by Donis Casey
Mr. Bellows’ eyes lit up. “Is your father a preacher, Sister Alafair?”
She nodded. “Yes, he’s retired these days, but he still preaches now and then at two or three little churches there around Lone Elm, Arkansas.”
“Campbellite?”
“No, Freewill Baptist.”
“Ah,” Mr. Bellows breathed. “I’d like to debate the Word with him, sometime.”
Alafair smiled. “He’d love it,” she assured the minister. “My favorite verse from Galatians sixth chapter, though, is verse nine—And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Mr. Bellows’ finger punctuated the air. “Yes, but let us not forget what it says in verse eight, Sister; for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
As soon as the words were out of the man’s mouth, Alafair was nearly bowled over by the smell of ammonia. She stifled a gasp and sat back in her seat. The smell seemed suddenly to blow up into her face from the floor, and her eyes were drawn down to the intricate handmade rug on the floor just to their right. It was a pristine white, with a tiny pink floral pattern. Alafair’s first thought was that anyone with a white rug on the floor obviously had no children.
“What are you trying to tell me, Louise?” was her second thought.
Her forehead wrinkled as she gazed at that rug, lying at an odd angle on the floor to the left of the settee. Not under or before any piece of furniture, not by a door, just there, to the left of the settee. She looked back up at the preacher.
“Why, I believe that’s verse eleven, Brother Ulises,” she said.
Brother Ulises’ eyes widened with surprise at being contradicted, and about scripture, of all things. “I fear you are mistaken, Sister. Verse eight is, for he that soweth to his flesh, which is well known.”
“I don’t think so, Preacher,” Alafair insisted. “My daddy loved that verse especially, and I specifically remember him saying, ‘and verse eleven, for he that soweth…”
Brother Ulises sputtered, struggling between indignation at being questioned and delight at having before him an ignorant soul to enlighten. He jumped to his feet. “Excuse me a minute, Brother and Sisters, while I fetch my Bible from the bedside table.” He rushed out of the room. The instant his back disappeared up the stairs, Alafair fell to her knees and skittered along the floor, passing in front of an astonished Shaw, to the white, flowered rug lying at an odd angle by the settee.
“Alafair, what in the cow eyes are you doing?” Shaw managed.
“Galatians six, verse eleven,” Alafair said, lifting one corner of the rug and flinging it back, “ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand.”
Under the white rug, the pine floor was marred with a great, obscene blotch of rusty brown, surrounded by a patch of flooring bleached by ammonia where it had been scrubbed in a vain attempt to remove the stain. But whoever had tried to clean it had waited too long, and the pine boards would never come clean again.
Suddenly, Shaw was on his knees beside Alafair, and Martha had flown out of her chair in the corner and was leaning over her parents in order to see.
“Lord’a mercy!” Shaw breathed. “How did you know?”
“I smelled the ammonia. Somebody must have tried to clean this floor with ammonia.”
“You’ve got a nose like a hound,” Shaw told her, impressed. “I don’t smell anything.”
“Louise must have stabbed herself right here in this spot!” Martha exclaimed.
“Well, Scott thought she didn’t stab herself, and I’m beginning to think he was right,” Shaw said. “Else how did she get from here to her own front room? Somebody carried her, because she didn’t walk, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe this isn’t her blood,” Martha speculated.
“Maybe,” Alafair said, doubtful. “But what with Miz Bellows’ knife sticking out of her chest and the fact that there was no blood on the floor at Louise’s own home, but just the rug, I’m thinking…”
“That she died right here and somebody wrapped her up in that rug and carried her home in it, then laid her, and the rug, down on her own floor. And then went to make it look like she did herself in,” Shaw finished for her.
“After which the Tollands found her body and decided to make Walter out to be a killer, right before Mr. Grant carted her out to the road,” Martha added in an excited undertone. “They kicked that rug up under the sideboard in all the hubbub, while they were wrapping her in a blanket and straightening the parlor. And if Mr. Grant is telling the truth, somebody else picked Louise up and put her in the creek.”
