“I was told that you gave Melody some money for an abortion.”
“My, my. You cut to the chase quickly, don’t you?” She moved from the sofa back to the bar and began mixing another Boston. Her measurements were not what one might call exact in the making of her drink. A splash here, a heavier splash there. Most bars would have fired her for excess in selling their booze.
“Not much of a bartender, are you?”
She laughed.
“I mix for my own pleasure. It’s my brandy and I’ll drink what I want.”
“Here, here,” I said as I raised my coffee cup to toast her blustering. “Any truth to what I was told about you and Melody and the abortion?”
She stood at the bar and drank slowly. Her eyes were watering as she swallowed the heavy liquored drink.
“Yes, it is true. She was ruining her future and I wanted to help.”
“Did she take the money?” I said.
“Of course she took the money. My daughter was no …,” she stopped before finishing her thought. I figured she was about to say the word fool, and then had second thoughts about the line.
“But she didn’t get the abortion,” I said.
“No,” she said as she mixed another Boston.
“Do me a favor and hold off on that third Boston, Duchess,” I said.
She was startled at my request. She stared at me, probably trying to form some sentence that reflected her disdain and pomposity at my audacity.
“The last time we were together,” I continued, “it ended up with me sleeping over and you hung over. Let’s try for a different ending this time.”
She poured herself some coffee and returned to the sofa.
“Stupid me. I drink to forget but all it does is play havoc with my liver and embarrass me in front of people. I can’t forget. It simply will not go away. I failed my daughter and it cost me dearly.”
I swallowed the remainder of my coffee and waited to see if she would say more. The silence was not altogether unpleasant.
“You’re not going to try to console me?” she said.
“Not my job.”
“You’d make a lousy priest,” she said.
“Probably.”
“Want to listen to more of my confession?”
“That I can do, but first let me get a refill,” I said.
I walked to the bar, poured another cup and was heading back to the sofa.
“I was jealous of my daughter. She had everything I didn’t. My jealousy got the better of me and I did something horrible.”
“You slept with Raney Goforth,” I said as I sat down.
“You’re a helluva detective,” she said.
“I am.”
“Is there anything you do not know about me and my daughter?”
“I don’t know who persuaded her to kill herself.”
“So you don’t think I did that?”
“I do not.”
32
It was the middle of the afternoon and the Duchess was asleep on her bed. She didn’t pass out on me this time. We had a light lunch of chicken salad sandwiches, some sweet and sour pickles, and drinks. We talked about the weather, the city of Boston, and her lack of knowledge about the Commonwealth of Virginia. The subject of Melody was on hold for the time being.
She did say that she was surprised at my summation of the investigation thus far concerning Melody’s suicide. Food and trivialities got in the way after that, so I was sitting in the living room, thumbing through magazines while I waited on her to end her power nap for the day.
I had more questions, needed some more answers, and I didn’t want to return to Boston without them.
“Do you think I caused her suicide by sleeping with Raney?” she said from the doorway to the library.
She had obviously just awakened and had walked around her mansion in search of me straight from the bed. She had failed to pass go or look into a mirror. Disheveled would have been the best word to describe her appearance at that moment. I expect that her thinking was as unkempt as her hair and clothes.
“Unless you were the person standing by encouraging her to set fire to herself and then somehow getting her to pull the trigger and shoot herself in the head, you didn’t cause Melody’s death.”
“Graphic,” she said. “What’s this about a person standing by?”
I explained what the Norfolk lab had found in the recording.
“Someone watched my daughter do that to herself?” she said.
“Apparently.”
“And made no effort to stop her?”
“None that was recorded on that tape,” I said.
“What sort of monster would do that sort of thing?”
“I think your question implies the only answer that makes sense to me,” I said.
“My guess is that the recording does not show a face,” Duchess said.
“Head and hand, nothing more.”
“Not much to go on.”
“It’s more than I had when I started.”
“Promise me something, Clancy,” she said.
“If I can.”
“Don’t stop pressing until you have the answer.”
“Answers, Duchess. I have several questions. I’m seeking answers for all of them.”
“Does that mean you won’t stop?”
“Ever relentless, that would be my motto, if I had one,” I said.
“I’m glad you’re on this.”
“Where’d you meet Raney Goforth?” I said.
“Melody introduced him to me,” she said. “Brought him home one weekend from college.”
“That when you seduced him?”
“Blunt, aren’t we?”
“I don’t like bushes nor beating around them.”
“I took an opportunity on a Saturday afternoon when Melody was away from the house. Raney and I shared some drinks, one thing led to another, and we ended up in bed together.”
“Sounds like a romance novel,” I said.
“Well, at least I proved that he wasn’t the faithful type.”
“Yeah, you proved that.”
