The Last Sunday (13 page)

“I never said that was my primary motivation,” Cynthia snapped, leaning forward in the wicker chair. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I'm not an idiot, Cynthia,” Gideon responded as his patience grew thinner. “Any fool can see through that ridiculous pious ‘good of the church' routine of yours. It's obvious this is all about destroying Samantha so your husband can become pastor and, thereby, you first lady.”

Cynthia pressed forward, unashamed of the exposure. “Whether that is true or not is irrelevant. What's important is Samantha should have never been installed as pastor and someone has to do something about it.”

“And you've elected yourself as that person?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. There doesn't seem to be anyone else around with the balls to do the job,” she said, looking to Gideon with disdain.

“Look, I didn't ask to meet you today to talk about any of your grand schemes,” Gideon said dismissively.

“Then why did you ask me to come here?”

“I wanted to ask you what you know about Hezekiah's death.”

“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.

“I'll be blunt with you, Cynthia. There are some people who think Samantha may have had something to do with his murder.”

Gideon felt his relationship with Cynthia had sunk beyond the reaches of discretion. He was desperate for any piece of information that would potentially remove Danny from Samantha's deadly path.

“Do you know anything that might potentially link her to his death?” he asked point-blank.

Just as he spoke the words, a waiter bowed over his right shoulder. “May I get you two another glass of chardonnay?”

“Yes, thank you,” Cynthia quickly responded, with Gideon's words still hanging in the air. The waiter departed with a confirming nod of his head.

“My husband and I just had a very similar conversation,” she said, finding it difficult to contain her glee. “I've always had my suspicions.”

“What type of suspicions?”

“Well, for starters, not many people knew their marriage was a sham. He had so many affairs, I stopped counting. Not to mention the last one was with a man, and he was thinking about leaving the church for him. I called Samantha ‘his camera wife.' They were the perfect couple in front of the camera, but when it was turned off, they went their separate ways.”

“No one ever told me that.”

“No one wants to speak ill of the dead.”

“No one but you?”

“I thought we were beyond the bullshit, Gideon. As you said, you're ‘not a fool,' and neither am I.”

“You're right. We are beyond that. Anything else? You said you had your suspicions.”

“Well, there's also the fact that Samantha hated living in Hezekiah's shadow. You could see it in her face sometimes when she was standing behind him. It was only a hint of disdain, but I could see it, and I'm sure others could too.”

“But why would she be jealous of him? He made sure she had everything. She's got two Picassos, for Christ's sake, and that god-awful house in Bel Air.”

“You have to understand something about women like Samantha. They make men into the successes they are only because they believe the world isn't ready for them to be in positions of absolute power, especially in the church. The faith community is still very chauvinistic. I suspect once she felt the world was ready for her, she figured she no longer needed Hezekiah.”

“Is that how you feel about your husband?” Gideon asked unapologetically.

“Perhaps, but you forget the difference between Samantha and me.”

“What's that?”

“Samantha is an ordained minister with a doctorate in theology.”

Gideon tried to hide his disgust with her frankness. “She obviously didn't do it herself. If you think it's possible that she is responsible, who do you think she could have convinced to do it?”

“That's easy,” Cynthia said, beaming. “Have you heard of Willie Mitchell?”

“Yes. The minister that committed suicide.”

“That's right. Coincidentally, on the same day Hezekiah was killed,” she said with a slight wink. “He was a fool who Samantha had wrapped around her finger. Uneducated and very crass, but also very rich,” she said. “Made a fortune in a string of shady real estate deals. He was connected to all sorts of underground gangster types and street thugs. Guys with the balls to do whatever is necessary in order to get the job done,” she revealed, looking disappointingly toward Gideon's crotch. “All he wanted in life was to fuck her, and I wouldn't be surprised if she actually let him in exchange for arranging Hezekiah's murder.”

