CHAPTER 24


I made some Xerox copies of my notes of Winston's spilled beans. I put a copy in the safe-deposit box, took out one of the photos, and went back to my office. I got out two manila envelopes. In each I put a copy of the notes and a picture of Paultz and Winston. Then I went to see Sherry Spellman.

She was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt that said no YOU KNOW JESUS across the back, and was hoeing beans in a garden in back of the Salisbury branch of the church. She stopped when she saw me and looked a little less serious. Life would never be bubbly for Sherry.

We sat in the front seat of my car and I showed her the picture first.

"Reverend Winston, you recognize. The other man is Mickey Paultz, whose primary source of income is the processing and sale of heroin."

Sherry looked at me and widened her eyes. I gave her the notes. "Notice," I said as she began to read, "that each page is signed by Reverend Winston."

She read on and then stopped and looked at me and read some more. When she got through she shook her head.

"No," she said. I nodded.

"No. He wouldn't have done this. I don't know what you're doing but it's not true." I waited. There was the hum of locust in the air, and the sound occasionally of a dog, and now and then the rush of a car past us on Route 1.

"Why does he say these things?" I said.

"He didn't. You made them up and forged his signature." She looked at me. I waited. She shook her head again. Her eyes were wet.

"No," she said. "You wouldn't do that." She began to read the notes again. Halfway through she put her head down in her hands and began to cry. I patted her shoulder softly.

Finally she stopped crying. "It's true," she said. Her voice was clogged.

"Yes," I said. My throat felt a little achy. Sherry hunched very tightly; her shoulders pressing in toward her small breast.

"Isn't there anyplace for me?" she said.

"You like this church?" I said.

She nodded. "I know you think it's junk," she said. "But it is home for me. It is peace. We're not crazy cults or anything. We love God and trust Him and try to live like Jesus. And now it's gone." She was crying again. "And now I have no place."

I held her against me. My breath was heavy balanced against her sobs.

"It's not gone," I said. "I'll fix it for you." A crowd of chickens came around the side of the building clucking and pecking at the ground and began to mill around the yard near the front door. Feeding time. Sherry's body shook as I held her.

"I'll fix it," I said. "You don't need Winston. You are the church, not him."

She tried to speak, but she cried too hard. It wasn't intelligible.

"You can run it," I said. "I'll get you financing. I'll get you help."

A young woman in a plaid shirt and a wrapaound denim skirt and cowboy boots came out of the front of the church building and began scattering feed to the chickens. They made a lot of noise about it. As she scattered the feed she looked uneasily at me and Sherry in my car.

Sherry stopped crying. She sat up and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her sweat shirt. "How?" she said.

"You'll see," I said.

"Do you really know how?" she said.

"Yes, but it's better if I not tell you."

"You really know?"

"I have a plan," I said.

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