A Ruling Passion

by Judith Michael

  "I don't think it does. I'm sorry, Mrs. Sterling. We would have liked to answer all your questions, but we aren't always able to do that."

  "I'm sorry, too," Valerie said stiffly, and stood where she was while he left.

  Rosemary took one look at her face and went into the kitchen. In a moment, Valerie heard the sound of running water, and dishes banging against each other. I wonder how many she'll break, she thought.

  Not many, she decided. Mother cares about china. She'll discover, to her great disappointment, that she's very good at doing dishes.

  She looked at the report in her hand. I don't know any more now than I did nine months ago. I assumed all those investigators would take care of it for me, but all they did was blame Carlton. How easy to do that; he's dead.

  But why shouldn't I do that, too? He wiped me out; why should I defend him?

  Because I believed him when he said someone had done something to the plane. And if that was true—if there's the slightest possibility that it's true—that person murdered Carl and almost murdered the rest of us, and I want to know who it was. That isn't idle curiosity; that's a desire for justice.

  She glanced at the report again. What could she do that teams of government investigators could not do? She had no idea. But if a woman had been involved, she wanted to know it. Until now, for some reason she hadn't wanted to pursue it; it opened too many awful possibilities. But now she had to know. Carl had been having an affair; she was sure of that. Why not assume tliat was the woman he'd been accusing? And there was the money. No one had found it, but maybe they hadn't looked in the right places. There were those shady characters Sybille said she saw Carl with in New York; maybe they knew something about the money, and maybe that had something to do with the plane crash. I'll have to talk to Sybille, she thought. I should be able to manage that. Now that I don't work for her anymore, we can be civil to each other, as long as we keep it short.

  "Valerie?" Rosemary called. "Where does the cream pitcher go?"

  'Til show you," Valerie said. Suddenly she was filled with energy. There was so much to do. As soon as she could take some time off work, or organize her weekends so she had some hours to herself, she would do her own investigating. She wouldn't rely on other people anymore; she'd do it herself. And this time she would get the answers she wanted. She wasn't going to stop until she did.

  Chapter

  22

  r/1

  I m / ybille stood in the side doorway of the Cathedral

  V_^K^ of Joy, watching the congregation stream into the

  ^1 ^K warmth and brightness from the drizzling No-

  ^ ^^r vember day. The organ music mingled with the

  voices of a thousand people, and Sybille looked at

  her watch, picturing, to the minute, what Lily was doing in her small

  suite behind the altar. First she would stand quiedy while her maid

  slipped over her head one of her ankle-length white silk and lace

  dresses she bought with the help of Sybille's personal shopper at Saks

  Fifth Avenue, buttoned it up the back, then knelt to put on her white

  flat-heeled shoes. Then she would sit at her dressing table while the

  cosmetics expert Sybille had hired fastened a huge bib around her and

  made up her face. Lily still thought it wrong, but when she saw how

  sickly she looked on television without it, she reluaandy agreed that it

  had to be done. Her maid would brush her long hair until it flowed

  over her shoulders like a silken veil that would reflect the television

  lights, while Lily reread her notes from the morning sermon, repeating

  phrases to make sure they were what Sybille wanted, spoken in the

  way her voice coach had taught her. At one minute to ten she would

  leave the suite and walk down the corridor to a heavy door at the side of the altar, and wait there until she received word that everyone was seated. The taping had begun five minutes earlier, to record "The Hour of Grace" for repeat broadcasts around the country.

  At precisely 10 a.m., as the organ rose to a crescendo, the heavy door swung open and Lily appeared, small and fragile against the background of solid oak. The worshipers who sat in front saw her first; they craned for a better view, and that alerted those behind them, so that they were ready, some of them even standing on their toes for a clearer look, when Lily walked slowly, pensively, up the marble steps to the marble altar and then to the marble pulpit etched with tall graceful lilies reaching up as if to embrace her as she stood there, head lowered, eyes closed in prayer, waiting for everyone to be seated again and the music to die away.

