If You Really Knew Me (Anyone Who Believes Book 1)

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  Anna nodded. She knew that he had been extremely wealthy before his ministry, and wondered how well informed the financial analysis by Dixon Claiborne’s people had been. Perhaps they had just placed Beau’s billionaire reputation next to his healing ministry and assumed they were connected.

  “You say you don’t need to ask for money for what you do now. Can you tell me about where your wealth came from?” Anna pushed the recorder closer as the wind picked up again.

  Beau, who had slid his chair a few inches away when the video ended, leaned in a little toward the recorder. “Well, the short answer, in terms of financial accounting, is that it came from various investments.” He looked toward Maggie, but he seemed to be recalling or calculating, or both, instead of really looking at her. Anna glanced that way and saw Maggie flip her hair around to the side, in response to the renewed wind assault from the west.

  “But that’s only investments in the broadest sense of the word,” he said. “It just means I didn’t inherit any money and I didn’t run any kind of company to earn it.” He looked at Anna. “Do you know about the lottery win and about the sunken gold?”

  Anna nodded slowly, surprised that he started with those specifics. “Yes, but those were unconfirmed rumors.”

  “Well, I can give you names of people who can confirm both of those windfalls,” he said, as if she needed assurance that these outrageous stories were true.

  “Great,” Anna said, not wanting to appear as credulous as she was regarding Beau and his fantastic history.

  Beau smiled and looked toward the ocean. Anna suspected that he knew she was only playing reporter in that last response. This game of hide and seek was beginning to unsettle her, but the obligations of her profession played in her head like a Greek chorus consisting of editors and publishers she had worked for past and present.

  “But those things didn’t really add up to the billions you’re reputed to have,” Anna said, returning to Beau’s accounting.

  “No, certainly, the gold barely amounted to a billion, and I paid a percentage of that to the captain and the divers, as well as taxes. No, most of my money came from more traditional investments, including some that built on those big paydays. I was a financial analyst and trader before all that, as you know. And my success there was controversial already. I was investigated a few times for insider trading. They just couldn’t believe that I could pick big winners so consistently. One boss only finally believed me after I picked the winning lottery numbers. He knew no one could get insider info on that.”

  Anna backtracked to his reputation as an investor. “They never actually charged you with anything on the insider trading?”

  “No, you can contact my old employer at Burns and Howell. There wasn’t any kind of evidence that I got information from the companies before the trades, not anything even slightly suspicious. So they dropped it.”

  “So how did you get so lucky about picking winners?”

  Beau looked at her with a slight tilt to his head, as if he was trying to decide whether she knew the answer and just wanted him to say it. “I told you that sometimes God just lets me know things. It’s the way my healing ministry works most of the time.” He considered Anna to see if she was following. “And, before I retired, it wasn’t just people’s ailments and such that God told me about. The only insider information I ever got came from Him, but then there was no paper trail for that.” He chuckled.

  As with much of their conversation, Beau seemed barely interested in the details of his own extraordinary life, though patient enough to tell Ann what she wanted to hear.

  “And the sunken gold, how did that come to you?”

  For a moment, Beau’s interest stirred, a crooked smile around his words and seaman’s gaze toward the ocean as he remembered. “Well, that was pretty amazing. I had a dream about gold bars floating on the surface of the ocean, and me following them in a canoe, like the kids and I used to use when we went camping. After paddling toward them for a while, this train of floating gold bars, I noticed that the farthest one ahead of me just disappeared. As I looked more closely, the next bar sunk in the same place, as if the laws of physics had been suspended all along the calm surface of the water until they hit that point. Then they sank, just like gold bars should. When I reached the spot where the last of them disappeared, I saw numbers and letters printed on the surface of the water, like on a map.” He looked at Anna with a full grin.

