The Undoing of Saint Silvanus Read online

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  The Undoing of Saint Silvanus

  Copyright © 2016 by Beth Moore. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph copyright © by Briole Photography. All rights reserved.

  Illustrations courtesy of Roger Higgins Designs, Nashville, TN. All rights reserved.

  Designed by Julie Chen

  Edited by Kathryn S. Olson

  Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations in chapter 54 and on page 465 are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  Psalm 18 in chapter 5 is quoted from the New King James Version,® copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations in the historical sections are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

  The Undoing of Saint Silvanus is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Moore, Beth, date, author.

  Title: The undoing of Saint Silvanus / Beth Moore.

  Description: Carol Stream, Illinois : Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., [2016]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016011410 | ISBN 9781496416476 (hardcover_

  Subjects: LCSH: Boardinghouses—Fiction. | Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | GSAFD: Christian fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.O5545 U53 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016011410

  ISBN 978-1-4964-2023-7 (International Trade Paper Edition)

  Build: 2017-12-04 12:10:19

  To my dear friend and co-laborer Evangeline Williams,

  a gorgeous gem washed onto Houston shores

  by the horrors of Hurricane Katrina.

  God knew we wouldn’t have wanted to miss you

  for anything in this world.

  This book is the fruit of your prayers, your faith, your hugs,

  and your constant encouragement.

  I love you.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Questions

  PROLOGUE

  CHRISTMAS EVE 1921

  REVEREND R. J. BRASHEAR dipped the bread into the wine. He lifted his chin and stared at the stained-glass image of Jesus, the rocking boat, and the daring disciple. Then he took the bread.

  Not a single ear was open when the gun went off.

  CHAPTER 1

  PRESENT DAY

  SERGEANT CAL DACOSTA GLANCED at the digits on his dashboard as he threw the car into park. “Sheesh. Eighty-four degrees and barely daylight. That body’s going to be ripe.” Several patrol cars were already at the scene, zigzagged all over the pavement. The lights were flashing but they’d saved themselves the sirens. As he shut the door and walked toward the small circle of officers, he took a few seconds to absorb how odd the ordinariness of it was. Only a handful of spectators were lurking. The few people on their way to work at this hour took the other side of the street to avoid the inconvenience. This was the nocturnal side of town, where the night was as the day. The patrol officers seemed almost as detached, chugging down weak coffee from a convenience store and eating something unidentifiable out of clear wrappers.

  Sure enough, he got hit by a whiff of the body from twenty feet. “How do you guys do that?”

  “Morning, Sarge. How do we do what?”

  “How do you eat with that smell? Can’t you taste it?”

  One of them mumbled as he stuffed the last bite of a sticky bun into his cavernous mouth. When the man licked his fingers, Cal decided he’d pass on breakfast.

  The odor radiating from the sidewalk wasn’t so much the smell of death. Not yet anyway. It was the smell of filth, blown his way by a hot, humid gust that seemed to belch from the underworld. Frank Lamonte, Cal’s closest friend and former partner, said what all of them were thinking. “Finally drank himself to death.”

  Cal imagined those five words etched beneath his own last name on a granite marker. At least half a dozen family members on his daddy’s side were vying for the same epitaph. He’d considered going to a couple of meetings to try to dodge the family fate, but opening up to people wasn’t exactly his strong suit. Anyway, his alcoholism wasn’t in a glass. He was scared it was in his blood.

  “Any chance we’ve got a name?”

  Frank took off his hat and tried to rub out the permanent dent it had made in his forehead. “No, but I’ve seen him around here enough to tell you that this was his corner. He held that old cardboard sign over there and sat right here with his back against these bricks.”

  Cal glanced over at the sign and saw the usual scrawl with a black permanent marker. Out of work. Hungry. God bless! The words need a job had been scratched out with a blue ballpoint.

  Another officer joined them, out of breath. “Hey, guys. Sorry I’m late. The light’s out at Canal.”

  Frank nodded at him and continued. “To tell you the truth, I’ve seen him passed out in that alley as many times as I’ve seen him awake. I’m not sure how anybody could tell he was dead.”

  But he was dead alright. He’d probably been dead a long time. His lungs were just the last to know. He had that look a person gets when he’s tried too long to make friends with the sun and enemies of his organs. Concrete made a poor cushion no matter how drunk you got. Cal squatted down besid
e the crumpled corpse, gave a firm grip to the right shoulder, and turned him faceup. The eyes were half-open and the teeth were almost as dark as a rotted pumpkin.

