The Body and the Blood

by Michael Lister

  Sure, I could use what he had done to Sarah to justify my actions, his admission of guilt, his implied threat against my wife, but the truth was those were all excuses—and had nothing to do with why I had done what I had.

  I had hurt the man who had hurt Sarah, who had threatened to hurt Susan, yet I felt worse than I did before he came into my office. And it wasn’t Martinez I was worried about. He deserved far worse, and Daniels would make sure he got it. It was me, the state I was in, the way in which I was regressing.

  I realized that he would not hit me back. He was demonstrating his superiority over me, both morally and physically, by his enormous control, and it was amazing the power it seemed to give him.

  I drew back my fist, and he flinched, the smile contorting, his mouth twisting it into a gaping wound.

  I didn’t hit him. Instead, I leaned in close to his bloody face. “Know this. I wish you ill.”

  He didn’t say anything, just squirmed uncomfortably.

  “You’ll never leave this institution. Not in this lifetime. You’ll never hurt another woman again. Not as long as you live. Not ever.”

  He tried his best but was unable to smile at that.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “I can’t do it,” Max Williams said. He was an earnest, young black man with kind eyes.

  “What?”

  “Be a Christian,” he said. “Not in this place.”

  Obviously, neither can I, I thought as images of Juan’s blood-smeared smile flashed in my mind. It was later in the day, and I still felt enormous guilt for what I had done to Martinez, and anger and frustration over how he had responded.

  “But you could somewhere else?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed in thought, then he nodded slowly. “I think so.”

  Max Williams, as far as I could tell, was a good kid whose only crime was having brothers and cousins who were not. He had been with them when they were arrested, and taking the fall with them hadn’t given him the cynical world view you’d expect. Using the time he was doing wisely, he was the best Bible student I had—probably the best inmate who attended chapel. He was devout without being judgmental, spiritual without being overly religious.

  “Tell me why that is,” I said.

  “I’m not talkin’ about the way most of these cons—or even most people outside—practice it. I’m talkin’ about the real deal.”

  “Which is?”

  “What you’re always tellin’ us. First and foremost compassion. Fighting injustice. Loving God and loving our neighbors. But how can I when my neighbor’s a predator who doesn’t understand love?”

  As I listened to him, I realized how little I lived out my faith—anywhere, but especially here. He was right. It was far more difficult in this environment. It wasn’t just that I was a part-time chaplain and part-time investigator. It was that I was, at best, only true to my faith part of the time. I was not fit to be this man’s chaplain, and if I had more integrity, I’d resign.

  For quite a while now, my religion was one of compassion and justice—the attempt to feel what other people are feeling, helping them through it, and watching out for the weak and marginalized, attempting to protect the powerless from the powerful. But lately I had been losing sight of my message and my mission, falling into old patterns and thought processes I had believed were no longer part of who I was.

  “How can I turn the other cheek when it’s gonna get me killed?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  “How can I fight against injustice when I’ll suffer the retaliation of an untouchable officer with all the power?”

  I nodded my understanding, but still didn’t say anything.

  “How do you do it?” he asked.

  I was speechless. I thought about how I had neglected my chaplaincy duties, how I had blood on my hands from the violence that deep down I enjoyed.

  “I don’t,” I said.

  He looked confused and distressed. “What? Sure you do.”

  “No I don’t. Not even half the time. And I don’t have it half as hard as you.”

  He was silent a long time.

  I was sure what I had done to Juan Martinez had already made the rounds on the compound. Pain and incomprehension filled Max as he glanced back in the direction of the dorms. Now, the same distress joined his look of dawning comprehension.

  “So it’s true?” he asked. “Was I right? It can’t be done in here?”

  “It can be done. I just don’t do it.”

  “But you tell us to . . . You—how can you tell us to do things you don’t?”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  He was silent again, a perplexed look on his face, his eyes misting. “We need somebody to show us how to do it, not just tell us.”

  “I know,” I said, mist in my own eyes.

  “Who do we look to?”

  “Only one obvious answer.”

  “But he wasn’t in prison,” he said.

  “Sure he was. To humanity, to poverty, to tyranny. And he was imprisoned—arrested, tried, sentenced, and executed. It just all happened very quickly.”

  He thought about it for a minute. “So you’re saying a Roman soldier and a correctional officer aren’t that much different? So it can be done?”

  I nodded. “When we’re willing.”

  “Willing?”

  “To risk it all. Everything. Being willing to suffer and or die.”

  He looked puzzled.

  “There’re a lot of wolves in here. If you live like a lamb . . .”

  “You get eaten,” he said.

  I shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. But you’ve got to be willing to . . .”

  “I’m not willing to do that yet.”

  “I guess neither of us are,” I said. “Maybe we will be one day—if we continue to grow . . . find the courage to live out our convictions.”

  He nodded, then fell silent, and when he walked out a few minutes later without saying another word, I realized I alone was responsible for the look of disillusionment on his face.

