Cast in Stone (27 page)

In
two short days, my answering machine had gone into meltdown. The more
messages it collects, the shorter it gets with the callers. As it
approaches the end of its tiny tape, you have about five seconds to
leave a message before it cuts you off. The last three messages were
all from my attorney, Jed James.

"Leo.
Give me a call when you get a chance. Things have—"
Glick-hummmm.

"Why
don't you fix that damn—" Glick-hummmm. "Call me, Leo,
you—"

From
his offices in Pioneer Square, Jed terrorized the local law
enforcement community. His years as the ACLU's chief litigator back
East had given him both a firm grounding in litigation and" a
combative politically incorrect manner seldom seen west of Chicago.
Jed was the champion of rights. No particular kind. No agenda.
Just rights. No cow was too sacred. No infringement too slight.

Facing
the prospect of reversal, judges made it a point to have pressing
matters that prevented them from presiding over Jed's cases. Knowing
Jed's penchant for media attention, the King County
prosecutor's office made it a point to plea-bargain with unusual
vigor. Having been pummeled in the past, most experienced private
attorneys took substantially less and settled out of court.

"James,
Junkin, Rose and Smith."

"Hi,
Suzanne. It's Leo."

"Hisself
has been most upset by your absence."

"Hisself
is usually upset."

"We
wouldn't have it any other way. Hang on. I'll see what his majesty is
doing." He started right in.

"You
ever thought that just maybe you got your money's worth out of that
answering machine, Leo. Come on, 'fess up, how long you had that
thing?"

"Better
part of fifteen years."

"And
the idea of maybe replacing it with something just a bit more
technologically proficient doesn't come immediately to mind?"

"It
still works," I protested.

"Christmas,"
he said, partially covering the mouthpiece. "Suzanne—-!"
I could hear him shouting. "Mark it down. For Christmas this
year, Leo gets a new answering machine."

"Oh,
now you've spoiled the surprise," I pouted.

"The
Boys are going to lose the house."

"Just
like that?"

"Just
like that."

"Defeatism
is unlike you, Jed."

"It's
realism. O.J.'s defense team couldn't save 'em now. They never
actually owned it anyway."

"How's
that?"

"The
old lady hadn't paid the taxes for the past twelve years. Property
with unpaid taxes can't officially change hands until the taxes
are paid."

"So,
if they paid the taxes—"

"Thirty-four
thousand in taxes. Another seventeen in assessments? And that's just
the tax end of it. The house has got a clogged sewer line spewing
effluent into their neighbors' yards. The city won't fix it because
of the unpaid assessments. Their neighbors are in the last stages of
a public nuisance complaint

that
I'm also out of appeals on. They're going to win. It's a done deal.
The old lady's estate is going to get the house back. The city is
going to sell it at a fire-sale price, pay itself off the top, and
let the Boys and the rest of her relations fight it out for the
rest." "How long?"

"There'll
be a seal on that place in under two weeks." "Have you told
them?"

"For
all the good it's done. I stopped over night before last. You can't
call anymore, you know. GTE cut the phone off."

"Really?"

"Yup.
And the city is shutting down their services one at a time. So I
stopped by to give them the bad news."

I
could hear him chuckling on the other end. "I'm afraid to ask."

"They
were just hammered, Leo, I mean twisted, knee-walking drunk, playing
cards back there in the kitchen. I used that same line I just used
with you— that the place was going to have a seal on it within two
weeks. They started doing seal impressions, you know barking and
slapping their arms together, tossing slices of pizza at each other
like fish. By the way, did they tell you about the pizza?"

"Yeah,
they did."

"They
were still barking when I left." "Sorry," I said.

"Not
to worry, Leo. I've gotten to be as fond of them as you are, but
we're at the end of the line here. Make sure they understand, okay?"

"I'll
take care of it," I assured him.

"New
subject," he said. "Can you handle a skip trace for me?"

"Nope.
Sorry."

"It's
easy money."

"I've
got something important going on now. I'm going down to Portland this
afternoon."

"What
could be more important than easy money?"

"Lions."

"I'm
not going to ask. Bye, Leo." "Bye, Jed."

Rebecca
was in a meeting. Marge was not taking phone calls. No way I was
returning Cousin Paul's calls. He wanted me to confirm a Monday
luncheon at his club. There were four messages from H.R. McColl,
first two from a secretary, followed by two from the great man
himself. Fishing for an address for my severance check, I guessed.
Unfortunately for Mr. McColl, Mr. Waterman was, quite regrettably,
going to be away from his desk.

The
Reverend Swogger, according to the church secretary, would be just
delighted to meet with me at four-thirty this afternoon, no matter
what I wanted, sandwiching me, she said, between his meeting with the
board of governors and his weekly taping, whatever that was.

Somehow
it had gotten to be nearly three in the afternoon. Mark had been
waiting when Carl and I, after a four-hour layover in Salt Lake City,
had rolled down the Sea-Tac gangway a little after two in the
morning. For some reason I'd arrived home wired and unable to sleep.
I hadn't rolled out until nearly noon. My internal clock was way off.
A four-thirty appointment, twenty miles away had seemed easy.
Now I felt rushed.

