A Merciful Secret (Mercy Kilpatrick #3)(67)

Lust briefly blazed, but he stamped it out. Fuck no. “That’s okay with me.” He turned his back on her and strode back to the party. At the door he glanced back; she watched him. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he felt their pull. The fire framed her body, and the luscious silhouette tempted him again.

Danger.

He yanked open the door and welcomed the blast of air-conditioning on his hot face.

I just avoided a nasty mistake.

The old memory made Truman’s skin crawl as he approached the church. I was young and dumb. Thankfully his drunken hormones hadn’t overridden his common sense.

What would have happened?

He hurled the thought out of his brain. Don’t go there.

Inside the church he experienced déjà vu as he strode toward David’s office. Second time here this week. Ahead a man stepped into the hallway, his cowboy hat in his hand. He turned to shake hands with someone Truman couldn’t see. “Thank you, David. I’ll see you for dinner next week.” He turned toward Truman.

Karl Kilpatrick. Mercy’s father.

Also for the second time in a week. Truman greeted Karl and shook his hand and then David’s. Curiosity shone from both men’s eyes. There was an awkward moment where Karl waited, watching him expectantly, and Truman knew he hoped to hear the purpose of his visit. “Tell Deborah thanks again for the pie the last night.”

“We’ll have to do it again,” Karl politely replied. He got the message and moved past Truman toward the door.

“Next time I’ll make certain Mercy joins us,” Truman said to Karl’s back.

Karl’s step faltered, but he didn’t stop. He simply raised a hand in acknowledgment.

I tried. He turned and found David closely watching him.

“Still problems between those two?” asked David.

“No crack in the ice yet. She’s trying. I do what I can.”

“One of these days they’ll come together. Karl Kilpatrick is one of the most stubborn men I know, but I think he’s proud of Mercy . . . even if he has an issue with her profession.”

“It goes deeper than that, David. There’s a bitter history between them. She’s angry that he cut her out of the family when she was eighteen, and he’s angry that she wouldn’t follow the life path he’d chosen for her.” That was the CliffsNotes version. Their fifteen-year estrangement had been born out of distrust, betrayal, and Mercy’s broken heart.

“One of these days forgiveness will heal their wounds.”

“Don’t tell me Karl was here to talk about Mercy.” Maybe he’s finally coming around.

“Our conversations are confidential.”

Truman winced. There was that pious tone David sank into at random.

“What can I do for you?” asked David in his normal voice. “Do you have a lead on the break-in?”

“Yes and no. What I have is a theory I’m exploring. What kind of records do you keep here at the church?”

“You mean our financials? There’s—”

“No. For the town residents. Like deaths or marriages.”

David’s face cleared. “Oh. It’s a tradition to keep a written record of ceremonies performed here at the church. Like you said, funerals and marriages, but also baptisms.”

“What about births?”

“No, just the baptism. Same with the deaths. We only record them if the funeral is held here. Back in the early nineteen hundreds, nearly every event happened here and was recorded. Those old records are quite interesting, but they’re being stored in a facility that has the right temperature and humidity to protect that sort of written record. In the last half of the twentieth century, people began to get married in other venues, and our baptisms are down.”

“I didn’t know the church kept track of those things.”

“Most small-town churches do. We use handwritten ledgers.” He smiled. “It sounds old-fashioned in these days of digital everything, but there’s something about seeing the events recorded on a page for history.”

“So you don’t have more recent records?”

“We have the last fifty years or so. I should send in the older ledgers for proper preservation.”

“Can I see some?” He told David the months from the microfiche film rolls.

“Follow me.”

Back in a dusty room, David opened a file cabinet drawer. Inside was a pile of about a dozen ledgers—the type that reminded Truman of old-fashioned hardback grading books. “As you can see, this isn’t optimal storage for paper records.”

“I’d expected a lot more books than that.”

David shrugged. “Eagle’s Nest isn’t that big. Dozens of entries can fit on one page. Most take one line.” He dug out a ledger that corresponded to Truman’s requested months. He laid it on a desk and gently flipped through the pages. Truman was impressed by the impeccable lines of script. It matched the perfect cursive in the handwriting instruction books from his grade school years. Someone’s beautiful writing had recorded the town’s history. A few pages later the handwriting changed. Not so perfect, but still neater than Truman’s.

“Back then there was a church secretary who handled this sort of thing,” David said. “Not enough work now to justify a secretary.”