Joe Dillard - 02 - In Good Faith

by Scott Pratt

  I sat back and thought for a moment. The money didn’t matter that much. Both of my kids had earned scholarships that paid a significant amount of their college expenses. Our house was paid for and we had a fair amount stashed away. I’d already called both of the kids and discussed the possibility of going to work for the district attorney. Both were in favor, as was Caroline. All that was left was for me to take the plunge and see what happened.

  “You make it sound like easy money,” I said.

  Mooney nodded his head. “There you go. Easy money. Piece of cake. Come by and see me Monday and we’ll get the paperwork rolling. You start in sixteen days.”

  Sunday, September 14

  Bjorn Beck glanced at the side-view mirror and watched briefly as the road stretched out behind him into the distant mountains. He looked forward, and then back again. He thought about the constant balance between what lay ahead and what lay behind. How poignant, he thought, this moment of pondering the future and the past. For Bjorn, ahead was his new life in the way of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Behind was the ignorance and intemperance of youth.

  Bjorn’s life was now filled with church activities. He was required to attend five meetings each week: the public talk on Sunday, the Watchtower study, the theocratic ministry school, the service meeting, and the book study. During these meetings, the doctrine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses was being ingrained into his open mind. Already he’d learned that he was no longer required to salute the flag of any nation. He wasn’t required to serve in the military or vote. His only allegiance was to Jehovah, the king of kings. He would no longer celebrate Christmas or New Year’s or the Fourth of July or Halloween. The only cause for special celebration would be the anniversary of Christ’s death during Passover. Bjorn found the break from traditional Christianity—and American life—liberating.

  Bjorn, his wife, Anna, and their two children, six-year-old Else and seven-month-old Elias, had spent the day at a church-sponsored convention at a place called Freedom Hall in Knoxville, Tennessee. Bjorn had been a convert for only eight months. He’d listened closely to the speakers, eager to absorb the words and ideas that would make him a better pioneer, a better servant of the church, and a better person.

  He turned and stole a quick glance into the rear of the family’s van. Else, blond and flawless, with soft, round features, was sound asleep, her chin resting on her chest. Elias, another blue-eyed blond, was cooing contentedly in his car seat. Anna, whose hair had darkened to a sandy blond over the seven years since they’d been married, had slipped off to sleep in the passenger seat. Bjorn smiled and silently congratulated himself on his decision to move his family to Johnson City from Chicago a year ago. His children were safer, he had a better job, and he’d found Jehovah, or, more accurately, Jehovah had found him.

  Two well-dressed, polite young men had knocked on Bjorn’s front door on a cold, sunny day in January. Bjorn was impressed not only with their appearance, but also with their dedication. The young men were bundled up and traveling on bicycles, smiling and undaunted. They surprised him by asking whether Bjorn was satisfied with his relationship with God—he was not—and whether he might be open to alternative interpretations of the Bible—he was. They did not pressure him. He did not find them annoying. They left copies of two publications, The Watchtower and Awake, and asked Bjorn to read them. Then, if Bjorn didn’t mind, they would return in a week and discuss the ideas in the publication with him and answer any questions he might have.

  Bjorn had grown tired of the dogmatic approach of the Catholics—the religion of his youth and his parents—along with the scandals that hounded the church, the aristocracy of the priesthood, the constant bickering over condoms and birth control, the role of women in the church, and whether homosexuality should be condemned. Bjorn considered those things insignificant and shallow. He longed for a deeper, more personal relationship with God.

  Bjorn showed the publications to Anna, who shared his frustration with the church. The couple studied diligently. They learned of the Last Days, of the invisible return of Christ in 1914, of Armageddon, and of the millennium, when Christ would rule over the earth, the dead would be resurrected, mankind would attain perfection, and paradise would be restored. They learned that one hundred and forty-four thousand “true Christians” would rule the great crowd from heaven along with Jesus after Armageddon, until, ultimately, Jehovah, the all-powerful God, would rule again.

  At last. A reasoned, intellectual approach to religion.

