William Diehl - Show of Evil

In law, what plea so tainted andcorrupt
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?

- THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, ACT 3,SCENE 2

The town of Gideon, Illinois, biblical of name and temperament,squats near the juncture of Kentucky and Indiana at the edge of theBlue Ridge Mountains. A trickle of a river called the Wahoo forms thewestern boundary of the town, while Appalachian foothills etch itssouthern and eastern parameters. It was founded in the mid 1800s by ahandful of farmers driven south by encroaching midwestern cities, byrailroads, and by brutal winters. They were followed soon afterwards bya fire-eyed reader of the Church of Latter-Day Saints named AbrahamGideon, who had split from Brigham Young and led a small troop offollowers towards the southern mountains. They had blundered onto thefledgling village, liked what they'd seen, and settled down there. Itwas Gideon who gave the town its name and a strict moral code that haspersisted for nearly one hundred and fifty years.

Inhabited by two thousand and some citizens, most of themhardworking conservatives and many of Mormon descent, it is a town thattakes care of itself and minds its own business. Its architecture isstern and simple; its streets paved only when necessity demands; itstown core a collection of indispensable businesses without frills orfancies; its town meetings held at the Baptist church, the largestbuilding in town.

The only car dealer sells Fords and farm equipment. A foreign car inGideon is as improbable as Grandma Moses rising from the grave andrunning naked through the streets on Sunday morning.

The city council, a collection of dour curmudgeons, runs the townwith a kind of evangelical fervour, enduring its handful of bars andtaverns but drawing the line at sex, having chased away Gideon's onetopless bar during the late Eighties and railing against R-rated moviesso vociferously that most of the citizens watch them on cable ratherthan venture forth to the town's twin theatres and thereby risk thescorn of the five old men who set both the tone and moral temper of thetown. The young people, who silently revolt against its anachronisms,usually spend their weekends driving to nearby towns that have shoppingmalls and multiplex theatres, where they can buy a six-pack of beerwithout being recognized. For the most part, Gideons are friendly,concerned, protective people who help their townsfolk when they are introuble and who practice a kind of archaic combination ofdo-unto-others and love-thy-neighbour. And as long as its citizenssequester their more shocking vices behind closed doors and shutteredwindows, nobody really gives a hoot. In short, it is a place that time,distance, and desire have cloistered from the rest of the world.

Gideons like it that way. They do not take kindly to others snoopingin their business and they solve their problems without the intrusionof outsiders like state politicians or federal people or snoopy,big-time newspaper reporters.

On a Tuesday morning in October 1993, a few days before Hallowe'en,a single shocking act of violence was to change all that.

Suddenly, trust was placed by suspicion, ennui by fear, complacencyby scorn. People began to lock their doors and windows during thedaytime and porch lights glowed all night. And casual neighbours, whoonce waved friendly hellos in passing, were suddenly as cautious asstrangers.

Yet like a protective family, Gideon kept this scandal behind lockeddoors and whispered of it only in rumours. The horrifying act itselfwas kept from the rest of the world - for a while, at least.

On that autumn morning, Linda Balfour prepared her husband'scustomary lunch: tuna fish sandwiches with mayo on white bread, a wedgeof apple pie she had made the night before, potato chips, orange juicein his thermos. She had also polished his bright orange hard hat beforefixing a breakfast of poached eggs, crisp bacon, well-done toast, andstrong black coffee, and the hat and lunch box were sitting beside hisplate with the morning edition of the St Louis Post-Dispatchwhen he came down.

George Balfour was a bulky man in his early forties with a cherubicsmile that hinted of a gentle and appreciative nature. A life-longresident of Gideon, he had married Linda late in his thirties after abrief courtship and regarded both his twenty-six-year-old wife andtheir year-old son, Adam, as gifts from God, having lived a solitaryand somewhat lonely life before meeting her at a company seminar inDecatur three years earlier.

Their two-storey house was seventy years old, a spartan, white-frameplace near the centre of town with a wraparound porch and a large frontlawn and an old-fashioned kitchen with both a wood-burning stove and agas range. It was George Balfour's only legacy. He had lived in thehouse all his life, both of his parents having died in the bedroom thatBalfour now shared with his wife.

He loved coming down in the morning to those smells he rememberedfrom his youth: coffee and burned oak slivers from the wood-burningstove, and bacon and, in the summer, the luscious odour of freshly cutcantaloupe. The TV would be set on the Today show. His paperwould be waiting.

He was wearing what he always wore: khaki trousers, starched andpressed with a razor crease, a white T-shirt smelling of Downy, heavy,polished brogans, his cherished orange wind-breaker with SOUTHERNILLINOIS POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY stencilled across the back and theword SUPERINTENDENT printed where the left breast pocket would normallybe. Everything about his dress, his home, and his family bespoke a manwho lived by order and routine. Balfour was not a man who likedsurprises or change.

He kissed his son good morning, wiping a trace of pabulum from theboy's chin before giving Linda a loving peck on the back of herneck. She smiled up at him, a slightly plump woman with prematurewrinkles around her eyes and mouth and auburn hair pulled back and tiedin a bun. The wrinkles, George often said, were because his wifelaughed a lot.

Nothing about George Balfour's life was inchoate.

'Saints finally got beat yesterday,' she said as he sat down.

'Bout time,' he answered, scanning the front page of the paper. 'Bythe way, I gotta run up to Carbondale after lunch. They got a maintransformer out. May be a little late for dinner.'

'Okay. Six-thirty? Seven?'

'Oh, I should be home by six-thirty.'

At seven-fifteen, he was standing on the porch when Lewis Holliwellpulled up in the pickup. He kissed Linda and Adam goodbye, then wavedat them from the truck as Lewis drove away from the white-frame house.They turned the corner and suddenly the street was empty except for oldMrs Aiken, who waved good morning as she scampered in robe and slippersoff her porch to pick up the paper, and a solitary utility man carryinga toolbox who was trudging down the alley behind the house. A brightsun was just peeking over the hills to the east, promising a day ofcloudless splendour.

Thirty minutes later the Balfours' next-door neighbour, MiriamPerrone, noticed that the Balfours' back door was standing open. Odd,she thought, It's a bit chilly this morning. A little latershe looked out of her dining room window and the door was still open.She went out the back door and walked across her yard to the Balfours'.

'Linda?' she called out.

No answer. She walked to the door.

'Linda?' Still no answer. She rapped on the door frame. 'Linda, it'sMiriam. Did you know your back door's open?'

No answer. A feeling of uneasiness swept over her as shecautiously entered the kitchen, for she did not wish to intrude.

'Linda?'

Suddenly, she was seized with an inexplicable sense of dread. Itchoked her and her mouth went dry. She could hear the television, butneither Linda nor the baby was making a sound. She walked towards thedoor to the living room. As she approached the door, she saw the emptyplaypen and a second later Adam lying on his side on the carpet withhis back towards her.