When the racecar landed at the bottom of Junior’s final resting place, it was the sound-man’s cue to push the “play” button on the CD player hooked up to Junior’s car radio. Music blasted from the amp, sub-woofer and four extra speakers that Wormy had placed in Junior’s car. The Eternizak song listed in the program was The Show Must Go On by Queen, but the soundman must have pushed the wrong button. The song was still by Queen, but this track was a different song. Blasting out of the stereo with enough sound to make the remaining windows rattle, came the unmistakable words:
Another one bites the dust,
Another one bites the dust,
And another one gone and another one gone,
Another one bites the dust.
“That’s an unfortunate choice of songs,” Georgia said. “I thought Billy said they were playing that other one.”
“Hey!” said Meg, pointing up toward the sky. “What’s that?” I hadn’t heard anything because of all the racket, but now, looking skyward, I saw a bright yellow biplane coming in about a hundred feet above the ground.
“It’s Five-Dollar Frank,” I said.
“What’s he doing?”
“I have no idea.”
Five-Dollar Frank dropped down another fifty feet, skimmed the crowd, waggled his wings and dumped a box of paper out of his plane. Several thousand leaflets came floating down on the congregation and most people, including the choir, reached up and grabbed one.
“It’s an ad!” exclaimed Fred. “For Woodrow DuPont’s Bellefontaine Cemetery. Look here! We can get a plot for twenty percent off!”
Five-Dollar Frank swung around again and circled the crowd one more time, dropping another box of leaflets.
“You know,” I said. “If I had hired Frank to drop leaflets advertising my cemetery, I would have had him take that banner off the back of his plane.” Sure enough, as soon as Frank made his last turn, the banner that had been secured at the beginning of his flight, came loose and opened behind the yellow plane, proclaiming in large white letters, “WE GOT WORMS!”
Kokomo ripped off his burka—in reality, a black blanket with a hole cut in the middle—dropped it on the top of the car and then, with a mighty leap, cleared the edge of the pit and landed beside one of the bagpipers, who promptly fainted.
“He’s out!” cried Bev. “And look. The dogs are trapped.”
Another one bites the dust, another one bites the dust, sang Queen.
The roar of the plane was suddenly joined by the sound of the hunters’ ATVs. They’d been following the pack of dogs, but had been a couple of miles behind them, tracking them with radio collars. Now they roared up to the edge of the funeral and turned off their engines, not sure how to proceed. Right behind the leader, driving a Kawasaki Mule—a four-seater—were Hannah, Amelia, and Grace.
“There he goes!” hollered Hannah, pointing in Kokomo’s direction, but Kokomo had already made it to the near woods and had disappeared into the trees. All three ladies jumped out of the ATV, pulled out their pistols and emptied their guns into the forest on the off chance that one of their shots might hit the gorilla. The other hunters looked startled at this breach of hunting etiquette and, when the guns clicked on empty chambers, jumped on the three grandmothers, wrestled them to the ground, and disarmed them.
“You know,” said Meg. “As funerals go, this one’s a doozy!”
* * *
It took a good half hour before the tumult subsided and one of the hunters could get a ladder down into the pit to rescue the dogs. They had to be carried out, one at a time, and were put on leashes, much to their dismay. The crowd hadn’t left. The family and friends were still on the dais, and Brother Hog was now fanning Kimmy Jo with his program. I looked up to where Moosey had been sitting, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Finally Gaylen got up and walked over to the microphone. “Let us pray,” she said.
“O God, whose blessed Son was laid in a sepulcher in the garden: Bless, we pray, this grave, and grant that Junior Jameson, whose body is to be buried here may dwell with Christ in paradise, and may come to your heavenly kingdom; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
“Amen,” echoed the crowd.
I took my cue and played the introduction to Amazing Grace, then heard the bagpipes squawk into action as everyone began singing.
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.
