Lawrence Block - Sins of the Fathers

Then we were standing, and his arms were spread, his robed draping like the wings of an enormous bird, his voice vibrant and resonant.

“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be amongst you, and remain with you always. Amen.”

Amen.

A few people slipped out of the church without stopping for a few words with Reverend Vanderpoel. The rest lined up for a handshake. I managed to be at the end of the line. When it was finally my turn Vanderpoel blinked at me. He knew my face was familiar, but he couldn’t figure out why.

Then he said, “Why, it’s Mr. Scudder! I certainly never expected to see you at our services.”

“It was enjoyable.”

“I’m pleased to hear you say that. I hardly anticipated seeing you again, and I didn’t dream of hoping that our incidental meeting might lead you to search for the presence of God.” He looked past my shoulder, a half-smile on his lips. “He does work in mysterious ways, does He not?”

“So it seems.”

“That a particular tragedy could have this effect upon a person like yourself. I imagine I might find myself using that as a theme for a sermon at some later date.”

“I’d like to talk to you, Reverend Vanderpoel. In private, I think.”

“Oh, dear,” he said. “I’m quite pressed for time today, I’m afraid. I’m sure you have a great many questions about religion, one is always filled with questions that seem to have a great need for immediate answers, but—”

“I don’t want to talk about religion, sir.”

“Oh?”

“It’s about your son and Wendy Hanniford.”

“I already told you all that I know.”

“I’m afraid I have to tell you some things, sir. And we’d better have that conversation now, and it really will have to be private.”

“Oh?” He looked at me intently, and I watched the play of emotions on his face. “Very well,” he said. “I do have a few tasks that need to be attended to. I’ll just be a moment.”

I waited, and he wasn’t more than ten minutes. Then he took me companionably by the arm and led me through the back of the church and through a door into the rectory. We wound up in the room we had been in before. The electric fire glowed on the hearth, and again he stood in front of it and warmed his long-fingered hands.

“I like a cup of coffee after morning services,” he said. “You’ll join me?”

“No, thank you.”

He left the room and came back with coffee. “Well, Mr. Scudder? What’s so urgent?” His tone was deliberately light, but there was tension underneath it.

“I enjoyed the services this morning,” I said.

“Yes, so you said, and I’m pleased to hear it. However—”

“I was hoping for a different Old Testament text.”

“Isaiah is difficult to grasp, I agree. A poet and a man of vision. There are some interesting commentaries on today’s reading if you’re interested.”

“I was hoping the reading might be from Genesis.”

“Oh, we don’t start over until Whitsunday, you know. But why Genesis?”

“A particular portion of Genesis, actually.”

“Oh?”

“The Twenty-second Chapter.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and frowned in concentration. He opened them and shrugged apologetically. “I used to have a fair memory for chapter and verse. It’s been one of the casualties of the aging process, I’m afraid. Shall I look it up?”

I said, “ ‘And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham; and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.’ ”

“The temptation of Abraham. ‘God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.’ A very beautiful passage.” His eyes fixed on me. “It’s unusual that you can quote Scripture, Mr. Scudder.”

“I had reason to read that passage the other day. It stayed with me.”

“Oh?”

“I thought you might care to explain the chapter to me.”

“At some other time, certainly, but I scarcely see the urgency of—”

“Don’t you?”

He looked at me. I got to my feet and took a step toward him. I said, “I think you do. I think you could explain to me the interesting parallels between Abraham and yourself. You could tell me what happens when God doesn’t oblige by providing a lamb for the burnt offering. You could tell me more about how the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

“Mr. Scudder—”

“You could tell me why you were able to murder Wendy Hanniford. And why you let Richie die in your place.”

“ I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do, sir.”

“My son committed a horrible murder. I’m sure he did not know what he was doing at the moment of his act. I forgive him for what he did, I pray God forgives him—”

“I’m not a congregation, sir. I’m a man who knows all the things you thought no one would ever be able to figure out. Your son never killed anybody until he killed himself.”

He sat there for a long moment, taking it all in. He bowed his head a little. His pose was an attitude of prayer, but I don’t think he was praying. When he spoke his tone was not defensive so much as it was curious, the words very nearly an admission of guilt.

“What makes you… believe this, Mr. Scudder?”

“A lot of things I learned. And the way they all fit together.”

“Tell me.”

I nodded. I wanted to tell him because I had been feeling the need to tell someone all along. I hadn’t told Cale Hanniford. I had come close to telling Trina, had begun hinting at it, but in the end I had not told her, either.

Vanderpoel was the only person I could tell.

I said, “The case was open-and-shut. That’s how the police saw it, and it was the only way to see it. But I didn’t start out looking for a murderer. I started out trying to learn something about Wendy and your son, and the more I learned, the harder it was for me to buy the idea that he had killed her.

“What nailed him was turning up on the sidewalk covered with blood and behaving hysterically. But if you began to dismiss that from your mind, the whole idea of him being the killer began to break down. He left his job suddenly in the middle of the afternoon. He hadn’t planned on leaving. That could have been staged. But instead he came down with a case of indigestion and his employer finally managed to talk him into leaving.

“Then he got home with barely enough time to rape her and kill her and run out into the street. He hadn’t been acting oddly during the day. The only thing evidently wrong with him was a stomachache. Theoretically he walked in on her and something about her provoked him into flipping out completely.

“But what was it? A rush of sexual desire? He lived with the girl, and it was a reasonable assumption that he could make love to her any time he wanted to. And the more I learned about him, the more certain I became that he never made love to her. They lived together, but they didn’t sleep together.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Your son was homosexual.”

“That is not true.”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“Relations between men are an abomination in the eyes of God.”

“That may be. I’m no authority. Richie was homosexual. He wasn’t comfortable with it. I gather it was impossible for him to be comfortable with any kind of sexuality. He had very mixed-up feelings about you, about his mother, and they made any real sexual relationship impossible.”