by Jerry Apps
19
Missing Workers
A couple of mornings after he caught Preacher and Helen among the pickle vats, Andy arrived at work to find Marshal Justin Quick's car parked by the loading ramp.
“Got a problem,” Quick said as he climbed out of the squad car. Quick wore his big silver badge clipped to his belt, which he wore in an attempt to hold his ample middle in place as well as support a .38 revolver that hung low on his right side. He fumbled with the gun's worn wooden handle with one hand and pushed back his big white cowboy hat with the other.
“You know anything about Pastor Arthur Ketchum's whereabouts?”
“No, but I expect he'll be here in a few minutes,” Andy answered.
“I'll just wait here, then,” the marshal said. He put his fingers together and cracked his knuckles.
“What do you want with the preacher?” Andy asked.
“Just wanna know where he's at. His wife, Ethel, you know, the whiney one? Well, she called me this morning and said her husband hadn't gotten home last night. Got me out of bed, she did. She was all worked up, said it wasn't like him not to come home.”
Soon the other workers began arriving. Blackie, Quarter Mile, and Agnes all arrived by nine, but no Preacher and no Helen Swanson, either.
“I'll wait a few minutes to see if he makes it,” Marshal Quick said. He cracked his knuckles again.
By nine thirty neither of the two had arrived.
“Why don't you go over to Helen Swanson's house and check on her?” Andy said to the marshal.
Soon the marshal was back.
“House locked up tighter than a drum. Nobody home.”
“You try to call Karl Swanson, her ex-husband?” Andy asked.
“Nah, no use. Last I heard he moved to Chicago,” Quick answered.
“Better come into the office,” Andy said, motioning for the marshal to come up the steps. Andy realized he had better not keep secret what he knew about Helen and Preacher. He closed the office door. Marshal Quick pulled a little notebook from his shirt pocket and flipped it open. “I'm ready for your statement,” he said, very officially. “Haven't had a missing person case in a long while.”
“Helen was having lots of problems since her divorce,” Andy began.
“Yup,” the marshal said. He took off his big hat and tossed it into a corner.
“Preacher agreed to give her some counseling,” Andy said.
“Counseling, huh?” A slow smile spread over the marshal's face.
“Besides that, at the beginning of the season the preacher tried to get the crew to pray before lunch. You can imagine how that went over,” Andy continued. “Anyway, the preacher and Helen began eating their lunches together, and before you could say amen and hallelujah, Helen joined his Church of the Holy Redeemed.”
“One thing led to another, huh?”
“Those are the facts. But off the record, I don't want you spreading the next part around,” Andy said, though he knew full well the marshal probably would.
“Oh, no, never do that.” The marshal put down his pad and leaned in closer.
“Yesterday I saw the two of them buck-naked downstairs between the pickle vats, closer together than they ought to be.”
“The preacher! That's a tough one to swallow,” Quick said.
“Well, it's the truth.”
The marshal leaned back in his chair. “Same old story. Heard it a hundred times. Little different with a preacher involved.”
“Remember, you said you'd keep this part to yourself,” Andy reminded Quick.
“Oh, yeah, wouldn't want to spread that kind of information around. ’Fore you know it, that place downstairs around the pickle tanks will get a reputation,” the marshal laughed.
“You know what I mean, Marshal. Think of the preacher's kids.”
“Yeah, the preacher's kids.”
“So it looks like they up and ran off together,” Andy said.
“Looks that way. Sure looks that way.”
“So what're you gonna do?”
“Nothin’. Nothin’ I can do. No crime committed. Nobody kidnapped. Nobody robbed—unless you might say Helen was robbed, but it sounds like she was givin’ it away.”
“So you aren't doing anything?”
“Nope. Not until I hear some crime's been committed. People runnin’ off together ain't no crime. Not here in Link Lake anyway,” the marshal said.
“Sure as anything Ethel'll want some answer from me. What do I tell her?” Andy asked.
“Say whatever you want. Facts seem clear. They had a thing for each other and they ran away. That's what I'll tell her, anyway.” The marshal leaned over and picked up his hat, stood up, hitched up his belt, cracked his knuckles, and was on his way out. “I'll let you know if I hear anything.”
By now the first load of cucumbers had arrived, six sacks that the farmer hoisted up on the loading dock from the back of his old car, from which he had removed the back seat.
“Got a problem here?” the farmer asked when he saw the marshal leaving in his squad car.
