Healing Stones (20 page)

And why should he laugh? St. Clair, that was his name, was making noises about asking the board for his resignation. Students were protesting in front of Huntington Hall—BACK TO THE BIBLE, their signs said. Where was it they thought Ethan Kaye had been—hell itself?

They were like predators, those people at the college—only their manipulations were so subtle, half the town was on their side and they didn't even know what line they'd crossed to get there. It was time to draw them out—Estes and St. Clair and the rest. Which, Sully thought as he reached into the bag of rocks and pulled out a small clam shovel, was why he'd chosen this spot. It didn't matter where he collected rocks for his next session with Demi, or that he was digging for geoduck when the tide wasn't at its lowest, as long as he was in front of the home of Kevin St. Sanctimonious.

Sully leaned on the shovel and looked down Hood Canal. He liked this part of Puget Sound, so much that it was a shame it was polluted with the likes of Ethan's nemesis. An inland fjord, the saltwater canal wound up the Olympic Peninsula like a playful necklace of funky little towns with names like Lilliwaup and Duckabush and Dosewallips. Houses teetered playfully on the edge of the shoreline, cozying up to the water at high tide, overlooking mucky flats at low.

The tide was almost low now, which meant a few people were out digging clams and picking the oysters they'd earlier “planted” in bales of oyster seeds and put in the water.

“Kevin didn't do his research when he bought that house,” Ethan had told Sully. “He was so into the square footage and the granite countertops, I don't think he stopped to think about the fact that his view was going to be a mud flat half the time.”

Personally, Sully loved the mud. It was April luscious, squishing noisily under his rubber boots. He loved the geoduck thing. Spotting a squirt arching over the sand—running to find it before it stopped to bury itself and you lost your place—peering down to see the ring of the neck playing hide-and-seek. It was play Sully couldn't resist. And with any luck, it would draw out the vulture.

Sully pretended to sight a telltale squirt, loped to it, and dug. He'd learned from the slow talking, practically barnacle-covered old guy at the Hana Hana Seafood Company that sometimes you had to dig a three-foot hole to get to the overgrown clamlike animal that lived half out of its shell.

Ethan had assured him that the longer and deeper he dug, right in front of Kevin's place, the more likely Kevin would come out with his hackles up. Especially on a Tuesday afternoon—St. Clair's day to work at home. Ethan predicted he'd be sitting in his turret at his computer, surveying his domain. And that he wouldn't be happy to see Sully digging holes in “his” beach.

Sully whistled and dug for the geoduck that wasn't, tossing shovelfuls of wet pebble-sand in chaotic fashion.

“I give it thirty minutes max before he's out there,” Ethan had predicted.

He was over by fifteen.

Sully pretended not to be aware of the loose-limbed figure clad in khakis and a Mr. Rogers sweater until he was almost on top of him saying, “Excuse me.”

Kevin scowled through baggy-lidded eyes. Sully had the vague thought that this man had lost all muscle tone, and yet he was only in his midforties.

“Gorgeous afternoon, isn't it?” Sully said. “Ya'll don't much get weather like this up here in April, do you?” He grinned sloppily, by design. “'Course it is only April first.”

“You're aware that you're digging right in front of my home?” Kevin said.

“That your place?” Sully shaded his eyes unnecessarily with the shovel, dripping mud near the toes of Kevin's loafers. Who wore loafers to walk on a mud flat?

“It is.” Kevin stepped back. “Now, this is not a private beach.”

“Naw, I didn't think so. Pretty hard to own a beach, isn't it?” Sully waved the shovel toward the bundles of oyster seeds, once again sending the mud into flight. “I bet you'd like to, though. I imagine you could make yourself a nice load of cash selling oysters and clams. Not to mention these babies.” Sully peered down into the empty hole. “I love me some geoduck, sautéed in olive oil with some of those—what do you call 'em?—croutons?”

“Look.” Kevin ran his hand over his thinning hair without touching it, disturbing not a strand. “Like I say, this isn't a private beach, but I have a photographer coming over here this afternoon to take pictures of the place.”

