The Last Time She Saw Him (8 page)

“Reverend Casey Cahill’s lawyer just called. Cahill insists he has to talk to you, Julia,” Navarro says. “You need to go down to the state penitentiary right now. Alone. Cahill will only talk to you.”

“Cahill?” His name slips out of my mouth like a snake rearing up unexpectedly across my path. “What’s this all about?”

“Cahill says he knows who took your son.”

* * *

“Relationship to inmate.”

I stare at the blank line on the prison pass and try to manipulate the unconnecting piece so it fits. But Cahill’s almost immediate knowledge of Will’s kidnapping makes no sense. Unless someone tipped him off from the inside.

I scribble down the word
source
on the prison pass, remove the wedding ring that I still wear despite my status with David and the silver heart-shaped locket engraved with the boys’ monograms, and place my jewelry on the conveyer belt. I hurry through the metal detector, and the prison guard stamps the back of my hand with ultraviolet ink.

“Have a nice day, sweetheart,” he says as I enter into the prison. I turn around and catch the guard staring at my ass.

“Some things haven’t changed,” I mutter under my breath.

The first time I came to the prison was to interview a serial killer who had murdered six nurses after they got off their swing shift at a string of hospitals across Detroit. That was twelve years ago. I was terrified to do the interview and painfully green. I tried to camouflage my nerves, but the prison guards caught on right away. They forced me to go through the metal detector twice and then claimed they had to search me. I could refuse, of course, but then I wouldn’t be able to go inside.

“I need to do this interview. I promised my editor. Could you please just let me go through?” I begged.

Then I heard a stranger’s voice from behind. “How’s your story coming along on corruption in the prisons? I think that’s going to be one hell of an article.”

I turned to see a handsome, dark-haired, brooding-looking man in a leather jacket. I looked at the stranger quizzically, but before I could respond, the guards let me through. Later, in the visiting room, the stranger approached me.

“Never let them see your fear. By the way, I’m Detective Ray Navarro.”

Something dark and broken drew me to Navarro back then, a stark vulnerability I detected beneath the swagger. One night, after finishing off a pitcher of margaritas that we brought upstairs from the taco place below our apartment, Navarro told me how he witnessed his father strangling his mother to death in the family’s kitchen. Navarro was eleven when it happened. I held Navarro as he wept and recounted how his father kept screaming that he shouldn’t have to come home to a goddamn cold dinner every night, yelling maniacally even after Navarro’s mother became limp and lifeless. I always figured Navarro became a cop to atone for not being able to protect his mother from what I discovered were years of abuse. I asked Navarro that night if he ever forgave himself for not being able to save the person I know was most precious to him. He said he never could. I never told Navarro, but I knew exactly how he felt.

* * *

I pace back and forth across the prison’s visiting room while I wait for Cahill. Since he is in a segregated part of the prison, we normally would be limited to a non-contact visit with a glass partition between us, and quite frankly, I would have preferred that scenario. But per Cahill’s demands, Chief Linderman pulled some strings with the head of the Department of Corrections to allow this face-to-face meeting.

At seven-thirty in the morning, the visiting room is empty except for a handful of cheap metal tables and chairs, several Bibles, and a copy of the Koran. I pick up a Bible and contemplate opening it. After Ben was taken, I prayed each night with every ounce of my being that my brother would come home. But when Ben didn’t, I stopped praying. And if God didn’t listen to me then, I’m convinced he wouldn’t hear me now.

The heavy door to the visiting room swings open and Cahill strides in, still charismatic and preening, despite the constraints of his handcuffs and blue-prison jumpsuit.

Cahill is tall, but more muscular now than I remembered, and his well-cropped brown hair has shoots of grey at the temples. Cahill’s left forearm still has the tattoo I first saw when I met him. The tattoo is a big black crow, its wings spread wide as a dozen or so smaller crows scatter in the air above their master.

