Miss Julia Lays Down the Law (9 page)

Going through the back door of the church, I followed the hall to the group of rooms that made up the business office, the pastor’s office, and the office of Norma Cantrell, the pastor’s gatekeeper. Prim, precise, and too precious for words, Norma took her job as guardian of the inner sanctum seriously. She and I had had run-ins on previous occasions, but I was in no mood to get into it with her on this day.

“Good morning, Norma,” I said, breezing into her office as if I had an appointment. She turned her carefully frosted and teased head of hair toward me, lifted her eyebrows, and tried to smile. She’d been told that members of the church were to be welcomed at all times whether or not they had appointments.

“I have to see the pastor,” I said, before she could speak. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

She sniffed. “He just left.”

“Norma, I saw his car pull in just a few minutes ago, so please tell him I’m here on a matter of some urgency.”

“He came in to pick up some papers, but he had to go back out.”

“Look,” I said, standing in front of her desk, “if he went back out, why didn’t I meet him in the hall on my way in?”

“Be
cause,
” she said, as if I needed to have it spelled out, “he went up through the sanctuary to check on the sound system, then he went out the front door.” And concluding with some satisfaction, she said, “I’m sure he’s already left the parking lot by now.”

Foiled and distressed, I asked, “Well, when will he be back?”

“I have no idea. He has a luncheon engagement and several meetings this afternoon. It’d be best to make an appointment. Would you care to make one?” She pulled a desk calendar over, covered it with one arm, and began to study it. “Let’s see. This week looks full. What about a week from today? Would that work?”

“Norma,” I said, putting my hands on the desk and leaning toward her. “This will not wait a week. Now, you find a time for him to see me, and find it today.”

“Well!”
she said, drawing back, pulling the calendar with her. “You don’t have to get snippy.
I’m
not the one who makes the rules around here. I just do as I’m told.”

I stood up straight and looked long and hard at her, realizing that she had just let the cat out of the bag. “He’s avoiding me, isn’t he? He told you to put me off, didn’t he?”

“I just work here, Mrs. Murdoch. That’s all I do.”

“All right, I understand. But I want you to give the pastor a message. Tell him that if I don’t hear from him
in
person
as soon as humanly possible
today,
then all bets are off, all promises revoked, and all you-know-what will break loose.”

Fuming with anger, I went home, completely incensed that Pastor Ledbetter was sneaking in and out of the church so he wouldn’t have to see me. I knew why he was doing it—he didn’t want to release me from my promise. He would let me face questions and suspicions without doing one thing to help. What did that say about a Christian minister? Well, what did it say about a Christian, period?

Nothing good, I can tell you that. And I couldn’t even unload on Sam or Lillian, much less on Lieutenant Peavey, Detective Ellis, Binkie, Coleman, or the local newspaper. I would remain under a cloud of suspicion until I could explain my heretofore unexplained presence at Connie’s house on the day of her death.

As I walked up onto the front porch of my house, my steps slowed as the thought that I’d tried to unthink came back to haunt me. No, and no again, the pastor could not have committed such a crime. All he was trying to do was protect his suffering wife, who was proving less than able to weather a spiritual crisis. And, as he had practically admitted to me, he was trying to protect his reputation as a serene and capable leader who was in full control of his own family. Because it is a fact that no matter how well a man—maybe a woman, too—manages his professional life, any prestige or authority he has is lost if his personal life is in chaos.

But that didn’t excuse him or help me, and I intended to have it out with him if I had to camp on the church doorstep from here on out. Maybe I should take some camping-out lessons from Coleman.

 • • • 

“Oh, there you are,” Sam said as I walked into the house, shedding the coat that I hadn’t needed. “I was looking for you. Where were you?”

“Oh . . . around,” I mumbled. “Why, what’s going on?”

