The Book of Judges

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  I turned and stared at him. He claimed he had called Izzy “Carrie” because he had forgotten or something like that. He had some dumb explanation for the mistake. There was no way I could believe it. Not knowing him as well as I do. In fact, knowing him, the most likely reason for him to call his lover by some other girl’s name was to manipulate me. Either he wanted me to think Izzy was so unimportant to him that he couldn’t remember her name, or he wanted me to think that he had so many lovers that he couldn’t keep them straight. I narrowed my eyes. Which was it? “Rick, you’ve always been a narcissistic kind of man. For a long time, I loved you for it. For a shorter time, I’ve found it very annoying. Right now, it’s the bane of my existence. You take a lot of pride in your perfect memory.”

  He grinned and shrugged deprecatingly. “It is a remarkable gift.”

  “Then why did you call Izzy ‘Carrie’ that night at my car window?”

  He did not have the decency to blush. He did cool down his grin just a little, but he didn’t look the least bit embarrassed. “Because when I look at you, you are all I can remember. Everyone else fades away.”

  “And how many everyones are there to fade into the background? Each woman you so easily forget is one more set of diseases I’m exposed to.”

  Rick placed his hand on my knee.

  I knew that move. When fighting, touch each other. The exchange of warmth, one body to the next, humanizes your life partner and makes you empathize with them.

  I smacked his hand.

  He slid it just an inch or so up my thigh. “I started the affair with Izzy because I’ve been miserable, Maura. There are parts of our lives we just can’t share. It hurts. It’s an ache in my soul. I know I’ve had a lot of interns, and that plenty of them have been just as pretty or prettier than her. Izzy’s not that hot. But in the same way that twelve years ago I met you and you shook me to my core and touched me in all the places I’ve never been touched before, and I knew that you were the woman I had to spend my life with,” he paused, maybe realizing he was saying too much for the tack he was taking. Or maybe it was because I slapped his hand again.

  “Ouch. Knock it off. I’m trying to say that Izzy didn’t rock my world and shake its foundations like you did, Maura, but there was that empty spot, that hollow spot… that spot that is about my Christianity. She met me there. Maybe the other interns would’ve, too. I don’t know. I guess I didn’t need it then the way I needed it now. But I know that to invite her over while you were gone so that I could seduce her was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. And I swear to you that I have never done that before.”

  I had never been so angry in my life. All my muscles were tensing. My heart was racing. My face was steaming hot. I was grinding my teeth, but not to keep from speaking. I was just grinding them because that anger was growing, boiling, ramping up. I was like a volcano about to erupt. I didn’t care if I got another assault charge and lost my PI license. I didn’t care if I hurt him and sent him to the hospital. I was just so angry that he would use my lack of belief as an excuse for his midlife crisis. It was such a load of crap coming from a man who thought religion was a “wonderful tool” to help people. He didn’t know that Pastor Bob had told me about his confession. He thought he could still pretend to be better than me.

  I exercised a supernatural level of self-restraint. An amount that would make any atheist start to ask questions about a higher power. Then I spoke to him with my voice so calm, so level, that he flinched. “You want to start a family with Izzy, don’t you?”

  “This conversation isn’t going to make us better. It’s probably going to make it a lot worse in fact.” Rick draped his arm around me and tried to pull my ram-rod straight body next to him. “But Izzy and I were very drunk that weekend and a little high. I said a lot of things to her that I didn’t mean.”

  I was practicing my deep breathing exercises like I was getting paid for it. “I’m frigid, but you are a warm man. And you want children, but I never would let you have them.” Three exceedingly slow deep breaths. In through the mouth, out through the nose. The worst part was that Rick had taught me how to use breathing exercises to control my temper.

  “I did say those things, and they’re probably founded or rooted in some kind of truth. When we met, you were so active in the college group. You had a light in you, and I just knew you were going to be this amazing, influential woman of faith. And then, after we got married that light died out.”

  I had begun to sink into his arm as we talked, wanting to take comfort from his strong body even as I resented his ability to comfort me, so I dug my elbow into his side.

  “Maura, why did your light die out? What happened?”

  I closed my eyes and pictured our first year of marriage. Me, that nineteen-year-old kid following my new husband to seminary. The other grad student wives and how they looked at me. The professors and how they looked at me. And the way Rick had disappeared into his books and his practice for three years, leaving me to fend for myself in an environment terribly hostile to newly-saved teenage brides. At least that’s how it had felt. I was on the outside of the circle. They would condescend to me, try to help me, save me, serve me. But not like me. They never did like me.

  I hated repeating myself, and we had done this all before, so many times. “All those years. All those lonely seminary years.” My anger had simmered down from the breathing, and the remembering, and the warmth of Rick. I was left with that deep sorrow that made my stomach ache. “How could I love a God whose people were so cold?”

  Rick turned, pulling me to him. He placed his hand gently on my cheek, tilted my head and leaned his forehead against mine. “My poor baby. Those were such hard years, and I never did believe you.”

