39

Maybe they killed them and buried them underneath the meetinghouse,” Barbara said that night to Sam, while they were lying in bed.

“It’s built on a slab,” Sam pointed out. “That would have been next to impossible. Besides, I don’t think Ruby Hopper is the killin’ type.”

“She is sweet, isn’t she? Did I tell you she sent a pie home with me? Chocolate cream.”

“I love that woman,” Sam said.

“For a group that likes to eat so much, I’m surprised they don’t have a bigger kitchen with a fellowship hall.”

“I talked to Hank Withers about that. He said he designed the meetinghouse with those things in it, but the meeting didn’t have enough money when they built, so they made the kitchen smaller and left off the fellowship hall altogether.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could add those someday?” Barbara said.

“It’ll take a lot more than twelve members to pull that one off,” Sam said.

“I hope the Woodrums come back,” she said.

“I thought you told me they said they were going to.”

“They said they would, but everyone says that.”

“They seemed to enjoy themselves,” Sam said. “They really liked Doreen’s quilt talk.”

“Who’s talking next Sunday?”

“Wayne is talking about his model train collection,” Sam said. “That ought to pack ’em in.”

With Levi back in college, Sam had been anticipating an evening of romance, but now he was preoccupied, worrying how the Woodrums felt about model trains. Maybe Dan Woodrum had a train set as a child and would break down in tears remembering it and write the meeting a check for ten thousand dollars.

Then Sam began wondering, while lying in bed, when he had started stewing about the church’s finances. It was a side of him he didn’t like, his calculating side, his side that worried, causing him to defer to the wealthier people in his congregation, hoping to stay in their good graces. At Harmony, he’d never given money much thought, probably because the Peacocks had won the lottery and once a month threw in a check big enough to choke a horse. He sensed money was an issue at Hope Meeting, notwithstanding the wealth of Wilson Roberts’s toilet empire. Sam wanted to value everyone, whether they gave much or little. He thought about this at such length that when he turned toward Barbara she was sound asleep, caring not one whit for his manly needs.

They had hoped to sleep in the next morning, their day off, but at six thirty they awoke to the sound of a saxophone.

“I thought he only played on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays,” Barbara said.

“That’s what he told me last week.”

Sam climbed out of bed, closed their bedroom windows, and went back to bed.

“I can still hear him,” Barbara said.

“You know, he’s not that bad. I’ve always liked that song. What’s it called?”

“ ‘Moon River.’ ”

“Ah, yes. Now I remember. We had it played at our wedding, didn’t we?”

“We sure did,” Barbara said, scooting closer to him, nuzzling his neck.

Sam loved a good neck nuzzle as much as the next man.

What happened next caused him to wish Hank Withers came over every morning to play his saxophone.

Afterward, they went for breakfast at a coffee shop in their neighborhood. Past the hardware store, past the Italian restaurant where Bruno had tried to seduce Barbara, past the library and Drooger’s Food Center, then around the corner to the coffee shop for bagels and coffee grown at a Lutheran commune in Argentina by the descendants of Nazis who had fled there after World War II.

“It says here that ten percent of the money they make goes to Jewish charities,” Barbara said, reading her cup.

“Boy, everyone’s selling coffee these days. Now the Nazis are in on it.”

“They’re not Nazis. Their parents and grandparents were. They’re trying to make up for it. I think it’s nice.”

Sam, who had never been much of a coffee drinker, said he would stick with hot chocolate, whose beans were picked by humble Christians in the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

They bickered for a while about the relative merits of coffee and chocolate, then went to the hardware store, where they purchased a mop and bucket.

“Gonna do some cleaning, eh?” the owner asked.

“I am,” Barbara said. “He probably won’t help much.”

“You new to the area? Haven’t seen you before.”

“Yes,” Sam said. “I’m the new pastor of Hope Friends Meeting. Name’s Sam Gardner. This is my wife, Barbara.”

“Pleased to meet both of you. I’m Charley Riggle. Call me Charley.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know Uly Grant, would you?” Sam asked.

Sam was under the impression all hardware store owners knew one another.

“No, can’t say as I do. Should I?”

“He owns the hardware store in Harmony. That’s where we’re from. You’re sure you don’t know him? About six feet tall. A hundred and seventy-five pounds. Brown hair, mustache, beard. I bet you’d know him if you saw him.”

“Maybe I’ll have the pleasure one day,” Charley Riggle said. “I’ve always found hardware store owners to be fascinating people.”

They discussed sandpaper for a brief time, then Sam invited Charley to visit Hope Friends.

“You’d probably know quite a few people there,” Sam said.

“Oh, I know just about everyone who goes there.”

“Well, you’re always welcome to join us.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

They shook hands good-bye, then Barbara returned to the parsonage to continue organizing, while Sam headed to his office. He’d made his way halfway through the directory memorizing names. He was up to the P’s, of which there were several. No Q’s. That didn’t surprise him. Q’s were hard to come by. He’d had a Q in his first church, a Quinett, but never one since.

He began studying the R’s. There were three Rawlses. He hadn’t met them yet. He looked up their address on Google Maps. They lived less than a mile from the meetinghouse. He wondered why they no longer attended.

His eyes skipped down the list to Riggle. Riggle. Hmm, where had he heard that name? He wished he was better at remembering names. He closed his eyes in thought, and was soon asleep, waking just in time for lunch.