Defenders of the Faith Page 8

  Paul had talked to both pastors about Lee, and Bill Geyer suggested to the Bollers that it might be best if Lee no longer attended Youth Fellowship. Jeremy Boller replied that he and his wife felt that YF had a good influence on their son, and that he wanted Lee to attend. Geyer told Paul later that there was an unspoken threat of legal action should Lee be prohibited from coming to YF, but one that they would have to face if worse came to worst.

  It did. The first Sunday in December, Tim Rockland suffered a drug overdose an hour after Youth Fellowship was over.

  When Tim got home that night, he watched some television, then went upstairs to get ready for bed. When his parents had not heard any sounds from above for several minutes, his father, George Rockland, went upstairs to rush his son along, and found him lying unconscious on the bathroom floor. An ambulance arrived, and medics pumped the boy's stomach and took him to Buchanan General Hospital, where doctors resuscitated and treated him.

  When he was able to talk, he told his parents that he had found a stamp in his jacket pocket when he got home from YF. On it was a picture of Severus Snape from the Harry Potter books, and Tim had licked it and stuck it on a school notebook. Then he had gone into the bathroom to get his bath, and that was all he remembered.

  His father went home, found the notebook with the stamp on it, and took it to the police. Tests indicated that the glue on the back of the stamp had been laced with four large doses of a narcotic. One alone would have been capable of rendering a boy as slight as Tim Rockland unconscious.

  Tim said that the stamp had not been in his pocket before he went to YF that evening. When asked if he had any idea of who might have put it there, the only person he could think of was Lee Boller.

  The problem was that Tim had not actually seen Lee Boller put the stamp in his pocket, so the police contacted all those who attended the meeting and asked if they had seen anyone place an object in a jacket pocket the night before. No one had, including Paul Blair.

  The call from the police was the first indication Paul had that anything was wrong. The detective who made the call politely refused him any further information, so he immediately called Bill Geyer, who told Paul the story.

  "No matter what happens," Geyer said, "I'm calling in Jerry Boller. We're going to have this out once and for all. God forgive me for my lack of tolerance, but that boy's not coming back to this church. He might have killed Tim."

  He might have killed Tim, Paul thought as he hung up the phone. Tim, who, years before, Paul Blair had seen baptized. Tim, who Paul had sworn to preserve and defend.

  Defend, from people like Lee Boller.

  That evil bastard.

  Paul had no doubt that it had been Lee who put the stamp in Tim's pocket. It was an act of cruel cunning, and Paul had seen cruelty in that pimply face from the day he'd met the boy. He was glad Bill Geyer was so angry. The only answer was removing Lee Boller from the body of the church. If he never again poisoned anyone's body, he could poison spirits, the spirits of his children, the ones he watched over, who were growing older, more daring, more willing to go ahead and try it.

  No. If Bill was not successful in talking Jeremy Boller into keeping his son at home, then Paul would have to do something else.

  Something.

  Chapter 18

  Two days later Bill Geyer sat down with Jeremy and Diane Boller, and ran headfirst into a stone wall. After Geyer told them what had happened and who Tim Rockland suspected, Jeremy Boller told him that suspicions meant nothing without witnesses, and that publicly accusing his son on circumstantial evidence could easily lead to a slander suit, something which everyone would want to avoid.

  When Geyer then suggested that at the very least Lee no longer attend Youth Fellowship, Jeremy Boller stated very calmly that he and his wife felt that Youth Fellowship had a beneficial effect on Lee, and since the activity was open to everyone, he wanted Lee to continue to attend.

  ~ * ~

  "And that was it?" asked Paul the next day.

  "No." Bill Geyer shook his head and tossed another paper clip into the cup on his desk. "There were a couple of not too veiled threats of legal action if dear little Lee was excluded from any of the church's youth programs."

  "So he'll be back."

  "I'm talking to our attorney tomorrow. But I have to keep everything very low key."

