A Sounding Brass

by Shelley Bates

  “I’m so glad you won,” she was saying to Dinah as Ray and Fisher came in. “With all your time in court I’ve hardly seen you. You wouldn’t believe all the things that have happened because of this case.”

  Dinah, whom Ray had always thought was kind of plain, with hair she wouldn’t allow to curl and a haunted look around her eyes and mouth, was a changed creature herself. He actually did a double take. Was this the same girl he’d seen the night he arrested Phinehas—or even the same girl he’d done the wrap-up interview with a few days ago?

  She was wearing a thick knitted sweater in a dark gold that did amazing things for her coloring and a black velvet skirt that just grazed her knees instead of falling practically to the ankle like the skirts many of the Elect women wore. Her hair had been cut, allowing curls and waves to float around her shoulders instead of being imprisoned in a shapeless bun on the back of her head.

  “You look really great,” he said, shaking her hand when Claire had finally let go of her. “Wow.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised, Ray,” Tamara said from the depths of the easy chair, where she lounged with both legs slung over one of its overstuffed arms. “My sister has always had the looks in the family.”

  “Very funny.” Dinah looked a little embarrassed. “I told Matthew I wanted to make some changes, so he said I should. I figured I’d surprise him when I got off the plane.”

  “You’ll surprise him, all right.” Tamara swung her legs down and approached Luke Fisher with her hand out. “I don’t think we’ve met. Tamara Traynell, vindicated rape victim.”

  He blinked, but his smile never faltered. “Luke Fisher, prodigal son. I have a radio ministry out of KGHM. Claire’s our accounting manager.”

  “Wow.” Tamara’s gaze moved between them. “Not just listening to the radio, but actually playing the songs and working there. The times, they really are a-changin’.”

  “Bob Dylan, 1964,” Fisher said promptly. “And change isn’t always a bad thing. ‘Yesterday, today, forever’ doesn’t apply to clothes, hair, and music, for instance.”

  “Says you.” The pen guy came forward. “Derrick Wilkinson.” He nodded at both Fisher and Ray, but didn’t offer to shake hands. Fisher didn’t seem to notice. Ray stuck his hand out and after a second, Wilkinson shook it.

  “Says Owen and the elders, too, apparently,” Rebecca put in. “Coffee and cake, anyone?”

  Dinah took the cups from her and, like a good hostess, made sure everyone had something to drink and a fat slice of what looked like carrot cake with thick, creamy frosting. Ray’s stomach grumbled and he took the plate gratefully.

  “‘Yesterday, today, forever’ applies to the way,” Derrick went on around his cake. “You can’t just walk in and change the way people have been worshiping for a hundred years. I don’t get how that can be right.”

  “Things change or they die,” Fisher explained gently. “And with the Shepherds not in control anymore, the sheep have to do as the Holy Spirit prompts them.”

  “They could just sit tight and wait for another senior Shepherd to be chosen, like they’re doing down south in the Tri-Cities area.”

  “But then you’d have the same difficulty of one man assuming all the power, and possibly being corrupted,” Dinah said. “It isn’t healthy for things to be set up that way.”

  “The Elect should look at how other churches do it,” Tamara put in. “They have, like, boards and things to make sure their leaders don’t get carried away. People should be accountable to each other. That’s why things got so bad in the Elect, and why it’s falling apart now.”

  “We’re not falling apart, we’re just . . . re-establishing our footing.” Claire had a bit of frosting clinging to the corner of her lip, and Ray had the sudden urge to wipe it off with his fingertip. In the next second, she dabbed at her mouth with her napkin and he shook his head at himself.

  Focus. Learn something. Don’t be a dope.

  “We’re all part of the body of believers,” Dinah said. “No church is better than another because of what it teaches. If I’ve learned anything in the last few months, it’s that the Elect way isn’t the only way to heaven.”

  “It’s the way we’ve been given, though,” Fisher put in smoothly. “That’s why the elders and I have been talking about ways to make it more welcoming to Outsiders.”

  “Besides dismantling our example?” Derrick grumped, half audibly.

