Desperate Measures

by M. Glenn Graves

  “That was a quick read,” Walters said with his back to me. He was staring at a print of van Gogh centrally located behind Fletcher’s desk. It was a replica of his famous Starry Night.

  “Checking book quality,” I said.

  “Internal quality or book publishing acumen?” Fletcher said as he walked past me en route to his large, cushioned chair behind the desk.

  I ignored his question and sat down in a chair beside Walters.

  “I love books, don’t you, Miss Evans?” Fletcher said.

  “Reading maketh a full man,” I said.

  “Shakespeare?” Fletcher asked.

  “Bacon.”

  “Beg your pardon?” Fletcher said.

  “Francis Bacon,” I said.

  “I thought the quote was reading maketh a ready man,” he said.

  “Oftentimes misquoted. Bacon said that conference makes a ready man.”

  “I see that you are well versed.”

  I started to say that I could see that he was not, but a dissuading glance from Walters forced me to change the subject.

  “We need to ask you about one of your parishioners,” I said.

  “I thought you two were here for marriage counseling,” Fletcher said.

  “Our apologies,” I said. “It was merely a ruse to talk with you.

  “Unusual candor,” Fletcher said.

  “I have more. I’m investigating the apparent suicide of Melody Legrand, one of your church members.”

  “I see. And what is it you would like to know about this young woman?” As he spoke, he opened the bottom drawer on the right side of his desk. He retrieved a manila file and placed it on his desk. He then closed the drawer.

  “You keep files on all your constituents?” I said.

  “I do a lot of counseling. Necessary to keep track of what is said. Helps me to remember facts.”

  He opened the thin file and studied it a bit.

  “Disturbing young woman, I must say,” he began. “Although, I thought for a season that we were helping her. She had some rather strange ideas about life. I counseled her, yes, let me see here, it says that she came to see me for a few months.”

  “Did you think that she might be suicidal?”

  “I’m not at liberty to divulge the answer to that. Ministerial privilege, you know,” he said and closed the file.

  “She’s dead, Mr. Fletcher. I doubt if she would contest you breaking privilege,” I said.

  “Ministerial ethics, and please, address me as Reverend Fletcher or His Holiness,” he corrected.

  Flabbergasted would be an extremely mild term to explain my shock at his narcissism. Not even the Pope would likely offer such a correction despite the fact that is quite proper for him to be addressed in that manner. But short of sitting next to the head man inside Vatican City, I was not truly prepared for this piece of work. I bit my lip and held my tongue for the moment.

  “You’ll need a court order to change my mind about this, Miss Evans,” he said.

  “Or leverage,” I said.

  “Leverage?” he offered a rather cynical smile. “I cannot imagine any leverage you might have that would persuade me to talk about one of my girls.”

  “One of your girls,” I repeated.

  “We’re a family here, Miss Evans. I represent a father-figure to these young people who come for guidance, answers, and love.”

  “And who represents the mother-figure to them?”

  “Ah, Miss Evans. God the Father is the supreme example of love and needs no female intervention into life. I am the Father’s agent here on earth representing His love for these often misguided children. We are not like the pagans who required a female deity. The presence of God the Father is quite sufficient for all our needs here.”

  “I won’t argue theology with you, Reverend Fletcher. I simply want to know if you were aware of any tendencies by Melody Legrand towards suicide.”

  “I have already addressed that with you. But, I will say that Melody was disturbed on several fronts and that I felt like I was making good, strong, substantial progress with her when she left.”

  “So she was not a member here when she died?” I said.

  “Well, we never remove anyone from our roles unless they request it. Our roles are considered holy ledgers and they reflect the doctrine of our church.”

  “What doctrine would that be?” Uncle Walters finally interjected a question.

  “Well, Mr. Clancy, that would be the doctrine of the Lamb’s Book of Life. Are you familiar with the scripture from Revelations where it speaks about the names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life?”

  I noticed the unnecessary but all-too-common extra s added to the name of that biblical book. Tsk, tsk, I thought to myself. Religious education is not yet overrated.

  “I am, but it is not quite the same as a church’s membership roles,” Walters said.

  “Ah, but in our church, it is. Once your name is permanently written into the book, then you are heaven bound and shall be included in the imminent rapture. I believe that Jesus was quite clear on that fact.”

  I pondered that one. While my religious education was composed chiefly of Sunday school classes and too many boring sermons for the first seventeen years of my life, I did at least for the most part, pay attention and despite myself, learned a few things. I needed to check with Rogers to verify my suspicions here.

  “So, that means some names on your roles are temporary inclusions?” Walters said while I was doing my internal questioning of Fletcher’s theology.

  “Probationary inclusions is the phrase we like to use. There is a probationary period in membership in our church. After one has passed through the time of testing, then they are written into the Book with permanent ink.”

