Husband and Wives

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  ‘Oh, Roy!’ Rachael said. ‘I’m so sorry. In all this excitement I forgot to introduce you.’

  ‘I think I figured out who everybody is,’ Roy said with a big smile. ‘And Miss Melissa, to answer your question, you betcha Emily and Mr McKinsey are both going to jail big time!’

  So introductions started as Carol Anne and a few of her children came in and John and I slipped out. I felt embarrassed that I’d made such snap judgments about these people. I appeared to have been totally wrong about Jerry Hudson and his family, and now here were these wonderful children, having gone through an incredible ordeal, banding together in solidarity with their mother by shaving their heads! It was an incredibly touching display – and an incredible sight. All those glistening domes. I felt tears in my eyes as we took the elevator to the main floor.

  As the elevator doors opened, my son looked up at me and said, ‘Mama, can I shave my head too?’

  Milt Kovak – Saturday

  Jean called me to tell me about the kids at the hospital and their shaved heads and Johnny Mac’s eagerness to shave his own head.

  ‘Ah, no,’ I said emphatically.

  ‘My response also,’ she said.

  ‘And he’s pissed, right?’

  ‘Big time.’

  ‘I have a suggestion,’ I said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Instead of taking him home where he’ll mope about it, take Johnny Mac to Jewel Anne’s house,’ I said, mentioning the name of my sister. ‘Her pool’s heated. That’ll take his mind off it. He’s got a swimsuit there, and they’ve got all those noodles and air mattresses and crap. It’ll take his mind totally off of shaving his head.’

  ‘Excellent idea,’ my wife said. ‘That’s what I’ll do.’

  ‘So I’ll meet you back at my shop, if you want to go with me to see Brother Bob,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’ she asked.

  ‘Brother Bob Nathanson, pastor of the United Brethren of the Holy Church of Jesus Christ in His Almighty Goodness,’ I said.

  ‘Hum,’ my wife said, ‘the name itself seems to exclude women.’

  An hour later Jean came in the back entrance to the shop and sat down in one of my two visitor chairs.

  ‘So we’re off to the whatever of the whatever?’ she asked.

  ‘United Brethren of the Holy Church of Jesus Christ in His Almighty Goodness,’ I corrected.

  ‘I repeat: whatever. Your car or mine?’

  I guess somebody somewhere’s making good money selling metal buildings as churches, ’cause the Brethren was also housed in one. This one was a mite smaller, maybe three-quarters the size of the New Saints Tabernacle, but it had a big sign out front with the name. Of course it would have to be a big sign to get that name up there big enough for anybody to read from the highway – which is where it’s located. Right on Highway 5, on the other side of Longbranch from where my house is. It had a huge parking lot and an area blocked off for buses. A sign said so, although I’m not sure what buses would be parking there. Did they really think they were a tourist attraction? I thought I might ask Brother Bob that.

  Since the parking lot was mostly empty now, except for what I recognized as Brother Bob’s Chevy Half Ton pick-up, we parked up close and went in the door marked office. Brother Bob was leaning against a counter talking to a girl all of eighteen who was staring at him dewy-eyed, seemingly enraptured by all the crap coming out of Bob’s mouth.

  ‘Brother Bob!’ I said loudly as we walked in. It had the desired effect. Bob startled and almost fell down. Now that would have been a sight, Bob being as big as he is.

  ‘Sheriff,’ he said, straightening himself out. ‘Nice to see you.’ He held out his hand and I shook it.

  ‘Have you met my wife, Dr Jean McDonnell?’ I asked.

  ‘Never had the pleasure,’ he said, extending his hand to Jean, who leaned forward on her crutches to shake.

  ‘Can we have a moment of your time somewhere private?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, smiling. ‘Come on into my office.’ Turning to the girl he had only just stopped fascinating, he said, ‘Shirley Joy, why don’t you bring us some sodas, please?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, jumping up.

  His office was a sight. His desk was the biggest one I’d ever seen, but you hardly noticed it for the cross hanging on the wall behind it. It was surely the size of the original.

