by Jonas Saul
“I’m sorry about Father George,” Hirst said. “When you’re done here, we need to go through all the people who would have access to your vehicles and buildings.” Hirst coughed into his hand, wiped his mouth and continued. “The case has shifted. We are now looking for a local man who we suspect works for the church.”
Father Adams stepped deeper into the room. He moved toward the bed and looked down at Sarah’s sleeping form.
“Will she be okay?” he asked.
Hirst nodded. Parkman moved around Adams and stood by the head of the bed, almost like he was protecting her.
“She’ll pull through,” Parkman said.
“How badly was she hurt?” Adams asked.
“One cracked rib, a lot of bruising, and a few cuts on her face, but otherwise she’s fine. She was shot in her broken foot, but the Robo boot deflected the bullet. No harm at all.”
“Tough lady.” Father Adams turned his attention toward the detective again. “Tell me, how is it you suspect a member of the church? Couldn’t it be someone who stole our vehicle and broke into that building?”
Detective Hirst stepped closer to Adams, almost confrontational. “Father George was lured to that building. He walked into that sealed room where the gas killed him. At no time was he secured in any way. No markings on his wrists. He wouldn’t walk into that building, and that room, under his own steam unless he knew the man that accompanied him. Whoever is doing this works for the Catholic Church or is a part of it in some capacity.”
Father Adams looked at Sarah. “Sounds reasonable.” He clasped his hands in front of him. “There are a lot of people who work with the church and for the church. Deciding which person you’re looking for could become a challenge.”
Both men held a defiant posture, as if Father Adams was the threat. He attributed their gruffness to having to deal with what happened to Sarah.
“We aren’t too worried about locating this man,” Parkman said.
“How’s that?” Adams asked.
“Sarah here. She’s alive. The perp tried to use a snake to kill her. When the firemen pulled her out of the vehicle and the paramedics got to her, we were all amazed that she was in one piece. The snake died from the fall when its head smacked the dash and was severed by a piece of glass. It was wrapped around Sarah, which provided another layer of cushioning for her. What tried to kill her only saved her and when she wakes, she will tell us who the man was. She has seen his face, we’re sure.”
“Praise the Lord,” Father Adams said. “Gentlemen, I look forward to the end of this horrific siege.” He turned to Detective Hirst. “Please, come by any time and I will open my doors to the investigation at the Church level. You can have access to all our staff.”
“I appreciate that, Father.”
“Until then, gentlemen, I wish her a speedy recovery and I bid you both farewell.”
Father Adams pivoted and started for the door.
“Father?”
He stopped, his hand on the door knob.
“Yes, Detective?”
“You were the last one to meet with Father George before he left the church yesterday, weren’t you?”
Adams turned back around to face Hirst. “As a matter of fact, I was. How would you come by this information?”
“When asking about Father George at the church, people said they saw you two talking. Can you tell me what you discussed and where he might have been heading afterward?”
“Our discussion was of a private matter, a church matter, but I can assure you it had nothing to do with his death or this issue.”
“Were you aware of Father George’s history before he came to Los Angeles? What he was suspected of?”
“Am I being interrogated?” Father Adams asked.
Detective Hirst exchanged a glance with Parkman. Then he turned back to Adams.
“Can we meet in your office in a couple of hours? Say around two in the afternoon?”
“Absolutely. I’ll be there all day.”
“Fair enough. And Father, what happened to your ear?”
“Oh, this.” Father Adams touched the bandage at the base of his lobe. “I took a shortcut through the trees behind my church where I slipped and fell. A branch caught my ear and sliced part of the bottom off. Not a big thing, actually.” He opened the door. “Gentlemen.”
He pulled the door closed behind him, nodded at the cop in the chair, and headed out of the hospital, his step a little quicker.
Chapter 23
Sarah sat up in her hospital bed and pulled the food tray closer. Awake for an hour, Parkman was filling her in on everything the authorities were doing to locate the man who killed Vicky.
“I still don’t know how my injuries are so minimal after falling from the fifth floor in that car,” Sarah said. “Grateful, but mystified.”
Hospital food was getting better. A quinoa salad with a green juice to wash it all down.
“There was no weight in the back of the car,” Parkman offered. “Once the engine planted itself in the cement and the airbags did their job, it’s as if you had a head-on collision. Maybe Vivian made your body go limp in some way to protect you.”
Sarah shook her head between bites. “Amazing.” She wiped her mouth, then pushed the half-eaten salad away.
“What’s wrong?” Parkman asked.
“Nothing, just thinking about what happened.” She cocked her head sideways. “Something’s coming.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not sure. But I can feel it.”