  This revelatory moment with my straying husband wasn’t furthering my investigation. But my laptop and its deep web search, and the new information about Linda had no attraction for me. I tilted my face up seeking Rick’s lips with mine. I closed my eyes and let him apologize to me with his love.

  He paused, stroked the side of my face, and added, “But you could have watched your language. It would have helped.”

  I shoved him away with both hands, but then butted his chest with my forehead. If we had had this talk once we’d had it a thousand times. I shouldn’t talk like a sailor if I wanted to make friends at church.

  Damn him. I didn’t care if he was right.

  He got up with a chuckle and we parted, me to shower and get dressed. Rick to see clients. Me to try and uncover what everyone was keeping hidden. Rick, to hide whatever he was feeling. I had been maneuvered, massaged, and manipulated by the master. He had moved in on me like a trained assassin, perfectly prepared to kill my doubts, kill my questions, rather than answer them. I could not let that happen again.

  Eventually, I returned to the computer and began my search with intent and focus on Linda Smith. And my search was richly rewarded.

  An interesting story rose from the detritus of the internet, concerning a single career woman named Belinda Warren from a little town in northern Indiana. Just about thirty years ago this woman was involved in a hit and run accident that killed the man who was running for office against her father.

  There was a picture, and while there was something about Belinda Warren’s eyes and the slope of her shoulders that reminded me of Linda Smith, it wasn’t strong enough to make me sure. But the coincidence of the names Belinda and Linda, the possible resemblance, and then of course, the hit-and-run which hit a little too close to home for me right now, decided the matter. I had to follow up on the story. Especially since the information in the Archives of Forgotten Crime where I had found this story said no one had seen Belinda Warren since she posted bail after her arrest.

  It would take a certain amount of chutzpa to get back in the public eye if you were hiding from a manslaughter charge, but if you had gotten back into public work after a crime like that, even using a new name, you would want everything about it swept under the
rug.

  And speaking of chutzpa, as I closed my computer I thought again about what Pastor Bob had told me about Rick’s confession.

  Rick says he had deep spiritual connection to Izzy?

  Bull crap. He had just told his boss that he didn’t believe in Jesus.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I hoped for a busy day at the office. My hook on the Linda issue made me feel like I was getting somewhere, and I had an appointment with Mac from the homeless shelter. Optimism abounded.

  When the knock came on the door, I expected my gruff, fatherly friend, but Rafe’s empty-headed face grinned at me through the window instead. I let him in and hoped I could get rid of him fast.

  “Maura, I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be.” I waved toward my coffee pot. “Freshly brewed, would you like some?”

  He sat backwards in a chair. “I don’t, so I won’t.”

  “What do you want, Rafe?”

  “I can see how this case is wearing on you. Every time we meet you look older.”

  “This is only the fourth time we’ve met.”

  “Or is it?”

  I drank deep from my coffee. “Have you been following me? If so, I don’t call that meeting.”

  He laughed, “Of course not, but maybe we met in a past life, or in a future life. Or in my past and your future—”

  “Or vice versa, I get it. I look old. Age does that to a person.”

  “You have a young soul under the burdens you carry, and I’d like to see you find her.”

  I pulled my chair around my desk and sat on his side of it. If I was forced to have a moment with Rafe Winter, I’d make good use of it. “Did you try and help Adam become more himself?”

  “Of course, I did. Until a man is freed from this world he is a slave. It’s what I exist to do.”

  “Rafe, you’re a young guy.”

  “But with an old soul. I think I am the yang to your yin.”

  “But I’m the girl.”

  He lowered his eyelids and smiled slowly. “You bring the masculine energy to all of your relationships, I expect.”

  “Back to your chronological youth. How long have you been leading the Universal Temple?”

  “For five years.” He sighed contentedly. “What a blessing it has been.”

  “But you must have been a teenager when you became their leader.”

  “I was twenty, actually.”

  “How does a twenty-year old take over a big church like that?” I attempted to sound impressed with his kooky little cult.

  “I was elected from within. I had been a member for two years, when the prophet died. At that time, the individuals that come together each searched their hearts to detect the right leader. I was it.”

  “Was it unanimous?”

  He shook his head, a brief shadow of sadness passing over his face. “It was not. The widow of our previous leader did not like it at all, and several of our group left with her.”

  “What was her problem with it?”

  He pressed his hands together as in prayer and leaned forward. “She longed for power, Maura. I did not. The desire for power makes a slave.”

  “Interesting. What’s her name?”

  “Boadicea the River.”

  “What’s her real name?”

  “This is the only name she answers to. The name that she has claimed for herself.”

  “Give me a break, Rafe. If I wanted to find this woman, who would I google?”

  He laughed again. “Maura, how will I ever reach you, you poor lost soul? If you want Boadicea, ask for Boadicea. Who else would you ask for? A person can be no more or no less than what she owns herself to be.”

  A knock on the door interrupted his explanation of the human state of being.

  Mac stood on the other side of the window and looked displeased.

  I waved him in and shrugged.

  “You had something to discuss, Maura?”

