DF08 - The Night Killer (29 page)

“Was your person able to find anything?” asked Violet. She had a stronger voice than her appearance would suggest.

Diane knew Violet meant the new autopsy, but she absolutely didn’t want to discuss that here—over food.

“I’m sure she’ll tell us later,” whispered her sister.

“Of course. What am I thinking? I’m sorry,” said Violet. “I just want this to end. I want the killer caught.”

“That’s what I wanted to speak with you and your sister about,” said Diane. “Do you have any suspicions? Did your parents have any enemies?”

“Oh, yes,” said Violet; her voice became a quaver. “Yes, they had enemies. They had people calling on the phone with threats.”

Diane was surprised. She thought she was going to have to dig for information.

“Do you know who was threatening them?” she asked.

“Not who, by name, but I know where you can find them. Over at that . . . I won’t dignify them by calling it a church. That cult. Mom and Dad were getting constant calls from them about Dad wanting to develop the county,” said Violet.

“Did they threaten violence?” asked Diane.

“Veiled threats,” said Lillian, making a stern face.

“The kind that, if they were questioned, they would say they were just warning them what the Lord would do. I don’t know where they got their information about the Lord, but it wasn’t from the Bible.”

“What kind of things would they say to your parents?” asked Diane. She could see in her peripheral vision that the people next to them were interested in the conversation. But of course, they would be. Everyone knew why Diane was here.

“They wouldn’t tell us exactly. Didn’t want to worry us. But the people at the other church were very upset at Dad’s plans.”

“All he was trying to do,” said a woman down the table from them, “was find something that would keep the young people here. There’s no jobs here, except for the sawmill and a few stores. Our kids grow up and move away. We’re an aging county.”

Diane saw several people nod their heads in agreement.

“Joe Watson hired as many as he could at the mill and in his hardware store,” said another man. “But he couldn’t support everybody. He was trying to come up with an idea that would provide all kinds of different jobs for everybody, and it was a good idea.”

“And Roy Barre was trying to help him,” said a young man at another table. “Why, just getting decent cell service would be a big deal here.”

Diane saw most people nod their heads. Only a few looked at their plates and simply ate their food—among them the woman she first encountered. She could see this was a hot topic that probably gave rise to more than one argument. But lead to killing?

“Do you think any of our neighbors would do your parents harm?” said the woman in the blue dress and pearls. “Truthfully, Violet.” She looked as though she couldn’t hold her thoughts in any longer.

“Truthfully, Maud,” Violet said, “yes. When you describe your neighbor as conversing with the devil, then it’s easy to go the next step and decide they are evil and dangerous, an abomination to God, and it’s all right to kill them.”

The woman in blue shook her head sadly. Diane could see she had friends in the other church and couldn’t imagine any of them as murderers.

“It’s mostly the sheriff, the reverend, and the deacons,” said the young man. “Don’t you tell me it’s not, Miss Maud. They hated the Barres and the Watsons, and you know it.”

“No, son,” said the woman’s husband. “This is wrong. They don’t carry hate in their hearts, and we shouldn’t either.”

“What about the calls they made to my parents?” said Violet. “Mom was real upset about them. What is that, if not hate?”

“Let’s not fight among ourselves,” said the minister. “Please. We have guests, and all they want is information, not judgments.” He cast a glance at the woman in the blue dress named Maud. He apparently didn’t think they needed to be disagreeing with the Watsons at a time like this.

After that, Diane tried to keep the conversation low-key. Violet and Lillian did their best to remember who exactly might have called their parents with threats.

“You can get your parents’ phone records,” Diane told the two sisters. “You might tell the sheriff to do that, as it is his case.”

Violet shook her head. “The sheriff is going to sweep this under the rug.”

“Tell him anyway,” said Diane. “How about the Barres?” Diane turned to Christine and Spence. “Did they get calls too?”

“I don’t really know,” Christine said. “I’m not sure they would have mentioned it. Frankly, Daddy thought so little of those people, he would have considered threats from them to be normal.”

