Murder Carries a Torch

by Anne George

  I learned all this between the bathroom and the table. But when had she learned it?

  Virgil Stuckey hopped up as we approached.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary Alice said, sliding into a chair. “I had no idea that was a snake-handling church.”

  Virgil smiled. “I figured as much, the way the milk went flying.”

  He motioned for the waitress to bring us some more coffee.

  “You okay?” he asked Sister.

  “Patricia Anne just startled me.”

  Virgil frowned at me. I should be ashamed startling this delicate creature in the purple boots.

  “Actually,” he said, “that’s one of the most active snake-handling churches in north Alabama. And Monk Crawford is one of the best known of the snake-handling preachers.”

  “Have mercy.” Sister fanned herself with a paper napkin and turned to me. “I don’t remember Virginia liking snakes, do you?” And then to Virgil, “Virginia’s a Lutheran.”

  We were quiet while the waitress poured our coffee.

  “Her son’s in the House of Representatives and she belongs to the country club, doesn’t she, Patricia Anne? Plays golf.”

  I nodded. “Do you know who the dead girl is?” I asked Virgil.

  “We have an idea. We should know for sure tomorrow.”

  “There was red clay on her boots. The ground around the church is sandy.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, y’all,” Sister said. “Let’s talk about something else. Snake handling and dead people. Lord. Do you like to dance, Virgil?”

  Virgil allowed as to how he did.

  Sister grinned at me.

  I got up.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To see if ‘Unchained Melody’ is on the jukebox.”

  It wasn’t, but “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” was. I figured that was apropos.

  By the time we drove back to Birmingham the snow had turned into a fine mist. The temperature was probably thirty-three degrees, so close to freezing that the moisture hitting the windshield seemed oily.

  Sister was unusually quiet.

  “The sheriff seems nice,” I said.

  “Hmmm,” was her reply.

  “Do you think Virginia was in the church?”

  “Don’t know.”

  End of conversation. I closed my eyes and listened to Pachelbel’s Canon in D that radio station WBHM was playing. So much had happened and I was so keyed up, I had no idea that I would go to sleep. But I did. In fact, I was shopping in Warsaw with Haley when the car stopped and Sister said, “You’re home, and your mouth’s open.”

  True enough. I closed my mouth, told her I would talk to her in the morning, and stepped from the car into a curtain of mist. Fred had left the back light on and the deck off the kitchen looked icy. Typical Birmingham January, I thought. Warm one day, freezing the next.

  Fred opened the back door for me, leaned forward and held out his hand.

  “Be careful. That porch is slippery.”

  “I thought you’d be in bed,” I said, taking his hand and stepping into the warm kitchen.

  “Couldn’t sleep until you got in.”

  Chances were he’d already had three hours sleep in his recliner, but that was okay.

  “How’s Luke?”

  “About the same.” I had called from Oneonta and told Fred about Luke’s concussion. “They’re just keeping him for observation.”

  Fred was hugging me, his arms inside my coat. He had on his old velour robe that smelled like Gain soap. I rubbed my cheek against it and considered going to sleep standing up.

  “I’ve got to go to bed,” I said. “I’m beat.”

  Fred followed me down the hall. “No sign of Virginia?”

  “Nope.” I sat on the edge of the bed and kicked my shoes off. “The guy she ran off with is a snake handler, though.”

  “What?”

  “He’s a snake-handling preacher.” I pointed toward the bathroom door. “Hand me my nightgown and robe.”

  “I thought he was a painter.”

  “He is.” I started shucking clothes.

  “How did you find that out?” Fred held out my gown and flannel robe.

  “The woman in the ambulance told me. And the sheriff says he’s one of the best-known ones in north Alabama.”

  “What sheriff?”

  “Virgil Stuckey. The sheriff of St. Clair County. There was a body in the church and I think Sister’s smitten with him, the sheriff. They both seem smitten.”

  “What do you mean, a body?”

  “A woman’s body.”

