Sinner (30 page)

She loved the flow of words over her tongue.

“I realize that I'm only one voice, brought here to address you as a favor to the Senate Judiciary Committee; but when you look into my eyes you will
know
that I am the voice of the people,” Darcy said. “This great country called the United States of America was founded because a few sought true freedom. They sailed for this land and endured terrible hardship for that freedom. They were the outcasts, the few who cried out for the right not to be trampled by oppressive beliefs. Now to preserve that freedom, not for a few who are black or white,Muslim or Christian, but for all, regardless of race or religion, you must pass this act”—she held up the sheaf of paper and shook it—“this law, which will deny any man the right to insult, defame, or degrade anyone's right to be black or white, Christian or Muslim!”

Her voice rose, and the truths mixed within her words washed over them with a conviction that they could not possibly understand.

“We are Americans, and that is enough for us to cling to.We
can
unite, as one body. As one voice. With one thing in common. We are states, united in freedom, and I say that our freedom comes from our unity, and
not
from our differences!”

Tears snaked down the cheeks of some. A few still retained set jaws, but not without a struggle.

“I say let no man be called unequal for the color of his skin! Let no woman be called a
witch
for her faith! Let no child be denied the sanctuary that this land offers their sacred beliefs.”

She was almost yelling now.

“Stop the bigotry. End the violence. Break the impasse. Pass this law. Make history. Today!”

The chamber erupted in thundering applause. A senior senator from Connecticut was the first to stand to her feet and call out her support. “Hear, hear!”

She was joined by five, then fifty, then all but a dozen.

Brian Kinnard watched from the balustrade, emotionless, arms crossed, dark glasses affixed to his face.

Darcy lowered the transcript of the resolution and raised a hand to silence them. She read the summary at full volume, aware that the power behind her words was seeping into their minds like an addictive intoxicant.

“‘This resolution, the National Tolerance Act, is a public bill, enveloping the national body of the United States and territories governed by the federacy. As by law, any occurrence of public expression that implicitly defames, denigrates, insults, or otherwise casts aspersion upon the race of persons of similar or dissimilar race shall be considered a personal attack of heinous nature upon that person's intrinsic value as a citizen as well as upon the moral character of that person, and as such, is to be considered a hate crime in that it brings into question the equality of all persons. The unalienable rights of all people are as protected as they are endowed, and each person is entitled to embody those things that are in their ethnic nature without harassment, molestation, denigration, or defamation.'”

A slight pause for effect, though she hardly needed it.

“‘As by law, any public expression of religious faith that implicitly defames, denigrates, insults, or otherwise casts aspersion upon the beliefs of persons of any other religion shall be considered a personal attack of heinous nature upon that person's intrinsic value as a citizen as well as upon the moral character of that person, and as such, is to be considered a hate crime in that it brings into issue the equality of all persons. Similar expressions of religious faith made in the privacy of individual places of worship or within the freedom of private domiciles are protected by the right to assemble and the right to free speech as provided by the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. A place of worship shall be defined as a publicly recognized structure that has been licensed by each state in accordance with federal laws. A private domicile shall be defined as the private dwelling of any persons in accordance to each state's residential zoning requirements.'”

Darcy dropped the document on the podium.

“Give an example for the House of Representatives to follow. Give your country this law today, and history will smile on you all.”

Then she left the stage, sweat standing out on her pores like dew. It had completely soaked her blouse.

Billy squeezed her elbow as they left. The drowning roar of the Senate followed them. “Congratulations,” he whispered in her ear. “I think you just sealed the deal.”

And she did, one hour and thirteen minutes later, with a vote of 83 to 17.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Day Seventeen

THE EPISCOPAL church on Main Street, Paradise, Colorado, was packed to the collar on Friday night, although there was only one liturgical collar in the building that Kat could see. That being worn by Father Stanley Yordon, who stood at the podium, trying to hush the excited crowd of three hundred who'd filed in over the past twenty minutes.