“I just got a call from Raleigh, and I’ll have to go to that meeting after all. The National Weather Service is predicting icy weather across the state the first of next week, so the meeting’s been moved to tomorrow. Seems there’s a bad situation with a judge in one of the eastern counties that has to be dealt with. I’m sorry, Julia, but it puts me on the spot and I’ll have to go.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Honey, I could be back tomorrow night—it all depends on how quickly we can come to terms. But I’ll certainly be home Sunday at the latest, especially if an ice storm is on its way.” He reached for my hand. “I hate to leave with all that’s going on here.”

“I’ll be fine, Sam. You do what you have to do, and I’ll be all right. Just get back before the weather moves in—it’s too risky a drive if it’s icy. Come on,” I said as I headed for the stairs, “I’ll help you pack. Oh, by the way, get back early if you can so you can see Coleman on his sign. He’s taking advantage of the mild weather to go up tomorrow and stay till Sunday evening. You don’t want to miss that.”

Sam laughed. “I’ll tell the committee I have a friend in dire need of having his head examined.”

 • • • 

Still hesitant about leaving, hemming and hawing about it, Sam finally set off on his five-hour trip right after an early lunch. His reluctance almost made me think I could be in more trouble than I’d been led to believe.

“Lillian,” I said as I pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, “I declare, I hate that Sam has to be away. I didn’t want him to know it, but I’m still so upset about what’s already happened and about what else could possibly happen.”

Lillian put two cups of coffee on the table and sat down across from me. “You know he be right back here if something else come up. An’ it don’t look like anything else could happen worse than what already happen, could it?”

“Oh,” I said as airily as I could manage, “maybe only a few trivial things. Like somebody else being attacked, or the newspaper saying I’m the prime suspect, or the sheriff deciding to arrest me. Nothing very important.”

Lillian laughed. “Miss Julia, you worry too much. Nobody gonna arrest you, an’ ev’ry door in this house is stayin’ locked, an’ nobody b’lieve the newspaper anyway.” She stirred sugar into her coffee, then leaned forward. “But I tell you what worryin’ me. That’s that nice Coleman settin’ up there on that big sign, even if he doin’ it for the little chil’ren.” She stopped, then went on. “But I guess that lady friend you tole about won’t like me sayin’ he ought not do it ’cause he’s doin’ it for somebody else’s good.”

“She won’t care. That’s the lady I found dead yesterday.”

“
No!”
Lillian cried, her eyes going wide. “Is that the truth? Law, I didn’t mean to say something bad about a dead lady.”

“You didn’t, Lillian. But I’m having the same problem. I know we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I didn’t know her well enough or long enough to find anything good to say.”

“Well, I don’t even wanta think about it no more. I got enough worries with Coleman settin’ up there, gettin’ cold an’ hungry an’ wishin’ he home in bed with Miss Binkie. Miss Julia,” she said, hunching over the table, “you tell him if it gets frosty up there, he better not be puttin’ his tongue on any of them metal poles holdin’ up that sign.”

“What? Why?”

“I always hear ’bout people puttin’ they tongue on a frosty ax blade an’ it takin’ the skin off.”

“My word. Who would do such a thing?”

“Crazy people don’t know no better, an’ people campin’ out in the wintertime.”

“Oh, well. I’ll pass that along to Coleman. But, Lillian, let me ask you something, and if it doesn’t suit you, please say so. But would you and Latisha come spend the night here while Sam’s away?”

She smiled. “I was wonderin’ ’bout that. An’ I don’t blame you. We be glad to.”

It was a long afternoon with Sam away, Lloyd in school, Hazel Marie and family down with colds, and no one I dared talk to. Even the telephone had stopped ringing—a bad sign. It probably meant that no one wanted to be associated with me, much less be tainted by conversing with me.

I almost wore a path on the Oriental in my living room, going back and forth to the front window to watch for Pastor Ledbetter’s car turning into the church parking lot. By late afternoon he still hadn’t shown up, and it occurred to me that if he absented himself from his office all week, we were in for a poorly prepared sermon come Sunday. But I had laid the law down to him, via Norma, so he knew I was just before telling what I’d promised not to tell—officially released or not. Binkie would be most interested in hearing what I had to say, and so would Detective Ellis. Lieutenant Peavey probably wouldn’t care one way or the other.

