Defenders of the Faith

by Williamson, Chet

  This admission, along with the incontrovertible evidence of Rand Evans's stony corpse, and the lack of other needle tracks, led the court to assume that this was a first, ignorant, and tragic attempt to administer heroin to himself. Anyone with any experience of drugs would have known that the thick, muddy concentration that Rand must have pushed into his veins was a lethal overdose, and the only logical conclusion was death by misadventure ("and stupidity," as the presiding judge was heard to mutter to his clerk).

  Jessica testified at the inquest, and was accompanied there by her mother, Rachel. Peter sat near the back, and Jessica smiled when she saw him there. Her testimony was that she had never seen Rand use or possess drugs, and had never heard him even talk about them, other than in a negative sense.

  When the inevitable decision was announced, Jessica cried again, quietly this time, on her mother's shoulder. Afterward she talked to a couple Peter learned were Rand's parents. They looked as though they were still in shock, and could not believe what they had just heard.

  The ironic thing, thought Peter, was that they were absolutely right. Their son had been drug-free all right, right up until the dose that killed him. Peter would have liked to have gone to them and explained why he had done what he had, how it was God's plan, not only for him and Jessica, but that it had rid the world of a negative influence, something that turned people away from the Lord while purporting to bring them to Him. But he wisely remained silent.

  After Jessica and her mother had parted from the Evanses, Peter said hello to Jessica and introduced himself to her mother, who seemed disoriented, as though an inquest were an unsuitable place for social introductions. Peter kept the conversation brief, and told Jessica that he hoped he would see her at the next meeting. She said she would be there, and smiled sadly at him as she walked away with her mother.

  She did come to the meeting the next week, and when it was over he asked her how she was doing, and she said okay, but from her tone of voice, he knew she was not.

  "It must be hard," he said. "I know that you must have loved him."

  She looked away and nodded. "Yeah, I guess I did."

  "I guess what makes it hardest is that..." He pretended to search for the words. "...that now you think maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought you did."

  She gave a self-conscious laugh that told him he had said the right thing. "I guess not."

  "Rand wasn't a druggie, Jessica. He just made one mistake, but it was one of the worst he could have made. It doesn't mean he didn't love you. And it doesn't mean he wasn't worthy of your love."

  It was easy to praise him now that he was dead, and Peter did a fine job of it. He bolstered Jessica's self-doubts, and granted Rand posthumous indulgences, until Jessica believed her dead boyfriend a saint, and she a saint for having loved him.

  "Thanks, Peter," she said before she left. "You understand a lot."

  He didn't say anything, only nodded, and gave the kind of smile that told her to be brave. He didn't push things. He knew the worst thing to do right now would be to rush her. Just leave her alone. Just be there for her when she was ready.

  It took only a few weeks. He could tell that she was feeling more than friendly to him, and when he asked her to go out on the following Saturday night, she readily accepted.

  By the end of June, they were going out several times a week, since neither was taking summer courses. Peter was working full time at Paul's store, but had off Wednesday afternoons and most evenings, so they had a lot of time to spend together. Their dates were mostly to dinner and Christian youth clubs, where they drank coffee or soft drinks and listened to folk music and gentle country-rock, all with a Christian slant. Sometimes they went to a movie.

  After several dates they began to kiss in Peter's car, but never went any further. The first time that Jessica slipped her tongue between his lips, he had an erection so strong he thought it would press itself through his pants, and he pulled back slightly. "What's wrong?" she said, and he smiled.

  "Nothing," he said, and he kissed her again, searching her mouth with his own tongue. Her mouth tasted fresh and sweet, and he liked the sensation very much.

  Despite the deep kissing, Peter remained a gentleman, appreciating Jessica's charms, but never revealing his excitement to her, never pushing her to any point beyond which God would not want an unwed couple to go. It was difficult at times, but Peter's sense of morality prevailed. He knew that he loved Jessica, and would marry her someday, and would not spoil that grandest of first nights by cheating now, by trying to take something that was not yet his.