“Poor Louise.” Alafair lowered her voice to a whisper. “No wonder she can’t rest.”
Shaw turned to Martha. “Darlin’,” he said under his breath, “go outside and get the girls into the wagon. Me and Mama will be out there as soon as we can.”
“I’m afraid y’all ain’t going anywhere,” Mr. Bellows said, from behind them.
Shaw leaped to his feet and planted himself between Bellows and his wife and daughter. “Preacher,” he managed, “what the…”
Mr. Bellows was standing at the foot of the stairs, armed with his Bible in one hand and an old Union Army Colt .45 in the other.
“Y’all just stay still, now,” the preacher ordered, “while I think on what to do next.” He shook his head ruefully. “I knew we should have refinished that floor.”
Martha started to stand, but Alafair grabbed her arm and jerked her back down. Alafair thought about the little girls outside and bit her lip anxiously.
“Did you kill Louise Kelley?” Shaw asked the pastor, straight out.
Bellows didn’t answer that, but a humorless smile bent his lips. His features had hardened, Alafair observed, and the bombastic and rather silly preacher who had left the room a moment ago was no longer.
“Imagine my disappointment, Brother Shaw,” Bellows said ironically. “I return Miz Kelley to her house, arrange her artfully in the parlor, and scribble a suicide note for her husband to find. Then, just as I am safely leaving, I see that sister of hers and her husband show up and fiddle around with my carefully laid tableau. After they leave, before I can rectify the situation, the neighbors troop across the yard, raise a ruckus, and then, for God knows what reason, they carry the body practically to the front of our house and leave her in the road. What else could I do but get rid of her once and for all before the sun came up? I figured I’d picked a spot where she’d never be found, a perfectly secure hiding place in the creek. And then what happens? Your boys find her there not half a day later and alert the sheriff! Yes, sir, God is playing fine little jokes on us.”
“You’re caught now, Ulises,” Shaw said reasonably. “Too many of us know, now.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Brother Shaw,” Bellows replied. “What’s a couple more murders, more or less?”
Shaw’s gaze shifted to a spot over Bellows’ shoulder. “Don’t do it!” he exclaimed to the empty air. It was an old trick, but it worked. Startled, Bellows’ eyes shifted.
And then all hell broke loose.
Faster than anyone in the room could think, Shaw reached down and grabbed the pink-flowered rug and flung it at the preacher’s head. By the time Alafair had blinked, Shaw and the enshrouded Ulises Bellows were rolling around on the floor. Bellows fired wildly, once into the ceiling and once into the front window, which shattered noisily. Shaw grabbed Bellows’ gun hand and hammered it against the floor until the .45 went flying across the room. When her thought processes began to function, Alafair realized that she had thrown herself over Martha’s huddled form, and that Sister Norma was standing in the door to the kitchen, screeching her husband’s name. The gun spun to a stop in the middle of the room, and both women locked eyes on it at the same time.
Alafair launched herself into the air over her daughter and landed with her hand on the grip of the gun just as
Sister Norma slid into her and grabbed her wrist. The two women grappled for less than a minute before Martha Tucker rose to her feet, seized a ceramic vase full of wildflowers from the side table, and cracked the unsuspecting Norma Bellows over the head with it. The preacher’s wife made a little mewling noise, and slid quietly to the floor. Alafair leaped to her feet, ready to come to Shaw’s aid, but it was unnecessary. He had already subdued Mr. Bellows, whose head and upper body were still wrapped in the rug. Shaw was sitting across the man’s belly, holding his arms down on the floor, watching the exploits of his wife and daughter with wide eyes. Silence fell like a stone as they all tried to catch their breath.
Finally, Mr. Bellows made a muffled protest, and Shaw looked down at him. “You’d better hold still, now, Preacher,” he warned, “or I’ll fetch my girl up on you.”
***
Sheriff Scott Tucker stood in the middle of the Bellows’ parlor with his hands on his hips, and gazed thoughtfully at the rusty stain on the floor. His deputy, Trenton Calder, stood on one side of him, and his cousin Shaw Tucker stood on the other. The room was a mess. Alafair and Martha stood just inside the front door, behind the men. The little girls were in town with Hattie. A silent and sullen Mr. Bellows and his woozy wife sat side by side on the couch, in handcuffs.
