When he had walked away from the well where they had looked down and seen the dead face of the woman, in that moment he had given up any last hope of ever finding Baron alive anywhere in the world. And now, here he was. Bruce wondered if maybe he was crying because he could never again miss the dog so badly, no matter what happened. Some connection he could not understand had been severed.
At breakfast in the smaller dining room on the ground floor of the Manse, John Tinker Meadows listened to Finn Efflander and Jenny Albritton and Mary Margaret and finally said, "Why are we required to make some kind of jackass statement about this? Is there some rule that says we have to? When they investigated the disappearance, we stated officially that we knew nothing about the damned woman. And we still know nothing about her. When she was here, she stayed a long way from the Center, and she died a long way from the Center.
We've extended every courtesy to that pair the magazine sent down here. We didn't have to do that. I sometimes think we're too sensitive about the media and what they might say or write."
"I think we should say something," Mary Margaret said.
"Even if to say we're sorry this happened to any woman in this county whether we know her or not. We extend our sympathy to her loved ones and her co-workers, and so on and so on."
"Maybe," Finn said, 'we could work in a little comment on how the permissive filth in our society inflames rapists and murderers."
John Tinker sighed and said, "All right, then. I'm outnumbered and outvoted. Finn, get Spencer McKay to work something up. Tell him to keep it short. Jenny, you bird-dog it, and get it to me ten minutes before they tape it."
"Where would you like them to do it?" Jenny asked.
"Any suggestions?"
"Well... I think if you were sitting behind the desk in your father's old office..."
"Agreed. Tell them I will give the statement and then take a few questions. Will it be network?"
"There'll be the area affiliates of CBS and ABC and I think maybe somebody from CNN, but they have no idea whether anything they do will be picked up."
"It probably will be," Finn said bleakly.
"Anything that could possibly bring any kind of discredit on the Church gets a big play."
"How can we be discredited?" Mary Margaret asked.
"For what?"
Finn shrugged and looked at Jenny Albritton. She moistened her lips and said, "The brutalized body of Linda Rooney has been found in the bottom of a dry well on an abandoned farm nine miles from the Tabernacle of the Eternal Church of the Believer. Police are investigating what connection there might be between the murder and the fact that Ms Rooney was conducting an undercover investigation of the Meadows family and the Eternal Church of the Believer."
John Tinker looked startled. He whistled softly and then said, "Okay, I was definitely wrong. We have to make a statement and it better be a strong statement. Tell McKay to underline how open we are with all members of the media.
Thank you, Jenny. We sometimes forget how vulnerable we are."
"And we better pray that no one at the Center was involved in this in any way," Mary Margaret said.
"If they can make it sound so terrible when we never knew anything about her, think of how they could make it sound if one of our employees like one of the maintenance men did it to her."
John Tinker finished his coffee and the informal meeting adjourned. Mary Margaret left with him, and stopped him in the lounge area, saying, "I have to talk to you about Poppa."
"What now?"
"Willa Minter says that if she has to handle him alone, she's going to quit."
"What happened?"
"Apparently what happened, he was in the tub and she told him he'd been there long enough. She was almost hysterical, so I'm not certain how accurate this is. She took hold of his arm to try to get him to his feet and help him out of the tub. He reached up and grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled her off balance and plunged her head under the water and apparently grabbed her around the neck with his legs, like a scissors hold, I think they call it, and held her there with her head underwater. She was terribly frightened and she wrenched herself free. She was on the floor beside the tub, coughing up water, when he got out of the tub and stepped over her and went into the bedroom and put on his terry robe."
"Dear Lord God," he said wearily.
"Don't blaspheme."
"You should have recognized that as a prayer, sis."
"There's more."
"Spare me."
"I can't. I went back there with her immediately. He couldn't understand what we were talking about. He had absolutely no memory of it at all. And what is worse, after a few minutes, he couldn't remember what I'd been asking him. And he wanted the san seer ' "The what?"
"That's as close as I can come to the word he was saying. The san seer Whatever it is, he wanted it right then. And in a few minutes he couldn't remember wanting it. Willa Minter says it's getting more difficult to understand what he's saying. The rate of change is accelerating, Johnny."
"Can you get someone?"
"More than one. Even with increased sedation, she thinks it will take three shifts, two RPN on each shift. She says he seems to have gotten a lot stronger physically lately. And he's getting more incontinent. I can find them, and we can house them in the dormitory, and we can pay them a very good wage, but I can't guarantee they won't talk about his condition. It could get to be common knowledge. I know you don't want that to happen."
"Five more! I'll have Finn help you find them and interview them. He's good at that kind of thing."
Z33.
"What are we going to do, Johnny? Whatever are we going to do?"
"Get hold of yourself, Mag. We do the best we can."
"When is Tom Daniel Birdy coming?"
"He's invited for the weekend of the twenty-sixth. He won't say yes or no. If he plays cute right to the last moment, when we send a plane for him why don't you fly down?"
"Why?"
"I have a feeling he'd find it easier to say no to me."
"If he says yes, we're going to have problems with Walter."
"You butter up old Walter. By the time he finds out how things are going, it will be too late to raise a fuss."
"He's been very loyal."
"Walter is loyal to Walter first. Then to Alberta, maybe."
"I always thought he'd go along with anything we thought best. But the other day he got so upset when I mentioned the Reverend Birdy."
"On the way back in the airplane with Birdy, explain about Poppa. Level with him. Otherwise he's going to wonder about not meeting him. From what you say, Poppa is through meeting anybody. Wait a minute. I don't think you should go down. We'll send the plane for him. If you go down we'll look too eager. Tell him about the old man when he gets to the Manse, or when you're showing him the area."
"Johnny. Are you all right?"