The Wedding Caper (12 page)

I thought
about Nadine and her work with the homeless in Savannah.
My
admiration for her soared through the roof.
What was it she had said
about the Lord calling us to reach out to the poor and needy? Something from
Isaiah, I think. Oh yes, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because
he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” And there was more, too.
Something about ministering to the downtrodden.

Was Jake
Mullins downtrodden? If so, was the Lord asking me, in some way, to minister to
him?

Only
one way to know for sure.
I would arrange to spend a little time with him, get to know him better. Figure
out who he liked to hang out with, and why. Perhaps doing so would solve two
problems for me: First, it would help me discern his role, if any, in the
disappearance of the money. Second, it would give me a glimpse into the life of
a young man who’d struggled like so many others I’d just read about on the
Internet.

Sasha
tugged on the leash and I turned toward home. As I walked along, I felt led to
pray for Jake. I’m not sure why. Perhaps this thing about being a prodigal hit
me so hard because of my own son. I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to
have a family member living in such hopelessness.

In my
mind’s eye, I could see Devin in his football uniform, chasing a ball past the
fifty yard
line. I could not—prayed I would
not—see him on the run from his family, his friends,
his
relationship with God. I would do everything in my power to prevent such a
thing.

Then
again, perhaps
Janetta
Mullins had done everything
within her power, too. Maybe she’d spent the last few years praying for her
wayward son, as she’d said. If so, we had every reason to hope—to
believe—he had returned for the right reasons.
To enter
back into relationship with his family.

I
pondered that awhile. If, after all he’d learned on the streets, Jake Mullins
had turned his heart toward home,
then
I wanted to
help free him from the cloud of guilt that now hovered over him. Perhaps, if
the two of us linked arms, we could convince the
police.…

I stopped
right there. Sheila’s comment at the bed and breakfast roused me from my
ponderings. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Funny
thing was, Jake Mullins didn’t look much like a nail right now. In fact, he
looked every bit like a young man in need of a hand up.

And I
just happened to have a hand.
Two, in fact.

Chapter Twelve

I guess you
could say I caught a break. On Wednesday afternoon, at approximately 2:15 p.m.,
I happened to notice Jake Mullins through the window of the diner, seated in a
booth. Alone.

Could I help
it if the sudden urge for a piece of homemade apple pie pushed me through the
front door of my favorite eatery and into the booth next to his? And could I
help it that my former don’t-call-me-honey waitress happened to be serving both
of us simultaneously?

I slipped
off my jacket and looked up into Shawna’s eyes from atop the plastic-coated
menu. For the first time, I observed their color. Green. Quite pretty. In fact,
she was a pretty girl, all the way around.

Take
note, Annie. If you look beyond the tattoos and piercings, you might just find
a beautiful person underneath.

“Can I
help you, honey?” I took note of the sarcasm as she pulled the pencil from
behind her ear to take my order. My gaze shifted to the assortment of earrings
lining her right ear. All the way up—and in some of the oddest places I’d
ever imagined anyone poking a hole. Wow. That looks painful.

“
Mmm
, yes.” I glanced at the menu—for effect. “I’ll
have the apple pie, a la mode. And a cup of coffee.”

She
reached to take the menu and I commented on her fingernails—black with a
various musical notes painted in white on each one. “Very cool. Where did you
get them done?”

Now,
me—I always had
mine
done at
Clarksborough’s
salon, The Liberty Belle. But I knew for a fact my nail tech, Maureen, didn’t
customize quite like that.

Shawna
held her hands out for my approval. “My sister in Philly does nails. So every
time I go back home for a visit she experiments on me. Do you like them?”

“Very
much. I take it you’re a music lover.”

Her face
lit in a smile, the first I’d seen. “I’m in a band,” she explained. “I play the
keyboard and sing.”

“Very
appropriate, then. What kind of music do you play?”

“I write
most of our songs,” she added, a flush now covering her cheeks. “We do mostly
alternative stuff.”

“Ah.”
Mental note: Look up alternative music.

She went
to fetch my pie and I focused on the young man I’d come to connect with. Jake
never seemed to notice me. Instead, his gaze appeared to be focused on one
thing: Shawna.

As she
returned to plop a dish-sized wedge of apple pie in front of me, he piped up
from the next booth. “Did I hear you say you’re from Philly?”

