Blindside

“It was just me, Sheriff, and I’m enough to deal with you. I’m sorry, Reverend McCamy, but she’s got a gun, you know. It’s right there in her belt holster. I didn’t want her to hurt you. You, Mr. Kettering, you get away from Reverend McCamy!”

Miles stepped away.

Katie remembered seeing Mr. Boone on Sunday, at the Sinful Children of God. She said, “Do you believe in this madman enough to try to kill me and Keely and Mr. Kettering to get to Sam?”

“I didn’t try to kill nobody.”

“Just be quiet, Thomas. Go away from here.”

“No, Reverend, not just yet. I’ve got to tell her how it really was, that I wasn’t there to hurt anyone, then she’ll leave you alone. I did what I had to do, Sheriff, what the Reverend and God commanded me to do.”

“What are you talking about, Mr. Boone? God doesn’t have anything to do with this. It was this madman who gave you your marching orders. It was this madman who ordered you to take Sam. Didn’t you hear what happened to the other two men he sent to get Sam?”

“I heard, Sheriff. You killed both of them. You, a woman, killed two men. You’re an abomination.”

Katie could only stare at him and shake her head. “And just look at what you did. You threw gas bombs into my kitchen and fired at me in my truck. Then you stayed around and tried to kill me again. What were you thinking?”

Mr. Boone, asthmatic all his life, panted hard now because he was scared. The drizzling rain and cold air had gone into his chest, he could feel it, choking off his air. He looked at the man who had helped him before, the saintly man who’d laid his hands on his chest and prayed and had eased his breathing. Thomas had known it was a miracle. He looked over at Reverend McCamy.

“It was God’s orders as well,” Reverend McCamy shouted. “I promised that you would be rewarded, Thomas. I promised that I would heal your asthma forever, but only if you finished what you started.”

Katie asked, “What else did the Reverend here offer you as a reward, Mr. Boone?”

“He promised me that I would be his deacon. I’ve always wanted that and now I’ll have it, and I’ll be able to breathe free and easy for the rest of my life.”

Katie had dealt with teenage gang members, drug dealers, homicides, and rapes in Knoxville, but never had she heard thinking as bizarre as this.

She drew in a deep breath, and held out her hand to Mr. Boone. “Did you think even once about your mother and your grandmother, what this would do to them? Listen to me. This man isn’t holy, he’s insane. Do you have any idea what deep trouble you’re in? Now, put down that damned rifle.”

But Mr. Boone held on to the rifle like it was his lifeline, and perhaps, in his mind, it was. He kept it steady on her chest.

Katie said to Reverend McCamy, “I believe that in Hollywood they would say the jig’s up, sir. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me before I take you to my cozy jail?”

“Damn you, Sheriff, why don’t you believe me?”

“Of course I don’t believe you,” she said, warning signs going off in her head because he was losing it fast. “I’m not mad.”

“You stupid woman!” He lurched away and ran to the bookshelf behind his desk. He jerked books off the shelf, hurling them to the floor, reached in and pulled out what appeared to be a videotape.

“I’ll prove it to you! Look at this tape! This proves what I’m saying! I’m not insane-it’s on this tape!”

“What’s on the tape, Reverend?” Katie asked.

“You’ll see,” Reverend McCamy said, tears still ru

He shoved the video into the machine slot, turned on the TV and there it was, without his doing anything else. He obviously kept the TV set to video, ready for this tape.

There was a hissing sound from the tape, and then the grainy sound and squiggly lines faded away. The focus wasn’t very good, and there was motion because the camera wasn’t being held steady. Miles realized that it was a home movie, of sorts. Of what? The camera came to a stop on Sam, a younger Sam, maybe three years old, lying on his old bed in his child’s bedroom in their first house in Alexandria, wearing only his pajama bottoms. He was thrashing around, moaning, or delirious. He was heaving, arching his back, his arms and legs flailing. The jerking camera moved in closer. Miles thought he heard a person crying, probably the person videotaping his son. Was it Alicia?

Miles knew nothing of this, nothing. He watched Sam’s arms fly over his head, watched the camera zoom in on his fisted hands. Then his small hands opened, slowly.

There was blood on Sam’s palms. And it was ru

Miles stopped breathing. Blood? Sam had been bleeding? When? Why hadn’t Alicia told him?

The woman was crying loudly now, and the camera was shaking so badly everything went blurry, then suddenly, it went to black.

Reverend McCamy hit the stop button, but he didn’t look away from the blank TV screen. His breath was coming fast and hard, and his dark eyes were glazed. It was almost as if he was in some sort of ecstasy. Miles watched as his hands slowly unfurled, the palms open, just like Sam’s had, and now he was panting, shivering, as if he were in that film with Sam, as if his body wanted desperately to simulate what had happened to Sam.

Reverend McCamy whispered as he continued to stare at the blank TV screen, “Did you see? The child, like Christ, is God’s victim and God’s sacrifice, here to make the world know His power, and through Samuel’s ecstasy, understand God’s love and His limitless compassion.

“Samuel, in those moments, those precious moments, was as close to God as any of us will ever be in this life.”

33

R everend McCamy stared at the screen, his wild eyes seeing what was no longer there, but was only there in his mind, so deep that he’d made himself mad with it. Or maybe the madness had come first.

There was a moment of stark silence.

Miles didn’t move, just said to Reverend McCamy, his voice calm and steady, “You’re telling me that you had Sam kidnapped because you saw a video of an obviously sick, delirious little boy, who, for whatever reason, had blood on his hands?”

Katie felt as if someone had smacked her upside the head and she’d never seen it coming. When Reverend McCamy had spoken of the stigmata, she’d thought of it as another of the ravings of a fanatic, certainly nothing to do with Sam.

What was all this about stigmata? From what she’d read, which wasn’t much at all, the people who’d supposedly displayed the marks of the Cross seemed very ill, both physically and mentally. But why was there blood on Sam’s hands in the video? Was that his mother taping this? It was obvious Miles didn’t know a thing about it. Why in heaven’s name hadn’t Miles’s wife told him about this?

“This must have happened about three years ago, Reverend McCamy,” Miles said. “Why did you wait three years to take Sam?”

Reverend McCamy looked suddenly at his wife, and his eyes went even wilder. “Elsbeth, stay back! Close your robe, woman, you’re showing your body to these people, to this man!”

“I’m looking at you, Reverend, not your damned wife.”

“I’m sorry, Reverend McCamy, I’m so sorry.” Elsbeth turned away, frantically tying the sash on her silk robe again.

Reverend McCamy looked back at Miles. “Taking the boy, it should have been so simple, but I hadn’t yet seen the boy, and so how could he understand? He managed to escape. Don’t you see? God wants the boy to be with me.”