Now Let's Talk of Graves (24 page)

Sam stepped through the open front doors into a Moorish lobby that soared three stories high, lighted by two over-wrought iron chandeliers. Old movie theater was the style of decor—and a clue to what the tabernacle must have once been. But the usual Greco-Roman-Egyptian-Chinese statuary had been replaced with figures of the Christ Child and the Virgin Mary. There was something strange about these Marys, though. They were either pregnant or obese.

Sam took a closer look. Funny Thing Number Two: all the Marys had the same face, the same pretty smile, the same fat cheeks. This had to be Nadine.

“Help you?”

Sam jumped a foot high as a tiny old man dawdled through a side door with a broom. “I'm looking for Sister Nadine.”

“Well, go on back that way.” He flapped a hand like it was a dust rag over toward the right of the lobby.

“Through those doors, up one flight of stairs. I reckon she's up there, all right.”

Sam thanked him, and at the top of the stairs found another set of double doors. When she pushed them open, all her preconceptions went bye-bye.

*

It was by now edging onto seven P.M., yet this office, a study in black and soft gray modern Italian design, was humming like the coffee had just perked and it was rise-and-shine time.

“May I help you?” asked an officious little number in an expensive black suit that looked nice with the furniture.

Sam gave her her name and her
Constitution
business card.

“I don't think you have an appointment.” The suit frowned.

No, she didn't. And she hated to intrude. But she was in town for only a little while. Would it be too much trouble to ask—?

The suit's neatly coiffed head bobbed up and down. Nothing else moved, not even the heavy gold ear clips. Sam could take a seat, she said. The pile of magazines and papers was neat too.
U.S. News & World Report. Forbes. Money. Barron's.
The
Journal.
Not a single
Broadman Hymnal
to be found.

All around her, business bustled on well-shod feet. Women, mostly young, came and went across an ocean of pale gray pile, pausing at intersections with sheafs of papers, reports, ledgers, giving her little polite smiles.

It was all cool, calm, efficient, and serene—the women as well-tuned as a bunch of Stepford wives.

Against a back wall Sam spotted a mainframe computer about the size of a large car. An old Buick, say. Her mind slipped into reverse. She replayed that night—the rain, the dark, the crash of heavy steel.

“Ms. Adams?” The suit was back. “Sister Nadine will see you now.”

*

Just went to show you how wrong a person could be. TV evangelist? Female? Rubenesque statuary downstairs? Kitty had said something about pies? A cross between Julia Child and Tammy Bakker was sort of what she had in mind.

Not this rotund, to be sure, but suavely beautiful woman in her mid-forties, her gold and platinum hair twisted into a chignon, silver at ears and throat, her bulk artfully camouflaged head to toe in floating drifts of black. Roseanne's body beneath Kathleen Turner's face.

“Ms. Adams.” The voice was Turner's, too, husky, sexy. The grip firm. “What can I do for you this evening?” In Nadine's sleek office they sat facing each other on black leather club chairs to the right of her desk—a cool white marble slab.

Sam was nonplussed. In her line of work she'd happened upon corpses that gave her less pause than this living woman's persona.

Sister Nadine smiled. “You've seen me on TV.”

“Nooo.”

“They told you I play the tambourine, speak in tongues, and wail.”

“Something like that.”

“They tell you I don't wear shoes too?”

Sam couldn't help looking down. Beneath trim ankles Nadine wore beautiful black calf pumps.

Nadine laughed. “Look, I give them what they want. Remember what H. L. Mencken said.”

“‘No one ever went broke underestimating—

“‘—the taste of the American people.' It's the secret of my success.” Nadine smiled. “And what do
you
want, Samantha?”

“Sam.” She laid out for Nadine her mission for the Lee family.

“Oh.” Nadine's pretty face clouded. “Dear Church. I do miss him so.”

“So he
was
a—”

“A believer?” A rueful smile. “Church was a good Uptown Catholic. He wasn't one of my followers, though he believed in my work and sometimes recommended that people like Mr. Leander come and talk with me. And we were friends.”

As in lovers?

“
Special
friends?”

“You might say that.”

Sam didn't want to let it go.

“
How
special?”

“Now, Sam. I could never answer a question like that for a member of the press, could I?”

So be it. But she thought romance was the right track. Nadine
could
have been Church's secret girlfriend, the one Kitty had hinted at. Her public image would be ample reason for the secrecy.

“I'm curious. Do
you
think his death was accidental?” She watched Nadine's face carefully.

“I do.” The evangelist answered without a quiver.

“So you don't know why anyone would have wanted him dead?”

“I didn't say that. I do. Or, rather, I
did
.”

“That's a
yes
?”

“You've met Cole Leander?”

“I have.”

“Cole wanted to do terrible things to Church.”

“And do you think he did?”

“No. I
know
he didn't.”

“How?”

“Because we talked about that, and he came to see that the right thing to do was to forgive Church. To pray for his salvation, to pray that he would never make such a terrible and careless mistake again.”

“So you do believe—?”

“In the power of prayer? In the power of salvation? I'm not a total shuck-and-jive artist, Sam.”

