A Sounding Brass (7 page)

He smiled and let go of her hand. “Come on back to the booth, Claire.” At the door to the studio, he looked over his shoulder
at her. “There’s only one rule in here. You talk when the music’s on, and you don’t when I’m talking. Otherwise everyone in
a five-county radius will be able to hear you. Okay?”

“Okay.” Wow. She hadn’t realized this little station could broadcast that far.

Luke sat in front of the console, slid some CDs into slots with his left hand, and with his right chose a switch from about
a dozen on a board and slid it down its track to the bottom. “There.” He made some notes on a sheet of paper. “We’ve got ten
minutes until I back-call these.”

Ten minutes to land herself a job. Well, she’d lost one in about the same amount of time, hadn’t she?

“Let me tell you how it works around here,” Luke said. “My show is eight to twelve, mornings and evenings. We sign off at
midnight. Toby Henzig comes in at six
A.M.
, turns the system on, and reads the early reports. Then he comes back at noon and hosts the open mic, reads the stock reports,
plays what he wants until eight. You’d work during business hours, of course.” Luke leaned back in his chair as though he
had nothing better to do than to gab the afternoon away. “Do you have a résumé?”

“No, I was passing by and decided on the spur of the moment to come in. But I can bring you one later today.”

“No problem. Give me the condensed version.”

Claire took a deep breath and told him about her education, her career—or what passed for a career for an Elect woman in a
small town. It was better than a résumé that held nothing but, say, assisting at Linda Bell’s daycare, which is what the womanly
ideal seemed to be. “I was employee of the month recently,” she concluded, “and I passed the Management Potential course in
Seattle with flying colors.”

He was silent for a moment. She noticed that he hadn’t made a single note on his sheet of paper, though he’d been rolling
his pen between his fingers the whole time she’d been talking. Maybe he was just killing time in between songs. Maybe she
was fooling herself that she was any kind of prize on the job market. Maybe—

“Why’d you leave the bank?” he asked at last.

She’d known she’d have to field this one; she just wished she’d had a little more time to prepare. As in, more than an hour
after the event. But Luke was Elect—or had been—or was going to be. She was a little confused on that point. But it seemed
that he would understand. She’d always been honest with herself so there was no point in whitewashing anything now.

“My manager said our new-client metrics were down because people were associating me with . . . with a court case going on
in Pitchford right now.”

“With Phinehas.”

Of course, he would know all about it. Probably better than she did. “Yes.”

“You know that’s illegal, right?”

“Apparently not. There’s a provision about people who cause an undue hardship to the bank. It doesn’t matter anyway. Everyone
signs an ‘at-will’ agreement when they’re hired. You can be fired at any time for no reason at all.”

“And you can be hired at any time for the best reasons in the world. When can you start?”

She blinked at him. “Sorry?”

“I’m willing to wait if you wanted to take a few days off.” He clicked his pen into action. “Give me a start date, and I’ll
have your office cleaned up by then. At the moment, all the offices are full of crates and farm magazines and thirty years’
worth of dead spiders.”

Claire finally got her mouth closed and her brain in gear. So what if he didn’t need to see her résumé or check her references?
He was obviously a man of action—look at what he’d already accomplished. She’d be crazy if she did anything but jump at this
opportunity—and who knew how far it would go?

“I can start right now, if you’d like,” she heard herself say.

“Perfect. I’ll ask John Willetts, the owner, to put you on the payroll while you go home and get out of your Bank Lady suit.
Come back in something you can take on the dead spiders in.” The song that had been playing finished, and with his left hand
he took the CD out while his right slid the switch back up its track.

“That was U2 and ‘Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,’” he said into the microphone. “Fortunately, I can’t say the same.
Folks, God is good. KGHM now has an accounting expert to keep us on the straight and narrow. If you were planning on moseying
down here to apply for the job, you’re too late. But don’t despair. I hear they’re still hiring at the discount store.”

* * *

RAY HARPER PARKED
his truck on Main Street across from the radio station and shut off the engine. The other night he’d discovered the station
had no Web site, and therefore no way to figure out its programming and when Boanerges aka Fisher might be on the premises.
He could call and ask, of course, but he’d rather not do that in case Fisher was as good with voices as he was himself.

