Net of Blood

by Selmoore Codfish

  * * * *

  Tuesday morning, I arrived for my second day at the SRSIG. It still felt like I was playing a role in a game as a financial services advisor.

  Ted was in his office already. The others arrived soon after I did. I started my typing again. I felt that as soon as I figured out how long the record entry process would take, I’d know how much time I could spend on St. Nicholas’ finances—or maybe I was finding excuses to avoid doing it.

  Mike went out again. I was relieved when he was gone, because I felt on-edge when he sat across from me. It was quiet for about a minute.

  “Neal!” yelled Ted. I got up and went to his office. Opal was there too, as usual.

  “Mike’s on his way to his client for the second time already,” he said. “What have you accomplished?”

  “I think I’m getting good at entering the records,” I replied.

  “That’s not your job,” Ted said.

  “Actually, we told him to do it,” said Opal. Ted shook his head.

  “What is your plan for St. Nicholas?” Ted asked.

  “I was planning to call right now,” I said. I checked my watch. “But they might not open this early.” It was a good excuse, and probably true.

  “Well, do it,” said Ted.

  I went to my office and got the phonebook. I hated calling people that I didn’t know. I found their number and dialed it. I hoped that they’d answer so I wouldn’t have to go through this again.

  “St. Nicholas,” a woman with a hoarse voice answered.

  “Hello, I’m Neal Harris from the SRSIG. I need to talk to someone about financial recordkeeping.”

  “Oh,” she said. “You want the financial secretary for that, not the CFO, right?” It was odd that they had a Chief Financial Officer. I thought that was only a title in large corporations.

  “Um…,” I said. “Yes.” She probably knew better than I did who was in charge.

  “I doubt that she’s in,” said the woman. “I can give you her home number.”

  “That would be great,” I said. “Thank you.” After we hung up, I called the second number.

  “Hello,” an older woman answered.

  “Olivia Jones?”

  “Yes,” she replied. I introduced myself.

  “I was just headed to church for circle,” she said. “I can meet you after coffee.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I’ll be in the Annex at 10AM,” she said. “That’s the part that looks more historic.”

  “Thanks,” I said. We said goodbye.

  It would take a while to drive there, because the church was in the Heights suburb. Also, traffic was unpredictable. Therefore, I decided to leave right away. Just in case, I brought along some materials to browse through if I arrived too early and had to wait.

  I said goodbye to Bobbie on the way out. I told her loudly where I was going in case my bosses were listening.

  Once I was in my car, I carefully recorded the odometer reading on the reimbursement form. Then I drove to St. Nicholas.

  The area around the church was well-maintained. Tall office buildings lined the road, and large homes were visible down the side streets.

  The church itself was like a palace. The walls shined with a metallic surface. They angled upward in different directions. Its parking lot probably had thousands of spaces.

  I circled the place. A cardboard sign said “camp” and an arrow painted left. On the side was an older building that looked like it could have been the first church on the site; and then there was a new office building attached.

  A few cars were parked around the office and old church. I pulled up to the church and saw a small sign with “Annex.”

  I was early, so I parked and waited. I read for a while. Then, two old women came out to leave. I hoped neither was Olivia. Was I late? No, it was still early.

  Just in case, I got out of my car.

  “I’m looking for Olivia Jones,” I said. They pointed to the Annex, so I walked that way.

  When I entered, a few women were talking in fellowship hall, which looked like it was converted from a former chapel. A woman approached me.

  “Neal?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Okay, ladies, see you tomorrow,” she said to her friends, and got up to meet me.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” I said.

  ‘That’s fine. I have ample free time and can always come to the church.”

  She led me to her office.

  “I assume you are the right person to talk to,” I said. “The lady who answered the phone said to call you.”

  “You are from SRSIG?” she asked. I nodded. I got the impression in my job interview that the organization was highly esteemed within the church. Despite looking young, I had great power over them. I would try to use that to my advantage.

  “I am supposed to help with the financial records,” I said.

  “Great. They are always a challenge.”

  “When I called, the woman said the church has a CFO.”

  “Yes.”

  “How does that work?” I asked. “I haven’t seen any churches with one before.” However, it was only my second day at my new job.

  “Well, some people like it that way,” she said sharply. Her tone wasn’t being defensive, but dismissive of the idea.

  “You don’t like it?” I pressed.

  “Well, I pretty much do everything despite having a paid employee to do it, and I’m only a volunteer. An organization this size needs to have someone like that.”

  “I see,” I said. “The reason that I’m here now is that you want to build a recreation center.”

  “Some people want it, but I’m not sure that it’d be worth $5 million. We won’t get enough use out of it.”

  “Wow. That sounds big,” I said. “What does the congregation want to use it for?”

  “It’s for the summer camp kids,” she said. “They want to expand the program.”

