His perfectly brown skin provided the ideal contrast for teeth that matched the luster of the finest Australian pearl. The warmth of his deep caramel eyes could seduce, comfort, and then, if he chose, dissect the powerful with surgical-like precision.
Gideon had not fully understood the impact of his striking looks until his first television job at a small station in Philadelphia. It was there he learned that most people were far more interested in what he looked like and with whom he slept than the stories he reported, a fact that never pleased him. There was always a subtle hint of embarrassment in his tone whenever he spoke to the cameras. It was as if he were saying, “I’m sorry if I am distracting you from this important story.” This modesty provided viewers with yet another indescribable something that made him even more desirable.
Rumors of his questionable sexuality were frequently the topic of conversation at beauty salons, smart dinner parties, and on the cover of tabloids. No one knew definitively, but the gay community assumed he was “family,” while ever-hopeful females defended his heterosexuality as if he were their husband-to-be or favorite son.
As Gideon reached for a full water glass, Cynthia Pryce approached the table. “Good afternoon, Mr. Truman,” she said, extending her hand. Gideon bumped the table when he stood and gently took her hand. He appeared slightly rattled.
“I’m sorry. Did I startle you?” she said with a curious expression on her face.
“No. No, not at all. I must, however, confess that I wasn’t expecting you to be so . . . Please sit down.”
Cynthia smiled. “Thank you. To be so what?”
“Well, so attractive,” he replied, uncharacteristically embarrassed.
Cynthia smiled and said, “Really? What exactly were you expecting?”
Gideon quickly regained his composure. “I’m not sure. Maybe a more matronly church-lady type, wearing lots of lace around her neck and a big hat with silk flowers.”
They laughed gently. Both revealed pearly smiles that demanded the attention of diners from other tables.
After being directed by the chef, the waiter returned promptly to the table. “Good afternoon, ma’am. May I offer you something from the bar?” he asked Cynthia.
“I’ll have a glass of dry white wine,” she said without looking up.
“And you, sir?”
Gideon looked up with a smile and replied, “I’ll have the same. Thank you.”
When the waiter was out of earshot, Gideon spoke softly. “I must say, Mrs. Pryce, I was surprised when you contacted me. I’ve been trying to reach members of the board of trustees and senior ministers from New Testament Cathedral for three weeks now, but no one has been willing to speak with me. It seems a veil of silence has dropped over the entire church. It’s almost as if you all have something to hide.”
Cynthia smiled but did not speak. The waiter returned with the two glasses of wine and took their orders.
“Mr. Truman—”
Gideon interrupted, “Please, call me Gideon.”
“All right then, Gideon, you mentioned secrets. How much do you know about Hezekiah Cleaveland’s personal life?”
“At this point not very much,” Gideon replied. “Only what’s written about him on the church’s Web site. As I said, no one has been willing to talk with me. That is, no one until now.”
“Are you familiar with a Los Angeles Chronicle reporter by the name of Lance Savage?”
“Isn’t he the reporter who was found dead in his home a few weeks ago?”
“That’s correct,” she said with a pleased expression. “Do you know anything about the story he was working on when he was murdered?”
“I don’t. Did it have something to do with Pastor Cleaveland?”
Cynthia’s response was interrupted by the waiter arriving with a small platter of intricately displayed sushi. When he bowed and left, she continued, “I’m not going to play games with you, Gideon. I happen to know the content of the story Lance Savage was working on.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I was the source of his information,” she said with a tinge of pride.
“Go on,” he said, his words punctuated by a slight gesture of his hand.
“Before I say more, I’ll need some assurances from you. What I tell you can never be attributed to me. I must remain anonymous. It will be up to you to prove or disprove what I say.”
Gideon silently calculated the cunning of his prey and concluded that, if the information was as titillating as she seemed to believe, it was worth agreeing to her terms.
