Blake waited. Had he gone too far? A few tentative smiles, a chuckle in the rear. Not loud but genuine. He counted several disapproving scowls among the smiles. Too soon to tell a joke? Well, they might as well get used to it. It’s definitely time to lighten up.
“I told the story to illustrate a point,” he went on. “Many people would very much like this commandment to go away. Adultery has become the lifestyle of modern America. Daytime television, soap operas, even primetime is saturated with adulterous relationships…relationships that often seem as complex as strands of DNA. Movies, books, everywhere you turn, adultery, not fidelity, illicit sex, not chastity, is the standard. Indeed the institution of marriage has been systematically and thoroughly trivialized by our culture and its leaders.”
He scanned his congregation again.
“If the statistics are correct, at least half of you here today have had, or are now engaged in, a relationship of that sort.” He stopped and looked at the people. Stony, icy, and shocked silence greeted him. Then, for reasons he never understood, even years later, added, “And you know who you are.…Again, can we say, in the privacy of our hearts, I have kept this commandment?”
He had started pacing at the fourth commandment, and now, as he pivoted to walk to his left, he caught sight of Grace Franks. She had a look on her face that could only be described as dumbfounded. She rose and left the church.
Blake moved on through eight and then jumped directly to ten. He quickly polished off Covetousness. He paused and surveyed his congregation once again.
“I skipped the ninth commandment, because that is the one I want to discuss at length today. ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’ Most of us think this law has something to do with testimony given in court, with perjury. And in some ways it does. Perjury is a felony in most courts, and the penalties can be very severe. In the first century, they could be even more so. The rule was as follows—if you bore false witness, that is, if you gave untrue testimony in a trial, and the person was subsequently acquitted and your story deemed false, you received the punishment the accused would have received had he been found guilty. You understand? If it was a capital crime, you got stoned to death, not him or her, but you.
“But the commandment has a much deeper application. Remember, God gave it to Moses, for the people in the wilderness. These were nomads living in tents, cheek by jowl. Any behavior that separated them or lessened their mutual affection and harmony could be catastrophic. Think about all of the commandments. Aren’t they actually designed to keep people at peace? What effect would theft or adultery have on the social equilibrium of a tribe living on the edge in the desert?
“This commandment is one of those strictures. Bearing false witness in that context is what today we call gossip.”
There, he said it. It might have been his imagination, but he felt the air crackle. Feet shuffled. People coughed nervously. A few heads turned to steal a look at Millie Bass. She sat stock still, her lips pursed and eyes squeezed together as if she were trying to read an eye chart without her glasses. Whatever goodwill his story about Moses had created seemed to have drained out of his listeners.
“I daresay there is not one of us in the room that has not broken this commandment at least once this week. You know how it goes. We hear something about Miss A. We pass it along and the story gets more elaborate and negative with each telling until we are part of a chain that has contributed to the character assassination of another human being. And the problem is, we cannot take it back. Once the words are out of our mouth, they have a life of their own. They pass from lip to ear, and twenty years later they are still alive in someone’s memory waiting for a reason to wander off again.
“Did you know,” he continued, “the root word for gossip and gospel is the same? Isn’t that interesting? And it should tell us something. Stories that uplift and speak to the truth ultimately come from God. Those that do the reverse are the work of the Devil. I want us to search our hearts this morning. When was the last time we yielded to the temptation to gossip? How will we resist it the next time?
“I’ll close with this. In my opinion, more people have gone to Hell for breaking this commandment than the other nine put together. Can we say, in the privacy of our hearts, I have kept this commandment?”
He stopped. You could hear the proverbial pin drop. Finally a voice in the back said, “Amen.” It sounded like Rose Garroway.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Coffee hour slipped by quietly. Some of the congregation skipped it altogether. The few who remained seemed subdued. Rose Garroway and most of the Wednesday Morning Bible Study came over. Rose handed Blake some punch.
“You look like you could use a drink, cowboy. We are here to offer to be your posse, your bodyguards, if you need us.”
“Well, I appreciate that, Ma’am, you betcha. I’ll call you if I need you.”
Mary stopped by on her way out. He confirmed their date for the next evening. He told her he had orchestra seat tickets. She asked if that was good. He said it was. Sylvia Parks joined him at the coffee pot.
“Feel like the Lone Ranger?” she asked in her smooth, cultivated voice. “Don’t worry. You said what two thirds of the people in this church have been thinking for at least a decade, only they didn’t think it had anything to do with them. Let us hope the worst of them heard you and change their ways. Besides, the Moses story—that was good.”
“Maybe I should have quit then, while I was ahead.”
One by one people drifted away. Blake took a last look around and went home. He ate two hot dogs, drank a quart of milk, and slept until seven o’clock when the phone rang.
It took him a moment to figure out where he was. The lights were out and the blinds drawn. He struggled in that not fully awake, not quite asleep state where reality is distorted, time slides and memory fails. For a moment he thought he must have slept through the night and it was seven in the morning. It would be his day off. He woke up a bit and reset his mental clock. The phone kept ringing.
