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  They sat and talked for the next fifteen minutes, and finally he thanked her, and headed home in a completely different state of mind.

  This sort of thing happened from time to time with Joanna. In a flash, she could see the two different directions this man might take. If he took the path of kindness, forgiveness, and trust, he would go on to live a fulfilling life of hard work that would allow him and his wife to move to the suburbs, raise several children, and one day be surrounded by a large, loving family. If he chose the path of mistrust, hate, and violence, he would be in jail by nightfall, his wife severely beaten and almost dead. She would divorce him, and, after his release from jail, he would grow into a lonely and bitter old man. It was almost as if two movies ran in her head simultaneously.

  On this occasion she had been successful, but it didn’t always turn out that way. There were many times when she would envision someone about to perform a dreadful act, but found herself incapable of intervening and altering the course of events. God gave us free will, she reasoned, but God also permitted evil to exist in the world, and when the enemy was determined, he was a vicious adversary. These times were excruciatingly painful for her, both physically and emotionally. As the years went on, she learned to sense when she was outmatched, and, with rare exceptions, she would step out of the situation.

  As a teenager, she had struggled at times. She was proud of her gift, and would forget that it wasn’t something she had earned, that it didn’t make her better than others. At times pride would overtake her. Once, she told a friend about her gift (referring to it as a “power”), and the girl challenged her to prove herself by curing her brother, who had been born with a club foot. Joanna was tempted to do so, and tried, but she drew a blank. Disappointed, her friend accused her of being a fraud.

  At dinner that night, she told her mother about the incident, and Joan knew the time had come for a serious discussion.

  “Joanna,” she said, “you and I both know that you have been given a very special ability, but it’s only through the grace of God that you have it, and so it’s not to be trifled with. I don’t know why you were given this talent, but it’s clear that God selected you because He knew you would know how to use it properly. You can’t heal anyone; you can only petition God to heal someone. I don’t know why He seems to hear you when He doesn’t hear others, or why He allows you to know things that others don’t, but—”

  “But, maybe God wants me to heal others like the apostles were able to heal people in His name after Jesus was resurrected!”

  “That may be so, Joanna, and if you are so directed, then so it will be. But I can guarantee you that unless you are humble and quiet about this gift, it will be taken away. God knows that you will be tempted by pride and the desire to be admired and loved by others, and I am sure He does not want you to succumb to those temptations. Remember that the Devil is alive and well and does his work through others who may not even know they are being used.”

  She knew her mother was right, and there it was, the part that scared her the most. The Enemy.

  Joanna felt a direct connection to God, but, despite her upbringing, she couldn’t persuade herself to believe in any particular religion. As she matured into a strong woman, she was offended by the fact that most religions were begun and run by men, and that women were never treated as equals. She studied the Bible, but found that some of the sections, particularly in the Old Testament, treated women in a disrespectful manner, and she understood how some of those beliefs were used over the years as a justification for subjugating women.

  However, in the New Testament, she was touched by the suffering of Jesus’s mother, Mary, and the faith she showed when the angel Gabriel came to her to tell her she was going to have a child. Because Joanna also experienced supernatural occurrences, she could appreciate how lonely Mary must have felt when she was mocked and treated as an outcast. An unmarried pregnant woman is still shunned today, so imagine the criticism Mary had to endure! She also loved Joseph because he embodied the concept of a man who trusted and protected both his wife and child, though in the natural, other men must have considered him a cuckold.

  But the woman who really spoke to Joanna was Mary Magdalene, because it was through her that Jesus was able to demonstrate one of the primary lessons of forgiveness. In many ways the story about Mary Magdelene was similar to the one about the woman who was accused of adultery. He drew the line in the sand, and encouraged those who were without sin to cast the first stone. Of course that meant no one could throw a stone. Forgiveness was difficult, and sometimes it seemed impossible, but if everyone in the world practiced it, then there would be much less pain and suffering in the world.

  Before Joanna left for college, she decided to confide in a pastor to whom she naturally gravitated, who seemed to be a learned and patient man. She was convinced he would listen to her situation carefully and advise her. Much to her astonishment, he not only listened, but also confided to her that he, too, had a similar ability, and said it had been both a blessing and a curse in his life. He warned her that she would be tempted to use her ability for personal gain, and that it was a dangerous thing to do.

  “Joanna,” he admitted, “I know this because I made that mistake, and I suffered for it. I am indeed grateful that I was visited one day by an angel who led me to see the true meaning of this gift, and that I should be guided by a simple and honest prayer.”

  Then he handed her a card with a prayer on it, and told her to memorize it, and to rely on it whenever she needed guidance. She knew the prayer and had recited it many times, but from that point forward, it became the guiding principle of her life:

  Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

  Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

  Where there is injury, pardon;

  Where there is error, truth;

  Where there is doubt, faith;

  Where there is despair, hope;

  Where there is darkness, light;

  And where there is sadness, joy.

