Chapter 15

That was Wednesday. I let the tape sit through the rest of the week. The less cause Vernon Hitt had to think Al was in Albuquerque the better. I didn't know how he'd react to the tape, but I wasn't going to help him find his daughter, not after what he'd done to her.

I had nothing else going in the way of cases, and though I went into the office on Thursday it was just to do some paperwork to keep Marla happy. She's always after me to be "more professional," but then she's the one who panics if there's a month where the outgo is larger than the income, even though she knows my PI work isn't about the money.

The rest of the week I spent thinking. I walked all over town – sometimes I'd start from the house, sometimes I'd drive somewhere and begin there, once I even drove over to the West Side and went out to Petroglyph National Monument, and climbed the face of the ancient lava flow to what they call the West Mesa, and spent some time out there away from traffic and people. I wasn't trying to decide what to do – I knew that already. I was trying to get rid of a lot of nastiness.

Cecelia had reminded me that she knew what had happened in Red Hawk, Oklahoma, when I was a cop there. I didn't like to think of it. I hate to think that I could kill someone at all, much less with my bare hands. Yet that's what I'd come very close to doing. There aren't many people I hate, but I hate baby rapers. I know that as a Christian I shouldn't hate anyone, but knowing what I ought and doing what I ought aren't always the same thing. I ought to always be kind and considerate to my wife too, but I don't always manage that.

So I pounded out my frustration and anger and hatred on the sidewalk and the pavement and the soil of the West Mesa. When I came in the door Saturday evening, weary and sweaty from being out on my feet all day, I was at least calmer than I might have been.

Sunday morning was church again. One of the nice things about working only when I want to is that most Sundays I can get to church. Sometimes a case will keep me working on Sunday, or I'll be so tired from working all night that I'll sleep in, but not often. This case didn't require that – if you could call it a case, since I wasn't doing what Vern had asked me to do and was in fact going to tell him to go away and don't ever think about coming back.

I'm not sure I heard much of the sermon that morning. It was Tyrone's last Sunday and they'd asked him to preach one last time, but for once my attention wasn't on what he was saying. Early in our marriage Cecelia had taught me to get to bed early enough that I was fit for human company the next morning, and it had revolutionized my experience listening to sermons, but that morning my mind was everywhere but where it ought to have been.

I did notice when Tyrone finished early, and Earl Carrington went up the steps to the platform. Other than Tyrone, the elders never had any chief or head or leader or whatever you might call it. They operated on a unanimous-or-nothing basis on the important stuff, and frequently were unanimous on other matters as well, and when Tyrone wasn't around it almost seemed like they communicated by ESP, for no one would lay down policy for them to follow. So Earl was as likely a person to follow Tyrone as any of the other elders.

I sat up and took notice when I realized what he was saying. "We've talked and prayed a lot, for years, really, about whether we ought to replace Tyrone with another elder. And we've talked and prayed equally long about who we ought to choose, if we did decide to appoint another elder. And we've come to unanimous decisions on both points.

"We will choose another elder – not so much to replace Tyrone, as to provide continuity among the elders. We have no set number of elders, but it seems good to us and – we believe – to God that we maintain the current number at this time, by appointing someone else.

"We've also come to a unanimous decisions regarding who the newest elder should be. As you know, the body of elders chooses candidates and the church approves or disapproves them, though so far we've never chosen such an unqualified candidate that the church overruled us. In fact, the one time we thought that might happen, it was the church who decided that José Mendoza ought to become an elder even though we weren't entirely certain about it." I remembered that – I'd been one of those few among the congregation who'd argued that José needed more time to learn to control his temper, and by now I was glad the rest had outvoted me.

"We aren't," Earl continued, "under any obligation under our by-laws to consult the church when considering who we want to present as a candidate for the eldership. But we did. We went to 40 different people in the church, all of them godly and sober people, men and women both, and some of them among our youth, and asked them who they thought should be the next elder. We didn't expect unanimity – but we almost got it.

"Out of those 40 people, 38 named the same man. We didn't give a list, we didn't name any names – we just asked, 'Who do you think should be the next elder?' And with two exceptions, everyone gave us the same name. One of the exceptions was the man everyone else named, and the other was a man who said that he couldn't honestly prefer one over the other, though he knew several who would make good elders. The elders found that very compelling, and our own deliberations were unanimous even before we formally voted."