Evidence of Love

by John Bloom

  “Yes,” said Allan, a little hesitantly. “In 1971. We were living in Las Cruces.” He briefly related the one-night stand Betty had had with the college student at New Mexico State, then added, “I don’t believe that she’s ever had an affair with any other man since then.”

  “Have you ever had an affair yourself?” asked Murphy.

  “No,” said Allan.

  “Do you have anything else that you might say to help us in this investigation?”

  “No, I can’t think of anything at this time.”

  When Allan got home from the station, he was physically and emotionally exhausted, but he still couldn’t rest. He had been a little edgy ever since he realized that he was considered a possible suspect by the police. Everyone had told him not to worry, since it was their job to consider everyone a suspect, but it made him feel uncomfortable nonetheless. Something else bothered him, too. It was a question Burks asked him about Candy. Burks had wondered, when Allan was describing his phone conversations with Candy on the night the body was discovered, whether she had seemed upset. She had, of course—very upset—but Allan still wondered what they were driving at. Was Candy a suspect, too? Were they that crazy?

  The more Allan considered the implications of his interview, the more worried he became. He was the only suspect. Who else could it be? Before going to bed, Allan went into Alisa’s bedroom and asked her if she would answer a few questions for him about the Friday morning she spent at Bible School with Jenny and Ian. He had never thought to ask his own daughter what she knew about that day, and neither had the police. All Alisa remembered was that Candy had taken them all to Bible School, stayed for a few minutes, and then left to go to get Alisa’s swimsuit.

  “When did she come back?” asked Allan.

  “Around lunch.”

  “Do you know why it took so long?”

  “No.”

  “Did she go to the store? Were there packages in the car?”

  “No.”

  Allan was getting scared. He didn’t know what it all meant, but he did know it didn’t look good for him. He tucked Alisa in and went back to his bedroom, but he didn’t sleep again that night. After a while he set his alarm for 5:30, because he’d decided he had a lot of business to take care of before noon the next day. That’s when he and the Pomeroys were leaving for Kansas, where Betty was to be buried.

  At 6 A.M. on Tuesday, Royce Abbott’s phone rang.

  “Chief Abbott, this is Allan Gore. I’m calling to tell you that there’s one thing I wasn’t truthful about last night.”

  “What’s that, Allan?”

  “I did have an affair.”

  “Oh?”

  “With Candy Montgomery.”

  14 Encounters

  Candy Montgomery would always be able to remember the precise moment when she decided she would go to bed with Allan Gore. It happened on the church volleyball court. Candy and Allan both tried to make a play on the same ball—and collided. It was a harmless bump, really, and went unnoticed by everyone else on the court, but for Candy it brought a revelation: Allan Gore smelled sexy. When she told her friend Sherry Cleckler about it later, Candy said it was odd but true: before the bump, she hadn’t been attracted to Allan at all, but the masculine smell changed her mind. Then again, it wasn’t entirely that, since she had been talking abstractedly about having an affair for several weeks. She had told Sherry she wanted a sexual escapade, and she had even broached the subject with Jackie Ponder. Candy wanted something to shake up her “very boring” life with Pat. She was very explicit about the kind of affair she was interested in: transcendent sex. As she put it to Sherry, “I want fireworks.”

  Then she bumped into Allan Gore and wondered to herself, “Could a man like that make the earth move?” At first glance he didn’t look like it. Allan had a receding hairline, the beginnings of a paunchy midsection, and dressed blandly, to say the least. But in other ways he was the kind of man she might be able to have a good time with. She had known Allan for only nine months, but it seemed much longer. Allan was a lot like her: an activist in the church, a lover of kids, the outgoing, personable half of a mismatched couple. Allan sang in the choir, he helped organize the sports teams, he did all the things that Betty never seemed to want to get involved in. He had a sense of humor. It was only natural that the two of them would see a lot of each other, since they both sang in the choir, and even on a good night there were never more than ten or twelve singers willing to give up their weeknights for rehearsal. More to the point, there was a tiny insistent voice in the back of Candy’s brain that kept telling her that Allan Gore was as anxious to go to bed with her as she was with him.