  My nightgown was on.

  “I’ll tell you in the morning,” I said. And for what was probably the first time in sixty years, I went to sleep without washing my face and brushing my teeth and with my clothes in a pile by the bed. Jet lag is a killer.

  Needless to say, I had a lot to explain to Fred in the morning. I woke up when I heard him in the shower and felt surprisingly rested. The sun was shining and there was no sign of the flurries of the night before. I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and had French toast ready to cook when he came into the kitchen.

  “A body?” Not even a “good morning.”

  Two pieces of French toast and a couple of cups of coffee later, I had told him the main parts of the story.

  “And Virginia and the preacher were gone? Her car wasn’t there?”

  I hadn’t thought about Virginia’s car. I guess I had assumed that since she was the runee, she had left in the runner’s vehicle. Or was she the runner? At any rate, of course she would have taken her car and followed Holden Crawford. Monk Crawford.

  “It wasn’t there,” I said. “Only his painting truck.”

  “Sounds like she’s got herself in a mess.”

  “God’s truth,” I agreed.

  “You don’t think the dead woman could have been this Crawford guy’s wife, do you?”

  “Too young. Bless her heart.” I could see the red hair cascading to the floor.

  “Well, don’t you and Mary Alice get mixed up in this, honey. You stay away from those folks.”

  “You don’t have a thing to worry about. I can’t even watch the Discovery Channel specials about snakes.”

  He gave me a hug. “Call me when you get home with Luke.” He got a Lean Cuisine from the freezer for his lunch and left. That was when I turned on the computer and read Haley’s chatty E-mail.

  The phone was ringing when I got out of the shower. I figured it would be Mary Alice so I was startled when a male voice said, “Mrs. Hollowell? This is Sheriff Stuckey.”

  “Good morning, Sheriff.” Hmm. Last night it had been Virgil and Patricia Anne.

  “I’m calling you because I didn’t want to disturb Mary Alice.”

  “She does need her beauty sleep,” Mrs. Hollowell said.

  “Not that I can see.”

  How does Sister do this to men?

  “But, Mrs. Hollowell, we’ve had something come up. Your cousin’s car has been found in Pulaski, Tennessee.”

  “Virginia’s car?”

  “Right. Mrs. Nelson’s. The license tag checks out to Mr. Nelson, but her stuff is in the glove compartment so we figured it was her car. Can you tell me what model car she drove?”

  “Lord, no. A car’s a car to me. I can’t even find my own Chevrolet in a parking lot. Why? Was the car abandoned?”

  “Some hunters found it early this morning in the woods near Pulaski.”

  “Wrecked?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He was being too cagey.

  “But?”

  There was a long pause. I could tell he was trying to decide whether to tell me something or not.

  “Monk Crawford’s body was in it.”

  “Oh, my Lord.” I sat down on the bed. “What happened? And what about Virginia?”

  “We don’t know. We don’t know any of the details. All the Pulaski authorities said was that the car and body had been found. Ther
e was identification on the body and they want us to notify Monk’s family. We’re trying to locate them now.”

  I rubbed my forehead; my head was beginning to ache.

  “And no sign of Virginia?”

  “No.”

  Again there was that hesitancy in his voice, but I knew.

  “Monk was killed, wasn’t he? Murdered?”

  Virgil Stuckey cleared his throat. “Like I said, Mrs. Hollowell, we don’t know the details, but the Pulaski police think that he was. Yes.”

  In Virginia’s car.

  “What I was thinking,” he continued, “was that Mrs. Nelson’s family should be told what’s happened, too.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Virginia had run off with a man who had turned out to be a snake-handling preacher, a young woman had been murdered in his church, Luke had possibly been attacked in that same church, and now the preacher had been found dead, murdered. In Virginia’s car.

  “I’ll call her son,” I said. “He’s in Washington. He’s the representative from Columbus, Mississippi. His father should have called him when this first happened.”

  “And Mr. Nelson?”

