Morgue Mama: The Cross Kisses Back (Morgue Mama Mysteries) Page 3

  The entrance was guarded by two cement angels, frozen out-stretched arms welcoming us in. The parking lot was massive, and except for five or six cars, empty. The morning’s snow had been pushed into neat mounds around the light poles.

  The Heaven Bound Cathedral was one of Hannawa’s most recognizable landmarks, a three-sides wedge of glass and serious-looking beige brick. Huge neon crosses rose from all three corners. A pretty ugly building in my opinion.

  “It looks bigger on television,” Aubrey said.

  The sidewalks had been sprinkled with blue de-icing pellets and we made it inside without incident.

  For a while we just wandered the halls. There were JESUS DIDN’T SMOKE—WHY DO YOU? signs on every wall. In one hallway we found a long bulletin board thumb-tacked full of Polaroids—new members, Sunday school classes, family outings to various campgrounds and amusement parks. Buddy Wing was in every photo, smiling wide under his huge head of heavily sprayed hair.

  We came to a set of wide oak doors. Raised bronze letters told us it was the BROADCAST CHAPEL. We peeked inside. This chapel was big enough to hold a Miss America pageant. We heard a pair of hard shoes behind us.

  It was a security guard. He was tall and chubby. There was a sadness about him, the kind you see on a lot of middle-aged men as they plow along through a life loaded down with failure. His high cheekbones and protruding ears gave away his Appalachian ancestry. And so did his voice. “Might I be of assistance?” he asked.

  Aubrey immediately shook his hand. “We’re from the Herald-Union. We’ve got an appointment with Guthrie Gates.”

  “Thought as much,” said the guard. He led us off, at a pace that would make a Galapagos turtle proud.

  I was surprised that Aubrey had made an appointment. “I thought we were just snooping?” I whispered.

  Aubrey didn’t care a whit about the security guard’s Appalachian ears. “Guthrie Gates is the associate pastor,” she said loudly. “He’ll probably be named full-blown pastor pretty soon.”

  “Already has been,” the security guard said.

  I knew what Aubrey was doing. She was playing dumb. It’s an old reporter’s trick. Ask a direct question and people get scared and tell you nothing. Wheedle them into volunteering information and they’ll just blab and blab.

  “I hear he’s very good with kids,” Aubrey said to me. “He’s got like three or four of his own.”

  The security guard politely corrected her. “Oh, no, ma’am. Guth’s not even married yet. But he is good with the kids. That’s for sure.”

  “And I hear he grew up in the church,” Aubrey said to me.

  “No ma’am. He came to the cathedral just a year before I did, seven years ago now. He’s like family though.”

  Aubrey filled her voice with apology. “Of course. I was thinking of that other guy, Tim Bandicoot. He’s the one whose parents were members of the Clean Collar Club.”

  “That’s right—but Tim’s no longer with our church,” said the security guard.

  ***

  I was surprised that Aubrey knew about the Clean Collar Club. They were the five families back in the Fifties that invited Buddy Wing to stay in Hannawa and start a congregation. Until they could scrape up the money to rent their first little storefront church, they met Sunday mornings at six in a Laundromat, over on South Canal Street. Nobody came around to wash their clothes at that hour and it was almost a year before the owner caught them celebrating the Lord’s Supper around the folding table.

  ***

  We passed yet another JESUS DIDN’T SMOKE—WHY DO YOU? sign and I made some crack about the church not being very brotherly toward the tobacco industry.

  “Pastor Wing was firm about cigarettes,” the security guard said. “He lost both his daddy and his wife to tobacco. But it ain’t just the cancer. It’s the weakness. Pastor used to call smoking a manifestation of spiritual sloth. I was hooked a long time myself before he healed me of the habit.”

  We reached the church offices. The security guard rapped on the door respectfully. I heard the lock unclick. A thirty-something man welcomed us in. He was thin and unathletic and not very tall. He had too much hair and a ridiculous necktie. He couldn’t decide if he should smile or not.

