Drowning Barbie (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-eight

Jack Feldman had signed up for a double shift. It was not something he ordinarily did. He liked the overtime pay, naturally, but the long hours cut into his other interests. Interests he kept to himself and as far away as possible from his boss. If Ike were to get even a whiff of the things his deputy did in his spare time, there would be hell to pay. But Jack was careful and while the sheriff may have wondered what he was up to, Jack made sure he never found out. Tonight Jack figured he needed a clear forty-eight hours and took the double to get it. He knew something big was in the wind and that it would require his services. LeBrun, whether he knew it or not, needed someone on the inside and who else could he trust? Harry Doncaster, the pussy, never joined the insiders back in the day. Him and the Sutherlin kid, the hot dispatcher, Falco, only now she was the Sutherlin kid's wife. None of them were tight with George and Parker. If Parker hadn't lost the election they would have been dumped for sure. Bunch of Girl Scouts.

No, George had come back and he needed his boy, Jackie. He grinned at the thought, something big. Oh yeah. To do what he had in mind meant he needed the extra time to set things up and then make them happen. He drove north on Main Street which was a continuation into town of old US 11, his mind on how he would arrange it all and what he brought to the table. He glanced at his watch—ten forty-five. At this rate, he should clear the sheriff's office a little after eleven and that should put him at Alex's Road House, out of uniform, and ready to deal a few minutes before midnight. His radio crackled. Darcie Billingsley called him out on a 10-25 at the Episcopal Church.

“Do you copy, Jack?” Mental bitch. What did she think he was doing?

“Copy that, on it, 10-4.”

The call coming in this close to the end of the shift made him angry. Why couldn't the jerk who called it in wait fifteen minutes and then Picket or some other loser would have to take it? A breaking and entering call, with the paperwork that he would have to do when he was done, would slow him way down and probably make him late. He gritted his teeth and turned into the church parking lot. If there really was some dope in the church, he'd better roll over easy because Jack was in no mood to play nice.

The preacher stood on the porch of his house waiting for him when he drove up. Those preachers had a cushy life. They only worked one day a week, except maybe for going to the hospital once in a while, and they got to keep all that cash in the plate, probably. Also, like this guy, they got a free house. Jack decided he didn't like this dude—lazy college kid with nothing much to offer and hiding behind a dog collar. This search would be quick and, unless the idiot who broke in was dumb enough to still be on the premises, would definitely not require a write-up.

***

The two men walked to the church and Blake unlocked the door that led to the offices.

“The safe is this way,” he said. “If there is anyone in here, that's the first place he'd go.”

They climbed the stairs and went through two adjoining offices and on to the sacristy. The safe seemed undisturbed, but the door to one of the cabinets on the opposite wall stood ajar.

“Anything?” Feldman asked.

“Except for this door being open, no. It was closed when I left earlier, I'm certain of that.”

“Step back.”

Feldman drew his weapon and used the barrel to push the door the rest of the way back. He paused and then stepped forward to inspect the inside. Robes of some sort, black, white, and one or two red ones, all different sizes.

“Nothing. You're sure this was closed?”

“Absolutely. You weren't really going to shoot if there had been someone hiding in there, were you?”

“Nah, too much paperwork. Usually a kid looks down the barrel of this bad boy and he wets his pants. Can't give up fast enough. Well, okay, then we'd better look around the rest of the building. You tell me if you see anything suspicious, you know, like, if something is missing or not.”

“Right.”

It took twenty minutes for the men to cover the interior of the church. Blake felt, but could not explain why, the deputy seemed so angry at him. He kept looking at his watch and snapping short, marginally rude remarks whenever Blake asked him a question. He made a mental note to mention the deputy's attitude to Ike when he saw him next. Blake's preoccupation with the animosity surrounding the two of them and the deputy's clear impatience to finish and leave meant that neither would have seen anything amiss even if they had stumbled over it in the dark.

At eleven-twenty, the deputy left grumbling about putting in twenty minutes of overtime. Blake extinguished all the lights and locked up. Neither he nor the departed cop had noticed that two of the basement windows were unlocked and that some alterations had been made to the pantry's stores, not to mention the missing pew pads, a light bulb, one black cassock, and four or five hand towels.

Back in the rectory, Blake mounted the stairs to the second floor. Mary, his wife had already climbed into bed but she sat up, wide awake, waiting for a report, for reassurance that all was well, that the child she was pretty sure had taken up residence in her womb would be safe this night.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Nada. If there had been anyone in the church, they were long gone by the time the surly deputy and I arrived.”

“Surly?”

“I don't know this one's name, but I did get his badge number. I will talk to Ike about him next time I see him. Yes, he was rude and short. He obviously didn't want to be out here and his whole demeanor was, like, ‘I'm doing you a favor.' I don't think I've ever run across that before, at least not in a cop. The guy at the Department of Motor Vehicles acted like that, but I think rude is in their job description.”

