by Lori Wilde
The sun beat down relentlessly and before Miss Gloria could maneuver the boat from its slip, sweat was already cascading down my forehead.
In vain, I searched the banks for human life but it was ten o’clock on Thursday morning. Most of the residents were at work. Or they were housewives engaged in the latest episode of their favorite talk show while they dusted. Or they were retired fisherman who had been up before dawn checking their trot lines, had come inside for the day and were waiting out the heat with glasses of iced tea and central air-conditioning.
The damn plastic zip ties were cutting into my skin like shark’s teeth and my fingers had gone numb. I wriggled them to keep the blood circulating.
Miss Gloria guided the massive craft through the narrow slough. I craned my neck at my house as we floated by. No sign of either Mama or Aunt Tessa. Although Mama could have been in the pottery shed. Still, even if she happened to see us, she’d probably wave and think how nice it was that I’d made pals with the Swigglys.
“So tell us, Reverend, how is it that you’ve arrived at this point in your life?” Conahegg asked as if he were making idle chitchat at a church ice-cream social.
“What?” Swiggly seemed distracted.
His fingers tightened on the shotgun. Through the material of his robe, I could see the outline of his halter monitor. He was sweating as profusely as I, a sheen of perspiration laying like a mustache across his upper lip. Not a drop of sweat marred any part of Conahegg’s body. I was jealous.
Miss Gloria gunned the engine when we hit the main current and turned the boat upriver toward the direction of Sanchez Creek and the hidden underwater caves instead of the route most people with a boat this size took, which was down-river to Lake Granbury.
“You’re a man of the cloth,” Conahegg continued, “a very wealthy man with a reputation to uphold. Why are you risking everything?”
“My life is worthless.” Swiggly glowered darkly at Miss Gloria. “My ministry is over. My wife has seen to that.”
“It’s not my fault you couldn’t keep your pecker in your pants,” Miss Gloria shouted, a woman transformed. Gone were any traces of her mousy countenance and in its place stood a woman pushed well past her limit of endurance. Her meek eyes had turned mad, her hair sprang like snakes from its tight coil.
If the situation hadn’t been so dire, I would have laughed to hear the word pecker coming from her mouth. As it was, nothing seemed particularly funny.
“Did I tell you to kill that young man? Did I?” Swiggly shouted at his wife.
“I did it to protect you, Ray Don,” she said. “You’re all I care about.”
“I was prepared to pay him off.”
“He would have kept asking for more,” Miss Gloria said, desperately trying to make her husband understand. “He was going to bleed you dry. I couldn’t go through another humiliation like Louisiana.”
“I wondered what happened in Louisiana?” I whispered to Conahegg from the corner of my mouth.
“Sex with an underage male prostitute,” Conahegg whispered back. “Long time ago. Before his television ministry.”
“What? You knew about his peccadilloes and didn’t tell me?”
Conahegg shrugged as best he could with his hands cuffed behind his back. “It never came up.”
I was miffed. He’d been holding out on me.
“Hey,” Swiggly said, “you two quit talking amongst yourselves.”
“I’m tired of playing the pious wife,” Miss Gloria shouted above the engine, her hand pushing harder upon the throttle.
The boat shot through the water at an alarming speed. If she kept driving like a lunatic, we wouldn’t have to worry about being gunned down by Swiggly.
“Er…you do know there are a lot of tree stumps on this side of the river, don’t you,” I asked her, leaning forward.
“Sit back,” Swiggly commanded.
“Go ahead,” Miss Gloria raved. “Tell them what you did. Let them see what I’ve had to put up with for thirty years. Show them the real Ray Don Swiggly.”
“Shut up, woman.”
“He likes young men,” she sang out almost cheerfully. It was frightening the way she’d so completely changed. I began to wonder if her mental choo-choo had jumped the track. “The younger the better. And if that wasn’t enough he takes up with that body builder Gunther and tries to pass him off as a physical therapist. Right under my nose. Ha! He thinks I’m an idiot. But that backfired on you, too, didn’t it, Ray Don?”
