by Linda Barlow
Chairman of the United Path Church’s building committee? That was the post his wife had held before her death. If he’d killed her, the appointment was a travesty.
Stop it,Annie! He had been acquitted. They’d been unable to prove him guilty, at least not beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Congratulations,” she said.
His eyes bored deeply into hers. “Thanks,” he returned, with a faint ironic edge to his tone.
A memory flashed. A rainy night, a warm, dry car, two bodies burning… burning. She had never told Charlie about it. She’d rationalized that telling him was unnecessary since she hadn’t gone through with the affair. But that was something of a technicality, she knew. In her heart, she had been unfaithful.
Thank God she hadn’t actually slept with him! It made her stomach lurch to think that she had nearly made love to a man who might be capable of murder.
Barbara Rae was explaining that the building committee had lacked direction ever since Francesca’s death. It was true that the committee needed a strong leader. The position was important because the building committee oversaw the construction of the new cathedral. Although they usually rubber-stamped Annie’s decisions, they were fundamentally responsible for the project—everything from the raising and allocation of the funds for the cathedral to the approval of any change orders that came during the construction process itself.
For whatever reason, none of the six people left on the committee had been able to fill Francesca’s shoes. Without her dynamic, energetic force, the group had deflated. Barbara Rae had been managing it herself for the past year, but she had far too many other demands on her time.
“As his phenomenal success with his own company proves, Mr. Carlyle is an expert manager,” Barbara Rae said. “We are very fortunate to have him devote even a small portion of his inspirational energy to us.”
When he thanked her, Annie thought, I don’t believe this. I’m actually going to have to be polite to Matthew Carlyle!
When the meeting ended and everybody had shaken hands, Annie tried to slip away quickly. But Carlyle waylaid her in the corridor.
“There’s a lot I don’t know yet about this project,” he said. “I’m counting on you to fill me in on everything I need to know.”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to set up a meeting. You and I need to sit down together and discuss this as soon as possible.”
“Fine. I’ll have my secretary call yours.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather notebook. “That won’t be necessary. Let’s set something up now. I’ve got my calendar right here.”
Annie was tempted to say, Well, I don’t! but she ordered herself to get over it. It no longer mattered what she thought of him. The building committee had voted him in, and that was that. She had to learn to work with him, like it or not.
She opened her handbag and rooted around inside for her address book/daily calendar. She didn’t hurry. Let him wait.
“I’ve got some time at the end of next week,” she said.
He smiled. “Sooner. How about a lunch meeting?”
“My schedule is tight,” she said truthfully. “I have no free lunches this week.”
“Dinner, then.” He was eyeing his own schedule. “I’m free Thursday evening. Would that work for you?”
Thursday evening was a big blank on her calendar, and before she could come up with something that she absolutely had to do that night, Carlyle leaned over and noted the virgin white space.
“Thursday evening,” he said decisively. “That would be excellent. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.”
She sighed. “I’m really trying to carve out some personal time for myself. But, okay, Thursday. Might as well get it over with.”
“You’re not exactly thrilled about this, are you?”
“I’m sorry if I’ve given you that impression,” she said quickly.
His mouth twisted upward at the corners. “Are you?”
She sighed. “It was unexpected. The situation may take me some time to get used to.”
“What situation? Working for a murderer?”
His voice was bitter, and there was a tiny muscle twitching on his cheek. Annie flushed, ashamed. Whatever her feelings were, it had been impolite to let him see them.
“Look,” he said before she could apologize, “the fact is that as the project manager for the cathedral, you are ultimately responsible to the owners. And now that I’m chairman of the building committee, that means you are ultimately responsible to me.”
Annie wanted to argue, but there was nothing she could say. He was absolutely right. She worked for the architectural firm, but the architectural firm worked for the owners.
Matthew Carlyle was, essentially, her boss.
It was nearly midnight when Barbara Rae’s next meeting, the Vigil Against Domestic Violence, finally broke up. With less speed and energy than usual, Barbara Rae folded the chairs and stacked them against the wall of the rec room. To think that in a few months this wouldn’t be necessary. No more squeezing into basements the way they’d had to do ever since her former church had been torn down to make room for the cathedral. No more making do with a table for an altar and the bare floor for kneeling and Styrofoam cups for after-service coffee. Instead she would be blessed to celebrate her faith in that beautiful and sacred building with its adjacent parish hall. A sacred place where the light would beam down upon her from the magnificent stained glass panels overhead.
And the light… what would it reveal?
If the light truly penetrated her heart, her soul, could she bear to examine what it found there?
“You look pensive,” said a voice near the door.
Annie. Barbara Rae turned to her and smiled. She too had stayed on after the meeting, counseling troubled teens.
“I’m thinking on my sins, hon.”
“I still find it hard to believe that you’ve ever committed any sins, Barbara Rae.”
“We’re all sinners in the eyes of the Living God.”
“And we’re all forgiven, too, if I understand my Christian theology correctly.”
“Indeed it is so, if we truly and wholeheartedly repent”
“And how about the person who murdered Francesca Carlyle—could he repent and be forgiven too?”