  “Yes, I do. It’s private though, so Rafe, I need to end our interview now.”

  Rafe slowly unwound himself from the chair. “No need to explain it to me. Every man to his own desires. Just meditate on what I told you. It could change everything.”

  “I’m sure it could.” I held the door open for Rafe.

  “Someday, Maura, each man will do what is right in his own eyes again.”

  “Just great.” I shut the door and offered Mac the chair that Rafe had vacated.

  He settled in, the right way forward. “You had a little trouble with Ansel.”

  “Yes.” I paused. He would want to talk about that, of course. It was a big deal. But I didn’t want to. “Let’s talk about Linda, though. I think we’re onto something.”

  “Your call. What did you learn about Linda?”

  “I think I might have uncovered her secret, but I wanted to run it past you and see what you had to say.” I gave him the details about Belinda Warren.

  “It would be pretty brazen to get back into the public eye while trying to hide something like that.” Mac said.

  “True, but could her position with Metro really be considered public eye?”

  “Maybe not. She’s not a spokesperson or an elected official.”

  “And this hit and run was a long time ago.” I stared at the screen of my laptop, which was open to the story.

  “What are you going to do with the information?” Mac cut to the chase on this as everything else.

  “That’s why I asked you here. Is this enough to have her in for a chat?”

  He scratched his chin and gave it some thought. “What’s the point?”

  “I’d want her to know I know. I’d want to point out that she had hired me under false pretenses for her own purpose.”

  “So, what if she did? Shouldn’t make a difference to you in the end, should it?”

  “I thought you’d be with me on this.” His hesitation bothered me. I needed him on my side. I had no one else.

  “I was for you looking into it. For example, if her past was as a brutal murderer who was into recreating death scenes from scripture, we’d like to know that. But what good does knowing this do?”

  “What if Adam had found out?”

  “If Adam had found out about her past and Linda had decided to kill him for it, she would have chosen a less dramatic way to do it. Something that wouldn’t have gotten on the news.”

  “Should I or should I not try and confirm this was her?”

  “You’re the detective. If you think you need to, do it, but leave me out.” He stood up. “No offense, but Linda is doing a good job running this committee and helping out my homeless friends. I don’t want to see her go to prison for a bad decision she may have made almost thirty years ago.”

  “Belinda Warren ran down her father’s political rival and left him for dead. That’s a level up from bad decision.”

  He paused.

  “If the hit and run victim was Belinda Warren’s father’s political rival, it was an assassination, Mac. And Adam’s death might have been one, too.”

  He sat back down. “My first instinct was wrong. If Belinda Warren is our Linda Smith, you’d better go to the police with it.”

  “I just need to get confirmation.”

  “That won’t be hard.” He stood again, shook my hand, and left.

  No, it wouldn’t be hard. Linda’s fingerprints were a dime a dozen for me. I called her immediately. She answered on the first ring and I dove right in. “Linda, can you come down to my office tomorrow morning? I’d like to touch base with you.”

  “Yes, yes. Thank you. It’s about time we talked again. What time do you need me?”

  “Nine o’clock would be perfect.”

  “I’ll be there. Thank you, Maura. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

  I hung up the phone and stared at my wall. It was Linda who had no idea what this meeting meant to her.

  I spent the rest of my day studying and updating notes. I googled, I made phone calls. I c
onfirmed that the younger woman Adam dumped Trish for, the journalist named Morgan Melisse had taken a job in Georgia where she was originally from. She was not only not in the state when Adam Demarcus was murdered, she was on TV reading the news.

  I was adding Bruce’s discipleship group, Quint, Red, Luke, and Brit to the wall of clues and drawing big fat question marks under their names, when a soft knock on the door made me jump.

  My nerves were on edge, but they shouldn’t have been. I had all situations in hand right now. “Come in.”

  Christine entered. Her eyes were shadowed, face was pale, and hair was sloppy, but she wasn’t wearing her “I’m a secretary” clothes so she was a step ahead of most days at this hour.

  “The girls are going out tonight. I’m here to collect you and bring you to your friends.”

  I rolled my neck. “You mean the women from the retreat who didn’t believe a guy like Rick could cheat?”

  “A couple of them, and a couple of women who aren’t on staff or staff wives. You might remember them from back when you spent time with friends. They are nice girls who love you.”

  I glanced at my computer. “I don’t know…”

  “We’re going to Rimsky’s. Have dessert, listen to some live music. It will be quiet and cozy. We could both use quiet and cozy.” Christine dropped to the couch.

  “How can I be cozy with them? After the things they said to me?”

  This time Christine rolled her neck. Maybe the sound of my voice stressed her out. “You’ll have to refresh my memory. What did they say?”

  “They think I am an insane paranoid woman.” They hadn’t said that exactly, but it was the sense of things.

  “What did they actually say?” Christine was working to soften her voice. I knew she sometimes struggled not talking to me like I was one of her kids.

  “Jessica said I was just insecure and that all my problems would be solved if I put my trust in Jesus.”