Black Widow

by Breton, Laurie

  Nick shot a glance at Janine. She looked back at him from the corner of her eye, raised both eyebrows, and inched closer to him on the hard wooden pew. Across the aisle, a woman stood up and began babbling a stream of nonsensical syllables. “Yes, Sister!” Brother Leroy shouted. “Thank you, Jesus, for givin’ our dear sister Beulah the gift of tongues. A sign of her purity and unwaverin’ faith in the Lord!”

  “Amen!”

  All around them, people were weeping, wailing, crying out the name of their Lord and Savior. A man in patched overalls got up and stood in the aisle. “Thank you, Jesus,” he said. “I got a powerful love for you, Jesus.” And he fell into a dead faint.

  “Daddy?” Janine whispered.

  “Shh. It’s okay.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it.

  A second man approached the podium, carrying a small rattlesnake. He wrapped it lovingly around Brother Leroy’s arm, and the snake raised its head and hissed.

  “Thank you, brother. Tell me, brothers and sisters, do you have a strong faith in the Lord? Do you believe with all your might? Is your faith in Jesus, our Lord and Savior, strong enough, pure enough, to keep you safe in His name?”

  Around the room, there were soft murmurs of assent. While Brother Leroy stood by, beaming, members of the congregation began coming forward, one by one, and handling the serpents. “Can you feel the love?” Brother Leroy asked. “Can you feel it, brothers and sisters? Don’t it feel good, now?”

  “Amen!”

  “Thank you, Jesus!”

  The service went on for another forty-five minutes, quite possibly the most bizarre forty-five minutes Nick DiSalvo had ever experienced. When it was finally over and the snakes had been returned to the wooden box from which they’d come, he relaxed his shoulder muscles and realized how tense he’d been throughout the entire service. “You okay?” he asked Janine.

  “It gave me the creepy-crawlies,” she whispered back.

  “I thought you weren’t afraid of snakes.”

  She glanced around to make sure nobody was listening. “It wasn’t the snakes that creeped me out.”

  He caught her by the back of the neck and squeezed affectionately. “Come on, squirt,” he said. “I have to talk to somebody.”

  Janine rolled her eyes. “More cop business,” she said with resignation.

  Brother Leroy was beaming and shaking hands. Nick stood by patiently, until he was done glad-handing the members of his congregation. “I don’t believe I know you, sir,” Brother Leroy said.

  “Nick DiSalvo,” he said, shaking Leroy’s hand. “This is my daughter, Janine.”

  “The Lord and I are very happy to have you with us this fine Sunday, Janine.”

  She hooked her arm through Nick’s. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Actually,” Nick said, “I was wondering if I could ask you some questions.”

  Brother Leroy eyed him levelly. Some of the welcome left his face, and Nick knew he’d been made as a cop. “I will continue to fight the State of North Carolina,” Brother Leroy said curtly, “for my right to worship as I see fit.”

  “And I’m behind you one hundred percent,” Nick said. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m the police chief in Elba, and I’m conducting an investigation into a recent incident we had with a big rattler. I thought maybe you could give me some information on snake handling.”

  Brother Leroy continued to study him. And then his face eased a bit. “Why don’t we go next door,” he said, “to the parsonage? We can talk there.”

  The parsonage was a small house trailer parked out back of the church. The linoleum was worn through in places, the tablecloth was threadbare, the curtains at the window limp and faded. Brother Leroy’s wife stood by nervously, her face as pale and limp as the kitchen curtains. “Can I fix you some iced tea, Mr. DiSalvo?” she said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “we’d like that, wouldn’t we, squirt?”

  Janine, who’d probably never ingested a non-carbonated liquid since she lost her milk teeth, nodded assent.

  “Now,” Brother Leroy said, “how can I help you?”

  “I’m not really sure. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, so bear with me. Last week, a local woman came home and found a five-foot rattlesnake in a cardboard box on her front porch. I’m trying to figure out how it could have gotten there. How do you people handle snakes without getting bit?”

  “By the power of the Lord, Mr. DiSalvo. There’s no big secret. If your faith is strong enough, you can do anythin’.”

