Selling My Soul

by Sherri L. Lewis

  “Your position, Bishop.”

  “Yes, whatever. There have been plenty of phone calls today and there were some reporters when I first got here, but for the most part, it’s been quieter than I thought. Probably because we preempted with your statement yesterday. Thanks again for that. I hope we can do things that way from now on. I’m sure you’d appreciate not having to come over here to meet with me.” He gave me a wry smile. “Anyway, I was thinking, perhaps now we should focus on a preemptive strike against Pastor Hines. I’m sure they’re hard at work now to come up with some conclusive evidence against him. Perhaps we–”

  I held up a hand to stop him. “Bishop, I came here to tell you there is no more ‘we.’ I can’t and won’t do this anymore.”

  Bishop Walker put on a stern paternal face. “How is it that you keep forgetting our agreement? Are you telling me I should forget about Pastor Hines and focus on releasing Kevin’s story to the press?”

  “If that’s what you’d like to do.”

  Bishop frowned at me. “What do you mean, if that’s what I’d like to do? You’re saying you would have no problem with me holding my own press conference to tell them it was Kevin that sent the letters and that he had a past life in homosexuality? That their precious gospel star is actually a sexual deviant?”

  “Would you like some of the phone numbers for my media contacts?”

  He frowned again, his eyebrows appearing permanently knit. “I don’t understand.”

  “I spoke with Monica last night. She and Kevin saw the news cast and have decided that they’re not willing to be silent anymore. I’ll be working on their media campaign to release the news to the public. Starting with when Deacon Barnes molested Kevin at the age of ten, and Pastor Hines molested him at the age of thirteen. Right up until the part where they told you nine months ago after Kevin’s accident.”

  Bishop Walker turned ashen gray. And then red. He began fuming, and I was sure he was going to blow. I was nervous for a second, wondering if I should have let Gabe sit out in the parking lot like he offered.

  Just when I thought he would explode, an air of calm exuded from Bishop Walker. He narrowed his eyes and plastered on his signature demonic grin. “Okay, Ms. Michaels. I’m willing to let you out of your obligation to me. Tell Ms. Silver she can keep the payment for everything you’ve done so far. As I said, I appreciate your hard work.” He picked up his phone, obviously dismissing me. “You take care. Give Kevin and Monica my best.”

  That made me more nervous. “What are you going to do?”

  The Lucifer smile was in full effect. “You really expect me to tell you? I’m not foolish enough to lay all my cards on the table like you do, Ms. Michaels.”

  I stood there, wondering who he had picked up his phone to call. What retaliation did he have in mind?

  “Ms. Michaels?” His voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “Good day.” He said it firmly and finally, letting me know our amicable hate/hate relationship had come to an end.

  Twenty-eight

  I left Bishop Walker’s office slowly. I didn’t feel as triumphant as I expected I would have. It wasn’t enough just to quit and leave him hanging. It wasn’t even enough to run Monica and Kevin’s campaign and let the truth be known about him. I hoped I wasn’t being vengeful. I just didn’t think it was right for him to be able to continue as the Bishop of DC’s largest church without having to answer to anyone. Not even God.

  But I didn’t know what to do to bring him down. Bishop was right. I needed to stay out of the game, because I wasn’t smart enough to play it.

  But I knew someone who was.

  About twenty minutes later, I sat in Blanche’s office, explaining the whole situation to her.

  She frowned the whole time and finally said, “Do you really think so little of me, that I would ‘out’ your friend for the sake of a good story?”

  I bit my lip and didn’t answer.

  “Really, Trina? I come across as that awful?”

  I winced and nodded.

  She shook her head. “I may need to have you work on some damage control and image improvement for me then.”

  We shared a smile.

  “So what do you think Bishop Walker is up to?” I asked.

  Blanche frowned, propped her elbow on her desk and held her forehead with her hand—her “don’t bother me, I’m coming up with something brilliant” posture. She closed her eyes and sat like that for a few minutes.