Scott puffed out a noncommittal sound. Or it might have been a laugh. “When Martha come flying into town with her skirt hitched up to her knees and her hair waving in the breeze, I knew something momentous had happened.” He drew out the word “momentous,” making it seem even bigger than it was. “But you, Pastor, of all people!” He paused and shook his head. “Who’d have believed it? Why did you kill the poor woman, that’s what I’m wondering?”
Sister Norma moaned and dropped her aching head into her hands. Bellows awkwardly placed one of his cuffed hands on her knee.
“I didn’t kill her, Sheriff,” Mr. Bellows vowed, “Jesus as my witness. I was trying to save her. I spent weeks trying to get that woman to renounce her sinful ways and accept Jesus into her heart. I never worked so hard for a soul in my life. But she couldn’t change, or wouldn’t. Be a submissive and faithful wife, I counseled. She said she’d divorce her husband for shaming her, then turned around and said she loved him and could never leave him. Said she wished he was dead. The Devil was in her. Possessed, I say. She died right here, in this room, in a frenzy of guilt, while I was ministering to her.
“Yes, she came here that night, I admit it. It was late. I was asleep. But I heard her knocking, and let her in. She was a soul in need, Sheriff. She said the awfullest thing—she’d tried to have her husband killed, and would I pray with her. She was wild with shame and grief. She took one of Norma’s knives, and before I knew what was happening…” He shuddered, seemingly overcome with the horror of it.
“You’re trying to tell me that she did herself in, like Miz Tolland thought,” Scott said. His flat tone conveyed his skepticism. “If that’s your story, then going to so much trouble to hide her body, then threatening to murder folks when they find a stain on your floor don’t make much sense, does it?”
Norma Bellows dropped her hands into her lap and leaned forward anxiously. Her face was alarmingly red. “Sheriff, she was possessed, like Ulises said,” she shrilled. “It was the Devil! The Devil done her in! Demons! I saw them in her eyes.”
“Shut up, Norma,” Bellows hissed.
Scott hushed him with a gesture. “Hang on, now, Pastor. Go on, Miz Bellows. It was demons, you say…”
“They had her,” Sister Norma assured him. “I saw her. I wasn’t to home when she first got here. I came home late from attending Miz Click at childbirth, and walked into this room to see Louise going after Ulises…”
“Norma! Norma!” Bellows interrupted.
“Pastor,” Scott warned, “if you don’t be quiet, I’m going to have Trent gag you.” He turned back to Sister Norma. “Was Louise trying to hurt your husband?” he asked her.
“The Devil is strong,” she told Scott. She was trembling, but she looked more excited than fearful. “I could feel his evil presence when I walked into the house. That’s when I saw them here together, Louise and Ulis, right on that old settee, grappling. You don’t understand what Satan can do to a man, Sheriff, ’til you see it with your own eyes. I ran back into the kitchen and grabbed that big knife. Louise jumped up and I saw the Evil One in her eyes. I struck her away from Ulis and I plunged that knife in as hard as I could. It was horrible, blood everywhere. Devil’s blood, all over my settee, all over the floor, evil blood that would not be cleansed. I poured ammonia on the demon stain, but all my scrubbing only bleached the boards around it.” She shook her head.
“I loved that bone knife. I wanted to pull it out, but Ulis said to leave it, that we should take her home, because folks would get the wrong idea if she was found here. I was more than willing to get that demon carcass out of here, too.” She smiled at her husband, who looked so pale that Alafair feared he might faint.
“He was right about everything, of course,” Sister Norma continued. “We wrapped her in the rug and Ulis took her away. He left it with her body at her house. Then—then! Satan lifted her broken body right up from where we took it and put it down in front of our house!”
Scott nodded. To Alafair’s amazement, he was listening to Norma’s horrifying story calmly, as though it were the most logical thing in the world. “And then what did you do?” he asked her.
