Father of Lies (12 page)

PART FOUR

FOCHS

CHAPTER 8

Holding Cell

I leave the office an hour early, time enough to take the bus not home but to the city complex. I introduce myself as clergy at the front desk, am led by a guard to the brother's holding cell. The guard opens the door, admits me, locks me in.

The boy is on the lower bunk, his back toward me.

“Want to talk?” I ask.

He turns slowly, just enough to see me, then turns back toward the wall.

“I thought it was your voice,” he says. “Go away.”

“I want to talk about your sister.”

“I don't want to talk.”

“She told me a lot about the two of you,” I say. “I want to hear the truth from your own mouth.”

“I didn't kill nobody,” he says.

“I never said you did.”

He pulls himself away from the wall, brings his feet flush to the floor. He looks at me, seems to look through me.

“Why are you here?” he asks. “Why, really?”

“I don't know,” I say.

“You don't know?”

“I can't explain it,” I say.

“Try,” he says.

“No,” I say. “Let's talk about you. Your sister died pregnant. The child was your child.”

“I never touched her.”

“She told me all about it.”

“You're making it up. Besides, when did my sister talk to you?”

“She came in for an interview.”

He smirks. “My sister never did that.”

“What makes you think that?”

“We were close. She would have told me.”

“She obviously didn't tell you everything,” I say.

He shrugs.

“I want to hear the truth from your own lips,” I say. “Admit it.”

“None of your business.”

“The truth is my business,” I say. “The truth is God's business.”

“Ask God, then,” he says. “See if he tells you.”

“Did you fuck her?” I ask.

“Pretty words from God's servant,” he says.

“The kind of words someone like you understands. Did you?”

He lifts his feet onto the bed, rolls slowly back toward the wall.

“I can save you from yourself. I can save you from hell.”

“I don't want to be saved from anything,” he says.

“You are purchasing your own damnation.”

“I didn't kill her.”

“You might as well have. Every time you raped her, you were killing her.”

“You don't know anything. I told you I never touched her.”

“Everything is my business,” I say. “Everything is God's province.”

“God doesn't mean anything,” he says, turning to look at me. “There's only you and me, Provost.”

“And your sister.”

“I didn't kill her,” he says. “I had nothing to do with her death. I never touched her.”

“We'll see,” I say. “We'll see.”

We stay staring at one another, the sun behind casting itself through the window mesh to mottle his skin. For a long time he says nothing, nor do I. Then he turns to face the wall again.

“You have as much potential as anyone else,” I say. “Murderer or no. If you repent, you can one day be with God.”

He shakes his head.

I look around at the bare cell walls, the toilet. “I have to leave,” I say to the boy.

“Big mistake ever to have come,” says the boy.

“I won't come again.”

The boy shrugs.

I leave the cell, watch the door shut behind me. I look back at him, on the bunk, still facing the wall. He has hardened his heart. He doesn't believe in God. Even though he didn't kill her, he deserves whatever he gets.

CHAPTER 9

Approval

I am at the meeting house, late evening, conducting an interview with a member of my congregation to determine his worthiness to participate in the upper ordinances of the temple, when the telephone rings. It rings twice before being picked up in the secretary's office.

I go down the list of questions one after another, asking the man being interviewed to respond with a simple yes or no to each question. Through the door I can hear the secretary speaking, the sound of his voice but not his words.

“Nobody's perfect,” I say as the man across from me wrings his hands, his face taut. “I am not perfect. You don't have to be perfect to partake of the blessings of the temple.”

We go through the questions, the man hesitating before each question as if looking inward, and then responding faintly, “yes.”

Filling out the temple approval form, I sign it. I have him sign it as well, tell him that he can still have the area rector sign it tonight if he hurries. I show him the door.

In the hallway, the chairs are empty, the hall dimly lit. I walk around the corner to the secretary's office, find Allen there.

“All done?” I ask. “No more appointments?”

“Somebody called for you,” he says. He tears a scrap of paper from his planner and passes it to me. “Said it was urgent.”

I look at the scrap, the telephone number, but do not recognize it.
Richard Foster.
I fold it into the skin of my palm.

“Who next?” I ask.

“Nobody,” he says. “You're done.”

I go into my office and shut the door. Taking up the telephone, I dial the number through. It rings four times, then is picked up. A child's voice.

“I am looking for Mr. Foster,” I say.

“Can I say who is calling?”

“Can I speak to Richard Foster, please?”

“Who are you anyway?”

There is a sharp crack on the other end of the line, then the child is screaming, the sound slowly fading.

“Yes?” asks a new voice, a man's. “Richard Foster. Sorry about that.”

“Mr. Foster,” I say. “I had a message to call you.”

“And you are?”

“Provost Fochs.”

“Yes,” he says. “Of course. Mr. Fochs, I work for the district attorney. Mr. Fochs, this has to do with the slaughtered girl.”

“A tragedy. She was in my congregation.”

“Her brother as well, no?”

“The whole family.”

“It is only the brother who concerns us,” he says. “We are considering prosecution. We would like you to testify to what the girl told you about him. The incest, I mean.”

“He murdered her? You think he did it?”

“We think we have a case,” he says. “We want to convict someone quickly to put the community at ease.”

“I don't know,” I say.

“With your testimony in the preliminary, the case should go to court. I think we can get him after that.”

“I don't know.”

