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Luckily, Dixie, Ernie, and the two girls, Sissy and Mary Ann, all loved his money. Money was power, no question about it. Sanders remembered how his father used to recite the Golden Rule—he who has the gold makes the rules. And Sanders had the gold. The power. The control.
And he had his job. His ministry. Funny how you are what people perceive. Some considered him a savior, a prophet, a man of God. Others considered him an extremist, a cheap con man, a bigoted hypocrite.
What was the truth? Well, he had never had a vision from God like he said on his show. Jesus had never visited him in his bedroom at night. He had never heard a mysterious voice or seen a real miracle. But so what? People wanted to believe. People needed something, and he gave it to them. We need food, we need air, we need recreation and entertainment, and we also need to believe in something. The leftist liberals believed in their gods—secularism, academia, the media. Didn’t old-fashioned Americans have the same right? They needed a strong leader, someone they could follow without question or doubt. Politicians used deception and slick packaging to create an image a person could trust. What was so wrong with a preacher doing the same?
To the critics who accused him of taking advantage of his followers, Ernest Sanders scoffed. Just take a look at his parishioners one Sunday morning, the exhilarated, rapt expression on their faces. How could you put a price tag on something like that? Take a look at how their eyes glowed as he spoke to them, their attention and trust never wavering. Yes, take a good look at these hardworking Americans who asked for no more than a few minutes of religious rapture, who wanted to believe there was something more than the boring grind they went through every day, who wanted to rely on the faith of God rather than just people.
Ernest Sanders gave them all that and more. And yes, he made a lot of money from it. Why shouldn’t he? He made the world a better place and brought joy to thousands, maybe millions, of people. Maybe God hadn’t shown him a burning bush or given him the power to walk on water. But He had given him the power to move people with his words and perhaps that was, after all, the way God intended it to be. No flashy miracles in this technological, bureaucratic era—just the simple power to communicate His message.
Perhaps, Sanders thought, he was engaged in a holy battle and God had chosen him to lead the side of the righteous, to rally His troops, to lead them into the Promised Land . . .
. . . and to rid the world of the godless scum, to fight the evildoers who would try to stop him. Even to the death.
The NewsFlash credits rolled by. With a sigh, Sanders reached for the phone and dialed Raymond Markey’s home.
“Hello?”
“Were you watching?” Reverend Sanders asked.
“Yes.”
“Very distressing,” Sanders continued. “There is going to be a tremendous outcry.”
“But Riker played into our hands when they mentioned Bradley Jenkins,” Markey said. “Now we have proof that his reports were falsified. His findings can be labeled invalid.”
“Maybe,” Sanders allowed, “but don’t count on it. We can use it, but it might not be enough. We might have to consider other plans.”
Markey cleared his throat. “If you think it’s necessary.”
“It is. Now that Riker has brought Silverman into this, I don’t see how we have any choice. I’ll contact Silverman’s stepfather.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get on a plane to New York. I want you to confront Harvey Riker man-to-man.”
“Fine.” Markey paused. “There’s one other thing.”
“Yes?”
“The Gay Slasher killings—it’s all very strange.”
“I know what you mean.”
Markey paused again before asking, “Who do you think is behind it?”
Ernest Sanders weighed his words carefully. “To be honest, Ray,” he said at last, “I really don’t know.”
14
EARLY the next morning, Sara hobbled down the corridor and pushed open the door to Donald Parker’s office without knocking.
“You bastard.”
Donald looked up from his desk. If he had been surprised by her outburst, his face did not show it. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“You lied to me.”
“Sara—”
“You said you would leave Bradley Jenkins out of your report.”
“Sara, I’m sorry but I just couldn’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a reporter,” Parker said. “I was assigned to cover the story, the full story—”
“Spare me the speech.”
“Hold on a minute, Sara. You were biased on this one. Your judgment was clouded.”
“What are you talking about?”
Parker adjusted his tie. “It’s simple. You don’t leave out a vital aspect of a story to protect a friend.”
“But I explained—”
“You explained what? That your friend, this Harvey Riker, lied to government officials? That he falsified reports?”
“He didn’t falsify anything. He allowed Bradley Jenkins the right to confidentiality.”
“Oh, come, Sara, you didn’t really expect me to give up the Gay Slasher story, did you? If I left Jenkins out of the report, what was the connection between the Gay Slasher’s victims? The whole idea was that they all came from Riker’s clinic. I couldn’t just skip over Bradley Jenkins, now, could I?”
Sara leaned against her cane. “You don’t realize the consequences.”
“Worrying about the consequences is not our job. You know that. We report the news and let the pieces fall where they may. We cannot choose to suppress important facts in order to achieve our personal goals. Reverse our roles for a minute. If you were doing a story and I came to you and asked you to leave out a vital part of the story in order to protect a friend of mine—a friend who tampered with government documents—would you?”
“I didn’t ask you to protect a friend. I asked you to protect the clinic. Don’t you see? Your report could close them down.”
He shook his head. “No way. After the show last night, the public would never allow it. The researchers at the clinic are overnight heroes. All of America is talking about them.”
“You still should have told me.”
“Maybe I should have,” he allowed, “but I didn’t think there was time.” He crossed the room and stood in front of her. “I’m sorry about your husband. He must be a very brave man to go public with something like this.”