  It had begun with little things. Allan seemed to joke with her more than he joked with the other women at church. He teased her about her volleyball skills, and every once in a while he’d give her a sly wink, as though they shared some little secret. After choir practice the two of them would sometimes chat a little longer than necessary, or loiter in the parking lot while the others were getting into their cars. The flirting was subtle. Sometimes it was so much like Allan’s natural friendliness with everyone that Candy doubted it was a real flirtation at all. Candy was not exactly a wallflower herself, after all, and sometimes she brought out a playful quality in men that was entirely harmless. But then Allan would do something that was unmistakably designed to get her attention, and she would start wondering all over again. One night during choir practice, Allan made funny faces throughout Candy’s solo in an attempt to get her to laugh in the middle of a hymn. Pat thought it was funny. Candy was intrigued. She found herself thinking about Allan at the oddest times—while doing housework, for example, or talking to Sherry about how boring Pat was. She also started fantasizing, as she sometimes did, about sex with the man who smelled so nice. Candy was almost twenty-nine years old and, to be totally honest with herself, sexually frustrated. How many more years did she have in order to find out what she was missing? Not many. She decided to do something about it.

  She got her chance one night after choir practice had broken up. Allan had already gone out to the parking lot and was just getting into his car when Candy spotted him. She strode up to the passenger side and opened the door.

  “Allan,” said Candy, leaning into the car, “I want to talk to you sometime, about something that has been bothering me.”

  “Oh?” he said. “How about right now?”

  Candy slid into the seat beside him. She didn’t look at him.

  “I’ve been thinking about you a lot and it’s really bothering me and I don’t know whether I want you to do anything about it or not.”

  Allan, a little confused, said nothing.

  “I’m very attracted to you and I’m tired of thinking about it and so I wanted to tell you.”

  And with that, she jumped out of the car, slammed the door, and hurried across the lot.

  Allan Gore felt shocked and flattered and a little ridiculous. He wasn’t shocked by Candy’s directness—he had known her long enough to realize that she spoke exactly what was on her mind—but he was totally nonplussed by the idea of another woman being interested in him sexually. He was especially surprised, and secretly pleased, that it was Candy. Even though she didn’t have what you would call classic beauty, she was one of the most attractive women in the church, in his opinion, and she was certainly the most fun to be with. Then a wave of doubt overtook him: maybe Candy was just flirting, in her own way, because all she really said was that she had been “thinking” about him. But such an odd way to say it.

  Allan thought about Candy a lot over the next few days, and he wondered whether she would say anything else the next time they were together. He kept thinking back over what she had said in the car, and wondered whether that was a signal for him to make the next move. He thought about calling her but then felt silly and awkward. He also thought, a little guiltily, of how different Candy was from his own wife. Betty was as dour as ever, not only because of her problems at sc
hool but because Danny, their rebellious nine-year-old foster child, continued to defy Betty’s stern attempts at discipline. Then, as if that weren’t enough, Betty had decided that they should go ahead and have their next child. They had agreed to have another baby, but this time Betty wanted it planned down to the exact week, so that it would be born in midsummer and she wouldn’t have to take any time off from teaching. This was especially ironic, since the Gores’ sex life had dwindled to almost nothing and was completely mechanical when they had sex at all. Now Allan was required to have clinical sex with Betty every night during her peak fertility period, in the name of family planning. He felt a little resentful; he had the distinct feeling he was being used. For the first time, sex had become hard work. This, combined with Betty’s usual complaints about minor illnesses, made Allan’s marital future look bleak indeed when compared to the bright, happy-go-lucky face of Candy Montgomery, full of promise and, he had to admit, allure. That didn’t mean he didn’t love Betty, or that he would ever do anything to hurt her. It just pleased Allan that a woman like Candy would feel those kinds of emotions for a man like himself.

