The Book of Judges

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “You know, I agree. He’s been a part of this discipleship thing for several years now, but I don’t like it. He tried to get Mel, you know the family pastor, to start offering it at church, but she declined in strong terms.”

  “I wonder why?”

  Christine lifted an eyebrow. “Grace Community has a woman pastor. You’ve seen how that group dresses. How could they be in any way sympathetic to what Grace does?”

  “Funny you should put it that way.” A lack of grace…that resonated.

  The girls at seminary—and they had been just girls, after all—had lacked grace, at least in my opinion. Condescension wasn’t grace.

  I had lacked grace, too. Still did.

  And this discipleship program definitely lacked grace. “If those anonymous folks in charge of Discipleship Ministries International had a reason to make a moral example of Adam Demarcus, then I might be on to something.” I stared over the top of Christine’s head at the blank wall. The discipleship program did have a grudge against Adam. He had seduced a girl with visions of female priests, secret kisses, and cups of strong coffee. If they were really as graceless as I had just decided they were, they had every reason to make an example of him. But were they messed up enough to mutilate a corpse and send cryptic notes to the city?

  “You’re quiet.”

  “Thinking. Thinking I didn’t give this group enough credit for potential evil.”

  “It’s because Bruce is such a nice guy. We all make that mistake. You might not know it, but nice guys do get suckered into terrible things sometimes.”

  “Did you know Rick confessed to using faith as a tool? He admitted he’s never really believed any of this.” I waved at the Bible I had just been thumbing through. A shot of some kind of emotion…regret maybe? spun across my face. Who was Rick without Christ? “He just saw religion as an effective mental health tool.”

  “Yeah, I was sitting next to you when Pastor Bob told you.” She smiled like it was cute I had forgotten she had been there, too. “But I would be surprised if it was true. If I were you, I’d try and get him to tell me what he really feels about God. It might not be as cut and dried as he made it sound for Pastor Bob.”

  “Why would he lie?” Dumb question. Why would Rick do anything but lie?

  “Rick looks up to Bob. Always has. Haven’t you noticed? I think, in Rick’s twisted way, he wanted Bob to see him as an unsaved man rather than a bad Christian. Christians who screw up have to repent and change. People who don’t believe, don’t have to.”

  She was talking about me again. I knew she was. I hadn’t been kind or good or loving or gracious in those seminary years, or the years after, even though I knew I ought to have been. It was easier to just give up on trying to believe all of it than to keep trying to be good.

  I had declared myself an atheist and that was that, though, looking back, you don’t have to believe in Jesus to be nice to people. I had been using my disbelief as an excuse for being rude for years. I should probably quit that, and just admit I’m a jerk, no matter what I believe. “I bet his book on how he becomes born again after a lifetime of working for his salvation becomes a best seller.”

  Christine was kind enough to laugh. “I’ve got to get to work.” She picked up her coat in slow motion. “Enjoy dinner with Bruce and Vivian.”

  I walked her to the door and waved her away.

  One reason I would always love Christine forever and ever was that these talks were few and far between. The other reason was that she was so rarely wrong.

  * * *

  Rick knocked on the window of my car as I was buckling up. I hadn’t thought to lock the doors, so he let himself in. “It’s a long drive up to Bruce’s, we ought to carpool.”

  I frowned. The last thing I wanted was an hour in the car with Rick.

  “I had no idea he lived out in Corbett.” Rick typed the address into my navigation system.

  I had also been surprised by the address, but I didn’t feel like talking to Rick about that. Bruce and his affable, fatherly personality had suckered me into giving him a pass. He not only lived in Corbett, the address he gave us was that large, gorgeous, house with the turn-around driveway I had visited the first day of my investigation. No one had answered the door that first morning.

  I had wanted to stop by and see Gina, my eye witness, on my way back from dinner tonight, but not with Rick. “Get out.”

  “Hon, don’t be ridiculous. Just consider it carpooling. I won’t bother you.”

  “I want to do some work after.”

