The Right Kind Of People Epilogue

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance by any character or situation to any actual person or event is purely coincidental. All characters presented in this narrative are over the age of 18.

The Right Kind of People

Epilogue

By Royce F. Houton

Lila Ruth Behrens Meriwether weighed nine pounds, 12 ounces when she came into the world on Tax Day, April 15, 1975, at 2:30 in the morning. She had her mother's lips, reddish hair and green eyes.

Since this was the first girl of this child-bearing generation in either Evie's or Troy's families, there were a lot of family names to unload on her. Lila was a nod to Troy's grandmother. Ruth was a nod to Evie's mom, and Behrens was Evie's maiden surname.

Living as they did in the Deep South, a land fond of run-on double names like Billy Bob and Tommy Lee, Carol Ann and more Mary Elizabeths than you could shake a New Testament at, they were pretty sure that their "Lila" would become "Lila Ruth" after she started school if not before.

Evidently, one of his determined swimmers, released when he was a second too late withdrawing the night their libidos got away from them and they went bareback following Evie's morning backyard nudity the previous July, indeed ran the gauntlet and found a ripe ovum in Evie's fallopian tubes. They did the math, and Lila Bear arrived, a perfect full-term baby, exactly 40 weeks after that uninhibited, no-condom night in their den.

"Hey, this little girl was meant to be," Troy said. He beamed at his daughter in Evie's room at Deaconess-Little Rock Hospital an hour after her birth.

The future would prove him right.

"Lila Bear" would be a prodigy with an IQ of 147. She would graduate with highest honors from high school in 1992 -- she skipped eighth grade and moved right to high school as its youngest valedictorian at age 17. She was in the top two percent of all undergraduates who received degrees from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in May of 1977. She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law three years after that and clerked for the chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court before going to work for the United States Attorney's office in Little Rock in 2002. She worked her way up chief deputy U.S. attorney, prosecuting some of the state's most high-profile criminal cases. She received a presidential appointment in 2010 to become the U.S. attorney, and in 2021, at the age of 46, another president appointed her a federal judge in Little Rock.

Perhaps an omen of her career path confronted Evie and Troy when they brought their newborn daughter home for the first time and saw a box truck backed up to the home of their neighbor, Pastor Pete, and the street filled with unmarked black SUVs and sedans and vans emblazoned with the logos of all three local television stations. Corbin and Tyler were already sitting in the front yard enthralled when Evie and Troy arrived with their new baby sister.

Men in black windbreakers had been going into the house and emerging with cardboard boxes they stacked into the rear of the truck for about an hour. Pastor Pete was nowhere to be seen.

A few details emerged from a sketchy report on KATV's evening news. It said that federal authorities had raided the North Little Rock home of the pastor of an independent local congregation. The station said the search involved agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service.

The next morning's Arkansas Gazette presented a clearer summary.

The FBI and the IRS executed search warrants Tuesday on North Little Rock's Holiness Apostolic Temple, the home of its controversial pastor and a savings and loan in Conway as part of a sweeping federal investigation into alleged fraud and tax evasion by the church and its leaders.

Agents spent hours impounding and seizing records at the church and at the homes of the Rev. Peter J. Redmond and several senior members of the church's Council of Elders, according to warrants issued by the U.S. District Court in Little Rock.

Sources with knowledge of the investigation said that a federal grand jury in Little Rock is investigating hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations by church members and followers of Redmond's radio program that were allegedly hidden away in accounts belonging to Redmond at the Conway Federal Savings and Loan and possibly banks outside the United States.

Both the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI office in Little Rock told the Gazette they could not comment on a pending investigation. There was no response to a message left with a spokesman for the IRS.

The Temple's finances have been under law-enforcement scrutiny for several years since the investigation that led to federal prison terms for two of its Elders, both closely tied to Redmond who identifies himself as an apostle. State and Pulaski County officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the federal grand jury was empaneled after evidence came to light in an unrelated legal dispute involving the pastor several months ago...

Troy used his office phone downtown to call Solly Resnick the next morning.

"Solly, you got any info on what's going on with Pastor Pete? We brought our baby girl home from the hospital yesterday afternoon and there was an army of feds unloading Pete's house?"

