“I can’t imagine anyone following a pattern more than Isaac Swenson,” Dewey whispered to me on the second night while the Swensons were inside eating supper.
“I know,” I whispered back. “I think we solved the case on our first try.”
We both had pocket-sized notebooks we used for jotting down activities and events and the times they happened. We had filled them up during the two days of watching Isaac Swenson and his family.
“My notebook’s full,” Dewey said. “I need a new one before we go watch anyone else.”
“Me too,” I said. We were still whispering as we got back to our bikes. Then we headed down the hill toward town.
“Friday and Saturday can we stay out later doin’ this? With school over for the holidays and everythin’ else, we should use the extra time. We’ll have an entire week’s worth of holidays!”
“I guess,” I said. “As long as I tell my mom . . .”
“What?” Dewey asked. “Why did you just stop talking?”
“Because one night during the holidays I have to go out and Saturday’s Christmas Eve, which I normally spend with my family. My mom would never let me go out Christmas Eve to spy on people. She makes us go door-to-door singing carols and dumb stuff like that. And this year she’s talkin’ ’bout goin’ out for two nights. Christmas Eve and the night before.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“My sister’s stupid birthday. It’s on December twenty-ninth. I’m forced to go to some fancy restaurant and eat steak. I hate it. I’d much rather sneak around and solve mysteries with you.”
“They both sound like fun!” Dewey said. “Can I come?”
“To what?”
“To both? Carolin’ with your family and goin’ to Carry’s birthday party.”
“You can’t just go on invitin’ yourself to do stuff with my family, Dewey,” I said. “You got the manners of a Brahma moose. “Carolin’ is sort of a family thing. You will feel like an outcast. Same as Carry’s birthday. Why in the world would you wanna come to that? It’ll just be her eatin’ and openin’ gifts.”
“I don’t care. I wanna come.”
“Okay, I’ll bring it up with my mom, but don’t feel too dejected when she says no.”
“I won’t. I’m used to feeling ejected. Or whatever you said.”
We rode along in silence a while until Dewey said, “You know, I really can’t believe Isaac Swenson’s a serial killer.”
CHAPTER 25
It was a Wednesday, which, sometimes, meant it was a church day. My mother decided today would be a church day. So around a quarter to six in the evening, we pulled into the parking lot of the Clover Creek First Baptist Church. I was wearing my white-and-blue-checkered shirt that I was pretty sure I’d outgrown last year. It was too tight. And the black slacks my mother forced me to wear. I had also outgrown them at least a year ago. They only came down to about four inches above my shoes. I felt like such a geek.
“Don’t ever feel like a geek going to church,” my mother told me. “God loves everyone. Even the boys who look like they’re ready for the flood.”
The way it was raining, I figured there could be a flood any minute. There had been thunder and lightning all afternoon.
I didn’t like her making fun of me when I was already mad about my clothes. So I told her just that.
“Tell you what, Abe. This weekend, I’ll take you to the mall and buy you a new set of church clothes. So this will be the last time you’ll ever have to wear these ones—deal?”
What choice did I have? “Deal,” I said, grudgingly.
At least when you’re sitting in a pew nobody can really see you. So as we entered the church, I quickly shook Reverend Matthew’s hand and pretty much raced to a pew that was about a third of the way back from the front. This was where my mother liked to sit. Not so far back that you can’t hear anything and not so close that you look like what she called a “God Hog.”
As usual, the choir sang as we took our seats. After attending Full Gospel—the black church—my opinion of the choir at Clover Creek had gone down significantly. The singers at Full Gospel were amazing. The singers here at Clover Creek First Baptist were just normal singers. I had wanted to go back to Full Gospel ever since we went last summer, but my mother and Carry refused, telling me that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I swore that once I got older, I would be attending the black church every Sunday and Wednesday.
My mother and Carry squeezed into the pew on my left.
“So what made you bolt through the door like that?” my mother asked.
“I didn’t want no one to see my clothes. They don’t fit me.”
“They fit you fine,” she said.
“No, they don’t.”
“What?” my mother said. “I can’t hear you over the choir.”
Carry was sitting between us and so I leaned forward over Carry’s lap so she’d be able to hear me better. That’s when it happened. And there was no question. Even over the sound of the choir, my mother heard it, too. It was a loud ripping sound, coming from right beneath me.
I’d ripped the rear end right out of my black slacks.
My eyes went wide. My mother and Carry both tried to hold back laughter, which just made the situation worse. “Oh my God!” I said. “What am I gonna do now?”
My mother couldn’t stop laughing. “How bad is it?” she finally managed to say. “Reach down and feel.”
I reached down and all I felt were my bare legs and underwear. “It’s bad!” I practically screamed. “There is no rear end left in the pants! It’s all just skin and underpants! What do I do?”
“You can start by taking a chill pill,” Carry said. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s ripped the rear end out of their pants in the house of the Lord?” And with that, she busted a gut laughing.
My mother laughed even harder.
“Come on, you guys, I’m serious here. What do I do?”
My mother’s mouth would not stop displaying that stupid grin. “I don’t know, honey. I really don’t. This is unfamiliar territory for me. I’m sure Jesus loves you just as much in your underwear.”
