The Shadowed Mind

by Julie Cave

  First, this had to come from the killer. They had not mentioned the cards or the messages to the media. Nobody outside the circle of investigators, crime scene technicians, and the medical examiner knew. Therefore it was unlikely to be an empty threat or copycat. Dinah immediately checked that all her windows and doors were locked.

  Second, she thought about how the killer knew she was an alcoholic. Anyone in law enforcement circles knew about it, of course. And although it wasn't exactly public knowledge, it was possible to arrive at that conclusion based on a simple Google search.

  The most worrying thing, she realized, was that the killer had a unique ability to build trust with his victims in a short space of time. Chances were he wouldn't just turn up at her door and force his way in. His method was much too refined. He would try to win her trust before he tried to kill her.

  Dinah sat down and tried to relax. Her hands shook and stomach flipped constantly. She felt a stress headache flaring behind her eyes.

  If only I could have a drink to relax.

  The thought came out of nowhere and shocked her. Dinah licked her lips nervously. She tried to think of the case again, knowing it was better to keep her mind busy. It didn't work.

  She decided to pray, to ask God to take the craving from her. But her thoughts were jittery and rumbled, and she couldn't concentrate. She opened her Bible and tried to read. When she read the same sentence four times and realized she still had no idea what it said, she slammed the book closed.

  There's a whole bottle of vodka in the kitchen.

  Courtesy of Senator David Winters, Dinah thought. He knew her weakness well. She should pour it down the sink. She paced angrily around the room. The craving was like a force field around her, blocking her ability to overcome it. Again, she thought that the vodka ought to be poured down the sink.

  Yeah, you probably should. But why don't you have just one drink first? Just to calm your nerves. Then you can pour out the rest.

  Dinah chewed her fingernails ferociously. When she couldn't chew anymore, she resumed pacing the room. The terrible, unsatisfied restlessness charged through her like an electrical current.

  Then she found herself in the kitchen, staring at the bottle of vodka. She intended to pour it down the sink. That was the best thing to do.

  Just a tiny drink first.

  Her traitorous hand took a glass from the nearby cupboard. She watched, as if from a distance, as she opened the vodka bottle and poured herself a glass.

  It's only a small glass.

  Before she could think about it any further, she took a huge gulp of the alcohol. It burned all the way down and water flooded her eyes. But the fiery sensation was like an old friend coming home. She took another mouthful, then another.

  Then the glass was finished. It was time to pour out the rest of the vodka. It was a bad idea to have such temptation lying around the house.

  The alcohol made her stomach warm. The sick feeling she'd had since she received the card had gone away. Her thoughts seemed clearer and less frantic.

  See, it's not so bad. Alcohol has its good points too!

  Perhaps it would help her to think about the case more deeply if she had just another glass. Maybe it would unlock that vital missing clue that would point them to a killer.

  Another glass was poured. She drank it with less of the searing doubt in her mind. This time, she felt a familiar buzz in her head. It made her feel invincible and optimistic.

  You see? Happiness in a bottle.

  The self-destruct button had been pressed. Dinah didn't know why she'd been so strong up to this point and was now giving in. But the seductive, cool tones of the alcohol as it slid down her throat removed her resistance. She knew she should put the glass down and get rid of the vodka altogether.

  You can't because you're weak. You need alcohol to be strong.

  She had been trying to be strong without needing vodka or wine to prop her up. But it was so hard. Part of her couldn't help but agree with the words printed on the card. She was worthless, useless, and weak — giving into temptation at the first sign of trouble. What good was she for society anyway?

  You are no good. The sooner you realize this, the better. You might as well just give in to it.

  Later that evening, Dinah passed out on the couch. The vodka bottle was more than half empty.

  ****

  When Dinah awoke early the next morning, it was with a rush. One moment she was asleep, the next completely awake. A second later, the reality of what she'd done the previous evening hit her with grim force. A second after that, the hangover kicked in.

  Dinah shakily sat up and the room tilted crazily. A jackhammer pounded relentlessly in her skull, throbbing at her temples. She sat still, unable to contemplate getting up. She wanted water and Tylenol, but she knew she had to wait out the vomiting first.

  When she stood, she felt the bile rise in her throat. She made it to the bathroom, where the waves of nausea kept rolling, even when her stomach was completely empty.

  She realized what a picture she must have made — kneeling, retching in the bathroom, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, her face sallow.

  Inside, she screamed at herself for giving in to temptation.

  But you skipped your last session with your counselor, didn't you?

  Dinah sighed. She knew how important going to her counseling sessions was, but she'd justified it, telling herself she was fine. She should have known better. She was nowhere near fine.

  And you haven't been to church for a while either, have you? And by the way, you haven't picked up the Bible or prayed regularly for a little while now, either.

  Isn't it ironic, thought Dinah with exasperation, that the very voice encouraging her to drink last night was now condemning her for doing so?

  When she felt as if she could leave the bathroom for more than a minute, she found her cell phone and called Sandra Coleman with shaking hands.

  "Hello?" The remnants of Sandra's Australian accent were still clear.

  "Hi, it's Dinah."

