The First Ladies Club Box Set

by J B Hawker

  “Only once, a very long time ago. When her fiancé, Roger, was killed, she took off for a week and no one ever knew where she went. When she returned, she refused to talk about it. Rosie’s pretty private about her feelings.”

  “Do you suppose this is about Len? If he hurt her, I’ll never forgive him.”

  “Now, let’s not start jumping to conclusions. I think we should give her some space. She’ll probably be back in a day or two with everything figured out. Let’s have breakfast.”

  Naidenne scrambled eggs while Scott made toast.

  When they sat down to eat, they prayed for God’s protection and guidance for Rosamund, along with wisdom and patience for them all to face whatever else was in store that day.

  *

  In mid-morning, Len Spurgeon dropped by the church office and rapped softly on Scott’s open door.

  “Got a minute, Pastor?”

  “Len, come in. What brings you here?”

  “I’ve been trying to reach your sister all morning, but she’s not answering her phone. I swung by your place on the way here, but she wasn’t home. Do you know where she is?”

  “She’s gone out of town for a couple of days, I think. She didn’t tell you she was going?”

  “Not a peep about it at lunch yesterday. How long has she been planning this?”

  “I think it was a sort of last-minute thing. Is it important for you to get in touch with her right away? She shouldn’t be gone very long,” Scott said.

  “Don’t you even know when she’s coming back?”

  “She was sort of vague about it when she left.”

  Scott was valiantly attempting to avoid telling Len how Rose left but didn’t want to lie to him. He was pretty sure the problem his sister was trying to figure out had Len at its center.

  “Well, where did she go, can you tell me that, at least?”

  “Sit down, Len, and I will tell you what I know.”

  The older man sank into the cracked imitation leather visitor’s chair and looked at Scott with a worried expression.

  Scott came around and leaned against his desk with his hands clasped together, almost beseechingly, as he tried to find the right words. With a shrug, he held up his open palms as though offering a gift and began to speak.

  “I don’t know where Rosamund has gone, Len. She came home after her lunch with you yesterday, all upset. She’d been crying and didn’t join us for dinner. This morning she was gone. We found a note she left for us indicating something was upsetting her and she needed to get away for a few days while she worked it all out. She didn’t say what the problem was, but I can’t help thinking it has something to do with you. Do you have any idea what could be bothering her?”

  Len moaned, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands.

  “Do you know what this is all about, Len?” Scott prodded.

  Len sat back in the chair. When he looked up at Scott there were tears in his eyes and his face was pale.

  Scott thought the older man looked ill.

  “Can I get you a drink of water, or something?”

  “No, no. I’m okay. When she wouldn’t answer my phone calls, I was afraid I’d gone too far.”

  “What do you mean, you went too far?” Scott asked, standing to attention, as though ready to defend his sister’s honor.

  “Calm down, Pastor. Nothing like that. I love Rosamund and I want to marry her. I’ve told her that over and over, but she keeps putting me off. She says she loves me, too, you know.”

  “If that’s true, then why won’t she marry you?”

  “I wish I knew. I’m afraid I got impatient trying to figure it out. Yesterday I asked her again. I guess I pushed too hard. You’re right about her crying because of me.”

  “What did you do? You weren’t violent, were you?”

  “Course not. Don’t be daft. I took her to our special place in Cannon Beach, wined and dined her…well dined, anyway…you know she never drinks…then I said I was getting tired of waiting, or something, and she just fell apart. Once the waterworks started, I back-pedaled, but I guess the damage was done. Shoot, I wouldn’t hurt her for the world. If she just wants to be friends, I’ll take what I can get and make up my mind to be happy with it. I just don’t want to lose her.”

  Scott feared Len was going to start sobbing. He patted him on the shoulder before retreating behind his desk and sitting down, giving the fellow a chance to regain his composure.

  So, this was the reason for Rosie’s flight. For some reason, she didn’t want to marry Len, but didn’t want to turn him down, either. Women…go figure.

  “Look, Len. This doesn’t sound too serious. I mean, Rose will be back before you know it and you can tell her how you feel, and everything will be back to normal in no time.”

  “I hope so. But in the meantime, where is she? What if something happens to her? What if she needs help?”

  “God has his eye on my sister, wherever her flights of fancy take her. Would you like me to pray with you before you go?”

  The two men prayed for Rosamund’s safe return before Len went back to the bank.

  Scott tried to concentrate on his sermon notes, but in his mind Len’s plaintive words played over and over, “Where is she? What if she needs our help?”

  *

  Dinner that night was simple and light because Scott and Naidenne had to go back to the church for Bible Study and choir practice. Simple, due to lack of time, and light because there were always refreshments served for any gathering at the church.

  In an attempt to cut down on the number of evenings church members needed to come out, the board had decided to have all the weekly evening meetings on Wednesdays. There were Bible clubs for the children, Bible studies for adults, the Youth Group for teens, plus choir practice and any board or committee meetings.

  It worked well in theory, and perhaps with a much larger congregation it wouldn’t put such a strain on a church’s limited resources.