“Maybe you should just announce it to everyone before you get up to leave. That way it won’t be such a shock when they see it,” Carry offered.
“You guys are the worst support in the world,” I said.
“I know,” my mother said. “We can sit here until everyone else has filed out and make sure we’re the last to leave. Then the only one who might see it will be Reverend Matthew, and you can explain it to him. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“Yeah?” I started calming down. That plan sounded reasonable. Then another thought hit me. “Wait! We have to stand to sing and stuff! I can’t stand!”
Carry started laughing again and I realized I was doomed.
Reverend Matthew walked up on the stage and took his place at the pulpit. The choir sang a while longer, filling the building with their powerful voices. Sunlight shone through the stained glass windows, bathing Reverend Matthew in beautiful swatches of red, yellow, and green. He stood there welcoming everyone to his church on this rainy Wednesday afternoon looking almost angelic with the big empty cross on the wall behind him.
Then we did a series of hymns from the hymnal before the church prayer. We had to stand for these, so I quickly untucked my shirt so it hung down the back of my pants. I wasn’t certain it hung down far enough, but I had to have faith that it did, and I supposed if there was one place to have faith, then church was the best one I could think of.
Other than my underwear showing, things went pretty near the way they always went at Clover Creek. Just like always, I tried to pay attention to his sermon and understand it completely, and just like always, I got lost about fifteen minutes into it; then I just got bored and wished Dewey were sitting beside me and we could whisper stuff about serial killers to each other. That would certainly be better than the geek pants with the ri
pped-out rear end I was stuffed into today.
After church was over, I rushed straight to the car, but my mother didn’t follow me. She surprised me by approaching some people’s pickups in the parking lot and looking at their tires in some very suspicious ways. Carry sort of hung around behind her, looking a little lost, taking in the tall oaks that surrounded the churchyard and continued on behind it circling the graveyard.
The rain hadn’t stopped. In fact, if anything it was coming down harder and heavier. I watched it bounce off the ground around the car. The sky was full of dark, low-lying clouds, most of which had moved in while we were inside church.
The first pickup my mother checked out belonged to Jacob Tyne. Me and Dewey already knew all about Jake Tyne on account of we’d been going around town trying to find out on our own who the serial killer probably was. The day wasn’t as cold as the days had recently been, so, when Jacob walked over to see what it was my mother was doing, I rolled down the car window so I could hear what they were saying. I started thinking her questioning technique could use a bit of work.
“What’re you doin’ with my tires?” Jacob Tyne asked. “I don’t like you lookin’ at ’em that way.”
“What way?” my mother asked.
“Like they up and killed someone.”
Jacob Tyne was the rancher who owned both Superfeed and K’s Bait & Tackle. Me and Dewey had written him off as we were pretty sure he was too busy to be a serial killer.
“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” my mother asked him.
Right away, I could tell Jacob Tyne did in fact mind her asking some questions. Suddenly, I didn’t trust him one bit.
“What sort of questions?” he asked back.
“Well,” my mother said, “see, I’m followin’ this murder case and it involves a pickup truck very much like your own. An’ I was just wonderin’ if you’d mind if I take pictures of the tread on your tires? I have a Polaroid camera in the trunk of my car.”
He looked at her like she’d suddenly turned into a crawfish. “You want pictures of my tires? What, did this person you’re looking for run over someone?”
My mother smiled. “Not exactly. But I am trying to match treads with the ones found at the crime scene.”
“Are you kiddin’ me? Am I a suspect? If I am, you better arrest me, but you ain’t takin’ no pictures of my truck.”
“Okay,” my mother said, suddenly taking an interest in Jacob Tyne’s shoes. “I understand.”
“Now why are you starin’ at my shoes?” he asked, getting madder by the minute.
“Those Hush Puppies?”
“I dunno. My wife bought ’em. Suppose they could be.”
“What size do you wear?”
That was about all the questioning Jacob Tyne could take.
“Detective, I ain’t givin’ you any information unless you got some sort of warrant. I do a lot of things, but I’ll tell you what I don’t do. I don’t break no damn laws. Next you’ll be wantin’ to see my gun collection.”
My mother had her pad and a pen out. “So . . . for the record, you’re statin’ that . . .”
“I ain’t statin’ nothin’. This is ridiculous,” Jacob Tyne said. “If you want to ask me any more ridiculous questions, you’ll have to arrest me. And I don’t think you’re gonna arrest me on the grounds of I won’t let you take pictures of my truck tires or my church shoes.”
With that, he got into his truck and tore out of the church parking lot in a burst of gravel and mud, leaving my mother coughing in his wake. In my opinion, that was the sort of behavior only a guilty man would display. I figured me and Dewey maybe should definitely check out Jacob Tyne after all.
“I could ticket you for that!” my mother hollered out behind him, but I don’t think he heard her.
