Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

  Satisfied that the house did not reek of burning sulfur and a legion of undead ready to drag him to the underworld, Landon crawled onto the couch and felt the floor for the television remote. The peaceful whoosh of television snow, he hoped, would lull him into dreamless sleep. He did not want any dead girls or demons making guest appearances while he was unconscious.

  He stretched his long, knobby legs so that his feet hung over the armrest and closed his eyes. The intermittent “uh-huhs” and “yeahs” coming from the kitchen as Lorne talked were difficult to ignore, but Landon took deep breaths and let the aftereffects of the beer sink him into a dizzying sleep. Only when he heard Lorne assure their mystery client that everything was going according to plan did the boy open his eyes again.

  “Why’d you say that for?” he demanded of Lorne. “Everything isn’t going according to plan. We changed the plan.”

  “I know that!” Lorne shouted from the refrigerator. He rose with two cans of beer and tossed one to Landon. “No sense letting him get suspicious. All we have to do is let him think we’re still working for him, and when we get the money we’ll be out of here before he can say boo.”

  Lorne took a seat on the head of the coffin. Landon winced, thinking it highly inappropriate. “So he doesn’t know about the note with our ransom demands that we put in the box.”

  “Nope. Bet that jerk never thought to ask for a million dollars instead of whatever piddly amount he asked for, minus the measly ten for us. So all we have to do now,” Lorne kicked off his boots to let his socks air out, “is sit tight and make the call Monday morning. Let that old lady stew over our present over the weekend.”

  “What if the guy calls them first?”

  “Let him. Maybe the cops’ll track him down, and if he rats us out we’ll go into hiding.”

  Landon tapped the coffin with the heel of his boot. “What about her? We can’t leave her here.”

  “Don’t worry. I got a plan.” Lorne crushed his empty can and tossed it in the kitchen, missing the garbage by several feet. “I’m going to bed.”

  When Landon did not rise, he asked, “You staying up?”

  “Nah, I’m gonna crash out here tonight. I still feel bad about what we did. I just wish there was some other way to show proof that we have her.” The body was now a “she” to Landon; seeing that angelic face reposing on a disintegrated pillow made her reality all the more personal to him.

  Lorne sighed as he wobbled to his feet. “What were we gonna do, Lan? Take a picture of us posing with the body? Wouldn’t that look nice on a Christmas card.”

  “Lorne…”

  “Just go to sleep and get over it,” Lorne barked. “The girl’s dead, and she ain’t in anymore pain. She ain’t gonna care if we cut her damn head off!”

  He left his brother with Lorena’s corpse, unaware that his words disturbed Landon greatly. Landon rolled onto his side, facing the coffin, staring at it until he finally drifted away. The pungent smell of roses stung his nostrils.

  Chapter Nine

  Page one of Ash Lake’s metro section of the next morning’s Jacksonville Journal featured a story by Chet Hoskins on the murder of Paul Dix, complete with a picture of the EMTs wheeling the covered body of the late caretaker into the county morgue. “Ash Lake Cemetery Proves Final Resting Place for Employee” read the headline. Included in the story, to Ronnie’s shock, was information on the severed finger left on Nana’s front porch.

  Ronnie slapped the paper on a stack of old magazines and Journal back issues in the recycling bin in the kitchen without bothering to read the entire story. “I don’t believe it,” she muttered. “How could he have scooped the story so quickly? With pictures, yet! He had to have followed me from work.”

  “Excuse me,” said an irritated Bill, his mouth full of pancake. “Some of us would like to read the paper, particularly those of us who pay for it.”

  Ian and Elliott kept their heads down and finished their breakfast, refusing seconds as Gina approached with a plate full of silver dollar-sized cakes. “Ian, get the rest of your father’s paper,” she requested tiredly. The boy quickly complied and escaped with his brother into the backyard to witness the boiling tension from the safety of the other side of the window.

