by Linda Ross
The rest of the drive to Arnold, Thelma tried to explain the benefits of sacrifice to me, but I had a counter argument. I’d already sacrificed a marriage, although that wasn’t my choice at the time, a house and a nice income. I didn’t really have anything else to offer up.
We had a plan for getting information in Arnold. We were going to start with the church and see where that took us. The church was fairly easy to find, especially since it looked like a large box that had given birth to baby boxes that went out from either side to form a ring. There was a steeple of sorts on the biggest box and a bright red door.
“I’m not sure what the concept is here,” I said to Thelma as we mounted the cement steps to the red door. “The nine circles of hell?”
“Could be. You should watch your back, considering you do horoscopes. Remember what happened to the fortune tellers. They had to walk forward with their heads on backwards.”
I snorted dismissively. “I do that every day. That’s a requirement for working for Lorenzo.”
We stepped inside the church and saw a sign that read Office. Below it was an arrow pointing down the hall. We could see an open door and hear the sound of a computer keyboard.
When I tapped on the door and poked my head inside, I saw a woman in her thirties with curly brown hair cut short. She was devoid of makeup but naturally pretty. She was humming to herself as she typed efficiently.
She looked up and smiled, which made her even prettier. “Come on in and have a seat. I’m Ellen Drummond. How can I help you?”
Thelma and I sat in the two chairs in front of the desk and told her our names. We had decided to let Thelma ask the questions since she had the religious background. An ex-nun would be a lot more delicate in her questioning than I would. I’m just not talented that way. It’s all I can do sometimes to keep my mouth from spilling out what my brain is thinking. And that seems to rub people the wrong way.
“I don’t know if you heard,” Thelma said in a soft voice, the voice I bet she used to use when she was talking to the Mother Superior. “The sister of one of your former members was killed recently.”
“Oh, dear. Who was it?”
“Kara Koch. Rose Sanderson’s sister.”
Ellen’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no. Poor Rose. She must be so upset. I know she had really hoped to mend fences with her sister.”
“You know Rose well?” Thelma asked.
“Fairly well,” Ellen said. “But Pastor Rick knows her better. And he was the one who spent more time with Kara. Not that it did any good. Wicked of me to say that, but it’s true.” She pressed a button on an intercom box and spoke into it. “Pastor Rick, there are people here to see you.” She released the button and looked back at us. “He’s in the kitchen getting a snack. The poor man has diabetes and has to constantly be on guard with his blood sugar. Rose’s husband was diabetic too. He suffered a heart attack and died last year. It hit her hard. I think that’s why she wanted to spend time with her sister. She said you never know how much time you have left.” She stopped and flushed. “I guess that’s kind of ironic. But only Jesus can count the days.”
I supposed that Jesus had better things to do than sit around adding up how many days each person had left, but what do I know. Maybe he’s into math. I tried to dispel my mental image of Jesus with an accountant’s green visor, punching numbers into a calculator.
We heard footsteps in the hall, and a young chunky man with unruly red hair came into the office. He was wearing jeans, a plaid flannel shirt with bread crumbs on the front and a smile.
“Hey, there,” he said. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”
“Not at all,” Thelma said. “I’m Thelma Murphy, and this is Aretha Moon. We’re from Hannibal.”
“Aretha?” he asked, the smile broadening. “Like the singer?”
“My mother loved her music,” I said. “I can’t carry a tune, so I haven’t lived up to the name.”
“I’m sure you have your own talents,” he said.
Yeah, that would be eating and sleeping. I was good at both.
Pastor Rick pulled up a chair and sat next to us.
“They have some sad news,” Ellen said. “Kara Koch has died.”
“Kara?” Rick repeated, and it was clear from the change in his face that he remembered her. The smile had been replaced with a worried frown. “What happened?”
“Actually, she was murdered,” I said, interested in seeing how he would respond.
His eyes widened, and he ran a hand through his hair. He must do that a lot from the state of it.