  When the two young men returned as promised a week later, Bjorn and Anna had many questions. All of them were answered satisfactorily, and they accepted the young men’s invitation to attend a public talk at the Kingdom Hall in Johnson City the following Sunday. A month later, both were baptized into the Watchtower faith.

  Bjorn had become a pioneer, which meant he was required to spend a minimum of ninety hours each month proselytizing. It was his responsibility to turn nonbelievers into believers, or, in the parlance of the church, to turn goats into sheep. He was required to keep meticulous records of his activities so the overseers and elders could keep tabs on his service. Bjorn didn’t mind the accountability. In fact, he welcomed it. And he was naturally outgoing, so approaching complete strangers and inquiring about their relationship with God did not present a problem for him. Last month, he had exceeded his evangelical requirement by thirteen hours.

  A roadside sign informed Bjorn that a rest stop was a mile away. He’d been driving for only an hour, but the sun was going down and it was a beautiful September evening. The children could play for a little while, and he and Anna could stretch their legs. If God smiled upon him, he might even find a goat he could turn into a sheep.

  As he eased the van off of the interstate onto the rest area ramp, he touched Anna gently on the arm.

  “Anna, I’m going to stop for a little while. Do you mind?”

  His wife’s eyes opened and she smiled.

  “Where are we?”

  “At a rest stop. We’re not far from home, but I thought we might take a walk and let the children play for a little while.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t mind at all.”

  Bjorn maneuvered the van into a parking spot right in front of the restrooms. The rest stop was deserted. He saw Anna reach back and gently squeeze Else’s knee.

  “Else, honey, would you like to get out and play for a while?”

  The child awoke slowly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  “I’m hungry,” Else said in a tiny voice.

  “Would you like a candy kiss?” Anna said. She reached for a bag of Hershey’s Kisses in the console.

  Bjorn parked the van, and husband and wife got out. Anna opened the sliding door and lifted Elias from his car seat. She handed the smiling child to Bjorn.

  “He’s wet,” she said. “They probably have a changing table in the bathroom. If they don’t, I can change him on one of the picnic tables.”

  “I’ll do it,” Bjorn said. “Take Else to the bathroom. I’ll take care of him.”

  Bjorn pulled a diaper and a baby wipe from the diaper bag between the seats and walked slowly up the sidewalk. There were several picnic tables scattered on the lawn behind the bathrooms. Bjorn headed for the nearest table, with Elias resting comfortably on his arm. Anna and Else strolled towards the women’s restroom.

  Bjorn enjoyed changing his son’s diaper—even the smelly ones. It gave him an opportunity to provide comfort to the boy, to smile directly into his face and tell him he loved him.

  Bjorn laid Elias on his back, smiled, and went into baby-speak as he gently and efficiently went about the task: “Are you Daddy’s good boy? Yes, you are. Daddy loves you. Can you say ‘Daddy’? Daaah-deee? You have to say Daddy before you say Mommy.”

  Elias grinned.

  “Yes! That’s my boy. You’ll be saying it soon enough.” Bjorn lifted the child into the air and kissed him on the cheek. “Let’s go find Mommy.”

  As he started back
down the hill towards the restroom, he noticed that a green Chevy Cavalier had pulled into the parking spot beside his van.

  Bjorn saw them when he rounded the corner near the restroom to check on Else and Anna. He stopped short. Two of them, both males, were dressed in black from head to toe. Their hair was black and they’d covered their faces in white pancake makeup. There was also a tall female, a redhead who was wearing a tight pink miniskirt, a white blouse, black fishnet hose, and shoes with spiked heels. She was speaking to Anna, who was holding Else in her arms, while the others lingered a few steps away. At first glance, the redhead was attractive, with sharp features and full lips. Bjorn noticed a small tattoo on the side of her neck. It appeared to be a cross, but it was upside down.

  “What a beautiful child,” the girl said in a kind voice as Bjorn moved closer.

  “Thank you,” Anna said.

  “I’d like to have a beautiful child like her someday. What’s her name?”