  “What kind? Can I just sit in the car?”

  “No.”

  He reclined his seat. “You won’t even know I’m here.” He plugged his phone into my Aux cord and turned on his play list. “Just drive and enjoy your personal DJ.

  I turned the radio off. “Get out.”

  “Maura,” he maintained the idea of a relaxed posture, but subtle changes told me he wasn’t relaxed anymore—just a twitch of his upper lip and the way his thighs tensed. “We don’t have time for this. We need to present a united front to these guys. Linda’s death has everyone shaken.”

  “Everyone?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Because you seem perfectly fine.”

  “I’m not the paranoid type.”

  “You’re not afraid that a killer is out there picking off committee members?”

  “Nope.”

  I started the car. I knew Rick. I knew him as well as I knew myself. He wasn’t getting out. I could get out and take his car, but that would be childish. And anyway, no matter what he said, I knew Rick well enough to know that he was in my car because his needed gas.

  We drove in silence, and as fast as I could. We got there in record time.

  The evening was dark, but the Michaels’ mini-mansion was glowing. The driveway was lined with small solar lights. The front porch was flanked by small trees dressed in twinkle lights. The wrap-around porch was hung with lanterns. A small light, like an electric candle, shone from every window, and a classic gas-light style lamp stood in a small wooded corner of the lot, reminiscent of Narnia.

  The house felt ready for a ball, but I felt ready for a fight. I went to the door, not waiting for Rick but he managed to keep up with me anyway.

  Vivian ushered us into the dining room right away. “No use standing around making small talk.” Her mouth turned down at the corners, and her eyes were shadowed with grief, but her make-up, hair, and even sweater looked like she was ready for a company party. “Come and eat, everyone is here now.”

  The table was set simply, but with elegance. Thick stoneware dishes made it clear this was a family meal. She didn’t have a table cloth or a centerpiece, but she hardly needed it with the absurd amount of showy food spread before us. Beef Wellington, wrapped in a perfect crust of pastry held center stage. It was accompanied by scalloped potatoes, crescent rolls, risotto, tossed green salad, three bean salad, a layered vegetable gratin, and several dishes of vegetables I couldn’t name.

  Where a humble non-profit newspaperman got the money for a spread like this, much less the house, was a question I would have liked an answer to. Perhaps he got to keep more of his disciples’ fees than I had credited earlier.

  “Let me bless this.” Bruce cleared his throat, then bowed his head. “Dear Lord, thank you for this bounty and that we can be together in this time of grief. Please bring healing to our hearts and bless the work that your servant Linda loved so much.”

  We sat in silence as he carved the roast. Had Linda been God’s servant? Some traditions would say yes, because anyone who did good work did it at the prompting of God whether they knew it or not, but I didn’t think Bruce’s tradition held that view. Then again, most everyone said stuff like that about the dead. No one wanted to say their friend was barred from heaven because he or she hadn’t bought into one particular set of theological statements.

  I had expected more of us to dinner, but Will Rashid and Rafe hadn’t shown up and only Brit and Quint from the disci
pleship program were with us.

  “Will gives his apologies. He would have liked to come but they have an event at the center tonight.”

  “Of course.” Rick jumped in. “It’s Ataturk Memorial Day.” Leave it to Rick to know a random bit of information like that.

  I frowned at him. “Where is the rest of your crew?”

  “Some of the guys are down at the shelter so I could come.” Mac’s gravelly voice came from the other end of the table. “We’ve got a lot of talking to do. As for Will, I expect he’ll be pulling out. He and I have had some talks lately. This isn’t really working for him.”

  “I think we’d better let him speak about that himself, in his time,” Bruce admonished.

  “Please, eat.” Vivian passed the bowl of risotto to Rick. “Hunger won’t do any of us any good.”

  “Brit, any word on if you’ll be heading to Canada soon?” I made a move for my water glass but didn’t pick it up. Brit’s face had arrested my attention.