  She opened one eye. “How evil did you say he is?”

  “More evil than you could ever imagine.”

  She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes again. Finally she said, “I’m not sure. He may hire another firm to run damage control, and I’m trying to think how they would frame things. How I would frame things if he came to me right now. I imagine he’s not above lying about your friend and trying to twist things to make him look bad.”

  I thought about his plan for his statement about Deacon Barnes. “You’re right. He would do that.”

  She blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know, Trina. Sorry, but I’m not as evil as you thought.”

  We laughed. My cell phone rang. The caller ID showed Sandra Jensen’s number.

  “Hey, Sandy. What’s up? You got something new for me?”

  “I was calling to ask you the same thing. What’s going on?”

  I frowned at the phone. “What do you mean?”

  “I just got this weird call from Bishop Walker’s secretary. She says he’s holding a press conference this evening and has some stunning new news to release in the case. She said it’s a twist I don’t want to miss. Can you believe it?”

  My stomach churned. I closed my eyes for a few minutes. Just when I thought the nightmare had ended. “Yeah, Sandy. Unfortunately, I can believe it.” Even though Monica and Kevin had agreed to go public, I hadn’t really considered what that would look like. I wasn’t sure Monica had either. Things could get really ugly in the next few days. There was no way she was prepared for that. I almost wanted to call Kevin and tell him to take her away on vacation for a while. Somewhere with no televisions and no newspapers. Just until the baby was born.

  “So, Trina, what’s going on? What’s the twist? And why did his secretary call me instead of you?”

  I stood to pace around Blanche’s office. Her eyes followed my every move. She hunched her shoulders, held out her hands, and mouthed the question, “What?”

  I held up a finger. “Sandy, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on. I’m no longer representing Bishop Walker.”

  “Really?” Sandy’s greedy journalist voice peeked through. “Do tell.”

  I figured I might as well. Everything would come out in Bishop’s press conference anyway. At least this way, she would hear the truth first.

  “I refused to represent Bishop anymore because I found out the truth.”

  Blanche’s eyes widened and she waved her hands frantically. She mouthed, “What are you doing?”

  I turned my back to her. “I have proof that Bishop Walker knew about the sexual abuse going on in his church for some time now.”

  Just as I was about to launch into my explanation, Blanche snatched my cell phone out of my hand. “Sandra, hey, it’s Blanche. Trina’s gotta go. A call just came in, and we gotta jump on it right away. I promise as soon as this all takes shape, you’ll be the first person we call.”

  I stared at Blanche. “What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” She snapped my cell phone shut and thrust it toward me. “What in the world are you thinking?”

  “Bishop Walker’s secretary called to let her know that he’s holding a press conference tonight. Some madness about a twist she can’t afford to miss.”

  Blanche’s mouth fell open. “A twist she can’t afford to miss?”

  She chuckled. “How corny is that? If that’s the best he could come up with, his money with us was well spent.”

  I fell into the chair
across from her desk. “Blanche, this isn’t funny. He’s gonna hold a press conference and destroy Kevin and Monica. I know by the time he’s finished with it, he’ll make Kevin look like a monster.” I thought about what Bishop Walker had dreamed up to sell out Deacon Barnes. “He’ll probably try to make it seem like Kevin was molesting kids in the choir or something. He’ll make Kevin look awful so no one will believe Kevin when he says that he told Bishop Walker nine months ago and he didn’t do anything.”

  Blanche slowly descended into her desk chair and assumed her thinking position again. I sat quietly, hoping she could come up with an answer to fix this whole mess. All I could think of was Monica and Kevin’s little baby boy, lying in an incubator with tubes coming out of everywhere, fighting for his life because he was born prematurely.

  I stood and started pacing again. What did Bishop Walker have up his sleeve? What could he possibly imagine he could say that would discredit Kevin? How many other news reporters had he called? Would anyone believe him?