So that explained Gunther.
“At least I’m not a murderer,” Swiggly charged.
“I killed him for you. To save your reputation. To save your ministry.”
“Is your wife admitting to the murder of Rockerfeller Hughes?” Conahegg asked Swiggly.
Swiggly looked pained. “Yes.”
“But why?”
“Because that little weasel was blackmailing him,” Miss Gloria interrupted.
She was whipping the wheel back and forth so violently I feared I might end up puking on Conahegg’s shiny black boots. Swiggly didn’t look so great, either. His skin was sallow, his breathing rapid.
“Rocky was blackmailing your husband?” I asked Gloria. “What for?”
“Go ahead, you tell her, Ray Don.”
Swiggly squirmed in his seat. “There’s no need for that.”
“You’re not too ashamed to do it but you won’t talk about it.” Gloria shook her head. “He was fooling around with that nice-looking young man. What was his name? Oh yes, Tim Kehaul.”
And then suddenly, things fell into place. That night Conahegg had run over a naked Tim in my driveway I felt certain there had been someone in the bushes with him. It must have been Swiggly.
Tears glistened in Swiggly’s eyes. “I never meant to kill him,” he said softly. “I loved Tim.”
“You loved everyone but me,” Miss Gloria lamented. “Why, Ray Don, why?”
I exhaled sharply. Too deep for me. I scanned the water but rejected the thought of jumping overboard at this speed with my hands zip tied together.
“You strangled your lover, Tim Kehaul,” Conahegg said, as if taking his official statement. That’s a sheriff for you. He was about to be snuffed and all he cared about was getting the record straight.
“It was an accident.” Swiggly was seriously sobbing, his tears mingling with the sweat on his cheeks. Whomever ended up reading his halter monitor tracing was in for a jolt. I imagine his heart was throwing premature ventricular contractions like drunken revelers tossing confetti at a New Year’s Eve bash. “We were making love. I asked him if he wanted to try something new, something exotic.”
“You and your exotic sex.” Gloria turned her head and rolled her eyes. The boat bounced so high on the water it seemed we were flying. I clenched my hands into fists behind my back but it made the zip ties dig that much deeper into my flesh. “Whips and chains and costumes. Belts and ropes and hooks.”
Hooks?
“It’s better than being a dead fish in bed,” Swiggly countered.
“I wouldn’t be a dead fish if my husband didn’t come home smelling of other men!”
Whew. We were really getting into it and I wanted out of here. Pronto. I looked at Conahegg and struggled to hide the fear in my eyes. We’d been caught in the middle of a marital minefield, and I had the feeling that any minute a claymore was about to detonate.
“Things got out of hand,” Conahegg elaborated for Swiggly. “And you pulled the rope too tightly around Tim’s neck.”
Swiggly gulped and nodded, crocodile tears rolling off his chin. If only his flock could see him now. They’d storm his mansion, raid his house and take back every cent he’d stolen from them.
But even though he deserved everything that was coming to him, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for a man who’d spent his whole life living a lie.
“How did Rocky find out?” Conahegg asked.
I knew before Swiggly answered. The camera equipment in Rocky’s
living room.
“That’s when he had the heart attack,” Miss Gloria said, thankfully slowing the boat at long last.
The river narrowed and she had no choice. We weren’t far from the pool and the underground caves.
“Rocky sent us a copy of the tape he’d made and I knew I had to do something,” Miss Gloria continued.
“Tape?” Conahegg asked.
“A tape of Tim and Ray Don making love.” Her voice caught.
“How did he get it?” Conahegg frowned.
“I don’t know. Ray Don wanted to pay him off but I knew it wouldn’t end with a hundred thousand dollars. That snake would keep crawling back for the rest of our lives, sucking us dry. So,” Miss Gloria said. “I did what I had to do. I went to his house on the pretense of paying the blackmail money.”