We finished, and a sudden silence fell over the field. Five-Dollar Frank had flown off, the dogs had calmed down, and the hunters were politely waiting for the service to end before resuming the chase. It seemed that even the birds had decided to take the rest of the afternoon off. Or, and this was more likely, they had flown off terrified. Then, in the stillness of the moment, I saw something fly through the air and catch a glint in the afternoon sun. With a startling clank, it landed in the grave and banged off the hood of the car. The clanking sound was followed by another. And another. In three seconds, the air was full of lug nuts, each of them tossed by a mourner into the grave of their fallen hero.
“My work is done here,” I said to Meg. “I’ve got to get back.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Meg. “Can we get out without being seen?”
“Yeah. Everyone will be consoling Kimmy Jo. We’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
* * *
We made our way back down the path, got into my truck, started it up and pulled out of Wormy Acres and onto the highway.
“Hey,” said Meg. “What do you have in the back?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“I saw a tarp in the back of the truck when I got in.”
“I didn’t notice,” I said, looking in the rear view mirror. Meg was right. There was a dark green Army tarp in the back of the truck and as my eyes darted back and forth between the rear-view mirror and the road in front of me, I saw it move. Then I saw a face—Moosey’s face. When I looked again, there were two faces, and they were both laughing.
Chapter 24
I turned around slowly and saw The Minimalist standing in the door. I’d seen him before and I racked my brain like a set of elliptical billiard balls trying to figure out where. He had a Tommy gun trained right on my
boutonniere and suddenly I felt as dumb as a box of rocks with all the good ones taken out. Behind him was Moby Mel,
smiling a fishy smile and smelling like last week’s relatives.
“Where’s Betsy?” I asked.
“Don’t you worry about Betsy,” smirked the Minimalist. “She’s about to sleep with Davy Jones. We got her some cement Manolo Blahniks. She always did like to be stylish.”
“I wouldn’t mind a pair of those myself,” said Marilyn. “Not cement, though. I wouldn’t have anything to
wear with them. And really,” she added, “it’s nobody’s business who Betsy sleeps with.”
The Minimalist’s mouth dropped open in surprise, revealing an underslung jaw, and two outer mandibular barbels--”whiskers” in laymen’s terms. I knew I’d seen him before. It was Carpy. Carpy Deeum. The Minimalist was a bottom-feeder.
I dove behind Moby Mel’s aquarium, just as Carpy cut loose with the Tommy gun. I grabbed Marilyn and pulled her down beside me. The gun clattered like a bunch of lug nuts being thrown into an open grave.
“Whadda we do now?” she squealed, as the aquarium burst into a thousand pieces and covered us with water, angelfish and extra-fancy guppies.
“Something will come up,” I said, lighting a stogy and brushing a Delta Red out of my hair. “It always does.”
“Brilliant work, detective,” Meg said, leaning over my shoulder as I sat at my typewriter and giving me a smooch on the cheek. “I especially li
ke the thing about the lug nuts. Any word from the Bulwer-Lytton competition?”
“I checked on-line this morning,” I said. “Nothing yet.”
* * *
“You should have seen it, Pete,” I said. “It was spectacular!”
“Well, I haven’t watched it yet,” said Pete, “but I taped it. The whole thing was on ESPN2, and the gorilla swinging on the car made it to the top ten sports highlights.”
Dave and Nancy came into the Slab, saw Pete and me, and joined us at our table.
“Hi there, Casanova,” said Pete, when Dave sat down. “Have you heard from Collette? I need her to get back to work.’
“I called her mother, and she said that Collette had gone to Spartanburg to stay with her cousin for a while,” said Dave. “Then she cussed me out.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” said Pete. “I need Collette!”
“Speaking of girlfriends,” Nancy said. “How’re you and Molly doing? I haven’t seen her around for a week or two.”
“We broke up,” said Pete. “She didn’t appreciate my manly lifestyle.”
“You showed her your bathroom, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Not on purpose. She walked in without permission.” Pete shrugged, then changed the subject. “Well, since I’m the only one here, what’ll you have for breakfast?”
“Surprise us,” I said. “Make it easy on yourself.”
“No problem there. You’re all getting oatmeal. It’s already made.”
