Coldwater Revenge by James Ross (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

to follow. The author of this book is one of the better ones.

By all means test your theology – if your education has left you any – with science and the other arts. If a theology can’t stand up to the scrutiny, chuck it. Though I encourage you to remain open to what science and logic cannot explain and to allow for the difference.

I wonder if we in the church do a disservice to our young by feeding them a watered-down theology in the form of Catechism and then ignoring the polishing stone of reason. Man has puzzled over the same basic questions for thousands of years: Who are we? Why are we here? What are we supposed to do while we’re here and what, if anything is next? If you’re not careful, you can disappear into your own navel trying to answer such questions. But if you’re inclined by nature to ask, as you seem to be, then it’s helpful to know the location of the stones in the path that others have tripped on before you.

Give me a call if you want to chat. I can be reached at the number on the back.

Kind Regards,

Father Gauss’

Tom flipped through the pages of the well-thumbed volume, noting the penciled underlinings and marginalia. The letter didn’t sound like a man in serious trouble had written it. But it did sound very much like all of the serious communications Tom had had from Fr. Gauss over the years: kindly, but pointed—with an undertone of challenge. Prepared to be patient if the challenge were not immediately taken up.

He put the book and letter in the glove compartment, and drove back to Joe’s cabin. “Okay,” he muttered to himself. “But not now.”

* * *

Bonnie handed Tom the phone as soon as he walked in the door. She looked as worn out as her husband.

“Tom? This is Moe Silverstein. Tanner gave me this number and filled me in on your little problem.”

“Glad to hear you call it little.”

“Poor choice of words. Look, when can you get back to New York?”

Tom glanced at Bonnie. “I’m kind of up to my ass in alligators right now, Moe.” He explained briefly about Joe being in the hospital and Mary with a broken leg.

“You can’t catch a break, can you?” Moe sympathized. “Well I hate to add to your troubles, but there’s going to be a line in tomorrow’s New York Post, Page Six gossip column about a rising star at a certain white shoe Manhattan law firm who’s got himself tangled in a nasty government procurement scandal. No names. But that’s how our DA works: soften the ground with strategic leaks to friendly columnists so there’ll be good coverage when the indictments come down.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to get back here so we can get to work. You’ve got to find everyone who was with you on that Egyptian project and get them to give affidavits that you weren’t counsel to that Eurocon subsidiary. Then you need to do an interview with a reporter I’ve got lined up who’s agreed to do a piece about your charitable fundraising. Basically, you need to get back here and get in the fight.”

Tom hesitated. “Can you give me a few days, Moe?”

“It’s your ass, Tom. But they’re already chewing on it.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

Tom looked at Bonnie. She looked beaten. “Do you have to go?” she whispered.

“I’ll put if off as long as I can.”

* * *

Joe lay on his back with an IV dripping into his arm and a thin, damp sheet stuck to his chest. A wallet and cell phone held down a pile of papers on the table next to the hospital bed. Someone had removed the line from the hospital phone and plugged it into the back of a lap-top computer. “You look like ten miles of hard road, brother.”

Joe pried open an eyelid, “Crank me up.”

Tom moved a night table that held a stack of files, and pressed a button on the side of the bed. “You moving your office in here too?”

Joe slid his torso upright. “I asked Bonnie to grab the stuff on my desk. I can’t keep my eyes open to read it, though.”

Tom pulled a plastic chair up next to the bed. “Do they know what you’ve got yet?”

“If they do, they’re not telling me.”

“Your pal, Dr. Sayed, asked me where you’d been over the last forty-eight hours. I told him what I knew, but it didn’t seem to mean anything to him.”

“They’ll figure it out.”

“He says you might have been exposed to some kind of ‘toxin.’ And Mom threw in something about the Hellers and homemade weed killer, and you being in here last month with basically the same thing.”

“Shit.” It was a sigh, not a curse.

“I didn’t tell her about you pulling more crops a few days ago. But I did tell Sayed.”

“What?”

“That you were out in the woods pulling up marijuana plants the day before I got here. You told me on the way in from the airport, remember? Before we found Billy.”

“Oh.”

“And the doctor said that one of those cuts isn’t healing.”

“Tommy…”

“What?”

“I’m not processing too well right now.”

Tom put his hand on Joe’s sheeted thigh. “Sorry. Maybe I should come back later. Go back to sleep.”

Joe took a breath, started to nod and then fumbled for the button at the side of the bed. “I need help.”

Tom reached for the side of the bed. “Up or down?”

“No. Shit. Leave it.” Joe waived at the laptop and stack of files. “I mean help with this.”

“Your mail?”

“Finding Billy’s killer.”

Tom didn’t respond—with enthusiasm or anything else.

“I can’t do it alone, Tommy. Not now, lying here puking my guts out. I can’t even keep my eyes open.”

Tom folded his arms and spoke to the uncurtained window that framed the distant view of Coldwater lake. “I have to get back to New York, Joe.” He explained about the Eurocon mess and the phone call from the