THE MEETING: Part Four: Face-to-Face

The ten minutes was indeed a long time for Alex Woods. Impatiently, he flipped through the pages of his Bible, but couldn't decide what passage to read. He felt like getting up and pacing, but didn't know if he should. Some prisons were so strict in their rules regarding visitors that even something as simple as getting out of the assigned chair could result in immediate termination of the visit. He wasn't sure of the rules of this prison, but he would rather have been safe than sorry.
Frustrated, he closed the Bible. He had the sudden urge just to get up and leave. He would simply tell everyone that he had changed his mind. No one would question such an action. He didn't want to be alone with the monster who had murdered his daughter. But he wasn't alone; he knew that. The Lord was with him. And he knew that there were hundreds, maybe thousands of people praying for him at that moment. He closed his eyes, took a deep, stomach calming breath, and joined them in prayer.
"Lord Jesus," he whispered, "please, please help me through this. I don't know if I can do it. I don't want to do it. Please, Lord, help me. Help me to forgive this man. Help me to love him as You love him. And, Lord, I know that You do love Vincent Hynes. Help him to know that. May there be another celebration in Heaven for him tonight. I pray for him, Lord. Be here today. Speak through me. And, Lord, please calm my nerves."
He ran out of words early, but kept on praying anyway. He knew that God didn't need his words to get his message. One word just kept repeating itself in his mind, and it summed it up perfectly: Help!
After a few minutes, the door to the visitation room opened and in walked Vincent J. Hynes, flanked by two uniformed officers who may as well have been transporting a dead dog by their expressions. Lt. Mark stood behind them with his arms folded across his chest and his face a mask of disgust.
As Hynes came in, Alex found himself surprised to see an actual human being. He had spent so long demonizing this man in his own mind that he had almost expected to see an apparition from Hell in a prison jumpsuit. But Hynes was just a man, not a monster. The face that had haunted his nightmares seemed to have aged twenty-five years in the past ten. His hair, which hung just past his shoulders, was more gray than brown and he had grown a very scruffy beard, but Alex still recognized the man from the mug shot. He wearing a dingy yellow jumpsuit, leg irons, and handcuffs that held his bound wrists in front of him.
The C.O.'s forced him forward and he shuffled towards the waiting chair.
"My officers will be standing outside the door," Mark said from the hallway. "All you have to do is call them and they'll be in in seconds. Do you have any questions?"
"No, sir," Alex said.
"Good," Mark said. "Then we'll leave you alone."
The two C.O.'s turned and walked out and the door shut behind them with a loud clank. Alex was left alone with Hynes. The two men sat across from each other for an excruciatingly long moment, neither one wanting to be the first to speak. Alex had often fantasized about the moment he would meet his daughter's killer and what he would do to the man. Very few of these fantasies involved prayer and Bible reading.
Say something! he silently told himself. You didn't just come here to stare at the man!
But it was Hynes who finally broke the silence.
"Thank you for coming, Reverend Woods," he said shyly. "I know you didn't have to."
"Yes," Alex said. "I did."
"How have you been?" As soon as the question was out, Alex could tell Hynes regretted it. It was such a stupid question to ask someone who had spent the last decade mourning his daughter; especially in you were the one who killed her.
Alex almost snapped at him, "How do you think I've been?" but thought the better of it. That was not how he wanted to start off this meeting.
"I'm doing well," he said instead. "Not great, but well. I won't ask you how you've been."
"I think that's pretty obvious," Hynes chuckled, raising his hands for emphasis.
How dare you laugh? Alex thought. My little girl will never laugh again thanks to you! How dare you?
"I was surprised by you letter, Mr. Hynes," Alex said. "I didn't expect to hear from you."
"I think I was more surprised by your letter, Reverend," Hynes replied. "I've never heard of anything like it in my whole life. If I were you and somebody killed my little girl, I don't think I could ever forgive them."
"Yeah, well..." Alex trailed off. He didn't want to lie to the man about having forgiven him. Not again. But he didn't want to admit to him that he hadn't. This whole meeting was based on the assumption that the forgiveness had taken place. If he admitted now that he never really did it, he might as well just get up and leave.
"I know it doesn't mean much right now," Hynes went on, "but I am very sorry. What I did was... awful. I didn't apologize ten years ago, but I'm apologizing now, for whatever it's worth."