  Unseen by the audience and the camera, Sybille nodded as everything was done to the minute. It was her best production: pure, un-subtle drama with nothing to distract the audience from its concentration on Lily Grace. It was the kind that played best anywhere, and especially on a small screen. It was one of the reasons that "The Hour of Grace" was a goldmine.

  "Such a dear girl," Floyd Bassington said, coming up beside Sybille. "I never saw anyone do God's work more sublimely."

  My work, Sybille thought. She looked up at the vast height of her cathedral, its stained glass lit from behind, making it seem that the sun always shone on Lily Grace. She looked at Lily, gesturing carefully for the cameras and the congregation as all one thousand of them leaned forward, toward her high, sweet voice. She looked behind her, at the town of Graceville, rising firom the rich Virginia soil. Mine, she exulted. Mine.

  For a fleeting moment, she felt satisfied. It was all because of her. She did it all, from behind the scenes. Once she had wanted everyone to know she was there. Now she wanted them to be unaware of her, to have no idea who had power over them, or how it was being used, or how they were being manipulated. No one knew. But everything here —and much that was not visible—was here because of her, and no one else. It was all hers.

  "Arch and Monte are here," Bassington said. His hand was kneading her arm above her elbow, and Sybille moved away.

  "Let's not keep them waiting," she said, and walked ahead of him across the trampled grass behind the church to a two-story white house with a broad firont porch. It had been there when the board

  bought the land with Carlton's thirteen million dollars, and, rather than tear it down, they had made it the headquarters of the Hour of Grace Foundation. Bassington had converted the living room to a luxurious office in black puka wood and nail-studded suede; the other rooms were used by secretaries, clerks and bookkeepers, twelve in all. The renovation had been completed in September, and the operations that had been spread between Fairfax and Culpeper were now centralized in Graceville.

  Sybille found the others waiting in Bassington's office. Monte James, treasurer of the Hour of Grace Foundation, and president of James Trust and Savings, was tall and slouching, with pouches beneath his eyes, flaring nostrils above full lips, and a protruding stomach bisected by a cowboy belt. He wore embossed cowboy boots with high heels, whether he was in a tuxedo or bluejeans. He was taller than Arch Warman, vice president and secretary of the Hour of Grace Foundation and president of Warman Developers and Contractors, but Arch was wider: egg-shaped from his sloping shoulders to his ample hips, with small feet and hands, twinkling eyes behind square, black-rimmed glasses, and dyed black hair left gray at the temples, because he thought it was dignified. The two of them sat on a suede sofa, a bottle of Scotch, a pitcher of water, a plate of doughnuts and a thermos of coffee on the black coffee table before them.

  "Ah, breakfast," Bassington said with satisfaction. "Sybille?"

  "Coffee." She put her briefcase on the table, beside the doughnuts, but did not open it. "Begin," she said to Bassington.

  He handed her a cup of coffee. "Jim and Tammy Bakker. The newscasts are having a field day with them. Why doesn't that damn story die out? Most stories do; this one just gets bigger."

  "Greed, sex and money," said Arch Warman.
"Why should it go away? Ifs what everybody wants to hear about."

  '*Well, they don't want to hear about us," Monte James said. "I've been thinking about it; we're too dull for the press. No greed and no sex; just straight business."

  "Straight," said Warman with a laugh.

  Bassington studied his fingernails.

  "You've been careftil," Sybille said. "I don't see a trail leading to you, even if the networks send out their dogs."

  "Might get rid of a few perks, though," Warman said thoughtfiilly. 'T mean, one of those smart-ass lady tv reporters checks into us and finds we're flying a Citation, and driving pretty cars like Monte's

  Porsche and my BMW and Floyd's Mercedes, shit, she might get to wondering about what a religious board needs with all that high living and where we get the moola for it."

  "You don't get rid of anything," Sybille said. "Those are legitimate expenses. Are they looking at all the tv ministries?"

  "I imagine they'll get to all of 'em sooner or later," Warman said. "Most of'em are red meat to a hungry lion. But we're okay, you know. You're right, Syb: we've been very good. Very careful, very clever, almost invisible. We don't leave a trail like the Bakkers."