“Okay, okay,” he said and cleared his throat. His voice sounded like Louis Armstrong’s singing. He stumbled to the phone in the half-light and answered.
“Blake?” Mary said. Her voice sounded strange and far away.
“Um, hi,” he said collecting himself. He cleared his throat again.
“I cannot see you any more.”
“What?”
“I said I cannot see you any more. I found out what you did to that woman in Philadelphia. I cannot think how I ever allowed myself to…how I missed that in you.”
“Mary, nothing happened. What do you mean you just learned, I—”
“I do my mail on Sundays. Someone sent me an envelope and it had letters in it, Blake, about you and that woman. How could you?”
“Who sent you…? Mary, those letters are lies. Mary, please don’t hang up, it’s not true.”
“Denying them is what I’d expect. You will need to find a new organist, too,” she said, ignoring him. “I cannot play for you any more, either.”
“Mary, listen. If you don’t believe me call Philip. He knows the truth. You trust Philip, don’t you? Or call Lanny Markowitz, I’ll give you his number. I have it here somewhere, wait, he knows, too. There are other letters, real ones you need to see.”
The line went dead.
He slammed his fist on the table. Letters. Who sent them? Where did they come from? He knew. Lanny said only three people had any possible access to the letters, and the first in line was Millie Bass. Where else? She’d held back the good letters and forwarded the bad ones. She had to be the one who sent them to Mary. He did not even bother to think why. Millie Bass did not need a reason.
He called Lanny.
“Lanny, do me a favor will you? Call Mary Miller and tell her about the letters I showed you. I thi
nk Millie Bass sent her copies of the bad ones, and she just quit.”
“Well, I’ll call right now, but you know, I had a meeting with Dan last Friday and we, or I guess I, decided—”
“I’m going to fire her, Lanny. Tomorrow is her last day.”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you, we decided—”
“You cannot talk me out of it, Lanny. I don’t care how many people get upset and leave the church. Good riddance. She’s history.”
“Your call, Vicar. I’ll support you.”
“You will?”
“One hundred percent.”
“And you’ll call Mary?”
“Absolutely, right away. We can’t afford to lose her—you maybe, Millie definitely, but not Mary. Just kidding, Vicar, I’ll call right now.”
Blake sat on the edge of his bed. Cannot lose her—me maybe, but not her. Lanny had no idea how right he was. Blake hung his head.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Blake usually looked forward to Mondays. He’d spend the time with the Sunday paper he’d saved, maybe playing golf, or catching up on his reading. Mondays were good times. Not today. For the second Monday in a row, he woke up tired and miserable. He dragged himself out of bed and made a pot of coffee and a plate full of toast. He smeared peanut butter on the lot, poured his coffee, and slumped in a chair in the living room.
He would fire Millie Bass this morning. The thought made him feel a little better. He rushed through his Daily Office, skipped the Psalms, and barely skimmed the lessons. He promised God he would make it up to him later. At nine o’clock he left the house and walked to the office. Millie’s car was not in its spot. He waited until nine thirty and called her home. No answer. He looked at her calendar. It indicated she had a dentist appointment that morning. Had she told him about that? He could not remember. He would have to fire her tomorrow.
He swallowed his disappointment and went back home. Now what? He decided to drive to Roanoke and see Philip. He would know what to do.
***
Sally, Philip’s secretary, greeted him as he entered the office area.
“Is Himself in?” he asked, he hoped with a measure of lightheartedness.
“Sorry, Mr. Fisher, he’s in Richmond at some kind of emergency meeting. I don’t expect him back until late. Can I give him a message if he calls?”
Blake considered the offer and declined. He would try some other day.
***
His day off. Blake decided to make the best of it. He would be a tourist and explore the city. He had to cancel his theater tickets anyway. He wandered around, window-shopping and exploring. At noon he detected the aroma of kebabs and followed his nose to a small restaurant that specialized in Near Eastern food. He ordered kebabs and Greek beer and ate out on the sidewalk where he could watch people as they scurried past.
He found the theater and cancelled his tickets. He shook his head and reaffirmed his decision to fire Millie Bass. First thing tomorrow. He stuffed the credit receipts in his pocket and headed back to his car, a good forty-minute walk away. As he passed an office supply house, a box in the window caught his eye. It was the twin of the one Taliaferro used—the one that now held his old sermon notes. On an impulse, he went in. There were three more boxes shelved at the back of the store. He inspected each in turn. The keys caught his eye first. He removed one set. There were two identical keys on a ring. Most locks came with two keys. He frowned and pulled out his key ring. The key to his box had the same lands and grooves but was steel. The keys to the store’s boxes were brass.
His next stop was a hardware store. He walked back to the key duplicating machine and showed his key to the clerk, who confirmed it was a copy, not an original. He had a copy made, thanked the man and hurried to his car. Now he had it. The key he found in Millie’s drawer had to be a copy. If the box came with two keys, would not Taliaferro have given her the second key if he wanted to protect himself? Why make a copy? Taliaferro might have lost one, or kept his own backup at home and a third with Millie, but Blake bet he hadn’t. Records of such a sensitive nature would not have been placed in harm’s way with someone like Millie Bass. No, somehow she got hold of the key and made a copy. Taliaferro’s files must have been a goldmine for her.
