Murder Carries a Torch Read online

  “He looks like Cary Grant, Debbie.”

  I am a kind person. I wasn’t about to mention the fact that he was a dead ringer for Willard Scott and General Schwarzkopf.

  “Well, what does this Virgil Stuckey say about what’s going on?”

  “He said he thought it was time to alert Richard in Washington,” I explained. “Which your mother just did. She left him a message.”

  “Just told him about the bodies and his mother being missing and his daddy hurt.”

  Debbie smiled. “You’re right. That ought to do it, Mama.”

  She sipped her coffee and tried to get comfortable. “I don’t think this baby is going to wait two more weeks. Can y’all see the way he’s knotted up on the side?”

  That reminded me. I reached in my purse and handed Debbie the velvet bag that I had planned to take by her house the day before.

  “A present from Philip.”

  She put her coffee down and grinned. “Jewelry?”

  “The family jewels.”

  The look on her face was priceless when she pulled the neutercal from the bag.

  “Oooh, what is this?” She held the prosthetic testicle in her hand. “It squishes and there’s something hard in it.”

  “Let me see that.” Sister took the neutercal from Debbie. “Hey, this is a really great fake nut.”

  “It’s called a neutercal,” I explained to Debbie. “You squeeze it when you’re in labor. Philip says the doctors in Warsaw swear it cuts labor time in half.”

  “Give it here, Mama.” Debbie snatched the neutercal back, gave it a good squeeze, and laughed. “This is wonderful.” She squeezed again. “Oh, my, yes. I can see how this would work wonders.”

  “Let me try it,” Sister said.

  Debbie handed it over reluctantly. We were giggling when Tiffany came in. She had to have a squeeze, too, declaring it was just a fancy stress ball like Alabama midwives used all the time.

  “Nowadays?” Debbie asked.

  “I’m sure they do, cause they work. My grandmama was a midwife. She’d get everybody to save those little cotton tobacco pouches with the drawstring tops for her. You know, the ones for people who rolled their own cigarettes? She’d fill them up with grits. Put a marble in them.” Tiffany handed the neutercal back to Debbie. “Said it worked wonders.”

  “I never heard of them,” Sister said.

  Tiffany shrugged, a “city folks don’t know much” shrug.

  She was right. There was a lot we city folks didn’t know. About snake handling, for instance.

  “Where did you grow up, Tiffany?” I asked.

  “Tuscaloosa. My daddy teaches chemistry at the university. But my grandmama who was the midwife lived near Sterrett. She and my grandpa had a farm, raised peaches mostly. Why?”

  “I don’t suppose they ever ran into any snake handlers.”

  “What?”

  This time it was Sister who told the story. When she finished, Tiffany declared, “I can’t believe that. Poor soul.”

  I wasn’t sure whether she meant the redheaded girl, Monk Crawford, or Virginia. I guess it didn’t matter.

  “Somebody help me up,” Debbie said. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “She got that ball just in time,” Tiffany said watching Debbie waddle through the door. Then, “What are y’all going to do? Wait for the sheriff to call or go on up to Oneonta?”

  “I think we should go on up there and tell Luke,” Sister said. “I’ll put the phone on call forwarding in case Richard calls. And we can stop by the sheriff’s office and see if he’s heard anything.”

  “Wear your purple boots,” I suggested.

  Sister giggled.

  Luke looked worse than he had the night before. Both eyes were black and he groaned when he saw us.

  “I’m seeing two of you.”

  “There are two of us,” Mary Alice said.

  “No. I mean I’m seeing four of you. Two each.”

  “Is that normal when you have a concussion?”

  Luke looked at the two Mary Alices and said, “Hell, no, it’s not normal. I think my eyes got jarred out of their sockets.”

  Sister sat down in the only chair and examined Luke’s eyes. “They look like they’re fitting okay. Not a good color, but straight.”

  “What did the doctor say?” Luke’s appearance was alarming. I wondered if the double vision was a sign of the swelling they had warned us about.

