Snoop to Nuts (10 page)

With everyone gone, the church was empty but still stuffy. Old colognes hung in the air like ghosts of dead flowers, still tickling my nose. Dust motes swam in long rays of sun coming through the narrow side windows. Hunter and I shut the big door quietly behind us. Churches always seemed strange to me when they were empty of people, as if they weren’t really churches except on Sundays. I thought it was like a funeral home without a funeral going on. Or a department store at closing time, when everything changed and silence reigned.

We walked quietly up the aisle and across to the door leading back to the offices.

Neither of us had been able to reach Deacon Harvey or Tyler Perkins, president of the church board. All we’d gotten was their voicemail or a long ringing at the church. It was taking a chance, coming without an appointment with either man, but one we had to take.

The business of running the church fell to the board and a host of deacons and trustees. Hawley Harvey and Tyler Perkins, who owned the Perkins Pharmacy in town, were both known to spend a lot of time in their church offices.

In a long, carpeted hall, with closed doors running down each side, we ran into Tyler Perkins coming out of the bathroom, red hair slicked down, comb rows and gel making perfect lines up and over his head. The look he gave us was startled. He was deep in thought when he stepped into the hall, zipping up, and almost running into Hunter.

“Well, you two sure know how to surprise a man,” was his first, terse remark.

“Tried to call you, Mr. Perkins,” Hunter began.

“Tyler. Call me like everybody else, boy.”

“Well, what I was trying to say was that me and Lindy here called and couldn’t get you. We need to sit down and have a talk about Pastor Jenkins. Lindy’s here representing her grandmother—since the woman’s been dragged into all of this. I’m here officially, I’m sorry to say. Could we go back to your office, do you think?”

“Told all I know to the sheriff.” Tyler Perkins frowned heavily at Hunter and then at me. “But I suppose so. I’ll give you another few minutes.” He was giving us that “got work to do—I’m very aggrieved” look self-important men love to give.

“Really busy.” There was a little laugh with it. “Got more work than ever, what with the ground breaking coming up. No pastor. Now we got to find us a new one. Takes a lot of work, checking them out. I’m supposed to be over to the pharmacy right this minute. Quite a call on a man’s time, you know. Taking care of the people of Riverville. Bodies and souls, you might say. But if the two of you have to talk right now, then let’s go on back and get it over with.” All this was followed by the big sigh I was expecting.

Hunter and I perched at the edges of the plush chairs Tyler directed us to. He sat behind his wide, polished desk, hands folded, back straight, eyebrows up.

“Well now, how can I help the pair of you?”

“What we need to know is if there was, or still is, any ongoing problem here at the church. Anything the pastor was worried about? Any clashes he had with parishioners?”

He thought awhile, then leaned his head back to examine the ceiling.

“Nothing I was aware of. ’Course, the board sometimes didn’t see eye to eye with the pastor. Boards don’t, you see. That’s what a board is for. The pastor was big on handing out money to people in need, and the board’s big on protecting our resources. Especially now, with the ground breaking and the money going to increase the size of the church. We’re doing very well. Investments paying off in a big way, but still you can’t foresee what we’ll run into. You gotta plan.” He smiled at Hunter. “You gotta plan or be left behind.”

He grinned over at me. “Sometimes you ladies, well, you get to thinking more about curtains and dishes than bricks and mortar. That causes problems, time to time.”

His chuckle made prickles of anger run up and down my back. I kept my lips tightly sealed. My thoughts about Tyler Perkins were dark and growing darker. Words like “condescending creep” ran through my head, but I was used to that mentality, had dealt with it before. Even in college there’d been a couple of professors and male students who’d looked down at me and acted as if degrees in horticulture and bioengineering had to be place holders until a good marriage prospect came along.

“Was there anything in particular the board and Pastor Jenkins didn’t see eye to eye on?”

“Nothing I know of, and I am the president of the board, you know. Nothing much gets past me. Maybe Hawley Harvey’s heard something.” He checked his watch. “Should be in any minute now. I’ll turn you over to him soon as he gets here.”