“How did Melody find out?”
“She walked in on us.”
33
Sam and I spent the night at a motel near the Regis campus instead of returning to Boston. I didn’t think it was a good idea to stay with Duchess Legrand, so we drove towards the campus and found a clean place to bed down. I wanted to talk with Raney again. Relentless, my would-be motto.
Two muffins, one doughnut, a soaring sugar count, along with three cups of coffee into my vigil netted some results. Becky showed up like a magnet. She must have been attracted to the muffins. It crossed my mind that she was secretly hiding out waiting to see if I might show again.
“Like this is a regular routine for you or something,” she said as she sat down at my table. “Buy me a couple of muffins and I’ll tell you where you can find Raney.”
“This a shakedown?” I said.
“What’s a shakedown?” she said.
Innocence knows no limitations.
“Never mind. Blueberry or something really high risk?” I said and stood up.
“Like, whatever. I’m famished.”
I returned with a double chocolate walnut and a banana cream. You would have thought it was Christmas morning. The girl must never eat. College seems to be getting way too expensive. An eating disorder also crossed my mind.
I waited until she had finished the banana cream and was halfway done with the double chocolate before I pressed her for the details.
“See that table over by the doorway with those hunks?” she said and pointed with the remains of her double chocolate.
I nodded.
“Like he’s the one with his back to us.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’ve been conned?” I said.
“Like a girl’s got to eat,” she said and winked at me.
“You want something else before I go?”
“You got some c
oins for a drink?”
I put a five dollar bill on the table, patted her on the back, and walked towards Raney Goforth and the hunks. I kept my eye on Raney and his cohorts for fear that he might see me coming and force me to chase him down in front of God and everybody. The last thing I wanted to do was run after some college kid while full of muffins, coffee, and a doughnut. Ugh.
One of Raney’s friends noticed that I had a bead on them, nudged Raney who turned and saw me coming. Instead of running, Raney stood as I approached and smiled.
“Still noising around, detective?” he said with an air of superiority. His demeanor was different from our last encounter.
“Ever the bloodhound,” I said. “Let’s go somewhere and talk privately.”
“You can say what you want in front of my friends,” he said.
“I think it would be better for us to talk alone.”
“I got no secrets from these guys.”
“Let’s move to another spot,” I insisted.
“This is fine, right here, these guys know me and I trust them.”
“Suit yourself. So tell me how it was that you knocked up Melody, talked her out of the abortion, and then screwed her mother?” I said as I sat down in the only available chair at the table.
The three tables full of more hunks and co-eds close by us stopped talking immediately. The hunks at our table froze and watched Raney who was clearly taken aback by the question. I hated to embarrass the kid, but I had to get his attention and to take a stab at deflating his adolescent attitude.
“Damn, you know how to hurt a guy,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”
“Great idea,” I said as I followed him out of the College Café.
“Where’d you get all of that crap?” he said as he leaned against a rock wall near the parking lot where Sam was waiting patiently for me in the car.
“So what’s true and what’s false?”
“Guilty of sleeping with both the mom and the daughter. Not my finest hour, but, what can I say? The mother came on to me and, like, I couldn’t resist her. She wanted it, so I obliged.”
“Lost your knighthood, huh?”
“Hey, this is the twenty-first century, lady. You need to get a life if you think a guy my age is going to turn down some good looking woman, even if she is your girlfriend’s mother. You want it, I’ll give it to you.”
“So much for the art of restraint.”
“Why should I restrain myself?”
“Indeed. So, what about the abortion?”
“I didn’t know anything about Melody being pregnant. She never told me that. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“And your involvement with the good Reverend Fletcher?”
“I have no involvement with any preacher,” he said.
“So why were you tailing us a few days ago. I spotted you in a silver truck.”
“I was just curious about where you were headed.”
“You’ll have to do better than that. Lying takes practice and a good memory. So, give me something else. I will find the truth, sooner or later.”
He pawed the ground with his right shoe while he thought about something. While he was considering his answer, I noticed a table and two chairs close to us. I walked in that direction and Raney followed. Still thinking, I suppose.
“You’re involved with the Church of the Real End, right?”
“Like what does involved mean?”
“You’re a writer and don’t know the meaning of words?”
“Okay, I do some odd jobs for the Fletcher guy. He pays me well, but I’m not one of his members or anything. Like the guy is strangely weird. You know, seriously weird. His entire setup is just, like, out there. Like really out there.”
Succinct. So much for the art of mincing words to say nothing of Raney and his writing career.
“And you follow me around town at his behest?” I said.
“He paid me to tail you, you know, like keep an eye on where you went and who you talked to.”
“And you do what you do for money?”
“Yeah, like it’s a job, you know. He pays well.”
