Jeffery Deaver - Speaking In Tongues

The dawn sun was still below the horizon but the sky was bright as they walked side by side through the tall grass and goldenrod and milkweed while dragonflies zipped from their path. Grasshoppers bounced against their legs, leaving dots of brown spit on their clothing. The dogs were in a frenzy behind them, sniffing the ground and bounding at the wire fence of their run, trying to escape and go after the intruder who walked beside their master.

“Look at this place,” Matthews said conversationally. He waved his arm. “I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the strange things people would say. The delusional ones, the paranoid ones, the depressed ones. The ones who were simply nuts-you know, Collier, the mind isn’t an exact science, whatever the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual says. Some people are just plain crazy and that’s all you can ever say about them. But I always listened to them. Why, people give themselves away like free samples at a grocery store. Hand themselves to you on platters. And what do they use? Words. Aren’t words the most astonishing thing?”

Collier said, “You bet they are.”

There wasn’t much time, Matthews reflected. He supposed he had an hour or two until the police arrived. At best it would take Megan two hours to get to the nearest phone. Enough time to finish here, bury Peter, and get to Dulles for a flight to Los Angeles. Or maybe he should just drive west. Hide in the hills of West Virginia. He took a deep breath. “Stop here.”

They were beside a shallow ditch. It would make a fine grave for Collier. And he’d decided that he’d kill the lawyer with a single shot to his head. No pain, no torment. And he wouldn’t let the dogs have the body Out of respect for a worthy adversary.

Then the lawyer stunned him by closing his eyes and whispering, “Our Father, who art in heaven He slowly completed the Lord’s Prayer.

Matthews laughed then asked, “You believe in God?”

Collier nodded. “Why does that surprise you?”

“When I’d see you in court it seemed that only the judge and jury were your gods.”

“No, no, I believe He exists. That He’s merciful and He’s just.”

“Just?” Matthews asked skeptically.

“Well, He’s the reason I don’t send people to death row anymore… Do you? Believe in God?”

“I’m not sure,” Matthews said.

“You know I always wanted the chance to prove the existence of God in a debate.”

“How would you do that?” Matthews asked, truly curious. “Resolved: God exists. Isn’t that how debates start?”

Collier looked up at the purple sky “You know Voltaire?”

“Not really No.”

“I’d make his argument. He said there had to be a God because he couldn’t imagine a watch without a watchmaker.”

Matthews nodded. “Yes, I can see that. That’s good. That’s compelling.”

“But, of course, then you run into all of the counterarguments. The con side.”

“Such as?”

“Incompatible religious sects, interpretations of holy scriptures proven wrong later, no empirical proof of miracles, the Crusades, ethical and secular self-interest, terrorism… That’s an uphill battle, all right.”

‘No answer for that?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve got an answer.”

Matthews was suddenly fascinated. After Peter’s death he’d prayed every night for six months. He believed that the boy bad answered some of those communiqués. It gave him clues, but not proof, that Peter’s soul floated nearby. “What is it, what’s the answer?” he asked hungrily.

“That a watch,” Collier answered slowly, “no matter how well made, can never comprehend its watchmaker. When we claim to understand God, everything breaks down. If God exists then by definition He’s knowable and souls-yours, mine, Megan’s, Peter’s-are beyond our understanding. When we create human institutions to represent God they’re inherently wrong so He has to exist apart from our flawed visions of Him.”

“Yes, it makes sense. How simple, how perfect.”

“You’ve thought about questions like this, haven’t you? Because of Peter?”

“Yes.”

Eyes on Matthews’s, Collier said, “You miss him so much, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.” Matthews stared down at the ground. For all he knew he’d stood on this very spot two or three years ago, studying slugs or dung beetles or ants, hour upon hour, wondering how, in their wordless world, they communicated their passions and fears.

“You can get help, Aaron. It’s not too late. You’ll be in jail but you can still be content. You can find a doctor to help you, somebody who’s as good as you were.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. It’s too late for that. One thing I learned-you can’t talk somebody out of his nature.”

“Your character is your fate,” Collier said.

Matthews laughed. “Heraclitus.”

He’d learned the aphorism from one of Collier’s closing statements. He lifted the gun toward the lawyer.

Then Collier’s eyes flickered slightly. “You won’t turn yourself in?” Collier asked.

“No.”

“I’m sorry,” the lawyer said.

Matthews frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m so sorry.”

A snap of brush behind him.

Matthews spun around. There stood Megan, holding the gun Collier had brought with him. Matthews had left it in the lobby of the hospital and had forgotten about it. The girl was ten feet away and was pointing the black muzzle at Matthews’s chest.

Matthews laughed to himself. Oh, yes… He understood. Remembered her whispering to Tate before she’d walked out of the asylum. They’d planned this together. Collier would stall him-with his talk of theology-and Megan would pretend to run but would return for the gun. He remembered Collier protesting as they’d hugged. But she’d had her way.

Maybe she wasn’t his blood kin but at the moment she was her father’s daughter.

He glanced at her eyes.

“Drop the gun,” she ordered.

But he didn’t. He wondered, would she go through with it? She was only seventeen and, yes, she had anger in her heart-enough to attack him with a knife-but not enough to kill, he believed.

Character is fate…

He saw compassion, fear and weakness in her eyes. He could stop her, he decided. He could get her to lower the gun long enough to shoot her.

“Megan, listen to me,” he began in a soft voice, gazing into her blue eyes, which were so unlike Collier’s. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’ve been through. But-”

The first bullet tugged at his side, near the knife wound, and he felt a rib snap. He was swinging his gun toward her when another shot struck his shoulder and arm.

Collier dropped to his knees, clear of the line of fire.

Megan stepped closer.

“Peter Matthews whispered, struggling to hold on to his pistol.

She pushed through the grass until she was only a few feet away.

Matthews squeezed the grip of the pistol. Then he looked up into her eyes.

Always the eyes…

Her gun fired again. And for an instant his vision was filled with a thousand suns. And in his ears was a chorus of noise-voices, perhaps.

Peter’s among them, perhaps.

And then there was blackness and silence.

The beach at San Cristo del Sol in Belize is one of the finest in Latin America.

Even now, in May, the air is torrid but the steady breezes soothe the hordes of tourists during their endless trips from the air-conditioned bars and seafood joints to the pools to the beach and back again. Windsurfing, paragliding, water-skiing and racing Jet Skis keep the surface of the turquoise water perpetually turbulent, and within the bay itself hundreds of snorkiers and resort-course scuba divers engage in their elegantly awkward amphibious ballets.