“So nobody ever had a falling-out with the pastor? Nobody angry, maybe dropping out of the church?”

Perkins took his time before shaking his head. “Couple of grumbles here and there.”

“Who from?” Hunter urged. “At this point, anything could be important.”

He thought awhile longer. “Tim Rogers, as I recall. That blew over. The man’s getting on, ya know. Can’t come up with another thing. You know the pastor’d only been here for eight months. Not long enough”—he chuckled and shook his head—“to make a lot of folks mad. Well, except your grandmother had a beef about the air-conditioning in the church on Sundays. Kept saying she was freezing.”

He gave me a sheepish look.

I sat forward, prying my lips apart. “What about Pastor Albertson? Can you tell me why he was let go?”

“Retired.” Tyler Perkins turned cooling eyes on me. “Are you suggesting something different, young lady?”

“Just asking,” I came back at him.

“Retired, the way I said.”

“And he had to get out of here so fast there was no time for the church to give him a party? People were hurt at the time, you know. They liked the man and thought he turned his back on them.”

“Your grandmother complaining about that, too?” He let his eyes close and his head sink back. He pulled in a long breath. “If only these people would let us run the church and keep out of church business. We got us a very hard job here—so many people wanting to have a say without wanting to do the work. Happens everywhere. But the women especially. People like your grandmother, always coming around and asking questions . . .”

With my face warming and my spine turning to steel, I had to take a deep breath before I dared speak to the man. Hunter, maybe sensing what could be a coming explosion, turned around to give me a narrow-eyed look of warning.

“My grandmother,” I began between firmly clamped teeth, “could probably run this church, the Nut House, and the whole Rancho en el Colorado, if she wanted to. I don’t like you referring to her as ‘these people,’ Mr. Perkins.” I emphasized the “these people.”

Tyler looked immediately contrite. He sat up straight in his chair. “I’m just a little on edge here, Lindy. What with the awful business of the pastor dying and all. Truly sorry. Nothing meant against Miss Amelia. A fine woman. Fine woman.”

“Am I disturbing anything?” Hawley Harvey stuck his round face in the door and smiled at everyone. “Anything I can help you with?”

Hunter stood to shake hands with the man, who stepped in behind our chairs.

“These two would like a word with you, Hawley. If you got a minute, that is.” Tyler Perkins looked relieved to pass us on to Hawley. I remembered how he’d look at us in church and happily thought this wasn’t a happy minute for him.

“Sure thing. Always got a minute for our fine neighbors.” He sucked it up and smiled.

“It’s about the pastor’s death.”

Hawley nodded and changed his face from one of greeting to one of sorrow. He pulled back toward the door. “Still can’t believe it. Can’t imagine who’d do a thing like that. Probably some freak accident.”

“Hunter and Lindy have got some questions to ask. I been doing the best I can about the day-to-day workings of the church. I was just telling them, maybe you heard something I didn’t hear. I mean . . .” Here Tyler gave a soft chuckle. “Finances—well, you’re the one bringing in the funds. Church business, I’d say that’s my area.”

Hawley frowned at Tyler then readjusted his face back to “welcome.” “You two come on down to my office whenever you’re ready. I’ll do my best to help you out.”

I stood, ready to go, but Hunter had a couple more questions to ask, about procedures and a list of weddings and funerals the pastor had officiated at since coming to the church. For good measure he asked for Pastor Albertson’s phone number and where he was, but Tyler Perkins claimed not to know either one.

Down in his larger and more sumptuously decorated office, Hawley Harvey had little to add. No problems other than the wrangling over the size of the addition and some big plans for the church some of the board members thought were a little too much—like day care for women who worked and a plan to take in the homeless when one of our big storms was coming.

“Already wrangling over all that room in the addition. Especially the ones who were against it to begin with.” He leaned back and grinned. “Then there are the others. All they were looking at was the big messes we’d have in the meeting room and who was going to clean it up? What I told the pastor was, wait a while. Let ’em get used to the idea. We’re planning to make this church even bigger one day. One of those megachurches. Then we can do the Lord’s wonders, right here in Riverville. Wonders for the church and for the people in the church.” He beamed a big smile at us.