A photographer. No way it was going to be this easy. Sully had to scramble to keep from diving right at it.

“You're not selling?”

Kevin shook his head impatiently. “No, of course not. Local magazine wants to do a piece on it.”

“Now isn't that great,” Sully said. He tried not to exaggerate his grin, but this was too much fun.

“It
will
be great,” Kevin said, “if it's not all dug up.” His mouth seemed to grow larger with the scowl, which Sully watched with fascination. “I'm just asking you to move on down the beach—if you don't mind.”

“Don't mind at all.” Sully stuffed his shovel into the sack with the stones, making a point of jostling the bag so the rocks would create a clatter. “You sure got a nice place.”

“Thank you,” Kevin said coldly, and scowled at the bag, ear cocked to the sound.

He obviously wanted to know what else was in there. Sully almost chuckled.

“Can I ask what you do for a living to afford digs like that?” He waited for Kevin to tell him it was none of his business, but the man's chest rose beneath his crossed arms.

“I'm a Christian college administrator,” he said.

Sully whistled. Though Kevin smirked at him, he went on.

“I'm a missionary, actually.”

“I thought missionaries lived in hovels.”

“I'm blessed. The kind of mission work I do pays well—though I try to give back.”

“Oh, sure,” Sully said. “Ten percent probably.”

“Are you a Christian?”
Kevin asked.

“Absolutely.”

Kevin peered at him closely, drawing his eyes into a squint that strained the bags beneath them.

“Nice to meet a fellow believer. You are a believer, right? You're more than a ‘cultural Christian'?”

Holy crow.

“Yes, sir,” Sully forced himself to say. “So—what's your mission?”

“You know anything about Covenant Christian College?”

“I'm new here.”

“You'll find out more if you read the papers.” Kevin shook his head with studied rue. “It could be one of the finest faith-based institutions of learning in the country—and it will be if I have my way.”

“What's stopping it?” Sully said.

“Liberals.”

“Now, when you say liberals,” Sully said, “you mean—”

“Liberals believe everything's okay, as long as it's right for you,” Kevin said. “There are no absolute truths—they use the Bible to pick and choose what they want to believe, and they live by that, instead of by the one clear truth that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God, and that the only way to eternal life is through a steadfast, unwavering belief in Him.”

“You have people at the college who think anything goes?” Sully said. He didn't have to work hard to sound incredulous.

To his surprise, Kevin edged toward him as if he were about to impart another absolute truth. Sully smelled fabric softener on his sweater.

“You would be surprised how they disguise it,” he said. “They say they're all about letting the students explore their doubts.” He grunted. “They would let them explore their way right into hell if it were left to them.”

“
Them
meaning the current administration,” Sully said.

Kevin nodded soberly and blinked his eyes against the wind that was picking up on the canal. It struck Sully that Kevin St. Clair clearly felt angst over this. He was hurting for his faith, for those who would water it down.

But there was fear in the man's eyes as well. Blinding fear.

“We'll get them, though.” Kevin looked at Sully as if he were seeing him differently. “Sorry if I was abrupt with you earlier. I want these pictures to draw people into the article, because in my interview for it, I was able to express some of these same things. I want people to know what's happening. That's the way I've saved four other colleges.”

Again Sully didn't have to pretend to be surprised.

“I hope that doesn't sound like I'm bragging,” St. Clair said. “The glory goes to God.”

Sully couldn't say anything.

And he couldn't get away fast enough.

I composed the list of stone throwers that Sullivan Crisp told me to make in my head about seventeen times before I actually put it on paper. The thought of writing it down produced too much anxiety at first, but I was seeing him that afternoon—and Demitria Costanas did not show up for class without her homework.

When I did huddle into a corner in the prep room at Daily Bread with a cup of jasmine tea, I flushed into a sweat from the neck up. Why was it so hard?

Because I was afraid there were going to be more names on it than I'd been willing to admit.

