Beyond Justice (46 page)

"It is different," Dave said.  "And yet, it's not."

"Do you think God can forgive someone like Brent Stringer?"

"A really smart man I know once said, 'If He really is God, He can do anything.'"

"Wise guy."  The old family Bible sat open on the coffee table.  Jenn's Bible, a pillar of her faith.  Though all the answers seemed to be right there, in those pages, I still had to ask. "But
would
He forgive him?"

"What do
you
think, Sam?"

___________________

Parked outside San Diego Central, I sat in my car and wrestled with the toughest problem I'd ever faced. 
God allows that bastard to kill my wife and daughter, and now He wants me to forgive him?
  I'd tried and what did I get for my efforts?

But the question kept revisiting. 
Do you trust me?

Yes.  I did trust God.  But my faith was weak.

An anguished tear streams down my face as I imagine myself the judge, Brent's fate resting in my hands.  Will I exonerate him, though he is in fact guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?  Though he's shown not a trace of remorse?

Jenn, Bethie, and Aaron are standing in the gallery as I raise my gavel, about to pronounce my verdict.  They smile and reassure me.  To my own surprise, I pronounce him not guilty.  He will be released from all culpability and punishment.

Instead of a tidal wave of resentment, I experienced peace.
It's going to be fine.
  The hatred for Stringer, which had been hollowing me out, was now gone.  No longer did it haunt me, grip me.  The same relief and anticipation I experienced, that day I left Salton and the gate slammed behind me, filled my spirit.

I was free.

___________________

Once again at visitor check-in, I anticipated the rolling of eyes, the shaking of heads. "Please," I said to the guard at the desk, a petite African-American officer who you'd best not mess with.  "Just ask him again."

"And what makes you think today will be any different?" she said, without bothering to meet my eyes.  More typing at the keyboard. 

"I don't know for sure that it will."

"Mmm-hmmm."

I took a step back and turned to the wall.   There had to be some way.  I steepled my fingers and pressed them to my forehead. 
God, I could use a little help here.
   The answer came in another vision, like water flowing down a brook, without the drama of previous visions.  Then a word, or a name, rather: 

Sally.

Had no idea what that meant, but I knew it was for this very moment.  I turned back to the guard and rushed over.  "Tell him I want to talk to him about...Sally."

The keyboard pecking stopped.  "Sally."

"Just tell him, please."

"You're as crazy as he is," she said, getting up and reaching for her handset.

"Perhaps."

She phoned the instructions over to the guard at Brent's cellblock and gave me a dirty look when she said the name "Sally."  When she hung up, she looked at me as if I'd grown an extra nose.  "What's with you anyway?  How can you even stand breathing the same air as him, after what he’s done?"

"I'm on a mission of sorts."

Her fists went to her hips.  "Don't you try none of that vigilante stuff.  Save it for the court and let the legal system do its work.  You hear?"

"Of course."  Did she have any idea what the legal system had done to me?  Anyway, I wasn't about to tell her I was on a mission from God.

"So you here with R.J.M.P. or something?" she said.

"R.J...?"

"Restorative Justice Mediation Program.  You know, confront the offender, make him write you a check every month.  Where's your mediator?"  She looked over my shoulder.

"I'm not with R.J...whatever."

"Then what do you want?"

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Trust me, I heard it all."

No.  She'll think I'm crazy.  Even Rachel thinks so
.  Her phone rang.

"Really?" she said.  "Well, all right.  I'll let him know." She met my gaze, blinking and trying to speak with several false starts.

"What?"

"I don't believe it," she said.

"What did he say?"

"He said he'll see you."

Chapter Ninety-Seven

"You think you're pretty clever, don't you," Stringer said to me, his tone frigid.  Seated and bound, the sleeves of his orange jumpsuit were rolled up to reveal a pentagram tattooed on his arm.  In the middle was a goat's head and a triune epigraph which read Leviathan, Samael, and Lilith.  The Sigil of Baphomet, a Satanist symbol I remembered from my college roommate's creepy friend who called himself 'Leege'—short for Legion.

"Apparently not as clever as you," I said.  "Up till your arrest, at least." I took a seat and two armed guards stood at the ready, one behind me, the other behind Stringer.

"How do you know about Sally?" he asked.

"Hard to explain.  It'd take some time."

"I've got nothing but."

"She was special to you, I know that much."  The room was spacious enough, but his unblinking stare made me uneasy.

"What exactly do you want?" he said.

"I..." What would I say, that I forgive him and wanted to be his friend?  The words just wouldn't form.

He scoffed and turned to the guards.  "Think we're done here." He got up and they took him to the door.

"Wait," I said.  He stopped, regarded me with glacial contempt as I rose and turned to face him. "I came here to tell you something."

"What?  You hope I get the death penalty, that I get gang raped in prison, that I rot in Hell?  How cliché.  You’re just like the—"

"I came to tell you that..." I swallowed a dry lump, "...that I forgive you."

  As if for the first time in his life he was at a loss for words, he stood silent for a moment until the guard said, "You ready?"

Stringer didn't answer.  Finally, a crooked smile twisted his mouth. 

"Nearly had me there, buddy."

___________________

Questions floated around my head while I cruised the slow lane of the 163.   How had Stringer taken it?  Would he permit further visits?  And if I had really forgiven him, why did I still feel such bitterness?

