The Visitation Part 36

"What kind of trouble?"

"I can't go into that."

"Justin Cantwell." I wrote it down. "Any idea where he was from? Any background?"

He sighed. "I need to talk to some people before I can give out any more information. Will you be around tomorrow?"

This was a major frustration and I didn't try to hide it. "I have to fly back tonight. It's one of those round-trip discount things."

"Well, leave us a number and we'll call you."

Now where had I heard that line before? "What about Pastor Harris? Does he know anything about Cantwell?"

"I'll have to ask him."

"Let's ask him now."

"He's unavailable right now."

"Is he here on the premises?"

"He's unavailable."

I tried to control the emotion in my voice. "He's always unavailable. What about Norm Corrigan?"

Miles Newberry shrugged. "He wouldn't know anything about this."

"He's new on staff?"

"That's right."

"But Mrs. Fontinelli's run into this guy. The photograph really upset her."

He nodded. "She was here then."

"So it makes sense that Pastor Harris knew him."

He got tense. "Are you digging for something?"

"Only because it's buried. Please don't take offense, but I have a very dangerous man deceiving my town according to an agenda, my friends and I spent a good deal of money getting me down here, and when you stonewall on behalf of Pastor Harris, I get uncomfortable. If you know about Cantwell and Mrs. Fontinelli knows about Cantwell, it's inconceivable that this hasn't somehow touched Pastor Harris. I'd like to talk with him."

His eyes narrowed. "Before we go any further, I need to warn you about something."

I was listening.

"This church has been appointed by G.o.d as a light in this city. It has his blessing and his mandate to spread the gospel and make disciples." He indicated my valise. "If you try to cause this church any harm with this information, you'll be opposing G.o.d, and that's never advisable."

I stopped. Twenty years ago, his warning would have scared me. Today, I felt vindicated. "Reverend Newberry, when I attended this church, I always sensed that kind of att.i.tude trickling down from the leaders.h.i.+p. I never thought I'd hear anyone verbalize it." He gave me a curious look. He was about to ask me, so I told him, "Yeah, my wife and I attended this church about twenty years ago.

I don't expect you to remember me because you never knew me in the first place, and it's obvious you don't know me now, or you wouldn't have said what you just said to me. But I thank you for your candor, and I'm sure I can count on your help."

I leaned toward him, eye to eye. He was going to regret not sitting behind his desk. "I need to hear from anyone who has had direct dealings with Justin Cantwell, and if that includes Pastor Harris, I need to hear from him, not you on behalf of him. No more running interference, okay? No more putting me off. The devil's at work in Antioch and we don't have time for that."

He returned my gaze for a moment, and then nodded as if in agreement. "Leave me your number."

BRANDON NICHOLS chuckled and lovingly petted Matt Kiley on his bowed head. "Get up, Matt. No need to grovel."

Matt Kiley was on his knees in the straw before the Messiah of Antioch, ready to plead, bargain, cajole, do anything to get his strength back. The moment the Boss touched him, he felt it coursing through him. His arms, his back, his legs were strong again, maybe even stronger. He leaped quickly to his feet, flexing and stretching.

"All there again?" the Boss asked, holding Matt at arm's length and inspecting him.

Matt was about to answer, but his throat choked with emotion. He nodded instead. They were standing in the barn at the Macon ranch. The Boss was supervising as two new followers unloaded a truckload of oats, stacking the sacks on a pallet.

The Boss nodded toward the feed sacks. "Let's try those arms out."

Matt put up his dukes and gave the sacks a few solid punches. His legs felt like powerful springs under him. He danced, bobbed, weaved like a boxer. WHAM! WHAM! He pounded dents in the sacks. It felt great.

"Yeah!" he hollered, then threw his arms around the Boss. He'd never been a hugger before this.

The Boss was pleased. "All right, then. You have your strength. But remember, Matt: Your strength comes from me. It's mine, for my use. No more wasting it in foolish brawling!"

"Okay. You got it. Oh!" He remembered something, and reached into his pocket. "The other merchants asked me to give you these gift cards. You can use them to get discounts on lodging, meals, just about anything in town. Pa.s.s them out to the pilgrims.

It's our way of saying thanks."

"Tell them thanks for me."

"My Lord!" called Michael the Prophet, hurrying into the barn.

"Armond Harrison is here!"

Nichols's eyes brightened as he turned to see Armond Harrison and a lovely young lady walking in with Michael. "h.e.l.lo and welcome!"

Harrison shook hands with Antioch's Messiah, then introduced the young lady. "This is Gail, the one we talked about." The Messiah was delighted. Gail was in awe. Harrison told her, "He'll take good care of you, and trust me: You'll be a different woman when you leave here."

"Michael, take her to her room in the guest house. I'll be along shortly."

Michael gave a little bow and then led Gail along with a touch of his hand.

"Her husband's gone," Armond explained. "In the navy. She's had some real problems with that."

Nichols gave a wise and understanding nod. "She needs comfort. Fulfillment." He smiled. "Don't worry."

Armond smiled. "I won't."

"Cindy, the young woman I spoke to you about, is a gentle sort and reasonably well-adjusted. But I've told her she could benefit from the communal environment you have with your group-and, of course, your wisdom regarding . . ."

"Of course."