“That sounds reasonable. However, I must tell you that if what you say is in any way fabricated, I will be very displeased that you have wasted my time, and believe me, Mrs. Pryce, you don’t want to lie to someone like me.”
She smiled and said, “I can assure you that everything I’m about to tell you is absolutely true. And please, Gideon, call me Cynthia.” Cynthia picked up her leather purse from the floor. From it she retrieved a folder containing a stack of papers and handed it to Gideon. “These are copies of e-mails I printed from Hezekiah’s computer six months before he was killed. They are correspondences between him and his lover.”
“When you say ‘lover,’ I assume you are referring to his wife, Samantha?” Gideon asked innocently.
“I’m afraid not. Hezekiah’s lover was a man. A young man named Danny St. John.”
Gideon took the folder, leaned forward, and asked suspiciously, “Are you saying Pastor Hezekiah Cleaveland was gay? Who else knows about this?”
“I’m not exactly sure. The only people I am aware of are Lance Savage, Phillip Thornton from the Los Angeles Chronicle, and my husband, Percy.”
“How about his wife? Does she know about this?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Are you suggesting this has something to do with his murder?”
“I suspect it does. I don’t know that for a fact, but think about it. In the week before the story was scheduled to run in the Los Angeles Chronicle, there were three deaths. All of them were people associated with Samantha Cleaveland. Lance Savage, the Reverend Willie Mitchell, and Hezekiah Cleaveland. It all strikes me as very suspicious.”
“Who is Willie Mitchell?”
“Reverend Mitchell was a senior minister at New Testament Cathedral. He was also one of the largest individual donors to the new cathedral construction project and a man who would do anything Samantha told him to do. It was an open secret that he was in love with her, and she used that to control him.”
“How did he die?”
“Poor man shot himself in the head on the night Hezekiah was killed,” Cynthia answered with as much sympathy as she could muster. “It was such a tragedy.”
“Do the police think there’s a link between Hezekiah’s murder and Mitchell’s suicide?”
“No.”
“So what makes you think there is?”
“Reverend Mitchell was madly in love with Samantha. So why would he kill himself after the man he believed stood between him and Samantha was now out of the way? It doesn’t make sense.”
Gideon still had not opened the folder that lay on the table. “Is Danny St. John a member of New Testament Cathedral?”
“No. He’s a social worker who works with the homeless at an agency in downtown Los Angeles. I’ve never seen him before, but Lance told me he is quite beautiful. You should pay him a visit. You might like him.”
Gideon ignored the poorly veiled reference to his orientation and opened the folder. The first e-mail was dated February twelfth two years earlier. It was sent from Hezekiah’s New Testament Cathedral e-mail address to a Google address for Danny St. John.
Hello, Danny,
I’m between meetings and wanted to tell you how much I love you. I think about you so much sometimes, it’s hard for me to concentrate. I was just counseling a couple whose marriage is falling apart, and all I could think about was holding you in my arms and kissing your body from head to
toe. I love the way you taste, the way you smell, and the way you make me feel. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow night.
Love you,
Hez
Gideon continued reading randomly through the stack of e-mails. They ranged in tone from completely innocuous to sexually graphic. Some were innocent communications, while others spoke to the undeniable emotional and physical bond between one of the nation’s most powerful religious leaders and a young, naive social worker. After a while Gideon looked up from the papers at Cynthia, who had been studying him the entire time he read. There was silence at the table as they each planned their next move.
Gideon went first. “So, what do you want out of this? Our network has a firm policy that we don’t pay for stories.”
Cynthia had anticipated that these would be the salivating journalist’s next words and reverted to her best minister’s wife impression.
“I’m not seeking any type of financial remuneration,” she responded indignantly. “I don’t want anything but for God’s will to be done. My heart goes out to Samantha. Who knows what diseases he may have given her? Also, what if this Danny St. John killed Hezekiah in a jealous rage? She needs to know for her own safety.”