“That was Saturday night before last.” Conahegg was so damned calm. He was acting as if he would be writing up his report rather than bobbing at the bottom of the Brazos very shortly. I had to admire his optimism. Me, I was wondering how Mama, Sissy, Aunt Tessa and Denny were going to make it without me.
“Early Sunday morning, really,” Miss Gloria said. “Mr. Hughes told me I’d have to wait until after his girlfriend left.” She looked at me. “It was your sister.”
The expression in her eyes was so malevolent, I shuddered.
“Anyway, I went inside his trailer, which was a filthy hole by the way. It’s a wonder he hadn’t already died from some kind of poisoning. I told him that I had the money but first I wanted to get even with my husband by having sex with him.” She glared at Swiggly.
“You really didn’t, Miss Gloria, did you?” Swiggly’s face blanched white.
“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Don’t you think it ripped my heart out to play the dutiful wife every Sunday morning on television when I knew that every Saturday night you were out with young men?”
“I’m sorry for hurting you.” Swiggly reached for her but she pulled back.
“It’s too late to make amends.” She spoke to him, then to us she said, “Since everyone believed Tim’s death was an accident, I figured I’d make Rocky’s look the same way. I got him to drink a lot of alcohol and I gave him some of the Valium the cardiologist had prescribed for Ray Don. We got undressed and I crawled in bed with him.”
The skin on my arms prickled. I glanced at Conahegg. He revealed no emotion.
Miss Gloria kneaded her forehead with her fingers as if warding off a migraine. “When he passed out, I put a pillow over his face and sat on him. It wasn’t quite as easy as I thought it would be. He started to struggle.”
Exactly the scenario Conahegg had depicted the day he called me into his office to give me Rocky’s autopsy report, except the killer had been Gloria Swiggly, not my sister.
“I hit him on the head with a lamp and he stopped fighting. When he finally quit breathing, I tied a belt around his neck and the other around the bedpost. I was careful and wore gloves.”
“Then I simply kicked him off the bed and left. And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those damnable earrings your aunt gave me.” Miss Gloria glared at me.
My stomach squeezed and I fought a wave of nausea. The woman was capable of anything. I had no doubt she’d readily plug a bullet into me and Conahegg to preserve her way of life.
Miss Gloria took a deep breath as she realized we were staring at her. “I had to do it. I had to protect Ray Don. No matter what he’s done, I love him.” She had stopped the boat and turned away from the wheel. We were drifting along on the current coming closer and closer to the hidden caves.
“Ah, Miss Gloria, I love you, too.” Swiggly hiccuped back his tears. He set the shotgun aside. I saw Conahegg eyeing the weapon. “Please forgive me my horrible sins against you. I suffer from a demon that eats my soul.” Swiggly got down on one knee and reached for his wife’s hand.
She touched his head. “Of course I forgive you. But first we have one more thing to take care of then our lives can go back to normal.”
Swiggly and Miss Gloria both looked at us.
“Sorry,” she said. “That’s what happens to Nosy Rosies. I’m afraid you’ve got to die.” Miss Gloria picked up the shotgun and peered down the sight.
“I’m willing to accept my fate,” Conahegg said.
What? Had he lost his ever-loving mind?
“But I have one request to ask of you first,” he said to Swiggly. “Please, if you’re a man of God, if you do want to repent your own sins, then please grant me this favor.”
“What’s that?” Swiggly asked suspiciously.
Conahegg looked over at me. “Ally and I are madly in love.”
Huh? We are? I stared at him, incredulous. Could he actually be in love with me? For a brief moment, my heart sang. Conahegg loved me.
Then reality set in. He had some kind of scheme in mind, some way to defeat Swiggly. He said he loved me for the preacher’s benefit. Embarrassed that I’d jumped to such ridiculous conclusions, I shook my head.
Conahegg caught my eye. Play along, he said.
Okay, sure. Pretend I love Conahegg. Right. I could do it.
“Yes,” I threw in, determined to do my part, “we’re crazy for each other.”
