The man jumped a foot, then instantly went into his obsequious cowering. He said, “H’lo.”
Henry said nothing. A muscle was jumping in his jaw, and his chest was churning so badly he could hardly get his wind. Jimmy looked up as if caught at something. At last Henry said, “The troopers would like to talk to you, Simon. In the diner.”
For a moment Simon seemed unable to make sense of the words, but then their meaning came through, and he stood up.
Henry waited with his hands behind his back, keeping his fury inside, and when Simon reached him, he turned and walked with him toward the diner. Jimmy started to follow, and Henry said, “You go back to the house.” The child opened his mouth to protest, but Henry pointed toward the house angrily and Jimmy started across the grass. By the time he reached the door he was crying.
“What were you making?” Henry asked abruptly.
Simon blushed like a child and held out the piece of wood. The letters were cut deep, like the writing on a schoolroom desk: GOD IS LOVE. Around the writing there were curlicues.
Henry said nothing. They reached the back door of the diner and Henry reached ahead of Simon to push the door open. Simon hesitated a moment, looking up at him as if in fright, and the tic played on his face; then he went in. Callie’s mother stood fussing with the mustard pots at the end of the counter.
The younger trooper had a clean-cut, Italian look. The other one was maybe fifty, a large belly but a small, lean face. They had their hats off. Simon went over to stand beside them, leaning on the counter, his suitcoat hanging down limp, the crotch of his baggy trousers low, and he waited. He looked very small, to Henry, and he stood like an old man, bent forward a little, his knees turned slightly inward. The trooper closest to him, the younger one, said, “Sit down, Simon.” Simon got up on the stool.
Henry went to the near end of the counter and stood with his arms folded, looking at the floor. His anger began to cool a little now. He’d been unfair, in a way; there was no doubt of it. It was ridiculous to fly into a rage at an old man’s teaching a child that God was Love. It was the word “repent,” maybe, that had set him off. But if so, that was more ridiculous yet. What did “repent” mean to a boy two years old? Or maybe what had done it was his finding them out there behind the garage. But he couldn’t blame Simon for that, after all. Jimmy followed him everywhere, and in fact they themselves, he and Callie, had encouraged it. Even now he felt angry, but he felt, at the same time, ashamed. Then what the trooper was saying caught his attention:
“What happened before you went to work the night of the fire?”
“Why?” Simon said. It was as if he wanted assurance that the question was important before he would trouble to remember.
“Just tell us what happened,” the other trooper said.
Simon touched his forehead with the back of his hand. “I had supper,” he said.
The younger trooper said impatiently, “We understand you had a disagreement with your wife.”
Simon looked at the man in surprise, then over at Henry. “Why, no,” he said, “no.” His smile came. Callie’s mother was standing motionless, looking out the window, and Henry felt a clutch of fear.
“Did you ever have arguments with your wife?”
Simon seemed baffled, and the older trooper said, “How did you and your wife get along, Simon?”
Simon said, “We never had any trouble.”
“We’ve talked to your son Bradley,” the younger trooper said. Then, casually: “We understand you used to beat him some, with your fists.”
Simon flushed and said nothing. He leaned his elbows on the counter and began folding and unfolding his hands.
“Is it true?” the trooper asked.
Henry’s hands were sweating. He began to doubt things he’d have sworn to five minutes before. Why were they questioning him here, in front of strangers?
“He’d sinned,” Simon said. It was almost too soft to hear, and he cleared his throat and said it louder.
“Sinned?” It was as if it were the first time the trooper had heard the expression.
Simon said nothing, and the trooper said with distaste, “Let’s talk about your daughter, Simon. Your son tells us you used to lock her in the shed for days.” He waited. “Is that true?”
“Not days,” Simon said in a whisper. He went on folding and unfolding his hands.
“But you locked her in the shed.”
He said nothing.
“Did she cry, Simon?” It was faintly ironic. After a moment: “Did she scream sometimes — for hours?”
“God forgive—” he began vaguely. No one spoke for a minute.
The younger trooper sat watching Simon’s hands. “What was the argument with your wife that night?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t argue.”
“Your neighbors say—”
“False witnesses!” For an instant anger flared up in his look, but he stopped it.
The older one said, “What was her sin, Simon?”
Again he shook his head. He was pale, and he was wringing his hands as if in anguish, but his jaw was set.
“Why would they lie — your son, your neighbors?” the younger one said. “What difference would it make to them?”
Henry pulled at his lip. He kept from breaking in, but he knew he wouldn’t keep still much longer. His anger was confused now, aimed at all of them. Strange to say, he was angriest of all at Callie’s mother, who had nothing to do with it. Her face was turned away and he couldn’t read her expression. But he could see the eavesdropping tilt of her head, the tense, righteous indignation in every muscle and bone.
“Mr. Bale,” the trooper said, “the fire at your house was arson, set with burlap and gas from your own shed. Who had any reason to set it? Who knew you had the makings right there?” And after a second: “Besides you.”
And at that Henry did break in, no more knowing now than he would know later why he did it. “That’s not fair, officer.” He went over to stand bent toward them, in front of them, the blood stinging in his face, and Callie’s mother, behind them, looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Any tramp could have come onto the gas and rags. And the neighbors — anybody in the county, for that matter — maybe they took it into their heads to hate him. It would be natural. No, let me finish. He does what he believes in, he even sneaks around trying to convert your children behind your back. It’s natural it would make people mad — maybe so mad they tell lies about him, or imagine things. You can’t take a man to jail because people don’t like him.” In his excitement Henry didn’t see George Loomis’s pickup truck pull in in front of the diner, and, though he saw the door open, he paid no attention. “People don’t believe in Simon’s God, the end of the world anyday now, things like that. They think a man that believes such things has to be crazy, and crazy people burn houses, so Simon must have burned his own house down. Pretty soon they remember a fight they never heard, and it fits in with everything they know and pretty soon it’s not even remembered any more, it’s predestined fact. People think—”
“Simon,” the younger trooper said, getting the floor from Henry without ever raising his voice, “have you ever seen the devil?”
Henry waited, checked, not sure what the man was driving at but thrown off balance, frightened again.
Simon nodded.
“Many times?” the trooper said, as if innocently, as if strictly from curiosity.