  ‘Made of the same wood, too,’ he said when I commented on it. ‘Olive wood. From the Holy Lands. Me and my wife and about twenty of my flock took a tour four years ago and I had that commissioned and sent over here. Cost a pretty penny, too, but it’s worth it. I feel Jesus ever’ time I touch it!’ He grabbed my arm and pulled me over to him, which, due to his size, I was unable to ignore. ‘Feel it, Sheriff! See if it don’t move you!’

  I touched the cross. It felt like wood. Nevertheless, I nodded my head. ‘Wonderful,’ I said.

  ‘Ma’am?’ he said, holding out his hand for Jean.

  ‘I’m good,’ she said, sitting down in a visitor’s chair and settling her crutches.

  I took a seat next to my wife and waited for Brother Bob to sit down. Then I asked, ‘When you came into my office earlier in the week, you seemed to know a little more than I did about the incident at the New Saints Tabernacle—’

  ‘New Saints Tabernacle!’ he said in a mocking tone. ‘That’s not a church! It’s a brothel! Them people are going at it like cats and dogs! Men saying they’re married to three or four or even more women! It’s blasphemy plain and simple! You know how many children some of them men have sired? Dozens! Dozens of more blasphemous fornicatin’ brats!’

  ‘There are some perfectly decent people at that church—’ Jean began but was drowned out by Brother Bob.

  ‘Decent? How in the world can you call any of them people decent?’ Then he stopped and looked hard at Jean. ‘Oh, that’s right,’ he said. ‘I heard you was Catholic.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Jean said.

  He looked away from her and shrugged. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you papists believe in praying to idols and saints and stuff, so I don’t expect you to be as shocked by such goings-on as what’s going on at the, excuse the expression, New Saints Tabernacle.’

  ‘So how offended are you and your flock by the people at this other church?’ I asked.

  ‘Offended? It’s not a matter of me or any of my flock being offended! It’s God who’s offended! These people are going to burn in the fiery depths of despair and deprivation!’ Brother Bob closed his eyes and lifted his arms to the ceiling. ‘Dear Lord our God, and Jesus Your Holy Son, take pity on this here Sheriff and his papist wife for they know not what they do—’

  ‘Brother Bob!’ I said, always hating to bother a man when he’s praying, but since he was praying for me and my wife, I figured it was OK.

  ‘What?’ he said, eyes open but his hands still in the air.

  ‘I want to know if any one person in your flock was offended enough by the people of the New Saints Tabernacle to maybe have done something about it. Go talk to them, visit with them, anything like that.’

  ‘Neither me nor my people consort with that type, Sheriff,’ he said, lowering his arms.

  ‘But if one of them was to, who would it be?’ I asked.

  ‘But nobody would,’ he said.

  ‘But, say, if one of your people, listening to you, was to get riled up, feel like you weren’t getting enough respect from them or what they were doing was in some way harmful—’

  ‘Oh, it’s harmful all right—’

  ‘To you or your flock,’ I said, real loud to drown him out, ‘who would that person be?’

  ‘You mean hypo-whatever?’ he asked.

  ‘Hypothetically,’ I volunteered, and looked to my wife for confirmation. She nodded. ‘Exactly,’ I said.

  ‘Well, and I ain’t saying it’s so, but if anybody were to get extra upset like, it might be Kenneth Jessup.’

  He was right about that. I had no idea K
enneth Jessup was a member of the Brethren. I’d had him as an overnight guest at the shop on many an occasion, but I got to admit not lately. Maybe he’d seen the light, but Kenneth had mostly been in my cells for getting drunk and losing his temper, which resulted in somebody else ending up in the hospital.

  I stood up, having spent what I felt was way too much time in Brother Bob’s company. ‘Thank you, Brother Bob,’ I said. ‘I appreciate your time.’

  I held out my hand and he shook it. ‘I can tell you a lot more about that lot over in Tejas County,’ he said. ‘I barely got warmed up!’

  ‘I believe you, Brother Bob. But I gotta eat eventually. Thanks.’

  We left Brother Bob with a confused look on his face.

  When we got back in my Jeep, Jean asked me, ‘You think Brother Bob had anything concrete to add about the New Saints Tabernacle or just more conjecture?’

  ‘More bullshit, you mean?’ I said.

