The First Ladies Club Box Set

by J B Hawker

  “I like her, too. Also, a lot. When we find her, maybe I’ll tell her that…after I straighten her out about computer security issues.”

  Thirty minutes later, after calling everyone they could think of, including the Tillamook hospital, they still had no clue where Merrill might be.

  “Do you think maybe she walked to the restaurant to wait for you?” Ryan asked. “Maybe she forgot I was getting out early today.”

  “That’s a good idea. Maybe her phone battery is dead. We were planning to go to the Crab Shack. I’ll bet she’s sitting at our favorite table, drumming her fingers on the tablecloth and thinking of various ways to get even with me for being late. Come on, you need to eat, too. Let’s go brave the tiger.”

  Chapter 28

  “Hi, Ryan! Hello, Mr. Compton,” Astilbe Falls, all rosy cheeks and golden curls, bounced up as they were coming out of the restaurant.

  “Patsy said you called earlier, Reuben. Did you find your aunt?” she asked.

  “Not yet. We can’t figure where she got off to. Heck, she’s probably at home wondering where I am, now,” Ryan replied.

  “You’re probably right,” Peter said. “I thought she’d show up while we ate, but she could as easily have been delayed somewhere and be at home right now, waiting for us.”

  “She won’t be happy we ate without her,” Ryan said.

  “We had to keep up our strength to look for her, didn’t we?” Peter joked, to cover his growing uneasiness.

  “See you at school tomorrow, Reuben,” Astilbe said, waggling her fingers at Ryan as she left.

  *

  Merrill’s leg throbbed so much she was having trouble concentrating on Manota’s disjointed monologue.

  The waves were climbing further up the shore and Merrill felt her shoulders getting damp.

  She tried to shift her body ever so slightly and bit back a cry of pain.

  “So, when she told me what the development people would pay for my rightful property, I was really excited,” Manota rambled on. “You see, about six months ago my great-aunt passed. She was the one who got all the family money, so when the letter came saying she’d included me in her will, I thought my prayers had finally been answered. I drove all the way to Portland to see the lawyer. What a waste of gas that was.

  “My aunt left everything to some old cats’ home. She’d included me in the will, all right. She left me a crummy old trunk! I was so mad; I didn’t even open the scruffy old thing. Then, when I got curious, I found it was full of old papers, faded photos, moth-eaten clothes, and dusty books. I wanted to haul it to the dump, I can tell you, but, to be on the safe side, in case the batty old lady had tucked some money between the pages or left some jewelry in the pockets, I went through everything.

  “I came across some really old papers from when the family donated the land for the church. Reading the terms of the lease, I knew this was an answer to my prayers, after all,” Manota babbled before another long pause.

  Shivering from cold and shock, Merrill tried to plead for help, but her whispers were drowned out when Manota resumed her narrative.

  “By then, it had been nearly three years since we’d stopped worshiping in the church and, with the congregation so small, there wasn’t much chance we’d go back. I got in touch with some Portland realtors to get an idea of just how rich I was going to be. That snooty real estate sales lady who came down here thought she was better than me, I could tell. She sashayed around the church in her fancy clothes like she was the queen or something. I put up with it because she was going to help me get all the money coming to me. If she hadn’t been so rude to me in the belfry that day, everything would have been fine…if only she hadn’t said those mean things…”

  After this burst of words, Manota resumed mutely staring out to sea.

  Merrill tried again to shift away from the growing dampness and couldn’t stifle a moan.

  Distracted from her contemplation, Manota slammed the hefty end of her stick down onto the side of Merrill’s head, stunning her.

  When she opened her blurry eyes, Manota’s face appeared inches from her own.

  “So, you had your little nap, eh? Ready to pay attention, now?” Manota said, as she returned to her seat of power on the rock.

  “I was telling you how the trouble started, making my confession, like the Catholics do. And when I’m done, I’ll be clean again. You’ll have to absolve me, you know. As my pastor, you couldn’t even tell anyone. That’s a pretty good deal, in my opinion.”

