the deaths as well, aren't they? They should donate something."
A fire lit in Twyla's eyes. "That's a good idea," she said. "I wonder that I didn't think of it. What happened today at Tom Almand's? I'm hearing some mighty funny things. That boy of his in trouble? Hey, Sarah," she said, lifting her round face to a woman coming in. "Thanks for helping," she added as the older woman dropped a couple of dollars into the slot.
"There are too many people around to talk about it," I said quietly. No one had asked me not to discuss the macabre nature of the findings at Tom Almand's, but I didn't want to be broadcasting it. Chuck Almand would be a pariah soon enough. I wouldn't hasten the process. Though some country people tend to be more practical about animals than city people, plenty of the inhabitants of Doraville would be disgusted at the pain inflicted on cats and squirrels and the odd dog…especially if the cats and the dog turned out to be somebody's pets. "But he's not a boy you'd want to have dating your daughter or granddaughter."
"The sheriff says we won't get the bodies back for a week at least, maybe longer," Twyla said. "It seems hard that we finally discover Jeff, but we can't bury him."
"At the same time," I said, "you want every bit of evidence that can tie his death to the killer."
"I don't like to think about him getting cut up," Twyla said. "I can't think about it."
I didn't know what to say, and the fuzzy golden goodwill the pill lent me did not give me any inspiration. I decided it was best to keep silent. I looked over the crowd in the pews. Mount Ida was a larger church than I'd imagined from the outside. The pews were gleaming with polish, and the carpet was new, too. At the front of the church were easels with enlarged photographs of the dead boys, each with a spray of flowers at the base. I would have liked to look at them, since I'd touched on each of these young men in my very own way, but going up there would have seemed rude and pushy.
There was a knot of law enforcement uniforms in one of the front pews. I recognized Sheriff Rockwell's hair, and I thought I also saw Deputy Rob Tidmarsh, who'd discovered the animal graves.
Somehow the Bernardos had beat us here. I glimpsed Xylda's unruly red head a few pews up and to the right and Manfred's platinum spikes beside her. From the rear view, the two didn't stand out so much. There was plenty of dyed hair in evidence, and several spiky hairdos.
Tolliver came in, his face pinched with cold. He dropped a twenty into the slot. He was surprised to find me seated by Twyla, but he leaned over to shake her hand and to tell her how sorry he was. "We appreciate the use of your cabin," he said. "It made a big difference, having a place to stay." I hadn't even thought of thanking her, and I was angry with myself.
"I'm very sorry Harper got hurt," Twyla said, and I felt better when I realized I wasn't the only one who'd forgotten to mention something fairly major. "I hope they catch who did it, and I'm sure it was the same bastard who killed our Jeff. This is something else I forgot," she said, pressing a check into my hands. I nodded and slid it into Tolliver's chest pocket. We started down the aisle to find a place to sit.
We paused by a pew with some free space in the middle, and when the pew's settlers saw my cast, they were kind enough to all shift down to let us sit on the end. I said "Thank you" several times. It felt good to settle down on the padded pew shoulder to shoulder with Tolliver. We were far enough away from the door to avoid the effects of the constant gusts of cold air with each entrance.
Gradually the murmurs died down and the crowd became silent. The doors didn't open and close anymore. Pastor Garland came out, looking youthful and somehow sweet. But his voice was anything but sweet, or peaceful, as he read the scriptures he'd selected for the occasion. He'd picked a passage from Ecclesiastes, he told us, and he started to read. He began, "To everything there is a season… "
Everyone around me was nodding their heads, though of course Tolliver and I didn't recognize the scripture. We listened with great attention. Was he saying that it had been time for the boys to die? No, maybe his emphasis was on "a time to mourn." That was now, for sure. The rest of his readings were from Romans, and the thread that ran through them was about maintaining your own integrity in a world bereft of it. And they were eerily appropriate.
There was no point in saying the murders were events the congregation had to accept philosophically. There was no point in saying the people of Doraville had to turn the other cheek; it wasn't the community's cheek that had been struck. Its children had been stolen. There would be no offering up of other children to be killed, no matter how much scripture was quoted.
No, Doak Garland was smarter than he appeared. He was telling the people of Doraville that they had to endure and trust in God to get them past the bad time, that God would help them in this endeavor. No one could disagree with that message. Not here, not tonight. Not with those faces at the front of the congregation, staring back. As I watched, a deputy ceremoniously added two more easels, but these were left blank. The two boys who were strangers. I felt touched.
