Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 108849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
He waved a hand in the air. “Maybe. And it’s John. Just John, remember? You’re not a member of the congregation . . . unless that has changed?”
“No,” she said. “That has not changed.”
“Then call me John.” The pastor smiled, showing a perfect row of teeth. “I apologize for not being available before now, since I’ve heard all the news. I cannot believe somebody brutally killed Mrs. Bearing and left her body behind my church.”
Laurel watched his facial expressions closely. “Did you know Mrs. Bearing?”
“Of course. The Bearings are members of our church,” Pastor John said. “I, um, I see them every Sunday.” He looked away slowly and took several deep breaths.
She deliberately switched topics. “About Zeke Caine, just how long was he missing? A year, two years, five years? When we first talked, it was my understanding he’d been gone for a year. But now I understand he’s actually been missing for five years? Please explain.”
Pastor John took off his glasses and wiped them on the bottom of his blue sweater. “I don’t know. He was gone between three and five years. They all kind of blurred together. I could look back at the exact date I took over.”
“Then why did you initially tell us it was one year?” Laurel asked.
“It felt like a year. I don’t know,” Pastor John said. “The last few months have been very difficult for everybody in this community.”
Laurel didn’t think that was it. “You saw Pastor Caine during that time, didn’t you?”
Pastor John flushed. “Yes. I saw him a year before you arrived in town, but he had taken a sabbatical before that, so when you add it all together it’s, like, five years.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you’d seen him?”
Pastor John shrugged. “He just arrived in town for one day, and he said he didn’t want to be bothered by anybody and was on a spiritual quest. I felt he was speaking to me as clergy and not as friends, so I kept his confidence.”
“When was he here?” Laurel asked.
“Why does it matter?” Pastor John said. “You’ve solved the earlier serial killings. He maybe was here . . . I don’t know. I don’t remember the exact date. Maybe the August or September the year before.”
“He didn’t tell you why he returned to town?”
Pastor John shook his head. “No. I think he came to get money he had stashed in his cabin, to be honest. He hinted at it but didn’t say so. But honestly, it doesn’t matter. You weren’t here in town. There were no crimes. Pastor Caine just came to get money. He was on a spiritual quest. That’s all there is to it.”
Laurel didn’t like the fuzziness of the timeline, but she had to admit the pastor had a point. It didn’t really matter if Zeke Caine had been missing for one year or five years. Nobody had abducted him, and he had every right to travel anywhere he wanted. “Do you know where he was at any point during the time he was gone?” She had to find more of his victims.
“I really don’t,” Pastor John said, meeting her gaze. “Is that why I’m here today?”
“No. You’re here to talk to me about Mrs. Bearing.”
Pastor John leaned back in an obvious tell. “Oh. I’m very sad when one of our parishioners has passed on, and I will definitely go meet with the family.”
“You might not want to do that.”
The pastor blinked. “Why not? I understand that Zeke has taken over a lot of church duties, but I’m closer to the Bearings than Zeke is right now.”
Laurel cleared her throat. “Pastor John, were you having an affair with Teri Bearing?”
Pastor John’s mouth fell open slightly, and his forehead creased. He clasped his hands in his lap, and his left eye twitched. “Um, I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“Were you or were you not having an affair? Please keep in mind that it is a crime to lie to a federal agent,” Laurel said.
Pastor John’s chin hit his chest. “Yes, Teri and I had been having an affair for two months, but we’d only been sleeping together for two weeks.”
“Explain that to me.”
The pastor looked away and then back. “We’d been talking quite a bit on the phone and at the church for, I would say, the last couple of months as friends, but then it grew into something more two weeks ago. It grew into a lot more.”
“Where?” Laurel asked.
Pastor John blinked. “I don’t think that is relevant.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s relevant,” she said quietly.
He sighed. “At the church.”
Laurel frowned. “When I first met you, you were having an affair with a twenty-year-old who attended your church. You’re a charismatic person, but you’ve got to be smarter than this.”
Pastor John looked away. “Teri was going to leave her husband. I think we had the real deal.”