Part 34 (1/2)
Sister Helen nodded, chiming in, ”Me, too.”
Mary turned to the three of them. ”Where is Brother Kelverson now? Can I speak with him?”
Rita shook her head. ”No, may G.o.d rest his soul, he pa.s.sed.”
Mary couldn't stop now. She was practically tingling, she felt so close to something. ”Who's the head of t.i.thing now? Is he or she here?”
Rita pointed to Sister Elizabeth, who was packing hot dog buns into a shopping bag, at the table on the left. ”There, Sister Elizabeth does it now. You met her earlier, when she held the door for us, she's a wonderful Christian woman. But why are you asking?”
Mary didn't want to announce it to everyone. ”I'm just curious, for the moment. I'll let you know if I find anything out. I'll come back and help you after I go see Sister Elizabeth, is that okay with you ladies?”
”Of course,” Rita answered, nodding excitedly. ”If it helps Lonnie, please, Mary, do what you need to do, and go with G.o.d's graces and the power and glory of G.o.d, working for you and through you.”
Mary put a hand on her shoulder instinctively, hoping it would calm her down. ”You ladies keep up the good work, and I'll be right back. Thank you very much.”
”Harrumph!” Brother Was.h.i.+ngton muttered under his breath. ”I know I'm not carryin' those chairs. .h.i.ther and yon, all by myself.”
”Mary, go, don't worry about him.” Rita squeezed her arm, and Mary took off, wending her way through the crowd to Sister Elizabeth, who was short and heavyset, with big round eyes, pleasantly chubby cheeks, and a broad, omnipresent smile. Sister Elizabeth looked up at Mary, which meant she was only five feet tall.
”Sister Elizabeth, remember we met earlier? I'm Mary, the lawyer trying to help Lonnie Stall.”
”Yes, of course.”
”They tell me you're in charge of t.i.thing, and I have a question or two about the way funds were raised for Sister Rita's operation, for cancer, about six years ago. You weren't in charge of t.i.thing then, Brother Kelverson was, but I'm wondering if you know where those records are kept.”
”What records?” Sister Elizabeth's eyes blinked up and down, like a plastic doll.
”You know, records like who contributed how much.”
”Most of it was cash, in the basket on Sunday.”
”But some had to be in checks.” Mary had put checks in the collection plate herself, when she was short on cash, and so had her parents. ”And those checks had to be recorded somewhere, didn't they? In a ledger or in a computer?”
Sister Elizabeth curled her upper lip, in doubt. ”I'm not one to speak ill, but Brother Kelverson wasn't known for his record-keeping abilities. Our ministries are volunteer positions, and we don't have any kind of accounting training, or record-keeping on financial things. I'm a dental hygienist, and I do the best I can, like with my own checkbook at home. I use the computer, Quicken and Excel. He didn't even do that.”
Mary felt momentarily stumped. ”Here's what I'm trying to understand, and I'm going to lay it out for you. Sister Rita told me that the congregation raised $50,000 for her operation, and that doesn't make sense to me, now that I see how small the congregation really is. This isn't a large church, and it seems like it would be too hard for this small a group to raise that much money in such a short time. Can you explain that to me? Where's my reasoning faulty?”
Sister Elizabeth leaned closer, wreathed in a powdery perfume. ”I don't know the answer to that question for sure, but I can tell you the rumor. But you have to keep it to yourself.”
”I will, I swear.” Mary couldn't believe her ears. The last piece of the puzzle was falling into place. Her working theory was that Tim Gage got to Lonnie while he was in prison and made a deal with him to plead guilty to Fiona's murder, in exchange for a large donation to Rita's fund. Lonnie would have sacrificed himself to save his mother's life, because he was devoted to her, and it explained why he took the deal the second time it was offered, but not the first. Evidence of such a deal would be a home run, not only undermining the guilty plea, but nullifying it entirely.
”Sister Rita doesn't know about it, and if she ever caught wind of it, I could get in a heap of trouble with the pastor and the first lady, real trouble.”