  For Bannoch Community Fellowship it was becoming a combination juggling and tightrope act. The Board members and Trustees were the same people who sang in the choir, led Bible studies and clubs, served on committees and led the youth.

  Coming out only once a week had sounded attractive, but the reality might soon result in burnout for the church leadership. The scriptural admonition, “Do not grow weary in doing good,” came often to Scott’s mind.

  Scott had been suggesting they revisit the issue for several months, but no one wanted to go back to the old days of church meetings almost every night of the week. He felt certain there must be a compromise solution but hadn’t been able to come up with one the board would accept.

  Returning home later that night, Naidenne checked the answering machine, hoping for a message from Rosamund.

  “Pastor, I know you’re there!” an imperious nasal voice rasped from the recorder. “You can’t avoid me, you know. I want to talk to you about this Sunday. I want to sit in my spot in my usual pew. If anyone else has been sitting there, you better just tell them to find someplace else.”

  The caller hung up without even identifying herself.

  “What in the world…” Naidenne began.

  “Dear, I’d like to introduce you to the infamous Maureen Oldham. Doesn’t sound as though she’s mellowed, after all.”

  “Scott, you don’t suppose Rosamund went away to avoid this woman, do you? She does sound frightful.”

  “No, I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, but Len Spurgeon dropped in to see me today. I think you were right about it being romance troubles. Let’s go to bed. I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Chapter Six

  The fugitive, Carver Schramm, scrambled through the undergrowth above the northbound lane of Highway 101, making his way to the Canadian Yukon Territory, where he hoped to lose himself.

  He hadn’t meant to kill that stupid guard at Pelican Bay Super Max Prison. The fool must have had some sort of brittle bone d
isease for his neck to snap like that.

  Schramm wasn’t squeamish about a bit of murder, now and then, but he knew killing a guard while breaking out would have every cop in the country on his tail.

  Keeping constantly on the move was making him hungry.

  The supplies he’d found in the last place he broke into were long gone. He needed to find more food soon.

  It had caused him almost physical pain to leave behind all the loot the owners had just lying around in those empty shacks, but he was too smart to take any valuables to sell. He figured the cops would be watching all the pawn shops and he wasn’t about to take a chance on being seen in public. His escape plan depended on him staying out of sight and one step ahead of the authorities.

  Schramm had expected to be closer to the Canadian border by now, not still tramping through the wilds of Oregon.

  He’d already be in Washington if that old bat didn’t get scared and drive off into the night. Stupid bitch.

  The cabins he was encountering near the highway all seemed to be occupied, but he wouldn’t venture far into the woods, not as long as he could avoid it. Carver was a city kid. All these friggin’ trees disoriented him and the night sounds gave him the creeps.

  A steady hum of traffic on the highway told him he couldn’t try to hijack another car here, at least not before nightfall.

  Someone traveling alone on a quiet stretch of road was what he needed.

  That old biddy had been perfect. She’d looked like the type who would open the door to talk to him long enough to let him get his hands around her scrawny neck, too.

  Flexing his fingers now, he could almost feel her windpipe pulsing under his thumbs.

  A loud growling from his empty stomach quickly changed his focus from fantasies of violence to his own growing hunger.

  Glimpsing a house off to the right in the trees up ahead, about a hundred yards from the highway, he veered in that direction.

  As he grew closer it became obvious the cabin was inhabited. Smoke rose from the chimney and washing hung on a wire strung between the pines in the only sunny patch of yard. Battered toys lay scattered among the dusty pine needles.

  Schramm hesitated, but only for a moment. Where there were people there was food.

  He pulled a wicked-looking hunting knife from his belt, congratulating himself, once again, as he held it up to admire the sharply honed blade. He’d hit the jackpot when he found the weapon in the hunting gear casually stowed in the back of a pickup truck in the dark gravel parking lot of a roadside bar.

  Keeping out of the line of sight from the cabin’s bare windows, he crouched low and slowly approached the warped and peeling back door.

  Carver paused on the sagging doorstep to listen for movement from inside.

  Hearing music, he smiled. He liked a soundtrack while he worked.

  The unlocked doorknob turned easily in his hand and he slipped stealthily inside.

  *

  In the Lexus’s cushy backseat on the ride home from Tillamook Saturday night, Naidenne watched the stars overhead through the open moon roof and listened to the quiet conversations of her friends.

  Riding shotgun, Judy was commenting on one of the speakers from the conference they’d attended.

  “I just didn’t think she was real; you know?”

  “She certainly wasn’t a hologram,” Eskaletha snapped, without taking her eyes off the road.

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I didn’t feel like what she said was organic, like it came from the heart.”

  “I know what you mean, Judy,” Elizabeth spoke up. “It was like she was saying what she thought we wanted to hear or something. Almost like it was more of a performance than a testimony.”

  “I imagine giving the same testimony over and over could easily begin to sound like a script, no matter how heartfelt. Remember, these women do this night after night, all over the country,” Naidenne felt compelled to add.

  “Well, the music was wonderful. I felt like I was in Heaven,” Olivette piped up from where she was squeezed in between Naidenne and Elizabeth.

  “I wonder…” Eskaletha began, and then paused.

  “Wonder what?” Judy asked.