  For soon it would his, all his, and he could do with it, with her, whatever he wanted, whatever he could imagine.

  ~ * ~

  Paul Blair quickly learned that Peter was dating his niece. He discovered it first when Jessica came into the store to meet Peter when he was finished working, and they walked out together. Paul mentioned it to Peter the next day, and he said that he had indeed been seeing Jessica since a few weeks after her boyfriend's death, and that he hoped Paul approved.

  Although he told Peter that of course he did, he wasn't really sure, and was less sure when he talked to his sister Rachel about it.

  "He's a nice enough boy," she said, "and I think that's what gets me, Paul. He's too nice. I've only met him a couple of times, but when I ask him his opinion on things -- you know, did you like this or that movie or TV show, he always answers like he's being interrogated by God. Like every minor decision is some sort of moral apocalypse. And then, when he answers whatever way he thinks is right, he gets this smug, self-righteous look on his face that's almost unbearable."

  "Have you mentioned this to Jessica?" Paul asked.

  "Subtly. It doesn't register on her at all. She thinks he's wonderful. She's always talking about how 'peaceful' he is. And when she asked him how he got to be so much at peace with himself, he told her that it was because of the peace of Christ, and because he knows he's doing God's will."

  "Well, that's...high-toned, I suppose. But it's hardly objectionable, Rache."

  "Oh, Paul, it's pompous and you know it. You've always been a lot more churchy than me, but even you should be able to see that there's a difference between following God and pretending to be him. That's what this kid reminds me of. And it's affecting Jessica. She's talking about transferring from Gardner to the Bible college where Peter goes."

  "So what's wrong with that? Jessica's always been a serious, spiritual kind of girl."

  But Paul's words did nothing to dispel his sister's concerns, and when he said goodbye to her and hung up the phone, he too felt uncomfortable about Peter seeing Jessica. He knew how headstrong and impetuous the boy could be, how he would let nothing stand in the way of what he thought was just and right...

  Like his being with Jessica?

  The thought came in a flash, and Paul tried to dismiss it almost as quickly. But it stayed with him, irrational and foolish as it was. There was no way that Peter could have had anything to do with Jessica's boyfriend's death. It had been a drug overdose, pure and simple. Besides, that was not Peter's way. He was straightforward. The Machiavellian was not his style, and Paul felt ashamed of himself for even thinking that Peter might have had anything to do with Rand Evans's death.

  As for Rachel's complaints about her daughter's suitor, Paul dismissed them. Peter was a good kid who would only get better. Spirited and zealous, yes. But wasn't he himself guilty of those same traits? And hadn't he overcome the use of violence the same way that Peter had?

  No, Rachel had nothing to worry about. Jessica was in good hands.

  Chapter 46

  Peter first thought about killing Robert Reinhold when he heard several students testify to his crimes against God in a CCYC small group meeting at the end of July. The three who shared their testimony were all juniors at Buchanan Senior High, and had had Reinhold as their biology teacher in their sophomore year. They had discovered him to be not only an evolutionist, but a mocker of relig
ion.

  "I asked him about creation science," said one of the students, Emily Moore, "and he just laughed. He said that its very name was a contradiction in terms, and that anybody who believed in it was a dope."

  "Yeah," said Chuck Garner. "He said that once you saw the scientific evidence, you hadda be either superstitious or ignorant to keep believing that."

  Peter didn't say anything at first. He just kept listening and nodding, trying not to let the anger that was growing show in his face. He knew Robert Reinhold all too well, for he had been Reinhold's pupil himself four years earlier. He had suffered the stings of Reinhold's humiliation whenever the subject of evolution came up. But unlike others who believed the way he did, Peter refused to keep silent, and would argue with Reinhold while remaining curiously calm for one of his years and his intensity of belief.

