Three Times Lucky (15 page)

He gave me a halfhearted wink and then looked at Dale. “I still can’t believe Mama let you ride out of Mr. Jesse’s in handcuffs,” he said, shaking his head.

“Dale’s got a bodyguard, that’s why,” I said.

“Yeah,” Dale said. “I got some short guy that sweats a lot. Mo spotted him behind an azalea. We call him Plainclothes Phil.”

“A bodyguard? You’re a regular celebrity. No wonder the girls are after you. I envy you, little brother,” Lavender
said, watching the twins link arms with Tinks Williams and stroll toward the church. “I couldn’t get a date right now if my life depended on it.”

“Yes you could,” I said. “I’ll go out with you in just seven more years.”

He smiled. “Thanks. Hey, I’d better go talk to Sam, to see what’s going on with the car,” he said. “I’ll see you two after the service.”

As he threaded his way through the crowd, Skeeter and Sal drifted by. “Mr. Jesse’s friend and her hubby just pulled up,” Skeeter said, nodding at a dark sedan.

“Good work,” I said, pretending not to watch as a dumpy woman in a flowered dress climbed out of the car. “Thanks.”

Dale and I entered the church to find most of the pews full. Miss Rose sat at the piano, playing old hymns. “Mama looks like an angel,” Dale whispered. She sounded like one too, playing prayers for Mr. Jesse.

We slid into the front pew, beside Miss Lana. The huge mirror behind the piano gave me a view of everyone behind me—the whole town, and then some. My eyes lingered on the strangers as I performed my Upstream Mother scan. No one looked like me. I scanned a second time, wishing the Colonel would stroll in wearing his dress uniform, his hat tucked beneath his arm.

Why would he stay away now? Why didn’t he call?

“The murderer has to be here,” Dale whispered.

“Starr thinks so too,” I said. Starr, dressed in an iron-gray suit, crisp white shirt, and black tie, sat on the very last row, Miss Retzyl by his side.

We rustled to silence and Reverend Thompson strode to the pulpit, black robe billowing. I slipped my pad from my pocket as he prayed. “Amen,” he said.

Miss Lana took the pulpit, looking stately in black. She stood strong and sad as she waited for our eyes to find hers. “Jesse Tatum was our neighbor,” she said. “He shared his life with us, he shared his meals with us, he left without saying good-bye.”

Then came the spiritual curveball.

“This is our chance to say good-bye, and to tell each other what we learned from Jesse,” she said. “The Good Book says a child shall lead us, so we’ll start with Mo.”

What?

When Miss Lana told me to think about what I’d learned from Mr. Jesse, I thought it was just something people say, like “Walk facing traffic,” or “Don’t put your elbows on the table.”

She smiled benevolently. “Say whatever’s in your heart, sugar.”

Sometimes I could kill Miss Lana. But then who would I have?

I faced the congregation. Lavender sat on the back
pew. Attila sat to my left; Mr. Jesse’s girlfriend to my right. Grandmother Miss Lacy Thornton shared a pew with Skeeter and Salamander. A gaggle of strangers, including Plainclothes Phil, crowded the door. “I’m Mo LoBeau of Desperado Detectives. I was used to Mr. Jesse and I’ll miss him,” I said. “I’m sorry he’s dead, but I’m glad I found the murder weapon.”

“Nice,” Dale whispered.

“One thing I learned from him was even if you’re stingy, tip good. Finally, I’d like to say if you are the murderer,” I said, looking around the church, “Desperado Detectives will hunt you down like the dog you are. Thank you.”

“Straight from the heart,” Miss Lana said. “Now you may call on someone.”

“Not me,” Dale whispered. “Pick a suspect.”

A suspect? Brilliant. “The double-chinned lady with the jealous husband,” I said, pointing to Mr. Jesse’s girlfriend. I winked at Lavender and sat down.

“Me?” she sputtered. The crowd turned. “I barely knew Jesse Tatum, and my husband doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body,” she said. “We were at a shag contest in Myrtle Beach the day Jesse died. Anything else you’ve heard is a lie.”

I scribbled a note on my pad:
Ask Skeeter to check her alibi
.

She pointed to Anna Celeste, who rose, smoothing
her blue sundress. “Mr. Jesse taught me to dress neatly because people talk, bless his heart. Sally Amanda?”

Sal stood, her face framed by a halo of tight curls. “I hardly knew him. I call on Dale,” she said, blushing.

He gulped.
“Me?”

“Sorry, Dale,” she said. “I forgot you might be the murderer.” She looked at Miss Lana. “May I have a do-over? I call on Thes.”

Thes popped to his feet, his round face red and glistening. He loosened his bow tie. “Everybody thinks Mr. Jesse was cheap,” he said. “But he wasn’t. Every Saturday night he slid a hundred dollars under the church door. He did it for eleven years that I know of. Even in hazardous weather.”

The church erupted like a hive of startled bees.

I looked in the mirror to see Joe Starr lean forward, his hand on the pew before him, to study the crowd. “What?” Mayor Little cried. “Jesse Tatum made donations?”

“It’s true,” Thes said. “I saw him.”

“Thank you, Thes,” Reverend Thompson cried, jumping to his feet and throwing his arms open. “Let us pray,” he boomed over the hubbub.

I looked in the mirror. Everybody in the room bowed their heads.

Everybody except me, and Joe Starr.

At prayer’s end, Dale strolled to the piano, closed his eyes, and began to sing.

Amazing Grace is right. When Dale sings, even the wind stops to listen.

As his last crystal sound died away, the congregation rose and headed for the door, murmuring like doves. I, on the other hand, trailed Thes. At the choir loft, a hand snaked out of the shadows. “Psssst,” Deputy Marla hissed. “Over here.”

