by Ken Oder
Elwood looked down at the toes of his boots. “What did she have to say about it?”
“She cried.”
Elwood shot Cole a surprised look. His face flushed. He stared at Cole hollow-eyed, his lips quivering. Then he looked out at the field and clenched his jaw.
They stood silently side by side for a good while, Cole’s iliac crest throbbing. The cow standing in the creek stretched out her neck and let out a long, low moan. A cow on the slope answered. And then a third.
“I reckon you heard about my wife a while back,” Cole said.
“I heard, and I’m mighty sorry for it.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Cole took a deep breath and let it out. He propped his hands on his hips and arched his back. “I realize it’s none of my business and you didn’t ask for my advice, but if I was you, I’d go up to the house and talk to my wife.”
“It’s too late for that.”
“It’s not too late as long as she’s still here.”
Elwood glanced at Cole and looked back out at the field.
“Thank you for your help,” Cole said.
He left the barn, climbed the hill, and walked around the house to his car. He climbed into it slowly, groaning as he dragged his trailing leg inside. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. When the pain subsided, he mopped his face with a kerchief, and thought about Bessie Tilden’s boyfriend theory. Elwood didn’t murder Betty Lou, but an earlier boyfriend might have killed her. Cole recalled his conversation with Kelly McNiel about rumors of Betty Lou engaging in affairs carried out with discretion behind closed doors. Normally, Cole would have dismissed the rumors as unreliable gossip, but at the moment, they stood alone in an otherwise barren field of information.
Cole started the car and headed down the driveway to Whippoorwill Hollow Road.
Chapter Twenty
The Preacher
March 4, 1967, Saturday noon
At noon, Cole arrived at Grace Church and parked in front of the wrought iron fence that separated the churchyard from the cemetery. He looked across the rows of headstones that ran to the foot of Feather Mountain. On the far side of the cemetery, Reverend Willis Chatham moved among the graves, his big shoulders swaying back and forth as he walked, leaned over, bent down.
Cole got out of the car. The sun beat down scorching hot, the mercury pushing the hundred degree mark, the warmest March day in Cole’s memory. Sweat soaked his shirt as he went through the cemetery gate and walked past the tombstones, keeping his eyes away from Carrie’s grave in the southernmost corner.
The preacher looked up at Cole and tossed his gardening gloves in a wheelbarrow filled with plastic pots and dead flowers, his shirt also drenched.
Cole nodded to him. “Preacher.”
“Sheriff.”
The preacher wiped sweat from his face with a kerchief and swept his hand through his unruly mane of coarse black hair. “How are you?” he said, his violet eyes searching Cole’s face.
“Fine, thank you.” Cole moved on quickly so the preacher wouldn’t ask him about Carrie. “I’m told you have information about Betty Lou Mundy.”
The preacher paused. “Who told you that?”
“I dropped by Gertie Wilson’s shop this morning. I asked her about gossip she’s been passing along that Betty Lou was unfaithful to Leland. She didn’t want to admit to spreading rumors, so she threw you to the wolves. She claims she heard Leland and Betty Lou came to you for marital counseling.”
The preacher smiled. “Gertie knows everything that goes on in Selk County, and quite a few things that don’t.” His smile drifted away and he took a deep breath. “Let’s sit in the shade.” He led Cole back across the cemetery and through the gate. A line of picnic tables sat along the fence under pine trees. The preacher sat down at the table nearest the gate. Cole sat across from him.
“It’s interesting you came by here today,” the preacher said. “I’ve been worried about whether I should talk to you. My bishop says the priest-penitent privilege prohibits revealing parishioners’ confidences even after their deaths.” The preacher shook his head. “He’s long on book learning, but short on common sense. The way I see it, Betty Lou and Leland would want me to tell you what I know. I had decided I’d talk to you, but I hadn’t built up the courage to defy the bishop’s orders yet. I guess the Good Lord sent you to me to give me a shove.”