“Nah, just a little misunderstanding,” Andy said. He knew that the news of the preacher running off with the bookkeeper would fly around Link Lake faster than a tornado in June. And he knew the stories would start the minute Marshal Quick returned to his office. Quick had a reputation for being the best news source in the area. Especially when it came to what made the juiciest gossip—who was arrested for drunkenness, who was beating his wife, which kids in town were the most troublesome, and, of course, the most outstanding news of all: which married men were messing around with other women. He even knew who wasn't paying their bills, who had passed a bad check or two, or who had trouble paying their taxes. But that kind of news was on the boring order, compared to men jumping over the traces with other women.
After the farmer left, Andy quietly told the pickle factory crew what he believed had happened. He spared them the details of what he had seen between the pickle vats.
“Saw them going at it a couple weeks ago,” Agnes said. “I'm not surprised they ran off together.”
Andy said he hoped the two of them would come back, especially Helen, because now he had to do all the bookwork himself, write the checks, figure the salt, and keep all the records. It would be impossible to hire a competent person this late in the season.
That afternoon a newer blue Buick car pulled up to the pickle factory. Four big women wearing flowered dresses and hats piled out and walked single file from the car to the factory steps. Andy saw them coming. They looked familiar—they were the same women he'd seen on the parade float trying to sing hymns. They were like four big ducks waddling in a row, one right after the other. On a mission, looking for some answers.
One after the other, they marched up the steps and across the factory floor to where the crew was working.
“I'm looking for Andy Meyer,” the lead duck said. It was obvious that her feathers were ruffled.
“I'm Andy.”
“I am Prudence Wordsworthy of the Church of the Holy Redeemed. We need to have a talk.” She did not extend a hand.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Can we talk privately?” Prudence asked. When she spoke she twitched so that the big colorful flowers on her hat vibrated.
“How about in the office?”
Andy led the way, and the four women, still in single file, paraded behind him. It reminded him a little of his days in the army, when everybody walked in a straight line, in step.
Andy shut the door. He offered the two chairs in the office, but the foursome refused to sit, so Andy took the chair by the desk. The office was fairly bursting with heavily perfumed, big women.
“What can I do for you?” Andy asked.
“As I said, we are from the Church of the Holy Redeemed.”
It was already getting warm in the little office, and the heavy smell of perfume was giving Andy a headache.
“I believe you know our beloved preacher, Arthur Ketchum?�
��
“Yes, I know him well. He's worked here all summer.”
“Well, that certainly has been a mistake. He never should have sought outside employment. He should have said he couldn't make ends meet. The ladies of the church would have helped him out and made sure he got a few more potatoes, a half a hog, or an extra sack of rutabagas. We could have helped him out. He didn't need to work here.”
“He turned out to be a good worker.”
“That Helen Swanson works here too, doesn't she?” the head duck asked.
“Yes, she does,” Andy said.
“She's been a member of our church for only a short time. What do you know of her background? Why did she get divorced? What does she do here? Why would a woman work in a place like this anyway?” the head duck snarled.
“She is our bookkeeper, and a darn good one, too,” Andy said, raising his voice a little.
“You watch your language, young man. There will be no coarse language in our presence.”
“Sorry,” Andy said, not sure what he had said that was considered coarse.
“We may have misjudged that Helen,” the short duck hissed.
“That woman, that harlot,” the lead duck sputtered. “She's the one responsible for all this.”
“That's what happens when an upstanding church like ours accepts a divorced woman into its midst,” the second duck hissed. She pulled a dainty handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her forehead.
“That Helen, she's the one responsible for all this,” said the third duck, who had previously not spoken. She barely opened her mouth when she talked, so the words came out a bit garbled.
“Responsible for what?” Andy asked.
“You know full well. You know what was going on between that seducer and our spiritual leader. You knew what was going on,” the lead duck chimed in as she wagged her long crooked finger in Andy's face. “Don't you know how to control your help? Can't you keep your employees in order and show them how to walk down a Christian path?”
“Didn't think it was any of my business what path they chose.”
“Well, it should have been your business. If you'd been doing your job, leading your people in the way of the Lord, this wouldn't have happened,” the lead duck said in a too-loud voice.
“It's sad, so sad what this Helen did to our beloved preacher,” the short duck said. She was shaking her head back and forth vigorously. Andy wondered if her big hat would remain in place.
“So sad,” the second duck said.
“So sad,” the third duck mumbled.
Just then came a loud knock on the office door and Blackie Antonelli stuck in his head. “Andy, where in hell are the extra pickle crates?”
“Humph,” the lead duck said as she bristled and ruffled her feathers. “You will not speak such words in the presence of Christian women,” she huffed.
“Oh, sorry,” Blackie said to the woman, whose face was red. He turned again to Andy. “Where in hell are the extra crates?”
