Officer Bynum took an inordinate amount of time to return with the coffee. No doubt he hoped the moments alone in the stark room would push Brian toward a confession. Which proved he didn’t truly understand what it meant to be Amish. If there was one thing Brian had learned in the last few years, it was how to wait.
Finally, Bynum walked into the room with two steaming Styrofoam cups and pushed one across the table to Brian.
“You moved here three years ago?”
“Two and a half.”
“Explain to me how you started in California and ended up in a small town in rural Oklahoma.”
“Is it relevant to Stella’s disappearance?”
“It may be.”
Brian sipped the coffee and winced at the bitter taste. “I wandered for several months. I had a vague idea of making my way east. All I wanted was to get away. From my parents, from what I’d done, even from my job. None of it mattered anymore.”
“West to east doesn’t necessarily go through Oklahoma.”
“True. I came east on I-40.”
“In your car?”
Brian shook his head. “At that point I didn’t trust myself to ever sit behind the wheel of a vehicle again. I walked and caught rides when I could.”
“Go on.”
“I took I-40 through Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Amarillo, and finally Oklahoma City. That’s where…well, you could say that’s where God grabbed hold of me.”
Bynum made a continue motion with his hand.
But Brian couldn’t continue. He was suddenly back at the memorial, walking through the Gates of Time, staring at the rows of empty chairs.
“Have you been to the memorial in Oklahoma City?”
“For the Murrah Building? I have, in fact. A friend of mine died in that blast.”
Brian thought of offering his condolences, but it was plain Bynum was only interested in the case. And yet he had asked about the route that brought Brian to Cody’s Creek. That route went directly through the grounds of the museum.
“I was a teenager when the bombing occurred. I remember watching it on the news and then later writing about it for a school assignment.” He stared down into his coffee. “Seeing the memorial in person was a completely different experience from studying it through Internet sources. I walked through the twin gates, and it was as if I were walking into a holy place. Do you believe that, Officer Bynum? That any place can be made holy, but that those places bathed with the blood of the innocent…well, it seems God bestows a special blessing on those spots.”
Bynum didn’t answer. He just continued staring at Brian and waiting.
“Then I reached the field of empty chairs—”
“One hundred sixty-eight.”
“Yes, one for each victim. I suddenly understood how precious a gift life is, and what a fool I’d been wasting mine and those of the people around me. I saw my past like a thing belonging to someone else. I felt…I fully felt the presence of God in a way I can’t explain.”
Brian sat back and considered Officer Bynum. Was he a religious man? It didn’t really matter. He himself had not been religious before he walked into the memorial, but he’d left a changed person. It suddenly occurred to Brian that he might be enduring this scrutiny so that he could share the grace he had received that day. The thought gave him the courage to press forward with his story.
“Maybe you don’t believe in such a thing—a spiritual experience, an encounter with the Holy of holies. I didn’t either, but it happened. I suddenly remembered scraps of a song my grandmother used to sing. “Amazing Grace.” What I felt, more than anything else, was God’s love and forgiveness.”
“Convenient.”
“I stood staring at those chairs for…for I don’t know how long. Finally, I moved on to the reflecting pool. I stayed there until darkness fell, amazed at how much had happened in a few hours, amazed that God could love a wretch like me.”
Bynum sat up straight and pierced Brian with a skeptical gaze. “You nearly kill a girl, joyride across the country, end up at a memorial, and then experience a conversion. Is that your story?”
Brian pushed the coffee away. He didn’t want it. He didn’t need it. He was nearly finished with his testimony and the interview. “I had in my mind to head northeast, maybe go to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania. I didn’t have a particular reason, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. Yes, I’d had a conversion, a holy experience, but what was I to do with it? How was I to live and honor what had happened? I headed northeast, and the route took me through Tulsa. From there I caught a ride with an old farmer headed east.”
Brian stared at his reflection in the long, one-way mirror. Had his future turned on a happenchance ride from a stranger? Or was it one more way that God had directed his path? “The farmer’s vehicle broke down in Cody’s Creek. Imagine that, Officer Bynum. What are the odds that the truck I’m riding in would break down in one of the few places in Oklahoma with an Amish community?”
Bynum shrugged, but he was watching Brian closely, interested in the rest of the story.
“Suddenly I was tired. Tired of running, tired of the guilt and pain. I just wanted to be still, be in one place, and appreciate the life God had given me.” He waved his hand. “I found a few odd jobs and in the process met Levi Troyer. The rest is pretty straightforward.”
“Straightforward? You decide to give up everything—nearly all the conveniences of modern society—and become Amish, one of the most conservative sects in the country. How is that straightforward?”
Now Brian smiled. “Perhaps it was the horse and buggies. Remember, I didn’t want to ever drive again.” Then he grew serious. “When I was sitting beside that reflection pond at the memorial site in Oklahoma City, I told God that if He gave me a new life I wouldn’t waste it. I wouldn’t squander it like I had the old one. A week later I was eating Dutch apple pie and drinking coffee with Levi. He took me in, taught me about a simple faith, a dedicated work ethic, the meaning of being a neighbor to one another. Why wouldn’t I become Amish?”
Bynum sat back, studying Brian as if he didn’t know what to say.
“I was confronted with a choice. I knew I couldn’t go back to California, but I could continue wandering. Or I could accept the new life I was faced with. A life that honored God and allowed me to be a part of a community again.”
One minute, then two ticked by. Finally, Bynum reached forward and opened the folder. Brian glimpsed copied pages of a journal, and he recognized the handwriting.
“What about Stella? What about the fact that she had a major crush on you, that she wrote about running away with you and the two of you marrying? What do you say about that? How does that figure into your choice?”
Brian was only mildly surprised. His policy regarding student infatuations had always been to ignore them. After a few weeks or months, they passed. Only this time, a young girl’s fantasies could incriminate him.
“I had nothing to do with Stella’s disappearance. She was a student in my class, and I did my best to teach her and guide her. I would never hurt her or anyone else, and if you don’t believe that, then I suggest you get out of your office and start interviewing people from our community.” He stood, reached forward, and tapped the pages. “Or maybe you’ve already done that. Maybe you have nothing to go on but the pages of a young girl’s diary. Either way, we’re done here.”
Then Brian walked around the table and out of the police station.