  Maybe Guthrie Gates had been named pastor but he hadn’t moved into Buddy Wing’s big office. That room, with its long wall of windows looking down on the parking lot, remained exactly as Wing left it on the night he was poisoned, or so Gates whispered as we padded by. The door was open so people could look inside, but a metal folding chair kept anyone from entering. On the chair rested a huge arrangement of plastic white roses.

  Gates’ own office was small. So was his desk. Sunday school drawings—animals entering Noah’s ark, Jesus taking off like a rocket—were taped to the walls. While Aubrey chit-chatted about the weather I watched Gates try not to look at her legs. Even in a baggy pair of khakis her legs seemed to short circuit male brains.

  When the weather was out of the way, and the pastor adequately seduced, Aubrey pulled a notebook from her coat pocket—one of those long, skinny spiral jobs reporters carry so they can take notes while holding it in the palm of their hand. While she flipped through her notes, Gates leaned over his little desk and tried to read upside-down what it said. What a lost cause that was. Reporters develop their own shorthand systems—scribbles even they can’t decipher half the time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve overheard reporters cursing their own notes at deadline: “What the blankedy-blank does that mean?”

  So Aubrey flipped through her notes and told Gates she didn’t think Sissy James poisoned the Rev. Buddy Wing. I was expecting the pastor to react as Dale Marabout reacted, pointing out that Sissy confessed, that police found the poison in her garbage can. But that wasn’t his reaction at all.

  “Half the people in this congregation don’t think she did it,” he said.

  Aubrey apparently wasn’t as surprised by his confession as I was. “Who do they think did?” she asked.

  Gates smiled a little. “People here try to mind their Christian P’s and Q’s.”

  Aubrey smiled back. “But—”

  “Well, who else. The boyfriend.” By the boyfriend he meant, of course, Tim Bandicoot, Buddy Wing’s one-time heir-apparent. Tim had grown up in the church—the Clean Collar Club and all that—and the childless Wing had carefully groomed him to run the whole show someday. He even paid Tim’s Bible college tuition. But when Tim started questioning his penchant for speaking in tongues, Wing very publicly threw him out of the congregation, along with Tim’s wife, Annie, and two hundred of Tim’s supporters. It happened about six years ago. There was a big debate in the newsroom about how to play the story. Some editors thought it was interesting but inconsequential church stuff that should be held until Saturday and run on the Faith & Family pages, or maybe during the week as a human interest feature in the Living section. Others insisted it was hard news—trouble right here in Hallelujah City and all that.

  Hard news won. The story ran below the fold on Page One. What a headline:

  TONGUE LASHING

  Buddy Wing, protégé split over strange church practice

  “But Tim Bandicoot is such an obvious suspect, isn’t he?” said Aubrey, sliding down in her chair and propping her knees on Gates’ desk, the way she did at her own desk.

  Gates’ eyes locked on Aubrey’s knees and pretty much stayed there the rest of the interview. “What’s obvious is that Tim really hated Pastor Wing,” he said.

  Up to now I’d just sat there like a bump on a log, but I remembered that whole story so well. “Enough to kill him and frame his own girlfriend?” I squeaked.

  Gates’ face started to twitch like a boiling sauce pan of Cream of Wheat. “Tim is an immoral man. Wife, two young sons, and a girlfriend on the side. He stole a big chunk of our congregation.”

  “He didn’t exactly steal them,” I pointed out. “They merely agreed that your church could draw a bigger audience if Wing stopped speaki
ng in tongues. And when Bandicoot was given the boot, they followed him. And as far as him having a girlfriend on the side—”

  I was way out of line and Aubrey’s eyebrows were telling me to shut up. But Gates answered me politely, as if I was a real reporter, and not just a librarian out on a Saturday snoop. “The very fact that Tim thought speaking in tongues was something Pastor Wing could stop, tells you right up front that he didn’t belong in this ministry. Tongues isn’t some cheap theatrical device to get people excited. It’s a gift God gives to the truly saved.” Gates grabbed his eyes and squeezed them together. He started reciting scripture: “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” He blinked and grinned. “Acts 2:4. Praise God.”

  “Do you speak in tongues?” Aubrey asked him.

  “Am I truly saved? Yes, I am. How about the two of you?”

