The Preacher's First Murder (A Pastor Matt Hayden Mystery Book 1)

by K. Gresham

  “Heard you were askin’ after your mother,” Ernie said when she brought it over.

  Angie looked up sharply. Matt noted her belligerent eyes immediately filled with interest. “You heard right.”

  “Saw her just before lunch. Headin’ towards the square.” Ernie downed half the beer in one long drink.

  “Where to?”

  Ernie belched. “I was pullin’ Henry Jacobs’ car out of the garage. Oil change. Almost ran her over as she crossed the driveway.”

  “Was Shadow with her?”

  “Like always,” he said.

  “When?” James W. asked.

  “Musta been about 11:30,” Ernie answered. “Before I came over for lunch.”

  “Dorothy Jo!” Angie called back to the kitchen. The cook’s wrinkled face appeared at the window. “Ernie saw Mamma across the square. She gets lost over there. I’m gonna go find her.”

  Dorothy Jo nodded. “I’ll watch the place.”

  “I’m headin’ back to the garage.” Ernie pulled himself to his feet. “Gotta work on Miss Olivia’s car this afternoon,” he said. His eyes danced in Matt’s direction. He walked out of the bar, letting the screen door slam behind him.

  The sheriff looked at the pastor and shook his head. Ernie’s chuckle had been low and, Matt thought, sounded a little threatening.

  Angie untied her denim apron and tossed it on a stool. As she headed around the bar toward the front door, she looked slyly at Matt Hayden.

  “Ernie’s got a mouth like Niagara Falls and he’s gonna be workin’ on Miss Olivia’s car this afternoon.” She paused at the front door. “Miss Olivia ain’t gonna like hearin’ about your bein’ in my place, Preacher. Must admit, I wasn’t too happy about it myself. But now . . .” Angie grinned. “Stop by some time in the evenin’, preacher man. I charge a little more, but it’s definitely worth your while.”

  ***

  Ernie Masterson walked across Mason Street to his Sinclair Station. Too bad he had to work on Miss Olivia’s car this afternoon. He could’ve used another beer or two, and would’ve enjoyed watching the preacher try to eat Dorothy Jo’s red beans and rice without hacking on the heat.

  Ernie had to tow the line with Miss Olivia, though. She’d made sounds lately that she didn’t care for how he treated Pearl, his wife. Apparently Miss Olivia had forgotten all the secrets Ernie knew about her past. He’d need to find some fresh dirt on the Wilks-Novak clan to regain his control over the matriarch.

  After all, Jimmy Jr. Novak was running for governor.

  “There you are,” Pearl Masterson said when he walked through the station door. “You know today I fold bulletins with Miss Olivia over at the church.”

  “Hell, Pearl, I was just across the street at Angie’s. I would’ve seen her if she drove up.”

  Pearl was a slight woman, with an even slighter chin. She rarely spoke harshly to her husband. That had taken years of training on his part, and he didn’t care for the times when she forgot the lesson.

  “Don’t you want to ask me if Bo was working today?” Ernie’s jab hit the mark. He watched his wife shrink away from him as if he’d slapped her. The rumors about Pearl and the bartender were beginning to take hold. He considered it had been one of his better ideas to start them.

  “I’m going up to get my purse.” She closed the cash register’s drawer.

  At that moment, Ernie heard a car pull up to one of the garage’s repair bays. Ignoring the sound, he stayed put. He had one more topic to cover with his wife.

  “Have you seen Maeve O’Day anywheres while I was gone?” Ernie asked as Pearl started up the stairs to their apartment.

  “Actually, yes I did.” She stopped. “I was walking back from the Courthouse so I could cover your lunch. Why?”

  “Angie’s lookin’ for her. James W. and that new preacher are over there having lunch. They was talking about it.”

  “Reverend Hayden is at Angie’s Fire and Ice House?” Pearl looked stunned.

  Ernie grinned. Mission accomplished. Pearl was sure to tell Miss Olivia about the preacher’s transgression, and then all hell would break loose.

  “Yep,” he replied. “Angie sure was paying him a lot of attention.”

  He could see Pearl was trying to decide exactly how much of what he said was true, and how much was his usual skank.

  It wasn’t right, a wife questioning his every word.