  “When I woke up I could still remember the numbers and letters so I wrote them down, and I called Jack Williams that day. I told him the dream and he agreed that it must be the location of lost treasure, although neither of us had ever heard of God locating buried treasure for someone. I don’t know if it ever happened before or since. I just knew at the time that this was what God was giving me. So I called around to find a captain with experience recovering sunken gold, including the guys that did the Titanic.” He laughed suddenly, slapping his leg with one hand. “They sure thought I was nuts!”

  Though he seemed content to remember and laugh, Anna wanted the story. “So how did you find someone to recover it?”

  “Oh, there’s always someone who’s really desperate for money,” he said, winding down his humorous convulsions. “I just had to pay a guy a million dollars up front, guarantee five million in expenses and give him a percentage of the haul. Although, since he was pretty sure there was no haul, he didn’t negotiate very hard for that.” Again the memory sent him over the edge into a cascade of laughter and a loud sigh, even wiping a tear from the corner of one eye. Maggie looked up at him from the other end of the pool, oblivious to the content of the conversation. She just laughed at her dad’s uninhibited jocularity.

  Anna allowed a toddling chuckle to escape, before dragging Beau further into the narrative. “So how long did it take you to find it?”

  Beau looked at her and raised both eyebrows. “You would think it wouldn’t take long at all, given that I handed him the exact coordinates. But he insisted that I must be wrong, ‘cause his charts showed that this area had been explored decades ago and nothing was found. I don’t know what was wrong, his information or the methods of those who searched before, but I finally convinced him to anchor and drop the submersible exactly on that spot.” Beau started laughing again, but sensing Anna’s impatience, he throttled back this time.

  “You know what they say about swearing like a sailor? You should ha’ heard him when a drag bucket brought up gold Spanish coins from hundreds of years ago.” Beau let loose again, interspersing words with barks of laughter. “The funniest part . . . was each time he would say . . . some foul thing or other . . . he would stop and say, ‘Oh, sorry, Pastor,’ . . . and then just go on swearing and apologizing.”

  Anna surrendered to Beau’s loopy laughter for a moment, though wishing she had something stronger than lemonade to get her to the level of intoxication Beau seemed to reach with his memory of the treasure hunt. When they both caught their breath, something occurred to Anna.

  “Did you film all this?”

  Beau shook his head, “Not the whole interaction with the captain and such,” he said, “just the documentation of the actual treasure. I wasn’t looking to get famous over that, I was just collecting the gold God had offered me. I couldn’t see any advantage to making a sort of documentary about it, like we accomplished some great thing by our tremendous effort, or something.”

  “You didn’t want anyone to know about your new found wealth?”

  “Not particularly, and I didn’t want people to get the idea that I could tell them where to find treasure, or how to pick winning lottery numbers. That could get really messy, I think.”

  Anna nodded slowly, trying to decide whether to probe deeper in what seemed another example of Beau trying to hide something, but again his manner seemed more disinterested than suspicious, as he settled back in his chair with the grin of a man who just finished telling a really good joke and getting the laughs it deserved.

  “So, y
ou weren’t trying to hide how rich you were from other religious people who might be offended?”

  “Naw, I got over worrying about what offends religious people years before that. It’s like giving up smoking or some such habit that seemed enjoyable at the time, but really never satisfied. Just when you think you’ve covered your backside so as not to offend anybody, you discover another group who’s offended by you saying words like ‘backside.’” And that started another round of laughter, just as Maggie rounded the pool, headed for the house. She took a look at Beau’s glass and joked.

  “Did you slip something in his drink, Anna?”

  Anna smiled at Maggie and answered half seriously. “No, he’s just telling me about finding sunken gold.” She said this before thinking about how much Maggie knew. at a mere sixteen years old.

  Maggie laughed briefly. “Oh, that makes sense. Us kids used to get a big laugh out of trying to convince Dad to tell us what exactly the captain said when he saw the gold coins. But he never would.”

  Anna nodded and said, “Well, he wouldn’t tell me either.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes and walked away shaking her head, a thin trail of girlish chuckles just audible over the wind as she headed toward the house.

