“The crematorium,” said Ruby. “She left me the crematorium.”
“What?” said Meg. “The crematorium?”
“I understand it does quite a bit of business,” said Ruby, “and that if I don’t want to keep it, I could certainly sell it.”
“Not to mention the advantages if one of us dies unexpectedly,” said Pete. “I would hope I’d get a special deal. After all, I did save you a place at my table.”
“You may all have special deals,” said Ruby. “I always like to remember the little people.”
•••
The McColloughs lived up in the hills in a mobile home that hadn’t been mobile in thirty years. Ardine had been married to a nasty piece of work named PeeDee McCollough, an abusive man who managed a moonshine still and a couple of welfare scams to make ends meet. The ends didn’t meet often and when they did, PeeDee soon drank up the excess. He had dropped off the face of the earth seven or eight years ago and although Ardine had never been officially questioned about his disappearance, it was the general consensus that PeeDee probably got what was coming to him and wouldn’t be missed. His family certainly didn’t miss him. Ardine worked part time at a Christmas tree farm and made quilts that she sold in gift shops. She made ends meet quite well and, although they didn’t have a lot, her children were growing up healthy and happy.
The McColloughs had three children. The only contribution that PeeDee made to his children’s lives was to name them and this he did with great deliberation; this deliberation consisting of walking over to the refrigerator. Hence, his children were all named after beers. Ardine had been too tired to argue.
Bud was the eldest. He had a unique talent that made him, even at the tender age of sixteen, well respected and in high demand in St. Germaine. He was a genuine wine connoisseur. Well, not a connoisseur in the strict sense—he didn’t actually drink the wine—but did, however, have the knowledge and the wine-speak to compete with any sommelier on the East coast, and that included Boston and New York. If asked about a certain Sauvignon Blanc on sale at the Ginger Cat, he might tell you that it was “ripe and well-balanced with fresh citrus and passion fruit characteristics. A good value at eleven dollars a bottle.” If your interest went a bit further, he’d tell you that this particular Sauvignon Blanc was from the Marlborough region of New Zealand and that the Kiwi winemakers consider it essential that, in addition to the fruitiness, their wines have the “true Marlborough” hints of armpit and cat pee. “Cat pee?” you’d ask incredulously. “A slightly musky, pungently perfumed mix of herbs, asparagus, green bean and bell pepper,” he’d answer. And he’d be right.
Bud was a voracious reader and single handedly kept the St. Germaine public library in business, or so it seemed. Rebecca Watts, the librarian, told me that he frequently checked out thirty books at a time.
“Isn’t there a limit?” I asked.
“Sure,” was the reply, “but not for Bud.”
Bud had just gotten his driver’s license, so now he was relegated to driving his brother and sister around town when Ardine couldn’t do it. Although he’d been driving his father’s old pick-up truck since he was twelve, she hadn’t let him drive the other kids until he was “legal.” Ardine was a good mother.
Pauli Girl was fifteen going on twenty-seven. She looked a lot like Daisy Mae in Little Abner and was, by a long shot, the prettiest girl in town. It wasn’t uncommon to see her walking down the street with a gaggle of adolescent boys trailing in her wake like sharks following a tuna boat. Now that school had started, she worked on the weekends in various food establishments in town, depending on which one called her first. I’d seen her lately at the Bear and Brew, the Ginger Cat and now, on this particularly lovely autumn morning, waiting tables at the Slab.
Moose-Head was the youngest of the McCollough brood. He was now eight, but still small for his age. Known to everyone in town as “Moosey,” he could be easily identified by his tattered, old-fashioned, high top Keds running down the street, the mop of uncombed straw that passed for hair, and the half eaten candy bar in his hand. Moosey had the metabolism and attention span of a garden shrew.
It was Moosey who banged into the Slab just as Noylene had poured us our second cup of coffee. He hit the door so hard that the cowbell flew off the rope, skidded across the linoleum floor, and clanked against the counter.
“Careful!” called Pete. “That cowbell cost a dollar and a quarter!”