  Ronnie slurped her orange juice and poked the paper square in the photograph as Bill held it up to his face. “How did that little jackass get all this information? Lew said he told everyone to keep quiet, and I know he wouldn’t have said anything to the guy. It even says so right here. ‘Local law enforcement refused to comment.’ Bleah.” She looked up at her sister. “You think somebody on the committee leaked?”

  “Maybe one of Nana’s neighbors gave him the information on the finger. You said yourself they were chatty. One of them might have had a cell phone and started calling in play-by-play action.” With everyone served, Gina finally sat down to eat. “Bill, pass the syrup?”

  “I thought of that, but nobody knew what was in the box except for the police, Nana, and me. Then you and Bill found out when the paper came.” Ronnie eyed her sister and brother-in-law suspiciously. “Whom did you tell?”

  The newspaper curled over and Bill scowled back. “If you don’t leave me alone to read my paper in peace I will start telling people. I’ll call the National Enquirer. I’ll even create a website and upload all your high school fat pictures along with it.”

  “Peace!” Gina cried, threatening the two of them with an oiled butter knife. “Leave the petty bickering to my children, alright? Ronnie, we haven’t breathed a word of what you found at Nana’s house, and given how quickly it got into the paper today... don’t you find it strange? Don’t you think you should be bothering Nana’s neighbors about this instead of us? Better yet, why don’t you let Lew take care of it? That’s his job.”

  “No,” Bill shook his head. “Lew doesn’t need to be chasing a bunch of old people looking for a loose tongue. That would only take time away from finding Paul Dix’s killer, and Lorena. Leave the press alone. Soon some rock star will get arrested for something stupid and the reporter will move on to that.”

  A now sheepish Ronnie lowered her eyes and studied a sticky puddle of syrup on her plate. It did seem odd, she thought, that Chet Hoskins could detail the events of the night so clearly, as if he were crouching over her like a vulture when Lew opened the box. Perhaps one of those old ladies distributing coffee and cookies to the bomb squad was the reporter’s grandmother, and she coached one of the children to slither around to eavesdrop.

  Another thought occurred to her. “Or,” she waved her fork in the air to punctuate the point, “maybe the person who left the finger tipped off the press first that he was going to do it.”

  “Why do that?” Bill frowned.

  “Who knows? I think we’ve established the gift giver is nuts. What sane person leaves a severed finger on somebody’s porch? I’d be curious to know if the finger actually belonged to Lorena.” Ronnie reached behind her for the phone book on the kitchen counter.

  Gina chewed thoughtfully on a bite of pancake. “It has to. Why leave some other finger at an old lady’s door?”

  Ronnie shrugged. “I got a good look at it. It looked too fresh to have come from a girl who’s been dead for over a century.”

  Gina gasped lightly and put a hand to her mouth. What words she had intended to say, however, were silenced as Ronnie reached for the phone. “Who are you calling?” she asked instead.

  Ronnie did not answer immediately. With one finger tapping the number of the Jacksonville Journal she dialed the portable phone with the other hand. When the switchboard operator picked up on the fourth ring she asked for Chet Hoskins’s number and was immediately patched through to his cellular phone. She left a message and Gina’s number before disconnecting.

  Breakfast was over when the reporter returned the call. Gina wedged the receiver between Ronnie’s shoulder and chin as her hands were still plunged in soapy water. His voice was chipper and triumphant. “Have a good read this
morning?”

  “Who told you about the finger?” Ronnie demanded. “I can see you snooping around the cemetery to scoop Dix’s murder, but I know you were nowhere near my grandmother’s last night.”

  A light chuckle buzzed in Ronnie’s ear. “Uh, you know, Professor Lord, most people ask how one is doing after they have greeted someone over the phone.”

  “Cut the crap, Hoskins. Who told you about what happened at my grandmother’s house last night?” She glared at the remnants of the newspaper strewn on the breakfast table. Paul Dix smiled at the ceiling, noble in a dark jacket and Elks pin. “Unless you were disguised as an old lady in a floral print nightgown, you couldn’t possibly have known anything without a source, so spill.”