“Can you prove any of this?” Gideon asked with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“I can't prove a damned thing,” Cynthia said with an exasperated sigh. “All I've got are the e-mails, which you say are useless.”

The two sat in silence, looking out the bay window at the ocean in the distance. Surfers danced on the cresting waves. The shoreline was dotted with kaleidoscope umbrellas, dripping coolers, and folding beach chairs with heads sticking over the tops.

Cynthia broke the silence. “Sometimes I feel the only way to get rid of her is if the same thing that happened to Hezekiah happens to her.”

Gideon looked to her with suspicion but said nothing. The instincts of a seasoned reporter kicked in. This was the time to listen and not to ask questions.

The silence allowed Cynthia's mind to wander. “God forgive me, but sometimes I wish someone would . . .”

“Would what?” he asked, prodding cautiously.

“Someone would put a bullet in her pretty little head,” she said while casually scanning the shoreline.

Gideon did not respond. He couldn't without admitting that he had entertained the exact same thought.

 

 

The wall safe was tucked discreetly behind a nondescript oil painting that would not catch the eye of a burglar trained in the art of identifying valuable masterpieces. Samantha nimbly turned the dial. With each spin, an almost inaudible click reverberated through her quiet home office.

This room, her office, provided a startling contrast to the decor of the other rooms in the house. A sleek Swedish couch and two modern leather chairs, too perfect and erect to provide comfort, floated on a bloodred island rug in the center of the room. Sparkling modern light fixtures served more as art than as illuminators. Stark teak planks covering the floor directed every step taken in the room to the front of Samantha's desk. The glass desk glowed at the rear of the room from light shining through a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the lush grounds of the estate.

With the last turn of the dial, a louder series of clicks indicated that the safe was unlatched. Samantha slowly opened the heavy metal door, revealing a small portion of the hidden treasures she had stashed in secure locations around the world.

A 478.68 carat blue sapphire and diamond necklace, once worn by the queen of Romania at the coronation of her husband, was nestled in a burgundy velvet box. A flawless 10.04 carat black diamond from South Africa in a much smaller velvet box sat atop a stack of stocks, bonds, and deeds to a winery in Napa Valley, a villa in the South of France, and a penthouse in Bangkok.

In the rear of the wall safe were stacks of one-thousand-dollar bills. The stacks were comprised of bundles containing fifty one-thousand-dollar bills held together by a single white paper strip.

The gun that was used to, almost, kill Danny St. John was sitting on one of the stacks of money. Samantha reached past the fortunes and removed it from the steel cave. It was a small matte black Smith & Wesson Centennial 442 snub-nosed revolver. She trembled slightly when she felt the sensuous weight and cold steel in her hand.

Samantha had fond memories of the gun. It held a special place in her heart. It was also the same gun Virgil Jackson had used to kill her husband. It was the gun that David had used in his bungled attempt to kill Danny. She viewed it as her friend. A friend who would do anything she told it to. A friend who asked no questions and a friend who obediently removed anyone who stood between her and her heart's desires.

Samantha walked slowly across the room to the window overlooking the estate grounds. The sun was just starting its slow decent to the horizon. Her world was quiet and peaceful as she fondly reminisced about the day her loyal friend removed Hezekiah from her life.

It had been a beautiful Sunday morning at New Testament Cathedral. The parking lot was filled with freshly washed cars. Children played on the lawn in front of the church, carefully trying to keep their flowered white dresses and little tan suits clean for as long as possible. Women rushed their husbands up the stairs to the church to get a good seat. The lobby was filled with members waiting to be seated by the ushers. White-gloved ushers handed neatly folded powder-blue bulletins to each person who entered the sanctuary.

The day before, Samantha had arranged for the balcony to be closed to give her hired assassin the privacy he needed. When the sanctuary had reached full capacity, the overflow of worshippers was directed to Fellowship Hall, where folding chairs had been assembled auditorium style. No one liked viewing the service over the television monitors, but they could not refuse the only remaining option.

