She was wringing her hands.
“Were you close to the professor?”
“I haven’t seen him since I graduated.”
“Were you seeing him before you graduated?”
“Yes, of course … I mean, I always saw him in class.”
“Only in class?”
“Mainly in class.”
“Ever go to his home?”
The best lie detector is experience. I’ve learned that some people spout lies too quickly, like a counterpunch. Some weigh and measure their lies to get the words right. For others, like Cassandra, the delay comes from a crisis of conscience in which they try to decide whether to lie or tell the truth. Her face and her hands told her story.
“I have a picture of you taken in his home.”
Her eyes widened and face whitened. “He took pictures?”
I nodded.
“I was never that kind of girl,” she said. “He was the first …” She started crying. “I’ve always regretted it. It makes me feel cheap. At first I thought I was special. He was never mean, really, but when he was finished with me, I knew it.”
“Did he write you poetry?”
She snapped backward as if I’d slapped her. “How did you know that?”
“Still have it?”
“I burned it years ago.”
“You remember what it looked like? Was the ink sort of thick?”
She nodded.
“What color was it?”
“Blue.”
“Did it look like this?” I handed her a card, the one from Palatine’s file drawer, with the three quotes about love.
“How did.? I burned it!”
“This one wasn’t to you.”
The redness came back to her face, which got wetter. She was using her sleeve. I wished I had Kleenex.
“Can I get you anything? A glass of water?”
She shook her head. “What are you going to do with the photos? Do people have to see them?”
“I only know of one.”
I handed it to her. She was standing in the picture with four other girls, two of them between her and the professor.