Eli (26 page)

More than you’ll ever need me.” She threw the bag over her shoulder and started for the door.

“Suzanne . . .” He moved to block her, his voice growing hoarse. “I lost you once . . .” He struggled against the emotion.

“Please, I don’t want to lose you again.”

She looked sadly at him. “What is it Eli says? In order to find your life, you have to lose it? To keep something, we have to let it go?”

He searched her eyes. They were as shiny with tears as his. But he had no argument. And she knew it. Ever so gently, she raised up on her toes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Then, without a word, she moved past him, opened the door, and stepped out into the morning sun.

He remained standing, head spinning, putting his hand on the counter for support.

“That all you taking?” Trevor called. Conrad turned and looked out to see her approach the boy’s beat-up Toyota.

“It’s all I need,” she said. She opened the passenger door and tossed the gym bag into the back. Then, before ducking inside, she turned to Conrad and spoke one last time. “Everybody has priorities. Everybody has to make a choice. This is mine.”

“Suzanne . . .” But he stopped, having no idea what he could say.

She paused, giving a sad sort of smile. Finally she turned, entered the car, and shut the door.

“Suzanne . . .” He eased down the aluminum steps.

Trevor dropped the Toyota into gear. The car lurched slightly, then pulled forward. Sun briefly glinted off her window, and when the glare disappeared she was still looking at him. She gave a final wave, then brought her hand to her hththt 5/14/01 11:35 AM Page 197

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mouth and turned away. Conrad knew she was crying, though it was hard to see through the moisture in his own eyes. He continued watching as the car bounced along the gravel surface, raising a small cloud of dust, before it pulled out onto the main road and disappeared.

Not two minutes later, Conrad was storming toward the overpass, ready to give Eli a piece of his mind. Suzanne was the best there was, worth all of the others put together. And the best still wasn’t good enough? Then who was? “For the glory of God,” he’d said. Yeah, right. More like for his own egotistical pleasures. “Hate others and love him.” It was definitely time for a wake-up call.

Hot humidity already saturated the Texas morning air, and as he walked, there was no missing the smell of sage and mesquite. He’d barely crested the rise to the overpass when he saw the police cars. Two of them. And a third down on the highway below. He picked up his pace, breaking into a stiff jog. As he approached, he moved closer to the steel railing for a better look. Down below was a red-and-white tow truck with the name Sorbet Towing painted across its door. The driver was busy hoisting up a white Dodge Caravan, its windshield shattered in two, maybe three places, the rest covered with spiderwebbing. Not far away, another tow truck had just pulled beside a burgundy Lexus. Its front end had been completely demolished, and its windshield was as shattered as the Dodge’s. Directly below, scattered across the pavement, were the bodies of several dead animals. A dozen, maybe more. Cats, from what he could tell.

He glanced up and spotted Jake and Leon heading his way. “Hey,” he shouted, then slowed to catch his breath.

“What happened?”

Eli was about thirty yards behind them, talking to one of the officers. By his side stood what must have been the homeless woman, the demoniac. But instead of rolling around or writhing and screaming, she remained calm, listening as Eli spoke.

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“What happened?” Conrad repeated as the men arrived.

“The cat lady back there—” Jake jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “She had a bunch of those demon things inside her. Some of the locals wanted Eli to come over and help her.”

“It’s the same old thing,” Leon said, pretending to be bored.

“The usual screamin’ and swearin’. But finally their leader or whatever it was inside her, he begs Eli to throw them into a bunch of the woman’s cats. She has like a hundred or so.”

“And Eli does,” Jake explained. “But the cats, they suddenly start leaping off the road like a bunch of lemmings, right down onto the highway, hitting some of the cars. None of the people were hurt, but there were definitely a few fender benders.”

Conrad glanced over the railing at the dead cats below, then up at Eli who had just shaken the officer’s hand and was turning to leave with the woman. “Is she okay?” he asked.

“Oh, sure,” Jake said.

“But here’s the thing,” Leon added. “Soon as the local police get word, they come up here and threaten to throw our rear ends in jail if we don’t leave.”

“Why?”

