Everybody Loved Roger Harden Read online

  “Not yet, but I’m running out of options.”

  “God may be your best option and not just your last one.”

  “If a belief in God helps you, by all means, you need to believe it or practice it or whatever you tell people to do.”

  “Belief is a good place to start.”

  This conversation wasn’t going the way I wanted. I needed to switch topics. “You make it easy to talk. And you’re pretty funny.”

  “You’re pretty. Period.”

  “I didn’t know preachers had a sense of humor.”

  “It comes from arguing with nonbelieving redheads.” He smiled before he said, “We preacher-types work on it. I took a course in seminary called Laugh 101. I was the only student.”

  That was a silly remark, but he said it with such a serious voice, in spite of myself, I laughed.

  Just then I thought of something.

  “I have no idea why I thought of this now, but Roger phoned me twice. Oh, it’s been a month or more since he called. We talked about general things, mostly about my workload. It was something he said just before I was ready to hang up. At the time I thought it was odd, but now it seems even odder.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He asked me if I ever thought about religion. Did I think God had forgiven me for the accident?”

  “And you said?”

  “You know me. I’m the smart mouth. So I said, ‘I have no idea. Since God and I have never been introduced, we haven’t discussed it.’

  “ ‘But if you did talk about it,’ he persisted. ‘Think about it.’ I did think about it, and I told him I thought the topic was irrelevant. I tried that old line that God stays out of my business and I stay out of his.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated. “Let’s see, that was the first time. No, he didn’t. He just said good night. Maybe two weeks later he called again.”

  “Julie, do you remember our last conversation?” Roger said. “I asked you if you thought God would forgive you. I wanted you to think about it. So, what do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

  “No big reason—”

  “Sure it is, or you wouldn’t have brought it up. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing really,” he said. “I went to church last week—”

  “To church? You?”

  “It would take too long to explain the reason, but yes, I did. Since then, I’ve been wondering about a few things. That’s all. So how do you feel about being forgiven?”

  “How would I know? That’s totally outside my experience.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” he said quietly and after a pause added, “totally outside mine as well.”

  “Are you turning religious?”

  “I certainly hope not,” he said. He laughed—more of a sneer. “The speaker at church made several provocative statements. I have never talked to anyone before who could say he or she felt forgiven by God. So it was merely a topic of passing interest.”

  I had kept my eyes closed—somehow it seemed to make it easier to remember. I opened them and said, “Just one thing about that conversation bothered me—which is probably why I remembered.”

  “What was that?” Burton asked.

  “His final words before he said good-bye. He said it was merely a topic of passing interest. But the tone of his voice—something about the way he said it—made me know that it was more.”

  “What do you think?”

  “After all this? My guess is that Roger Harden may have developed a conscience.”

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t know, but I suspect he called us here to confront us and to expose us to each other. Maybe it was to tell us that he was going to turn over everything to the police.”

  “Could be,” he said. “I do think one thing is now obvious. All the guests have something to hide—something Roger had on them—something wrong or unlawful.”

  “Is that true with you?” I asked.

  “I came because of Jason. Remember?”

  “I remember that’s what Jason thought.”

  “Or perhaps he wanted to confess his wrongdoings.”

  “Do you think that’s possible?”

  Burton smiled. “As we Christian types say, ‘anything is possible with God.’ ”

  “I’m not sure God had anything to do with it.”

  Eighteen

  My name is Dr. James Burton, but no one calls me James. I’m just Burton to everyone. Julie said she was going to write down everything that happened on Palm Island. She won’t allow me to see it. She says it’s her secret diary, but she wants to make sure we won’t forget anything.

  I’m not a writer, and I avoid writing whenever I can. But as a favor to Julie, I agreed to write this part. There is a segment of the story where she wasn’t involved. So I’ll tell it from my perspective.

  Before I tell my part of the story, I want to point out that I like Julie. She’s refreshing. We have a big gulf between us, so I don’t see anything romantic happening. I was aware of her flirting—her frequent flirting. It’s flattering, even though she now realizes that it won’t lead anywhere. She’s certainly not like that tarantula type I run into—they grab hold and keep after me.

  It’s nice to know she finds me attractive enough to flirt with. Like that thing about her tripping on the path. I wonder how many times females have tried that one on me. It goes all the way back to tenth grade when Jennifer Schuchmann tried it on me the first time.

  As much as I like Julie, however, we don’t have enough commonality. My faith is too important to compromise. I’m not sure she understands that because faith doesn’t mean anything to her. That’s the big problem.

  That’s really too bad. I like her.

  Julie and I talked in the kitchen for a few minutes and I began to yawn. Then she yawned. I yawned again, and she tried to make more noise with her yawn than I did.

  “Enough. Let’s go to our rooms,” I said.

  We walked upstairs, and I waited in the hallway until she opened her door.