  “Well, Shadow was with her. I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Pearl started up the stairs.

  Another thought struck Ernie. “Was Maeve talkin’ funny about anything?”

  Pearl sighed. “She lives in a different world, Ernie. We shouldn’t make fun of her.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Oh, she was looking for somebody called J.J. I told her I don’t know any J.J.”

  “J.J.?” Ernie’s mind was a little slower than it used to be, he’d admit that. But now he was beginning to remember when there had been a J.J. in Wilks, Texas.

  “She said he was a handsome guy with red hair. And had a way of talking that made her smile all the way down to her toes.”

  “You don’t say.” Ernie stood for a moment, taking it all in.

  “Listen, honey, I’m sorry I was so mean to you when you came in. It’s just you know Miss Olivia. She hates to be kept waiting.”

  Ernie decided to be nice. He was having too good a day to be forced to watch Pearl sulk for the rest of it. “She does indeed.”

  A relieved look came over Pearl’s face. “Thanks, honey.” She started back up the stairs. “I think I heard a car drive up to the garage.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Ernie turned to go into the mechanic’s shop. As he reached the door, however, he heard a car’s tires screech out of the driveway.

  What the hell? Ernie wondered. Just as well, he decided. He had to take a leak before Miss Olivia arrived.

  Chapter Two

  Welcome to Wilks, Preacher

  The mid-afternoon sun peeked through the garage door windows of the Fire and Ice House. Warm enough to open them up and air out the place, Angie figured. She pulled hard on the rope and the doors squeaked as they rolled on their tracks, almost drowning out the phone when it began to ring.

  Dorothy Jo appeared at the pass-through window. “That was James W. He’s on his way over.”

  Angie nodded. “Thanks.”

  Mamma.

  Angie automatically cast a look out the front doors of the Ice House. The warmth of the sunlit street enticed the Yeck brothers into moving their domino game out on the sidewalk. She helped them with their chairs, then glanced back to the street. The sun was bright enough to make her squint, she thought with relief. At least her mamma wasn’t missing from home on a rainy day.

  The Fire and Ice House was indeed Wilks’ old fire station. When Maeve O’Day bought the place, she’d converted the private quarters upstairs into a two-bedroom apartment for her and her daughter.

  The Fire and Ice House was the only home Angie ever remembered.

  She looked up and down Mason Street. To the right was the Colorado River, then Grace Lutheran. To the left and across the street was Ernie Masterson’s Sinclair Station. Sinclair gasoline had long ago gone out of business in Texas, but Ernie had kept the green dinosaur sign on his building, and everyone still called his garage the Sinclair Station.

  She waved at friends who looked her in the eye and smiled. She cast stoic glances toward foes who would rather die than acknowledge her presence. She saw cats prowling for their next meal and flocks of birds practicing for their spring migration back up north.

  She didn’t see a black dog with the body of a German shepherd and the face of a bloodhound who answered to the name of Shadow. She didn’t see Maeve O’Day.

  James W. pulled around the corner and parked his quad cab in the fire zone in front of Angie’s restaurant.

  “I didn’t find her, James W.” Angie glanced in frustration at her watch. “It’s been three hours now.”

&
nbsp; James W. tapped his steering wheel, then nodded. “Guess I’d better get the boys out,” he said, referring to his deputies.

  Angie felt the relief come over her like a spring rain. “Thank God.”

  “Get that from your visitor this noon?” James W. smirked.

  No, she thought. The only thing she’d gotten from that preacher man invading her territory had been a jolt of surprise at how good he’d looked. His hair was shades of light brown, with golden streaks that women paid good money to beauticians to create. His eyes were blue, a deep blue that looked through you. Not the kind of looks that Ernie Masterson gave that stopped at her bust line. No, the pastor’s eyes looked deeper, into her very soul. If he were any other man, Angie would like to get to know him better.

  For thirty-five years she’d been waiting for a man to stir her like that. The devil was handing her a wicked joke when he’d put that face on a preacher man.

  Shaking off the image, Angie growled. “The man’s a fool if he thinks he can get away with comin’ in here. Can hardly wait to hear what your wife is gonna have to say about that.”

  “She lets me go in your place without a gripe.”

