Corruption of Faith

by Brenda English

“I have a personal situation I think I’d like to discuss with him,” I said. Which was true. I thought killing my sister was pretty personal. “I assume that he does counseling for people who attend the church, and I thought that he might be willing to talk with me about my own problem.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he would,” Marlee responded. I felt like a hypocrite for deceiving her about my motives, but I knew it would be folly—and perhaps even dangerous for her—to take her into my confidence this time.

  “It’s rather important,” I told her, “so if there’s any chance he could make some time for me this morning, I really would appreciate it.” I was worried that if I didn’t move quickly, Carl Rivers might lose his nerve and warn Brant that I was onto what he was doing. More importantly, I was worried I might lose my own nerve.

  “If I can put you on hold for just a minute, Sutton, I’ll check with Reverend Brant to see what his morning is like,” Marlee said helpfully.

  I thanked her and then listened to the silence of the phone line that followed the click of the hold button. True to her word, however, Marlee returned in just about a minute.

  “Good news, Sutton,” she said cheerily when she retrieved me from the limbo land of those on hold. “Reverend Brant had a meeting scheduled with one of the church committees, but they called him last night to postpone it, so he can see you at ten if that’s good for you.”

  “That’s perfect,” I told her, and thanked her again.

  I spent the next half hour in a Lotus position, facing the morning light coming in my bedroom window and calming my mind in order to steel myself for the confrontation I shortly was going to instigate.

  David Daniel Brantley, ex-con, was firmly in his Daniel Brant, Man of God, identity as he came around his desk to greet me when Marlee ushered me into his office.

  “Sutton,” he said, holding out his right hand for a handshake I knew he loathed. Of course, this time I was at least as revolted by his touch as he was by mine. He gave me his smile, the one that I now knew was as phony as everything else about him. “It’s good to see you again,” he said. “Please, have a seat.”

  Marlee quietly slipped back out, closing the door behind her, and I took the proffered chair as Brant went back to his own. I looked at him here in his comfortable lair—with its leather chairs, its expensive oak desk, credenza, and bookcases, the signed and numbered lithographs on the wall, next to an obviously forged diploma for a “Bachelor of Divinity Science” degree from the Holy Word Divinity College—and I hated him. I didn’t think Cara would have been proud of me.

  “We all miss Cara a great deal,” Brant said solicitously, almost as if he had read my thought. “She was such a help here in the office.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “she was a first-rate secretary.”

  “So now tell me what it is I can do for you,” Brant went on. I could swear he looked almost hungry, as if he got off on hearing the details of other people’s problems. A more detailed portrait of the kind of personality I was dealing with was beginning to paint itself in my mind. This was a man, I suspected, who disliked other people, who thought himself a breed apart. One of the things on which he fed was their foibles, their weaknesses, which reinforced his belief in his own superiority. The fact that he also had managed to make a small fortune off a few of them probably just added to his disdain.

  “I know that you haven’t been to our church with your sister, although she always hoped that you would. So I’m very pleased that the trust Cara placed in us has led you to come to us with your own problems,” he was saying. I wanted to gag.

  “Let me be honest with you,” I answered, unable to listen to any more of his sanctimonious bullshit. “While I did come to discuss with you something that’s troubling me, I’m afraid that I’m here under somewhat false pretenses. I’m actually here in my role as a reporter, not to tell you about my personal problems.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” Brant said, his smile fading just a bit. His eyes took on a slightly harder look, one that hinted at an underlying wariness and suspicion. This, I suspected, was an inkling of David Daniel Brantley, the real man who hid behind the fake name and a cleric’s words.

  “Then let me unconfuse you,” I said. “I’ve come here to get your side of a story I’m writing for my paper.”

  “And what story is that?” he asked, still trying to maintain the last vestiges of a smile, just in case I turned out not to be threatening after all. He was good, I thought. He should have chosen honest work in acting. It was no wonder he could take in those who were looking for someone in whom to believe.

  “It’s a really fascinating story, one that I suspect few of the people in your congregation know anything about. One that I doubt they’re going to be very happy to read about. It starts with the fact that your real name is David Daniel Brantley and that you have a prison record that ought to send your deacons into quite a tizzy.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brant said, his smile having dropped off into the void.

  At least you wiped that grotesque smile off his face finally, my friend piped up. I pushed him back into a mental closet and firmly closed the door.

  “Don’t bother pretending ignorance, Mr. Brantley,” I said, shaking my head from side to side. “I have the mug shots from your arrests to prove it. Anyone with eyes in their head will be able to see that it’s you. And your felon friend, Al Barlow, too. I expect people will wonder what it was exactly that qualified him to be your assistant. Was it his experience with bank robbery, maybe? Did that help keep the church coffers filled? Or your pockets?”

  “So what is it you really want?” Brant asked, looking at me with anger and calculation in his now completely cold eyes. “What would it take for you not to run such a story?” At last, I knew, I was dealing with the real man, the criminal, not some ministerial facade.

  “I’m afraid that there’s nothing you could offer me that would be enough,” I told him, now smiling a little myself. “This is far too good a story for the reporter in me to pass up. And my editor is especially interested in it.” Well, he would be once I told him about it, anyway.

