“Yes?” Her face, although showing strain, was well-arranged and framed by sandy hair. She was wearing a man’s-style, white button-down dress shirt and jeans. Her light blue eyes considered me without making any apparent judgment.
“Mrs. Meade?”
“That’s right, I’m Sara Meade.”
All the way over from Manhattan, I’d been doping out how I was going to play it. Now I said: “My name is Archie Goodwin. I am a private investigator, employed by Nero Wolfe, and you probably have no interest whatever in talking to me, let alone inviting me into your house. I understand and respect that; I will only say that Mr. Wolfe feels strongly that your husband’s death was caused by someone other than the man who has been charged.”
One corner of her mouth twitched, but the expression in her eyes did not change. “Do you agree with your employer, Mr. Goodwin?” she asked in a voice that was at once soft and strong.
“I do.”
“I would ask for identification except that I recognize both the name and the face. Your picture has been in the newspapers before, hasn’t it?”
“A couple of times, yes.”
“More than a couple of times, I think. Please come in,” she said, stepping aside and ushering me into a large living room with a beamed ceiling, fireplace, and American Colonial furniture. “Please sit down. Can I offer you coffee? I just poured myself some. I hope you don’t mind—it’s hazelnut.”
I nodded and thanked her, and she was back with a steaming cup as I took a semi-comfortable chair. On the end table at my elbow was a chrome-framed photograph of Sara Meade, her husband, and a light-haired boy, presumably their son, who looked to be in his teens.
“I know of course from the papers and the TV news that Fred Durkin is a colleague of yours and Mr. Wolfe’s,” she said, easing onto the sofa. “Does that influence your belief in his innocence?”
“I can’t deny it, and I doubt that Mr. Wolfe would either, if you put the question to him. But it is precisely because Fred is a colleague, and because both of us have known him for so long, that we are convinced he is not a killer. It would be totally out of character for him.”
She frowned and took a sip of coffee. “But he is a detective. And he does carry a gun.”
“Yes. But I have never known him to draw it, except as a defensive gesture.” I neglected to mention that I had once been the beneficiary of one such gesture.
“And he also has a temper.”
I nodded, savoring the coffee. Fritz would have approved. “Yes, Mrs. Meade, he does. But, again, I probably know Fred Durkin better than anyone in the world outside of his own family and perhaps Nero Wolfe. I have seen his temper flare up on occasion, but to my knowledge, he has never—repeat, never—done violence to another individual in the heat of anger. That simply is not his style.”
“Even when he’s insulted?” Sara Meade set her cup carefully in its saucer and leaned forward. “I loved my husband, Mr. Goodwin—very much. But I was acutely aware of his shortcomings, as he was of mine. Despite being a minister, Roy could be extremely caustic and hard-edged. I understand he said some very harsh things to your friend in front of the Circle of Faith on … that night.”
“I understand the same thing, and I honestly believe that what your husband said to Fred would not have impelled Fred to lash back other than verbally—which, as you know, he did.”
She chewed absently on a finger. “Well, if Fred Durkin didn’t fire the gun, who did? Are you suggesting it was one of the Circle of Faith? There was no one else in the tabernacle.”
“Mr. Wolfe is not ruling that out, which is why I’m here. In the last few months, did your husband say anything to you that would suggest there was a rift between him and anyone at the Silver Spire? It may have been just a passing remark, something that you didn’t think much about at the time.”
She tapped the rim of her cup. “You’ve been very forthright and direct with me, Mr. Goodwin, and I appreciate that. I will be forthright in return. As I said a minute ago, Roy had a mercilessly critical side to him. He demanded a lot from the people he worked with, and he became impatient when they didn’t meet his expectations. At one time or another, he complained to me about almost every one of the church staff, from Barney on down.”
“What kind of complaints were they?”