  “Blanche?” I sat back down in the chair.

  She opened her eyes. “I’m trying to think of any way we can let the press know that Bishop Walker knew without outing your friend. Even though he and his wife are willing to go public, it shouldn’t be this way. They don’t want it to look like he was forced to come out because of all this craziness. When he comes forward, it needs to look like it was because he wanted to help young men with the same story. Not because he had to defend himself against Bishop Walker’s lies and accusations.”

  I nodded. And it needed to be after the baby was born. “So what do we do?”

  Blanche shrugged. “That’s the problem. I don’t know how we can prove he knew without telling Kevin’s story.”

  We both sat there quiet, trying to figure out what to do next.

  Sonya popped her head in Blanche’s door. “Trina, there’s a lady out here looking for you. A Ms. Turner?”

  My eyes widened. “Ms. Turner?” I stood and held my hand up to my mid-chest, where I imagined about five feet two would be. Sonya nodded.

  “Can you take her into the conference room?”

  Sonya nodded and left.

  I turned to Blanche. “This may be it. I’ll be back.”

  Twenty-nine

  I almost ran to the conference room. There she sat. Sweet little Ms. Turner, cowering in her chair, wringing her hands. “Ms. Turner?” “Oh!” She jumped and grabbed the sides of her chair. When she saw my face, she put her hand on her chest and took a few deep breaths. “Ms. Michaels, I’m so sorry.”

  I hurried over to her and put a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, but then shook her head and gripped the conference table. “I saw the news last night. It was horrible.” She rocked back and forth for a few seconds, staring down at the table. “Just horrible. I know the little boy they were talking about and his mother. He was the sweetest boy in the world. Always full of hugs and kisses for everyone. Smart as a whip. Just a beautiful child.” Ms. Turner dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled tissue in her hand. “And now . . .”

  I sat there and waited while she rocked. Did she come just to express her sadness about the boy? If so, I’d pat her on the back a few times, and then send her on her way. I had to get back to Blanche to figure out how to save my unborn nephew’s life.

  Ms. Turner sniffed and dabbed her nose with the tissue. I walked over to the little snack table in the corner of the conference room and grabbed her a napkin. Her tissue didn’t look like it could take many more dabs.

  She accepted it and finally stopped rocking. “I didn’t know what to do, who to come to. I probably shouldn’t be here now, but I couldn’t keep silent. Not knowing what I know. And not after what happened to that sweet, precious boy. My conscience wouldn’t let me. Maybe I’m being silly to be paranoid, but I just don’t know what Bishop Walker might do. I prayed about it, and I felt like God sent me to you.”

  Ms. Turner opened the napkin and blew her nose. She looked up at me. “You seem to have such a pure heart. That’s why I couldn’t understand why you were helping Bishop Walker. Until I overheard your conversation. I’m sorry for eavesdropping, but . . . nothing with this whole situation was sitting right with me. I’ve served and respected Bishop Walker for eleven years now. But when all this started, I started to think maybe he wasn’t the man I thought him to be. That’s the only reason I eavesdropped that day.”

  I walked over to the conference room’s mini refrigerator to get Ms. Turner a bottle of water. Maybe she’d take a few sips and be able to calm down enough for me to understand what she was trying to say.

  I took the top off for her and set the bottle on the table in front of her. She tried to lift it to her mouth, but her hands shook so badly, I thought she would spill it. She set it back down.

  I said, “Ms. Turner, please slow down and tell me what’s going on. I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?”

  She shook her head. “You have no idea how evil he is or what he’s capable of.”

  I took her hand. “Has he ever killed anyone or physically harmed anyone that you’re aware of?”

  She shook her head again and took a deep breath. “You’re right. It’s not that bad. He just makes himself scarier than he is.”

