The Last Good Guy

12

After the service a crowd waited in the courtyard to greet Atlas. He stood smiling, pressed by his faithful. His casual attire was perfect for his adopted San Diegans — mostly shorts and jeans and tank tops and T-shirts, except for the older crowd. Kids released from Sunday school ran amok. Awkwardly cool teenagers gathered together on one side of the courtyard. Better dressed than their parents. I pictured Daley Rideout among them, a curly-locked wiseass with a pretty face and a high IQ.

From here you could see the Pacific glistening under a light bank of clouds. Justine, my wife, had died out in that ocean, not far from here. Flying her Cessna 182, which she had affectionately named Hall Pass. She’d bought it used on her public defender’s salary, painted it pink. A failed fuel pump. No fault of hers. No fault of the ocean. But from that day on, I’d never been able to view the Pacific as pacific. To me it was dangerous and unforgiving, a thing to be feared. I felt the same way about the God that had let Justine die there, terrified and alone. I’m still trying to get over that. Trying to be a bigger man.

As part of being a bigger man, I bought a similar Cessna 182 not long after Justine died, and christened it Hall Pass 2. I fly it for pleasure and occasionally for business. When I’m up there in the cockpit, looking down at this earth, which oddly looks bigger the farther away from it you get, I feel Justine’s presence, and some of the happiness that flying gave her. Some of the joy and the risk, too. Heightened alert. A part of me is still angry that I wasn’t with her that day. That I let her go up there, alone. Another part is afraid that what happened to her will happen to me. Why shouldn’t it?

There were tables of food and drink set up in the central park. Trays of turkey hot dogs and burgers, bowls of salad and pink boxes of donuts, all free. We bellied up but donated generously. The half-gallon tip bottles were filling quickly with bills.

I kept my hat down low, just in case Adam Revell of SNR Security had pulled a Sunday shift here. I wasn’t sure that Adam himself was among my new friends out at Paradise Date Farm, but he certainly might be.

We sat in the shade with paper plates on our laps. Frank ate as much as a bear, though his manners were better. Violet talked about making tamales on a semester in Mexico her senior year at SIUE. Which led me to note that there were very few Latinos there today. Or blacks, Asians, or American natives. Which is not in keeping with most of San Diego County, as mixed and varied as most any in this republic, I’d recently read.

I wondered if Pastor Atlas’s remarks about “our fine but less obedient neighbors” might be a general topic here. So I checked the Cathedral by the Sea reviews online.

Almost all of the comments were positive, but some were not:

There were several vitriolic replies to these, mostly along the lines of If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go back to your own miserable country?

After lunch we strolled along the rose garden, and under the Canary Island palms that stood, stately and pruned and calm, above us. Walked along a row of what looked like classrooms. The doors were open and I could see the walls inside, decorated with the student drawings and posters and prints that an elementary school would have. The congregation had thinned out by then, cars heading down the hill from the parking lot, church volunteers bagging the lunch debris.

We followed arrows to the office. I wanted to stop by, pick up some church lit, and see if I could get some clue to Penelope Rideout’s pointed reaction to the Cathedral by the Sea.

The office was a two-story building that looked far more humble, and much older, than the swashbuckling chapel. Inside, it was cool and open and quiet. The floors looked like 1950s linoleum shined to brilliance by janitors. A sign on the front counter read “Welcome!” There were neat stacks of pamphlets, magazines, and the Cathedral by the Sea bulletin, From the Lighthouse. Behind the counter sat two neat desks and two rolling task chairs. And beyond them, a long hallway with offices on either side. Rectangles of sunlight shining in.

“So, what are we doing here?” asked Violet. “Privately investigating?”

I shrugged, wishing I’d been more clear when I’d briefed Violet what not to say on this excursion.

“Are we searching for God or bad guys?”

I held a finger to my puffy split lip.

Her expression froze. She nodded.

Frank listened and watched but said nothing, his standard MO when he’s away from home. He was afraid someone would hear his accent, then question, arrest, and deport him. These things happen. He told me that if he returned home to El Salvador he’d be killed on sight, having witnessed his father’s murder. Here in public, I knew I was harboring and employing an illegal immigrant, but I still thought that in this case, it was the right thing to do. Which made me a criminal, too, living in a nation of laws while holding an innocent man’s life in my hands.

I helped myself to some of the church pamphlets set out on the counter. And this week’s From the Lighthouse, which had a calendar and all the upcoming events. Picked up a glossy flyer about an upcoming “Special Appearance by Lamar Fleming of Houston, Texas.” And another announcing the recent launch of Pastor Reggie Atlas’s complete recorded sermons, available online through Four Wheels for Jesus Ministry.

“Wait for me here,” I said.

Violet gave me a complicit squint and Frank nodded.

I went around the counter and into the hallway, my shoes squeaking on the polished floor. The offices left and right were marked clearly: Assistant Pastor Erica Summer, Activities Director Rudy Mercator, Bible School Administrator Patrick Clarke, Youth Minister Danella Witt. I wondered if this was the youth ministry director who had lavished attention on Daley. According to Penelope, who would have had to have mistaken Danella Witt for a man. But maybe Penelope had just gotten someone’s title wrong.

All of their doors were closed until I came to Pastor Reggie Atlas, whose door stood open.

He sat behind a desk, his back to me, looking through a window that faced the courtyard, where the last of his ten a.m. congregation was disassembling. Rungs of sunlight and shadow through half-drawn blinds.