  “Refocusing it.” The guy had endless patience, Ray would give him that. “Instead of concentrating on our looks, we should concentrate on our actions. And that means things like charity and praise in the form of the worship center. Let those things be a monument to God instead of how Claire does her hair, for instance.”

  Claire blushed as everyone glanced at her. “Some monument. More like the leaning tower of Pisa.”

  “These are new and radical thoughts, Mr. Fisher,” Rebecca said. “Don’t rush us old-timers. We need to think on these things and pray about them.”

  “Of course. But the fields are white unto harvest, so we shouldn’t wait long. In the time it would take to elect a new senior Shepherd, we could have the land cleared and the foundation poured for the worship center. I’ve already found an architectural firm and they’re putting together some concept designs as we speak. But I want everyone in the flock to see them and give us their input. This will be a hymn of praise in physical form for all of us.”

  “Or another tower of Babel,” Derrick muttered, but it seemed that only Ray heard him.

  Claire glanced at the clock over the kitchen door. “Luke, how long is your tape? It’s almost nine-thirty.”

  He grinned at her. “I had two ninety-minute tapes in the deck, so technically I have half an hour to go, but you’re right. I should be getting over to the station.”

  “What do you mean?” Dinah looked from one to the other.

  “I’m skipping out on my duties, just for tonight,” Luke said.

  “Don’t listen to him.” Claire began stacking the empty dessert plates. “He made a tape to play so his program would stay on the air and he could also go to Gathering. I think it’s brilliant. It’s not every day you meet a guy who can be in two places at once.”

  “The downside is I have to listen to myself on the drive in.” Ray resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. “Thanks for dessert, Rebecca. Good night, everyone. See you tomorrow, Claire.”

  “You will,” she said.

  When the door closed behind him, it seemed to Ray that everyone took a breath and relaxed, as if they’d been “on” in some kind of performance, and now they could go back to normal.

  “I’m half tempted to go down to the station tonight, too.” Claire picked up her handbag and peered inside, as if the checks and envelopes collected at Gathering might have evaporated. “It makes me nervous, walking around with all of these.”

  “It’s not likely you’ll be robbed on your way upstairs,” Ray pointed out. “Or is the crime rate in Hamilton Falls worse than I thought?”

  “No, of course not.” She put the bag back on the sideboard. “It’s just strange treating gifts to the church like real receivables, that’s all. We’re so used to the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.”

  “What do you mean?” Ray was a literal kind of guy. When people spoke in metaphors, it always made him feel a little slow. He wasn’t real keen on that feeling.

  “Our gifts have traditionally been made in secret,” Rebecca explained. “The Shepherds accept them, and we just have faith that they’ll be used where they’re needed.”

  “And they’re not required to give any kind of accounting?” Ray had no idea how churches usually worked, but in any corporate body, this kind of behavior sounded like a bad idea.

  “Not until now. But Luke, I think, is right.” Rebecca glanced at Claire. “It’s better to have everything above board and viewable by anyone. Especially when we’re talking about gifts from Outsiders.”

  Dinah stood and gave them
all a regretful look. “I hate to break this up, but I have a nine o’clock plane out of Spokane, which means leaving here at four A.M. I’m going to call Matthew and then go to bed.”

  Ray stood and watched Claire hug both Dinah and Tamara, exchanging a few whispered words with each. Then, before he knew what was happening, Tamara was hugging him fiercely.

  “Thanks for everything you’ve done for us, Ray,” she said against his neck. “Our whole world is different because of you.”

  “It’s different because you two had the guts to make it that way.” An obstruction had formed in his throat, getting in the way of his words. “I just helped out.”

  “You believed us.” She pulled away and looked into his face. She was so young. Just a teenager. And look what she’d been through. “You believed us, and that brought us to tonight, with Phinehas in jail and Dinah and me free. And now I need a tissue. Good night, everyone.”

  Dinah’s hug was less fierce, but it still choked him up just as much. “Tamara said it for both of us.”

  “Have a happy life,” he said gruffly. “I know that sounds stupid, but I mean it.”