  “You’re really gallant,” she said. She stepped inside, and just before she closed the door, she smiled and said, “Thanks for being nice to this heathen.”

  I wanted to reply, but she closed the door.

  I fell across the bed and didn’t even bother to undress. I must have dozed, because something awakened me. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I was instantly alert. I got out of bed, crept to the door, and opened it. I didn’t see anyone in the hallway, but I had the distinct sense that someone had passed my door. It was the last room before the stairs.

  I peeked into the hallway, but I didn’t see anyone. I closed my door silently and left my room. On the stairway I saw nothing. I crept silently down the dark steps. Before I reached the bottom, I spotted a light from under Roger’s office door.

  Does everybody have a key to that office? I asked myself.

  I turned the knob slowly. As I did so, I wondered if the intruder had a gun. That was a chance I’d have to take. As I pushed the door forward a fraction of an inch at a time, I peered inside.

  Jason had pulled out the same files that Paulette had gone through. He did it differently. He took out the drawer itself and laid it on the desk and then pulled out the files one at a time. He was so focused on the files he didn’t notice me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  A startled Jason dropped the manila file folder. Several sheets of paper fluttered to the floor. He dropped to his knees and picked them up.

  “Looking. Just looking for—for something.”

  I didn’t want to make this difficult for Jason, so I sat down on the sofa across from the desk. “I can see that.”

  “You don’t think I killed him, do you? I wouldn’t do that—I couldn’t kill anyone—not Dad, especially not now.”

  The best way to handle Jason was to say as little as possible. He had become active in our congreg
ation, and I had gotten to know him fairly well.

  “I know this looks so totally bad for me—like the murderer coming back to the scene of the crime, like he wanted to pick up the one piece of evidence that would, like, convict him.”

  “Is that what’s going on?”

  “Oh no. It—well, it just looks so totally that way, don’t you think?”

  “You certainly think that way.”

  “I was, uh, like, looking for something—I mean like something Dad had earlier—earlier, like when I saw him before tea.”

  Whenever Jason resorted to the frequent use of like, I could tell he was rattled. He used to say that like and so totally were part of his school style, but when he spoke with adults, he normally used an adult vocabulary.

  I stuck my hands in my pockets, sat still, and smiled at him.

  He laughed. “You used to do that in your office. Just like that.”

  “I know.”

  “So—is this, uh, like, some kind of counseling session?”

  “Is that what you want it to be?”

  “Can it be?”

  “If you like.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you.”

  I knew he would. Jason is a good kid. He’s amazingly mature at times, but once in a while he acts as if he’s thirteen. I like the boy. Despite moments of immaturity, he’s solid. His struggles with Roger Harden haven’t been easy.

  “It was something Dad wanted to read to us—right after dinner. That’s what I’m searching for.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Any idea?”

  “A list of all our sins maybe? I don’t know, but that’s what I think. You know, Mr. Burton, every person in that room had something to hide—something bad they did and Dad found out. I don’t know all of them, but I know he held something over their heads.”

  “So what was he going to do? Read his own emancipation proclamation? Or threaten to call the police?”

  “I don’t know. He was well, like acting so totally weird. I mean, yeah, weird. I can’t think of another way to say it.”

  “In what way was he weird? I mean, you haven’t told me enough to make me understand.”

  “You know a lot of the story,” he said and sat down on the far end of the sofa from me, near enough for him to feel close, but far enough that he would know this was a counseling session.

  I did know a lot of his story. Jason’s birth father died when he was only a baby, so he really has no memories of the man. Amanda married Roger when Jason was about two years old, which made Roger the only male parent the boy had ever known. His stepfather didn’t understand children—even he admitted that to Jason. He tried to treat the boy like an employee. He never spent time with his stepson or encouraged him. Jason often complained that he wouldn’t attend any of his basketball or baseball games.

  “If he didn’t grumble over the grades on my report card,” Jason once said, “that was his way of giving me approval. If I made a lower grade than he thought I should have, then I’d get The Big Lecture on how to study.”

  I felt sorry for the boy. He studied hard, and I knew that. Several times he had come to see me at my office, and he brought his laptop and school books. If he arrived ten minutes early, he used those minutes to study—and it wasn’t to impress me. He was just that self-disciplined about his studies. Two of Jason’s teachers were members of our congregation. Both said he studied hard, was extremely bright, and never handed in late papers.

  The only complaint I ever heard about him was that he tended to be moody. Later I learned that whenever he endured The Big Lecture from Roger, he would feel depressed for two or three days.

  As I stared at the boy with his clean-cut American good looks, I thought what a shame it was that he had had to go through so much.

  “You taught me something important, Mr. Burton,” Jason said.

  “Really? What’s that?”

  “You were—and still are—the best father figure in my life. You’re the kind of dad I wished I had.”

  I hardly knew what to say to him. I had been aware, of course, that Jason liked me, but I had no idea I had become that important to him.

