by Edie Claire
She parked the Cavalier and took out her key to the back door, but never got a chance to use it. Before she had gotten to the doorstep, Frances emerged—purse and covered casserole dish in hand.
"Leigh, dear," she began in a flustered tone. "I'm so glad you dropped by. You can give me a lift to your Aunt Bess's."
Leigh's shoulders sagged. So much for the heart-to-heart with Randall. Weren't any of the men in her life available today?
"What's Dad doing?" she asked. "I wanted to talk to him."
"C-section," Frances answered gruffly, handing Leigh the casserole dish. She walked to Randall's car and unloaded a grocery bag. "We were on our way to Bess's together—I promised I'd bring dinner for everyone. But your father wanted to check on a patient, and of course as soon as he turned the lights on that Parks woman showed up with another one of her bitches in trouble."
Leigh looked toward the clinic wistfully. Kelsey Parks had been breeding bulldogs ever since Leigh was a little girl, and every last litter had required a C-section. She had helped bring at least a dozen pups into the world herself, and rubbing a few wet little newborns might be just what she needed tonight. "Does he need any help?" she asked hopefully.
Frances waved her concern away. "Christina's there. She can take care of it. We've got to get going. Your Aunt Lydie's been working hard all day—she shouldn't have to cook, too. And this casserole is getting cold. I had to bring it inside with me, of course. We haven't had much snow this winter, but it's cold enough in the car to chill a casserole, even if it is covered…"
Frances's words melted into a gray slush between Leigh's ears. She helped load the food onto the backseat of the Cavalier, then set out for the haul up 279 and back to Bess's. There would be no puppy-rubbing for her tonight.
They were almost to Franklin Park again when Frances stopped babbling and looked at her daughter worriedly. "What is it you're so upset about? I thought everything at the church was settled."
Leigh sighed, and wondered if Lydie had gotten in touch with Maura. Could Bess be in any real danger? And what about the other board members? "Tell me what's going on," Frances hounded. "What did you do?"
Leigh sighed again. She had wanted to run all the disturbing thoughts in her head past her father, but that wasn't going to happen. Perhaps laying it all out for her mother wouldn't hurt. It might at least help organize things in her mind.
At first, she tried to tell the story without mentioning the mini-storage break-ins, but when that proved impossible, she braced herself for an explosion. None came. Frances sat quietly and listened without a single scandalized gasp. Heartened, Leigh kept talking, though she still looked at her mother periodically to make sure she hadn't fainted. "So, Lydie was going to call Maura and ask if there was anything they should do about the calls," she finished, out of breath.
Frances turned away and gazed out the window for a moment. "You'd better slow down. The driveway's right here," she said blandly.
Leigh, who knew perfectly well where her aunt's driveway was, turned in with only a short skid.
"Do you know anything about Humphrey's childhood?" Frances asked thoughtfully.
"No, I don't think so," Leigh answered, not seeing the relevance. She parked the car and took out the grocery bag while her mother claimed the casserole dish. As they walked up to the front porch they could just hear Chester yapping from somewhere inside the house. "None of it makes any sense," Leigh continued. "I don't understand who's making the calls, and why they're so upset about Humphrey. And that whole business with Noel trying to make the old people see a ghost—and Barbara thinking it was his voice on the phone. I just don't get it."
Frances opened Bess's door without knocking, then stepped aside for her daughter to go in first. "Well, I don't see why not," she said pompously. "I should think the answer would be obvious enough. Particularly to you."
Leigh stared at her mother in confusion, then stepped inside her aunt's living room. Frances followed, closing the door behind them. They hadn't gone more than a few steps before they stopped in their tracks. Bess was up without her crutches, leaning against the far wall, looking very perturbed indeed.
Behind them in the other corner was Reginald Humphrey.
Chapter 23
At least, she thought it was Reginald Humphrey.
"Well, hello there!" he said with a sneer. "Come on in, please. The more, the merrier. I was just introducing myself to your friend the murderer, here. Why don't you join her? Then we'll all introduce ourselves."
