by Rob Byrnes
She rolled her eyes. “I told you before, I’m gonna tell you again. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He held his stare without blinking. “So you’re saying you know nothing about the contents of the safe?”
“I didn’t even know there was a safe,” she said. “I just started a few days ago. I came down from New York after seeing Dr. Hurley on television, and they asked me to help out in the office.”
He made it clear he didn’t believe her. “You mean they just gave a newcomer a set of keys and turned her loose? Is that what you’re saying?”
Well, yes, that was what she was saying. She wondered how many times she’d have to repeat the story before it sank in, but—in this case—a knock on the door gave her a break.
“Come in,” said Tolan, and one of the other agents poked his head inside.
“I got a name on the other one,” he said. “Charles LaMarca. Lives in Jackson Heights, Queens.” The other agent looked at Constance. “Does that name ring a bell, Ms. Brown?”
She didn’t answer.
Tolan asked, “Did this LaMarca tell you why he’s going by the name Hudson?”
“Said he was trying to start a new life in Virginia, and a new name was part of that.”
“Where’d he get Hudson from?”
“Kate.”
“Oh.” Tolan thought about that, and realized there wasn’t much to think about. “You believe him?”
The other agent held a neutral expression. “He’s probably on the level. Look, all these folks are guilty of is being in an office where no cash was found.”
“Maybe.” Tolan turned his attention back to Constance. “So is Constance Brown your real name?”
“No,” she confessed, seeing a great deal of hope in the casual way they regarded Chase, and thinking maybe this situation would turn out all right after all. “It’s Price. Constance Price.”
“So why were you using a fake name?”
“Same reason as Mr. LaMarca,” she said. “Same reason a lot of people who attend Cathedral of Love use fake names. Dr. Hurley tells us it’s a way to give rebirth to our souls.”
Tolan had never heard that one before. “Really?”
“Really.” And she thought, Damn, I’m good.
Tolan asked for her real name, real address, and real social security number. Then he said, “Agent Waverly will run this information to confirm your identity.”
“Right,” said Waverly, who was the other agent. “And if your criminal record comes back as clean as LaMarca’s, you’ll both be free to go.”
Wait a minute? Criminal record?
And it was too late to again insist her last name was Brown. Damn.
$ $ $
The first thing Chase did when he was released—and out of sight of any FBI agents—was dial Grant’s cell and give him the news.
“So where did they take her?” asked Grant. Acid was churning in his stomach.
Chase covered his free ear to block out noise from the passing traffic. “No clue. All I know is once they found out she had a criminal record, they decided to hold her for further questioning.”
“Keep me posted.” Grant disconnected and filled in Farraday and Mary Beth.
Farraday, sitting behind the wheel as they inched through a construction-related traffic jam, asked, “Do you think she might have scammed us? I mean, she was alone in that office all week, then we busted in and there was no money. It’s a little fishy…”
“Constance is good people,” said Grant. “I’ve pulled a lot of jobs with her over the years, and she’s never been less than honest. For a thief, at least.”
Mary Beth asked, “Should we get her a lawyer?”
Grant shook his head. “This is not something Constance is unfamiliar with. Let’s ride that out for a while and trust her to keep her own counsel. It’s not like the feds are gonna lock her up with no evidence.”
His stomach said otherwise.
$ $ $
Minutes after ending his brief conversation with Captain Enright, Merribaugh rapped lightly on Dr. Oscar Hurley’s hotel room door. When the knock was answered, Merribaugh got straight to the point.
“Enright just called. The FBI raided Cathedral House about an hour ago.”
Color drained from Hurley’s face and he gestured for Merribaugh to come into the room. It was only when Hurley had a moment to think things over—realizing that if the FBI had found what they were looking for, he’d likely have been arrested before they knew about the raid—that he managed to find his voice again.
“Why did it take Enright an hour to call?”
“They were questioning him.” Merribaugh shook his head. “At least they let Enright go. Charlie Hudson, too.”
“Who?”
“Charlie Hudson. He’s a new member of the congregation who’s been helping out in the office.” Hurley’s face betrayed no hint of recognition, so he continued. “But the FBI is still holding Constance.”
“Constance?” Hurley shook his head sadly. “This is why we plan ahead, Dennis. Has she been arrested?”
“Not yet. The problem is…Constance apparently has a criminal record.”
Hurley took a step back. He’d thought himself a better judge of character than that. “For?”
“Enright is looking into that. But one thing we do know is the woman we’ve been calling Constance Brown is really Constance Price. At least that’s what she told the FBI.”
“Interesting.”
“One other thing you should know…” Merribaugh swallowed hard. “The FBI broke into the safe.” He swallowed harder. “It was empty.”
For the first time since Merribaugh had entered the room, Hurley’s face expressed genuine surprise, instead of puzzled confusion. “So Constance is a thief! She was casing Cathedral House!”
Merribaugh didn’t want to admit that, because he knew Hurley would again blame him for a bad hiring decision. But facts were facts. She’d been with the plumbers, hadn’t she? Not that that was something Hurley had to know. “It looks like that was the case.”