  "Hi, Dinah. It's been a while since we talked! How are you?" Sandra asked warmly.

  "I …I'm not good," stammered Dinah, feeling tears sting her eyes.

  "What's wrong?" Sandra asked, sounding alarmed.

  Dinah was used to bottling up her feelings, but she took a deep breath and said, "I drank last night. I drank vodka until I passed out."

  Dinah heard Sandra give a little gasp. "Oh, Dinah! Are you okay?"

  "Physically, I'm fine. Actually, I'm not. I have a terrible hangover. But I deserve it. What's worse is how I feel about it." Dinah paused, trying to think of the words she needed. "I'm disappointed, ashamed, and disgusted with myself."

  "I understand," said Sandra. "You know, we all sin. Sometimes we do the same thing over and over. You're not alone in this."

  "Yeah," said Dinah bitterly. "But usually the mistakes people make don't revolve around undoing months worth of sobriety and wasting rehab. Not to mention that I'm supposed to be a Christian. What sort of Christian passes out on the living room floor?"

  "You're being very hard on yourself," chided Sandra gently. "So you made a mistake and gave in to temptation. Do you think God hasn't seen that before?"

  "Mine is on such a grand scale!" cried Dinah. "It's not like I had an angry thought or got impatient in rush hour!"

  "It's not," agreed Sandra, "And the consequences of your action are testament to that. You need to think about how God sees you. You are a precious child of His, and you've sinned. There are no unforgiveable sins, none at all. It doesn't mean God will wash His hands of you. Instead, He's waiting to pick you back up."

  "There's still no excuse," said Dinah, hardly daring to believe the other woman's words.

  "No, there isn't. That's why you need to repent," said Sandra. "God doesn't want to hear lame excuses. What He wants is for your repentance to be real. He sees your heart, your regret, and your shame. Now it's time to put that repentance into act
ion. It's not easy, Dinah. For you, it's especially hard. Many of us sin all day long without having to contend with an addiction. But God is willing to give you His strength if you call on Him. He can give you the power to resist temptation. You need to trust Him on that. In fact, you have a trust problem. You need to trust God even through the pain and anguish."

  "Okay," said Dinah, feeling a little relieved. "Okay. I can do that."

  "Listen, all of us are imperfect humans, susceptible to sin," Sandra said. "Even the most devout, disciplined Christian will sin. It's our fragile state of humanity. This is what Paul wrote of sin in Romans 7:15: 'I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead I do the very thing I hate.' "

  "That's how I feel!" said Dinah. "I don't want to do it, yet I find myself doing it!"

  "Guilt has its place," said Sandra. "It lets you know when you've done wrong. But there is no point in holding onto it. If you truly repent of your sin, you know that Jesus has already paid the price for you on the Cross. You're forgiven, and then it's time to move on. Ask God for strength and wisdom, and move on with Him in control. Do you understand?"

  "I think I'm starting to understand," said Dinah. "I must seem very dense to you. This is so new to me."

  "I don't think you're dense at all," said Sandra. "You're just like any of us. I think you also need to understand the circumstances in which you've sinned. How did you come to have alcohol in your home, Dinah?"

  Dinah cleared her throat. "It was sent to me …as a gift."

  "You didn't think to get rid of it immediately?" inquired Sandra gently.

  "I did, actually." Dinah lapsed into silence for a few moments, trying to understand her own behavior. "I don't really know why I didn't get rid of it."

  "Okay," said Sandra. "It's important that you learn from this. It's dangerous to put yourself in a position where it's unlikely you can resist temptation. This is where you need to be wise with the choices you make. Now you know that you just can't have alcohol in your home. Do you understand?"

  "I do," said Dinah, wondering why something so easy to understand hadn't occurred to her previously.

  "Listen, are you attending church?"

  Dinah paused, feeling embarrassed. "Uh …I haven't been for a while."

  "Okay," said Sandra. "Look, you really should be going to church, Dinah. Jesus describes Himself as the head of the Church, and we, as believers, make up the body. The Church is designed by God to provide us with the things we need to grow as Christians. Hebrews 10 tells us to meet regularly so that we can encourage, support, and challenge each other toward spiritual growth. We are actually commanded by Jesus to regularly have fellowship with other Christians. In 1 John we are instructed to love fellow believers, and in James to pray for each other. In 1 Peter we are told that fellow believers can keep us accountable to God's Word so that we don't fall into temptation. We also go there to hear the Word of God preached so that we might learn and grow in our faith."

  Sandra went on, "Sometimes God works through the pastor, and the sermon preached is exactly what we need to resist temptation or to get us through a difficult week." After a pause she added, "You never know, if you'd been going to church, you might have had the support necessary to prevent a relapse. You need people around you to encourage and sustain you."

  "Okay, I know I need to go to church," admitted Dinah.

  "Oh, here's Andy, he wants to speak with you," said Sandra. "Will you be okay? Do you want me to call you in a couple of days?"

  Dinah was bad at asking for help, but she knew she needed it. A little shame-facedly, she said, "Yes, please. Thank you, Sandra."

  ****

  "Hey," said Andy cheerfully. "How's this eugenics case you've been working on going?"