“Why didn’t the Los Angeles Chronicle run the story?”
“It was scheduled to be their lead story on the Monday after the Sunday Hezekiah was killed. Obviously, Hezekiah being killed was a much bigger story than him liking to suck dick. And, afterward, I’m sure they realized there would be a significant backlash if they were thought to be maligning the dead.” From the expression on Gideon’s face, Cynthia realized her choice of words didn’t fit with the preacher’s wife image. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“Not offended. Just a little surprised.” Gideon took a mental note of the multifaceted woman and continued. “If this is true, it has the potential to be one of the most sensational stories of the year. Have you spoken to anyone else in the media?”
“No, I haven’t. I wanted to speak with you first.”
“Why me?”
“Because I believe you will handle the story in a way that will do the least amount of harm to New Testament Cathedral. You strike me as ethical, sophisticated, and talented enough to make the story about the man and not the ministry. Good people sometimes do stupid things. Hezekiah’s behavior was certainly stupid, but the ministry he built is not. Millions of people around the world rely on New Testament Cathedral for hope, direction, and comfort. I think you can understand how important that is and will report the story in a way that will allow those of us who remain to continue to share the love of God throughout the world.”
“That’s a nice speech, Cynthia, but isn’t your husband the next in line to become pastor if Samantha doesn’t work out?”
Cynthia pulled her most offended expression from the depths of her gut and responded, “Yes, but that has nothing to do with this. I only want what’s right for New Testament.”
“Save the pious bullshit for your television audience. You seem to forget I’m a reporter. I knew everything about you and your husband ten minutes after you called me. I’m assuming your husband, Percy, isn’t quite as ambitious as you are. What really happened, Cynthia? He didn’t have the balls to throw Samantha under the bus and take over New Testament Cathedral after Hezekiah died? You had done all the dirty work by leaking the story.” Then, to test her sensibilities even further, he added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you also had to fuck a few guys, or even girls, at the Chronicle to keep this story on track.”
Cynthia leaned back in her chair unfazed as Gideon continued. “You would be the first lady of New Testament Cathedral today if Hezekiah hadn’t gotten himself shot in the head the day before the story was scheduled to run. But you don’t give up easily, because here you are, trying your damnedest to convince me to pin Hezekiah’s death on his widow or his lover.”
Cynthia looked him directly in the eyes as she reached for the folder between them. “I’ll take those if you’re not interested,” she said with a wicked smile. “I’m sure I won’t have a problem finding someone who is. Maybe Anderson Cooper, “she said wryly.
Gideon quickly placed his hand firmly on the folder. “Hold on. I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. I’m going to investigate the story, but on my terms. No one, including you and your husband, are off-limits. If I find out that your role in this was anything other than what you’ve said, it will be my decision whether or not to include it in my story.”
Cynthia smiled slightly. “You don’t frighten me, Gideon Truman,” she said mockingly. “The role I played is exactly as I’ve described it. Just remember, if you call on me to corroborate any of this, you’re out of luck. Based on your obviously brilliant skills of deduction, it shouldn’t be too difficult for you to figure out why. I’ll deny we ever met and sue you personally for libel if you ever try to drag me into this.”
“It seems to me you’ve already dragged yourself into it, Cynthia. Can you get me an interview with Samantha? She won’t take my calls.”
“Don’t worry about that. She knows you want to interview her, and she’ll contact you when she feels the time is perfect for her to milk Hezekiah’s death for her own benefit. By the way, when you do meet with her, don’t forget to ask about his other extramarital affairs.”
“What do you mean, other? Have there been more?”
“Of course there have been others, but none like this one. Who cares how many choir girls he’s fucked over the years? That will all be eclipsed by the lovely Danny St. John.”
