"Was at the carnival," said Meg. "Of course! The DaNGLs were selling pumpkins. They were doing pumpkin carving at their booth."
"Right. But this pumpkin wasn't carved. He didn't have time to carve it, or maybe didn't want her face seen through the gaps. He just drew a face on it with magic marker."
"Then cut the bottom out and stuck it on her head," said Meg.
"So if Flori Cabbage was killed between 5:30 and six, or there about, the carnival would have been shutting down. The pumpkin was probably an afterthought, meant to confuse anyone who found her into thinking she was part of the spooky decor. Maybe give the killer a couple of hours head start. Maybe give him time to search her house."
"The carnival was closing up," said Meg, "so whoever it was that got it was probably the last person at the booth. I mean, who would buy a pumpkin at the end of a Halloween celebration?"
"Exactly."
"One of the DaNGLs might remember who that was," said Meg.
"Maybe," I said. "But I sure don't want to go out to Camp Possumtickle."
"Camp Daystar," Meg corrected.
"Yeah. Wanna come with me?"
"No, thank you!"
***
The clouds had come in low and they hung in the hollers of the mountains like the smoke that gave the range its name. I drove my old truck carefully around the curves, the fog appearing and disappearing depending on the bend in the road. The rain was still spitting and my wipers were clicking almost in time with the recording of Beethoven's Second that I had in the CD player. The leaves would start dropping in bushel baskets as soon as the rain started in earnest. The merchants in the region had all been hoping for one more good weekend, but it wasn't to be. The next influx of visitors into our little town would be Thanksgiving weekend and would continue through Christmas.
A flock of wild turkeys, eight or nine in all, skipped across the road in front of me and I tapped on the brakes to slow my speed. A car passed me in the opposite direction and I flashed my headlights, a signal for the driver to turn on his own. I checked my rear-view mirror. He did. Beethoven's symphony went into the second movement, one of my favorites. Ten minutes long, it is one of Beethoven's most enjoyable symphonic slow movements and perfect for driving in the mountains. I'd have to treat Meg to this one, I decided.
I pulled into the town square just as the double-reed quartet was beginning their side-slapping Austrian scherzo in the third movement. Nancy was standing in the road outside the station leaning into a car window. I pulled into my parking spot and got out of the car just as she finished up, waved at the driver, and hustled into the station out of the nasty weather.
"What a miserable day," she said. "That guy was lost. He was looking for Banner Elk."
"I'll bet he's glad he found you, then. Most folks would have sent him straight to 184. I'll bet you pointed him toward that shortcut up Old Chambers."
Nancy grinned. "Maybe."
"I had a thought this morning," I said, then filled her in on my pumpkin theory.
"Sheesh," said Nancy. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"Well, I am the chief," I said modestly. "It's my job to be brilliant and astute with occasional flashes of... umm... astute brilliance."
"Yes," said Nancy. "Yes, it is. Are you going out to the camp?"
"Guess I have to. And you're coming along with me."
"Me? You don't need me tagging along. Take Dave. He'll be in at ten."
"Nope. You, Lieutenant Parsky."
Chapter 16
"I've swum the Tiber," said Race. "I've donned the Shroud of St. Helmuth and become a mackerel-snapper. Now we're taking back St. Sanguine's from these Latin-chanting, incense-smoking, confession-saying, saint-praying snootyboots that have had it their own way for too long."
"Too long being 'bout two-thousand years," muttered Pedro.
"We need a couple guys that can find out stuff," said Race. "And a cantor. You can't refuse if you're one of us!"
I tugged nervously at my collar. Pedro adjusted his pantaloons.
"Besides," Race continued, pointing a bony, litigious finger up towards the chapel, "these guys are dinosaurs. No one chants anymore and no one will miss them. We're going to be the latest word in denominations. Think of all those vampire-reading teenagers whose parents want them to go back to church."
"I don't see it, Race," I said. "Look around. How are you going to do it? What about services? These Amish have no musical tradition at all. Maybe one or two of them can manage an autoharp..."
