He smiled in spite of the questions he could not answer. The face of the elderly woman who had answered the persistent banging on her door to the canal was worth remembering. With typical Italian hospitality (or was it curiosity?), she had offered towels to the two wet, bedraggled people who had mysteriously appeared on her doorstep. Manners of another age prevented her from asking questions, and she had simply accepted that the fates had sent her two people very much in need of help, or at least admission to her home.
Or had it been the tradition of fregatura? There was no exact English translation for this uniquely Italian concept. Fregatura was an act somewhat less than entirely legal but short of egregious. It also had the hint of getting away with something, as their elderly hostess would be doing by not notifying the police that the people they were undoubtedly looking for were right here in her parlor.
Once toweled off, Gurt and Lang had declined her offer to send a servant for dry clothes, explaining their hotel was nearby and only a misstep along the canal had resulted in their falling in. The graciousness of a bygone era prevented the signora from inquiring about the explosion that had surely rattled the shelves of Venetian glass against one of the walls of her centuries-old home. Perhaps she had been too deaf to hear the wailing of the sirens from the police boats.
The concierge at their Lido hotel had given them an astonished expression as the two wet, rumpled guests, still trailing wet prints from soaked shoes, trudged through his lobby. Obviously, the hotel’s boat driver had not made it back there yet.
“Signor Reilly?” he had asked.
“Your boat had engine trouble,” Lang said just as the elevator doors shut. “We had to swim for it.”
CHAPTER TWO
Law offices of Langford Reilly
Peachtree Center
227 Peachtree Street, Atlanta
Three days later
Lang Reilly tossed the last of the pink telephone-message slips into the trash and turned on his desktop computer. Sara had taken most of his e-mail but there was enough requiring his attention to keep him busy most of the morning: a notice of hearing on a motion to suppress evidence in the federal court here in Atlanta, a judge’s questions about a pretrial order he had filed in another case, a bond hearing in the local state court. He shook his head at the last. The client, one of the inventory of pro bono clients Lang kept, couldn’t afford a lawyer. He surely couldn’t pay the bondsman, no matter how low the bail. A total waste of time but one of the procedures the court required.
The phone on his desk buzzed. A quick glance showed the intercom between him and the outer office was the line being used.
“Yes ma’am?”
“The Reverend Bishop Groom is here.”
Sara’s voice bristled with resentment, no doubt at the bishop’s failure to make an appointment. A white-haired prototype of someone’s grandmother, Sara had served as surrogate mother and would-be social director before Gurt’s arrival. She still was secretary, accountant, office manager and a zealous guardian of his time. “Can you see him now?”
The question was for the visitor’s benefit. Sara knew exactly what Lang was doing at the moment.
“Send him in.”
The Reverend Bishop William Groom was, as far as Lang could tell, self-ordained. His nondenominational church in one of Atlanta’s bedroom communities had grown from a few hundred members to well over six thousand, necessitating no less than four services every Sunday and several during the week, plus a televangelical ministry on Sunday nights. More significantly, donations had shown a commensurate increase. Had a number of his parishioners not become disenchanted with both a lifestyle that could only be described as opulent and a more-than-priestly interest in a number of church members’ wives, he might have remained beneath the IRS’s radar indefinitely.
Currently, Lang was anticipating federal indictment of the good bishop for multiple counts of tax evasion, conspiracy to evade taxes, fraud, mail fraud and a laundry list of related offenses. It would seem Lang’s client had not only been dipping his pen into the company inkwell, his fingers had been in the church’s purse as well.
Groom came through the door, hand extended. “Thank you so much for seeing me without an appointment.”
Lang stood to shake hands. “Glad I was available.” He sat behind his desk, indicating one of two leather wing chairs separated by a small French commode. “What can I do for you?”
Groom was tall, over six feet, with a shock of silver hair he constantly swept aside, a gesture Lang had noted he did with dramatic flair at crucial points of his televised sermons. Still standing, he gazed upward. “First, let us pray.”
Lang always felt a little uncomfortable when his client spent a good two or three minutes invoking the Lord’s favor on whatever he happened to be doing at the moment as well as seeking heavenly retribution upon those who were persecuting him. Idly, Lang wondered if a brief prayer had been said preparatory to each seduction of one of his flock. It was certain the time spent communicating with the Almighty was duly noted and added to the time spent in legal counseling to be charged against a very generous retainer.
“Amen,” the bishop said, and sat down.
Lang looked across the desk expectantly.
“I’ve been thinking about this matter of the church vehicles. They say…” The man’s otherwise-angelic face contorted into an expression that looked like he tasted something extremely unpleasant whenever he referred to the prosecution. “They say I misused church funds to buy vehicles. Do you know, Mr. Reilly, that the Cathedral of the Holy Savior uses its vehicles, mostly buses, to bring to God’s house those who otherwise would be unable to attend services?”
Lang suppressed a sigh. He had been here before. “Does that include the Ferrari and the turbo Bentley?”
The bishop hunched his shoulders, a man deeply offended. “Someone in my position needs to display material wealth. Success is a sign of God’s favor, as I constantly preach. We are in very serious trouble, this country of ours, when the Philistines can persecute the faithful because they succeed.”
Another synonym for the prosecution. He was partially correct, though. The government moved with an uncharacteristically light hand when dealing with religious mountebanks, charlatans and others who saw the First Amendment as license to participate in otherwise-illegal activity. It was only when it became clear someone was using a church as a personal bank account to evade taxes, utilizing the mail to solicit funds that clearly went to private uses, or the church and its pastor became indistinguishable that criminal charges were brought.
Lang kept the observation to himself.
“And then there’s the matter of the church’s ownership of homes in the mountains and at the beach. Do you realize how many conferences and retreats the church elders have there every year?”
As far as Lang had been able to ascertain, there were no church elders, deacons or other persons charged with any office that related to financial decisions.
He leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. “Elders?”
“Why yes, of course. You certainly don’t think one person can run an organization the size of the Cathedral of the Holy Savior, do you?”
Lang reached for a pad with one hand and took a pen from a cup filled with them. “Just who are these elders?”
“Well, there’s Jamie Shaw…”
Lang put the pen down. “Your son-in-law.”
And so far, unindicted coconspiritor.
“And Lewis Reid.”
Nephew.
“And, of course, Lois.”
Wife.