"Believe me," Alex said, "it means a lot." And it actually did. It was easy to hate a man who showed no remorse. It wasn't as easy to hate one who was genuinely sorry.
"If I could tell all the other families I'm sorry, I would," Hynes said. "But you're the only one I knew how to contact. Besides, if they come next week to my execution... I'll say it then."
It was like torture trying to think of what to say to this man. Alex couldn't say what he wanted to say because he was here to help Hynes and himself. He couldn't say what he knew he needed to say because he thought that his mouth would betray him and he would end up blurting out what he was trying to hard to hide.
He sent up another prayer, quick and silent: God, help me. I don't know what to do!
* * *
Aimee and deputy Michaels, whom she found calling "Bill" to be quite easy, had taken a little walk. It was at Bill's insistence. He said he knew a place where they could sit, talk, and pray and the nosey reporters wouldn't dare follow after his little speech. They ended up sitting on a bench near the highway. It was on a pleasantly landscaped corner near the prison parking lot designed specifically for people to "escape the images of this awful place," as Bill put it. It faced the highway and the snow capped mountains beyond it, and away from the towers, walls, and barbed wire of the prison.
"Guards come here on their breaks sometimes," Bill explained. "It helps to get a new perspective on things. Staring at those walls and bars can be depressing, even if you get to go home at the end of the day."
"I fell sorry for the men who don't get to go home," Aimee remarked. She glanced back over her shoulder at the imposing structures of the prison. "I can't imagine living in that place... Or dying there."
"They deserve it, don't they?" Bill asked. He sounded amazingly cold, especially considering how friendly Aimee had thought he was. "They all earned their punishment."
"Yes, but..." Aimee trailed off. She was about to say, "but what about mercy," but something struck her so suddenly that she fell silent. For a moment, she had almost forgotten that her daughter's killer was behind those bars. Almost... She could feel sorry for an abstract number of men, most of them condemned to die in the place, either by lethal injection or the passing of their hundred or so year sentences. But then she thought about Hynes. She thought about how her daughter’s life had ended in that cold dark forest at that monster's hands and she thought that dying in this horrendous place was better than he deserved. "Victimless" crimes didn't receive a death penalty and very few of them garnered life sentences either. Every man in that prison had hurt someone or killed someone. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people like her, forever trapped in a prison of loss and grief. The killers in the prison had earned their punishments.
* * *
They had sat there staring at each other for nearly a minute, neither of them speaking. It felt more like and hour and Alex began to wonder what he was really doing there. Hynes was looking expectantly at him.
"I think," Alex began, grasping desperately at straws, "we should begin with a prayer."
"A prayer?" Hynes repeated.
"Yes," Alex said. "We're here to talk about God, right? Let's start off by asking Him to be here with us."
"I know He'll listen to you," Hynes said, "but I doubt He'd pay much attention to me."
Alex thought about that for a moment. Would God heed Vincent Hynes's prayer? The Bible says that God doesn't hear the prayers of those who harbor sin in their hearts. If that was the case, had God even heard Alex's prayers for the past decade? Hadn't he been harboring the sin of unforgiveness?
Alex had even preached on that subject once. He had come to the conclusion that there was one prayer that the Lord heard no matter who uttered it. That was a prayer of repentance. It was a prayer of a man truly seeking God. After all, the conversion experience was invariably preceded by what was traditionally called "the sinner's prayer." If the two of them, both harboring sin for so long, honestly came together and asked the Lord to cleanse them of it, if they asked for His guidance and redemption, He would listen.
"Tell me one thing, Mr. Hynes," Alex said. "Are you truly willing to seek after God today?"
"Yes," Hynes said, "I am."
"Then He'll hear you." Then he added, more to himself then to Hynes, "He'll hear both of us."
"Okay, then," Hynes said. "Let's pray."
Vincent Hynes put his cuffed hands out on the table and opened them as best as he could. As difficult as it was to come here and see this man, it was much more so for Alex to reach across the table and grasp the hands that had choked the life out of his little girl. He did so, and he held them tightly. Hynes bowed his head and closed his eyes, but Alex did not.