  Aubrey squirmed. I suppose I squirmed a little myself. “Right now,” Aubrey said, “we’re only interested in saving Sissy James from spending the rest of her life in prison. Assuming she doesn’t belong there.”

  “We love her whether she does or doesn’t,” Gates said. “I hope you understand that.”

  “And I hope you understand that we’re not trying to do either God’s work or the police department’s work,” Aubrey answered. “If Sissy James is innocent, that’s a great story.”

  It was the pastor’s turn to be uncomfortable. “I hope you’re not going to make a lot of good people look silly.”

  Aubrey closed her notebook and slowly slid it in her coat pocket. It’s another old reporter’s trick, making people think an interview is over when it isn’t. “Any story we write about this is way down the line,” she answered. “And only if there’s absolute proof that Sissy is innocent. At this point we’re just fishing. But her court appearances—her arraignment and the sentencing—she just seemed too calm.”

  Gates hissed a single word: “Svengali.”

  Aubrey nodded. “Given her sad personal life—the miserable childhood and prostitution stuff—you’re probably right. She could easily come under the control of some manipulative bastard—sorry.”

  Gates shook both his head and his hands. “No need. Tim Bandicoot is a manipulative bastard. He hoodwinked Pastor Wing for years. All of us.”

  “What about the confession?” Aubrey asked. “Do you think Sissy could come up with that on her own? It’s just a scenario, of course, but say the police suspected Tim Bandicoot from the beginning—which they obviously did—and started looking for evidence. They find out he’s got a girlfriend on the side. Check out her house. They find the poison-making stuff in her garbage. Now, she didn’t know it was there. But she quickly realizes her wonderful Timmy boy has done one of two things: either he’s stupidly tried to get rid of the stuff in her trash can, or he’s intentionally set her up. She loves him. Believes his rap that Buddy Wing is embarrassing the Lord with his old-fashioned practices. She also hates herself. Knows she’s not worth much in the bigger scheme of things. She figures it’s her godly duty to save her man and his important ministry, even if he betrayed her. Not a word would have to be exchanged, would it? She realizes what she has to do and does it. She confesses to the murder of Buddy Wing.”

  Gates leaned back in his swivel chair, raking back his TV preacher’s bangs. “I can believe any or all of that.”

  Aubrey lowered her knees, stood up and zipped her coat with the fluid grace of a ballerina. She smiled and extended her hand across his desk. “I would like to get a church directory for our files, if that’s possible.”

  ***

  From the Heaven Bound Cathedral we drove to the mall in Brinkley. Aubrey had an Old Navy gift certificate that her sister gave her for Christmas. She bought a hooded fleece jacket from the sixty-percent-off rack. Then we had lunch in the food court. I had a slice of pizza and small lemonade. She had a soft pretzel an enormous diet Coke.

  For the longest time we made cracks about the crazy things different people were wearing. Then out of the blue Aubrey asked me if I thought Guthrie Gates could be the real murderer.

  “Heavens no,” I said. “He worships Buddy Wing like he was God.”

  “Like he was God or like Buddy Wing was God?”

  I finished my noisy sip. “I see what you’re saying.”

  And I did see what she was saying: When Tim Bandicoot was tossed out over that speaking in tongues business, Guthrie Gates became heir apparent. When Buddy Wing was killed, Guthrie Gates became the new Buddy Wing. “Maybe he stirred up that speaking in tongues business to get Bandicoot out of the way,” I said. “Then, feeling his Wheaties—”

  Aubrey squinted at me like I was the one speaking in tongues. “Feeling his Wheaties?”

  “You know, feeling strong and confident? Don’t tell me Wheaties doesn’t use that in their ads anymore?” I could see Aubrey didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I dropped it and continued: “So, after Guthrie successfully secured his position as heir, he figured, why wait for Buddy to die on his own?”

  I thought she was going to choke on her pretzel. “You sound like what’s-her-name on Murder She Wrote—the one who played the teapot. Anyway, Guthrie Gates is a puppy dog. No way in the world he killed Buddy Wing.”

  “You just said he did.”