“We had to carry it far from here on the back of our jenny and sink it under some roots in Cane Creek!”
Ulises groaned, and Sister Norma glanced at him, barely distracted. “Satan had her in his grasp, all right,” she continued. “It was too late for her, but if I hadn’t acted when I did, he’d have had Ulis, too, and right quick. I saved him, Sheriff. I saved him. You don’t know.”
A dead silence fell. Sister Norma, having explained to her satisfaction, was nodding. Ulises slumped onto the arm of the settee. Everyone else in the room was speechless.
“Hmph,” Scott grunted, at length. He looked over his shoulder at Trent. “Deputy, take these folks on over to the jailhouse and lock them up. Then give Lawyer Meriweather a holler. I’ll be along directly.”
Trent hustled the couple toward the door. Bellows paused as he passed Scott. “She didn’t know what she was doing, Sheriff,” he said.
“A jury will decide that, Pastor,” Scott informed him.
***
“Well,” Scott mused, after Trent and his charges were gone. “I never did buy that story that Louise committed suicide in her own parlor. Nobody could kill herself like that and not leave blood all over the place. But I was still thinking Billy Bond done it.” The sheriff’s gaze wandered off into space, and he absently pulled a piece of sassafras candy out of his pocket. He popped it in his mouth as he pondered. “But who could have guessed what really happened?” He shook his head. “So much flimflam…” His gaze shifted to Shaw’s face and his blue eyes crinkled. “I been misled, misdirected, bamboozled, and downright hornswoggled.”
“I’m inclined to blame the preacher,” Alafair stated.
“You would,” Shaw said.
“Louise was sad and weak,” Alafair continued, ignoring her husband, “and he took advantage of her.”
“What about Miz Bellows, Ma?” Martha asked. “Sounds like she did the stabbing.”
Alafair shook her head. “Shock must have drove her crazy, is all I can think. She’d sooner believe the Devil was after her husband than that he was a weak man giving in to temptation. At least the pastor tried to protect her just now.”
“They said that they are the ones who put Louise in the creek,” Scott interjected, “and the jenny with the nicked shoe in their barn pretty much proves it.” He gave them a dry smile. “Imagine the look on the preacher’s face when the Grants put Louise’s body on the road right outside his house just a couple of hours after he had gone to all the trouble to take her home.”
“Louise was hauled around somet
hing awful after her death,” Martha observed.
“That woman was pretty hard done by.” Alafair shook her head. “Hard done by.”
“What amazes me,” Shaw mused, “is why they didn’t just brazen it out. So we found that they have knives like the one that killed Louise. She might have stolen it from them. This here stain on the floor could have got there any number of ways. We were just speculating when the pastor overheard us. Why didn’t they try to come up with a story? They could have at least thrown us off the scent long enough to make an escape after we went home. Did the preacher think he was going to get away with shooting us all, or what?”
Scott crossed his arms over his chest. “I suspect he didn’t think at all, but just panicked. Why did they leave their own kitchen knife sticking out of Louise’s chest? It wasn’t a well-planned killing from beginning to end. In fact, there wasn’t a clear head to be found anywhere that night.”
“And yet they almost got away with it,” Shaw pointed out. “Thank goodness for Alafair’s nose, is all I can say.”
Alafair smiled at this. She couldn’t smell the ghostly ammonia any more. Now that Louise’s killer had been caught, she expected she never would again.
“Who would have suspected them?” Scott said. “I questioned the preacher, but I questioned everybody I thought might know Miz Kelley. It’s going to be impossible for him to brazen it out, now.”
“A man of God,” Alafair said, shaking her head sadly, “using his church’s trust and belief in him to lead poor misguided souls astray.”
“Is your faith shaken, Ma?” Martha asked her.
Alafair looked at her, surprised that she might think so. “No, hon. Nothing folks do surprises me much any more, and preachers ain’t no better than the rest of us. And everybody gets justice in the end, like it says in Galatians, chapter six, verse seven; be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
Shaw laughed. “Why, honey, looks like you win the scripture quoting contest after all.”