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grateful.”
    Marianna pushed a button on her phone and summoned a plump, bright-eyed young woman with a glittery valentine heart containing a crucifix hanging at her throat. “Tracy will show you to Gladys’s office, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “She’ll stay with you until Gladys is free.”
    I got it. I wasn’t allowed to be on my own. Even once past the front desk, no stranger was allowed to wander unchaperoned. Without a doubt, the shower door letter was an inside job.
    Marianna and I shook hands, and then I was speed-walking my way down a hall with Tracy before I could tuck my notebook and pen back in my pocket.
    Gladys Everton was a quiet, soft woman probably pushing sixty, who wore her age well. Her bright blue eyes sparkled, and her voice was firm. Whether it was a difference in generation or background, she was gentler than Marianna Stokes, warmer and more gracious.
    I asked her the same question about the possibility of a disgruntled employee or perhaps a family member.
    Again the answer was no. “Our little group begins each day in a prayer circle and sharing,” she said with a den mother’s kindness. “No one in my office has said anything about that—and they would.”
    She showed me Howard Richardson’s office, and the bathroom he’d described to me as modest. ‘Modest’ was clearly a relative term. The shower in question was a glass-walled walk-in, and the whole bathroom was at least twice the size of my bedroom.
    The office itself was comfortably, unimaginatively appointed, with the exception of a big portrait of an olive-skinned, dark-haired Christ painted against rough golds and browns, hanging on the wall behind the desk. This was a virile son of a carpenter with strong arms and flashing teeth, not just some holy wimp. Interesting.
    I didn’t see any plants or a single living thing in the room. Not even cut flowers. I decided not to ask Gladys about that. There was an allegorical painting of a wheat field at harvest, though, with laborers bent over the sheaves. Maybe bringing in the sheaves was enough for Rev. Richardson.
    The walls had a few enlarged photographs of Howard beaming at the camera, or beaming at people. Lots of beaming. He had an industrial strength smile, and he clearly used it a lot.
    Gladys didn’t know how anyone could have taped a message to the shower door, either. That baffled her. She would have noticed, for sure, she said. Yes, she was at work the day in question, and the day before. She hadn’t missed a work day in over a year.
    I could feel the fear and confusion in her as she spoke of the letter. That was quite a contrast to when she spoke of Howard Richardson. She’d worked in his ministry for decades, she said proudly. Every time she mentioned his name, her aura glowed with warm devotion, perhaps even love. A true follower.
    I asked if she’d show me James Richardson’s office. He wasn’t in yet, but she unlocked it and stood in the doorway while I looked around. No private bathroom. It was smaller than his dad’s, but plenty big enough.
    The desk had actual work on it, in tidy stacks and folders. James was organized, by the look of it. The walls were covered in photographs of Mexico or some other Latin American country: colorful groups assembled for the camera, singing and dancing, landscapes, seascapes. A group of children enacting La Posada, with Mary on a donkey and Joseph at the halter—los peregrinos, searching for shelter.
    There were only two family photos behind the desk on the credenza, one of Leigh smiling, looking formal and brittle, and a larger one of their three kids. He’d have his back to them when he was seated at the desk, but anyone facing him would see them. Were they there just for show?
    I wandered around the room a second time, studying the photos. They felt significant, somehow, with lots of energy attached to them. Sunny south of the border. It was the happiest looking room I’d been in so far. Still nothing living. Odd.
    Then I was