My heart was with Banks. I knew how he felt. But the kidnapping was fantasy. Even on three hours sleep I was pretty sure of that. Still, Sherry didn't seem to be having a swell time in the church and the church seemed a little hierarchical to me. I had told Owens I'd check on Sherry periodically and I was going to do that anyway. No real harm in looking into it a little more. Maybe there was a better option for Sherry than the Reorganized Church of the Redemption. Maybe there was an option that would ease some of Tommy's pain, or help him through it. Maybe not. Maybe there was no way to ease pain. No harm to trying. It was something to do. Irish whiskey can only take you so far.
CHAPTER 17
I drove up to Salisbury to see Sherry. There were purple field flowers in bright density all over the meadows along Route 1. I'd looked at them nearly all my life but I didn't know what they were called. That was nothing. I'd been with me all my life and had just started to wonder about that.
Sherry was feeding chickens when I got there. She was spreading something that looked like dry dog food pellets around an the ground and a bunch of white hens flurried about her, pecking at the food. I realized I didn't know anything about chickens either. She looked up at me and didn't speak.
I said, "Hello, Sherry."
"Hello."
"How are you," I said. She kept distributing the pellets. The chickens kept scuttling around after them.
"I'm fine. I told you that last time I saw you."
"I know. I just like to check. You don't seem especially happy."
"The point of this world is not happiness," she said. "It is salvation."
I nodded. "Tommy is in pretty bad pain," I said.
She stopped scattering the pellets for a moment. "I'm sure he is," she said. "But that is Tommy's pain. I won't take ownership of his pain."
"I don't argue the point," I said. "But it sounds like a recited answer. Tommy loves you."
"Tommy needs me," she said. "That's not the same thing."
"Tell me about life here," I said.
"We have a regular life. Exercise in the early morning, study and instruction in the afternoon."
"What do you do for money?"
"We need very little, the mission is largely self-supporting." She gestured at the poultry. "And we grow vegetables and preserve them. Each of us receives a small stipend."
"From the church?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything you want?" I said.
"No. I'm doing what I want to do. I am comfortable. There is structure without pressure. I have friends."
"Do you contribute money to the church in some way?"
"No. My work and my prayers are what I give the church."
"Where do they get the money?" I said. Sherry looked at me as if I'd spoken in tongues. She shook her head without speaking. I took a card from my pocket and gave it to her.
"Here's my name and address and phone number. If you need me for anything, call me. Or come see me. I'll stop by again. Do you mind seeing me?"
"No," Sherry said. "I kind of like you."
"Thank you," I said. "I kind of like you too."
Walking back to my car, I was startled to find that I kind of did like her and that I was pleased that she kind of liked me. How unprofessional.
Back in my office I called Father Keneally. "Where does the money come from in the Reorganized Church of the Redemption?"
"Bullard Winston."
"Where's he get it?"
Father Keneally paused. "Actually, you know, I don't know. I don't know if he's privately wealthy or if he has backers. My professional interest is more directly with the doctrinal aspects of religious organizations."
"He doesn't collect from the members," I said. "He pays them."
"Quite unusual," Keneally said.
"Does he do fund-raisers?"
"I don't know," Keneally said. You could tell it was not something he was used to saying. You could also tell that he didn't like getting used to it either.
After I was through talking to Keneally I walked over to the library and looked up BuiIard VVinston in Who's Who. It didn't tell me anything about his financial stability. His town house was certainly costly, and maintaining a string of church missions and paying stipends to all the church members was bound to be costly. And I didn't believe that stuff about the lilies of the field.
I wandered down to the Kirstein Business Library off School Street behind the old city hall and browsed among the exotica of corporate finance and municipal bond issues for most of the rest of the day. I didn't find out where the Reorganized Church of the Redemption got its money, but I did discover in a copy of Bankers and Tradesmen that the Bullies were financing the construction of an office park in Woburn. The church held a 500,000-dollar mortgage. The developer was listed as Paultz Construction Company, Inc.
Curiouser and curiouser.
I walked up School Street to the Parker House and had a couple of beers in the downstairs bar and thought about how Bullard Winston and his church could loan 500,000 dollars to a construction company. Maybe just the new kids got a stipend and after a while they had to start paying dues or making tithes or whatever you did when you belonged to the church militant. There were 10,000 Bullies altogether, Keneally had said. Fifty bucks a head would cover the mortgage loan, but then there would have to be money to cover expenses. Not impossible. If you got 100 bucks a year from 10,000 people, you had a million. And since it was charity, you didn't have a tax problem. Still, Sherry said they didn't pay dues, they received a stipend. She said it as if all of them received one.
I looked at my watch, almost six. I thought of seeing Susan and then caught myself and felt that spasm inside that I always felt when it happened. I took in as much air as I could and let it out and stood up and went home to make supper for Paul.
CHAPTER 18
The next morning I was at the Kirstein Library when it opened and I went through several years worth of Bankers and Tradesmen. By noon I knew that the Reorganized Church of the Redemption had made construction loans to Paultz Construction Company for about three and a half million dollars. Christian charity. I left the magazines on the table and went out.
I walked up over Beacon Hill on Beacon Street with the Common on my left and the elegant eighteenth-century brick-front buildings on my right. I turned up to Commonwealth on Arlington at the bottom of the Public Garden and in fifteen minutes I was at Bullard Winston's door again. A man in the deacon outfit I was getting to know so well told me that Reverend Winston was not at home and wasn't expected soon. I said thank you and went back down the steps and crossed the street and leaned against a tree and waited.
I experimented with keeping my mind blank. It wasn't as hard for me as it might be for others, but it wasn't easy. If you weren't careful, you'd start thinking of things. And if you thought of things, then your stomach would hurt again. Maybe I could take up meditation, get into self-hypnosis. I shifted my other shoulder against the tree and refolded my arms across my chest and thought of blankness. Like carrying a very full glass of water up the stairs, Hawk had said. He knew things you wouldn't think he'd know. He seemed immune to pain, yet he knew about trying to balance it. He seemed immune to affection, too, except with Susan . . . I tightened my arms across my chest and got my mind back into its blank balance.
It was nearly quarter to five when the same chauffeur-driven rose-colored Lincoln I'd seen before pulled up in front of Winston's house and the good reverend got out. I walked across the street.
"Evening, Reverend," I said.
Winston frowned at me for a moment and then said, "Oh, Mr. Spenser. Did your chat with the young woman proceed satisfactorily?"