  "You can't let him back in, Bill."

  "And I can't tear the church apart over it either. Jeremy Boller has made a lot of friends here."

  "But once they hear what this boy did -- "

  "They won't hear, because Jerry's right about one thing -- there isn't any proof. Just Tim's supposition. And our suspicions."

  "But you know that he did it."

  "Gut feelings don't stand up in court."

  "But you have to do something, Bill -- before he hurts somebody else."

  "I'm doing all I can. And I intend to pray about it. You come up with any great ideas, you let me know."

  Paul had come up with an idea, all right, but not one that he could let Bill Geyer know about.

  He thought that weekends would be the best time to catch Lee Boller doing what he should not do, so the next Saturday night he drove to the street on which the Bollers lived. He parked his car several houses up from theirs, and in an hour Lee's car, a new Mazda Miata, pulled out of the driveway and headed toward town. Paul followed.

  Through the next three weeks Paul tailed the boy at random times, and learned that he spent Saturday afternoons driving from mall to mall, and hanging out at the arcades. He couldn't see what Lee did there, since he didn't want the boy to spot him. Saturday nights he went to as many as half a dozen clubs, both for teenagers and for adults. But it was not until the third week, when he tailed Lee Boller on a Friday night, that Paul understood the pattern.

  That evening he followed the boy into the fourth ward of Buchanan, an area in the southeastern part of the city filled with warehouses and tenements, and occupied by minorities and the poor. Paul knew no one who lived there. He had seldom driven in the area, and found it difficult to keep Lee in sight amid the twists and turns of the irrationally laid out streets.

  He had just speeded around a corner when he saw Lee's dark gray car less than twenty yards ahead of him, parked next to a hydrant. Paul drove past, hoping it was too dark for the boy to see him. He needn't have worried. Lee was already out of the car, heading into an alley.

  Paul parked in the first space he could find, and trotted back to the mouth of the alley which had swallowed Lee Boller. He hugged the walls of the buildings, hoping to blend in if Lee should suddenly reappear. At the alley's mouth, he stopped, then looked around the brick side of the building.

  Lee was thirty yards down the alley. Another man was next to him, his face hidden by the darkness and the wide brim of a hat. Something changed hands, and Lee Boller turned around and walked back toward Paul, who yanked his head back just in time, and started running back toward his car.

  He had seen that as Lee turned he had been starting to tuck a package into his coat, something the size of a hardcover book, wrapped in brown paper.

  Paul knew it had to be drugs.

  That was the routine then. Buy it on Friday, sell it on Saturday, and then Sunday school, church, and Youth Fellowship on Sunday. And maybe, Paul thought as he crouched behind his car, waiting for Lee's Miata to pass by, a few extra little sales on the way out of YF Sunday night. A couple of comments to the younger kids about being scared to try something, here, try it, just once won't hurt you, go ahead, and they're hooked. But if Lee gets mad, then maybe a little sticker in the pocket. Or maybe, next time, a little something in the punch, and everybody gets high. Or sick.

  Or dead.

  The bastard. The filthy little bastard.

  As Paul sat in his car on the dark, strange street, he thought that at that very moment he could have killed Lee Boller. After all, he had killed before, and for the same reasons -- to save lives, to rid the world of something evil.
>
  But there had to be other options, and he thought about them as he drove home, as he sat alone in his big house, as he lay in his large bed. If he told the police, they would want to set up an operation to catch the boy while he was actually selling the drugs, and Paul wondered if Buchanan's force was up to the task. If the sting was not perfectly carried out, Jeremy Boller would have his son free within minutes, and would no doubt initiate a lawsuit against the police, Paul, and probably the church, if there was any way to do it. Even if the boy was convicted, he was a juvenile, and would be back on the street -- and possibly in the church -- in a matter of months, having learned the destructive lessons that only prisons can teach.

  All right, if not the police or the jails, then Paul himself would have to...