Solly chuckled.

"Wish I could tell you, my friend, but if I did, I'd be in deep shit with those feds. Let's just say I've been helpful to the U.S. attorney and the Justice Department," Solly said.

"Will this involve us? I mean, like, as witnesses?" Troy said.

"That, as your attorney, I can address. No. It might have been a... shall we say...

unintended downstream consequence

of the indecent exposure case and the invasion of privacy countercharge against him that put state and federal investigators at a good starting place, but neither you nor Evie could have possibly known of Mr. Redmond's other dealings," Solly said. "I don't anticipate either of you being involved."

Troy nodded, relieved.

"You know, Solly, I am tempted to ask you if this is the 'compensation' you were referring to when you offered to take Evie's case pro bono. But if I asked, there damn little chance you're going to answer, is there?"

Solly laughed out loud.

"Blessings to you and Evie on your newborn. And if she has a bat mitzvah, please invite me, OK?" Solly said, still chuckling. "You have a joyous day, my friend."

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A year after the raid on Pastor Pete's house and the Temple, he pleaded guilty to 17 federal counts including wire fraud, tax evasion, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, obstruction of justice, perjury and conspiracy to suborn perjury. He was sentenced to 15 years in a federal near Houston, Texas.

Because the cases were filed under the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, the government seized virtually all of HAT's holdings -- including the old Hudin's Discount store property and the land purchased in south Pulaski County where construction had recently begun on the new mega-Temple, water park and Redmond's mansion. The law allowed the government to take anything that was tied to the conspiracy or acquired through its proceeds, including his home, cars, land, bank accounts and jewelry, to be sold. Its proceeds would go to a fund from which victims of his schemes could seek restitution.

Four other HAT members pleaded guilty to lesser charges and received probationary sentences because they became government witnesses, providing damning evidence and testimony against their defrocked apostle.

The government put Pastor Pete's derelict and empty house on the market. A young couple, married only two years, bought it as a fixer-upper project. They became good friends with the Meriwethers, volunteering to babysit little Lila Bear so Evie and Troy could occasionally go out on the town. As aspiring parents themselves striving to get pregnant, it turned out to be good training.

Troy had installed a large hammock in his lush, private backyard. One early autumn evening as he and Evie swayed in the cooling breeze, they heard the faint but unmistakable sounds of the couple next door getting frisky. Giggles and coos gave way to moans and sighs. Then grunts and moans and other exclamations before all went quiet again.

Troy and Evie listened quietly, smiling at each other and resisting the temptation to giggle themselves.

"Are we creeps for listening to this?" Evie said.

"No, honey. If we'd gone over to the fence and tried to look through it and watch them,

then

we'd be creeps," he said. "I think it's beautiful. And I hope it's successful. They're going to be great parents."

Years would pass, but the adoration and passion Evie and Troy had for each other -- emotionally and physically -- never faded. With the peeping pastor long gone, they increasingly availed themselves to

al fresco

makeout sessions when the kids weren't home in their secure, private backyard, but never again in broad daylight.

After Troy retired in the late 2000s and all his kids were grown and on their own, he and Evie moved to a wooded, lakeside property in the Missouri Ozarks. It afforded them abundant space for Corbin, Tyler and Lila Bear to visit with their spouses and a growing cadre of grandchildren who could romp, relax, swim and fish.

Its bucolic seclusion also gave Evie and Troy ample opportunity to occasionally practice a clothing-optional lifestyle in their golden years, particularly on each anniversary of her inaugural naked backyard adventure (and Lila Bear's suspected conception) each July 14.

They were in their early 70s on one such July morning and had taken their coffee outside to the pier extending 20 feet into the lake to sit in their reclining Adirondack chairs and soak up the sun.

"What the fuck, Evie, let's do it," Troy said, looking over to his bride of 52 years. She smiled and nodded, and in less than 30 seconds, their bathing suits lay crumpled beneath their recliners on the pier's cypress boards. They reclined in their chairs again and held hands as the summer sun warmed them.

"This is life, baby," he said.

"Well, it only took you 40 years to come around, Mr. Meriwether," Evie said.

Troy nodded and smiled.

"Eat your heart out, Pastor Pete, wherever you are."

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