  Merrill wanted to say that Baptist pastors have no seal of the confessional but feared to move her lips.

  Pastoral counseling sessions are confidential, of course, but no way was this situation anything like counseling. Besides, only the blood of Jesus could wash away sins.

  “As I was saying, after that stuck-up fashion-queen of a real estate agent made her nasty remarks about me and my clothes, I got mad. Really mad. So, I hit her. Served her right,” she snorted.

  “She wasn’t so uppity lying in the dirt and blood, let me tell you. I strung her up so’s everyone would think she killed herself. It would have worked, too, if you hadn’t gone snooping around where you didn’t belong and found her so soon! My trouble is all your fault, right from the get-go.”

  Merrill couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Had the blow to her head given her a concussion? Was she dreaming?

  This could not be real.

  “I thought maybe I could still pull it off when the other agent contacted me. I’d given their office a dummy name, but I needed a real phone number, so I used my neighbor’s boy’s cell phone…He thought it was funny acting like my assistant and bringing me calls. I figured, why not let the realtor come and we could still do the deal. But, when we were looking around the sanctuary, and I saw the redecorating and all, I remembered the trust would remain intact if you went ahead with the service. Then I wouldn’t get my money.”

  “But you couldn’t hold church with a corpse in the baptistery, could you?” Manota laughed. “That agent thought I was a washed up nobody, too, until I pitched him into the tub. Lucky for me he broke his scrawny neck.”

  Merrill was feeling sick, either from her head wound or from what she was hearing, maybe both.

  She fought down nausea, lying as still as possible.

  Manota was truly insane and Merrill was her helpless captive. She prayed fervently as the water lapped at her shoulders and she felt the sand under her back getting wetter.

  *

  “That’s right, Detective Ransom. We’ve called around and looked everywhere we can think of. There’s no clue where she could be. Her car is here, and her purse. Her cell phone is gone, but inactive,” Peter said into his phone.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, we called all the church members, including the Addison woman, but she was one of those who didn’t answer her phone.”

  Ransom told Peter he should arrive in Bannoch within the hour.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry to bother you when it’s probably nothing, but we’re getting a little worried. It’s not like Merrill to go off this way without telling anyone,” Peter said before hanging up.

  He had stepped outside to make his call, because he didn’t want Ryan to know how seriously worried he was.

  Peter tapped on the door, now, and re-entered the kitchen.

  Ryan was sitting at the table with a can of soda and a bag of chips.

  “Want something to drink?” Ryan asked.

  “Sure, what have you got?”

  “Coke or root beer.” Ryan replied. “Aunt Merri always used to drink the root beer.”

  Peter was alarmed to hear the boy speak of Merrill in the past tense.

  “Your aunt is going to be all right, Ryan. She’s probably gotten delayed somewhere helping someone and her phone’s not working. She doesn’t have her car with her, so she can’t get back as soon as she wanted to, that’s all. Please don’t worry.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if she never comes back?
” Ryan asked. “What if she just disappears like my mom and dad?” he finished; his voice hoarse.

  Ryan stood up so abruptly his chair fell over. Without picking it up, he rushed into his room and shut the door.

  “Ryan?” Peter said, standing at the bedroom door. “Please don’t think like that, son. Merrill’s going to be all right. We are going to find her. I’ve been praying and I want you to pray, too. Will you pray with me now? Dear God, let your Spirit guide us to find your beloved daughter, Merrill. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.”

  Peter heard a soft, “Amen,” from Ryan and sighed as he silently thanked the Lord for that, too. Ryan was in an emotionally fragile state since his parents were killed.

  Peter was feeling a little emotionally fragile himself. Where the heck was Merrill?

  *

  Despite her pain and fear, Merrill had drifted off, only to be pulled back to terrifying reality by the sound of Manota’s raised voice.