  “They’re going to do a CAT scan or an MRI or something in a little while. One of those alphabet things where they stick you in a tube.”

  “They’ll just stick your head in,” Mary Alice assured him. “The rest of you is working, isn’t it?”

  “I reckon. All I’ve had to eat is a banana popsicle.”

  “I love banana popsicles. Don’t you, Mouse?”

  I agreed that I did.

  “And lime and grape.” Sister leaned forward. “Luke, there’s something we have to tell you.”

  Something he was in no condition to hear. But Sister surprised me.

  “After they do the CAT scan and let you go, we’re going to take you to my house. In my Jaguar.”

  Luke smiled and clasped Mary Alice’s hand. Just at that moment the door opened and two orderlies came in with a gurney.

  “Gotta take you down to radiology, Mr. Nelson.”

  He was still smiling when he was wheeled out.

  “That was nice,” I told Sister.

  “Well, did you get a good look at him? There’s no way on God’s earth they’re going to let that man out today. Come on. Let’s go down to Joe’s and get some lunch.”

  Which is where both Richard and Virgil Stuckey located us. Virgil first, fortunately. We had just sat down when he came walking into the restaurant. This did not surprise me. Nor Sister. She smiled and waved.

  My back was to the door. “Cary Grant?” I ventured.

  “You got it.”

  “I was hoping I would catch you here,” the sheriff said.

  Mary Alice motioned toward a chair. He pulled it out quickly and sat down.

  “You ladies okay?”

  We assured him that we were.

  “Fixing to order lunch,” Sister said. “Why don’t you join us?”

  As if he weren’t already sitting down.

  “Fine. Thanks. How’s your cousin?”

  “Seeing double. They’re doing some more tests.” Sister handed him a menu that was stuck between the salt and pepper and a bottle of pepper sauce. “Have you found out anything else?”

  “We’ve identified the woman in the church. Monk Crawford’s daughter-in-law named Susan. Married to his son Ethan who died last year from a rattlesnake he was handling. They say it hung on and wouldn’t let go, emptied so much venom in him they couldn’t save him. His arm swelled up big as an elephant’s leg. Turned black.”

  A waitress came up to take our order. The vegetable plate had looked good a few minutes before. Now I decided iced tea was all I wanted. Surprisingly, it was all Sister ordered, too. I glanced over at her. Definitely pale.

  “What’s the matter?” Virgil asked. “I didn’t take your appetite away, did I?”

  “A little bit,” Sister confessed, surprising me again.

  “Well, I’m so sorry.” And to the waitress, “I’ll just have iced tea, too.”

  “No, you go on and eat,” Sister said. “It’s fine.”

  “You’re sure?’

  We nodded.

  He ordered practically everything on the menu. “I’ve got to head out for Pulaski in a little while, and I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to eat again.”

  “Tell us about Susan Crawford,” I said.

  He looked at Mary Alice for permission. She nodded.

  “She was a handler, too. Big time. She and her husband used to go all over the mountains up here and even Georgia and Tennessee holding meetings, testifying, and handling.”

  “Was she still doing it?” I asked.

  “Far as I
can tell. She had a couple of kids, though, little ones, so I guess after her husband died she didn’t have as much opportunity.”

  And now those children were orphaned. Their father and mother were dead and so was their grandfather.

  “Where are the children now?” Sister asked.

  “We’re not sure.”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” I said. And I didn’t. I couldn’t imagine the religious fervor, the letting go of one’s self that would allow someone to handle serpents to prove his faith.

  “They claim they’re in a state of ecstasy while they’re handling and talking in tongues,” Virgil said.

  No, I couldn’t understand it. But neither could I judge it. The passion that had twisted Susan Crawford’s neck all the way around, however, was a different matter.

  “Do you know yet what happened to Monk Crawford?” I asked.

  “Nope.” He was lying; his ears turned red.

