Trial by Fire (8 page)

“What kind of feeling?” Nick asked.

“A feeling that the Holy Spirit is going to do some mighty things,” Dan said, as if he had the same feeling. “You wait, Nick. This is not the end of our church. It may just be a fresh beginning.”

B
ecause there was always the chance that a smoldering ember might blow into a flame again, Mark, Dan, and George took the evening fire watch the day after the fire. They hacked at parts of the wall still standing, making sure that every spark had died. There would be someone here around the clock for the next couple of days.

When members began showing up to see the charred structure, they kept them back. So the members congregated at one end of the property, far enough away from the debris not to get hurt, but close enough that they were still on the property.

Someone brought a guitar and they began to sing praise songs together, and slowly the crowd grew. From the way they sang and praised God, one would think that he had swooped down and struck them with a glorious gift instead of a devastating fire.

Mark didn't want Allie to miss it. He went back to the truck, got his cell phone out, and dialed his home number.

“Hello?”

“Hey, hon. How's it goin'?”

Her sigh told him she hadn't gotten over the shock of the tragedy. “Okay, I guess. I just got back from Susan and Ray's. It was bad, Mark.”

“I know something that might make you feel better. They're holding a bona fide church service right on the church grounds. Singing and praising God, just like Nick taught us.”

“You're kidding.”

“No. It's really amazing. Jacob Baxter has his guitar, and people who drive by to see the damage keep stopping and getting out. I think it's a great testimonial to the community. Don't you want to come?”

“Do you think it's too cool out for Justin?” she asked, referring to their toddler.

“I think it's fine. He'll probably sleep through it.”

“Then we'll be right there.”

He clicked off the phone and leaned back against the truck, watching the spirit of his church declare that it had lived on, even if the building was gone. He wondered if he should go knock on Nick's door and give him the chance to join in. Then he thought better of it. If he wasn't aware of it already, it probably meant he was so wiped out that he needed his rest.

Allie arrived with little Justin, and the child slept on her shoulder as she sang and swayed in worship. Staying near the debris, Mark began to sing with them, and soon Dan and George joined in. Like the others, they began to feel a sense of hope rather than a sense of mourning. It was just as Nick had taught them to react to trials. “Consider it joy,” he'd said time and time again. “Thank God when he refines you like silver.”

Soon the praise songs turned to prayers, and the members prayed one by one, lifting up the Fords and their family and friends, lifting up Nick for healing both inside and out, lifting up the church body, which had challenges ahead, lifting up the community that still had so much to learn.

People began to weep as they prayed, and one by one, some dropped to the ground, with no concern for the dirt on their knees. Eventually, others fell to their faces, wailing out their combination of confession and repentance, mourning and thanksgiving, prayers of intercession and prayers of hope for the future.

As night fell over the group, the singing began again, interspersed with more prayer. The group grew, as if word had traveled that a prayer meeting was going on, and no one wanted to miss it. It was loud and heartfelt, passionate and private, purging and purifying, a tent revival without a tent or an evangelist.

Something was happening in the church, something Mark had never seen before. The Holy Spirit was here, his power brighter than the fire that had swallowed the building. They could set fire to the church and destroy the building, but their lampstand still stood.

 

I
t was about nine o'clock when a 1986 model Ford van drove by too slowly, its rattling engine disrupting the church, and its loud rap music blaring at eardrum-shattering level. The dirty white van slowed as it passed the worshipers, then it screeched off, running a stop sign. Sid Ford, who had joined the group halfway through, left the circle and went to his squad car, parked on the side of the road. It took him a couple of blocks to catch up to the van with the half-deaf occupants. He knew he had no grounds to arrest them, but at least he could shake them up a little, make them stop disturbing the peace while driving through town.

He turned on his lights and gave them a block to pull over. Holding his flashlight, he got out, walked toward the van, and saw a swastika sticker in the bottom corner of the rear window. An alarm clanged in his head. Hadn't a witness claimed she'd seen several kids leaving the church before anyone noticed the fire? But she'd seen a red car, with two stickers on the bumper, not on the window. Still…had these four had something to do with murdering his nephew?

The radio volume lowered as he continued to the driver's door, staying back as he'd been trained. He shone the light into the window.

“We didn't do nothin',” the driver said.

In the flashlight beam, Sid saw three white guys and a girl. They all looked relatively clean-cut. The driver was blond and more tanned than normal for this time of year. He had the look of one of those action-movie stars who hit celebrity overnight.