"Leave them out of it!" Bess demanded, her eyes frightened and furious at the same time. "They have nothing to do with the church!"
Leigh couldn't move. She just stared. It was Humphrey—but then again, it wasn't. He had the same height, build, coloring, and facial features, true. But this man had a more distinct mask of freckles across his nose, and his green eyes didn't twinkle. They burned instead. Burned with hate.
Leigh let the grocery bag in her hands drift slowly to the floor, but neither she nor her mother moved, despite the most obvious difference between this man and Reginald Humphrey. The pastor had liked to carry a Bible; this man preferred a gun.
Both enjoyed waving them around. "Well, ladies?" he said impatiently, ignoring Bess's protests. "I said move."
Leigh was afraid to take her eyes off the man long enough to look at her mother, but her peripheral vision assured her that Frances was at least still standing. Chester—who had apparently been confined to the back porch—yapped fiercely. They hadn't seen Lydie when they came in. Where was she? Was she all right?
Leigh felt a firm tug on her coat sleeve. Frances was backing away from the man with the gun, but she wasn't taking the shortest route to Bess. She was heading straight along the front of the couch, and she was pulling Leigh with her.
"Hurry up," the man said impatiently. "My beef isn't with you dames. Unless you're on the executive board of the First Church of Half-Wit Suckers. Are you?"
Neither Leigh nor Frances responded. They just kept moving, slowly.
Leigh's mind raced. She had no idea why her mother was pulling on her. Had she totally lost her mind? Probably. Leigh should be the one doing the dragging. Frances should just go ahead and pass out. It would be easier on all of them.
"I can't believe you thought you'd get away with it," the man said to Bess, his eyes darting between the three of them. "Just because you're being blackmailed is no reason to kill a man. It's downright cowardly, if you ask me. Reggie was a good guy. He wouldn't have hurt anybody."
"For the thirteenth time," Bess said irritably, "nobody killed anybody. He died of an allergic reaction to his insulin. Call the detectives. They'll tell you." Bess's eyes glinted with anger, even as her voice trembled. Two furious people, one gun. And one nutcase mother who was now pulling Leigh even farther away from Bess and towards the kitchen.
"I'm not calling anybody!" the man snarled. "You're lying. You poisoned him or something. And don't tell me that guy they arrested did the killing, because I ain't buying. Reggie said he was a hot head, but gutless, and Reggie knows people. His only mistake was squeezing the guy in the first place. It only takes one loose cannon to spoil the show, you know."
Captive in the far corner, Bess stood up to the man's tirade with steely determination. Frances continued to pull her daughter slowly toward the kitchen, and Leigh started to resist. There was no way they could get all the way through the kitchen and to the porch without his noticing, and she didn't care to be shot as she ran away. Besides, they couldn't just leave Bess inside with him. What the heck was her mother thinking? And why couldn't they hear Lydie upstairs? Her car had been in the driveway when they arrived.
"You know what I think?" the man continued, waving the gun as he talked. "I think that loose cannon fired off into that god-awful pile of hair of yours. That's what I think. Bess Cogley is the ringleader of the board—that's what Reggie said. 'I've got to keep an eye on that one,' he said. You went snooping in his house, looking for something to tu
rn the tables, didn’t you? And when that didn’t work, you decided to kill him. My brother."
He made a noise with the gun that sounded like a click, and Leigh and Frances both froze. "What I want to know is—who helped you? I need to know who else to pay a call to. I'd hate to miss anybody."
Inexplicably, Frances waved her hands in the air. Leigh swatted them down, but it was too late. The man, who had been too wrapped up in his diatribe against Bess to pay much attention to their indirect course, trained the gun back onto them. They were far enough away now that one step would bring them around the back corner to the powder room—and out of his line of sight.
A forceful, unexpected shove from Frances struck Leigh suddenly in the shoulder, and she careened sideways around the corner, barely able to keep her feet.
"Get back here!" the man screamed. Seeing no logical alternative, Leigh tried to comply. She had just got her head back around the corner when things started happening.