As to the reasons behind Pastor Albertson’s dismissal, he, too, said, “Retirement. That’s all.”

“Happened awfully fast,” I said, sensing a small hesitation before the man answered.

He shrugged. “You’ve got to understand, Lindy. Down at its heart a church is like all businesses. Sometimes things are done for the good of the whole. I’ll tell you this much—Pastor Albertson wasn’t as progressive as Tyler, and some of the others felt that’s what we needed in our main man. When he was asked whether he could go along with the changes, he only said it was time for him to retire. That’s the all of it. Simple as can be.”

“You were on the committee that hired Pastor Jenkins?” Hunter asked.

He nodded. “Four of us took on the job.”

“Nothing in his record from back in Tupelo gave you any pause?”

He thought, then shook his head. “Nothing but glowing references.”

“What about when he lived back in Atlanta before that?”

“Not a single thing.”

“Anything in his wife’s background or his sister-in-law’s?”

“Nothing. Of course, we didn’t take a look at Selma. Poor woman. Couldn’t imagine her having some deep, dark secret or anything.”

We shook hands on leaving. Hawley told us, sincerely, to come back anytime. He’d help out the best he could.

On the way out of the church, I decided I didn’t want to go back to the Nut House or out to my greenhouse yet. I was too mad and revved up to do something, anything, to take some good news back to Miss Amelia.

“Let’s go out to the fairgrounds. I want to take a look at those hog pens. I keep thinking—whoever let that hog out has to be the poisoner. If we can find somebody who saw the latch being opened on purpose . . .”

“Did that already.”

“I know, but I’ve got a couple of ideas and I just want to keep moving right now.”

“Lindy.” Hunter stopped to give me a warm look. “I know you’re mad because of what Tyler Perkins was saying. But the man’s not thinking. Imagine—their pastor poisoned. Now the church has no leader, and they’ve got this big ground breaking coming up.”

“He was thinking straight enough to insult my grandmother.” I hurried down the walk ahead of Hunter. “Let’s get out to the barns at the fairgrounds and see who’s around. I need to blow off steam and maybe somebody will be there you didn’t get to talk to.”

“What about Dora and Selma?”

“Tomorrow. Won’t be so many people at the house by then.”

I kept going but Hunter put his hand on my arm, turning me to look at him. “Are we okay?” He was dead serious, almost choking on the words. He’d colored to a high red, running up into his hair. I would have felt sorry for him if I wasn’t so mad at everybody about then.

I gave him a kind of nod. Said, “Same as always, Hunter.” Then I moved right on, in one way kicking myself for not saying some of the things I was really feeling. In another way not wanting to complicate my life any more than it was right then.

“Think that Milo you talked to will still be there?”

“Might be. Or some others.”

“Good. I want to talk to somebody who knows what went on last Sunday. Especially about the church group that went through. Seems awful neat—the church people going through and then the hog getting loose.”

“Not a bad idea,” he said.

And not a bad compliment, as compliments go. My brain was cooking. Me and Hunter were back to being friends. If it weren’t for that business of somebody poisoning the minister, why, I’d have been really pleased with myself.

Milo Froymann turned out to be an old bowlegged cowboy with a big hat and a mean squint when he looked up at us, an inch of cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. We found him loading the last of the steel pens on the back of his pickup.

The gigantic barn smelled of hay and manure. It echoed with metal bangs and muffled voices and, once in a while, loud laughter.

Hunter introduced me to the man, who touched the rim of his hat in greeting.

“We’re here looking into what happened at the Winners’ Supper,” I explained.

The man screwed his craggy face into a grimace. “Terrible thing. Told the deputy here all I knew.”

“What I was thinking about,” I started to say, “was who was around when the hog got loose.”

“Me, too. Wondering about it.” Milo Froymann pulled at his bottom lip and looked at the floor to think awhile.

