by Alice Duncan
“Did you know that he wrote threatening letters to Mrs.—I mean Sister Chalmers?”
Sister Everett’s eyes widened, and she turned her head to look at me. “Goodness gracious, no! Did he really? Is the man insane?”
“I don’t know. Writing threatening letters certainly isn’t a very nice thing to do.”
“Do you believe he might be guilty of the woman’s death?” Sister Everett went back to tidying the sanctuary.
“I thought so, but he seems to have a solid alibi. The police have looked into his whereabouts at the time of the crime thoroughly.”
Frowning, Sister Everett said, “Hmm. That’s too bad.”
Her words surprised me a little bit, even though I agreed with them. Mr. Pinkney would have made a great villain. “Yes, it is, but now we have to find out who else might have had a motive for her murder.”
“I shouldn’t think there would be a paucity of suspects,” Sister Everett said dryly.
“Oh? Why is that?”
We’d worked ourselves to the middle of the sanctuary, Sister Everett tossing bulletins away and tidying up hymnals and Bibles like a mechanical wind-up doll, and I following meekly in her wake, straightening hymnals and Bibles and picking up extraneous trash.
Still frowning, she said, “Sister Chalmers was an odd woman.”
She could say that again! “She was? In what way?”
“I don’t mean to speak harshly of the dead, but she did some very strange things from time to time. She was forever fainting during the sermon—from an excess of heavenly zeal, she said.” From the tone of her voice, I gathered Sister Everett believed the fainter had other motives. “She certainly garnered unto herself a lot of attention when she did that. From lots of men. As well as women.” She added that last comment almost grudgingly.
My goodness! Could we have been wrong about Mr. Chalmers? Had he been jealous of his wife’s attending church here for personal reasons? I struggled to find a tactful way to find out.
“Um . . . do you think Mrs. Chalmers was . . . ah, trying to attract the attention of men? Or of one man in particular?” I hate to admit it, since it points out my own naivety, but I was shocked. Intellectually, I knew that men and women had affairs with other people’s spouses all the time, but . . . well, I was still shocked. And I worked for a private investigator who pursued straying spouses all the time. Maybe there was no hope for me. Dismal thought.
Lifting her chin a bit, Sister Everett said, “I couldn’t say. All I’m saying is that she got a good deal more than her fair share of attention with her antics.”
“What kinds of antics? Besides fainting, I mean.” For that matter, Mrs. Pinkney did her fair share of fainting, although I believed she could be acquitted of doing so in order to grab attention. The poor woman was, as Lulu had so astutely judged, merely lost.
“Oh, those silly clothes she wore, and the flighty way she had about her. And she’d fall into what she called ‘ecstasies’ during the sermons. Ecstasies, my foot.”
Without meaning to, I glanced at Sister Everett’s feet. They were big. Really big. They went well with the rest of her. Feet aside, once again I gathered the impression that Sister Everett hadn’t cared for Sister Chalmers. At all. Could it be that Brother Everett . . . ? Thinking about the short, slightly bald man who was this woman’s husband and who, from all accounts, adored her, I decided that was a no-go, as Ernie might have said. Not that Brother Everett couldn’t have been taken with Sister Chalmers, but that Sister Chalmers had returned his favor? No. In fact, the thought was vaguely revolting. Because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I said, “I see” again.
By that time we’d reached the back of the sanctuary, and Sister Everett led me to the stairs to the upper gallery, which had been packed both of the Sundays I’d gone to the Hall, as had the lower sanctuary, where Mrs. Pinkney, Lulu, and I had sat. “We’ll tidy up the gallery last. Sister Emmanuel holds services most evenings, you know, so this is a never-ending job for me.”
“You do it very well,” I said, hoping to make her warm to me. She sniffed, so I guess my ploy didn’t work. Therefore, I decided to probe a bit more on the Chalmers’ theme. “What else did Sister Chalmers do? I mean, I always thought she was kind of . . . overly dramatic, I guess. When I saw her, I mean. When she came to Mr. Templeton’s office about her stolen jewelry.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin when Sister Everett turned on me, her face red with fury. She was kind of scary when she got mad, probably because she was so big. She looked kind of like a lady wrestler, actually.