  “So, you don’t, like, train people how to do this or anything?”

  “It’s a God-given power, a sign of purity in our faith.”

  “And nobody ever gets bit?”

  “Oh, lots of us get bit. But if our faith is strong enough, God don’t let that bite hurt us. He takes care of us, you see.”

  Brother Leroy’s wife set tall glasses of iced tea in front of both of them. “Thank you,” he said. “Now let me be sure I have this right. The members of your congregation don’t die if they get bit by a rattlesnake?”

  “If their faith is pure, Mr. DiSalvo. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, over and over again. Folks gettin’ bit, and the Lord just cleansin’ that venom out of their bodies.”

  He took a drink of tea and considered Brother Leroy’s words. “And if their faith isn’t pure?”

  Leroy lowered his eyes. “Sometimes, Mr. DiSalvo, our faith falters. Yours, mine, your pretty little girl’s, here. If that happens, and one of us gets bit, that poison’ll kill us as quick as it’ll kill anybody.”

  “So if somebody had a strong enough faith in God,” he said, thinking aloud, “they could have left that snake on the doorstep without fear of being bit.”

  “Our faith in the Lord enables us to do good works,” Leroy said. “Anybody who’d leave a dangerous snake for a nonbeliever isn’t doin’ good works. His faith has faltered. Satan has won the battle for his soul.”

  “Right. Listen, do any of the members of your congregation live in Elba?”

  “We’re a poor rural church, Mr. DiSalvo. Our people live nearby, here in the foothills of the Appalachians. Most of ‘em never been no further than High Point.”

  He’d reached a dead end. Nick finished his tea, got up from the table and held out his hand. “Thank you for your time, Brother Leroy. And thank you for the refreshments, Mrs.—” He paused, realizing he’d never asked their last name.

  “Dawson,” she said, smiling through thin, bluish lips.

  “Mrs. Dawson.”

  They were already out the door and on the dirt path that led back to the church when Brother Leroy said, “You’re from Elba, you said?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I got me a cousin that lives in Elba. Or did, last I knew. Haven’t heard from her in years ‘n years. She moved away from here when we was just kids. We used to play together, out back of the church. Perhaps you know her.”

  “Could be. What’s her name?”

  “Raelynn,” he said. “Raelynn Wilbur.”

  Chapter Eleven

  He swung by Kathryn’s house on the way to work the next morning. Her car was in the driveway, but when he knocked on the door, there was no response. Nick walked around to the back door and peered through the glass. The dog’s leash wasn’t hanging on the hook beside the refrigerator where he’d seen her leave it. That meant she was probably out jogging. He’d advised her to vary her daily schedule. It made him antsy, the knowledge that somebody out there was watching her every move. And his. At least she was taking the dog everywhere she went. It was little comfort, but it was all he had for now.

  When he walked into the station, Rowena held up a small silver key on a brass ring. “Morning, Chief,” she said. “I stopped by Galway’s Hardware after church and had this made up for you.”

  “Great,” he said. “Thanks.” He pocketed the key, made a beeline for the coffeepot, and poured himself a cup of strong, black coffee. “Listen,” he said, tearing open a sug
ar packet and stirring it in, “do you know if there’s any kind of arrest record on Wanita Crumley?”

  She was uncharacteristically silent, and he swung around to look at her. Raised his eyebrows at her pious expression. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead,” she said. “But that woman had problems. She wasn’t precisely known for her charitable works.”

  “Find the file,” he said, setting down his spoon, “and bring it in my office.”

  Richard Melcher was sitting at his desk, feet propped up on the bottom drawer, reading the autopsy report and eating a jelly doughnut. “Excuse me for interrupting,” Nick said.

  “DiSalvo!” Melcher said, almost trembling in his enthusiasm, like an eager pup ready to show off his newest trick. “I’ve been out doing a little investigating on my own, and I’ve come up with some information you might find interesting.”

  “You have powdered sugar all over you,” Nick said amiably.

  “What? Oh, shit!” Melcher dropped his feet to the floor and hastened to brush the white powder off his expensive suit. The harder he brushed, the deeper the sugar went into the fabric.

