Among My Lambs

"Back so soon, Patrick?"

The pastor wasn't even looking up from the open book on his desk when the man with the curly golden hair appeared in the doorway to his study. A typical cop's curiosity would be piqued: How did you know it was me?
Patrick Jane didn't fit the typical build. As a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation, he lacked the authority that a badge gave the people he worked and interacted with on every case. Owing to his past professional life as a con man and psychic, however, Jane never missed a trick, and he flashed his most disarming smile at the Rev. Dr. Byrd Twilley when the older man finally glanced up from his Bible.

"What gave me away?" Jane asked. "The aftershave?"

Twilley shook his head. "Your choice of footwear. I'd hear a police officer coming from a mile away."

If Jane was surprised, he didn't show it. Instead, the CBI consultant entered the small study, seized a book at random from a shelf and thumbed through it wordlessly.

"Which particular work is that?" Twilley said. He remained seated.

Jane leaned against the wall. "'A Grief Observed.'"

"C.S. Lewis," the pastor said, nodding. "You may borrow it, if you choose."

Jane cocked an eyebrow. "And why would I do that?"

Twilley leaned forward and said matter-of-factly, "Because there is a lot of sadness in you." The younger man turned his head ever so slightly at the comment. "I see it in the eyes. That big grin of yours is probably useful for getting people to talk, but it hides nothing."

Jane closed the book but continued to hold it. "Are you worried that I've come back to get you to talk?"

Twilley pushed his 62-year-old frame slowly out of the computer chair and pointed to a coffee machine resting on a small table in the corner. Styrofoam cups, sugar and stirring sticks sat next to the half-filled pot. "I take you for a tea drinker," Twilley said, "but maybe you won't mind some coffee while we discuss your case."

As Jane helped himself to the brew, he studied the walls, decorated as they were with framed certificates from seminary as well as personal photographs. One picture in particular caught the consultant's attention, a group shot that captured a younger, clean-shaven Twilley amid a squad of uniformed troops. "The first Gulf War," Twilley volunteered.

"Chaplain?"

"Oh, no. Eighty-second Airborne."

Jane sipped from the Styrofoam. "So, you know what it's like to take someone's life?"

"More than one someone." Jane turned away from the wall and fixed his blue eyes on the pastor. Twilley continued: "We captured thousands of Iraqis during the liberation of Kuwait. Unfortunately," he said, shrugging, "too many didn't want to be captured."

"And how do you reconcile that past with your current occupation?"

"Probably the same way that you do, Patrick."

The consultant tilted his head slightly. Whether amused, rattled or annoyed, his expression betrayed nothing. An awkward silence filled the small room. Finally, as if to let Jane off the hook for something unspoken, Twilley smiled good-naturedly and said, "I was a different kind of man years ago, just as you were, but my road to Damascus turning point isn't what you're here to discuss. It's the more recent past that concerns you, correct?"

Jane pulled up another chair as a subtle signal. He would not be leaving the church office until he heard the answers he wanted. Before the consultant could pose a question, however, the pastor said, "How is Isabelle?"

"Still in critical condition. The CBI is attempting to contact her family, but …" Jane's voice trailed off.

"She left difficult circumstances in her country. Maybe the church's international network could help locate her parents' village."

"The nurses at the ICU said you had visited her, inquiring about her condition." Jane paused there to sip more coffee.

"I would assume," Twilley said, "that the CBI would take some interest in Isabelle's visitors."

"Oh?" Jane asked innocently. "Why is that?"

Any trace of a smile disappeared from the pastor's face. "Don't play dumb, Patrick. Whoever raped and half killed that girl, I want to see them punished as badly as you do."

"Interesting choice of words," Jane said, pointing at the older man. "You didn't say 'locked up behind bars,' which would equal the law taking its normal course, you said –"

"Punished," the pastor repeated. His voice rose with intensity as he spoke. "Let me elaborate and complete the thought for you: Punished so badly that the person responsible regrets that they were ever born. That's what I meant, Patrick. Animals take from other animals to survive. Whoever preyed on Isabelle Gallegos? They did so for one reason: It made them happy. They wanted to, and they must have figured that they could get away with it."

"Taking it a little personal, aren't we?"

Twilley, who made his living talking behind a pulpit, seemed momentarily at a loss for words. When he found his tongue again, his tone was slow, quiet.

"That child wandered into our soup kitchen because she had nowhere else to go. Victimized at every turn on the streets. Members here fed her, took an interest in her as a person. My wife Suzanne has been working with Isabelle on learning English well enough to earn a GED, maybe to tech school. Find a future outside the fields." Twilley sighed wearily. "Yes, Patrick, I take what happened personally … just as you do. I noticed that you came here alone, without the rest of the CBI team, Agents Lisbon and Cho. Perhaps they are just following up on other leads, or maybe they've chosen to move on, but you … you want to see justice served, don't you?"

Patrick avoided the question. "At the risk of sounding cynical, Dr. Twilley –"

"Call me Byrd."

"Yes … at the risk of sounding a wee bit cynical, Byrd, you've put quite a bit of time and resources into helping Isabelle. I saw her in person. Even bruised, battered, she's still beautiful. Some men, particularly the ones who have put that much of an investment into an attractive young woman, might feel as if they deserve a return of some sort."

Twilley nodded slowly and put his hands together to form a steeple. It was the kind of gesture he might use to convey a spiritual point when addressing his congregation.

"Times change, but the sinful human condition doesn't," the pastor said. "There are people, whether in business or government or even the church, who use their positions to prey on the weak. It was true in Jesus' time. It's still true today. That's why you and I have the jobs we do, Patrick."

"My job," the consultant said, "is to bring a predator to justice."

"Of course. So …"

Twilley stood once more and held his hands out, away from his body.

"Get to the question that you came all the way back here to ask me, Patrick."