As they left the barn, chatting enthusiastically about their ministry relations.h.i.+p, Matt only sighed with envy. The Boss always got what he wanted.

DON ANDERSON was turning around repair jobs so quickly people were starting to comment on his speedy service. He was careful never to let visitors see him using his special gift, and often he'd tinker away with his tools just for show. But in the week that followed that special touch from Brandon Nichols, he had cleared almost every item to be repaired from the shelves of his workroom. Now he was actually getting a little bored, and started tinkering just for the fun of it.

Some more repair jobs came in today. The Steens' VCR wouldn't rewind-until he touched it. He made out a bill for how much time it would have taken him to fix it.

It would have taken him three hours . . . well, more like four . . . to fix Lonny Thompson's tape deck that wouldn't go around. With one touch that took less than a second, he made it go around. Lonny was still going to be billed for four hours.

An electric mixer came to life again, as did a wireless doorbell. Don spent most of his man hours just writing up the bills.

Then there was the Boresons' CD player-a nice one with a rotating deck that held five CDs at once. The rotating deck didn't rotate. He hit the open b.u.t.ton and it slid open. Hm. Kenny Boreson left a heavy metal CD in this thing. No wonder the deck was malfunctioning.

Then the craziest notion came over Don, and he ran his finger in a circle around the face of the CD as if he could actually read the digital recording through his fingertip. It was just a silly whim, but still he wondered- Somewhere in his head he could hear some raging, wailing, wildfire guitar work, every blasting, distorted note like a toothache set to music. It was giving him a toothache.

He removed his finger. The sound stopped.

He looked at his fingertip. Nawww, he thought. Don, now you're leaping a little too high.

Well . . . there were other CDs in the store. A little experiment would settle any doubts. He found one of Mozart and no sooner picked it up than he heard the opening strains of Symphony No. 40 in G Minor. He s.h.i.+fted his gentle hold on the CD so that his fingers rested in another spot. Symphony No. 39 in E-flat.

Man oh man, he thought, what else can I do?

WHEN JIM BAYLOR came home from work, the house was quiet. In this household, such quiet was seldom a normal or good thing, and it made him uncomfortable.

"Dee?"

No answer. His first thought was that she was up at the ranch again, lingering after the afternoon meeting, all gaga over Mr. Messiah and forgetting her starving family at home. But this was Wednesday and Mr. Messiah wasn't holding any meetings on Wednesdays.

He went into the kitchen, then the living room. "Dee?"

"What?" Her voice came from the bedroom, low and m.u.f.fled, and she certainly wasn't laughing.

He hurried down the hall and to the bedroom door.

She was curled up in a near fetal position on the bed, hugging a pillow to her head, her expression just this side of death.

"Dee? What's wrong?"

She muttered into the pillow. He could hardly hear her. "What do you care?"

Jim hated it when something would happen to Dee that he just couldn't understand and didn't know how to fix. He suspected this might be one of those times. "What's bothering you?"

"Nothing."

He approached the bed and sat on the edge.

She rolled over, turning her back to him. "Just leave me alone. You always do anyway. You don't care about me. n.o.body does."

"Sure I care about you. I love you. You're my wife."

"If I died you'd all be a lot happier."

Jim tried to tell her that wasn't true and Dee kept talking about how worthless she was and how no one loved her and how she wanted to die, and the conversation went around and around on the same merry-go-round for several minutes. Finally, Jim got impatient enough to ask, "What happened, did Brandon Nichols hurt your feelings?"

That raised her temperature a little. "What do you care?"

"You know what Jack McKinstry told me? He said Mary Donovan thinks she's Mary-you know, the Virgin Mary."

"Yeah, so what?"

"And I hear Adrian's talking to an angel. Did you hear about that?"

She curled up tighter. "Will you just get out of here?"

"Dee, maybe you're just bugged because they've got this stuff happening to them and none of it's happening to you."

She flipped over like a fish on a rock. "You don't know anything, Jim Baylor! How could you? You don't know the Lord, you don't care, and you don't know diddly squat about spiritual things or what G.o.d's doing on the earth, so don't try to tell me-"

He matched her volume, and by now it was getting high. "You don't think I know anything? Hey, I'm not laying on the bed like some kind of beached whale-"

Her strength was returning. "What did you call me?"

"-wanting to die."

More strength, more voice. "What did you call me?

"I'm not the one who spilled frozen French fries all over the table and cha-chaed for Jesus while my family went hungry!"

"That was the joy of the Lord!"

"We could squirt each other and then dance a bit! Maybe look at the clouds. It'll be a blast!"

She nearly screamed, "That was the joy of the Lord!"

"What joy of the Lord? You're lying here wanting to die! What kind of joy is that?"

"You wouldn't understand!"

"I understand you lying on the bed feeling sorry for yourself! What's that, the pits of the Lord?"

She let out a war cry and threw the pillow at him.

"Yeah, that's it, that's it!" He backed out the door, angrily pointing his finger at her. "Go ahead and stew! We'll see if Brandy boy comes to cheer you up again!"

"Aaaaaghhh!" She reached for the lamp to throw, but he slammed the bedroom door and stomped down the hall.

He got out of the house. He'd eat at Judy's tonight. Maybe he'd get good and drunk too.