“Oh, a variety,” she said, gesturing with her hand. “He came down particularly hard on Roger Gillis, which always bothered me because Roger seems like such an earnest, well-meaning young man. But Roy felt—and for all I know, he was right—that Roger was really in over his head as the director of education. On more than one occasion, he publicly said that Roger wasn’t a good administrator or a good organizer. Roy really wanted Roger out of the job, but he couldn’t budge Barney on the subject.”
“Is it true that your husband felt Bay was too easy on his staff?”
“Yes, that was a big beef of his. Roy had a phrase about Barney that he used several times: ‘He tolerates mediocrity in the interest of tranquillity.’ I think I’m the only one he ever said it to, though.”
“It’s not likely he bandied it about around the church. Your husband once saved Bay’s life, didn’t he?”
She nodded, suddenly looking very tired. “Yes, he rescued Barney from drowning years ago when they were ministerial students. But he never liked having the subject brought up, because he thought people would feel it was the reason Barney hired him.”
“Was it?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But I think Roy long ago proved himself.”
“Did he talk much to you about other Circle of Faith members?” I asked.
“From time to time, usually out of frustration. He thought that Sam Reese was coasting in his job, that Lloyd Morgan was a functionary overly concerned with nit-picking, that Marley Wilkenson ran the music programs as a separate fiefdom and obstinately refused to answer to anyone.”
“What about Mrs. Reese and Mrs. Bay?”
She laughed, which was pleasant to hear. “Lord, I sound like the town gossip, don’t I? I’m glad you’re not taping this.”
“I’m not even taking notes.”
“Good. Well, Roy never liked Carola much—he thought she was kind of on the cheap side, although he conceded that she’s a fine singer. As far as Elise Bay, I can’t remember him criticizing her much; he mainly complained that she shouldn’t be in the Circle, that she was there only because of who she was. That bothered him about Carola, too.”
“As far as you know, were any of the Circle of Faith members having financial problems?”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Roy never said anything about it that I can remember. And what you asked before—about whether there were rifts between him and any of the others. As we’ve talked, I’ve been thinking, and there was something Roy mentioned a few weeks back. I can’t even remember how the subject came up, but—oh, I know!—I was complaining to him about someone who works for me who was falling down on the job. I said I’d warned this person twice but there hadn’t been much improvement, and it looked like I was going to have to let him go. Then Roy said he had a staff problem, too, and that it would have to be dealt with.”
“Can you remember his exact words?”
She closed her eyes and made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Let’s see … I think he said something like ‘I’ve got a situation myself. It’s going to give one way or the other in the next few weeks. I’ve set a deadline.’”
“That was it?”
She nodded. “Yes. I asked him what he meant, what that situation was, but he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He just clammed up.”
“Was that unusual behavior?”
“Not really. I know from what I’ve been telling you that it sounds like Roy griped about the church to me all the time, but that’s really not so. I just lumped together all the things he complained about over the years. In fact, most of the time, he didn’t want to talk shop at all. I unloaded a lot more about my job than he did.”
“And he never brought it up again?”
“Never.”
“Did he seem particularly depressed recently?”
Sara inhaled and let the air out slowly. “No, I didn’t notice anything, and I think I’ve always been pretty sensitive to Roy’s moods.”
“One last thing: Have you been to the church to go through your husband’s effects?”
“Oh, I did stop in to pick up a box of things, and I need to go back again. What I got was mostly mementos and pictures of me and our son… .” Her voice caught on the last three words. The calm facade was beginning to crumble, so I got to my feet.
“I’ve taken enough of your time, Mrs. Meade. I am grateful for your seeing me.” I handed her my card. “If you think of anything else that might be helpful, I would appreciate a call.”
“I can’t honestly say that I wish you luck,” she replied softly, walking me to the door and shaking my hand with a firm grip, “but I do want to have the assurance that the right person is punished, whether it’s your Mr. Durkin or someone else.”
“I agree completely,” I said over my shoulder as I walked down the front steps, wondering how a guy as apparently disagreeable as Meade could end up with a woman like her.