  The late-arriving officer suddenly heaved and coughed until everybody still on their feet scattered like mice. Why Bully couldn’t do them the courtesy of turning away when he pulled that stunt was a mystery to Cal. He said it was because he never actually vomited—he just had a weak gag reflex.

  Bully was a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound anomaly. He had the sensitivity and the stomach of a nine-year-old girl. All of them had seen him cry on the job at least once. This was first on the list of top-ten reasons Billy Bob La Bauve was the most picked-on member of the NOPD. And, some would say, the favorite. For Cal, it depended on what day it was. It wasn’t today. Honestly, if he started sniffling, Cal was going to send him home.

  Once they recovered, Frank bent over toward Cal and the corpse. “You’ve seen him before, haven’t you? I’ve threatened to haul him in a few times for harassing people for money, but these days there are so many just like him, who knows where to start? The old rules don’t hold near as well this side of the levees.” Frank forgot every now and then that Cal had joined the force after the hurricane. This was the only New Orleans he knew from behind a badge.

  To Cal, cops didn’t get much better than Frank. He’d never once caught him in a lie. He didn’t have a foul mouth about women. He had a wife he apparently liked going home to. He worked with Midnight Basketball for kids at risk and was the closest thing some of them had to a father. He’d told Cal recently that he was studying up on soccer because the YMCA had asked him to coach a team. He’d never played, but no one else would volunteer. Frank actually had a life outside the force.

  Cal answered Frank’s question. “Yeah. I’ve seen him around here. How old a man do you think he is?”

  Bully had pulled himself together by now. “Well, he looks a hunerd.”

  “He’s not nearly as old as he looks. He’s only gray at the temples and beard.” The thick mop of matted hair looked out of proportion on the body’s slight frame. Only God knew what color the man’s hair was naturally, but the sun had turned it some faded shade of auburn. He was wearing a pair of black sweatpants and an old plaid Western shirt with snaps on the pockets. No shoes.

  “We’ve got everything we need here. Y’all want to let us at him or do you want to carry him to the morgue yourself?”

  The officers stepped aside and watched the coroner’s team lift him onto a stretcher like he was a five-pound sack of Idaho potatoes. Cal was particularly impressed that one of the heavy lifters was a woman. He knew a lot of faces on the response teams since they were destined to gather at the same scenes, but names were another story.

  Cal’s big brother, a politician from diaperhood, had tried to teach him how to make name associations at a barbecue one Sunday. It was particularly humiliating because he’d had to go around the picnic table and practice associating the names of a few of their family members with memorable images. Maybe it was his imagination, but his aunt on his dad’s side had acted cold ever since the word horse popped out when he got around to her. It was the dentures, his mom explained later. Either they were a size too big for her or the front teeth needed filing down.

  “Sarge, anything else you want done here?” Bully wanted to know.

  “Yeah. You and Sanchez ask around and see if you can get a few of the others who hang here to tell you anything about him once we’ve cleared out. They usually network. Maybe we’ll get lucky and his prints will turn up a name pretty quickly. I’ll head back in and handle the paperwork.”

  Some days Cal would almost rather shoot off his little toe than fill out forms. At least he’d be indoors with the AC. He and the rest of them already had sweat rings halfway to their belts and it wasn’t even midmorning. With all the talk about cutbacks and financial woes in the department, he was glad no one had cut back on the air-conditioning. Raw meat would keep for a solid week on his desk. AC was something to be thankful for in a triple-digit June, and lest people forget, the cantankerous unit would freeze up and shut down at least two or three times a summer. It was no mystery to Cal why crime spiked in the sweltering summer. Heat sometimes made him want to haul off and hit somebody too.

  CHAPTER 2

  “RAFE IS DEAD.”

  Jillian might have found a better way to say it if she hadn’t been caught off guard. Her mind was still whirling from the phone call, and her mother had picked that day of all days to stop by the restaurant where Jillian worked.

  She knew Jade wouldn’t be grief stricken. It was just that the two of them never spoke of him. They hadn’t in years. Somewhere along the way—by high school, if Jillian’s memory served her right—they’d come to an unspoken agreement to simply act like he’d never existed. It was easier. But now that he was dead, Jillian felt strangely compelled to face the fact that he’d been, all that time, alive.

