The Fame Equation (30 page)

“Keith Carson has already agreed, as has Brad Paisley,” said Davis. His expression revealed nothing and I wished he’d let his guard down, just for a second.

Despite all we had to discuss, the meeting only lasted about forty-five minutes. By the time our little committee broke up, it had been full dark for over an hour, but the parking lot was lit, and through the window I could see a few people who’d had meetings in other parts of the church walking toward their cars.

I pulled my phone out of my purse, ready to text Darcy, when Ruthie asked me to stay for a minute. She saw my hesitation, then added, “I won’t keep you long. I’m waiting for Emily, Sandy Sweet, and a few others who are finishing up at the riding center. I just wanted to talk about Melody.”

I put my phone back in my purse, watched Melody’s team get into their cars, and sat stiffly back down.

“Being a pastor is a blessing, Cat, but it has limitations,” said Ruthie, sitting down behind her desk. “I have to be the wall that absorbs the pain of everyone else in the church. I don’t have many people to talk to about my friendship with Melody. I thought since we both knew her well, we might have stories to share.”

I relaxed a little. In my book, sitting in a pastor’s office was something akin to sitting in a principal’s office. If I didn’t sit up straight enough, or give the right answers, I might be criticized. But Ruthie was easy to talk to and as the minutes wore on, I found myself enjoying the time. That is, I enjoyed myself until I spotted Mr. Clean Cut walking through the parking lot. All of a sudden the Holy Church of the Mighty Happy seemed neither holy nor happy.

Ruthie saw me looking out the window and an expression that I can only describe as regret crossed her face. Before I had time to think, Ruthie stood up from her desk, stretched out her right arm, and sprayed what I later learned was a strong concentration of pepper spray into my eyes.

The pain was tremendous, and of course I did the exact opposite of what I should have done. I cried out, and brought my hands up to my face to rub the spray away, which only served to spread the residue into my nose and mouth. Then I reached out, nearly blind, searching for the door. I needed to find a bathroom, anything with water, so I could wash off the burning spray.

My outreached hands, however, only helped Ruthie grab my wrists and pull them behind me. Before I knew it, she had secured them. Tears were pouring from my eyes, and drainage poured from my nose.

“What are you doing?” I cried. I kicked out, hoping to connect with Ruthie, but instead smacked my foot into her desk. Then I swung my upper body around, also trying to connect, but with no luck. I was taller and thinner than she was, but she had the advantage of clear vision and use of her arms. Before I knew it, she had clubbed me on the side of my head with a heavy, hardcover version of the Bible, and it stunned me enough to knock me to the ground. While I was catching my breath she wound duct tape around my ankles, then slapped some tape across my mouth. Her last move was to drag me into a closet, and close and lock the door.

Ruthie! All along it had been Ruthie. But why? I should have wondered what Ruthie’s next plans for me were and how was I going to get out of the closet, but all I could think was, as a pastor, Ruthie was the one who had ultimately betrayed Melody’s deepest trust. Damn her.

Then I remembered what had bothered me in my conversation with Martin. Allen and Emily could alibi each other for the time period of midnight Wednesday night to eight
A.M.
Thursday morning, but there was no one to back up Ruthie’s whereabouts.

The closet was warm and I had trouble breathing, what with my nose running so badly and all. But after a while my eyes and nose dried up some. I was trying to formulate a plan, when Ruthie started to speak to me through the door.

“Sorry about this Cat, but you didn’t take my warning. I sent you a text. You should have listened to me. Then, when Garrett Ross, the young man who screens our new parishioners, saw the detective on your porch yesterday, I knew you would have to be eliminated.”

Garrett Ross. Did she mean Mr. Clean Cut? Either that, or Ruthie had gone over the edge and was speaking gibberish. While Ruthie had been talking I had silently scooted to the edge of the dark closet and was running my cheek and the back of my hands along what wall space I could reach. I hoped to find a jagged edge or a nail head, something I could use to peel the tape off my face or tear it off my wrists. So far, no luck. I also wondered what time it was. Darcy was due at eight. I desperately hoped she would not barge in and be caught by Ruthie, too.