Race shook his head with a dry rattle. "It's not about them. They're just our minions. We're moving the Vampire Amish over to Methodism as soon as those Wesleyan bishops vote on the Doctrine of Transubstantiation. It's a done deal. Methodists love autoharps."
"Maybe so, but you can't be a Roman Catholic," Pedro said. "What about the crosses and the crucifixes? And the Holy Water? What about communion?"
"Not ROMAN Catholic," said Race Rankle, now as smug as a Texas school board member at a book burning. "ROMANIAN Catholic. We're going to replace those tired religious symbols with those chattering teeth you can get at Cracker Barrel, black velvet chokers, and Halloween candy. I'll tell you this: Gluten-free wafers hold no terror for us."
"Now we shall bite thee," chanted the Vampire Amish, gnashing their gray teeth.
***
Nancy and I pulled up to Camp Daystar, née Possumtickle, and walked into the open area of the lodge that served as the community room as well as the check-in center for the Daystar Naturists of God and Love—the DaNGLs. It was cold outside, about forty degrees, and rainy, but inside the lodge it was close to seventy-five. There was no one at the desk, so Nancy pushed the buzzer. It made a loud, nasty sound and turned on a light above one of the doors. A few seconds later, a woman came in and we realized why the thermostat was set so high.
"Good morning," she chirped cheerfully, as cheerfully as any extremely plump, middle-aged, totally naked woman is wont to do under the circumstances. "Would you like to check in?"
"Alas, no," I said. "I'm Chief Konig. This is Lieutenant Parsky. We need to ask a few questions."
"How can I help?" said the woman. "My name is Gladys Hoover." Her voice said she was smiling. I smiled back, hoping that I was making eye contact.
I glanced over at Nancy. She was cool as a cucumber, her face a mask.
"I wonder if you could tell us who was in charge of the booth at the Halloween carnival last Saturday?"
"Well, I was there," said Gladys. "I worked from noon 'til about two. Then I had to come back to the camp. We were having a Bible Twister Contest. Sort of a break-the-ice mixer for new guests."
"New Christian Nudists?" asked Nancy.
"We had six new folks join us last weekend. They're all staying for the week."
"So how many people are in residence?" asked Nancy.
"Fourteen this week," said Gladys. "More will be coming in on Friday night."
"Hang on," I said. "Bible Twister?"
"Sure," said Gladys. "You know, Left Hand, Esther; Right Hand, Habakkuk. That sort of thing."
"Ah," I said, trying to purge the image of Gladys with one hand on Habakkuk, one hand on Esther and her feet firmly planted in First and Second Thessalonians. "So who would have been working at the booth when it closed up?"
"Well," said Gladys, thinking hard and scratching a place that I was fairly sure that most naked people wouldn't scratch in front of strangers. Perhaps the DaNGLs, I thought to myself, and perhaps all naturists, had a different code of what might constitute acceptable etiquette when in their natural habitat.
"Well..." she repeated, "I think it was Gina and Grover. You can go and ask them if you want. They're probably over at the dining hall having breakfast."
"Where exactly is the dining hall?" Nancy asked.
"Here," said Gladys, "let me draw you a map." She pulled a pencil from somewhere—a place I immediately decided wasn't made to keep pencils. She flipped over a "Welcome to Camp Daystar" flyer and quickly outline
d some buildings connected by single line scrawls.
"You're here. Here's the dining hall. Here's one of the dorms. Here's the director's cabin." She pointed them out and labeled them quickly.
"You come on back if y'all decide you'd like to stay for a few days," she said. "God wants to see you as you are, and so do we!"
"Thanks," I said. "Catchy motto."
"I'm having my breakfast now, too, so if you'll excuse me." She smiled, then turned from the desk and walked back out the door from which she'd entered. I watched her go. Nancy watched me watch her go.
"You were staring at her," Nancy said accusingly when we'd left the lodge. "She wasn't even pretty."
"That's not my fault," I said. "Pretty's got nothing to do with it. Let's say you go to a zoo and a water buffalo wearing water wings comes right up to the fence. I mean, that's not a sight you see every day, is it? You're not going to not look, are you?"
