A Sounding Brass (2 page)

Theoretically. This, of course, had not proven to be the case with Phinehas and his thirty-year persecution of the Traynell
women.

“I’d like to present Mr. Luke Fisher,” Owen said, “evangelist from our very own KGHM radio, right here in Hamilton Falls.”

What?

People turned in their seats to stare at one another and gaped at Owen as if they couldn’t believe their ears. A worldly evangelist?
To speak to them? Someone who wasn’t even Elect?

“Is he completely mad?” Rebecca asked aloud, forgetting to whisper.

No one heard her. Everyone was busy talking, speculating, wondering the same thing.

“Please, folks, listen to me.” Owen’s voice rose above the noise, and out of habit, the congregation quieted enough that he
could be heard. “We’ve all been praying without ceasing that God would save us in our hour of need. And I believe the reason
He hasn’t is because we’ve strayed away from Him. We’ve put our trust in our leadership—in man, in human frailty—and the result
has been a disaster. We’ve looked inwardly to ourselves instead of looking outwardly at what God is doing in the world.”

People murmured, and Claire nibbled her lower lip, wondering where on earth this was going.

“It’s been revealed to me that perhaps God speaks to people outside of the Elect, that maybe we might have something to learn
from Mr. Fisher, who has led congregations two and three times this size and who, I’m convinced, has his heart right with
God.” Owen looked around at them all. “I’m not saying he’s a Shepherd. I’ve only invited him to be a guest speaker. Our fundamental
beliefs remain the same—but I think it would do the people of God good to embrace the Holy Spirit in others, as well as in
themselves.”

Mark McNeill, Owen’s father-in-law and a retired Elder, stood and cleared his throat. “Owen, I don’t think that’s right. You
know the Holy Spirit is only given to God’s people. His grace is only poured out on us through the gospel spoken by the Shepherds.
Only they have the authority.”

Owen nodded respectfully. “But at the moment we don’t have a Shepherd. Mr. Fisher is just a guest speaker, Dad.”

“You or I could speak in the Shepherds’ place.”

Owen began to look uncomfortable at having a disagreement with his father-in-law in public. “I’ve had a revelation,” he repeated,
“and I believe it was from God.”

It was hard to argue with that. Since the downfall of Phinehas, Claire had wondered if the Elect put their leaders on a pedestal,
to the point where perhaps they blocked the light that came from God. Some, such as the McNeills, catered to their every whim,
bringing out the best china, the best food, making even a bowl of cereal or a cup of coffee an event. Others, including her
parents, treated the Shepherds like visiting relatives whenever they came to stay. Hospitality to the Shepherds was part of
their sacrifice, but the danger lay in making a show of their service in order to impress the leaders.

“Folks,” Owen pleaded, “let’s listen to Mr. Fisher’s message and then do what Paul exhorted us to do—try the spirit and see
if it’s of God.”

He yielded the microphone to Luke Fisher and returned to his seat. Every eye in the hall was riveted to the front. Claire
drew in a breath as Luke Fisher began to speak. That melodious voice—which had sounded in her car, announcing songs, exhorting
people to come to God, talking with people who called in—filled their humble meeting place with his particular brand of music.

“Those of you who listen to the radio,” he said, “may have heard a number of your hymns being played and wondered how it could
be that worldly artists could sing the music and words that mean so much to you.”

He paused, and all the young people in Claire’s row looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Obviously they’d thought the very
thing she had. Maybe some of them had even been listening to the radio on the way to Mission and had heard “Just As I Am.”

“Well, here’s the thing.” He paused, then said, “I grew up in the Elect.”

An audible gasp swept through the room.

“I did, and when I went Out, I lived a life of sin and suffering, brought on by my own headstrong will. But God had a plan
for me, and do you know what that was?”

Claire found herself shaking her head, as though he had spoken directly to her. She wished he would. She wished those eyes
would seek her out in the midst of this crowd and see that there was a mature, reasonably attractive woman who was currently
single and very much available, right there in the seventh row.