There was no light coming in underneath the closet door. Maybe Ruthie had all of the church lights turned off. If so, that might spook Darcy into calling Martin or Bobby Lee.

“Of course, I wasn’t waiting for Emily and Sandy,” said Ruthie. “Everyone at the center has already left for the day. But Cat, the Holy Church of the Mighty Happy is not financially sound. Our books look it to be, but that’s because Allen is a financial genius––on paper. I laughed when the police took our ledger. To them, we will look to be in excellent shape, but only because Allen vastly minimized our expenses. Truthfully, and I always want to be truthful, our happy little church is mighty broke right now.”

Come on Darcy,
I thought.
Get over here
.
See that something is wrong
.
Call 911
.

“When Melody updated her will,” Ruthie continued, “she told me what she had done. She wanted to be sure we knew if anything happened to her that we’d be taken care of. But she didn’t realize two things. One was that we were so destitute, and two, the terms of her will gave us cash, but not property. If she had closed on the new house she was paying cash for, we’d have received a lot less than we did, and Cat, we needed every single cent. Melody had to go before she closed on that house.”

Just then I felt one soft thump through the floor. Ruthie went on talking, so maybe the vibration had escaped her.

“My original plan was for you to follow in your good friend’s footsteps. Melody came early that Thursday morning to be re-baptized. I had convinced her that she should do this to purify herself for her new life in her new house. She parked behind the trees at six in the morning and walked down to the river. I held up a sheet while she changed into a baptismal robe, then tied heavy plastic bags around themselves over her hands. She’d just had a manicure and didn’t want to mess up her nails. Of course the plastic kept me from being scratched, and kept my DNA from getting under her fingernails.”

Ruthie Cosgrove was a monster. I had worked my way all the way around the closet and finally found the tiniest edge of a board that didn’t quite meet up flush with its neighbor. As I listened to Ruthie’s tale of horror, I began to frantically scrape the duct tape on my wrists against the edge of the board. My scraping made no sound, but I heard the teensiest scrape of a footfall somewhere close by. I shuffled around some to create noise to cover whoever was out there. I hoped it wasn’t Mr. Clean Cut. What had Ruthie called him? Garrett Ross. I hoped it wasn’t him. I also hoped it wasn’t Darcy.

“When I dipped Melody back in the name of our Lord and Savior, I just held her under,” said Ruthie. “Melody fought like a bearcat, but she was tiny. It was easy enough to do. Then I pulled the baptismal robe away, pulled the plastic bags off her hands and set her body off downriver. After, I wrapped the robe and plastic bags in a trash bag and put it all into our dumpster. Our service comes Thursday mornings to haul the trash off.”

Nearby I heard a click, so I moved around some more. Anything to create noise.

“Then I drove Melody’s car into the woods up the road. Later, after the back parking lot had been searched, I moved the car back. Hardly anyone goes past that screen of trees this time of year. And that, dear Cat, is what I had planned for you. Except you had the misfortune of seeing Garrett Ross in the parking lot and you panicked. Now I have to figure out what to do with you.”

By this time I had made some headway on the tape on my wrists, but not enough. Not nearly enough. Suddenly there was a crash, and voices and light filled the room. Furniture was turned over and Ruthie began to scream.

I heard Martin call my name just as Bobby Lee began to read Ruthie her rights. I banged my feet against the locked closet door and Martin flipped the latch from the outside and opened the door. I am not sure what he expected to see, but me trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey was obviously not it.

After, Darcy told me that she drove to the church about ten minutes to eight, only to find it completely dark. She then called Martin, who told her to drive the half mile back into Kingston Springs, to safety, which she did. The initial thump I heard had been a cop who had been nearby. As soon as he let himself into the building he heard Ruthie’s voice and began to record it on his phone. Next was Bobby Lee, and then Martin, along with several other first responders. As soon as they had the team assembled and enough evidence on tape, they broke through the locked door to her office.