“Hey, Chief!” Moosey yelled, standing in the doorway and holding the door open. He’d taken to calling me ‘Chief” during the summer after his mother had lectured him on the proper way to address his elders. “Chief, come quick! There’s some giant rats in the library!”
To say the patrons of Pete’s establishment were startled by the announcement would be an understatement.
“Gotta go,” I said, rising to my feet.
“We’re coming, too,” said Meg. Ruby nodded.
“You guys go ahead,” said Pete. “I’ve already seen the giant rats.” He looked around the Slab and noticed the other customers fidgeting, as if trying to decide whether giant rats were a viable tourist attraction worthy of leaving their tables to the line of hungry patrons waiting next to Moosey by the door.
“If y’all leave now, you still have to pay,” announced Pete in a loud voice. That seemed to settle the question and the diners went back to enjoying their breakfasts.
We arrived at the library behind Moosey, a one-block walk from the Slab, just in time to see Rebecca Watts chase two of the Minques out of the front door and down the steps with a broom.
“There’s still one inside,” she called when she saw us. “Bring your gun.” She disappeared back inside with Moosey at her heels. The Minques seemed to be quite nonplused about the whole episode. They calmly walked over to the flowerbeds on either side of the front steps and started munching happily on the chrysanthemums.
“Do you have your gun?” asked Ruby.
“Nope.”
“It’s in the organ bench,” said Meg with the sideways look that always followed the mention of my 9mm Glock stashed in the church.
“Very handy for rats in the choir loft,” I said. “And tenors.”
“Well, those aren’t rats,” said Ruby, looking at the creatures now gobbling the flowers like a couple of fur-covered weed-eaters.
“They’re Minques,” said Meg. “M-I-N-Q-U-E. Don’t get too close. They’re a cross between a nutria and a…a something else from South America. They’re pretty aggressive.”
“A pacarana,” I said. “The pacaranas are pretty docile, but the Minques are not. It’s one of the breed characteristics.”
“Well, isn’t that special,” said Ruby sweetly. “Aggressive Minques that eat flowers. And just in time for mum season.”
Another Minque came scurrying out of the library with Rebecca in hot pursuit. “Get out!” she yelled. “You stupid rat!”
“They’re not rats,” I called to her from the sidewalk. “They’re…”
“I know what they are. I already talked to the fur farm. They’re sending over a crew. The stupid things got hold of an entire bottom shelf of biographies. Benjamin Franklin to John Stuart Mill.”
“John who?” asked Meg.
“John Stuart Mill. Nineteenth century British philosopher,” said Rebecca. “Chewed right through him and kept on going.”
“Well, the flowers should keep them busy until the fur farmers get here,” I said.
Rebecca looked down at the decimated flowerbeds and let out a wail. “Oh, man! Give me your pistol, Hayden. I’ll kill them myself!”
“This,” I whispered to Ruby, “is why I keep the gun in the organ bench.”
“Hey,” yelled Moosey from somewhere inside. “I found another one!”
•••
“C’mon, boy,” I called and gave a whistle. I didn’t need to whistle. Baxter was out of the door and headed up the driveway before the sound died away in the kitchen. He was used to these morning r
uns, and although he could run to his heart’s content up here in the mountains, he dutifully hung around the house until invited to partake in an outing.
An October morning is a wonderful thing in the Appalachians. The “smoke” that the Smoky Mountains was known for hung in clumps on the side of the mountains, a heavy fog that would finally give way mid-morning, dispersing slowly, gradually exposing the patches of orange and yellow that now dotted the hills. By the time I’d run out to the main road and turned north to begin my two-mile loop, Baxter had chased up a couple of deer and was worrying something that had taken shelter in a nearby tree—a squirrel, or maybe a raccoon. I couldn’t see it. He barked at it happily until I jogged past, then took off ahead of me again to see what other interesting things he might find.
There was no traffic early on Sunday mornings. There was barely traffic during what the residents of Green Holler Road jokingly called “rush hour.” The church service was still hours away, and my shoes kicked up dust on the unpaved road as I headed up the slope.
