Defenders of the Faith

by Williamson, Chet

  That had to be it. He was going to kill her, if he had not done so already.

  Paul thought he might need the gun to save her, so he grabbed it, stuck it in the rear waistband of his pants, got out of the car, and ran through the rain to Olivia's front door. He threw it open and, half afraid to go up the stairs, called up them, "Peter? Peter!"

  The boy's head slowly appeared from around the upstairs doorway. "Paul..." he said, sounding bewildered. "Come up, Paul. Everything's under control." He turned his head back toward the apartment. "Isn't it, detective?"

  Paul walked up the stairs, praying that she was still alive.

  She was. Peter had tied her to a wooden captain's chair with nylon cord, binding her legs to the chair's legs, her arms to its arms. She was wearing nothing but a bra and panties. Her eyes were partially open, and a tea towel had been wrapped around her mouth and secured from behind. There was a great deal of caked blood on the left side of her head, down her ear and neck, and Paul could see fresh blood glistening in her hair. When she saw him, her eyes pressed shut, and she grunted through her nose, in a mixture of resignation and disgust.

  "I just came up to talk to her, Paul. I wanted to find out how much she knew about me. But she started asking me questions, questions about girls, and how much I knew about life, and then she started to undress...she tempted me, Paul." Peter picked up three magazines and handed them to Paul. "She showed me these, pictures of the men she said had come here and slept with her, and didn't I want to do that too, and then she reached for me, between my legs, and I knew her for what she was.

  "She's a whore, Paul, a liar and a whore who doesn't care a thing about the law -- all she wants to do is defile us and destroy our faith, that's all. So I hit her, Paul, I hit her and I tied her up, and you know what I have to do next."

  "You're going to kill her?"

  He turned to Paul and spread his hands. Paul saw that he was wearing yellow plastic gloves. "We don't have a choice, Paul. She knows too much, and she has to die. She deserves to die. But for it to look good, it has to look real, Paul, like one of those guys in the magazines would do it, like some sick game that got out of hand. Now I know you like it clean, so why don't you go? I can take care of it, really."

  "Will this be the last, Peter?" He knew it wouldn't. He knew that Peter would kill and kill again, to feed whatever spiritual hunger religion had not, to fill with human blood whatever hole in his soul that Christ had been unable to fill with his blood divine. But Paul would not blame Jesus. He would only blame himself. "Is it the last death?"

  "Yes, Paul, this is it. The final one. But it has to be done. We both know it."

  "Yes," Paul said, looking at Olivia. Her eyes were filled with tears of rage. "It has to be done." Then he turned back to the boy he thought of as his son. "But let's try and make it holy. Let's pray together first. Let's kneel and ask for God's understanding of what we've done, and his forgiveness of our sins, and pray for the souls of those sinners we had to kill to defend our faith, and for the glory of God."

  "All right, Paul." Peter nodded. "That's a good idea."

  "Come on, son," Paul said. "Let's kneel." They did so, side by side, and Paul said, "I'll begin. Oh gracious Lord, I ask you to look down with understanding upon us, and to forgive us for the acts of violence we have undertaken in your name. I ask you to give peace to the souls of the sinners we have sent thee. I pray for William Davonier, for Rafael Santiago, for Samuel Aston and Sheila Bronson..."

  Though Paul did not look at Olivia Feldman during his recitation of crimes, he knew that she was taking in every word. He could sense, mixed with her fear, her satisfaction that her suspicions had been justified.

  "...for Robert and Doris Tucker, for Jennifer Yalebrough." He stopped talking and rose, gently placing his left hand on Peter's shoulder. "Peter?"

  "I pray for the soul of Douglas Ryan, and for the soul of Robert Reinhold. Grant these sinners peace."

  "And Rand," Paul suggested in a whisper.

  The boy's shoulder muscles tensed beneath his hand. "Rand?" he said without looking up.

  "God speaks to me sometimes too. That's why we're both here today. Go ahead. It's all right. Pray for him."

  Peter nodded. "And Lord, may you have mercy on the soul of Rand Evans."

  "Good," said Paul. "Now, let's both say the Lord's Prayer..."

  He began it, and Peter joined in. Paul let the words come automatically, as he had done when he was young, before he believed in them.

  Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...

  His head was too full of other thoughts to think about the words. He thought about salvation and damnation. He thought of Peter and the little boy that day in the woods long ago.

  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...

  And he thought about how he had misled Peter, showing how a triumph for God justified any means necessary to achieve it, even murder.

  Give us this day our daily bread...

  He thought about what Peter had become, a butcher, a liar, an insane aberration, whom only the love of God could renew and make whole once more.

  And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us...

  He thought of those he had shattered, and saw the look of surprise on the face of the counselor.

  And lead us not into temptation...

  He saw the pleading in the dying eyes of the young girl in the bookstore basement.

  But deliver us from evil...

  He saw the shock on the face of Douglas Ryan as bullet after bullet pounded into him.

  For thine is the kingdom...

  He saw in imagination the red and bloody corpse of Robert Reinhold, and the white and pallid one of Rand Evans.

  And the power...

  He saw pitiful and monstrous William Davonier, incorrigible, lost, his head bowed in prayer.

  And the glory forever.

  Head bowed, like Peter's.

  Praying at the moment of death.

  The sound of the shot drowned out the Amen. It seemed loud enough for God to hear it in heaven, or demons to hear it in hell.

  Paul fell to his knees by the side of the boy he had loved and killed, and took Peter's head into his lap. "You died in prayer," he whispered, saying what he had said to William Davonier. "God will forgive your sins. And you'll be with him this day."