“God’s plan was for me to preach the gospel, but not as a Shepherd. No, His plan for my life reaches farther than that. It’s
been revealed to me that radio isn’t a sin, my friends. It’s a way of reaching the hearts of the sick, the shut-in, those
who aren’t as fortunate as we are in this hall tonight. It’s a way of bringing cheer to your soul as you drive to the supermarket,
of focusing your mind on Christ while you work in the office. It’s a way to reach the soul on the other side of the cube divider
who doesn’t know which way to turn in a life that looks like a maze.”

The crowd was utterly silent.

“God gives us all our talents, my friends. And what have we been doing with them? Have we been burying them in the backyard
of our own little group? Or have we been lending them out to others?”

“Backyard,” Claire heard someone say. Six months ago, no one would have agreed with such a thing unless Phinehas himself had
decreed a change in doctrine. Just a few months ago, the Elect had been sure of themselves and sure of what they believed.
Things were different now. They were all shaken and a little uncertain about what exactly was right.

“Nonsense,” snapped Elizabeth McNeill, Julia’s mother, and then blushed scarlet at having actually spoken aloud in a Gathering,
where it was forbidden for women to raise their voices except in song.

Luke Fisher smiled, and Claire lost her ability to breathe.

If only someone would smile at me like that
.

* * *

AFTER GATHERING WAS OVER,
Claire hung at the fringes of the little group that had gathered around Luke and Owen. It was hard not to watch the newcomer,
what with that smile and that charismatic presence.

“Don’t go making eyes at that worldly preacher.” Alma Woods shook Claire’s hand in her abrupt way. “Enough of you young women
have lost your salvation by chasing ungodly men.”

Claire choked down a defensive retort. Not by any stretch of the imagination could Ross Malcolm or Matthew Nicholas be called
ungodly. And she’d never chased anyone in her life. “I’m not making eyes at him,” she said with dignity. “I’m waiting to speak
with Owen.”

Alma ran a critical eye down her dress and coat. “Been ordering from catalogs again, have we?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. There are some pretty things in—”

“Vanity, all is vanity.” Alma looked her in the eye. “You should be a better example to your mother. I saw her in Pitchford,
you know, traipsing around in a pair of pants, worldly as you please when she thought no one was looking.”

Shame flogged hot color into Claire’s cheeks. “My mother’s choices are her own,” she said. “Excuse me, Alma. I need to speak
to Owen.”

Please let him help
, she begged the Lord.
I have to get out of this town
.

Owen broke away from the little group at last and she stopped him with a hand on his arm as he glanced around for his kids.
“Owen, could I speak to you a minute?”

His smile was open and warm, and she took heart. “Sure. What’s up?”

“I—I wondered if you’d heard anything from any of the Shepherds about whether I could move or not.”

His smile faded. “Claire, we’ve been over this. Your place is in Hamilton Falls. Besides, you did move. To Rebecca’s.”

That didn’t count as a move. More like an aborted flight that crash-landed. She’d received notice that she’d gotten the position
she’d interviewed for at one of the bank’s branches in Seattle. She’d given her notice, packed her things, and was practically
on the highway when Phinehas had stepped in to ask her what she thought she was doing.

“There are plenty of young people in Seattle, Claire,” he’d said with that gentle smile of a man who controlled people’s lives
with absolute authority. “And not so many here in Hamilton Falls. I need you to be an example to the younger girls.”

The younger girls hardly looked at her—why should they? Nobody needed her, really, with the exception of her manager at the
bank, who’d been delighted she was staying and had offered her the new accounts position. She hadn’t wanted it. She’d have
been a mail clerk in the Seattle branch if that’s what it took to get out of Hamilton Falls.

But no. Even that had been denied her. So, when Dinah had declined it, she’d rented Rebecca’s suite and put the best face
on the situation that she could.

“You know what Phinehas said,” Owen reminded her now, with a little of Phinehas’s own gentleness.

“But with him on trial tomorrow, maybe we should look at my situation again.”

“Claire, the Elders have a lot to think and pray about right now. Please be considerate.”

Her desire to move away and have a real life was inconsiderate? Tears burned the back of her throat as Owen stepped around
her to shake someone else’s hand.

She should be used to it by now—the bitter flavor of unwillingness.

