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“You sure about that?”She flipped open the folder containing what little information they’d gathered on Mercer thus far.“It looks to me like your grades went sideways halfway through the second semester.What happened?”
He gave a minute shake of the head – somewhere he didn’t want to go.She wondered if there was another story hidden here.Failing grades, declining mental health.Young men in particular seemed to develop psychotic tendencies in the eighteen to twenty-two age bracket.Mercer didn’t look much older than twenty-two himself.
“How do you support yourself?”Kate asked.“I don’t imagine God pays your rent.”
“I deliver pizzas,” he said stonily.“My blog followers make donations.”
“It looks like a hard life,” Kate said.“When did you last buy new clothes?”
“I’m not interested in the things of this world,” he replied.“Only in God’s word.”
“Okay, so God told you to quit school and become a prophet,” she said.“And you did that.What would you have done if he’d told you to murder someone?”
“Why don’t you understand?”he said angrily.“I don’tact.Ispeak.A prophet speaks.”
“Some things on your blog sound like you’re capable of going further.”
“I explained why it had to happen.That doesn’t mean that I doused them with gasoline and set them on fire.I don’t know who He chose for that task, but it wasn’t me.”
“Why do you want us to call you The Lawgiver?”
“What?”
He looked genuinely baffled by her question.She noted that, but pressed on.
“Where were you on the evenings of the twelfth and the fourteenth?”
“On the twelfth I worked a twelve to twelve shift; you can check with my boss.Yesterday, I was at home.Writing my blog.Praying.”
“Can anyone vouch for you?”
He stared blankly at her.“You could probably see from the blog updates and the chat afterwards,” he said, eventually.“Though that doesn’t prove I was the one who wrote them.I live alone.”
She wasn’t surprised to hear that.But she was surprised at her own reaction to it.Mercer spent his life alone.The blog, the messages from God, the special mission of prophecy, they were a fantasy version of the connections, the relationships that Mercer lacked.He was a bright young man who’d somehow fallen through the cracks.She actually pitied him.
She also sensed he might be innocent.Maybe he was imprecise, perhaps he said “gasoline” when he meant “diesel,” or he didn’t think the difference was important.It wasn’t – unless you were filling an engine.Or your life and liberty depended on it.
But he’d looked genuinely surprised when she’d mentioned “Lawgiver.”Surprised, confused, and a little incredulous.
She couldn’t rule him out, though.Not yet.
“What about Father Thomas?I can see why someone like Professor Whitman attracted criticism because of the things he said about religion.But why the Father?Do you think he deserved what happened to him?”
“My Mom thought he was wonderful,” Mercer said quietly, looking down at the table.
“Did they get too close?”
Mercer flashed her a disgusted look.“My mother was a woman of honor!She would never have disgraced my father’s memory in that way.I hated him.I hate that kind of priest, with their cute, cozy conception of the Almighty.Getting God to bless the Little League team, talking about ‘the big fella upstairs,’ all that shit.”He jabbed at the desk with his finger.“God is unknowable.He is fire.He is justice and damnation, He is vengeance and righteousness.He is the one who hides His face, because to look on him is to die.Priests like Father Thomas, they peddle falsehood and iniquity, and they do it for themselves, not for God, not for people.”
Kate said nothing, waiting to see if he had anything else to add.
“I hate him more than Whitman.Whitman didn’t pretend to be anything other than what he was.But Father Thomas was a fraud.Even when I was thirteen, I could see that.He used to tell us all about the good work he did at the prison with the men on death row.But he just thought it was cool.He thought we’d be impressed that he was hanging out with hitmen and serial killers.Priests like him, they just want to be liked.”
She sent Mercer back to his cell.In the morning, he’d be charged with the attack on Marcus.She also arranged for a psych evaluation and tasked a couple of junior colleagues with checking out his alibis for anything that would definitively rule him out.Or in – but she no longer thought that was very likely.
It hadn’t been a waste of time, though.After a short time perusing the Department of Corrections website, she rang her partner, trying to stay calm, though her hand was trembling as she pressed the buttons.
“It’s not him.”
