Miles said, “You probably heard me asking your wife why her brother kidnapped my boy.”
Reverend McCamy didn’t acknowledge Miles’s words. He said, “Suffering draws us closer to God, even a little boy’s suffering, if it is God’s divine will.”
Katie said, “I don’t understand, Reverend McCamy. How can a little boy’s suffering conform to God’s divine will? That makes no sense to me. Do you mean that God wants everyone, including children, to suffer?”
He whispered, his eyes on Katie’s face, “You misunderstand. I’m speaking of our conforming to the Cross of Christ. It is written: ‘Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.’ It is man’s highest gift to suffer for the love of God, to suffer so that he can come closer to a union with the Divine. Of course, only a very few of the blessed ones are granted such divine grace.”
“What do you mean conforming to the cross?” Katie asked. “As in one should want to be crucified? That would please God?”
Miles could tell that Reverend McCamy wanted to lay his hands on Katie. To bless her or to punish her because he thought she was blaspheming? He couldn’t tell.
Reverend McCamy said, all patience, so patronizing that Miles imagined Katie standing up and smacking him in the jaw if she weren’t so focused on what she was doing, “We must embrace suffering to lead us ever closer to God, and in this suffering, there is greatness and submission. No, God does not wish us to be crucified like him. That is shallow and blind, meaning nothing. It is far more than that, far deeper, far more enveloping. Very rarely God’s grace is bestowed on a living creature and is manifested in the imitation of Christ’s travails on the cross.”
Katie said, never looking away from Reverend McCamy’s face, “You said that God doesn’t want us to nail ourselves to a cross in imitation of the crucifixion. What then is this gift bestowed on so very few?”
Reverend McCamy said, “How long does it take for the brownies to bake, Elsbeth?”
“Thirty minutes,” Elsbeth said. She never looked her husband in the face, nor did she look at Miles or Katie. She slipped the glass dish inside the oven, then turned to the sink to run water in the batter bowl.
Too bad, Katie had really wanted a taste of that batter. It was time to push again, time to maneuver him where she wanted him to go. She said, “These individuals who imitate Christ’s suffering, who and what are they? How are they selected? And by whom?”
Elsbeth whispered, “Don’t you understand? Reverend McCamy is one of the very few blessed by God’s grace, who is blessed by God’s ecstasy in suffering.”
Reverend McCamy looked like he wanted to slap her, but he didn’t move, just fisted his hands at his sides.
Katie said, ever so gently, her eyes as intense as Reverend McCamy’s, “You’re speaking of Christ’s wounds appearing on a mortal’s body. You’re saying that Reverend McCamy is a-what are they called?”
“Stigmatist,” said Reverend McCamy.
“And you’re a stigmatist, aren’t you, sir?”
He looked furious that she’d pushed him to this, and Miles realized in that instant that she indeed had, and she’d done it very well. For a moment Reverend McCamy didn’t say anything. Katie knew he was trying to get himself under control and it was difficult for him.
Katie said, “Homer Bean, one of your former parishioners, told us that you’d told a small group of men one evening about being a victim of God’s love, about being a stigmatist.”
Reverend McCamy said without looking up, “Since they have told you, then I will not deny it. Once in my life I was blessed to have the suffering of ecstasy with blood flowing from my hands in imitation of the nails driven through our Lord’s palms.”
Katie said, “You’re saying that blood flowed from your palms? That you have actually experienced this?”
“Yes, I have been blessed. God granted me this passionate and tender gift. The pain and the ecstasy-the two together provide incalculable profit to the soul. I have kept this private, all except for those few men in whom I once confided.”
Katie said, “And how is it you were chosen for this, Reverend?”
“You must recognize and accept the divine presence, Katie. You must believe that it is too overwhelming for mankind to fathom, that it must be the expression of ultimate faith. Thus the godless have sought to belittle this divine ecstasy, to trivialize it, to turn it into some sort of freak show. But it isn’t, for I have had my blood flow from my own palms.”
Miles said, fed up with this fanatic, his strange wife, and the damned brownies in the oven, “This is all very fascinating, McCamy, but can you tell me why Clancy and Beau kidnapped my son?”
It was as if someone flipped off the light switch. Reverend McCamy’s eyes became even darker, as if a black tide was roiling up through his body. He shuddered, as if bringing himself out of someplace very deep, very far away. He said, “Your son is one of God’s children, Mr. Kettering. I will pray for your son, and I will ask God to intercede.” With that, Reverend McCamy turned and walked out of the kitchen. After a moment, they heard him call out, “Elsbeth, bring the brownies to my study when they’re done. You don’t have to cool them.”
She nodded, even though he was no longer there. “Yes, Reverend McCamy.”
Katie said to Elsbeth, “Sam is a wonderful little boy. I will not allow him to be taken again. Do you understand me, Elsbeth?”
“Go away, Katie. Go away and take that godless man with you.”
“I’m not godless, ma’am. I just don’t worship quite the same God you and your husband do.”
When they were driving away from that lovely house, Miles said, “That was excellent questioning. I just don’t know what it got us.”
“I don’t either,” Katie said. “But I discovered I could pry him open.”
“They’re in on this, Katie.”
“Yes,” she said. “I think so, too.”
Miles slammed his fist against the steering wheel. “Why, for God’s sake? Why?”
29
S am and Keely were playing chess, loosely speaking, given that Keely had had only two lessons. Katie had a No-TV rule during the week so the house was quiet, with just a soft layer of light rock coming from the speakers, and an occasional ember popping in the fireplace. The air felt thick, heavy. Another big storm was coming.
“No, Sam,” Keely said, “you can’t do that. The rook has to go in straight lines, he can’t go sideways.”
“That’s boring,” said Sam, and moved his bishop instead because he liked the long diagonal. The only problem was he stopped his bishop in front of a pawn, which Keely promptly removed. Sam yelled out, then sat back, stroked his chin like his father did, and said, “I will think about this and then you’ll be very sorry.”
Keely crowed.
“Killers, both of them,” said Miles, happy to see Sam acting like a normal kid again.
Katie and Miles were seated on opposite ends of the long sofa, doing nothing but sipping coffee and listening to the fascinating chess moves made by two children whose combined age was eleven.
Two deputies, Neil Crooke, who got no end of grief for his name, and Jamie Beezer, who did a great imitation dance of Muhammad Ali in his heyday, were outside watching the house. When Neil called to ask if he could go unlock ancient Mr. Cerlew’s 1956 Buick for him since he’d locked his keys in it, Katie said go, but get back as soon as possible.
She excused herself a moment, and came back into the living room with a plate of brownies in her hands. “They’re not homemade like Elsbeth’s, but I’ll tell you, the Harvest Moon bakery can’t be beat.”
Miles took a brownie, saying, “You think they’re better than the ones Elsbeth McCamy made?”
“We’ll never know, at least I hope we won’t. Kids? Can the chess battle stop for a brownie break?”