  O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek

  To be consoled as to console;

  To be understood as to understand;

  To be loved as to love.

  For it is in giving that we receive;

  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

  And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

  The “Prayer of Saint Francis” said everything she needed to know as she began her journey toward a life of ministry.

  After she graduated from the University of Chicago, Joanna studied at the Chicago Theological Seminary, and spent several years as a visiting assistant pastor at several churches in the Midwest. She returned to Chicago to open a home for battered women, and decided that would be the focus of her work. She was repulsed at how often men would take advantage of women because they were stronger and larger, and how vulnerable these women and their children were. Joanna, on the other hand, was fearless. She thought nothing of placing herself between a man filled with hate and righteousness and his wife and child, and sometimes—but not always—could tame the wildest of beasts. She had purposely chosen a dangerous profession.

  In 1995, she moved to Cleveland to join the ministry of the man she had met and married, who had devoted his life to working with young men who had been abandoned by their fathers, which was his experience. The cycle of violence had to be broken, and so she and Richard grew their ministry in a tiny church they purchased from the city for a dollar on Fifty-fifth Street. They were surrounded by crime and drug dealers, but neither of them feared for their own safety. They were guided.

  Richard helped Joanna learn how to balance her gift with her responsibilities as a pastor, mother, and wife, but it concerned him that sometimes she would be taken with a particular problem and wouldn’t let it go, despite the personal toll it would take on her. A lifetime of this work had aged her prematurely, and her hair had turned so light, it was almost luminescent. Perhaps her physical challen
ges were the price she was to pay for her gift. However, if God chose her to intercede in a particular situation, she knew not to question His wisdom, although it had become more difficult in recent years. And that was her plight on the morning of the Turner family murders.

  All through the night, Joanna kept pushing Danny to forget about his insane scheme and to drive away with the young man waiting in the garage. At one point, he had a moment of clarity and decided to forget about his absurd plan. Joanna rejoiced that she had finally reached him, but then he abruptly turned around, rushed into the living room, and cut the cord to the lamp. He decided in that instant that it was too late to turn back. How would he ever explain cutting the cord to Rachel and the kids?

  Danny began to walk up the stairs, the cord dragging at his feet, convinced he was past the point of no return, unaware of the dark figure at his back, urging him toward the horrid actions that would soon result in so much misery.

  When it was all over and she sat by the window early that morning, trying to let the cool breeze assuage the pain that racked her body, she felt she had in some way failed. Perhaps it was too late now to do anything for this family. Perhaps she should ignore this particular problem. Perhaps it was really none of her business. The agony and horror that filled this world were much bigger and stronger than she was. Perhaps she was too old and tired to take on this problem. Better to leave it for someone younger.

  And then she saw her father’s smiling face in the reflection in the glass, confident and happy, and she was reminded of the amazing healing power of the Lord. She laughed when she recognized the true author of her doubts, and how skilled he was at subtly encouraging her to quit. But she saw it for what it was: just another devious trick.

  Don’t worry, Dad, your scrappy little girl won’t give up without a good fight, she thought, and then she said in a bold, loud voice: “Okay, now I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER 12

  A Thread of Light

  To love and win is the best thing;

  To love and lose, the next best.

  —William Makepeace Thackeray

  AFTER DAVE THOMPSON drove off, the group sat in stunned silence until Tom came back into the dining room, and they were sure they were alone. Pete was the first to speak.

  “Well, I’m grateful he was so open with us, but it still feels like there’s a lot of unanswered questions,” he sighed.

  “That’s for sure,” agreed Mitch. “You’ll never convince me that Vonda just sat out there in the car all night, didn’t hear anything, and fell asleep. It doesn’t add up.”

  Mitch heard himself speaking and felt disingenuous as the words came out of his mouth. In the back of his mind, he knew that it was somehow easier to focus on the mysteries surrounding the crime than on the awful brutality of Danny’s actions. While it was true that there was probably more to the story, there was no escaping the fact that Danny had killed his wife and child and then committed suicide, in each instance in the most gruesome way imaginable. Playing detective created an artificial wall that provided a bit of a respite for the group, however, and so they all indulged.

  After a few minutes of rehashing the meeting with Detective Thompson, the group moved on to the particulars of the funeral service. Because Rachel’s older sister, Terry, hadn’t been heard from in several years, and no one knew how to contact her, the burden of making all the decisions regarding the service, burial, and other issues had fallen on Maryann, Pete, and Sam. Pete and Sam admittedly had had very little contact with Rachel, Danny, and the kids over the last ten years, so their role was a bit removed. It was really Maryann, as the adult child, who would bear the brunt of all the ugly choices to be made over the next few days.

  Of course, there was the big, fat elephant that had shoved its way into the living room, and had sat there huffing and puffing, ignored until this point. Sam, who was never one to avoid a conflict, bluntly brought it up.