The one call he’d had to make yesterday was to Sergeant Harmon, after he’d listened to all four hours of Fisher’s show the
night before and fallen asleep with Fisher’s voice echoing in his ears. Unfortunately the good sergeant hadn’t been all that
keen on him hanging around in Hamilton Falls.

“I’ve got a guy here killed by a falling object, Harper. I think that investigation is more important than your hanging out
in Hick Central, listening to the radio.”

“What kind of falling object?” Knowing Harmon, it probably wasn’t a random tree branch.

“A refrigerator. The Skulls are feeling cranky about their guy finking on them on that cocaine case, and we have to shut ’em
down.”

“Biker gangs aren’t my assignment. Teddy Howitz has that detail.”

“You telling me my job, Harper? Teddy Howitz needs a boatload of help, and you have some empty spaces on your dance card.”

“Sir, you know how long I’ve had that file open on Boanerges.”

“I don’t know why. None of those women would press any charges.”

“So, he’s getting away scot-free to do whatever he wants. I don’t know what the deal is with this radio gig, but something
tells me he isn’t saving his money to go back to college.”

“One week,” Harmon said. “I’ll give you one week of motel bills and meals, and if you don’t scare up anything on this guy,
leave him alone. We’ve got bigger fish to incarcerate here.”

Ray had to admit the truth of that. He slouched in the driver’s seat of the truck and contemplated the picture window behind
which the DJ sat. If this really was Brandon Boanerges, Ray could see why the ladies had gone for him the way geese go for
bread. Even though he sat there all by himself, you could tell he was putting on a one-man show. Animated movement, pantomimed
conversations with passersby, and once in a while, a little air guitar when he got carried away by a song.

Ray turned the key one degree in the truck’s ignition and turned the radio on.

“—find this and all kinds of other literary gems at Quill and Quinn, our local headquarters for quality fiction. And speaking
of quality, here’s Casting Crowns with ‘Voice of Truth.’”

Truth? Yeah, right.

Did Christian musicians ever play the blues? Probably not. Christians probably didn’t
get
the blues. He’d been listening to Fisher’s shows for almost twenty-four hours now, and apart from U2 and that bluegrass band
whose name he couldn’t remember, he hadn’t heard one song about poverty or unrequited love or relationships gone bad. It was
all happy stuff, praising God for who knew what. Unrealistic and probably delusional. How was a guy supposed to relate to
that?

And just what was the deal with the Christian radio gig? How did a man jump from ripping off lonely women to spinning CDs?
Unless he really had found the Lord and turned his life around.

Ray slouched even lower. He was never going to be able to bring Fisher in if he’d seen the light and gone straight. What if
he’d settled here in Hamilton Falls to get a new start? The guy could find a nice girl, buy a house with a picket fence, and
start having babies. Ray would never get the chance to face him in the courtroom and balance the scales for those silent,
lonely women and who knew how many other people he’d ripped off during his exciting career in fraud.

Ray watched as a middle-aged man walked into the station with a sheaf of papers in his hand. A few minutes later, at noon,
the stock reports began.

A man could only stand so much. He flipped the radio off.

Now what? Follow Fisher home? Yeah, an address would be good. An address and a license-plate number would be a nice start
to a case file. Then he could toddle over to the sheriff’s office and run a warrants search against Fisher’s name and if he
was lucky—

The door of the radio station opened and Ray sat up. Sure enough, there was Luke Fisher, jacket slung over one shoulder, looking
as cool as a model in
Esquire
magazine. But who was that with him?

Black shirt, black skirt, sensible black pumps. Dark hair twisted in a classic Greek chignon.

Oh, no.
Ray’s mouth hung open in dismay as Luke Fisher put a gentlemanly hand on Claire Montoya’s back and guided her down the street
to the Chinese café.

If Fisher and Boanerges were one and the same, she didn’t fit his profile of women to scam. She appeared to be neither middle-aged,
wealthy, or lonely—at least that he knew of. So, what was a nice girl like her doing having lunch with a slimeball like Luke
Fisher?

One way or another, Ray was going to find out.

