Angie nodded. “Heard the divorce story,” she said. The two grinned at each other.
Mac just kept eating and watched his photog bond with the waitress over another woman’s revenge on a cheating ex. Don’t forget that lesson, he told himself.
“You should talk to Beatrice Knowlton; she’s a dispatcher for the city. Well, everyone really. It’s centralized, now,” Sue said slowly. “I’ll give her a heads up, that you might be by, if you’d like.”
“I’d like that a lot,” Mac said with interest. “This afternoon?”
“I’ll ask,” she said. “Where you headed next? Church?” And she laughed. Then she looked at the two of them. “You are, aren’t you?” She laughed some more. “I’d sure like to hear how that goes.”
Angie grinned at her. “Happy to stop by for some pie later and tell you all about it,” she suggested. “And maybe you could let us know about Beatrice?”
“Deal,” Sue said. “Oh Lord.”
Mac and Angie looked at each other. Mac wondered if he was over-confident, and if different churches did things differently. Well, they’d find out soon enough.
It was a large church. For a city with only 35,000 residents, this church was pulling in 10 percent of the population easy, Mac thought. Must pull them in from the whole county, he decided. Still this was a lot of people for a church service. They found a parking spot, locked up their bags in the back of the 4-Runner, and walked what seemed like a couple of blocks to the church entrance.
“New here?” said a cheerful man in a dark gray suit as he handed them a bulletin.
Mac nodded, and forced himself to smile. He’d learned that you had to do a lot of that at church. “Yes,” he said. “We heard about it, and decided to give it a try.”
“Good! Welcome, then.” He gave them directions up the stairs to the first balcony because the main floor was already full. “You can see better from there anyway.”
Mac thanked him, and the two of them silently walked up the stairs together. They found seats, and looked around.
Holy shit, Mac thought. The church was huge. It was set up like a theater, seats on the main floor, the balcony that ran around three sides of the building. In front was a stage, with enough musical instruments on it to keep any Seattle band happy for life. There wasn’t a pulpit that he could see. There was music coming in over a sound system as people filed in.
A young man, his age, Mac thought, came out with a cordless mic and welcomed everyone. Song lyrics were projected on a big screen behind the man, and the congregation was invited to sing — to the accompaniment of drums, guitars, and a keyboard. They were pretty good, Mac thought. He sang along and ignored Angie’s sidewise glance at him. But she sang too.
A lot of music. A lot of ‘Amen’ and ‘Praise the Lord’. Mac still flinched a bit, but at least he no longer felt the urge to duck for cover. Some prayer. The meet and greet. Mac relaxed a bit; this was familiar.
Then an interesting Old Testament scripture was read.
Psalm 109
Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;
2For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.
4For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.
5And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
6 Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.
8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Mac flinched. What the hell?
The New Testament passage from 2 Thessalonians wasn’t any better.
3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.
4 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.
6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you
7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.
8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.
Mac swallowed. He would have to tell Shorty that Kate’s CMA church was a compromise.
The preacher was in his 50s, Mac thought. He was wearing a dark suit, that was a magnitude more expensive than the one the greeter had been wearing. Mac liked good suits. He didn’t have much cause to wear them — Seattle was a laid-back town — but he owned a couple. And the preacher was wearing a good suit. He had blond hair, professionally cut. Mac couldn’t see much about his features.
And then his face was on the big screen, and Mac could count his eyelashes if he’d been inclined. A good-looking man. One that would appeal to men as well as women. He made a mental note to add his name to Shorty’s list for Sensei possibilities.
The Rev. Daniel Nielsen — Norwegian descent, Mac thought, like so many up here — was preaching about God’s vengeance against those who refused to live by his dictates.
“Too many today would have you believe that God is about love. Love your neighbors, they urge. Love. And God does love those who have chosen to follow Him and live by his ways. But God is also about vengeance. And we are called to be his weapons against evildoers.”
Mac blinked. He owed Kate’s minister an apology, he thought. He’d thought he wasn’t consistent? This man set new levels for taking things out of context and preaching them!
Mac looked around. People were nodding, holding hands up to testify their support — he thought that was right, there was much about church culture that still confused him. Nowhere did he see anyone who was the least bit hesitant about the message in today’s sermon.
Troubled, he turned back to listen to the rest of the sermon.
Afterwards, he and Angie walked back to the car, and drove away. They’d gone nearly a mile back into town before Angie finally broke the silence.
“Mac, did they just call for the assignation of President Obama?” she said in a small voice.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think they did.”
He told his phone to call Janet. He described what they’d just heard. “Janet?” he said. “Have you heard of anything like that?”
Janet was silent for a bit. “You haven’t seen the bumper stickers that just say Psalms 109:8?” she asked.
He thought about it. “Maybe,” he said. “Didn’t pay any attention, I guess.”
“Now you know,” and she ended the call.