  “Professor Lord, you know it would be unethical of me to reveal my sources,” Chet admonished her. “You of all people should know that, surely you know your Constitution with regards to the First Amendment.”

  “I’m also aware that my grandmother is not a public figure, and therefore is granted some privacy,” she countered coldly, recalling with venom the particular paragraph in the article that alluded to Nana’s home address, something not even listed in the phone book. “How could you do that?”

  “Freedom of Information Act,” Chet sang. “The public has a right to know about what happened to Paul Dix and Lorena Alger’s body. It’s not my fault your grandmother’s getting body parts in the mail. I don’t see why you’re directing your venom at me. Save it for the murderer.”

  Before Ronnie could spit back a profanity, Chet added in a husky voice, “And for your information, I wasn’t anywhere near your grandmother’s house last night in a floral print nightgown. I don’t wear jammies at all.” Click.

  “Ugh!” Ronnie shivered. “Thanks for the visual, pal.” She pulled her robe tightly around her body and bolted for the stairs. A shower was going to feel very good after that call.

  Gina met her in the hallway, angrily waving a paper pamphlet. “Those people just won’t give up,” she cried. “Two of them came up the walk as I was taking out the trash.”

  Ronnie sighed. No need to ask who “they” were. As their relationship to Blessed Lorena became more known around the state, so increased the number of proselytizers lining up at the door, hoping to bring Ronnie and the Hayeses out of Catholicism and into their respective faiths.

  “What, these guys get a free toaster for every hundredth convert?” Ronnie snatched the tract, classic anti-Catholic propaganda complete with cartoons of clergymen with sinister grins. “What did you tell them?”

  Gina was smug. “I asked them to explain why, if they claimed to uphold the Bible as the sole rule of authority, they did not accept the literal translation of the Gospel of John, particularly the verses that support the Eucharist. They didn’t stay long.”

  “I’m not surprised, if they had to absorb all of that.” Ronnie made a mental note to check her e-mail to see if the filter was properly set to block similar missives from Ethan Fontaine. “I’ll be back up in a few. What’re you doing today?”

  “Cleaning up the house, what you do think? I might go over to Loni’s and pick up a pie for dessert tonight, and maybe catch up on the gossip and see if Arlen and Brenda Sanders left already.” Gina disappeared into the laundry room.

  In her own room, Ronnie set the tract on the desk and grabbed her cell phone. Last year’s white pages were kept in her desk, and Ronnie circled the Yulee listing for Chet Hoskins before dialing the number for the church office printed on the back cover of the tract.

  “Freedom of information, what a beautiful thing. God bless America,” she said into the ringing of the phone. “Oh, yes, hello. I’ve been reading some of your literature, and I would like to know if you could send some of your missionaries to my son’s house? He’s really in need of some guidance right now. His name is Chet Hoskins...”

  ~ * ~

  Father Joel did not have time to read Saturday’s newspaper, as most of that day was spent arguing with Lew in the sheriff’s office over custody of the blessed martyr’s finger. Since the body was scheduled to be eventually placed under the altar of the new church building, the priest tried to reason with Lew to hand over the relic.

  “Right now that finger is all we have of Blessed Lorena, if it is indeed hers.” Father Joel’s face was flushed, his voice urgent and hoarse from talking the entire day. “It needs to be in a safe place.”

  “Father, it is in a safe place. Even if I wanted to give it you, I couldn’t, because it’s being treated as evidence in a murder case. This particular piece of evidence is in Jacksonville being analyzed for anything that can help us find whoever took Lorena and killed Paul Dix. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want Lorena to be found?”

