by Ann B. Ross
Mr. Pickens took me by the shoulders and gave me a little shake. “Are you all right!”
“Why, yes, I think so. Maybe a little shaken, but, Mr. Pickens, I have to tell you, that woman is no friend of yours. You should’ve heard what she called you. Who is she anyway?”
“That’s Trixie. She’s the cook.”
Trixie? She didn’t look like a Trixie to me.
Pointing to the woman as an officer put her in the backseat of the undamaged squad car, Mr. Pickens said, “She’ll have a few more names to call me before the night’s over. She’s going to jail.”
“Well, no wonder she was in such a state.”
Several police officers were standing around surveying the damage to their property and to Mr. Pickens’s, some half grinning and others scratching their heads.
“Let’s get out of the rain,” Mr. Pickens said, taking my arm. “Then I want the whole story.” As did I.
He walked me around the accident site and we edged in through the front door of the soup kitchen. Loud yells and crashing noises were coming from the apartment on the second floor, a few feminine shrieks and ugly words mixed in with them cascading down the stairs.
Mr. Pickens ignored the uproar but, as he led me into the main room, his face grew grim and tight. I’d realized by then that I might have stumbled into an official operation, but I intended to claim a familial interest in both Brother Vern and Mr. Pickens. I was, after all, almost their next of kin.
In the main room of the soup kitchen, fitted out now with tables and chairs, I saw Brother Vern seated at one of the tables, a police officer leaning over him. Open packages of tiny Hershey’s candy bars, Reese’s peanut butter cups, and Milky Way and Snickers bars were strewn across the table, waiting for trick-or-treaters who probably wouldn’t be coming.
Brother Vern’s normally florid face was so pallid it was almost gray, but when he saw me his eyes lit up. He tried to stand but the officer put a hand on his shoulder and kept him down.
“Mrs. Murdoch!” Brother Vern called. “Tell them. Tell them who I am. Tell them I don’t have nothing to do with this, that I’m a minister of God and here only to minister to the needy. Oh, this is awful, jus’ awful. All my good work gone right before my eyes.” His voice breaking, he leaned his head on his hands in despair.
I thought he was going to cry, moving me to pity. But not a lot of it, for he had been so obnoxious to Hazel Marie.
Turning to Mr. Pickens, I asked, “What is going on? Is he in trouble?” Then flinched as something heavy fell or was thrown upstairs. Another shriek, followed by several masculine yells and the sound of thumping feet from upstairs. Mr. Pickens hadn’t answered me—he was too busy running for the stairs while yelling back for me to sit down and stay there.
Those of us who were left looked up at the ceiling as something heavy fell again, then turned toward the door as the thumps and screams descended the stairs. Two officers were half-carrying, half-dragging a wild-haired, struggling, half-naked woman out the door. I stood watching in shock, my mouth open at the sight. She was going neither gently nor quietly into the night, screaming abuse and insults specific enough to set my teeth on edge.
Brother Vern looked plaintively from the officer to me. “I don’t understand,” he said, plainly bewildered. “What’s wrong? Why are they arresting her?”
The officer didn’t respond and, heaven knew, I didn’t know, so I couldn’t. Nor did I know what happened next, for two more officers escorted a man in a raincoat—a Burberry, if I wasn’t mistaken—down the stairs and out the door. He wasn’t struggling, but he had his face half covered with the raincoat’s collar. More thumps on the stairs followed as another man was quickly rushed through the door. Then Mr. Pickens and another officer led a sullen-faced woman with Texas-size blond hair past us. She was in handcuffs and didn’t seem happy about it.
I was shocked. That could’ve been the woman I’d seen Mr. Pickens with at the mall and—of course! The first woman they’d led out, the brunette, was the one Lillian had seen. The friends of Mr. Pickens! And of Brother Vern? And who had been the woman forcing me to drive? Did that mean Mr. Pickens had been consorting with three of them?
