A Sounding Brass
Page 17
Puzzled, Claire closed the door behind her and went into her office to enter their first payable into the database. She’d generate the check and post it after she made her daily trip to the bank.
Who on earth had Luke been talking about? It couldn’t be the Kowalczyk twins—they were five years younger than she. It wasn’t Derrick. So, who was left?
Luke himself.
No, that couldn’t be. They worked together, that was all. He’d never given any indication he wanted more than to be workmates or even a big-brother figure, as evidenced by his joking lecture over the kiss in the parking lot.
He’d never given any indication—until now, that is. He’d said he wasn’t ready, hadn’t he? What was he waiting for? For the worship center to get off the ground? For Ray to leave town? For the station to reach a certain number of pledges and be financially secure enough for him to back off on the fundraising and actually have a life?
Or maybe he was waiting for her to wake up and act like something other than his sister in the Lord. But was she even interested in that? When Luke walked into a room, did her blood jump and her breath come short the way it did when she saw Ray? Or did she fall into his arms whenever she got within five feet of him?
Her reaction to Ray was a bad standard to hold Luke to. She had to think about their spiritual compatibility before anybody fell into anyone’s arms. Ray was an unbeliever, so there was no future with him. Luke was an enthusiastic advocate for God—you couldn’t find a more committed believer. But did that mean there was a future for her there?
With a sigh, Claire reached for the stack of mail that hadn’t contained prayer pledges or donations. Bills, circulars, newsletters from various radio-geek associations that Toby belonged to—why couldn’t they all join up and form one group, anyway?—and an envelope with a church logo in the corner. She pulled out the letter inside and saw that it was a thank-you note from the Good Shepherd Church in Idaho.
Our outreach appreciates your contribution to our work so very much. You can be assured that your generosity will mean that your name will be lifted up in prayer and thanksgiving each morning as the homeless here partake of the food you have helped to provide.
Sincerely,
Richard Myers, Pastor
Good Shepherd Congregational Church
Claire set it aside to show Luke when his show was over. Then she picked it up again and looked at the signature a second time.
Richard Myers.
How funny that a pastor in Idaho would have the same name as some criminal Ray was tracking in Hamilton Falls. But then, both names were pretty common. And it wasn’t very likely that a pastor was going to be ripping people off, was it?
At eleven, she took the receipts over to the bank, dropped off the general contractor’s check at the post office, and at noon was back at her desk, eating a sandwich she’d grabbed at the coffee bar. With FileMaker it was easy to generate a report of everyone who had contributed to that day’s deposit, load the addresses into a Word file, and generate thank-you letters and receipts.
“I love technology,” she murmured around her chicken and avocado. Just imagine the time it would have taken to hand-write thank-you letters for thirty thousand dollars. Luke, of course, was the guy who had to sign them all, but he did it cheerfully in between song announcements.
Her thoughts must have conjured him up. Luke leaned in her doorway.
“Hey, Claire, I’m on my way up to Spokane. The outfitter called earlier to say the mobile station is ready to roll.” He caught sight of the neat pile of letters and envelopes on her credenza. “Uh-oh. Are those all for me?”
“’Fraid so. The price of success is writer’s cramp.”
He grinned at her. “A small price compared to what we’re able to do. Hey, did you mail the check to the contractor yet?”
“Yes, I did, when I went to the bank. Sorry—did you want to hand carry it?”
He waved a negligent hand. “It was just a thought. If the project manager was around, I had some ideas for the sanctuary I wanted to run past him, but I can do that another day. Need anything from Spokane?”
“Don’t tempt me. Now that we don’t have to wear black any more, I have a whole wardrobe to replace.”
“You’re welcome to come with me.” His gaze on her became warm, intimate. “It’s not often we get to be alone together.”
Claire tilted her head and gave him a wry look. “We’re alone right now. And I have a ton of things to do this afternoon.”
“Do them tomorrow.”
Smiling, she shook her head. “It’s almost the end of September, in case you missed it. Who’s going to do the month-end reports for Willetts?” The station’s owner hardly ever showed his face, but apparently Toby had been doing his best to provide the man with a report on how his investment—such as it had been—was doing.
“Willetts has gone without reports for twenty years. He’s not going to miss them.”
“I don’t know about that. Toby’s been giving him a spreadsheet every month. I wanted to really jazz him with my nifty P&L that the database generates.”
He laughed. “You’re just as geeky as Toby.”
She straightened a little. “Competence isn’t the same as geekiness. I like to do a good job, that’s all.”
“Oh, get off your high horse. I was only kidding. Okay, I’m out of here.”
Part of her wished she could go with him as she watched him lope down the short hallway and out the door. This was the second time he’d asked her to go to Spokane with him. Why had she turned him down?
Is this why she was alone so much? Here two men in the last twenty-four hours had let her know they were interested, and she’d said no both times. Was she crazy?
“What am I thinking?” she said aloud. After hitting a key to lock her computer and grabbing her purse, she ran down the hall and out of the building. She looked up and down Main Street, but Luke was already out of sight, and by the time she walked around to the parking lot where he usually left his car, the silver Camry was already gone.