  “I’m going to Oneonta. They’re supposed to release him this afternoon. I’ll tell him.”

  “If we learn anything else in the meantime, I’ll call you.”

  After I thanked him and hung up the phone, I went into the den, found my address book and took it into the kitchen where the sun was shining brightly through the bay window and where Muffin was sitting on the kitchen table, grooming herself. When I put on my reading glasses, I could see cat hair like motes floating in the sunlight. And I’m the one who has always complained about Mary Alice’s old cat, Bubba, who sleeps on a heating pad on her kitchen counter.

  I sat down at the table and opened my address book. It’s the same one that half the women in the United States own, the one from the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the painting by Mary Cassatt on the cover of a woman licking an envelope. I’m convinced that if I lost it, my whole social life, such as it is, would fall apart.

  I opened it to the Ns. There was Luke and Virginia’s address and phone number in Columbus. But no address or phone number for Richard. If I knew how to use the Internet well enough, I could have found him in a minute. But the class I’d signed up for at UAB didn’t start for a couple of weeks. Well, I thought, it shouldn’t be too hard to find someone in the House of Representatives.

  But what on God’s earth was I going to tell him?

  I propped my elbows on the table and put my face in my hands. Muffin came to rub against my hair.

  I’d never been very fond of Virginia, granted, but it was sad and frightening to think of what might have happened to her. Whatever her problems had been with Luke, however depressed and desperate she might have been, she had jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

  I raised my head. Muffin’s eyes looked right into mine. I pulled her against me and buried my face in her fur. She smelled like sweet, healthy cat; she began to purr. Lord, was I going to be able to let Haley take her back?

  There was a light knock on the back door. I got up and let Mitzi Phizer in. My neighbor and friend for almost forty years, she knows me too well.

  “Lord, Patricia Anne. What’s wrong?”

  She’s also a wonderful listener. Except for a few “I declares” and “Have mercies,” she didn’t interrupt my story about all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  When I finally wound down, she said, “You think Virginia’s dead, too, don’t you?”

  “I think it’s a good possibility, and it makes me so sad. I can’t imagine how she must have felt when she found out what she had gotten into, can you?”

  Mitzi shook her head no.

  “And it’s more than the snakes. There’s something going on up there that two people have been murdered over.” I paused. “Surely there’s some connection between the two deaths.”

  “I would think so.”

  “And now I’ve got to call Richard and tell him what’s happened, and I dread it. To start with, it’s not going to make any sense to him. He’s going to think I’ve lost my mind when I tell him his mother ran off with a snake-handling preacher.”

  “Why don’t you get Mary Alice to call him?”

  I looked up and Mitzi was smiling at me.

  “I’ll take Woofer for his walk. You go tell her what’s happened. Tell her the sheriff suggested the call.”

  I thought of the sheriff not wanting to disturb Miss Purple Boots’s beauty sleep.

  I smiled back. “That’s a great idea.”

  Mary Alice lives in a house on top of Red Mountain, a huge house that her first husband Will Alec Sullivan’s family built with the millions they made off of steel. Her other two wealthy husbands had been happy to live with her there; each, like his predecessor, had impregnated her once there, and had widowed her there. They would have been crazy not to have lived there. It’s one of the most beautiful houses I’ve ever seen, overlooking the whole city. From Sister’s sunroom, you can see planes landing and taking off from the airport. You can see thunderstorms roaring down the valley, and spectacular sunsets.

  This morning as I pulled into the driveway, Tiffany the Magic Maid was sweeping the front porch. She is a cute young blonde. The Magic Maids is the name of the company that she works for though, best I can tell, she spends most of her time at Mary Alice’s.

  She looked up and waved. It was all of thirty-five degrees but she had on khaki shorts and a blue denim shirt. Her arms and legs were as tan as if it were July.

  “Morning, Mrs. Hollowell,” she called.

  “Morning, Tiffany. Did you see the snow last night?”