“Can I see your driver's license, please?” he asked through his teeth.

The driver pulled his billfold out and thrust his license at him. “What did you pull me over for?” He sounded weary and fed up.

“For going sixty in a thirty-mile zone, runnin' a stop sign, and disturbin' the peace.”

“Disturbin' the peace?” the driver asked. “You've got to be kidding me. And I wasn't speeding.”

“I say you was. And since I'm the cop, it's my word that counts. See, they listen to me down at headquarters, not to a vanload of punks with hate signs stuck on their windows. Besides, I got a couple dozen witnesses back there. Stay right here.”

The driver opened his door and started to get out.

“I
told
you to stay there,” Sid said.

The kid continued to get out of the van. “I don't take orders from people like you.”

Sid laughed bitterly, thinking how much he would enjoy putting this kid in his place. Yeah, these white supremacists were superior, all right, with their smart mouths and stupid rebellion against authority. Real intellectual.

It occurred to him that he could show this little coward who he'd take orders from, but he decided to savor the moment. He needed backup, just to make sure he didn't lose them. Since they very well could be the killers and arsonists, he wanted to keep them here as long as he could. He put his hand on his weapon. “You got a choice. You can either get back in your van until I say you can get out, or you can stand here, provin' your superiority with a pair of handcuffs on your wrists, or you can come sit in the back of my squad car with those handcuffs on, since that's probably where you gon' wind up, anyway.”

After trying to stare him down, the kid slowly got back into his car, as if it was his idea and had nothing to do with Sid's suggestion. Sid grinned and leaned down into the window. “There now. You are an intellect, ain't you? A veritable genius. Now you just stay there while I go back to my car for a minute, because if you so much as start your engine, you won't have to worry about gettin' arrested. I'll take care of you myself, before you even have time to turn that steerin' wheel. Now why don't you give me your driver's license?”

He left them sitting there and went back to his car. Keeping his eyes on them, he radioed in. “Three-three-two to Midtown. I just pulled over four punks for speedin' and disturbin' the peace, but I have reason to believe they could be suspects in Ben's murder and the church burnin'. Witnesses saw a swastika sticker on the getaway car, and this one has one. Need backup and a search warrant, fast as I can get it. And run this name through, see whatcha got.”

After a moment, the dispatcher radioed back. “Sid, that Jason Cruz is the one Stan's been looking for. He said to tell you he's the one threatened Nick Foster.”

“Score!” Sid sat still for a moment, feeling no joy that his nephew's murderer might be in that car in front of him.

“We have a search warrant on the way. Judge DeLacy was still at the courthouse. Vern Hargis is bringing it.”

In moments, they had all four kids out of the van being frisked, while Sid and the others searched it for any clues that they had played a part in the burning or the murder. They found stacks of white supremacy and Aryan nation propaganda, but no gas cans or guns, no blood on the seats or in the carpet, no drugs or alcohol, nothing that would make it appropriate to impound the van and throw them in jail.

Nothing, except for the hunch that Nick Foster had had about Jason Cruz getting even. They had been looking for him, wanting to bring him in for questioning, but hadn't caught up with him until now. Sid Foster wasn't about to let him go.

“Okay, now, here's how it's gon' be,” he said, trying to temper his voice so he wouldn't sound like a vengeful uncle. “Jason, here—”

“Cruz,” the kid cut in. “They call me Cruz.”

“Okay,
Cruz.
Cruz here's gon' come to the station with me. We got a few things to talk about, like where he was in the wee hours of yesterday mornin', what he knows about Ben Ford's death and the church burnin'…”

“Wait a minute,” Cruz said. “I ain't goin' nowhere.”

“Well, now, you can come peaceably, or I can handcuff you and drag you in. I prefer the latter, but we'll let it be your choice.”

Cruz swallowed and looked back at his sister. “Jen, go back and tell everybody that we're being persecuted. That they ran us down on the road without probable cause and are taking me in without an arrest warrant. Tell Granddaddy to call his lawyer.”

The girl flung her hair back over her shoulder and took a bold step toward Sid. She was almost as tall as he, and as skinny as a runway model. He could see that she didn't have much fear in her. “You ain't got anything on him.”

“We have witnesses,” Sid said. “Witnesses who saw some punks comin' out of that church just before they noticed the fire. Witnesses who saw a swastika and KKK emblem on the bumper. And the curiosity that had you drivin' by the church grounds tonight, what with the sticker on your van and your smart mouth, make you prime suspects, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe you'd like to come in with your brother and answer a few questions too.” He pulled out his pad as if to write. “No problem to add Cruzette to our little party tonight.”