The auditorium's ceiling rose thirty feet to a single center beam, from which hung three huge bronze chandeliers. Pews padded in a maroon upholstery ran down both sides of a center aisle. A large wooden cross hung at the focal point in the center of the stained glass wall behind the platform. It was the first time Kat had actually been inside a church, and she found the environment rather moving. The church was at least symbolic of her new faith.

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.”The priest's voice boomed over the black speakers on either side of the platform.“No need to turn this into a barn. Please take your seats.”

Kat sat between Kelly, who sat quietly with her hands folded, and Paula Smither, who'd taken it upon herself to introduce her around since their arrival earlier this morning.Her husband, Steve Smither, owned Smither's Barbeque, the local gathering place for a closely knit community of Paradise's movers and shakers.

Before her trip to Paradise, Kat had never set foot outside of greater Las Vegas and Boulder City, but she'd seen enough movies and been exposed to enough U.S. history to imagine that Paradise was trapped in a thirty-year-old time capsule and had made no attempt at escape.

For example, although their lives were tied to the Net like the rest of the modern world, in the Smithers' home, where Kat was staying, the computer Paula used to do her shopping was wired to an old flat-panel monitor rather than the all-in-one wafer screens that had replaced the bulky boxes ages ago. She'd even seen a juke box in Smither's Barbeque.

More than the old technology that seemed prevalent in Paradise was the age of the people themselves. There were plenty of gray heads and plenty of children, but very few people between the ages of twenty and forty, which apparently was the popular age for locals to leave the time capsule for a taste of the new-fandangled world, as Paula put it, before they returned to settle down.

Mostly white. A few of mixed race like her, but even then, Kat stood out. Paula had spent the better part of the afternoon traipsing her around the town, meeting the neighbors, visiting the tiny grocery store, the salon, the recreation center, the few mom-and-pop shops. She'd advertised Kat as if she were a prize from the local fair. Kat had never felt so important in her life. She'd asked Paula why all the fuss.

“No fuss, they're just friendly.” Paula paused. “And you have to understand that Johnny's a bit of a legend in this valley. You have to be something pretty special to come home with him.”

There had been no helicopter, not this time. Johnny, Kelly, and Kat flew into Grand Junction and took an hour-long cab ride to Paradise. The street was deserted when they'd placed their bags on the board-walk and walked into Smither's Barbeque unannounced. Steve Smither was there with half a dozen others, eating lunch. Johnny's mother, Sally, was there.

You'd have thought that Moses had just come home. The image of Sally flying across the room, chased by her own shriek, and throwing her arms around Johnny's neck was one Kat wouldn't forget.

Steve had his cell phone out and started a chain of calls that brought twenty people running to the bar and grill. In the space of five minutes, Paradise had come fully awake.

They made a tremendous fuss over Kelly, Johnny's fiancée, demanding to know all the arrangements and heaping him with suggestions when he said that there were no arrangements yet. They demanded it be a fall wedding on the church lawn. Kelly would be a beautiful, stunning bride. Johnny had really caught a fine woman.

Kelly took it all in, blushing, saying all the right things, but to Kat she looked out of place. Like a high-society type in Mayberry. Then again, that could be the instinctive protectiveness coming out in Kat. She was, after all, Johnny's spiritual daughter. He'd said so himself.

Guest accommodations were settled after a lot of back and forth over who got to host whom. Johnny would stay with his mother, naturally. Sleep in his old room.

Everyone else wanted
both
Kat and Kelly, but they divided themselves between Katie Bowers and Paula Smither. Katie would put Kelly up in her son's old room. He lived in Amarillo with his wife now, she was proud to point out.

Paula Smither staked a claim for Kat by hooking her hand around Kat's elbow and letting it remain there for a good ten minutes. She would put Katrina up in Roland's old room, she said.

Then Johnny left with his mother and Kat hadn't seen him since. That's what the meeting was for, to see Johnny. Hear his plan. The news had spread.