  "Don't get smug," she said. "Lily hates smugness."

  There was heavy silence. There was always a heavy silence when Sybille let drop Lily's name in that way, a casual reminder that there would be nothing without Lily, and there would be no Lily without Sybille.

  "Monte," said Sybille, and felt the brief flush of pleasure it gave her every time she snapped out their names and watched them leap to respond.

  "Donations this year will top seventy-five mill," Monte said prompdy. He sat back, speaking without notes, reviewing the finances for the year that was drawing to a close. From the seventy-five million dollars, Monte and Warman and Bassington would pay for the Foundation jet, their cars and their travels. They would skim ten percent of the cash that came in the mail and divide it among the three of them and Sybille, with Sybille taking the largest share. They would pay the highly inflated charges from Sybille Morgen Productions for producing Lily Grace's Sunday-morning service and Wednesday night's "At Home with Reverend Grace." And they would pay the legitimate administrative costs of the Hour of Grace Foundation: postage, equipment, supplies, office maintenance, the salaries of secretaries, clerks and bookkeepers.

  "Graceville," Monte said pleasantly, and reviewed those figures. The initial phase for building the town would take one hundred and fifty million dollars. By borrowing the money they could complete construction in two years. That was made possible by the fact that James Trust and Savings made regular construction loans to the Foundation as they were needed. The loans were made at thirteen percent interest at a time when most construction loans were at eleven percent. The extra two percent was distributed to Monte, Warman, Bassington, and Sybille, who took the largest share.

  There was a brief silence when Monte finished. "Arch," said Sybille.

  Arch Warman's black eyes twinkled. "Marrach Construction is right on schedule. The retail stores, restaurants, what have you, will be finished as scheduled, in early June; they'll open when the first wing of the hotel does, at the end of July. Recreation facilities moving right along; the}^ll open between July and the end of the year. The town homes will be last; we're scheduling them after the hotel is finished, which won't be until a year from now, but we'll sell them early at pre-construaion prices from plans, drawings and a model home. So far I don't foresee any cost overruns; everything is coming in on budget." He beamed at them. There was no need to mention the prices charged to the Foundation by Marrach Construction, Inc., wholly owned by Arch Warman and created solely for the purpose of building Graceville. All prices, for materials and labor, were twenty percent above the prices that other construction companies would have charged, and the extra money was returned to Monte, Warman, Bas-sington, and Svbille, who took the largest share.

  "Floyd," Sybille said.

  Bassington put down his doughnut and read from his notes. "The ftill board of directors of the Foundation will meet on Thursday of this week; I'll be proposing Lars Olssen as a new direaor. He's a minister, teaches religion at Fletcher School for Girls; married, four kids, a good, solid reputation. Exactly what we need."

  "That gives us seven," Warman said. "Four besides the three of us. Sounds like too many to me,"

  "It's the upper limit," Bassington responded. "But I'd hate to lose Olssen; he's so damn respectable..."

  Monte frowned. "It's too heavy on the other side. Syb, if you'd be a director, I'd feel better about it."

  "No," she said. Her muscles had tightened; she did not like surprises. "I don't intend to be up front."

  "I think maybe you should," Monte insisted. "I'd feel a whole lot better if we were all the same level, right up front."

  "Up front," Warman said and laughed.

  "Is that your ftill report."" Sybille asked Bassington.

  "I raised a question," Monte snapped. "I want you on the board. This whole Foundation is your baby, you had it all on paper before we came on board, and you did a nice job, we like what you did, but that was a while ago and we're overdue for a few changes."

  Sybille looked at Bassington.

  "Why?" Bassington asked Monte. "Everything's going fine; why

  change it? Sybille is a modest person; she likes to stay behind the scenes. I admire that in her; I wouldn't ask her to be any other way. And I certainly wouldn't vote to force her to."

  "Well, I'm not sure about modest," Arch Warman said. "But that's not the real problem. The real problem is money. Sybille takes a bigger piece out of every dollar than we do, and I'm feeling uncomfortable about that."