  Peter thought that the fact that Reinhold was never able to shake Peter's faith, or even get him to admit to the truth of one of Reinhold's arguments, had infuriated the man. One time he had held Peter after class, and had told him that he seriously questioned his sanity in believing the things he did, and refusing to admit that even the simplest of scientific principles was true.

  That was as close as Peter came to losing his temper, but he bit the fury back, and told Reinhold that he would be happy to believe anything that had valid scientific evidence and did not conflict with his religious beliefs. Reinhold only laughed, and said that he'd better hope his beliefs didn't have an adverse effect on his grades. Peter had gotten a 3.0 in the class, and would have done better, but he had not given Reinhold the answers that he had wanted on the essay portions of several tests, and Reinhold had downgraded him accordingly.

  Peter had hated the man since the first day of class, and had harbored that hatred ever since. And now that hatred came to the fore again, as he listened to the stories of these believers who had had their beliefs challenged and mocked by this man. They had been up to the challenge, but others had not, and had lost their faith -- and possibly their souls -- as a result.

  When one of the students finally paused, Peter cleared his throat. "Does he ever say anything about abortion?"

  "He's for it, naturally," said Chuck. "Gave what he claimed was scientific proof that an unborn child really isn't a person, and that there's no feeling or sensation when they're ripped apart."

  "So Chuck quoted the Bible to him, you know, that part about how God made us in our mother's womb? And he just laughed, and said that if we used the Bible to justify our actions, then you might as well use the Koran and the...Ipana-something?"

  "Upanishads," Peter said. "A Hindu holy book."

  "Okay. Anyway, he said that the Bible was just another so-called holy book, and that all that any of them were was a bunch of superstitions mixed together with some good and some bad moral codes. Then Chuck started to argue with him, and Mr. Reinhold said that he wouldn't discuss it in class, but that if anybody wanted to come in after school, he'd talk about it some more."

  "And did you?" Peter asked.

  "Not just the three of us, but a whole bunch of kids. Some of them don't like us because we're, you know, pretty strong in what we believe, and they were rooting for Mr. Reinhold."

  Peter permitted himself a sly smile. "So who won the great debate?"

  "We did," said Chuck bitterly. "Because we came away from it still believing what we did when we went in."

  "But you didn't change anybody else's mind?" asked Peter.

  "It was a slaughter," Emily said. "He kicked our...our butts, Peter. He said how a lot of stuff in the Bible was taken from other religious texts from Persia and places like that, and he told us, like specifically? And we couldn't say he was wrong."

  "But what we did say," Chuck added, "was that the Bible was the word of God, and it was divinely inspired, wherever it came from, and that every word in it was true."

  Emily frowned and shook her head. "And then he gave us the old 'then why do you eat bacon?' routine."

  "And did you explain to him," Peter said, "that those dietary laws were established for the Hebrews?"

  "Yes, but then he said, well, so were the Ten Commandments, and you still flog those -- that's what he said, flog those -- every time you want to win an argument, and that if every word is divinely inspired, how can we pick which rules we want to follow and which ones we don't, and how we just use whatever we can find in the Bible because we don't have any logical reasons for a lot of the things we believe." The girl sounded angry and frantic and frustrated, and Peter knew he had to calm her before she joined the weak-willed ones who Reinhold had swayed with his specious arguments.

  "Listen, Emily," he told her, "there are always going to be people like Mr. Reinhold. They're people who have no beliefs or faith of their own, and they won't be happy until everyone is as miserable as they are. The only thing that all of you can do is to be better prepared when you get into a discussion with people like that. And know one thing -- you aren't going to be able to change their minds. They're stubborn and embittered. But what you can do is to change the minds of the people he's feeding this stuff to."

  "And go to the school board," Chuck said. "That's what my mom and dad did. But the board kept putting it off, and now they're not gonna do anything about it until the September meeting."

  "Well, they ought to do something about it," Emily said, "he shouldn't be able to do that kind of thing, to make fun of what we believe in!"