“Back of the salt bin,” Andy answered.
“Is he . . . is he an example of the kind of help you have here?” Prudence Wordsworthy was trying to catch her breath.
“Blackie's a good worker. Swears a little too much, but he works hard.”
“How do you put up with having such a longhaired heathen in your midst? Oh, poor pastor. No wonder he strayed. No wonder he allowed the wiles of a dangerous woman to lead him off the path. Working around heathens everyday. Oh, the poor man. The poor man, whatever has become of him? Whatever has become of him?” the lead duck asked.
“Oh, the poor man,” the third duck mumbled.
“Oh, the poor man,” the second duck added.
“Oh, the poor man,” the little duck concluded.
To Andy it sounded like a barnyard chorus, with each woman repeating what the previous one had just said.
“You know, it often takes two people for these things to happen,” Andy broke in.
“Oh, how could you even suggest that our beloved pastor had anything to do with this, a man of the cloth? An esteemed follower of the word?” The lead duck asked.
“Preacher must have gotten another word from Helen,” Andy said. He knew it was a mistake to say it the moment the words left his mouth.
The lead duck's nose flew in the air. “You . . . you, young man, are without respect. We are talking about a man of God, not some everyday worker at this despised place of employment.”
“He was just another worker when he was here, a pretty good one, too. Did his work well.” Andy was biting his tongue not to tell off these pious old busybodies.
“Oh, how could he? How could he work around these Godless people?” A chorus of “how could he's” bounced off the walls of the little office.
“This bookkeeper . . . this seducer has obviously stolen our pastor from us, taken him away to some heathen place. Ah, but he is a strong man; he will resist the temptations of a harlot. We all know he will.”
Andy resisted the temptation to smile. He considered sharing what he had seen between the pickle vats, but he thought better of it. In his mind he saw the four of them fainting dead away at the very idea. Then he would be faced with hauling four heavily perfumed, pious women out of the pickle factory. Nobody would want such a task.
“What are you doing about all this?” the head duck asked loudly. She was beginning to perspire heavily, dabbing at her wet brow with a little white handkerchief.
“Don't think there is anything I can do. Sounds like they ran off together.”
“For heaven's sake, don't you have anybody out looking for them?”
“Where would we look?”
“You must know these places, you must know.”
“Well, I don't know these places,” Andy said. He was becoming perturbed. “I've got to get back to work,” he said as he stood and opened the door.
“Well, I do declare,” the lead duck said as she pranced out the door. “I do declare.” The other three fell in line behind her, and they marched across the floor down the stairway, the lead one nearly tripping on the bottom step. They stomped in single file to the Buick, quickly crawled in, and slammed the doors in unison. The car's rear wheels threw gravel against the side of the pickle factory wall as it roared up the driveway.
20
Breaking News
Marshal Quick kept no secrets. When he had news, he shared it. It's hard to say whether Quick saw it as a civic duty to keep people informed or was a gossip who couldn't keep a story to himself. Of course, he was also looking for some publicity, because he was up for reelection.
The marshal detailed the disappearance of the preacher and the bookkeeper to Dewey John at the Link Lake Gazette office right after he talked with Andy. He said he was mounting an investigation to make sure there had been no wrongdoing and that no harm had come to either Preacher or Helen.
“It's the biggest story of the year,” the marshal said. “Maybe the biggest story in five years.”
Dewey listened carefully but didn't comment.
The marshal took time explaining what Andy Meyer had said about what happened between the pickle vats in the factory cellar. As he listened, he wondered if the good marshal expected him to write about the fornication right down to its naked details. Dewey tried to keep from smiling as the marshal went on and on, as only he was capable of doing.
“You'll wanna feature this on the front page of the paper,” the marshal said. “And I'm ready to pose for a photo if you want one.”
“Not right now,” Dewey said, trying not to laugh.
“Okay, then,” the marshal said. “Just let me know when you want a photo—or another interview.” He gathered up his hat, cracked his knuckles, and left.
Looking out the window, Dewey noticed that Marshal Quick stopped at the Link Lake Tap on his way down Main Street. More news was digested, discussed, cussed, and created there than almost any other place in town—his challenge was to report this runaway incident accurately without fuelin
g the gossip machine, which had already shifted into high gear.
The editor decided to drive over to the pickle factory and talk with Andy, to get his version of the story. When he did, he found that what the marshal had said mostly jibed with Andy's description, except for the part about the investigation. The marshal had told Andy he wasn't going to do anything about the disappearance, because two people could run off together and not break any laws.