Chapter 22.  Vic Woos Miriam

 

Dan and Miriam arrived at the research office about 9 o’clock Monday morning.  They had lingered at home to say goodbye to her Mom and Dad, who were going back to Boston.  They swept into the office, holding hands, in a happy mood, smiling and chattering.  The two seemed to be knit together as one.  Vic awaited them, determined to snap the ties binding them together.

 

With great verve and his best smile, Vic began his wooing of Miriam.  Locking his penetrating eyes with hers, he declared, “Great news, Miriam!  I finished those three spiritual books you gave me, and now, I’m full of questions.  I’d like to take you to lunch and hear your answers.”  With this opening gambit, Vic began the strange practice of speaking to Miriam as if Dan did not exist.  As much as possible, he consistently addressed her face to face, trying to evoke her full attention.  He expected her to forget Dan.

 

Miriam glanced at Dan and squeezed his hand.  Cautiously, she said, “Well, we go to the cafeteria about noon.  You’re welcome to join us.  We’ll do our best to answer your queries.”

 

“Did you notice my new Ferrari on the way in?” he asked Miriam with a gush of pride.

 

“No,” she responded.

 

Dan interjected, “That bright-red sports car in the parking lot?”

 

“Yep!” Vic replied, studying Miriam.  “Would you like to go out for a spin?  Would you like to drive it?”

 

“I’m not much of a car person,” she said diffidently.  “Anyway, we have so much to do here.  We’ve missed a couple of days.  We need to catch up.”

 

“That baby must have cost a fortune!” Dan exclaimed.  “How’s it handle?”

 

“It’s a snortin’ steed,” Vic declared with a grin, trying to detect a spark of interest in Miriam’s countenance.  “Maybe we could go off-campus for lunch,” he proffered.

 

“No, thank you,” Miriam responded.  “The cafeteria is more convenient.”

 

...

At lunch, Vic began his charade of spirituality.  His real goal was to capture Miriam’s heart.  Fixing his beckoning eyes on hers, as if he could hypnotize her and control her, he asserted, “Miriam, I am a Christian ... I mean, I’m not a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist ...”  He smiled the smile that had melted so many girls’ hearts, “I must be a Christian.  My grandparents took me to Sunday School and Church from time to time, so I know some Bible stories.  Now, those three books you gave me were splendid.  But, they raise many questions.  Let’s start with this one: Do you believe there is a Hell?”

 

“Certainly,” she responded demurely, avoiding Vic’s persistent attempts at eye contact.  “Jesus mentioned it frequently.  I believe that all humans live forever.  If, in this life, a man becomes a Christian, he goes to Heaven when he dies.  If not, he goes to Hell for all eternity.”  Then, looking squarely into Vic’s eyes, she asserted, “But Vic, the Bible says, ‘God wants every man to be saved.’  Saved from Hell, that is.”

 

“Then, why did God create Hell?” Vic asked, feigning puzzlement.

 

“He had to!” Dan exclaimed.  “Think about it.  God is perfectly holy.  He will not allow unforgiven sinners into His Heavenly realms.  Since humans live forever, He had to prepare a place for the unsaved ... Hell.”

 

Vic was irritated.  He was determined to have a personal conversation with Miriam, and Dan had dived into the dialog.  Without acknowledging Dan’s argument, he fastened his eyes on Miriam, smiled sweetly, and asked, “Why doesn’t God just sentence unbelievers to an appropriate period of incarceration in Hell ... you know ... ten years or forty years or a thousand years?”

 

Miriam deflected Vic’s gaze, looked past him to the trees outside the cafeteria window, and declared, “Those who go to Hell don’t stop sinning.  They are angry with God.  They feel He has not judged them fairly.  They say to themselves, ‘I don’t belong here.  I’m better than many of those people in Heaven.’  The lost are extremely jealous of the saved.  Their persistent sins keep them in Hell.”

 

“And Vic, by their rejection of God in this life, they have proved they would reject His authority in Heaven,” Dan added.

 

Vic, spurred on by the demons within him, wanted to dispute the answers given by Miriam and Dan.  But, he decided to retreat into more casual conversation.  He opined about current events and cracked a few jokes.  He wasn’t there to win an argument.  He was there to win a girl.  He cloaked his true nature in a charming façade, and Miriam admitted, to herself, “He is an attractive and charismatic guy.”

 

...