Then I thought that maybe the pastor wanted to sneak over to see me under the cover of darkness. Which didn’t make much sense, because as soon as he released me from my promise I was going to talk my head off to anybody who’d listen, anyway.
But I told Norma he had today,
I thought
, so I’ll give him till midnight.
It was going to be a long wait
.

Hearing Lillian and Latisha come in through the kitchen, I hurried to meet them. Latisha, talking constantly, had her little suitcase in one hand and three dolls in the other.

“Go on upstairs an’ put them doll babies in our room,” Lillian was telling her as I came in.

“Hey, Miss Lady,” Latisha said in her high, piercing voice. “We’re spendin’ the night with you, did you know that? Great-granny said you ast us, so here we are.”

“And I’m so happy to see you, Latisha. You’re doing me a great favor by keeping me company while Mr. Sam is away.”

“Well, let me ast you something,” Latisha said, standing beside Lillian and looking me over. “I wanta know when the police comin’ to ’rest you. ’Cause I been wantin’ to see something like that.”

“Latisha!”
Lillian cried. “What you talkin’ about! Nobody gonna get arrested ’round here. Miss Julia, I’m sorry. I don’t know where she hear such a thing. I sure didn’t tell her.”

Before I could reassure Lillian, Latisha said, “No’m, Great-granny don’t never tell me nothin’, ’cept, ‘Latisha, go to bed,’ ‘Latisha, go to school,’ ‘Latisha, go to sleep,’ ‘Latisha, go to church,’ till I get tired of all that goin’. But she don’t have to tell me, ’cause I hear it all over school today. Everybody real sorry, Miss Lady.”

“It’s all right, Latisha,” I said, trying not to moan at learning that I was the current event topic for the first grade. “But I’m not going to be arrested, because I haven’t done anything to be arrested for. So that’ll be something you can tell all your classmates tomorrow.”

“Well, that’ll be good,” she said, heading toward the hall. “I’m gonna put all this stuff upstairs, but if the police change they minds, call me. I really wanta see somebody get ’rested.”

“My Jesus,” Lillian said, mopping her face with her hand. “What they learnin’ in school, anyway?”

“There’s no telling. But don’t worry about it, Lillian. I know there’ll be rumors and gossip flying around. I’ll just have to put up with it.”
But not
for long,
I thought, and went back to the living room to check the church parking lot again.

 • • • 

That evening, the three of us sat around the kitchen table after eating, Lillian and I occasionally talking but mostly listening to Latisha. Sam had called just as we’d gotten to the table to say he was safely in Raleigh, checked into the hotel, and getting ready to meet an old friend for dinner.

Although I’d watched all afternoon, I’d not seen hide nor hair of the pastor, but now that it was getting dark, I had hopes that he’d soon show himself.

“Lillian,” I said, “I may have a visitor sometime this evening, and if so, he’ll probably want to slip in and slip out without anybody seeing him.”

Lillian frowned as she looked at me, one eyebrow arching up. “Do Mr. Sam know ’bout this?”

I smiled. “Not yet, but he will. It all has to do with my current situation, Lillian, and as soon as I can, I’ll tell you about it.”

Latisha opened her mouth to say something, but the front doorbell diverted her. “That pro’bly him,” she said.

“Who?” Lillian asked.

“That man Miss Lady waitin’ on.”

“I certainly hope so,” I said, getting to my feet, eager to put an end to my uncertain status in the eyes of the law.

Lillian stood up as well. “It could be anybody. I better go with you.”

“No, I don’t want to scare him off. You and Latisha, finish your dinner. This shouldn’t take but a minute.”

I hurried through the dining room with a lighter heart, already planning what I’d do as soon as the pastor left. Binkie would be my first call, then Sam as soon as he got back to the hotel. Then I would call Mildred and LuAnne to put their suspicions to rest, and after that I’d call Detective Ellis and tell him to take my name off the suspect list—I had a legitimate reason for having been at the Clayborn house and a respected religious leader who could attest to it.