I marched myself to the front door, watched as the two men and two women were put into squad cars, fully expecting Mr. Pickens to be shoved into the backseat with them. If they were involved in something illegal, he had to be up to his neck in it, too.
Instead, the officers shook his hand, got into the remaining drivable squad cars, and, making U-turns one after the other, left the premises. Mr. Pickens looked up from the sidewalk, tightened his mouth, and came toward me. His tie was crooked, a shirt button was missing, and his jacket pocket was hanging by a flap.
As he came fully into the light, I gasped and held out my hand. “Mr. Pickens, you . . .”
His hands on his hips, he addressed me coldly. “I thought I told you to stay inside.”
“Oh, you did, but you’ve been injured. Your eye is swelling.”
His hand flew to his right eye, covered it, then grimaced. “She’s got a mean left. But you see what you stepped into. It could’ve been your eye.”
He took my arm, swung me around, and marched me back into the main room. Brother Vern and the officer were still there, along with the leftover Halloween candy, which, from his quick swallow, I suspected the officer had been sampling.
“Oh, Brother Pickens,” Brother Vern said, again attempting to rise and again being pushed down. “What is going on? I don’t know anything—they just come bustin’ in here, creatin’ havoc an’ not tellin’ me anything an’ takin’ Junie an’ Janie away an’ all they was doin’ was workin’ for the Lord. Look at this place, just look at it. They did it, they cleaned it an’ didn’t charge me a cent. It was all done for the love of the Lord and for the love of mankind. An’ I don’t understand what y’all are doin’ here.”
He looked and sounded so pathetic that I was moved. It was a well-known fact that I didn’t care for Hazel Marie’s uncle and I would’ve been unperturbed if he’d been hustled into a squad car, too, but, clearly, he was out of whatever loop there was.
Mr. Pickens, his hands on his hips again, stood looking down at him. Well, looking as well as he could, for that eye was still swelling. Then he shook his head, gave a half-laugh, and said, “Yeah, Puckett, they were working for the love of mankind, all right. They had a prostitution ring right above your head. I don’t wonder they worked for nothing during the day—they were making plenty at night.”
Brother Vern’s mouth gaped open. “Pros . . . no, oh no, that’s not possible. Why, Brother Pickens, I gave them my bed, the one Mrs. Allen bought for me. I gave it up for them, so they’d have a place to lay their head.”
“They laid more than that,” Mr. Pickens said grimly. “Now, look, this all has to be straightened out, so Officer Winfield here will take you to the station and . . .”
“The station! But I didn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t know anything.”
“There’ll be questions,” Mr. Pickens said with little sympathy. “It’s your place and you’re responsible.”
“Oh, Lord,” Brother Vern moaned. “My witness, my blessed witness will be ruined, tarnished forever. I don’t know anything, I didn’t know what they were doing, I just thanked the Lord for sending them to me. They worked hard, they did all this.” He swept his arm around the room. “Every bit of it.” He buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe it.”
I could hardly believe it, either. Mildred Allen would have the shock of her life to learn that she’d sponsored Abbotsville’s very own prostitution ring—and had decorated the bedroom for it, too.
Chapter 46
As Officer Winfield escorted Brother Vern out to the last squad car, Mr. Pickens turned to me. I almost smiled at his warped face, but decided against it. He wasn’t in the mood.
“Why is it,”
he asked fairly calmly, but he gathered steam as he went, “that you stir up trouble wherever you go? You could’ve gotten hurt, you could’ve given it all away. The cops have been tracking those women all over town for weeks. You could’ve created a flat-out mess, and all because you can’t stay out of trouble.”
“I was looking for you,” I said, determined to stand up to him. “I was looking for you to keep you out of trouble. To warn you about being seen with those women and to get you to turn your attention to your wife before she found out. And, while we’re on the subject, just what were you doing with those women in the first place?” Let him see how it felt to be on the defensive end.