  A week or so after the choir practice, Allan saw Candy again. It was the night when the Lucas Methodist volleyball team acted as referees for the other churches in the league. That meant that they would be staying afterward to clean up the gymnasium, and it also meant, Allan knew, that there would probably be an opportunity for the two of them to talk. Betty was not feeling well, as usual, and Pat never played volleyball. The only other person left at the end of the evening was Barbara Green, Candy’s good-natured friend from Montecito. They all walked out to the parking lot together, but when Barbara got into her car, Allan and Candy continued walking together, more or less naturally, in the general direction of Candy’s car. As they were talking, Barbara drove up, stopped, and rolled down her window.

  “Are you sure I can trust you two alone?” she said.

  They all laughed, and Barbara sped away.

  As they watched her leave, Allan said, “Now what was it you had in mind?”

  “Get in,” said Candy.

  Allan slid into the passenger seat of Candy’s car.

  “Would you be interested in having an affair?” she asked.

  Despite all his mental preparation, Allan wasn’t prepared for something that direct.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said.

  “It’s just something I’ve been thinking about and I wanted to say it so I don’t have to think about it anymore.”

  “I don’t think I could, Candy. I don’t think it would be a wise thing to do, because I love Betty. Once when we were living in New Mexico she had an affair and that hurt me a lot, and I wouldn’t want to do that to her.”

  Candy was surprised to realize how much Allan had thought about his answer.

  “That’s fine, Allan. I love Pat, too. I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt him, either.”

  “Betty just got pregnant again, too, and it would be unfair to her, especially since I don’t feel the same way about you that I do about her. So I probably couldn’t do something like that.”

  “Okay, Allan, I was just putting the option out there because of how I felt and it’s up to you to decide. I don’t want to hurt your marriage. All I wanted to do was go to bed. I won’t mention it again.”

  Allan leaned across the seat and softly kissed Candy’s lips. Then he quickly got out of the car and went home.

  The fall of 1978 was, it turned out, a crucial time for the little country church. It was continuing to grow, for one thing, to the point where a few of the “old-timers”—those families who had been there more than a year—started to worry that too many people would spoil the church’s rustic flavor. The real old-timers—the less active farming families who had attended the church for two or three decades—were much less sentimental on that subject. They looked at the influx as a good thing: perhaps the newcomers would put enough into the offering plate to get rid of the drafty old frame building and construct a modern sanctuary. Jackie Ponder was not the type of pastor to become embroiled in a matter like that. All she wanted to do was continue to preach about love and accepting others, and try to bind ever closer what she now called her “family of faith.” These people were not only her parishioners; they were the closest friends she had in the world. So she never really expressed an opinion on the sanctuary issue at all; she admitted the church needed a new one, but she agreed with the newcomers, too. She had a special fondness for the creaky old place where she had preached her first sermon.

  Then, in October, Jackie came face-to-face with the inevitable: she was offered another ministerial position. On the surface it was a much better job than the little one-horse church in Lucas. She would be in charge of the Wesley Foundation, a Methodist educational arm located on the campus of Midwestern University at Wichita Falls, where she could pursue her teaching ambitions while continuing to minister to the congregation of students and faculty who attended the campus church. The job paid $6,000 more than she was getting at Lucas. The only problem was, she didn’t want to leave. She could hardly bear the thought of abandoning the close-knit group of parishioners after only two years. The church was just starting to prosper, and Jackie suspected that she needed the church as much or more than it needed her. She quickly, and peremptorily, turned down the job offer. Candy and a few other close friends learned of it only after it was a moot point.

  Candy was one of the main reasons Jackie found it tough to leave Lucas. Even before Candy’s recent obsession—her desire to have an extramarital affair come hell or high water—Jackie had always found her to be one of those few women in whom she could confide absolutely. Candy had been a strong arm to lean on during the difficult days just after Jackie’s divorce, and in recent months the roles had been reversed, as Candy confided her dissatisfaction with Pat, and her determination to do something more with her life than simply organize PTA meetings, operate carpools, and teach Sunday School classes. Jackie sympathized with the feeling—the emptiness that comes over a woman when she realizes the man she loves is not enough—even though she didn’t entirely agree with Candy’s solution. Jackie had always tried not to judge others, no matter what, and this situation was no different. She did caution Candy to think about the consequences, especially the effect an affair might have on Pat.

