She smiles. “You’re the boss. But you might want to be careful. At the pace you’re suggesting, you wouldn’t last until tomorrow.”
“We’ll see about that. You want to have a sleepover date tonight?”
“I think that can be arranged,” she says.
“Then arrange it,” I say, trying not to drool as I talk. It may not be the smartest thing to do, but the idea of spending the night lying next to Laurie, something I thought I’d never experience again, is just too good to pass up.
• • • • •
LAURIE LEANS OVER at five-thirty in the morning. “I have to leave for work,” she says.
“What are you, a night watchwoman?”
“No, I like to get in early and make sure organized crime doesn’t take over Findlay.”
“I was hoping you could stay a little longer,” I say.
She leans over and kisses me. “Like until when?”
“Next August.”
I obviously overreached, because she’s out of bed within three minutes. After her shower, while she’s getting dressed, she asks, “So what’s on tap today in the legal world?”
“Well, I can’t speak for the whole day, but this morning I’m meeting with a guy named Stephen Drummond.”
She does a mini-double take in surprise. “Really?”
“Yup. By the way,” I say, “did you talk to Elizabeth Barlow’s ex-boyfriend?”
She shakes her head. “Jeremy tried to implicate him, without knowing his name. But nobody in that town will even confirm there is such a person.”
Laurie leaves, and I shower and take Tara for our walk. I’m not big on introspection, and I really need to focus on the case, but I still can’t help thinking about the situation with Laurie. Things are good now, and we still love each other, but this case is going to come to an end. I’m going to go back home, and she’s going to stay here.
If I were smart, I’d stop seeing her right now and focus only on the case. Maybe that way it would hurt less when we separate again. But I’m not smart, and I can feel myself heading toward the edge of the cliff. Unfortunately, I’ve been over that cliff, so I know what a long drop it is to the bottom.
When Tara and I get back to the house, Calvin is there waiting for us, an envelope in hand. “I got something for you to read, city boy,” he says, holding up the envelope.
The pages inside turn out to be copies of the newspaper articles written by a man named Henry Gerard, identified as a former resident of the town of Center City. Mr. Gerard’s job was “servant of the Keeper,” which put him in the employ of the church. Based on the uniform he wears in a picture accompanying one of the articles, the uniformed man who questioned me when I was in Center City was also a servant of the Keeper.
Gerard became disenchanted with the Centurion religion, for reasons left unexplained by the articles. His writing them seems almost an act of revenge, trying to hurt his former church by exposing its secrets.
Those secrets, if these articles are to be believed, are bizarre. The Centurions believe that God speaks to them through an enormous wheel housed in the town hall, with symbols on it that the Keeper deciphers and interprets. The wheel is literally spun, once a week, and where it lands determines what the Keeper ultimately says.
All major decisions in Center City are made through the spinning of this wheel. People’s occupations, their mates, all of their significant life choices, are determined by the Keeper’s interpretations of the wheel. It has been this way for almost a hundred and fifty years, as generation after generation in Center City has willingly made the choice to give up its right to make choices.
If Liz Barlow had an ex-boyfriend, as Jeremy claims, then he was likely matched up with her by their religion, by the spinning of the wheel. For her to have broken off their relationship and pursued Jeremy instead would have been a blasphemy, according to the world Gerard describes. The pressure to go back to him would have been overwhelming, which no doubt explains Liz’s ultimate rejection of Jeremy.
I have no time to discuss the implications of the articles with Calvin, since I’m in danger of being late for my meeting with Stephen Drummond. I manage to arrive at his office just at ten o’clock. He is in the two-story building next to the town hall, and I pull into the small parking lot behind the building. Two men, each one at least six two, two hundred and twenty pounds, are standing in front of me by the time I get out of the car. Their uniforms identify them to me as servants of the Keeper. The Keeper must have more servants than Thomas Jefferson.
“You’re here to see Mr. Drummond,” one of them says.
“Right.”
“Follow us, please.”
They proceed to lead me, in a weird procession, into the building and to the receptionist’s desk. “Thanks,” I say, “I shudder to think what could have happened if I tried to make it here on my own.”
If there was a joke there, they don’t get it, and they melt away, leaving me with the receptionist. “Mr. Drummond will see you now. Down that hall and to the right.”
I follow her directions, passing an office that the sign says contains the town clerk, and another woman is at the end of the hall waiting for me. It seems like the entire town has mobilized to get me to this meeting. “Right in here,” she says.
I enter the office, and a man I presume to be Stephen Drummond rises from his desk to greet me. He is in his early sixties and wears a conservative three-piece suit. Compared to the mode of dress I’ve seen so far in these small towns, he would look less out of place if he were wearing a space suit.
He extends his hand, and I shake it. “Mr. Carpenter, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine,” I say, charming as always. The line between me and Cary Grant gets thinner every day.
“Please sit down. Would you like some coffee?”
“No thank you,” I say, but I sit in the offered chair. On his desk is a family photo of him, a woman I assume to be his wife, and a man in his early twenties. The young man is dressed in the garb of a servant of the Keeper, and since the resemblance is apparent, I assume he is Drummond’s son. They are all standing in front of a small airplane, the kind with propellers. The kind you couldn’t get me to fly in at gunpoint.
“You fly?” I ask.
He smiles. “As a passenger only. My son is the pilot in the family. There is a small airfield just outside of town.”
I nod, having seen the airport on my drive to Findlay. “I’ve often thought about taking flying lessons,” I say truthfully. “The only problem is that I’m afraid of heights, machines, high speeds, parachutes, and dying.”
“Then you’re probably not a great candidate for it,” he says.
I nod but don’t say anything. It’s his turn to make small talk, and he obliges. “You’re far from home,” he observes.
“I am,” I say. “But I take it you’re not?”
“You take it correctly. I’ve lived here in Center City all my life. Except for the four years I spent at Dartmouth and the three at Harvard Law.”
It took him only seven sentences to get in the fact that he went to Harvard Law. That’s pretty quick. I decide it wouldn’t be productive to ask him if the spinning wheel made him pick Harvard over Yale. But what the hell is a Harvard Law grad doing here? “What is a Harvard Law grad doing here?” I ask, leaving out the “hell” in deference to his religion.
“Mr. Carpenter, my belief is that we are sitting on the most blessed ground on our planet. Why would I rather be somewhere else?” He says this in a tone so smug it’s as if he expects me to say, “Yes, Your Eminence.”
“Is there anyone in this town who is not a member of the Centurion religion?” I ask.
“No.”