  Bassington shot a glance in Sybille's direction, then wagged his head at Warman. 'Tou're making more money now with Marrach Construction than you ever made before. You ought to be grateful. Fm gratefiil, God knows: I never thought I'd be a millionaire. Men of God usually aren't. Why do you have to start being greedy?"

  "Arch isn't the one I'd call greedy," Monte said flatly.

  "Oh, for shame," Bassington cried. "Shame on you both. Sybille brings Lily to us, she nurtures and teaches her, she gains her trust so that she performs on schedule and brings in seventy-five million dollars this year. And you sneer at Sybille. This is not Christian of you. Or smart. Lily appreciates Sybille; did you forget that?"

  There was a silence while they remembered that Sybille held all the power as long as she held Lily. "We'll talk about it another time," Warman muttered. "I didn't say it had to be decided today."

  "At the next meeting," said Monte. He was flushed with anger. "Or the one after that."

  There was another silence. Sybille took a breath, so ftirious she could not yet speak. She'd taken two half-assed piddling businessmen and a failed preacher, and made them millionaires, and they thought they could dictate to her. She could get rid of them at any time; she didn't need them.

  But she knew she did need them, at least for now. She needed Marrach, which Warman had set up specifically to build Graceville so they could get a piece of every dollar spent in building it; she needed Monte for his steady supply of money, and the extra interest they skimmed off" that; and she needed Bassington. It galled her to admit it, especially when she thought of his body pumping on top of hers, his hands kneading her breasts and buttocks as if he were making bread, but he was useftil as an amiable liaison with the public, and to help keep Arch and Monte in line.

  He stays for a while, she thought; they all stay for a while. But then they'll go. Graceville is mine. If they think they can take any part of it away from me, they'll find out how wrong they are.

  She turned to Bassington. "Do you have anything else?"

  "Well." He riffled through the papers in his hands. "I did have a thought about Jim and Tammy Bakker, and all those accusations Jerry Falwell and some of the others are making. What a dark day, all these men of God pointing fingers, besmirching our calling; it keeps me awake at night with sa
dness and despair..."

  "Get to the point," Monte growled.

  "I am. The point is, I'm afraid that if the whole thing doesn't die away pretty soon people are going to get worried about all tv ministers—not Lily specifically, just in general, just the idea of shenanigans going on—and they might hold on to their money, at least for a while. It occurred to me—"

  "Fucking greedy little bastards," Monte burst out, his anger turned on the Bakkers. "Couldn't be satisfied with preaching; had to go after every last fucking dollar... They're putting us at risk!"

  "Greedy," said Warman, and laughed.

  "It occurred to me," Bassington went on, "that Lily might put some pressure on when she asks for money: talk about maybe not being able to open Graccille on schedule because of extra costs, inflation, whatever, unless people send a few extra bucks a week."

  "Not a bad idea," Warman said grudgingly. "Keep the faithful feeling guilty if they let Lily down."

  Monte nodded. "Okay with me, but I want her to do it on Wednesday nights too. I've asked that before."

  "Lily refuses," Bassington said. "She doesn't like to ask for money at all, but she does it because Sybille convinced her how important it was. On Wednesday, when she's answering her mail and sort of acting like a counselor, she won't do it."

  "Talk at her," Monte said to Sybille. "It could bring in another twenty percent."

  "I know that," Sybille said coolly. "Lily knows I want her to do it. And she will; at some point she'll agree. There are some things," she added pointedly, "you cannot force."

  "Well," Bassington said into the silence, "is there anything else?"

  Sybille handed each of them a sheet of paper. "This is a plan I intend to present to the full board on Thursday."

  "Memberships," said Warman, skimming the page. "Lifetime memberships in Graceville? Interesting..."

  "Oh, very interesting," Bassington chimed in as he read. "A membership for five thousand dollars, entiding members to an annual five-day stay in the Hotel Grace for as long as they live. What a lovely idea; such a gesture of love and caring; such a boon

  for people who can't afford fine vacations!"