  Tonight, she wore a long jean skirt and a well fitted sweater. It was a sort of compromise outfit, I thought. Not quite as normal as that time we had coffee together and not quite as oppressed as the normal discipleship program uniform. Her face, on the other hand, had blanched at my words. The color just draining away in front of my eyes.

  “They denied my application.” Her voice was low, almost too quiet to hear.

  “I’m sorry. Did they give you any reason why?”

  “She broke her pledges, what other reason do they need?” Quint spoke for her, his voice snide, but he laid a hand over hers, in an attempt at comfort or maybe control. It was convenient he was a lefty, since she was on his right. He could give her soothing pats without pausing in his meal.

  Conversation was stilted after that, and the twenty minutes it took us to eat our way through the meal dragged. But eventually all our forks were down, and a large dent had been made in the many dishes. “Let’s come away from this.” Vivian said. “I have wine and cheesecake in the living room. It’s more comfortable there.”

  I remained in my seat, watching Brit and Quint leave together. He treated her with a fatherly kind of concern, pushing her chair in, whispering to her, nudging her toward the living room. Mac and Vivian went with them.

  Bruce and Rick remained at the table.

  “What on earth do we do now?” Bruce asked. “Linda and Adam were the only ones of us who worked for the city. Without them the whole program is over. Mac can say that Will wants to pull out, but what does that matter? There’s nothing for him to pull out from.”

  “We don’t need the city to keep this going.” Rick’s enthusiasm was slightly dulled by the heavy dinner he had consumed, but I could tell he was trying to rally his friend.

  “The city had the money. We had the people. Now all we have are the people.”

  “The most important thing we have is your newspaper.” Rick said. “So long as we have you, we can publish the beds available and the food closets, and the meals. There’s no reason to give up.”

  “Without the money, how will we have beds and meals?” Bruce slumped in his chair, defeated.

  “You might not have as many, which makes getting the word out on what is available even more important. Right Maura?”

  “Sure.” My mind was spinning. I had been dead certain Linda had been killed for her past crimes, but now Bruce had me reconsidering. With Linda and Adam both dead the committee was through. Linda’s stated fear of enemies of their work—her fear of people who did not want government money spent on evangelism suddenly mattered. “How much money did The Bulletin get from Metro?”

  “Not a lot. We had to add an extra sheet to accommodate the information. We sold more advertising to help cover the expenses, but Metro did give us some.”

  “How much?” I tried not to stare at the large oil painting behind him. Who had painted it? An old master maybe? How much had something like that cost?

  “You’re getting off the subject, babe.” Rick stepped in again. “I’ll make some calls. Someone at Metro will step in and helm the committee. It might change a little, but once the television news picks up that the city wants to cut a program that feeds homeless kids, public outcry will step in.”

  “Will and Rafe were the only groups getting money that weren’t Christian churches, right?” I asked.

  “Far from it,” Bruce said. “They were the only representatives on the committee, but the synagogue downtown has been a huge part of our work, as well as several health clubs in Southeast. They’ve been opening up their showers at night, things like that. And there are several secular homeless shelters we work with that have no ties to any church at all.”

  “A synagogue, a Muslim community center, several Christian churches, and a New Agey kind of place. Which one of those was most likely to send Adam’s thumb and toe to Metro with a note that there was no King in Israel…” I was thinking out loud, now. With both Linda and Adam gone, there was no leader for the committee. No King in Israel. The enemy of this group had gotten the job done and told us about it.

  “What?” Rick froze. “You never told me about that.”

  “I just learned. We’ve been fishing around, guessing this might be the hook, but the cops have known for a little while. The killer has made their point clear. They have toppled the kings of your committee. The question is, who saw you all as the enemy?”

  Rick shook his head. “It can’t be a real message. Someone is trying to throw us off. Now that they’ve killed Linda we can declare the Judges thing a red herring.” He looked disappointed.

  I had read Judges several times through since Bruce had suggested the idea, and I was right. I had kept my temper in check through the drive and the meal but if Rick told me I was wrong one more time I was going to explode. “Actually,” I spoke with my face a painful grimace of a smile, “Linda’s death confirms our theory.”

