Celia knew Aunt Aggie thought that was all it was. A false assurance that she put in some meaningless context of rules and circumstances that had no life to them at all. Again, she began to sing.
Aunt Aggie was silent at the end of the chorus. But Celia was smiling. “You’ll see, Aunt Aggie. God’s going to deliver me through this.”
“I know you’re gon’ be all right,” the old woman said. “I don’t think God’s gon’ have nothin’ to do with it, but you’ll be all right if I got anything to say about it.”
“The battle’s not yours, either, Aunt Aggie,” Celia said. “It’s not Jill’s, and it’s not David’s, and it’s not mine. The battle is the Lord’s.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’m still gon’ keep payin’ Jill to do what she can,” Aunt Aggie said cynically.
Celia heard the sheets rustle as the old woman lay back down. But Celia wasn’t finished praising the Lord. Quietly, softly, she began to sing again.
Chapter Forty-Four
In Slidell, Stan lay awake in the darkness of his hospital room, watching his mother sleep on the vinyl couch beside him. He closed his eyes and tried to pray. But he kept seeing the picture of Lee Barnett holding Celia, hearing her cry out that she was carrying his baby, hearing Sid and R.J. telling him how certain they were that Celia had tried to kill him.
“Lord, I don’t know what to think,” he cried out in his heart. “Tell me what to think. Tell me what to believe.”
She was sitting in a jail cell, and the thought haunted him. Even if she was a murderer, cold-blooded, evil, he still couldn’t stand the thought of her in jail. He wondered if Nick had gotten in to see her, if he had taken her the Bible. He wished he could have spoken to her when she called, heard her out. Maybe something she said could have brought some explanation, some understanding. There were so many “should have’s”, so many “if only’s.” He couldn’t sort them all out.
He closed his eyes and let the tears seep down his temples and into his hair. He didn’t know what was going to become of him after all the damage from the arsenic was assessed. He didn’t know if he would ever be the same. His marriage certainly would not. The injustice of it all, the tremendous betrayal, the despair that seemed so smothering overcame him, and again his heart cried out to God. “Tell me what to do, Lord. Tell me what to do.”
The words he had learned as a child in Bible drill came back to him. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
Was that the answer? Was the Word of God speaking to him, reminding him what he was to do? Hadn’t he known it all along? All he had to do was trust in the Lord with all his heart and lean not on his own understanding. Maybe that was the mistake he was making. But how did one keep oneself from trusting his own understanding when things seemed so clear? He didn’t want her to be guilty, but he couldn’t imagine that she wasn’t. Not now. Not after what he had seen. Not after what he had been told. Still, he couldn’t stop loving her. How did one end a love that had been such a vital part of his life for so long?
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. The words played like a recording in his mind, over and over and over. Yet he was not able to let go of his own understanding. Not yet.
Chapter Forty-Five
Thoughts of Jill woke Dan early the next morning. He didn’t like waking up with a woman on his mind. It wasn’t like him. He didn’t know what it was about her that had gotten under his skin, but he decided that he needed to see her.
It was seven A.M., but he tried to call her at home. There was no answer, only her machine. He hung up without leaving a message. Maybe she was at work.
He dialed the number of her office, and the machine picked up. Her secretary wasn’t in yet, but maybe Jill was there, working away, ignoring the telephone. He decided to leave a message.
“Jill, this is Dan. Are you there?” He waited a second, and the phone clicked.
“Hey, Dan. I’m here.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. He felt ridiculous having tracked her down like this, like it was some emergency, when all he wanted was to talk to her. “I didn’t think I’d catch you there this early.”
“Did you try me at home first?” she asked.
He hated to tell her that he had. It wasn’t his style to track women down, like one of those desperate on-the-prowlers whose very existence seemed to hang on the affections of beautiful women. “I was just calling to see if you’d like to have breakfast.” It was the first he’d thought of it, but he had to come up with something.