FOURTEEN
TEN MINUTES AFTER I LEFT Sara Meade, I wheeled the Mercedes into the Silver Spire Tabernacle’s parking lot. Except for a dozen cars huddled near the entrance, it was as empty as Shea Stadium in January. I found a spot twenty paces from the main door and sauntered into the lobby, where the redheaded receptionist was pondering People magazine and jawing on a stick of gum.
She looked up and unleashed both her pearly whites and her dimples. “Hi! Back again? You must like it here.”
“I do. Half the fun of coming is seeing you and your smile and your outfits. That blue number is very becoming.”
“Thank you,” she said, blushing like a freshman on her first date. “It’s my boyfriend’s favorite color.”
“With good reason. Say, could you call Diane and tell her that Mr. Goodwin is here and would like to see Dr. Bay?”
“My pleasure. And you didn’t have to tell me your name—I remember it.”
I thanked her and waited while she used the telephone. “She says to go right on back,” the redhead told me as she cradled the receiver. “You know the way.”
“Hello, Mr. Goodwin,” Diane sang when I got to the office. The secretarial pool at the tabernacle seemed untouched by the recent murder. “Dr. Bay is in a meeting, but he knows you’re here and said to wait, that he wouldn’t be long.”
And he wasn’t. A tall, lean, bald-headed specimen that I hadn’t seen before sauntered out of Bay’s sanctum, nodding soberly to Diane and the other receptionist, who never seemed to look up from her typing. “You can go on in now,” Diane said. Her smile wasn’t as blinding as the redhead’s, but it was more genuine. I smiled back.
“Hello, Mr. Goodwin,” Bay said neutrally when I got within three feet of his desk. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but we weren’t expecting you. I was just meeting with the chairman of our stewardship campaign. You know, the dollars-and-cents side of things.” He smiled. “Everybody needs more money to operate, even us church folk.”
“Your cash flow good?” I asked.
He gave his palms-up gesture. “Pledges are right on target, even slightly above. We’re down a bit in our loose offering, though—that’s the money, most of it currency, that we get Sundays from our one-time visitors and other nonmembers. The members almost all write checks, a lot of them monthly or quarterly. But then, all businesses have money problems, and as I get reminded frequently, we are among other things a business.”
I told Bay I wanted to spend a few minutes in Meade’s office. “I’m not looking to steal anything; you can have somebody in there with me the whole time if you’d like.”
“What are you looking for?” He smiled but narrowed his eyes.
“I won’t know until I see it—if then.”
Bay folded his arms across his chest. “It sounds to me a little like a fishing expedition. Up to now, we’ve indulged you and Mr. Wolfe, but there’s a limit.”
“I don’t think we’ll be making many requests of you after this. And I won’t be here more than an hour.”
“Sara—Mrs. Meade—has taken a few personal items away already, and she mentioned she’ll be back for more later, when she feels up to it. Lloyd, Sam, and my secretary Diane all have been going through Roy’s correspondence and other papers, mainly to make sure no church business falls between the cracks. I can’t imagine what you expect to find that would help you in your … quest.” Bay rose slowly and walked to his mullioned window, tugged a cord that opened the cream-colored draperies, and gazed out on the acres of blacktop and the Cana Chapel beyond, nestled snugly in its grove of trees. He turned back toward me as if striking a pose, then absently fingered a silver chalice on an ebony table next to the window. “Do you truly feel all this is necessary?” he asked quietly.
“It’s probably just the proverbial goose chase,” I conceded. “But what have you—or the church—got to lose? Meade didn’t have anything to hide, did he? And even if he had, Morgan, Reese, Diane, or his wife surely would have discovered it by now. I assume his office has been unlocked since his death.”
“Of course it’s been unlocked.” Bay sounded offended. “All right, Mr. Goodwin,” he went on, trying halfheartedly to mask his irritation, “you can go ahead. I don’t like this business, but I believe you to be both honest and well-intentioned.” He pushed a button, and within seconds, Diane entered, wearing her ever-present smile.