Father Yordon's call for quiet hadn't stilled the conversation between the pews.

“Never changes,” Paula said to her, leaning so that Kat could hear. She swept her dark brown hair behind one ear. “You give people a little money and they lose all their manners, even the ones who had manners to begin with.”

Most of the residents were farmers who grew exotic Paradise apples that were exported to Japan, where they sold for ten times the price of domestic Fuji apples. The valley's soil composition had changed thirty years earlier, resulting in an unusually sweet fruit unique to this single valley. Only so much land could support these trees farmed by these people. Their apples were rare; supply and demand dictated the rest.

When Kat had asked Steve why they sent the apples all the way to Japan, he'd winked and told her that no one in Paradise was beyond taking a healthy profit. The farmers might look dated, but they were by no means poor. Paradise was a small Eden, as rich as an oil field and much more beautiful.

Kat had no idea what they did with all their money. They all drove late-model cars, the only real sign of progress in the town, but not the flashy kind she would find on Las Vegas Boulevard any night of the week.

Johnny had managed to talk the judge and the school into granting her variances for a two-week sabbatical, which he claimed was critical to her progress and emotional stability—all true, because she wasn't sure she could have stayed in Boulder City, not knowing what she knew.

Which was what?

That the kingdom of light was buzzing all around them.

That the darkness she'd once walked in wasn't taking it without complaint.

That Johnny wasn't going to take it lying down, so neither would she.

“People!” Father Yordon kicked it up a notch. He probably faced the same unresponsive crowd every time he took the platform. There was no frustration on the gray-haired man's narrow face. This was only part of the ritual, and both he and the congregation had their roles to play.

“Now he yells at them, they'll listen,” Paula said. But even her expression of disapproval included a wink and a nod.

Kat looked at the woman's twinkling eyes set in a comfortably round face. Steve sat by her side with arms and legs crossed, dressed in jeans and a black shirt. That was another thing—none of the farmers dressed much like what she imagined farmers would. Jeans, sure. But they likely shopped at Dillard's rather than Wal-Mart. Dresses, but not cheap ones. No flannel shirts. Lots of expensive leather jackets. No cowboy hats or even boots. But then, what did she know about rich farmers who sold exotic Paradise apples to the Japanese for a killing?

He caught her stare and winked. “She's right.”

“People! I know this is a Friday night, but we have business here!”

Now they quieted.

A tall man built like a tree trunk remained standing. “Where is he, Father?”

“Well now, Claude, if you'd just have a seat I'll bring him on, won't I?”

Claude Bowers sat and put his arm behind his wife, Katie Bowers, who smiled back at Kat. She ran the beauty salon across the street, a pretty strawberry blonde who looked much younger than her sixty years, but Paula had been guessing on her age.

“Thank you, Claude.”

The man dipped his head once, without showing a hint he'd understood the gentle rebuke.

Father Yordon sighed. “Thank you all for coming on such short notice. But I can promise you, you won't be disappointed.We've seen our days in here, haven't we?”

The place stilled to the sound of breathing.

“Well . . .” Father Yordon smiled at them, formed a teepee with his fingers. He didn't seem to know quite what to say. “So then . . .”

The back swinging door creaked, and as one, the congregation twisted in their seats. Sally Drake, Johnny's middle-aged mother, walked in with her son on her arm. She was a full foot smaller than he, but her smile was larger than both of them put together.

Johnny was dressed in the black slacks and knitted T-shirt he often wore, and with the dark glasses over his eyes he looked like some kind of misplaced superstar. But then he was, wasn't he? The white eyes behind those sunglasses said so.

He kissed his mother at the front pew, then hopped onto the stage. Took Father Yordon's hand. They shook too long, and Kat suspected it was the priest's doing.

“Folks.” Yordon stepped up to the microphone. “Folks, I couldn't be more pleased to welcome Johnny home.”