“Captain Decker requested a private interview,” the agent said. “In a room. And he asked the guard to remove the prisoner’s restraints.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Jesus. Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know, sir. I thought maybe you could tell me.”
“But what happened? You said Decker lost a lot of blood. Did Satterfield have a knife? A shiv — is that what it’s called?”
“He had a razor blade,” said Fielding. “Hidden in his mouth. He must’ve been expecting trouble.”
“He was causing the trouble,” I snapped. “He sent that finger, and he waited. It was a trap. Bait. And how the hell did he get hold of a razor blade?”
“You’d be amazed what inmates can get hold of. Drugs. Phones. Weapons. Women. Anyhow, by the time the guards got in and broke up the fight, Decker was cut pretty bad. Satterfield went for the neck — he cut the jugular vein, and he was still cutting when they pulled him off. Almost got the carotid artery, the ER docs said.”
“That sick sonofabitch,” I said. I didn’t know whether to weep or scream. “I guess he just wants to take as many people down with him as he can.”
“That’s not the way he tells it, Dr. Brockton,” said the agent.
“What do you mean?” I was echoing the question Fielding had asked two minutes earlier, but my tone — unlike his — was anything but casual.
“Satterfield says it was self-defense. Says Decker was trying to kill him. Says Decker came there to kill him.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “That can’t be true.”
“No? That’s not all he says, Dr. Brockton. He says Decker was doing it for you.”
“Oh, bullshit,” I snapped.
“For you and your wife,” the agent went on. “Decker told Satterfield you and your wife promised him ten thousand dollars.”
“How dare you?” My voice sounded both loud and muffled — as if I were shouting, but shouting from somewhere far away. “Do you even know who Satterfield is, and what he’s done?”
“Yes, sir, actually, I am familiar with Satterfield’s record.”
The words “Satterfield’s record” seemed a mockery to me.
“Do you know what he did, actually, to the four women he killed?”
“I’ve seen the autopsy reports, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s only a small part of what I mean,” I snapped. “Can you imagine the pain and the terror he put those women through, on their way to those autopsy reports?”
“No, sir, I guess I can’t.”
“I guess not. And do you know that he cut off my wife’s finger — in front of me, and our son, and his girlfriend — just for kicks? Just to give us a little taste of what he had in store for us?”
“I am aware of that,” he said. “And I certainly don’t condone it.”
“Don’t condone it?” I was practically roaring now. “Well, that’s mighty big of you, Agent Fielding, not to condone it.”
“Dr. Brockton? Sir? I need you to take a step back and calm down. I’m sorry if my choice of words offended you. No doubt about it, Satterfield’s done terrible things. But those things aren’t the issue right now. The issue right now is, he’s alleging crimes have been committed, by Captain Deck—”
“Give me a break,” I interrupted. “You’re going to take a convicted serial killer’s word over a police officer’s?”
“Let me finish,” he said. “He’s alleging crimes were committed by Captain Decker, and by you and your wife. Attempted murder by Captain Decker, and conspiracy to commit murder, by you and your wife.”
“My wife,” I spat, “is dying. And frankly, Agent Fielding, in light of that, I don’t give a good goddamn what Satterfield says. If you’ve got an ounce of decency in you, neither will you.”
Whatever response he had to that, I didn’t hear it. I had already hit “end.”
Chapter 30
After the call about Decker, I left campus — as if by leaving my office, I could leave my worries — and headed toward home. But as I turned west onto Kingston Pike — toward the mansions that signaled the boundary of Sequoyah Hills — I felt myself slowing, and then turning into the parking lot of Second Presbyterian Church. Our church: the church where Kathleen and I had worshipped for years, first as young marrieds, then as young parents, then as youth-group leaders for Jeff and his friends.
The church, a soaring neo-Gothic structure of tan sandstone, sat high on a green rise, looking timeless and serene. Blessedly, the sanctuary was both unlocked and empty, its stained-glass windows ablaze with afternoon light. Slipping into a pew near the back, I bowed my head and prayed — or tried to pray. But the words felt lost in space; they echoed in my heart as loudly as they might have echoed in the vault of the nave, had I shouted them at the top of my lungs.
Tucked into racks on the backs of the pews, alongside well-worn copies of the Presbyterian Hymnal, were copies of the Bible, not so worn. Slipping a Bible from the nearest rack, I flipped through it until I came to the Book of Job. I’d never actually read it, but I’d heard the story countless times over the years: Job was a good and pious man, brought to the breaking point by an onslaught of misfortunes. Through it all — tragedy upon tragedy, all of them undeserved — Job’s faith held firm, and in the end, God rewarded him. Maybe I could learn something from Job, I thought, as I began to read. Maybe Job could help me make sense of what was happening, or at least help me face it with faith and peace. Maybe Job could even teach me how to do the real trick: to snatch True Happiness from the bloody jaws of tragedy.
The story’s opening was much as I had expected: God praises Job’s piety to Satan, and Satan responds by taunting God — challenging God. “He’s rich and happy,” Satan sneers. “Of course he’s pious.” And so begins a contest, a wager, between God and Satan; a tug-of-war, with Job as the rope, tested by a torrent of tragedies. In the space of a single chapter, a series of messengers arrives, one on the heels of another, reciting loss upon loss — all Job’s possessions—7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, 500 female donkeys — as well as the demise of all of his farmhands, shepherds, and servants.
But worse — far, far worse — is yet to come. Another messenger arrives immediately, informing Job that his seven sons and three daughters, feasting together in a son’s house, have all perished in a fierce, house-leveling windstorm. Like each of the prior bearers of bad tidings, this one concludes by saying, “And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.”
The litany of his losses complete, Job stands up, rips his clothes, and shaves his head. Then, a sentence later — to my astonishment — Job gets over it. In what struck me as the world’s swiftest resolution of grief, he simply shrugs it off. “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb,” he says, “and naked thither I shall return: The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Baffled, I reread that passage — reread it several times, in fact; it didn’t take long. I stared and squinted at the page. “Them’s the breaks,” Job seemed to be saying. “Easy come, easy go.” By the time I’d read his words enough times to memorize them, I was no longer just puzzled; I was also, I realized, angry. I could understand, and I could admire, Job’s tranquility in the face of material losses. Stuff, after all, is only stuff, if you ignore the countless corpses of servants and livestock littering Job’s property. But to suffer such slight, offhand pain — a torn robe, a shaved head, and an “oh well”—at the death of his children? His ten children? I didn’t get it. I didn’t believe it. Was Job a man — an actual flesh-and-blood father? Or was he something else, some colder-blooded creature masquerading as a man?