  “You know I do, Lew! But if that finger came from Lorena’s body, it is a first-class relic and therefore property of the Church —”

  “We don’t even know if it came off of Lorena’s body. You said so yourself!” Lew exploded. “That finger was too fresh to have come from a hundred-year-old corpse, anyway. Ask Ronnie Lord. She saw it, too.”

  That quieted the priest. Father Joel now stiffened in the orange-padded chair in front of Lew’s desk, mouth agape and staring at the sheriff in disbelief. He mutely declined Lew’s offer for water and did not turn around to acknowledge Ronnie and Nana, who entered bearing sandwiches and cola.

  “Margaret said you were still here, Father,” Nana chided. She laid out two chicken salad sandwiches on Lew’s desk for the men to eat and ordered Ronnie to the coffee station for Styrofoam cups. Margaret, Father Joel’s aunt, kept house in the rectory. “She also said you had not eaten. Lew, I imagine you haven’t yet, either.”

  “Not for a while, Miss Julie. It does look good.” He pinched a bit of bread crust and summarized his conversation with Father Joel. “I figured you would understand, seeing as how we’re trying to solve a crime that happened in your family’s plot.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Ronnie uttered as she returned with two cups plus one filled with coffee for herself. “Of course it’s Lorena’s finger. I mean, to whom else could it belong? I doubt the killer would chop off his own finger and give it to us!”

  Lew smiled. “It would make the fingerprinting process go more smoothly.”

  “Lewis Caperton, that’s not funny!” Nana admonished. “Now, what exactly are we expected to do about the ransom note that came with it?”

  Before Lew could answer, Father Joel managed to wheeze out one word: “Incorrupt!”

  “Father?” Lew tilted his ear downward, as if not hearing correctly. He involuntarily stepped back, seeing the look of desperation and fear in the priest’s eyes.

  Ronnie saw it as well. Father Joel had the look of somebody experiencing a vision of the apocalypse in 3D. For a man in his early forties, he now looked suddenly old.

  “Her body... incorrupt,” the priest enunciated slowly. He looked around at the quizzical faces staring back. “You said the finger was intact?”

  Ronnie looked at Lew for permission to speak, then nodded. “Well, as intact as a finger would look without a body. The skin was a bit discolored, but I saw no signs of decomposition.”

  Father Joel’s agape shock quickly stretched into an open-mouthed grin. Abruptly he leapt from the chair; a wide-armed gesture of surprise nearly knocked over his untouched cup of lukewarm soda. “Unbelievable! Not once had I expected for it to happen, though I had hoped...” He launched into a jittery dance around the small office, with the sheriff and the two Alger women as his bewildered audience.

  “Father, please,” Nana insisted, “You must have something to eat. You don’t look well at all.”

  “Don’t look well? Mrs. Alger, I’ve never felt better in my life!” Father Joel looked as if he wanted to do a thousand things at once: dance, scream, cry, turn cartwheels. Ronnie watched the man shiver in place, expecting him to start speaking in tongues and explode in a mass of fluttering confetti.

  “The finger was intact, therefore
Lorena’s entire body could be, too!” Father Joel intertwined his fingers into one large, tightened fist. “Lorena was buried in quicklime to hasten decomposition, I have all the documentation from her parish priest’s diaries. She should have been reduced to bones, but now...” He sank back happily into his chair at Nana’s urging, “to hear this, it must mean that Lorena’s body was uncorrupted by the elements. God has preserved her, it’s truly a miracle!”

  Ronnie sipped her coffee and kept a straight face, the perfect contrast to her grandmother’s blossoming excitement. The true miracle would be returning the rest of Lorena in one piece; authenticity of Divine miracles could be left to some Vatican official, she was certain.

  She wondered how familiar the killer was with the phenomenon of incorrupt bodies, and how freaked out he or she must have been when the coffin was opened to get to the finger. Would more body parts end up on some online auction site, sold to Catholics seeking true saintly relics at the highest bid? She could see Father Joel pitching a holy fit, crying charges of indecency and simony, the crime of selling religious objects for financial gain.