“You do anything else for him?”
“Recruit virgins for the church.”
“Sounds like fun,” I said. “You ask or have them fill out an inventory?”
“Not as easy as you might think. Hey, this is the 21st century. Sex is out there for everyone. Hard to find virgins.”
“Every job has a downside.”
34
The noise of the sirens began in the distance and then moved closer to where Raney and I were talking. My keen sense of the noise level informed me that whatever was happening was still several blocks away, so the ruckus was not likely to disturb our conversation. However, I could tell that whatever was happening was likely something big because the sound of the sirens continued for several minutes.
“Like, something major is going on,” Raney said.
“A fire,” I said.
“How do you know that?”
“Police don’t make that much noise.”
“Oh. Fire must be close by,” he offered.
“Let’s talk about your virgin-work with the Church of the Real End,” I said.
“What’s there to talk about? I did some recruiting for the preacher.”
“To what end?”
“You mean why did he want virgins recruited?”
“You surmise succinctly.”
“Had to do with some ritual he performed.”
“What type of ritual?”
“Not sure about that.”
I had the feeling he was lying.
“What did the good preacher do with the virgins?”
He squirmed a bit in his seat, moving around uncomfortably, it seemed, and then looking from side to side as if expecting someone to approach.
“Are you scared of something?” I said.
“Naw. I ain’t afraid of anything. Just don’t like talkin’ about that weird church.”
“So what was the ritual you spoke of?”
“Nothing but sex. He had sex with the girls.”
“So what’s so uneasy about that? You’re from the enlightened generation, the twenty-first century, or so you said.”
“I don’t know. It was the way he did it.”
“You saw him?”
“Everybody saw him,” he said.
“Explain that.”
“He had sex with the girls in front of the congregation. It was like a public orgy. My background is Catholic and it just didn’t seem right, you know? Like he was sayin ‘in your face, God, in your face.’ I wasn’t too comfortable with all that.”
“So this virgin ritual was for the whole church community?”
“I guess. Like it was done in front of everybody in that place where they worship. I like sex and all, but I figure it should be done privately.”
“Some discretion,” I said.
“Whatever. Not a public performance.”
“So the preacher had sex in front of the congregation with a virgin.”
“Several.”
“Lots of rituals.”
“Naw, just one. He had sex with seven different girls in one ritual event.”
“You brought him seven?” I said.
“Yeah, that was a trick. Finding seven virgins was not the easiest thing to do.”
“I can only imagine. Probably paid you well,” I said.
“A C note per virgin. Good money,” he said as if proud of himself.
We were both drinking while the sirens continued in the background of our stimulating conversation. He was working on a can of diet cola and I was gulping down high-test coffee. Considering the direction our little intimate exchange was taking, I was wishing that I was nursing a double Scotch instead of strong coffee. Or maybe a Boston or straight whiskey.
“So what happened to the young women after Fletcher was finished with them?”
“You mean after the ritual?”
“Precisely.”
“Nothing, I guess. They would be fed and paid and went their merry way, I reckon. Like, they enjoyed it.”
“Paid?” I said.
“Not money or such. More like given gifts and all. I don’t know all of those details. But I do know that they were rewarded for having sex with him in the ritual.”
“And the preacher was the only one who engaged in this act?” I said.
“Like he’s the kingpin, you know. Yeah, nobody else in the church would do this…” he paused for a few seconds, “…well, nobody else but his daughter, the priestess, you know.”
“So she did this as well?”
“Once, that I saw. She didn’t seem to enjoy the fanfare or the publicity, if you please, as much as the preacher.”
“Was Melody one of the seven you brought?”
“No. Like, I didn’t bring Melody. I think she was recruited by Sandra,” he explained.
“So she was not one of the seven on this occasion?”
“No. The Reverend Fletcher saved her for a singular performance.”
“Seven wasn’t the normal routine?”
“The seven-time gig was simply the prelude to the big show, you might say. Like, he was preparing the way for the big one,” Raney said and then downed the remainder of his cola.
The sirens were still blasting away. Whatever was happening several blocks away was something significant. And it was happening for a long spell.
My cell phone rang before I could ask Raney my next question. It was Uncle Walters.
“I’m watching television,” he said. “Are you aware of what’s happening near you?”
“I’m sitting outside a small cafe near the campus of Regis College talking with Raney Goforth about sex rituals in worship. I have no idea what’s going on nearby,” I said.
“Wow, that sounds interesting, to say the least.”
“Stimulating, if you are into that kind of religion.”
“Well, I can only imagine that he is informing you about the Church of the Near End,” he said.
“Church of the Real End,” I corrected him.
“Whatever, it’s about to undergo a name change out of necessity.”
Desperate Measures: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 5) Page 12