“Hey, Deputy,” I said, watching Starr slip inside Reverend Thompson’s office. Her grip was cold against my skin. I twisted my arm against her thumb, the way Mr. Li taught me, and pulled away. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” She smiled as Starr closed the door behind him.

The pattern of her close-fitting summer suit blended with the diamond shadows of the choir loft’s small windows. She’s good at surveillance, I thought. Good at hiding. “Look, I had a feeling you wanted to tell me something yesterday, at Priscilla’s,” she said. “I’m sorry I had to rush off, but my work is like that. Is everything okay with you? Kids don’t usually ask about cold cases, even if they are detectives.”

Don’t tell her,
a voice inside me whispered.

But why not? Everybody in town knows about me.

“I was thinking about my Upstream Mother,” I said. “She went missing eleven years ago and I been tracking her ever since. That’s how I got into the detective business.”

“So that’s your cold case,” she said. “Your mother.” Her eyes went soft. “That’s tough.” She studied me a moment. “I’m sorry, Mo, we really don’t handle cold cases. But …”

I shrugged. “That’s okay, I got it covered.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” she said. “We don’t handle cold cases, but if there’s ever a
specific
piece of information I can help with, or if you need a sounding board, come see me. I’ll do what I can. As a professional courtesy.” Then she grinned, and winked. “Just don’t tell my boss,” she whispered.

A professional courtesy? For me? “Thanks,” I said.

She faded back into the shadows, and I headed for Reverend Thompson’s office. “Good afternoon,” I said, pushing the door open. “Sorry I’m late.”

Before Starr could react, Reverend Thompson waved me in. “Come in, Mo,” he said. “We’re just answering some questions for Detective Starr.”

“About Mr. Jesse’s contributions,” Thes added.

“Thanks, Reverend,” I said, taking my place beside my fellow detective.

Starr cleared his throat. “You say all of Jesse’s contributions were in cash?”

“Hundred-dollar bills,” Reverend Thompson said. “I didn’t know who they were from until recently, and I never tried to find out. The first one came with a note.”

I opened my clue pad. “A note? Do you still have it?”

Starr snapped his pen and glared at me. He looked sharp in a suit—starched, pressed, and shined. Some people look like they were born on a clothes hanger. Not me. I look more like I was born in a dryer.

“Mo,” Starr said, “you can stand in on my interview, but be quiet. Otherwise I’ll clear the room. Got it?” I nodded. “Do you still have Jesse Tatum’s note?” he asked the reverend. I rolled my eyes. That was
my
question.

“No,” Reverend Thompson said. “But I can tell you what it said: ‘Keep this money quiet or the rest goes to the Episcopalians.’”

Episcopalians?
I wrote.

“Did that strike you as odd? Jesse Tatum leaving money here?”

“Yes. Jesse never attended our church, even as a visitor.”

“Not even when there was free food,” Thes added.

“But, Grace happens,” the reverend said. “Jesse could have been a believer, but not a church-goer. Or he could
have felt guilty about something, and felt better sliding a little just-in-case money under the door.”

“Tell me about seeing him the first time, Thes,” Starr said.

Thes glanced at his father, who nodded. “It was an accident. My cat Spitz had got out again, and I was looking for him. As usual.”

“And you saw Jesse Tatum … ?”

“I saw him sneak up in the moonlight, and slide a white envelope under the door. After that, I staked out the door for a couple of weeks. It was him, all right.”

“What did you do with the money?” Starr asked Reverend Thompson.

The reverend smiled. “First I thanked God for it. Then I put it in the bank. We bought paint for the sanctuary, updated the baptistery, mended the roof. You’re welcome to look at our books.”

“That won’t be necessary. How much money are we talking about? Total.”

Reverend Thompson reached for a calculator, punched in some numbers, and whistled. “Let’s say eleven years … roughly fifty-seven thousand two hundred dollars.”

I gasped. “Where did Mr. Jesse get that kind of money?”

Joe Starr snapped his pad shut. “Good question,” he said. “Where, indeed?”

That night I grabbed my pen and notebook.

By Monday morning, the Colonel still hadn’t called. “We have to do something,” I told Miss Lana as we walked up the gravel path to the café.

“I’ll handle it, Mo,” she said—again. “You don’t need to worry.” She kept her voice easy, but I knew from the thin of her smile that she was worried too.

At the café, where Mr. Jesse’s church donations were the topic du jour, rumors ran rampant: Mr. Jesse had won a lottery Up North; Mr. Jesse had millions in a Swiss bank; the Baptists had somehow snookered the Episcopalians.

Miss Rose and Dale came in mid-morning, glistening from time in the garden. “Mama’s giving me time off for good behavior,” Dale told me, toting a bucket of cucumbers to the kitchen. “You want to go to Lavender’s, and then look for clues?”

“Only if you don’t swagger and mess with your hair,” I said. “It’s embarrassing.” I turned to Miss Lana. “Is it okay? Can I go?”

She nodded, filling three takeout cups with iced tea. “Tell Lavender hello for me, and don’t you stay too long. He’s working on his car, I imagine.”

He wasn’t. We found him at his house, sleepy-eyed and tousled. “Hey,” I said as he opened the door. “Miss Lana sent you some iced tea.”

“Bless her,” he said, taking a cup and stepping aside.

His house shocked me. Lavender generally keeps his place neat and full of light. Today the rug lay heavy with dirt, and socks slouched pigeon-toed by the kitchen door. Yesterday’s funeral tie dangled from a doorknob, and drawn shades let dusty slices of sunlight into the room. “It’s nearly ten o’clock,” I said. “You sick?”