  “Sure did. Wasn’t it pretty?”

  “And cold.”

  She giggled. “I’m just going to stay out here a minute. Mrs. Crane’s in the sunroom eating breakfast.”

  I let myself into the house and walked back to the sunroom where Mary Alice was reading the paper and drinking coffee.

  “Hey,” she said, pointing toward a white carafe. “You want a cup? There’s some toast left, too.”

  “Nope.” I sat down in one of the white wicker chairs that’s covered in a bright floral print. Next to my kitchen this is my favorite room in the whole world.

  Sister folded the paper and put it on the coffee table.

  “What’s up? You’re out early. Is Luke okay?”

  “I guess so. I haven’t heard. Virgil Stuckey called, though.”

  Sister came to attention. Preened, actually. “Really?” She smoothed the silky yellow caftan she was wearing. “What did he want?”

  I told her. It didn’t take as long as it had taken me to tell Mitzi because it was just the part about the car in Pulaski, Monk Crawford’s body, and our need to call Richard. I did get a “Well, I do declare,” out of her, though.

  “And there’s no sign of Virginia?”

  “Well, Luke said he saw her in the church, remember.”

  “I don’t think he did. I’ll bet she’s dead.”

  Sister got up, brushing toast crumbs from the yellow silk.

  “Say Virgil thought we ought to call Richard?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know his number?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

  She went into the kitchen and came back with a phone and a phone book.

  “I’ll just call our representative’s office here. They’ll have a directory of all the congressmen.”

  And they did. Sister wrote down Richard’s number and dialed it. Apparently his secretary answered and asked if she wanted Richard’s voice mail when Sister identified herself.

  When Richard got back to his office he was greeted with a message that went like this:

  Richard, this is your cousin, Mary Alice Crane from Birmingham. Right after Christmas your mama ran off with a man named Holden Crawford who’s a snake-handling preacher up on Chandler Mountain
and whose body has been found in your mother’s car in Pulaski, Tennessee. And your daddy’s in the Blount County Medical Center with a bad concussion, though they think he’ll be all right if his brain doesn’t swell. He probably just fell and hit his head on a bench when he saw the woman’s body in the church. We don’t know where your mama is, but you might want to give us a call.

  “Okay,” Sister said, putting the phone down. “That ought to do it.”

  Chapter

  Seven

  “Do what?”

  Eight-and-a-half-months pregnant, Debbie Lamont was standing in the doorway, filling the doorway. I’ve never understood this glow that pregnant women are supposed to have. I know I never had it. Maybe they’re talking about those few hormonal days when you feel flushed, the days between the green of nausea and the gray of weariness. Debbie was definitely at the gray stage.

  “Come sit down, sweetheart,” her mother said. “You wouldn’t believe all that’s happened.”

  Debbie gave her mother a kiss, blew me one, and eased herself down sideways on the sofa.

  “Morning, Aunt Pat. Henry made Uncle Fred that beef-tip-and-rice casserole he likes so much. I took it by your house and saw Mrs. Phizer walking Woofer. She said you were here.”

  “Thank you, darling. And thank Henry. Fred will think he’s died and gone to heaven.”

  “I put it in the refrigerator.” Debbie looked over at her mother. “What ought to do it?”

  “What?”

  “You said ‘That ought to do it.’”

  “It’s a long story. Your Aunt Pat will tell you. You want some coffee?”

  “Decaf?”

  “Sure.” Sister started toward the kitchen. “Tell her what’s happened, Mouse.”

  So for the third time that morning I had to relate the saga of Luke, Virginia, and Holden Crawford. The late Holden Crawford. Debbie was by far the best audience I had had.

  She clutched her chest. “Oh, my Lord, Aunt Pat. That’s awful. Poor Virginia. Poor Luke.”

  “Well, it’s not all awful.” Sister handed Debbie her coffee. “Tell her about the sheriff, Mouse.”

  “His name is Virgil Stuckey. He liked your mother’s purple boots.”