  "Emily," said Peter, "we'll have to let the school board handle it for now. They're wise people, and hopefully God will give them the wisdom to somehow stop Mr. Reinhold. But even if they don't, remember that God will eventually judge him. I know that isn't much consolation right now, but he will be judged. And found wanting."

  Found wanting, found a sinner for whom the wages of sin is death. A man who steals the faith of the young who are entrusted to him. And didn't Jesus say that it would be better for a man to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than to cause a child to stumble? If that was not a condemnation of what Robert Reinhold had been doing for at least the past four years, then Peter knew nothing about interpreting scripture.

  He brooded over Reinhold for several days, then decided to shadow the man, see where he went at night, learn who he met, and discover if his detached bachelor veneer hid anything else. So the following Friday Peter got permission to leave work early. He went to Reinhold's town house, waited until the man arrived home from teaching summer classes, and then watched the house until Reinhold came out about seven o'clock carrying what Peter thought was a laptop computer.

  The man drove to Keppy's, a truck stop ten miles south of Buchanan, and went inside. Peter parked in a place where he had a good view of the inside of the diner, and watched Reinhold as he sat in a booth and ordered dinner. Feeling hungry himself, Peter went inside and sat at the counter at the opposite end of the diner from Reinhold's booth. The restrooms were at Reinhold's end, so Reinhold would have no reason to walk past Peter.

  Peter had a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake. Reinhold finished eating before Peter was done, but didn't leave the diner. He simply sat in the booth, set his laptop on the table, and began to type, his fingers nearly soundless on the keys. The waitress kept filling his coffee cup. She seemed familiar and friendly with him, and when Peter left he was still there, his eyes fixed on the little screen, every now and then taking a sip of coffee.

  What was he writing, Peter wondered, and why there? Why in a truck stop where truckers were going in and out all the time? How could you ever concentrate in a place like that?

  And then he wondered if Reinhold was there for another reason. He was a bachelor, a state which always made Peter suspicious. Men married, if they were true men. Those who stayed single were either queers or fornicators, and he wondered which one Reinhold was.

  Peter stayed in his car until midnight, and when he left Reinhold was still in the booth, still drinking coffee. Now and then he took a break and read a book, but alwa
ys went back to writing on his machine, sitting in that pale white light. Peter thought he might still be there when morning finally came, but he didn't intend to wait around to make sure.

  Peter wanted to hurt Robert Reinhold, maybe even kill him, but the injury that Reinhold had done to Peter was years old, and those that he had done to the other students might be taken care of by the school board. Besides, Reinhold looked so inoffensive sitting there in the night, a pale, bookish, red-haired man writing and drinking coffee. His death would be just, all right, but Peter did not have the necessary fire within him to do it. His motivation was simply not strong enough.

  His motivation became stronger the following week. It was not the motivation to kill Robert Reinhold specifically, but Reinhold was in Peter's thoughts, and made the perfect scapegoat. Killing him was much safer than killing Jessica herself.

  Chapter 47

  She thought she had been in love before, but she had been wrong. She had been infatuated with Rand, that was all. She had been fascinated by his music, his style, his image. But she hadn't known him. His death had proven that.

  Jessica knew Peter. She knew his strength and his faith and his calmness, and she longed to know its source as well. There were times when the two of them were together in his car that she would want to go on, go beyond any place she had ever been before with a boy. But his self-control was so great, his restraint so strong, that she could trust him completely.

  Rand had not been like that. He had pushed her hard to do more with him, let him touch her in places she didn't want touched, taking her hand and putting it between his legs, even, one time, pushing her head down toward him. She had gotten angry then, and he had apologized, but she could not trust him. He had talked to her, told her that if they loved each other and were careful that there would be nothing wrong with going all the way. When she asked him how he could sing his songs and then sin that way, he said that sex between two people who loved each other was no sin, and defied her to find in the Bible where it said it was. She couldn't offhand, and he acted as though he had won the argument, but she still wouldn't let him go beyond the loveplay with which she was comfortable.