“Nothing,” Hicks all but spat out. Then he looked away, his jaw swiveled and then clenched. “Pray.”
“You mean,” Lucy drawled out, her mind finally booting back up again, “it’s like . . .”
When she trailed off, he filled it in for her. “Faith healing.”
The term brought up images of gel-slicked hair and brightly colored robes; loud, purposely distracting gestures as “holy men” tossed away crutches or pulled the injured from wheelchairs; actors stationed in the audience, and cheap tricks to make it look like the sick were healed. Con men feasting on the fragile hope of the desperately ill.
But what Hicks was describing . . .
It seemed like a different kind of faith healing, the kind where everyone involved and not just the audience actually believed it worked. “But what if they get seriously sick? Kids can die from pneumonia, things like that.”
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?”
Lucy thought of her own childhood, the acrid fear in her parents’ voices when that one dry cough had made her wheeze in the middle of the night, the doctor forty miles away. Her eyes found Hicks’s, his earlier words locking into place. “And the shield laws?”
“In Idaho, there are medical exemptions,” he said. “So, in other states, a kid dies from something like”—he gestured toward her—“pneumonia. Something that could have been prevented by the parents taking them to the hospital, or even to a doctor. They could face criminal charges.”
A part of her hated that protections like that had to exist, but she knew enough about the realities of the world to know they needed to.
Lucy followed the logic to its conclusion, Jackson’s shifty behavior when asked about hospital visits all of a sudden making sense. “Since this Church claims it’s their religion that stopped them from seeking medical care, it’s not child abuse. It’s the First Amendment. They’re shielded from any legal consequences.”
“Completely. My hands are tied.” Hicks’s words dripped bitterness, his fingers curling into fists on the table, a vein pulsing along the line of his neck. The intensity—though it was clearly contained—was still a surprise. Before this display, Lucy would have guessed getting an emotional response out of him would take a crowbar and some strong alcohol.
A bee in your bonnet now seemed an understatement. This . . . This was more than just a frustrated sheriff upset about running into a brick wall. This spoke of a personal crusade.
And if Hicks had some kind of vendetta against these people, there was no way he was going to be able to work this case without bias.
Is that why Eliza hadn’t gone to him to confess?
As soon as Lucy had the thought, she dismissed it. If Eliza was going to confess anyway, what would the sheriff’s bias against her matter?
But . . . She asked for me? Lucy quickly ran her old cases in her head, flipping through the details stored there for similarities. There had been a cult case three or four years back, but they had been more caught up in guns and race than religion and medical care.
“There’s a cemetery out near where Noah was found,” Hicks continued, staring at his hands. Slowly he dropped them flat to the table until they could almost pass as relaxed. Almost. “It’s filled with their dead kids.”
Lucy licked her lips, still seeing bruises on little-boy arms. Her stomach clenched against the dirty water that tried to pass as coffee. “It’s not just pneumonia, huh? What they die of.”
Hicks met her eyes. “There’s been no signs of obvious abuse in the community, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Something about the way he’d answered that sat wrong in her chest, but she couldn’t tell why. It was like she’d asked the wrong question.
What was the right one?
Brenda swung out of the kitchen, coffeepot in hand. She circled over to them, filled their mugs. “You two want food?”
Maybe five minutes ago Lucy had been hungry, a dull sort of ache that reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since the stale pastry from a truck stop on I-90. Now? Food would probably taste like sawdust.
Even though both Lucy and Hicks shook their heads, Brenda lingered, her mouth working, twisting, opening, and then snapping shut. With a final disgruntled whine, she finally left them alone.
“We had a girl die last year,” Hicks said as if they hadn’t been interrupted. His voice was steadier, though, and overall he looked a little less like he was about to start throwing punches. “She got food poisoning. After three days of vomiting, her esophagus ruptured. She bled out.”
Hicks laughed, though there was no humor to it. “They call it faith healing.” He shook his head. “She was fifteen.”
The story hurt to hear, of course—a throbbing pain that was always there, a reminder that life was a ruthless and terrible bastard. But the detective in her that had spent years submerged in all the ways people could be awful to each other needed to see how this connected to her case. “So, Darcy . . . Dawson? She’s a member of the”—was cult too strong a word?—“community you’re talking about?”
“Darcy and Liam Dawson, yes,” Hicks said, all business once more. “Along with Noah they have two other children, both younger, a girl and a boy.”
“There really haven’t been any reports of abuse against them?”
Hicks lifted one shoulder. “The kids are homeschooled, don’t go to the pediatrician. The adults in their lives are members of the True Believers Church. I’m not sure who would report anything.”
Lucy stared blankly at the pig-shaped saltcellar that cozied up to the rooster pepper shaker. “What do you think?”
“I guess you never know what goes on,” Hicks said, clearly weighing his thoughts before putting voice to them. “But I don’t think that was the case.” He held up a hand before she could say anything else. “I know, I saw the bruises. Could be.”
“Why don’t you think it was abuse?” Despite her own propensity to believe the worst until proven otherwise, he seemed fairly sure for someone who clearly had a grudge against the people he was defending. For some reason, that made his take on the situation more credible in her book.
Hicks didn’t answer right away, and Lucy kept her mouth shut, knowing all too well that uncomfortable sensation of trying to shape gut feelings into words that would make sense to someone else.
“He wasn’t a scared kid,” Hicks finally said with a nod. “Was easy around both parents, for the most part. Didn’t flinch at unexpected touches or sounds. I mean, that’s not proof, either. Kids are good at hiding stuff.”
“But it didn’t seem like a problem,” Lucy concluded for him. The bruises were a red flag, but her certainty that they were connected to his death was shaken with Hicks’s assessment. She didn’t dismiss the memory of them, those purple-and-green smudges painted on pale skin, but she slotted them further down in importance. Maybe he had been the clumsiest kid on earth. “Were you there when the parents were told about Noah?”
“Yes,” Hicks said, hesitated, then continued: “They’re not my biggest fans, you could say. None of the Church are. I’m not sure they appreciated me being there.”