Chapter 15 Life is Not a Game

In Joan's A.P. Law course, one of the major assignments was a term paper following an actual case. Joan had not settled on a subject yet, but on the day after Reynolds' arrest she hit on a plan that would satisfy both class requirements and her extra-curricular Project. And even though she was feeling rather low in general, she was proud of killing two birds with one stone.

"Dad," she announced at dinner Tuesday night. "I'd like to interview Mr. Reynolds."

"No way."

"But it's for my A.P. Law project. I'm supposed to write up a case."

"That's a good reason, honey, but I still can't arrange it. With all of the security we've promised, we can't let you in. Not unless Reynolds himself requests it."

Joan pondered while eating her pasta. Then she had an idea. "Tell him it's my calling."

"You mean connected to your future career?"

"Yes, but don't say it that way. Say it's my calling. Those exact words."

Will had a sad expression that Joan recognized: my daughter is going crazy again. But she suspected thatshe was a lot less exasperating than the "lunatic" that he was dealing with at work. "OK, I'll try it.

On Wednesday evening the expression had changed to one of surprise. "It worked! Mr. Reynolds does want to see you."

"Thanks, Dad."

"But let me explain the conditions. He's being held at Baltimore Penitentiary, for his own safety, so you'll have to visit him there. I warn you in advance that it's a very depressing place. I want your mother to go with you."

"I'm almost 18, Dad."

"Nevertheless, that's my condition. Reynolds will be taken out of his cell at a given time -- 2:30 Friday afternoon -- for the sole purpose of talking with you. You have to be on time, and that means missing school for Friday afternoon."

"I'm sure that Price will give her a pass," put in Helen, "since it's for a school assignment."

"You'll be on opposite sides of a transparent partition, talking over a phone. I'm sure that you've seen the arrangement in movies."

"Yeah. Will the conversation be private?"

"Nobody will be listening in. On the other hand, it doesn't count as privileged communication, so somebody could question you about it later."

Joan would have to worry about that when the time came. "Cool."

"All visitors have to go through a metal detector, and possibly a more detailed search if things go wrong. I'd advise you not to bring a tape recorder or laptop. Pen and paper might be better."

"OK." Particularly since I don't want our conversation to get on record.

Tom Reynolds certainly did not look like the usual criminal-in-custody. He didn't even have the air of brusque determination that Hunter did. He looked like a thoughtful, sensitive person who was out of his depth.

"So you're God's new errand girl." The sarcasm was at odds with his appearance, and Joan immediately felt obliged to combat it somehow.

"Not new. I've been doing this for over two years."

"Do you mean that God had you AND Harry working for Him for a while? He must have been spoiled."

He thinks God only had two helpers. He doesn't know about Grace and Luke. Luke's idea of using 'I' in the Email worked. I better keep him in the dark about that. Aloud Joan said,"Why does that bother you?"

"Because I know Harry's whole story. He served God faithfully for years, until Rory came into his life. Rory was beautiful. I loved her myself, in a way -- not that I'd compete with Harry with her, but I'd be delighted if he had married her and brought her into the family where I could see her every day. But God kept interfering."

"How?"

"Harry wanted to have a normal life with his girl," Reynolds answered, his voice bitter, "but God kept calling him away for missions that he couldn't explain. Rory eventually got so mad that she decided to go on a vacation alone and decide whether to break off the relationship. I persuaded Harry that he simply HAD to let Rory into the secret. But before he could act on the new plan, we heard that Rory was dead. They say that there's providence in the fall of a sparrow, but apparently God couldn't be bothered to save Rory. Or let her die on purpose because she was in the way. Did YOU ever lose a friend?"

"Yes. Her name was Judith."

"Then maybe you know what it's like. Or maybe not, since you still stuck with being God's errand girl."

"Stop calling me that."

"Really? You should be honored. Catholics call the Virgin Mary ancilla Dei, the handmaiden of God. Being God's slave is the supreme honor for a human." His sarcasm was almost unbearably bitter.