  * * * * *

  Whether it was a spiritual impression or something surfacing from my subconscious I wasn’t sure, but I had a thought that I couldn’t help but believe was one of the keys to solving the case. It happened as I was praying in the sanctuary, and it was a grace—a surprising, unexpected, undeserved blessing—considering the state I was in and what I had just done. Of course, that’s what grace is—an unconditional gift.

  Later in the afternoon I was supposed to teach a Bible class on the parables of Jesus, but as I walked around the sanctuary, my mind kept coming back to a parable told to Jesus’ great, great, great grandfather. It concerned the love triangle between Israel’s greatest king, David, his loyal servant, Uriah, and the woman they both loved, Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.

  As I thought about the familiar story, pulse quickening, mind racing, I felt that some aspect of it held the solution to Justin Menge’s murder. Like most things spiritual, I didn’t know how or why I thought it. It was vague and ambiguous, but I knew that in time, like a developing photograph, it would come into focus.

  Turning it over and over in my mind I went through the story line by line.

  In the spring, at the time when kings go to war, David stayed behind, sending his men, including Uriah, under the leadership of Joab to fight the Ammonites.

  One night, while walking on his roof, David saw Bathsheba bathing, and, even though he was told she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, he sent for her. She came to him, and they slept together, which was nothing short of rape on his part since she couldn’t refuse the king even if she wanted to—though nothing in the story suggests she did.

  When David discovers that she’s pregnant with his child, he sends to the front lines for Uriah, hoping that he’ll believe he got his wife pregnant while on leave. But Uriah, loyal to the king and faithful to his fellow soldiers, refuses to even go into his house while the other men are in danger on the battlefield.

&nbs
p; Finally, David dispatches Uriah back to the battle with a letter instructing Joab to put him on the front line where the fighting is fiercest, which he does. Uriah dies, David marries Bathsheba, and after losing their first child, they go on to have Solomon, who not only becomes the wisest of all men, but a direct antecedent of Jesus of Nazareth.

  What was it about this story that revealed Justin’s killer or killers? What aspect of it was relevant? If Justin Menge was the Uriah character, then who was David? And who was Bathsheba?

  At the moment, I couldn’t see what the story had to do with the case, but I knew eventually I would. I just needed to meditate on it and remain open, which I committed to do.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “I love you,” I said to Anna.

  We were seated on the top of a picnic table at the state park during our lunch hour. All around us, oak and magnolia leaves and pine needles drifted toward the ground in the cool October breeze.

  We were the only two people in the park.

  She had packed a lunch for us, but neither of us had eaten. There were things we needed to say to one another, and it was obvious that both of us could think of little else.

  “But?” she said.

  “But?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That sounded like an I-love-you-but.”

  “It wasn’t. It was just an I love you, Anna.”

  She smiled.

  “For as long as I can remember you’ve been the woman in my life,” I said. “The woman by whom all other women are judged. The woman whose company I most enjoy. The woman I most want.”

  “Now comes the ‘but,’” she said.

  My half-frown and raised eyebrows expression told her she wasn’t wrong.

  “You know, you could just stop right there, and this would be a perfect day.”

  I nodded.

  “But you can’t, which is why I love you. Well, one of the many reasons. But I love your integrity most of all. Well, maybe not most of all, but it’s up there.”

  I smiled at her.

  “I admit it. I’m stalling.” She took a deep breath and let it out, her elegant shoulders rising and falling. “Actually, I’ve got a couple of things to tell you first. I may not be able to after I hear what comes after your ‘but.’”

  I nodded.

  “First,” she said. “DeLisa Lopez is rumored to be having a relationship with Carlos Matos.”

  I looked off at the small pine needle-covered hill in the distance and thought about it.

  “She came up here because she had a bad breakup with a boyfriend who started stalking her. He’s an ex-offender, and though they were never caught, everyone I talked to believes their relationship started when he was still inside. I bet she was down there that night seeing Matos and is trying to keep it a secret.”

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  “The other significant thing I uncovered was that Potter has a history of violence against gays.”

  That came as no surprise.

  “One of his victim’s said he kissed him before he beat him up.”

  I shook my head.

  “Several of the assaults were at gay bars. Potter claimed he went in mistakenly and went crazy when he was hit on.”

  “Funny how he keeps making that same mistake over and over again, isn’t it?”

  “What if he was attracted to Menge? And either because he doesn’t want to be, or he’s jealous, or because Justin turned him down, he kills him.”

  “Entirely possible,” I said.

  “And maybe Chris ran because he knew he was next.”

  I nodded. “That’s as likely as any other scenario we have,” I said. “Good work. You gather great info, make good deductions—you should be a detective.”

  “I just do it to spend time with you.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment, and we sat there in silence, the weight of her admission hanging in the small space between us. If I told her I had returned to Pottersville or even considered a job at the prison for the same reason, it would only make what I had to do that much more difficult.

  After a while, I said, “Anything else on Sobel?”

