Page 73 of The Rut in the Road

“What?”

“You are going to eat that, right?”

I nodded. It smelled delicious, which had activated my body’s hunger response, and the fact that it had brought back good memories was helping to reinforce that hunger. I demonstratedmy willingness to eat by picking up half of my sandwich and taking a bite.

Saliva flooded my mouth at the flavors, and I ate quickly for a few minutes, as though my body were trying to make up for the fact that I’d not gotten nearly enough calories the day before.

Raj let out a pleased grunt, then picked up his own burger.

Dessert wastwo giant slices of peanut butter pie—graham crackers, chocolate, peanut butter creme, and peanuts. I was several spoon-fulls in when Raj spoke.

“We confirmed that the Church of Holy Judgment has a minister named Reverend Dale Durant,” he said, his voice slow and measured.

I looked up from my dessert, fork hovering. “Preacher Dale?” I asked.

“It seems awfully likely,” Raj replied. “The idea that there might be a Reverend Daleanda Preacher Dale in the same city seems too coincidental.”

I nodded, agreeing, my stomach feeling oddly unpleasant—I was both pleased that they had a lead that seemed viable and made anxious by the fact that such a person was living and fomenting hatred in the same city I—and Raj—was also living in. “That’s a good thing, right?” I asked, mostly just wanting Raj to provide me with reassurance.

“It—is,” he answered, the hesitation between the two short words telling me that there was something hewasn’ttelling me.

“What?” I asked him.

He sighed, poking his fork into his dessert. “It gives us someone to keep tabs on,” he replied. “But unless we can prove that he’s explicitly ordering his congregation, or some subset ofthem, to run down or otherwise cause harm to Nids, it’s not actually very helpful.”

“What about the woman named Paula?” I asked. “Or the Jerry person?”

He let out a displeased snort. “We’ll definitely be trying to get a list of congregants,” he replied. “But that’s not usually the sort of thing you can get on demand.” He grimaced. “Especially for the more radical evangelicals, who tend to not trust the government.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?” he countered, a furrow across his forehead.

“Why are evangelicals likely not to trust the government?”

“Ah,” he said, his expression smoothing. Apparently that was a good question. “For a lot of the more radical denominations,” he explained, “there is a natural distrust of civic authority. There’s a Bible passage somewhere, I’m not actually surewhere, that says something about leaving to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and God that which is God’s. Which really religious folks take to mean that government shouldn’t dictate anything having to do with religion.”

It was my turn to frown. “Isn’t that already in one of the Amendments?” My political science education was rather lacking, but I thought I remembered that.

Raj smiled. “Yes,” he confirmed. “That would be the First. And it specifically prohibits Congress fromestablishingreligion or from prohibiting religious practice. We think of it as the separation of church and state, but that’s a slightly messy paraphrase.” He took another forkful of pie, speaking around the mouthful when he continued. “It doesn’t mean that religious organizations have the right to do anything they want without being censuredbythe government, but that’s what they want it to mean.”

What he said made sense. I didn’t understand why people thought they were or should be exempt from the rules that applied to the rest of us, but I’d lived in society long enough to understand that such was the case. I didn’t like it, but what I liked and didn’t like had almost no bearing on what was actually true or false.

I scowled down at the remaining half piece of pie on my plate. “So what do they want to do that the government is stopping them from doing?” I asked him. Then I grimaced. “Other than killing Arcanids.”

“Well, thereisthat,” Raj replied darkly, stabbing at his pie. “Drew is working on digging up the reasons we can get a warrant.”

“What are those?” I asked, setting down my fork. The pie was delicious, but I’d lost my appetite.

Raj spoke around a bite of pie. “Tax evasion is a pretty popular one with religious cults and fringe groups,” he replied. “Sometimes there’s a sex scandal involving a minor or child labor law violations. Drugs sometimes, too, depending on what the minister uses to keep up his energy levels for particularly enthusiastic sermons.” He shrugged. “Not sure what we’ll find, but we will find something.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. I disliked uncertainty. Most people were more optimistic than they should have been, believing that things will eventually work out in their favor. Raj hadn’t been wrong about anything significant—cases, especially—since I’d known him. Details, yes, but every time he’d been certain they would close a case, they had.

He gave a shrug that I didn’t find very reassuring. “I’m pretty sure,” he replied. “Most organizations havesomethingwe can use as an excuse to dig even deeper, although if they’re not doing anything nefarious, there generally isn’t a lot more to find.But,” he continued, seeing me frown, “when thereissomething nefarious, that digging will find more. Tax evasion often leads to other things, like more widespread fraud, patterns of exploitation and abuse that usually end up with somebody wanting to sue or press charges, that sort of thing.”

“And you think this is one where you’ll find something?”

Raj’s eyebrows rose. “This man’s so-called ‘flock’ is responsible for the deaths of three Nids,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that qualifies as ‘nefarious.’”