“I lived
in Northeast Philly till I was seventeen.” Shawna took a step his direction,
and I couldn’t help but notice the color in her cheeks deepened as she drew
closer to Jake.
And why not?
Despite his rough life,
he was a good-looking young man.

“How in
the world did you end up in
Clarksborough
?” He
reached to put his coffee cup down. “I mean, I can see moving from here to
there, but to do it the other way around—”

My keen
observation skills kicked in. I took note of Shawna’s tightening grip on the
menu as he asked the question. Is she nervous? What’s up with that?

“My
cousin lives here,” she explained. “My
parents.
. .
well, let’s just say they thought it was time I got out of the city for a
while. They wanted to get me away from my, um, friends.”

Jake gave
her an inquisitive look. “Ah. I lived in Philly too. Till just a few weeks
ago.”

Shawna
set the menu aside as she carried on. “I miss my old neighborhood.” She dove
into a lengthy explanation about the street she’d grown up on and I tried to
turn my attentions to the cars driving by on the other side of the window, but
couldn’t seem to. Something about this pair intrigued me.

Before
long, the three of us found ourselves in an enlightening conversation that
would’ve made my Internet teachers proud. I learned more in those few moments
than I had in years.

With no
other customers to wait on, Shawna took a seat at Jake’s table and eventually
encouraged me to join them. I slipped in with the comfort of a cat easing onto
a sunlit
window sill
. Of course, this cat had to take
her pie with her. Waste not, want not, and all that.

For
whatever reason, Jake felt comfortable enough around the two of us to open up
and share about his life in the big city. Over the next hour, I heard all about
his yearlong residence in the underground world of Philadelphia’s subway
station, where commuters would occasionally toss a bit of change his way, or
shift their eyes, pretending to look the other way. He talked about bitter cold
nights spent in shelters, where he listened to street preachers “do their
thing” in exchange for a hot shower and a much-needed rest in a real bed.

“Never really
paid much attention to what they were saying,” he admitted at one point. “Guess
I didn’t feel like I needed what they were peddling. I just wanted a clean
bathroom and a shave. Or a new shirt.”

My heart
nearly broke as he told his story.
For several reasons.
I wanted to ask him how he could’ve heard their words of hope and not
responded, but he answered that for me.

“I was
too messed up to hear what they had to say, anyway. My mind was—” His
hand flew up, as if in a sign of surrender. “—Shot. I was completely
messed up by the drugs and alcohol.”

He went
on to talk about the countless bottles of cheap whiskey he’d purchased over the
years, which he’d swallowed down between drug hits. I squirmed in my seat and
tried to settle the ache in my “mama heart” by tracing circles in my now-empty
pie plate with my fork.

I
thought, once again, about Nadine, and her work with the homeless. How
wonderful, to give yourself so freely to those in need. But how difficult it
must be to watch so many
return
to their habits, in
spite of your encouragement and help.

As Jake
spoke, I wished a thousand times over I could bolt from this place and not look
back. But something held me firmly in place. Lord, is this what you meant by
street smart? To be honest, this isn’t quite what I had in mind. I could have
lived the rest of my life without hearing all of this.

On the
other hand, I had asked the Lord for his help with the investigation. Perhaps
something Jake might say would stir up an answer to the questions rolling
around in my head.

If you
look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you
will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Hmm.
There it was again. That verse.

Well, no
point in beating around the bush. I might as well come out and ask the question
that that had been on my mind all along. “I just need to know one thing.” I
could feel the frustrating sting of tears as I interrupted him.

His brow
wrinkled
as he looked my way. “What?”

“If you
had family here, what were you doing there? Why didn’t you just come home?”

Jake and
Shawna both gave me that you-wouldn’t-get-it look but I refused to let the
question go unanswered.

“I want
to understand.” I offered up an imploring look, in the hopes that both would
trust me enough to bare their souls. “I’m a mom. And all moms want to know what
they could have done—” Dare I say it? “—Differently.”

Shawna’s
musical fingernails tapped on the tabletop. “It’s not always that easy to
explain.” I took note of the strain in her voice. “I mean, I got along with my
mom okay, but my dad—”

“At least
you had a dad,” Jake interjected. “With me, there was no one to talk to but my
mom, and she just didn’t get me. At least not during the bad years.”

