Blood of the Lamb (28 page)

“And always the one who let the Atlanta Child Murderer get away,” I said.

His eyes widened in surprise, his eyebrows popping up into question marks. “You worked the Williams’ case,” he said, adding quickly, “and let him get away?”

“No,” I said. “He’d been in prison a good while when I went up there. But there was another one—some say a second one. I say he was working at the time of Williams and hid his victims like trees in Williams’ forest. The point is, I not only let him get away, I let him kill a little boy I should’ve been protecting. There are no experts in murder investigations. Not really. And if there are, I am certainly not one of them.”

“Well, I think you are,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I got that information you asked me to,” he said, pulling out a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. “Three inmates have sent Bobby Earl Freeing the Captives Ministries very large contributions since you’ve been back from New Orleans.”

“Any of our suspects?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Most of them don’t send or receive much mail. Porter hasn’t gotten a single letter the entire time he’s been inside. Register is the only one who sends and receives a lot, but none of it to or from Bobby Earl.”

“The three who sent contributions mailed them to the post office box, right?”

He nodded. “How’d you know they would?” he asked. “And
before
Bobby Earl came, not afterward.”

“Because,” I said, “the checks aren’t to support a ministry, but a habit.”

“Huh?” he asked, a look of confusion on his face.

“The inmates are buying drugs,” I said. “They prepay for drugs that are brought in from the outside.”

Eyes wide, he sat there for a moment, then said, “What do you need me to do?”

“Arrest Tim Whitfield,” I said, “and see if you can get him to give up his supplier.”

“‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering to the Lord,’” I read from Genesis to begin my homily for Nicole Caldwell’s memorial service.

She had already been eulogized. Her life had already been celebrated. Now it was my job to deliver a message that spoke to the heart of the matter. To give reassurance and hope to her loved ones. And I would try. But I had no easy answers. No quick fixes for the ancient problem of evil and the unwelcome guest of grief.

I looked up from the Bible on the pulpit to the congregation before me. The Caldwells, dressed in black, were on the front pew, DeAndré beside Bunny. Behind them, in a sea of blue, were many of the inmates who had attended the service the night Nicole was murdered. Across the aisle from the Caldwells, Theo Malcolm sat stiffly beside Edward Stone, who sat even more stiffly. Next to him, Pete Fortner and Tom Daniels looked uncomfortable and out of place.

“These words are among the most shocking in all of sacred literature,” I continued. “They resound throughout history as an echo of madness by a God who could only attract the deranged, the disturbed, and the fanatical. A God who, after making Abraham wait for twenty-five years to receive his promised son, the boy whose very name means laughter, because of how hard his decrepit old parents had laughed when they received the promise, demands that Abraham give him back. Not just surrender him, but sacrifice him with his own hands.”

Several inmates in the congregation winced at my words, and gave me looks like they wondered where I could possibly be going with this.

My response to them, that which Frederick Buechner had convinced me should be the foundation for every sermon—most of all this one—came from Shakespeare: “‘The weight of this sad time we must obey,’” I said. “‘Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.’”

If I was right about who had killed Nicole, there could be no better source for a quotation than
King Lear
, but if my audience perceived the message within the message, they didn’t give any indication.

“I am here to tell the truth,” I added. “No matter how tragic it might be.”

The only response I got was a sea of blank stares.

“From the very beginning, Nicole has been compared to Isaac; Bobby Earl, her father, to Abraham.”

Bobby Earl nodded earnestly as Bunny looked up at him admiringly.

“And though the connection was never obvious to me, it has caused me to meditate a lot lately on Abraham, his God, and his son.

“How could God ask for the sacrifice of this innocent lamb whose very life was the heartbeat of his father?

“How could Abraham do it? Was he mad? Or was he, as the three world religions that sprang from him claim, the most faithfilled and faithful man ever to live?

“These questions are as old as mankind, and they’ve been asked by so many of us at one time or another in one way or another. And in the deepest part of our hearts, I think we’ve all come to the same terrifying conclusion: We don’t know.”

Anna’s intense eyes rested heavily upon me, her head nodding agreement and support. I looked at her often.