  “When you postponed the sanctuary service, I thought you would put it off long enough to break the trust, but…oh, no…that’s not your style, Doctor Bishop,” Manota said with a sneer.

  “You went ahead with the open house,” she continued. “So I trashed the bathrooms. Thought you’d have to give up after that. Any normal person would have. I tried to warn you it was a sign from God, you know. He wouldn’t have sent me that trunk if He wanted you spoiling it all, now would He? Only thing is, that nosy Sisco woman saw me coming out of the men’s room with the paint can. She cornered me about it at the bonfire. Some nerve, trying to blackmail me! She said she wouldn’t tell, if I came to her stupid hokey-pokey-special-revelations-and-visions Bible study, and I had to get the other ladies to come, too. Stupid witch didn’t know who she was dealing with, did she? I gave her a revelation she never saw coming,” Manota said, laughing.

  Merrill tried to absorb all the things Manota was telling her, but she couldn’t see this sad, ordinary woman as the vicious killer she was confessing to be.

  While the pieces of her tale fit together, it simply didn’t mesh with Merrill’s concept of reality.

  She was feeling increasingly disoriented, but she clung to one clear thought; she had to get away, somehow.

  “I finally decided the only way to stop you from spoiling my plans was to get rid of you, once and for all, but I think you must be demon-possessed.” Manota went on.

  “Somehow, you managed to stay on the road when I tried to run you over the cliff, and then you woke up before I could burn you and that blasted sanctuary down. Even when I paid my neighborhood delinquents to gum up your brakes, you managed to survive,” Manota continued, her voice raising shrilly as she named Merrill’s ‘sins’.

  Manota stood up, looked around and took a deep breath before continuing more calmly.

  “I arranged for this little heart-to-heart, so’s I could get everything off my chest and to make you understand why it is I have to do this,” she said, slapping the ax handle against her palm and walking around behind Merrill’s head.

  With a sinking heart, Merrill braced herself for the killing blow to come and tried to prepare her heart to greet her Lord.

  Rather than hitting her again, Manota dropped the stick before grabbing Merrill’s shoulders in a claw-like grip and dragging her down the wet sand into the rising surf.

  The pain as her leg was dragged over the sand brought tears to Merrill’s eyes.

  “We’ll let the mighty ocean take care of things,” Manota said, wiping her hands as she walked back into Merrill’s line of sight. “Folks may be sad about you drowning and all, but everybody knows the waves and undertow on this beach can be treacherous. ‘Poor Pastor Merrill went for a walk and drowned, what a pity,’ they’ll say. Then they will forget all about you.”

  “Please, Manota! You don’t need to do this. Just help me up and we can talk some more,” Merrill begged.

  “I’m all talked out. I’m going home to make a list of all the things I’m going to buy with my money,” she said over her shoulder, as she swaggered up the beach, waving her walking stick triumphantly.

  Chapter 29

  A wave crested over Merrill’s face sending water surging into her mouth and ears.

  In a panic she twisted her head out of the water and struggled to sit up, trying to ignore the pains in her leg and head.

  A swirl of vertigo almost caused her to swoon, but she fought against the dizziness and nausea.

  An icy wave surging against her hips and over her legs helped to clear her mind and the cold water slightly numbed her throbbing leg.

  Looking down at her bloody, deformed shin, now draped in seaweed, Merrill cringed. It was obvious at least one bone was broken.

  How could this have happened? And how was she going to get out of this mess?

  Determined not to give up, Merrill spoke aloud, giving herself a pep talk.

  “Come on, now, this isn’t so bad. You still have one good leg, two good arms and most of your wits. You can do this.”

  The classic Monty Python skit with John Cleese as the dismembered knight boasting, “I’ve had worse!” popped incongruously into her head and she almost laughed.

  Although she couldn’t think of any worse situation in her own life, the silly image encouraged her and Merrill resolved to get away from the rising tide and pull herself to safety, somehow.