“I love oatmeal!” said Dave.
* * *
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s figure this thing out. What do we know?”
“Brother Jimmy Kilroy was killed when he was hit on the head, fell into the water and drowned,” said Nancy.
“The killer was a man,” added Dave.
It was Nancy’s turn, and she had her pad out. She flipped a couple pages and skimmed them quickly. “The door was locked from the inside with a key. The key was in the lock, and there wasn’t another one. Kokomo was the only other person…er…animal in the office. He was being baptized by Brother Kilroy, and he was freaked out when we got there,” added Nancy. “No tunnels, no air vents big enough to crawl through, no false ceiling. The room was sealed.”
“And Kokomo couldn’t have locked the door from the inside,” said Dave. “Because he’s a gorilla, and gorilla’s wrists don’t work that way.”
“So, we only have one witness,” I said. “Kokomo.”
Nancy consulted her notes. “Kokomo says, and I quote, ‘Tiger man friend hit. No like tiger man. Kokomo dream tiger man devil scared. Water red. Friend red. Devil tiger,’” she concluded. “We just need to find the Tiger Man.”
“Will Kokomo’s testimony hold up in court?” asked Pete, who walked up to the table carrying a tray with three bowls of oatmeal. “Here’s your oatmeal, but you can get up and get your own coffee.”
“Snookie-Pie, would you get the coffee?” asked Nancy sweetly. Dave grunted and got to his feet.
“Kokomo’s testimony wouldn’t be allowed in any court that I know of,” I said. “But we have a definite DNA sample from the pipe. We just don’t have one to match it to. If we knew where to look, we could find the killer without any problem.”
“The killer doesn’t know we found the pipe,” said Nancy. “That’s a point in our favor.”
“Then he doesn’t know about the DNA either,” I said. “As far as he’s concerned, the police suspect that something is not kosher, but we don’t have any evidence. He also doesn’t know that we talked to Kokomo, so he probably still wants to shut that gorilla up.”
“Suspects?” asked Pete.
“Hard to say,” I said. “There’s Mona. She is singularly unlikable, but she’s not the killer. The DNA on the murder weapon—an iron pipe—is from a male. There’s Burt Coley, the second officer at the scene. He was trying to get into a Bible College and Brother Kilroy was keeping him out.”
“Burt didn’t do it,” said Nancy. “I know Burt. I’ve known him for years.”
“I tend to agree, but we can’t rule him out,” I said. “Then there’s Sergeant Todd McKay, Burt’s uncle and partner. He’s been looking out for Burt since his father died, and I heard that he was a whole lot madder at Brother Kilroy for blackballing Burt than Burt was himself.”
“Mad enough to kill him?” asked Pete.
“Maybe. I haven’t questioned him yet.”
“How about Bootsie Watkins?” asked Dave. “The church secretary?”
“She’s out of town until Monday. She knows something that she’s not telling, that’s for sure,” I said. “And don’t forget Bennett Shipley, the head deacon.”
“How about Dr. P.A. Pelicane?” offered Dave. “Let’s say she found out that Brother Kilroy had stolen Kokomo. She’d try to go over there and get him back. She might have been so mad that she hit Kilroy in the head with the pipe.”
“She’s a woman,” said Nancy. “The killer is a man.”
“We think she’s a woman,” said Dave.
“Oh, she’s a woman all right,” Pete said. “I can vouch for it.”
“And then there’s Tiger Man,” said Nancy. “It may be someone we know, but it may be somebody else entirely.”
We sat in silence for a long moment, looking down at our breakfast. Then we all picked up our spoons.
“We’ve forgotten something,” I said, tasting my oatmeal. “Hmm. Needs a little salt. Oh yeah—the miniature Bible key fob. We never found it.”
“So?” said Pete.
“It’s relevant,” I said. “It couldn’t have just fallen off. It was attached with a short chain and a key ring. The chain might have broken, but the ring would have stayed with the key. Now, why would it have been removed? The Bible wasn’t in the dumpster, so someone took it out of the office. I’ll bet that person is the killer.”