  Again, Anna tried to drive into more serious territory. “So what did you do with all that money?”

  “Spent it on rum,” he said and laughed some more before sobering, with some effort. He put a hand over his mouth and looked skyward, in his effort to keep to the business at hand.

  Before Anna could try again, Beau answered more seriously. “Oh, well, I couldn’t tell you exactly where every dollar went. Even though God seems to shovel the riches my way, I’ve never been a great bookkeeper. I do know that we invested the proceeds for a while, paid the required taxes and then set up a couple of new organizations for helping with homelessness in this country and food distribution in Africa. Justine is better at judging those things than me, including hiring good people to run the organizations. You’d have to ask her if you want more of the boring details.”

  Though she would have denied it in front of a jury of her professional peers, Anna didn’t want any of the boring details, she seemed to have misplaced the carnivorous instinct required to push for more financial details. After leaving that day, however, she did contact Beau’s accountant to get an overview of the flow of his funds, authorized by Beau, of course.

  According to Steve Wickham, the senior accountant assigned to answer her questions, Beau gave general instructions about the money, and Justine monitored the execution of those instructions, but Steve did the day-to-day buying and selling for the Duperes. At least he and his staff did.

  “Their cash flow is considerable, though it comes in great waves some times, as you know,” Steve said. “But I’ve gotten calls from Justine late in the evening with questions about small details that she noticed in reports I sent her. They’re not obsessed with their money, but they do pay attention.”

  Anna sat holding her digital recorder, her legs crossed, a sandal dangling from her right foot as she rested her elbows on her knee. She wanted to ask whether Steve was connected to their church or their faith, but wasn’t sure if that was relevant. Uninterested in assembling any kind of conspiracy plot, Anna hadn’t found any reason not to trust church members, as if they were all part of some Kool-Aid-drinking cult. She got her first hint about Steve’s religious affiliations a moment later.

  “So, miss Conyers, or can I call you Anna?” The tone of that preamble, along with the fondling foray of his eyes, rendered the actual words that followed completely obsolete. She was sure that no one from Beau’s church would hit on her so crudely.

  The following sexual overture, paired with her lack of suspicion regarding Beau and his money, wound the interview to an early close. Her adamant refusals and scolding looks prompted an innocent inquiry from the accountant. “Did I say something wrong?” His voice squeaked just slightly as he stood to follow her to the door of his office.

  Ann just thanked him again and headed for her car.

  The only other face-to-face interview she had planned was with Jack Williams, and she would have to wait another day to meet with Beau’s mentor and friend.

  We Don’t Believe in that Sorta Thing

  Beau went to pick up Adam from soccer practice, arriving early so he could see the boy in action. He found the team divided in half, scrimmaging on the full soccer field, red against yellow, eight on a side, including one of the assistant coaches. While standing on the sideline, his hands in his pockets, turning his head slightly to keep his hair away from his eyes, Beau caught Adam’s attention. Adam smiled and then grew suddenly more serious. He lifted one hand waist high and surreptitiously pointed to Beau’s right. Beau made a casual glance in that direction and then nodded to Adam the next time the boy looked at him.

  From a minivan parked near Beau’s Land Rover, a woman, about forty years old, was leading a boy who appeared to have Down syndrome. Maybe twelve or thirteen years old, the boy walked with feet flapping outward, clinging to the arm of the woman, who Beau understood to be his mother. Adam had spotted a healing target and aimed Beau in that direction. Beau guessed that Adam would have tried to heal the boy already, and perhaps met resistance or got no results.

  After the mother and son had settled on the sideline, both shouting encouragement to a boy on Adam’s side of the scrimmage, Beau sidled in their direction.

  “So, you’re Carson’s mother?” Beau said, extending a hand.

  The woman smiled and nodded, reaching out to take that hand. “Yes, I’m Alicia. And Adam’s your boy?”

  Beau nodded, not interested in precision on that point. He looked at the boy with Alicia. “Do you play soccer?”