  “Well, we always expect beautiful music in Heaven…I wonder if any of what we expect will really be there.”

  “Of course, it will,” Olivette insisted.

  “I suppose we will just have to wait and see,” Naidenne said.

  “Just one of those unanswerable questions, like why God allows so much pain and sadness in the world,” agreed Elizabeth.

  “Oh, that reminds me! Have you heard about all the break-ins south of us? Mostly empty cabins, but someone’s stealing food and trashing everything,” Judy said.

  “Probably just a bunch of kids with too much time on their hands,” Elizabeth offered.

  “Kids with no discipline,” Eskaletha said. “I blame their parents.”

  “You’ve got to admit there isn’t much for teenagers to do in our small coastal towns, though, Letha. That’s an issue our First Ladies’ Club should address,” Elizabeth said.

  *

  On a well-traveled logging road not far from Bannoch Scott was riding in the less-than-cushy backseat of a sheriff’s cruiser. He was listening as the deputies up front conversed quietly over the scratchy, metallic background chatter from their radio.

  The dispatcher abruptly squawked out the unit’s call sign and began to relay details of a break-in and suspicious death in the hills on the other side of town.

  Deputy Williams responded that they were on their way to the scene, ETA ten to fifteen minutes.

  *

  “And you are sure your uncle was dead before you left the house?” Deputy Williams asked the overweight woman who slouched in the middle of the chaos of her kitchen wearing dirty rubber sandals, cut-off jeans and a man’s tee shirt.

  The woman’s greasy hair, parted in the middle and tucked behind her ears, revealed an array of mismatched earrings suspended above a Harley logo tattooed on the side of her neck.

  In the adjoining living room, two preschool age children stared listlessly at the Lawrence Welk Show reruns on the console-style television, seemingly unmoved by the bubbly champagne music.

  “Yes, of course. I told you, that’s why me and the kids took off down to the neighbors to use the phone. Uncle Virgil’s been working on dying for six months or more. prostrate cancer. Today he finally made good on it. I checked his pulse and everything. Any fool could tell he was gone. Shoot, that old bird outlived most everyone. He was ninety-four on his last birthday.”

  “Your uncle was suffering from prostate cancer? Who was his doctor?”

  “I already told the ambulance crew all that. Can’t you just check their records? I’ve got to get this mess cleaned up and feed my kids…if I’ve got any food left in the place.”

  “I’ve just got a couple more questions, thank you for your patience, ma’am. So, while you and your children were gone, someone came into the house, with your uncle already lying dead in that recliner, there, slit his throat and then made this mess?”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  “Can you tell me what all has been taken?”

  “Well, it looks like they about cleaned out my ice box and pantry. Then they smashed up or just tossed around the stuff they didn’t take.”

  After speaking, the woman looked around at the damage and sank onto a backless metal kitchen chair with a sigh, as though all the air was leaking out of her.

  “What are we gonna do, now?” she moaned.

  “Do you have family nearby? Or could you go to your neighbor’s for a while?”

  “Uncle Virgil was my last family and I was his. Why else do you think I had him here? Now, he’s gone and took his Social Security payments with him. They say you can’t take it with you, but he sure enough did.”

  Saying this seemed to restore the woman’s energy, as she stood up and began sorting through the debris, whil
e cursing under her breath.

  She picked up a battered-looking blue box from the floor and shouted, “You kids get in here and find me a pan, so’s I can cook up this here mac and cheese!”

  Deputy Williams took this opportunity to return to Scott and the others out in the yard.

  “Do the people in there need my services?” Scott asked.

  “Not unless you want to pay their bills or clean up the mess. The lady of the house doesn’t seem the sort to want a chaplain. Apparently, her uncle’s death was from natural causes, not connected to the break-in. She’d been expecting it and she doesn’t seem to be grieving. It was just a weird coincidence.”

  “So, someone broke in and just ignored a corpse in the room?”

  “Not quite. The EMT said it looked like someone had turned out the old boy’s pockets and slit his throat from ear to ear.”

  “When he was already dead? That’s macabre. What sort of person does something like that?”

  “Someone desperate and hate-filled, or just plain evil, maybe, but you’d know better than me about that, Padre.”

  *

  In a large culvert beneath Highway 101, Carver Schramm was tearing into a package of Oreo cookies. Chicken bones from a stolen bucket of fried chicken were scattered around him, along with a couple of empty beer cans.

  He reflected on his good luck as he munched a cookie. All that food, plus twenty bucks from the stiff’s pockets and all he had to do was waltz in and take it…waltz, yeah. He chuckled to himself as he thought of the old-fashioned music the dead guy liked.

  He thought the old geezer was dozing in front of the TV until he’d already cut him.

  The puny trickle of blood and the guys’ clammy skin told Schramm he’d wasted his efforts with the knife. Still, it was good practice.

  Schramm had grabbed a couple of grimy pillowcases off one of the beds and filled them with the contents of the refrigerator and cupboards. He even found a can opener and some forks and spoons when he dumped a drawer on the floor.

  It was like one of those shopping-spree shows he’d watched when he was a kid. He took everything he could stuff into the two cases and left.