Chapter 12
LIEUTENANT BELLVILLE of the Hamilton Falls PD steepled his fingers and leveled a long gaze at Ray. “So, what you’re telling me, Investigator, is that the star citizen of our fair town has a years-long record of fraud and petty crime?” He glanced at Ray’s file on his desk, the topmost item of which was the digital photo Teresa White had sent him.
“Yes, sir.” Ray hoped the good lieutenant wasn’t a Christian, too, or convincing him to take the case was going to be difficult.
“But you’ve got no proof he’s involved in anything now.”
“No, sir. It’s possible he’s turned over a new leaf and gone straight, but to be honest, I doubt it.”
“You know this is going to be a hard sell, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, sir, I figured that.”
“He’s all anyone talks about these days. Even my wife listens to KGHM, and with the new youth music program over at the community church, my kids are bugging me to join so they can be part of it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, sir.”
“Yeah, but if they find out I’m investigating the closest thing they’ve ever seen to a celebrity, my name will be mud.”
“It happens all the time, sir.”
“What, that my name’s mud? Don’t remind me.”
“No, that celebrities get investigated. I’m not saying this should go any farther than this room. I’m just telling you that he has a record in a couple of states and you should keep an eye on him. I’m being called back to Seattle, so I need to leave it in your hands.”
Bellville closed the folder and handed it across the desk to Ray, who stuffed it in his backpack. “Understood. Thanks for the information, Investigator. And thanks for your work on that rapist preacher, too. Ugly case. I’m glad it’s done and we got a conviction.”
“I am, too. I wonder what these folks—the Elect—will do for a leader now?”
“That’s outside my bailiwick, too. The whole church thing is foreign to me.” How had he gotten into this conversation with the lieutenant, anyway? What was he doing blabbing about personal stuff on company time?
Bellville gave him another look, only a twinkle lurked in the back of it. Ray began to understand why this station ran like a well-oiled clock and why the crime rate in this town was so low.
“It’s too bad people think about faith as only a church thing,” the lieutenant said. “That’s one of the problems the Elect have—they look at the structure itself instead of what it represents. Get all hung up on the appearance of things and forget about the reality. But faith, now, that’s different.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that, either, sir.”
“Well, this isn’t the time or place to talk about it, probably, since I have to brief the next watch in ten minutes. But you keep your heart open, Investigator. You might be surprised.”
That, Ray reflected as he shook the lieutenant’s hand and left the station, was probably the strangest conversation he’d ever had with a fellow law-enforcement officer.
But then, he’d been having a lot of strange conversations since he’d arrived in Hamilton Falls. And a lot of them seemed to revolve around God and belief and a bunch of other stuff that had never bothered him in Seattle. In fact, getting back home and not talking about God for a change would be a relief.
Why he was dragging his feet was a mystery. He’d checked out of his motel this morning, briefed Bellville, and now there was nothing left to do but put gas in the truck, grab a sandwich, and head west like a rational person.
Right.
That must be why he was now standing in front of the radio station, the need to see Claire and say good-bye—again—an ache in his gut.
Go on, you dope. Get out of here. There’s no point.
On the outside speaker, the open-mic program was in full force and some guy was haranguing the county at large about the price of gas. Toby Henzig pushed open the station’s door and stopped on the step.
“Sorry.” Ray moved out of the way.
“Coming in?” Toby held the door. “I was just on my way to indulge my secret weakness for a double latte, extra whip, until this caller runs out of steam. Don’t tell my wife.”
Ray had to laugh. “She trying to keep you alive on a low-fat diet or what?”
“No, she’s on the diet and I’m in sympathy mode. She craves the whipped cream, and I’m the one who sneaks off and gets it. Are you stopping in to see Claire?”
“Busted.” Ray gave Toby a halfhearted grin. “I’m going back to Seattle and thought I’d say good-bye.”
“Back to Seattle?”
Ray now leaned on the open door, his back to the hallway, while Toby gazed at him from the sidewalk. “My vacation’s over, and the bad guys didn’t take time off while I was gone.”
“Vacation, huh? Somehow I thought you were here for . . . other business.”
“The Leslie case? Yeah, that, too.”
“No, that wasn’t what I meant.” He gazed past Ray in the general direction of Claire’s office. “Have a safe trip.”
He turned and made his way through the sidewalk tables outside the coffee bar, leaving Ray with nothing left to do but shut the station’s door behind him.
He found Claire at her desk, with some mystifying maze of numbers arrayed on the monitor in front of her. She was studying them intently, giving him a few quiet seconds to appreciate the way her hair waved over her ears and into the elegant coil at the nape of her neck. She had a beautiful neck, long and smooth. She wore a crocheted sweater over a blue T-shirt that matched her skirt. Gone was the old-lady Victorian look and in its place was a modern woman any sane guy would snap up in a second.
Why did she have to believe so stubbornly that without her kind of religion, they had no chance? What a waste of a future.