He took a deep breath. “Well, to be honest, I can’t say I’m shocked. Saddened, but not really surprised. She always lived life on the edge.” He shook his head. “Such a shame. She had a lot of potential. She just couldn’t make a connection with Jesus.” He looked from one of us to the other. “Did they catch the person who did it?”
“No,” Thelma said, “and that’s the reason we’re here. We’d like to find out some information.”
“Are you with the police?” he asked.
Thelma bit her lip. “No, not really. We’re both reporters. But the police know we’re here, and they approve.”
“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to talk,” he said, looking at Ellen, who was nervously chewing on a fingernail.
“We wouldn’t want you to break any confidences, but it would help if you could tell us what you know about Kara and Rose.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes focused on the desk. “They were very different women, and I wouldn’t have guessed they were sisters other than the physical resemblance. I think they spent a good part of their childhood around here, but I never knew any of the family. Rose joined the church the year I came here. She struck me as a very sad woman. She was married to a nice man, but he had health problems, and I got the feeling there was an emptiness in her life.”
“But she turned to Jesus,” Ellen said around the finger she was still chewing on.
“I like to think she found some peace,” Pastor Rick said.
“What about Kara?” Thelma asked.
Pastor Rick sighed the way I imagined a saint would sigh over a sinner.
“I think she tried at first,” he said. “Well, let me back up a little. She started coming to the church about the time she started working at the Lucky Seven Lounge. It’s just up the road. You can see the sign from here.”
“What did she do there?” I asked.
“Mostly bartending from what I heard. Maybe filled in when a server was out. She was real close with the owner, and when he started coming here to church she followed.” He cleared his throat. “Not that we approved of what was going on, but we always have hope people will find Jesus and change.”
“What was going on?” Thelma asked.
“Well, he was a married man, and from the look of things. . . Well, I hate to spread gossip, but everyone knew there was something between them.”
“They were having an affair?” Thelma asked.
Pastor Rick nodded. “And not just an ordinary affair. If you’ll excuse my crude language they were into weird things, things that good Christians wouldn’t think of doing. Perversions.”
All kinds of images were going through my head. I wasn’t sure which one Pastor Rick was referring to, and I wondered if he was too embarrassed to be specific.
“I know this is indelicate,” Thelma said in that soft voice, “but it would help if we knew what she was doing. There have been some incidents in Hannibal.”
Pastor Rick cleared his throat again, looking as uncomfortable as, well, as Pastor Rick talking about sex.
“Now, I never had direct knowledge of this,” he said in a strained voice, “but Mary Lou Stoermer cleaned his house for him, and she said there was a room with all kinds of. . . well. . . punishment equipment. And handcuffs. Rope.” Pastor Rick turned a bright red. “And lubricants.”
Ellen was watching with wide eyes, her finger still in her mouth. I got the feeling she
was more titillated than embarrassed.
Thelma made sympathetic clucking sounds. “I’m sure that was a shock for everyone.”
Pastor Rick nodded. I was just trying to think of how to diplomatically ask who the man was, when Pastor Rick solved the problem for me.
“I’m afraid we had to ask Mr. Connell not to come back to the church. I know that sounds judgmental, but you have to understand that we minister to families, and we can’t have that influence in our midst. I know Jesus loved sinners, but there has to be a limit. We told him he was welcome back when he changed his ways and gave up the sin of unnatural fornication.”
Thelma was looking down at her lap, her lips pressed together, no doubt remembering me in my demented milk maid outfit at the B and D party.
“It wasn’t Jeffrey Connell by any chance?” Thelma asked, and Pastor Rick looked at her in surprise.
“Why, yes,” he said. “He moved away, and Kara did too. I think Rose tried to stay in touch, but Kara wasn’t interested. After her husband died, Rose wanted to build a relationship with her sister.”
“Well, you’ve been a big help,” Thelma said as she stood.
“We really appreciate your time,” I added.
