Fear Has a Name: A Novel (7 page)

“I see.” Satterfield’s eyes went side to side, and he sucked in his cheeks. “That sounds like Wendy—blindly devoted to her man. It is indeed a sad case.”

“So,” Jack said, “is this a private bathroom we’re talking about, in the pastor’s office—where the medicine was kept?”

Satterfield looked at his watch again and seemed to deflate from exhaustion as he spoke. “It’s a small lav right off his office, yes. Now I really must be shoving off.”

Jack held up a finger, looked at his pad, and scrambled for a way to phrase his next question with kid gloves. But there was no gentle way. “So you look in his medicine cabinet? I mean, you must, in order to know—”

“Let me say something to you, sir.” Satterfield bent over, his sour face within inches of Jack’s; he smelled like rubbing alcohol. “I have a sacred responsibility to God and to this body of believers. It is a high calling and one which I hold with unflinching devotion. You can try all you want, for whatever reason, to make this
look
like something it is not, but I have been set apart to assist in protecting this flock, making certain no ravenous wolves sneak in to destroy the sheep. I will do whatever is necessary to fulfill my responsibilities before God. For that reason, I answer to no man, Mr. Crittendon, but only to God. But I don’t suppose you would know anything about that.”

Jack quickly finished writing, gathered his things in one fell swoop, and stood, feeling dizzy and disheveled from the scolding.

“I apologize.” Satterfield wrung his hands. “I did not mean to bite your head off. I just don’t think people understand sometimes the responsibility laid upon pastors; the Bible says we will be judged more severely. That’s probably why Evan was in the state he was in. Dealing with other people’s sins and baggage can be absolutely suffocating at times. I did not mean to insult you. Again, I hope you will accept my apology.”

“I understand,” Jack said. “This is a difficult time for the whole church.” He did not attempt to shake with Satterfield, whose hands were conveniently stuffed in the pockets of his jacket.

Barbara Cooley was nibbling greasy potato chips and a bulky sandwich from her brown bag when Jack found his way back to her desk. “I’m sorry,” she said with a mouthful of what smelled like tuna, “I wasn’t sure when you’d be done.”

“No, forgive me for interrupting your lunch,” Jack said, still recovering from the weird session with Satterfield. “If you want, I can go find a place to work until you’re finished.” He was a bit anxious to call the house and make sure Pam was fine.

“Oh my, no.” She giggled and with a napkin and two plump hands wiped her mouth and dabbed at her pink face. “I’m anxious to get this over with. We can go in this conference room right over here.” She worked her way out of a little black chair on wheels, her thick legs and ample hips slowing her tremendously. She sneaked one more chip, twisted her brown bag closed, grabbed her can of Mr. Pibb, knocked the crumbs off her chest, and punched several buttons on the massive phone. “I’ll set this to pick up for me, and we’re good to go. You just follow me. I’ve been nervous as a cat about this.”

Once they were settled in the conference room at a large glass table that accommodated twelve black executive chairs, Jack explained the story he was working on. As usual, he led with an open-ended question—this one about the last time she’d seen Pastor McDaniel.

“Evan and I are almost always the first to arrive.” She spoke in an animated, somewhat secretive tone. “The morning he went missing I got here right around eight, and he came in at about a quarter after or so. That’s pretty much the norm on Fridays.”

“Did you talk to him when he came in?” Jack almost lost his train of thought due to the sucking noises Barbara was making as she polished her teeth with her tongue. “How did he seem to you?”

“That’s just the thing.” Her bright eyes darted about as if she was searching out eavesdroppers. “He seemed somewhat morose to me. Now don’t get me wrong, Evan is never one to get overly excited about anything. He’s always very, how do I say it, even-keeled, low-key. But that morning”—her cheeks scrunched up and she shook her head—“something seemed to have him in a funk.”

“Did he say what was bothering him?”