“Stolen jewelry! She donated that jewelry to the church, and then she lied about it!”
“Oh, you knew about that?” I said, not really surprised but a trifle stunned by her anger over the matter. By that time, we’d entered the gallery and started tidying the first row of pews.
“Everyone knows about that. She donated the jewelry to the church and then lied and said it had been stolen. Brazen, lying, sinner!”
My goodness.
Her eyes narrowing, Sister Everett maneuvered so that she was behind me. “Why are you asking me all these questions, anyway? I don’t believe you came here to speak with Sister Emmanuel at all. I think you’re here to talk to me. Why is that, Sister Allcutt?”
It was then I began to get the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach that I might just be in the presence of a madwoman.
Chapter Sixteen
Feeling slightly panicky, I looked out over the balcony to the sanctuary, which seemed an awfully long way down from up there in the gallery. Rats. Everyone seemed to have deserted the Hall. Just when I might need one of them.
Or maybe not. After all, I didn’t know this woman was crazy. Not for a fact. Although she appeared pretty darned nuts to me at that moment. But even if she was as crazy as a loon, she wasn’t a threat to me. Was she? I sure hoped not. She was so big, she could probably squash me like a bug if she took it into her head to do so.
“Um . . . I really want to speak with Sister Emmanuel, Sister Everett. That’s why I came here today. Don’t you remember? I asked for her when I first arrived. I was hoping she might give me some insight into Mrs. Chalmers’ character. I think it’s important to ascertain the character of a person who was murdered in order to gain insight into who might have murdered her.” Very well, so I was babbling. You try interrogating someone you suspect of being a madwoman someday and see how well you do it.
“Character? Bah. The woman had no character.”
“Oh.” So much for that. “But I did ask to see Sister Emmanuel, if you’ll recall.”
Sister Everett seemed to creep toward me, so I backed up a little. Not that I was scared. Well, all right, I was scared, although I wasn’t yet sure why.
“I remember you asked, but I didn’t believe you then, and I don’t believe you now.”
I decided to put on my Boston clothes and see how they fitted. Straightening and looking Sister Everett straight in the eyes, which was a stretch—literally—I demanded, “Do you routinely accuse people who attend the Angelica Gospel Hall of lying, Sister Everett? Perhaps Sister Emmanuel might have something to say about that.”
“Ha. Sister Emmanuel is as gullible as anyone else with a clean conscience. She believed that Chalmers fiend’s fancy airs and her lies, and I’m sure she’ll believe you. If you ever get the chance to speak with her.”
Oh, my. This situation was becoming quite disconcerting. I tried lifting an eyebrow in the imperious gesture my mother used to such good effect. “I’m sure Sister Emmanuel is as good and clean of conscience as you believe her to be. But you must be hiding some pretty ghastly sins if you can imagine things about people that she can’t. I meant exactly what I said when I came here today. I wanted to speak with Sister Emmanuel, yet you persist on believing I lied. Why is that, Sister Everett?”
She started snarling at me, and I decided Boston wasn’t going to work in this case. “You know why. Yes, I have sins on my conscience. But I also sa
ved Sister Emmanuel from the clutches of an evil, deceitful woman! I saved the church! It was I who did that! I!”
Goodness gracious. I swallowed and said in a small voice, Boston completely forgotten, “You mean you . . .” For some reason, the end of the sentence got stuck in my throat.
“I am a good and loyal daughter of the Lord,” she said, still snarling.
“Are you? Do good and loyal daughters of the Lord routinely accuse other church attendees of being wicked and sinful?”
“Don’t you talk to me like that, you wretched sinner!”
“You don’t even know me! How do you know I’m a sinner?”
“I know. I can tell.”
“I thought it was up to God to judge.” I’d been backing up steadily, but she’d been stalking me. Unfortunately she had a bigger stride than I, and she was gaining on me. It occurred to me that perhaps I shouldn’t be baiting the woman. On the other hand, I could probably run faster than she, being younger and, with luck, more agile.
