Chasing Deception Page 5

  “I saw a light on at the insurance office. I’m going to go see if whoever is over there has something to say about these fine people. It should only take a few minutes. Save a seat for me. I’ll be back before the snake-handling begins.”

  “Hey, some of us like our rattlesnake on a deli roll with a dab of mustard.”

  Jim smiled. “Very funny.”

  “You’re the one who suggested all Christians play with snakes and alligators and whatnot.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry about that. Hey, who’s our photographer tonight?”

  “It’s Jeff, remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right. I’m going to talk to the insurance guy and I’ll send Jeff in if I see him.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll see you in a few.”

  As Jim left, Melissa looked around for people to interview. She spotted a young woman probably in her early 30s. She was very physically animated while talking with another woman and man, both who looked younger than her. Melissa walked over and waited for a lull in their conversation.

  She introduced herself to 31-year-old Shannon Benton. After her friends walked away, Shannon opened up about her life. Melissa discovered the woman had been doing drugs and living with her boyfriend, Wade, before he went to prison for drug possession and grand theft auto. After his release, Wade started going to New Creation and convinced her to come too.

  “Pastor Jeremiah was a chaplain at the county jail and that’s where Wade met him,” she said. “From their first meeting he could tell something was different about Pastor Jeremiah. Wade said he actually cared about the inmates and wanted to help them after they got out.”

  “So, what do you think about the pastor?”

  Melissa watched as Shannon eyes’ took on a dreamy quality. “Pastor Jeremiah is wonderful. He is smart and cares about people. He’s always willing to listen to your problems. And he is willing to do anything to meet your needs. I tell you, if I weren’t dating Wade, I’d go after Pastor Jeremiah. He’s single, you know.”

  Shannon paused for a moment and then a look of concern came across her face.

  “Please don’t quote me on that last part about me wanting to go out with Pastor Jeremiah. That’s not something Wade or anyone else needs to know.” Shannon chuckled to relieve the tension. “Besides, and don’t quote me on this either, I’d have to get in line anyway.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Uh, it’s sort of a secret, but several women have their eye on Pastor Jeremiah. I’ve heard he’s gone out with Keri and Lora. I asked Lora about the date and she said he was a complete gentleman, just a little lonely. And you can’t blame him for that. I mean, he’s 36, unmarried, drives a brand new Chevy Silverado, but works practically 15 hours a day. He deserves someone in his life.”

  Shannon paused again. “Oh, I’m babbling on and on. Did I say anything good for your story?”

  “I have plenty of stuff, Shannon, don’t worry.”

  “Great, because I’ve gotta go. Maybe I’ll see you after the service.”

  Just as Shannon left, Courier photographer Jeff Wang came up to Melissa and the two exchanged greetings.

  “I saw Jim outside and he told me the church was in here. I thought he was kidding. I used to watch movies in here when I was a kid. OK, so what exactly are you looking for?”

  As Melissa was describing what kind of photos she wanted for the story, she checked her watch and hoped Jim would return soon.

  —

  When Jim entered the theater he was surprised to see the converted sanctuary retained the same red theater seats. Anything to save a buck, Jim thought as he looked for Melissa. He found her sitting in the second to last row with her MacBook laptop up and running. She was transcribing some notes from her notepad to a Microsoft Word file. She moved her computer bag from the seat adjacent to her so Jim could sit down.

  Looking toward the front of the room, Jim saw the movie screen had been removed and a large projection screen had been put up off to the right. Aside from a clear lectern placed front and center, the rest of the small stage was filled with musical equipment. The New Creation Fellowship worship band consisted of two twenty-something aged men playing guitars, a drummer and three women singers.

  —

  The service started with four worship songs, all of which Melissa had heard before. The songs mainly focused on their freedom in Christ from the bondage of past sins. They had a very personal and intimate quality. Jesus was someone they could talk to all the time. He understood them. He was their friend and companion as well as their Savior. Very touchy-feely, but not necessarily unbiblical.

  Melissa casually glanced at Jim, who was tapping his foot to the beat of the song. Hmm. So he does let his guard down once in a while.

  —

  Filled with energy, the pastor practically ran onto the stage as the worship team members were taking their seats. He started things off by relaying a funny incident which had happened that week between Tony, the janitor, and Rose, the church secretary.

  Jim tuned the pastor out for a few moments as he rattled off some announcements. Jim was intent on observing the 50-60 people filling the worn, padded seats. He wanted to see if they were just listening or if they were ensnared and captivated by Jeremiah’s charisma. Almost everybody seemed to be listening intently. Jim’s eyes were sweeping across the room when he noticed someone who looked familiar take the stage.

  The pastor introduced the young lady as Angela De La Cruz. Angela, the pastor said, had just celebrated her 22nd birthday. She was trim but not petite, attractive but with a hardness just beneath the surface. Jim suspected she had spent some time in juvenile detention or should have. He committed her features to memory as the young woman talked about the meals-on-wheels program she was trying to coordinate.