  “Remember how you used to walk me to the door of your office and give me a hug?”

  “Sure. I do that—” I stopped because I started to say I did it with most people I knew fairly well.

  “I’d always close my eyes and think, This is the way a dad’s hug should feel. Whenever I visited your office, you always made me feel better.”

  “I had no idea—”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I like you. You weren’t trying to be a dad. You were just being who you are.”

  I felt slightly uncomfortable. I liked Jason, but I wasn’t used to having the conversation focused on me. I cleared my throat and asked, “So tell me what happened after you came back to the coast.” He had studied two years at Clayton University even though Roger and Amanda had moved permanently to Palm Island.

  “As you know, I transferred to Georgia Southern in Statesboro this past year. Dad asked me to do that. No, he told me—he commanded it. He said that if I wasn’t going to attend one of the best schools in the country, at least I could study fairly close to home. He wanted me home on weekends.”

  “Did you come home?”

  “When I had to and when I couldn’t work out an excuse to stay over.”

  “It must have been hard for you to come home like that.”

  “Yes, it was—until maybe a month ago. That’s when things changed. That’s when Dad changed.”

  I must have leaned forward, because Jason chuckled. “Now I know you’re listening carefully. Whenever you do that, I know you’re hanging on to every word.”

  I probably blushed then—and people tell me I do a good blush. This was one observant kid.

  “You like me and you helped me—most of all you helped me. I went to another shrink—you didn’t know that, but I had to because Dad made me. The guy was a good shrink, but he never did dig what made me the way I am. No matter how much I talked, he always kept telling me that I had to forgive myself. Like all I had to do was say, ‘I forgive myself.’ I just wanted to forgive Dad. That was until you helped me turn to the Lord and ask God to forgive me. And because of your help, I was able to forgive Dad—not right away—but eventually.”

  “Do you realize you never called him Dad before last night? At least not with me?” I had noticed that earlier. He was always Roger.

  “He became my dad—he wasn’t good at it—but he tried.”

  As I waited for Jason to continue, I became aware that the rain had softened from earlier in the evening. It was as if the clouds were running out of moisture.

  “Dad did change—not a lot—but he was, well, different. At least he was different toward me. He still yelled, and I heard him really give it to ol’ Holmestead one day on the phone. He used words he would have whacked me across the face for if he’d heard me say them.”

  “How did he change toward you?”

  Jason stared into space. “Mostly, he was quieter, I think. Yeah, that’s how it started. He didn’t pick on me all the time. My grades were all good, but in the past, he’d still find something to diss me about.”

  “You’re convinced that he changed and not you?”

  “Oh, I changed too. Maybe that’s what started it. You helped me a lot there. You kept urging me to accept him as he was—and not wait until he became a good father to me. That was hard, but I did. You told me to pray for him every day.”

  I remembered that time very well. I had suggested to Jason that instead of trying to change his father, he might pray for himself—pray that he would be able to accept and love his stepfather. If he could love his stepfather, he could accept Roger’s imperfections. Jason told me that he would pray for Roger at least once a day. I also know that a year later, he said he still prayed.

  “I told you the others had a secret—something wrong they did,” Jason said.


  “Yes, you did.”

  “I did too. I’m not here just because I’m his stepson. I—I did something wrong—really wrong.”

  “Want to tell me about it?” I hated using those words because that’s a standard phrase in counseling, but I meant them.

  “It started with a phone call on a Thursday evening. Dad said, ‘I want you home by four o’clock tomorrow.’ When I asked him why, he said, ‘You’ll find out when I tell you. Just be here.’ ”

  “Did you know why he wanted you home?”

  He nodded. “I would have had to be stupid not to know. Do you remember one time you read from someplace in the Bible where it said, ‘Be sure your sin will find you out? ’ ”

  I didn’t remember quoting the verse, but that wasn’t the point.

  “My sin sure found me out. About five months ago, I forged his name on personal checks. I stole a book of them from his desk.” He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t need the money. I was just mad. I wanted to do something to hurt him. I ordered dumb stuff to be delivered to his office—you know, stuff from Victoria’s Secret—really dumb things—and I paid for them with his forged checks.”

  “Didn’t you know he’d catch you?”

  “If I had stopped to reason it out, sure. I was so filled with anger I wanted to do something to—to get even—to really make him as angry as I was.”

  “Was there something in particular?”

  “I turned twenty. He hadn’t remembered my birthday—but then, he hadn’t remembered my nineteenth either. I was trying hard to forgive him and—” Jason’s tears stopped him from saying anything more.

  I moved over and put my arm around Jason and let him cry. I wasn’t sure why he needed to cry, but I sensed he needed me to understand and care.

  “I always thought he hated me,” Jason finally said.

  “Do you still think so?”

  “I—I need to find that paper—that paper he planned to read. Then I’ll know for sure how he felt.”