  Else buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. Anna smiled. “She’s shy. Her name is Else. Can you say hello to the nice lady, Else?”

  Else turned towards the girl and lifted a tiny hand.

  “What’s this?” the girl said.

  “It’s a Hershey’s Kiss,” Anna said. “She’s offering you a Kiss.”

  “Is everything all right?” Bjorn said as he cautiously approached. It was hard to tell with the makeup, but the two males appeared to be young, maybe twenty or so. One was tall and lanky, the other short and muscular. Both had small silver rings in their pierced eyebrows, ears, and lips. The redhead was wearing a black spiderweb necklace, and the boys wore T-shirts that sported goat heads and pentagrams and advertised Satan. Bjorn immediately assumed that this meeting was destiny—God had afforded him a perfect opportunity to attempt to spread his new faith.

  “It’s a beautiful evening, isn’t it?” Bjorn said.

  “Yes,” the redheaded girl said, “beautiful.”

  When she looked at Bjorn, he noticed something unusual. Her eyes. Heavy black eyeliner set off eyes that were different colors. One was a brilliant blue, the other green. Bjorn had never seen anything like it.

  “May I ask you a question?” Bjorn said.

  She looked at Bjorn suspiciously, but nodded slightly.

  “Are you satisfied with your relationship with God?”

  The girl stiffened. Bjorn heard one of the boys gasp.

  “And how could that possibly be any of your fucking business?” the girl snarled. She turned her head to the side and spit on the ground.

  “I’m so sorry,” Bjorn said. The smile on his face remained fixed. “I’ve offended you.”

  “You’re goddamned right you offended me,” the girl said. “Who do you think you are?”

  Bjorn stuck out his hand. He glanced towards the still-empty parking lot, silently wishing that someone else would come along. It remained empty with the exception of his van and the Cavalier.

  “My name is Bjorn,” he said. “And this is my wife—”

  “I don’t give a fuck what your name is.”

  Bjorn was surprised, and a bit frightened, by the girl’s anger. She ignored his outstretched hand, which he quickly retracted. Her eyes were locked onto him, and as he stood looking at her, he suddenly felt cold. He shifted Elias to his other shoulder.

  “Please,” Bjorn said. “The last thing I wanted to do was upset you. Perhaps we could go up to a table over there and sit and talk for a little while.”

  The girl seemed to relax a bit. She turned and smiled at her companions, then looked back at Bjorn.

  “Talk?” she said. “You want to talk to me?”

  “I’d love to,” Bjorn said. “We’ll just sit and talk. I’d love to share what I’ve learned about God’s love with you.”

  She turned to the young man standing closest to her.

  “God’s love,” she said. “He wants to share what he knows about God’s love. That’s nice.”

  She stood for a moment, seemingly pondering Bjorn’s proposal. Finally, she said, “Okay, why not? Just let us use the restroom. Go on ahead. We’ll be there in a minute.”

  The girl turned and walked into the building that housed the restrooms, followed by the males. Bjorn watched them go, then started back up the hill.

  “Do you think this is a good idea?” Anna said. “They frighten me.”

  “She seems filled with rage,” Bjorn said. “Maybe I can help her.”

  “Bjorn, what about the children? What if something goes wrong? I mean, did you see what they were wearing? Those symbols on their clothes, goat heads and Satan? And all the black. They’re hideous. And I could smell alcohol on the girl’s breath. I think we should go.”

  Bjorn took his wife’s hand. “This is a test, Anna. I’m sure of it. It’s God’s way of testing my faith.” He gestured towards the tree line a hundred feet away. “If you don’t feel comfortable, take the children over there and I’ll talk to them alone.”

  Bjorn took a seat at a picnic table beneath a maple tree. The sun was just slipping behind a mountain to the west, the shimmering orange light dancing through the poplar and oak leaves. What a magnificent sight, Bjorn thought; what a magnificent day. What a wonderful time to be alive and well in God’s kingdom. It was a pity there weren’t more people around to enjoy it.

