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

by C. R. Corwin

  “Maybe there was someone in between,” I said.

  “You’re the one with the steel trap mind, Maddy. Was anyone within a hundred miles of Kent State mysteriously poisoned in the last three years?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “And what college student carrying a full load, and working part-time, and getting loaded, and trying to get laid, would have the time to frame Sissy James? Find out she was a former member of the Heaven Bound Cathedral who’s having an affair with Buddy Wing’s old protégé? Who has a secret child in Mingo Junction? Who she visits every Thanksgiving? This is Kent State we’re talking about, not Yale.”

  “If it’s that far-fetched why are we even wasting our time going to Kent?”

  “You got me.”

  We were going to Kent State, of course, because the regular presence of strangers backstage at the cathedral would be an important part of Aubrey’s stories on the murder. She’d explore the two possibilities: one, that the real killer was someone everybody knew; two, that the real killer was someone nobody knew. She’d play it straight, not trying to identify possible suspects, not even hinting at possible suspects. But everyone reading her series would know who all the possible suspects were. And everyone would come to the same conclusion: The Hannawa police were too hasty in accepting Sissy James’s confession.

  We drove through downtown Kent to the campus. Except for a few black squirrels and a few summer students, the campus was empty. We parked in a visitor’s lot and walked past the slope where on that horrible spring day in 1970 the Ohio National Guard had turned and fired. We followed a sidewalk trimmed with beds of red geraniums to Taylor Hall.

  Inside we waited for twelve minutes for Dr. Cooksey to come out of his office. He was a tall, overweight man of fifty. He was wearing faded tan Dockers and a white polo shirt. He was not happy to see us.

  The walls of his office were covered with glossy publicity photos of network news reporters and anchors. All were upside-down. Perhaps to show his students what a daring iconoclast he was. Perhaps so they wouldn’t feel in awe of the on-air stars they’d encounter once they graduated and went to work at some dippy little station like the one in Hannawa.

  Anyway, Dr. Cooksey was not happy to see us and told us so: “I shouldn’t even talk to you. It can’t possibly do my students a lick of good.”

  I quickly turned to Aubrey, to see how she was reacting. Her eyebrows were raised. She was tapping her chin with her pen. Behind her on the wall was a grinning upside-down Dan Rather. “A story goes where a story goes,” she said.

  Dr. Cooksey leaned back in his chair and neatly inserted his fingers under his armpits. “But do you have a story, Miss McGinty?”

  She ignored his question and asked the first of hers. “How many years have you been sending students to the Heaven Bound Cathedral?”

  “I told you on the phone, seven or eight.”

  “I was hoping you’d looked it up.”

  “Eight.”

  “And Elaine Albert came to you with the idea?”

  “That’s right. She’s who you should be talking to, you know.”

  “I would if she’d talk. Maybe you can put in a good word?”

  “Not going to happen.”

  The hostility between Aubrey and the professor was simply chilling, and embarrassing. I know there’s a natural animosity between print and broadcast people, but this was so nasty and personal. It was like Jerry Falwell and Larry Flint discussing celibacy on one of those cable talking-head shows. No respect whatsoever. No hope in the world of finding common ground.

  “Do you know how many of your students were working there the semester Buddy Wing was killed?” Aubrey asked.

  “Three, four, maybe five.”

  “Any chance you could find out for sure? Maybe give me their names?”

  “Look, Miss McGinty. This thing isn’t an official intern program where I get personally involved. All I do is post a flier that part-time jobs are available at the cathedral. The kids make the contact themselves.”

  “Doesn’t the cathedral ever call you for references?”

  Dr. Cooksey was losing and he knew it. “Sometimes.”

  “That semester?”

  “Can’t remember.”

  Aubrey wrote that down and underlined it several times. “You can see how these quotes are going to come out, don’t you?” she said. ‘Cooksey refused to say.’ ‘Cooksey said he couldn’t remember.’”

