Deception by Randy Alcorn

taking the moral high ground, like the rest of us aren’t good enough for them. I guess I’m saying ours is a complicated friendship.
    I looked at my watch. 11:52. I waved to Rory and pulled out my wallet. “This is for my beers.”
    “I can just put it on your bill,” he said.
    “Jake’s turn to buy. And take my bottles and the glass, would you?”
    “I brewed your dark Italian roast extra bold. You’ll love it.”
    “You’re a good man, Rory. If you ever get murdered, I’ll go after the guy. That’s a promise.”
    “Grazie , Mr. Ollie.”
    Okay, I feel guilty for what I said about Jake and Clarence. Because there’s another side, and I guess it’s why I keep meeting them for lunch. The conversations sometimes bug me, but they make me think. Occasionally they’re downright interesting. And yes, Jake asked my permission, and I’ve agreed to talk about the Bible now and then. These guys aren’t total morons, and they have hope. I admit that it seems a naive and baseless hope. And yet … there’s a certain comfort in being around people who really believe—deep in their gut—that one day things will be better than they are now.
    It seems like if you become a Christian, everything’s supposed to be great, right? You live happily ever after because you go to heaven, and that makes up for life’s miseries. Never mind that people—like my Sharon—suffer and die, and murderers get away. After all, there’s pie in the sky by and by.
    Sorry, but I’d rather have my pie here and now. Speaking of which, I’d noticed that huckleberry was Lou’s pie of the day.
    My phone rang. Manny again.
    “You need to listen to the 911 call about the professor.”
    “Who called? A neighbor?”
    “Didn’t identify himself. Came from a cell phone, but wasn’t traceable. It was an old one without GPS. Dispatch sent us an audio file.”
    “I’m going back to the scene after lunch. Then I’ll swing by the office and listen to the call.”
    Jake appeared that moment, smiled broadly, shook my hand with a vise grip, and sat down. We traded small talk, exchanging theories on the Seahawks. Pretty soon we were laughing.
    Clarence arrived and sat next to Jake. It’s a big booth, but their side was suddenly full.
    Nobody had to look at the menu. Rory came over and asked, “The usual?” Everyone nodded. Lou’s serves a mean cheeseburger.
    “Okay,” Jake said. “Last week we said we’d read the first eight chapters of the book of John. How’d we do?”
    “I had a busy week,” I said. “Couldn’t squeeze it in.”
    “Five minutes a day or one reading of half an hour? Come on. That’s just a sitcom.”
    “I like sitcoms better.”
    “John 8 relates to your work as a detective.”
    “How’s that?”
    Jake opened his Bible, full of underlines. “Jesus says, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ He says the truth will set us free from lies.”
    “Whose truth we talkin’ about?”
    “ The truth. He says we’re slaves, but ‘if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.’ He’s talking about freedom from deception.”
    “Every day I sift through the lies people tell,” I said. “I dig for the truth all the time.”
    “I’m grateful you do, Ollie. We all benefit from your work. Now check out what Jesus says about Satan in the next verse: ‘He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.’ So Satan is a murderer, and he lies to cover up his murders. That should interest a homicide detective.”
    “The devil must be a good liar,” I said.
    “The best,” Jake said. “Lying is his native language.”
    “The truth challenges our assumptions,” Clarence said. “It’s more comfortable just to believe the lies. We fall for lies because we’re wired that way.”
    “In my work,