“Hey,” he said from her doorway when it became obvious she didn’t know he was there.
She turned in surprise. “Hey. What’s up?”
Levering himself off the doorjamb, he said, “Not much. I just came by to say adios.” Her office wasn’t very big. It didn’t take long for him to look it over while he waited for her to burst into tears and beg him to stay. Or maybe say she was sorry for chasing him away.
Or something.
“Oh,” she said. “Already?”
“I handed my case off to the HFPD just now. I’m on my way out.”
His tour around the office had brought him to the side of her desk. Behind her on the credenza was a plastic bin with “Property of the U.S. Post Office” stenciled on the side. A stack of letters and envelopes sat next to her computer, and a row of cards was arranged on the sill of the interior window that looked into the hallway. Through it he could see another window into the record library and the studio. How nice. She and Luke could wave at each other while they worked.
To fill the silence, he picked up a card. “‘Your program has brought meaning to our day,’” he read slowly. “‘Thank you from the Wyslicki family.’”
He picked up another. Same sentiment. These people clearly needed to get a life. “Are all these to Luke?” he said aloud.
She nodded, and he picked up another one. This was dumb. She wasn’t interested in whether he was there or not. Why didn’t he just take a hint and leave?
“Ray?” Her voice sounded uncertain, with none of its usual warmth and confidence.
“Yeah?” He fingered a letter that had been taped to the window, over the cards on the sill.
“Before you go, I want to say I’m sorry. I hope you’re not angry with me.”
“Angry?” His gaze tracked the lines of the letter without really seeing them. “I’m not angry. Disappointed, maybe. Hurt, a little. And my nose is probably out of joint over this whole religion thing. But I’m not angry.”
Behind him he heard a soft sound that might have been a laugh. “Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better.”
He gave up on the letter and turned. “What do you want from me, Claire? I tell you I’m interested, your kiss tells me you are, too, but your words say I don’t measure up. Now you want me to make you feel better about it?”
“I knew you were angry,” she whispered.
“I can’t stand that you’re letting religion get in the way of what could be a good thing.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Yeah, you told me that before.” Frustrated, he swung toward the door. “I came to say good-bye, not get into an argument. You have every right to do what you want with your life.”
He had a strange feeling in his gut, as though he were on a ship that was pulling inexorably away from a dock. He didn’t want to be on this ship. He didn’t want to leave, but that was what he had to do. Anything else was pointless.
“Good-bye, Claire. Maybe I’ll see you at Ross and Julia’s sometime.”
He thought he heard her say his name, but he couldn’t be sure. Instead, he recognized the voice of Derrick, the unhappy guy he’d met at Rebecca’s, as he came on the phone line to give the world his opinions about praying over the air.
Ray let the door swing shut behind him.
* * *
“MIND IF I JOIN YOU?”
Claire looked up from Daughters of the King, the personal style guide she’d just picked up from Quill and Quinn that was the following month’s pick for “Hamilton Falls for Books.” Derrick Wilkinson stood there, looking rumpled and hot, though the air was cool. The sandwich wrapped in wax paper that he held l
ooked a bit squashed, as if he’d made a fist while he’d forgotten he was holding it. She moved the remains of her smoothie and the bagel she’d had with it to one side of the round glass table she occupied outside the coffee bar.
“Have a seat, Derrick. How are you?”
“I’m confused, I’m angry, and I just said a bunch of stuff I shouldn’t have over the radio.”
Claire had a vague memory of a familiar voice coming from the studio, but she’d been too miserable to care. “Well, other than that.”
Ray had left town and she was sitting here at a table for one again. The trees in their planters along Main Street had begun to turn yellow. The ducks and geese were leaving in long, straggling V’s, their wild calls in the cold blue vault of the sky a haunting sound. Summer was over, and she hated the fall—it always meant that rain and cold were just around the corner. Some people became excited because it meant the beginning of the school year and hockey season, but she only saw fallen leaves, dead plants, and birds who got to fly away.
Why had she let him leave? What was the matter with her head? Or, to be more specific, her heart?
“Fine.” Derrick bit into his sandwich savagely and she roused herself out of her funk.
“What’s up, Derrick? I don’t usually see you like this.”
“You don’t usually see me at all. Nobody sees me, nobody listens to me. It’s like everyone’s asleep with their eyes open around here.”
She blinked at him. She’d never seen the guy say anything but the right thing, or do anything but help old ladies in and out of his car, or go to work every day punctually at nine o’clock. Something was seriously wrong if Derrick Wilkinson was upset and showing it.
“What do you mean? Tell me what’s going on.”
He swallowed the last of his homemade sandwich and she wondered if he’d tasted even one bite. “The Elders were in to see us. They just left.”
“You mean our Elders? In to see the attorneys you work with?”
“What other Elders are there? Owen, Mark McNeill, and your boss came in to draw up articles of incorporation.” From his tone, you’d have thought they’d come in to sell illegal drugs. She thought Luke had gone to Spokane. He’d obviously made a stop along the way.