Barbara Rae shook her head heavily. “I know it’s hard to fathom. But we’re told that God forgives all.”
“Do you think a sin can come back from the past and haunt us in the present?” Annie asked.
Barbara Rae sucked in a deep breath. Get out of your own mind, she told herself. If Annie wanted to talk—as so many did—she considered herself obliged to listen and to empathize.
Especially with Annie. She was one of Barbara Rae’s favorite people. Warm, hardworking, generous, always quick with a kind word and a hug, Annie was the sort of woman Barbara Rae would have liked to have had for a daughter if things had worked out differently in her life.
Like so many of the people she counseled, Annie had known sorrow and hardship in her life. Her childhood had been one horror after another. The death of her husband—a solid, trustworthy man—had shaken Annie deeply. But she had come out of it. Of her own volition, she had crawled, blinking and trembling, back out into the light. Annie had never discussed what had happened inside her, but Barbara Rae knew all too well the silent struggles of the human soul. Some people went through their entire lives without digging deep into the darkness of their own hearts; others made the terrifying descent and emerged chastened and pale, but no longer afraid.
“Sins from the past?” Barbara Rae repeated. “Yes, they can haunt us, if we’re sensitive enough.” She paused. “It’s awfully late, Annie. Why are you still here? Is there something you need to talk about?”
“I hate to burden you with more of what you hear all day long. I should be helping you relax after a long day, not turning to you for counsel and advice.”
“It’s not a b
urden,” Barbara Rae said honestly. “It’s my life.”
Annie smiled. “Okay, here it is. It’s not a huge sin, anyhow. That is, the sin was far more in the thinking-about-it stage than in the committing-it stage!”
Barbara Rae smiled.
“It’s about Matthew Carlyle.”
Barbara Rae nodded. “That man sure does get around. It seems everybody has a story to tell about him.”
“Mine’s probably a pretty typical one,” Annie said ruefully. “It happened several years ago, while Charlie was still alive. I met Matt on a flight to London. We hit it off so well that when we landed we agreed to get together. We were both alone in a foreign city, and—”
“I think I understand,” Barbara Rae interrupted.
“Nothing happened. Well… some kisses, caresses—but we didn’t make love. He wanted to, of course. I wanted to. But I loved Charlie, and I couldn’t understand it—I felt as if my body was betraying me.” She shook her head. “In a way, afterward, I hated myself for that.”
“It is perfectly natural and human to experience temptation. We’re not responsible for what we feel or even what we think. We’re only responsible for our actions.”
Annie nodded. “I know that now. But for a long time I couldn’t help wondering whether Charlie’s illness—diagnosed so soon after that trip to London—was some sort of punishment. A ’be careful what you wish for because it might come true’ sort of thing. Not that I ever in a million years could have wished for Charlie’s death. But for a couple of days, in London, my body wanted to pretend he wasn’t in my life.”
Barbara Rae touched Annie’s arm gently. “Hard thoughts, but not uncommon in a situation like yours. When someone we love dies, and we’re left alone without them, we try to find an explanation. But God’s mysteries are beyond human logic and human guilt.”
“You’re right, I know. But it’s been so hard to forgive myself for what happened. And I know I haven’t forgiven Matthew Carlyle.”
Barbara Rae nodded. “He’s not an easy man.”
“I realized today that I’m still attracted to him,” Annie confessed.
“And he, I suspect, to you.”
Annie looked at her. “You sensed that?”
“Absolutely. He can’t look at you without his eyes softening ip a caress.”
“Do you think he’s a murderer? Oh, I know what the jury said and all that, but you know something of him and you certainly knew his wife. What do you think?”
Barbara Rae shrugged. “I think the jury was probably right. But despite my profession, I’ve learned that I’m no expert in seeing into another human being’s secret heart and soul. Someone killed Francesca Carlyle. I have the unhappy feeling that it was probably someone we all know.
“And that disturbs me, Annie. It disturbs me very much.”
*
After Annie left, Barbara Rae went to the small makeshift bedroom that she was using while the new rectory was being completed and put on a light sweater. Then she went back downstairs and took the old underground passageway through the basement of the youth center and former nunnery to the construction site next door.
Barbara Rae began and ended each day with prayer and meditation. This was not because she regarded herself as exceptionally pious. On the contrary, she sometimes felt that she was just as much of an addict to her prayers and meditations as other people were to pills or drink or sex. If she missed a prayer session, she felt nervous, edgy, and short-tempered.
During the past few months, since the basic structure of the cathedral had been completed, Barbara Rae had developed the habit of praying in the spot that she had already begun to regard as her heart’s new home—the sanctuary where the marble high altar had just been installed.
She slipped into the dark shell of the cathedral. From her purse she removed a slender pocket flashlight and turned it on. The construction workers typically left all sorts of debris from their work on the floor at night and she didn’t want to trip and fall.
She always felt a hush come over her spirit when she entered the cathedral. All the more so because, like many places of worship, it was being built on an ancient holy site. Excavations for new churches often turned up previous churches or chapels. This site had previously been used for a Roman Catholic church. Before that it had been a Spanish mission—one of the oldest ones in the city, destroyed by the great earthquake of 1906.
