A Treasure Deep (24 page)

“Faith in the Christian sense.”

“Ah. Greg said you were one of those.”

“If by ‘one of those’ you mean a Christian,
then yeah, I’m one of those.”

“Is this where the sermon comes?” Anne asked.
Her words were tight, strained.

“You asked, I answered. I don’t do sermons.
My faith has seen me through many things. It’ll see me through
this.”

“‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen,’” Anne said.

Perry’s eyebrows rose. “Hebrews 11:1,” he
said. “You are full of surprises, aren’t you, Mayor?”

“I’ve heard Bible passages since I was a
child. My parents took my sister and me to church every week. Even
after we moved to Ridgeline, they found a church and made sure we
put ourselves in the pew every Sunday.”

“Sounds like you didn’t like it.”

Anne sounded bitter. “Actually I did. I
continued through my teenage years and as an adult. Then I
quit.”

“May I ask why?”

Anne paused and scowled, as if remembering.
“My husband was killed by a street thug. He traveled a lot for his
business. He did commercial real estate. He was good, the best I
have ever seen. Like you, he was a Christian. Taught Sunday School,
was a deacon, all that stuff. One Tuesday night he was in San
Bernardino inspecting a set of concrete tilt-up buildings in the
industrial area. A guy robbed him, then shot him in the face.”

Perry closed his eyes for a moment, driving
the image from his thoughts. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Yeah, well, everyone was sorry. Everyone but
God. The police called. I drove down the mountain to the hospital.
He lived long enough for me to get there. He was a mess, his head
swollen to twice its size. I couldn’t even recognize him. The
nurses told me that the disfigured person on the bed was my
husband, and all I could do was believe them. I held his hand and
told him everything would be all right. My sister arrived. The
pastor was with her, so were my parents. They joined hands and
prayed around us. Ten minutes later my husband died. Apparently God
had taken His phone off the hook.

“Over the next few months, I lost both
parents,” Anne continued. “All three were gone in less than six
months. I prayed for them too. God wasn’t listening to me, so I
decided that two could play that game. I stopped listening to
Him.”

“What about your sister?” Perry asked. “What
did she do?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You said she went to church with you and the
family. Did she give up on God too?”

“No, she still believes. I don’t know why,
but she does.”

Perry took in a deep breath and let the story
settle. He could hear the bitterness festering in Anne. She hadn’t
turned her back on faith; she made herself its enemy, hating every
mention of it.

“I don’t tell the story much anymore,” Anne
added. “Don’t know why I’m telling it to you now. Maybe I feel
guilty about my pestering you.” Like Perry she took a deep breath,
then blew it out noisily. There was derision in the way she did it.
“Well, go ahead. I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?” Perry asked.

“The few times I’ve told the story to a
Christian, they immediately tried to explain things away. They say
they’re sorry, then try to explain why it’s not God’s fault. So go
ahead. Who knows; maybe you’ll say something new.”

“You don’t want to hear what I have to
say.”

“What, no pity? No pat answers to deliver
from the Word of God? No ‘You’ll get to see them all in Heaven’?
You disappoint me. Go on, regale me with your Christian wisdom. I
want to hear it.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“What . . . what?” she sputtered.

“I said you’re an idiot. You blame God
because you’ve faced a tragedy. You want fairness in an unfair
world. You want sinless behavior from sinners. Come on, Anne,
you’re smarter than that.”

“That’s uncalled for!”

Perry shrugged. “You asked what I thought.
Well, now you have it. You’ve been through a horrible ordeal and
feel cheated by it. You’ve been in a pity party for years now,
using the death of your loved ones to avoid the responsibility you
have before God.”

“How dare you speak to me this way!”

Perry continued, his voice even but as firm
as granite. “Do you prefer the easy platitudes? You said you
didn’t. How dare you speak about God like He’s some frivolous
clown? Do you think you’re the only one who has suffered in this
world? In Sudan, Christians are abused and women sold into slavery.
Every apostle but one died a martyr’s death. By the time of Nero,
the streets of Rome were lined with Christians hanging on crosses.
Emperors would wrap them in wax and light them on fire, using their
burning bodies as torches. Even God’s own Son was nailed to a
cross. What makes you think you should be spared pain and
difficulty?”