“I go by Jennifer,” she bit out.

“You can see how I'd be confused. That's J-e-n-n—”

“No,” Cruz cut in. “Jen, you go back and tell them. Tell Granddaddy. I can take care of this until he gets there.”

Jennifer didn't like it, but she nodded to the others and went to get in on the driver's side. Before she got in, she gave him a worried look over the door. “Cruz?”

“It's okay,” he said, almost gently. “Don't worry. Just do what I said.”

As Sid escorted Cruz to the backseat of his squad car, he watched that van drive away. He wished he could lock up the whole bunch. Eventually, he vowed that he would, if they had anything at all to do with Ben's murder. As soon as he took care of Cruz, he'd get a rap sheet on each of them, assign someone to tail them, find out who else they hung out with, what they did in their spare time, where they worked, what their agendas were. If they were involved in the killing of his nephew, Sid Ford was going to make sure they paid.

B
ecause the Cain and Addison Funeral Home expected record numbers of mourners for Ben's visitation, they convinced Susan and Ray to have a four-hour visitation. That would help with traffic in the parking lot and through the building, they were told. It was simply a matter of convenience.

There had been some debate as to whether to open the casket, but the undertaker had promised that he could cover the bullet hole. There had been no significant burns to Ben's face, so Susan saw no reason to deprive his friends of the closure the viewing would bring them.

By the third hour, Susan and Ray were still on their feet, hugging tearful friends who'd lined up to pay their respects. Susan wasn't making sense anymore, and Ray wished he could call a halt to the rest of it and take her away where she could sit down and take her shoes off and let go.

But as many words of comfort were offered to them, Ray found that Susan was trying to offer just as many in return. She clung to each mourner, as if she knew their hearts were broken with hers. She told them each what precious friends they'd been to her son, even if she'd never seen them before in her life. She made them each feel that their presence here had made all the difference in her level of grief. He didn't know how she did it. He knew she had not slept last night. He had heard her sobbing in Ben's room, and had gotten up to see about her. The door had been locked, so he'd respected her need to be alone. He had gone out to the backyard then and wept his heart out under the stars. He wasn't sure anymore if God heard.

Someone whispered something to her, something Ray hadn't heard, and Susan burst into tears again and clung to that person as if he were Ben's best friend. She wept openly, without any stoic acceptance, without that glow that some were able to have in the face of tragedy, declaring God to be sovereign and all-knowing, and trusting in him. Instead, he knew that trust would be a long time in coming. She would have to work that out with God on her own…just as he would.

Lord, I can take the pain,
he thought.
But help her with hers. She's so fragile. She can't take it, Lord.

He watched, broken and weary, as they came one by one. And each time someone approached the casket, he saw Susan stiffening slightly, looking that way, as if desperately wanting to tell them not to touch him, that she didn't even want them looking at him long. He knew how she felt. He felt it too. It was all he could do last night not to come to the funeral home and insist on sleeping on the floor next to his son.

The fact that Ben was in heaven, and not lying in that casket, provided little comfort. He had searched his heart for all the Scripture he had ever learned about heaven and death, but it failed him now. He needed someone to quote it to him, remind him what it said. But he didn't want to hear it from Nick, because part of him blamed the preacher.

He blamed him and Mark and Dan, and all the guys who'd fought the fire that morning. He blamed Stan and the police force for letting lunatics run the roads and kidnap innocent victims and murder them. He blamed the paramedics who couldn't bring him back to life, and he blamed the coroner who must have seen Ben as just another job, even though it hadn't been obvious.

And if he were honest, he had to admit that he blamed everyone in line here, for not being aware enough of the evil in their community to call it what it was and purge it from their town. If someone, anyone, had seen them take Ben…if one person had made a phone call…turned someone in…Ben might be alive.

He knew it wasn't rational, but he didn't care. And now he blamed the funeral home for a visitation that stretched beyond human endurance, and for the mourners who dared to smile in the halls and talk about things other than death and Ben.

And most of all, he blamed himself, for not being there when his son needed him, for not coming to his aid, for not protecting him as he had always tried to do. The big fire chief of Newpointe, the big rescuer, who couldn't even save his own son.

The irony almost buried him.

But still the people came, and whispered, and wept, and Susan kept clinging and crying and chattering empty phrases over and over…

Ray just wanted it all to end.