The Oldest Sin Read Online Free PDF

afternoon. He insisted she give him the meeting room for the Sabbath festival free of charge. She left a message for me which I received as soon as I got here. She was ready to cancel die entire event!”
     
    Hugh put a hand on the back of his shaggy gray mane. “I don’t believe it.”
     
    “He’s going to ruin us,” said Isaac, sinking into a chair. “He can’t pull a stunt like that and expect people to just go on as if nothing’s happened. You can’t bully people into believing the way you do.”
     
    “I agree,” said Hugh, narrowing his eyes in thought.
     
    Adelle had seen her husband’s concerned act before — and she wasn’t buying it “Say, Isaac,” she said sweetly. “Did Hugh tell you what his father did last week?”
     
    Hugh shot her a cautionary look.
     
    “No. What?” said Isaac.
     
    “I don’t think we need to hear that right now, Adelle.” Hugh gave her another hard look.
     
    Adelle ignored him. “He walked into a car dealership in Glendale and demanded that the owner give him a brand new luxury sedan. He is, after all, the head of God’s church on earth. When the man said he’d call the police if he didn’t leave, he stood his ground, cursed the dealership, and threatened the man with eternal damnation.”
     
    Isaac closed his eyes. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
     
    “Be sick somewhere other than our bathroom,” said Adelle, adding some club soda to her drink. If Isaac was going to treat her as if she wasn’t in the room, she was hardly going to view
his
discomfort with much sympathy.
     
    “I won’t accept that there’s nothing we can do to put a stop to this kind of behavior,” continued Isaac, erupting out of his chair.
     
    “What behavior?” demanded a voice from the balcony. Howell Purdis pushed through the French doors just as a crack of thunder rumbled across the sky behind him.
     
    Yup, thought Adelle, watching him drip water onto the carpet. No sense at all.
     
    Both of the younger men attempted to excise the guilty looks from their faces.
     
    The strained silence was finally broken by Hugh. “Well, ah” — he stammered, smiling at his dad — “it seems one of the deacons in St. Louis has been creating some problems. Isaac was just asking me what he should do about it.”
     
    “Problems?” repeated Purdis, easing his elderly frame onto the sofa as if he were trying it on for size. He picked up the remote and turned on the TV.
     
    “He throws temper tantrums,” said Adelle with a completely straight face. “And he’s obnoxious. He goes around threatening people.”
     
    “Sounds like a matter for the ministerial committee,” said Purdis absently, switching to one of the shopping channels. “Point him out to me at Sabbath services.”
     
    “Will do,” said Isaac, jumping visibly as the phone on the desk next to him gave a sudden, jarring ring.
     
    “I’ll get it,” said Hugh. He picked it up and said hello. Listening for a moment, he covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “It’s for you, Isaac.”
     
    “Me? That’s odd. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming up here.” He took the receiver, turned his back to the room, and walked toward the balcony doors. “Yes,” he said, his voice regaining some of its confidence.
     
    Adelle sipped her drink, retreating into her own thoughts. She couldn’t help but conclude once again that ministers were a strange bunch. Since she’d spent her entire life around them, she’d had a lot of time for intimate observation. Early on, when she was a student at Purdis Bible College back in the early Seventies, she was much too awed by the thought of their spiritual status to even view them as human. But, over the years, she’d come to the conclusion that they were very human indeed. Some of them were good, some bad. Some weak and some strong. Some committed to the work, and some,
more
than a few, embarrassingly lazy. Yet to a man, they all craved flattery, attention, and when they could