“Ditto,” I said. “Does he have enough food?” I asked Moosey. “I don’t want you coming back up here alone until we have this sorted out.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. I brought this.” Moosey held out his brown paper bag. I opened it up and looked inside. It was full of Communion Fish.
“They’re Barabba-que,” said Moosey, pronouncing the name carefully. “Pete thought that Kokomo would like ‘em.”
“I’ll bet he will,” I said.
* * *
Dave came into the office about mid-morning, dropped into a chair, pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped it across his brow.
“It’s hot.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Did you and Nancy interview Kokomo?”
“Yep. All we got was ‘tiger man, devil tiger, water red’—that sort of stuff. Nancy has it all written down.”
“How about Bootsie Watkins?”
“Bootsie Watkins,” I replied, “is conveniently out of town until Monday.”
“Huh,” grunted Dave.
I looked out the front window, past the reverse, dark-blue lettering on the glass spelling out ‘St. Germaine Police Department,’ and into the park. I quickly counted thirty-four hunters—some going over maps, a few talking in groups of two and three, some walking toward their four-wheelers. Pete’s office was still selling gorilla licenses at the rate of about ten an hour. After the first rush, the hunters came in slowly but steadily. Even some of the residents of St. Germaine, who didn’t hunt on a regular basis, had bought a license, just in case—as L.L. Sutherlin put it—“I happen to see that gorilla walking by my bedroom window.”
“What a mess,” I said. “They’re going to find Kokomo eventually. We can’t stop them.”
“What if we can find the real killer?” asked Dave, mopping his brow again.
“That would help. Then we could get a judge to rescind the warrant. But the problem is that everyone won’t know it’s rescinded. Our best bet is to find the killer, arrange to have the warrant lifted, and then get that gorilla out of the state. Hey! Did you find that miniature Bible?”
“Nope. It wasn’t there. I went through the whole mess. I threw every piece of trash from the new dumpster back into the first one. I was careful. As far as books were concerned, there were a couple full sized Bibles, some hymnals, some kind of Bible dictionary, a complete set of New Testament commentaries—all twenty-six volumes, and a bunch of other stuff. But no miniature Bible.”
“All right, then. I’m on my way over to talk to Burt Coley.”
* * *
“Hey, Burt. It’s good to see you again.” I said, shaking his hand. “I didn’t get much of a chance to speak with you when we were busy with that gorilla. How have you been?” Burt had sung for me in the St. Barnabas choir about ten years ago. He’d been a good tenor enrolled in the music department at Appalachian State. He was one of my scholarship singers.
“Pretty good,” said Burt. “I got out of music and into law enforcement. Following your lead, I guess.”
“Ah, but I never got out of music,” I said, with a smile. “Just changed it to an avocation. Listen Burt, I’ve got to ask you some questions about Brother Jimmy Kilroy.”
“Yeah,” said Burt. “I know.”
“You want to just tell me what your relationship was and why you were there on the Friday before he was killed?”
Burt took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ve been called to the ministry. I guess you know that.”
I nodded.
“There’s a discernment process that I have to go through to get into the school that I want.”
“What school is that?” I asked.
“Tabernacle Bible Institute. It’s a conservative Bible college in Kingsport. Anyway,” Burt continued, “there are three pastors on my committee. The college contacts three ordained men of God from your area, and they interview you and listen to your testimony. Then they decide if the Lord has actually called you to the ministry.” He shrugged.
“So, what did your committee say?”
“Two of the pastors said I was fine. Brother Kilroy wasn’t so sure. He wanted me to come in every Friday for three months to talk.”
“So did you?”
“I tried to. I did it for a couple of weeks, but then we got busy. I can’t just take every Friday morning off for three months.”
“And so you told him you were going to stop coming?”
“I told him that I couldn’t come in every Friday. He said that if I wanted to be a pastor, there was nowhere I needed to be that was more important than in his office every Friday.”
“What did you say?”
Burt shrugged again. “I didn’t say anything. I just left. I called the Institute. They said I could reapply in the fall.”
