Who knows what waits when we cross into the dreamland of our sleep? Will we tiptoe through the tall shadows of our fears, or walk boldly in a bright land where spirit gives birth to hope? Will we replay the past, celebrating our victories or tying off troublesome loose ends? Or will we dwell on what the future might bring? Will doubt haunt us with snarling lions and tigers lurking ahead, or will peace of heart lead us toward beautiful fields of gold?

My Sunday night dreamland took me to a place of the future, but if it had been a look back, I might have smiled in my sleep. John-John had been right. The gathering Sunday morning had doubled in size from any we had known before and my message to them flowed down like a mountain stream -- clear, refreshing, dancing over the rocks, moving with a natural ease. Satisfaction filled the air.

Day by day, memories of what had been grew more and more faint. Nothing remained to dream of except today. And today’s dreams passed easily into tomorrow. Each Sunday morning felt complete in and of itself. No loose ends left behind, and no victory to celebrate. In that past life I spent hours each week writing and practicing my sermons, now I trusted a source not in me but in the headwaters of knowing with which I was now joined. Right up to the moment I stepped out to speak, I had no idea what I would say.

The place of my vision that dreamy Sunday night was new and foreign to me, but a time would come when I knew it very well. I walked in lush grass amid long, low buildings of clear glimmering glass. Beyond the city of glass I discovered sprawling fields filled knee-high with greenery dotted with bursting balls of red. And I was not alone. Working in the fields and inside the glass temples I spotted friends -- Becky, John-John and other laborers from our ministry on the sand. And in the doorway of the greatest of the glass buildings, which even in my dream I knew were greenhouses, stood Beau McCarthy, dressed in dirty white linen with cloth gardener’s gloves on his hands. Here the dream ended.

In those first months of my new life, no day was ever just another day. My dream had not been the kind from which you wake suddenly in a sweat and fear going back to sleep, and I greeted Monday morning feeling renewed and ready after a sound night’s rest. I had serious work to do and after my morning run I began to search for a good attorney who could clear up what I believed to be a misunderstanding about John-John’s role in Mary’s death.

As I made my calls I discovered how fame had changed me in the eyes of others. Pastors in small towns are accustomed to being public figures, but media had made me a full-blown celebrity. Every law office on my list greeted my call with a happy word of recognition. And it wasn’t just that someone millions had watched on television was now talking to them. They wanted something from me, a portion of whatever magic I had used to turn around the deputy and Ms. Collins. Even the receptionists who said criminal law wasn’t part of their practice didn’t want to let me off the phone. And for me to hang up felt like forcing them from the dinner table while they were still hungry. And so the process took longer than I’d anticipated, but by noon I had my man, or to be accurate, woman.

Her name is not important, but just for the record, Ms. Meriweather came highly recommended by my mother-in-law. Her office is in Daytona and she is well known to the state attorney’s office. She advised me on the phone against contacting the police. In fact, from now on we weren’t to talk with anyone about the case. She would find out which assistant state’s attorney was in charge. She knew who I was, had seen a follow-up interview in the Daytona paper with deputy Jericho, but said she hadn’t seen my television appearance. I liked that. Her approach to me was simply that I was her client, or actually, that John Johnson was her client. She set an appointment for us that afternoon and while I was on the phone, directed a secretary to secure the case file from the prosecutor’s office. “We’ll see why after all this time they decided they had something,” she said. I felt we were in good hands.

Ms. Meriweather was a tall angular blonde in a tailored business suit. I could see why Mrs. Chisholm liked her. They shared the same no-nonsense air of confidence. In the waiting room John-John seemed nervous. “Déjà vu,” he said. But once inside the office, he looked more at ease. The attorney said she’d prefer meeting with him alone but he objected. He wanted me to stay, so I stayed.

This was a fact-finding session, Ms. Meriweather explained. She hadn’t received the state’s file yet and wanted John-John just to tell her what happened the night Mary died. I told her that I had been present, although asleep, but she asked me to stay quiet. She wanted to hear the tale from the accused. So he told it, from the drinks at the bar and Mary’s insistence on going to the cemetery and how he started out driving with her in the front passenger’s seat and me in the back. I knew the story by heart. But when he reached the part where Mary insisted that he was weaving and asked him to pull over so she could drive, John-John hesitated and turned to me.

“Mr. Johnson,” Ms. Meriweather said, “I’m your attorney. If I’m going to defend you I need the full truth. Anything you tell me stays with me.”

The door opened and the secretary entered. “Mr. Johnson’s file just arrived,” she said.

John-John resumed his story but before he could say two words Ms. Meriweather stopped him. “Give me a minute to look this over,” she said, shuffling quickly though the documents. Sixty seconds elapsed. No more, but it seemed longer. I tried to relax while John-John fidgeted. Finally, he stood but Ms. Meriweather looked up and motioned him to sit back down; she was finished.

“So, in the original police report you stated that the deceased was driving your car at the time of the accident. They are now alleging you were behind the wheel. Keeping in mind that you speak to me in complete confidence but at the same time I can’t allow you to go into court and testify to something I know to be a lie, let me ask you in plain English. Who was driving your car at the time of the accident?”