A stocky prison guard stands at the door with his arms folded across his chest and watches Cahill’s every move as he approaches, but the supervision doesn’t seem to faze the former reverend at all. He looks pleased to have someone in his presence so he can preach again, even though it’s only to a potentially adversarial audience of one. I somehow temper my revulsion and the overwhelming urge to throw Cahill against the wall and start beating him until he tells me where my son is.

“Miss Gooden. I see that you are turning to God at this important time,” Cahill says, looking at the Bible still in my hands. “You do believe in God?”

I let the Bible slip through my fingers, and it lands with a tired thud on the table.

“At one time, I thought I did. But he never responded.”

“God only speaks to His chosen few.”

“Let’s be clear before we start. Everything I reported about your crimes and trial were facts. I wrote the truth. If this is going to be a debate or a one-sided lecture, I’m not playing.”

Cahill glares at me, and his blue eyes, flecked with hints of gold, don’t blink as he stares back at me with clear disdain.

“Those were lies you wrote, and you know it. You destroyed more souls than you can ever imagine.”

“What lies are you referring to? That you brainwashed hundreds of people and raped little girls?”

Cahill’s full lips pucker up into a displeased pout.

“I did no such thing. They were spiritual unions, ordained by God. You don’t understand. You live in the sins of the outside world. I live in the supernatural.”

“You’re right. I didn’t drink your Kool-Aid. What do you know about my son?”

Cahill’s mouth relaxes slightly, and he gestures me to a chair next to him. I choose a seat across the table instead and pull out my tape recorder.

“Oh, we don’t need that. No, no, no. We’re just going to have a conversation. No one likes to have conversations anymore. Everyone is glued to their computers and cell phones these days. Technology can be a blessing, but it can also lead us astray. There are many things of the devil in this world. Television and computers let the devil slip in, and he will snatch up our souls if we turn our faces from God for even a second.”

I take my recorder, shove it back in my pocket, and hit the record button. As a journalist, I am not supposed to tape sources without their knowledge or consent. But screw the formality. I’m not a reporter right now.

“Well, that’s better. Can you leave us alone for a while?” Cahill asks the guard, who ignores him. “We have some catching up to do.”

“You’ve got ten minutes,” I answer.

And then the inevitable preaching begins.

“I’m so worried about the world. Just look around. All the signs are there—the end is near. There are wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornadoes of Biblical proportion,” Cahill says, punctuating each new calamity with dramatic emphasis. “Are you ready for His return?”

“You told the police you have information about my son. What do you know?”

Cahill disregards my question and continues with his twisted sermon.

“It’s quite simple, Miss Gooden. God is not happy because people continue to turn their backs on Him. And when we turn away from the Creator, then the people will suffer. The homosexuals will suffer for their dirty sex. The women who rip babies from their wombs will suffer for snuffing out a life God breathed into those tiny souls. And the homeless and drug addicts will suffer for their weakness. And now you suffer, too. Do you know why?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“Because you have turned your heart from God,” Cahill warns. “You were born with sin, tainted with the original sin of Adam and Eve, and that is why He punished you as a child.”

Cahill catches me off guard.

“I’ve been praying for you and the safe return of your son. So horrible for this to happen to you again,” Cahill says.

“What do you mean by that?”

“One of my pen pals knows you. They wrote to me about your brother,” Cahill whispers and looks over his shoulder as though he is telling me a secret. “I’ve been praying all morning that your brother wasn’t raped and tortured for days on end. There’s so much evil in the world.”

I grab on to the chair so I won’t reach across the table and strangle Cahill.

“Who told you about my brother?”

“No need to be so angry. Just like journalists must protect their sources, I must protect those who come to me for guidance. As for your brother, I pray he didn’t suffer too long or call out your name in his last dying breath, just hoping to see his little sister one more time. Because his little sister never came. That must torment you to no end. The mind can go to very dark places sometimes. I can help you through the darkness if you’d like.”