“I wasn’t doing anything with them!” He yelled it so loudly I cringed. “I was working with the cops to find out who was running them. I was pumping them for information! And only somebody without a lick of trust in me would think any different. Right?” He leaned down in my face. “Right? The only thought in your head was that I was fooling around on Hazel Marie. Didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt at all. Well, I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
“Oh, I have,” I assured him, then hurried to clarify matters. “But you have to admit I had reason for being suspicious, and you have to admit that my concern was for your family—for Hazel Marie and Lloyd. Well, and your little girls, too. And for you as well, Mr. Pickens. But, really, what would you expect me to think when you were constantly seen in the company of strange women in parking lots all over town?”
He wiped his hand down his face, wincing when he touched his eye. He started to say something, but I got in first.
“And another thing,” I went on. “You are completely unaware of what’s going on with Hazel Marie. What with taking care of two babies, doing without James and having to nurse him, cooking and cleaning, and putting up with that uncle of hers who ought to be forcibly removed from your house, she is at the end of her rope. But what do you do? You go to work. You leave early and you come home late. And furthermore . . .”
He held up his hand. “Stop right there. I am not unaware of my own wife and what she’s going through. For your information, I was trying to protect her.”
“Hah!” I said, tossing my hair, wet ends flapping in my face. “Not when I saw you.”
He rolled his eyes; at least he rolled the one I could see. “Listen to me. Just this once, listen to me. The cops thought Brother Vern brought the two women to town.”
“Two? I counted three. What about Trixie, the one who almost pinched a plug out of my neck?” My hand rubbed the still-stinging place. “And I’ll tell you, Mr. Pickens, from the little I saw of her in that dark car, she wasn’t your usual type.”
His good eye almost rolled out of its socket. “She came in later, and Puckett hired her to cook. But the three of them were in it together—either they’d been sent here or Puckett brought them here. So don’t worry about her. She’ll be charged with the other two. Plus charged with car theft, kidnapping, and assault and battery.” He peered at my neck. “Better take a picture of that bruise. It’s evidence.”
I nodded, always willing to aid the court system. “You know I don’t particularly like Vernon Puckett, but I can’t believe he’d be involved in such debauchery as . . . what you said.”
Mr. Pickens grimaced. “The cops thought this whole soup kitchen idea was a cover for a prostitution ring he was running. I had to do some fast talking and arm twisting to get them to hold off until we could be sure. He’s been under observation ever since he got to town, and I have been trying to get information from what’s-their-names . . .”
“Janie and Junie.”
“Right. Doing all that for the purpose of clearing Vernon Puckett—if he was clearable.” He leaned over me as I leaned back. “For Hazel Marie’s sake, so she wouldn’t be embarrassed, humiliated, and hurt if he was involved.”
I let that soak in for a minute. “Oh. Well, was he?”
“Was he what?”
“Involved.”
“There’s nothing to indicate he was.” He turned and took a couple of steps. “The ladies came up from Florida, part of a larger ring that’s targeting small towns, but so far we’ve found no connection to him before they showed up here. But I’ll tell you this.” He whirled and stepped back toward me. “The cops were ready to arrest ’em all, Brother Vern included, and play it up big all over the state. It took everything I had to talk ’em into waiting, into putting them under observation and giving me a chance to get information from the ladies, which,” he suddenly bellowed, “WAS WHAT I WAS DOING IN THOSE PARKING LOTS!”
I flinched, but with a mighty effort he regained control and went on. “We wanted to be sure of who was doing what. And we got a couple of johns—‘customers’ to you—tonight as well, one big one, in fact, although I was hoping for more.”
“Who?”
“Who what?”
“Who was the big one?”
He gave me a tight grin. “One of our commissioners. We knew he’d been visiting and, tonight, I saw him come in again. Caught him red-handed, you might say. Told us he was doing a survey on nonprofits in the county—in his underdrawers.”
I could’ve done without the description, which put an unsavory image in my mind, but I let it go and instead asked, “And this has been going on ever since Brother Vern got here?”
