Harry took out his credential case and held it up.
“A cop,” the man said.
“Good reading,” Harry responded. “Now who are you?”
“Bobby Joe Waldo,” the man said with a smirk. “I’m Reverend Waldo’s son and one of the associate ministers here. Reverend Waldo’s the man up on the stage.”
“How long before Reverend Waldo will be finished with his rehearsal?” Harry asked.
“We don’t call it a rehearsal.”
“What do you call it?”
“We call it preparing the way.”
Harry nodded, as if digesting a heavy bit of information. “Well, when do you suppose he’ll be through preparing the way?” Now it was his turn to smirk.
The younger Waldo glanced at his watch. Harry’s tone had turned his face into a sneer. “About ten minutes. Right now I have some stuff to do up on the stage. If you want, you can stay here and I’ll let him know you’re waiting on him. But don’t start wandering around. It distracts him, and he doesn’t like it when that happens.” He hesitated, offering as hard a look as he could muster. A bit of face saving, Harry thought. “He’ll wanna know what it’s about,” the man added for effect.
Harry smiled up at him, thinking how pleased Pete Rourke would be. “Just tell him it’s police business,” he said in an unmistakable fuck you tone. Maybe Rourke wouldn’t be pleased.
“I’ll be sure to give him that message,” the young minister snapped back.
Harry watched him as he headed toward the stage, trying to keep a bit of swagger in his walk. He made a note to check Bobby Joe Waldo for a rap sheet. Instinct told him he’d find something.
Ten minutes later, as predicted, Reverend Waldo wrapped up his preparation, and Harry watched his son walk up to him and whisper in his ear. The older minister nodded and looked out to where Harry was seated. After giving some final instructions to the director’s booth and the people on the stage, he started toward Harry. Almost immediately the choir began its preparation of “Amazing Grace.”
Waldo wore a broad salesman’s smile when he reached Harry. But the smile never carried to his eyes which were narrowed and wary. He was a short, rotund man, no more than five-seven, Harry guessed, and he was pushing two hundred pounds hard. His son obviously got his height, slender frame, and sneer from a different member of the family. Waldo was easily in his mid- to late-fifties but there was no visible gray in his full head of hair. He was wearing a vibrant Tommy Bahama floral print shirt and sharply creased tan linen trousers that broke over gleaming, glove-soft Italian loafers, and there was a gold Tag Heuer watch on his wrist. It was high-end casual and Harry estimated that Waldo was wearing more money on his back than Harry spent on clothing in an entire year, maybe two.
“Well,” the minister began, “deputy is it?”
“Detective,” Harry said, opening his credential case. “The name’s Harry Doyle.”
“Well, Detective Doyle, my son tells me you need to speak to me on police business.”
“That’s right, reverend. It’s about Billy Hall. I believe the boy was once a member of your church.”
“Still is, far as I know.” A sudden edge came into the minister’s voice and he quickly masked it with another faux smile.
Harry took out his notebook and wrote the time, the date, and the minister’s name. When he looked up Waldo was shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. “If this is going to take some time, why don’t we adjourn to my office where we’ll both be more comfortable? The church secretary brews a good cup of coffee and I can always use one after a long session of preparing the way.”
Waldo’s office was like the man himself, oversized and expensively furnished. After passing through an outer office that housed a secretary and two assistants, they entered a twenty-by-twenty-foot room. With his first step Harry sank into a full inch of thick Berber carpet and his nostrils were filled with the scent of expensive leather and recently applied furniture polish. The room was dominated by a massive desk that was easily eight feet across, the surface empty except for a leather blotter and a gold pen set. Behind the desk was an equally large credenza that held a telephone console, a flat-screen computer monitor and keyboard, a photograph of a middle-aged woman who Harry assumed was the minister’s wife, and a solitary, well-worn Bible. Above the credenza a large picture window looked out on a pond that had been meticulously designed. There were bulrushes at one end and flowering lily pads at another. One bank held a large royal poinciana tree, its wide branches and flaming red flowers reflecting in the pond’s surface; another offered a white crape myrtle and a golden rain tree, while a third held a towering jacaranda, heavily laden with purple bell-shaped flowers and rich fernlike leaves. If the landscape architect was shooting for serenity, Harry decided he had hit the mark squarely.
The office interior offered its own sense of design, this time aimed at the minister’s image. To the left of the desk photographs of Reverend Waldo with various politicians and civic leaders filled an entire wall, including one that showed Waldo shaking hands with Harry’s ultimate boss, the Pinellas County sheriff. A second wall was filled with awards and plaques citing the minister for various meritorious acts. The final wall held a large portrait of Jesus Christ. Oddly, it was the only item that seemed out of place, and Harry immediately thought of the Bible quote that spoke of a camel and the eye of a needle.
Waldo settled himself into a high-backed leather desk chair that let out a discernable creak under his weight. He gestured toward one of two visitors’ chairs and Harry found himself sinking into soft leather. Almost immediately the office door opened and the secretary entered carrying a tray of coffee. Waldo thanked her, using the name Emily, but withheld any introduction to Harry, who jotted the woman’s name in his notebook. When the woman left, Waldo sipped his coffee, then sat back and brought his hands together like a man preparing to pray. “Now, what can I tell you about Billy Hall?” He offered Harry another smile.
Harry leaned forward and held the minister’s eyes. “Billy’s mother told us the boy was under a great deal of pressure to ‘repent his sins.’”
Waldo nodded. “Indeed he was.”
“She also said the congregation was encouraged to ‘seek justice’ for Darlene Beckett.”
Again, Waldo nodded. “Equally true.”
“Was there anyone in your congregation who showed a particular interest in doing so?”
Waldo let out a soft chuckle. “If you mean, did anyone try to get together a group to light torches and march on the courthouse, the answer would be no. I’m afraid I’m not that powerful a preacher. If you’re asking if anyone wrote letters to the court, or the state’s attorney, or even to Ms. Beckett herself, I would have to say I’m sure some might have, although I have no personal knowledge of any such letters. But I do know that we have a very committed congregation. Committed to the repentance of sin, committed to the punishment of sin, and also committed to the forgiveness of sin, I might add.”
“Was Billy Hall forgiven his sin?” Harry asked.
Now it was the minister’s turn to lean forward, his eyes harder. “Billy Hall would have been forgiven had he repented. But you must have one to have the other. Billy Hall did not repent his sins. He did not testify against that woman, as he should have. And his parents yielded to his refusal to do so. Because of that, a truly evil woman escaped justice.”
“I notice that you use the word evil.” Harry watched the man’s eyes.
“It’s clearly what she was,” he said. “Not that she, too, couldn’t have repented, forsaken her evil ways and received the Lord’s forgiveness.”
Harry stared at the minister for several moments. “Did you or anyone on your staff have any contact with Ms. Beckett?”
“Certainly not,” Waldo snapped.
“You’re sure you can speak for your entire staff on that?”
“I don’t directly supervise the staff. My son Bobby Joe, who is an associate minister here, does that. I’m sure he would have told me if that had been the case. But why leave it open to speculation? Let’s have him in so he can tell us directly.”
Harry waited while Waldo got on the office intercom and asked his secretary to locate his son. When he finished, Harry opened a fresh page in his notebook. “Exactly what denomination is your church?”
“We’re not part of any particular denomination. We’re an independent evangelical church,” Waldo answered.
“So your ministers aren’t ordained?”
