A Murder in Mount Moriah

by Mindy Quigley

  “Such as?”

  Lindsay shrugged. “Now, I wouldn’t be a very good secret keeper if I tattled that easy.” Lindsay’s coy smile melted into an earnest expression. “Honestly, you can tell me what you know about Vernon. I’m not just asking out of idle curiosity. I really like Kimberlee, and Vernon seems like he was a wonderful person. I want to understand why this happened to them.”

  Warren softened. “You would need to keep this totally secret, even from Kimberlee. Especially from Kimberlee.”

  “I am a woman of the cloth. Trust me.” She held her hands in prayer position in front of her chest and cast her eyes piously up to the sky.

  “A week or so before the shooting, Vernon came in to talk to one of the officers in Mount Moriah. He brought a note that contained some very specific threats against his life.”

  “Threats?”

  He looked at her hard, his lips clenched in a narrow line. “The gist was that if his black self knew what was good for him, he’d better stop parading around with that white wife of his. There was something about his not being fit to wear the Confederate uniform.”

  “Why didn’t Kimberlee mention that when you asked if anyone had a grudge against Vernon?”

  “He never told her. He said he didn’t want to worry her. Who knows, though? Maybe he didn’t want to tell her because he thought she might have something to do with it.”

  She looked at him sternly. “I can’t believe you’re suggesting that Kimberlee would fake racist threats against her own husband.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Come on now, Warren, it’s plain that she adored him. She lights up when she talks about him. How many wives, after almost ten years of marriage, can remember every detail of every date they went on with their husbands?”

  “Look, your job is based on trust, mine is based on suspicion. I can’t stop investigating somebody just because they’re nice.”

  “Well then you should stop investigating somebody when they are obviously devastated by the death of their spouse,” Lindsay huffed.

  Warren shrugged his shoulders, “All I can say is that you’d be surprised what people are capable of when it comes to people they love.”

  “I think you would be surprised what people are capable of when it comes to people they love,” Lindsay countered.

  “You should consider yourself lucky that you get to see that side of people.”

  “I do.” Lindsay frowned and began digging in her purse for her car keys. “Something bothers me about this threatening letter. If the police knew about these threats, why didn’t they protect him at the reenactment?”

  “Come on, Lindsay. We couldn’t protect him out there. They hold the battle over a huge piece of land, and some of it is heavily wooded. We don’t have that kind of manpower. We have eleven full-time officers, Mount Moriah has six. Most of them are patrol officers who spend their time handing out speeding tickets and busting kids for drinking Mad Dog down at the quarry. That’s why the two departments are working this murder together now. Between the two forces, we have a total of three officers, myself included, that are experienced with criminal investigations. We’re not the FBI. And we’re definitely not the Secret Service. Besides, most threats like this don’t amount to anything.”

  “So you just ignored it?” Lindsay said.

  “Of course not. We took it real serious. For a mild-mannered guy like Vernon to get all worked up like that, we thought there might be something in it. We even put in a call to the FBI to see if there was anything cooking up among the white supremacist element around here. The FBI monitors activity among fringe groups, you know. They told us that everything seemed quiet—no reason to think the white robers and skinheads were up to anything out of the ordinary. Even still, we told Vernon not to go to the reenactment, or any other Civil War events for the time being. We told him just to lay low and watch his back until we could look into it some more. That seemed like the easiest row to hoe.

  “We also offered to set something up where one of our patrolmen could drive by the house now and again and check things out, make sure he and Kimberlee were all right. He said okay, as long as we could do it without his wife finding out. Our guys circled their house a few times a day and never saw a thing.” He shook his head and let out a long exhalation. “I’d better be on my way. It was real nice to see you, Lindsay. I hope we don’t have to wait another 10 years to run into each other.”

  Warren waved out the car window as he drove off down the street. Lindsay looked back at the Youngs’ house, its yellow paint glowing cheerfully under the street lights. The well-tended flower garden and tidy lawn gave off an aura of domestic tranquility. Inside, Lindsay could see Kimberlee moving from room to room, turning off the lights. For a moment, the sidewalk where Lindsay stood was plunged into semi-darkness. Then Lindsay watched as, one by one, Kimberlee turned all the lights back on. This task completed, Kimberlee began again, flicking off the switches as she moved through the rooms. Her movements cast shadows out unto the Young’s front lawn—the crisscrossing forms kaleidoscoped eerily across the darkened grass.

  Chapter 9

  At lunch the next day, Anna, Rob, and Lindsay shared their usual table in the hospital cafeteria. “You missed a great meal at the Mex-itali last night,” Rob said to Lindsay.

  “That place is an abomination. Lasagna should not be served with a side of refried beans. It’s wrong on so many levels,” Anna interjected.

  “Your problem is that you can’t put aside your preconceived gastronomical notions. Mex-itali is a pan-global fusion restaurant blending Old World and New. How else can you explain the delicate culinary synergy that is the Meatball Marinara Enchilada?” Rob asked, his eyes twinkling.

  “You’re right. There is no explanation,” Anna replied dryly.

  “How did your memorial preparation go?” Rob asked, turning to Lindsay.