“You don't mean that.”

“No, I suppose I don't. Still…”

“So nothing was disturbed.”

“I didn't say that. I said there was no one in the building. If I had to guess, someone had been in it earlier, maybe even as late as when we drove up, but they were gone.”

“Then why—”

“Little things seemed out of place like a closet door I'm sure I closed before I left, was ajar. The first aid kit, you know, has that complicated latch that springs open at a touch when you need to get into it but is nearly impossible to close later, had been fiddled with as well.”

“Tonight?” Mary pulled the blankets tighter around her breasts.

“Couldn't say. Maybe not tonight. Anyway, there seemed to be, I don't know, a disturbance in the ether.”

“A disturbance in the what?”

“Sorry. Things just seemed…you know how it is when you haven't cleaned your glasses lately, or maybe pick up someone else's prescription that is almost but not quite the same as yours? You can see things but the objects are slightly out of focus, or too big and…well, you see what I mean.”

“Something was not quite right but you can't say what or why.”

“Exactly.”

“Why don't I feel better?”

“There is absolutely nothing to worry about. If, and I emphasize the if, someone was in the church this evening, they're long gone. If an intruder came looking for something other than just stealing stuff from the church, you know, like he wanted to harm you or me, he would had broken in here, not over there.”

“Blake, there is something I think I should tell you.”

“In a minute. Finally, and I mean this kindly, Mary, but you can't always assume that people are bad.”

“I didn't say anything about—”

“You assumed that if there was a break-in, the person was up to no good. But the fact is that most church break-ins are made by desperate people.”

“Desperate?”

“They need a warm place to sleep, some food, or a toilet. Picketsville doesn't offer much in the way of social welfare programs. The homeless usually spend the night in jail or in the park. Flora Blevins might give them a cup of coffee and a stale donut, but that's pretty much it.”

“Then you should do something about it. This church isn't hurting for money, not really. I know you'd like to build a building for the Sunday school, but a food bank and maybe an eight-hour dormitory for the homeless would be better, especially in the winter. A Sunday school could use the building once a week, a shelter, seven nights, fifty-two weeks of the year.”

“The vestry would never buy it. What were you going to tell me?”

“It'll keep. Goodnight.”

***

Even though it was June and her hideaway only a thin wall and three feet away from the church boiler room and hot water heater, Darla sat shaking uncontrollably in the corner. She'd pulled a tattered blanket around her shoulders. It did not stop her teeth from chattering. She knew those voices. The preacher, he was okay, she guessed, though you can never tell. There was that guy…she pushed the memory from her mind. The other one, the cop. She remembered that one, alright. You didn't forget voices. He had been one of them. And now he had been, like, ten feet away. She grabbed one of her buckets, pulled it close, and threw up.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Ike stared at the stack of reports on his desk. Darcie Billingsley's dispatch log listed seventeen items. He scanned the column again. Darcie's handwriting bordered on the illegible, but there could be no doubt about the number. There were seventeen entries. Most were minor problems that only required a drive-by to settle: noisy parties, barking dogs, suspicious behavior involving neighbors, strangers, or children, and nearly all the complaints from either annoyed neighbors or mildly inebriated adults with TVs on the fritz, who had nothing better to do but stare out the window. Except for one serious notation, a breaking-and-entering, it had been an easy night. The B and E had been assigned to Feldman. There should have been his write-up in the stack on the desk, but Feldman had not filed his report. Darcie's log identified the initial call coming from Blake Fisher. The church had been broken into. Why hadn't Feldman done his paperwork? Not the first time he'd skipped closing out or turned in paperwork late, but…but what? What with the search for the girl stalled while the threat to her life mounted and another body to be accounted for in the morgue, Ike really didn't want to waste time disciplining one of his deputies. He picked up the phone and called the church. Ten minutes later, and only after being assured by Rita who had by now replaced Darcie, that no one else was immediately available to make the stop, Ike pulled up to the church and climbed the stairs to the offices.

“Rev, you had a break-in last night?”

“I don't know if we did or didn't. Mary thought she saw a flash of light in the basement and I thought ‘better to be safe than sorry,' so I called. I have to say the deputy who responded could use some training in dealing with the public.”

“How so?'

“I would say he came very close to being rude. It seemed obvious that he did not want to be here, that he found the job of checking out the church onerous, and he wanted to be somewhere else. He kept looking at his watch as if he had better-paying options waiting for him at some other crime scene. I know you don't, but you don't, do you?”

“I don't what?”

“Important crime scenes don't involve the deputy receiving hazard pay or extra duty bonuses, do they?”