"These are the children of our community," Doak said. He gestured to the faces. Then he pointed to the two blank easels. "And these are someone else's children, but they were killed and buried right along with ours, and we must pray for them, too."
One picture was the stern one boys always take for their high school football picture. The scowling boy, looking so very tough…I'd seen him in his grave, beaten and cut, tortured beyond his endurance, every vestige of manhood stripped from him. Suddenly the tragedy of it seemed unbearable, and as Doak Garland's voice rose in his sermon, tears flowed out of my eyes. Tolliver fished some Kleenex from his pocket and patted my face. He looked a little bewildered. I'd never reacted like this to a previous case, no matter how horrific.
We sang a hymn or two, we prayed long and loud, and one woman fainted and was helped out into the vestibule. I floated through the service on a cloud of pain medication, every now and then weeping with the emotion that could not be contained. When the usher—the hospital administrator, Barney Simpson—came by with the plate to pass for further donations toward the burials, a man two pews ahead of me turned his head as he handed his neighbor the collection plate, and I saw to my amazement that Tom Almand had come to the service. He had brought his son with him, and that hit me wrong. The counselor should have stayed home with the boy. Chuck was laboring under such a terrible burden, he shouldn't be in a place where the atmosphere was sheer grief and horror. Or did he need to be reminded that other problems were worse than his? I was no counselor. Maybe his dad knew best.
I reached across myself to squeeze Tolliver with my good hand. He looked at me inquiringly. He was restless, and I could tell he wanted to be anywhere but here. I nodded my head to indicate Tom Almand and Chuck, and after scanning the crowd with a blank face, Tolliver gave me a significant look to let me know he'd spotted them. As if he could feel our gazes, Almand turned a bit and looked straight at us. I thought he would look disgusted, or angry, or anguished. What does the father of such a child feel? I didn't have a clue, but I was fairly sure it would be a painful mixture of emotions.
Tom Almand looked blank. I couldn't even be sure he recognized me.
Okay, that was freaky. I would have added forty more dollars to the collection plate if I could have heard what Almand was thinking.
"Huh," Tolliver said, which put it in a nutshell.
Then the collection was over, and everyone settled back into receptive silence. But a stir went through the crowd when a stubby man in a bad suit rose from the front pew and went to the lectern.
"Those of you don't know me, I'm Abe Madden," he said, and there was another little ripple of movement. "I know that some of you blame me for not realizing sooner that those boys were being killed. Maybe, like some of you think, I let what I wanted get in the way of what I should. I wanted those boys to be okay, just out sowing a few wild oats. I should have been looking harder for them, asking harder questions. Some in my own department told me that." He might have been looking at the current sheriff when he said that. "Some in my department thought I was right. Well, we know now I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness for a great mistake I made. I was your servant while I was in office, and I let you down." And he went back to his seat.
I'd never heard anything like that before. What it must have cost the man in pride to do that…I couldn't even imagine. Tolliver was less impressed. "Now he's confessed and asked for forgiveness," he whispered. "Can't anyone point fingers at him anymore; he's paid his debt."
A member of each family spoke, some briefly, some at length, but I heard very little fire and brimstone. I expected some homophobic stuff, given the nature of the murders, but I didn't hear any. The anger was directed at the rape, not at the sexual preference of the rapist. Only two family members spoke of vengeance, and then only in terms of the law catching the responsible party. There was no lynch talk, no fist shaking. Grief and relief.
The last speaker said, "At least now we know this is at an end. No more of our sons will die." At that, I saw a sudden movement in the Bernardos' pew. Manfred was gripping Xylda by the arm, and her face was turned toward his. She looked angry and urgent. But after a few seconds, she subsided.
We might as well have left then, for all I got out of the rest of the service. I was drowsy and uncomfortable, and I wanted nothing more than to lean my head on Tolliver's shoulder and fall asleep. That would clearly be the wrong thing to do, so I focused on sitting up straight and keeping my eyes open. At last the service was over, and we sang a closing hymn. Then we could go. I stepped out of the pew first since I was on the end, and a grizzled man in overalls took my hand. "Thank you, young lady," he said, and then began making his way out of the church without another word. He was the first of many people who made a point of touching me: a light hug, a grip of the hand, a pat on the shoulder. Each