“Here we are in Edwin Hubble Hall, and I dare to say, the Universe is not expanding,” Dr. Angelo proclaimed at the start of the Tuesday Morning Meeting.  “As you know, Hubble is widely heralded as the man who proved the Universe is expanding rapidly.  He believed that the ‘red shift’ he noticed in the spectrum of the light coming from certain stars is caused by a ‘Doppler’ effect, proving that these stars are racing away from us at stupendous speeds.  And, as you know, this is considered ‘settled science’.  I have long doubted this, but now, I am convinced that there are other reasons for the ‘red shift’ Hubble noticed.

 

“It all gets back to the nature and behavior of photons as they move through the pervasive fabric of space.  We believe that photons travel from the Sun to Earth in essentially straight lines, somewhat bent by gravitational forces.  But then, some say that magnetic fields are the result of photons moving between North Poles and South Poles of magnets.  These photons move in elliptical paths.  The photons from the Sun have been shown to be a mixture of colors, while the photons in an electro-magnetic field are invisible.  The photons from the Sun are absorbed or reflected by the objects they illuminate, while the photons of magnetism pass right through walls and massive buildings.

 

“Photons must be a broad class of particles; not just one thing.  And, the members of this class must have a variety of properties.

 

“Then, there’s this question: why do photons travel at light-speed?  Is the fabric of space passive or active? ... I mean ... Does the fabric passively allow photons to race through it? or, as Miriam has alluded, does the fabric actively push or pull the photons through itself?

 

“Clearly, these are weighty questions.  We have a lot of work to do!”

 

With these assertions, Dr. Angelo triggered a vigorous discussion that lasted till noon.  Whereupon, Miriam and Dan headed for the campus cafeteria, hand in hand, with Vic walking beside Miriam, as close as he dared to get.  He tried to keep up a conversation with her, hoping to shut out Dan.

 

During lunch, Vic locked eyes with Miriam and raised another religious question, “Who are the ‘saved’?”

Miriam, finding herself attracted to Vic’s well-formed face, struggled to formulate her answer.  She looked away and said, “I’m sure I won’t give a comprehensive answer.”  Then, looking squarely at Vic, she said, “They are people who love Jesus.  They are sure He is God.  They have repudiated the wicked ways of this world and are endeavoring to lead holy lives.  They have been baptized.  They love to fellowship with other Christians.  They have the Holy Spirit living in them.  But, most of all, Vic, they believe that when Jesus was dying on the Cross, He took their sins upon Himself and in exchange He filled them with His righteousness.  So, they are sin-free ... Heaven-bound ... and saved from damnation in Hell.”

 

Dan expanded, “And, they believe Jesus came out of His grave, the first Easter, inaugurating a new path to eternal life.  Since then, all true believers are escorted to Heaven when they die.”

 

Vic cringed within.  The hellish spirits swarming in his heart reacted violently to all the assertions he had heard, but somehow, he maintained a placid countenance.  And, not knowing what to say, yet feeling he must say something to win Miriam’s blessing, he muttered, “I was baptized when I was a baby.”  And, lying, he added, “I enjoy Church.”

 

“That’s a weak and disappointing response,” Miriam thought, “but at least we have Vic considering the Gospel.”  Dan wasn’t hopeful.

 

Vic was pleased.  “That’s the longest she has ever spoken to me face to face.  I think I’m making progress.”

...

About 11 o’clock Wednesday morning, Sam Moreno surprised everyone by bursting into the research office and addressing Vic.  “I need to talk to you again,” he said aggressively.  “Let’s go to one of those first-floor conference rooms.”

 

Startled, Vic’s face drained a bit, but he rose slowly, in a princely manner and said, “I hope I can help you with your investigation, Sam,” as if he was granting Sam a favor.  He followed him from the room.

 

Dan looked at Miriam and said, “What’s that about?”

 

“Who knows?” she responded.  “I guess we’ll find out at lunch.”

 

A few minutes later, Dan’s curiosity compelled him to embark on a fact-finding mission.  He said, “I’m going to get a Coke.  Do you want one?”

 

“No.”

 

“Well, I’ll be back soon.”

 

Dan did, in fact, get a Coke from the vending machine on the first floor, but also, he felt impelled to do some snooping.  He located the room where Moreno was interrogating Vic.  Of course, the door was closed, but the hallway was empty.  So, Dan felt free to place his ear to the narrow crack where the door and its frame met.  He heard Moreno say, “Look, we know those last three girls who dropped dead were all donors at a campus blood-bank on the Friday afternoon a week before they died.  And, we know you were there serving refreshments.  So, you are the only person we can connect to all of these bronze corpses ... your Grandma ... Shelly ... and these three girls.  You’ve got to be involved in this.”