Running and thinking went together like possum and sweet taters. I was investigating two deaths within three days of each other. Coincidence? Maybe. Davis Boothe was thirty-two but looked younger. He had no family and that in itself was odd. If he was older, maybe, but at thirty-two, it seemed strange that he had no surviving parents, no brothers or sisters, no grandparents and no record of anyone who might be related to him. What else did we know about him? He hadn’t been to college, but showed up in the area about twelve years ago. He got a job waiting tables in Boone and then selling suits at Don’s Clothing Store. He was a member of the vestry at St. Barnabas and active in the local Little Theater. He had been diagnosed with a blood clot in his brain, and was taking blood thinners. Surgery—medically, a better option for Davis—wasn’t really an option because he had no health insurance. Other than the blood clot, he seemed to be in good health, productive and happy. We had all assumed he was gay, but we may have been way off base. He was single, attractive and available, but had never been linked with anyone of either sex that I knew of. Still, if he was gay, we had no evidence of it.
Davis had hanged himself on a Sunday morning. I had seen him the day before at the bookstore when I first saw the book I had purchased a few days later, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon. Davis had been looking at it with me when he had suddenly left the bookstore. I thought back on the scene. He’d closed the book, said he had to leave and disappeared. The next morning, he killed himself. Did he see something in the book, and if so, what? This particular book was one hundred eighty-five years old.
I rounded a bend and the road now followed a rushing creek that drowned out the sounds of the surrounding woods. I caught a glimpse of Baxter as he tore up a hill and disappeared into a thicket of mountain laurel. Without breaking stride, I kicked absently at a large hickory nut lying on the side of the road and watched it bounce off a rock and splash into the swirling water.
Thelma Wingler had died two days later of coronary arrest. Her heart had stopped, but I wasn’t buying “died of natural causes.” Thelma had quit taking her OCD meds and had become trapped in the Upper Womb’s labyrinth under circumstances that any normal person would have found ludicrous. “Just walk away,” they might have laughed. But Thelma couldn’t “just walk away.” She was a prisoner of her obsessive compulsive disorder as surely as if she were walled into Minos’ own maze.
Chad Parker and Lacie Ravencroft had painted the labyrinth for their spa patrons to use as a tool to help guide their meditative experience. Or so it seemed. I had seen labyrinths before and, although I didn’t necessarily feel the fascination, I’d concede its viability as a spiritual guide. Had Thelma been instructed by Chad to discard her medication, use his techniques to deal with her OCD like Wynette had said, then become lost in the labyrinth and, unable to extricate herself, finally died there? Whatever the reasons behind her demise, I didn’t think she died alone. The lock was left open, hanging from the latch, and Thelma had no key on her person. More than that, she didn’t even have any pockets. If she’d had her purse with her—something I considered probable—it was missing. Someone was in the garden with her. There was a krummhorn hanging in the bushes, a very loud instrument that she had purchased earlier that morning, but she hadn’t known that she needed to put a reed into the horn to make it work. She’d had some swelling of her vocal cords and had been complaining of a cold coming on. She’d even had a prescription, called in by Dr. Weber, that she never picked up.
I skipped around a box turtle that I hadn’t noticed until the last moment. Baxter was nowhere to be seen.
What about Lacie? Where did she figure in all this? True, both Chad and Lacie were in Virginia during the time in question, but could they have masterminded the entire episode? If so, what was their motive? Money? The five thousand dollars that the Upper Womb received from Thelma’s estate would hardly be worth a murder, although I’d seen it done for a lot less.
I had more questions than answers as I jogged around the final turn and headed back to the house. When I arrived, Baxter was already on the porch, soaking wet from chasing frogs into the creek, deliriously content, and ready for breakfast.