An EMT checked me out and declared me healthy enough to give a statement. After, I called Buffy so she could share the news with Melody’s team. I knew everyone would want to know. Then I drove home with Darcy and, in the dark, went to my tree on the riverbank and cried.

The tears let out all the stress and emotion of the past few days. I cried for my relationship with Brent, and because I was scared to death to serve as Bubba’s pseudo-parent. I knew nothing about raising a child. I cried because Ruthie had tried to kill me twice, and because she had ruined, for me, my affection for my beloved truck. I cried with gratitude for Melody who had left me so much money, and for the loss of our lifelong friendship, which hadn’t been all that long. I cried because I loved horses so much I sometimes could barely breathe. I even cried for Jon, and for Inola and Tsula, whom I had never met, but hoped to one day.

My tears were cleansing, and after they stopped, I felt the cool night wind in my hair and on my face. I would always remember Melody with love and hoped someday to have another friendship as strong as ours had been. But maybe not with someone so famous. That had been the problem all along. Money, plus talent, success, passion, and vulnerability equaled fame. My friend’s talent, passion, and success brought her money. But she was vulnerable when it came to matters of trust. Ultimately it was the fame equation that caused Melody’s demise.

Eventually I disengaged myself from the tree and climbed the few feet up to the top of the bank. There, I was startled to see Jon, Darcy, Bubba, and Hank waiting for me, flashlights in hand.

“We thought you might decide to throw yourself in the river,” exclaimed Bubba.

“No, nothing like that,” I said. “I just needed some time. Thank you though, all of you. I’m sure that if I had ended up in the river, the three of you would have pulled me right out. Hank, too.”

“Absolutely,” Jon said, and with that he stretched out his hand. I hesitated, then took it. Bubba took my other hand and Darcy joined hands with him. Hank picked up a new stick and ran ahead, as together, we walked back to my little farmhouse.

O
N A FROSTY
S
ATURDAY MORNING
, two weeks before Christmas, Bubba and I lured Darcy into the barn. There, in the far corner of the arena, was Petey, groomed to perfection with long red ribbons braided into his short mane, and a rosette of red flowers attached to the top of his tail. He was hitched to the new black, two-seater cart and Jon, dressed in a rented white tuxedo with top hat and tails, sat in the driver’s seat. I had never seen Jon dressed up before, and I had to admit that he looked finer than frog hair, as my grandmother would have said.

Bubba flipped on Frank Sinatra’s version of “Come Fly With Me” and Jon and Petey smartly pulled the cart up to where Darcy was standing. It was worth all of the time Jon and I had spent just to see Darcy’s jaw drop.

“Your carriage awaits, milady,” said Jon. “Hop in.”

Darcy had to take her hands away from her face to climb in, but by the third circuit of the arena, Darcy was driving. Finally she stopped, handed the reins back to Jon, and jumped out of the cart.

“I can’t believe you guys did this!” she cried, running up to me. She landed against me with a whoosh and it took a bit to disentangle her arms from around my neck. “Can we enter him in driving classes?” Darcy asked. “Oh, I want to! Can we?”

“Definitely. You’ll have to drive Petey a lot this winter, though. Better to do it with a helper. Maybe someone like Bubba here. He helped, too.”

And he had. Several times he had sat in the driver’s seat while Jon led Petey, who was hitched to the cart. I drove from the ground.

I left Jon, Darcy, and Bubba to unhook Petey and wandered down to Sally’s stall. After the news about Ruthie broke and Agnes called for the umpteenth time, she told me that Sally had telepathically sent her information about the clues she had been giving us.

“Sally was blowing bubbles because she knew Melody had been drowned in the river,” Agnes said. “Well, we all found that out early on, but Sally knew it first.”