Black Princess Mystery (16 page)

“I heard
all about it,” Tasheka lied, “but was he telling the truth? Tell me, Millie.”

“She’s
forty-five years old for the love of God,” Mildred declared. “She’s old enough
to be his mother.”

“He said
Linda had nothing on,” Tasheka said, taking a chance she might hit pay dirt.
“Was he bragging, Mill?”

Mildred
shook her head. “She was stark naked, except for those knee-high black leather
whore boots.”

Tasheka
nodded solemnly, pretending to finally be receiving verification of something
long suspected. “He was telling the truth,” she said distractedly, as if
auditioning for a part in a play.

“It was
scandalous!” Mildred exclaimed, a curious mixture of intensity and indignity on
her face.

“What else
happened, Millie? It’s time we verify everything.”

“On more
than one occasion I would be cleaning the balcony when she came in for
confession. She would say the most inappropriate things, Tash.”

“How did
you hear, Mill? Was she talking very loudly?”

Mildred
shook her head. “No, but on the far end of the balcony, if you put your ear
right by the post, you can hear everything people are saying, even if they’re
whispering. I just went about my cleaning, quietly, you know, because I didn’t
want any trouble. Well, I was over there in that general area and I could hear
her. She was talking a lot louder than she should have been. She told him all
her personal matters.” Millie elaborated for several minutes. “Then it got even
weirder.”

Tasheka
nodded with encouragement.

“Fantasies,”
Mildred mumbled. “Wild fantasies, Tasheka.” She swallowed hard. “I couldn’t
believe my ears, but I didn’t dare move for fear they might hear me. I was
stuck. I was just trying to do my work and this mess fell into my lap. I had to
listen to the whole sordid thing. She was using the ‘f’ word, for God’s sake.”

“You had
no choice, Mill!” Tasheka affirmed, defending her dignity. “It wasn’t your
fault, no, not your fault at all.”

Mildred
smiled with appreciation at Tasheka’s confidence in her.

“How many
times did you catch them?”

“Three
times in the confession box,” Mildred said. “Whenever she came, Father Tim went
outside and put up the ‘Confession in Progress’ sign and then locked the door.”

“How did
Father Tim respond?”

“Linda was
driving the action,” Millie insisted. “The things coming out of her mouth! You
know, you can see people every day and they look like good and decent souls,
but behind closed doors you have no idea.”

A little
gremlin suddenly appeared in Tasheka’s mind. She decided to take a chance, and
if she wrong, she could say Father Tim was just bragging. “He told me they made
love here one day,” she lied with a somber nod. She cleared her throat and had
a fragile look on her face. “I felt like he was telling the truth.”

Mildred
froze.

“Millie,”
Tasheka said emphatically, “for my own peace of mind, I have to know. If he was
lying, then I can’t believe anything he ever said to me.” She stared deeply
into Mildred’s eyes. “Did you catch them going all the way?”

Mildred
had a pained look. “No, never anything like that.” She crossed herself.
“Hopefully that didn’t happen, holy Mother of God. What I heard were the
confessions, which were more like erotic stories, and I saw her open her coat.
That was it.”

“What kind
of fantasies?” Tasheka asked.

“She was
having a fantasy about being with another woman once.” Her eyes nearly bugged
out of her head. “How disgusting is that?”

“Really?”
Tasheka said, crooking an eyebrow. “How was Father Tim reacting?”

“Once
Father Murphy whispered about him doing something forbidden with another man.”
She raised her hands. “Never tell another soul about that, Tasheka. It’s our
secret.”

“Another
man?” Tasheka returned incredulously. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,
another man, an older man.”

“How old
was the man in his fantasy?”

“I don’t
know. He just said older. And what’s really odd, Tasheka, was how vivid it was.
He talked about it like it really happened and you could tell he found it
extremely stimulating.”

“Did he
have a setting for his fantasy?” Tasheka queried.