Sam would blush when embarrassed till the day she died. Now the blood spread up her neck and face.
“I meant—do you believe what Leander said? That he wouldn't”—she stammered—“I didn't mean that I thought you—”

“Of course you did. You see me on TV, you see a fat woman with long blond hair streaming down her back, dressed in a white robe, singing and dancing and telling you how Jesus loves you just the way you are. For your ownself. How Jesus wants you to make a
joyful
noise. Wants you to
love
yourself.
All
of yourself.
Be
yourself. Even your
fat
self. Sister Nadine even gives you recipes for pies.
Of course
you think I'm a shuck. But that's because you don't come from what I come from. Don't know what I know. Don't know the mingy tight pinched little lives people like me grow up with. Don't know how much we'd love to
love
the Lord.”

Nadine's voice had been growing bigger and deeper and wider. Now its cellolike resonance filled the room. In one graceful movement she was out of her chair, whirling around the room on nimble feet.

“Rednecks want to love the Lord same as other folks, looser folks, do. Want to
sing
the praises of the Lord.
Dance
the jubilation of the Lord. Raise Him up while they're partying down.

“Folks don't want to spend their whole lives feeling bad. Feeling guilty. Sad. Eating saltine crackers and drinking Welch's grape juice, pretending it's the Body and the Blood.”

Nadine was swaying now.

“Folks want to
feel
jubilation.
Feel
joy that they don't need booze for. Don't need drugs for. Don't need anything but the power of their own hearts, telling 'em to do what comes natural.”

Then Nadine took a deep breath and seemed to catch herself in midflight. She floated for a moment, slowed, then stopped. Reached inside her sleeve and pulled out a white square of linen edged in lace and wiped her brow.

“I ain't one of those Southern women what
glow
,” she said, putting on the accent. “How about you?”

Sam laughed. “Me either. I
sweat
.”

Sam could see why Church would be drawn to her.
She
was drawn to her. Nadine had that thing, that magic, that all stars possess.

Nadine settled herself back down. “Well, well, now, now. You must forgive me. I get carried away. Now, we've talked about Church. Cole Leander. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Yes. Do you know Church's daughter, Zoe?”

Once again a cloud crossed Nadine's smooth brow. “I've never met her, but I pray for her.”

“You do? Why?”

Nadine stared at her with amazed blue eyes. “Why, because of all her problems. She's such a
sad
child. I hope somehow we can save her.”

“Church talked about her?”

“Of course. He was worried sick about her.”

“He knew about the drugs?”

“The cocaine? Yes.”

“Did he know she was dealing?”

“Oh, dear.” Nadine took a long deep breath, then sighed. “No, I don't think so. He never said so to me.”

“Do you think he would if he'd known?”

Sam waited. Finally, softly, Nadine said, “I don't know. I think so, but I can't be sure. Oh, it makes me so sad to hear you say that about Zoe. Our
young
people. Our poor children. They've inherited a hard world, haven't they?”

“Indeed they have. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes, have to start over now.”

“Nor I.
However
.” She was up on her feet again, but not because she was moved with the spirit. Sam could see that Nadine was moving on to something else in her mind. Some other agenda was pressing. The interview was done. “We do what we can.”

“And what's that?” Sam was gathering her things together, but she wanted to know what Nadine meant.

Nadine waved her hand at the offices out through her open door. “Is this where you think the money stops? I make millions with my ministry, you know.”

“I have no idea what you do.”

“We invest it. Half the young ladies you see out there are financial planners. The money grows like Topsy.” She grinned. “That's the nice thing about money, you know. Now, I'm not saying that I don't live very nicely, I'd be the first to tell you that I do, but the bulk of what I raise goes into shelters for women and children and for rehab centers. We have three centers in the state and we're building more.”

“Rehab for whom?”

“Youngsters with drug problems. They come to us, at no charge, for a minimum of eighteen months. They learn real-life skills, build projects, I mean buildings as well as their self-esteem. We have construction contracts all over the state—though right now we have to work harder because the economy's so slow. That's how Church and I met. He'd heard about my work and came to talk with me about Zoe.” They were at the door now. “He loved her so.”

“But she wasn't ready to enroll in your program?”

“No, she wasn't.”

“She hasn't bottomed-out yet.” Sam thought, it takes the Lees a while. Sometimes, like Church, they don't live long enough to begin the long climb back.

“No,” said Nadine. “She's not ready to help herself.”

Then Sam heard herself saying, “I know something about it. I've had my own problems with alcohol.”

Nadine's sweet smile was like the Marys' downstairs. Patient. Understanding. Compassionate. “That doesn't surprise me.”

There were spooky ladies in this town. G.T. and her voudou and now this.

“Did you read my mind?”

“Just a feeling. The Lord sends us those we need. He works in mysterious way.” Nadine was still smiling the Mary smile.

But it faded the moment Sam left. As the door clicked closed behind Sam, Nadine picked up a silver picture frame she'd earlier turned facedown on her cold marble desk. Now she ran her fingers across the features beneath the glass and whispered, “Oh, sweet Jesus. What have you gone and done now, sweet baby mine?”

Nineteen

LAVERT, DRESSED IN chef's whites, was standing over his six-burner Garland, making sauce for Joey, who called it gravy. He and the boys were lounging at the other end of the kitchen around a big round table.