“We talked just a little while the coffee was brewing in the break room,” she said. “I asked if he was all ready for his visitations that day and he said he was. I remember, he asked me what I did on my day off, and I told him my husband, Virgil, took me to the dollar theater to see Sandra Bullock’s new movie. I just love her. And they have a bottomless bucket of popcorn, all-you-can-eat for $4.99. Anyway, that’s all I really recall discussing.”

Barbara was turning out to be a talker, and that was fine with Jack.

“And he left, supposedly to make those visits, at what time?”

“I’ve been racking my brain about that, knowing you’d ask. I didn’t actually see him leave the building. I must have been away from my desk, either at the restroom, running copies, or talking to someone. But I’m guessing it was right around nine fifteen, give or take a few minutes.”

“So there were other people in the office by then?”

“Oh yeah, quite a few. We have a big staff. A lot of people get here around nine. Patrick Ashdown was here. He’s our director of contemporary worship. He did say hi to Evan. Rhonda Lowe was here—another receptionist. She saw him briefly as well.”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“I can sure try.”

“Can you send an email blast to the staff and let them know I’m interested in communicating with anyone who interacted with Evan that morning or who may be able to give any insight about his disappearance?”

Barbara borrowed a sheet of paper from Jack’s pad and wrote herself a note. “That I can do.”

“Just give them my email address and cell number.” Jack scribbled those on her paper. “Tell me,” he continued, “who found the note in Evan’s office?”

“I did!” Her eyes grew. “I saw it on his keyboard that morning but didn’t think a thing about it—can you imagine? Anyway, later, when we started getting calls from his missed appointments, I kind of scoured his desk to see if I could find any hint about where he might be. That’s when I opened it.”

“What did you make of the note?”

She shook her head, filled her cheeks with air like balloons, then squirted the air through pinched lips to generate the wet noise a child might make. “I don’t know what to tell you. They say you never really know a man—and I believe that, Mr. Crittendon. How do you know what a person’s like behind closed doors? You know what I mean? What he’s going through on the inside?”

She clutched her Mr. Pibb close to her chest. “Evan may well have been struggling more than any of us knew.” She glanced around, then whispered, “They say he was on Prozac. But let me tell you something. No matter what anyone says, Evan’s the most loving person around here. You get what I’m saying?”

Jack leaned in close. “Wendy McDaniel says there’s no way her husband committed suicide.”

“Poor Wendy—and those boys.” Barbara tilted her head and pulled at her orange hair in different places. “I cannot fathom what they’re going through. Just the not knowing.”

“Do
you
think this is a suicide?”

For the first time since they had begun to talk, Barbara froze. She stared at Jack and finally said, “I have to say yes, simply because of the letter. And the drugs he took with him. I hate it, but again, we just don’t know people. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God sees the heart. I guess Evan’s heart was very troubled.”

“Did he have enemies?”

Her lips formed a frown.

“Anyone really mad at him?” Jack probed.

“Not really. Not that I can think of.”

“What about Hank Garbenger?”

“Oh jeepers.” Barbara rolled her eyes. “That was a fiasco. Hank was angry at the whole church—the whole world. The leaders disciplined him for cheating on Audrey, his wife.”

“Didn’t Evan kind of spearhead that whole thing?”

“Evan was going to handle it privately. Dr. Satterfield, on the other hand, insisted the only biblical response was to take two elders and warn Hank and, if it continued—which it did—to invoke church discipline.”

“It
is
biblical, what they did.”

“It is. And Evan handled it like a pro. He was firm but compassionate. Anyway, naturally Hank was mad—and embarrassed. Sheesh. If it had been me, I would’ve moved to Montana.”

Jack wanted to ask if Hank was mad enough to hurt Evan, but the notion was just plain far-fetched. Jack couldn’t help it; as long as he could remember he’d had a hyper-suspicious mind. Occasionally it empowered him to break the big story, but more often it caused him to waste a great deal of time, fall into trouble and embarrassment, and perform exercises in futility.