  The boy lowered his head and turned it side to side.

  “He has trouble with his knees,” Alicia said. She put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “This is Jamie. He likes to watch soccer. Don’t ya buddy?”

  Jamie looked at the field, a bit less enthusiastic than your average soccer fan. He stayed silent.

  “I can make those knees feel better,” Beau said, simply.

  Alicia looked just past Beau, glancing in Adam’s direction. “Your son tried praying for Jamie already. I guess he has a reputation for doing that among the boys. But we don’t believe in that sorta thing.”

  “That’s okay. You don’t have to believe in it. It’s starting to happen already,” Beau said, looking at Jamie’s knees.

  Jamie looked down and then looked at his mother. “What’s happening to my knees? They feel funny,” he said. “I mean really funny, like I’m gonna laugh now.” He put both hands over his mouth to hold the strange laughter in.

  “Are you doing something?” Alicia said, firing a look at Beau.

  If he were inclined to be intimidated by the wrath of a mother, that look might have robbed him of a couple of heartbeats. “I think it’s already done,” Beau said.

  As he said that, Jamie let go of his mouth and spewed a laugh that sounded a lot like a shout. He kicked his right foot in front of him and then the left. When he did that, his outward pointing feet each straightened to point more forward. Then he did it again, and his feet lined up quite normally. With his hands tightly fisted, Jamie turned and started to run down the sideline toward the corner of the field, his head down and a hoarse growl accompanying him there and back.

  “I can run now, Mom. My knees feel great. ‘Cept we don’t believe in that sorta thing.” He lifted his face to the sky and guffawed.

  Adam had abandoned his midfield defensive position and drifted toward the sideline when he saw Jamie running. Beau met him with a grin.

  Adam looked almost as concerned as Alicia did. “Did you just heal his knees?” Adam said, clearly disappointed.

  “That’ll do for now,” Beau said.

  Adam nodded at a lesson learned from the master.

  Jamie bellowed, “We don’t believe in that sorta thing,” and he ran toward midfield laugh
ing and squealing some more.

  Mourning the Loss of a Daughter

  Exactly what the days ahead would contain for Dixon Claiborne lay beyond his grasp. He was used to that. Knowing that he would preach on Sundays—three times— meet with staff, meet with church members, lead committee meetings, etc. etc. was enough for him. Knowing that his daughter would graduate from high school, would begin her summer job at the swimming pool, and get ready for the big move to college in the Bay Area, left him feeling full. The schedule was full, and he was full of anticipation. But he would have liked to have known in advance about the revelation that would change the color of all that fullness, the way a hurricane rearranges schedules as much as it rearranges the lawn furniture.

  Dixon didn’t hear about Sara’s visit to the Beau Dupere meeting until nearly a week later, the day of graduation. An unguarded moment between teenaged girls, caught in the spin of excitement before the robe-clad march into the gymnasium, started the avalanche that would be Dixon’s next few days. His expectations tumbled beneath what felt like a backlash against his effort to bring truth and righteousness to the wider church.

  Jenny Washington’s hair had been spun into a tight twist around her head, a golden slash of color wound in and around that celebratory quaff. Her eyes sparked and her lips shown with gloss recently applied. Holding her cap with one hand, she bounced at the sight of Sara, now more than just a cheerleading sister.

  “Oh, you look so awesome!” Jenny said, in the squealing tone native to excited adolescent girls.

  Sara and Jenny embraced, one arm each, caps held in place on top of special hairdos.

  “Oh, I like the highlight,” Sara said, returning the compliment.

  Jenny lowered her voice, but not quite low enough for Kristen and Dixon to miss the mystery tempered elation of the words. “Do you feel totally different still? Is it still there?”

  Sara glanced at her parents and turned away, nodding as vigorously as her headwear would allow. “I just can’t stop praying, and when I do I either laugh or cry or . . . even pray in some strange language. And I keep getting these shivers, like electricity. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?”