Murder Carries a Torch (12 page)

“Yes?” came a disembodied female voice.

“My cousin’s here to get me.”

“Okay. Be right there.”

I looked at Luke. He was pale but not exceptionally so. The only strange thing about his appearance was a red streak across the top of each cheekbone as if someone had applied blush and not brushed it out evenly.

He noticed me looking.

“You see these?” He ran his fingers across each cheek. “Allergic reaction to the dye they put in me to do a brain scan. Had to give me shots of antihistamines.”

“Is it going to be okay?” I didn’t want to be halfway to Birmingham and have him go into anaphylactic shock.

“Oh, sure. It’s about gone. Yesterday I was red from the neck up, though. That Thomas Benson fellow said I looked like I’d been snakebit.”

“So he was a snake handler.”

“I guess so. I didn’t get into it with him.”

“Do you think he might be here today? Maybe we could talk to him some more.”

Luke shook his head. “He comes in three times a week, he said. He’ll probably be back tomorrow or the next day.”

An orderly came in with a wheelchair. While he was taking Luke to the car, I stopped by the nurses’ station and asked about his allergic reaction. He’d be fine, they assured me. I hoped they knew what they were talking about.

“Aren’t we going up on the mountain?” Luke asked as I turned onto the Birmingham highway.

“We’re coming back tomorrow, all four of us. You, me, Richard, and Mary Alice. I think I can get a key for the house and we can look around in there and in the church, too. Maybe the woman who has the key can tell us some people to talk to, too.”

“They’ll all be gone to West Virginia.”

“Surely not all of them.”

Luke sighed. He was sitting very straight and holding the plastic bag in his lap. Which I was grateful for.

“Richard told me all that happened to the Crawford guy. God, I can’t believe it.”

“It was awful,” I agreed.

“And in Virginia’s car. Can you believe it?”

I couldn’t.

“Well, at least it’s got a leather interior.”

“Lucky.”

It was a beautiful day and Luke didn’t seem to be turning paler or green.

“Does your head still hurt?” I asked him.

“Only if I move.”

“Well, I’m going to take you to Mary Alice’s and get you settled. Okay?”

“Fine.”

“You’re welcome to come to my house, but Richard’s staying with her and they’re expecting you up there.”

“Fine.”

“She’s got all the room in the world, you know.” I didn’t know why I was babbling. “But you’re welcome to come to my house.”

“Mary Alice’s is fine.”

I slowed down behind a pickup truck with a Confederate flag decal across the back window.

“This lady who probably has the key is the girl we
found in the church’s sister. Looks just like her. She told me she was sure Virginia was all right, that Holden Crawford was a kind man.”

“Good.” Luke clutched the plastic bag and gazed out at the mountains and valleys that we were moving through slowly because of Mr. Confederate in front of us and a curvy road that made passing impossible.

“You know, Patricia Anne, I’ve been married to that woman for over forty years and I’ve never messed around with anybody else in all those years except one time at a convention in New Orleans.” He sighed. “Well, maybe twice, but the second one was hearsay.”

I didn’t want to hear this, but he wasn’t going to spare me.

“We had our ups and downs, but who doesn’t? Did I say one word to that woman when she did the hootchie-kootchie at the club that New Year’s Eve?” Another sigh. “She did stuff like that, Patricia Anne. Stuff like the hootchie-kootchie.”

The hootchie-kootchie? Best not ask. Carmen Miranda, Charo, and bananas came to mind.

The streaks across Luke’s cheeks were turning a bright red. I tried to change the subject.

“Maybe tomorrow you’ll feel like going to see Debbie’s new baby. He’s precious. They’re going to call him Brother.”

It didn’t work.

“I ought to just tell that Crawford guy ‘Here she is and welcome to her.’ See how he likes it when she starts hootchie-kootchying up there in his church.”

“He’s dead, Luke,” I reminded him.

“That’s beside the point. The point, Patricia Anne, is that if Virginia wants to sow her wild oats in somebody
else’s field, then maybe I’ll just find another field to sow my own wild oats in.”

A little confusion here, but I knew where he was coming from. He was hurt, worried, and angry, but, personally, my sympathies were on Virginia’s side of the fence. How many wild oats did one have left to sow at sixty-four? How many hootchie-kootchies?

I passed the pickup and shot the startled driver a bird.

You go, girl.

“Thomas Benson? Sure I know him. He owns the feed store up in Steele. Still shows up most days for work, but his son’s running the business now because of Thomas’s health problems. Good old fellow.”

Virgil Stuckey stretched his legs toward the fire. One more stretch like that and he would be out of the chair and on his butt on the floor.

