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got a call from one of the elders. I suppose if you’re here to speak with me, you already know that I was an elder there until very recently.”
“Yes. I was aware. And I understand there was a bit of hostility and disagreement just before you left.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Would you care to elaborate on what you meant by the comments you made about the dark and the light? About Living Word being burned by the light?”
Eric hesitated, taking a drink from his coffee. “You see, the difficult thing here is that had you asked me that very same question yesterday, I would have gladly answered you. But things are different now.”
“Well, Mr. Crouse, I had no reason to ask you that yesterday. But right now, I have a dead pastor that you were disagreeing with rather harshly…a pastor you worked closely with for several years and suddenly started to apparently not care for very much.”
“That’s fair,” he said. He leaned to the right a bit, peering down the hallway as if to make sure his wife and son were still out of earshot. When he was confident that they were still gone, he stepped closer to Mackenzie. “Look…I discovered something about Pastor Woodall three months ago. At first, I refused to believe it but then I saw proof. And I couldn’t deny it anymore. I…well, I guess I didn’t know quite how to handle it.”
“And what did you discover?”
“Agent White…he’s dead. Recently dead. What kind of man would I be to speak ill of him? The last thing I want is to smear his name after he’s dead.”
“I’ll keep it discreet then,” she said. “No one other than my supervisor and two or three additional agents will know.”
“I have your word on that?”
“Yes,” she said. “Although, from what I understand, you wouldn’t have cared much about dragging his name through the mud a few weeks ago.”
Eric actually sneered at this. “You expect this shit from small-town churches…rumors and gossip. Yes…I probably did not do the best job at staying quiet. I said some not-so-subtle things that might have raised eyebrows. But believe me…with what I know, I could have gone public. I could have smeared his name right away. But I didn’t.”
“And why not?”
“Because it’s not my job to judge. He’s dead now and God will judge him.”
“Judge him for what?” Mackenzie asked. “What’s the big secret?”
His eyes were welling with tears as he spoke and it was that one simple indicator that told Mackenzie that Eric Crouse was not only not the killer, but that despite his recent behavior, he had once cared for Pastor Woodall.
“I had a young man come to me in confidence about three months ago. From time to time, I’d help with the teen classes at Living Word. This was a kid I’d talked to off and on when he was younger…sort of helped him with his spiritual journey, answered the tough God questions, things like that. So he comes to me and it’s been…I don’t know…maybe a year since I’ve had a real conversation with him. He asks if we can talk in private, so I took him to my office. He tells me that for the last year or so, he’s been having a homosexual relationship. So I’m prepared to talk it out with him, to see where he’s at mentally and everything. But then he finishes the comment…the relationship was with Pastor Woodall.”
“And you believed him, just like that?” Mackenzie asked.
“Hell no. It actually made me mad that the guy would even insinuate such a thing. But then he showed me his cell phone. There were texts and pictures. And I hated him for showing it to me. I hated him for it and not Woodall.”
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