“How about anyone else?” said Diane. “Can you think of anyone besides the Golgotha Church members who may have posed a threat to your parents? Had they mentioned speaking with any strangers about anything?”

Christine and Spence sat in silence for a moment. Diane could almost see them thinking as they chewed their food.

“There was a young couple,” said Spence. “Daddy didn’t say much about them, except that they were interested in the history of the area. But he said they were pretty young and naive. I didn’t get the idea they were any kind of a threat.”

“When was this?” said Diane. She was thinking this was probably Liam’s client’s daughter and her boyfriend.

“Oh, about three weeks ago, maybe,” said Spence. “Daddy just mentioned it in passing.”

“What was it about the history they were asking?” said Diane.

He shook his head and shrugged. “Gold mining, maybe. Something like that. You know, some people here still pan for gold.”

A young teenager at the end of the table lifted his hand and grinned. “I paid for my computer with what I got panning,” he said.

“Tyler, that’s not true,” a man said, smiling broadly. “You paid for a computer by panning? I don’t believe it.”

A man who looked like he might be the kid’s father nodded his head. “It was a used computer, and it took him over a year. But, yeah, he did it.”

“Well, I’ll be,” said the man. “You think maybe I could find anything in the creek out back?” he said to the woman next to him.

“You got to be someone like a teenager with nothing else to do,” the father said, and everyone laughed.

“I got the idea that this couple were interested in panning for gold,” said Spence.

Diane asked as many questions as she could think of, and Frank asked a few of his own. She wondered if Liam and Izzy were having any luck. What Diane had mainly discovered was that the animosity between the two churches was worse than Travis Conrad had indicated. And that most of the congregation of this church didn’t even want to speculate on who might have done this terrible thing. It was outside their experience and outside of anything they believed anyone they knew would do. Diane asked them to call her if they remembered anything, no matter how small. She also said they should tell the sheriff of anything they saw or remembered. That got a few harrumphs from several members.

“Thank all of you for your kind hospitality to us,” said Diane.

“You come back,” said a woman. “You might consider joining.” She looked at Frank. “We could use your voice in the Christmas pageant.”

Diane got up and started to take her plate when a woman stopped her, smiling.

“We’ll take care of this,” she said.

Diane went to the restroom before leaving. Andie went with her. She met the woman in the blue dress in the hallway.

“You’re just stirring up trouble,” Maud said. “Do you even go to church?”

“Yes, she does,” said a little girl who looked about eight, coming into the hall to wait for the restroom. She grinned when the woman frowned at her. “I saw her. She always knew what to do during the whole service. She never had to look and see what other people were doing.”

“You would do well to listen, and not watch other people,” said Maud.

“I can do both,” she said. “Besides, you were looking at her too.”

“Seen and not heard, child. Seen and not heard,” Maud said.

Diane winked at the little girl.
Smart kid
, she thought.

Diane and Andie went back to meet up with the others in her party. She was anxious to find out what they had discovered. She thought she would tell Liam what Korey’s analysis of the note had revealed. They all walked out to the parking lot together, along with the Barres and the Watsons.

In the parking lot, leaning against his vehicle, was Sheriff Leland Conrad.

“I thought I told you not to come into my county,” he said.

Diane was wrong: Sheriff Conrad was going to arrest her on church property. She was more than surprised. She was stunned—but not sure why. She had supposed he would not enter another church’s grounds and arrest a guest for no other reason than that she crossed the county line. Though he had disagreements with the church here, she thought he respected it out of general principle. There was a meanness about what he was doing, and she hadn’t gotten the impression he was mean for its own sake. Stubborn, parochial, authoritarian, a believer in corporal punishment, but not mean.

The sheriff wore a suit. He had probably come from church. It was an old suit. Brown, shiny in places, slightly snug over the front and in the shoulders. He wore a brown striped tie that looked several years out-of-date.

“You’re going to come with me,” he said to Diane.

Frank put his arm around Diane’s shoulder.