  “It went…weird. A cop from New Albany, in fact, a guy I know from high school, stopped by and asked Kimberlee a bunch of questions about Vernon. There was something kind of crafty going on. Like he was asking questions, but they weren’t the real questions, if that makes any sense.” She furrowed her brow. “Then Kimberlee force-fed me a plate of fried chicken and pie. I have to go over there again today to finish all the arrangements for the memorial service.”

  “Ugh, why are you doing a funeral?” Anna groaned. “Do you not get enough quality Grim Reaper time here? You basically spend eight hours a day talking to sick people or dying people or the families of sick, dying people. It’s very morbid and unhealthy. I don’t think you’re seeing enough action in your romance department. Your priorities are out of whack. I’m a medical doctor, so I know.”

  “I agree that ‘none whatsoever’ is probably not enough action. I don’t see my job as morbid, though. I’m basically a traveling companion, making people more comfortable on their journey through life.”

  “I could never do the work you do. Lots of days, I see death. But I never have to accept it. You know? I fight against it. The fight is quick and usually I win.” Anna continued to poke at the remains of her salad. “God, I hate talking to the families. At least that’s usually quick, too. ‘I'm very sorry Mrs. Wilson. We did everything we could, blah blah blah.’ Mrs. Wilson cries. I hug her. I nudge her toward the door or call one of you. I could never just sit still and hold hands and accept it all!” She pushed her chair back with a screech and lifted her tray. “Well now I’m cranky. I don’t know why I am friends with you…you…co-pilots on Bereavement Airways. I’m going to find a nice, alive patient who needs their appendix out or a face full of stitches or something.”

  Rob and Lindsay watched Anna leave, and turned back to each other, smiling.

  ##

  Lindsay and Rob’s first encounter had nearly ended in a riot. They met at the small Christian college they both attended as undergraduates. The professor in their Intro to Modern Christianity class prompted the students to discuss the theological underpinnings of the
Southern Baptist Convention’s stance opposing women in the ministry. They were divided into two groups: Lindsay spoke for the group in favor of women ministers, Rob spoke for the case against. The two of them sat at the front of the class, while their professor, a mild-mannered Methodist who wore sandals and a ponytail, moderated the debate.

  Rob had been raised in Taiwan, by devout evangelical Christian parents. He attended an American missionary school there and aspired to be a missionary himself. Lindsay had grown up with a similarly narrow exposure to religious diversity. In Mount Moriah, religion came in two flavors—black Protestant and white Protestant. She was, however, possessed of a strong anti-authoritarian streak, a trait that often revealed itself in her views on religion.

  “In 1 Timothy, Paul wrote that, ‘A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent,’” was Rob’s opening salvo. He laid his hands on the table in front of him as if to rest his case.

  Lindsay was not cowed by his theatrical display of certainty. “Quoting scripture is just an excuse for not thinking about what you’re saying. According to the Bible, the sun moves around the earth and the ocean is filled with sea monsters.”

  “That stuff is in the Old Testament,” Rob replied. “The Old Testament may be more…poetic, but what the Apostle Paul wrote is pretty obviously meant to be literal and to be followed by anyone who calls themselves a Christian.”

  “You can’t pick and choose which parts of the Bible to interpret literally and which to interpret metaphorically. Is it a rulebook or a guidebook? And you can’t pretend that all Christians think the same way about this or any other issue.”

  “If you don’t think the Bible is true, don’t be a Christian. Go and find a copy of the dictionary. That’s true, right? Worship that.”

  The class exploded with a level of pent-up idealism that can only be found in a room full of eighteen-year-olds; they were brimming with poorly-understood ideas and unchecked hormones. The students shouted at the debaters and at one another. Lindsay and Rob shouted louder. The two sides became more and more entrenched, with neither willing to give an inch of ground. Lindsay and Rob could now barely be heard above the din. Their professor stood and walked calmly over to Lindsay and Rob. He laid his hands briefly on the top of their heads. Then he walked up and down the aisles of the classroom, touching each student lightly on the head. It was as if he had discovered an invisible mute button. As he touched the students, their voices were stilled. When the room was finally silent, the professor said quietly, “Well, I think that’s enough for today. Enthusiasm is always welcome in this classroom. And in the future, I know that you will find ways to express your enthusiasm that are respectful of your classmates’ opinions.”

  By the end of the semester, Lindsay and Rob had taken their professor’s advice to heart. They still disagreed about almost everything, but they both began to embrace the idea that silence and listening were sometimes a better way to be heard than shouting. Gradually, quietly, they became inseparable friends.

  Chapter 10

  At the end of her shift at the hospital that afternoon, Lindsay sat in the small chaplains’ office, typing her case notes into the hospital’s database. The ancient computer whirred like a spinning top and superheated the air all around it; its calefaction almost cancelled out the frigid air conditioning blasting from the ceiling vent.

  Geneva entered the room and walked straight over to the scratched, wooden desk. She planted her small hands down and leaned in toward Lindsay. “Well?” she demanded. “Have you seen him?”

  Lindsay nodded.

  “And?”

  “He’s gorgeous.”

