Custody of the State

Authors: Craig Parshall

HARVEST HOUSE
^â¢PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Verses marked
NASB
are taken from the New American Standard Bible
^Â®, Â© 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

The following Scripture quotations in this book are not identified in the text:

chapter 1: Joshua 24:15

chapter 46: Matthew 14:10-12

chapter 51: Psalm 91:4
NASB

Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. It is the intent of the author and publisher that all events, locales, organizations, and persons portrayed herein be viewed as fictitious.

CUSTODY OF THE STATE

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Parshall, Craig, 1950â

Custody of the state / Craig Parshall.

p. cm. â (Chambers of justice ; bk. 2)

ISBN 978-0-7369-1026-2 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-6039-7 (eBook)

1. Custody of childrenâFiction. 2. Child abuseâFiction. 3. GeorgiaâFiction. I. Title.

PS3616.A77 C87 2003

813'.54âdc21

2002013757

All rights reserved.
No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâelectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherâwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author's and publisher's rights is strictly prohibited.

Dedication

To John DiFrancesca, my friend and brother-in-law:

for his dedication to his childrenâand his faithfulness to Him who created the first family and who beckons us all to join His eternal family

Contents

The Resurrection File

Acknowledgments
Â

I am deeply indebted to Marilyn Clifton, my administrative assistant, for her tireless legal research that helped to inject reality into this fictional story; to Barbara Henderson for her painstaking keyboard work on the manuscript, as well as general research on everything from meteorology to geography; and to Sharon Donehey, as always, for her faithful handling of countless details that attend the preparation of a book, from inception to the final rush to make the deadline.

A special thanks is due, again, to Paul Gossard with the editorial staff at Harvest House Publishersâhis eye is keen, and his sense of the story and of the characters involved is ever insightful. My wife, Janet, and my four children made a massive contribution to this story, simply by teaching me the primacy of parenting and the essence of family.

The inspiration for this story really springs from my experience, during a 27-year practice of law, representing parents and families who found themselves at the blunt end of government abuse. We have the greatest legal system in the history of the worldâbut when our courts and our law enforcers aim their considerable power at dedicated parents and law-abiding families, the results can be tragic.

And in that regard, I am also thankful to those attorneys around the nation alongside whom I have had the privilege of fighting to help protect the integrityâand the sanctityâof the family.

T
HAT MORNING BROUGHT THE
usual sounds and smells as the family gathered for breakfast inside the kitchen of the white farmhouseâthe one with the long, dirt driveway that wound through the soybean fields and that eventually connected to the county trunk highway.

Buried in the rural quiet of the Georgia countryside, the family gathered for the rituals of the routine and the mundane. Within the house, it all felt familiar. The daily patterns of their home had sheltered them. The life of the Fellows family had become predictable, the only major variations being those of weather, season, and the market price of soybeans, and occasionally Mary Sue's schedule as a part-time nurse. Though their life was lived on a farm with the usual machinery, tools, and field chemicals, it had been a safe one.

At a quarter after six, there was only the slight heaviness of early-morning fatigue, but nothing else. The family was beginning the day in the usual way. They were cradled in the details of the normal. They were safe.

Outside, the house was tidy enough, but the careful eye could detect signs of minor neglect. The paint was peeling slightly. The red shutters set the white wood siding off nicely, but one hung a little off-kilter, the casualty of a storm. Joe Fellows, a thirty-year-old farmer who managed his sixty-acre soybean farm almost single-handedly, had promised Mary Sue that he would get to those odd jobs. But he never seemed to be able to find the time.

Joe, Mary Sue, and Joshua, their four-year-old, were halfway through breakfast. Joe had been up since a quarter to five. After an hour's work he'd ducked back into the house, tossed his International Harvester baseball cap down, stripped off his red plaid coat, and sat down for breakfast. Now he was slurping from a mug of coffee.

Mary Sue was dancing between the stove and Joshua's place at the barn-board table where her son was catapulting food off his plate with glee. Like a baseball player caught between first and second base, bowl in hand, Mary Sue moved slightly toward the stove, then toward the table, then toward the stove again. With one hand she was trying to scoop more scrambled eggs into the bowl from the frying pan, and with the other she was reaching out toward the table, pointing her index finger at Joshua.

“Joshua, no!” she yelled. “Don't throw your food.”

Joshua, a skinny, pale boy with big hazel eyes and brown hair, was grinning widely. He tossed more eggs off his plate.

Mary Sue stopped and pulled a long strand of her strawberry-blond hair away from her face. As she stared at Joe, who was reading the market prices in the paper, her pale blue eyes, usually soft and inviting, started to flash into anger, as they could do in seconds.

“I could use a little help here,” Mary Sue snapped out to her husband.

“Joshua, don't,” Joe said nonchalantly from behind the newspaper.

“That was a great help, thanks,” she shot back, her pretty features starting to flush. “Will you reinforce the rules at the table, please?”

“Okay,” Joe responded, smiling. Then he slowly lowered the paper from his face as Joshua watched intently. As his face was revealed, Joe crossed his eyes, bared his teeth, and growled in a bearlike voice,
“D-o-n-'t t-h-r-o-w y-o-u-r f-o-o-d!”

Joshua rocked with giggles in his little chair.

Mary Sue tried to muster up the appropriate anger, but gave up as she started laughing a little herself.

“You're hopeless,” she said to Joe, who seemed pleased that he and his son had waged a small but successful rebellion together.

As Mary Sue walked over to her husband with the bowl of eggs, he pushed himself away from the table.

“You haven't finished your plate,” she said.

“I've got a lot of work to do.”