LO, I WILL TELL YOU A MYSTERY

Chapter 6 Crossing Over

(Author's Note: Joan's "my older brother's wife" is Sister Lily. I had Kevin marry her in an earlier story, REVELATION OF JOAN)

(Author's Note: Veronica's comparison of the FBI agent to Xena is an in-joke. Lucy "Xena" Lawless played the agent in the second-season episode "Donut Run")

(Author's Note: Veronica's visit to the church occurred in her second-season episode "Rashard and Wallace go to White Castle")

Another excerpt from Veronica's diary:

It was like a miracle. Not only was there a direct Los Angeles flight about to leave, but it had two empty seats together. What was more, the desk clerk offered to sell us tickets cheap to "fill up the plane". On the other hand, as we walked away, I thought I sensed the clerk address my friend as "Joan" and give her a wave. Maybe he was a friend of hers, doing her a favor, and I hope he didn't lose his job over it.

When we got in the air I felt free: no way Mr. Girardi could pull us back to Earth and retrieve his daughter. But Joan was still worried. "Suppose your Dad phoned ahead? Is there anybody in Neptune that could stop us?"

Good question. Joan was 18, technically an adult with a right to go anywhere she liked, so we were talking about private persuasion. My generation -- Logan, Mac, Wallace, Beaver -- would probably accept my judgement about Joan. Dad would never ask a favor of Lamb. That left deputies, lawyers, other detectives -- most of them knew me as well as Dad and probably wouldn't want to get caught in a family argument. Unless -- I suddenly remembered Joan's mention that she was getting married. Kids in Neptune didn't want to commit that early. And I noticed that Joan had worn loose-fitting blouses and sweaters both days. A girl might do that if --

"You're not pregnant, are you?" I asked.

"NO!" she shouted, getting the attention of several passengers. Sinking in her seat and lowering her voice, she added: "Why do people always ask me that?"

"We may be doing something dangerous. I don't want to risk a baby getting harmed."

"There's no baby," she insisted. "No chance of one. I'm still a virgin."

"Awesome." That was something else you didn't often find in Neptune. Even Meg had succumbed to temptation.

Joan thought I was about sarcastic, and apparently wanted to convince me she was not totally uncool: "Well, I HAVE let Adam see me naked---"

After that she felt justified in prying into my love life. I was NOT going to tell about being molested at the party, or about the boyfriend who had to flee across the Mexican border pursued by a lady FBI agent who looked like Xena the Warrior Princess. I did admit to sleeping with Duncan last fall, and saying vaguely that it didn't last. If I had been asking the questions, I wouldn't have believed myself for an instant, but Joan accepted it. Dammit, why does that girl always make me feel guilty?

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Joan had never been this far from home. As Veronica drove from Los Angeles to Neptune on a seaside highway, Joan noted how the very landscape -- hilly and barren -- differed from the fertile coastal plain that she was used to. Three hours of jet lag increased her sense of disorientation. Irrationally, she wondered whether she had left God behind in Arcadia. Of course she hadn't: God was everywhere A switch of coasts wouldn't make a difference. After all, God had even eased their way by taking the form of an airline clerk, though how he had moved passengers around or reduced the airfare without getting somebody in trouble was a mystery to Joan..

"Another hour to drive," commented Veronica. "Maybe you can spend the time telling me about this Hunter guy."

I can't tell her everything. But I can let her have the same story as Dad.

"Hunter was a rich guy who thought he had a, let's say, religious calling. But that ended when his fiancée was killed in an accident. He considered it an Act of God -- literally. Something that God was responsible for and should be punished for."

"How do you punish God?"

"Hunter's idea was to trash religious buildings -- a Catholic church, a synagogue, and a mosque. He didn't regard it as hurting people -- if anything, he thought he was helping the congregations by showing them that God was weak."

"How did you get involved?"

"Several ways. . I had friends in all three congregations. My older brother's wife worked at the church, my best friend was the rabbi's daughter. But the main thing was, Hunter had a personal obsession about me. Thought I was a girl Messiah or prophetess or something, and he personally tried to convert me. Didn't work. Eventually my brother found some compromising information on the Internet, and Hunter fled Arcadia."

"Religion makes people do weird things."

"It inspires people to do noble things, too," said Joan indignantly. "Ripples can be good or bad."

"Sorry. You're a religious believer?"

"Not in the usual sense. I don't go to church. But I believe that there is a God and that He has a plan for me." Yeah, because He keeps butting into my life to tell me so.

Veronica fell silent for a long time. Joan thought that she had decided to drop the subject. But when she spoke, she sounded unprecedently subdued.

"A couple of months ago, I was on the trail of a mystery, and it took me to a church. At first I thought, it's just one more building, nothing to be awed by. But when I got inside, I felt -- I don't know. Like "some god was in this place" and I was profaning it."

"While I was waiting," Veronica continued, "the priest came up and asked if I wanted to confess. In order to say something, I said that I enjoyed catching criminals and asked if that was sinful. He said that it depended on whether I got a kick out of bringing people down. I never have figured out the answer to that. How did a perfect stranger understand my character so well? Unless, maybe, there's a God and the priest was in tune with him?"

"I meet a lot of weird strangers," said Joan, and left it at that.

-----

Veronica and her father lived in an old motel that had been converted to apartments. It gave them amenities like a swimming pool, but lacked the coziness and personality that Joan associated with her home. Where, for example, would the men of the family store their eternally uncompleted Boat?

Veronica cooked a supper for Joan and herself. Not Italian-American cuisine, but Joan scarcely expected that. Exactly what had happened to Veronica's mother wasn't clear, but this was a household run by a practical middle-age guy and a teenager.

As they ate, Joan noted Veronica's wrinkled blouse and jeans, and realized her own clothes were in a similar state.. They were the same clothes the girls had worn when hiking through the monuments. "I wish I could change into something fresh, but I didn't bring any other clothes."

"I'd loan you some, but I don't think mine would fit," Veronica said lightly. That was an understatement: Veronica was 3 inches shorter than Joan, and much more slender. Then she brightened. "Hey, that gives me an idea. We've got to get something done by tomorrow, before your father shows up and drags you back to the East Coast. How do you get a loan shark's attention?"

"Ask him for a loan?"

"Right. And how do you convince him that you are desperate enough to go to a loan shark?"

"Wear worn-out clothes as if you didn't have a choice?" Joan was catching on to the way Veronica thought.

"Right. I'm going to pay your Mr. Hunter a visit."

TBC