The six of us, Virgil, Luke, Richard, Sister, Fred, and I were sitting in Sister’s den surrounded by dirty dishes and cartons of Chinese takeout. The smell of sweet-and-sour shrimp battled bravely with the giant arrangement of flowers, mostly purple, on the table behind the sofa. Through the glass wall of the adjoining sunporch, we could see the whole city of Birmingham crisscrossed by the yellow-white ribbons that were interstates. Airplanes
took off and landed at the airport, flashing lights. And to our left, the giant statue of Vulcan held up a green torch that looked exactly like a huge lime popsicle, green because there had been no traffic deaths within the city limits in the preceding twenty-four hours. A death warrants a cherry popsicle.

Sister had called around five o’clock to say she and Richard were back from Pulaski, that Virgil was with them, and they were ordering Chinese. Did we want some? Since I had spent what was left of the afternoon visiting Debbie and the baby instead of thinking about supper, we certainly did. And it had been a very pleasant supper around the fire.

“Is this Benson guy one of the snake handlers?” Richard asked.

“Most probably,” Virgil answered. Which meant that of course he was.

Richard got up and stood with his back to the fire. If he had been a woman in a skirt, he would have hiked it up. As it was, he rubbed his hands up and down his pants leg, absorbing the heat.

“How come you don’t arrest them, Sheriff?” he asked.

“That little thing called freedom of religion, Congressman.”

A slight tension entered the air.

“I don’t bother them as long as they don’t bother or hurt other folks.”

“Well, somebody sure as hell bothered Monk Crawford,” Richard said.

“And we’ll arrest him. Or her.”

Mary Alice jumped up from the sofa. “I forgot the fortune cookies.”

She went into the kitchen and came back with a small
sack. She handed it to me. I was sitting on the floor on a pillow with my head against Fred’s leg. I took a cookie for both of us and passed the sack to Luke. He had been very quiet all night and I wondered if he shouldn’t be in bed.

“Everybody read them out loud,” Mary Alice insisted. “Patricia Anne, you go first.”

The slip of paper from my fortune cookie informed me that I would become rich. Fred’s said, “You will never die.” Luke’s read, “Better things are coming.”

And then Virgil’s.

“You will soon be released from the insane asylum.” He burst out laughing.

“What? You’re making that up,” Sister said.

“I swear that’s what it says.”

“It does not.” Sister grabbed the message from Virgil.

“You will soon be released from the insane asylum.” She looked up, laughing. “Y’all, that’s what it really says.”

She patted Virgil’s hand and, still giggling, said that her fortune cookie advised, “Befriend yourself as a child,” whatever that meant.

And then we all looked at Richard who still stood before the fire.

“You will marry Miss America,” he said sheepishly and threw the paper into the fire.

“Hey, that may be better than not dying, Richard,” Fred laughed.

“No way. Those women have all those make-the-world-a-better-place causes. And every one of them has breast implants.”

“He knows,” Luke spoke up. “He dated a Miss Mississippi for several months. Whatever happened to that girl, Richard?”

“She was out in Washington hugging trees last I heard.” He stretched. “I’m tired. I think I’ll call it a day.”

“Me, too.” Luke stood up and swayed a little. Virgil reached out and steadied him.

“What time tomorrow, Patricia Anne?”

“Whenever you’re ready, Luke. And only if you feel like it. I talked to Betsy Mahall about the key and she said she’d be home all day.”

“Okay. Good night, y’all.”

“Good night,” Richard added.

“Did something happen today that I don’t know about?” I asked after they had gone upstairs. “Richard seems antsy.”

Virgil explained. “Virginia was in the car with Monk Crawford when they got to Pulaski. There was a receipt on the floor from a gas station not far from where he was found. Virginia had signed it. When he checked and showed them her picture, they remembered her.”

My arm clasped Fred’s leg.

“Which means?” Surely they didn’t believe Virginia had been involved in Monk’s death.

“We don’t know,” Virgil admitted. “All we know is that she was in Pulaski and that the guy she was with is dead.”

“Snakebit,” Fred said. His hand was on my head and I felt his fingers tighten. “Shit.”

And then what I knew was coming.

“I really don’t want you involved in this, Patricia Anne. It’s too dangerous. And you’re sure as hell not going to find Virginia. Not in Steele.”

“Which reminds me,” Virgil said. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a cameo on a long gold chain. “This was in Mrs. Nelson’s car, between the seats. I meant to give it to Mr. Nelson.”

“I don’t think that’s Virginia’s, Virgil. I’ll bet that’s the cameo that Betsy Mahall was looking for.”

I got up, took the cameo, and held it to the light. The profile of a beautiful young woman with her hair pulled back in an old-fashioned bun was carved into a pale pink oval of stone and surrounded by a quarter-inch rim of gold. It was old and exquisite.

“Do you remember Virginia having this?” I asked Sister.

“I don’t know anything about Virginia’s jewelry.” Sister reached over Virgil, took the cameo, and examined it. “This doesn’t look like her, though.” And to Virgil, “She’s the diamond tennis bracelet type.”