Whatever
the Reverend swogger was doing, it was working. I don't know whether
he'd been saving any souls, but he sure as hell had been saving his
pennies. On the north side of the road, inside a large fenced
enclosure, an enormous old Quonset hut crouched beneath the
old-growth firs like an ancient armadillo, its ribbed metal shell
mottled by rust and awash with tree debris. A red banner emblazoned
with news of a revival meeting the following Friday adorned the side.
My guess was that this had been the original church building. No
more.

Diagonally,
across the street to the east, sat what the secretary had modestly
called the new church. Without the blue glass spire pushing
heavenward like a prow of some celestial ship, the building could
just as well have been a shopping mall. Steel and rock and glass, the
five connected buildings occupied a full suburban block.

The
block immediately to the south was occupied by the Evergreen
Christian School, four freestanding buildings surrounded by
playgrounds, basketball courts, and a full-size baseball field. The
two compounds were connected by a massive parking lot—a rough
estimate suggested about five hundred or so spaces. Figure
two-point-something true believers per car, and the church probably
held somewhere in the vicinity of twelve hundred souls. The wages of
sin obviously were not frozen.

I
pulled to a stop in the main parking lot. A large green sign offered
a map and a campus directory. Youth hall, gymnasium, and swimming
pool to the left of the church in the big square building. Youth
office and Krupp Hall on the second floor. The matching building on
the far right held the activity room, the choir room, the sanctuary,
the chapel, and the church offices. Behind the complex, a small
rectangle was labeled PRIVATE. Some wit had added an S.

Predictably,
I'd parked on the wrong side of the building and had to cover three
full sides before I came to a black metal door marked "Church
Office." It was open. Behind me now, one block over, a residence
made of the same materials as the church sat on the corner. A long
way from the traditional rectory, it looked like it belonged on a
golf course. The sign on the gate also read PRIVATE. No S this time.

Turning
away from the house, I stepped inside the office and shook the mist
from my hair. Neutral, off-white walls, thick cream-colored carpet.
The beige oak desk was unoccupied. The anteroom was empty. I checked
the place out.

There
were three pictures of Jesus and five of the Reverend Swogger. The
bookcase on the near wall held several piles of brochures. Another
picture of the Reverend Jeffrey Swogger adorned each. Schedule of
church services. Six every Sunday in the new church and six more
across the street in the old. At six-thirty, a sunrise service with
country-style music. A traditional service at nine with a
sixty-voice choir. At ten-thirty the modern service, which included a
ten-piece band, sixteen vocalists, and three interpretive dancers.
A broadcast schedule for the TV program. Food bank applications. A
large yellow four-fold with all of the church's summer programs for
youth. I pocketed one of each.

"Hello,"
I said as loud as I could without screaming.

"Come
in," resonated from the depths of the building.

I
followed the carpet down a short hall toward, appropriately enough,
the light. He met me at the door, hand out.

The
Reverend Swogger was going to his grave with the same wide-eyed,
adolescent face he'd been born with. The intervening fifteen years
had only served to solemnize his boyish features; a slight thickening
here, a thin web of lines there, but otherwise he could still have
been twenty.

He
was bigger than I expected, six-two and a solid two-ten or so, more
of a linebacker now than a defensive back. The clump of curly brown
hair had long since been tamed by fifty-dollar haircuts.
Thousand-dollar blue suit, rounded collar, custom-made shirt, plain
burgundy tie, gold cross tie tack.

"You
must be Mr. Waterman," he said, indicating a red leather chair
to the left of the desk. "Please, sit down."

I
confirmed that I was and took a seat. Only the black lacquer desk in
the near right-hand corner of the room suggested an office. The decor
was more like an amiable front parlor—lace curtains and flowered
chintz, deep sofas and landscapes, comfort for the body, succor for
the soul.

He
settled comfortably into his black high-backed chair.

"Mary
said you wanted to see me on a personal matter." "Yes,"
I said.

He
smiled warmly and spread his hands. "How can I be of service?"

"This
is quite a church you've got here," I said for an opener.

"Between
eleven and fifteen thousand people attend our services every
week," he said with obvious pride. "That's in person. It's
hard to get an accurate TV count."

"Going
to church has come a long way."

"The
message hasn't changed," he assured me. "It's only the
packaging that's different. Willow Creek Community up in North
Everett had an Easter program where they dramatized the Passion
of Christ. The whole thing took twelve minutes, and you didn't even
have to get out of your car. Drew nine thousand."

When
I looked dumbfounded, he gave me the canned speech.

"We
minister to the secular suburbs, to the unchurched, to those who
quit organized religion years ago. The papers like to call us
megachurches. We see ourselves more as missionaries. Quitting church
does not eliminate the need for the spiritual. The need for religion
is something we all carry inside. Modern churches merely seek to
service the need in its present form. It's all about servicing
needs."

I
was polite. I said, "Interesting," instead of "bullshit."

"Now
what personal matter can I help you with?"

"Actually,"
I said, "it's not personal about me, it's personal about you."

"Me?"
He smiled and folded his hands on the desktop. "Have we met
before?"

"Not
to my knowledge."

"You're
not one of my parishioners." It was a statement. "You know
all of them?"