“Okay.” He paused again. “Russ. That sounds nice.”
Now he was flirting. It felt good. “It’s a good enough name, I guess.”
Colin’s voice dropped to a whisper. “No, I meant the shower thing.” I felt my body respond.
Fuck. No, wait—wrong word.
I laughed to hide my embarrassment at wanting him. “You’d better stick to the appointment details, or you’re going to get us both in a lot of trouble, young man.”
And it might be worth it.
I wrote as he spoke. The church headquarters was down south, almost to Castle Rock. I could meet the office manager, Marianna Stokes, at eight o’clock, then Rev. Richardson’s secretary, Gladys Everton, at nine. He gave me numbers in case anything came up. I’d have to leave at six-thirty to make sure I got there in time.
Neither Ann nor Leigh wanted to come downtown to Kommen’s office, so I was to meet with them at their respective homes in Highlands Ranch. According to Colin, they didn’t live far apart. I’d check everything online anyway, now that I had the addresses.
As I finished writing, Colin chatted about the weather forecast for the weekend. I could see him being an outdoors kind of guy, biking or hiking maybe. It was a nice visual.
I wanted to ask him what plans he had for his weekend, but managed to resist the temptation. Instead I just thanked him, maybe with a little more warmth than was wise, told him to have a good one and hung up, feeling unjustifiably proud of my virtue.
* * * *
Simply driving into the multi-acre parking lot for Abundant Life and Gospel Ministry Church was a reminder that religion was also a business. I figured there were spaces for at least three thousand cars, and the soaring white structure looked like it could hold twice that many people.
Attached to one side of the church were the offices, with a separate entrance. I checked in with the concierge a little before eight.
At ten minutes after, a trim, young short-haired Hispanic woman dressed in a gray business suit and modest black heels strode into the foyer, and headed directly toward me. I stood. Marianna Stokes was polite as she introduced herself, but offered no social niceties. Her wedding band was her only jewelry. She was all business.
She led me to the mailroom, describing the in-house mail system as we walked. By the time we arrived, she’d told me pretty much everything I needed to know. It was a generic open system and nearly anyone in the building could have put the first letter into it or even dropped it off directly in the mailroom without raising any question marks in anyone who noticed.
Even before eight-thirty, three people were busy in the mailroom. One of them was running copies at a huge machine on one side of the room, the other two were sorting baskets of mail for delivery. Marianna saw nothing unusual in any of that. It was always a busy place. In fact, use of the copier for big jobs had to be scheduled.
I asked her if we could go to her office and talk for a moment. I promised I would take no more than ten minutes.
We took stairs to the second floor, where I was amazed to encounter a maze of easily two thousand square feet of offices, cubes, and conference rooms. The place was bustling.
She led me to her office, motioned me into a chair and sat behind her desk. “I have a meeting in a few minutes, Mr. Morgan,” she said, giving me fair warning.
I nodded, wondering why office managers always had shelves of three-inch black plastic ring binders with hand-printed labels lined up behind their desks. Maybe it was a badge of office.
“I have only a couple of questions,” I said. “This won’t take long.”
I pulled out my notebook. “Do you know of anyone on staff whose spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend might object to him or her working for the church?”
She shook her head firmly. “Absolutely not. Commitment to the ministry is number one priority for us. If someone was feeling pressure from family or loved ones about working here, they would speak up and ask for support. I’m certain of that.”
I nodded. “One of the letters I’m investigating was taped to the shower door in Reverend Richardson’s private bathroom. Is it possible that someone other than an employee could have stuck it there? The janitors? Some other contractor?”
“No.” She shook her head again. “No one but an employee gets into the building without being cleared first at the front desk, twenty-four seven.” She looked slightly apologetic. “Not everyone is as enthusiastic about the work we do as we are, Mr. Morgan. There are even those who would do mischief to us.”
“As evidenced by the letters.”
She gave a curt nod of agreement and glanced down at a handwritten page of notes on her desk. She was well prepared for me.
