Murder Carries a Torch (6 page)

“What happened to your cousin?” Irene asked.

“I’m not sure. We were at this church up on Chandler Mountain, and he went in to look for his wife, and when he didn’t come back we went in to look for him and he was unconscious and bleeding and there was a dead woman on the bench across from him. A dead woman with a lot of red hair and a broken neck.” I paused for breath.

“Is that right?” Irene pushed some papers toward me. “Here, sign these.”

“Her head was on backward.”

“Have mercy.” Irene handed me a ballpoint pen. “Sign right here and,” she lifted the top sheet of paper, “here.”

I signed.

“Okay,” she glanced at my signature, “Mrs. Hollowell. Somebody will be out in a little while when they find out what’s what with your cousin.”

Backward heads didn’t seem to make much of an impression on Irene. They sure as hell did on me, though. I sat in the waiting room with my teeth chattering. Fortunately Death had left with his pretty young wife, who had fussed at him for not wearing a jacket.

I wondered how Luke was doing. I wondered what had happened to him. The most reasonable scenario I could come up with was that he had seen the dead girl, fainted, and hit his head on the corner of the bench. That
made sense. And he had been talking out of his head when he said he had seen Virginia. We had been sitting in front in the car and hadn’t seen anyone come out of the church.

But there was a back door. I closed my eyes and tried to remember the details. On the right-hand side was a door and if anyone had left that way, we wouldn’t have been able to see them. I remembered thinking that the door should have been on the other side, the side that the house was on so the preacher wouldn’t have to walk around the back.

Holden Crawford. Monk Crawford. Lord, how had Virginia Nelson who played golf at the country club in Columbus and who had a son in the House of Representatives gotten mixed up with a snake-handling preacher?

I thought of the box at the front. Surely there weren’t any snakes in there now. It was cold in the church. Snakes hibernate. But would that matter? Drowsy snakes might be better to deal with. Unless, of course, they hated to be awakened. A riled rattlesnake would be a challenge.

And it didn’t make sense that someone had killed the girl so violently and then laid her out neatly on a church bench. They could have dumped her almost anywhere on Chandler Mountain and she would never have been found. They could have walked out on one of numerous rocky precipices and thrown the body into a sea of kudzu that would have covered her forever. Instead, there she was on a pew at the Jesus Is Our Life and Heaven Hereafter church, her long skirt tucked neatly around her boots.

I glanced at my watch. I was going to have to call Fred in a little while. There was no way I was going to make it home before he did and he would be worried. I got up and looked outside. The snow was coming down
steadily. Fine, dry flakes that looked like rain. The streets were still clear, but the grass beside the emergency room parking lot was beginning to turn white.

Lord, I was tired. I stretched but snapped to attention when Luke’s Lincoln pulled into the parking lot. Mary Alice stepped out, purple hood over her head (I hadn’t realized the cape had a hood) and hurried toward the emergency room. I opened the door for her. Might as well get the fussing over with. After all, I had left her up on the mountain to deal with the police and a dead body.

“Hello, sweetie,” she said, hugging me. “How’s Luke?”

Let the record be clear here. In sixty-one years I never remember my sister calling me sweetie. And the hug was so unexpected, that I breathed and was nearly overcome by White Diamonds perfume.

“I haven’t heard,” I said when I could breathe. “He’s in the back.”

“Well, is there a cafeteria or something around here? I’m starving.” She looked around at the waiting room and the glass cubicle where Irene was still on duty. “This isn’t a very busy emergency room, is it?”

“Maybe it will pick up after a while if the roads get slick.”

“Maybe,” she agreed. Sarcasm is lost on Sister.

“Excuse me.” She stuck her head around the door of the glass cubicle. “Could you tell us where to get something to eat?”

“Joe’s,” Irene answered.

“And here in the hospital?”

“Some vending machines down the hall.”

“Thanks. We’d better stay here. We’re waiting for the sheriff.”