“I haven’t had a chance to ask Ally to be my wife yet,” Conahegg continued. At the word wife my silly heart jumped again. “But since we’re about to die and you’re an ordained minister, I was wondering if you’d mind marrying us first before you killed us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“DO YOU, ALLEGHENY Allison Green, take this man, Samuel Jebediah Conahegg, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“Jebediah?” I muttered under my breath.
“You’re in no position to belittle someone’s name,” Sam mouthed right back.
He had a point. Somehow I’d never pictured my wedding day quite like this. Boat on a river. Intense July heat. Nursing scrub suit in place of a frothy white-lace gown. Homosexual televangelist minister and his mousy murdering wife with a shotgun in her hand.
Classic shotgun wedding. Call Brides magazine. I want to be on the cover of the next issue. And while you’re at it, give True Confessions a ring.
Not too many blushing brides could claim such nuptials. Not even my family who boasted a long list of bizarre weddings from hot air balloon flights to circus freaks in a fern grotto—don’t ask. Maybe I did have a little of that eccentric blood flowing through my veins.
“Do you?” Swiggly repeated. “Take this man?”
“Uh.”
I stared at Conahegg. He peered down at me.
He looked quite handsome in his sheriff’s uniform, his gray eyes hard as steel but strangely soft, too. His hair had grown out from the first time I’d met him two weeks ago and it looked sexier.
But the point wasn’t to assess him for potential husband material, rather I should be stalling to delay our impending execution. Swiggly had been kind enough to untie us for the bogus ceremony and at the moment, my sweat-slick palm was clasped tightly in Conahegg’s. He squeezed my hand. Firm, comforting, confident.
I caught my breath. For the first time since my father had died I had someone I could count on. Someone who could protect me. Someone I could lean on. It was a revelation.
“Hurry,” Swiggly snapped. “We don’t have all day. Do you want to marry him or not?”
“Yes,” I finally said when I couldn’t think of anything else to fill the void.
Miss Gloria burst into tears. “I always cry at weddings,” she explained, dabbing at her eyes with a Kleenex, yet all the while clutching the shotgun in her arm.
“You may kiss the bride,” Swiggly announced.
Conahegg wrapped his arms around my waist and quickly pressed his lips to my ear. “After I kiss you,” he whispered, “I’m going to pitch you overboard. Swim for the caves.”
There was no time to ask him what he planned. No way to know what was about to happen. My head whirled. My pulse p
ounded.
And then he kissed me.
As if he might never get to kiss me again. That kiss held the memory of last night’s lovemaking. Tender yet hard. Wistful yet joyous. Hopeful yet desperate.
One minute those fabulous lips were pressed hard against mine and in the next minute I was flying through the air, legs windmilling like crazy, headed straight for the Brazos.
I had just enough time to inhale before the water closed over my head.
Without conscious thought, I started swimming. Terror knocked on the door of my brain but I refused to let it in. I would not surrender to the fear threatening to strangle me.
Get to the caves.
But what about Conahegg?
I couldn’t take care of him, couldn’t make things right and that knowledge killed me. I was powerless to save him. He’d sacrificed himself for me and he was on his own.
I wallowed in guilt but only for a second. Instinct took control and I swam for my life.
A few seconds later I came up for air several yards from the boat. I heard a shotgun blast, saw pellets scatter through the water around me. I didn’t have a chance to turn my head and see what was going on behind me or to try and locate Conahegg.
Blam!
Another bullet shower.
Blood pounding, I inhaled again and plunged down, down, down into the murky depths. I couldn’t see more than an inch in front of my face. I kicked hard, going deeper still.
My temples throbbed. My entire body shook from the adrenaline rush.
More gunfire.
From a few feet under the water the sounds were muffled, less violent, as if the noises were on a distant battlefield.
I wondered how much ammunition they had. But how much did they need? It would only take two bullets. One for Conahegg, and one for me.
Blindly, I swam, heading for the caves and sanctuary.
A minute passed. Then two.
My lungs ached, stretched to the capacity of endurance but I was afraid to come up again.