Free Play With Fire by Dana Stabenow Page A

upper right arm.
    Metzger said the deltoid muscle was almost severed."
    "What caused the cuts?" "Metzger says it looks like glass."
    "Glass? As in drinking?"
    "As in window."
    "As in windshield? As in maybe he got hit by a car?"
    He shook his head. "As in window. It wasn't safety glass."
    Kate was silent for a moment. "You want a name to go with what's left of the face?" She was pleased when the trooper sat up and took notice.
    "I think he was a guy by the name of Daniel Seabolt, lived in Chistona."
    "Seabolt. Related to the minister at the chapel there?"
    "His son."
    "He missing?"
    "According to his son, since last August."
    "Since the fire, then."
    "Yeah." The four of them thought about it for a while. "I don't get this," Chopper Jim said finally. "I haven't heard a word about anybody missing from this area, not a peep." "Yeah," Kate said, "like I said.
    Bullshit." She added, "His kid says they went to the dentist in Fairbanks regular once a year. Dentist's name is Dr. White."
    He nodded. "Okay."
    "Good." Kate stood up. To Bobby she said, "I'll be late getting back."
    "Why? Where you going?"
    "It's Sunday. I think I'll go to church."
    The singing sounded good from the steps outside and Kate was sorry she'd missed the whole hymn. The Chistona Little Chapel was a small church, six rows of two pews each. All twelve were packed solid this morning and she had to stand in the back. There was an empty space against the wall next to a plump brunette with three toddlers clustered around her and a fourth on her hip. Kate folded her arms and prepared to listen.
    Contrary to what his appearance suggested, Pastor Seabolt did not roar or thump the pulpit. He did not even raise his voice; on the contrary, he was calm, reasoned, articulate, and convincing. He began with a story about the two angels who visited Lot in Sodom and drew the obvious (to his congregation, anyway, judging from the emphatic nods punctuating each of his statements) connection to the current condition of the United States of America. With a serious expression and a doleful shake of the head, Pastor Seabolt said it was not too late to bring America back to God, and he urged his parishioners to become champions for Christ. How, specifically? Kate wondered, and Pastor Seabolt told her.
    Protest. By lifting the ban on the gays in the military, the current administration, Congress and the courts had endorsed what God had condemned. America was becoming a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, for which Hollywood and Washington, D. C." were equally at fault. He was pleased to quote the Reverend Jerry Falwell on the subject, in that Hollywood, Washington, D. C." and Hell were three localities with much in common.
    At that Kate laughed out loud and was immediately the cynosure of many pairs of shocked eyes, including those of the blue-eyed choirboy standing between two other blue-eyed choir boys on the opposite side of the pulpit from the preacher. She turned the laugh into a cough.
    Pastor Seabolt urged his champions for Christ to marry and beget more champions and to raise them up in the moral and traditional family values. He declared that it was right and natural to marry, and unnatural and against the law of God to remain single. He digressed a moment to attack the women's movement (he spat the word "feminist" like it was a curse), proclaiming any true Christian woman would not, could not participate in such a movement. He named names so that the female members of the congregation would be perfectly clear on this: the proscribed organizations included the National Organization for Women, Emily's List, the Alaska Women's Political Caucus and Planned Parenthood. Mention of Planned Parenthood naturally led to a comprehensive condemnation of abortion, the Freedom of Choice Act and RU-486.
    He closed neatly with a return to Lot and the destruction of Sodom and in case they'd missed it the first time, pointed out the similarities between Sodom and Gomorrah and present-day America, and