  "It's frustrating," admitted Dinah, mentally switching gears. "We have a very smart killer leaving us next to no clues; though I am getting a first-class education in eugenics and euthanasia."

  "It's fascinating, isn't it?" Andy said, with a wry chuckle. "Essentially, it is the practice of naturalistic science without compassion, which is a very dangerous combination."

  "Eugenics surely can't gain support here again, can it?" Dinah asked. "Especially after what we saw in the Holocaust?"

  "They're already trying to," said Andy grimly. "It'll take on a different form. For example, there is a great push to legalize euthanasia. That immediately puts the rights of the already vulnerable on shaky ground. You know, for a society that on one hand continually talks about how we must respect each other's rights, we, on the other hand, are bent on removing the rights of all sorts of people, including unborn babies, the terminally sick, the disabled, and the elderly. Why is it the strong insist on protecting only their own rights? When will we start to be concerned for those who don't have a voice?"

  Dinah felt desperately sad at the man's words, because she knew that he was right.

  "How did this happen?" she asked. "I've been wondering about Germany, too. How could a nation that was once Christian turn into a country capable of the Holocaust? I mean, isn't this the country that gave us Martin Luther?"

  "When humans start to replace godly views with ones of their own, cultures start to change radically," said Andy. "I'm not placing all of the blame at Charles Darwin's feet for what happened in Germany, because others certainly had a hand in it, and ultimately, the reason for this tragedy is because humans are full of sin. But Darwin gave scientists, philosophers, and scholars a way to expunge God from their thinking. By the time Hitler came into power, he was openly anti-Christian. It took a hundred years for the culture to change from a predominantly Christian influence to a more naturalistic, evolutionary way of thinking."

  There was a rustling noise as Andy tried to find something. "Here it is," he said, after a few seconds. "A speaker who works for the Genesis Legacy just did a paper on this very topic, and he references Mein Kampf, written by Hitler, extensively. So here is what Hitler had to say about religion: that it is an organized lie that must be smashed. He goes on to say that he has six divisions of SS men — that's a minimum of sixty thousand men — absolutely indifferent to matters of religion, and that it doesn't prevent them from going to their deaths with serenity in their souls."

  "Wow," Dinah said.

  "Hitler particularly disapproved of Christian missionaries going to Africa, because he believed that black Africans were monstrosities halfway between man and ape." Andy paused. "His words, not mine."

  "That's just awful," Dinah said, shaking her head.

  "You've heard of Ernst Haeckel, the prominent Darwinist? He wrote in his book Natural History of Creation that the Church, with its love for morality and charity, was a perversion of the natural order. One of the reasons for this conclusion is because Haeckel writes that Christianity makes no distinction of race or color and seeks to break down racial barriers. He goes on to call Christianity anti-evolutionary. Can you believe it? This eminent scholar was saying that caring for fellow humans was a perversion, and that Christianity was wrong for seeing all races as equal and precious in God's eyes."

  "Gotta look after number one," Dinah said dryly.

  "Both Haeckel and Hitler's right-hand man, Martin Bormann, wrote that Christianity and evolution were incompatible, because humankind's social and political existence is governed by the laws of evolution, natural selection, and biology; organized religion stands in the way of social and scientific progress and is built upon the ignorance of men. Bormann further states that Christianity is threatened by scientific knowledge and that it takes great pains to suppress or falsify scientific research."

  Dinah frowned. "Where have I heard that before?"

  "You're absolutely correct," Andy said. "That is precisely what Christians are accused of doing today. Standing in the way of social progress — namely resisting euthanasia and abortion, and preventing scientific progress — namely teaching that evolution and Darwinism is as much a religion as Christianity is. Yet our society has again
taken the view that Darwinism is religion-neutral, despite the fact that Christian teaching and prayer has been removed from schools and public places. Darwinism is not religion-neutral. It is quite plainly a religion based on man as the supreme authority, seeking to take the place of God as the supreme authority."

  "So what we're doing in 21st-century America is copying the mistakes that we made earlier," Dinah said. "Have I understood correctly?"

  "That's precisely right," Andy said. "The conscience of this nation has moved from a Christian one to a naturalistic, Darwinist one. In Nazi Germany it opened the door to eugenics, racial cleansing, and the Holocaust. We don't know yet what it will do to our great nation, but here is a thought: We can gauge the principles of a nation on what its leadership says. Our leadership just recently made the comment that we are no longer a Christian nation, but a nation of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and non-believers."

  "You know," Dinah said, after thinking for a few moments. "I don't think many people even realize that this is happening."

  "No, they don't," agreed Andy. "Just as many Germans didn't realize what was happening in the concentration camps. But really, it's no excuse. In fact, here is a quote that sums it up beautifully. Dietrich Bonheoffer was a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany, who was eventually hanged for plotting to overthrow Hitler in 1945. Are you ready?"

  "Go ahead," said Dinah.

  " 'First, they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.' "

  ****

  Detective Samson Cage called later that afternoon. He sounded excited, which for him meant that he spoke a little more quickly than he usually did. Dinah was thankful her hangover had quieted down to a decent headache and a shaky stomach.