Return to Sender by Mindy S. Halleck

Author:Mindy S. Halleck [Halleck, Mindy S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Booktrope Editions
Published: 2014-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 63

THEO

BUD’S TALL FRAME shadowed the doorway of the vicarage—a rare site indeed. He took off his hat and said, “Need to talk to you,” looked around the rows of benches, realized it was empty, then relaxed. “Can we go somewhere . . . else?”

“Come on back,” I said, laying the Eucharist candles on the lectern. “My office is quiet until the ladies get here in a few minutes. Bingo, then all hell breaks loose, as you know.”

“Thought you told them no more poker in church.”

“You’ve got the gun, you try and stop them.”

“Nope,” he said. “That’s a fool’s battle.” He dropped his hat on a chair and sat down.

I pointed to the file on my desk. “Awful stuff.”

“What’s your take?”

“Well,” I said. “Hansel’s childhood was disturbing by all accounts.”

“Okay, but what’s this crazy’s problem now?”

“Well, his dad’s a preacher, mom’s Jewish, from Germany . . . real old school. His dad, one twisted man, warped little Genghis with his manufactured religion crafted from his wife’s Jewish theology and his own snake-yielding, back-hills, holy-roller Baptist roots—even on a good day that’s napalm.”

“Baptist and Jewish. What the hell?” Bud said, quickly darting a glance at Jesus on the cross over my desk.

“I like to pick my battles when possible,” I said. “Explaining world religions to you isn’t on that short list.”

“Okay funny man, I know what they are . . . it’s your point that eludes me.”

“Well, it’s the references he’s made: Chamber of Guf and the seventh heaven.”

“And you’re gonna explain that whole Chamber of Guf thing to me, right?”

“I need to do more research, but the short version is that in Jewish mythology there’s a Tree of Souls. When it blossoms, it creates new souls that fall into the Guf, the Treasury of Souls where the Angel of Conception watches over them until they’re born and descend to earth.”

Bud scratched his head and said, “What does that have to do—”

“Just stick with me,” I said. “According to some rabbinical teachers, the trees are resting places for souls, and only sparrows can see those souls descend, which is why they chirp. He mentioned that to me. When the last soul descends, the Messiah will come, and the world will end. In this belief system, even a newborn baby brings the Messiah closer simply by being born. Thing is, Genghis has it reversed and twisted, believing the opposite, that the more children under the age of twelve (the age, I’m guessing, of his lost innocence) who are sent back still pure—therefore filling the chamber—the sooner the Messiah will come and the world will end. I see the world as his pain. His pain will end. These souls are bird-like, free to fly, to return to seventh heaven. He wants to be free. The point is, this lets us know, like you’ve suspected, he’s not just one of your run-of-the-mill wing nuts—he may actually think he’s on a religious mission, which is why denying him absolution stuck in his craw.”

“A religious mission, huh?” Bud said.

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