The Book of Judges

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  I just needed to know which young man had sent me the message. Who hated me enough to want me to shrivel up and die in my home?

  My home. I was back to that conceit again. Well, half mine anyway. That was the just thing. Or just the thing? I had lived here long enough to claim my half rights.

  I went around and around with it in my head. None of my closest friends (but were the women my husband worked with really my friends?) had gotten divorced yet. And I hadn’t kept in touch with those families I had helped to split via my own work. For some reason “detective who provided evidence of infidelity” didn’t make the Christmas card list.

  I had liked being first to get married. First to own a house (came with the marriage!) First to travel for pleasure instead of charity work. First to have a pregnancy scare. Of course, that train of thought didn’t lead anywhere good, so I skipped the rest of my firsts, even the good ones like first to start her own business. And none of this multi-level marketing. I had training, a professional license, a really nice camera, a gun, and my own office.

  I wouldn’t have to give Rick half of that.

  Probably.

  I rolled the squash ball around on my knee and trained my mind back to the matter at hand.

  My few allies at the West Portland Muslim Community Center had identified someone named Osman as the note “giver”, but no one had seen him lately. I had better let them know about the newest. I called Will, but he didn’t answer, so I left a message. He could add the time and date of this missive to his notes. I took a photo and sent it as a text. Maybe he’d recognize the handwriting.

  Either way, if we could nab Osman for using good old-fashioned conversion by intimidation, I could use it as leverage. I’d not turn this person in for vandalism on my car, if he’d confess to murder…

  Hmmm…I might not get what I wanted with that one.

  Rick’s car drove up. I’d recognize it’s big, loud engine anywhere. My first thought was to flee, slip out the back door, hide while he came in, then jet to my car and drive off.

  It was a very mature, adult idea.

  My second thought was to pretend to be asleep, so I went with it. I dropped myself across the couch and hid my face in the throw pillow with the elegant “S” embroidered on it.

  Rick slipped into the living room with me and kissed the top of my head. “I know you’re not sleeping, love. I saw you through the picture window when I drove up.”

  “I’m not your love. You have no right to kiss me.” My face was still mostly pressed into my pillow.

  He sat next to my legs and scratched my back. “Even after the other night?”

  “Please. If one night makes a marriage, you’re married to Izzy, too.”

  “I know you aren’t ready to let it go yet, and I don’t blame you, but if we are going to build from the rubble, you have to allow the small moments as well as the grand ones.”

  I rolled over, facing him, and pulled myself up slowly on my elbows. Then I leaned forward, so he could feel my warm breath.

  I reached out with my hands trembling, finger tips alive with his presence. I stroked the front of his cotton shirt, the pressure no more than an eyelash. Under his shirt, his pecs flexed. Right there. I paused. I pinched. I twisted. Once, twice. Then I dropped him like he was hot. “You’re right. Small moments.”

  His eyes bulged, his face contorted. He pressed his hands to his chest. “You are such a child.” There was no love in his face. This was not a term of endearment.

  I picked up my things and went to bed.

  Small moments indeed.

  * * *

  The Portland Police had their own ring tone on my phone, and when I hear it I drop everything. It rang the next morning while I was settled into a quiet corner of a café. I had come to work but so far, I had spent an hour researching divorce lawyers.

  I was thrilled to be interrupted by the police, so I grabbed my coffee, waved to the barista and went back out to my car for privacy.

  “Maura Garrison?”

  “This is she.”

  “Can you come down to the SE Precinct?”

  “What is this concerning?”

  “The vandalism report you made.”

  “Okay. You have my ear.”

  “Someone has confessed to the damage. Would you like to press charges?”

  “I’ll be right down.” Someone confessed to smashing my car window? Awesome. Will had come through quickly.

  One accident, one no-cause traffic jam, and one broken stop light later, I was finally at the SE Precinct.

  I introduced myself to the man behind the bullet proof window at the front desk. He stared at me for a moment. “Oh, right. The vandalism. Follow me.” He opened a side door and waved me in. He took me down the hall and motioned to an open door. “In there.”

  I held my jaw together with great effort.

  Jerrod, the nice young man who ran the youth group for troubled guys was sitting with a familiar uniformed officer. His name tag said Chapman. I had my crime scene buddy and my window smasher in the same room. I considered shutting the door behind me but let the impulse pass.

  “So…” I smiled at the officer.

  “This young man says he smashed the window of your car. Is that true?”

  “I did have a broken window, but I didn’t see who did it.”

  “Would you like to press charges?”

  “I’d like to talk. Would that be okay?”

  Chapman looked at his watch. “Fine.” His jaw flexed. I’m sure this was the last place he wanted to be, but we don’t always get what we want.

  “What did the message you sent me mean?”

  Jerrod swallowed and looked at the cop. “I messed up.”

  “Sure, but why?” I settled into the chair across from Jerrod. “You sent a clear message for me to stay away. Is that right?”

  “Yes.” He sat upright, like he was determined to see this out.

  “Why?”

  He looked to the cop, and then to me. “My group is the most important thing to me and I didn’t trust you.”