  “Quote whatever you want,” the professor said. “But I do not keep a written record of those kind of calls. If Elaine, Mrs. Albert, calls about a student who’s applied for a job, I check my grade book and attendance sheet and offer an opinion. I don’t keep a record.”

  Aubrey, to her credit, wrote down his explanation. “So, what did you think when Buddy Wing was poisoned? You had three, four, maybe five students working there, after all.”

  He smirked. “You mean did I warn my students not to kiss any Bibles while they were over there? Naturally we talked about it in class the next week.”

  “Did any of them happen to tell you where they were backstage when he toppled over?”

  “Gee whiz—I just don’t remember any of those conversations.”

  Aubrey closed her notebook and put the cap on her pen. “Do you ever personally go to the broadcasts, to see how your students are doing?”

  “I went a couple of times. Years ago when they first started hiring my kids. But I haven’t been there for ages. I sure wasn’t there the night Wing was poisoned, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  When Aubrey stood up her hair swept across the Dan Rather photo, almost knocking it off the wall. “I wasn’t getting at that. But thanks for the lead.”

  We left Taylor Hall and retreated through the red geraniums. Aubrey couldn’t stop laughing. “Did you ever meet a bigger dickbrain in your life?”

  “I’ve been around a long time—I’m sure I have. But he’s right up there.” I saw a tuft of wiry grass growing up through the mulch and stopped to yank it out. “You’d almost think he was covering up for one of his students, wouldn’t you?”

  “What he was covering was his own tookus.”

  “Oh, come on. You don’t think he killed Buddy Wing?”

  Now Aubrey laughed at me. “Remember when we first got there? And he said talking to us couldn’t possibly do his students any good? What he meant was that talking to us couldn’t do him any good. These professors are bunny rabbits, Maddy. Frightened little bunny rabbits. Their courses are their cabbage patches. And protecting the cabbage is what it’s all about.”

  I found a second tuft of grass in the geraniums. Before I could find a third, Aubrey locked her arm in mine and steered me toward the parking lot. “Any idea how you’re going to get the names of his students?” I asked.

  She looked at me like I’d just told her I believed in Santa Claus. She pulled her notebook from her purse and flipped it open to a page marked with a paper clip. “Marcie Peacock, Amy Kamm, Zack Zimmerman and Kiralee Presello.”

  “Good gravy, why’d you drag me up here if you already had their names?”

  She gave me several reasons: “To get some background. To get some color. To get some good quotes. To see the dickbrain squirm.”

  “That last one seems a bit personal.”

  “You bet it does,” she said. “Newspaper people have a moral responsibility to strike a blow against television whenever we can.”

  “You’re not serious—”

  We’d reached the car. She fumbled in her purse for her keys. “Only half serious. This is the biggest story I’ve ever covered, Maddy. I have to be thorough. And careful.”

  We drove a few blocks to a Wendy’s. I got a salad. Aubrey got a baked potato and chili. “So, where did you get the names from?” I asked.

  Again she gave me the Santa Claus look. “From the church bulletin. They always list as many people as they can.”

  She was right about that. Have you ever seen a church b
ulletin that didn’t have long lists of names, from the pastor down to the assistant baby-sitter in the nursery? “But how’d you get a bulletin from back in November?” I wondered. “I wouldn’t think their shelf life is too long.”

  “Obviously I have an off-the-record source or two.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I wish I could tell you.”

  “The eyebrow woman?”

  The corner of her mouth twisted cryptically. I tried again. “The students all checked out, I gather?”

  “Four little kittens,” she said.

  Chapter 15

  Tuesday, June 13

  As soon as Eric left for his morning Mountain Dew break Aubrey hurried to my desk—to show me her bruises and scratches. “Good gravy, what happened to you?”

  “Taurus Man attacked me last night,” she said.

  “Not—”

  “No, I wasn’t raped. Just slapped and scratched and threatened a little.”