Anne started to speak, but nothing came out,
so Perry continued. “I’m grieved at your loss, but I won’t waste
time joining you in your pity party. Everyone faces hardship,
disappointment, and, sooner or later, tragedy. It’s called life. If
you want to talk about how unfair God is, you’ll need to find a
different audience, because I’m not going to listen to it.”

Perry watched Anne’s jaw tighten and her eyes
narrow as if to hold back the hurricane of fury swirling within
her. “You owe me an apology,” she said through tight lips.

“You owe God an apology,” Perry countered in
the same steel voice.

Anne sprang from the chair and stepped toward
Perry, raised her open hand, and swung. It stopped a half-second
later, her wrist in the firm grip of Perry.

“No, ma’am, you are not going to slap me and
then walk away. This isn’t an old movie. It’s real life. Think
about what I said.” He released her wrist. She stood there for a
moment, and he saw a glint from the work lights in the tears that
brimmed in her eyes.

She turned and walked away.

“That was pretty harsh,” a voice said behind
him.

Without turning, he spoke to Dr. Curtis, who
still sat at the table. “You’ve been in the faith longer than I
have; would you have handled it differently?”

There was silence, then, “Probably, but you
handled it better than I would have. She needed someone to be
honest with her for once.”

“I just hope I didn’t overdo it.”

“Time will tell. Time will tell.”

RUTHERFORD’S HEAD BOBBED as he tried to focus on the
stretch of butcher paper that dominated the conference room table
in front of him. “You say Henri’s boy drew this?”

“Yes,” Julia said. “He was working on it when
I gained entrance to the house.”

“It looks too real to be a drawing.”

“I saw him doing it,” Julia added. “The paper
was draped over the dining room table, and he was drawing this with
crayons.”

“Remarkable.”

“Eerie is more like it,” Alex said. “That’s
the place to a tee.”

“And that is the man you hired?” Rutherford
asked.

“That’s how I left him, face down in the
pit.”

“Why the . . . ,” Rutherford began. “Is that
a trowel?”

“Yes, sir,” Alex said. “My goal was to
disrupt the dig until we could formulate a plan to gain the
prize.”

“And the trowel was used to implicate
Sachs?”

“Exactly.”

“How is it a retarded man can know what
you’ve done hundreds of miles away?” Julia asked.

Alex shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Move the drawing and let me see the survey
images,” Rutherford demanded. Alex stepped to the table and
rearranged the documents so his boss could see them. “I see six
objects laid in two lines of three.”

“This one,” Alex said, pointing at the most
southwesterly object, “is the grave they opened; the one with the
Roman soldier in it.”

“And you saw that with your own eyes?”

“I did. The remains are not fully visible.
Only one plank has been removed. They probably stopped at that
point to protect the find.”

“The larger object to the north,” Rutherford
asked, “that’s what we’re looking for?”

“Yes.”

“It’s ill-defined,” he blurted.

“They may have reached the limits of the
ground penetrating radar,” Alex said.

“Perhaps, but we can still determine that
it’s man-made and not a natural formation. I see no reason to doubt
the find. What remains is getting the contents out and back
here.”

“That may be difficult,” Alex said. “It’s
become a media circus there. Newspapers are picking up the story,
as is the electronic media.”

“It’s too bad word got out,” Rutherford said.
“Had Sachs been able to work unmolested and in secrecy, our job
would be easier. We could’ve let him do all the work.”

“The newspapers changed the situation,” Alex
admitted. “That’s why I felt the need to slow things down. Beside,
Dawes knew too much. I doubt he could’ve traced things back since I
was meticulous about concealing my connection with you, but I
wanted to be certain. He won’t be talking now.”

“We still have a big problem,” Julia added.
“Whenever they pull the contents out, the media is going to be
there.”

“We have to play our ace in the hole,” Alex
suggested.

“Yes,” Rutherford agreed. “I want our two
guests brought here. I want to see this prodigy for myself.”

“Is that wise?” Julia asked.

