“But never anything like the six notes?”
“Nothing close. I think the strongest attack on Barney before this came from a woman in California who wrote him a number of years back saying that he was destined to go to hell because of his lack of a belief in the infallibility of the Bible. We never did figure that one out, because nobody holds the Bible in higher esteem than Barney does.”
“Back to the notes. Neither of you has any idea who might have written them?” I asked.
Carola shook her head, while Sam raised his shoulders and dropped them, sticking his lower lip out. “Nope,” he said. “I told you before that they must be the work of some crank. Why are you so interested in them, anyway?”
“Must be my natural curiosity,” I said with a smile as I got up to leave. “Well, I appreciate the time you’ve both taken to see me. I’ll continue my rounds now.”
“I’m afraid that we haven’t been all that much help,” Sam Reese said, getting to his feet too. He didn’t sound the least bit sorry.
“Quite the contrary. You’ve been extremely helpful,” I replied to confound him, stepping into the hall and pulling the heavy door closed. As I pivoted toward the church office, I saw Lloyd Morgan striding toward me.
“Ah, Mr. Goodwin, this is good timing. I just finished a long session with several of the members of our Finance Committee. Grueling business, church finances. Most parishioners have no idea. Sorry I couldn’t be here to greet you earlier.” Was this the same guy I’d been stiffed by forty-eight hours ago? I started to comment on Morgan’s about-face when he saved me the effort.
“You know, I was awfully rude to you day before yesterday, and I want to apologize. Chalk it up to tension, although that’s no excuse, I know. Barney and I talked this morning, and we agreed that you and Mr. Wolfe are entitled to our full cooperation. After all, we... I... did come to you originally. And now, at least as an indirect result of that, one of your colleagues is in terrible trouble. Before we go on, have you been able to spend the time you’ve needed with others on the staff?”
I told him I had, and Morgan led me to his office, which was next to Reese’s and was hardly shabby itself. He steered me to a brown wing chair that shared a cozy colonial corner with a lamp table and a slightly smaller yellow chair, which he fell into with a sigh. “It’s good to be back in my own blessed little sanctuary. These money meetings always give me a migraine. Now, how can I help you, Mr. Goodwin?”
“To be honest, you probably can’t,” I told him, sinking into the brown chair. “But I’ll do some asking anyway. How did you get along with Meade?”
“You are direct, aren’t you?”
“My mother often lectured me on the merits of being straightforward in my dealings. She never liked what she called ‘shilly-shallying.’”
He forced a chuckle, but the rest of his face didn’t match the sound effects. “Yes. Well, I’m sure by now you know enough about Roy to realize that he was, well... something less than saintly at times.”
“I did get the impression that he could stir the caldron of discontent.”
“What a quaint phrase. Well, without for an instant questioning his dedication, I will say that he did his share of caldron-stirring around here over the years. Roy knew what he wanted, and more often than not he got it.”
“Such as power?”
Morgan’s flat black eyes studied me, then his onyx cuff link. “Power, yes, and also... visibility. Roy loved it when Barney was out of town — which was fairly often — and he could preach. He was a first-rate preacher, Mr. Goodwin. In some ways, he was almost as good as Barney.”
“But not quite?”
He gave his cuff a tug, then exhaled. “No. His sermons were structurally sound and biblically based, the message was always clear, and his delivery was impressive, even riveting, more so sometimes than Barney’s. But he lacked, well, warmth. Mr. Goodwin, he just plain didn’t have warmth.”
“And Bay does?”
“Oh my, yes. You are an extremely perceptive man, and if you’d ever heard the two of them in the pulpit, you’d sense the difference instantly. Barney has a gift few people are given.”
“Getting back to you and Meade, how did you get along?”
Morgan leaned back and rubbed an earlobe. “Passably. It was clear years ago that we’d never be the best of friends, but we were always civil to each other.”
“Was Meade critical of the way you did your job?”
I got a raised eyebrow and then a smile in response. “Oh, I get your drift,” he said, nodding. “Let’s see, who’ve you talked to this morning? Roger Gillis? Sam Reese?” I nodded.
He smiled again. “And it will be the same when you sit down with Marley Wilkenson, at least if he’s candid with you. All three of them — Roger, Sam, and Marley — posed grave threats to Roy. Each one has a great deal of power within his own domain — education, outreach, and music. And Roy was jealous of anybody who had power.”
“But don’t you have power, too? After all, you’re the money man around this place, right?”
That drew an honest-to-goodness laugh, close to a guffaw, from the stuffed shirt, and it sounded like something he should indulge in more often. “Mr. Goodwin, I may have some fiscal responsibility here, but in the first place, I am not an ordained minister like the other three, so I posed absolutely no threat to Roy’s ultimate goal of running the Silver Spire — if indeed any of them did. Second, although you may think otherwise, given these beautiful facilities, money is not the engine that drives this church — faith and love are. I know that may sound hokey to someone whose life is immersed in crime, but it’s a fact. Sometimes in Circle of Faith sessions and other staff meetings, when I raise concerns about funds, I feel almost like one of the money changers that Christ drove from the temple.”
“Is the church in financial trouble?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Not at all! Not for one minute. We have extremely generous givers, and the cash flow is strong. But I still have these concerns from time to time about whether funds are being used properly. Nobody ever wants to hear what I have to say, though. They all seem to find any talk whatever about finances distasteful — and that includes Roy.”
“But he didn’t criticize your work?”
“I don’t think he found it worthy of criticism. Basically, he was disdainful of my role here,” Morgan said quietly. “To him, I was simply a pencil-pushing functionary.”
“Who would want to kill him?” I asked.
He spread his hands, palms up. “Who indeed? Nobody that I can suggest. I’m afraid you’re going to have to face up to the fact that Mr. Durkin is not only the prime candidate, he is the only candidate. He just flared up in that meeting and lost control of himself.”
“About that meeting. I gather it was pretty ugly.”
He cleared his throat. “I can’t quarrel with that assessment. I’m sure you know the essence of it: Durkin said those notes came from inside the church, Roy lashed out at him, and Durkin lashed back. Durkin’s language, by the way, is better suited to an army barracks.”
“I can’t count the number of times I’ve scolded him about it,” I agreed. “Then Bay led a prayer and you all dispersed to offices.”
Morgan nodded. “I came back here and honestly used the time in prayer and meditation. I had my head down on the desk, and the next thing I knew, Sam Reese came barreling in, telling me something terrible had happened.”
“Let’s go back to those notes to Bay — they were what got you worked up in the first place. How do you feel about them now?”
Morgan rubbed his cheek. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about them at all since Roy was murdered.”
“You said they were the work of a psychopath, somebody truly dangerous. Do you have any reason to change that opinion?”