•••
Most of the members of St. Barnabas had heard about the Lemmings long before Sunday, so it was no surprise that the church was full for their first service. The Rev. Dr. Adrian Lemming, being an ex-Baptist minister of music and well-versed in the hymns of the faith, had chosen Onward Christian Soldiers as the opening hymn. Rock of Ages and Just As I Am rounded out the selections. I figured he was going with the old favorites, but suspected he’d be in trouble in a couple of weeks when those old favorites ran out. The Episcopal hymnal hadn’t been kind to the old favorites and for every Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus, there were ten Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending, great tunes and texts unknown to most of the folks who had grown up on Fanny Crosby and the Sunday School hymns of the early 20th century. I certainly didn’t fault them. People like to sing what they know and most of our parishioners were not of the Frozen Chosen—that is to say, cradle Episcopalians—but had moved their memberships over to St. Barnabas from other denominations. In addition to the handful of chestnuts and popular standards that crossed all denominations, our hymnal included quite a number of Earth and All Stars—tricky tunes with texts that made people want to become Amish just to get away from them. Every denominational hymnal had its share of dogs to be sure, and this one could bark with the best of them, but I figured there were plenty of hymns in it for everyone’s taste. Added to that, it was the only hymnal we had and, for now at least, it was the one we used. Choosing hymns was a balancing act, of old favorites and new finds, but every congregation had their own repertoire and I knew ours pretty well. I was sure that the Lemmings did not.
Fiona Tidball-Lemming came down to give the children’s sermon, but the children, not knowing they would be required, had left during the second hymn and gone on to Children’s Church as was their custom. Father Lemming, singing the hymn with gusto, didn’t see them depart and, when the hymn was over, invited the now-absent children to come forward while Mrs. Tidball-Lemming waited on the chancel steps. She was dressed in a white alb like her husband, complete with a matching ministerial stole and looked more than a little put out when there were no children to attend to her ministrations. Knowing the children of St. Barnabas as I did, she got away easy, but she huffed her way back to her position as lay Eucharistic minister with her children’s sermon still in her pocket. Father Lemming gave his sermon a few moments later. It wasn’t a particularly memorable message, but it wasn’t awful. It did, however, contain more than a few “dontcha know”s.
Our new priest seemed quite happy—almost giddy, in fact—when, during his welcome and announcements, he invited all interested parties to come in and audition for The Living Gobbler. He and Fiona would be personally holding the auditions on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon with rehearsals to begin the following week.
“Hey, great
news, dontcha know,” said Meg to the rest of the soprano section as they were passing the peace. “If we don’t audition, we don’t have to be in it.”
“Au contraire,” I said, overhearing their nefarious plan. “The whole choir is in it. I’ve already ordered your rutabaga and pilgrim costumes.”
“I’d like to be Pocahontas,” said Marjorie as demurely as she could manage in her whisky tenor.
“You’re pushing eighty, Marjorie,” said Phil. “And pushing it pretty hard. Pocahontas was an Indian maiden.”
“Bite your tongue, you little whippersnapper,” said Marjorie.
“You’ll have to audition for the Lemmings,” I said. “I’m afraid I hold no sway in the casting process. Pocahontas has a lot of lines though. And there’s the big love scene with Squanto.”
“John Smith,” corrected Meg.
“Whoever.”
“I don’t mind,” said Marjorie. “I could use a little lovin’.”
“Meg said that you haven’t even started writing it,” said Bev. “How do you know how many lines Pocahontas has?”
“It’s all right up here,” I answered, tapping my noggin. “Almost finished.”
“It’s a good thing Whispering Hope isn’t in the hymnal,” said Elaine. “It’d be the grand finale.”
Suddenly several screams emanated from the nave below. Those of us on the front row leaned over the edge of the balcony to see what had precipitated such a Pentecostal outburst. Those choir members seated further back stood up and craned forward to get a look. Running down the aisle and heading for the open doors was a Minque.
Chapter 15
“Okay,” I said to Ginger. “I’ve got the picture. Now spell it out.”
Ginger leaned in and spilled her guts like a sorority pledge after the Homecoming dance.
“Here’s the grift, goombah. The bishops are opening a
The Mezzo Wore Mink Page 13