“I’ll bet that made you mad.”
“It made Todd madder than it made me. He’s my uncle, you know. Mom’s brother. Dad died when I was eleven.”
“Sergeant Todd McKay? Your partner?”
“Yeah. Todd’s not a religious man, but he’s been really good to me and Mom.”
“No, I didn’t know. I’ll bet he’s proud of you,” I said.
* * *
I was driving back to town when I passed the Piggly Wiggly and saw the commotion. There were half a dozen people in the parking lot, including Roger the manager, the three checkout girls, Hannah, Grace and Amelia, and a guy dressed in a stocker’s uniform whom I didn’t recognize. As I pulled up, I saw Hannah, a sixty-two-year-old grandmother, hold up her pistol, drop the magazine out of it into her free hand, check it, and snap it home. I turned off the truck and got out.
“Hannah, put that thing away! What’s going on?”
“That gorilla just came into the Pig!” said Roger. “He was huge!”
“Yeah, he’s a big one,” I agreed. “What happened?”
“We didn’t see him come in. We’ve got these automatic doors, you know. Then Hannah spotted him down by the pickles on aisle three.”
“I knew it was the gorilla,” said Hannah. “Although he looked a little like Beaver Jergenson, but with more hair. Luckily, us girls got these pistols from Ken’s Gun Emporium a couple of months ago. We keep ‘em under our registers.”
“Can I see it?” I asked, holding out my hand. Hannah handed me the gun. It was a Beretta .38 caliber automatic—a lightweight pistol with quite a punch.
“You all have one of these?” I asked. The three checkout girls nodded.
“I don’t,” said the stocker, “but I wouldn’t mind having me one. Look at my arm! That gorilla hit me with a pipe!”
“You’re not getting a gun,” said Roger. “Only the cashiers. That’s store policy.”
“He hit you with a pipe?” I asked.
“Yeah. He ran by the feminine hygiene products, turned the corner and hit me. I just saw him out of the corner of my eye. It was a gorilla though. He was aiming for my head, but I threw up my arm like this.” The stock boy demonstrated. “It may be broken,” he said. “I’m going to have to get about six weeks off. With pay, of course.”
“Shut up, Wally,” said Roger. “You’re not hurt.”
“Did you see him?” I asked Roger. He shook his head.
“Where are your guns?” I asked Grace and Amelia. They both sheepishly produced pistols of their own from behind their backs. I shook my head, cleared Hannah’s pistol, clicked the safety on and handed it back to her.
“Did you shoot him?” I asked her. “Did you shoot the gorilla?”
“Well, I tried to,” said Hannah. “Once I started firing, though, he took off through the store. I think that I hit a bunch of pickle jars.”
“You sure did,” giggled Amelia. “I shot all my bullets at him, too. How about you, Grace?”
“I’m pretty sure I missed him. I saw him over there on the cookie aisle. I fired a couple of times, but I was just too nervous.”
“It sounded like a war!” exclaimed one of the customers. “I heard gunshots
and breaking glass. I hit the floor.”
“Me, too,” said a lady wearing a flowered scarf over hair rollers. “I saw that gorilla run right past me with a package of Oreos.”
“I saw him run out the door,” said a male customer. “I was at the back of the store. He didn’t even wait for it to open. He just hit it with his shoulder.”
“Anyone hurt inside?” I asked. “Y’all didn’t shoot anyone in the store by accident did you?”
“Oh,” said Hannah, in surprise. “I don’t think so. I hope not.”
I looked over at Roger, and he’d gone white at the suggestion.
“Let’s go and check,” I said. “The rest of you wait here, please.”
“Can we leave?” said the lady in the scarf. “I’m in kind of a hurry.”
“Not yet,” I said. “It’ll be just a few more minutes.”
* * *
Roger and I went through the Piggly Wiggly, looking for any accidental victims of the checkout girls’ shoot-fest. The only victims seemed to be jars of pickles, relish, and some dairy products. I expected that they’d be finding products containing bullet holes for several more days, but at least no one was hurt. We went back outside, and I let the customers go after I got their names and phone numbers, just in case. Then I called Roger and the checkout girls over to the side.