When he looked back up, he gave me a long stare. “So yer a Blanchard. Yer grandma’s the lady from the Nut House, ain’t she? Fine woman. No cook like her in the county. But I did hear, too, what some people are saying and I want you to know that Miss Amelia never put no poison in that pastor’s food. I know people. I’ll swear to it, you want me to come to court for you.”

Hunter stepped up, explaining that he was the one who lassoed the hog and we were wondering how it got loose in the first place. “I know I asked you about this before, Milo. But you ever hear of a hog getting loose during the fair before?”

Milo took a long time thinking and scratching at the back of his head. “Well, tell ya, it don’t happen often, but once in a while one of those hogs gets it in his head to take off, looking for home. Sometimes it’s kids who raised these big boys and they get excited when they’re here and leave the latch undone. Had it happen with a couple of sheep a few years back—but those animals was easy to herd right back into their pen.”

He leaned against the truck behind him and eyed Hunter. “Kind of funny, though. Everybody yelling and that hog running like a devil with his pants on fire. Took a big guy like you, with a rope, to bring him down. Heard you gave him a good ride.”

He chuckled and Hunter’s chest went out.

“Anyway, only thing I can tell you is somebody got careless and left that latch up.”

“But wouldn’t somebody notice before the animal’s out running the midway?”

Milo took even longer to think this time. “Lots of people were going through looking at the livestock that morning. Seemed that whole church the pastor belonged to came in all at once. Place filled up with them laughing and looking and talking. Still, people around or not, somebody wants to lift a latch on purpose—and that’s what I think yer gettin’ at—wouldn’t be hard. As superintendent, I try to keep the crowd under control, if we can work it. But sometimes . . . well, we asked those church people to come in a little later than they did and here they all come in a big crowd an hour before they was supposed to. I was going to give them a kind of grand tour, being church folks and all. Marti Floyd set it up. I was all ready but then they come in when I was busy doing something else. You know, when you got the fair going on, you’re busy as a cat in a room full of rockers. I wasn’t too pleased with them, I’ll tell you.”

“Who’d you deal with at the church?” I asked.

“Don’t remember right off. Ask Marti. Surprised to have them show up so early.”

“Think I could talk to Marti Floyd?”

“Have to call him at home. His job is done here for this year.”

“Any strangers you see around that morning?” Hunter went on.

“Now, son, the fair’s for people from the whole county. Come to that, the whole world. They want to come take a look at our livestock. I couldn’t tell you if one stranger or five hundred came through that day. I had my hands full as it was, with the judging and people with their noses out of joint ’cause their hog or heifer didn’t do so well.”

His eyes flew open as that cigarette end burned down to his lips. He spit it out pretty fast and rubbed a gnarled finger over the place where he’d been burned.

Squint deeper than before, he told us, “Nope. One day in the year I wouldn’t know a stranger if I fell over ’im.”

Maybe I could have dragged the conversation out for another half hour or so, and learned something important, but my phone rang.

It was Miss Amelia, half whispering into the phone.

“You’d better get back to the Nut House, Lindy.”

“You’re not supposed to be there.”

“Just got here. I’m not cooking or baking. You can tell the sheriff that. I’m a woman with a business and I’m gonna look after that business, no matter what anybody says.”

“So why do I have to get over there?”

“Selma Rickles just called me. She’s coming to talk to us. Just you and me, she said. But you can’t say anything to anybody. If you ask me, something’s spooked Selma. I’ve never heard anybody so nervous.”

“I’ll be there.” I checked my watch. “Five o’clock okay?”

“Should be about right. Then I’ll tell you what Deacon Owen Martin was saying to Ethelred this morning. Seems he’s got worries of his own, with no pastor at the church and everybody trying to run things.”

“Did you go to Columbus with Ethelred?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Have a good time shopping while the rest of us are out hunting for a killer?”

There was one of her long pauses. “Someday your smart mouth’s going to get you in big trouble, young lady. You mind your business, and I’ll tend to mine.”

Put in my place one more time, and an hour before I had to get over to the Nut House, I charmingly agreed to stop at McDonald’s for a Coke, and then an ice cream—since Hunter was paying.