  ‘Hum,’ she said. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Yeah, I believe that’s all. We coulda stayed there till the cows came home and even if there was a nugget of real information in there, we’d both be fast asleep before we heard it.’

  ‘So where to now?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re having fun with this, huh?’ I said.

  Jean shrugged her shoulders then laughed. ‘Yes, I think I am.’

  ‘Then how ’bout meeting a real-life redneck?’

  ‘Gee, I thought I married one,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll do that right after Mary Hudson’s funeral,’ I said.

  Jean looked at her watch. ‘I’m not sure we’re going to make it,’ she said. ‘The funeral’s at two, it’s twelve-thirty now, and it’s at the church in Tejas, right?’

  ‘So we’ll make the graveside service,’ I said.

  Jean Mcdonnell – Saturday

  We got to the church as the cars were pulling out after the hearse. We managed to get in the middle of them and headed to the graveside. It was only about a mile from the New Saints Tabernacle, and it looked like an old abandoned cemetery that the church had somehow taken over. Surrounded by pine trees, the cemetery was in a clearing bordered by an old black wrought-iron fence, the gate of which was larger than one would think necessary for such a small cemetery. The cast iron of the gate was intricately wrought, with curlicues and fleurs-de-lys. In an arch at the top of the gate, the name ‘Wingate’ was spelled out in elaborate cursive. On seeing that, I could only think that at one point this was a private family cemetery, and I wondered if the Wingate clan had died out, or if the church had gotten special permission from what was left of that family to bury their own here.

  With my disability, I’ve never been one to want to traipse through cemeteries doing rubbings or being amazed and amused at the pithy sayings people put on tombstones back in the nineteenth and even the early twentieth centuries. Walking through this one, though, I was struck by the number of small stones, with days of birth and death the same, or just a few days, weeks, or months apart. Having children, even less than a hundred years ago, was often an iffy proposition. Seeing those stones made me want to leave this service and find my son and hold him tight.

  As we walked to the graveside, I noticed there were no canopies or chairs, but there was a green outdoor carpet over the ground next to the open grave. Jerry Hudson and his family stood in front with the McKinsey kids, domes glistening, directly behind them. Other members of the church, the Bollingers, the Whitmans, and several families I hadn’t met, were scattered behind them.

  It looked like Milt had let Brother Earl out in the nick of time. He was dressed formally, but his hair was a little wild and he looked nervous when he saw us standing there together. I was a little nervous myself. The green carpet had been set directly upon the ground, and one crutch was digging deeper and deeper into the ground as I stood there. I pulled it out and placed the tip in another area, but still it began to sink. I was afraid I might fall into the open grave if I wasn’t careful. Luckily Milt was on that side of me, so I hooked my arm through his just in case.

  ‘Brothers and sisters, little children,’ Brother Earl intoned, ‘we are here today to say goodbye to our beloved Sister Mary Hudson. She has gone to sit at the feet of our Lord God Almighty. We know God didn’t call our good sister; she was taken before her time. This decision should be left to God only, never to man.

  ‘But MAN made this decision, brothers and sisters! He didn’t ASK God if it was Sister Mary’s time! NO! He, this FILTHY BEAST, took our good Mary from us in a brutal fashion!

  ‘But in our teachings here at the New Saints Tabernacle, we believe in more than one mother for each child, so Sister Mary’s children are NOT left motherless! NO, good God they are not! Sister Mary’s children still have two other mothers, Sister Carol Anne and Sister Rene. THANK YOU, JESUS! Bless You, Jesus, for letting us know the true way to lead our lives, the true way to protect our children, and the true way to further our existence in this world You made, dear God!’

  I tuned him out, watching the crowd instead, thinking Milt might want my impressions after this. Thomas and Sarie Whitman and Sarie’s two girls, Margaret and Melinda, were there. I noticed Jane Marie was also there, but further back in the crowd, standing with three other women – I would imagine the ‘unmarriables’ that lived in the dorm near the church.

  The only one in that family I could ever imagine hurting anyone would be Jane Marie. She seemed like a bitter and lonely woman. But why would she hurt Mary Hudson? According to Sarie, Mary Hudson was trying to get Thomas to let the girls go to Sunday school, but would that be a reason for Jane Marie to kill her? I had no reason to think she would, but then again, I’m not a police professional. Their professional criteria are different from mine.