“I know this may sound gruesome,” Pastor Rick said, “but could you tell me how Kara was killed?”
Thelma and I looked at each other, and Thelma said, “It looks like she was strangled. And then the killer beat her face in with a heavy object.”
Pastor Rick blanched and brought his hands to his mouth. “Oh, dear Lord.”
“Yes,” Thelma said, “it was very brutal.”
“No, what I was thinking is that’s similar to something that happened with Kara and a parishioner here shortly before she moved.”
My ears perked up at that. “What happened?” I asked.
Pastor Rick sent a worried glance at Ellen, and she nodded.
“Well,” he said, “after the collection is taken, it’s put here in the office while the service continues. Usually, a member is assigned to count it right away, but one Sunday the person who was supposed to do it was sick. So the money was left here on the desk. A member of the hospitality committee, Gigi Martin, came in during the last hymn to get something for our coffee hour. And she found Kara helping herself to the money.”
There was a long silence while we waited for him to continue. Ellen had stopped chewing her fingernail and was chewing her lip instead.
Pastor Rick took a deep breath. “Gigi demanded to know what she was doing and started to call for help. Kara put her hands around her neck and started choking her. When Gigi was almost unconscious, Kara grabbed a paperweight from the desk and smashed it against Gigi’s face. Luckily, one of the other parishioners walked in then.”
“What happened to Kara?” Thelma asked.
Pastor Rick lowered his head. “I’m ashamed to say that nothing did. Gigi was too traumatized to face the police, and Kara took off. She never came back to the church, and Rose told us she couldn’t find her. It wasn’t long after that that Jeffrey Connell moved, and Kara was gone.”
I exchanged a look with Thelma, and she said, “You don’t suppose Gigi might talk to us? We’d really like to find out what happened with Kara.”
Pastor Rick hesitated. “I really don’t know. She’s a very private woman. One of our most faithful.”
Ellen leaned forward in her chair. “I could call her and ask,” she offered.
“I suppose that would be okay,” Pastor Rick said.
And five minutes later it was arranged. Gigi was going to meet us at the church. It had taken a little persuading on Ellen’s part, from what we could hear on her end of the conversation. But Gigi had agreed after Ellen told her it might bring peace to Rose.
Thelma and I waited in the pastor’s study next door to Ellen’s office. “I bet she’s blond and cute,” I said in an undertone.
“Why?” Thelma asked.
“Because her name’s Gigi. Anyone named Gigi has to be blond and cute. It’s a requirement.”
Thelma just rolled her eyes.
It turned out that I was sort of right. Thelma and I both stood up and turned when Pastor Rick ushered Gigi into his office. Gigi’s hair was ash blond, and it was obvious from her bow-shaped mouth and large blue eyes that she’d been more than cute once. Pretty, actually. But now her right eye looked off to the side while the left was looking straight ahead. The eyelid looked too small for the eye and there were no lashes. Her right eyebrow was missing, leaving a thick scar in its place. And one side of her nose didn’t match the other. She wore bangs that were longer on the right side and partially covered her face, but the damage was obvious despite the makeup she was wearing.
“We’re sorry to bring you over here on short notice,” Thelma told her, shaking hands. “We’re only here for the day, and we need to find out what we can about Kara.” She gestured to a chair, and Gigi sat. Pastor Rick hovered near the door.
“”Ellen said she’s dead,” Gigi said, her voice small and girlish, as if it didn’t belong in a woman’s body. She was probably thirty. She raised her hand to her mouth briefly, and I saw a wedding ring.
“She was killed in the hair salon where she worked,” I said. “We’re looking for any information that might help find the killer. And the reason she was killed.”
Gigi shook her head. “I can’t believe she’s dead. I’ve been wanting the nightmare to be over for so long, and now I can’t really believe it.”
“Why don’t you tell us what happened when Kara assaulted you?” Thelma asked gently. “Just take your time.”