Mary felt her heartbeat quicken. ”I promise I won't tell her, just tell me what you know or what you heard.”
”Everybody did commit to t.i.thing, and this congregation always does, whenever any one of us falls ill. Sister Rita is one of our most popular members, and everybody gave just as much as they could. I've heard that they even went to the merchants on Lancaster Avenue and asked them to contribute, and they did. You know, the stores that the church patronizes, like the grocery store where we bought these rolls, for example.” Sister Elizabeth gestured at the hot dog rolls.
”That still doesn't add up to $50,000, does it? In less than a year?” Mary became aware that Sisters Helen, Christina, and Rita, along with Brother Was.h.i.+ngton, were inching their way over, to hear what was going on.
”Well, there was one thing that I should mention, but I don't have any proof of that or anything, either.”
”That's okay, this isn't a court. This is just me asking you what you know.”
”I heard that there was a single contributor, like that somebody donated a mighty big check, on the condition that it be anonymous.”
Mary's mouth went dry. That fit with her theory, too, because Rita would never have accepted the collection money, if she had known that it had cost her son his freedom. No loving mother would let her child sacrifice his life for her own, least of all Rita. ”Who was the anonymous donor, and how much was the check for?”
”I don't know the name of the donor, or the amount of the check, but I heard it was the lion's share.”
”I thought so! There must be a record of this somewhere. There has to be a record of a check that large.” Mary was thinking aloud, but even as she said it, she realized that if there had been a payoff, it wouldn't be by a personal check or by any other check that could be traced to the anonymous donor. ”Was it a cas.h.i.+er's check? It had to be.”
”I think it was, but I still don't know the donor.”
”If I say his name, will you recognize it? Is it Tim Gage? He would have been young, like seventeen, and handsome. He drove a Jaguar convertible.”
”I don't know, I'm so sorry.” Sister Elizabeth shook her head. ”I don't know who it was. I never heard a name. I never saw him. I wasn't involved with t.i.thing at all, back then.”
”Somebody has to know his name.” Mary wasn't about to stop now. She'd ask everybody in the congregation, if she had to. She felt sure it was Tim Gage, but she needed the proof. ”Would the Pastor know?”
”I think he might, but I don't know for sure.”
Mary looked wildly around the room. ”Is he here? Where is he?”
”He's not here. Only the Culinary Ministry is here. The church officials are over at Belmont Plateau, Fairmount Park, setting up for the picnic tomorrow, getting the permits and what not.”
Mary's thoughts clicked ahead. ”So whoever the donor was, he came here and delivered the check?”
”Yes, that's what I a.s.sume happened.”
”Who would he have delivered it to? Brother Kelverson?”
”Yes.”
”When would he have delivered that, day or night? Do you have any surveillance cameras here, outside, or in the church office? Or a sign-in log?”
Sister Elizabeth laughed, waving her off. ”Oh no, we don't have anything like that. But if somebody brought a cas.h.i.+er's check for Sister Rita's operation, he would've done it at night, because Brother Kelverson had a day job at FedEx. He worked at night for the church, and that's when he counted the t.i.thes and did his paperwork.”
Mary tried a different tack. ”Sister Elizabeth, do you know if the donor was white or black?”
”I heard he was white,” Sister Elizabeth answered, lowering her voice. ”You know who I think it was? University Hospital. Sister Rita works there, and they love her there, she's been with them for almost twenty years. I figured that they got together and took up a collection for her, and one of the hospital men brought it over.”
”No, that's not it.” Mary was following her gut. ”A group couldn't collect that much money. This donor had to be somebody rich, somebody who could write a big check and not even blink, like this rich kid I'm thinking of, Tim Gage.”
”Excuse me,” said a voice behind Mary, and she turned around to see Brother Was.h.i.+ngton scowling at her with dark, glittering eyes, set deep into his gaunt, wrinkled face.
”I'm sorry, Brother Was.h.i.+ngton.” Mary knew she was s.h.i.+rking her a.s.signed ch.o.r.e. ”I'll help you with the folding chairs, in just a minute. Can you wait?”