“Of course it is,” Rutherford snapped. “I
wouldn’t have suggested it if it weren’t. They can’t know where
they are, so keep them confused. Julia, your job is to bring them
here. Alex, I want you to set up a room where they can be
comfortable. I want full video access. Understood?”

“Yes,” Alex and Julia said
simultaneously.

“And, Alex, make sure there are plenty of art
supplies for young Mr. Henri. I want to see what else is going on
in his mind. He bears some research.”

ANNE MARCHED INTO O’Tool’s Pub and took a seat in her
usual booth. She’d been driving around for fifteen minutes pushing
back tears and venting anger into the empty car like a geyser. No
matter how many times she drove up and down the streets of Tejon,
she couldn’t quiet her wounded spirit.

She stopped at her office, retrieved a few
business messages, and chose to return none of them. Five minutes
after she entered her office, she left again. With little
forethought she drove to the pub, parked, and strode into the dark
lounge, longing to be alone with her overheated thoughts.

Fury crashed in her like storm waves on an
empty beach. Conflicting thoughts ricocheted in her mind. One
moment she wanted to drive back to the site and pin Mr. Perry
Sachs’s ears to one of the oak trees. She was angry enough to toss
his body into the same pit in which Dawes had been found. Yet
another part of her hungered to go home, collapse on the bed, and
cry herself to sleep. That isn’t going to happen, she determined.
That would mean he won, that he had succeeded in hurting her, and
she couldn’t tolerate that. Instead, she decided it was time for a
drink.

As she plopped down, the cocktail waitress
walked over with a scotch in her hand. “You’re early, Mayor.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

The waitress set the glass in front of Anne.
“That friend of yours is causing quite a stir. Everyone who walks
in is talking about it. He’s become something of a celebrity.”

“He’s something, all right; I just hesitate
to say what.” Anne pulled the glass closer.

“So what’s he digging for up there? Besides
bodies, I mean.”

“I don’t know. I’m not in his
confidence.”

“You must know something. I mean, you are the
mayor, aren’t you?”

“I don’t come in here to be quizzed by a
cocktail waitress. Don’t you have drinks to serve and flirtations
to make?”

There was a weighty, enduring pause. “You
don’t have to take my head off, Mayor. Drink up. Enjoy. Have fun by
yourself.” The waitress disappeared as quickly as she had
arrived.

The last comment burned Anne like a brand.
She was alone. She’d been alone for years. She liked it that way.
Less trouble. Less conflict. Less everything. Loneliness was the
preferred choice.

She lifted the glass and stared at the amber
fluid. Light from a candle flickered through the drink, glitter
fairies dancing to un-heard music. The pungent fragrance of
oak-aged alcohol rose in her nostrils. Normally the smell enticed
her, comforted her, made her eager to consume it in search of the
salve for the still oozing wound in her soul. Bringing the glass to
her lips, she cursed Perry for his mean words. Pity party, she
thought. Pity party indeed. What does he know of it?

Anne paused. For a moment she could see
herself sitting in the booth of the dark pub, glass of liquor held
to her lips, as if

she were having an out of body experience.
She felt pity for the woman she saw in her mind’s eye, felt remorse
that she’d come to the point of sitting in a dark place drinking
scotch in hope of lessening a deeper, more abiding darkness in her
heart.

Slowly Anne set the drink down and stared at
it. The heat of anger flickered like the candle then slowly went
out. Fury was replaced with melancholy. The man that killed her
husband had killed her too; she just hadn’t realized it. He’d
killed her hope, her confidence, her self-esteem, and her ability
to trust anyone, including herself.

That was a sharp, piercing realization. The
pain remained. She’d chosen to flee her home, where she felt
miserable, to move to a town where she now felt even more wretched.
No matter the amount of success, no matter the number of lies she
told herself, she was still in agony and was self-medicating her
pain nightly with a substance that only made things worse.

Anne pushed the glass away, opened her purse,
and removed a twenty-dollar bill from her billfold. She laid it on
the table. Then, taking a pen from her open purse, she wrote a note
on the cocktail napkin: “Having a bad day. Sorry for what I said.
Anne F.”