“That’s interesting.” Parkman leaned forward. “How do you feel it?”
“I was afraid you’d ask that.” She looked at the window. “How high up are we?”
“Second floor.”
“What’s below that window?”
Parkman went to the window and opened it. He stuck his head out, looked around and leaned back in. “We’re facing the back of the hospital. There’s a couple of ambulances parked right below us. What does that matter?”
Her eyes glazed over as the premonition washed through her. Vivian’s presence was getting easier to feel, easier to channel.
“When the time comes, someone is going through that window. I just wanted to know what would catch the fall.”
“Is it Vivian?” Parkman asked as he retook his seat.
Sarah nodded slowly.
“Tell me,” Parkman said as he rubbed his hands together. “As an automatic writer, I’ve never asked you your stance on religion. You’re in Los Angeles to help to stop the murders of Catholic priests and I’m not even sure of your religion, your belief system.”
Sarah slipped her fork under her right buttock, making sure it was hidden.
“On one condition,” she said.
“What’s that?” Parkman asked.
“That you move when I say move. Do not hesitate. And do not try to save me. Deal?”
“What are you talking about?” Parkman started to stand.
Sarah raised a hand for him to sit. “There’s no danger right this minute, but it’s coming. Just move when I say so.”
“Sarah, we have a cop stationed outside the door.”
“Parkman, you’re not listening. Whoever is coming will get past the cop. Everyone knows him. That’s why he went after Vicky. She had seen his face. When he attacked me, he had a hat on. Just trust me. Move when I say so.”
Parkman sat back, crossed his legs and clasped his hands around his knee. “I’m ready when you are. I’ll ask how high when you say jump. Until then, I want to hear your take on religion.”
Sarah leaned back, rested her head on the pillow and sighed deep, closing her eyes.
“I have no issue with religion itself. In fact, I think religion is a good thing. It has helped so many people for centuries. It’s the same for me with the police. They’ve helped so many people for centuries and I love the fact that they’re there. I just hate when policing goes bad, as with religion. I have zero use for a Holy War. Killing someone
because of their beliefs is ridiculous and insane, but that won’t stop anytime soon.” She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Isn’t a belief simply an opinion that you’re not willing to reconsider? One person believes this, the other that. Ultimately they are only opinions, albeit strong ones.”
“But what about your beliefs? Your personal idea of God?”
“I have a unique perspective.”
“How so?”
“Vivian’s essence has been working through me since I was eighteen. That’s almost eight years now. I’ve developed a feeling of how most of it works. So my beliefs aren’t just beliefs anymore, they’re more fact based. I don’t have an opinion on the matter, just an understanding.”
“Wow.” Parkman sat back. “What could you possibly know? And with that knowledge, could you save us all? Start a new religion? Bring light to darkness?”
“Scared you might learn something you didn’t expect? Something that’ll shatter what you believe, your preconceived notion of God and religion? Make you reconsider your opinions on the matter?”
The hospital intercom in the hallway chimed. Parkman jumped at the sudden noise. A doctor was paged to attend an emergency somewhere in the hospital.
“It’s fine, Parkman. I’ll give you ample notice before anything happens.”
He nodded and uncrossed his legs.
“Before we come here to live our lives,” Sarah started, “we write out our own life-book with all the characters, our family and friends, and all the events of our lives all set in place. This extremely detailed book is the story of the life we’re about to live here on Earth. But here’s the neat part. You pick your parents and they pick you. You choose your friends and your kids, if you have any, and everything else you want to experience while down here. Even the heartache. You actually pick everything in such detail, that even this conversation was prewritten by you and me prior to hitting the womb all those years ago.”
“Wow, that’s wild. What’s it all for? Why do we do it?”
“Have you ever lost something that eventually came back? Like a pet that wandered away. For argument’s sake, your cat was lost for a week, then suddenly the cat comes back. How do you feel? Don’t you hug that cat, give them special food and treat them like royalty after missing them for a week and knowing it might never come back? Don’t you appreciate that cat so much more than if it hadn’t wandered away in the first place? Would you be smothering it in kisses, treating it like royalty, had the cat been there all week? That’s what Heaven is.”
“Tell me more.”
“On the other side, we live in Heaven all the time. Because it’s so amazing, we fail to realize how seriously amazing it is. It’s almost like we become ungrateful. Like living with the cat, day in, day out. So we come down here, live our life-book and go home. Our return home is like when the cat came back. We appreciate it so much more. We can’t believe how amazing it is after leaving this tough place.”