Hunter said something about, “If Muhammad won’t come to the mountain, the mountain will come to . . .” after I told him Selma wanted to see me and Meemaw. I knew I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody but we were in way too deep to be hiding secrets at this point.

On our way to McDonald’s, I called Marti Floyd.

“Sure I remember the church folks coming through,” the man’s slow voice said.

“Why were they there an hour early?”

“I have no idea. Threw us into a spin, I’ll tell you. I had to take ’em through. No grand tour like Milo does it.”

“Anything unusual about them? Did they all stay together? Anybody wander off?”

“Kids, as usual. People hollering at ’em. Things like that. Couple of bishops came with ’em. All friendly and interested. Nothing else.”

I thanked the man and hung up.

*   *   *

McDonald’s was empty, being halfway between dinner and supper. One girl lounged behind the counter, yawning as she handed us our drink cups and me a cup of ice cream with chocolate on top, which I ate first, followed by my soft drink, which didn’t taste too good after ice cream.

“What do you imagine Selma wants to talk about?” Hunter said. “And why wouldn’t she be bringing it to the sheriff?”

“Maybe she came up with some little thing that’s bothering her.”

“Hope it’s one big thing,” he countered. “We could use it.”

I thought a minute. “You hear anything from Tupelo?”

“The sergeant there told me to give him a day or so to ask around, but let me call now, see if there are any messages.” He shook his head as he fumbled with the radio on his shoulder. “The more I think about it, the more I think somebody followed the parson here to Riverville with murder in his heart.”

“You’re just wishing. Nobody could be a stranger around here and know that much about Miss Amelia and how she usually won at the fair and this time didn’t, and how her other bowl was in the ranch cooler.”

He nodded. “Guess you’re right. I was just hoping the guy was from out of town and I wouldn’t have to be locking up some neighbor for murder.”

“Better than locking up my grandmother.”

He called the station while I sat beside him, trying to stay cool, though the air-conditioning didn’t seem to put a dent in the afternoon’s heat.

When he was off his radio, he looked over at me, a puzzled expression on his face.

“What’d the sheriff have to say?” I asked.

He went on thinking until he finally gave me a look, more confusion than information. “Just that he was going through some old complaints, thinking he remembered something about the church.”

“What’d he find?”

“A complaint about Pastor Albertson.”

“What kind of complaint?”

“Something to do with the pastor trying to cheat him—it was Tim Rogers came in. You know him. Old guy lives down by the old train depot. Sometimes helps out at the feed store.”

“Yeah. So? Tyler Perkins mentioned something about that. He didn’t seem to think it was anything. Just another old guy grousing. How’d he try to cheat him?”

“Sheriff wasn’t really clear. Seems there was a problem going on. Some of the church people were invited to invest in something or other and were making a lot of money. But they wouldn’t tell Tim a thing about it. He went to see Pastor Albertson and didn’t get any satisfaction. Got so mad he went to the sheriff. Nothing to be done about it. Church business.”

“Did the sheriff talk to Pastor Albertson?”

“Seems he did. Said if he remembered right, the man was shocked that Tim was that mad about something not worth getting upset about. The pastor said he didn’t know much about it but that he’d look into it. Next thing the pastor was gone, replaced by the Reverend Jenkins. Sheriff told me—but he said this is confidential—that maybe the church board found out something or other the pastor was doing and asked him to leave before anything came out. Sheriff went out this morning and talked to Tim but the man didn’t even remember filing the complaint.”

“Won’t do us any good to go talk to him then. Got to be in here somewhere—who did this. Like a mystery buried in a cave. Could be this one’s secret. Could be that one’s. We’ve just got to find out what the secrets are and trace them to their core.”

“I’m hoping for Selma right now,” Hunter said. “Something’s got to be bothering her—all this hush-hush stuff.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Want to meet for supper later?”

I shook my head. “My trees need me. Martin’s doing a good job, what I saw, but those trees . . . well . . .”

He nodded at me. “Like your babies. I sure know that. But call me after you see Selma. I’m going back to the station. I’ll call Tupelo again. Just a hunch but I’m getting tired of sitting around, waiting for something to break.”