“I seem to remember the word ‘loathe’ being mentioned. Is there any chance Meade made some remark to your husband about you and Wilkenson?”
She contemplated her fingernails. “I don’t think so,” she answered deliberately. “I think Sam would have told me about it.”
“But you did not tell him.”
“No.”
“Even though you were positive he would have believed there was nothing between you and Wilkenson?”
Tears formed in Carola’s eyes, and she started to shiver. “Oh, I guess maybe I was worried about how he’d react. I mean, he knows all about what my life was like... before. So do all the others in the Circle. I’ve talked about it, and except for Roy, they’ve been very supportive and understanding. But I’m still very self-conscious about those years. I just have never felt like I’m as good a person as the others.”
“Why did you really choose to tell me about Meade’s nasty little comment?”
She wiped her tears with another paper napkin. “I suppose I was worried that it might come out from somebody else.”
“So you really were suspicious that he had talked to others about you and Wilkenson.”
She sighed, and a tear spilled out of one of those jade-green eyes. “I guess so,” she whimpered. “There’s something else, too.”
“Yes?”
“Years ago, I had a child. I wasn’t married, but the father was, and he had no interest at all either in me or the baby. In fact, he was willing to pay me to keep quiet about everything. I didn’t want his money, though; he was really a bad one, Archie. Of course, I was hardly a bargain myself.” She stopped for breath and a sip of now-tepid coffee.
“Anyway, I put the baby — it was a little girl — up for adoption, and I have no idea where she is today. She’d be fifteen on her next birthday. Now, this part of my life I never told anybody at the Silver Spire about, not even Sam. I just couldn’t bring myself to. But Roy Meade found out about it.”
“How?”
“This is my year to run into so-called old friends. I said it never happened before, but actually Derek MacKay is the second one. The father of my child climbed out of his hole in the ground about six weeks ago. He saw my picture in a feature one of the smaller local papers did on the church choir. He’s not married anymore, and he needs money, so...”
“So he’s a blackmailer?”
Carola swallowed hard. “He wrote a letter to the church, addressed to ‘Senior Pastor — Personal.’ And wouldn’t you know, Roy was the one who opened it. Barney was away at the time on a combination vacation and evangelical crusade to Australia, so Roy was handling all his mail.”
“I’ll bet Meade loved getting that piece of correspondence,” I said.
“He did,” Carola agreed glumly. “He came running to me with it. It was asking for five hundred dollars, as a ‘consideration for maintaining a discreet silence about an event that could embarrass the Golden Spire church.’ The jerk, Kyle is his name, couldn’t even get the color of the steeple right. To say nothing of the fact that nobody with any brains would try to blackmail a church. Me, maybe; the church, no way.”
“Kyle sounds like a real sweetheart. What did Meade say when he showed you the letter?”
“He could hardly hide his glee. He made a big, pompous deal out of telling me how he hadn’t showed it to anybody at the Spire, and wouldn’t. He said he was going to take care of things with Kyle, but he smirked the whole time. And then — God, how I hated Roy Meade — he said, ‘Let this be a lesson to you, Carola. I, of course, believe in forgiveness, just as our Lord does, but I must tell you, I’m having a hard time believing you have turned your back on your past transgressions. One misstep of any kind on your part, and I will have to consider what to do with this letter.’ What Roy Meade didn’t know, Archie, is that not even Sam was aware of what had happened all those years ago. If Roy had known, he would have made life even more miserable for me.”
“Did you ever figure out how Meade ‘took care of things’ with Kyle?”
She shook her head and stared at the tabletop. “Honestly, I think he could have just scared the guy off. Like I said, Kyle is a real jerk, or at least he was when I knew him, and the letter sounds like he hasn’t changed one bit. But also, I think he’s basically a coward. My guess is that Roy intimidated him somehow. I never wanted to ask. That letter, which Roy showed me but presumably kept, bothered me plenty. But it bothered me a lot more that Roy Meade had a sort of hold on me, and he could use it anytime he wanted to.”
“But what would he use it for?” I asked.
“I’m honestly not sure. He never came on to me, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Carola said bitterly. “I really think he just liked having power over people. He was a manipulator; he always wanted control.”
“Did you kill Meade?” I kept my tone conversational.
She jerked upright, knocking over her mug, which had less than a thimbleful of coffee in it. “Of course I didn’t!” she hissed in a loud whisper. “Or else I wouldn’t be telling you this.” She looked at me as though I’d just slapped her.
“Sometimes guilty people talk a lot,” I responded. “Maybe to throw their questioners off track. And—”
“So you don’t believe me?” Carola wasn’t whispering anymore, which meant we once again were the center of attention in the grill. She started crying again and began to slide out of the booth.
“I didn’t say I don’t believe you,” I corrected her, holding up a palm. “Has that letter from Kyle been found among Meade’s effects?”
She looked down again and began making circles on the Formica with a manicured index finger. When she finally opened her mouth, the “No” was almost inaudible.
“It probably wasn’t hard to locate, was it?”
She lifted her head slowly, fixing me with eyes that held no warmth. “What does that mean?”
I grinned. “Don’t let my youthful looks fool you; I may appear to be only a few years removed from my Eagle Scout badge, but I’ve been around the block a few times, and not necessarily to help little old ladies cross the street. Was the letter from Kyle in Meade’s desk?”
She clearly wanted to be someplace else — anyplace — but she stuck it out like a trouper. After some fiddling with her empty mug, she brushed hair back from her forehead and fixed me again with those marvelous green eyes, which now were warming up. “Yes, it was in his desk,” she said, making a stab at smiling. “I waited until after the police had made their search of Roy’s office. They really didn’t spend much time, if any, going through his stuff. I guess because they knew they had the right man.”
“I guess. Did it take you long to find the letter?”
She blushed. Nobody likes to be found out as a snoop, regardless of the reason for the snoopery. “Not really, no. I figured it would be in one of his desk drawers, not in a filing cabinet. I was right. Two days after Roy was murdered, I got to the Spire early in the morning — I told Sam I wanted to rehearse a solo. I found the letter in less than fifteen minutes, tucked away in a stack of miscellaneous papers.”
“Where is it now?”
She smiled, but there was no joy behind it. “Where else? I destroyed the damn thing, tore it up in little pieces and threw it off the Staten Island ferry.”
“I suppose I could make a citizen’s arrest on charges of harbor pollution,” I told her, “but I’ll pass. Okay, if the letter is gone, why bother even telling me about it? Sounds like your secret is safe unless Kyle works up the nerve to write another little missive.”