“The Good Lord and Gertie Wilson.”
The preacher smiled. “He works in mysterious ways.”
“So I’ve heard.” Cole took his notepad and pencil out of his shirt pocket. “When did you meet with the Mundys?”
“Betty Lou came to see me five years ago. She had an affair and Leland found out about it. He had left her. She was racked with guilt and self-loathing.”
“Who was the man?”
“She didn’t name him, but from our conversations I gathered he was an older man, in his sixties. Married, educated, well-off.”
“Why did she take up with a man so much older than she was?”
“She said she had craved the attention of older men since she was a little girl.”
“Why?”
The preacher folded his hands on top of the table and looked down at them. “Betty Lou’s childhood was horrific. Her father died when she was seven years old, and her mother turned to prostitution.” A look of revulsion came across the preacher’s face. “When Betty Lou was ten years old, one of her mother’s customers molested her. She had a hard time talking about it, but as best I could tell, this man assaulted her on a regular basis for several years until she ran away from home.”
Anger welled up inside Cole. This had occurred when he was a young deputy sheriff. He couldn’t shake the feeling he should have known about it and put a stop to it.
“Betty Lou couldn’t afford a psychiatrist,” the preacher continued, “and I’m not a competent substitute, but I read everything I could find about child molestation and talked to church members across the state who are experts. Betty Lou’s father was good to her and prevented Hazel from mistreating her. When he died, Hazel was free to abuse Betty Lou as she pleased. Two of the psychiatrists I talked to thought the little girl inside Betty Lou pursued older men in search of the affection and security her father gave her.” The preacher wiped sweat from his face with his hand and dried it on his pants leg. “They said molestation as a young child often translates into a highly sexualized adulthood. I’m not smart enough to know if they’re right, but it was obvious to me Betty Lou’s sexual attraction to older men was a powerful compulsion, like an addiction.”
“How did Leland fit into that picture?”
“She said Leland was the only man her age who treated her with kindness and respect. She fell in love with him and married him, hoping to put the misery of her childhood behind her, but shortly after their marriage her compulsion overwhelmed her and she had an affair with an older man.”
“Shortly after their marriage,” Cole repeated.
The preacher nodded.
Leland and Betty Lou had been married about twenty years when she was killed. Bessie Tilden had guessed that the nude photograph of Betty Lou took place about fifteen years ago, but her memory was imprecise and she said it could have been longer ago than that, so the timing of this first affair might fit.
“Betty Lou said Leland never knew about that affair,” the preacher said. “Apparently it ended badly, with some sort of catastrophe. She wouldn’t give me the details, but she said the tragedy helped her to resist her urges after that. She claimed she was faithful to Leland until the affair of five years ago.”
“Why did Leland stay with her after that affair?”
“I reached out to him, and he met with me and Betty Lou. She told him everything. He was angry and hurt, like you’d expect, but it was clear to me that he loved her. When she told him about her childhood, he cried. Eventually he forgave her and rose above his jealousy. He was one of the strongest men I ever met.” The preacher rubbed his eyes
wearily and put his palms on his thighs. “Their marriage seemed stable until last summer. Leland came to see me and said Betty Lou had taken up with another man. He suspected it was the same man she’d turned to five years ago. I tried to reach out to her, but she refused to meet with me. Then she showed up at the front door of the parsonage at nightfall on Christmas. She was in a bad way. Sobbing. Drunk.”
“Why was she so upset?”
The preacher looked at Cole wearily. “She said she believed Leland had been seeing her sister, Reba.”
“What made her suspect that?”
