— Psalm 51:9-10

“Sweet the sin, bitter the taste in thy mouth.”

— Bono (U2),

“Running To Stand Still”

Many men keep pride lists.

Not children, teens or even young men busy blazing testosterone-fueled trails through their worlds chockful of work, marriages, barbecues and golf games.

But rather it’s the men who lean a bit closer to retirement than their middle-aged counterparts who are still locked in the daily mill of raising families and maintaining successful careers. They rarely write anything down or expose the list to public consumption, but the men who keep pride lists often know their contents better than the dollar figures in their checkbooks or their bowling scores.

Doyle Logan was no different. He studiously added to the “Proud Of” and “Not Proud Of” columns of his list whenever he could.

Topping the “Proud Of” portion of the chart was his happy marriage to Martha, which Wakeman Pells ruthlessly cut short. Doyle also took a lot of personal pride in building a successful real-estate business from the ground up. He also was fairly well-known in the West Michigan area where he had spent his entire life.

However, like a lot of other men who maintain similar lists, Doyle’s “Not Proud Of” column was much longer. It included “cooking the books” from time to time to keep Uncle Sam’s outstretched arm at bay, and the fleeting kiss he stole from a secretary one late night at the office. He also wasn’t proud of the fact that he kept it a secret from Martha for the better part of 15 years.

But as he lifted his right hand to strike Caisee Pells, bound and gagged to a chair with her frightened, haunting eyes staring straight into his, Doyle Logan silently added another item to the “Proud Of” side of the ledger.

I have never hit a woman in my life … never a light slap, rough push, pinch or closed fist. I’m proud of that. How am I going to start now?

He hesitated, his hand seemingly stuck in place just above his left shoulder, as if he was going to brush something off his shirt.

The kidnapping had gone easier than he ever imagined it could, just as Jacinda Collins promised him. She ensured it would go smoothly by teaching him the thief’s art of breaking into cars and hotwiring them, not to mention the wonders of chloroform.

But after he secured Caisee from the parking lot of the restaurant where she worked, Jacinda’s scheme began fraying at the ends. Doyle searched everything he could — her purse, her car, her apartment — but he couldn’t scare up a shred of evidence that she knew where her brother was. They delved into her cell phone, but Caisee had been making very few calls and they were all to her home number back in Michigan. Wakeman wasn’t listed in her address book either.

Dead end.

So, since Plan A turned up nothing, Plan B was to question Caisee to see what she knew. But Jacinda wasn’t content to merely make it a question-and-answer session. She wanted to rough her up before grilling her.

“Do it. Hit her,” Jacinda yelled behind him. “This is the sister of the man who killed your wife, after all. She needs to see how serious we are about finding her brother.”

“But she wasn’t driving the car that day or even riding along. 

Probably wasn’t anywhere near the store!” Logan yelled back, surprised with how much force he put into his words to a woman he feared. A woman who seemed a friendly sympathizer at first, but now had upped the ante a bit higher than he wanted. Oh, how he wished that he was back in Michigan right now, working, staying busy, keeping the demons at bay. “And I don’t think she knows anything. I think she is trying to find him, too.”

Caisee was shaking now, but nodding feverishly and managing a muffled “mmm-mm” through the gag.

Jacinda suddenly pushed Doyle out of the way and slapped Caisee hard on both cheeks. Caisee let out a muffled shriek and fast-flowing rivers of tears began coursing their way down her cheeks. Long strands of her raven hair were held to her face by those tears.

“Ha. That’s how it is done, Doyle,” Jacinda sneered. “No one ever teach you how to hit a woman before? I’ve been struck by too many men to count. Don’t tell me you’ve never done it before.”

Doyle didn’t answer her, but only stared at the helpless girl in the chair — the girl he put there. He felt a slight sting on his otherwise muddled conscience.

“You may not have the stomach for this, but I do,” Jacinda continued, smacking Caisee a few more times for apparent emphasis. “You would be wise to remember the contract you signed with us. We’re not some club that gives out refunds. Once the job is started, it runs until completion. You would not want to cross my bosses. No backing out now!”

Doyle suddenly felt the urge to give Jacinda Collins the honor of being the first woman he ever hit, but the moment quickly passed. He was in over his head. Fueled by his simmering rage, Doyle had signed on with Jacinda and her shadowy outfit when his best attempt to  avenge his wife’s death was a dud.          

Although he should have asked a million questions, he was so eager to have help in his quest that he muted every concern he had about enlisting her aid. Now, his main question concerned Martha.

What would she think of me now?

He knew the answer. She would be upset with the path that he followed, ashamed of his actions despite doing them all in the name of his love for her.

She would tell me to free the girl, forgive Wakeman Pells and get on my knees to pray to God for forgiveness of my sins.

He dwelled on those two words for a moment. Forgiveness. Sins.

For all of his life those were foreign concepts. He knew no more about sins and forgiveness than he did about nuclear engineering or deciphering Latin. Oh, Martha tried repeatedly to explain those concepts to him — and a myriad more about God and Jesus — but it all seemed to bounce off of him like bullets off of Superman’s chest.

What is a sin exactly? Is it breaking the law? The speed limit? And doesn’t there need to be a God first, keeping track of all those things?

He simply couldn’t believe in any of it. Martha, on the other hand, couldn’t stop talking about how much Jesus meant to her after she began attending church and became a Christian. She kept going on and on about how He was her Savior and forgave her sins and changed her life. When she wasn’t at church, she attended Bible study groups or spent large chunks of time in prayer at home.

It drove Doyle nuts. In fact, whenever she said goodbye while heading out the door to church — lingering for a few moments, no doubt in the hope that he might attend with her — Doyle usually had some wisecrack to send her off.

“Make sure you say a prayer or two for me,” he would say. “Get my sins taken care of.”

Typically, sweet-natured Martha would only laugh or shake her head with a smile. But he would never forget her response the last time she went off to church … just days before she was killed.

“Doyle, I love you dearly,” she said sternly, “and I pray for you daily. But I can’t do anything about your sins. That’s between you and Jesus.”

Doyle’s open disbelief in God occupied a spot near the top of his “Proud Of” list for most of his adult life. But at the moment, caught up in the mess that he was in, he wasn’t so sure it hadn’t flopped over to the “Not Proud Of” side of the sheet.

Maybe you’re right, Martha. Maybe I need to talk to God myself. If He’s real, I have a heap of sins to talk with Him about. But is it too late? Is there any hope for me now?