“Janie and Junie had been here awhile, but Trixie came in on a Greyhound about the time Puckett rented the place. As far as we can determine, he met her at the bus station, where he was handing out flyers. But that put him under suspicion right then, because the cops had advance notice about all of them. I think, though, that Puckett’s pretty much in the clear now. But let me tell you, there’s been a steady stream in and out of here every night since he gave the ladies his bed.”
“My goodness, every night? And they worked every day cleaning up this place? They must be healthy young women.”
Mr. Pickens stared one-eyed at me, then he started laughing. It relieved me to see him so lighthearted, although I remained unamused. “You should go to the emergency room and have that eye looked at,” I suggested. “I’ll drive you in your car, if we can untangle it. Mine’s out of gas.”
He looked up at the sound of heavy motors outside, then started toward the door. “That’ll be the wrecker. If it’s drivable, I’ll be the one doing it. Let’s go.”
“Wait. We should lock up first.”
He looked around as if he’d just noticed where he was. “Okay, somebody might steal that candy. I sure haven’t smelled any soup cooking.”
Come to think of it, neither had I. The cook had been too busy wringing my neck.
Announcing that he could drive better with one eye than I could with two, Mr. Pickens turned the car toward town. I was just relieved that anyone at all could drive it. We’d watched, along with the unhappy police chief, who was probably thinking of his budget, as the wrecker disentangled it from the city car.
I must say that even though Mr. Pickens’s car had several dents and dings, as well as a crushed grill and bumper, it still ran reasonably well, in spite of the strange knocks under the hood and the fact that the passenger door wouldn’t open. He had examined it inside and out, opening the hood and crawling underneath, looking for leaks and other signs of damage. We were driving with one headlight, just to get it home.
Mr. Pickens didn’t stop at the emergency room and he didn’t stop at my house. He pulled into his own driveway, saying, “I’ve got a gas can in the garage. I’ll fill it and take you back for your car.”
“You’re tired and injured, so let’s put it off till tomorrow. It should be all right where it is.”
“If you don’t mind missing a few hubcaps and a couple of tires, it’ll be fine.”
“Oh, well, in that case . . .”
As we got out of the car, he said, “I’ll let Hazel Marie know what we’re doing, but don’t tell her
anything about tonight. After I get you on your way, I’ll go to the police station for Puckett.”
“And bring him here?”
“Nope.” Mr. Pickens stopped at the porch steps, searching his key ring for the door key. “He’s spent his last night here.”
“Hearing that makes everything I’ve been through worth all the time and effort it took.”
“Oh?” With a quizzical look aimed at me, Mr. Pickens cocked his head to one side. “What all have you done besides spy on me, interfere in an official investigation, ruin my car, and cost the town several thousand dollars?”
“Well,” I said defensively, “all that’s different. You don’t know the effort I’ve put in, what with engaging Granny Wiggins and supervising cooking demonstrations and getting Hazel Marie made over and babysitting and collecting recipes and untangling James from a Spanish lottery he thought he’d won but hadn’t—and, by the way, he’s going to ask you for a raise—and comforting Lloyd when we both thought you were looking for greener pastures.”
Before he could respond and as I saw in the glow from the porch lights that he’d raised his eyes heavenward, I went on, “But I acknowledge that I owe you a deep and abject apology, Mr. Pickens. You were acting with the best of intentions, protecting your wife, even as she was trying to learn to cook for you.” I frowned. “I think I read a story about the same sort of thing sometime or another. But, never mind that—I do apologize for distrusting you and for interfering in your stalwart work and for hurting your car. You must, however, admit that if it hadn’t been for me, that cook would’ve gotten away. I’m just sorry that stopping her caused so much damage to you and the city.”
He stood looking at me for so long that I began to get fidgety. Finally he spread his hands and said, “What else can I do? Apology accepted. Now,” he went on as he started up the steps to the porch, “not a word to Hazel Marie. All I want her to know is that Puckett is pulling up stakes on his own. Sponsors haven’t been forthcoming and he’s discovered several other nonprofits that are in competition with him—whatever she wants to think. It’s going to be Puckett’s idea to head out to look for greener pastures. Okay?”