God Only Knows (3 page)

“My son is a good kid,” Cassie said, resisting the urge to plead. “Top grades in school, being recruited by all the major
colleges. You know that if you watch a minute of local news. We’ve been blessed to see him make good choices, Detective, but
we still haven’t cured him of the need to look ‘hard.’ Hanging out with his cousin provides that outlet for M.J., at least
in his immature mind.”

“I understand,” Whitlock said, patting her hand before standing. “My work is done here, Cassandra.” He paused as he straightened
the fit of his suit jacket. “My official work, that is. I have to ask you a small favor.”

“Oh?” Cassie stood for some reason, her instincts telling her she preferred to hear what was coming from the flexible stance
of her two feet.

“You mind if we step outside?”

When they were outside on her porch, Whitlock reached into his jacket pocket, winking as he retrieved a cigarette. “I hope
you don’t mind. Ever since they passed that smoke-free law, it’s hell trying to get a quick smoke in. And, frankly, I need
one for what I’m about to bring up.”

Just make it quick.
Cassie kept the thought to herself but crossed her arms as she said, “Go ahead, Detective.” Maybe he needed help finding
a good deal on a new home.

“We have some shared history, I understand,” Whitlock said. “You graduated from Christian Light Schools, correct, when your
maiden name was Cassandra Duncan?”

“I . . . attended Christian Light, yes.” Cassie felt herself frowning and didn’t hide it. “Why?”

“Were you familiar with a classmate of yours named Eddie Walker?”

Cassie’s world stood still and it seemed she and Whitlock were thrown into suspended animation. As she stared back at the
statue into which he had turned, her head filled with her final memory of the only Eddie Walker she had ever known —a thin,
blond-haired teenager with a crew cut, splayed out in damp forest grass. Her last glimpse of him was still there, freeze-framed
in a recess of her brain: the spilled teeth, the purple wound over his eye, the groaning epithets tumbling from his mouth
as he gurgled blood.

Barely a week had passed in twenty-plus years without nightmares predicting such a moment, and as a result Cassie was ready.
Always open with the truth.
“Eddie Walker? You’re talking quite a history lesson, Detective. Yes, I went to school with Eddie. He was involved in a tragic
accident. My classmates and I, we prayed for his recovery every morning at the start of school.”

Whitlock turned away from Cassie, his eyes on the contours of her front lawn as he blew a plume of smoke. “What did you think
of him?”

“What did I think of him? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Please call me Pete,” Whitlock replied, his eyes still focused on the yard. “This isn’t a trick question, Cassandra. Let
me tell you where I’m coming from. The week after young Eddie Walker stumbled into the path of the pickup truck that ran him
over, the police launched an investigation. A very short, halfhearted investigation.

“You see, the oldest guys on the force still talk about Eddie’s case as one where they knew something wasn’t right. The driver
who hit him swore every which way but loose that the kid just appeared out of nowhere, that he didn’t have even a second to
avoid him. But here’s the crazy thing: According to the driver, the kid wasn’t riding a bike or lightheartedly running across
the street, as you might expect of a young, hearty boy. The driver insisted that Eddie stumbled into view, swerving around
like a dazed deer or something.”

Cassie swallowed hard but responded quickly. “We all heard things back in the day, Detective. There was a rumor going around
that the authorities questioned whether all of his injuries were caused by the truck’s impact.”

“There was no question,” Whitlock said after taking an intent pull on his cigarette. “Eddie had sustained numerous blows to
his head, and it wasn’t clear that they were consistent with the impact of the truck. More questionable was the discovery
of significant amounts of human skin and hair —skin and hair other than his own —under his nails. This was before the days
of DNA analysis, of course, so while the old boys at the department knew there was more to the story, they didn’t have any
real trail to work with.”

“Again, I’ve pretty much heard all of this,” Cassie said. She knew in the pit of her stomach that this was headed somewhere
she’d always feared, but she refused to crumple before this man. God had long ago forgiven her for her role in Eddie Walker’s
fate, and while Cassie couldn’t swear that she had fully accepted the redemption, she certainly wasn’t going to be judged
by some stranger flashing a badge.

