Free Mortal Sin by Laurie Breton Page B

lopped off with a dull Boy Scout knife. She wore sensible flat-soled shoes and the same brown tweed suit she’d been wearing for as long as he’d known her. Ruth was opinionated, fiercely outspoken, and highly formidable. In the five years they’d served together on various boards and committees, he’d watched countless times as she reduced some junior board member to a quivering mass of jelly.
    She was also a born leader, and indefatigably devoted to her pet causes. When Ruth chaired a committee, things got done. She had no patience for incompetence, no patience for endless theory or analysis. In her frequently stated opinion, talk was cheap, and action was the only valid solution to a crisis. When presented with a problem, she grabbed the bull by the proverbial horns and mapped a route directly from Point A to Point B to effect a solution.
    Which was why he could imagine just how crazy tonight’s board meeting must have made her. Tempers had flared hotly when the group failed to reach a consensus after Dickie Forsythe’s painfully detailed presentation of the financial problems plaguing the downtown soup kitchen that Forsythe was struggling to keep from crashing and burning.
    “You young people are always in a hurry,” Ruth scolded as she caught up with him. “Running around like you’re headed to a fire. When you get to be my age, you’ll realize that every step you take is one step closer to the grave, and that’s a place even you won’t be in a rush to get to.” She thumped him soundly on the chest. “If you don’t have anywhere else you’re supposed to be, I’ll buy you a drink.”
    It was an offer he couldn’t refuse. Hiding a smile, he held open the door for her and they stepped outside into a raw

March night. “Where to?” he said, adjusting his coat collar as the wind sliced through him.
    “The Parker House. It’s only a couple of blocks.”
    The sidewalks were treacherous, and he took her arm as they made their way up Tremont Street to the elegant nineteenth-century hotel. The bar was quiet on this weeknight, soft jazz serving as a backdrop to muted conversation. Ruth flung off her coat, and was peeling off her gloves when the waiter appeared. “Maker’s Mark, straight up,” she said before he could ask. “Father?”
    “I’ll take the same, thanks.”
    The waiter left. “Beastly cold night,” Ruth said. “Tell me, Clancy, how do you perceive our role as board members?”
    He solemnly considered her question. “To set policy,” he said.
    “And?” She furrowed her brow and studied him as though he were a fourth-grader who’d been given a particularly telling exam.
    “To allocate budget. And to see that both policy and budgetary matters are carried out in a satisfactory manner.”
    “Precisely. Which is why you should be managing the damned soup kitchen instead of that idiot Forsythe. You have a brain, and you’re capable of using it. It’s his job to deal with day-to-day problems. They shouldn’t be left up to us. If I thought we could find a suitable replacement for him, I’d recommend to the board that we fire him for incompetence.”
    “You know as well as I do how hard it is to find somebody who can manage a nonprofit without running it into the ground.”
    “Which is why Forsythe still has a job.”
    “But it’s obvious the money’s being mismanaged. Somebody needs to find out why. And how. It might behoove us to send in an auditor.”
    “Or a board member,” she said thoughtfully, “who can function as one.”
    “Is that your way of asking me to look over the books?”
    “You have enough on your plate, already. I’ll delegate the job to Tom Adams. The esteemed senator’s always complaining that his position on this board is too static. This will give him something to do. He’s sharp as a tack when it comes to business dealings. If something’s funky with the books, he’ll find it.”
    Their drinks arrived, and he watched as Ruth upended hers.