“I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. We haven't got a case without you,” he says. “Either you come willingly or we subpoena you. Just thought you should know.

On my way out, Allen stops me.

“The area rector is still in the building,” he says. “He's doing temple approval interviews.”

“Yes?”

“Your approval is expiring,” he says, “if my records are correct.”

I take the slip of paper out of my wallet. “So it is,” I say.

“You won't be able to attend the special services,” he says. “Just thought you would want to know.”

I go back into the office, take out the approval book, write a slip up for myself. As provost I am called upon to testify to the worthiness of the members of my flock. Since I am a member of my own flock, I must determine my own worthiness. I interview myself and answer the questions. I read down the required list, question after question, answering them in my mind, and declare myself worthy of the higher blessings of the temple.

Signing the slip, I carry it down to the area offices. The door is open. Rector Bates is there, behind the desk, writing. I rap on the door frame, enter.

He looks up, looks down again.

“Provost,” he says.

“Rector.”

I take a seat across from him. In a moment he stops writing, sets his pen down beside the paper, rubs his palms. “What can I do for you, Provost?” he asks.

I remove the slip from my breast pocket and put it on the table before him.

“Approval renewal,” I say.

“Of course,” he says.

He picks up his pen, pulls the slip of paper closer. He brings the pen down, then lifts it away.

“I should go down the list of questions,” he says. “But we've spoken recently. I assume you are worthy. Otherwise, you wouldn't even be here, right?”

“Correct,” I say.

“We will assume you're worthy, Fochs,” he says. “No need to answer the questions.”

I nod.

“You are worthy, aren't you?”

“I wouldn't be here if I wasn't,” I say. “Just like you said.”

“That's good enough for me,” he says. “Good boy.”

He lines the pen up on the line, signs the slip.

“How have those women been treating you, Provost?”

“Women?”

“The ones who accused you of molesting their children.”

“I haven't seen them.”

“Been avoiding you, have they? Ashamed?” He hands me the slip. “Well, show them this,” he says. “That should satisfy everybody.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“I know their kind of people,” he says. “They have to be put in their place or they never stop yammering.”

He opens the desk and removes an envelope, slit open along the edge. He shakes a letter out of it, hands the letter to me.

I unfold it, find it to be written by the women in question, addressed to an apostolic elder at church headquarters. It enumerates first my supposed abuse and then the sins of the area rector in protecting me. On the side of the page is scrawled an unsigned note, “Don't let this become a public issue.” Rector Bates' name and address are written below in another hand.

“This letter is slanderous,” I say.

“I'm in it now too,” he says. “Next thing, they'll start approaching the newspapers if we don't stop them.”

“How did you get this?”

“The Church sent it along,” he says. “It's their policy to return everything like this to local leaders.”

“They don't pay any attention?”

“I wouldn't say that. They go by the spirit. They trust us,” he says. “We're called by God, aren't we?”

Nodding, I pass the letter back. He puts it into the envelope, then returns it to the desk.

“Call them in to speak with you,” he says. “Deal with them gently, in the spirit of brotherly love. Command them to stop.”

I lock the building and walk home, the sun long gone. I take the slow path, by the football field, skirting the woods where the girl was killed. I walk down the sidewalk until I reach my block.

At my corner, a man sits cross-legged on the sidewalk reading a book in the dim light of the street lamp. It is, I see as I approach, the Bible. His trousers are torn at the knees, most of the buttons of his shirt missing, his feet bare.

“Are you supposed to be here?” I ask.

He says nothing, doesn't lift his eyes from the page.

“I think it is time for you to be moving on,” I say.

He lifts his head slowly, regards me steadily. “Sit down,” he says.

“Do you want me to call the police?”

“Can it be you've forgotten me?”

I look at him closer, see his head razor cut and crusted with blood.

“Keeping an eye on you,” Bloody-Head says. “Making certain you don't stray. Come on,” he says. “I'll walk you home.”

He reaches out his hand and I pull him up. He touches my shoulder lightly.

“You are worried about the women accusing you,” he says. “I know. I can feel it.”

“They're telling the truth.”

“Only in a matter of speaking,” he says. “What is truth, anyway?”

“They know what I did to their sons.”

“Those boys provoked you,” he says. “You are not to blame.”

We walk until we reach my house. I can see the twins inside, their faces lit blue in the glow of the television.

“You aren't guilty, brother,” he says.

“I don't know if I believe you.”

“You have gone too far to stop believing in yourself now.”

I start for the house.

“Wait,” he says.

I keep walking. Somehow, he reaches the door before me.

“Suppose you are right,” he says. “Suppose you are. It makes no difference. Whether you did it or not is not the issue. What is at issue is obedience.”

“Obedience?”

“To fail to be obedient to your church leaders is to fail to be obedient to God. To speak evil of you is to speak evil of God.”

He licks his lips, a cut on his forehead dark, glistening. “The area rector is doing the right thing. Whether you are worthy or not does not matter. Even if you lead people astray, they will be blessed for following you. And cursed for going against you.”

I push past him, take the door handle in my hand.

“Invite me in to meet the family?” he says. “The wife?”

“No,” I say. “Not here.”

He shrugs. “Elsewhere, then. We'll all meet soon enough,” he says. “Doesn't have to be today.”

He slides into the bushes at the side of the house. I can see him between the hedge and the house wall, his body dim as if coming asunder. He waves to me, smiles, and then is gone.