"Lord," Alex began, "we pray that You be here with us today. We are here to seek Your will and to find Your forgiveness. Father, we ask that You guide us through this difficult meeting and that Your will be done. We ask that You help us to see the things in our lives that we need to repent of and that You enable us to do so. Let Your Holy Spirit be in this place today. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen."
"Amen," Hynes repeated. He released Alex's hands and Alex resisted the urge to wipe them on his pant legs.
"So," Alex said, "why don't we begin with why you decided to write to me after all these years?"
"I'm gonna die in a week," Hynes replied. "Something like that really makes a guy think, you know? It's easy when you're sure you got years left the forget about the state of your soul, but when it's down to months, or weeks, or days you begin to really think about it. Like I told you, I read your letter every day. I have it memorized. When I was notified six months ago that my execution date was set, the words you wrote seemed to mean so much more, and I knew I needed to talk to you."
"So you want redemption?"
"No," Hynes said. "I told you, I'm not worthy of it. I just wanted to make peace with you before I die. There's no chance of making peace with God."
"Don't say that," Alex told him. "There's always a chance."
"The Bible says, 'No murderer has eternal life abiding in him,'" Hynes said. "I'm a murderer."
"So, you've read the Bible," Alex said.
"Parts of it," Hynes replied. "I don't understand much of it, but that part was clear. There is no hope for me."
"Are you so sure of that?" Alex asked, knowing that he had his own doubts. "Remember Moses? David? Two great men of God right? I mean, they wrote huge chunks of the Bible!"
"So what's your point?"
"They were both murderers," Alex told him. "Moses killed an Egyptian. That's why he ran into the desert. David stole a man's wife and had him killed. Would you say there was no hope for them?"
"That's different," Hynes said. "They only killed one person. I've killed a lot more than that. And I did other things too."
"I stole a stick of gum from a grocery store when I was eight," Alex said.
"Yeah, and?"
"And for that, I deserve to burn in Hell for all eternity."
"For stealing gum?" Hynes looked doubtful.
"For sinning," Alex replied. "Every sin, no matter how minor it may seem to us, is enough to separate us from God. We are no different in His eyes. We are all sinners in desperate need of salvation. Nobody can say they aren't going to Hell because their neighbor is a worse sinner than they are."
"If God'll throw someone in Hell over a stick of gum, what hope is there for anyone?"
"Let's look at that," Alex said, opening his Bible. While the pain of his daughter's loss, his hatred for Hynes, his reluctance to be there, and his doubts that there was any hope for this man all remained, he had hit his stride and he found it easy to speak. He was a gifted preacher. As long as he could detach himself from the immediate situation, as long as he could "preach" at Hynes instead of talking to him, this might actually work.
"Let's look at Luke fifteen," Alex said.

THE MEETING Part Three: Deputy Michaels

Aimee Woods watched her husband disappear behind the prison doors. She silently cursed the reporters who were hounding him, those same reporters who had hounded them a decade before. Many of the names and the faces had changed, but the reporters had not. They didn't care about her or Alex or even Jessica. They cared only about selling newspapers and getting people to tune into their broadcasts. Maybe they would win an Emmy or a Pulitzer, or maybe they would get a promotion and a prime time special. If they had to further traumatize a few grieving people in the process, then so be it.
With a frustrated sigh, she looked away. She opened the tattered Bible that sat on her lap and tried to force herself to read. She opened up to Luke chapter fifteen. Aimee looked at the three parables there; the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. She wondered about Vincent J. Hynes and if he could possibly fit into any or all of those stories. She didn't know. The Bible said that there was much rejoicing in Heaven over a sinner who came to repentance. Alex used to say, "The angels are having a big ol' party now!" after an alter call. Well, if Hynes did repent, they may party in Heaven, but she probably wouldn't join them.
Because she was reading her Bible, and because her mind was quite literally an eternity away, she barely noticed the reporters. They, however, did notice her. Alex had purposely parked a good distance from the prison entrance so that he could approach mostly unnoticed. He didn't want his wife harassed while she waited for him. It almost worked, except for one reporter who had spent some time around the Woods home. He knew their car and when he saw Alex coming from the parking lot, he noticed the general direction from which he came. The reporter could tell by the look on Alex's face that he wouldn't give the vultures a thing, so while the rest of the reporters clamored around the dead girl's father, he headed off into the parking lot in search of the green sedan that probably held her mother.