The enormity of the situation only hit him when he turned onto old Route 11 and headed toward the church. A breach of privacy, the invasion of psychological counseling sessions, if discovered, could lead to a major scandal and possibly to lawsuits that could break the church and possibly the Diocese.
And where were those files now? He did not believe for a second they were in a sanitary landfill somewhere. Someone had them, and he was pretty sure he knew who. Tomorrow, he would have it out with Millie and then try to do some damage control. He gritted his teeth. What else could go wrong?
***
As it turned out, Special Agent Hedrick never left town. He took a room at the Magnolia Motel. Ike knew that because Dorothy Sutherlin heard it from Mavis Bowers, whose nephew’s wife worked there part-time as a bookkeeper. Dorothy told Billy and Billy told Ike. He could not have retrieved that information faster if it had been posted on the Internet. Why did Hedrick do that?
Well, at least, Sam seemed happy. Ike watched as she and Hedrick stalked gracefully down the street like a pair of giraffes. Sam had signed out and the two of them were on their way to lunch, necks bent toward one another as they talked. Ike wondered if he was about to lose his new deputy so soon. And if so, who would manage all the equipment she’d assembled? As much as he hoped, for Sam’s sake, that Hedrick was staying in town because he had leave time coming and decided to spend it in Picketsville with her, he knew something else held the FBI man in town. Certainly the boys in Washington hadn’t decided to open a field office in Picketsville. Since he couldn’t pry the reason out of Hedrick, he figured he’d have to figure a way around him. Two calls to Langley and he had the phone number he needed.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice. A young woman.
“Hi, I’m trying to locate Harry Grafton. Is he there?” Silence. “Hello, are you still there?”
“Who’s calling?” she said. Nervous.
“Ike Schwartz, Sheriff Ike Schwartz, Picketsville, Virginia.”
“Oh. Hi there, Sheriff, how are you? This is Jennifer. Do you remember me?”
Jennifer Ames. He remembered. “Are you with…is Harry there?”
“Yes, I’ll get him.”
Well, well. Old Harry landed on his feet big time. Jennifer was young, rich, and smart. Lucky Harry.
“Sheriff?” Grafton sounded reserved, careful. “What’s up?”
“I need a favor.”
“Um, what kind of favor are we talking about here. You know I’m with the Agency now?”
“Oh yeah. Look, it’s nothing that can compromise you or what we both know about the art thing, okay?”
“Well…excuse me…what Jen? Yeah, I know…I owe him one, I know…Sorry Sheriff, you were saying?”
“More than one, Harry, but I’ll take this one for now. Look, I’m being stonewalled by your former associates in the Bureau. I ask a question about a homicide we have here, a man named Walter Krueger. I can’t get a straight answer from the Bureau and now we find out they’ve been after him for months. I need to know why they dummied up. And why is one of their people squatting in my town for no apparent reason.”
“How can I help?”
“Give me a name. Someone who can tell me why Special Agent Hedrick is hanging around town and what he’s after. Why was Walter Krueger shot twice in the local church? In short, what the hell is going on? There must be somebody in the Bureau I can talk to.”
“I don’t keep in touch anymore. Not much. I guess you can figure out why. Look, give me a day. I’ll check around and get back to you.”
“Fair enough
. Call me if you have anything. Are you and the girl I found in the motel…?”
“Jennifer. Yes, you could say that. It’s looking good but I still have some baggage from before, and then, there are my kids. I’m not sure I should ask her to take that on.”
Ike heard the woman say something like “I love them, Harry.” He had no idea what Grafton was talking about. He just remembered a frightened hostage who helped him cover for Grafton, the Bureau castoff, so he could redeem himself with another agency.
“Thanks, and good luck.”
***
Sam wondered if, at last, her luck, her life might have changed. All those years as the Stork, the geek, the lady jock—a giant freak in a world of normal-sized people—were over. Karl Hedrick was her size, maybe an inch taller, but where she had the pale skin and green eyes you’d expect with true redheads, his glowed a lovely café au lait. And she felt something might be there between them, but….
“Karl, why are you still here?” she asked, not entirely sure she really wanted to hear the answer, so much depended on it. She sipped her tea. Patricia’s English Tea Room, Picketsville’s only nod in the direction of refinement, was nearly empty. Five older women in purple dresses and red hats, looking like a college of female Cardinals, occupied a table in the corner and were absorbed in self-generated hilarity.
Karl folded his napkin, eyes down, avoiding hers. A single rose in a blue bud vase competed unsuccessfully against his coffee’s aroma.
“Karl?”
“I have leave time accrued and I thought you and I might….”
He didn’t finish the sentence. She waited, wanting to believe, afraid her heart was about to be broken.
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