  She shook her head. “Think we’ll ever see him again?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Who killed Menge.”

  She thought about it and nodded.

  “Okay, I’m ready. Back to the ‘but.’ Let’s have it. But?”

  “But,” I said and paused for a moment.

  You can do this, I told myself. Think of your son, of what he deserves, of what his mother deserves, of what you owe her.

  Of course, I didn’t know if Susan would have a boy or a girl, but since my dream, all I could picture was the boy from the beach.

  “I find myself married again,” I continued. “And if I’m going to stay married, I’ve got to give my marriage my very best effort.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  “Thing is . . . my heart still belongs to you. Well, Jesus and you, but Susan can live with being second to Jesus. She just can’t tolerate being third to you.”

  She smiled, but the sadness that had rested on her face remained.

  It broke my heart, and I wondered if perhaps the message I was supposed to receive from the David, Uriah, and Bathsheba story was for my personal life and not the case.

  In the silence, the soft sound of the gentle wind easing through the yellowing and brittle grass echoed through my head.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just lost here. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

  “Yes, you do,” she said. “You’re right. It hurts like hell, but it’s right. I understand what you’re saying.”

  “The thing is,” I said, “I don’t know how to do it. It’s not just that you’re in my heart, but that my heart is yours. How can I feel this way? I love Susan. I really do. And I think we stand a chance at . . . at a good marriage.”

  “And I’m in the way.”

  “No,” I said. “Not in the way. It’s nothing you’re doing. It’s me. It’s my . . .”

  She shook her head. “It’s us. We share something that transcends marriage and time and reason.”

  “Merrill said the same thing.”

  “He’s right. I believe that. I believe that somehow, someday we’ll be together. I feel like it’s one of those things that’s meant to be, that will be. That’s why I can stand by and let you become the husband of another woman. Because in the depth of my heart I know that you’ll only be hers in this life, but in another you’ll be mine.”

  In every, I thought. “But what if this is the only life we get?”

  “You’re the theologian. Something you need to tell me? Seriously, this is just the beginning, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged. “I think so, but there’s no way to know.”

  “Are we willing to gamble that we’ll have another shot at being together?”

  I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure I could.

  “What were you going to say to me today?”

  She knew me all too well—knew that I had yet to say what I had come to say.

  In one of the two small ponds down the gentle slope before us, an egret with a bright bill moved in such a way that he appeared to be tiptoeing through the reeds at the edge.

  “What?”

  Should I tell her about Susan’s pregnancy? Would it lessen her pain? Part of the reason I’m doing this is so my child won’t suffer through a divorce the way I had.

  The breeze picked up and swept yellow and rust-colored leaves across the surface of the water before us and gently waved the Spanish moss in the cypress trees above us.

  “You brought me out here to tell me something today,” she said. “Just tell me what you were going to.”

  “Just that if I’m going to do this, to really be with Susan, to be a family, I’ve got to, well, not be around you for a while. It hurts too much. It was bad enough when I thought only you were married. T
hat was torture. This is worse.”

  “Yeah,” she said, tears brimming now. “It is. I had no idea what I had been putting you through.”

  I gave her a helpless expression but didn’t say anything.

  She’ll understand if you just tell her that you and Susan are going to have a baby. It won’t hurt her as badly. Just tell her. But it makes everything seem so final.

  “Go ahead and finish what you were going to say,” she said, her voice breaking, then gaining strength and turning hard. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Just that Susan’s pregnant,” I said, “and that if I don’t come around you as much, it isn’t because I don’t want to.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Rows and rows of pine trees stood where once had grown tobacco and before that cotton. They abruptly stopped and opened up into a five-hundred acre farm enclosed by a freshly painted white wooden fence. At the center of the fence that ran along the highway, a gated entrance of cypress and wrought iron with a sign above it reading THE H. H. CORRAL guarded a blacktop driveway lined on each side with royal palms.

  When I turned into the drive, the gate opened. I was expected.

  It was late Tuesday afternoon. Merrill had been missing for two days, and on one, not even Dad and his deputies had been able to turn up anything.

  I had come to Pine County to look for myself.

  Beyond the palms, herds of Black Angus and Holsteins searched the cold ground for something to eat though there were several bails of hay and feed troughs filled with grain in a portable corral at the center of each field.

  At the end of the private drive, in a large pecan grove, beyond a red brick driveway and parking area, sat an enormous Mediterranean home with mahogany balustrades, cypress beams, arches with keystone surrounds, and a variegated barrel tile roof. It was the nicest house I had seen in the panhandle—maybe in the southeast. It was the home of Howard Hawkins and judging by it, the sheriff in Pine County did a whole lot better than the sheriff of Potter County.

  As I got out of my truck and walked toward the door, pecan shells crunching beneath my feet, a middle-aged man with silver hair and red cheeks pulled up in a golf cart. He was a big man, over six feet and about fifty pounds overweight, but he hid it well with good posture and nice clothes.