The humming of the van's engine all along the winding roads, which took him closer and closer to Huntsville and his “walking dead” son, conspired to give more and more credence and time over to Jimmy Lee's secret life inside Isaiah's head. Still, he had resisted long and hard to control the voice and to beg for a sign or a word from Eunice Mae, where she stood in all this now that she had crossed over. However, Eunice Mae had not stirred from the grave and had not visited inside Isaiah's head, as had the living, prepared-to-die Jimmy Lee.
Life, death, the passage of time, the stars, the universe, God, and the tree of life, how men chose to live their lives, all of these questions Isaiah had had time to ponder and sift through his brain on his long and twisting journey to the Huntsville, Texas, penitentiary. Other more worldly concerns also occupied his time; on more than one bleary-eyed stop, the old man feared he would not make it in time to see his son alive again, but rather that he would arrive only to collect up the body that was of his flesh.
As it turned out, he'd gotten there on time for the execution, which had been a surprise-but hardly a pleasant one.
Saints and snowstorms had always converged at that one corner of his farmhouse, back of the barn, the whiteness of it covering his Iowa land to form a huge lake of purity that blinded a man. He burst out in a rattle of laughter that tasted good but lasted only a moment. He'd suddenly recalled having discussed the beauty of the old place and what his son mockingly called “the palace itself.” It was at a time when Jimmy Lee had turned to God for answers as to what to do with the rest of his incarcerated life. Jimmy Lee had gotten a peaceful look on his face and had replied through the glass partition that had separated them, “You think God ever really sends any saints down to Earth along with the snowfall like mama always claimed?”
“ He sent your mama, didn't he?” was Isaiah's instant reply, and it had shut the boy up on the topic. “Sure, son, we beat you when it was called for, but your mama was a saint if ever one lived.”
“ I 'spect God would send a saint to a lonely old backwoods Iowa farm to live out her days.”
“ Modern life being what it is, you think he'd send a saint into someplace like New York City, boy?”
That's when Jimmy Lee's voice took on the tenor of a god and he bellowed out, “Sodomy and Gay-mor-aaa!”
To pass the time and distance between Iowa City and Huntsville, the three of them-Iowa farmer, death row inmate, and God-talked of theology, the nature of time and space, of man and spirit, of the anima and fate, karma and vengeance. They spoke of death and life and the cycle in between, and they spoke of rebirth, renewal, and regeneration, and Isaiah wondered about regeneration of tissue and limbs like he'd seen in frogs and tadpoles, and he asked God why men couldn't do that, and he asked why God had created mosquitoes and mites, pestilence and disease, and he asked about pain-pain from physical harm and pain of the emo-tional and mental sort. He asked why such things existed in the world, and God and Jimmy Lee pondered these questions, and neither of them gave the old man a straight answer. So he continued to drive on.
The entire way to Huntsville across America's highways Isaiah asked questions that no one-not even God-could provide an answer for, until finally Isaiah decided that God had nothing to do with the way things worked out, that while He set things in motion, He could not have known that out of the muck of the original mire from which mankind dragged itself a seriously screwed-up brain would come about alongside polyps and viruses and no-see-ums.
Then Jimmy Lee's laugh would fill Isaiah's brain; sometimes the laughter was followed by a sneer. Sometimes Jimmy Lee would tell him he was an old fool to bother God with such stupid questions. While it had been exhilarating at times to sense Jimmy Lee traveling over space and time to enter his mind, Isaiah often feared the power and clarity of his son's voice in his head. This he felt was what the young folks called intensely “cool”-that his son, sitting on death row, awaiting certain execution, had not waited until death had overtaken him to astrally project his anima or spirit to the back wall of Isaiah's head, to live inside the old man full-blown, and to direct him in these actions. His brain, encased in his skull, had always been a comfort to him, but now it registered a discomfiting feeling, and he was no longer at ease with his own mind. Not since Eunice followed her sister Emma Tilda to the grave. His beloved wife Eunice had been first to hear their son, Jimmy Lee, as clear as ringing a Wisconsin cowbell. But Jimmy Lee had not sounded his words alone. He had come in the company of his God, and they were awful and all-powerful in their combined voice and message of death.
Driving the byways of Nebraska, crossing into Kansas, heading toward Arkansas and parts south for Texas, zigzagging downward across the states, fearful now of the big interstates, Isaiah Purdy simply no longer felt at ease. His agitation came on scratching claws and unsettling words; words that spoke of a cruel revenge, something he had never thought himself capable of. Yet the evolving plan-Jimmy Lee's unfolding wrath-would not leave his brain. It came that first night to mark his mind, like a knife slicing across his forehead to make itself clear, like a firm fist pounding on a bolted door, clamoring to get in.
Strange how it had gotten into Eunice's head first, but then not so strange after all; Jimmy was always more partial to his ma than his pa. And the old man could well understand. After all, it had been his father who had had to punish the boy repeatedly, every time he broke a commandment. Jimmy Lee usually took a horse-hiding to come into line. And the favored instrument used on the boy was a harness.
Maybe it had all been for the best, his beating the boy. The boy was, after all, finally traveling in the company of his and Isaiah's Maker.
Isaiah looked up from the steering wheel and stared over it at the endless stretch of Texas highway, the center white line at the center of his hood, and once again he knew he was veering into an oncoming car. He snatched the wheel and brought it in line as the highway coalesced into a hay- strewn barnyard floor upon which lay a nude woman strapped to a dead man, to the corpse of his dead son.
Isaiah wondered what time it was. He'd been dozing on the stool set up alongside the suffering woman. 'Time for a soft bed up at the house,” he told himself and Jimmy Lee, who, in the old man's head, agreed.
“ Time for bed, old man…”
Jessica Coran had been unable to reach her friend Kim Desinor by phone, by fax, or by E-mail either at her office or home. Kim appeared to have disappeared without a word, and such behavior was unlike the woman. Jessica then learned that Kim had told Eriq Santiva that she wanted nothing more to do with the DeCampe case. She put in for time off. The sudden turnabout in Kim's behavior, her interest turning to disinterest, worried Jessica, so she asked Richard to take her to Dr. Kim Desinor's door an hour from D.C.
This necessitated a drive out to Quantico, Virginia, to Kim's apartment home, a beautiful place carved out of a hillside, now mushroomed with single and multiple duplex homes and apartments. They'd had a bit of a holdup at the gate when no one answered the buzzer, but they had convinced the security guard to let them pass. Outside Kim's door lay several untouched newspapers, and blinds and curtains were drawn against the gray, overcast day, which was just beginning to see patches of blue and sunlight