Chapter 4
Reverend Percy Pryce’s office was the third largest in the New Testament Cathedral administrative suite. The room’s dominant colors were hues of grays and black, with a smattering of color in the form of autumn-toned pillows on a black couch, a green vase glimmering from the light pouring through the wall of glass, and a burst of fresh-cut flowers, which were delivered like clockwork each Monday morning to every office in the executive suite. They sat on the table near to Percy’s desk.
Percy could smell the sweet fragrance of Cynthia’s perfume still on his hands as he removed his coat and sat behind his large black lacquered desk. The fog that ecstasy brought slowly began to fade as the realization of his deeds came to the forefront of his mind. Once again the unsuccessful attempt he and Kenneth Davis had made to pay Lance Savage $175,000 in exchange for not running the incendiary story about Hezekiah played like a recording in his brain. The violent struggle with Lance Savage, which had left the living room of the little bungalow in shambles. The image of the reporter’s crumpled body lying dead on the floor among the litter of one-hundred-dollar bills was ever looming.
His hands trembled slightly as he relived the scene. His palms felt moist and his mouth dry when the intercom buzzer sliced through the silence. “Excuse me, Reverend Pryce,” exclaimed the disembodied voice. “Reverend Davis is here to see you. Should I send him in? He said it will only take a moment.”
Percy took a deep breath and rubbed his dewy hands together. “Thank you, Carol. Send him in.”
Kenneth entered like a whirlwind, closing the door behind him. “She’s out of control. We have to do something.”
Percy looked up and calmly replied, “We only have ourselves to blame for this. We all knew who Samantha was long before Hezekiah was killed. We voted her in as pastor, and now we have to live with the decision.”
“How can you be so calm about this? That woman is going to destroy this ministry with her ego.” Kenneth walked anxiously toward the desk and continued. “This morning she announced that she is going to be functioning as the COO. She certainly knew how to run Hezekiah, but she doesn’t know anything about running New Testament Cathedral.”
Percy remained calm. “I think you’re wrong. Samantha is a smart woman. The public loves her, and she raises more money than all of us put together. Some people think she’s been running the church from day one and Hezekiah was only the front man.”
“That may be true,
but what about the spiritual needs of our members? You know as well as I do that if they can’t write a check for ten thousand dollars or more, she won’t want any part of them.”
Percy paused and turned toward the window. He looked out over the grounds of New Testament Cathedral and replied mournfully, “I must admit that I worry about that too, Reverend Davis.”
Kenneth sat down on the couch and, along with Percy, looked out the window. “And so you should. She’s going to run this place like a coldhearted corporation. It will be all about money and her fame, not about saving souls.”
The two men sat quietly, each searching the horizon for answers. Percy finally broke the silence. “Have you heard anything from the police about Lance Savage? Every time someone knocks on my door, I jump, thinking it’s them coming to arrest me.”
Kenneth moved anxiously to the edge of the couch. “I’ve told you to forget about that, Percy. There is no link between us and his death. As far as the police are concerned, Lance walked in on a burglar robbing his home and was killed.”
“I just can’t stop thinking about him lying there,” Percy said nervously. “He’s dead because of us, Kenneth. I don’t know if God can forgive us for that. I don’t know if I can forgive myself.”
“It was an accident. You know it. I know it, and so does God. You didn’t intend to kill him.”
“Cynthia knows when something is bothering me.”
Kenneth stood and walked behind Percy’s desk. He spun the chair toward him, kneeled down in front of Percy, and placed his hand on his knee. “Have you said anything to her about this?”
Percy looked startled. “No,” he replied emphatically. “I could never tell her I did something like this.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way. As time passes, you’ll learn to manage your feelings better, but for now don’t say a word to anyone. Trust me, it will get easier. If you need to talk about it, call me. Understand?”
Percy nodded his head in affirmation, then turned away.
Kenneth continued, “The only thing we need to worry about now is Samantha and New Testament. We have to figure out a way to prevent her from being appointed as permanent pastor. Everyone knows you should be pastor, Percy.”
When Sunday Comes Again Page 4