“Seems Eli has caused too much damage.”

“But,” Conrad stammered, “he just healed that woman, he just gave her back her life.”

“That’s what I mean,” Leon said, shaking his head. “One life completely healed in exchange for a couple accidents.

Now you tell me what’s more important.”

Jake shrugged. “Guess everybody’s got their priorities.”

The similiarity of the phrase to Suzanne’s caught Conrad off guard. “What did you say?”

“I said they had a choice between Eli and some busted autos—so they voted for the autos. Go figure.” Jake shook his head, and the two moved past, heading toward the campsite, leaving a bewildered Conrad behind, trying to digest what he’d just heard.

“Connie!”

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He glanced up as Eli and the woman approached. Though it was the end of June, she was dressed in the usual multi-layered clothing and heavy, worn coat of the homeless. Something about seeing the two of them together, their smiles and friendliness, increased his resentment. And the closer they approached, the greater that resentment grew.

“Connie,” Eli called again, grinning. “I want you to meet Elizabeth Warden.”

Conrad did not return the smile. His mind was still back with Suzanne, still back with her tear-filled departure. And Eli’s words to her still rang in his ears. Before he knew it, his own words came. Before he could stop himself, he demanded, “How much more do you want from us?” The intensity in his voice surprised even himself.

The joy in Eli’s eyes faded.

“How much more?” Conrad was practically seething.

“To follow me?” Eli asked.

“How much more do we have to give up?”

“You already know that answer, Connie.”

“How much!”

Eli paused a moment, searching Conrad’s eyes. But Conrad would not back down. Finally, ever so gently, Eli gave his answer. It was very mild and yet absolutely firm:

“Everything.”

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C H A P T E R

T E N

“IF YOU ASK ME, THIS WHOLE DISCUSSION IS A WASTE OF TIME.”

“Why do you say that, Mr. Lazlo?” EBN anchorperson Karen Deutsch asked. She looked directly into the camera’s prompter where she could see the video image of Herbert Lazlo, the father whose son had been murdered eight years earlier by Ellen Perkins. He and his wife sat in their darkly paneled living room some three hundred miles away in the tiny community of Kirby, while here at the Women’s Correctional Facility in Gatesville, Texas, Karen Deutsch sat with Ellen Perkins, Eli Shepherd, and the rest of the EBN remote video crew. It was the video conference that Gerald McFarland had agreed to set up—the interview that Conrad had pleaded, had begged Eli to avoid at any cost.

Lazlo’s answer was husky and to the point. “There weren’t no fancy TV people and preachers around when she was butchering my boy. I don’t recall nobody here discussing whether or not he should get to live. And there weren’t nobody offerin’ to give
him
a second chance when she was hacking off pieces of his body and he was screamin’ for mercy!”

Conrad stood just out of camera range, watching as Ellen Perkins closed her eyes and quietly lowered her head. At 201

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202 twenty-five, she looked like the girl next door: shortly cropped auburn hair, freckles across the bridge of her nose, and a smile full of personality. But she was not smiling now.

Nor was Eli, who sat beside her.

It had taken most of the afternoon for the EBN crew to set up in this large conference room of beige cinderblock walls, yellowed linoleum, and white acoustical ceiling. It was at least a four-camera setup—three stationed around the newly finished oak table here at the Correctional Facility, and one, maybe two, over at the Lazlos’ home in Kirby. One hundred yards outside the barred windows and wire-meshed glass sat the network’s finest remote—a semitrailer full of state-of-theart audio and video equipment. It hummed quietly, pumping electricity through thick black cables to a half dozen glaring quartz lights strategically placed around the table. In exchange, another set of cables carrying the meeting’s sounds and images snaked their way back to the truck’s control room, where the director called the angles and beamed them across the country for the live telecast. EBN had spared no expense on this shoot, and Conrad certainly understood why. A trap this elaborate and thorough called for only the best equipment and crew.

Karen Deutsch responded gently to the father’s accusation. “Your son’s murder was eight years ago, Mr. Lazlo.

People change. You can see that Ms. Perkins is a different person. Look at all the good she’s done. Would demanding justice by putting an end to that goodness make things any better?”