  “Up,” Nick said. “Take your damn doughnut and get out of here, before everything on my desk is covered with jelly.”

  Melcher paused in his rubbing. “You really ought to hear this, DiSalvo—”

  “Later. Right now, I have a phone call to make.”

  Melcher reluctantly gave up his seat. “Where the hell am I supposed to sit? How can I run an investigation without the proper equipment? You don’t even have a spare desk here in this godforsaken place!”

  “Call your friends in Raleigh. I’m sure they’d be more than happy to requisition one for you. Maybe you can get one of those little gold-trimmed name plates to go with it.” Nick picked up the phone, dialed Raelynn Wilbur’s office, and leaned back in his chair. He scowled fiercely at Melcher. “And I’m running the investigation,” he said.

  Cindy Hawkins, Raelynn’s bubbly and capable secretary, informed him that Ms. Wilbur was at a convention in Atlanta and wouldn’t be back until Thursday afternoon. “I hear your daughter’s visitin’ you,” she said.

  Nick rolled his eyes, then sat through a ten-minute discourse on the joys of parenthood. Cindy’s oldest daughter, it seemed, had walked at twelve months and had started school at the age of four. Now, she was fifteen and very rebellious, and wasn’t it just the hardest job there ever could be, tryin’ to raise a teenager in these troubled times?

  When he finally succeeded in getting rid of her without resorting to deadly force, he dialed Kathryn’s house. The phone rang eight times before he gave up. Melcher was still eating the doughnut, still hovering like an impatient child. “What?” Nick barked. “What the hell do you want?”

  Melcher drew himself up to his full height and looked down his aristocratic nose. “That’s very unprofessional behavior, DiSalvo. We’re supposed to be working together on this case. But you’re determined to work against me.”

  Nick put his feet up on the desk and folded his hands together in his lap. “I’m determined,” he said pleasantly, “to ignore you.”

  “I might have to report this to my superiors,” Melcher said. “It won’t look good on your record, the fact that you’ve been belligerent and uncooperative with the SBI.”

  “Melcher,” he said, “if it makes you feel better, you can go ahead and tattle to whoever you please, up to and including the President of the United States. Just get your sorry ass out of my office while you’re doing it.”

  The SBI agent paled and spun on his heel, nearly mowing down Rowena, who stood in the doorway holding a file folder. “Think he’ll be back?” she said cheerfully as she handed Nick the file.

  “Wild horses couldn’t keep him away. This everything we got on Crumley?”

  “This is it, Chief.”

  The file wasn’t very thick. It dated back to a year or two before Michael McAllister’s death, when Wanita had first been arrested for shoplifting. The charges had ultimately been dropped. Eight months later, she’d been hauled in on a drunk & disorderly. Again, the charges had been dropped. Following that second charge, there had been a gap of several years, during which time she’d plied her trade in Baltimore. Since her return a year ago, Wanita had been arrested three times for solicitation.

  Each time, the charges had been dropped.

  The back of his neck began itching. He closed the file and sat there, thinking, as he rotated his Styrofoam coffee cup in his hand. Leaning over the desk to push the button on the intercom, he said, “Rowena? Would you come back in here a minute?”

  She edged into his office, looking as if she were about to face a firing squad. “Shut the door,” he said, “and sit down.”

  Rowena sat on the wooden chair across from him, her hands folded primly in her lap. “I’d like you to tell me,” he said, “how it can possibly be that every time Wanita Crumley was arrested in the past five years, the charges were dropped?”

  She crossed and re-crossed her ankles. “I’m not the person to be addressin’ that question to, Chief.”

  He leaned over the desk. “You know every goddamn move that goes on in this town, Rowena, so don’t play dumb with me. Why were the charges dropped?”

  “Well,” she said, “you see, Chief Henley—” Her voice changed when she spoke his name, as though it were synonymous with that of Jesus Christ. “His wife, Maybelle, she’s such a kind-hearted lady. Always givin’ and givin’ to the church, and to the community. Why, just last year, she donated five hand-pieced quilts for the raffle to benefit those poor colored orphans who lost their folks in that terrible fire—”

  “Do you think we could get to the point before lunch?” he said.