  I nodded. I began to feel more comfortable talking to Olivia and relaxed a little.

  “First, can you show me the budget?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, looking for papers in the cubbies of an old desk. She pulled out a document.

  “This is for this budget year, from August to August,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said. I looked at it for only a few seconds. The big items were five salaries. The second biggest line was from the payments they were still making on a loan used to construct the expanded complex.

  “It says you should have a big surplus,” I continued. “The budgeted amount is $650,000, but you have an anticipated income of $1.2 million per year. You should have no problems making payments on a loan for the gym.”

  “Is that right?” she asked. Her tone was as if I had missed something.

  I looked at the sheet again, and made sure there was nothing on the back, and no asterisks. The budget was all-inclusive. They had to make payments to the denomination organization, but I was certain that they kept their surpluses.

  “St. Nicholas must have built up a very big trust account,” I said.

  “No, the balance is less than $100,000,” she said.

  I scratched my head. My eyes got wide as I tried to take in all I was seeing. Maybe she would tell me what I’d missed. I had very little experience, but I thought I knew what a budget was, and how to interpret it.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. I hesitated saying that, but she was friendly to talk with.

  “The budget is more of a recommendation here than a…” she searched for the word.

  “Than a budget?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh,” I said. Alarm bells went off in my head. A budget was sacred to every institution. It wasn’t necessarily permanently fixed, and it could be adjusted through official means.

  Also, the magnitude of the disagreement was huge. They’d probably spen
t twice of what was budgeted. When that much money was floating around without controls, there have been all kinds of ‘misallocations’.

  “Oh,” I repeated. I didn’t know what to do next. I was more prepared to deal with finding math errors by totaling budget categories.

  “I suppose that I should look at receipts for the year,” I said.

  “Which year?” Olivia asked. “We aren’t done with the current year for a couple months.”

  “You are right. Last year’s receipts would be best. Do you have those?”

  “Yes,” she said. She stood up. “Well at least the ones that they gave me.” I felt that she underrated herself. She was certain to have been given receipts because without them, how else would someone get reimbursed?

  I followed her to a closet. She opened it, and saw shoeboxes piled in it.

  “Oops, this is where you keep your shoes,” I said. I seriously thought they were full of shoes. I was more dense back then.

  “Yes, you should see what I use my stockings for,” said Olivia. She was playing along with a joke that I hadn’t intended.

  “Each box is a different time period,” she continued.

  “Are they labeled?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Well, the ones near the top are probably the most recent,” I said.

  “If I can remember what shoes were in style last year, I can narrow it down.”

  “You go through a lot of shoes,” I said.

  “It is my one vanity,” she said. “…or one of a few. You’d understand if you came to worship with us.” She seemed sensible, so I didn’t judge her for it.

  “How about we start from the top?” I asked. She didn’t protest my suggestion, so I took one box.

  “That’s the pair I wear now to church,” she said.

  “…so it’s probably recent bills.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  I looked in it. Papers were loose and crumpled in it. I confirmed that it was the last couple months. Eventually we narrowed down the previous budget year to few pairs of shoes.

  I wasn’t prepared to sit there and go through them all. It’d be better to take them to the office. Olivia agreed to my idea when I suggested it.

  “However,” she said, “You should take more of the boxes, just in case. I may have dropped a receipt in the wrong box occasionally.”

  I nodded. We gathered a few more. Then I loaded them into my car.

  “You said you will be around quite a bit?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Olivia said. “I’ll be here for more coffee tomorrow around the same time.”

  “Good,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I went back to the office and spent the afternoon going through the receipts. First, I organized them by date. Then, I labeled the shoeboxes and put the papers back into them.

  I was getting a sense that the receipts would not cover the missing half a million dollars. These were mostly for little things like ordering candles and other supplies, although I hadn’t gone through them one by one yet.

  These purchases were probably for the real budgeted items. I couldn’t tell from this what the unbudgeted purchases had been.

  After about an hour, my eyes caught one expense. It was for catering. There was no explanation for the purpose or event. It probably didn’t matter. Even frequent catering wouldn’t add to half a million dollars. I looked at the budget. It didn’t fit nicely into any of the categories like maintenance, or supplies. However, you might be able to rationalize it as educational expense if it was for Sunday school kids.

  I considered two possibilities for what was happening to all of the money. First, the funds could have been spent on extras outside of the budget. However, that would be a lot of fluff. It would have to be a racket, not just one person. Second, instead it could be one person siphoning off the funds into his or her own account.

  The bank statements would help me figure that out. I should have asked Olivia for them, but I wasn’t thinking. I decided to definitely go back to see her on Wednesday. The rest of the afternoon, I added receipts. The office was quiet and that allowed me to focus on working.

  My second day hadn’t gone as planned. St. Nicholas could end up being more trouble than expected. However, I was able to spend some time doing things I was comfortable with.