  “It doesn’t sound stupid at all. And if God and Matthew and Tamsen have anything to do with it, I will.”

  Her smile was wide and sincere and Ray felt a funny hollow feeling behind his heart, as if he’d just discovered he was missing out on something.

  Something he wasn’t ready to think about.

  Derrick shook hands with Dinah as though he were a traveling shoe salesman rather than the friend Ray had assumed he was, thanked Rebecca for the coffee and cake, and got himself out the door.

  “Poor Derrick,” Claire murmured. “I don’t think he’s quite forgiven Julia or Dinah for leaving town and taking away his chance for the Deaconship.”

  “Perhaps with all the changes happening among the Elect,” Rebecca said, “the favored families will find themselves not so favored and having to live like the rest of us mortals.”

  “I can think of five girls who would jump at him if he’d only look at them,” Claire said. “Talk about single-minded.”

  “I don’t know.” Rebecca gave her a sidelong glance. “You two have always gotten along pretty well.”

  Ray’s eyebrows climbed. So, he’d been right. Not that he thought Derrick Wilkinson was any match for a woman as smart and beautiful as Claire Montoya. But at least he was honest and had some integrity, if his lousy opinion of Luke Fisher was anything to go by. Ray could appreciate a man who was a decent judge of character, even if he was buried in a backwater town with not much in the way of ambition.

  Claire laughed. “Don’t even think it, Rebecca. I’m saving myself for—” She stopped suddenly and glanced at Ray, then blushed.

  “For whom?” Rebecca turned in the kitchen doorway. “This is news.”

  Claire mumbled something about God’s will, then grabbed her handbag and fled. They heard her steps on the stairs at the side of the house, then the sound of a door closing above.

  Ray turned to look at Rebecca, and lifted his brows in inquiry.

  Rebecca sniffed, a ladylike sound that transmitted disbelief and maybe even a smidgen of warning. “Don’t look at me.” Cake plate in both hands, she turned back into the kitchen. “I’m not the one who needs to get a move on.”

  * * *

  RAY WAS STILL TRYING to figure out what code Rebecca Quinn had been speaking in as he pulled into the motel parking lot and got out of the truck. Why didn’t women just come out and say what they meant? Had she been talking about his investigation? And if so, how did she know about it? Did she mean he’d outstayed his welcome? Or was it, as he suspected, more personal than that?

  But it couldn’t be. From what he knew of this group, there was no way a respectable elder lady would encourage an attraction between an Elect woman and an Outsider. Because, face it, there was an attraction there and he wasn’t sure he should even be encouraging it himself. It was more like a fantasy, something to keep his mind entertained while he hung around in Hamilton Falls waiting for Luke Fisher to show his hand.

  It wasn’t like Claire was thinking that way about him. Far from it. If she was thinking about anyone, it was Fisher, and if Ray managed to put the kibosh on that, then he’d consider it a job well done and move on.

  With that settled, he unlocked the door of his room and tossed his jacket on the chair. His cell phone rang, the shrill sound like a protest in the silence, and he fished it out of his jacket’s pocket.

  The 310 area code showed in the display. “OCTF, Harper.”

  “Mr. Harper, this is Teresa White. Sorry to be so long returning your call, but I’ve been on location and just got back tonight.”

  “Thanks for calling back.” Richard Brandon Myers’s ex-girlfriend. He hadn’t been able to track down the other one, but Teresa White still lived in West Hollywood and drove a registered vehicle. After discovering that, getting a phone number from the DMV database had been easy. “Are you in the movie industry?”

  “Yes. I do makeup. We’ve been filming in Thailand, and my body clock is so messed up I have no idea if it’s Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.”

  “It’s Wednesday night here in Washington, but in L.A. it could be anything.”

  She laughed. “That’s the truth. So, what can I do for you?”