  Bjorn heard an engine come to life and looked back down towards the restrooms. He saw the green Cavalier back out of the spot near his van and pull away. Just then the two young Goths who had been with the redhead came walking over the hill. Puzzled, he stood and started towards them.

  “Is your friend leaving?” he said.

  The short, muscular Goth raised his T-shirt and produced a pistol.

  “Yeah, she’s leaving,” he said, “and you’re coming with us.”

  Sunday, September 14

  The voice eased its way through my subconscious and gently brought me out of sleep. I’d been napping on the couch, using the excuse that I’d be starting a new job tomorrow and needed to rest up. When my eyes opened, my wife’s face was smiling down at me. She was offering me something—a telephone.

  “It’s Lee Mooney,” Caroline said. “He says it’s urgent.”

  Already it had started: the extreme importance of all matters legal, especially all matters criminal. I looked at my watch. Almost nine o’clock. I sat up and took the phone.

  “Hey, Lee,” I said to the man who would become my boss in about twelve hours. I hadn’t had a boss in nearly twenty years.

  “Sorry about the Sunday call,” Mooney said. “We’ve got a bad one. What would you think about starting a day early?”

  “What do you mean?” I felt certain, even in my groggy state of mind, that the district attorney’s office and the courthouses were closed on Sunday.

  “It looks like we’ve got an entire family slaughtered out in the county,” Mooney said. “They tell me there are a couple of small children involved. I want to go out there and make sure everything’s done right. Since it’ll be your case, I thought you might want to come with me.”

  I processed the information slowly. My mind illuminated the high points—family … slaughtered … in the county … small children. I rubbed my face and tried to focus.

  “An entire family?”

  “I don’t have many details yet. Do you want me to stop by and pick you up or do you want to meet me out there?”

  I didn’t want to be entirely at his mercy, so I told him I’d meet him. He gave me the location, a place with which I was vaguely familiar. I could be there in less than an hour.

  I hung up and splashed cold water on my face. I pulled on my jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, and an old pair of hiking boots. I pecked Caroline on the cheek and headed out the door. Rio started whining. He wanted to go. I dropped the tailgate on my pickup and he jumped in.

  The place I was going was Marbleton Road, little more than a wide dirt path that intersected with Smalling Road near the mountains at the western edge of Washington County
. The intersection was just north of Interstate 81 and just south of nowhere. You could stand at the intersection of Marbleton and Smalling roads and unleash an arrow from a bow in any direction without fear of hitting anything human. The closest house was more than a half mile away.

  I got there around ten. As I rounded a curve on Smalling Road, still a quarter mile away, I could see red and blue lights, plenty of them, flashing eerily off of the trees surrounding the intersection. A young deputy stopped me about two hundred yards from Smalling Road and told me I was going to have to turn around. I showed him the brand-new badge identifying me as an assistant district attorney that Lee Mooney had given me a few days earlier, and he waved me through. I spotted Mooney’s SUV parked in a field to my left about a hundred yards south of the flashing lights, and I pulled over next to it and got out.

  Rio’s ears were pointed straight up and his nostrils were flared. He was standing in the back of the truck, facing the intersection, and he was growling. The behavior was distinctly uncharacteristic. When I reached up to try to calm him, I noticed the hair on his back was at attention. I grabbed his harness and put him in the cab of the truck. I took a flashlight from the glove compartment, stuffed my hands inside the pocket on the front of my sweatshirt, and walked towards the lights. It suddenly seemed much colder than it was when I left home.

  There were several unmarked cars and police cruisers, a crime scene van, and three ambulances, all parked within a couple hundred feet of Marbleton Road. Just past the intersection was another van, this one from a local television station, channel twelve. A bright light illuminated a reporter sticking a microphone into the face of a man I recognized to be the sheriff of Washington County, a shameless publicity hound named Leon Bates. The flashing lights from the emergency vehicles made me dizzy. When I stepped up to the intersection at Marbleton, yellow police tape had been pulled across the road, and yet another young deputy accosted me. I looked at him closely for few seconds as his complexion changed from light blue to light red to light blue to light red.