  “Your message talked about Allah being the light, if I remember correctly. Why bring up light like that?” I didn’t think Jerrod would reveal himself as Adam’s murderer here in front of a police officer…not deliberately, but he might let something slip that I would recognize, and Chapman wouldn’t. I waited.

  He waited.

  Chapman looked at his watch.

  “The Quran speaks for us when we can’t. Sometimes it’s just easier.”

  “So, take the verse at its face value.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you going to press charges?” Chapman looked toward the door, clearly mapping his escape.

  “I’m a modern western woman, and you saw me as a threat to your belief system, something along those lines.”

  “You had chosen to dress in a disrespectful way.” His brows drew together, and his head tilted. “You knew what you were doing and did it anyway. And then, when the guys got heated up, it just…I didn’t want you to come back. I wanted to scare you away.”

  “And that’s all that the message you sent me meant?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the one at the house?”

  He looked at his hands, instead of me. “I didn’t want to damage your house. Not really, but you had come back, and then you called that meeting. It seemed like you were never going to give up.”

  “Are you going to press charges?” Chapman stood up.

  I stood up and looked down at Jerrod who suddenly seemed very small, and very young.

  “No.”

  Chapman sighed impatiently. “Then I’ll let you go.” His words were for Jerrod. “I expect you will never do anything like this again.”

  Jerrod shook his head fast, like a child. “No. Never. I wouldn’t.”

  I had to let Chapman past, but I didn’t have to do the same thing for Jerrod, so I placed myself in the doorway.

  “You said Osman did it.”
>
  Jerrod looked at the floor.

  “What would have happened if I had called the cops and told them that?”

  His hands were pressed against his shaking knees.

  “I think you are covering for your friend. Tell me why.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I didn’t say any of this in front of Chapman. I’m not in this to get revenge for a window breaker. This is way more serious than that. You might have lied about Osman, but that would put your friend in serious danger. Or you might be lying now, realizing you need to protect your friend. Which is it?”

  “I didn’t realize Elif was talking to you when she texted me. I thought she was just asking. And Osman was there that day, and he was mad, and I just said I gave it to him. Elif’s discreet. I didn’t think she’d tell anyone what I said. I didn’t know she was sitting there telling you all.”

  “This is a murder investigation.” I was almost whispering, but not quite. I did not want the police to hear me interrogating someone on their territory. “You’ve got to give me some reason to believe you.”

  “Allah is the guardian of those who believe. He brings them out of the darkness into the light/But Allah is encompassing of the disbelievers. The lightning snatches away their sight. That verse means a lot to me. Using it the way I did was stupid. It was wrong. I messed up.”

  “You called me a kafir whore. I’ll say you messed up. When was the last time you converted someone by calling them a sinner?” I kept my eyes locked on his face. It registered fear, and then panic, but I couldn’t look away.

  I hadn’t told him what was in that note, so he must have had Melati write it for him. I stepped out of the doorway, giving him his way out. “I am not going to stay away. I’m going to find out exactly what happened to Adam Demarcus.”

  “All I know is it wasn’t any of us. When Will asked me about the ball, at your house…I had to confess. The truth shall set us free.” Jerrod practically ran out of the police station.

  I didn’t follow him. I had more questions for Chapman.

  He, however, had no more time for me. “The Demarcus case is an open investigation and we aren’t answering questions about it.”

  “Not even the cause of death?”

  “The lab results won’t be back for at least another week.”

  I smiled. Lab results, eh? I loved a young cop. “Fine. When they come back will you be releasing the information to the media?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “All right then. Thanks for your time.”

  I went back to my car, happy and annoyed at the same time. Annoyed with Jerrod for busting my window and getting my hopes up with his confession. He probably hadn’t killed Adam and his little trick had wasted a lot of my mental energy. And then this Chapman character and his firmly zipped lip. Jeeze. I was dying to get together with my old friend Julie, but she wasn’t returning my calls. And Chapman clearly didn’t want to make friends.

  Of course, he had said more than he realized about the cause of death. They were waiting for lab results which meant something about the death indicated chemicals. Either there was a lack of physical evidence to point to a cause of death or there was plenty of physical evidence that pointed to like, poison. Either option directed my inquiries better than ignorance did.

  I went back to my office to make myself comfortable with my laptop. Now that I could add poison or drugs to flashing lights and chopped off digits that sensory bombardment thing I had been reading about might lead to the cause of death.

  The afternoon was looking up.

  Bright lights, poison, and good old Google sorted me out quickly. There were a few ways you could kill a person with bright light, if poison was involved. My favorite was strychnine. I took copious notes. If you fed a person strychnine and then overwhelmed his sensory input, for example with strobe lights on a dark night, you would trigger a stroke that would kill him both painfully and dramatically. The strychnine alone was enough, but the sensory overload really added something special. If you added some dismemberment, I assumed the process was even worse.

  Was that the way Adam Demarcus died? Right now, no one knew, but the lab would clear that up, but I’d have to wait for it. While I did, I put in a quick friendly call to Will Rashid to see if he had time to meet and chat about his buddy Jerrod. He did.

