Before He Sins
Wylerman shrugged. “No. Some people started to notice that Eric was doing everything he could to avoid meetings or small groups where Pastor Woodall would be in attendance. They’ve never been best friends, but always got along. Then all of a sudden, when he started talking about all of this light shining in the darkness stuff, he also seemed to distance himself from Pastor Woodall.”
“And you say he left the church two weeks ago?”
“Yeah, give or take a few days. I don’t know if he’s attending somewhere else now or what. And what’s strange is that it’s almost as if Eric knew Pastor Woodall’s schedule. He had just gotten back from a retreat a few days ago.”
“A retreat?”
“Yeah, it’s this little getaway he takes twice a year. It’s a really quiet little island off the coast of Florida.”
“And how long had he been back?” Mackenzie asked.
“He and his wife got back home five days ago.”
Mackenzie thought about this for a moment, cataloguing it in her mind. She then turned matters back to the man Wylerman had mentioned – the former elder, Eric Crouse.
“Would you happen to know where Crouse lives?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’ve been in his house a few times for small groups and prayer.”
Mackenzie wasn’t sure why, but something about this creeped her out. The timing of Eric Crouse leaving Living Word was nearly perfect for the type of suspect she was looking for. To imagine this grieving man clasping praying hands together with a man who might have been responsible for three deaths over the last few days was unsettling.
“Can you tell me where?”
“I will,” Wylerman said, “but I’d really rather you not tell him that you got the information from me…or anyone else at Living Word, for that matter.”
“Of course not,” she said.
A bit reluctantly, Wylerman gave her directions to Eric Crouse’s house. Mackenzie typed them in on her phone, noticing that while Wylerman might have been interacting with her, his mind was very much still with his grieving friends out by the church. He was looking in that direction now, wiping tears from his eyes as he looked at them through the passenger window.
“Thanks for your time, Mr. Wylerman,” Mackenzie said.
Wylerman nodded without saying anything else. He then got out of the car. He hung his head low before he even reached the small crowd of people. She could see him trembling. She had never understood how people could have deep faith in an invisible God, but she did respect the sense of community that was evident among those who shared a common belief. She felt very bad for Dave Wylerman in that moment, as well as those who attended Living Word and the void they would feel on Sunday morning.
With that sense of sympathy pushing her, Mackenzie pulled out of the Living Word lot and headed west, to what looked to be the first solid lead this case had churned up.
CHAPTER NINE
It was 6:40 when she arrived in front of Eric Crouse’s home. It was located in a well-to-do neighborhood where the houses were more important than yards, each house pressed in tightly against the other. The garage was closed, making it impossible to know if anyone was home – though given the early hour, she assumed there would be someone there to answer the door.
As she made her way to his door, Mackenzie wished she’d picked up another coffee from somewhere. It was hard to believe that it was not yet seven o’clock. She did her best to shake the vestiges of sleep from her face as she rang the doorbell of the Crouse residence. Right away she could hear footfalls behind the door. Seconds later, the door opened just a crack and a woman peered out.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked, clearly suspicious.
“Yes,” Mackenzie said. “And I do apologize for the early hour, but this is pressing. I’m Agent Mackenzie White with the FBI. I’m looking for Eric Crouse.”
The woman slowly opened the door. “That’s my husband. He’s…well, he’s received some terrible news this morning. I assume that’s why you’re here? About the murder this morning?”
“It is,” she said. “So if I could speak with him…”
“Of course,” the woman said. “Come in, come in.”
Mackenzie was ushered inside to the smell of cooking bacon and freshly brewed coffee. The Crouse home was beautiful not overly so. There were high ceilings, crown molding, hardwood floors, and granite counters and a bar space in the kitchen. In the kitchen, the woman led her to a large dining room table; this was the type of kitchen that served as a dining room as well. A man and a boy of about ten sat at the table. The boy was eating a bowl of cereal while the man sipped at a cup of coffee and read something from a laptop.
“This lady is here from the FBI,” Crouse’s wife said.
Crouse looked up, blinking in a what’s going on kind of way. He then got up and walked to Mackenzie. He smiled tiredly at her and she could see from his face that he, just like Dave Wylerman, had been doing his fair share of crying this morning.
Crouse extended his hand for a shake and Mackenzie obliged. She watched his face the entire time, looking for some flaw in what was either a great disguise of emotion or a front to fool her. She could not see either and, therefore, could not decide if he was hiding any guilt.
“I assume this is about Pastor Woodall?” Eric asked.
“Yes,” Mackenzie said. “Is there somewhere we could talk?”
“Um, yeah,” Eric said. He looked at his son and patted him on the shoulder. “Can you and Mommy run to the bathroom and finish getting ready for school? Get those teeth good, okay?”
The boy looked at his cereal, clearly not finished, but obeyed his father. So did the wife, as she escorted their son out of the kitchen and toward a hallway that sat off to the right. When they were out of sight, Eric looked at the coffee pot on the counter and asked: “Coffee?”
“Yes, please. That would be fantastic, actually.”
Eric walked into the kitchen and Mackenzie followed. Eric grabbed a cup from a cupboard and filled it with coffee from the pot on the counter. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Black is fine,” she said. She was pretty sure he was stalling, but at the same time, also trying his best to seem pleasant and hospitable.
When he handed her the coffee, she gave her thanks and sipped. It was good and strong – just what she needed.
“So, how did you find out about Pastor Woodall?” she asked.
“I 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
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