“Then why is Earth so hard? Why not make it a little easier?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Some of this you’re going to have to put together on your own, but I’ll tell you what I’ve learned through Vivian.” She adjusted herself. “The harder it is down here, the more you’ll appreciate going home. And since God—the Supreme Being, the Enlightened One, the Prime Mover, even Yahweh, whatever people want to call him—made everything, it’s all a part of him. We’re a part of him. An actual part of the divinity. So one of the things we strive to do is evolve our soul for Him by coming here. We try to better ourselves. Which is why we come down here in the first place. The real death is coming here. We’re born again when we go home.”
Parkman got up and started to pace. “Based on that, how does Satan fit into your beliefs? Where’s the devil in the details?”
“There isn’t one. There’s no Satan. He’s a fable, written by man. There’s no Hell, either. This is a fact, not a belief, nor an opinion. Earth is the closest thing to Hell. What we do to each other is hell enough. I once heard someone say, ‘Religion is for people afraid of going to Hell. Spirituality is for people who have been there.’”
Parkman stopped pacing. “That’s good. I like that. But some would argue that if there’s a God, there has to be a devil.”
“They can argue all they want. There’s no devil.” She used air quotes on the word devil. “God’s counter are humans and the horrific things we do to each other, not Lucifer. The Bible was written by man. I wouldn’t tell too many people this as I could be stoned for blasphemy, but this is what I’ve learned through Vivian. This is one of the reasons Vivian works through me. To ease some of the pain here on Earth.” She took a drink of her green juice. “You remember Russell, my cousin?”
Parkman nodded as he stopped by the window to look out.
“Russell was an automatic writer, too. There are others out there doing good. He saved my life that day on the roof of that hotel in downtown Toronto.”
“What’s baffling me then is why do it in the first place?”
“What’s it all for? The age-old question.” Sarah finished her juice and set the cup down on the tray by her unfinished salad. “ It’s all to experience His knowledge. Imagine the best marine biologist in the world who knew everything there ever was to know about marine biology. The guy knew it like you would know your phone number. He was a walking encyclopedia. But he’d never been to the ocean, never seen plankton, or shrimp, or took in the salty air of the sea. That’s how I understand God. He is all-knowing and experiences his knowledge through us and our experiences. Through all our five senses, all of us, all at once. We are living, breathing versions of his knowledge.”
“Wow, a bit hard to grasp.” Parkman stared out the window. “Doesn’t he ever get disappointed?”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “But never angry. Imagine a God of love giving his children an ultimatum. He would say, ‘I’ll give you no tangible proof of my existence, but you have to believe in me, or you’ll burn in a lake of fire.’” Sarah laughed, then winced at the pain in her ribs. “Hilarious. All man-made fables. How would you feel if your child hurt someone, spent time in jail and at forty years of age knocked on your door? Would you hear his story? Would you at least let him in? So what does God think when his children—us—screw up and when it’s all over, come home, our heads down? Especially when his capacity to love is a million times greater than us humans.”
She looked at her cup, but the juice was gone. “That’s Judgment Day. When you judge yourself at the end. When you die your soul goes through a life review. I know this because Vivian had to go through it. During this life review, a white light asks, ‘What have you done with the life I’ve given you?’ or something like that. As your life flashes before your eyes, what hits you, in the presence of such peace and love, are all the bad things you did and all the times you hurt someone. What you feel is the pain and suffering you caused others. You’ll cry and judge yourself harshly. While this happens, you’re in the presence of an all-forgiving, all-loving, all-caring, entity who does this to help cleanse your soul of your earthly chattels and prepare you for entering your rightful place, your home.”
Parkman took his seat again. “I have so many more questions. Can we continue?”
“Sure, but be ready. Something’s coming soon. Or someone.”
“Define soon.”
“Any minute now.” Sarah tightened her grip on the fork beside her.
“Should I be standing or sitting?”
“Won’t matter.”
He tented his fingers in front of him. “The suspense is killing me.”
“Me too. You think I like this? I can feel it, like déjà vu. He’s coming.”
“There’s something. What’s your definition of déjà vu?”
“When we come here, our blueprint, the book we wrote for our life, is inside our subconscious. We take it everywhere we go like a guide, but we aren’t able to consciously read it. When we’re on our right path, a small drip, a glimpse
of our life-book, falls into our conscious mind and we feel like we’ve been in that spot before, even if we haven’t. You can even tell the future at that moment. Like if someone will knock on the door or the phone will ring. That’s déjà vu. When you’re not on your life path, you don’t experience it. If you stray too far, you end up with migraines, but I don’t know too much about that as most people are bound to follow their path.”
“How does that work regarding free will? Why are there so many religions then? What about reincarnation? Is it possible?” He got out of his seat again. “Sarah, I’ve got a thousand questions.”