Michael Lister: Blood of the Lamb

“Just step inside and ask the inspector if he wants my help,” I said.

“The inspector’s not in charge here,” he said. “I-”

“He’s in charge of the crime scene,” I said. “He has full-”

“Boys,” Patterson said.

The two officers grabbed my arms, and I struggled against them. Breaking free, I pushed Patterson and tried to get in the chapel, but they grabbed me again-this time with both hands and no matter what I did, I could not free myself.

“Show the chaplain the way out,” Patterson said. “And if he gives you any more trouble, cuff him and put him in the holding cell.”

They tugged at me, but I didn’t move.

“Some chaplain we got,” one of them said.

“He’s as bad as some of the convicts,” the other one replied.

They dragged me to the front gate and pushed me through it. As soon as I was on the other side, I tried to turn to keep the gate from closing, but my feet got tangled and I fell hard onto the concrete.

The two officers who had pushed me and the two inside the control room began to laugh.

“Walk much, Grace?” one of them asked.

“Maybe he’s had too much communion wine again,” the other one said.

With the pain and guilt I felt over Nicole’s death, the frustration and powerlessness of not being involved in the investigation, I lay there in my anger and embarrassment after being tossed out like trash. It was just too much. All I could think about was my first drink-the first of many.

When I arrived at Rudy’s just before three in the morning, I drained the remainder of my bottle and threw it toward the dumpster. Clanging off the side, the bottle hit the powdered oyster shell parking lot and shot up a small puff of white dust.

I sprayed my mouth with breath freshener and opened the door to the diner quietly, hoping not to wake Carla who was slumped on a barstool, her head resting on her outstretched arm next to open school books on the counter. My coordination wasn’t as trustworthy as it usually was and I was unable to prevent the cowbell above the door from clanging.

She bolted upright and spun around toward me.

Her blond hair was mussed and stuck out on the side, her brilliant green eyes soft and vulnerable, their sleepy quality only adding to the sublimity of her beauty. At just seventeen she had the old soul of a motherless daughter trapped in a small town with an alcoholic father.

“I tried to wait up for you,” she said. “I heard what happened. Are you okay?”

“Can I have some coffee?” I asked as I made my way to my booth in the back.

“Sure,” she said, studying me for a moment before adding, “I’ll bring the pot.”

I made it to the booth and pitched into it.

The thick smell of old grease and stale cigarette smoke hung in the air.

“Anna’s called looking for you,” she said from behind the counter where she was preparing a fresh pot of coffee. “She told me what happened.”

As usual, Rudy’s was cold. According to Rudy, it caused people to eat more and had tripled his coffee sales. The way I figured it, the increased revenue might almost be enough to pay for his increased electric bill. The condensation covering the plate glass widows in front made them look like sheets of ice and blurred everything seen through them.

“What’d you tell her?”

“Just that I hadn’t seen you,” she said.

“If she calls again, tell her the same thing,” I said.

Carla turned toward me, her brow furrowed, eyes questioning.

My eyebrows shot up. Challenging.

She looked back down at the coffee pot. “Sure,” she said softly.

Since I’d moved back to Pottersville, I had spent many nights here in this booth in the back, reading, studying, making case notes and sermon outlines, and talking to Carla. Most of the time, it was just the two of us, which is why I came. The café sat on the highway and Rudy, Carla’s single father, insisted that it stay open twenty-four hours. And since Rudy was in the back passed out most nights, Carla was the one to keep it open, napping at the bar throughout the night before getting ready and going to school the next morning.

Like the Pinkertons, I didn’t sleep, not much anyway, so when I was here, Carla could. She often thanked me for keeping an eye on the place, never seeming to realize it was her I had come to watch over.

She brought over the coffee pot and two cups.

Wearing faded jeans and an Evanescence T-shirt, inexpensive white tennis shoes, no make-up or jewelry, she moved like she was on the runway-a carriage imbued with such elegance and dignity she made Dollar Store clothes look designer.

“You can go back to sleep,” I said. “I’ll be here.”

“But-”

“In fact,” I said, “you can go in the back and lie down. I can make a pot of coffee if someone comes in. And if something has to be cooked, I’ll come get you.”

Her sad sea-green eyes were full of compassion and I could tell she wanted to talk, but I didn’t want to be around anyone, not even her. All I wanted to do was drink my coffee and not sleep it off.

“You don’t want to talk?” she asked.

“I’ll gladly listen to anything you want to tell me,” I said. “But I have nothing to say.”

She hesitated before speaking and I added, “Do you have anything you need to talk about?”

She shook her head very slowly. “No,” she said softly, “not really.”

“Then get some sleep,” I said.

As she turned and began to walk away, I called after her. She turned quickly, a hopeful, even expectant look on her face. “Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she said with a small smile. She then continued walking away another step or two before turning around and coming back, taking a seat in the booth across from me.

“I know you’re… well… anyway, I do need to talk-if you can,” she said.

“Sure,” I said.

As far as I knew, I was the only adult she really had to talk to.

Looking at her so closely in the harsh light of the diner, I realized she was not nearly as pretty as I thought she was-not physically anyway. Her eyes were just slightly too close together and her nose was a little on the long side. Perhaps if I were seeing her for the first time-or looking at a photograph of her-I would say she was a little above average at best, but I wasn’t. I was seeing her after knowing her. I was seeing, if not nearly all of her, far more than a first glance or picture could ever reveal. And I still say she was beautiful in a profoundly subtle way.

She took a deep breath and let it out. “I know we’ve talked about a lot of stuff, but this is hard.”

I waited. I should have encouraged her to continue, reassured her in some way, but I was in no condition to do either.

“I’ve got a couple of friends whose boyfriends are pressuring them to…” she began, then hesitated a moment, before dropping her voice and adding, “have sex with them.”

I nodded. Nothing new there.

“But they want to be virgins when they get married-or at least when they really fall in love and think the guy’s the one. So they’re considering alternatives-”

“The girls?” I asked.

“Yeah, but only because the boys are begging them to,” she said. “Do you know what I mean by alternatives?”

“Well, unless your generation has come up with some new ones, I only know of three,” I said.

A small smile twitched on her lips, then she raised her eyebrows and nodded slightly, trying to get me to elaborate.

“You want me to say them?” I asked.

I felt myself getting frustrated, but remembered how much I could have used someone to talk to besides my friends when I was her age.