  “So, are we going to have a service for just Rachel and Evan, or should we include Danny, also?” There it was. Had the mother, father, and child died in a car accident, there would be no need to ask the question, even if the father had been driving drunk, and had caused their deaths. This was a whole other set of circumstances, however.

  Maryann was adamant. “There’s no way in the world that I would ever agree to include Danny in the service with Rachel and Evan. I already spoke with Tony and told him that, and he said that he was okay with it. He was disappointed, for sure, but he said he and his parents would make the arrangements for Danny later next week. He also said that he wanted to pay for all of the burial expenses for Rachel and Evan. I told him he didn’t need to, but he insisted.”

  “Boy, that must have been one awkward discussion.” Pete said. “You really have to let the rest of us do some of this stuff, Maryann.”

  Maryann suddenly looked so young to Carolyn (she was only twenty-two, after all), and so she took her hand and said, “I agree; just tell us what you need us to do. Anything.”

  “Well, Carolyn, I was thinking of asking you to do the eulogy for Rachel at the service. Of all of us, you were the closest to her, and I think that’s what Rachel would have wanted.”

  Carolyn looked over at Mitch and he was nodding and smiling, and so she smiled for the first time that day, and said, “Maryann, I would be proud to do that. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to get through it, but I’ll do my best.” Her response made it clear to Mitch that he needn’t mention the very vivid dream he’d had that morning.

  “Thanks, Carolyn, and one more thing, if you don’t mind. The police told me that we could go to the house later today to select some clothing for Rachel and Evan and get some photos of them to display at the church. I was planning on going over there around three, and I would really appreciate it if you would help me pick out her dress and something for Evan to wear.”

  Carolyn gasped at the idea of going to the house so soon after the murders, and was surprised the police would allow them to visit an active crime scene. “Are you sure they will let us do that?”

  “That’s what the sheriff in charge told me. He said we could only go on the first floor, though, and could only stay a few minutes,” Maryann replied.

  “Do you mind if Mitch comes as well?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Maryann,” Mitch said, “why don’t we come by and pick you up a little before three, and we’ll go over together?” Mitch imagined there would be television crews staked out in front of the house and didn’t want her to have to face them alone.

  After they discussed a few other particulars, it became apparent that it was time to leave, though everyone resisted making the first move. Paralysis had set in due to the fact that there was something so grim and unnatural about the tasks that faced all of them, Maryann in particular. Her eyes had taken on a permanent glaze, and her movements seemed robotic. Carolyn found it hard to believe that Maryann, the little girl who had already known such tragedy in her young life, now had to carry this burden. At least they would be able to help her through the visit to Danny and Rachel’s house later that day. Now Maryann displayed maturity beyond her years yet again.

  “Thanks so much,” she said to Tom and Anna, “both of you, for letting us meet here, and for arranging the meeting with Dave Thompson. It would have been horrible to have gone down to the police station and put up with those awful reporters.”

  “Maryann, it’s the least we could do,” they said almost in unison.

  When Mitch and Carolyn climbed into their car, they simply sat there, immobile, trying to absorb and process all that they had learned in the last few hours. When they had arrived, they had been under the impression that Danny had snapped and shot his wife and child and then himself. The details Dave Thompson had shared moved this tragedy into a whole new realm. Carolyn sat quietly, staring ahead, exhausted, perplexed, angry, sad, unable to process the enormity of the events that had taken place over the last forty-eight hours. The complexity of emotions left her wi
th an overwhelming feeling of dread. A dense fog had descended, and at that moment she couldn’t imagine ever again feeling an emotion that might be described as “normal,” let alone something presently as foreign as “happiness.” Mitch looked over at her and thought she was probably in shock. This must be what shock looks like, he thought. What if she never comes out of it? What if she sinks deeper? He realized that the impact on his wife would be much more severe than on him. He felt helpless and frightened.

  “Are you all right?” he offered, expecting her to nod mechanically that she was. Instead she looked directly at him and said, “I don’t think I will ever be ‘all right’ again, Mitch,” and she turned to continue her silent vigil. This was not good. Mitch always needed to fix things, and right now things were very broken. When he suggested they go check in at the hotel, Carolyn vehemently shook her head from side to side. So they continued to sit there in silence.

  And then Mitch remembered an incident, just a few years ago, when Frankie was six months old, and Mitch had stupidly placed him on the kitchen table in his infant seat while he was making a snack. The game was on and it was halftime. Mitch was watching their three boys, and he figured he’d whip up a sandwich just before the second half. His sixth sense told him he shouldn’t place the baby on the table (okay, Carolyn’s rule was that the infant seat should never be placed on the table), but he reasoned that he was just a few feet away, and it would only be for a minute or two.

  He kept up a running dialogue with the baby, glancing at him every few seconds to keep him amused and make sure he was okay. He didn’t notice, however, that Frankie’s rocking had caused the chair to creep to the edge of the table. In the instant it took to cut the sandwich in half, the chair tipped over and he smacked his head on the tile floor just before Mitch could grab him. That awful crunching sound would haunt Mitch for years.