“Breakfast?” She hedged. “Uh…Dan, I’m a little busy right now.”
“Busy?” This was the first time a woman had been too busy to spend time with him. He hesitated, trying to come up with a response. “Of course you are. I figured you were. Maybe another time.” He waited for her to tell him when, to give him a rain check…maybe lunch. But she didn’t.
“Dan, I’m just really swamped right now. I’m trying to gather my thoughts before I face the judge this morning. I’m doing everything I can to get Celia out. Then I wanted to run to the hospital in Slidell to see Stan. I just heard he’s having dialysis today to flush his kidneys of the toxins. It’s gonna be a busy day.”
“I understand,” he said. “No time to eat.”
She seemed preoccupied, distant. “Look, we’ll catch up with each other later, okay?”
“Sure,” he said. “No problem.” He hung up and felt as low as he’d ever felt in his life. This was exactly why he avoided serious relationships. He hated the rejection. Hated the groveling. Hated the feeling that he wasn’t good enough. He hated the memories it brought back of his childhood.
He tried to push the thoughts out of his mind as he went up to his bedroom and changed into his running clothes. But he couldn’t forget that smothering feeling of rejection. His parents, too busy to spend time with him, leaving him with a nanny while they shuttled off to Aspen to spend Christmas. His parents entertaining and making him stay upstairs, so they wouldn’t be disturbed. His parents shipping him off to camp for the summer, a ritzy, cushy camp for rich kids whose parents didn’t want them around. No, he hated that feeling of rejection, and he wouldn’t tolerate it again. He hated that feeling of having to garner someone’s approval, someone who hardly even cared that he existed. No, he wouldn’t endure that again, not for any price.
He decided not to brood. Instead, he ran five miles, pushing himself past his own limits, forcing the poisons of rejection out of his system. He didn’t know what he was so agitated about. He’d never declared his love to Jill Clark, and she’d never declared hers to him. Though people had started to speak of them as a couple, there was no exclusivity, no “understanding.” If things just faded out, no one would think less of him. That was the way relationships worked with him. They would just think that he had grown tired of her and decided to move on.
Was he really that pompous? he asked himself as he got back home. Was it really his pride that was eating at him, rather than his disappointment that things were ending this way? Yes, he admitted. But knowing it didn’t change things. Prayer was what he needed, he realized with a jolt of humility. Prayer and a shower.
He chose the shower first and put the prayer off until later.
Chapter Forty-Six
Judge Louis DeLacy had released Aunt Aggie early the morning after her incarceration, as soon as he was told how she’d wound up in jail. He was not about to allow her to spend another moment there, he said. She was tearful as she left Celia in the jail cell, promising to visit as often as they would allow her to.
Celia’s peace remained, and manifested itself as compassion for Nick when he finally got in to see her. He looked tired and uncertain, and she saw the doubt about her in his eyes. She realized vaguely that if she had seen that look in his eyes yesterday, she would have been crushed. But today, she knew better than to blame him. She hugged him as he came into her cell, and poi
nted him to the only chair in the room. She sat across from him on the cot.
“I know what you must be thinking, Nick,” she said. “I know everybody in town must think I’m absolutely guilty. I mean, how could I not be, with all the evidence against me?”
“I don’t think you’re guilty, Celia,” Nick said weakly.
It was obvious that he was lying. She hated seeing him in this position, and almost wished he hadn’t come. “Don’t lie, Nick. Not for me.”
He drew in a deep breath, and his face changed. Suddenly, she saw the real Nick, the one who wasn’t acting, the one who was honest even when it hurt. “Okay, Celia,” he said. “I’ll be straight with you. I don’t know what to think about you anymore.”
She had believed she was ready for that, but when they came, the words still stung her. “Why would you think anything other than what you’ve always thought?”
“Because I haven’t always known the whole story.”
“Yes, you have,” she said. “What you haven’t known is all the old allegations. But they weren’t truth. What you’ve known about me is truth.”