  “Oh, that must be Richard.” Sister reached in her purse and handed me a vibrating phone. “Answer it, Patricia Anne.”

  “How?”

  She mashed a button. “Just say hello.”

  “Hello?”

  “Mary Alice?”

  “Just a minute.” I handed the phone back to Sister. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Virgil Stuckey was looking from one of us to the other.

  Sister gave in. “I’d better take this in the bathroom.” As she got up she narrowly missed colliding with the waitress who was bringing Virgil’s lunch. “Sorry.”

  Virgil watched her walk away from the table. She might not be wearing the purple boots today, but she was still creating a gleam in his eye.

  The waitress put the food down and Virgil sprinkled pepper sauce on his turnip greens.

  “What happened to Monk Crawford’s wife?” I asked him.

  “Something normal, I understand. Something like pneumonia.” He buttered a piece of cornbread. “Tell me about Virginia Nelson, other than she played golf and belonged to the country club.”

  I admitted that I really didn’t know her that well. “She must have been desperately unhappy, though, to leave like she did.”

  “She and her husband get along?”

  “We thought they did. We just see them at weddings and things, though.” I hesitated. “They tend to drink a little too much on those occasions. I don’t know what it’s like at home, the alcohol.” I paused and watched Virgil inhale a whole new potato. “I do know that Luke was truly devastated when he got to my house. I think it’s the last thing in the world he thought would happen.”

  “They just have the one child?”

  I nodded. “Richard. The representative.”

  I sipped my tea and wondered how Richard was taking the news that Mary Alice was passing along. I wondered how much she was telling him.

  The restaurant was filling up with the lunch crowd. Several people spoke to the sheriff as they walked by. He called most of them by name, I noticed. I remarked on this.

  “I used to know just about everybody in this county and my county, too,” he said. “Then half the folks from Birmingham decided to move out here.” He inhaled another potato. “I can’t say I blame them. It’s beautiful out here. Getting sort of crowded though. I worry about the animals, the deer and the foxes.”

  A man after my own heart.

  “Even the Chandler Mountain booger?”

  He grinned. “Especially the booger.”

  Sister sat back down. “Richard’s getting the first flight that he can. He’ll probably be in early this evening. He said not to meet him, that he’d rent a car.”

  Neither of us asked how he had taken the news.

  Sister eyed the food that was left in front of Virgil Stuckey.

  “That looks good.”

  Virgil nodded. “Is.”

  “Patricia Anne, maybe we ought to order something. We need to keep our strength up.”

  It was close to an hour before we got back to the hospital. Telling Virgil goodbye took quite a while. He promised to call if there was any news of Virginia. In fact, he would just call anyway. And chances were he’d be back the next day. The sheriff was a smitten man.

  “He’s too young for you,” I said to Sister who was doing a little skipping step down the sidewalk. “He’s not twenty-eight years older.”

  “I know. Isn’t it wonderful? I might not have to bury this one.”

  “How many plots do you have left at Elmwood?”

  “Just two. And one of those is for me. He might want to be buried with his first wife anyway. Though I doubt it.”

  Amazing. There was Sheriff Virgil Stuckey driving up the road to Pulaski, Tennessee, with no idea in the world that my sister already had him hog-tied for eternity. A man she had met just the day before.

  “Aren’t you still engaged to Cedric?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “The Englishman.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Luke was spooning tapioca pudding from a plastic cup when we got back.

  “They’re not going to let me leave,” he said mournfully.

  “Oh, Luke, I’m so sorry.” Mary Alice actually patted his foot which was sticking out from under the sheet. The woman has no conscience. “What did they say?”

  “Maybe tomorrow.” He blinked back tears. “And I’m so worried about Virginia. I know she’s up there at that church, not knowing I’m hurt.”

  “She’s fine, Luke,” I said. “She’s going to show up soon.”

  “Of course she is,” Sister agreed. “And we’ll come back to get you tomorrow. Okay?”