“Just as we don’t know why God allows bad things to happen to good people. We don’t know why God lets children suffer and die. We don’t know.

“I’m not saying there aren’t answers to these questions. In fact, there are some pretty convincing ones, but none of the answers, no matter how logical or convincing, can ever remove that wordless darkness from the corners of our hearts and minds that says we don’t know. Not really.

“Let me ask you the real question in my heart and on my mind. Why did God allow little Nicole be murdered?

“I don’t know. I wish to God I did. She knows I’ve asked that question a thousand times.

“But I’ve been thinking more and more that perhaps that’s not the right question anyway. God didn’t kill Nicole. God didn’t ask for the blood of this little lamb to be shed. So, really, shouldn’t the question be: why did
you
kill Nicole?”

Time seemed to stand still. No one moved. No one made a sound. No one looked directly at me.

Unfortunately, no one answered my question either.

“Whoever killed Nicole,” I continued. “That’s who we need to ask. Why’d you do it? How could you? We can ask God, ‘Why’d you let them do it?’ but only the murderer can answer ‘Why’d you do it?’”

As I spoke, I thought about Susan and how often she had sat in a church and listened to me preach. She had been a good wife in so many ways, and now that there was a possibility that we might have a future together, I found myself missing her.

“So why was Nicole taken from us?

“I don’t know.

“I
do
know that God was the first one to grieve. Tears fell from the eyes of God long before they fell from anyone else’s.

“Abraham, the madman of faith, lifted his knife to plunge it into the heart of his son, Isaac, and God said: ‘NO! Don’t touch him. It was just a test. I just wanted to see how much you loved me. How much you trusted me.’ Then Abraham looked, and there in a thicket was a ram. God had provided a lamb.

“One of the names of the place where Abraham did this unspeakable thing means: ‘the Lord shall see.’ God saw Abraham’s heart. And that was the whole point. Not the sacrifice of innocence. Not murder. God provided a lamb. Not Abraham. God.

“The blood of the lamb shed in this building was not for God. Not because God wanted it, but because of the evil in her murderer’s heart. And just like on Mount Moriah, God sees. Sees that heart of hate and darkness. Sees the heart that has rejected the lamb God has provided.

“I don’t understand. I don’t have the answers. But I trust in love. Trust in God. Trust that if my heart breaks for Nicole then God’s breaks all the more.

“What can I offer you today?

“What Christianity, my religion, offers. ‘Christianity,’ in the words of Frederick Buechner, ‘points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene—not even this—but that God cannot turn it to good.’

“What do we do then? Let me tell you what I’m going to do. I’m still going to question, still going to doubt, still going to struggle, but I’m also going to hang on, to hold on, to have faith, to trust. Because…

“I believe. In spite of myself—in spite of all I’ve seen, I still believe. I trust. I choose love. Choose to believe that God is love.

“God asked for Abraham’s trust. Not his son. Today she asks us for the same thing. To trust. To trust that her heart is broken even more than ours. To trust that Nicole is with her, in the warm embrace of her love.

“Trust God.

“Jesus did,” I said.

And look what happened to him
, a voice responded inside my head.

“Nicole did,” I said.

“And I’m trying to.”

“I’ve been trying to get up here and see you,” Dexter said, walking up to me as soon as the service had ended. “They said you were gone.”

“I have been,” I said. “Just got back today.”

Most of the other inmates, staff, and visitors seemed to be getting out of the chapel as quickly as they could, including the Caldwells, though I had asked to speak with them when the service had concluded.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said. “I’ve been needin’ to talk to you.”

“How have you been?” I asked, motioning for him to walk with me toward the back.

“I’m all right,” he said. “I really appreciate you coming to Mom’s funeral. It meant more than you’ll ever know.”

“I was glad I could,” I said. “Would you mind waiting in here for me? I need to see the Caldwells before they—”

“Your dad’s arresting Bunny Caldwell,” Pete said, running up to us.

“What?”

“They’re in your office.”

Without waiting for Dexter’s response, I ran across the sanctuary and into my office, Pete following right behind me.

Inside, Dad and Jake were cuffing Bunny Caldwell as Daniels read her rights. Bobby Earl stood behind them, demanding to know why they were doing it. Beyond Bobby Earl, next to the door, DeAndré Stone looked on without obvious emotion.