  “Ha!” Geneva triumphantly poked the air with her small, bony finger. “Just remember to name your first child Geneva. Genever if it’s a boy.”

  “We’ve got a ways to go before we’re thinking about kids’ names.”

  “Don’t you worry. He’ll take notice of you. Nice girl like you. Polite. Christian. Nothing wrong with your face. Body neither, ‘cept maybe too skinny.” She leaned further forward and peered more closely at the frizzy curls that escaped Lindsay’s ponytail. “Well, you got something strange going on with your hair, but that’s okay. He’ll see past that and that will prove that he’s a man of integrity.”

  There was a knock at the door and Rob poked his head into the office. “Ready to go, Linds? I’ll walk to the parking lot with you.”

  “Just one minute.” Lindsay didn’t take her eyes off the computer screen where a series of error message notified her that the system memory was low. “I swear I’d be better off chiseling my notes into stone tablets. I think it’s running Windows B.C. You’re the boss, Rob, can’t you do something about this? Why doesn’t any of the hospital’s cash flow down here?”

  “You know where pastoral services fall in the hospital pecking order—somewhere below landscaping. As long as that computer keeps limping along, they’re not gonna replace it.”

  Rob greeted Geneva and perched himself on the corner of Lindsay’s desk, swinging his legs and using his fingers to tap out an irregular beat on the desktop. “Stop fidgeting,” Lindsay said irritably, still not looking at him. Rob instantly ceased all movement but began to hum softly to himself. His humming was dreadfully off-key, though Lindsay knew for a fact that he had near-perfect pitch. “You’re such a child.”

  “My, my Reverend Harding. You should really try to hold yourself above such petty name calling,” Rob admonished. He had always taken great joy in exercising his singular ability to needle Lindsay, and now that he was her supervisor, this joy increased ten-fold. Geneva simply rolled her eyes at them. As Lindsay finished the last of her paperwork, Geneva’s pager began to vibrate. She held it up and looked at the code. “ER. Dang. That probably means a dead-on-arrival, talk to the grieving family thing. I was hoping for a nice, quiet shift.”

  Rob’s needling, combined with the computer’s inefficiency, had soured Lindsay’s mood. “That’s another thing. Why do we have to use pagers, anyway? In case we get an urgent call from 1987?”

  Rob considered a moment. “You know what? I never thought about it. I guess there'd be no sense in calling us on a phone, because the message is always some version of: Get over here now! The only real questions are where to get to and who wants you there.”

  “Also, pagers are cheaper than cell phones. Hospital will spend $600 a week on flower arrangements for the lobby, but Heaven Almighty protect ‘em if they spend a dime on us chaplains,” Geneva said, rising from her chair.

  Geneva moved toward the door, but Lindsay stopped her. “Hey, Geneva? Before you go, I need to ask your opinion.”

  “Girl, you know you don’t need to ask. My opinions will be offered regularly and free of charge.”

  “You heard about the shooting last weekend at the reenactment? Vernon Young?”

  Geneva nodded gravely. “It’s about the only thing on the news.”

  “The main theory the police are working on right now is that one of the good ‘ole boy reenactors didn’t like that Vernon was black.”

  “Black man gets shot out in a field, surrounded by a bunch of white folks wearing Confederate uniforms and pointing guns. Don’t need no rocket science degree to come to that conclusion.” Geneva frowned.

  “So you’re comfortable with that theory?”

  “Comfortable!? I thought this town had started to put all that behind us. Stirring that pot again makes me about as comfortable as a rib-eye steak in a lion cage.”

  “I take it you have doubts, Lindsay?” Rob said.

  “I don’t know. It’s mostly that Kimberlee just seems so sure that Vernon got along with his fellow reenactors. And we know some of the guys who were out there. They’re our friends, for heaven’s sake. I’m just having a hard time seeing any of them as secret KKK Grand Wizards. Maybe that kind of thing would have happened thirty or forty years ago, but this town has come a long way.”

&
nbsp; “Mmm-hmm,” Geneva said in a tone that didn’t sound at all like agreement.

  “I’m with Geneva. The South has come a long way, but it’s still the South,” Rob said. “I still get stares sometimes because I’m Asian.”

  “Rob, you’re a tiny Chinese guy who talks with a funny accent and walks your three-legged cat through town on a leash. There are precious few places outside of Northern California where you’re not going to get stares,” Lindsay said.

  “You know that the leash is intended to build Beyoncé’s confidence! The vet says it might help with her self-esteem issues!”

  “I didn’t mean to make fun of Beyoncé,” Lindsay said.

  “Good, because you’re her godmother. She needs to know that you support her therapeutic process.”

  Lindsay turned toward Geneva and sighed. “All I’m trying to say is that being black hasn’t stopped your kids from becoming dentists and lawyers and whatever else in this town. I know Mount Moriah isn’t exactly Amsterdam, but it’s more libertarian than reactionary.”

  “Linds, you’ve got to remember that you’re white and straight and Christian,” Rob said.

  “I did the same diversity training as you two did. Having pale skin doesn’t make me The Man,” Lindsay answered crossly.