  “Well, you can tell me about a guy you used to date. Richard Myers.” A few beats of silence hissed along the satellite beam. “Ms. White? Still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here. Man, talk about a blast from the past. I haven’t thought about Ricky in years. Is he in trouble?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “That used to be my stock question when we were going out. Phone calls in the middle of the night, people stopping me on the street, his mother calling at work. It was always something to do with Ricky and trouble, even for months after we broke up.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Little stuff. The mosquitoes at the picnic of life, you know? Parking tickets, stuff missing, insurance claims. Nothing big, no master crimes or anything, but just enough to upset me. Especially when I was trying to establish a career and money was tight. The last time he called asking me to bail him out I told him I couldn’t and just left him in the clink. I never heard from him again. He never even came back to the apartment for his stuff.”

  “And you haven’t heard from him since?”

  “Nope. Thank goodness. I’d rather hear from the IRS.”

  Ray chuckled. “Did he ever mention the name Brandon Boanerges?”

  “That sounds as weird as the name of this space creature I had to do makeup for last week.” She thought for a moment. “But it’s ringing a bell. Hang on. The Rolodex in my head is flipping.” He waited, imagining cards on a wheel flipping, flipping . . . “Right. I knew I’d heard it before. Boanerges was Ricky’s screen name. You know, for chat rooms and stuff.”

  “He spent a lot of time on the Internet?”

  “Oh, sure. Another reason I was glad to see him go. I had dialup then, and my phone bills were off the charts. Ricky was always between jobs so guess who got stuck paying them.” She paused. “No offense, Investigator, but do you have any more questions? I haven’t had a shower in about thirty-six hours and I’m dying here.”

  “Just one more. Do you have any pictures of Richard Myers?”

  She laughed. “Are you kidding? That’s, like, a majorly closed chapter in my life.”

  Ray closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He couldn’t tie Richard Myers to Brandon Boanerges on the basis of a screen name.

  “But I’ll tell you what,” Teresa went on. “My mom is a scrapbooker. I probably sent her a photo in the first flush of romance—argh, we are just so lame when we’re in love—and if I did, she’ll have it. She keeps everything. She’ll be one of those little old ladies with forty cats and hallways filled with scrapbook clippings, I swear.”

  “If she has a picture, I’d be grateful.” He gave her his e-mail address. “If you
can scan it and send it to me, it would really help my investigation.”

  “No problem. I’ll call her when I get out of the shower and send you something if she has it.”

  Ray said good-bye and snapped the cell phone shut. A picture would tie it all together. Despite what Teresa had said, Ray pulled his laptop out and fired it up anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to check his e-mail and see what was cooking on some of his other cases. Ross could handle a lot of their caseload, but he had a wife and family to think about now. Double shifts and voluntary overtime, while still a reality of the job, would be something he’d have to negotiate now on both sides of the commute.

  Ray cleaned up a bunch of e-mail, calendared some court dates that had come in, and wrote a report for Harmon that with any luck would pacify him for a day or two more. And lo, when he refreshed his mail screen, there was a message from one teresa.white@carmelassoc.com with a honking big two-megabyte attachment. With a sigh of regret that he wasn’t at the sheriff’s office with its handy T1 connection, Ray told his system to start downloading and went and took a shower. When he got out, it was ready, and he opened the file with a twist in his gut. It wouldn’t be this easy. It never was. The file would show some other loser, some guy with a biker ponytail and a bunch of tattoos.

  But it didn’t.

  An ordinary-looking girl with an extraordinary smile sat on a couch, behind which was an overdressed Christmas tree. And sitting with his arm around the girl was Luke Fisher.

  Back then he’d been blond and suffering from a held-over case of acne and glasses he’d obviously ditched for contact lenses. But that confident smile couldn’t be altered, and neither could the cocky attitude.

  Not unless Ray could find a way to alter it for him.

  Permanently.

  Chapter 8

  BETWEEN THE MORNING’S MAIL and the contributions from the night before, Claire put nearly fourteen thousand dollars on the books on Thursday morning. This was nothing short of a miracle. She had no idea there was that much spare money floating around in this part of Washington State, much less people who were willing to give it to support the work of God. They couldn’t all be misguided, as the Shepherds had always told them. The methods of giving and receiving might be different, but any community of believers needed money to do things for each other. If success was the measure of blessing, then they were being blessed like nobody’s business.