Then my mother approached the second pickup truck owner in the lot. It belonged to Bubba Swenson, who worked at Aunt Bella’s Burger Hut and whose pa was at the top of my and Dewey’s suspect list. Bubba had stuck around, listening to her whole exchange with Jacob Tyne, laughing. Now he was just getting into his silver Ford pickup as my mother walked over to the door. He was just about to close it, when he said, “Don’t even bother. I’ll just repeat everything Jake said. An’ you really need to work on your detective skills, I reckon.” He started up his truck. “Or at least your bedside manner.” To me, he even sounded like the son of a serial killer.
I knew we had the right guy. If it weren’t Isaac Swenson, then it was Bubba. One or both of ’em were serial killers.
Then, just like Jacob Tyne, he drove away, only without all the rocks and mud bursting up behind him.
Carry had disappeared. I think she’d gone around to the back to look at the graveyard. It was full of pretty gardens.
Despite the split in my pants (which I covered pretty well by pulling out my shirt), I exited the car and walked over to my mother, looking up at her. She was standing there, discouraged; her gaze still fixated in the direction Bubba’s truck had gone. “Don’t feel too upset,” I said. “You were askin’ ’em to do a bunch of stuff that would make ’em look guilty.”
“I never even got to the part where I ask for their alibi,” she said.
“What’s an alibi?”
“Like where you were or what you were doin’ when the body was taken away.”
“Who’s gonna remember that?” I asked. “I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast.”
She looked off somewhere in the distance. “You’re right, nobody’s gonna remember, unless they’re guilty, and if they’re guilty, they ain’t gonna tell me, not even when it comes to someone’s life being tragically brought to an end.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, getting wet from all the rain pounding down. Just then lightning flashed across the western skies, followed a few seconds later by the roar of thunder.
She squatted down and answered. “Nothin’,” she said. “Just enjoy every day you’re alive, Abe, because you never know when somethin’ might come along and just sideswipe you.”
I wasn’t sure I understood exactly what she meant, but for some reason, it made me think of my pa and all them stories I heard about how he collided head-on with that other car that night on his way home from work. I was only two, so I didn’t remember it.
But I certainly did miss him.
CHAPTER 26
The next day, Leah got a call at the station.
“Hi, this is Peggy Arnold. Margaret at the Six-Gun asked me to give you a call?”
Leah racked her brain, unsuccessfully trying to come up with a Peggy Arnold. “Peggy Arnold?” she asked.
“Oh,” the woman on the other end laughed, “she probably referred to me as Bamby Dearest.”
“Oh, hi, Bamby—I mean, Peggy. I was callin’ ’bout Faith Abilene.”
There was a pause. “Haven’t seen her in months. Is something wrong?”
“We think we may have found her body.”
“You mean she’s dead?” She had the sense that Peggy was trying to hold herself together on the other end.
“Were you two close?”
“Well, you never get too close when you work how we work, you know? But it’s just that . . . wow, I can’t believe it. Hang on a sec, ’kay?”
Leah listened to her cry a bit and then Peggy blew her nose. When she came back she sounded a lot more put together.
“Okay, okay,” she said with a big sigh, “I think I’m fine. What do you want from me?”
“Any details you might have that we don’t. First off, was Faith Abilene her real name? Or was it a stage name like yours?”
“No, it is—I mean, was—actually her real name. She didn’t believe in hidin’ behind anythin’. That was something I loved ’bout her. She was the real deal.”
“The last time you saw her, did she seem any different to you? Was she scared? Paranoid? Neurotic? Any sort of panic?”
There was yet another sigh on the other end. “Let me think back. Like I said, it’s
been at least a couple months.... No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her anythin’ but happy. She had a unique charm ’bout her. Made a lot of friends. Apparently one too many.”
“Are there any women you haven’t seen in the last two months or more that you would consider ‘regulars’?”
A long hesitation before she came back. “Not that I can think of.”
“Well, you have my number. Please call me if you think of anythin’ that might be of help.” Then it was Leah’s turn to pause. “There’s one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Did Faith have family here in Alvin?”
“I’m not sure. We never talked ’bout family much. I think her dad ran off when she was just a kid. I really don’t know anythin’ ’bout her past.”
Leah immediately thought about her dead husband, Billy. So many things reminded her of him all the time.
So many husbands run off.
Billy got into a head-on collision before he even got his chance.
CHAPTER 27
Ethan Montgomery called Leah into his office. She could tell right away he was peeved about something.
“Close the door and take a seat. Now before we start, let me just say I’m not pissed off. I’m just exhausted and tired of takin’ the brunt of all these calls that are precipitated by you.”
“What did I do now?” Leah asked.
“You accosted people at church. And this isn’t the first time this has happened. It seems like it’s one of your favorite places to try and question people.”
“I simply asked a few folk some questions.”
“Leah, you can’t go round just accusin’ folk of killin’. It isn’t a nice thing to do. Especially at church. Folk go to church because it’s a holy place of salvation. They don’t want to be assaulted. If you try to do it, folk aren’t gonna take it. It ain’t like you’re saying, ‘Oh, the weather’s sure cleared up. What a great day for a walk.’ You’re sayin’, ‘Oh, the weather’s sure cleared up and by the way, did you slaughter two people and throw their bodies away?’ Surely you understand why this is goin’ to get a rise out of folk.”
A Thorn Among the Lilies Page 12