“She said something about a perfume she smelled on him. I knew she was right about the affair. Leland had confessed to me that he slept with Reba when Betty Lou began seeing the man last summer, but he told me about it in confidence so I didn’t tell her what he said. She didn’t need my confirmation, though. She was certain of it. She was angry and hurt, but she didn’t blame Reba for it. She blamed her mother. She said Hazel ruined both their lives by selling them to men for sex, and that she and Reba couldn’t maintain a normal relationship with a man or lead a normal life because of it. She was so upset that I was afraid she might harm herself. I tried to persuade her to spend the night with Irene and me at the parsonage, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I asked her to let me call Leland and have him join us. She refused that, too, and told me I couldn’t tell Leland she knew about him and Reba. I begged her to stay and let me help her, but she said that no one could help her. She finally ran out to her car and drove away.”
Cole looked out at the cemetery, thinking. As best he could recall, Betty Lou’s mother, Hazel, died that same night. “What time did she leave?”
“About eight o’clock. I wish I could have convinced her to allow me to call Leland. Despite his affair with Reba, he loved Betty Lou and wanted to save the marriage.” A look of abject defeat came across the preacher’s face. “During the weeks before her murder, he met with me every Sunday, searching for guidance and strength. I didn’t have much to offer him, and I never told him that Betty Lou knew about him and Reba because of the bishop’s almighty priest-penitent privilege. I wish now I’d told him everything. It might have made a difference. I failed him. I failed them both.”
“You did everything you could do,” Cole said.
The preacher shook his head. “Leland’s jealousy and frustration overwhelmed him, and he killed her and turned the gun on himself. I was their only chance of overcoming their problems, and I failed them.”
“It’s not clear that Leland killed her.”
The preacher looked up. “Is there a chance someone else murdered her?”
“Some of the evidence points away from him. Is there anything you can tell me that might shed light on her murder?”
The preacher thought for a moment. “Nothing substantive. Only an opinion. I saw Leland the Sunday before the murder. He didn’t act as though he could have killed Betty Lou. In fact, he was miserable because he still loved her.”
Cole stood and extended his hand. “Thank you, Preacher. You’ve been a big help.”
The preacher stood and they shook. The preacher’s violet eyes bored in on Cole. Cole turned and walked away without giving him a chance to ask about Carrie.
When Cole reached his car, he glanced in the direction of Carrie’s grave, then climbed in awkwardly, his back stiff. He sat behind the wheel and watched the preacher walk back through the cemetery.
The preacher couldn’t give him the name of Betty Lou’s boyfriend of last summer, but someone must know who he is. If Betty Lou found Elwood at Kelly’s Place, she might have picked up her previous boyfriend there, too. It was worth another talk with Kelly McNiel.
Chapter Twenty-One
A Sense of Urgency
March 4, 1967, Saturday afternoon
That afternoon, Kelly McNiel stood behind her bar across from Archie Snyder, who was on his regular stool at the end nearest the back door. His gray combover clung to his head like spider webbing, covering less of his freckled scalp than showed through, his heavy-lidded watery eyes bloodshot, his nose purple-veined and cankered. Kelly slid a glass of red wine to him, his second of the afternoon. Archie grasped it with a pale claw and downed it in several deep gulps. He set the empty glass on the bar, pulled the corners of his thin lips down into the folds of his jowls, and belched. “Water,” he croaked.
Kelly drew a tumbler of water over ice. “Same routine every time you come in,” she said as she set the water in front of him. “Two glasses of wine with a water chaser.”
“Secret to my good looks and winning personality.”
“What’s on for today?”
“Hot date for the early-bird supper.” He cradled the tumbler of water in both tremulous hands, drank it down in one long turn, set it on the bar, and belched again.
“Who’s the lucky girl?”
“Tilly Goodstone.”
“You’re moving in fast. Fred’s only been dead a few weeks.”
“When you’re ninety-four, it pays to drop the landing gear early. The runway is mighty short.”
Archie claimed to be an ace World War I fighter pilot, but Kelly didn’t believe him. He would have been over forty at the start of the Great War, as he called it, and he was known for spinning tall tales, most of which featured himself as an epic hero, but she didn’t call his bluff. She figured when you live to be as old as Archie, you’re entitled to a few fantasies. “How old is Tilly?”
