Read Online The Book of Murdock by Loren D. Estleman - Free Book Online Page B

You’ll need to make them your own. I wrote them with a cadence in mind that was comfortable to me, but no two musicians play the same tune the same way. I expect them back. I’d almost sooner part with Esther.”
    Was there a flat note of insincerity in his almost ? I asked myself if he didn’t share his wife’s regret. “Thank you. I doubt I’ll be able to copy out many of them before I leave.”
    â€œI’m suggesting you take them with you. Yours is not a tent show. It may be months before you finish your mission. Your audience will expect something fresh each week.”
    â€œAre you sure you want to trust me with them? I’ve a habit of traveling light, with nothing I can’t bring myself to abandon if the hunt goes the other way.”
    â€œI haven’t decided to trust you with them yet. I’ll reserve
judgment until I’ve heard you read one in church. I’ve persuaded Father Medavoy to lend us the use of Sacred Hearts tomorrow morning. No services are scheduled that day. We’ll have the place to ourselves and the odd sparrow.”
    â€œThat’s cutting it close. My train’s Saturday. We’re not halfway through the Bible.”
    â€œThe seminaries are turning out graduates with a half knowledge of the Bible at best, and there are pastors who’ve forgotten more than that but continue to drift along on the same dogma they’ve been preaching for fifty years. As it stands, you know more than most of those who will come to you for spiritual aid, and it hasn’t escaped my notice that you have the gift of blarney. My mother’s people were Irish; I failed to inherit, but I have a healthy respect for it. I’m confident you’ll find a way to fill the gap.”
    â€œI can’t help but suspect you’re giving me up as a lost cause.”
    â€œI resent the implication. I collect my pay for resodding sunken graves with my chin high, and if I thought I had shorted Judge Blackthorne in any way, I would return his gold if it meant working for Methodists to make up the difference.”
    I didn’t know what to say to that, whether to ask why pulling weeds for the Methodist Church was more demanding than performing similar work for Sacred Hearts. Democrats vs. Republicans was enough of a closed door without pondering the politics of prayer. What I came up with was, “What if you don’t like what you hear tomorrow morning? If I get a failing grade, do I get to stay home?”
    â€œI’ve not met your employer, but based on what I’ve heard
of his methods, he’ll toss you into the furnace regardless of anything I might say. I seek merely to satisfy myself that I’ve done all I can in two weeks that can be expected of mortal man when faith is involved. If in my heart I cannot accept that I am doing other than releasing yet another profanity upon the land, I will beg your Judge on my knees to send me in your place.”
    â€œHe’d never agree to that. It would be a death sentence.”
    â€œJust so.”
    A squeak from the floor below told me that Esther Griffin had opened the damper in the stovepipe to prepare noon dinner. I’d come to know the house like none I’d lived in since my father’s dugout in the mountains, and the thought that I would soon leave it, with no good excuse to come back, put the cold lump of homesickness deep in my belly.
    â€œI can’t get the straight of you,” I said. “How can you still be so devoted to God after He treated you as He has?”
    He showed surprise for the first time since we’d met, and it was a testimony to how well I’d come to know him that I recognized it; the deep latitudinal lines that were so much a part of his forehead disappeared, the skin drawn taut by the movement of his scalp. It was a shape-shifting moment.
    â€œGod never deserted me,” he said. “In return for my earthly disgrace He gave me