Gigi looked down and took a deep breath. “It was during the Sunday service. I was in charge of coffee that morning, and after the collection was taken I remembered that I’d left the new pack of napkins in the office when I’d stopped in to put the receipt for the coffee in the file.” Gigi was reciting the story in almost a monotone, I guess to disassociate herself from it. “Pastor Rick was already partway through his sermon, and there would only be a final hymn before everyone came downstairs for coffee. I went to the office to get the napkins on my way to the basement, and the door was open. That was unusual, because whoever did the collection that Sunday always closed the door on their way out.”
Her voice cracked a little on that last word, and Thelma reached out and touched her hand. “You’re doing fine,” she said encouragingly.
Gigi gave a short nod and continued. “I opened the door and started in when I saw Kara leaning over the collection plate on the desk. She looked up when she heard me, and the look on her face. . . .” She stopped and took another steadying breath. “I’ll never forget that look. I see it in my nightmares sometimes.” Her hand closed on Thelma’s hand and tightened.
“It’s all right,” Thelma said soothingly. “It’s over now, and she’s gone.”
“I was so stupid,” Gigi said. “I just stared at her and said, ‘What are you doing?’ She came around the desk, and I swear she snarled like a wild animal. I opened my mouth to scream and she grabbed me around the neck. She was choking me with both hands, and she was so strong I couldn’t pull her hands away. I started to see black, and I was almost unconscious. That’s when she slammed my head against the edge of the desk. I remember falling to the floor, and I turned my head to look at her just as she hit me with a paperweight. She got me right on the eye. I think I did manage to scream then, although it was barely audible because of my throat. I was lucky that Marcy was coming to look for me to start the coffee. She screamed, and Kara dropped the paperweight and ran out.”
I could see Gigi’s hand shaking as she gripped Thelma’s hand.
“Did the police look for her?” I asked.
Gigi shook her head. “Everybody wanted me to call the police, but I was too scared. You didn’t see her face. She didn’t even look human.”
“We had a retired police officer in our congregation at the time,” Pastor Rick said from behind us. “He wanted us to report it, but Gigi couldn’t bring
herself to do it. We prayed on it a lot, and finally we had to believe that we were doing the best thing for Gigi.”
“If they’d arrested her, my boyfriend would have killed her,” Gigi said in a small voice. “He never left my side while I was having surgery for my face. Even with what she did to me, he insisted on getting married. I told him I would understand if he didn’t want to go through with the wedding, but he was more determined than ever.” She gave a small smile, a stark contrast to the tears running down her face. “I think he hates her more than I do.” She half-turned to give Pastor Rick an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I’ve tried to forgive her, but I can’t.”
“Jesus understands,” he said in a soothing voice.
I understood too. Gigi would have been a real looker and still was. But there was that flaw on her face, and for someone who had grown up being beautiful a flaw like that was hard to live with. No doubt she hated Kara. But it was her husband I really wondered about. Did he hate Kara enough to find her and kill her?
“Did your husband know Kara?” I asked.
Gigi shook her head. “Eddie’s not really into church. Actually, he was kind of wild when I met him. He used to go out drinking and playing cards. He changed when we got together, and he’s been a good man.”
Define good, my cynical brain said. People thought my ex-husband Boyd was a good man too.
“Gigi has changed his life,” Pastor Rick said. “He comes to our church dinners now, and I just know that one day he’ll find Jesus.”
I don’t know why people always talk about finding Jesus, like he’s Waldo. Look close enough at the picture and you’ll finally see Jesus standing there in his robe with his long hair and beard, disguised as a pretzel vendor to blend into the crowd.
“I’m sure that’s comforting,” I said to Gigi for lack of anything else to say.
“You’ve been very helpful,” Thelma said, standing.
“One more thing,” I said. “How did Rose feel about what Kara did?”
“Oh, she was devastated,” Pastor Rick said.
“She paid for what insurance didn’t cover on my surgery,” Gigi said. “She couldn’t do enough for me.”