“Mr. Goodwin wants to have a look at Roy’s office,” Bay told her. “Take him, please, and show him where everything is, and then you can leave. He’ll probably be in there for an hour or so.”
I followed Diane across the hall. Meade’s office was slightly larger than Wilkenson’s or Reese’s, but not as elaborately decorated. Bookshelves covered one wall, floor to ceiling, and papers were stacked up in two neat foot-high piles on his desk.
“Mr. Morgan and Mr. Reese and I have sorted some of Mr. Meade’s correspondence and his other papers, but we’ve got an awful lot more to go through, mainly the stuff in the filing cabinets,” Diane told me. “And I don’t know what we’ll do with all the books he had. Just look at them!”
“Quite a library,” I agreed. “What’s in these stacks on the desk?”
“Mostly things we’ve gone over that don’t need immediate attention, or that we don’t know what to do with. It’s here for Mrs. Meade to go through when she wants to. A lot of it we probably could have just tossed, but Dr. Bay thought it best that we should save it for her.”
I agreed and said thanks, and Diane left, closing the door behind her. My first stop was the bookcases. Meade kept his Bibles on the lowest shelf, six of them in all. I sat at his desk and paged through each one. Wolfe had said to look for marginal notes and underlinings, but there weren’t any. Either the guy didn’t use the Good Books much, which I doubted, or he didn’t like to mark them up. He probably was one of those kids who always gave the teacher a birthday card and never underlined in his school texts.
After a quick scanning of the rest of the shelves—most of the books had “Christian” or “Christianity” in their titles—I started on the piles on the desk. There were brochures about upcoming Silver Spire conferences and seminars; fliers advertising new religious books; a dozen magazines, most of them church-oriented; some letters from ministers around the country who apparently corresponded regularly with Meade; and a couple of thick mail-order catalogs filled with pictures of church furniture and paraphernalia like candle holders and preachers’ robes in white and black and purple.
There also was a pad of white notepaper with Meade’s name and phone number printed at the top that had some scribbled notations to call various people, none of whom was familiar to me. Tucked into the pad was a sheet of yellow lined paper, folded once, that also had some scribblings, in the sam
e handwriting. I looked closer and realized they were Bible verses, then set the sheet aside and finished rummaging through the stacks without finding anything else that seemed even vaguely promising.
Diane was typing when I popped my head into the office. “Is there a copying machine I can use?” I asked. She gave me a bright-eyed nod and steered me to a sterile, fluorescent-lit, windowless room at the far end of the corridor. “This is our printing center,” she said proudly, gesturing to the three personal computers and several other pieces of high technology, one of which I recognized as a mainframe.
“We’re set up to do almost all of our own typesetting and printing,” Diane went on, “including the bulletins for our Sunday services, the weekly newspaper that goes to every home, and the reprints of Dr. Bay’s sermons that we send to TV viewers who request them. Some weeks we mail out several hundred of those, free. The only thing that has to be printed outside on a regular basis is our monthly magazine, SpireTalk. Have you seen a copy?”
I said I hadn’t, and she promised to give me one to take home. I thanked her, and while she waited I used the copier to duplicate the page listing the Bible verses and the sheets of Meade’s notepaper with the names and phone numbers on them.
“Okay, I’ve made copies of what I wanted. Come to Mr. Meade’s office with me and watch while I put these originals back on his desk.”
Diane grinned sheepishly and reddened. “Oh, now that’s really not necessary.” She giggled.
“It is for me. I want you to be able to tell your boss that I didn’t walk off with anything. Of course, you weren’t in there with me while I was going through the papers, so heaven only knows what I might have lifted and tucked away. Want to search me?”
She blushed again. “Oh, Mr. Goodwin, you are such a kidder.”
“Guilty. But I insist you go into Meade’s office with me. If you do, I promise to take a copy of your magazine home—and even read it.” She shrugged and smiled and tagged along as I returned to the office. “Is that Meade’s handwriting?” I asked, gesturing to the sheets as I put them back on the stack where I’d found them.
Silver Spire (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 6) Page 13