“On what grounds?” said Frank.

“I told you not to set foot in my county,” Conrad said to Diane, ignoring Frank.

“You did this?” said Violet. “And I suppose you are going to spit on my parents’ graves too.”

The anger in Violet’s voice startled Diane. For a moment she thought Violet was talking to her; then Diane caught a glimpse of Maud, the woman in blue, and her husband. They were startled too.

“Violet, we are just doing what’s right,” began Maud.

“After all my dad did for that no-good son of yours? Dad kept Keith in a job just because he was your friend—even though Keith stole from the store,” said Lillian, “and this is how you repay his memory.”

Diane watched Maud and her husband flinch as if they had been slapped.

Another woman, younger than Maud, came up and stood with her, putting a hand on Maud’s arm, patting it. Diane recognized her as one of the members who had kept apart and hadn’t participated in the conversation.

“She was told not to come into the county. It’s her own fault,” the woman said.

“Wait a minute,” said the young man who had mentioned decent cell service. “What happened to ‘free country’? Leland Conrad has no authority to decide who can and who can’t come here. What’s wrong with you people? This isn’t the sheriff’s county, and he has no right to come to our church and do this to a guest.”

Several people in the crowd that gathered said, “Amen.” Several grumbled. Diane heard the word
outsider
. It was muttered, but the meaning was clear.

“Maud, Earl, you shouldn’t have done this,” said Spence Barre. “Like Violet and Lillian said, all of us have always been good to your son for your sake. Daddy wrote a letter on his behalf to the judge the last time your boy was up for sentencing. I read it. It was a good letter. Better than he deserved.”

The two of them, Maud with her white hair and pearls, and Earl with his deacon’s demeanor, looked confused and surprised. They hadn’t expected censure as sharp as the Barres and Watsons were giving them.

Violet was shaking and her sister put an arm around her waist. “I don’t want you coming to my parents’ funeral,” Violet said. “You aren’t welcome. Whatever you think of Miss Fallon here, this is a slap in my face and a terrible thing you’ve done to our church.”

“Enough of this,” said the sheriff. He took out hand-cuffs and started toward Diane.

“On what grounds are you doing this?” said Frank. “You have to have more than ‘she crossed the county line’ to arrest her.”

“No, I don’t,” Conrad said. “You’ll find I have a lot of support here.” He nodded to several people. “I’m trying to find a killer, and this woman’s interfering. What she needs is a night or two in jail. You interfere and I’ll run you all in.”

Frank walked toward him and the sheriff took out his gun and let it hang by his side.

The minister came forward and stood between Frank and the sheriff. “Leland, what are you doing? A gun? On church property? This is God’s place, even out here. Look what you are doing to our church. Is this what it’s come to?”

“It’s my job to keep the law, and I will as long as I’m sheriff. Now, the two of you just back off,” he said to the minister and Frank. He reholstered his gun.

Diane laid a hand on Frank’s arm. “I’ll go with him.”

Frank didn’t let go.

“I need you out here,” she said.

“I’ll follow in the car,” he whispered in her ear.

“Sheriff,” said Frank, “you had better not let any harm come to her.”

“Are you threatening me?” Conrad said.

“Why, no,” said Frank. “No more than your people threatened the Watsons. Surely you see that.”

The sheriff scowled at Frank. “I know you’re a peace officer, so I’m going to let that slide, out of professional courtesy.”

“It is out of professional courtesy that I tell you—do not let a hair on her head come to harm,” said Frank.

“It’s all right,” said Diane.

“You and I need to have a long talk, missy,” the sheriff said.

The sheriff put Diane’s hands behind her and put on the cuffs. He grabbed her arm and started to drag her off. Diane saw that even Maud and Earl looked a little startled. Sometimes it’s good to see consequences, Diane thought.

“You need to talk with me also,” said Liam. He had stepped out of the crowd.

The sheriff turned to look him up and down. “And why would that be? I don’t know you,” he said, but squinted his eyes, as if there were something familiar about him and perhaps they had met.