Chapter 30 – The God factor
When Phillip and Nan got back to Detrick in the early afternoon of the following day no one made any mention of their previous absence. All conversations were deftly steered away from any question about where they had spent the previous night and what they had done there. Their bright demeanor answered all the questions. Everyone was interested, however, in what Jon had said about Steven.
On Sunday morning, Nan woke Phillip to say they were taking her Mom to church.
"What? Why can't she drive herself?"
"She, 'A', doesn't have a car, and 'B', doesn't have a license.
"Well, get her A and B."
"I can't do that today. So we are taking her. You'd better get ready. Service starts at ten sharp."
"It’s a good thing I love you." said Phillip under his breath. What he said made him smile. He liked the idea of loving this woman. He liked the idea that she was so confident that he loved her that she could ask him to do things he didn't really want to do. This might get old later but for now, he was in the infatuation, ga-ga phase of their relationship. He knew that if he really minded she wouldn’t ask.
Maybe the dust in him was altering his personality for the better. He noticed that lately he actually was interested not so much in just what he wanted but in what Nan wanted too, in what pleased her, in her dreams and hopes and interests. Maybe it was the ameliorating effects of the dust or maybe it was because for the first time in his life he was honestly in love with a woman. He dressed quickly.
They picked up Emma where she was staying at Nan’s place in Nan's car that had been Emma's car. All the way to the church, she talked from the back seat in her excited too-fast-to-catch-much speech with the truncated sentences and non sequitur topic changes. Nan looked to be concentrating hard. Phillip just shook his head and smiled. "Are you getting this?"
"Not much of it." said Nan. “Something about there are not as many churches as there used to be but those that are left are full since the dust started killing bad people.”
“Is that why we have to drive all the way to Pennsylvania to church?”
“No. It’s because this is mom’s church now and that’s where she wants to go”.
Resigned, Phillip said “OK”
There were people at the door of the church to greet the arrivals. The pastor wasn't one of them but before the three could find seats a robed man came up to them and greeted Emma by name. Emma introduced her daughter and Phillip.
Phillip didn't know how he felt about attending a church service. He had been inside a church maybe ten times in his life: four weddings, four funerals, once as a dare when he was young, and once with a girl when he was a teenager. She had wanted to save his soul; he had just wanted to get into her pants. Neither had happened.
Religion was alien to his family. Family value was having enough beer in the frig to get plastered before bedtime. He hated his home life. He hated what too much alcohol did to people. He had avoided it all his life, mostly.
He was a bright kid with no breaks. He did poorly in school and the school thought him a troublemaker. Sometimes all it takes is one person to believe in you to drag you out of despair and set you on another road. Phillip didn't have that one person.
Fate finally stepped in. When Phillip was eleven, his abusive alcoholic father was killed in a DWI traffic accident. This time fate saw justice in killing the drunk and not the innocent people he ran into. For Phillip and his sister and their mother life could only improve.
His abused mother was visited by family services for the first time. Nobody had noticed that this family needed help until they stopped having the means to pay bills. As bad as his father had been he did seem to have enough money to keep the frig full. The grocery store sold more than beer.
Phillip tried to pay attention to what was happening in the service. There was singing which Phillip was totally out of his element with. He helped share the hymnal with Nan. He did not sing but noticed how well Nan did. It made him smile every time he learned something new about this woman. When they sat, he held her hand.
Something that was said from the pulpit caught Phillip's attention. He took out his cell as Nan frowned at him. He looked up a picture he had taken. It was a picture of a scrap of paper he had found in Steven's desk with a cryptic message on it. It said Jn1016-17. His mind put together the presents of a bible on Jon's table, a notation in the bulletin Phillip had been handed when he entered the church, and this cryptic message he had found at the death seines. He grabbed a bible from the rack in front of him making noise that brought another frown from Nan. Using the index, he looked up John chapter 10 verses 16 and 17. He read, put the bible back and sat pondering for some time.
Could that little scrap of paper have been Steven's suicide note? Would those verses have meant something to Jonathan?
Why was the FBI so uninterested in follow-up investigation of Steven's death? Or was it that they were just unwilling to reveal to him anything they were doing? Was he still a suspect? Two people were now dead that stood between him and his new position — a position that might disappear overnight unless he could show a reason for its continued existence. Was he, Phillip, expected to solve the mystery of Steven’s death?
His wandering mind was forced to return to the here and now when he was asked to stand and pretend to sing again. He had totally missed most of the sermon, probably not the only person that had ever happened to.
The verses he had read had said something about 'No one can take my life, I lay it down so that I can pick it up again.’ Was Steven saying he committed suicide but expected to be resurrected? Of all the wild improbable things that had been happening, this would truly top the list, if it happened. Could the dust raise people from the dead?
Lots of people would have wanted Steven dead — powerful people who are used to getting done what they wanted done. Steven knew he was a marked man. He was a smart man. So, what did he do about his problem? Kill himself? What sense did that make?
When they had left the church, Phillip shared his findings and theory with Nan. Nan listened carefully. "I don't know," she said "I'm not a detective and neither are you. You are an engineer. And a good one." she added to put a positive spin on it. “Leave it for the professionals."