  Kill him? That was the last resort, and if it became necessary, he thought he could do it. But he had to give him a chance first, had to warn him, and make him realize the seriousness of his offense.

  And what better way than with the Holy Scriptures? A verse that would tell Lee Boller that someone knew what he was doing, and that if he did not stop, he would die.

  Paul went through his biblical concordance for several hours before finding the right verses. The first selection was the words of Christ from Mark's gospel:

  And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

  The second was from Saint Paul's letter to the Romans:

  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

  The next day Paul printed the words of the verses in block letters on a piece of cheap tablet paper, and signed it, "One Who Sees," then sealed the paper in an envelope. The following Friday afternoon, he left the store early and went to the Buchanan High School parking lot. He waited until he saw no one, then got out of his car and slipped the envelope under the driver's side wiper blade of Lee Boller's Miata. He found a place off school property from which he could see the car, and waited until 2:50, when the students left the building.

  Lee Boller did not notice the envelope until he unlocked his car door and started to climb inside. Then he reached around with a long arm and yanked the note into the car with him. In a few seconds Paul saw the letter and envelope, now crumpled, fly out of the car. The door slammed, the car's engine growled itself awake, and the car surged out of the parking lot. Paul ducked behind his dashboard until it was past. Even through his closed windows he could hear the heavy bass beat of the Miata's audio speakers.

  Paul started his car, drove into the lot past the white ball of paper, opened his door and scooped it up, then drove home.

  Lee Boller had read it. But would he think about it? Or had his cavalier act of tossing it away been indicative of clearing it from his mind as well? Paul feared the latter was true, and dreaded what he knew he would have to do.

  But if he had to, he could. He would follow Lee Boller, and if he went where he had gone before, Paul would be ready. He would not allow this young serpent to harm or tempt the children in his Eden. He had done what he could, and now it was time for God's hand to guide his own.

  Chapter 19

  From among his guns, he chose the .38 Smith and Wesson Special, Model 14, with which he had killed William Davonier. God had guided that gun in his hand before, and He would do it again.

  Looking at it less metaphysically, it was a revolver, with nothing to jam, and the empties would remain firmly in the cylinder until he ejected them later. He cocked the hammer, tried the action, and found it as smooth as ever, then loaded five wadcutters in the cylinder and closed it so that an empty chamber lay beneath the firing pin. He zipped the pistol into a soft leather case, and tried to eat some dinner.

  Paul decided that he would not go to Lee Boller's house tonight, but would drive directly to the street in the fourth ward where the previous exchange had been made. If Lee showed up, as Paul thought he would and hoped he would not, his path was clear.

  That night it was with more than cold that Paul Blair shivered as he sat in his car. His faith in his God and himself was not so strong that he did not think about once more becoming a killer. Thou shalt not kill kept running through his mind, even though he told himself that the original Hebrew implied Thou shalt not murder.

  There was a difference. Murder was evil, done for gain, or ill will, or vile purposes. His motive in shooting Lee Boller, just as in shooting the monster who had taken Peter Hurst, was due to none of these. He was killing to end an evil, stop a plague that could destroy the innocence of the children he had sworn to protect. What lay ahead for Lee Boller except more evil, an escalation of the crimes he had already committed, a continuing growth of harder and hornier shell over whatever good still remained at his core?

  The headlights of an approaching car shone through Paul's back window, and he slouched lower in his seat, but it passed by. The weather had been unseasonably warm the past few days, and he had taken care to drive through as many dirty puddles of melted snow as possible, so that the salt grime disguised his already nondescript sedan. He had even slathered his license plate with a layer of thin mud and brine, making the numbers and letters visible only if you looked very carefully.

  Another car approached from the opposite direction, and Paul leaned down again, patting the padded leather gun case under the seat as if to reassure himself that it was still there. Again, the car passed.

  But the next car did not. In the semi-darkness Paul could make out the stylish profile of the Miata as it stopped across the street, several car lengths away. His heart began to pound in his chest. His top coat felt suddenly heavy, and the inside of the car became stifling. He opened the window a crack and breathed in the cooler air.