“My brothers in blue had to shut down the investigation pretty quickly,” Whitlock was saying. “The higher-ups at Christian
Light, especially Pastor Pence, the well-connected minister whose church funded your entire school system, insisted that if
there was foul play, Eddie’s classmates couldn’t have been involved. His teachers and the principal had never really liked
Eddie anyway. They’d always branded him a loner and a troublemaker, so in their reasoning, no other student would have been
with Eddie that evening. At the end of the day, nobody cared enough about a cranky poor white trash kid to find the truth.”

“I don’t appreciate your language,” Cassie replied, ready for the conversation to end. “I knew enough about Eddie’s family
to know they were hardworking people, not ‘trash.’ All of us, his classmates, we felt so bad for them.”

“Well, you should have,” Whitlock said. “The poor mother, she nearly wound up in a mental hospital before her Christian faith
pulled her from the brink. She even abandoned the civil suit she’d brought against the poor truck driver. Said the Lord had
revealed the man was innocent, and that God alone would bring the real perpetrator to justice eventually.” The detective paused
ominously. “And so, here we are.”

Cassie met Whitlock’s even gaze. “How exactly can I help you, Detective?”

Whitlock folded his arms and stared forward, stubbing out a cigarette with one foot. “Well, Cassandra, the truth is, I’ve
wanted to talk with you for a few weeks about all this. My run-in with Marcus Junior was just a convenient excuse.”

Cassie nodded. “And what exactly is
all this
?”

“Let’s skip a few steps,” Whitlock replied, training his piercing eyes back toward her. “As part of a recent murder investigation,
I interrogated a convict at the county prison because he was an associate of my prime suspect. You may recognize this name
too: Lenny Parks.”

Cassie felt a sheen of sweat bubbling up just beneath her nose, was surprised to feel her hands ball into fists. “Toya’s brother.”

“Yes,” Whitlock said. “Your classmate Toya’s older brother, the one who picked her and some friends —you included —up from
Christian Light’s homecoming game. The game that was played the same day my brother’s life was basically snuffed out.”

“B-Brother?” Cassie couldn’t hide the sudden hike in her pitch. “But your last name —”

“Half brother,” Whitlock said, his eyes filling with naked satisfaction. “I was the last person —the last one who loved him,
at least —to see Eddie as God made him: healthy and vibrant, not the slack-jawed bump on a log stuck in a nursing home today.”

Despite herself, Cassie shot a glance back toward her front door, wondered how quickly she could reach it and throw it open
to yell for M.J.’s help. Biting her lower lip, fists still balled, she said, “I don’t know what Lenny told you, but if you
think his word can be trusted —”

“Now, let’s not speak ill of the dead,” Whitlock replied, taking one long-legged step forward. He was close enough to Cassie
that when he leaned down, he could have kissed her. “There’s not much I can do with Lenny’s word, now that he went and got
himself hung by his cellmate, but if nothing else, he gave me a wake-up call.”

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said, fighting hard to steady her tone, “but you’re not making any sense.”

Whitlock tilted his head but didn’t break eye contact. “Oh, you think Lenny was my only source of evidence?” His stance blocked
her way to the door, and he looked increasingly proud of that.

His eyes flicking in the direction of the house, Whitlock took Cassie by the shoulders as he said, “You have three precious
children and a husband you’re trying to win back, so trust me, you don’t want to fight this.” When she broke free of his grip,
he steadied her again by the shoulders before saying, “Just relax, and accept that your comfortable little life is about to
change.”

O
nce she had said a closing prayer and shook hands with the newly commissioned members of the Christian Light Schools Board
of Advisors, Dr. Julia Turner blew out of the conference room adjacent to her office. In seconds she had breezed past her
secretary, Rosie, opened her office door, and quickly shut it behind her.

Her back against her own door, Julia stared forward into the curious gaze of her eight-year-old niece, Amber, whom she had
raised for the past six years. “That,” Julia said, her voice low and a twisted grin on her face, “was not pretty. Your auntee
feels like she’s taken on ‘mission impossible.’ ”

Amber sighed and turned back toward the monitor of Julia’s desktop computer. After clicking a few more keys, she whipped back
around to face her aunt. “Aw, Auntee, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t as bad as all that.” She shook her head playfully. “You make
such a big deal out of
every
little thing, have you realized that? Lily’s daddy says that uptight women worry a lot ’cause they need a boyfriend.”