"Just go on with your story," Joan said, annoyed.

"Well. After having Rory taken away from him. Harry decided that he would get revenge on God. Sounds impossible, doesn't it? You can't even touch God unless He wants to be touched, and He can wipe you out with a lightning bolt, like Zeus. But Harry had one big advantage. From God's point of view, all this is a game. The disguises, the riddles. And according to the rules of the game, God can't touch Harry. So he started his campaign."

"Why the new identity?" asked Joan, disturbed at the "Game" idea, and trying to focus on facts.

"He didn't want to disgrace the Reynolds name if caught, though I couldn't care less. He squirreled away his money -- I'm not telling you how -- faked his death, and came back as Ryan Hunter. The name was cleverly chosen. In Greek mythology Orion the Hunter was beloved by a goddess, until she got careless and killed him. That's what God did to Harry Reynolds."

"What about the attacks on the religious buildings?"

"Harry was annoyed at the way people praise a God who doesn't deserve it. He wanted to prove to them how weak their deity was, so weak that he couldn't protect his own shrines. In particular, he wanted to prove it to YOU."

"Me?"

"Yeah. Harry doesn't hate you, kid, and neither do I. We just don't want you to waste your life the way Harry did, playing God's Game." Reynolds sighed. "The vandalism was a bad idea, though. I just found about that last Saturday, after getting your Email and calling Harry. Committing a human crime makes Harry vulnerable to the police, or to stray vigilantes--"

Egotist. It isn't a "bad idea" to make people suffer, only that the suffering people could strike back.

"-- so I decided to confess to the vandalism. That leaves Harry in the clear to continue the fight."

"It also means that you've ruined your life. Even after you get out of prison, you'll be an outcast," Joan observed quietly.

Suddenly the sardonic tone went away, and Joan saw the despair that lay behind the aggression. "I don't care. Rory is dead and Harry is avenging her. Nothing else in life matters much to me."

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Joan rejoined her mother in a sort of front waiting room for the prison. But seeing several uniformed clerks, she had an idea. When she had tried to finger Hunter last spring, her own father hadn't believed her. But if she quoted the prisoner as mentioning a crime, maybe they'd have to look into it. "Wait a minute, Mom. I'd like to report something."

She walked up to a friendly-looking policewoman, and said, "Officer?"

"Yes, Joan?"

Joan hastily looked down at her VISITORS badge to see whether it gave her name; that was one thing that she could read upside down. When she didn't see it, she hazarded, "You're HER."

"Yes, Joan."

"And you're here to keep me from reporting what Reynolds told me, about what really happened."

"I won't keep you from anything, Joan. Free will. All the other officers here are real and you can walk up to any one of them. But I'd rather you didn't."

"Why? An innocent -- though rather nutty -- guy is in jail and a guilty man is at large."

"Reynolds is in jail by his own volition, Joan. As for the guilty man -- you work in a bookstore. Have you ever read Dostoyevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT?"

"No, and I presume you knew that already."

"In the story an excellent policeman has all the evidence he needs to arrest a murderer. But he doesn't do it. Why?"

"Because most Toasty-oatsy characters are crazy?"

"Read the book, Joan. You can always quote Reynolds to the police later."

Joan was sulky during the entire drive back to Arcadia. Helen doubtlessly noticed that and attributed it to the depressing visit to a criminal in a prison. But what Joan was really doing was questioning her way of life.

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Joan related the whole disturbing conversation to Luke and Grace that evening. "Do you think that he's right, that God is just playing games with us?" asked Luke.

"I brooded over that for hours," Joan said, "but I finally decided, no. I think the missions have really changed me for the better. The me of two years ago was just an aimless girl, without much drive or self-respect. Let's face it—I was a self-absorbed bubble-head. Now I'm focused on a possible career, and I developed the maturity to forgive Adam and Bonnie, and I try to make sense of the world. If it was a game, I was a winner."