“Eighty-two.”
“Robbing the cradle again.”
Archie’s pile of wrinkles scrunched into a frown. “I hope she’s not too young to understand my sense of urgency.” He drew in a long breath and let it out nervously. “You’d better pour me another glass of wine.”
She poured the wine. As she set the glass down, Cole Grundy walked in the back door. She’d been thinking about Cole since they’d met in her office yesterday. She felt a strange tightness in the pit of her stomach when she saw him. His eyes settled on her and the tightness became a knot as he walked over to the bar.
“You have a few minutes?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said, in as casual a tone as she could manage.
She called a waitress over to tend to Archie and led Cole to a booth in the back corner.
Cole took off his hat and set it on the table. He looked worse than he had yesterday, his face more pallid, the bags under his eyes bigger and darker.
“I spoke with Elwood Critzer this morning. He was with his wife when Betty Lou was murdered. I’ve tracked down Gertie’s rumors as far as I can trace them and turned up no names. I’m back to square one. I thought maybe there’s a chance we missed something yesterday. Are you sure Betty Lou never met another man here?”
For some unknown reason, his question about the murder set her on edge. She fell silent, trying to figure out why. She’d hoped his visit was not about police business, she supposed, but that made little sense, given he was the county sheriff.
“Kelly?”
“Yes. Well, we canvassed the entire staff. No one saw her with anyone other than Elwood. We searched our records going back two years. You have the only receipts we found.”
Cole tapped the brim of his hat, his face a portrait of dejection. When a faint spark flickered in his sad brown eyes, her stomach fluttered.
“What about the parking lot?”
Another swell of disappointment put her off. “What?”
“The night Betty Lou was murdered she drove Elwood to a motel and brought him back at three a.m. to his truck parked in your lot. It’s possible someone waited in his car out there and followed her home from here. Did any of your help see a car in the lot late that night?”
Her disappointment turned to irritation. “We close at two,” she said sharply. Realizing her aggravation was irrational, she reined herself in and forced herself to answer in a reasonable voice. “We lock up and leave here by two thirty. Even if we stayed late that night, we wouldn’t have considered a car parked in the lot at t
hree as remarkable. Heavy drinkers sometimes leave their cars in the lot overnight and take a cab home. It’s a frequent occurrence on Saturday nights.”
Cole seemed sensitive to her earlier sharp tone. “I’m sorry to cause you more trouble, but would you mind asking your staff if any of them saw a car out there in the lot that night?”
“It’s no trouble. I’ll talk to them and let you know what I find out.”
“Thanks for your help. Like I said, I’m sorry to bother you, but I don’t have much to go on in this case.” He grabbed his hat and started to get up.
She put her hand over his. “Wait. Don’t go.”
He looked at her curiously.
Faced with his departure, her thoughts flashed back over her meeting with him yesterday and her conversation with Rachel the night before, and she suddenly understood her feelings. It took her breath way. She drew her hand back and blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.
There was an awkward silence between them while he stared at her, looking mystified. It gave her time to calm her emotions and decide what she wanted. As with her business dealings and everything she’d done since Charley walked out on her, she resolved to go after it. “Can you stay for supper?”
“What?”
“Stay and have supper with me. We haven’t talked in ten years. Let’s catch up.”
His confusion seemed to mount. “I . . . I don’t have time.” He stood. “I’m late for a meeting at headquarters.”
“It’s Saturday afternoon. Don’t you ever take an evening off?”
“I . . . We’re working hard.” He seemed flustered. “I don’t have time.”
“How long since you talked to anyone about something other than one of your cases?”
He gripped his hat tightly in both hands. His face flushed.
“Take a break, Cole. Have supper with me. I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing for the last decade. I haven’t murdered anyone recently so it’ll be a change of pace from your daily routine.” She smiled.