“God uses his minions here on earth to carry out His will.”
“And you think it was God’s will that somebody murder Mrs. Chalmers?” Good grief. The woman truly was a nut case, as Ernie might have said.
“I know it was His will,” she said firmly.
“How do you know that?” I thought it was a good question. Did God speak to this woman on a daily basis? If He did, He was a lot more kindhearted than I was. All I wanted was to get away from her.
“I know. God told me so.”
Very well. That answered my last question. “Um . . . He did?”
“Yes. He did.”
“He said she needed killing?” I’d heard people say that some people needed killing, but I’d never heard them say God wanted them to do the deed.
“Yes.”
“Um . . . and what did you say when God told you that?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. Or maybe I was only nervous because I thought I knew the answer already.
I was right about that.
“I killed her,” Sister Everett said baldly. “And I saved the church by doing it.”
“Oh.”
This would never do. That squeaky “oh” shamed me. Squaring my shoulders yet one more time, I said, “And you drugged Mrs. Chalmers and my boss, Ernest Templeton? And you tied my boss up and gagged him and dragged him upstairs?”
She sneered. “Yes. Yes, I did those things. Your boss! What’s a young lady like you doing with a boss? You should be home with your family until you marry some poor man who’ll watch out for you and take care of you. You have no business with a boss.”
“He must have been really heavy.”
Her smile was truly ghastly. “I’m a very strong woman, Sister Allcutt.”
Oh, dear. I hope she hadn’t received any messages from God regarding me. “Um . . . is that so?”
“Yes. That’s so. And he’s told me what to do about you, too.”
Golly, she sounded like my mother. Only more sinister.
“Well, you won’t get away with it. I won’t see my bo—Mr. Templeton framed for a murder he didn’t commit.”
She started coming at me again. Since I was standing at the middle of the first pew, I decided to try for some kind of escape. The stairs down from the gallery seemed a long way off, but not as far down as the path straight through the air to the pews in the sanctuary. Therefore, although I felt cowardly about it, I ran up the stairs in the center aisle. Naturally, this didn’t daunt Sister Everett, who was a good deal better acquainted with the Hall than was I.
“Did you drag Mrs. Chalmers up the stairs, too?” I asked, trying to keep her talking in the hope that she’d stop and consider her answers. Didn’t work.
“Yes. They were both asleep. Drugged. I saw to that.” She giggled. Coming from such a huge woman, a giggle sounded truly insane. “She was light compared to him. I just carried her. Then I hit her on the head with a poker and threw her down the stairs.”
Oh, my goodness gracious sakes alive. “You . . . Sister Everett, that makes you a murderer. Murder is a sin. You must know that.”
“It wasn’t murder. You don’t accuse men who rid houses of rats of murder, do you? You don’t call doctors murderers when they kill the germs infecting sick people, do you? You don’t call bug exterminators murderers, do you? That’s what I did for Sister Emmanuel. I rid her of a rat. A germ. A cockroach. That woman was evil, and she was bringing evil to the Hall, and I stopped her.”
Okay, the jury was in, and the verdict was that Sister Everett was stark, staring out of her mind. Not that the verdict helped me any. I picked up a hymnal. “Don’t come any closer, Sister Everett!”
“Or what? You’ll throw a hymnal at me? Go ahead. I’ll get you, and I’ll stop your lying tongue, too!”
“I haven’t lied about anything!” I protested.
“You’re lying right now!” she screeched. She started to run after me, and I skedaddled as fast as I could. Up. I tried to go up. But once I was up as far as the gallery went, I didn’t know where to go next. I ran toward the stairs we’d come up, but the madwoman was quick, and she got there first. So I ran in the other direction. Surely there was another stairway on the other side. There was. Sister Everett got there first, too, and she loomed there like the wrath of God—an image I wished I hadn’t thought of at that moment. Oh, boy. We seemed to be kind of stuck, and it didn’t look good for yours truly.
