He’d never really prayed like that. Oh, he’d prayed plenty in church. He’d committed himself to vocation and to ministry. He’d said what he needed to say to become who he was trying to become, and he was doing what he needed to do to help others become like him. But he was no longer sure what he’d become. He’d broken with his past and started fresh.
Or had he?
Sure he had. Out with the old, in with the new, yippee-kie-ay, yabba dabba doo. Are you regenerated, Kevin? Are you saved? Are you worthy of feeding at the trough with the others in the flock? Are you fit to shepherd the sheep grazing in God’s green pastures?
I was three days ago. At least I thought I was. At least I was successfully pretending to think I was.
Praying to a heavenly Father filled his mind with images of Eugene, dressed in his riding boots, issuing commands in a phony English accent. Fathers were silly men who went about pretending they were important.
Kevin cleared his throat. “God, if anyone ever needed your help, I do. However you do it, you have to save me. I may not be a priest, but I do want to be your . . . your child.”
Tears filled his eyes. Why the sudden emotion?
It’s coming because you never were anyone’s child. Just like Father Strong used to say. God’s waiting with outstretched hands. You never really took that seriously, but that’s what becoming a child is all about. Trust him at his Word, as the good reverend would say.
Kevin pulled into a Burger King. Three young men walked out in baggy jeans with chains that hung from their belt loops to their knees.
A gun. Right now he didn’t need God’s Word. Right now he needed a gun.
Jennifer picked up her phone, dialed Kevin’s number, and let it ring a dozen times. Still no answer. He’d been gone since five o’clock last evening, and she had hardly slept.
They had set up audio surveillance with a single laser beam, which when placed on any one of Kevin’s windows could turn the glass into an effective diaphragm for sounds beyond. Slater had probably used a similar device. The problem with the laser technology was that it picked up sounds indiscriminately. A digital-signal processor decoded the sounds and filtered voice, but the settings had to be adjusted whenever the operator changed windows, or when conditions—such as the closing of drapes—changed sufficiently to interfere with the acoustics of the room. For some reason Kevin had decided to close the drapes just before his departure.
A young agent named McConnel was resetting the laser receiver when Kevin had come out. McConnel said he heard a barrage of static in his earphone and looked up to see the garage door open and the rented Ford Taurus pull out. He’d reported the incident immediately, but his hands were tied. No following.
The fact that McConnel had heard nothing resembling a phone call before Kevin’s departure was somewhat comforting, but the call could have come while the agent was adjusting the receiver.
Jennifer had tried to reach Sam at the Howard Johnson hotel, on the whim that she might know Kevin’s whereabouts. No luck. The agent wasn’t picking up her cell and the hotel clerk said that she’d checked out yesterday morning. She remembered Sam because she’d been tipped twenty dollars. Any agent who’d leave a tip for a desk clerk was unusual at the least.
Jennifer only hoped that Slater would have as much difficulty reaching Kevin as she did. If so, the disappearing act might actually offer some benefits. No bombs. So far. Hopefully the statewide bulletin on the Taurus wouldn’t trigger one. She wasn’t sure why Kevin had left—most probably a reaction to the stress—but in doing so he may have inadvertently stalled Slater.
Jennifer called the agent on duty by the house and learned, as expected, nothing new. She decided to try the dean a few minutes early.
Dr. John Francis lived in an old brick house on the edge of Long Beach, two blocks west of Los Alamitos. She knew that he was a widower with doctorates in both psychology and philosophy who’d lived in the same house for twenty-three years. Other than that all she knew was that he had taken Kevin under his wing at the seminary. And that he liked to drive fast, judging by the black Porsche 911 in his driveway.
Five minutes after pulling up to his house, Jennifer sat in a cozy living room, listening to quiet strains of Bach, nursing a hot cup of green tea. Dr. Francis sat opposite her in an armchair, legs crossed, smiling without trying to. He was quite distressed over all the news he’d heard about his student, but she would never guess it with a glance. The professor had one of those faces that couldn’t help but reflect God’s goodness, regardless of what might be happening.
“How well do you know Kevin?” she asked.
“Quite well as far as students go. But you must understand, that doesn’t qualify me to pass any judgment on his past.”
“His past. We’ll come back to that. This may sound like a simple case of revenge based on what the media is pumping over the air, but I think it’s more complicated than that. I think whoever’s after Kevin sees his life as it is now and takes exception to it. That’s where you come in. It appears that Kevin’s a quiet man. Not a lot of friends. In fact, he evidently considers you his best. Maybe his only, other than Sam.”
“Sam? You mean his childhood friend, Samantha? Yes, he’s spoken of her. He seems quite taken with her.”
“Tell me about him.”
“You’re looking for something in his life today that might elicit anger in someone from his past?”
She smiled. The psychologist in him was speaking. “Exactly.”
“Unless Kevin comes forward with his confession, which he did, the man will extract a price.”
“That’s the basic story.”
“But the confession missed the mark. So now you dig deeper, in search of that which so offends this Slater.”
She nodded. Dr. Francis was a quick study. She decided to deal straight with the man. “On the surface it seems obvious. We have a student pursuing a holy vocation. As it turns out, his past is filled with mystery and murder. Someone takes exception to that dichotomy.”
“We all have pasts filled with mystery and murder,” Dr. Francis said.
Interesting way to put it.
“In fact, it’s one of the aspects of the human condition Kevin and I have discussed before.”
“Oh?”
“It’s one of the first things an intelligent man like Kevin, who comes to the church later in life, notices. There is a pervasive incongruity between the church’s theology and the way most of us in the church live.”
“Hypocrisy.”
“One of its faces, yes. Hypocrisy. Saying one thing but doing another. Studying to be a priest while hiding a small cocaine addiction, for example. The world flushes this out and cries scandal. But the more ominous face isn’t nearly so obvious. This is what interested Kevin the most. He was quite astute, really.”
“I’m not sure I follow. What’s not so obvious?”
“The evil that lies in all of us,” the professor said. “Not blatant hypocrisy, but deception. Not even realizing that the sin we regularly commit is sin at all. Going about life honestly believing that we are pure when all along we are riddled with sin.”
She looked at his gentle smile, taken by the simplicity of his words.
“A preacher stands against the immorality of adultery, but all the while he harbors anger toward the third parishioner from the left because the parishioner challenged one of his teachings three months ago. Is anger not as evil as adultery? Or a woman who scorns the man across the aisle for alcoholic indiscretions, while she routinely gossips about him after services. Is gossip not as evil as any vice? What’s especially damaging in both cases is that neither the man who harbors anger nor the woman who gossips seriously considers the evil of their own actions. Their sins remain hidden. This is the true cancer in the church.”