  She leveled a barbed glance at him. “Maybelle’s younger sister Alice had a hard row to hoe,” she said. “Their mother died when she was a teenager, and she lived in a foster home over to Wakefield for years. Maybelle always felt guilty about it, because she and Shep had just gotten married, and it was his first year on the force, and they weren’t makin’ any money, not to speak of. They really couldn’t afford to take in her younger sister. Well, to make a long story short, Alice had real poor taste in men, you see, and her first husband—”

  “Rowena!”

  “I might just get to the point, Chief DiSalvo, if you’d stop interruptin’ me! After Alice’s first husband left, she had to raise those two little girls all by herself. They was on welfare for the longest time, and it close to broke Maybelle’s heart. The oldest one, June, was a dear girl. After high school, she worked her way through secretarial school and married a fine young man. Oh, he didn’t have any money, but he takes good care of her. But the other one, Wanita, she was wild and rebellious right from the start. And Maybelle’s still so protective toward her sister, knowin’ that Alice’s lot in life would have been different if she could’ve done more for her. I didn’t really approve of it myself, and I told Chief Henley that. I told him that girl would never learn to take responsibility for her own life until somebody made her accountable for her actions, but Maybelle was real insistent, and—”

  “Hold it,” he said, dumbfounded. “Stop. Are you telling me that Wanita Crumley was Shep Henley’s niece?”

  “By marriage,” she said. “His niece by marriage.”

  He thought about the man who had so casually discussed Wanita Crumley’s murder while his dogs struggled to reach the dead animal carcass he’d stuck up in a tree. “And he dropped the charges,” Nick said, “to keep his wife happy?”

  “I guess you could put it that way, yes. Because of the way she worried so about poor Alice.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  Wanita Crumley’s funeral was held at the Third Methodist Church, down on Coleman Avenue. The eulogy was brief and impersonal. There were few mourners. Wanita’s sister, June, walked arm in arm with her husband, leading Wanita’s two little boys, who looked somber in their navy suits and bow ties. Her mother, Alice Buford, sat in the front r
ow beside her third husband, Buck, who reeked of gin. On her other side sat a matronly woman in a navy silk dress, her short gray hair done up in tasteful curls. Maybelle Henley. Beside her sat Shep Henley himself. He didn’t look too brokenhearted.

  There were a few friends, all of them women, none of them candidates for the Junior League. And near the back, sitting alone, looking desolate and thunderstruck, sat Dewey Webb.

  When it was over, and the family and friends filed past the casket for a last look at the dearly departed, Dewey got up from the pew and stormed out the door of the church. Nick stood up, nodded to a dour-faced deacon, and followed him.

  Dewey was halfway to his pickup truck, his size thirteen boots eating up ground, rawhide laces flapping in the wind. “Hey, Dew!” Nick said. “Wait up!”

  Dewey continued moving, ignoring him. He opened the door of his truck and hoisted his considerable bulk up into the cab. He turned on the ignition and was revving the engine when Nick caught up to him. Using the oversized side mirror for leverage, Nick pulled himself up onto the running board. “Dewey?” he said. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “I’m busy, man. Some other time.” Dewey’s eyes, normally bloodshot anyway, were red-rimmed, the whites lined with broken veins and damp with unshed tears.

  “I’m sorry, Dew,” he said. “I didn’t realize you knew Wanita.”

  “Ah, shit, Nick. What am I gonna do now?” With a snort of anguish, the beefy man who stood six-six in his stocking feet broke down and cried.

  Nick walked around the truck and climbed up into the cab beside him. The man’s grief was hard to watch. Who would have thought that this easygoing, hard-drinking good ole boy would fall for a woman who was, among other things, a prostitute and a junkie? Nick sat there silently and let him get it out of his system, and then he pulled a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to him. Dewey took it, blew his massive red nose, and handed it back.

  “Keep it,” Nick said. “No knowing when it might come in handy.”

  Dewey nodded and tucked it into the pocket of the suit that was a couple sizes too small. “Ready to talk about it?” Nick said.