  “Is that a metaphor, the permanent ink?” I said.

  “Yes and no,” Fletcher said. “We actually use an indelible ink when we include names on our Holy Log. That comes after the proving of a candidate. They become full-fledged members and their name is written into the Lamb’s Book, the Holy Log.”

  “With indelible ink,” I said. “I would have expected nothing less … for inclusion in the Holy Log.”

  “Yes,” Fletcher said.

  “That means that those written into your Holy Log are heaven-bound?” I said.

  “Precisely.”

  “What about those of us not members of your church? Is there anyway in for us?” I said.

  Fletcher smiled and shook his head as if he were making some horrendous decision about life or death.

  “We are the church of God, Miss Evans. We offer the way to heaven. You are welcome to come join us and journey with us. Heaven is a reality and the end is coming soon.”

  “That your best pitch?” I said.

  “No pitch, Miss Evans. Are you not concerned about your immortal soul?”

  “Unlike Plato, Reverend Fletcher, I find myself more in keeping with the Hebraic notions of humanity than the Grecian ideals set forth.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “I bet you don’t. As I said earlier, I am not here to argue theology with you. Just wanted some information about Melody Legrand. One more thing,” I said.

  “What would that be?” he said and stood up behind his desk.

  “Do you think that Melody killed herself?”

  He seemed puzzled with the question. He walked around to the front of his desk while looking down at the floor of his office. He was pondering something.

  “The police who investigated the incident said it was suicide,” he finally answered.

  “What do you think?”

  “Why would I have an alternative view of the incident?”

  “You counseled her and knew her better than most,” I said. I didn’t mean to flatter him and I feared he might take it as a compliment.

  “I have no reason to question the authorities in this matter. It is my observation that some people surprise us by doing unthinkable things to themselves.”


  “Indeed they do … as well as to others,” I said.

  18

  I was sipping some of Uncle Walters’ tea while resting comfortably in one of the many leather easy chairs that lined the massive windows of his home. The view from this part of his house at that moment offered a distant view of the skyline of a nighttime Boston. The tea was as good as the scene before me.

  “Quite lovely, is it not?” Walters said.

  “If you like skylines, nighttime, and millions of lights,” I said.

  “And I do.”

  “Obviously. It’s been your home for a few years now.”

  “Into my fourth decade. It’s an amazing city. Grand combination of history and progress.”

  “You’ve done well,” I said. This was as close as I would ever get to talking about money with my uncle. His entrepreneurship had been successful enough that he had accumulated several million through the years. As far as I knew, that accumulation had not ceased. His investments were now running the show, but despite his wealth, he continued to work for the sake of discovering new things. Any discussion of his gathered wealth was taboo, so I stayed away from it. It wasn’t that he had ever told me directly to not speak of money. Rather, it was his personality in regards to his wealth. It seemed to me to be tacky and in bad taste to talk about it with him. Money for him was simply something that he had a lot of, not something that ruled his life. He had good taste as well, but it did not describe his essence.

  “I have been fortunate. So, tell me, what do you make of Reverend Fletcher?” Walters said as he eased our conversation towards another subject.

  “Like most misguided religious people, I think he poses some danger to the general populace. However, besides being an idiot, I am not sure about his place in this drama.”

  “My take is that he is a dangerous man because he believes in some rather dangerous ideas.”

  “His religious notions?” I said.

  “That, and more. He wields some power over his constituents and that is frightening for me.”

  “Why is it we humans seek out charismatic megalomaniacs in search of God?”

  “Some of us do not,” Walters said.

  “Yet, there seems to be quite a number who are enthralled by such people. Where does this power come from?”

  “May I rule out God?” Walters said.

  “Well, considering our background as Baptists from the South, and our homegrown heritage from your family and mine, we would certainly agree that it is rather peculiar of God to have selected only the Church of the Real End as the singular way to reach heaven,” I said. “Seems a bit exclusive, if you ask me.”

  “Some of us are more open to multiple possibilities for any celestial gathering,” Walters said.

  “Our lack of religious fervor, notwithstanding,” I said.

  “Some of us are not keen on the overabundance of fervor.”

  “Why do you suppose that is?” I said.

  “Lack of exposure, perhaps,” Walters said.

  “So, if we had been raised in some church where there was tremendous excitement in the worship, we might feel otherwise about religious fervor?”

  “Religious fervor does not have to manifest itself in ecstatic utterances, holy dances, or blind obedience to some demagogue,” Walters said as he stood. “More tea?”

  “Please,” I said and handed him my cup. “So you think some type of genuine fervor is possible through the medium of a good sermon?

  “I do,” he said as he brought the tea pot over to me and poured out some raspberry mint.

  “You obviously have not heard the current minister of the Clancyville Baptist Church preach,” I said.

  “No, I have not had that privilege.”