  “Pat has already passed up the best I have to offer,” said Candy, a little defensively.

  Jackie decided to leave her alone.

  In November, one of Jackie’s fellow ministers called to discuss the Wesley Foundation job again. He was very frank.

  “You’re making a mistake not to take this job,” he said. “This is a big opportunity for you and a step up the ladder, and the bishop doesn’t make offers like this every day. This is your next calling. I don’t think you can afford to ignore it.”

  Jackie’s rational self had been telling her the same thing, even though emotionally she wanted to remain in the warm environment of Lucas. For one thing, she thought a new minister at Lucas would be able to carry out a major building program, something that the church needed but that she felt helpless to handle herself. She thought about what her friend had said and one day told Candy that she thought she was going to accept the job after all. The two women cried together over her change of heart.

  “But it’s probably for the best,” said Candy. “If you stayed, we’d all just keep playing and not get anything done. The church does need a new sanctuary.”

  It was December before all the arrangements were made and Jackie left for Wichita Falls. Before she did, Candy impishly mentioned one day that “the affair” had begun. She wouldn’t say who the man was, but she seemed ecstatic that it was finally happening. Candy was incredibly detailed about everything; there were secret lunches and little gifts and a few accounts of matters so intimate that even Jackie was a little embarrassed.

  “The best thing about it is that both of us have agreed not to get romantically involved,” said C
andy.

  Jackie tried to temper Candy’s enthusiasm by reminding her once more of the possible price if Pat were to find out, but Candy seemed to think there was absolutely no possibility of that happening.

  On the day Jackie left Lucas, Candy came to the parsonage with a painting of a butterfly. She had done it herself. On the back she had written:

  At last your spirit is free to soar.

  I love you Jackie,

  and you know the best is yet to come.

  Candy

  One thing Allan Gore always believed in was that marriages are forever. That’s why, when his sexual relations with Betty started to become routine and unimaginative, he cast about for explanations. He enjoyed sex, and he knew that Betty did, too, and there was nothing wrong with them when they were happy and untroubled and together. But lately there was not much enthusiasm in the bedroom. Allan was working hard, even though he didn’t travel any longer because of Betty’s fear of being alone. Betty frequently came home full of tension from her day at school, and she would sometimes spend most of the evening grading papers for the next day’s classes. When you don’t spend a lot of time together in the evening, Allan thought, there’s usually not much interest in spending a lot of time in bed, either. Allan was afraid they were in danger of falling victim to complete boredom.

  One solution Allan considered briefly was a program called Marriage Encounter. Shortly after the five dissatisfied couples transferred their church membership from Briarwood to Lucas, JoAnn and Richard Garlington had gone to a Dallas motel one weekend for a special session in which they talked about their marriage and tried to strengthen their commitment. Allan didn’t understand exactly what went on, but he knew that the Garlingtons came back beaming and almost absurdly joyous. They said they were “hooked” on Marriage Encounter and immediately set about trying to get other couples to join. Some of the older church members were put off by the proselytizing. Even though the Garlingtons insisted that Marriage Encounter was only for good marriages, not troubled ones, many people considered it a little presumptuous to be told they needed to go somewhere and be taught how to “communicate” with their spouses. If it had been anyone else but Richard and JoAnn, Allan would have mistrusted it himself, especially since Richard wouldn’t tell him exactly what happened during the Marriage Encounter weekend. “You won’t understand it unless you go experience it for yourself,” Richard said. Allan had to admit that the Garlingtons seemed to be happier in the months since they were “encountered,” as they put it. Diane and Stu Maples had taken up the invitation of the Garlingtons and gone on the weekend, too, and now they were big promoters of the program as well. One thing the Gores did need was something positive and revitalizing in their marriage. So one evening Allan tentatively suggested to Betty that they give Marriage Encounter a try.