  “A little?” There was one set of finger-shaped bruises on her right arm, just above the wrist. The other bruises were on her face, one above her left eye and one below her cheekbone. The scratches, just two of them, ran parallel from her left ear down across her chest. She had to open her blouse two buttons to show me where they ended just above her bra on the right side. “You’re sure it was the man in the station wagon? The guy Eric chased?”

  “He was wearing a ballcap and bandanna, but it was him,” she said.

  “And this happened where, Aubrey?”

  “Outside my building. He jumped out of the shrubs by the door. Batted me around for a couple of seconds and took off.”

  “And he threatened you?”

  “He kept growling ‘You better back off, devil girl.’ I’m cutting down those fucking shrubs myself. You wouldn’t have a chainsaw I can borrow?”

  I’d hoped our problems with the man in the red station wagon were over. It had been two weeks since Eric chased him in Meri. We hadn’t spotted him on our drive to Kent or anywhere else. Either he’d changed cars or changed his mind about the wisdom of following us. Now he was back in the picture. In a very scary way. “You have got to tell Tinker about this,” I insisted.

  “I already have.”

  That surprised me. Until now she’d hadn’t said anything to Tinker or any of the editors about being followed or having her windows smashed. “Well, I’m glad you did,” I said.

  While we talked she kept checking the hallway to the cafeteria, to see if Eric was returning to his desk. Not only had Eric stopped sleeping with her since that unfortunate incident in Meri, he’d stopped associating with her altogether. “I’ll see if I can get him to wear a bell around his neck,” I teased.

  She pretended not to hear me. “Telling Tinker was a close call,” she said. “You know I don’t want any of that sexist, poor-little-girl-reporter crap.”

  “I know.”

  “But getting roughed up and threatened—how good is that? I have to put that in the story.”

  She was amazing, wasn’t she? A man grabbed her outside her apartment at night, slapped her around, clawed her chest, threatened her, and she could only think about what great copy it would make. “So you’re convinced it’s related to the Buddy Wing story and not your stories on the police or the prostitutes?” I asked.

  “Hello? Back off devil girl?”

  I motioned with my chin. Eric was coming. Aubrey swiveled just in time to see him duck into the men’s room. “Why’s he going in there?” she hissed.

  I stayed on the subject. “You need more proof than ‘Back off devil girl,’ don’t you?”

  “I’m not going to back off and apparently neither is he. So by the time my series is ready to run, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of proof. He’ll slip up.”

  “Or slit your throat,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes at my melodrama. “The only remaining question is whether he’s from Tim Bandicoot’s happy little temple or Guthrie Gates’ big bad cathedral.”

  “Does Tinker want you to make a police report?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why the frown? That’s good for your story, isn’t it?”

  “He also wants me in my apartment before dark every night. He wouldn’t tell a male reporter that.”

  I motioned with my chin again as Eric slid out of the men’s room and pranced back to the cafeteria, as if a hive of wasps was following him. “Probably not. But it’s good advice. I know I’ll sleep better.”

  She smiled bravely. It just about broke my heart. She looked so vulnerable, yet so determined, like an overgrown first-grader mustering the courage to go back to school the day after getting pushed off the teeter-totter by a third-grade bully. “You’re absolutely sure it was the guy in the station wagon?”

  Aubrey went back to her desk and Eric returned to his. He tossed a Mounds bar at me and smiled sheepishly.

  I felt so sorry for the poor lamb. Eric had not only stopped associating with Aubrey, he’d stopped associating with me. Which was a bit awkward given that I was his boss and our desks were only a few feet apart. He’d come face-to-face with some terrible truth that night in Meri. He’d experienced some dark epiphany about the world and his place in it. He held me responsible—partially at least—for unleashing the goblins eating away at his self-confidence. So I was delighted when he brought me a Mounds bar as a peace offering. I peeled back the wrapper and took a nibble.

  “Don’t forget I still need that computer check on Edward Tolchak,” I said.