First I did what Sullivan said and silently told God I was doing it for Him. There was no answer, so I went on.

There were the usual contestants, as Sullivan would have called them.

RICH COSTANAS

CHRISTOPHER COSTANAS

JAYNE COSTANAS

I paused on that one. How could I know what my daughter thought? It had been weeks since I'd heard her halting adolescent voice or seen the subtle changes in her mood flit through her eyes like newly unfurled butterflies looking for a place to land. She was right in the middle of coming together as a whole Jayne—how could she possibly know how she felt about me from one flit to another?

My fist tightened around the pen. Maybe I shouldn't stop and have a conversation with myself over every name. No matter what Sullivan said, I didn't have that kind of time. I only had to hear the chime of someone entering the restaurant, and I was convinced it was the sheriff with divorce papers.

Okay, who else?

KEVIN ST. CLAIR

WYATT ESTES

I rolled the pen back and forth between my palms, which were now sparkling with sweat. It wasn't that long a list. It merely cut deep.

MY MOTHER

I could not go there—though there was part of me that believed she'd secretly applaud my unfaithfulness to Rich. She had disliked him that much.

MY BROTHERS

They would at least be disappointed. Actually, Nathan would say the church had done it to me. He blamed everything on the church— including our father's death. That was a stretch from a collision with a tractor-trailer rig on a slippery night, when Daddy was exhausted from a day of fighting for the church to take a more active role on the issue of domestic violence. Nathan had made that stretch like a yoga master, and never turned back.

Liam—I no longer knew him well enough to predict how he would react to anything I did. How had that happened?

I wiped my palms on my drawstring pants. I was stalling. Putting off writing down . . .

DADDY

A flood of pain came over me like a veritable tsunami. Not because I knew what he would think or what he would say or how he would look at me if I went to him with this. It was agony because I
didn't
know. I didn't know him at all.

I had come close—it was almost time for me to know him. Two weeks before he died, he'd told me he was taking me with him to an event in New York. All I could think about was having him to myself. I already had my suitcase packed except for my toothbrush. Six weeks after my father's death my mother discovered it and unpacked it. I wasn't sure I ever forgave her for that. I even had a list of topics I wanted to discuss with my father while we were flying across the country or eating genuine New York pizza or riding in the subway. I found that crumpled in my wastebasket the day my mother unpacked the suitcase. It was such a desecration of my father's memory, I secretly ironed the list and kept it in my King James Bible. It had moved to every translation I'd used since then.

“Hi—I'll be right with you,” Audrey said.

I pulled myself back to the Daily Bread and looked up at the customer Audrey was greeting, a man with a Chia-pet crop of hair set on the back of a shiny head. Before I could duck behind the swinging doors, he caught my eyes with his needley ones.

“The person I was looking for,” he said.

Audrey cocked her head at me like a puppy waiting for instructions.

“It's okay,” I said, though my hackles stood up one by one. I folded the list and stuck it into my apron pocket as I moved toward him.

He stood, hands in his own pockets, surveying the restaurant. He seemed surprisingly interested.

“Great place,” he said.

“You here for lunch?” I said. I could always hope.

”Sure—as long as I'm here I could eat.” His eyes scanned the menu Audrey had painstakingly printed on the dry erase board. “What's good?”

“Everything,” I said stiffly.

“Surprise me.”

He
moved to a table, still scoping out the décor, the display of teas, the case of baked goods. When he sat down, I marched toward him and took the chair across from him.

“All right,” I said, “let's not pretend you came in here for the split pea soup.” I leaned across the salt lamp and lowered my voice. “I've told you to leave me—and my family—alone. That includes my friends who own this restaurant. They don't need a scene in here.”

He shook his head, hands spread like a jazz dancer's in front of him. “No scene intended. And I'm not here to pry.”

“You're a reporter. Of course you're here to pry.”

“Not about your personal life—please—that's not what I'm about.”

My face must have shown that I thought he was as full of soup as he could possibly be, because he stopped smiling and looked at me soberly.