“Reverend Richardson asked about the janitorial service the day he found that letter,” she said. “Shining Kingdom Janitorial does all our on-site work. They weren’t scheduled the night before the letter appeared. They do the rest of the building as well as the offices, but they wouldn’t have gotten into the office that night at all, even if they’d been on the premises. And they weren’t.”
And that was that. I stood, and so did she. “Thank you, Mrs. Stokes. I appreciate your time. If you’d have someone point me toward Gladys Everton’s office, I’d be grateful.”
Marianna pushed a button on her phone and summoned a plump, bright-eyed young woman with a glittery valentine heart containing a crucifix hanging at her throat. “Tracy will show you to Gladys’s office, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “She’ll stay with you until Gladys is free.”
I got it. I wasn’t allowed to be on my own. Even once past the front desk, no stranger was allowed to wander unchaperoned. Without a doubt, the shower door letter was an inside job.
Marianna and I shook hands, and then I was speed-walking my way down a hall with Tracy before I could tuck my notebook and pen back in my pocket.
Gladys Everton was a quiet, soft woman probably pushing sixty, who wore her age well. Her bright blue eyes sparkled, and her voice was firm. Whether it was a difference in generation or background, she was gentler than Marianna Stokes, warmer and more gracious.
I asked her the same question about the possibility of a disgruntled employee or perhaps a family member.
Again the answer was no. “Our little group begins each day in a prayer circle and sharing,” she said with a den mother’s kindness. “No one in my office has said anything about that—and they would.”
She showed me Howard Richardson’s office, and the bathroom he’d described to me as modest. ‘Modest’ was clearly a relative term. The shower in question was a glass-walled walk-in, and the whole bathroom was at least twice the size of my bedroom.
The office itself was comfortably, unimaginatively appointed, with the exception of a big portrait of an olive-skinned, dark-haired Christ painted against rough golds and browns, hanging on the wall behind the desk. This was a virile son of a carpenter with strong arms and flashing teeth, not just some holy wimp. Interesting.
I didn’t see any plants or a single living thing in the room. Not even cut flowers. I decided not to ask Gladys about that. There was an allegorical painting of a wheat field at harvest, though, with laborers bent over the sheaves. Maybe bringing in the sheaves was enough for Rev. Richardson.
The walls had a few enlarged photographs of Howard beaming at the camera, or beaming at people. Lots of beaming. He had an industrial strength smile, and he clearly used it a lot.
Gladys didn’t know how anyone could have taped a message to the shower door, either. That baffled her. She would have noticed, for sure, she said. Yes, she was at work the day in question, and the day before. She hadn’t missed a work day in over a year.
I could feel the fear and confusion in her as she spoke of the letter. That was quite a contrast to when she spoke of Howard Richardson. She’d worked in his ministry for decades, she said proudly. Every time she mentioned his name, her aura glowed with warm devotion, perhaps even love. A true follower.
I asked if she’d show me James Richardson’s office. He wasn’t in yet, but she unlocked it and stood in the doorway while I looked around. No private bathroom. It was smaller than his dad’s, but plenty big enough.
The desk had actual work on it, in tidy stacks and folders. James was organized, by the look of it. The walls were covered in photographs of Mexico or some other Latin American country: colorful groups assembled for the camera, singing and dancing, landscapes, seascapes. A group of children enacting La Posada, with Mary on a donkey and Joseph at the halter—los peregrinos, searching for shelter.
There were only two family photos behind the desk on the credenza, one of Leigh smiling, looking formal and brittle, and a larger one of their three kids. He’d have his back to them when he was seated at the desk, but anyone facing him would see them. Were they there just for show?
I wandered around the room a second time, studying the photos. They felt significant, somehow, with lots of energy attached to them. Sunny south of the border. It was the happiest looking room I’d been in so far. Still nothing living. Odd.
Then I was being escorted down to the entrance, and walking toward my car. It looked lonely in the middle of all those vacant spaces. Most of them had been filled yesterday morning for Sunday service, I had no doubt.