"Totally different," said Nancy. "Although the water buffalo metaphor is apt. Here's a question for you, Mr. Detective."
"Shoot."
"What color was her hair?"
I thought for a moment, then shook my head and said, "I have no idea."
***
We walked into the dining hall and blundered into a breakfast theological discussion in full swing. At a round table in the middle of the room sat five people, as unfettered as God made them, with coffee cups in their hands, and concentration evident on their faces. Scattered around the tabletop were empty plates, some stacked on top of each other, saucers with empty butter and jam wrappers, and a couple of plastic bread baskets containing a few uneaten biscuits. From the look of things, breakfast was wrapping up.
"You see," said one of the naked men, "by comparing the basic perspectives of Arminianism and classic Calvinism, of course one has to conclude that most modern-day churches that cling to Calvinism in doctrine are more like Arminian-Wesleyan in practice."
"Absolutely," said an attractive older woman, sitting in her altogethers with her two elbows and ample bosom resting on the table, dangerously close, it seemed to me, to a steaming coffee pot. "As long as we agree to understand the need for balance between the extremes of either position."
"Ah, it's Chief Konig," said a third man, recognizing me as we walked up. "Remember me, Chief? Jason Bell." He started to stand, his hand extended in greeting.
"Please," I said, with all the sincerity I could muster, "don't get up." I shook his hand, then remembered Gladys' scratching and vowed to use Nancy's sanitizing lotion at the first opportunity. "It's good to umm... see you again, Rev. Bell."
Jason was a retired Methodist minister. He'd been living in St. Germaine for about a year, but I had no idea he was a nudist. I'd only met him once and might have recognized him under other, less-naked circumstances, but today I was glad he gave me his name.
"Do join us, won't you?" he said. "We'd enjoy the perspective of an Anglican. This is Marsha Dumpling." He pointed to the older woman, who smiled broadly. "She's a Lutheran pastor. The blowhard here is a professor of religion at Mercer. He's taking a sabbatical and working on his new book."
"Michael Graves at your service," said the professor, reaching to shake my hand. "Please excuse my topic of discussion, but I have to finish the outline and get it to the publisher by Christmas."
"These other two are Gina Terwilliger and Grover Dorfman," said Jason.
"I'm not here for the theology," said Grover. "I just like to look at Pastor Marsha's hooters."
Gina slugged him in the arm, laughed, and stood up to greet us. Gina, unlike Gladys, was thirtyish, trim, and fit. Grover was older, heavyset, and looked as though he worked out. The hair that might have once covered his head had migrated down into his ears where it sprouted like radishes, then across his shoulders, back, and chest. I had no doubt it had travelled even farther south. I saw Nancy bite the inside of her lip.
"Pay him no mind," Gina said. "Grover always likes to kid the clothed visitors. I'm sure he doesn't even notice Marsha's hooters." Grover gave a sharp barking laugh, obviously pleased with himself.
"I wonder if we could ask you and Grover a couple of questions?" I asked Gina. "Maybe at that table over there?" I nodded toward the far corner of the room.
"It's about that murder, isn't it?" said Grover, getting to his feet. "Well, this is exciting!" he said. "Let's go."
Grover and Gina were both wearing shower shoes. Just shower shoes. There were a couple of terry cloth robes dropped over the backs of the chairs where they'd been sitting, but they left them where they were and led the way to the other table. We excused ourselves from the others, left them to their theological quandary, and followed Grover and Gina to the far table. I'd been right about Grover's propensity towards de-evolution and was almost sure he rustled as he walked. They both sat, then looked up at us in expectation. We sat down across from them.
"So, what's the grift?" asked Grover. "The skinny? The dope?"
"Huh?" said Nancy, still possibly in shock over having to walk behind a bare-bottomed yeti. She cast her glance toward Gina's chest and made a discreet motion as if to warn her of some serious faux pax, if such a thing existed for the DaNGLs.
"What do you want to know?" asked Gina. She looked down where Nancy was staring, then idly brushed a bit of left-over scrambled egg off her breast.