  She took a folded piece of paper out of her purse and fidgeted with it. “About seven years ago, a woman came to Bishop’s office for an emergency counseling appointment. They talked for a while, and then she started screaming and crying. I don’t know exactly what was said, but I remember her screaming over and over, even as security dragged her out, ‘What if he’s not the only one? What if my son is not the only one?’ I’ll never forget the look on that mother’s face. I never forgot her name either.” Ms. Turner stopped fidgeting with her paper and picked up the bottled water. Her hands were less shaky, and she was able to take a few sips.

  She continued, “When all this news broke out recently, I remembered that lady and realized what she had come to tell Bishop. After he fired me, I wanted—needed to find her. It took some doing, but I located her. I called her and told her who I was and what I remembered of that day in the office. She didn’t trust me at first, but then I told her that Bishop had fired me and threatened to destroy my life if I ever said anything bad about him to anyone. She believed me then because he had said the same exact words to her back then. He paid for her and her son to relocate to Dallas, and she said he gave them a nice sum of money to ‘disappear.’ She was ashamed that she accepted it, but she was a struggling single mother and felt like she didn’t have a choice.”

  Ms. Turner placed the folded paper on the desk and slid it over to me. “Here’s her contact information. She’s ready and willing to come forward with her statement that Bishop knew about Deacon Barnes at least seven years ago and didn’t do anything. I told her to hold tight and that I would have somebody call her to tell her what to do next.”

  I nodded and patted Ms. Turner’s shoulder. “You did the right thing. Thank you so much for having the courage to come here today. God will protect you. I’m sure He will.” I stood to usher her out of the office. Me and Blanche needed to get on the phone right away to counterattack Bishop’s press conference.

  Ms. Turner clamped onto my arm. “What about the rest of them?”

  “Who? The rest of the boys? We just have to pray that—”

  “No. The rest of Love and Faith.” She started her rocking motion again. “The DC church has 18,000 members. The Alexandria church has 6,000. What’s going to happen to all those people when they lose both their pastors?”

  I had to admit I hadn’t thought about that at all.

  “They’ll be scattered, like sheep without a shepherd,” she said, quoting a scripture from the book of Isaiah. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot since he fired me. For something like that to happen after all these years makes you really think. I had to look at my relationship with Bishop and the way I served him, and then at my relationship with God. And I’m just
not sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I love God and I know God. I’ve always studied the scriptures for myself. And yet I was still blind to Bishop and who he really is. What about all those people with no foundation of their own, who don’t study the scriptures for themselves? I’m afraid that a lot of the people that go to Love and Faith Christian Center really don’t know God. It’s a terrible thing to say, but honestly, Bishop is their God.”

  I nodded because I completely understood. It was the reason I ended up leaving Love and Faith after having been there for three years. I had gotten saved under Bishop Walker, but after I took all the classes they offered and attended church every time the doors opened, I didn’t feel like there was anything else I could learn there. Monica said the same thing after she and Kevin started attending their new church in Atlanta. They said it seemed like they hadn’t been in church all their lives and had never read their Bibles.

  “I hear you, Ms. Turner. We just have to pray for them. Maybe this situation is exactly what they need to find God for themselves.”

  “I certainly hope so. And pray so.” She stood to leave.

  “You’ll leave my name out of this, right?”

  I nodded.

  “You have my word. Everything will be just fine.” I led Ms. Turner out the office door and made a beeline for Blanche’s office. She was waiting for me when I walked in the door.

  “We got him.”

  Thirty

  I stood at the back of the multi-purpose room at Love and Faith Christian Center with Blanche, waiting for the press conference to start. I kept staring at two doors. The door leading to the administrative offices from which Bishop Walker would make his dramatic entrance. And the door from the corridor from which I hoped salvation for Monica, Kevin, and my unborn nephew would come. Soon.

  I stared at my watch and scanned the crowd for Sandra Jensen. My eyes finally rested on her. My apprehension must have been written all over my face because she winked and smiled. She mouthed the words, “They’ll be here.”