THEO
BUD SHOWED UP in my backyard around six thirty, early for him.
“Mornin’.” He stomped up the stairs and past me where I stood at my boxing bag, and went to the kitchen. I unlaced my gloves. I’d been at it for over an hour, beating my bag instead of writing the week’s sermon. Those sermons were increasingly difficult to write. Something about standing in front of people I knew, who knew me, and lying.
Bud shoved the screen door open, handed me a cup of coffee, and told me to sit down.
I sat on the rail as he unfolded a news article with an attached sheriff’s report.
“Look at this.” He handed it to me and said, “There was another missing girl two months back. They found her last week, alive. She couldn’t identify the man who took her. He told her he took her for her own good. I think you were right . . . he thinks he’s some kinda savior.”
“What about the girl’s parents?” I asked.
Bud eagerly scanned the article with his finger and pointed to the page. “Her parents cannot be located,” he read. “She was staying with an aunt in Garibaldi when she was taken. Garibaldi’s part-time sheriff didn’t report her missing because her family tended to come and go; they were vagrants. The aunt has not seen the girl’s parents in six or more weeks.”
“Six or more weeks?” I said. “What kind of parents leave a child for six or more weeks?”
“The kind who don’t deserve to be parents,” he said. Then we both glanced at Tula’s pink sweater on Solomon’s log seat. “I think it’s time we tell Immie everything.”