  Will and I sat in his office, a big wooden desk between us.

  I had a smile plastered to my face, but the charge I had delivered against him didn’t make him smile in return. I claimed just for kicks, that he had known the vandal was Jerrod all along.

  “You have no reason to trust me.” Will looked sad, those big brown eyes set in his handsome, bearded face would have melted my heart on any other day. But this day, he was right. I had no reason to trust any of them. “I know these boys didn’t kill Adam Demarcus.”

  “Because you have the alibi for each of them on that night?” I was tired of that internal “knowing” that everyone always had about their best friends, their spouses, their co-religionists. We were not all incapable of murder. If we were, no one would ever die of violence. But I sat in front of Will Rashid in his office at the West Portland Muslim Community Center because his friend had died violently. “And because none of them had the least access to strychnine?”

  “How do I know what access they had, Maura?” His eyes were full of unshed tears. He was very American. “These are boys. Do you understand that? Kids trying to process what they hear the adults in their lives saying, what they see on the news, what their Imam is preaching and what the teachers are telling them. I’ve known every boy in this group since they were children. Practically since I was a child.”

  “So, you are saying you have a bias?”

  “Come on. Please try to understand.”

  “Why did you shield Jerrod? Making him face up to what he did would have saved everyone a lot of headaches.”

  “As soon as I knew it was him, I made him go to the police. What else do you want from me? What would you have done?”

  I pressed my lips together. What I would have done and what Will ought to have done were unrelated. “You could have done it sooner.”

  Will stared at his hands. He knew it was the truth. Despite the center having enough funds to pay Jerrod’s fines, he would have saved everyone trouble by making Jerrod confess to me earlier. “I did not know.” He paused. “I didn’t know for sure.”

  “You let the guilt of it eat away at him until he compounded his crimes. That picture window at my house is not cheap.”

  He didn’t give in. Most likely, he just hadn’t known.

  “So, now you tell me who else you are shielding, and why.”

  He dropped his head into his hands.

  I waited.

  He had no idea how long I could wait.

  Exactly three and a half minutes into his test of my patience, he looked up at me, his face considerably ashen. “Melati hated Adam. Passionately. After he dumped Trisha, the women all took sides. Some women adored him for the work he was doing with the boys and helping us with our food closet. Some were angry at his infidelity. Trisha isn’t popular around here, since the divorce, but Seda is. And on Seda’s behalf quite a few of the younger women were upset with Adam.”

  “Sure. I get it, but that was a year ago, right?”

  “Anger can build up over time, if not dealt with, or if fed, and I think Seda and Melati fed their anger.”

  “You think the two young ladies got the strychnine, poisoned Adam, took him to Crown Point and used the strobe lights to cause his death. Why not? They aren’t a hundred pounds smaller than him.”

  “Don’t dismiss the ladies, Maura. Nothing about this murder seems likely, why limit yourself to suspects whose size and gender meets your expectation?”

  “And you’re sure you aren’t just laying the blame on your least likely suspects to keep me from finding the person who actually did it?” I let my disdain dictate my tone of voice. How dare he throw two girls under the
bus? Two girls stuck in a misogynistic religion, with misogynistic fathers, destined to marry men who want to keep them in their places? How easy for him to toss out names he knew hadn’t done it. I crossed my arms. “Try again.”

  He sat up. “I don’t think they did it, Maura, but you asked me to tell you the last thing I was hiding, and that was it. Yes, I suspected Jerrod had thrown the rock through your car window and I didn’t confront him about it. I kept the secret because I knew he hadn’t been involved in the murder.”

  “How?”

  He stared at me in silence, his jaw working as he considered what to say. “Jerrod converted to Christianity because of Adam.”

  “Adam wasn’t a Christian.”

  “What would make you say that?” Will flinched at my words.

  “He was, like, going to all these different cult things and sleeping with a lot of women…” I trailed off. It was obvious the man wasn’t a Christian to me, but maybe that’s how Will thought all Christians acted.

  “He was kind to people of all faiths, and I don’t know about the women or what that has to do with anything. Whatever else he was, he was a believer in Jesus and convinced Jerrod of it.”

  “Then why has Jerrod been throwing mean verses from the Quran at me?”

  “The Quran has had a lot of influence on his life. It shapes how he sees the world, how he views God, how he speaks. Just because he’s bought Christianity doesn’t mean he’s not Turkish anymore or has forgotten where he came from.” He cleared his throat. “This is off the record. A secret, okay? No one knows but me, Jerrod, and Adam. Jerrod would never have killed his mentor. End of story.”

  “He sounds unstable.” I threw it out like an insult. “This kid claimed to have abandoned his family faith, but still hangs out at the Muslim Community Center and won’t tell anyone. Maybe he faked his conversion just to get close to Adam, get him alone.”

  “You don’t understand faith because you don’t have any. If you did, you’d see what I see.”

  I stood up. “I see that you want me to direct my attentions to Melati and Seda, two innocent young women rightly offended by the actions of another jerky man.” I paused. No one, not even Trish, had claimed Adam was a jerk.