The inside of my body feels like it turned into a block of black ice.

“Shut up about my brother. Understood?”

The prison guard glances over as my voice begins to escalate.

“Now, about your son. Will is his name?” Cahill asks.

“Yes,” I answer through gritted teeth.

“Poor little boy. I saw your son’s picture on the TV news. He doesn’t look like you. Such pretty white-blond hair for a boy. He must look like that lawyer husband of yours. Your husband used to work for the public defender’s office, didn’t he? I used to see him around here when I was still preaching at the Church of the True Believer, but it’s been a while.”

“What my husband does is none of your business.”

“I understand that type of work, defending such people who have committed unspeakable acts, was probably just too hard for your husband. It takes a soul touched by God to work with sinners, especially those of the caliber around these parts. God told me He brought me here for a reason, to help these sinners, just like so many prophets before me. I trust in His will and you should, too.”

“You’ve got exactly one minute, or I’m walking out of here and going straight to the police station. I’ll tell Linderman you’re withholding evidence in a kidnapping, and don’t think you won’t be charged with additional crimes.”

“I realize you’re under a great deal of pressure, but I don’t care to be blackmailed. You’ve done enough to me already. Innocent until proven guilty, isn’t that what they say? Not when you’ve already been convicted in the press.”

“You’re involved in this. That’s how you know who took my son. Is this payback?”

Cahill tilts his head to the side and gives me a toothy, made-for-television smile and the old Rock ’n’ Roll Jesus of Motor City flickers back to life for an instant.

“I forgave you long ago for those stories. And to answer your question, of course I’m not involved in your son’s kidnapping. I’m a man of the cloth and would never break the law.”

I realized Cahill was going to try and play me. He wants a captive audience, and if I take that away, he will be forced to give me what I want. I stand up and begin to head toward the door. But just as I expected, before I can take two full steps, Cahill’s voice beckons me back.

“The letters started coming last month,” he says. “It was wonderful to get letters again, such glowing letters about how I brought God into their life. Members of my congregation used to write to me religiously when I first got in here, but then most of them stopped writing. They will pay for their discourteous behavior.”

“I don’t care about your lack of fan mail. What did these letters say about my son? Were they from one of your parishioners?”

“Tens of thousands of my parishioners came faithfully to hear the word of God every Wednesday night, Saturday afternoon, and for all three of my Sunday sermons. What my daddy started as a tent revival bloomed into a world-wide ministry. If people couldn’t be there in person, I brought God to them through television. They could be saved right there in the comfort of their own living room. My ministry touched countless believers on every continent through my syndicated show.”

“That’s until the majority of your parishioners realized you stole their money and had sex with little girls. How old was the youngest, Cahill? Nine? You handpicked them from the video footage from your Sunday school, right? That’s pretty convenient. Those children will never be the same.”

“You know, I used to watch you in the courtroom, sitting there so pretty with your tape recorder and notebook, looking so serious,” Cahill says. “I prayed for you then that you would close your legs to men, but then I found out you had a husband. Are you a faithful wife? I’m so worried hell is waiting for you. I wake up at night and worry about you sometimes.”

“Don’t bother. So you’re telling me you don’t know who wrote the letters?” I ask.

“I would love to know every member of my congregation, I truly would, but when God has called a man to do an important job and deliver His message to the masses, a reverend just can’t know every member of his flock intimately.”

Cahill begins to drum his long fingers on the table for a moment as though he is calculating his next move in a game of chess.

“You need to make me a promise. I’ll give you what you want if you give me what I want,” Cahill says. “I have an important appointment coming up and I could use your support.”

“Your parole hearing? Let me guess. You help the police out with information on a child abduction case and this looks favorable with the parole commission.”

“I just like to help when I can, especially when it pertains to the welfare of a child,” Cahill answers. “Jesus said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ And I will always be there to help a child who is suffering.”