I thought
back to my conversation with
Janetta
Mullins. She had
acknowledged making a few mistakes, not offering her youngest child the same
discipline as the older ones. But was that really enough to send him running to
a life in the streets?

“So
leaving was the best choice?” I asked.

Jake’s
gaze shifted to the table. “I’m not saying that. There are a lot of things I
wish I’d done different. My
mom.
. .” His eyes clouded
over here.

Was he
going to cry?

“My mom
did everything she could. I know that. She wanted me to just snap out of it.
Like it was that easy. She even sent me to a counselor.”

“Been
there, done that,” Shawna whispered. “My parents sent me to a shrink. Paid a
fortune.”

I
couldn’t help but notice the admiring gaze Jake cast Shawna’s way as he forged
ahead. “After my dad left, I just kind
of
folded
up—like a deck of cards. Shut down. It wasn’t long before a couple of my
friends offered me something that took away the pain.”

Drugs.

“I knew
I’d end up as messed up as they were.” He shrugged. “But to be honest, I didn’t
care.
I didn’t care about anyone back then, especially not
myself.”

Whoa.
Brutal honesty. I guess that’s what I got for asking God to show me His heart
in all of this.

Jake’s
lips pursed and silence took over. He finally spoke, though a tremor now laced
his words. “My dad obviously never cared anything about me. I didn’t figure I
mattered to him—at least not enough to send a stupid birthday card or
Christmas present. So I guess it made some kind of sense that I didn’t care
about myself either. Like father, like son, you know?”

How do I
get rid of this knot in my throat without creating a scene?

Jake’s
face tightened as he finished. “I just wanted a way to kill the pain. And the
drugs took care of that.”

I noticed
Shawna’s eyes brimming over. Apparently her heart was softer than it appeared.
“How did you end up in Philly?” she asked.

Is that
tenderness in her voice?

Jake took
another swig from his coffee cup before answering. “The money. I figured I
could deal drugs, like my buddies. They made it sound pretty appealing. But
I’ve already told you how all of that ended up.” He cleared his throat and
shifted his attentions out the window.

My heart
felt as if it would break. I wanted to wrap this young man in my arms, to tell
him everything would be fine, that he could start all over again.

Shawna
interrupted my thoughts with a few thoughtful words. “Sometimes I wish I could
go back and do things over.”

“Me too.”
Jake looked up and their eyes seemed to lock.

For a
moment I said nothing. When I did interject my thoughts, they came bathed in
silent prayer. “Everyone feels that way at some point. We’ve all got stuff
behind us we wish we could change. But it’s what’s in front of us that
matters.”

Jake gave
a slight nod. “Looking back is hard. I don’t even like to remember what I was
like in Philly.” Again, the gaze shifted to the table.

I reached
to squeeze his hand. “Jake, you’re no different from any of the rest of us.”

His
eyebrows arced in surprise. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. And
I think you know it, too. I think you probably heard just enough from those
street preachers to get you thinking. You’re not interested in going back. You
want to move forward. That’s evident.”

He leaned
back in the booth and put his hands behind his head. “Maybe. But the police
sure don’t seem to think I have any kind of a future—except maybe one
behind bars. They took one look at me and assumed the worst. Didn’t even give
me a chance.”

My heart
rate increased immediately. Oh, here we
go.
. .

“What’s
up with that?” Shawna asked.

I leaned
in as Jake responded, my need-to-know kicking in.

“They
said they found my fingerprints on the night deposit box. Big deal. So, I’m not
a customer at the bank. What does that have to do with anything?”

What,
indeed? Probably hundreds of people have touched that box.

“I told
them I’d touched it. Even tried to open it. I was just messing around, waiting
for my sister to show up. I’d been watching her for days and kind of figured
she’d eventually turn up to make a deposit for my mom’s business.”

“Did
she?” Shawna leaned in, elbows on the table, in rapt attention.

He
shrugged. “From what my sister told me later, she made the deposit around one
in the morning, but I never even saw her. I fell asleep around midnight on the
backside of the building, just beyond the trees.”

“Ah.” So
that answered that question. “I feel asleep” probably hadn’t been the strongest
alibi, to a law enforcement officer’s way of thinking.

“The
police must think I’m a lot smarter than I am. There was some sort of power
outage, and I guess they figured I rigged it somehow.” He shook his head,
clearly frustrated. “I can think of a thousand things I’d rather do that mess
with anything electrical, I’ll tell you that.”