  “I see,” Brant said, and I watched as he calculated his next move. Finally, he leaned forward and put his arms on the desk, his hands clasped together. A shadow of the counterfeit smile was back. “Well, frankly, Sutton, I don’t know that it’s much of a story. I’ve lived a spotless life since those days. There have been other ministers who committed serious transgressions, and theirs were not all in the distant past as mine are. And they still enjoy the support of their followers.” He paused, waiting for me to respond.

  He still was trying to bluff his way out, I thought in amazement. Given that there were millions of dollars and his very successful racket at stake, I couldn’t say I blamed him. And he wanted to find out just how gullible I might be. I looked at him unblinkingly.

  “That’s not going to wash, Brant, not with your congregation and not with me,” I told him.

  His whole face tightened.

  “Then you go ahead and run your story about my record,” he said, still bluffing to see what cards I really held. “And then I’ll go before my congregation to make a heartfelt and tearful confession of my previous life as a sinner and ask for their forgiveness. Who’s to say those good Christian people won’t find it in their hearts to understand how any young man could have made a mistake? Especially with all the good things I’ve done for them. It’s happened before. Look at Jimmy Swaggart. Look at Jim Bakker. They still have supporters.” Brant gave me his genuine smile this time, one that narrowed his eyes in a cynical sneer and sent little tendrils of fear wrapping around my heart.

  In spite of my fear and distaste, however, I laughed. Brant hadn’t gotten where he was through lack of balls, I thought. He clearly intended to brazen this thing out as long as possible—and so did I.

  “Even when I tell them about your secret bank account in the Cayman Islands and the millions of dolla
rs that are sitting in it?” I asked. “At least six and a half million, if I’m not mistaken. Don’t you think they’re going to wonder how much of that came directly out of their pockets? And don’t you think they’ll wonder just exactly what kind of business Brantlow, Inc. is involved in?”

  Brant hissed. Honest to God, he actually hissed at me. The sound was so filled with malice that I physically recoiled from it.

  “You little bitch,” he said, standing up and leaning toward me over the desk, his voice low and menacing. “You nosy, meddling little bitch!” I thought the Brant facade probably was gone for good this time, at least where I was concerned. I looked into his ominous eyes and wondered if this was what Cara had seen, that day at her desk when Brant realized she had overheard the things Nash Marshall had said to him. If it was, no wonder she had left the office early and refused to discuss what had happened with Marlee.

  “You have no idea what you’re messing with!” Brant went on, his voice still threatening but low. Obviously he wasn’t taking a chance on repeating the mistake he had made the day Nash Marshall stormed into his office. He didn’t want Marlee to hear what we were saying to each other. “I want you out of here now. And I want you to keep your mouth shut as if your life depends on it!”

  I held up my reporter’s notebook, pen poised to write. “Should I take that as a ‘no comment’?” I asked smartly.

  “You take it any way you want,” Brant answered. “But if I see one word of this in your paper or anyplace else, ever, if I hear one bit of talk about it anywhere, you’ll find you’ve bought yourself such a world of trouble that you can’t believe it!”

  I stood up, but he still was taller than I was. My heart was beating rapidly. My hands were sweating. This David Daniel Brantley meant business. I knew he wasn’t making idle threats. Fuck you, I thought venomously. I played my final card.

  “You mean like the trouble my sister bought? The kind that got her killed? But then, I suppose you don’t know anything about that, either, do you?”

  With a growl, Brant came around the desk and grabbed me roughly by the arm, jerking me toward him. He put his face right down into mine. “You watch your ass!” he said. The hiss was back.

  The next thing I knew, he had opened his office door, all concerns about Marlee’s presence pushed aside, and basically flung me out it into the reception area. At my unexpected and ungainly entrance, Marlee looked up from her computer and then sat with her mouth hanging open as I stumbled over my feet, trying not to fall, while dropping my notebook and purse in the process.

  “You watch your own ass!” I said loudly back to him as I bent down to pick up my things and his office door slammed behind me.

  “Sutton?” Marlee asked, standing up and putting her hands on the top of her computer monitor to look over at where I crouched on the floor, gathering up my belongings. “What in the world?”

  “PMS?” I asked her, standing up and giving her a shrug and a tepid smile. Then I left quickly—fled actually—before she could see the smile was all bravado and that inside I was already feeling sick from adrenaline and fear. I hoped I’d be able to drive to the office without wrecking my car.

  Twenty-four

  I almost had gotten my anger and fear and their physical effects back under control and was getting out of my car in the parking garage in D.C. when my pager went off and flashed Rob Perry’s extension at me. I hurried down the block to the News building, said hello to George, the daytime security guard, and instead of waiting for the notoriously slow elevators, took the three flights of stairs up to the floor that housed the metro section. Which, I realized halfway up, didn’t do my breathing any good. Apparently, I had been neglecting my sessions on the NordicTrack, too.

  As I came into the newsroom I saw Rob sitting out at the city desk and watching me walk toward him with that look in his eyes. You know the look. The one you get from the principal when he raises his eyes from his work to find you standing in his office with a glowering teacher hovering behind you.