I said, "Were you two the last people working at the pumpkin booth on Saturday night? Did you guys close it up?"
"Yeah," said Grover, "that was us. Luckily we got everything packed up before those zombies came into the park."
"So what time would that have been?"
"We got finished around six o'clock. Something like that," said Grover.
"That's pretty close," said Gina. "Maybe a little before six."
"Do you remember selling a pumpkin right before you closed?" I asked. "Probably after most of the people had gone."
"You know," said Grover thoughtfully, "we sold a bunch of pumpkins right before we closed up. It was weird. There were some of those vampire girls that came by. They all looked the same. Skinny." He snapped his fingers. "Wait a second," he said. "A man came up and bought a thirty pounder just as I was going to lug it to the van. He paid with a twenty and when I didn't have change, he just took the pumpkin and walked off. Didn't even wait for Gina to go and get the change from the front seat. Weird."
"I remember him," said Gina. "Was he the murderer?"
"You recall what he looked like?" asked Nancy.
Gina shook her head. "Not really. The sun had already gone down and it was kind of dark. Plus, we were kind of in a hurry, what with the Bible Twister tournament and all."
"He was sort of average," said Grover.
"Yeah," agreed Gina. "Average."
"Which way did he go with the pumpkin?" asked Nancy.
"I didn't see," said Gina.
"Me, neither," said Grover.
***
"Light brown," I said, as we walked back to the truck.
Chapter 17
"This pope ain't going to go for it," I said, eyeing the vampire Amish while pulling up my turtleneck. "You backed the wrong werehorse this time. He isn't known as 'God's Pit-Bull' for nothing. He'll pull the plug on your Vampire Parish so fast you'll think you were in the Intensive Care Unit down at the Lottery Winners Nursing Home."
"The pope won't even know what happened," Race rankled. "You think he's got nothing better to do than worry about an ancient parish in the middle of..."
There was a poof of smoke in the center of the room, much larger than the previous leaf-blower poofs, this time like maybe a '72 VW Bug with fouled plugs and a bad ring job, and that's when His Holiness showed up.
***
Dave was at the station when we returned. He'd gotten a box of bear-claws on his way in, not the ones from the Pig with the apple-pie filling, but the real ones from Yardborough's, large semicircular pastries with cuts around the outside edges evoking the shape from whence came the name: almond flavored, stuffed with dates an
d pecans.
"Thanks, Dave," said Nancy, taking one of the treats. "Did you happen to go by Rob Brannon's place in Newland yesterday?"
"Yesterday was my day off, you know," said Dave. "But yes, I went to Newland. There was no one home. I talked to a neighbor and he said that Brannon hadn't been there for about a week."
"Dave," I said, "get a recent picture of Rob Brannon and make some copies. They would have taken one when he was released. We need to show it around town. We don't even know what he looks like now."
"Got it," said Dave.
"And how was Wilkesboro?" Nancy asked, dragging out the name of Collette's new home town just ever-so-sweetly. "Did you enjoy yourself?"
Dave, unable to help himself, smiled like the cat that ate the vampire bat. "I guess," he said.
"Save it for later," I said. "Anything happen we should know about?"
"Bud called. He says he's fine and he's going back to school. He just had some things to sort out."
"Good deal," I said. "What else?"
"Elaine Hixon called. She said she had something important to show you. Her number is..." Dave stopped and looked out the front window. "Never mind," he continued. "Here she is."
Elaine opened the door and took the five steps to the counter. She had a brown package in her hand. "Ooo," she said, spotting the bear-claws. "Are these for anybody?"
"Help yourself," said Dave.
"In a sec." Elaine's face transformed in a moment from her usual animated visage to something much more serious. "Look here," she said. "I was in the choir dressing room in the sacristy. There were some surplices tossed in the corner and I was hanging them up. I don't know who tossed them there. These were extras, I think, because all the robes were hanging up and had their surplices with them."
"Point of clarification," said Dave, through half a mouthful of pastry. "For us Baptists. Surplice?"
The Countertenor Wore Garlic (The Liturgical Mysteries) Page 14