In retrospect, it was a comedy of errors, played in slow motion. But at the time, it was terrifying. Anxious to pull both women back into his line of sight, the man had taken two steps toward Frances—along the wall behind the couch. It was the same wall that held Bess's antique secretary, and at that particular, fortuitous moment in time, it also held Punkster.
It happened with the man's second step. Noting a human form fully within range, the gray ball of fur leapt from his perch like a flying squirrel. His clawless front paws looped around his victim's neck while his fully loaded back feet took purchase in a shoulder and his teeth clamped soundly over an earlobe.
The man shouted, hands flying, and the gun dropped to the floor. Leigh watched it skid away, and started forward to retrieve it. But no sooner had the gun hit the floor than Lydie emerged from the doorway to the staircase, bearing an electric sander. She swung it in the air with all her might, bringing it soundly into contact with the back of the man's head.
He fell to his knees, stunned. Annoyed at the unnecessary interference, Punkster leapt from the man's back and scuttled away with a fierce hiss.
Frances rushed to her twin's side, the casserole dish held high. But the man just rocked unsteadily on his knees, and Frances froze in place. Lydie, her own knees visibly shaking, stretched out a leg and kicked the gun under the couch. Leigh and Bess ran forward.
The man's eyes were squinting painfully as he alternated his gaze from Frances to Lydie. "Well, damn," he said dreamily. "There's two of you, too. Howdy, girls! Always nice to meet another set."
And with that, he crumpled.
The women did nothing but stare at him for a good five seconds. But when footsteps pounded on the porch and the front door opened suddenly, they jumped in unison. Maura Polanski moved quickly towards the object of their attention, her gun drawn. Seeing the man unarmed and unconscious, she put the weapon away and stooped down. She examined him briefly, then stood up and told the uniformed officer behind her to call an ambulance.
Only then did Frances lower the casserole dish. "Is everybody else okay?" Maura asked with concern, looking them over. They nodded mutely in unison. "Did he have a gun with him?"
Lydie was the first to find her voice. "It’s under the couch," she croaked.
Maura pushed the heavy piece of furniture to the side and swept up the pistol. Her expression was solemn, but Leigh sensed amusement brimming underneath. "You ladies mind telling me what happened here?"
The four women just looked at each other.
***
"You don't think I hurt him too badly, do you?" Lydie asked. They were all seated at the kitchen table, watching as the man they'd knocked cold was loaded onto a stretcher.
"The EMTs don't think anything's broken," Maura said assuringly. "Probably just a concussion. Don't beat yourself up about it. You did a good job getting that gun away from him safely."
"Thanks to Punkster," Bess said affectionately, stroking the contented gray ball on her lap. "And Francie, of course. I never knew you two were so close." She raised the limp cat's head to her sister's chin and rubbed.
"He was functional," Frances said tightly, pushing the cat away and brushing at her shoulder. "Really, Bess. This sweater is angora."
Leigh sat mutely, holding Chester with both hands to prevent him from greeting all the uniformed officials milling about the living room. It was a task, but at least the yapping had stopped. Her brow furrowed as she continued to wonder why her mother hadn't fainted. The woman had actually kept her cool and used her head in a dangerous situation. It was spooky. Even more disturbing was the knowledge that she hadn't come up with a better plan herself.
"I wish I'd gotten here sooner," Maura said regretfully. "But Noel made a break for it."
"Noel?" Bess asked. "You arrested her, too?"
Maura nodded. "She was sitting in the Monte Carlo a quarter mile down the road, waiting for Martin. When I pulled over, she took off, but the Franklin Park Police cut her off up at Carmody's."
"What did you arrest her for?" Leigh asked, feeling like she had missed something. "And who's Martin?"
Maura pulled a notepad from her breast pocket. "An excellent question, Koslow. Who is Martin, indeed. Martin"—she tossed her head in the direction of the departing stretcher—"goes by many names. Most recently Martin Morford. He's also been—depending on the state of your choice—Marvin Rippin, Marcus Hauck, and Martin Shockley, among others. His real name is Martin Hensen."
