Three pairs of tandem-bike riders went past. I figured them all to be about twelve or thirteen. They were at that group-dating stage when you got to hide the crush you had on a girl by going out with a mixed assortment of equally terrified boys and girls. They went inside the store and got soda pop, the girls much more in control of themselves and the situation than the boys, the boys all seeming younger and more callow than the girls in fact, and then they were on their tandem bikes again and rolling down the hill.
Nobody in the parking lot. Nobody driving by to see me.
I started my hike down the hill. The great thing about pine is the smell. The bad thing about pine is the way it stabs you. There was a vague path that wove its way down to the valley. The trees were thick enough here to cool the temperature by several degrees. I used to play Indian in places like these. I always wanted to be the Indian, never the cowboy, never the cavalry. Indians, at least in movies made by white guys, always knew neat stuff, all about caves and how to track mountain lions and how to communicate with smoke signals and pieces of stone smoothed to shine like mirrors.
Who wouldn’t want to be an Indian?
I was sweaty, piney as a porcupine, and irritable by the time I reached the backyard of the church. At least the grass had been mowed recently and smelled good.
I had my trusty burglary picks with me-taken in trade from a thief I’d managed to keep out of prison-anda good thing, too. This place was locked up tighter than Jimmy Hoffa’s secret bank records. It took me longer to get inside than I’d hoped, thus increasing my chances of being seen. A raccoon sat at the tree line observing me with the kind of wry look only raccoons, of all God’s animals, can summon. He seemed to be under the completely mistaken impression that I was some kind of idiot.
Air-conditioning. I just stood in it and let it cool me, balm me, dry me. All I needed was a glass of Aunt Am’s lemonade.
Courtney had a lot of the Great Books on his shelves. I suspected he’d actually read them. His den was English manor house with fireplace, leather wingback chairs, antiques, and a really first-rate collection of smoking pipes. Not a corncob among them.
Since Cliffie had no doubt searched this office, I felt sure that it was worth searching again. Cliffie could overlook a corpse sprawled across a desk.
I spent a good twenty minutes looking. I went through the desk; I went through the books, making sure they weren’t false fronts hiding a safe or slot behind them; I got down on my hands and knees and made sure the floor was flat, no trap doors, no insets, no safes.
As I was getting up, I realized that I hadn’t checked the in-out tray on his desk. An oversight worthy of Cliffie. I had some luck.
There were four envelopes hand-addressed in a forceful male script. Blue ink. I read them. Letters from Courtney thanking various members of his flock for favors they’d done the church.
There was a letter folded in half, too. I opened it. It wasn’t a letter, though. It was a crude layout for a leaflet.
Why The Jews Favor Kennedy
It was the same creed as always. The Jews wanted to be on the Supreme Court so they could outlaw all the good Christian principles this country was founded on-including letting colored people marry white people (i.e., big black hands soiling virginal white female flesh)-and Kennedy would happily appoint Jews because they would see to it that he was able to serve not just two terms but three or four. The way Fdr did.
There was something else folded into the flyer. A check written on the personal account of Reverend Courtney and made out personally to Parnell, the printer. No businesses were named.
Looked completely and unsuspiciously like a personal transaction.
“He wasn’t very fond of either Jews or Catholics,” she said from the doorway. “But then we all have our little failings, don’t we, Mr.
McCain?”
She would have made a good cover model for Manhunt detective magazine just then, a fashionably dressed widow holding a silver-plated. 45 in a black-gloved hand, a veil covering the cold, attractive face. A Raymond Chandler wet dream.
The laugh was pained. “When you came right down to it, he wasn’t all that crazy about Protestants, either. But he came from five generations of ministers, so he bowed to family pressure and went to divinity school.”
“He really believes all that stuff about Jews secretly running the world?”
This time the laugh was bitter. “His one true love-the girl he fell in love with his freshman year in college-fell in love with a Jewish graduate student. He hated Jews ever since.”
“You hate a whole group of people because of one guy? Sounds like he had a few mental problems.”
“More than a few-and that’s probably why he was such a good counselor, which he was. He could identify with the people he helped. He genuinely cared about them.”
“Enough to get one of them pregnant,” I said.
I wanted the satisfaction of seeing what was going on behind the veil. All I could hear in response was a tiny, harsh breath. “Did Sara Hall tell you?”
“No. I just put a few stray pieces of information together. Dierdre broke in here looking for something.”
“It would’ve destroyed him. He started to come undone the last six months-ever since he started sleeping with her. And then when she got pregnant -anyway, she’d written him some very foolish letters. That’s why she broke in here. She wanted them back.”
“And you started drinking again.”
I said it without judgment. Merely a statement.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Believe it or not, I still loved him. He had a difficult life. Spiritually, I mean. Good and evil. It was a constant struggle.
He never learned to forgive himself.”
It’s always instructive to hear somebody else talk about a person you don’t like much. How could you both have the same person in mind? A minister who would take advantage of a teenage girl? A man of God who would pay for hate mail and condemn an entire group of people because he lost a girl? How could this possibly be the same man she was describing in terms of a John Donne-ish torment with his demons?
But you know something, it was quite likely that both portraits were true. We’re heroes or villains depending on who’s talking.
“He had one thing, anyway.”
“What’s that?”
“A good wife,” I said.
The bitter laugh again. “Oh, yes. Such a good wife that I passed out at a dinner party the night the dean of the divinity school gave a party for his best students. And one time-at his first church assignment-I tripped and fell walking down the aisle to the front of the church. Dead drunk.
And a lot of traffic accidents, Mr.
McCain. Thank the Lord I didn’t hurt anybody. I wake up in cold sweats sometimes, thinking I’ve run over a child-” She was crying now.
I went over and took the gun from her. No bravery on my part. It was pointed at the floor by now anyway. I slipped it into my trouser pocket. She came against me in a rustle of black organdy. She slid her arms around my neck. I eased her hat and veil away and let her weep.
When I felt my groin starting to react automatically to the pressure of her body against mine, I helped her across the floor and eased her down on the couch. I took her pumps off and got a pillow behind her head. There was a bottle of spring water on a small sidebar.
I poured a glass and held it to her lips.
She drank. “Thank you.”
I went over and sat down in one of the leather wing chairs and lit a Lucky.
“I need to ask you some questions.”
“I’ll try to answer them.”
“What was he doing out at Muldaur’s church the night Muldaur died?”
“Muldaur was blackmailing him.”
“What? Are you sure?”
She nodded. Put the back of a hand to her head.
“In my purse outside the door there are some aspirin. I have a terrible headache. Could you get me those, please?”