* * *

INVESTIGATOR RAYMOND HARPER
of Washington State’s Organized Crime Task Force ran his fingers through his hair and gripped his skull as he read through
his notes early Monday morning. The district attorney’s assistant detoured around the desk temporarily on loan to him and
dropped a pile of papers on the corner of it.

“Your depositions came back from Transcription,” she told him. “George thought you might want a look.”

Great. One more thing to do, one more thing keeping him in beautiful downtown Pitchford instead of back in Seattle doing what
he’d signed up to do.

Sexual abuse wasn’t his bailiwick—organized crime was. But two things had prodded him into taking the case: the fact that
this religious group was statewide, which put it in the OCTF’s purview, and Tamara Traynell’s big brown eyes and the depths
of pain he had seen in them as she’d told her story. He’d left Ross and Julia Malcolm’s dinner table that night if not a changed
man, then certainly an angry one. He had at last understood why his partner and best friend had made busting bent religious
groups his particular mission. Trust wasn’t Ray’s biggest fault, but it was in plenty of people—people who gave their faith
and their money to a group and got nothing but abuse and a bunch of happy brainwashing in return.

Which is why it puzzled him to see Ross and Julia and their daughter Kailey tripping off to church as if Ross’s daily disillusionment
about human nature never happened. The guy must have superhuman powers of denial. Or a bigger capacity to love and forgive
than Ray himself possessed.

With a sigh, he closed his notebook and laid it on top of his file on Emile Johan Rausch, who thought he was going to get
away with running cocaine over the line into Canada in the guise of horseback-riding trips, and the frustrating case of Brandon
Boanerges, the invisible fraudster with the beautiful voice who had been driving him nuts for a year. He opened the deposition
file for the rape case.

This Philip Leslie guy—aka Phinehas, aka the senior minister of the group Julia, Dinah, and Tamara had belonged to—was a real
prince. As his arresting officer, Ray had been delighted to be subpoenaed to testify against him. As far as he was concerned,
the prosecution’s case was open and shut, but he still had to show up on the stand and say his bit about the arrest.

He had no doubt young Tamara would hold herself together while Leslie gave her the hairy eyeball from the defendant’s chair.
Her sister Dinah, who was also on the prosecution’s witness list, had lost her fear of the man, too. He glanced through the
young woman’s deposition. Her answers had been clear, concise, and full of damning detail, just the way Ray liked them. In
Prosecution 101, this girl would get an “A.”

TRAYNELL
: Phinehas is an itinerant minister, so he stays in the homes of the Elect. He would come to my room at night and have sex
with me against my will, telling me that I was a vessel filled with love and my purpose was to give love to him so he could
have the strength to go on preaching the gospel.

HARPER:
For how long did this go on?

TRAYNELL:
Ten years. It started when I was fourteen.

Ray’s stomach turned over. Justice was supposed to be blind, but the people in her service didn’t have to be so impartial.
It was a stroke of luck they’d pulled Judge Eleanor Keaton—a woman, the D.A. had told him, who was particularly hard on sex
offenders.

The D.A.’s assistant stopped by the desk a second time and tapped her watch. “It’s time, Investigator.”

He was one of the first witnesses on the schedule, so he hustled down the corridor that connected the county offices with
the courthouse. It sported all of two courtrooms, one for municipal cases and one for superior court, housed in a modest brick
building facing a green space that formed an old-fashioned town square.

By nine-thirty he was sworn in and on the stand, with Judge Keaton on his right and a sea of people dressed in black in front
of him. Tamara had told him the Elect dressed in black to symbolize the charred remains of the burned offering of their human
nature. Weird. He wondered how many still supported their former leader, and how many were here to see him condemned, if that
turned out to be the verdict.

The accused, Philip Leslie, his spine straight and his face calm, sat at the defense table next to John Ortega, the public
defender. Phinehas was dressed in a beautifully cut black wool suit. Ray suspected that none of the flock knew he would be
strip-searched each time he changed into and out of it. For a man as fastidious as he’d learned Phinehas was, each time he
had to submit to the search would be a fine kind of torture.