“Why are you in such a good humor?” I ventured.

“I’m not.” Sister sat down and started rummaging through her purse. “You got any change?”

“The vending machines will make change.”

“Of course they will. What am I thinking of?”

I was damned if I knew. She was acting weird.

She handed me several one-dollar bills. “Get me some kind of sandwich and potato chips and a Coke.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t about to push my luck and tell her to get it herself.

I found the vending machines and got back with the food just in time to see the reason for Sister’s good mood. The emergency room door opened and a man in uniform swept in. He looked a lot like Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf with a little Willard Scott thrown in. He paused, Sister got up, and then they walked toward each other. I swear if this had been a movie they would have been playing something like “Unchained Melody” in the background.

They stopped about a foot apart and smiled.

“I got pimento cheese,” I said. “Is that all right?”

“Mouse,” Sister said. “This is Virgil Stuckey, the sheriff of St. Clair County. Sheriff, this is my sister, Patricia Anne Hollowell.”

He turned to shake my hand, realized I was balancing Cokes and sandwiches, and said, “Here, let me help you.”

Sister pushed magazines to one end of a coffee table and we put the food down. She and I sat on the sofa and Virgil Stuckey pulled up a chair.

“Do you know, Mary Alice,” he said admiringly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen purple boots before.”

The man was hooked.

Any news? I turned off the computer. Maybe later in the day I would have time to tell Haley all that had happened. In the meantime, I had to get dressed and go back up to Oneonta. I had checked with the hospital, and they were releasing Luke in the afternoon.

It had been almost ten o’clock the night before when we got home. We wanted to talk to the doctors and be sure Luke was all right. No fracture, they assured us, but a bad concussion. They wanted to keep him twenty-four hours for observation.

Virgil Stuckey had torn himself away from admiring Sister’s purple boots long enough to ask Luke some questions. Yes, Luke had seen Virginia in the church. That was all he remembered. His head hurt and how come he couldn’t open his eyes good?

“You hit your head,” the sheriff told him. “There’s a bandage on your forehead and your eyes are swollen.”

“Why would I hit myself on the head?”

“We think you fell.”

“Oh. Okay.” Luke closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

“I’ll need statements from both of you,” Sheriff Stuckey informed Mary Alice and me. “We can do it over dinner at Joe’s.”

We walked about a block through fine, powdery snow to Joe’s Family Restaurant. My statement, told while we were waiting for our dinner (fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans), was that I had gone into the
church, found Luke unconscious and bleeding, and tried to stem the bleeding. And yes, I had seen the dead woman lying on the bench.

Sister’s statement over pieces of lemon meringue pie and coffee touched slightly on the truth. She had thrown her cape over Luke because she had seen the symptoms of shock, had rushed to call 911, stayed behind to clarify things for the authorities while I had left. And neither of us had seen Virginia or any sign of life, for that matter. Just the poor dead girl, so obviously dead that she, Mary Alice, hadn’t touched her because she wouldn’t want to contaminate a crime scene.

“Good thinking,” Virgil said.

“Hand me one of those little milk things,” I told Sister. “A couple of them.”

I waited until she had them in the air. “We didn’t even know it was a snake-handling church.”

Nondairy creamer squirted all over the table.

“Damn!” Sister hopped up and grabbed my sleeve. “Excuse us a minute, Virgil.”

“What the hell do you mean, a snake-handling church?” she demanded as soon as she closed the restroom door. “We were in there with snakes?”

“That’s what that box was for up at the front. The woman in the ambulance told me. She says they get called up there sometimes when folks get bitten.”

Sister looked pale. I was beginning to feel a little guilty. So she had altered the version of the role she had played at the church. Who would want to admit they had been upchucking all over the parking lot? Especially to a man you were obviously attracted to.

“I’m sorry. I thought you knew,” I lied.