  “In the Jaguar?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The poor fellow smiled. I could have kicked Sister in the butt, especially when we were walking down the hall and she said, “Did you see Luke’s toenails? Longer than Howard Hughes’s. If he cut them he’d wear a size smaller shoe, I swear.”

  It was my idea to go back over Chandler Mountain and go home the way we had come the day before. I knew we weren’t going to find Virginia at the church, and that I, for one, wouldn’t set foot in that church with that box at the front even if the police didn’t have it cordoned off, which they probably did. But I wanted to see it, knowing what I did know about all that had happened there.

  So we wound up the steep curves that I had traveled down in the ambulance the day before. The view over the edge made me appreciate again how carefully the ambulance driver had taken the curves. One mistake and we’d have been in the next county or in the heavenly choir.

  The weather had done a complete turnaround in twenty-four hours. It was in the midfifties with bright sun striping the road through bare branches of trees, trees that clung to the rocky bank over the road and threatened to crash down at any minute. We didn’t meet another car all the way up the mountain.

  The Jesus Is Our Life and Heaven Hereafter church was built on the bluff side and was, since the road ran so close to the bluff, the first building on that side of the road. I hadn’t realized the day before that the back of the church would have been jutting over a deep ravine if it weren’t for a large rock formation.

  There was no crime tape across the front of the church, and the only vehicle in sight was Holden Crawford’s paint van.

  Mary Alice pulled into the driveway between the house and church and stopped.

  “They don’t have much parking space here, do they?”

  “No. Looks like they park in front of the house. The yard’s all rutted.”

  Then she voiced what I was thinking. “I wonder what Virginia thought when she first saw this place.”

  “That she was in over her head, I imagine, especially when she found out what was going on over at the church.”

  “But she didn’t leave.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t.”

  Mary Alice tapped her nails against the steering wheel. “I wonder if the police checked the back of the van.”

  “I’m sure they did. Virginia’s missing a
nd her car is found in Tennessee with Monk Crawford’s body in it. They checked all right.” I looked toward the church. “But, you know, a person could fall off one of those rocks and never be found unless they happened to get caught in a tree.”

  “You’re thinking Monk Crawford killed her and went to Tennessee in her car?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” I admitted. “He wouldn’t have brought her up here just for her car.”

  “And she was nobody’s Pamela Anderson.”

  “Who?”

  “Baywatch. Boobs.”

  “No. She was a sixty-something-year-old woman. Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Money?”

  “You think she had any?”

  “Probably some.”

  “Well, that should be fairly easy to check out.”

  The sound of wheels on gravel made us turn around. A red pickup truck had pulled into the driveway behind us. I was relieved to see a nice-looking young couple in their late twenties get out. The woman, I realized instantly, had to be Susan Crawford’s sister. The same red hair fell almost to her waist; she was carrying a pot of pink hydrangeas wrapped in pink foil. They walked up to my side of the car, and I let the window down.

  “Afternoon,” the girl said. “I’m Betsy Mahall and this is my husband, Terry. Can we help you with something?”

  “We just stopped for a minute,” I explained, introducing Mary Alice and myself. “We were here yesterday.”

  “The ladies who found Susan?” Terry Mahall was very tall and thin, at least a foot taller than his wife. He put his arm protectively around her shoulders. “She was Betsy’s sister.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Betsy Mahall nodded. “I brought these flowers to put in the church.” Her eyes welled with tears. “I guess it doesn’t matter, but I wanted to.”

  “Of course it matters, honey,” Terry Mahall said. “Here, let me hold those for you.”

  Betsy surrendered the hydrangeas and fished in her jacket pocket for a Kleenex.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, holding the Kleenex to her eyes. “I don’t guess I’ve stopped crying since I got the word yesterday. And then when we heard about Monk this morning—”

  “Why don’t you sit in the car a minute?” Mary Alice offered.

  “Why don’t you do that, honey? You’ve just about made yourself sick.” Terry Mahall opened the back door for his wife. “I’ll go put these in the church.”