Suddenly Mrs. Lazlo blurted out, “How much good would my son have done if
he’d
been allowed to live?” She was a frail, bony woman who, until now, had been able to keep her emotions in check. “He was a God-fearing boy, always helping others and wanting to do good. But we’ll never know how much good he could have done, will we?” Her voice began to tremble. “Will we!”

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It was the perfect dramatic moment, and Karen Deutsch used it to its fullest potential. Slowly, she turned to the young woman sitting across the table. “Mrs. Lazlo has an excellent point, Ellen. If you showed no mercy to their son, why should you expect any in return?”

Ellen remained staring at the table. “I can’t,” she answered hoarsely. “Not if people are looking for justice.” She began to slowly shake her head. “I can’t.”

Conrad cringed as Eli reached over and discretely took her hand. It might have been the right thing to do, but not with twenty million viewers watching.

Karen Deutsch turned to her camera. “That’s really the question, isn’t it? Justice or mercy. That’s the dilemma in a nutshell.”

Conrad glanced across the room at McFarland. Those were the exact words he’d used on Eli at the park in Tulsa, back when he’d first presented the challenge. Obviously, Deutsch had been thoroughly briefed and carefully coached.

She continued as if thinking through these observations for the very first time. “Does one embrace justice and capital punishment . . . or oppose justice and plead for mercy? The two really are incompatible; they cannot exist side by side.”

Then, turning to Eli, she asked, “I was wondering, Eli—I mean, it’s never really been clear. Which of the two positions do you hold?”

There it was. Subtle, smooth. Perfect in its simplicity. The entire interview, the video link, the millions of dollars of equipment, it had all been positioned for this one question.

Conrad knew that the answer didn’t matter. It was the perfect no-win setup that would expose Eli’s inconsistency. One that Dr. Kerston and the boys back in Georgia must already be celebrating over. Since the beginning of his public ministry, Eli had stressed these two opposites: holiness and mercy, holiness and mercy. McFarland had been right. It was a paradox; the two could not possibly coexist. And now, finally, he hththt 5/14/01 11:35 AM Page 204

204 would have the opportunity to discredit Eli in front of the entire nation.

“Eli?” Deutsch repeated.

Eli smiled quietly. “I’m afraid you’re asking the wrong question.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re giving me two options, ‘A’ or ‘B.’”

“Is there a problem with that?”

“Not unless the answer happens to be ‘Three.’”

“What?” Deutsch asked. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“I’ve come to heal souls, Karen, to save lives. I’m not here to play politics.”

“But surely this is a valid ques—”

“Let the person who is holy, the one with no sin, be the one to give Ellen the lethal injection.”

Silence stole over the room. “I take it that means you’re opposed to capital punishment then?” Deutsch asked.

Eli shook his head. “The issue is not capital punishment.”

He turned to Ellen. “The issue is whether you have sincerely turned from your sins and have earnestly asked for God’s forgiveness.”

Ellen looked deeply into his eyes and swallowed. “I have, Mr. Shepherd, with all my heart.” Her voice grew thicker as she continued. “I have turned from my sin, and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t ask God Almighty to somehow forgive me.”

“Then”—Eli broke into his famous grin—“you are forgiven.”

“And what about our son?” Mr. Lazlo demanded over the video link. “What about the Scriptures demanding blood to be shed for blood! What about God’s justice?”

Deutsch nodded, and being the calm voice of reason, asked, “That’s true, Eli. Doesn’t the Bible clearly state that, except for the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness?”

“Yes, it does,” Eli agreed. “And the Bible is always correct.”

“But you just said she was forgiven.”

“Yes.”

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“You can’t have it both ways.”

Eli nodded, “Yes.”

The anchorperson shook her head. “‘Yes’ is no answer. If Ellen here is forgiven, then where’s God’s justice? Whose blood is going to be shed for her crime?”

“Mine.”

“Pardon me?”

“The blood of God will be shed, instead of hers.”

“The blood of—what are you saying?”

“I’ve forgiven Ellen’s sins.”

“You? You can’t do that.”