Most average people might not have seen the young reporter and his camera man slip away, but these were reporters. It was their job to notice things, and they followed him. By the time Aimee had finished reading Luke 15, the car was surrounded by newsmen and women with video cameras and flash bulbs and note books and microphones. When she looked up and saw them she almost screamed.
Instinctively, she reached for the door locks, though she doubted that the reporters would actually stoop to forcing their way into her vehicle. They were knocking on the windows though, and pointing their cameras and microphones at her.
"Mrs. Woods!" the reporter who had first spotted her shouted, "A word please!"
The others joined him.
"Mrs. Woods, why didn't you accompany your husband?"
"Mrs. Woods, have you forgiven Vincent Hynes?"
"Can we please get a statement from you, Mrs. Woods?"
Aimee closed her eyes and tried to shut them out. It didn't work. She covered her ears, hoping the gesture would send a message to the reporters that she wished to be left alone. If they got the message, they ignored it. Why couldn't they just leave her alone? How could they be so calloused and uncaring?
Finally, a new voice, deep and authoritative, broke through the clamor.
"All right! All right! Break it up!" the newcomer barked. "Leave this woman alone or I'll have you all evicted from the premises!"
"This is a state prison!" one reporter replied. "That makes this parking lot public property!"
"You see this badge, Mister?" the newcomer said. "This makes me the man in charge. Now, leave this woman alone or I'll call my colleagues down at the police station and you won't like what they have to say!"
"What about the right to peaceful assembly?" a woman retorted.
"This doesn't look like a peaceful assembly to me, lady," the newcomer said. "This looks like harassment. I think my friends at the station would agree. Now, unless you want me to prove this to you, I suggest that you step away from this car now! If I so much as see one of you snap another picture of her, I'll have you arrested for harassment and we'll let the courts sort it out! Is that clear?"
Dozens of voices reluctantly agreed that the man had indeed been clear. Aimee, who had kept her eyes closed throughout the encounter opened hem to the welcome sight of reporters scurrying away. The newcomer turned out to be a large black man in a khaki sheriff's uniform. Large was an understatement; he was huge. He stood at least six foot five and must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds, mostly muscle. His back was turned to Aimee as he watched the reporters retreat back to their post by the prison's visitor entrance. Even from behind, Aimee could tell he was a man who meant business. So long as he remained, the reporters would not be back to bother her.
The cop turned to face her. For a moment, she saw the expression that must have frightened the reporters away. Then, the man's face softened into the warmest smile she had ever seen. He was handsome. His head was shaved and he wore on of those round, safari type hats that added three or four more inches to his already massive build. He looked about thirty.
Looking at him immediately put Aimee at ease. When he walked towards the car she realized that even though she had wanted to be left alone, this particular visitor was very welcome. The sun glinted off of something on his collar and as he got closer, she saw that it was a small golden cross pin. On his hat was another pin, this one an angel.
Aimee rolled down her window and the men bent over to speak to her.
"Are you okay, ma'am?"
"Yes, thank you, officer..."
"Michaels," he told her. "Deputy William Michaels. I'm here on a prisoner transport from Angeles County."
"Well, you came along just in time, Deputy Michaels," Aimee said.
"Just doing my job," he said. "I hate to see anybody harassed by those sharks in the media, Mrs. Woods."
"You know who I am?" Aimee asked.
"I do have a TV, you know," he said smiling. "I think it's just deplorable how the media will hound people who want to be left along just to get a story."
"Well, thanks for chasing them off, Mr. Michaels," Aimee said, "but I'm afraid that as soon as you're gone, they'll come right back out here."
"I guess I'll have to stay then, won't I?" Michaels said.
"Oh, you don't to do that."
"What does it say on this badge, Mrs. Woods?" The deputy pointed to the brass star pinned to his chest. "My job is to protect you and to serve you. Besides, my duties are done for the day and I have nothing to do today but drive back to Angeles County. I could use a little diversion. The department will understand. When does your husband come back?"
"In a couple of hours," she replied. "I promised him I'd stay out here and pray for him."
"Since I've been praying for you since I heard about you on the news this morning," Michaels said, "I'd love to join you. Would that be okay?"
With a genuine smile, Aimee said, "Yes. That would be more than okay, Deputy Michaels."
"Call me Bill," the deputy said.