“How much did she get?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe one hundred thousand dollars.”
Hurley frowned. “I suppose it’s a drop in the bucket, all things considered. Still, Dennis, I do not like to have that kind of money just sitting around. You’ve got to move it out of the office faster than you do. I mean, can you imagine if the FBI had found more than one hundred thousand dollars in the safe? Let alone seven million. How would we explain that?”
Merribaugh had an answer for that. He’d had an answer for that for most of the time they’d worked together.
“In the case of a hundred thousand dollars, I’d tell the FBI the money was offerings we had not yet had the time to deposit in the bank. That part is easy.”
“And how would we explain seven million dollars, Dennis?”
Merribaugh felt a cool sweat break out on his brow. Hurley very seldom mentioned that amount. The fact that he had mentioned it twice underscored his concern.
“They’ll never find it,” he said, hoping he sounded convincingly reassuring.
“I suppose…But from this point forward, I don’t want cash in the safe for more than one day. It’s not as if you have to go far to take care of it.”
“Fair enough,” said Merribaugh. “It won’t happen again.”
Hurley sat on the edge of his bed. “Well, this has been an interesting morning. Very interesting, indeed. But if the FBI had to pay us a call, I suppose they picked the right day to do it. And they managed to catch the woman who stole from us in the process.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Merribaugh agreed.
“I realize she did us an inadvertent favor, but I want you to find out how Sister Constance got into that safe and got our money. Then I want you to get it back. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Good. And now we should pray for Sister Constance.”
And then Hurley
laughed. It was the laugh of a man who was willing to lose one hundred thousand dollars in order to cover his own ass.
The Book of Acts
20
Jared sat on the bed and idly clicked a button on the remote, flipping through television channels. Golf…gardening…history…golf again…home makeovers…politics…golf yet again…religion…politics…more golf…
Who knew things would become so boring? They had started out so promising.
When he arrived the previous night, he’d checked in, unpacked, and immediately hit the hotel gym. He had no intention of working out, but he was sure there’d be another conference participant or two attempting to sweat the gay out, or if not, some random man who’d be ripe for seduction. So sure, in fact, he didn’t bother wearing underwear.
He hadn’t necessarily liked what he found in the gym, but his instincts had been right. And anyway, that ex-gay wouldn’t talk about what happened in the men’s room off the gym, so Jared’s reputation wouldn’t suffer.
Same thing with the guy he met at the business center when he wandered in an hour later, still wearing cute gym shorts, cuter sneakers, and a tight tee, a slightly used towel slung over his shoulders. And still not wearing underwear.
He almost felt sorry for his business center conquest, who began crying and praying to God for forgiveness and reciting The Lord’s Prayer the minute his part of the encounter was over, but…no. Jared couldn’t feel bad for someone who’d taken care of his own needs without worrying about Jared’s, so he left him on his knees in front of the HP printer and, whistling, went off to explore the rest of the hotel.
The conference didn’t start until the following day, but already it was teeming with gay men who desperately didn’t want to be gay. He rode the elevator floor to floor, getting off only to walk the halls as if walking a runway, and got more than his share of double takes. On the seventh floor he passed Business Center Guy as he hurried to his room, still reciting The Lord’s Prayer under his breath, but their eyes didn’t meet. On the eighth, Gym Guy also brushed past without acknowledging him.
He felt a sense of power over these gay men who didn’t want to be, but who still couldn’t resist a hot piece of ass like…well, like Jared Parsells. So he took a position in an extremely uncomfortable high-back chair just outside the tenth-floor elevator, threw one leg over the arm so one cute leg—and one cute sneaker—dangled in midair, and waited for the next encounter.
It didn’t take long until a man—fortyish in body, late-fiftyish in face—got off the elevator, gave him that now-familiar double take, and kept looking back as he walked two doors down. He inserted his keycard in the slot, walked into the room, and the door closed…
Almost all the way. But not quite. And even Jared knew that a door ajar was an invitation.
Tenth-Floor Guy, to his credit, didn’t cry when he got back down on his knees…this time to pray.
Jared was still satisfied that no one would talk; he just wasn’t…satisfied. So for the next few hours he investigated the rest of the hotel until—at some point after 4:00 a.m.—he decided the night had dried out. It hadn’t been the most exciting night he’d ever prowled through—not even the most promiscuous; not even in the Top Fifty, for that matter—but it had given him some insight into the people he was dealing with.
They were gay. They would always be gay.
Oh, they didn’t want to be gay. But as much as they tried to pray and cry the gay away, they were gay. Given the right temptation—Jared Parsells, for example; maybe the best example—they couldn’t resist nature.
They were also selfish. He was fine being objectified—he lived to be objectified—but these men were missing the whole “us” aspect to their sexual encounters. It was all about them until they got off, then it was over.
No wonder their heads were so screwed up, he thought as he turned off the TV a few minutes before the sun would peek over the horizon and prepared to sleep alone.