“Biggest rattlesnakes in the world on the mountains
around here.” A voice from a stall. The toilet flushed and a plump, very blond woman stepped out, buttoning her pants. She turned on the water and soaped her hands. “Lots of folks like to play with them. They’re not slimy like you think they’d be.”

Neither of us said anything.

“Y’all have a good evening now.” She dried her hands on a paper towel and left.

“What the hell was Virginia thinking of? A snake handler?” Sister opened her purse, took out a comb, and began to comb her hair, looking at it from several angles. She hadn’t had it colored since before we went to Warsaw and it was turning slightly orange.

“Maybe she was looking for excitement.”

“Sounds like she found it. I wonder if Luke knows.”

“I doubt it.”

Another woman came into the restroom. “How y’all doing?”

“Fine,” we said together.

“We’d better get back,” Sister said. “He’s nice, isn’t he?”

“Married?”

“Widowed. Two years.”

We left the restroom and headed back toward the table.

“Graduate of Annapolis, retired from the navy after twenty years, sheriff for fifteen, three grown children.”

I learned all this between the bathroom and the table. But when had
she
learned it?

Virgil Stuckey hopped up as we approached.

“I’m sorry,” Mary Alice said, sliding into a chair. “I had no idea that was a snake-handling church.”

Virgil smiled. “I figured as much, the way the milk went flying.”

He motioned for the waitress to bring us some more coffee.

“You okay?” he asked Sister.

“Patricia Anne just startled me.”

Virgil frowned at me. I should be ashamed startling this delicate creature in the purple boots.

“Actually,” he said, “that’s one of the most active snake-handling churches in north Alabama. And Monk Crawford is one of the best known of the snake-handling preachers.”

“Have mercy.” Sister fanned herself with a paper napkin and turned to me. “I don’t remember Virginia liking snakes, do you?” And then to Virgil, “Virginia’s a Lutheran.”

We were quiet while the waitress poured our coffee.

“Her son’s in the House of Representatives and she belongs to the country club, doesn’t she, Patricia Anne? Plays golf.”

I nodded. “Do you know who the dead girl is?” I asked Virgil.

“We have an idea. We should know for sure tomorrow.”

“There was red clay on her boots. The ground around the church is sandy.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, y’all,” Sister said. “Let’s talk about something else. Snake handling and dead people. Lord. Do you like to dance, Virgil?”

Virgil allowed as to how he did.

Sister grinned at me.

I got up.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To see if ‘Unchained Melody’ is on the jukebox.”

It wasn’t, but “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” was. I figured that was apropos.

By the time we drove back to Birmingham the snow had turned into a fine mist. The temperature was probably thirty-three degrees, so close to freezing that the moisture hitting the windshield seemed oily.

Sister was unusually quiet.

“The sheriff seems nice,” I said.

“Hmmm,” was her reply.

“Do you think Virginia was in the church?”

“Don’t know.”

End of conversation. I closed my eyes and listened to Pachelbel’s Canon in D that radio station WBHM was playing. So much had happened and I was so keyed up, I had no idea that I would go to sleep. But I did. In fact, I was shopping in Warsaw with Haley when the car stopped and Sister said, “You’re home, and your mouth’s open.”

True enough. I closed my mouth, told her I would talk to her in the morning, and stepped from the car into a curtain of mist. Fred had left the back light on and the deck off the kitchen looked icy. Typical Birmingham January, I thought. Warm one day, freezing the next.

Fred opened the back door for me, leaned forward and held out his hand.

“Be careful. That porch is slippery.”

“I thought you’d be in bed,” I said, taking his hand and stepping into the warm kitchen.

“Couldn’t sleep until you got in.”

Chances were he’d already had three hours sleep in his recliner, but that was okay.

“How’s Luke?”

“About the same.” I had called from Oneonta and told Fred about Luke’s concussion. “They’re just keeping him for observation.”