  “She thinks you’re tryin’ to close me down on a health violation.” Angie looked at him pointedly. “Which you would do in a New York minute if I gave you reason.”

  “That’s one of the things I like about you and me, Angie. We understand each other.”

  “It took all my self-control not to kick that man out of my place today. Hell, I was thrown out of his place. Turnabout is fair play.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “‘Cuz I’m more Christian than that.”

  James W. laughed, then turned serious. “Look, little lady, this thing about your mamma goin’ missing. We can’t be doing this kind of thing all the time. Her condition is only goin’ to get worse.”

  Angie bowed her head. “I know.”

  “Now, you’ve been a good daughter to that woman. Stood by her and given her the best you could. But you gotta start thinking about puttin’ her in a place.”

  “A place?” Angie’s eyes flashed.

  “Don’t you pull that Irish temper on me, young lady. I like you. Can’t seem to help it. Bothers the hell out of me sometimes. Someone’s got to tell you straight. She’s getting where she don’t know you anyhow, and I can’t be putting out a search team every time she goes missing.”

  Angie nodded. She didn’t agree with him, but she did understand. James W. had always been honest with her. And fair. Which was more than she could say for his mother.

  “I’ll think about it,” she mumbled.

  Knowing he had won a major victory, he put his truck in gear. Getting Angie O’Day to listen to something she didn’t want to hear didn’t happen very often. “I’ll be in touch. Stay around your place,” he ordered. “I need to know where to find you. Besides, chances are that dog of yours’ll bring her home anyways.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Angie said. She watched James W. pull away from the curb and then do a U-turn to head back to the municipal building. “But I don’t think you are.” She sighed and walked back into her restaurant.

  ***

  Elsbeth Novak folded the last of the bulletins for Grace Lutheran’s Sunday services. “Her mother was a whore. And so is Angie O’Day.” Elsbeth, wife to Sheriff James W. Novak, was squeezed into the mismatched brown upholstered chair at the desk’s end. Grace’s small church office was growing cold, the setting January sun only a hint of pink outside the single tall-paned window. The three women who made up the Saturday afternoon bulletin-folding committee talked heatedly, as if that alone would keep them warm. The cold gaze of the frailest and oldest of the three women spoke volumes. She believed the statement was indeed true.

  “Whether she’s a prostitute or not, a preacher shouldn’t be seen in the company of a woman of that reputation.” Miss Olivia Wilks-Novak was Elsbeth’s mother-in-law and the last of the Wilks family for which the small Texas town was named. She sat behind the desk. “It’s bad enough my son goes over there.”

  Pearl Masterson, the final member of Grace’s folding committee, licked her thumb and inserted the announcement sheet into the bulletin handed her by Elsbeth. “Ernie heard it at lunch. Her mother is missing and your son is the sheriff, Miss Olivia.” Pearl sat across from Miss Olivia and secured the middle of the four-page bulletin with one frugal staple. She set the finished project on the lone file cabinet in the room.

  The file cabinet was kept locked, to the chagrin of the Saturday volunteers.

  “That doesn’t explain the minister’s being over at that whorehouse today!” Elsbeth Novak huffed through her plump cheeks. “We’ll ship him right back to the synod if that’s what he has in mind.”

  “Good afternoon, ladies.”

  The quiet baritone voice of Reverend Matt Hayden caused an immediate hush in the whitewashed office. He leaned against the vestibule door, his blue eyes a study in diplomacy.

  “Reverend,” the three women murmured. Pearl Masterson smiled as best she could despite her chinless countenance. “We’ve finished folding.”

  “Bless your work.” The pastor forced his smile to remain gracious. He’d heard every one of their remarks as he’d closed up the sanctuary after making sure all was in place for Sunday’s festival of the Epiphany.

  Pearl looked at her watch and stood, clutching a crocheted sweater about her thin shoulders. “Have to get dinner on. Miss Olivia, may I give you a ride since Ernie’s working on your car?”

  “Won’t be necessary,” a male voice called from behind the preacher. Ernie Masterson appeared in the doorway. “Thought I’d bring your car over, Miss Olivia, since it was done.”

  “That’s kind of you,” Miss Olivia allowed. She leaned heavily on her cane as she pulled her frail body from the chair.