Thinking that this was one time I could honestly say I was happy to see Pastor Ledbetter, I flipped on the porch light, flung open the door, and opened my mouth to welcome him.

It wasn’t the pastor. It was, instead, a tall, thin man in a Burberry raincoat, the only thing I recognized about him.

Sliding behind the door and holding on to it, I said, “Yes?” as visions of Connie’s kitchen and Connie’s body danced in my head.

“Mrs. Murdoch,” he said, “I apologize for not calling before coming by, but I’m Stan Clayborn, Connie’s husband. I’d like to speak with you, if I could have a few minutes of your time. Just a question or two to help me understand.” He had to pause as his voice broke. “I won’t keep you long.”

Were homicidal maniacs so well spoken? Or, as I noted the fine woolen suit and silk tie under the raincoat, so well dressed?

“Well,” I temporized, “I’m expecting my, ah, my sewing group in a few minutes—about a dozen ladies all with needles and scissors, and there’re people waiting for me in the kitchen. But I know this is a stressful time for you, so . . .” I stopped, looked behind me to see if Lillian was near. “I don’t want to be inconsiderate at such a time, so come in, Mr. Clayborn. And may I say that I am very sorry for your loss.”

I opened the door wider and he stepped inside, allowing me a closer look at him. I declare, the lines on his thin face were etched with grief, his eyes somber and deep in his head, and his cheekbones stood out in sharp relief. I was moved with pity for this suffering man.

But not quite enough for me to forget that I might be in the presence of a psychopathic wife killer. I gestured to the sofa, which he took, while I eschewed my usual seat in the wingback next to the fireplace in favor of a straight Chippendale chair near the door to the hall. Just in case.

Sitting stiffly on the sofa, his feet firmly planted, Mr. Clayborn lifted his haggard face and said, “This may be difficult for you, Mrs. Murdoch, but I can’t rest until I know what Connie’s last words were. Would you be kind enough to tell me what they were?”

My mouth opened as I stared at him. What? What was he talking about? “I’m sorry?” I said, as if I were hard of hearing.

“Her last words. Did she by chance mention me before she died? Or did she say anything that I could treasure and remember her by?”

“Mr. Clayborn,” I said, standing because I couldn’t sit still while he labored under such a misconception. “The last words that your wife said to me were said over the telephone early yesterday morning. I think they were something like, ‘I’ll see you about four.’ I’m sorry to tell you that when I arrived about four—give or take a few minutes—she was in no condition to say anything. I found her
body
,
Mr. Clayborn, and the only words spoken were my own as I tried to rouse her.” I glanced behind me, hoping that Lillian was in the hall. “I can understand your wanting to hold on to her last words, but I assure you, I was not there to hear them.”

“Ah, well,” he said, his head dropping low, “I was afraid it was too much to hope for. But when I learned that you’d been there . . . well, I just hoped.”

“Be assured, Mr. Clayborn, that I would tell you if I had anything to tell. Whoever told you I was there gave you wrong information. I mean, I was there, but she was not. That’s as kindly as I can put it.”

“Well,” he said again, suddenly springing to his feet. “Thank you for trying to help her. I must go. I’ve missed my daily run and I’m not myself if I don’t get in five or six miles every day.”

He strode past me toward the door, and I had to hop to it to let him out. Locking the door behind him, I leaned against it, my mind in a whirl. What I’d thought were signs of grief—the lanky body, the gaunt face—weren’t that at all. He was an emaciated long-distance
runner
.

And why had he thought that I’d heard Connie’s last words? Did he think
I’d
killed her?
Or
—and here I almost sank to the floor—was he making sure that Connie had not identified her killer to me?

“Miss Julia?” Lillian said, taking my arm and leading me away from the door. “You all right? You look like you seen a ghost.”

“No, not a ghost, Lillian, but maybe a ghost maker.”