Fred was hugging me, his arms inside my coat. He had on his old velour robe that smelled like Gain soap. I rubbed my cheek against it and considered going to sleep standing up.

“I’ve got to go to bed,” I said. “I’m beat.”

Fred followed me down the hall. “No sign of Virginia?”

“Nope.” I sat on the edge of the bed and kicked my shoes off. “The guy she ran off with is a snake handler, though.”

“What?”

“He’s a snake-handling preacher.” I pointed toward the bathroom door. “Hand me my nightgown and robe.”

“I thought he was a painter.”

“He is.” I started shucking clothes.

“How did you find that out?” Fred held out my gown and flannel robe.

“The woman in the ambulance told me. And the sheriff says he’s one of the best-known ones in north Alabama.”

“What sheriff?”

“Virgil Stuckey. The sheriff of St. Clair County. There was a body in the church and I think Sister’s smitten with him, the sheriff. They both seem smitten.”

“What do you mean, a body?”

“A woman’s body.”

My nightgown was on.

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” I said. And for what was probably the first time in sixty years, I went to sleep
without washing my face and brushing my teeth and with my clothes in a pile by the bed. Jet lag is a killer.

Needless to say, I had a lot to explain to Fred in the morning. I woke up when I heard him in the shower and felt surprisingly rested. The sun was shining and there was no sign of the flurries of the night before. I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and had French toast ready to cook when he came into the kitchen.

“A body?” Not even a “good morning.”

Two pieces of French toast and a couple of cups of coffee later, I had told him the main parts of the story.

“And Virginia and the preacher were gone? Her car wasn’t there?”

I hadn’t thought about Virginia’s car. I guess I had assumed that since she was the runee, she had left in the runner’s vehicle. Or was she the runner? At any rate, of course she would have taken her car and followed Holden Crawford. Monk Crawford.

“It wasn’t there,” I said. “Only his painting truck.”

“Sounds like she’s got herself in a mess.”

“God’s truth,” I agreed.

“You don’t think the dead woman could have been this Crawford guy’s wife, do you?”

“Too young. Bless her heart.” I could see the red hair cascading to the floor.

“Well, don’t you and Mary Alice get mixed up in this, honey. You stay away from those folks.”

“You don’t have a thing to worry about. I can’t even watch the Discovery Channel specials about snakes.”

He gave me a hug. “Call me when you get home with Luke.” He got a Lean Cuisine from the freezer for his lunch and left. That was when I turned on the computer and read Haley’s chatty E-mail.

The phone was ringing when I got out of the shower. I figured it would be Mary Alice so I was startled when a male voice said, “Mrs. Hollowell? This is Sheriff Stuckey.”

“Good morning, Sheriff.” Hmm. Last night it had been Virgil and Patricia Anne.

“I’m calling you because I didn’t want to disturb Mary Alice.”

“She does need her beauty sleep,” Mrs. Hollowell said.

“Not that I can see.”

How does Sister do this to men?

“But, Mrs. Hollowell, we’ve had something come up. Your cousin’s car has been found in Pulaski, Tennessee.”

“Virginia’s car?”

“Right. Mrs. Nelson’s. The license tag checks out to Mr. Nelson, but her stuff is in the glove compartment so we figured it was her car. Can you tell me what model car she drove?”

“Lord, no. A car’s a car to me. I can’t even find my own Chevrolet in a parking lot. Why? Was the car abandoned?”

“Some hunters found it early this morning in the woods near Pulaski.”

“Wrecked?”

“Not exactly.”

He was being too cagey.

“But?”

There was a long pause. I could tell he was trying to decide whether to tell me something or not.

“Monk Crawford’s body was in it.”

“Oh, my Lord.” I sat down on the bed. “What happened? And what about Virginia?”

“We don’t know. We don’t know any of the details.
All the Pulaski authorities said was that the car and body had been found. There was identification on the body and they want us to notify Monk’s family. We’re trying to locate them now.”