“A beach
house,” Mildred replied. “He got right into it. A warm day, a locked door,
windows partially opened, a light breeze tossing the curtains, soft music in
the background, a few drinks. The whole ball of wax.”

“And an
older man?” Tasheka said, flabbergasted that Father Tim expressed such
thoughts.

“An older
man.”

“What did
they do in the fantasy, Millie?”

Mildred
knew she had already gone past the point of no return. “They had both gone for
a swim and had come back to the beach house. They took off their shorts and
dried each other with their towels. Then, you know.”

“I never
had any idea Father Tim was attracted to men. That shocks me, quite frankly.”

“The way
he described what happened, Tasheka, seemed too real to be a fantasy. And if it
wasn’t a fantasy, you have to ask yourself if this may have had something to do
with the murder.”

“What do
you mean?”

Mildred
nodded meaningfully. “Maybe somebody wanted to keep him quiet. The man could
have been married or he could be in a high position.”

Tasheka
purred under her breath. “A married man has a spontaneous bisexual fling with a
younger man, comes to his senses the next day, and then realizes his secret might
be revealed. I think it’s certainly plausible that such a man may have killed
Father Tim.”

“It’s
definitely a possibility,” Mildred answered.

“Did Linda
stop it at any point?”

“Hardly,”
Millie said with a nervous laugh. “She was moaning like a bitch in heat. Linda
Thompson is a slut. She’s always been a slut.”

“She’s
good looking, though.”

“Oh, yes,
she’s built like an Amazonian. Every man in Lakeside drools over the thought of
squeezing her dolly partons.” Mildred sighed loudly and crossed herself. “It
was horrible, Tasheka. Horrible. A house of God and Father Tim was
participating in this sordid affair with another man’s wife.”

“Not only
another man’s wife,” Tasheka replied, “Jake Thompson’s wife.” Tasheka recalled
the homicidal look on Jake Thompson’s face the morning she discovered the body.
“When did Jake find out?”

Mildred
could not resist the invitation. “A few days before the murder,” she said.
“Linda got into the sauce pretty heavy one night and blurted out the story
about the confessions to a friend. The friend told a friend. I think I might
have mentioned it to someone, too.”

“What
happened?”

“Jake was
wild,” Mildred continued, “as you can well imagine. The reason I don’t think
she told him about having intercourse with Father Murphy is because if she had,
I’m sure Jake would have killed them both in a fit of rage.”

“He’s a
proud man,” Tasheka observed. “This must have made him feel like the village
cuckold.”

“Jake
forbid Linda from having anything to do with Father Murphy and now they’ve got
their house up for sale.”

“Did
Father Tim and Jake ever have words, Millie?”

She nodded
with her eyes opened wide. “One day Father Murphy walked along the golf course
like he always does and he met Jake down by Dead Man’s Oak. Father Murphy put
out his hand to shake, but Jake karate chopped him across the wrist like he
wanted to cut his hand off. Father Murphy reported the incident to the police.
Needless to say, there was no reconciliation.”

“I’m glad
we’re sharing, Millie,” Tasheka said with studied warmth.

“I believe
Jake Thompson killed him,” Mildred speculated, “but that’s just between me and
you.”

“Father
Tim had a bad relationship with Mike Power and Jake Thompson,” Tasheka said,
thinking hard, “but how would you characterize the relationship between Father
Tim and Henrietta Gable?”

“Henrietta
didn’t like him.”

“Why?”

“Not
sure,” Mildred said. “I was working here one day and she showed up very angry
over something, but it was personal and none of my business, of course.”

Tasheka
realized this meant that no matter how hard she strained to hear, she couldn’t
figure out what was said.

“Henrietta’s
never has been much for holding jobs,” Mildred noted. “It was her mother’s
fault. She was always pampering the child and dressing her up like some kind of
little queen, but Henrietta is a plain girl who wants things without working
for them. She did have that job in the city, though.”