She could tell that he struggled between his ministerial facade and the humanity within him. It was what she loved about Nick—the fact that he was so spiritual, yet so human…so close to God…yet so like herself.
“I have to ask you something,” Nick said.
“Anything, Nick. I don’t have any secrets.”
“Well, you seem to have had some. A lot of things no one knew about you until all this blew up.”
“I understand how that could make you suspicious,” she said. “But you’ve got to understand that I had a right to start fresh. I was wrongly accused. I didn’t need to drag that around for the rest of my life. If I had done something wrong to deserve that, fine. But I didn’t. So I left it behind me and I pressed on.”
“I can see that,” Nick said. “But the question I want to ask you is more immediate, and even more personal. It’s about Lee Barnett.”
“What about him?” she asked.
His eyes were direct, probing, as he asked the question. “Why did you go see him yesterday?”
Her heart jolted. How had Nick found that out? Had the police been talking out of turn? Had they been gossiping her business all over town?
“How did you know about that?”
“Stan told me.”
Her heart crashed, and despair hovered over it, waiting for an opening so it could move in and fill her with the darkness she’d stumbled through yesterday. But then she told herself that it was no surprise. She knew he had seen the picture.
It was still the Lord’s battle, not hers. The realization enabled her to hold the despair at bay.
“Nick, I’m gonna tell you what happened yesterday, and I’m not telling you to defend myself, because I’m innocent and I don’t need to defend myself. But I want you to know the real story.”
Nick waited.
“I went to Lee Barnett because I wanted to find out what he was up to,” she said. “I didn’t step one foot in his apartment. I didn’t touch him except to slap him once when I got so angry that I couldn’t hold it in any longer. He grabbed me and shook me, and that must be when Vern snapped the picture. Now, if anyone wants to know the truth about that encounter, I suggest they go to Vern and ask him what he saw before and after that embrace. Put that picture in context. Ask him to see what else is on that film. Look at our faces, Nick.”
Nick was quiet as the words sank in. He seemed to be listening, seriously wanting to believe her. She desperately wanted him to.
“Nick, please tell Stan the truth. He must know in his heart that I didn’t do this.”
Nick looked down at his feet, and she could see that he still struggled with what to believe about her.
Her expression crashed. “Nick, I am so sorry for you.”
“For me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “When this is all over and I’ve been acquitted of any guilt, and you see how hard someone has worked to set me up, it’ll be one more time when you beat yourself up for not doing the right thing.”
He sat there, his face vulnerable, exposed. She knew what was going through his mind. He had to be thinking about all the times he had failed. All the inadequacies, all the mistakes. It was what made him such a good preacher…and what made him so human.
“I’m gonna forgive you, Nick,” she whispered. “And when you feel guilty for doubting me, I want you to remember that, if it weren’t for your teaching, I may never have come to Christ. Yes, Stan led me, but you closed the deal, Nick. I’m tremendously grateful to you. So when you find out that I’m innocent, that everything I’ve said is true, and you get mad at yourself, I want you to remember that what you did for me five years ago was a whole lot more important than this.”
Nick’s eyes filled with tears, and he set his elbows on his knees and cupped his face in his hands. Finally, he looked up at her. “Celia, I love you. I want to believe you. I want to know that you know Christ, that all of this has not been a terrible act. Because if it is, then my judgment is horrible and my discernment is pretty lousy. I need to believe you.”
“Then do it,” she said. “Believe me.”
He looked into her eyes, long and hard, and she knew that in his mind he probably prayed for eyes like God’s eyes, to see into her and know if she lied. And suddenly she realized that God had told him in words that she had not been able to utter that she was innocent.
The tension in his face melted away, and more tears filled his eyes. He seemed to straighten, and his eyes were softer as he regarded her. “I believe you, Celia. I do.”