Leigh restated the obvious. "And he's Reginald Humphrey's identical twin," she said with disgust. Her mother had been right, curse it all. She should have at least suspected that Humphrey's stunt double was a twin. A twin switch was a heck of lot easier to pull off than a hologram—or a resurrection.
Maura nodded. "Those two have been pulling scams ever since they were in juvie. Got pretty creative with the twin thing—as you might imagine. Reggie was apparently the brains of the unit, though. Martin was more of a thug—he even did some hard time in the seventies for a botched robbery. He's wanted right now in Minnesota for assault with a deadly weapon. What happened today will make two."
Leigh looked at her friend with respect. "How do you know all this?"
"Databases are a wonderful thing, Koslow," she smiled. "So is Ma Bell. Plus, we got a lucky break. Right after Noel split from her phony fund drive, I checked her out on the computer. Turns out originality isn't one of her strong points. She was arrested under the same name in Illinois about five years ago."
"Humphrey isn't her real name either, is it?" Bess asked, her eyes dancing. "And I bet she was never married to Reginald."
"She's really married, all right," Maura answered slyly. "But not to Reginald. Noel is Martin's wife."
Leigh's eyes widened. The wedding photo, at least, was explained. All Reginald had to do was prominently display a few of his brother's pics, and presto—he was both faithfully monogamous and taken. "A wife in absentia who was a missionary," she thought out loud. "It was perfect."
Maura nodded. "Reggie was good. I suspect he'd just about perfected the pastor scam. He'd probably been using the name Humphrey for almost a decade, but that alias isn't on the police database because he hadn't been in trouble. Evidently he'd gotten everything worked out where his victims either didn't realize they'd been taken, or had a good reason not to report it."
Leigh's head snapped up. "You know about"—she paused a moment and glanced at Bess—"all that?"
Bess nodded, with just a touch of embarrassment. "I told her about the board's discussion—and their wishes—on the phone just a little while ago," she confessed with a sigh. "She already knew Reginald was a con."
"I only found out about him because I checked out Noel," Maura explained. "She was his biggest liability, as it turned out. She'd used the name Humphrey before—the three of them probably had a storehouse of phony credentials made up. The name was still good for him, and she picked it up whenever she choose to masquerade as his wife. But that was a dumb move, because her alias was still on the computer from the gig
in Illinois, plus she's currently up on fraud charges in Florida under the name McKenna. Her real name is Noel Malbasa, and she's got a record a mile long. Mostly petty stuff, but a few felonies, and repeated occurrences of scams involving twin brothers—which is how I tracked down Martin and Reginald's real names.
"It looks like Reginald's been working mostly by himself the last few years, but in this case, he must have called in reinforcements. My guess is he realized that Ted Hugh was going to be a problem, and he needed help putting on some kind of endgame."
Bess sat up straight, looking pleased with herself. "He was going to fake a disappearance, wasn't he? That's what I said all along. The fire was just setting the stage for him to claim someone was trying to kill him—giving him an excuse to take off."
Maura nodded. "Seems likely. 1987 was the last time Reginald was arrested. He had started up an independent church in Sugar Land, Texas, then left claiming that a bunch of satanists had a contract out on him. The congregation contacted the authorities, and a detective tracked him down through the post office box where he'd asked them to send money. Reginald was there, happy as a clam, starting up a new church."
"Clever," Bess interjected. "But not clever enough. He got caught."
"That time he did," Maura continued. "But only because someone in the congregation got suspicious and called the police. From what you told me, Reginald had a lot of your church's most influential people completely under his thumb. They'd be afraid to ask for help for fear he'd make good on the blackmail threats. As long as everyone else still thought he was a saint, he could stage a few incidents, then flee for his life. Depending on how well the departure went—and how deep the police were digging into the supposed threats on his life—he could either cut and run, or continue to bleed the church for support underground. For all we know, he's got five other churches on a string right now."