  “Hi, Rob,” I said, pretending I hadn’t noticed the look. “I got your page on my way upstairs. What’s up?”

  “Let’s step into my office, shall we?” he asked politely, standing up and leading the way. A couple of heads raised around the copy desk and gave me questioning looks and raised eyebrows. They had heard the principal in Rob’s voice, too. I followed him into his office, busy racking my brain for what I could have done that had pissed him off.

  “Have a seat,” Rob said, closing the door, and walked over to sit down at his desk.

  “Not ten minutes ago,” he said, holding my eyes with his in a sort of visual death grip that no reporter alive dared break, “I got off the phone with Detective Peterson. We had an interesting conversation about you.” Rob always was a master of understatement.

  “Oh,” I said, in my best meek voice.

  “‘Oh’ is right,” Rob replied. “From that response, I think you must know why he called me.”

  “About my checking into Cara’s murder?” I asked, trying to imbue my question with as much innocence as possible.

  “Yeah, about that.”

  “What did Peterson say?”

  “I take it,” Rob said, “that you had an argument with him. Apparently, he wasn’t finished yelling when you left. So he finished with me. He told me, more than once, that you’re a loose cannon and that he thinks you’re going to screw up any chance the police may have of getting the person who killed your sister. Of course he went on about it at much greater length than I’m going into here. But he wants me to order you to cease and desist.”

  “And are you ordering me?” My throat suddenly felt very tight at the idea of being forced to give up, and my words came out with an unflattering squeak.

  Jesus, you’re not gonna cry like a girl, are you?

  I swallowed hard and got myself in hand.

  “No, I’m not,” Rob said, surprising me, “at least not yet. At least not before I get a full accounting from you of what you’ve been up to.” He settled back in his chair, prepared to wait for however long it took me to tell it.

  So I told him, the whole thing, all the details I had glossed over with him until now. Including my morning visit with the Reverend Daniel Brant and my promise to run a story about his background in the paper.

  “I didn’t specify what day it would run,” I finished, “but tomorrow wouldn’t be too soon for me.”

  Rob raised his hands, whose fingers had been interlaced in his lap, and touched both index fingers to his upper lip, a classic Rob thinking pose.

  “All right,” he said finally, after mulling it all over for several long seconds. “Get some quotes from some of the church deacons. We’ll say that Brant denied the allegations, in spite of the evidence the paper has obtained, and that he wouldn’t make any other comment, except to threaten the reporter who questioned him. We’ll put it on the metro front, maybe even page one if I can swing it. I want the first draft on my desk in the next two hours, if possible. I’ll want to run it past one of the legal guys just to be on the safe side.”

  I was breathing again. It was one of the things I loved about Rob. No amount of pique ever got in the way of his recognizing a good story.

  “Thanks, Rob,” I told him gratefully, thinking I was free to go and standing up.

  “Not so fast,” he said, disabusing me of that idea. “Sit back down. There are a few more things I want to say.”

  I sat. “I’m listening,” I said, trying to sound properly chastened.

  “I hope so,” Rob replied, but the tone of his voice said he doubted it. “First, the next time you spend days chasing a story like this without giving me some real idea of what you’re doing, I’ll have your job. I don’t have to know all the details, but I don’t like being blindsided by some police detective who’s having a meltdown and threatening to go over my head.”

  “Okay,” I promised. “I promise.”

  “Second, tomorrow’s story is strictly about Bran
t’s shady background and the existence of the Cayman company. There’s no way you have enough yet to get into questions about dead CEOs or any possible connection to your sister’s murder. This first story may help shake some of that loose, but we can’t go with it yet.”

  I nodded in agreement. Well, why wouldn’t I agree? Rob’s instructions followed my own thinking on the matter.

  “Third, you call Peterson and tell him what you’ve done. He’s going to be pissed as all hell, but them’s the breaks, and at least he won’t read about it in tomorrow’s paper first.”

  “Okay,” I said, sinking a little in my chair at the thought of just what reaction I could expect from Peterson.

  “And finally,” Rob said, smiling for the first time since I had walked into the newsroom, “go back to your desk and give yourself a pat on the back. You done good, even if you have been a little ham-fisted with it.”

  Relieved, I returned his smile and escaped from his office. I had some unpleasant calls to make and a story to write. It wasn’t yet the story I wanted to write. But, as Rob said, it might help shake some things loose so that I could write that story eventually, too.

  My first call, and the one I dreaded most, clearly had to be to Detective Peterson. He was the lead investigator on my sister’s murder, after all. I didn’t want to push him completely over the edge.

  He was livid.

  “I thought Perry was going to talk some sense into you!” he shouted when I explained about the story I was working on and that he could expect to read in tomorrow’s paper.

  “He talked a lot of sense into me,” I replied, “but he told me to go ahead with this story about Brant’s background and his company in the Caymans. That much, at least, we can document, and it’s a story in its own right, even if I can’t prove yet that he’s killed four people.”

  “Tell me you didn’t say that to Brant?” Peterson asked furiously. “Did you accuse him right out of murdering your sister and those guys?”

  “Well,” I said, equivocating, “I might have alluded to it somewhere in the conversation.”