“It’s not against the law to shoot a gorilla inside the Piggly Wiggly, is it?” asked Amelia, defensively.
“Depends,” I said. “Do you have a gorilla license?”
“Yep,” said Amelia. “We all do. We bought them yesterday.”
“Then, according to the law, you can shoot him wherever you want.”
“Great!” said Grace. “Just let him come back here again! We’ll be ready for him next time!”
“But,” I continued, “I suspect that the P. Wiggly Corporation has certain rules about employees hunting inside their stores.” I looked over at Roger.
“Well, if we don’t, we damn sure will this afternoon!” he said, glaring at the three women.
“And I imagine that if this happens again, you’ll all be fired,” I said. Roger took the hint.
“Absolutely! Terminated immediately!”
“I also might suggest that, although it’s certainly not against the law for the checkout girls at the Piggly Wiggly to be packing heat, you might want to rethink your policy on arming the staff.”
“Hmm,” said Roger. “We sent them to a firearms responsibility class. But I’ll think about it.”
“And ladies,” I said, addressing them. “You realize that if you’d shot a customer, or one another, even by accident, you’d be in jail right now, and you wouldn’t be coming out for a long, long time.”
“Huh?” said Grace. “Oh. I never even thought about that.”
“We won’t shoot at gorillas in the store anymore,” promised Amelia.
“Nope,” said Hannah, shaking her head. “Just robbers. The gorilla’s not coming back anyway. Do you think any of us hit him?”
“I don’t think so. There isn’t any blood. Just a lot of pickle juice.”
“I think he’s around here, though,” said Amelia. “Those hunters are looking on the wrong side of town. They’re all up by Seymour Krebbs’ place, but I’m going to look around here. You girls want to come?”
“Sure,” agreed Grace and Hannah.
“Wait a minute!” said Roger. “Who’s going to ring up the customers?”
“You do it, Roger,” Grace called back over her shoulder. “We’ll be back in a little while.”
Chapter 23
It was one o’clock when Meg and I drove up to Kenny Frazier’s old farm. I’d been back to the office, after my stop at the Piggly Wiggly, and in the last two hours, St. Germaine had come alive with people. They were going in and out of shops, arms full of packages. There was a queue at the Beautifery, and there wasn’t a table to be had at any of the eateries. The Altar Guild had even arranged a tour of St. Barnabas and there was a waiting line out the front door.
“Are all the people in town here for the funeral?” asked Meg, as my truck made its way up the drive.
“Except for all the hunters. They’re here to shoot a gorilla.”
“Why’d we come over so early?” asked Meg.
“I have to check the set-up, the organ, make sure my microphone works—stuff like that. Anyway, the choir will be here in half an hour.
“I understand. I’m so proud of you, honey. Singing on national TV. What an honor.”
“One more word, and I’ll be singing at your funeral.”
“Okay,” said Meg. “But I’ll want the same song.”
* * *
Meg and I passed a large hand-painted sign announcing that we had arrived at Woodrow DuPont’s Bellefontaine Cemetery—otherwise known as Wormy Acres. We parked the truck in the field designated for mourners (by another hand-painted marker), gathered up our vestments, and walked up the path leading, we presumed, to the burial plot. From where we had parked, it was a lovely gravel path, winding through the trees, and finally opening upon one of Wormy’s fields. He’d torn down the old house and barn and mowed the grass. The landscape looked beautiful. The gravesite, however, did not. Not because it wasn’t a pretty place. It was. But it seemed to be set up for something other than a funeral. A circus, for instance. Billy came up to us as soon as he saw us.
“I was hoping you’d be here a little early. Let me show you the set-up.”
“Please,” I replied.