“Makes sense,” said Nancy, with a nod. “But why?”
“Why, indeed?” I said.
“Do you know where Kokomo is?” asked Pete. “Billy told me he ran into the woods.”
“I think he’s safe enough for now,” I said. Pete looked at me and I gave him “the eyebrow.” It was enough.
“I hope so. I’d hate to see him stuffed and holding umbrellas in someone’s entrance hall.”
“What about ‘tiger,’” I asked. “Could Tiger Man be someone that reminds Kokomo of his cat?”
“I thought of that,” said Nancy. “I was trying to come up with descriptive words for the cat that maybe we could apply to the suspects. Look.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her notebook, unfolded it, and handed it across the table. It was a printout of one of Kokomo’s website pages. He was sitting in his cage, holding a gray cat. “How would you describe that cat?”
“Furry,” I said. “Gray, Green eyes.”
“Short hair,” contributed Pete. “He’s got claws…he’s cute.
“Hey,” said Nancy. “Burt’s cute.”
“That’s not funny,” said Dave. “I’m cute.”
“No help there,” I said. “If only I could figure out why that miniature hymnal was taken off the key.”
“You mean ‘Bible,’” said Pete.
“Yeah. Bible. What did I say?”
“You said ‘hymnal.’”
“Hymnal…” I was quiet for a moment. “The question is, how did the killer get out of the office and relock the door from the inside…?”
“What’s he doing?” whispered Dave.
“Shhh,” said Nancy. “He’s thinking.”
“Son of a…” I said suddenly, slapping my hand down on the table and making the silverware jump. “Of course! Dave, call Judge Adams. We need to get a warrant and go make an arrest.”
“Do we have probable cause? ‘Cause we can’t get one on Kokomo’s say-so,” said Nancy. “You know that, right?”
“We don’t need it! The answer was right in front of us!” Then I poured myself another cup of coffee and spilled the beans.
Chapter 25<
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Nancy and Dave met me an hour later with the warrant in their hands.
“Judge Adams is on vacation. We got this from Judge Minton, but he wasn’t happy about it,” Nancy said.
“It couldn’t be helped,” I said. “Even if it is a Saturday afternoon, we want this all legal.”
“Oh, that’s not the reason he wasn’t happy,” said Dave. “He’s a member of New Fellowship Baptist Church. Judge Minton said that he was going to call this guy and give him a chance to turn himself in.”
“What?”
“We asked him not to,” said Nancy, “in no uncertain terms. But he is a judge. We couldn’t ask him too hard. Luckily, in the end, he agreed not to.”
“We’d better get going then. I’ve got Meg’s car. Nancy, you come with me. Dave, you wait here. We’ll call you if we need anything.”
We were on the way out to the house when Nancy got a call from Dave on her cell phone.
“We’ve gotta go back to town,” said Nancy, as soon as she hung up the phone. “Kokomo was seen outside of Noylene’s Beautifery. Wormy was outside on the sidewalk, putting away his table, when Kokomo came up behind him and hit him in the head with a pipe.”
I was stunned. “That’s not possible.”
“Well, we didn’t think it was, but Wormy saw him right before he got hit. Noylene saw the gorilla, too. Through the window.”
“Anyone else see him?”
“Not that I know of. Dave’s over at Noylene’s now. Wormy’s there too. He says he isn’t going to the hospital.”
“It wasn’t Kokomo,” I said.
“How do you know?” Nancy asked. “He ran into the woods at the funeral.”
“Because Kokomo’s at my house.”
* * *
The town square in St. Germaine was empty—typical for a late afternoon on a summer Saturday. The shops were closed and the few cars that dotted the parking places were probably there for the evening. Dave was waiting for us inside Noylene’s Beautifery when we pulled up. Nancy and I walked in and saw Wormy stretched out in Noylene’s beauty chair. He was still dressed in his best black funeral attire, although his tie had been loosened. Noylene was holding a Ziplock bag of ice held to his head.
The Bass Wore Scales (The Liturgical Mysteries) Page 24