“What’re you doin’?” I asked Dad.

“What’s it look like?” Jake said.

“We’re arresting her for the murder of her natural daughter, Nicole Ann Caldwell,” Daniels said. “She—”

“Didn’t do it,” I said. “Don’t—”

“I told you to stay the hell out of my way, boy,” Daniels said, but Dad stopped what he was doing and looked over at me, eye brows raised.

“I’m telling you,” I said. “She didn’t do it.”

He nodded, his expression signifying his trust in me.

“Well, one of them did,” Daniels said. “And—”

“No,” I said. “They didn’t.”

“No one else could have,” he said. “Hell, I’ll arrest them both and let the courts decide—”

“And I guarantee my testimony would create enough reasonable doubt so they’d be acquitted.”

As Daniels began to protest, Dad started taking the cuffs off Bunny.

“What the hell are you doin’?” Daniels yelled at him.

“Thank you,” Bunny said to me.

“Yeah, thanks,” Bobby Earl said.

“He’s the one you need to arrest,” I said, nodding toward DeAndré Stone. “He’s the one behind virtually every crime the Caldwells have been accused of.”

As if untouchable, DeAndré let out a little laugh, but his eyes remained hard and flat as a shark’s.

“Aside from all his criminal activity in New Orleans and the abuse Bunny has suffered from him, he’s been supplying the inmate population with drugs.”

Bobby Earl put his arm around Bunny protectively.

A smile spread across DeAndré’s face, but didn’t reach his eyes. “I’d like to see you try to prove that,” he said.

I turned to Daniels, Pete, and Dad. “Inmates send money to a post office box in New Orleans—supposedly to one of Bobby Earl’s ministries, but it really goes to DeAndré for the drugs he brings in. That’s why it’s sent prior to Bobby Earl’s coming in and not afterwards like all the others.”

Though obviously still feeling invincible, DeAndré’s smile begin to fade a little, the first cracks in the seemingly secure foundation of his crime fortress beginning to show.

“The two condoms we found with saliva and vomitus on them were not from someone having oral sex, but from DeAndré muling the drugs in to Officer Whitfield. He puts the drugs in the condoms and swallows them, then vomits them up once he’s in the chapel. That’s what he was doing with Whitfield in the bathroom the night of the murder.”

Bobby Earl looked at DeAndré with contempt and disbelief, saying his name the way people have said that of Judas for the past two millennia.

The cold, hard, blank expression on DeAndré’s face didn’t change, his emotionless affect revealing the years of repression and hardening that had resulted in his current soullessness.

“The money found in here that night was Whitfield’s cut,” I continued. “For helping with distribution, he gets a shiny new sports car and stacks of tax-free contributions. Between the prints on the money and the DNA of the saliva on the condoms, there should be enough to bring charges, but in case they aren’t, I had Pete arrest Whitfield ahead of time so he couldn’t be here to receive the delivery. DeAndré’s probably got a couple of condoms full of crack or heroin inside him right now.”

Turning toward DeAndré, Jake started reaching for his cuffs, but before he could get them out, DeAndré pulled a 9mm from beneath his coat and pressed the barrel to Jake’s forehead.

Dropping the cuffs, Jake raised his hands. “It’s cool, man,” he said, though his voice told a different story. “Just relax.”

Having checked their weapons at the control station, Dad and Jake weren’t armed. In fact, except for the shotguns in the towers and the weapons locked in the arsenal, DeAndré Stone had the only firearm inside the prison.

“DeAndré,” Bobby Earl said, “don’t—”

“Shut your stupid mouth, Bobby Earl,” he said.

“But—” Bobby Earl began, then suddenly stopped as DeAndré pointed the pistol at him.

“I’m ‘bout to walk outta this motherfucker,” DeAndré said. “Any y’all follow me gonna get capped.”

He eased out of the door into the hallway, turned to head out of the chapel, and saw Merrill coming in, .38 drawn. Before Merrill could say or do anything, DeAndré fired a round, missing Merrill and shattering the glass of the outer chapel doors, then ran into the sanctuary.