 

Dan heard footsteps in a connecting corridor.  He left, but as he returned to his desk, his mind was awhirl.  He was no fan of Vic, but it seemed preposterous to conclude that Vic was a killer.  Surely, Moreno could not prove it, or he would have arrested Vic.  Dan decided to keep his wonderings to himself and not worry Miriam with them.

 

Back in the conference room, Vic spent hours trying to convince Moreno of his innocence.  Repeatedly, he made these assertions: “I did not see my Grandmother in her last days ... I was out of town when Shelly died ... I didn’t know any of those three girls.”

 

Moreno wasn’t buying any of his alibis.  He phrased and re-phrased his theories, “Maybe you slipped them a poison that took a week or so to work.  I can see why you wanted your Grandmother dead.  I know you got a lot of money from her estate, and I know about your new Ferrari.  Now, Shelly, I’m guessing, was pregnant and that inconvenienced you.  I’m going to have her body exhumed to see if we can prove that.  We’ll harvest some DNA to see if you were the father of her fetus.  And, maybe you killed those last three just to muddy the waters.”

 

Vic was irate and terrified.  Still, he projected an air of confidence and regality.  “You are trying to build a few circumstantial facts into a murder rap.  I’ve had enough of it.  I’m going to hire the best attorney I can find.  If you want to harass me any more, you’ll have to meet me at his office.”

 

Vic abandoned Moreno, but he did not return to his desk.  He sped to his apartment and used the internet to find a defense attorney.

 

“Moreno can’t prove a thing,” he told himself, “except that Shelly was pregnant by me.  And, I can maintain that I was not aware of that.  All he can prove is that Shelly and I were intimate one time.  How unusual is that among college kids?”

 

...

Vic sauntered into the office exhibiting an air of confidence on Thursday morning.  He gave no clues to the content of his discourse with Detective Moreno.  At lunch, addressing Miriam with his winsome smile, he asked, “How can anyone have a personal relationship with Jesus?  He’s up there, and we’re down here.”

 

“Actually,” Miriam responded, “He can be everywhere at once.  The theologians say, ‘He’s omnipresent.’  And, Jesus said, ‘I am with you always,’ to His disciples, and ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you,’ to all believers.  I think He’s right here, right now, but I sense His presence best when I am in prayer or reading my Bible.  I chat with Him all day long: thanking Him for blessings and asking Him for help with problems.”

 

Secretly scoffing at Miriam’s response, but wanting to endear her, Vic uttered gently, “That sounds a bit spooky ... so ethereal ... How can you dialog with some thing or someone you can’t see?”

 

Dan exclaimed, “Jesus is real to me!  You see, when you get to the point where you believe in your heart that Jesus is the Lord, you become a different kind of being.  The Holy Spirit takes up residence in your body and expels any evil spirits that are there.  You become a ‘brand new’ person.  All things are new, and all things are of God.  So, having Jesus present with you at all times seems natural.  He becomes your best friend.”

 

Vic concluded that Miriam and Dan were wandering in a spiritual fog.  His demons declared, “These two are full of stinking thinking.  They’ve invented an invisible friend.”

 

Miriam pondered her feeling for Vic.  “He’s so attractive, so charming, and so lost,” she surmised. 

 

Dan was ambivalent.  He mused, “Is he a seeker after truth or a cunning killer, trying to pry Miriam away from me?”

 

Friday, at lunch, the discussion was more strident.  Vic asked, “Miriam, is Jesus the only way to Heaven?  I know nice Jews, Muslims and Hindus.  Are they all headed for Hell?  What about people who have never heard of Jesus?”

 

“Vic,” she declared, “I believe the Bible.  In it Jesus says, ‘No man comes to the Father but by me.’  Many Jews are Christians.  After all, Jesus was a Jew, and He came to the Jews.  And, many Muslims and Hindus have converted to faith in Christ.  In the book of Acts, we are told of an Italian soldier named Cornelius.  He fervently prayed to God, and he gave liberally to good causes.  He was a fine man, but God wanted him to be saved, so he sent Peter to tell him about Jesus.  Cornelius believed, and he and those in his household were saved.  Just so, I believe that if any man on Earth is truly seeking God, God will get the Gospel to him by some means ... radio, TV, a missionary program, literature, or contact with a believing friend.  Don’t forget, the Bible tells us that God wants everyone to be saved.”

 

“That’s quite a claim!” Vic exclaimed.

 

“God’s quite a God!” Dan retorted.  “God knows the thoughts and intents of every man.  If He detects, in a man’s heart, a desire to worship and serve God, He reaches out to that man.”