  Angela soon sat down and Jeremiah began with his message. It wasn’t a sermon per se, more like a motivational speech. His presentation was centered on the theme of breaking free from the shackles of sin and addiction. Jim thought Jeremiah sounded like a paid speaker from the business world. His pitch-perfect tone was just right. His words flowed smoothly and almost every joke sounded like it had been tested on a live audience.

  “Friends, we need to break free from the handcuffs of our sin. We need to break free from our handcuffs of addiction. We need to break free from our handcuffs of weakness. Break free, friends, break free.”

  Jeremiah went on to list the various things people were shackled to: drugs, alcohol, unhealthy relationships. He gave examples of a couple of people at the church that had broken free from their bonds. Then he told his story.

  “I was in bondage too, my friends. Mired in the pits of addiction. I wouldn’t get help for my problem. I ignored my friends and family. They didn’t know anything about my pain. They just preached at me. And I didn’t listen to them or anyone else. I didn’t listen until I got into an accident one night and woke up the next morning in the hospital hooked up to a bunch of different machines. That’s when I realized what was wrong. Right there in that hospital.”

  Jim made a mental note to check out the accident story. Jeremiah sounded convincing, but it was really convenient, too.

  “The problem was right there in all that machinery I was connected to. I realized that in my life I was plugged into all the wrong things. Bad people. Addiction. Violence. Lust. My life was filled with negative energy and I knew I had to break that bad connection. I didn’t know how to do it, but I had to get some positive power in my life.”

  Jim spotted his cousin, Vince, sitting in the fifth row, third seat from the aisle. He hadn’t seen Vince in a couple of years, but he couldn’t miss his naturally reddish-brown ponytail. He would have to catch up with him after the meeting.

  Jeremiah’s timbre rose as he reached the climax of his testimony.

  “Then one day, a man told me about Jesus and how I could be connected to him. I could get rid of all my junk like it was yesterday’s trash. My past would be wiped clean. Right then and the
re I signed up. I pulled the plug on my old life and powered up with Jesus. My life has been better than it ever was when I was handcuffed to my past.”

  —

  Melissa shuddered as Pastor Jeremiah continued to speak. While the message had a hint of Christian terminology, she was stunned by the New Age ideology that permeated the “sermon.”

  “Everything OK?” Jim whispered.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  —

  Jeremiah’s voice softened as he wrapped things up.

  “Do you want to break free from the handcuffs? You can, you know. If you are ready to connect to Jesus, you can break free. You can be free from the drugs. Free from the nightmares. Free from all that. When you connect to Jesus, you will be just like me. You will have the power to free yourself from your bondage. All you have to do is pull the plug on your past. Jesus became that positive power for me and you can make him the positive power in your life, too! If you’re ready to sign up for that just like I did, then come on down to the front of the stage! Come on down and we’ll pray for you to get the power you need to make your life better today!”

  About a half-dozen people slowly rose from their seats and went forward. The pastor led them in a prayer focused on “pulling the plug on the past” and “connecting to Jesus.” Some of the people up front were crying and others were stunned. The people still in their seats clapped and cheered. The offering was collected, fittingly in popcorn buckets obviously left over when the theater went out of business. Jeremiah ended the service with a short prayer.

  As the meeting ended, Jim excused himself and went to talk to Vince. He approached his cousin cautiously, not sure how he would react. When Vince saw him, he let out a war whoop like he did when he was 10. Then he ran to Jim and gave him a bear hug.

  “I haven’t seen you in forever, man. How are you?”

  “I’m great. How ’bout you, Vince?” Jim was thankful for his cousin’s jubilant attitude.

  “I’m doing good, really good. That’s a first for me! So, are you doing a story on our group here? I didn’t think religion was your thing.”

  Jim explained what angle his article was going to take: Big bad city council wolves trying to hurt the innocent sheep at New Creation. After talking for a few minutes, they promised to get together in the near future to catch up with each other. Jim left to go find Melissa, who was next to her car in the parking lot.

  Jim waved as she opened the driver’s side door of her car. “I was thinking we should go back to the office and at least pound out a rough draft. How’s that sound to you?”

  “Works for me. Hey, why don’t I pick up a couple of really big cups of java from Classic Grounds?”

  “Sounds great. Make mine a decaf, would you? I have to be up early for church tomorrow. Listen, I have a couple more questions for our dear pastor. Why don’t you run to Classic Grounds and I’ll meet you at the office?”

  “OK.” He paused. “What kind of questions do you have for the Right Reverend Jeremiah?”

  “You mean the Wrong Reverend Jeremiah?”

  Jim was taken aback by the caustic response. “Hey, what’s the big deal? I thought religion was your thing.”

  “Christianity is my thing. And what Pastor Jeremiah was selling was anything but Christianity. Notice anything odd about the sermon tonight?”

  “Now that you mention it, it seemed like he talked about himself a lot more than the Bible. I haven’t been to church since I was a teenager, but I hear a lot of pastors do that these days. Why, what did you mean when you said the message was ‘anything but Christianity’?”

  “Christianity is about rejecting a life of sinful behavior and dedicating your life to following the loving and just God described in the Bible. It is not about ‘positive power’ and connecting to Jesus with some kind of cosmic extension cord. Pastor Jeremiah barely made any mention of the Bible in his message and while he talked about Jesus, the focus of his “sermon” was himself. He sounded more like he was selling them a rehab program, not a relationship with God.