  ***

  Aubrey had enough to wrap up her series on the Buddy Wing murder at any time. She’d dug deep into Buddy Wing’s life and the rift with Tim Bandicoot that had torn his congregation in two. She’d compiled a long list of colorful characters that could be dangled out there as possible suspects, without ever actually saying they were suspects. Most importantly, she could prove that Sissy James was in Mingo Junction the night Buddy Wing was poisoned. She had all the examples of police ineptitude she needed.

  But Aubrey wanted more. She wanted Sissy to confess on the record that she didn’t poison Buddy Wing. And there was only one way to do that. Prove that Tim Bandicoot was a schmuck not worth protecting.

  Luckily, Tinker was not only a patient managing editor, he was a managing editor under instructions from the newspaper’s corporate overlords in St. Paul to boost the Herald-Union’s sagging circulation. This Buddy Wing thing was going to be a great story. A national story. He would give his young, ambitious police reporter all the time she needed. And although he’d dutifully cautioned her not to look for the real killer—all that poppycock about that being the police department’s job—I knew in my bones he wanted the real killer found. That’s how a managing editor moves up to editor. He digs out stories that not only entertain readers and rile the powers that be, but also result in some action that serves the civic good: clean up a toxic waste dump, send a corrupt politician to jail, bring a cold-blooded murderer to justice. Win a Pulitzer.

  ***

  Thursday, June 15

  Thursday I took my Dodge Shadow to get E-checked. That’s the state of Ohio’s required emissions test to make sure the exhaust from your old car isn’t single-handedly destroying the earth’s atmosphere. They charge you $19.50 and if your car doesn’t pass the test they make you fix it. My Shadow barely passed the last time and I was very nervous about this time. So I went to Ike’s Coffee Shop first.

  “Morgue Mama!” he sang out, as he always did. “What you doing goofing off in the middle of the day?”

  “E-check.”

  “Don’t be frightened. They only want to check your car—not you.” He brought me a mug of tea and one of those tiny Ghirardelli chocolates wrapped in foil. “To bolster your courage,” he said. “On the house.”

  “Better bring me the whole box,” I said.

  Ike is the dearest man. And a handsome man. And a widower in my general age range. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and taught in the Hannawa City Schools. Back in
the Eighties when the financially strapped school board offered early retirement to veteran teachers at the top of the pay scale, Ike snapped it up and opened the coffee shop. That’s when I met him, a good fifteen years ago now. I sometimes wonder if it’s our respective races that keeps us coffee-shop-owner and customer instead of something more.

  Anyway, I spent an hour at Ike’s, sharing snippets of conversation with him about the weather, my raspberries, and who was likely to win the fall congressional elections.

  Fortified, I drove to the E-check station, and my Shadow passed the test again. It was only two o’clock. I should have gone back to work. But I felt like this afternoon belonged to me—a gift from the state of Ohio for being a good citizen. So I decided to shop for a new living room sofa. First I drove to Flexner’s in Brinkley, where nothing is ever on sale. Then I drove to Albert’s Furniture in Greenlawn, where everything is always on sale.

  There are lots of Alberts in Hannawa. What were the odds that the Don Albert who owns the furniture store in Greenlawn was the husband of the Elaine Albert who directed the televised church services at the Heaven Bound Cathedral? What were the odds she’d be working the floor when I walked in?

  I wanted to walk right out. But there wasn’t another customer in the place, and Elaine had already spotted me, and was descending with a smile and a clipboard. She was a short, big-boned woman in a no-nonsense black skirt and eggshell white blouse. “I wanted to look at your sofas,” I said.

  “We have some wonderful sales today,” she said.

  I steered away from the leather sofas and concentrated on the models covered with stain-resistant fabric. Elaine stayed with me, pointing out all the little details about their construction and long wear. I didn’t hear a word she said. She was Elaine Albert, director of the Heaven Bound Cathedral’s televised services, one of two women Aubrey was dying to interview, the one who clearly was there the night Buddy Wing tumbled into the fake palms, who clearly knew more about the goings-on backstage that night than anyone alive. Whatever she was saying about grape juice stains was going in one ear and out the other.