“I
remember,” said Tasheka. “She was taking care of elderly people in their homes.
That was in the spring, I think.”

“She was
nursing some old man named Smith or something and he was giving good tips, but
he died in May and she quit. Since then, she’s basically been taking care of
her own house, but they’re having a hard time. The price of diesel has cut into
Baxter’s profit and he’s supporting kids from his first marriage. They don’t
have a lot of extras at the Gable household.”

“I’m
sure,” said Tasheka.

Mildred
traced her fingers over an eight-by-ten enlargement of Father Tim Murphy that
stood on the mantelpiece. “I miss him, Tasheka. Father Murphy had his
weaknesses, but he was a good man at heart.”

“Yes, he
was.” Tasheka looked at his face and smiled. “What’s your fondest memory of
him, Millie?”

“Oh, let
me see.” She thought about it for a moment. “There were some teenagers smoking
marijuana behind the church one evening last summer and he walked right out,
took a joint out of a boy’s mouth and crushed it with his foot. I watched the
whole thing. You should have seen the looks on their faces. But he never said a
word. He just walked right back in and acted as if nothing happened. I really
liked that. He could be so strong and moral at times.”

Tasheka
laughed at the story.

“What
about you, Tasheka? What’s your favorite memory?”

“I think
of a lot of things,” Tasheka said. “I remember his laugh, his generosity of
spirit, even silly little things like his notoriously bad spelling.” She smiled
thoughtfully. “But I suppose my favorite memory is something he taught me. Did
Father Tim ever tell you how he worked with a locksmith one summer?”

“Yes,” she
said. “I remember.”

“Well,
Father Tim was brilliant with locks, any kind of lock. He had this little pouch
that carried all kinds of neat picks and he gave it to me. He told me he was
going to teach me how to pick locks, and he did. I learned how to open
padlocks, combination locks, even some safes. Not that I would ever use those
skills, mind you, but it just seemed like so much fun to have a priest teaching
me how break into places.”

Mildred
laughed. “He was a character.”

“Yes,”
Tasheka said solemnly. “Father Tim will be missed.”

“Now
hopefully they can find his killer, but it’s going to be hard. More than one
person wanted him dead, that’s for sure.”

Chapter
Ten

Tasheka
put the novel into her purse, thanked Mildred for her assistance, and then
walked home. Before doing another thing, she went to her room and opened the
yellow pages to different nursing organizations. She started calling and
explained that a relative needed a nurse and noted that a Ms. Henrietta Gable
had come highly recommended, then asked if she worked for them.

“Well,”
said the first woman, “we only have one employee and that’s me. But my name
isn’t Gable.”

Tasheka
called the second number and asked the same question.

“Yes,”
answered the man.

“Is it the
right ‘Ms. Gable’?” Tasheka asked. “From Lakeside? She worked for the relative
of a friend of mine when he passed in May?”

“Mr. Smit
from Clovendale, you mean?” the man asked.

“Yes,
that’s him.”

“Yes, Ms.
Gable was working for us then but is currently unavailable. We have other
employees here, though, who are just as qualified to fulfill any need.”

“Okay,
thank you, I may call back.”

Tasheka
hung up and pursed her lips. She turned on the computer and found the local
newspaper’s website, then brought up all the May obituaries to her screen. Mr.
Smit’s obituary appeared in mid-month and detailed a lonely life. He was not
married, had no children, and was survived by neither parents nor siblings.
Tasheka found his address with directory assistance and called the Clovendale
General Store, asking if Mr. Smit had any neighbors who knew him. The clerk
mentioned a Mrs. Hatch.

Tasheka
found Mrs. Hatch’s number and called. “Hi,” she said in her sweetest voice. “My
name is Tasheka Green and I have a relative who requires nursing care in his
home. I was given the name of Henrietta Gable and wonder if you can comment on
the quality of the care she gave to your neighbor, Mr. Smit?”