“It’s got to be Susan Crawford’s, Mary Alice. The one Betsy was asking about.”

“What about it?” Virgil wanted to know.

“She wondered if we’d seen a cameo when we found her sister’s body,” I explained. “She said that Susan wore it all the time, but they hadn’t given it to her when they gave her Susan’s effects.”

“Let me see that,” Fred said.

Mary Alice passed it over to him.

“My grandmother used to have one of these. Everybody’s grandmother did. Why don’t I just go ask Luke if it’s Virginia’s?”

“It’s not,” I said. I knew in my bones that this was the cameo that had belonged to Susan Crawford.

“Guess I’d better keep it, then,” Virgil said when Fred came back with the news that neither Luke nor Richard had recognized the cameo.

He put it back in his pocket.

“No use telling anybody about it yet.” He looked right at me. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“You better make her cross her heart and hope to die,” Sister said. “She can’t keep a secret two minutes. Never has been able to.”

“Pot calling the kettle black.”

Virgil smiled. “Cross your heart, Patricia Anne. You too, Mary Alice.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Virgil,” Sister said. “I’m always discreet.” Then, “Quit laughing, Fred.”

“Sorry.” He reached over, took my hands, and pulled me up. “We’d better call it a night, oh, sister of the discreet one.”

“I need to help Sister clean up.”

“I’ll help her,” Virgil offered.

We said our goodnights and thank-yous and headed home. We both agreed that we liked Virgil. Fred even went so far as to say Mary Alice might have found herself a winner this time. He also warned me again not to get involved with this “snake-handling foolishness.”

“Dangerous as hell, honey.”

I agreed.

It was a clear, cold night. A full moon was rising over Red Mountain, a moon as pink and delicate as a cameo.

It was the first night since we had gotten back from Warsaw that I had had trouble sleeping. I finally gave up, went into the den, snuggled under the afghan, and tried to read. But even the new Carolyn Hart mystery couldn’t take my mind off of everything that had happened in the last few days.

I thought about Richard asking if there could have been a few minutes outside the church while Mary Alice and I had been waiting for Luke, a few minutes when we hadn’t been paying attention. Long enough for someone
to have attacked Luke and then darted to the house or hidden behind one of the rocks.

Probably so, I decided.

Or they could have run out the side as we opened the front door looking for Luke. Had I called his name as I pushed open the door? I couldn’t remember, but it was possible. That would have warned them. Or they could have ducked behind one of the pews and slipped out the front during the confusion while Mary Alice and I were discovering a bleeding Luke and a dead Susan Crawford.

A Susan Crawford placed on the bench as if she were lying in state. A Susan Crawford who might have been killed in the church, but who had red clay on her boots. Which could mean nothing. The soil on Chandler Mountain wasn’t red clay, but it’s common enough in most parts of north Alabama. She could have gotten it on her boots walking in her own front yard, for all I knew.

I sighed and turned on my side. Muffin jumped up beside me, purring, happy for night company. I stroked her and felt a slight crackle of electricity.

What, I thought, if the murderer had been placing Susan’s body on the bench when Luke entered the church. He could have ducked behind the box the snakes were kept in, and when Luke saw Susan and started toward her, he could have tried to run out of the side door. Luke could have turned and seen—

Virginia.

But why?

He had to be mistaken. Even if there were a reason for Virginia to want Susan dead, there was no way she could have broken her neck, twisted it around. Virginia was a woman in her sixties and no Amazon.

Unless it were an accident. Was that possible? A fall
on the rocks? If so, why not just call 911? Why lay her out so symbolically in the church, her hands folded. Besides, Virginia couldn’t have picked Susan’s body up, let alone carry it any distance.

But there had to be some connection between Susan’s death and Monk’s. The cameo. Had Susan been in the car? Been killed in the car, the cameo slipping off as her neck was broken? Were the snakes that would mean death to Monk Crawford already in the car when he and Virginia drove to Pulaski?

And how in the hell had Virginia Nelson gotten mixed up in this anyway?

“Fred,” I called, “come look at this E-mail from Haley. It’s wonderful.”

He came in, buttoning his shirt. I moved out of the chair so he could sit in front of the computer, but I leaned over him while he read.

“Can you believe that?” I asked when I thought he had had time to get the gist of the message.

He scrolled down. “She sounds excited.”

“Of course she’s excited, Fred. They’re going to be blessed by the pope. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“But Haley’s a Protestant, and Philip’s Jewish.”

“Damn it, Fred. It’s the pope.” I reached down and unplugged the computer. “Go to work.”

“Why? What’s the matter, honey?”

“You,” I said, pointing, “are as blank as that computer screen. Just go to work.”

“What’s wrong with you, Patricia Anne?”

But he was talking to my back. I went into the bedroom and shut the door. Hard. How had the two of us, as different as we were, managed to live together in relative peace for over forty years?