Free Too Much at Stake by Pat Ondarko

and moaned, "Dear God, what am I supposed to do with
this
passage? And I'm not being rhetorical here. If you want me, a divorced person, to preach on a passage like this, you better send me something right now." Pacing to let off energy, she read the passage aloud:
    A man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against his wife. In the same way, a woman who divorces her husband and marries another man commits adultery.
    "Please," she said once more, "I promise to be good. Send me a sign—lightning, anything!"
    "Hi," said Esther, the church nurse, peeking in the door. "Do you need something, or are you just ranting indiscriminately? You don't have the poor janitor in here, giving him what for, do you?"
    "Oh, hi, Es. No, the janitor is safe for now. What I need is a new text for Sunday. Any chance we can just rewrite it? Think anyone would notice?"
    Esther laughed. "Change the Bible? Oh, they would notice, all right. Come on; take a break. Wendy and I are taking one. I brought some homemade cookies."
    "Get thee behind me, Satan," Pat groaned. Then reconsidering, she threw her pad and pencil on her desk. "Sounds good. Maybe a break will help."
    In the break room, Wendy dipped her cookie into her coffee, and said, "Have you looked at the second lesson yet? It seems that one is about loving and caring. Couldn't you go with that one?"
    Pat smiled and gave her a hug. "You bet I could. Thanks."
    As the tension settled, Wendy continued. "I heard you were there when they found the body at the Tent. Is that true?"
    "Yup. It was weird. One minute, Deb and I were pulling out canvases from a pile, and the next, there was a hand sticking out from a roll. To tell you the truth, for a moment I thought Mitch and Marc were playing a trick on us. You know how they are."
    "Gross. What did you do?"
    "Not much. LeSeur was there, helping for the day, and so he took charge."
    "Isn't that Sal's territory?"
    "Sure, but he wasn't there, and LeSeur was. Frankly, I think he was glad of it. Sal's still pretty new to the job."
    Esther took a sip and looked up. "Was it really Mac? I always loved his fiddle playing. And so did my Jim." She looked dreamily out the window.
    "It was."
    "And it's true that the body ... that he was there all winter?" Wendy asked.
    "Really too soon to tell. But it seems likely. After all, he was inside one of the canvasses."
    "But how could that be? Didn't anyone miss him? No one called the police to report him missing?"
    "I guess not. Sad, isn't it, that no one missed him after such a long time?"
    "Well, it's just a shame," Esther agreed. "How does a person end up like that? I'm going to put him into the prayers on Sunday. He should be remembered. You know, I met him a couple of times. He was a charmer, that one. A great musician, but of course, not such a great father. You know about that, don't you?"
    Both women nodded.
    "But Forrest loved his dad, and Mac seemed to love Forrest back. How can a person be so disconnected that no one knows he died for five months?" she asked again.
    To that, the other women had no answer.

    As Pat walked home alone after work, her mind was filled with the latest Janet Evanovich novel being fed through her ear buds. She was jostled from her story as she felt someone bump into her.
    "Hey! Watch where you're going, will ya?"
    "Oh, sorry," Pat said automatically, puffing a little and pulling out her ear buds. She looked into the familiar face of Sam West, the photographer from the Big Top.
    "Just kidding," Sam said. "You looked so serious, I just had to bump into you. How is the case going?"
    "Why does everyone think I'm working on the death at the Tent?"
    He laughed. "If you aren't, then how do you know which case I'm talking about? Get too famous, and I'll have to be your paparazzi." He lifted up his camera and pretended to click.
    Pat laughed, too, and they walked companionably for a minute.
    "No, really," Sam persisted. "Have you heard anything? After I got dressed out by