L
UKE SLID INTO
the booth opposite Claire and gave her the kind of grin that dreams were made of.

“What’s good in this place?” He glanced at the menu. “Szechuan beef?”

“This is Hamilton Falls, not Seattle,” she reminded him. All the young people knew the menu by heart—she didn’t even need
to open hers. “Here we get broccoli beef and sweet-and-sour pork, and chili peppers are those dried flakes you sprinkle on
your pizza.”

“Good thing I like broccoli beef.” Luke leaned on his elbows as if he were prepared to spend the afternoon getting to know
her. “Nice job on the cleanup. Only a couple of days, and you’ve made the place look like a business instead of a barn.”

She shrugged modestly. “It looked worse than it was. Once the crates were out of there, the rest of it was just housekeeping.”

“Which wasn’t what you were hired to do. On Monday, you’ll start scrubbing our numbers instead.”

“What are you doing with everything in the meantime?” There was a computer in one of the offices, but to Claire’s knowledge,
no one ever used it. She wasn’t even sure it worked. “Do you have a bookkeeping program to track the receipts and expenses?”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “It’s called Sticky Notes.”

Claire toyed with the chopsticks, sliding them in and out of their paper sleeve. “I haven’t heard of that one.”

“Yes, you have. You tear ’em off a pad and stick them on the cash box. Yellow sticky notes are for receipts, and blue ones
are for expenses.”

Clearly, this was not a numbers guy. Equally clearly, Claire had her work cut out for her. As soon as lunch was over, she
was going to get a handle on the expenses before a financial disaster occurred.

“I’ll need to get on the signing card for the station at the bank,” she said, “so I can make the deposits and write checks.”

“No problem. Give Willetts a call after lunch, and he’ll go over there with you. But in the meantime, I’m off shift, and I’d
rather talk about my new colleague than about boring things like expenses.”

“They won’t be boring when the power company shuts down the station because someone forgot to pay the bill.”

“Toby Henzig looks after all that basic stuff. I don’t have the time for it.”

The waitress came and took Luke’s order, then glanced at Claire. “The usual?”

“Yes, please.” The woman scribbled a line on her pad and then left for the kitchen.

“You always eat the same thing?” Luke asked. “No sense of adventure?”

“Eating here is hardly adventurous. The pot stickers are good, and so is the hot-and-sour soup, so that’s what I have. Getting
back to Toby, he seems to be a nice guy.”

Luke poured himself a cup of pale green tea and filled hers, then lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “He gets the job done. I’d
go nuts if I were stuck with the news and the stock reports myself.”

“He doesn’t have quite the delivery you do, that’s for sure.” Toby’s voice was soft and tended to put you out after five minutes.
It was rumored that someone had even used that as a defense to the insurance company after they’d run off the road.

“He’s been around here since the mayor was in diapers. A fixture that can’t be replaced, according to Willetts.” Luke’s normally
upbeat tone held disapproval, then lightened. “He’s also an assistant pastor at one of the churches.”

“I heard what you said Wednesday night about us looking outside our familiar boundaries. Maybe Mr. Willetts isn’t ready for
that. I don’t know if the Elect are, either.”

The soup arrived, and Luke dug into his as if it were about to disappear. Claire liked to see a man who appreciated his food.
She wondered what his favorites were. Roast beef and potatoes, or shrimp and tofu? She entertained a brief fantasy of herself
dazzling Luke with her competence in the kitchen. Like most Elect girls, she’d learned to cook at an early age. Skills like
that didn’t seem to matter to worldly men, but to an Elect man, a woman who could cook had the edge over one who had to be
taken out to eat all the time.

And what makes you think he has any interest in you at all, much less how well you cook? Careful, Claire. You don’t want to
look desperate.

“With the leadership in the shape it’s in, change is inevitable. And in my opinion,” he said, “it might as well be positive
if it’s going to happen. Now, I know that these things get decided at the Shepherds’ gatherings, but at the moment Shepherds
are a bit scarce. If we want to avoid losing our folks, we need to make some changes and welcome others in.” He dropped his
spoon into his empty bowl with a clink. “I have some experience there, fortunately.”