He led us toward the gravesite. There was a huge pile of dirt at one end. We stood at the edge and looked down into a hole that was ten feet deep, ten feet wide and about sixteen feet long. Hanging eight feet above the hole was Junior Jameson’s purple racecar—Number 17. The crew hadn’t fixed the damage, so the front of the car was crushed. We couldn’t see the St. Barnabas crest on the hood or the huge gold cross painted on the roof—the car was up too high—but we could still read Junior’s words of wisdom to his fellow drivers. The two signs were lit up in electric lights. It was hard to miss the twin messages—“The wages of sin is death,” and “Do you know where you’ll spend eternity?” I looked up at the car and saw Junior’s face looking out the front windshield and out into the sky. He had his helmet and his racing glasses on. His two hands were gripping the steering wheel.
“That’s creepy,” said Meg, with a shudder. “Look at him sitting there, just waiting to go into the ground.”
“Once they lower the racecar,” said Billy, “everyone will be allowed to throw a shovelful of dirt on top of the car.”
“How do those signs light up?” I asked. “The ones on the back bumper.”
“Wormy wired the car up to a new battery. Everything else has been stripped. They sold it off, I guess. The engine’s gone. Transmission, brakes…everything but the body and the wheels. The battery will run the lights for a couple of hours. The radio, too. Wormy doesn’t have the Eternizak wired up yet, but he hooked the car radio to work with a CD player. The car will be playing The Show Must Go On by Queen as they lower him down and cover him up.”
I watched Meg shudder again. “How does that song go?” she asked. “I’ve never even heard it.”
“You know,” said Billy, clearing his throat and crooning a tune that had no discernible pitch whatsoever.
Show must go on! Yeah! Show must go on!
I’ll face it with a grin! I’m never giving in!
On with the show!
“I can’t remember how it starts, but it goes something like that.”
“How awful,” said Meg.
“It’s on the Best of Queen CD. I love it!” said Billy, then switched to his singing voice. “On with the show!”
“Stop it this instant,” said Meg.
“Okay, okay. Follow me over here.”
We walked around the grave. On one side was a grandstand that looked as though it would seat about three hundred folks. Directly across the pit, a stage had been erected with black bunting around the e
dge. The electronic organ was placed in the middle. It was caddy-cornered to the choir chairs—about twenty in all—that were set in a semicircular pattern. There were at least ten microphones set up to amplify the choir, including one right in front of the organ that I was supposed to use for my big solo. On the back of the instrument was a sign proclaiming “This Organ Courtesy of Brodt’s Music Company.” Behind the choir, and off to the sides, were four giant Marshall speakers—dinosaurs left over from the 70’s. They were stacked two on a side, and two high, putting the tops of the speakers about eight feet off the stage. I also noticed two deer stands, one beside the crane, and one beside the choir stage, each holding a tripod and a large video camera, but I didn’t see any videographers yet. At the far end of the grave, the end opposite the huge pile of dirt, was another, smaller dais. A lectern and microphone were set up for Gaylen and another two mics off to the side.
“Who are those for?” I asked, pointing to the mics.
“The banjo players,” said Billy. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“They’re here playing the Banjo Kyrie. It’s in the program.”
Meg giggled.
“Maybe you should show me a program,” I said.
“Okay. Sure,” said Billy. “I’ve got one right here.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper and, grinning, handed it over.
I looked down at the program and saw where the choir was singing—right after the reading of the 23rd Psalm. I also had to play Amazing Grace with the bagpipes for the congregation to sing during the Tossing of the Lug Nuts. I did a double-take to make sure I read it correctly.
“The Tossing of the Lug Nuts? What the heck is that?”
“Everyone is getting a lug nut when they walk in,” explained Billy. “The car gets lowered down while we play The Show Must Go On through the car speakers. Then, when the hymn starts, everyone sings and throws their lug nut into the grave.”
“On top of the car?”
Billy nodded. I looked at Meg. She was biting her lip to keep from laughing. I looked back at the program, saw the Banjo Kyrie and realized, to my relief, that the service didn’t include communion. At least I didn’t have to worry about the service music.
The Bass Wore Scales (The Liturgical Mysteries) Page 22