  “No no, Maddy. I only asked if you thought it was possible—assuming that Sissy didn’t do it.”

  Now I was the one without a clue. “You don’t think she’s innocent?”

  Aubrey nibbled and nodded and shrugged at the same time. “I think she’s innocent. But even if I can prove it—and get her to admit it—I’m not sure I want to investigate any further than that.”

  “You wheedled Gates into giving you a church directory. That’s not for our files. That’s to run background checks on the membership.”

  “Maybe it’s for that.” She filled her cheeks with pretzel. “God, Maddy, I’ve so much to do. I’ve got to learn the police beat. That’s a big department. Rush City had eleven goofy cops. And Chief Polceznec is gearing up for this major internal reorganization. And as soon as spring gets here people will start killing each other left and right. The paper took a big risk on me. I’ve got to do well. And I’ve got so much personal shit to do. I don’t own anything except a futon and an old Radio Shack computer. I’m an adult now. I need a sofa. Table and chairs. A hutch full of fancy plates I never use. A real bed. Somebody to put in it.”

  There was something about sitting in that food court full of twitchy kids that made me feel young and wicked myself. “That last part ought to be easy enough.”

  Aubrey groaned and rested her forehead on the cold Formica tabletop. “Don’t even go there,” she said.

  I suddenly felt hot and silly. I’d gone too far. She was one of the paper’s reporters, the enemy, an overly ambitious kid I didn’t know and didn’t particularly want to know. I quickly got back on safe ground—the murder of Buddy Wing. “So it’s down to three then? Sissy James, Tim Bandicoot, or Guthrie Gates?”

  Aubrey had finished her pretzel. Now she was harvesting the salt crystals on her paper plate, dabbing them up with her index finger, licking them off. “If only it were three.”

  “Good gravy—who else?”

  “Who benefits from a dead TV evangelist, Maddy?”

  “Well—me for one. But I guess you mean specifically.”

  She giggled deep in her throat, the way Beelzebub might. “From what I’ve read, some of these TV preachers have no problem living as kingly on earth as they expect to live in heaven.”

  “You think maybe Buddy Wing was killed for his money? From what I gather, he lived fairly modestly.”

  We shook off our trays in a trash can shaped like an open-mouthed frog. “My first week at The Gazette I did a story on a school custodian who’d lived his entire life in a ramshackle house without running water or electricity,” Aubrey said. “He left a half-million dollars to the local ornithological society.”

>   “You’re making that up.”

  “Have you ever been to the new Wyssock County Wild Bird Museum, Maddy? It’s really something.”

  I still didn’t know if she was joking or not. But I got her point. “So Buddy Wing might have left somebody a bundle?”

  The automatic doors deposited us in the parking lot. “Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “We do know from the morgue files that his wife died of cancer, and that they didn’t have any kids. But certainly he had other family. Brothers. Sisters. Greedy nephews and nieces. Who knows how much money he had? Who knows who has it now? I’ll have to make nice with the gnomes at probate court.”

  Chapter 4

  Monday, March 13

  Nine-o’clock Monday morning Police Chief Polceznec announced his department’s reorganization plan. It set off the biggest political row of the winter. The police union filed suit at noon, claiming too many white officers were overlooked for promotions. An hour later the NAACP filed its suit, saying exactly the opposite was true. The local chapter of NOW held a press conference at two and demanded that at least one of the new district commanders be a woman. City Council called a hurry-up hearing at four. Some members of Council chastised Mayor Finn for not exercising enough control over the police department. Some charged that he exercised too much. Aubrey didn’t even have time to wave Hi across the newsroom. “The poor lamb’s working her pants off,” I whispered to Eric Chen.

  “If only it were true,” he answered.

  The police reorganization story dominated the news all week. Aubrey covered the police department angle while Sylvia Berdache covered the bickering and back-biting at City Hall. A couple of junior metro reporters were sent into the neighborhoods to gauge public reaction. On Thursday the paper ran a rare front-page editorial chastising all parties concerned for their selfish behavior. “The first thing Council should do,” we sarcastically wrote, “is change the city’s motto from Building A Beautiful Life to What’s In It For Me?”