Bad Blood

HAD BEEN STARING at her father, and now she turned to look at Virgil, her dark eyes glittering in the light from the muted television. She said, “Not everybody in the church were involved. Some pulled back, and some left the church entirely and moved away, so it’s not all the church. It’s people in the church.”
    Virgil said, “But if people knew what was going on, even if they didn’t take part, then they’re to blame, too. You have to go to the law.”
    “We went to the Spirit,” Einstadt said. “The Spirit says there’s nothing wrong with a proper sexual attachment between—”
    “We’re not talking about sex,” Virgil said. “There’s nothing wrong with sex, but this isn’t about sex. This is about slavery. The children don’t have a proper choice. They can’t say no. We’ve got photographs taken by Karl Rouse, hundreds of them, and they don’t show sex: they show humiliation, bondage, slavery, desperate children being used by old men for their own enjoyment. I honest-to-God want to get you into a proper court, but I don’t understand how human beings could do what you people did. You’re monsters in this day and age; throwbacks to the days of slavery, and the slaves were your own children. I’m disgusted just looking at you.”
    “Disgusted by physical love—”
    “Bullshit,” Virgil said. “I talked to one of the victims—Karl Rouse’s daughter. The language she uses isn’t love language, it’s language right out of a porno film. I’m a cop, I’ve seen some of everything, and she shocked the hell out of me. And she doesn’t even know—”
    Alma said to her father, picking up on Virgil: “You remember what you did the first time you took me up to the bedroom? You remember Mother down crying in the kitchen, and you hit her? How many times did you hit her, Father? She had blood in her mouth, and then you took me up to the bedroom. You remember what you made me do? I didn’t even understand. I didn’t know what happened. One day I get my monthlies, and as soon as they stop, you stopped being my father and started to be the man who came to rape me every week.”
    “It wasn’t like that,” Einstadt said. “You liked it. You remember taking my hand? You remember—”
    “I was hoping you wouldn’t hurt me.”
    Virgil said, “Whoa. Alma, I’ve heard enough here. You’ve got to let me have him. Believe me.”
    “So you can put this all out in a trial? So we can all talk about it? You think I want to get up there and talk about it? I don’t. That’s why we’re having this here trial.”
    She said to the girls: “And he did the same to you. Did you take his hand?”
    The two girls shook their heads, and the older one, Edna, said, “I don’t remember so much when Father took me up, or Grandfather took me up, as when they took Helen up. I thought that all the awful things were coming to her now. I thought even that my night dreams would go away, because Helen would have them instead. I thought maybe they wouldn’t service me anymore. I prayed to the Lord Jesus that they wouldn’t come anymore, that they’d only service Helen.”
    Helen said, “I got the night dreams from you, but not about Father and Grandfather. I had night dreams about Mr. Mueller, after you told me about going in the pool. But I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to go in the pool. Mr. Mueller would look at me during Spirit worship. I know what he was thinking. . . . At least I didn’t go in the pool.”
    Alma said to Virgil, “After World of Spirit, some girls were taken in a pool to be serviced by the men who wanted to service them.”
    “Is that what happened to Kelly Baker?” Virgil asked. “A pool?”
    “No. That was . . . something different. Some of the girls went a little crazy, and they asked for it. Kathleen Spooner—what have you done with Kathleen Spooner?”
    “She’s in custody. We ran a trap for her, and some of the other men,” Virgil said. “They went up to talk to Birdy and gave themselves away. We were recording everything. They left Kathleen behind to kill Birdy. Kathleen’s . . . agreed to help us.”
    Einstadt said, “She’s made a deal? She’s the devil’s own daughter, Kathleen is. She’s worse than anyone here. She killed Jim Crocker—”
    “We knew that,” Virgil said.
    “And she would have killed anyone else who got close to her, if you gave her the chance. She had guns and she always wanted to use them.”
    “Good for her,” Alma said. “She