He pivoted. “Yes?”

“I enjoyed the service. My first time here.”

“Thank you, and welcome. Come in if you’d like.”

I met him halfway to his desk, where we introduced ourselves and shook hands. Strong and cool. I took off my hat.

“Looks like a bad one,” he said.

“T-boned at a four-way stop. He never even slowed down.”

His grand smile. “Good insurance, I hope. Do you live nearby?”

“Fallbrook.”

“I have friends there. And some of my congregation, too. Please have a seat. I was preparing for noon fellowship, but I have a few minutes.”

He pulled out a chair for me, then took up his own again behind the desk. We talked San Diego: weather, surf, drought, wildfire.

“So, why do I have the feeling you didn’t come here to hear my message?” he asked pleasantly.

“I’m looking for a girl named Daley Rideout. She’s fourteen and she came here once last month.”

“Has something happened?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure exactly what.”

“What relation are you?”

“I’m a private investigator, hired to locate her.”

“Then this is very serious.”

“I believe it is.”

“I sincerely apologize, but I’ll need to see some ID.”

I got the wallet from my coat pocket, handed him a laminated copy of my license and a business card. He studied them, then handed back the mock-up.

“What day was she here?” asked Atlas.

I gave him the August date that Penelope had given me. I described Daley and said she had come with two friends, girls her age. I handed him my phone. He stared at the screen, scrolling along with one finger.

“Not familiar,” he said. “Certainly possible, though. I’m sorry, but as you saw today, the young people really turn out. So long as you don’t wake them up too early. The young are our future, Mr. Ford. They will multiply us into heaven. It wasn’t like that when I started out all those years ago. It was always the old folks back then.”

“I liked the old-man-as-an-angel story.”

A raise of an eyebrow. “Not an angel, probably. But every word of it true.”

“I believe you.”

“Do you think that something bad has happened to the girl?”

“Disappearing at fourteen is bad.”

“Are the police looking for her?”

“They are. Do you know Nick Moreno?”

Reggie Atlas sat back, placed his hands flat on the desk. “Yes. He was almost a regular here. I heard what happened to him from my singles minister. Ugly and sad.”

“Do you know Alanis Tervalua or Carrie Calhoun?”

He shook his head.

“Daley’s age,” I said. “Friends.”

“No. But you should talk to our youth minister, Danella. She’s out of town now, but she’ll be back on Friday.”

“What about Penelope Rideout?”

Reggie shook his head again, then spread his hands in a gesture of mild surrender. “I’m sorry. Related to the girl?”

“Sister and guardian. Richard Hauser?”

“No again, sorry again.”

A moment of near silence. Distant seagulls and murmurs from outside. Through the window I watched a man tidying up the courtyard. He was young and muscular, with a white buzz cut, a sun-flushed face, and pointed ears. No aloha shirt and cargo shorts for this deacon. Chinos and a black golf shirt and shiny black duty boots. Clean cut, All-American, and doing good deeds for fellow man.

“You’ve come a long way from the hollers of Georgia,” I said.

A thoughtful look from Atlas. “I did the first years of my preaching from that VW van and a series of recreational vehicles. All through the South. I was too young to know any better. To know what a challenge it would be. As in my message today. I was absolutely consumed by the word of God. I got my first real brick-and-mortar chapel many years ago in a town so small you could blink and miss it. Now here — the cathedral of my dreams. Bills to pay, though. Leave it to Pastor Reggie to covet some of the most valuable real estate in the country.”

“I see you have an online program.”

“Four Wheels for Jesus. It does very well.”

“And you’ve got quite a following on the social networks,” I said.

He opened his palms and shrugged, a humble gesture. “‘The word of God is quick, and powerful... and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart’.”

“Hebrews,” I guessed.

A full smile then, and a knowing nod. There was something intimate about Pastor Atlas, something you-and-me about him. I’d noted the same quality in many successful salesmen.

“I feel powerless sometimes,” he said. “There are moments, though. With the Lord. With my wife and children and my believers. When I feel the power of the word coming through me. Not from, but through. He commands my body and soul. Are you strong in Jesus, Mr. Ford?”

“I read the Bible when I was in college. It took me a year, but I was glad I did. That seems like a long time ago. So we’ve met.”

“Well, that’s quite an acceptable start, I’d say. Please, come worship with us whenever you’d like. Bring your friends and family. Jesus will change your life.”

He raised his shirt cuff for a look at his watch.

“Who handles church security?” I asked.

“Security? I don’t know which company, but I can find out for you. Why?”

“It’s not important,” I said.

He nodded slowly, taking me in with steady blue eyes. For a moment he looked every one of his forty-nine years, if not more. Then, through some personal light and magic, his youth reappeared. He sighed and stood.

“Well, please, if I can help in any way...”

“You’ve been generous, Pastor. Thank you for your time, and for the good sermon. I’m glad you kept preaching.”

“I hope you’re sincere.”

“I’m usually too sincere.”

“Should I be worried? Nick? The missing girl? This alleged car accident that happened to you? This violence in the air?”

“Just keep your eyes open. And call me if you learn anything that might point me to Daley Rideout.”

“Yes, I’ll do that. But, Mr. Ford, do you think my family and I are safe?”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just looked at him.

“I know,” he said. “You can’t answer that. In a world like this.”