$ $ $
Golf…gardening…history…golf again…home makeovers…politics…golf yet again…religion…politics…more golf…
Bored, he powered off the television and reached for his cell phone on the nightstand. As if to rub it in his face, his hand landed on a Bible instead of a cell.
He knocked the Bible to the floor and remembered the phone was back in Nash Bog, because cell phones weren’t allowed at Beyond Sin. Nothing was allowed at Beyond Sin. Especially this morning, when the attendees in the hotel were no longer limited to the early arrivals.
Today it was going to get real.
Hurley and Merribaugh would be there. Members of Congress would be there. The prayers would begin today; the brainwashing would kick into high gear tomorrow.
Which meant no more hanging out on random floors, naked under sheer gym shorts as he dangled his cute leg and super-cute sneakers and picking up random guys getting off of the elevators.
Or did it? There could potentially be some prime hunting during this conference. Not that the night before had been so great, but it could get better. Maybe Gym Guy, Business Center Guy, and Tenth-Floor Guy were the exceptions, not the rule.
He didn’t add Off-Duty Room Service Waiter to the mix. That one really didn’t really count, after all.
He ran through the rules for the conference one more time.
No cell phones. Well, his was gone, and sadly missed.
No outside phone calls. The phones had been programmed to go directly to the front desk; not even room-to-room calls were allowed.
No illicit fraternization. Jared assumed that meant he shouldn’t have any more sex with the ex-gays and wannabe ex-gays, but—after the previous night—that rule seemed sort of flexible.
No alcohol, drugs, or pornography. He would miss the occasional drink—and porn, of course; did he even have to go there?—but he could survive.
Participants should reflect, pray, and read the Bible during downtime. Whatever. Jared was going to watch The Golden Girls as soon as he was free of the conference and he could find a cable channel that wasn’t politics or golf.
But there was no requirement that participants stay in their rooms, and while “illicit fraternization”—whatever that meant besides sex with ex-gays, although maybe that was all it meant—was discouraged, no one said you couldn’t make friends.
In fact, wasn’t one of the purposes of this conference to help build ex-gay support networks? Jared couldn’t quite remember, but it seemed to make sense. So if he stayed out of the gym…and the business center…and the elevators…and…well, if he behaved himself—and wore underwear—there was no reason to stay cooped up in his room.
He chose the tightest clothes he could find. Chase had a sharp eye, but not sharper than Jared’s when it came to packing a suitcase. Soon he was wearing jeans so tight they almost showed a blemish on his lower leg and a shirt that, if he yawned, would expose a stomach that—if not exactly a six-pack, because that would require actual gym time with weights, not just the steam room—was so taut you could bounce a quarter off it and get back two dimes and a nickel.
And then it was time to check out the check-ins.
$ $ $
First, Oscar Hurley had to walk a gauntlet of Merribaugh’s limp-wristed ex-gays on his way through the lobby. The way they practically leered at him—no doubt imagining him naked, despite their avowed if probably futile hope to change their sexualities—was bad enough.
Worse was the realization that more than a few of them bore a passing resemblance to his wife. Not the rail-thin Francine he’d married; the three hundred pound Francine to whom he was still married.
Worse yet was the realization that their makeup was better than Francine’s.
And worse still, Merribaugh was now standing in the open doorway of his hotel room. And he had one of them with him! That was just too much.
“Can I help you, Mr. Merribaugh?” Hurley tried not to look at the young man standing at Dennis Merribaugh’s side. “As you know, I have a lot on my m
ind today.”
Merribaugh understood. “I know, but this will only take a moment, Dr. Hurley. Can we come in?”
“No.” To emphasize the point, he motioned to the robe he was wearing. “I’m not dressed.”
“Oh, uh…” Merribaugh recovered from his momentary fluster. “But I thought you’d like to meet Daniel Rowell.”
Hurley didn’t try to hide his contempt. “Why?”
“Oh, uh…Because Daniel here was referred by one of our friends.”
Hurley began to close the door. “I don’t have time…”
“Our friend Senator Cobey!”
Hurley held the door in the half-closed position and finally took a look at the young man standing in the hall. He was presentable, he finally decided. Not a flaming queen like that Jerry Stanley. Dressed in khakis and a blue button-down shirt, with a conservative haircut, he could almost pass as normal. In short, he was one of those dangerous gays: the type who moved among respectable people without giving off warning signals, infiltrating society from within.
Hurley would have to keep an eye on him.
“Welcome to Project Rectitude, Daniel,” he said, holding his gaze as long as possible, which wasn’t very long. “I assume you’re the young man Senator Cobey mentioned the other day.”
“Yes, sir.” Dan nodded respectfully. “He wants me to…to…get well.”
Hurley clutched his robe tightly. “I heard hesitation in your voice. Do you want to get well?”
Again there was the briefest of pauses, almost imperceptible. “I do, sir. I want to be normal.”
Merribaugh, standing in the hall behind Dan, clapped his hands. “I am so pleased that Senator Cobey is helping you get your life back on track, Daniel! Isn’t this good news, Dr. Hurley?”
Both Hurley and Dan grunted an affirmation.