Before the mission, who knew? But every time she entered the cathedral Barbara Rae felt that the area was imbued with power. She knew herself to be sensitive to such forces. If the power was ancient, it was probably pagan—power that came up from under the earth, the power of the earth renewing itself and sweeping away the dead. The gods who were named to symbolize that power were unimportant, really. It was the power that remained, interpreted through whichever set of symbols were dominant in the culture.
Barbara Rae had never had any problem reconciling such beliefs with her Christian tradition. She believed in her heart that the outward signs and symbols of her faith were metaphors for a simpler inner truth. Ritual was only a means of establishing the connection, bridging the chasm. There were many different paths, but only one Source.
She reached the scaffolding in the transept aisle directly beneath the sanctuary steps. The scaffolding was high and solid; the workmen who were hanging the stained glass panels had been using it, as had various other workers. She shone her flashlight up toward the vaulted ceiling, picturing the drawings she’d seen of the finished building. The light from the sun would be filtered in through the stained glass, shining gently and beneficently on the congregation beneath.
Suddenly, without warning, Barbara Rae felt ill. There was a weakness in her knees and the sense of wind rushing past her head. It was a feeling she recognized, and hated.
It’s a vision, she thought. The Sight. Since childhood, these visions had come upon her at times.
She couldn’t breathe. She opened her mouth to cry for help, but no sound emerged. A mist crept up from the floor. It rose over her calves, her knees. It was deathly cold. She shut her eyes, but she was unable to fend off the terrible cold rising around her—up to her thighs now, her hips, her waist, squeezing her, freezing her.
She looked up high overhead where the mist hadn’t yet reached and realized that she could see the stained glass panels arching over the nave of the cathedral. The glass was dark; no sunlight shone through. So dark. And then she saw something swirling down from above—heavy and sharp as an ax.…
As she flung herself out of the path of the hurtling object, she thought she could smell the coppery tang of blood.
Silence reigned. The mist had cleared. Trembling, Barbara Rae looked everywhere for the falling object that had mercifully missed her head by inches.
But there was nothing there.
Nothing at all.
Chapter Ten
The next threatening letter was delivered to Annie at her office at Brody Associates. Again, her name was printed in block letters on the envelope.
You have been warned. But the Tower of Babel continues to rise. The eyes of the Living God are upon you. Everywhere you go, His footsteps will follow. Heed not the beckonings of Pride. Beware the wrath of the Lord.
The signature was the same: Jehovah’s Pitchfork.
Feeling a bit shaken, Annie went down the hall to Darcy’s office. “Take a look at this.” She handed over the letter. “It came this morning.”
Darcy, who had been staring out the window at the Transamerica Pyramid, turned and took the letter. Annie noticed that her nail polish was chipped—highly unusual for her.
She read it over quickly. “Yikes!” she said.
“Nice, huh?”
“This is scary! Have you got the envelope?”
Annie showed it to her. “San Francisco postmark—with no return address, of course.”
“Well, I suppose it’s just some religious crank,” Darcy said. “It’s unpleasant, but this sort of thing does happen occasion
ally.”
Annie wished it hadn’t come today. She was already feeling edgy. She had a meeting this afternoon at the site to introduce Matthew to the construction crew, and this evening, Thursday, she was scheduled to have dinner with him—an engagement she was alternately looking forward to and dreading.
“It’s not the first one,” Annie said. “I got something similar at home a few days ago. I probably should have saved it, but my instinct at the time was to file it directly in the wastebasket. It was the same sort of religious imagery, with the same complaint about the cathedral costing too much money. And the signature was the same, ‘Jehovah’s Pitchfork.’”
Darcy shook her head. “Jehovah doesn’t have a pitchfork. He has a lightning bolt or something. The Devil’s the one with the pitchfork, right?”
Annie nodded.
“On the other hand,” Darcy added, “sometimes it certainly seems as if God has a pitchfork. And He’s just kinda prodding us along.”
“Darcy, are you okay?” Annie asked. It struck her that Darcy hadn’t been acting like her normal self all week.
“Who, me? Hey, no worries, mate.”
But Annie wondered. Darcy was avoiding her eyes, which was unusual. “Sure?”
Darcy shrugged. “Maybe I’m getting my period.”
“No, seriously, I mean it. I’ve been worried about you.”
“Thanks for asking, but I’m fine. A little tired maybe, that’s all.”
“Well, d’you have any advice as to what I should do about this letter?”
“I’d make copies and give it to everyone on the site—well, the important people, anyhow. Security, too. It’s probably just one of the usual harmless nuts, but there’s no point in taking chances. Hell, it’s a threat. I might even show it to the police.”
As Annie headed back to her office with the poison-pen letter, Darcy helped herself to a cheese Danish from the tray in the office kitchen. Normally she stayed away from the rich breakfast pastries, but today—what the hell. She needed something to brighten her dark mood, and if sugar and fat would do it…