“Then help Stan to believe me,” she said. “Please Nick. I need you to help Stan believe me.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” he told her. “I promise.”
She gave him a hug, and he started to get up. “Nick? Tell him to trust in the Lord with all his might. And then he can trust in me.”
Nick nodded and left her alone.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The dialysis did wonders for Stan, making him feel better than he’d felt since he’d been poisoned. It seemed that no major damage had been done to his organs, though the arsenic had taken its toll on him, and it would be weeks, maybe months, before he was restored to his former energy level.
They released him from the hospital with strict orders for his mother, who was going to care for him at home. Because his parents were sensitive to his need to return to some form of normalcy, they decided to move into his own house with him so he could sleep in his own bed and be surrounded by his own things. Newpointe police officers would continue their rotational guard of him.
Nick caught him in the corridor as they wheeled him out in his obligatory wheelchair. Stan’s father tried to intervene, but Stan insisted on a moment with him alone. Nick wheeled him back into his room and sat down in front of him. “I spoke to Celia this morning,” he said. “Stan, I know things look grim for your marriage, but I want you to reconsider your trust in her.”
Stan almost laughed. “This is a role reversal, isn’t it? Last time we talked, I was the one telling you to stop doubting her.”
“I did doubt her,” Nick said. “You were right. But when I met with her, I could tell that she wasn’t lying. She’s not guilty, Stan. You’ve got to trust her.”
He closed his eyes. “How is she doing?”
“She’s good,” he said. “Better than I could have imagined. She said to tell you to trust in the Lord.”
Stan’s eyes came open. “Trust in the Lord?” he asked. “Is that exactly what she said?”
“Yep. Exactly.”
Stan remembered the verse the Lord had given him just last night. Trust in the Lord…
It sounded like something Celia would say. That childlike faith came so easily to her. That bottom line that made it a done deal, even when others would have sought counsel and groped around for meaning and understanding. Celia didn’t need much. A simple verse of Script
ure.
“I know you can’t get around much,” Nick said. “But if you felt like going to visit her later, I could take you. We could put you in a wheelchair and you wouldn’t have to walk…”
Hope blossomed with the idea, but then the image of her in Lee Barnett’s arms—that irretractable image that would not let go—stopped him. “I’ll think about it.”
Nick gave him a skeptical look.
“No really,” Stan said. “I just need to pray about it. I need to think.”
“All right.” Nick took his hand, shook it firmly. “Get some rest, okay? I’ll be praying for you. And if you need me, anytime, man, I’m there.”
The sight of his house as they pulled into the driveway brought a fresh onslaught of grief. Stan sat in the front seat of his father’s car, wishing he could go in and find Celia waiting there, as she always was, full of news about her day, fluttering around him trying to help him unwind from whatever case he’d been absorbed in. The thought that he may never have that again was too much to bear. For a moment, he made no move to get out of the car, just sat there, staring at the door from the garage into the kitchen.
He tried to grapple with the logic of avoiding her. If he did, wouldn’t he be sealing his fate, discarding his marriage, throwing her to the wolves? And what if she really was innocent? Could he live with himself if he’d turned against her?
Maybe Nick was right. Maybe he did need to see her. If he could just touch her, look in her eyes…he would know the truth. He knew he would. He’d been lied to countless times during his career as a cop, and his detective instincts hadn’t been damaged by the arsenic. He would know, if he saw her. It would be obvious to him.
He got out of the car, staggering slightly, and his mother helped him walk to the door. “You sure you don’t need the wheelchair, hon?” she asked.
“I’m sure. I can make it.”
T.J. Porter was the guard on duty, and he parked his squad car out front and carried his bag in as his father pulled the wheelchair out of the trunk of the car. He waited as he gave his mother the key, and she unlocked the door leading in from the garage. It opened, and he stepped inside, his eyes scanning the kitchen, which was still in disarray from the investigation. Slowly, he walked through the kitchen into the living room.