“Hmm.” Jack contemplated what more to ask.

“Satterfield is always prodding Evan,” said Barbara. “Always challenging him to live up to this lofty standard he has of what a pastor should be. Evan takes it with a grain of salt.” She leaned across the table and whispered, “He has a lot more patience than I do. Pastor Evan is a humble, wise man. He has his doctorate degree too, you know. But he’s just not the type to go around hanging it on the wall and insisting everyone call him ‘doctor.’”

Point taken.

“Anything else out of the ordinary going on with Evan? Anything at all?”

Barbara’s eyes fell to the table, as if she’d been inches from escaping the interview unscathed only to hit a nasty snag as they drew to a close. She glanced out the door of the conference room, then leveled her gaze on Jack.

“You won’t print any of this?” she whispered.

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t. This is something I’ve tossed and turned over. I wasn’t going to mention it, but I don’t want to regret not saying anything.”

“Off the record it is.”

She cleared her throat. “Pastor Evan has a heart the size of Texas, okay? He’s always giving, always going the extra mile for everyone. But sometimes, well, he’s been known to make appointments that could look, if you didn’t know him, they could look suspicious.”

“In what way?” Jack asked.

Barbara pushed all ten of her bright red fingernails onto the table in front of her. “I’m talking about appointments with women.” She tilted her head up to the ceiling and raised a hand. “Lord, forgive me if I’m saying anything I shouldn’t.” Then back at Jack. “He meets one-on-one with women, to counsel them, and it just doesn’t look right. Dr. Satterfield has questioned him on it. He’s warned Pastor Evan that it’s an absolute no-no in ministry. But Pastor Evan just goes along his merry way. Sometimes I think he’s incredibly naive—”

“Where are these meetings?”

“On occasion at coffee shops. But mostly in his office.”

“Door open? Door closed?”

Her eyes darted about. “A little of each.”

“With any one woman in particular?”

Her hands gripped her elbows and she leaned on the table and rocked back and forth. “I can’t say that. I just can’t say.” Her cheeks flushed like a paper towel absorbing cranberry juice. “It seems so … condemning.”

Jack waited and nodded, figuring his silence would be all Barbara would need to continue with her suspicions.

He was right.

“There’s a widow who goes here,” she said. “Her name’s Sherry Pendergrass. Beautiful blonde. Her husband, Joel, passed away about a year ago. Very wealthy people. Anyway, Pastor Evan has been meeting with her for quite some time, following Joel’s death, of course.”

“How often?”

“Once a week, usually Wednesdays. Sometimes they move it to another day, if there’s a conflict. But it’s been very regular for quite some time.”

“And these appointments are on his calendar? I mean, he didn’t try to hide them?”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “It’s all right there on his calendar for anybody to see. Probably completely innocent.”

Jack sensed she didn’t believe that.

“Since when?” he asked.

Barbara shook her head. “I can check his calendar, but I’d guess five months, maybe six. Look, I’m not insinuating anything. I promise. I just thought, with him missing, who knows? Maybe she can …”

Jack gave her time to finish, waiting, wanting to know precisely what Barbara was thinking. But to his surprise the room fell silent.

“Well, thank you.” He reached over and patted her wrist. “This has been extremely helpful. A lot of what I’ve learned is off the record and can’t go in the paper, but as you said, who knows? It might help find Pastor Evan.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

Jack compiled his things and stood. He was starving and anxious to get home to Pam and the girls. Barbara folded the note she’d written herself and stood as well, then hesitated.

Call it a reporter’s instinct, but Jack knew something else was coming. Something Barbara Cooley could not bottle up one second longer.

“Just a little FYI.” She lowered her head, avoiding eye contact. “I mentioned that Mrs. Pendergrass has been on Pastor Evan’s calendar each week, and I mean, it’s been like clockwork. What I didn’t mention was”—she looked at Jack—“she wasn’t on it the week he disappeared. And no more appointments with her have been booked—at all.”