The Chosen by Sharon Sala Page A

skateboards.”
    â€œYes…yes, I do,” January agreed.
    Satisfied, Mother Mary T. continued. “Anyway…Delroy came to the center in a terrible mood. Said someone had stolen his best friend. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but then I remembered a similar complaint a month or so before that. Red Susie, the black girl with a patch on her eye, claimed that her friend had disappeared. She was blaming alien abduction. You can see why I don’t pay much attention to their rambling.”
    â€œWere there more?” January asked, taking notes as they talked.
    Mother Mary T. frowned. “It seems there was one other person I heard some of them talking about, but I can’t recall the—Oh! Wait! I remember. It was the fellow who won’t sleep inside. No matter what kind of weather, he won’t go indoors. They say he was a POW in Vietnam and that enclosed spaces make him crazy.”
    â€œTheir names, Mother Mary T. Do you know their names?”
    Her forehead furrowed as she began to count them off on her fingers.
    â€œDelroy’s friend is Simon. I don’t know his last name. None of them have last names, you know. And as far as that goes, I have no way of knowing if the names they go by are their true given names, either.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” January said. “Simon, you said. Do you know the others?”
    â€œHmm, I think Red Susie called her friend Andy, and she mentioned something about Andy’s friend Jim.
    â€œAndrew? James?”
    Mother Mary shrugged. “She never used those names, but I suppose that’s right.”
    â€œAnd the vet? Did he have a name?”
    â€œThey called him Crazy Matt. I thought that was harsh, but he answered to it, just the same.”
    January wrote down the name, then, beside it, the formal version. Matthew.
    She glanced down the list, and as she did, the hair rose on the back of her neck.
    Simon
    Andrew
    Matthew
    James
    She remembered the man who’d gone missing and then turned up dead.
    Bart. Bartholomew.
    If this was a coincidence, it was pushing the boundaries. The names of five of Christ’s disciples from the Bible.
    â€œDid Delroy or Red Susie ever mention the street preacher?”
    â€œNot that I know of,” Mother Mary T. said.
    January frowned, her shoulders slumping.
    â€œHave they said anything—anything at all—about where they saw their friends last? Maybe who they were with? Something like that?”
    Mother Mary rolled her eyes. “Well, remember, Red Susie blamed the aliens.” Then she chuckled. “Only these aliens, I believe, were driving cabs.”
    January stifled a gasp as Mother Mary T. suddenly frowned.
    â€œNow that’s strange,” she said. “I never put that together before.”
    â€œPut what together?” January asked.
    â€œIf I remember correctly, Delroy also said something about Simon getting into a cab. He was angry because they drove off without waiting for him.”
    January looked down at the list of names. Was this the connection? But how did this tie into the Sinner? Frustrated, she leaned back in the old recliner, and dropped her notebook and pen back into her purse. Maybe there wasn’t a connection. Maybe she was trying to make a story out of coincidences.
    She sighed.
    She knew better. It was the first rule of thumb for reporting. Stick to the facts. Don’t twist them to make them fit something else.
    â€œIs there anything else, dear?” Mother Mary T. asked.
    January sighed.
    â€œNo, I guess not.”
    â€œWas this of any help to you?”
    â€œYes. Thank you so much for your time.”
    â€œYou’re welcome, dear. However, if there’s nothing else I can help you with, I need to get back to work.”
    â€œOkay, sure,” January said, as she got up. She stepped down from the truck, then straightened her clothes.
    â€œGoodbye, January. Don’t be a