  She could do it…if Manota did not come back.

  Pushing down with her arms, she tried to lift her hips and shift forward along the sand but was instantly blinded by an explosion of pain.

  For several seconds her five senses gave way to the single sensation of searing agony.

  While still gasping to catch her breath, she was nudged from behind and lifted slightly by the incoming tide.

  Digging in with her hands and thrusting herself forward, she managed to resist the pull of the receding wave as it returned to the sea.

  The next wave was higher, but Merrill was more prepared.

  This time she let the water lift her injured left leg and rode the wave up the shore before rolling out of the water.

  She lay on her right side, panting and resisting the oblivion now tempting her to surrender to escape the pain.

  She longed to rest, but she couldn’t remain sprawled on the packed sand. The tide was still rising. Higher and stronger waves could reach her at any moment.

  Merrill tried to roll onto her right knee, thinking she might be able to hop on one leg, if only she could stand, but each movement was torture.

  Lying on her side, with her injured left leg resting on her right, she clawed at the sand, trying to pull herself out of reach of the surging tide.

  Every inch of progress came at an agonizing cost, forcing her to rest for longer and longer intervals between efforts.

  Merrill looked behind her at the encroaching surf, then ahead at the yards of sand to cross before reaching the steep path to the highway.

  How would she ever get up there where she might get help?

  Fearing Manota was lingering nearby to be sure her plan worked this time; Merrill resisted the urge to scream for help.

  Clawing at the sand and repeatedly inching her hips painfully forward, she made nearly imperceptible progress. Her skin raw and with trembling limbs, she slumped forward onto her stomach with her head on her arms, exhausted and in pain.

  Merrill closed her eyes and began to pray.

  She was physically helpless, but spiritual strength remained ever within reach.

  *

  After Astilbe told her mother, news that Merrill was missing soon spread through the First Ladies Club.

  Many of the ladies were reminded of the time, a few years earlier, when another of their group had gone missing. Those were a terrifying few days when Naidenne had been kidnapped by a depraved escaped convict.

  “I just talked to Ryan, again,” Judy was telling Elizabeth, who had stopped by to return one of Judy’s baskets.

  “He said no one has seen or heard from Merrill since early this mo
rning.”

  “Is the boy all alone?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No. Peter Compton is with him. He and Merrill had a lunch date, but she never showed up.”

  “What is being done to find her? Could she have been in an accident?”

  “Not in her car. It’s still in her parking spot. She didn’t even take her purse,” Judy added.

  “Definitely not driving then,” Elizabeth said with a frown. “I think I’ll go over there and see if there’s anything we can do.”

  “I hate to think of something happening to Merrill,” Judy said. “Have you heard of any escaped convicts around, lately?”

  “No, and I don’t even want to think about anyone else going through what happened to Naidenne.”

  “But bad things do happen to good people, you know. And lightning does sometimes strike twice in the same place. I read that in a science magazine at the dentist,” Judy said.

  “Well, I haven’t heard about any marauding criminals in the area. There must be a perfectly benign explanation for Merrill’s disappearance. I’m going over to her place right now. I’ll call you if I learn anything,” Elizabeth said.

  *

  When Detective Ransom arrived at the church, Peter felt better to have a professional on the case.

  Ryan heard the men talking in the kitchen and came out of his room.

  “Have you found my aunt?” he asked.

  “Not, yet, son, but that’s what I’m here for,” Ransom said. “Have you searched the church buildings, yet?”

  “We checked her office, but I didn’t even think to do a sweep of the building and grounds,” Peter replied, mentally chastising himself for the oversight.

  “Let’s get to it,” the detective said.

  “We can go this way,” Ryan said, as he opened the connecting door.

  Peter and Ransom went through and Ryan followed.

  The three of them looked between the pews and behind the railings and the musical instruments in the sanctuary, inside the choir room and janitor’s closet, and then searched the restrooms with no luck.