The Guilty - Jason Pinter [92]
women in white jackets with filters over their mouths combed
through the wreckage.
I could see at least one body draped with cloth and another,
uncovered, lying among the timber.
My stomach clenched. I read further, my pulse quickening as I read the awful details.
Late last night John Roberts, his wife Meryl, their
two children William and Martha, and beloved Pastor
Mark C. Rheingold died in a four-alarm fire at the Roberts ranch in Hico, Texas.
...bodies were burned beyond recognition...
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Jason Pinter
...unknown how the fire began...
...Rheingold had just returned from a thirty-city tour
for his latest book and was set to break ground on a new
15,000-seat church in Houston...
...the Roberts family had just moved to Hico three
years ago...
...joined John Henry Roberts's father, Oliver...
...William Henry and Martha James had recently
graduated from Hamilton High...
...police have not ruled out arson...
I read the rest of the article, stunned. It was impossible.
Either I'd made a huge mistake, or something was terribly
wrong. Because according to the newspapers, William Henry
Roberts had died in Hico, Texas, nearly four years ago.
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The next three articles were all follow-ups to the story of the
tragic fire that had claimed the lives of four of Hico's newest
residents, as well as the life of one of the state's most beloved
religious servants.
According to Sheriff Chip Youngblood, experts determined
that the fire was electrical, and may have been exacerbated
when one of the Roberts children foolishly attempted to extinguish it with water. According to the local energy supplier,
there was a small spike in the Roberts family's electrical
usage around the time the fire was believed to have started.
The county held a small, private ceremony for the burial
of John Henry Roberts, his wife and their children. A photo
ran of the burial. There were about twenty people in attendance, including several reporters from local papers.
The funeral service held for Pastor Mark Rheingold,
however, was a very different story. The proceedings were
held in Rheingold's old church in Houston, a ten-thousand
seater that was filled to capacity for the ceremony. Ushers
were needed to corral the crowds. At least four people were
confirmed to have fainted. Another tried to drown himself in
the hopes of meeting Mark Rheingold in heaven.
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Jason Pinter
I came upon hundreds of photos of Mark Rheingold taken
during his various pilgrimages in various newspapers, pamphlets and photo-ops. Rheingold was a thin man, not skinny
but lean, with the lithe physique and stretched facial muscles
of a jogger. His jet-black hair was always slicked back in a neat
coif and his suits, like his wife's jewelry, were decent but not
gaudy. Every photograph bore the pastor's thousand-watt
smile. Though I did wonder why a man of God needed veneers.
Cards and flowers arrived from all fifty states and thirty
foreign countries. Numerous politicians paid their condolences
in person. Rheingold's closest friends and pastorial acquaintances read passages from his bestselling books. Rheingold's
wife and young son remained stoic in the front row. The
governor of Texas declared the day one of statewide mourning.
The following year, Rheingold's wife was given her own
daytime talk show. His ten-year-old son published a book
called Never Too Young to Follow the Lord, containing prayers
and motivation for grade-schoolers.
There was very little reporting on the burial of the
Roberts family. A grainy photo showed the four caskets
being lowered. Two larger ones, for John and William. Two
smaller ones for Meryl and Martha. John was noted as the
grandson of Oliver P. "Brushy Bill" Roberts. Everything
else was journalism-by-the-numbers.
One line from the article, though, threw me for a loop.
The Roberts family was buried in a closed-casket service
presided over by Reverend Bert Brown. During his concluding
remarks, Reverend Brown asked the heavenly father that the
bodies of these four souls be looked after in