John-John turned to look at me. I was thinking and could hear him thinking about our conversation Saturday when we returned from the jail. She was driving; we had agreed on that. That had always been our story and that’s still our story. I had no reason to think it wasn’t true.

“Mr. Johnson,” she said.

He cleared his throat and looked his lawyer in the eye. “Mary was driving when we ran off the road. I wish I woulda never let her get behind the wheel, but she insisted. Said I was weavin’. Turned out she was no better off than me.”

“She was driving and caused her own death,” Meriweather said. “That’s your testimony? That’s what you intend to say under oath in court if it comes to that?”

“Yes ma’m.”

They measured each other eye-to-eye for ten seconds or so. Finally she said, “Alright, I think we can work with that.”

“What I’m confused about,“ I said, “is why an arrest after all this time?”

She looked at John-John and he nodded his approval. “Well Mr. Waymire--”

“Call him pastor Waymire,” John-John said.

“Apparently,” she continued, “the detective was uncomfortable about matching the windshield damage with the relative injuries of the victim and Mr. Johnson. They brought in a forensics specialist from Jacksonville and he concluded the damage to the passenger side window was more consistent with the victim’s injuries.”

“I wish you’d quit callin’ her a victim,” John-John said.

“Accident victim; that’s all I meant. Anyway, their expert also was skeptical about the two center points in the shatter patterns on the driver’s side. Both of the injured parties appeared to have only one wound. He speculated … hold on a second, there was something in here about that.” She returned to the file and found what she was wanted.

“Mr. Johnson, did you hide a half-empty bottle of whiskey in the woods near the accident site?”

“Well, yea,” John-John said. “I been ’round long enough to know the cops would try to make somethin’ outta it. There’s an open container law you know, and with me havin’ a record an’ all … I just figured it was best to get rid of it.” He again turned to me. “Sorry padre,” I shoulda told you.”

“What difference does it make … if he wasn‘t driving anyway?” I asked.

“They are theorizing Mr. Johnson used the bottom edge of the bottle to try to enlarge the impact area on the driver’s side so it would better match the victim’s injury. But he missed, causing the second center point -- they claim to know it came from a harder object than a skull. He then got rid of the evidence in the woods.”

“No offense ma’am, but that’s ridiculous,” I said. “if you were familiar with John-John’s old beater of a station wagon, you’d know he had any number of metal objects in the back he could have used to break that window. Why would he use a glass bottle?”

“Well, just to play the devil’s advocate; he was drinking, not thinking straight and he had the bottle in his hand, already planning to get rid of it, like he testified. And, it seems there‘s a chip out of the glass on the bottom of the bottle.”

Neither of us replied. Then she spoke. “I didn’t say they had a strong case. I have a feeling someone pushed this prosecution on them … probably the investigating detective. Let me talk with them and see what they’re thinking.”

John-John stood. “Yes ma’am. Do that ma’am … please.”

We turned to leave and she called out. “Mr. Johnson. She was driving. No doubt about that?”

“Not a bit ma’am.”

John-John clammed up on the way home and I thought maybe the less we talk about this, the better. I only know what I saw when I woke up in the back seat that night. Mary was lying dead in the grass outside the driver’s side door. She was driving. He said it and I had no reason not to believe it. There was nothing else to add so why talk about it. So what if John-John went into the woods to hide a whiskey bottle? His explanation made sense to me. I thought about making small talk, tossing out an unrelated subject for conversation, but none of them felt right so I decided to let him have his peace for now.

I drove south in silence on U.S. 1. Not even the radio playing. My cell phone rang. It was Jess Gabriel wanting to apologize for letting Krissy Collins’ people have the whole sequence of photos. They misled him a little about their intentions, he said. I told him not to worry; that God has a way of turning things for good, which is what happened here. He agreed. He just wanted me to know how they had worked him. We had already said goodbye when I thought of something he might help me with. “Jess!” I said quickly and he was still there. I told him about John-John’s arrest and, off the record, the basics of what Meriweather had said. I wondered if he had heard anything else about why this case had percolated back to the surface. He hadn’t but said he would see what he could learn. In a town like ours, secrets are hard keepers.

We drove across the north bridge onto the beachside. “It’s after five,” I said, “why don’t you come over for dinner?”

“I don’t think so. Probably be best if you and your family didn’t get too hooked up with me,” John-John said.

“Nonsense! You are part of the family.”

“Second thought, instead of takin’ me home, just drop me up here by the Deck. I could use a drink or two.”

“Are you sure? You said you were laying off till your charges got cleared up.”

“What the hell,” he said. “Ain’t gonna make no difference one way or the other anyway.”

“I don’t care if you have a drink, John-John. Just don’t get cynical on me. You’re too important to our ministry.”

Whatdaya need me for,” he said. “You got Beau to pull strings for you now. I can‘t compete with him.”

“Beau? Beau is no John-John. You know you’re my guy. I mean, the things you do for me …”

I spotted Beau’s rental car as we pulled into the public lot across from Jerry’s bar. It was close to 5:30. Becky would be getting off work. I was pretty sure John-John hadn’t seen the car. “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll go in and have a beer with you.”

“Whatever,” he said.