* * * *
Even though it was early for lunch, I’d had no breakfast and I was hungry. I got an Americano and a sandwich at a Starbucks and ate it on my way to interview Ann and Leigh Richardson, who waited for me in their enormous Highlands Ranch homes nestled among very white, very conservative, very Christian, very comfortable folk just like themselves.
A little frisson of excitement made me shiver, as if I were a spy parachuted into enemy territory, driving down the long curving streets with trees no more than thirty years old everywhere. Although maybe I didn’t exactly qualify as an enemy spy. I’d actually voted Republican once. Long ago. Years before Proposition 2.
I didn’t learn much about the letters from Howard’s wife, Ann, or from James’ wife, Leigh. But I learned a lot about the kind of family they had.
Ann reminded me so much of Laura Bush, it hurt to think about it. She was gracious, perfectly coiffed and dressed—sweet and serene, in a pill-induced way. Detached and more than a little tragic, committed to appearances that didn’t ring true to what little I could see of her inner life.
Anti-anxiety benzodiazepines affect the aura as well as whatever else they do. They create a signature fuzziness to a person’s energy that Ann’s displayed constantly. She said all the right things, and while I could see frequent incongruities between her answers and her energy, it was as if I connected from a great distance. Whether that meant a distant past or a chemical haze, I couldn’t really tell.
I got an overall impression of regret and loyalty from her, as well as a wistful, genuine kindness that skewered my heart whenever it showed. Over the course of the interview, it became pretty clear that she appeared at functions when needed, addressed women’s groups when asked, and basically stayed put in her bland and immaculate suburban mansion watching life roll by around her.
She had a few close friends in the church circle, of course. She didn’t spend a lot of social time with Leigh—different generations, you know—but she doted on her grandchildren and loved taking them whenever their mom was busy.
She apologized that she couldn’t shed any light on this terrible matter.
Leigh, on the other hand, was a barracuda. Intense, hair-trigger defensive, and ready to tear the throat out of whoever was trying to blackmail her family. And her fury was genuine. She said she’d give her life to protect Howard’s ministry and her family, and her aura confirmed it unequivocally.
She was keeping her share of secrets, though. When it came to questions about her home life with James and the children, she insisted everything was perfect as could be expected in this troubled world, but her aura flared all over the place. Not outright lies, but partial truths and withheld information. I probed gently and was told to back off in no uncertain terms. Her icy protectiveness was very real, and more than a little chilling.
She’d started volunteering at Abundant Life and Gospel Ministry Church as a teenager, and stayed on to become an office employee. She’d met James in March of 1995 when Howard introduced them at a relief drive for victims of the previous month’s big earthquake in western Colombia. They’d married three months later, a June wedding. In just over a week, they would celebrate their fourteenth anniversary with a quiet night at home. The children were six, eight, and eleven.
Most of her time was taken up with being a mom, but she would fill in wherever she could, however Howard needed her help. Her father-in-law was a true man of God, and deserved all the assistance those around him could provide.
I was glad to get in my car and thaw out.
On the drive back into Denver, I wondered what it was like for James to live with Leigh. What kind of relationship did they have? Her aura had lit up when she spoke of her love for her children and for the church, but was much less vigorous when she spoke of James.
She was obviously intensely loyal and devoted to their kids. But there was something else in her, a religious fanaticism I’d first seen in my own father that neither James nor Ann displayed. That unquestioning ferocity had terrified me as a child, and Leigh’s had frightened me now. Even Howard hadn’t shown that kind of fervor. Maybe his had calmed over the years into a smoother certainty, like stones in a river.
My cell rang. It was Kommen, more agitated than I’d ever heard him. Another letter had arrived at his office, this time with a demand for money—two cases, each with $144,000 in cash. I was to meet him there immediately. I told him I was at the Tech Center, and it would be forty minutes before I could get to his office. He hung up, and I sped up.
A hundred and forty-four thousand: the number of the blessed in Revelation, standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion. Doubled. Enigma had a sense of humor. No, scratch that. Enigma had a marvelous sense of irony.