  The Bollingers were there, a large contingent. I couldn’t help noticing that David Bollinger was a good-looking man. I wondered how much flack he got from the church for ‘allowing’ his family to dress casually and for ‘allowing his women’ to cut their hair. As much as I respected Carol Anne Hudson, and in many ways her husband Jerry, there were still parts of their belief system I couldn’t get around – the gender issues the most prevalent in my mind.

  I tuned back in to Brother Earl just as he intoned, ‘Dear God Almighty, please have Your blessed hand on the shoulder of our good Sheriff Kovak so that You may lead him to the BEAST THAT WALKS LIKE A MAN! The BEAST who took our dear Sister Mary from us! Let us pray.’

  I prayed that my husband didn’t do anything too terrible to poor Brother Earl.

  Milt Kovak – Saturday

  I noticed Andrew Schmidt, the man who had been at Jerry Hudson’s house the first time I’d gone there to interview him. I’d forgotten I needed to interview old Andrew. I need to write this stuff down, I told myself. I figured right after the graveside service would be a good enough time to grab ol’ Andy. While Brother Earl droned on, I studied Schmidt and his family.

  Schmidt himself appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties, broad across the middle with a big ass and narrow shoulders. He had most of his hair, all of it salt and pepper, and was wearing his Sunday best – an expensive-looking blue suit with a navy silk tie, and cuff links that looked like a month’s salary to me.

  On one side of him stood a young man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties, as well dressed as who I presumed to be his father. He was a good-looking kid with conservatively cut dark brown hair, and eyes green enough to notice across the graveside. Standing next to him was a pretty girl with her arm entwined with his. New wife or fiancée, I figured. She was wearing the standard issue baggy dress in a dark color – as were most of the women here – and her long red hair touched the top of her hips.

  On the other side of Schmidt Sr stood a woman approximately Schmidt’s age, with gray hair hanging halfway down her back. She had a stern look on her face and her hands were clasped in front of her, the knuckles white, I noticed. The woman was not happy about something, that was for damn sure.

  The somethin
g might have been the young woman standing next to her. Somehow I doubted this was a daughter. The daughter (a faint replica of her mother) stood further down, clutching the hand of a girl child. No, the something was about twenty-five or thereabouts, with jet black hair, pale white skin, and black eyes. She had a full mouth and breasts big enough to stand out in those awful dresses. Yes, I do believe this was the something the first Mrs Schmidt was not happy about. The girl child whose hand the daughter was holding looked way too much like what I assumed to be the second wife not to be hers. Beautiful child, and the daughter appeared to resent having to hold her hand. Reminded me of Jane Marie Whitman and her two little sisters.

  Finally Brother Earl was finished, after intoning God’s blessing on me – by name, mind you – and I told my wife I’d meet her at the car. I hightailed it after Andrew Schmidt, who obviously knew what I was about, because he was hurrying his family to where the cars were parked, on the winding dirt road through the cemetery.

  ‘Mr Schmidt!’ I called, rushing up behind him. He ignored me. ‘Andrew Schmidt!’

  This time he stopped and sighed and turned around. ‘Sheriff,’ he said.

  I smiled. ‘Introduce me to your family,’ I said.

  His eyes got big. I hadn’t told anybody that I had no desire to bust any of these polygamists during the duration of this case. And afterwards, well, if they didn’t bother anybody, if I got no calls on any of ’em, I didn’t see any reason to become assertive on the issue. But I had no intention of letting Andrew Schmidt know this. I have a thing about paranoids – I love to push their buttons. I know, it’s mean, but a man needs a hobby.

  Schmidt just stood there, unable to move. His son came to his rescue. ‘Hi, Sheriff,’ he said, thrusting out his hand to shake. ‘I’m Max Schmidt, Andrew’s son, and this is my wife Michelle.’ I shook her hand too. ‘My mother, Hannah.’ She nodded her head and I nodded back. ‘My sister, Maureen.’ Again, with the nods. Now came the fun part. ‘And this is my wife’s sister, Cecile,’ he said, indicating the young woman with the black hair and eyes, ‘and her daughter LeeLee.’ I nodded to Cecile and her daughter.