  “No problem.” Ernie nodded. “I took the liberty of cleanin’ your interior while it was in the garage. You shouldn’t let your dog travel in the car.”

  Miss Olivia grunted. “Blanco enjoys his rides.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Ernie said. “But that long black hair showed up somethin’ fierce on your tan interior.”

  She looked at him a long moment. “I appreciate your help.”

  “I knew you would.” Ernie donned his hat. “Pearl, you ready to fix me up some supper?”

  “Yes, Ernie,” the quiet woman said and obediently followed her husband out of the room.

  Miss Olivia watched them go, turned and gave a pointed look toward Elsbeth. After a brief smile at the preacher, Miss Olivia shuffled from the room.

  Matt noted with disdain that he’d been left to deal with Elsbeth Novak alone.

  Or rather, she had been left to deal with him.

  Elsbeth didn’t take long to get to the point, he noted. “I understand you were over at That Woman’s place for lunch today, Pastor Hayden.” The imperious woman followed Matt into the vestibule.

  Matt stacked the last of the three hundred bulletins on the carved oak squire’s table. “The food tasted pretty good,” he offered.

  “It’s bad enough my husband goes over there—though that’s because he’s trying to close her down.” Elsbeth Novak frowned. “I’m telling him to put a stop to that today. James W. can’t be worrying about liquor permits now,” she said firmly. “You heard about Jimmy, Jr., running for governor?”

  Matt smiled. “I saw it on the news last night. You must be very proud of your son, Mrs. Novak.”

  “I’m talking about your behavior, Reverend Hayden.” Elsbeth Novak’s eyes narrowed to a simmering stare. “I don’t care if that girl’s mother is missing. That old woman’s got too many cobwebs in the attic, anyway.”

  “I believe she has Alzheimer’s, Mrs. Novak.”

  Elsbeth’s puffy face reddened, clashing vividly with her severe brown hairdo. “You’re new around here, Preacher, and someone needs to tell you what’s what.”

  “I see.” Matt Hayden gave thanks the church was d
eserted except for him and his overbearing parishioner. Her voice raised to a sharp timbre and echoed off the linoleum floor into the hollow steeple above.

  “Might as well tell you straight out. Maeve O’Day was a prostitute over at Miss Lida’s Rose Hotel on the north side of town. Before Sheriff Danny Don Dube closed it down, anyway. That girl Angie O’Day is the product of a whore’s paycheck.”

  Matt shifted uncomfortably. The story had been suggested to him before, but this was the first someone had told it to him outright.

  “Angie’s picked up right where her mamma left off. She has an ex-con—a murderer, no less!—come in and run things for her while she tends to her business upstairs.”

  Matt Hayden put his hands in his pockets. “That’s a pretty strong statement, Mrs. Novak.”

  “All the more reason you should know your facts before going over there again.”

  “I see.” Matt felt his anger flare, but squelched it. “I thank you for the warning.” He turned off the interior lights and grabbed his jacket from the coat hook by the front door.

  “Warning?” Elsbeth Novak echoed. “Pastor Hayden, you can do anything you want. I want you to know the facts, is all.” She pulled a scarf over her ears against the cool night air while Matt held the door for her. She smiled triumphantly. Her message had been received.

  Her face puckered as she looked in the direction of the Colorado River and the infamous house beyond. “See that man? The one with the pony tail?”

  Matt squinted through the dusk at the Fire and Ice House.

  “That’s her pimp. Imagine! That going on right next to the church!” Elsbeth sniffed and held out her hand for assistance down the ten cement stairs of Grace Lutheran. “I expect you to reconsider your patronage of that establishment, Preacher,” she said, taking his arm.

  Matt helped her into her white Oldsmobile and watched her pull away. Or else, he finished for her.

  She drove off, leaving a trail of dust and distaste.

  Matt looked up to the sky, from whence came his strength, he reminded himself. The peach sunset on the horizon melded into light and then dark blue as his eyes trailed up toward the heavens. The night was clear. Already a star shimmered against the darkest of the blue. The limestone steeple of Grace Lutheran reached far and up, the cross on its tip seemingly touching the twinkle of the planet Venus in the northern sky.