It was Aaron's birthday today, of all days.  Hard to believe that he was now seven years old.  He'd lived nearly half of his life in a coma.  Now, in just another couple of weeks, if nothing changed, the State of California would take him from me.

Was I being selfish, as so many had accused?  I found myself questioning my motives, wondering if indeed I was merely prolonging this because of my inability to face "reality." Didn't have to figure it out today.  I was going to see my boy.  Perhaps for his last birthday.

I arrived to find another visitor there with him.  Someone I wasn't prepared to see just yet.  "Rachel?"  She was sitting at his bedside, her head bowed and holding his hands.

"I thought you were downtown," she said and got up.  "I'll leave."

"No, wait."  I took her hand.  She kept her eyes from me.  It was then that I noticed the balloons, a birthday card on his nightstand and a new teddy-bear, donning a San Diego Padres uniform and cap.

"I should be leaving," she said.

I released her hand and said, "It's not so much that you disagree with me.  I just... I can't stand that you're embarrassed by me."

"Really, I should go."

"Please.  Just... hold on, okay?" I picked up the card and read what she'd written.

Happy Birthday, Aaron.  May you awaken soon and learn what an awesome father in heaven you have.  And what an awesome father you have on earth.

Suddenly, the gifts I'd bought him seemed insignificant.  I put the card back.  "Thank you," I said and I bent down to kiss her.

But she moved away and started for the door.

"Rachel, come on, would you just—?" her hand slipped down my arm and I caught it by the fingertips.  Held gently.  She held on for a moment too.

But then let go.

"You still don't get it," she said, sniffing and wiping the corner of her eye.

"Most of life, I don't get."

"You think I'm upset with you over a theological matter—should you forgive someone like Brent Stringer or not—but you just-don't-get it."  She glared at me, her fingers trembling as she wiped her eyes again.  It was hopeless.  If I didn't know, she wasn't going to tell me, right?

She then looked to Aaron, stepped over and kissed him on the forehead and walked out the door.

"Rachel, please.  What is it?"

She turned around and said, "I understand how hard it is to overcome all your rage over what he did to Jenn, to Bethie, I really do.  But not once— You haven't given it much thought have you?  You're so ready to let him off the hook—"  She stopped her rising pitch and accelerating words abruptly.  "I know this'll sound self-serving, and I'm sorry.  But... he tried to kill me too.  Where's your anger over that?"

  For the next two days she didn't answer my calls.

CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT

Chapter Ninety-Eight

Stringer finally agreed to see me again.  Every now and then, I found myself checking my emotions.  If this wasn't the hardest thing I'd ever had to do, I couldn't imagine what was.  He seemed different today.  That cockiness, that condescension I'd come to expect, strangely absent.   Was it merely the act of a psychopath?

"Will we ever know why you did it?" I asked.

With eyes far off, he scraped his cuffed hands across the table, plopped them into his lap and slumped his shoulders.  "I don't know what to say."

"How about starting with an apology?"  He sighed and lowered his head.   "All right," I said, "tell me about Sally, then."

Studying his thumbs, he smiled and chuckled.  "Your pretty lawyer friend and that P.I. of hers, they're thorough."

"They don't know anything about Sally."

"Can't see why you'd want to deny it."

I pushed back in my chair.  It scraped the floor so abruptly that Brent winced.  "Take it easy," I said repositioning the chair.

"Sally was..." his eyes lit up.  "She was my best friend."

"Rough childhood?"

"Think what you want.  She was a puppy.   How do you know about her?"

"You won't accept my answer."

Clicking his tongue, he said, "Probably not.  Anyway, Sally was my first."

"You're first?"

"Oh, don't be sick.  I just meant that Sally's was the first death I'd ever witnessed."

"And that's how it all started?"

"I don't know.  You asked me about her, I'm telling you."

I held my hands up.  "Fair enough."

"I wasn't like other kids—soccer, little league, video games.  I kept to myself, read a lot.  No siblings, no friends.  Mom worked nights and days.  Dad..." his jaw muscles rippled.  "Dad was a drunk.  Just hung around the house watching porno tapes and getting wasted.  Couldn't hold a job if he tried.  I was careful never to let him see me playing with Sally because he hated when I was happy."

"Why'd he get her for you then?"

"He didn't.  She was a stray who just followed me home from school one day.  I suppose Mom let me keep her because she felt guilty leaving me home alone with Dad all the time."

"So you killed the dog because you were angry?"

"No, you imbecile!" His eyes and nostrils flared.  "My father killed her.  Kicked her over and over.  I was too scared to do anything, too scared to cry, even.  When he was done, he went back into the house and had another beer.  I watched Sally die a slow and painful death."  The anguish in his eyes gave way to the look of intoxicated sensuality.  "But that was when I realized just how exquisite it is... those last moments of life when life slips away.  It's hard to explain.  But man, what a rush!  The final gasps, the fading consciousness."  Thousands of miles away, he licked his lips and sighed.  "I was hooked."  He started whispering to himself a long list of names, with each, his eyes closed and he smiled.

This was Brent Stringer, award winning journalist, a best-selling writer?  An army of red fire ants nibbling on my back would have felt less creepy.  I stood and quietly lifted the chair legs off the floor.

"Here." I reached into my jacket pocket and handed him a new leather bound Bible that I'd picked up from that Christian bookstore in Clairemont.  "This is for you."  With his eyes still closed he sat there savoring something I didn't want to know about.  I set the Bible on the table before him and padded to the door.  "See you."