  Jillian waited for her mother to respond, but she didn’t make a sound or move a muscle. She’d have been easier to read without her sunglasses on. It wasn’t particularly sunny, but Jade never walked out the door without a pair of expensive sunglasses on. She teased that sunglasses made it harder to tell how old a woman was. Jillian seated her at one of the patio tables so they’d have a small hope of privacy and asked the assistant manager if she could take her fifteen-minute break early.

  “Mom, did you hear what I said?”

  “I heard you.”

  A chilly breeze swept a small stack of cocktail napkins off a nearby table. Jillian jumped up to grab them and saw Jade rub her bare arms. “How about a cappuccino? I’ve gotten pretty good at making them. Want one?”

  “Nonfat milk?” Jade responded.

  “Got it.”

  Jade added, “Extra foam.”

  “Coming up. And I’ll make it extra hot. I probably should have seated us inside.”

  Sigmund’s was a privately owned hot spot perched like a bird-of-paradise in the hub of Pacific Heights with a spectacular view of San Francisco Bay. If a person aimed to eat healthy, their chefs made it more than bearable. The food was downright ambrosial, but a customer would be a fool to confuse that with affordable. Even with her employee discount, Jillian could only afford to eat there a couple of times a week, but nobody made a black bean burger like Sigmund’s. The sandwich was stacked nearly four inches high with perfect slices of California avocado—never mushy, never rubbery—sprouts, Swiss cheese, and garlic-herb mayo on a toasted whole-wheat bun with lightly grilled plantains on the side. Depending on the number on the scale that morning, sometimes she’d substitute a side of sweet potato fries. All that and a glass of iced tea tallied up to fifteen bucks.

  Jillian considered herself fortunate to have a job here, and she needed to keep it. As it was, the assistant manager resented Jillian for having a personal gig with the owner, so she had to work twice as hard and watch her back, especially when he wasn’t around. She glanced at the time. She had nine more minutes before she had to get back to waiting tables. She steamed the extra foam, wiped off the frother, and headed to the patio with Jade’s extra-hot, imperfectly coiffed cappuccino.

  “When I’m not in a hurry, I can make a double-heart shape in the foam. This looks a little more like a boiled egg. Sorry.”

  Jade took a sip. “It’s perfect. I’ve just got a few more minutes before my appointment. A new client at the gallery wants me to take a look at her office and make some art recommendations. It’s a bay view near here. If there’s something you need to tell me, you’d probably better go ahead.” Jade wrapped both her hands around the cup like she was warming herself around a campfire, leaned forward, and sipped as casually as if the deceased were no one she knew.

  “Do you want to know?”

  “No, not particularly. Nor do I want you to know. But since you do, you may as well tell me.”

  “About two hours ago I got a call from an area code I didn’t recognize, so I let it go to voice mail. The woman le
ft a pretty cryptic message saying Rafe had been found dead and there would only be a private burial. No service or anything. Just said she thought I should know and it was up to me what I wanted to do about it.”

  “I truly believed we’d moved on a long time ago, Jillian. Have you been in touch with those people without me knowing about it?”

  “No! Absolutely not. I haven’t had any contact with them since we moved to California. What was I, six years old? I hardly remember them.”

  Jillian and Jade seldom argued. Jade had always been the live-and-let-live kind. Whatever Jillian wanted was fine with her, as long as whatever Jade wanted was fine with Jillian. But somehow bringing up any part of the past, distant or recent, that could in any way call Jade into question, was completely off-limits. She lived by the philosophy that the past was exactly that, and the only relevance was now. Anything else would invite an onslaught of negative energy. Jillian usually agreed. She hadn’t come to work that day looking for skeletons. They’d dropped by unexpectedly, just like Jade had.

  “So Rafe’s mother called you today out of the blue? How on earth did she know where to find you, Jillian?”

  “Well, it wasn’t actually her. It was a woman who works for her,” Jillian tried to explain. “This woman said she was calling me because her boss was overwhelmed with the arrangements. She also said, word for word, ‘Your grandmother will cover the expenses.’ I could go for free.”

  “Your grandmother. Well, she was some grandmother. I’ll tell you that. And this woman found you how?”

  “Okay, this is where it really gets weird. She did one of those searches online. The kind you pay something like ninety dollars for. It listed where I work and she looked up the number and called here. She said there had been a family emergency, so the assistant manager gave her my cell number.”

  “And now they have your cell number and can get in touch with you anytime. Perfect.” Splotches of red surfaced on Jade’s neck, the usual sign that her mother was trying to remain controlled on the outside but was simmering hot underneath that thin layer of skin.