“Let’s get some pie,” Mac said. “Bumper stickers?”
Angie shook her head and looked out the window.
Mr. T’s had pie, Mac conceded. A dozen different kinds. Sue and Angie chatted about which ones were best.
“Rhubarb is in season,” Sue said. “I’m partial to the strawberry-rhubarb pie. The blueberry cobbler is made with fresh berries too.” She shrugged. “They’re all good.”
Angie agreed to try the strawberry-rhubarb pie. Mac opted for the blueberry cobbler. Maybe he’d try a bite of her pie, he thought. Maybe.
“Beatrice said she thought pie sounded like a fine idea,” Sue said casually. “She’ll be dropping by.”
Then she grinned. �
��So? How was church?”
Angie laughed, and told her all about it. “Have you been out there?” she asked.
“A couple of times,” Sue said. “Last Easter. That was something. They had the whole pageant — three crosses and everything. Dragged in a man, tried him, and sentenced him to die on the cross.”
Mac winced. “Did they actually nail him to a cross?” he asked. After this morning’s service he wouldn’t put it past them.
“No. He stood there, against the cross, his arms tied to the cross members,” she said. “Then Rev. Nielsen preached about him dying for our sins.”
“Interesting,” Mac said. “Isn’t Easter about the resurrection? Not the crucifixion?” That had been the theme of the sermon at Kate’s church, as a matter of fact. And everyone had greeted each other with ‘He is risen!’ He’d rolled his eyes a bit, then, but compared to a mock-crucifixion?
“Now where would the theater be in that?” Sue asked. He looked at her and gave one of his slow smiles of approval. He liked this woman. He thought she was in her 40s. Tall, spare, she had blond hair like the rest of the town with its Scandinavian heritage. About 15 percent claimed Scandinavian ancestry, Mac thought. He’d had to adjust to all these tall blondes when he’d gone to school in Bellingham. He wasn’t used to it. Add in that German was also about 15 percent? And you had a lot of tall, blondes wandering around. Still freaked him out a bit, even now, he admitted. Felt like he’d wandered into an Aryan Nation convention — well, given this morning’s church service, maybe he had. He’d always been the minority white guy until college.
She grinned back at him. “Iced tea?” she asked. He nodded.
The bell at the front door rang as stocky woman in a police uniform walked in. Sue waved her over.
“Beatrice, these are the reporters I was telling you about,” Sue said cheerfully. “They just got back from New Life service this morning.”
“Mac Davis,” he said smiling at her. “And this is Angie Wilson. She’s the photographer. I’m a reporter.”
“Heard of you,” Beatrice said, and slid into the booth with them. She ordered some cobbler and coffee. “And that was before Sheriff Norton went off about you to the police chief yesterday afternoon. He’s not happy with you.”
Mac shrugged. “Lots of people are unhappy with me every day,” he said. “It’s kind of how I measure if I’m doing my job well.”
Beatrice laughed. “Well, then, you did a very good job on Norton,” she said.
“What did he say?” Angie asked.
“He wasn’t happy with you either,” Beatrice told her. “Apparently you don’t know your place.”
“Sure, I do,” Angie said. “It’s just not where he thinks my place is.”
“He must be hell for women to work with,” Mac said.
She nodded. “This is off the record, right?” she said. Mac agreed.
“He’s hell. If you’re young and attractive, he’s hitting on you. Of course, he’s a good-looking man, so some don’t mind,” she acknowledged. “But saying no? He gets ugly about that, and isn’t afraid to talk with ‘the boys’ about it either.” She put air quotes around the boys.
“And if you’re not young?” Mac asked.
“He ignores you for the most part,” she said. “But that’s not good either if you work for him. Constant turnover out there — especially among the women. The police chief plays the game with Norton, but he’s actually good to work for. The couple of times that I’ve had run-ins, Chief has gone to bat for me, and made Norton back off. But I have to tell you, Norton has an anger problem that’s downright scary.”
“Saw a bit of that,” Angie said.
“What was he mad about?” Mac asked. The cobbler was damned good, he thought.
“I dispatched a couple of his officers out to the ranger station once,” she said. “Another time, I wanted to call up the reserves to look for a missing hiker. And he wasn’t having it. But I ask you, what are the reserves for, if not that?”
And that was a very good question, Mac thought.
“I talked to Peabody,” Mac said neutrally.
“Got an earful, did you?” Beatrice said with a laugh. She shrugged. “I’m no fan of him either. But he’s right — Norton should be responding when someone shoots at his rangers.”
“I was surprised that Peabody didn’t mention complaints about weapons being fired out there with those wilderness survival weekends,” Mac said.
She frowned. “I wonder why he didn’t? We get the complaints. I’m sure they do, too.”
“Those weekends causing problems?”