  “Privilege? Hardly,” I said. I took a sip of the raspberry mint. “It’s an experience … like watching paint dry.”

  I could hear him chuckling behind me.

  “So you think that Fletcher is a demagogue?”

  He walked to the kitchen without answering. I could hear him pouring the tea into his cup. My eyes were focused upon the city view. Some of the lights seemed to be sparkling.

  “At the very least that is what Fletcher is,” he said as he was walking back to join me in the nocturnal view.

  “In addition to being a suspect in a murder?” I said.

  “You’re thinking this is a murder investigation?”

  “I have to keep the options open. It’s the tricky part of a case like this. The recording definitely shows a young woman killing herself. But I cannot shake the feeling that someone else was pulling the strings,” I said.

  “Marionette at the mercy of another,” Walters said.

  “Something like that.”

  I drank my tea slowly as Walters and I looked at the lights of the city in the distance.

  “So tell me, you being a philosopher of sorts, why religious people have a tendency to think that their religion is the only true one,” I said after we enjoyed a few moments of silence between us.

  “Ask me something easy,” he said.

  “Divine scriptures notwithstanding, people have generally leaned towards an increased level of religious-group importance to the point where everyone else is wrong except for their group. Why is that?” I said.

  “Nature of the beast.”

  “My daddy is stronger than your daddy?” I said.

  “That’s the general idea, I think,” Walters said. “Why serve a lesser god who delivers a second-rate utopia?”

  “Why not multiple possibilities to the same destinations?” I said.

  “You take the high road and I’ll take the low road.”

  “Is it not a possibility?”

  “I think so, but what do I know. I am not one full of religious fervor, nor do I subscribe to a belief system that teaches my church is right and your church is wrong. Sorry about your church,” Walters said.

  “Screaming liberal, right?”

  “That would be the label,” he said and smiled as he finished his tea.

  “How do you think it’s all going to end?” I said.

  “The world or this case?”

  “I was thinking of the world,” I said.

  “As much as I like the poet, I think the whimper-thing is out. Enter the bang, stage left,” he said.

  We were silent for a long time after that. Two souls watching the nighttime sky showing off some flickering distant lights and wondering what on earth is happening while enjoying some great raspberry mint tea … it’s enough to give a body hope. Silence and beauty are sometimes delightful combinations. Cheap therapy.

  19

  My cell phone awakened me. It was still dark outside and the clock on the bedside table informed me that it was earlier than it needed to be to suit my druthers. I read 5:28 a.m. I don’t think God gets up that early. But then, the text says that God never sleeps. Hard to imagine that one. Mortals must truly be of a lesser stripe.

  It was Rogers.

  “Sorry to disturb your beauty sleep, but since I have noticed in the last several years that such sleep has not improved your outlook or your looks, I decided the information I uncovered was more valuable than some vain attempt towards the illusive beauty you seek.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “It’s way too early for this, Rogers.” Irritability is a morning attribute before coffee is applied.

  “I just discovered something significant about Reverend Reginald Fletcher,” she said.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “Are you awake?”

  “Barely.”

  “You want to get some coffee and call me back?” Rogers said.

  “I want you to tell me what you found and then I shall return to slumber for another hour or so.”

  “Reginald Fletcher is not his real name.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, I got that. Do you have his real name?” I said.

  “I have his birth name, aka
, real,” Rogers said.

  “So tell me his birth name.”

  “Chester Chatterworth.”

  “Chester Chatterworth,” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I do not jest; too early for jokes. I report facts, data, discoverable evidence, such as this,” Rogers said.

  “Am I missing something here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, tell me what I am missing.”

  “You remember Sandra Chatterworth, one of the friends of Melody Legrand from college?”

  “I think I recall the name.”

  “Have you spoken with her?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “You might want to move her to the head of the line. It seems that she and Chester are related, as in father and daughter.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Really.”

  “That’s quite the discoverable fact, I must say.”

  “Is that a backdoor compliment?” Rogers said.

  “Didn’t intend to compliment you.”

  “Figures. I do yeoman’s work for you and get no thanks whatsoever.”

  “Thanks. Your info is important. Maybe central.”

  “You could sound a bit more excited,” Rogers said.

  “It’s 5:39. You awakened me from a deep sleep, a dream of some sort. I have not had any coffee, and you expect me to sound enthusiastic?”

  “Too much to ask, huh?”

  I closed the cell phone without answering. If this was the future world that included artificial intelligence as a way of life, then I would likely vote against it, if the election were held anytime before 7:00 a.m.

  The aroma ascending to my lofty upstairs bedroom lured me to the kitchen, but only after I had showered and cleaned up a little. I was still in a stupor. The pre-coffee hours are like this each day of my life. I moved cautiously down the steps so as not to fall and ruin the rest of the day.