  “Oh, Maura.” Rick chuckled. “Don’t try so hard to be contrary.”

  “The enemy king is mutilated in Judges, but who dies next? Ehud, that’s who.”

  Rick patted my knee. “Ehud was the judge, babe. Eglon died.”

  “Rick’s right.” Bruce sighed again. He sat with his hands resting on his stomach, his face creased like a sad hound dog.

  “Yes, I know, I just said it wrong.” I stared at Bruce and tried to imagine Ehud’s special sword ramming him in that stomach, to the hilt, and all his guts spilling out. I couldn’t. “Linda was a large woman.”

  “She was hardly Eglon proportioned. And anyway, she wasn’t stabbed.” Rick couldn’t contain his laugh. It spilled out of every feature of his face, even though he made no noise.

  “But if she was poisoned, it’s kind of the same, I’d say. The agent of her death went straight to her gut. I’m probably lucky she didn’t puke all over me. It looked likely for a few minutes.”

  “If that were true, it would be symbolic.” Rick argued. “Whereas Adam’s method was very literal.”

  “Was it? The only thing literal was chopping off his thumbs and toes. He was at Crown Point which we take as symbolic of Jerusalem. Linda was in her bedroom, in an upper level condo. Eglon died in his private chamber, upstairs. Eglon wanted silence, Linda wanted her radio turned off. Eglon trusted the messenger. Whoever came to Linda’s house, she trusted, since she let him in her bedroom.”

  “But it’s just luck that you know she wanted her music turned off.”

  “And it’s just luck someone saw flashing lights at Crown Point.”

  “What does flashing light have to do with The book of Judges?”

  I was ready to punch him, my fists curled, my whole body quivering. “Because whoever did this all believes they are representatives of God himself, that’s why! And even Allah calls himself the light, and for the love, I think Rafe might have said his girlfriend was the light, too. That part is the most obvious of all. People who think they are angels of vengeance ally themselves with the light.” I stared at Rick. My face a snarl. “You certa
inly did.”

  “And Lucifer.” Bruce added. “Father of lies, angel of light.” He stood. “I think we should join the others. Maybe even tell them what you have to say.” He held out his hand for me. “As far as I am concerned, you’ve made a very good case for Linda being Eglon. A lovely woman, but by no means skinny.” His last sentence sort of floated away, as though he were considering its merits again. “Nothing like Eglon’s proportions, but still…that could be why they killed Adam first, and her second. Adam was a very fit man. He couldn’t have been Eglon, even symbolically.”

  “Whoever did this, knew that there was a Biblical scholar on the committee.” I pointed this statement at Rick, in the most accusatory tones I could. “They knew the committee would have to deal with it, and they knew the committee would eventually understand what was being done.”

  Rick just shook his head. “I suppose we better watch out or all the rest of us will be killed with an ox goad.”

  My jaw was so tight I was beginning to see sparks. “In those days everyone did what was right in their own eyes,” I whispered as Rick joined the others in the living room, finding himself a seat next to the youngest woman in the room, like always.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I didn’t get to see Gina that night, so midmorning the next day I gave her a quick call. I left a voice message and reminded myself she was a teenager and in school during the week. Nonetheless, about five minutes later I got a text: n terrible Danger. Must cu.

  Where are you? I responded immediately.

  left school.

  Where are you? I felt motherly, being ignored and repeating myself.

  Must meet now.

  Where?

  I thought about calling the cops to meet us, too.

  Bng fllwd. Went dntn.

  Come to my office. I gave her the address.

  k

  How far are you?

  5 min.

  Call/text/whatever if you need me.

  k

  I paced my office. I didn’t offer to meet her—if she was being followed she needed to not stand still, and my office was safe. In addition to me and my gun, I had neighbors like Becky in her insurance office, and the super Ethan was around today. I had seen him in the hall when I showed up. I hoped she was just being a melodramatic teen, but I knew she wasn’t.