“Child” —Julia stated the word as a command —“I am not going there with your little smart mouth, not tonight.” She had worked
an eleven-hour day already, and just emerged from a Board of Advisors meeting full of people with no apparent interest in
advising her about anything. Of the eight who had shown up —eight attendees who had
not
included her best friend, Cassie, who had promised she would come out —only one had responded to Julia’s presentation with
something resembling excitement, and he was the one that Julia had least wanted to invite.

“Aunteeeeee.” Julia looked down to see that Amber had crossed the worn carpet and wrapped her arms around her aunt’s waist.
“I love you.”

Julia hugged her little charge back. “Thank you, kiddo. I love you, and Jesus does too.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Nothing you don’t already do every day,” Julia replied, stroking her niece’s freshly permed hair. “You just keep applying
yourself in school, doing your homework with me every night, and, most important, keeping God first. Okay? You do that, and
even if I can’t save this school, we’ll make sure you get a good education somewhere.” She pressed the little girl to her
again. “Because one thing’s for sure —I’m not sending you to some boarding school.”

Amber tugged at Julia’s hand. “Okay, well, I just spent the last hour doing like you said. I finished reading that
Encyclopedia Brown,
and wrote the first page of my book report for you. . . . So, can we go to Cold Stone Creamery on the way home?”

“Oh, girl.” Julia playfully shooed the child away. “You know we don’t eat out during the week unless it’s a special occasion.
I have to save that eating-out money to help your brothers and sisters get school clothes next month.”

“Okay.” Amber indulged in a frown, and Julia again stifled the misgivings she faced almost daily. She had a total of three
nieces and two nephews, all of them her brother Thompson’s children; Amber was the baby. When the line of disgruntled baby-mamas
had grown too long, Julia’s father, Ricky, had booted his son into the street but vowed to raise his grandchildren —the four
whose mothers were as worthless as Thompson —himself.

Her father’s dramatic decision, which drifted to her through Cassie, who heard about it through the local rumor mill, had
changed Julia’s life. At the time, Ricky Turner was a fifty-year-old diabetic chain-smoker, one who had declined to raise
Julia when she’d come along unexpectedly. He had let his own parents shoulder the load when Julia’s mother had a nervous breakdown
shortly after the delivery. The thought that this same man could sign up to raise four children under age ten got Julia’s
attention.

Although she still lived in Chicago at the time, and was finishing up her dissertation, a few visits to Ricky’s apartment
had confirmed Julia’s suspicion that her father needed help. Ever practical, ever aware of the limits of her calling, Julia
got right to the point when making her offer.

“I can take
one,
” she had told her father on a balmy spring night as they sat on his front stoop. Reaching for Amber, she lifted the squirmy
toddler onto her lap, winking at Ricky as she said, “So let me take the one who requires the most work.”

Julia would never regret the decision, but that didn’t change the awkward nature of moments where she felt that helping out
Amber’s siblings was somehow cheating her “daughter.” It was unavoidable though, because while she didn’t have the resources
to raise all of her brother’s children, she had been blessed with just enough disposable income to help cover the others’
major living expenses. And somehow, God had blessed Ricky with the patience and health to provide everything else.

“Gather your things,” Julia reminded Amber as she walked to her desk and began shutting her computer down.

Just as Julia’s monitor went blank, Rosie eased the office door open. “Dr. Turner, excuse me, ma’am, but you have a visitor
here.”

Julia stood, her hands on her hips as she frowned in bewilderment. “Rosie, it’s seven-thirty in the evening. How did anyone
get in here at this hour?”

“He didn’t walk in just now,” Rosie replied, the twist of her neck making Julia wish for a minute that she hadn’t hired a
“sister” as her secretary. The demands of being Christian Light’s superintendent of schools left her with little tolerance
for attitude. “He was here for your board meeting, said he had to step out to take a call just before it ended. He has a few
more questions for you. A Dr. Maxwell Simon?”