  “Jim, this guy is lying to these vulnerable people and taking their money at the same time. It’s almost like he wants them to worship him and not God. We need to expose this guy for the fraud that he is!”

  “Hold on there, Melissa.” Jim held his hands up. “While you may go to church a lot, you’ve got to remember you’re a reporter here, not a parishioner. All you have right now are hunches.

  “Now, I’m the last person to suggest someone stop nosing around. I’ve gotten some of my best stories that way. But you have to wait until you have some facts, some paperwork, a source, or something like that before you can go after them. Otherwise it’s deny, deny, deny and all you get is your word against his.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. But I still think something fishy is going on.”

  “I do, too, and once we can prove it, we will run with it.” Jim paused. “One thing I have seen time and time again is that people like Jeremiah always let their egos get the best of them. We write what we have now and wait for him to give us more. Trust me, if we give him enough rope, he will hang himself eventually.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “We write what we have and keep digging for more.”

  Melissa sighed. “OK, but I know he’s up to something and I don’t want him to get away with it.”

  “Don’t worry. He won’t.” Jim’s confidence shone through his broad smile.

  As Melissa tracked down Pastor Jeremiah for her follow-up questions, Jim walked to his car and then headed to the coffeehouse.

  7

  9:08 p.m. Saturday

  Jim arrived at the Courier building and used his security card to open the parking lot gate and unlock the back entrance and newsroom doors. As he entered the newsroom, he noticed the cavernous space was only dimly lit. He flipped the middle of the three light switches and the lights over the beat reporters’ desk came on. He saw only two of the five sports reporters were in the office. Since it was May, the rest were likely out covering a Dodgers or Angels game. Jim chatted with one of the reporters for a few minutes before going to his desk.

  Jim opened the bottom left-hand drawer and began searching through his political files. He was looking for something, but he didn’t know what it was yet. He remembered his exchange with Mayor Dewhurst earlier, but he still wasn’t exactly sure what she meant.

  “You may have figured this out already, but the main backers of Measure B are Councilman Holcombe and his wife. And they wrote the measure because they want to close down New Creation Fellowship.”

  “Why would they want to do this?”

  “Do you have Councilman Holcombe’s campaign literature from the race four years ago?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “The answer to your question is in there.”

  Jim was determined to find out what the mayor was hinting at. As he was rummaging through the files, Melissa entered the newsroom and walked to his desk.

  “Looking for something?”

  “Remember when I told you Marilyn Dewhurst said Larry and Delores Holcombe wanted to shut down New Creation?”

  “Yeah, but I thought she didn’t tell you why.”

  “Not exactly, but she said if I looked at Larry Holcombe’s campaign literature from his race four years ago, I would know why he wanted to close the church down. And now I think I know what she was talking about.”

  Jim found his file on Larry Holcombe and pulled it out.

  “Do you remember that young woman who was coordinating the meals-on-wheels program at the church?”

  “Yeah. Her name was Angela…” Melissa flipped through her notepad.

  “Angela De La Cruz. And I have a feeling she is somehow connected to the councilman. Bingo!” He found the glossy 8x5 postcard he was looking for. He held it up and showed the family portrait on the front of it to Melissa.

  “That’s Angela all right...” Melissa’s brow furrowed.

  “Sure is. Angela Holco
mbe, the councilman’s daughter. Back then Angela Holcombe was attending college. And just before Christmas-” Jim said, pulling out a photocopy of a Courier article dated December 19 of that year “-she had a little too much to drink at a Christmas party, got into a fight with a fellow student and was arrested, but charges were never filed.”

  “So what happened to Angela Holcombe?”

  “Let’s find out.” Jim turned on his computer and once the main screen loaded up, Jim accessed the Courier’s computer archive program. He typed in the name Angela Holcombe and hit enter.

  “Huh, no stories on Angela Holcombe since that Christmas party incident. What about Angela De La Cruz?”

  Jim typed in a new last name and did a search. This time, two stories came up, both written after the Christmas party fight. “Now that’s interesting. Four weeks later, at the same college, Angela De La Cruz was arrested at a party in her apartment for scuffling with three fellow students, all female. This time, the students decided to press charges. When the police searched her apartment, they found what they described as ‘an excessive amount’ of pain medication.”

  Melissa read the second story over Jim’s shoulder and summarized the detail. “So, during the trial Angela De La Cruz agreed to a plea bargain which involved a few months in jail and a lot of community service. Then she appears two years later at New Creation Fellowship. But why do her parents want to close down the church?”

  This didn’t make sense, not with the scant facts they had in their possession.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they think she is being brainwashed.” Melissa shrugged. “He also could be blackmailing some of the city council members. Maybe Larry Holcombe doesn’t like the rock music being played in church. Whatever it is, they have a reason and they want to keep it hidden. Which isn’t going to happen as long as I can help it.”

  “We can worry about that later. Let’s get working on this story first. How about we work here?”

  She pulled up a chair and began fishing through her purse for her flash drive.

  “Where’s my coffee?”