“Like the Fontaine kid?”
He nods. “And at the same time, she’s a normal seventeen-year-old girl. She likes boys, she wants to date, and she has the usual confusing mix of adolescent emotions. Her mom had a hard time coping, and Hannah reacted by getting really secretive. Even with me.”
“So she liked Fontaine?”
“I think so. And she also wanted to be a good witness, to be Christ in his life. I tried steering her away, tried to… you know, give her a reality check or something. But she couldn’t understand what I was saying. All this time I’d been telling her one thing and suddenly I’m contradicting it all.”
“Tell me about the relationship with him.”
“I didn’t know a thing about it until she got suspended last spring, that’s how secretive she was.”
This is the first I’ve heard of her suspension, but I try not to let on. “So what happened?”
He gives a disconsolate shrug. “All she’d tell me was they’d had an argument and he got really mad. The next day, there’s a drug search at the school and they find a bag of pot in her locker.”
So nice little Hannah Mayhew, the churchgoing wide-eyed innocent, was caught holding weed in her locker? That must have been awkward at home. Not that I’m surprised or anything. It’s the sheltered kids who go wild.
“You’re certain it wasn’t hers?” I ask.
The question irritates him. “It wasn’t. She said so and I believed her. Her mom, I don’t know. After that, she had doubts about everything. About Hannah, about me, the whole direction of my ministry.”
“What did she say?”
“She hasn’t said anything.” He rubs his eyes like he’s suddenly tired. “But she doesn’t have to. I know she blames me. And hey, maybe she’s right. I came here so certain, so self-righteous, and now… I don’t know what to think anymore.”
His voice dies, his fervor ebbs away. He glances at the Fontaine house, shaking his head like he’s not sure how he got here or what he intended to do. The conviction of a few moments ago is utterly gone now.
“That’s all I’ve got,” he says.
Everything he’s said has the ring of truth about it, but as far as I can see, none of it advances the case. All he can give me is history. His awkwardness yesterday stemmed not from real guilt but from a false sense of responsibility, a dubious connection he’s made between his Sunday school lectures and Hannah’s ultimate fate. I’m disappointed, not because I expected a smoking gun from this guy but because I expected something and my instincts were off the mark. And I’m putting so much faith into those instincts right now that I don’t like to see them fail.
I pat his shoulder. “Thanks for your cooperation.” I should leave it there and go, but I get the urge to pass along some wisdom. “You know something? The one thing you can’t control in life is the outcome. You do what seems right at the moment, and if it turns out wrong… well, that’s out of your hands.”
“It’s in God’s hands,” he says.
“The point is, you shouldn’t beat yourself up over this. And you shouldn’t get in the way of the investigation, either. Leave Fontaine to us, okay? Put up all the flyers you want. Spend time with those students of yours – they probably need it right now. But let us take care of the rest.”
“I have to do something,” he says, running a palm along his leg. “I can’t do nothing.”
Sure, I can sympathize. I respect his urge. And I don’t exactly agree with the platitudes I’ve just uttered, the boilerplate about letting the police handle everything. People expect too much from us sometimes. I’m not endorsing vigilantes or anything, but a little vigilance wouldn’t be such a bad thing. In his position, I’d want to do something, too. But in my position, I’m expected to toe the line. And really, what can he do apart from posting his flyers and leading yet another fruitless search? I open the door and slip to the curb, turning to speak before slamming it shut.
“I’ll tell you what you can do,” I tell him. “Say a prayer.”
The door snaps shut before he can get out a reply.
CHAPTER 9
Public is where you go to be alone. After my shift, instead of heading home to Charlotte for a reprise of our lunchtime grapple, the Paragon beckons with its promise of anonymity and thumping music. Though it’s earlier than usual and a weekday to boot, the parking lot is filling up already. As the door flaps shut behind me, an icehouse chill descends, along with the soothing darkness. My eyes take forever to adjust.
When they do, I see Tommy threading his way between the tables, holding a longneck beer at shoulder level to avoid clipping the heads of any seated patrons.
“Hey, Mr. March, how’s it going, man? Why don’t you come join us at our table?”
He’s filled a table with what I assume are students from one of the undergraduate courses he teaches while toiling away on his dissertation. A couple of guys in thick-rimmed glasses wearing fitted Western shirts, a girl in a long, crinkly skirt and engineer boots.
“You and me,” I say, “we need to have a little talk. My wife told me about this girl who was up at your place, seemed kind of messed up. I didn’t like hearing that.”
“It was a one-time thing. You sure you won’t join us?”
“No, thanks.”
Instead of my usual table in back, which would put me in sight of Tommy’s group, I slip around the front of the bar into a side room added in the most recent renovation to accommodate the Paragon’s growing clientele. The ratio of speakers to square footage means the music is that much louder, but given a choice between deafness and another run-in with my tenant, I’ll take the hearing loss.
The new location has an added advantage. No Marta. After the scene I made in the parking lot last time, I’d just as soon not run into the one person likely to remember me, thanks to that overgenerous tip. An unfamiliar plaid-skirted waitress comes by, taking my order without a glimmer of recognition.
So I’ve had my talk with Tommy. Maybe that brief exchange will suffice for Charlotte, if I can spin it right. But she’ll want details, of course, which will mean explaining why I’m at the Paragon when the two of us have long since agreed I won’t come here anymore. It’s no good dwelling on things, she told me, back when she still had sympathy for my morbid obsession with the place.
When the waitress returns with my whiskey sour – I always order the same thing, and always do the same thing with it – I dig for my wallet, planning to settle up right away. With Tommy on the scene, I won’t be nursing this one all night.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says, pointing across the bar to the main room. “A guy in there took care of it.”
“You sure?”
She nods.
“All right then.”
That idiot Tommy. Thanks to his father’s deep pockets, he’s never learned the value of money. I don’t know if he’s trying to impress me, or the kids at his table. Either way, it takes the shine off my evening. I push the drink away.
He’s about the same age as Carter Robb. On the surface, they might not have much in common, but they both have kids looking to them for guidance. The burden seems to weigh more heavily on Robb than Tommy, though. It would be interesting to get the two of them in the same room. I imagine the tenant bending over backwards to deliver veiled insults, while the youth pastor, recognizing them for what they are, does his best to seem unruffled.
Staring into my drink, I recall Robb’s wife. With her mannered wardrobe, Gina Robb wouldn’t look out of place over at Tommy’s table. I wonder what she would make of the guilt her husband’s carrying. Maybe she feels it, too, the shipwreck of their shared idealism. What would have to happen for Tommy to feel that kind of guilt? Not a girl leaving his garage apartment the morning after, not very certain of what had happened to her. I’m not sure whether anything would.