Chapter 59
“I saw a calf being born last night,” Anna said quietly.
“I helped with it.” It was early, not yet nine, and cool inside the church in the quiet of a midweek morning.
Up by the altar, a woman was cleaning and changing flowers, and Pastor Keene, who was sitting in the pew in front, turned around to face her.
He hadn’t even tried to sit beside Anna and she thought that maybe she’d misjudged him.
Maybe he was a man who understood the female need for space regardless of trauma.
Or maybe this was just how he liked to sit when talking one-on-one.
Either way, she was still glad for the cleaning woman.
It was strange being in church out of choice, but Anna couldn’t think of anywhere else to go to ask the questions that spun in her head.
The notes she’d added in her article document last night—now untitled because she wasn’t sure what it was about anymore—had been more like lists.
First, she wrote down the intangible things—the idea that the dead girls were haunting Grandma, the oppressive atmosphere, her own blood in the basement that then vanished.
The confusion she’d had over where Jamie had died.
Her growing sense that justice hadn’t been done.
Then she made a second list of what she knew as facts—the dates the girls died, where they’d been on their last nights, Bonnie’s secret boyfriend, Jamie’s unsent text to her on his phone she found under the old sun chair by the pool, implying he’d been murdered, and then finally how the girls had been killed.
What her lists had told her was that if Jamie was right and the killer was still at large, trying to figure out who it was would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
It didn’t stop her wanting to try. Even in broad daylight, she shivered with the memory of Grandma and the song and the notebook.
Something weird was going on. She needed to understand that, if nothing else. And that was tied to the girls.
“It was amazing. A miracle.”
“Life is a miracle.” His eyes were on her, intense.
He still made her uneasy. There was a depth to him that was hard to read.
The same charisma that kept his church full every Sunday made her want to run from him.
“Death too, perhaps,” he added. “In its own way.” He paused.
“But not for the young. I’m sorry for what happened at Jamie’s funeral.
His parents were upset. Grief makes people selfish. ”
“It’s okay. I get it.” She flushed with the memory. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m writing something. Or at least researching. I don’t know what it will be yet. About Lila and Bonnie. Six years ago today that Lila was murdered. Tomorrow it will be three years since Bonnie.”
“I know. I expect it was the whole town’s first thought on waking today.”
“Anyway, I’ve been wondering, and I’m sure the police covered it at the time”—she wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t going back there to ask more questions, not yet, at any rate.
They’d probably arrest her—“but given how they were found—washed and naked in the fields, arms outstretched, the missing section of skin on their backs—it feels ritualistic, doesn’t it? Sacrificial?”
“Are you asking if the killer was religiously motivated?” He frowned, thoughtful.
“I can’t remember if they did ask at the time.
Not with Bonnie, but maybe they did with Lila.
After a while. Although, given that she was naked, I expect the police thought the motivation was sexual in some way.
But it’s hard to tell, isn’t it? Who knows how the mind of someone like that works? ”
Anna sat up straighter. “But what about Blood Atonement? I’ve been listening to some podcasts where it comes up.”
“Blood Atonement? That’s Old Testament stuff. Leviticus 17:11: ‘For the life of flesh is its blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for its blood shall make atonement for the soul.’”
Anna nodded and added, “All things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
He raised a dark eyebrow and smiled. “Hebrews 9:22. Something tells me you’ve been googling rather than studying the Bible.”
“You would be right. But it made me wonder if maybe someone thinks these girls were sinners and needed to give up their blood for forgiveness? But if so, why a three-year cycle? I couldn’t find anything significant.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there. Perhaps you should talk to the police about this. But maybe when this week is over.”
“If it’s not too late. Jamie thought the killer was still in town.”
“Jamie was a troubled soul.”
“That’s what everyone says. And he was. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t right, though.” This had been a wasted trip. The pastor couldn’t help her with anything. “But thanks anyway.” She was about to get to her feet when he looked toward the altar, his expression softening.
“It’s funny.” His rich voice resonated, a thrum that could have come from deep in the earth as he leaned back.
“Lila was the shining girl, the one everyone talks about. The great loss. And she was a lovely, beautiful girl. She helped with my soup kitchen. She was a little young, but she wanted to, and who was I to stop such generosity of spirit? For two years she came, regular as clockwork. Right up until she was nearly sixteen. Not so very long before she died. She’d changed by then, though.
I could see it. She was restless. Ready for more. And she had Jamie.”
His face softened. “Lila shone, but Bonnie, now, Bonnie had a quieter beauty. Like you, I think. She sang in the choir.” He nodded up to the front.
“Second-row alto. She was like her voice. People talk about sopranos, but without the richness of the altos, music has no depth. I think I mourned Bonnie more. She would come into the city with me one weekend a month when I’d visit the shelter I used to work with in Omaha.
A women’s shelter. There was an abortion clinic there too, which got me into some conflict with my superiors, but I stood my ground.
Women’s bodies, women’s right to choose, and I don’t think it’s ever a choice made lightly.
Bonnie had a big heart. She wasn’t judgmental.
She was a good listener. Old before her time. ”
His hand, large and pale, his fingers too long, neatly manicured fingernails at the end, stretched along the back of the pew. Anna’s heart beat faster. She hadn’t realized he’d known both girls so well. “So they were both believers?”
He nodded. “They were. Or at least they were raised to be. But that thing you asked about sacrifice?” He got to his feet, joining her as she stood up.
“The wickedness men do is often disguised or cloaked in religion. Faith used as an excuse. Do you think people really do terrible things purely out of love for their God?”
She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “No. They do it for themselves. For their own gratification.” Maybe the visit hadn’t been useless after all. “Thank you.” They walked side by side up the aisle toward the exit.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked.
He pushed open the door, letting the hot air in. “Aside from the Holy one?”
She nodded.
“I don’t think so. Not part of God’s plan. What I’ve found is that people are usually haunted only by themselves. Their pasts. Their choices. Why?”
“It doesn’t matter. I was just curious.”
What about possession? she wanted to ask as she headed to her scooter, but as she glanced back, the inside of the church was a yawning void of shadows, and they gathered around the tall figure of Pastor Keene as if he could protect them from the outside light.
It made her shiver. She kept her question to herself.
It was nearly nine thirty anyway, and there was somewhere else she had to be.