She shrugged. “Ken Bryson runs a tight ship,” she said. “Lots of people don’t like him. Think he’s cold, or scary, or even mean. But he’s been good for veterans in this area. He hires them for his business, gives them a routine they can handle. He’s almost like a half-way house for the PTSD among us. I have nothing but admiration for what he’s done over the years. Mind you, I’ve no intention of working for him. But if you’re a soldier who’s having a difficult time adjusting to civilian life? He’s the man who will help.”
Mac nodded. Interesting. Of course, a scary man who commanded the loyalty of veterans might make him another candidate for Shorty’s list of Sensei candidates.
“If there is one thing you think we should know about Norton, what would you say?” he asked.
She considered that as she finished her cobbler. She took another sip of coffee. “He’s ambitious,” she said finally. “People miss that, with his good-old-boy routine. He wants to be on top of the heap. The bigger the heap the better. It was why he left the police department and ran for sheriff. Personally, I don’t think he thinks sheriff of Skagit County is a big enough heap. He wants to be more important, more powerful. But he also doesn’t want to play well with others. Run for governor? Maybe. A state legislator? Never.”
Mac considered that. “Yes,” he said. “Thank you,” he added simply.
She nodded and got up to leave. “And be careful? In case you haven’t heard, he’s a vindictive SOB.”
“Got an example?” Mac asked.
She started to say something, then stopped. “I’ve already said more than I should have,” she said ruefully. “I’m trusting you to keep me out of this. If you don’t, you’re likely to find your example — and it won’t be pretty.”
Mac fished out a business card and handed it to her. “Call me,” he said quietly. “If you get blowback? Let me know. It won’t come from me and what I do. But this is a small town.”
She took it, smiled her thanks and headed out the door. She stopped to say something to Sue, who laughed.
Mac looked at Angie. “Ready to head home?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s making me nervous to linger here.”
Mac dropped Angie off at her apartment, waited until she got inside, and then he drove home. He needed to make a lot of phone calls tomorrow, he thought. But tonight, he’d hit Facebook. He wanted to know who MLK4whites was. And who was Sensei? And he had to do some posting. Facebook ate up time, he thought sourly. He’d really rather go to the gym for an hour instead. Most people would be better off using the gym instead of Facebook.
But there was an interesting post from MLK4whites talking about Mac’s visit to Skagit. About a reporter who knew which end of the gun to hold and which end to point. And then he segued into a rant about liberal media that didn’t know anything about guns but thought they could write about gun rights. Mac shrugged. He didn’t know the in-depth info on hardly anything he wrote about. That’s why he interviewed people who were experts. But gun-rights advocates seem to think that only those who were experts were entitled to an opinion — and if your opinion disagreed with theirs? Then obviously you weren’t an expert.
Kind of the opposite of Steve Whitaker and his ‘you can’t be objective if you’ve had an abortion, or even faced that crisis’, Mac thought. Indifference as objectivity.
Which reminded him. He called Timothy Brandt and a
sked for his help. Janet’s son might be a prick, but he was an incredibly bright one. And sure enough, he had ideas about how to find out what he wanted to know about last fall’s stories about the Pregnancy Crisis Centers. Just tying up loose ends, he told himself. And he asked about Eli Andrews. “Doing well,” Timothy said. “I was home for Easter. He preached.” Mac smiled.
When he fixed himself a late-night sandwich, Lindy joined him in the kitchen. “I like the artist you found,” she said, settling in at the kitchen table with a cup of tea.
“Good,” he said. “She’ll need lots of encouragement.” He told her about Carole, and then about the rest of the trip.
“Be careful,” Lindy warned. “You’re dealing with fanatics.”
He shrugged. “Fanatics with guns seems to have become my beat,” he said. “The religious extremists last fall. Parker the year before, when you come right down to it. Now this. Seems like a growing theme in my life.” He wasn’t sure he liked it either.
Lindy frowned. “Growing theme in our society,” she corrected. “Got started during the economic downturn, I think. Now it’s snowballing among the racists on the right with their birtherism and other conspiracy theories. The right wing’s reaction to Obama is disturbing.”
“I’ve been reading them,” he said morosely. “And they’re forming cults.” He told her about the church service and the bumper stickers that read Psalms 109:8 and what it stood for.
She nodded. “Social media fuels that,” she agreed. “Instead of it being just you and your two buddies talking shit over a couple of beers, you can go online and have thousands tell you ‘damn right!” and you feel validated. That scares me. Mob mentality gets people killed.”
“That’s what this militia shit is encouraging,” Mac said, thinking out loud. “This paranoia that our government is the threat, that we must be prepared to fight our own government... what the hell? People who do that are called traitors, not patriots. But these extremists don’t see it that way.”
He frowned. “And yet, here I am with all my weapons. It seems different, but I think other people would lump me in with them. Angie was really taken aback to find out I was armed most of the time.”
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