  It was good that he did not know that Peter Hurst's words had been as mechanical as his own, and that his last thoughts had been only of what he would do to the woman in the chair when Paul Blair left him alone with her.

  ~ * ~

  Would he kill her next? He was crazy, completely around the bend. Olivia strained at the cords that held her, thinking that she might be able to break free while Paul Blair's attention was fixed on the boy he had just killed. But the little bastard had tied them too tightly.

  Olivia was angry and frightened and humiliated. She had never been in this much danger before, but it wasn't the threat of her own death that infuriated her as much as her total helplessness, and the thought of what the boy would have done to her before killing her. Now she had his mentor, Paul Blair, to worry about.

  She had been stunned by the coldness with which he had shot Peter Hurst. He had brought the gun, that same damned .38 with which he had killed his other victims, out and up and pulled the trigger before the boy even had a chance to wince.

  And now he was sitting there, just sitting there on the floor as Peter Hurst's blood ran out of his head and over Blair's lap. The pistol was still clasped in his hand, and his eyes were hollow and empty. He looked up at Olivia and said, "I didn't mean for this to happen. But I couldn't let him hurt you."

  Then he moved the body away from him and started to get up, and Olivia stiffened, seeing that he still held the gun. But then she heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, and Paul was still pushing himself to his feet, and into the room came Rich Zielinski, his own pistol drawn and ready. She saw the shock on his face as
he looked at her, the body, the gun in Paul Blair's hand that was coming up as Paul stood.

  "Drop it!" Zielinski yelled, but Paul brought up both hands, the left outstretched as if trying to explain, the right with the gun in it. But Zielinski did not react to the left hand, nor to Paul opening his mouth as if he were about to say something. He reacted to the hand with the gun coming up, and he fired twice into Paul Blair's chest.

  The impact of the bullets pushed him back, twin red flowers blossoming on his white shirt front, and he fell over Peter Hurst's body. The gun dropped from his hand, and he landed on his back, his legs sprawled over the dead boy.

  Olivia could hear his rough, bubbling breaths as Zielinski ran to her and undid her gag, and then the cords that held her to her chair. "Are you all right?" he asked breathlessly.

  "Yeah," she said, her mouth dry and starchy from the cloth. Her arms were free now. "I can get those," she said, pushing him away from the cords around her ankles. "Call an ambulance for him. Hurry."

  While Zielinski got on the phone in the kitchen, Olivia untied her ankles and knelt by Paul Blair. He was still breathing, and a trickle of blood came from his mouth. She lifted his legs and pushed Peter's body away, then lowered Paul's legs to the floor.

  "Please..." she heard him say, and crouched down by him and listened. "Do something...for me." His voice was weak, and he coughed up some blood, but he seemed determined to speak.

  "What?"

  "I did it all. I did. Came here...tied you up...was going to kill you. Peter...Peter came here to stop me."

  "That's not what happened. You saved my life. He would have killed me."

  "It wasn't his fault!" Paul coughed again, and bright blood arced from his mouth. "I did it all...I started it...killed so many. What's a few more? Please let me finish it. Not him."

  Her mind raced as she thought about what he asked. Could all the murders be laid at Paul Blair's door? She didn't know. But maybe it could be done.

  "Olivia," Zielinski said, coming in from the kitchen, "what the hell happened?"

  She looked up at him. "I'm not sure..." she said. "Somebody hit me, and...I'm just not sure."

  When she looked back down at Paul Blair, she thought he was smiling, but it might have just been the way the blood ran down his cheeks.

  Paul Blair died before the ambulance reached the hospital. None of the attendants were close enough to hear him whisper his dead wife's name just before he closed his eyes for the last time.

  Chapter 55

  Four months later the first Peter Hurst Memorial Scholarship was presented. A senior from Buchanan High School received the award, a full academic scholarship to Buchanan Bible College. Olivia Feldman declined the invitation to speak at the event, just as she had declined an invitation to Peter's memorial service.

  She did, however, go to Paul Blair's grave several weeks after he was interred. By then she had been able to piece most of it together, and tie up the few loose ends. Officially, Paul Blair was credited with the killings he had done, as well as those of Douglas Ryan and Robert Reinhold. The motivation was extreme religious mania. The local churches and religious organizations unanimously condemned Paul Blair's acts.

  The mention of Rand's name between Paul and Peter led her to reexamine the Rand Evans "overdose," but because she had no more evidence than the mere mention of a name, she did not reopen the case as a homicide. She would have liked to have let Rand Evans's parents know that their son had died through no fault of his own, but she could not do that, and was sorry for it.

  And she was sorry Paul was dead. She would have liked to have heard his story. She was not, however, sorry about Peter Hurst. She pitied him, but she was glad he was dead.

  Now, at Paul Blair's grave, she stood above the bare patch of earth that marred the thick green of the cemetery. A stone with both his and his wife's name sat stolidly at the head. She could see that Paul's name had been carved into the stone long before, probably when he had it set over his wife's grave. What was new was the date of Paul's death, and a verse from the Bible. It read:

  The Lord is on my side;

  I will not fear:

  what can man do to me?

  Psalms 118.6

  She wondered when he had added the provision in his will to carve that verse. It must have been after his crusade began, but certainly not after Peter had begun his dark work, not after Paul knew that defending his faith had caused only more evil. You keep your faith, if you're lucky enough to have one, she thought. And if you keep it well, with the love with which it was entrusted you, it needs no defense.

  She walked away from the grave without praying. She envied those who believed. She wanted to, she tried to, but she could not bring herself to lie. If God were really there, that would insult him more than if she remained silent. But she hoped with all her heart that Paul Blair's troubled soul was at peace.

  She left the bare earth, the green grass, and the silent dead, and went back to fight her fight with what strength she had.