Then Sister Everett started up the gallery’s center aisle. Every time I darted one direction, she did the same thing, but somehow or other, she seemed to be catching up with me, climbing higher and higher, while I was as high up as I could get, and there didn’t seem to be any way down, except in a way I didn’t want to go. Maybe she was quicker than I because she wasn’t burdened with a hymnal. I heaved it at her, hoping to hit her in the head. Missed by a mile. Drat!
She shrieked with laughter. “God is on my side, young woman. You’re as evil and wicked as she was! You can’t escape from God!”
“I don’t want to escape from God!” I panted. “I want to get away from you. You’re not God! You’re crazy! You’re mad! God would hate that you killed an innocent woman!”
“That Chalmers witch wasn’t an innocent woman!”
“But I am!” I said desperately.
“Huh. You’re just another silly flapper, pretending to be as good as a man and forsaking your upbringing. You and your boss. You’re as evil as she was. Maybe more.”
“I am not!” Now I was indignant as well as frightened.
She didn’t bother to answer. She didn’t have to. She was coming ever closer. So I picked up another hymnal. This time my aim was better. The book actually connected with her head, staggering her.
Leaping to take advantage of the situation, I raced for the side aisle, hoping to run down those stairs and get help, wishing for a banister I could slide down.
Unfortunately, Sister Everett regained her footing before I got to the door. Just as I had almost reached the staircase, I felt a grip like iron go round my arm. I spun around, my fist clenched, and whacked the side of Sister Everett’s head. She didn’t seem to be noticeably weakened thereby.
“You fool!” she shrieked. “You evil bitch!”
The foul word shocked me, even in that precarious situation. “Don’t you call me names!” I said, doing some screeching of my own.
It was a good thing I’d had my hair bobbed. I could grab Sister Emmanuel’s long locks, which she’d wound into a knot at the back of her head, but all she could do was flail helplessly at my shorn head. She hollered in pain when I yanked at her knot. It came undone in my hand, scattering hairpins hither and yon, and I pulled harder. She yelled again.
But she was sure strong. Probably from all that cleaning up of sanctuaries and galleries and so forth. We wrestled for what seemed like forever, always getting closer and closer to the railing separating us from a fall onto the empty pews below. I finally managed to get a hold on her with my two arms around her waist
while she hammered at me with her fists, connecting with my face and head and ears time and again. Then we hit the rail. For a second, I thought the entire railing would break away from its moorings, it shook so hard. Then Sister Everett seemed to recover, put her hands over my arms, and slowly but surely managed to loosen my grip.
“Stop it!” I cried desperately. “You don’t have to kill me, too! I’m sure the police will go easy on you when they realize you’re insane!”
That didn’t seem to be the right thing to say to her. She bellowed, “Insane, am I? I killed that Chalmers bitch because she was evil! That’s not insane! That’s doing the Lord’s work! And now I’m going to get rid of you, too, because you’re a cheating, lying cow! You came here under false pretences, and you’re as guilty as she was!”
Try as I might, I couldn’t maintain my hold on her. Anyhow, I was getting lightheaded from all the blows she was connecting with my face and head. I was going to be black and blue all over come morning. Providing I survived until morning.
But my efforts proved to be of no use. She was too strong and I was too tired, and my arms eventually slipped from her waist.
I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so as my arms came free from around her, I gave a mighty shove. My heart shot to my stomach as she flailed helplessly for a second and then, with a terrible scream, fell over the railing. Her scream was cut brutally short by a tremendous crash.
By that time, I was on my hands and knees, panting from exertion and horror. Had I really pushed a woman to her death over the balcony of a church gallery? Being such a large woman, she’d hit hard—I’d heard her land—and I doubted she’d survived. My heart scrunched up and ached almost as much as the rest of me.
Knowing I’d have to find out for myself sooner or later, I crawled to the railing, grabbed it, and somehow managed to stagger, breathless, to my feet. Wishing I could cover my eyes and knowing I couldn’t, I took a quick peek over the gallery railing.
And darned if I didn’t see Ernie Templeton, Phil Bigelow, Detective O’Reilly, Sister Emmanuel, and Brother Everett all standing there, gaping up at me, mouths open, as if I were some sort of act on a vaudeville stage!