  He had not expected this sudden loss of nerve. He had thought he had prepared himself, that he could function as smoothly, effortlessly, and unemotionally as when he had pointed his pistol at the head of William Davonier. And now he was trembling, terrified at the thought of what he was going to have to do to Lee Boller.

  But that was the key, wasn't it? What he was going to have to do. There was no choice involved. He was God's instrument to protect the little ones from this young monster's poisons.

  It was Paul's duty, and he would not shirk it.

  The door of the Miata opened, and Paul saw Lee Boller climb out, casually look up and down the street, then cross it and walk toward the mouth of the alley.

  Paul reached under the seat and took the pistol from the unzipped case. He cocked it so that a live shell was under the hammer, put his index finger on the outside of the trigger guard and held his thumb on the hammer. He waited until Lee disappeared into the alley, then opened the car door. He had put tape over the light button, so it remained dark inside. He got out slowly, the gun against his right thigh, and pushed the door gently closed until the latch just caught.

  Then he walked to the alley, wishing that his heart would stop pumping so hard, and that he could breathe easier breaths than the shallow pants that seemed so loud to him. He closed his mouth and made himself breathe through his nose, but it was starting to run from the cold, and he opened his mouth again, made himself take deeper, slower breaths, paused for a moment, leaned against the wall, and tried to stop shaking, but could not.

  All right, he told himself, there's no time for this, you have a job to do. He offered up a very quick prayer. It helped, and he licked his dry lips, and looked around the brick wall and into the alley.

  Lee Boller was standing twenty yards away, his back to Paul, talking to the short man in the wide brimmed hat. Though the man was facing Paul, he knew he was invisible in the shadows. Paul quickly looked behind him to make sure no one was coming, then leaned against the corner of the wall, raised the pistol in his right hand, and tried to bring the iron sights on the back of Lee Boller's head.

  It was difficult to frame the sight pictu
re in the dim light, harder still to hold the gun on a human being. Paul tried to think of the sphere of the boy's head as a target, nothing more, a twenty yard slow fire pistol target, at whose black center he had fired thousands of rounds over the years with a steady hand, and he focused on the sights, trying to keep them aligned on the target, just a target.

  But he could not successfully dissociate paper from flesh, and a trembling came over his arm so that he had to turn his body, grasp his right hand with his left, and take a combat stance, his shoulder still against the bricks as if their solidity would strengthen his resolve. His breathing grew more ragged, and he tried desperately to hold the gun steady just long enough to get off a shot.

  But his hands kept shaking, and he knew that this was as steady as he could get, and when the iron sights crossed the circle of Lee Boller's head, he tried to squeeze the trigger, but jerked it instead, pulling the sights out of alignment, the barrel down and to the left. The roar of the shot filled his head, the muzzle flash in the dark blinded him for a moment, and when he looked he saw that the man in the hat was falling down, and that part of his face was missing.

  Paul's terror whirled him around the corner, sent him running, chest thumping, to his car, yanking open the door, leaping in, fumbling with his key, and the car starting, slamming his foot on the accelerator, lurching into the street and driving fast, fast, until the first stop sign, and he stopped, had to, terrified at being pulled over by a police car, thinking that his face would tell what he had done.

  Except for the stop signs and the red lights, he did not stop his car until he was home, and he sat in the garage for a long time, still smelling the ghost of burned powder. He turned and saw that the pistol was on the seat next to him, and he grabbed it in panic and stuffed it into the leather case, as if hiding it would hide what he had done.

  The wrong man. Dear Lord, he had shot the wrong man.

  He sat for a long time, telling himself that maybe it was all right, that the man he had shot was just as bad or even worse than Lee Boller. After all, he had been Lee's supplier, hadn't he? Heaven only knew how many more people Lee Boller's age he sold drugs to.