“Of course not. Is that what he said?”

“No, it's how he acted. Anyway, that was then. What can I do for you?”

“I apologize for Deputy Feldman. He was not one I recruited. He came with the rest of the furniture and is only slightly more useful. As long as I'm here, do you want to walk me through the church? It's been a while since I last visited this place and then I was more concerned with a body in the sanctuary than the rest of the building.”

“Sure. The crew is here doing the Friday cleanup and since you and Ruth will be here Monday, Dorothy has called in what she calls her
A
team.”

“I'm flattered. The
A
team you say? Who would that be?”

“I don't remember. Actually, I think it is more a description of an attitude than an actual roster. Let's go downstairs and see.”

As Blake promised, when they arrived at the basement, Dorothy Sutherlin and a crew of four women were wiping down counters and mopping floors.

“Well, look who's here. Are you slumming, Sheriff, or scouting? By the way, I heard from your future mother-in-law. She's in a dither.”

“I'm not surprised, Dorothy. Eden Saint Clare is anything but party-planner organized. Dither is her specialty at times like that.”

“Well, we got her all settled. So then, what brings you into foreign territory?”

“Just doing a follow-up visit to the scene of the crime—past and future. How are you holding up with a house full of out-of-town guests and Essie and Billy moved back in?”

“It's a circus and it's sure enough got its share of clowns, but it's all fun so far. I do wish Karl would cheer up a little. He expects some test or other is going to send him into unemployment or something. I told him a bright young man like he is don't have to worry about a job, but he didn't want to hear it.”

“It's a problem. FBI is the one thing he's wanted all his life and he's afraid it might be snatched away from him.”

“Well, shoot, then he could come and work for you, right?”

“It's hardly the same thing. Anyway, the Rev called in a possible break-in last night. You haven't noticed anything missing or out of place?”

“Ike, there must be forty-teen keys to this church in circulation by now. Folks are in and out of here all the time, day and night. Things disappear and then reappear all the time. Sometimes folks'll ‘borrow' a loaf of bread or a can of beans and then put it back a week or month later. Don't ask me why, save a trip to the store, I reckon. And then a mom will get a whiff of the cassock their boy is wearing to acolyte in on a Sunday and they'll take it home to wash and press it. It may not show up until the kid is scheduled to serve again which could be a month or two…you see?”

“I do. So, you are telling me that except for a full-scale robbery of, say, the safe, you can't tell if the church has been broken into or not.”

“Nope.”

“Things could be missing and gone for good, or not, and you wouldn't know.”

“Yep.”

“Funny way to run a business.”

“It ain't a business, it's a church. Taking stuff if you need it and maybe putting it back with extra is how we do it here.”

“You net out more than you put in?”

“Mostly, yep.”

“So, I can report that nothing is missing?”

“No, you can report that whatever is missing is probably coming back or being put to good use.”

“I see. Blake, there's not much sense in ever calling in a break-in, is there?”

“Well. Dorothy has omitted we have had our safe cracked a few times. Those instances, I would say, justify a call.”

“Right. And today? What's missing? I don't care if it's eventually coming back. I want to know anyway.”

“There's a chunk of cheese and maybe a loaf of bread gone,” Faith Chimes, an
A
team member, said.

“Faith, you're not doing hair today?'

“No, Friday is my day to help out here. Oh, and Sheriff, we keep candle stubs in a box? Well, I can't be sure, but I think a bunch of them are missing, too.”

“Candle stubs?”

“Well, we burn a bunch of candles here, you know, it being a church and all, and when they burn down too low, we put in new ones.”

“And you save the stubs? Why?”

“I don't know. Why do we, Reverend Fisher?”

“The answer to that comes under the general heading of, ‘We Always Have.' I think the Sunday school uses them for projects or something. Maybe that's where they went.”

“Okay, so candle stubs and cheese. Not hearing grand theft larceny here. Mind if I look around?”

“Jump right in, only step carefully in the kitchen. The floor has just been mopped. I must say, whoever installed that new oven sure did mess up the floor. We just can't seem to get the scrape marks off the tile.' Dorothy said. “It's like somebody keeps sliding it around.”

“Probably needs leveling,” Ike said. “Would you like me to have a look?”

“Sure, if you've a mind to.”

Ike peered at the stove unit. It seemed in order and level. He peered around it to see if there might be something on the wall that interfered with the stove's proper seating.

“What's behind this thing?”

“Old storeroom. Been locked up for years. Why?”

“Just curious. Locked, you say?”

“Yep. We cleaned it out when we bought the stove. Never really used the room because of how it backs up to the boiler room and was too hot to use as a pantry or practically anything else and, besides, there was no other place to put the new oven unit, so, there you go.”

“Okay, thanks. I will let you get back to your cleaning and planning.”