By 10:50 the choir had lined up behind the now closed double doors to the sanctuary. Except for choir members waiting to enter the sanctuary, the lobby was empty. They waited patiently for the first chords from the organ. Singers nervously fastened buttons on their robes and adjusted the sashes embroidered with the name of the church. The doors flew open and the procession began when the chord was finally struck. Parishioners stood to welcome the jubilant march.

Reverend Willie Mitchell had dropped off the crack-addicted assassin, Virgil Jackson, three blocks away from the church. He had then double-parked his car in the parking lot of the church and had run up the stairs. His seat was waiting for him in the pulpit. As he passed Samantha on the front row, she remembered how he bent over to kiss her check and whispered, “Everything is set.”

Samantha had decided against pearls for her wrist and had instead chosen a diamond bracelet Hezekiah had bought her for Christmas.

The worship service proceeded as it had for the past ten years. The choir sang, the people rejoiced, the cameras rolled, and Hezekiah entered the sanctuary on cue. The cameras followed his precisely sculpted black suit as it floated up the steps to the pulpit. He nodded good morning to the choir as they continued their song.

When the song ended, all cameras focused once again on Hezekiah. Samantha remembered how pious and arrogant he looked on the forty-foot JumboTron screen. The applause subsided, and Hezekiah spoke his first words of the morning.

She remembered them as if they were etched in her brain. “I know a lot of you are not going to want to hear what I have to say this morning, but praise God, I'm going to say it any way.

“Brothers and Sisters, it's time for us to stop lying to ourselves. It's time we stop lying to each other, and most importantly, it's time we stop lying to God. He already knows our hearts, so who do we think we're fooling? Now, please understand I'm preaching to myself just as much as I'm preaching to you.”

A mixture of laughter and the words ‘”Go ahead, Preacher” came from the far reaches of the sanctuary.

“Now, one lie is only the tip of the iceberg. Once you tell one lie, you've got to tell ten more to cover it up. Pretty soon we don't even know what the truth is ourselves. We lie about our hair color. We lie about our jobs. We stretch the truth about our income.” Hezekiah extended his arms to illustrate the point. “And some of us even lie about who we love.”

Samantha shuddered slightly at her office window when she recalled how nervous she was at that point in his sermon. She had looked over her shoulder to the balcony several times, hoping Virgil would act before Hezekiah said something she would regret. She wanted to be remembered as the wife Pastor Cleaveland loved. Not as the woman he had planned to divorce for a man.

Virgil Jackson had entered the now empty lobby unnoticed and had quietly climbed the side stairs of the balcony. The double doors of the sanctuary were closed, and all eyes and ears were focused on Hezekiah and his cryptic sermon.

Hezekiah continued, “I will be the first one to say before God and all of you that I've told my share of lies. I'm just a man. A man who must humble himself daily before God to confess his sins and to plead His forgiveness.” Hezekiah picked up the handheld microphone and walked away from the podium. “I, like you, have done some things in my life that I am not proud of.”

Countless amens were uttered. Samantha remembered noticing Hattie Williams rocking with her Bible open and reading. A quiet confusion began to work its way through the pews. This was a sermon like none they had ever heard from the pastor. He had lowered himself to the level of mortals. The faces became troubled by his descent, because they needed him to be better than they were.

Hezekiah had put one foot on the steps, preparing to walk down, when two loud shots reverberated through the sanctuary. The first shriek came from someone in the center of the church, as Hezekiah fell backward into the pulpit. Everyone was paralyzed for what seemed like minutes. Women began ducking behind pews, while men shielded them. Screams were soon heard from every part of the auditorium. Hezekiah lay bleeding from bullet wounds to the head and chest. The members in Fellowship Hall gasped as they watched the mayhem unfold on the massive flat-screen.

Virgil stood erect and ran stumbling up the center aisle of the balcony. Samantha saw the shadow of a man running out of the dark balcony.