Not exactly a king’s ransom, Arthur Battenkill knew, but enough for a fast start on a new life.
The judge’s wife, however, wasn’t packing for the tropics. While Arthur Battenkill was tidying up the details of the Save King payoff, Katie was on her knees in church. She was praying for divine guidance, or at least improved clarity of thought. That morning she’d read in The Register that Tom Krome’s estranged wife had come to town to receive a journalism award on her “late” husband’s behalf. Regardless of Tommy’s ill feelings toward the elusive Mary Andrea Finley, it seemed possible to Katie Battenkill that the woman might be mourning an imagined loss; that she still might love Tom Krome in some significant way.
Shouldn’t somebody tell her he’s not really dead? If it were me, Katie thought, I’d sure want to know.
But Katie had assured Tommy she wouldn’t say a word. Breaking her promise would be a lie, and lying was a sin, and Katie was trying to give up sinning. On the other hand, she couldn’t bear the thought of Mrs. Krome (whatever her faults) needlessly suffering even a sliver of widow’s pain.
Knowing Tom was alive became a leaden weight upon Katie’s overtaxed conscience. There was a second secret, too; equally troubling. She was reminded of it by another item in The Register, which reported that the human remains believed to be those of Tom Krome were being shipped to an FBI laboratory “for more sophisticated analysis.” This meant DNA tests, which meant it wouldn’t be long before the dead man was correctly identified as Champ Powell, law clerk to Circuit Judge Arthur Battenkill Jr.
The devious shitheel with whom Katie was about to flee the country forever.
“What do I do?” she whispered urgently. Head bowed, she knelt alone in the first pew. She prayed and waited, then prayed some more.
God’s answer, when it eventually came, was typically strong on instruction but weak on details. Katie Battenkill didn’t push it; she was grateful for anything.
As she walked out of church, she removed her diamond solitaire and deposited it in the slot of the oak collection box, where it landed with no more fanfare than a nickel. Lightning didn’t flash, thunder didn’t clap. No angels sang from the rafters.
Maybe that’ll come later, Katie thought.
After the last of the pilgrims were gone, Shiner’s mother approached the besheeted Sinclair, who was sloshing playfully with the cooters in the moat. She said, “Help me, turtle boy. I need a spiritual rudder.” Sinclair’s unshaven chin tilted toward the heavens: “kiiiikkkeeeeaayy kaa-koooo kaattttkin.”
His visitor failed to decipher the outcry (kicking back with ultra-cool kathleen—from a feature profile of the actress Kathleen Turner).
“How ’bout giving that a shot in English?” Shiner’s mother grumped.
Sinclair beckoned her into the moat. She kicked off her scuffed bridal heels and stepped in. Sinclair motioned her to sit. With cupped hands he gathered several baby turtles and placed them on the billowing white folds of her gown.
Shiner’s mother picked one up to examine it. “You paint these suckers yourself?”
Sinclair laughed patiently. “They’re not painted. That’s the Lord’s imprint.”
“No joke? Is this little guy ‘posed to be Luke or Matthew or who?”
“Lay back with me.”
“They paved my Jesus this morning, did you hear? The road department did.”
“Lay back,” Sinclair told her.
He sloshed closer, taking her shoulders and lowering her baptismally. Shiner’s mother closed her eyes and felt the coolness of the funky water on her neck, the tickle of tiny cooter claws across her skin.
“They won’t bite?”
“Nope,” said Sinclair, supporting her.
Soon Shiner’s mother was enfolded by a preternatural sense of inner peace and trust, and possibly something more. The last man who’d touched her so sensitively was her periodontist, for whom she’d fallen head over heels.
“Oh, turtle boy, I lost my son and my shrine. I don’t know what to do.”
”’Kiiikkkeeeaay ka-kooo,” Sinclair murmured.
“OK,” said Shiner’s mother. “Kiki-kakeee-kooo. Is that the Bible in, like, Japanese?”
Unseen by the meditators in the moat was Demencio, who stood with knuckles on hips at a window. To Trish he said: “You believe this shit—she’s in with the turtles!”