Dead Dancing Women (8 page)

“What about Pastor Runcival?”

Amanda sat back. Her face got a little stiff. “You don't mean that silly sermon of his, do you? That was a long time ago …”

“Summer,” Dolly said.

“Yes, well. He told me he didn't mean anything by what he preached in church. It was just that he was using my mother and her friends as an example of how people can get off the straight path to heaven. I explained to him that what Mother and her friends were doing was nothing. They're such gardeners, is all. Everything in nature was special to them. No sinister Pagan stuff, the way he made it sound at the time. A little dancing out of doors—for health reasons, of course. That's it. Nothing to get excited about.”

Dolly nodded. I waited, though I had questions of my own.

“Pastor and I are very good friends,” Amanda added, giving a smirk that I could have sworn was meant to imply something more than mere friendship. “He wouldn't do anything to embarrass me. It was a misunderstanding, soon cleared up. He didn't wish my mother any harm, that's for certain.”

“What about the other parishioners?” Dolly said. “Maybe somebody went over the edge. Took it that the women worshipped Satan out there at Miz Henry's house. Maybe one of them's just a little too religious. Can you think of anybody like that? I mean, it's possible that some guy heard the sermon and thought he'd be doing God's work, killing your mother.”

Amanda considered for a moment, then shook her head. “No. Nobody like that.”

“Your mother ever mention somebody here in town she didn't get along with?” Dolly pressed on.

Again, Amanda shook her head.

“Did she know Harry Mockerman? He lives out on Willow Lake Road, across from me.”

She thought awhile. “I've certainly heard of Harry Mockerman. I think he and Mother went to school together, but then everybody who lived here their whole life long knows everybody else. She didn't talk about him. Not that I remember. Unless …”

Amanda screwed her face up. “Oh yes. I do too remember something. She bought wood from him for the stove. Probably last winter. If I remember correctly, Mother said he asked for one price when she first talked to him, then wanted more money when he delivered the wood. She wouldn't pay it. All I recall is her saying she'd get her wood elsewhere come this next winter. I don't know if that's anything,” she said, giving us a hopeful look.

“What about money?” Dolly shot out. “Who inherits from your mother?”

It seemed a personal question, but then I wasn't used to police interrogation, and was beginning to feel I wasn't really very good at it.

“Why,” Amanda sat up and frowned deeply, “I don't see what …”

“Is there just you?”

“Yes, just me and Mother. My father died years ago. I hardly remember him.”

“And you've always lived here with your mother?” I asked quickly before this stream of information dried up.

“All my life.”

“You never married.”

She shook her head and smiled sweetly. “Never had the opportunity. Mother needed seeing to. I wasn't free to up and leave her.”

Dolly stood. I followed her lead. We thanked Amanda and asked if we could call back if we needed more information.

At the front door, Amanda, with suspicion in her voice, asked, “Why are you and the state police both investigating what happened to my mother?”

“We always work together like this.” Dolly smiled.

“Well, I certainly hope you find out who did this and put him away for the rest of his life. I never imagined … not here in Leets­ville. Down in Detroit, or in Grand Rapids, well, there's always murder going on there, but not here. Not in our sweet little town.”

“Doesn't seem so sweet right now,” Dolly said.

I told Amanda to call if I could be of any help.

“I'm having a ceremony beginning of next week.” Amanda stopped us on the steps. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead. “Just a small remembrance ceremony at the church. Pastor and I are planning it. You're welcome to come. It will be very refined. Seems the least I can do for her.”

“Don't you want to wait until … well … until they find the rest of her?” Dolly asked. “They're out there searching right now. I'd wait if I were you.”

“Whatever,” Amanda said, dismissing the idea. “Pastor can do a nice little ceremony over just the … whatever we have, you know. And the ladies are going to serve tea and cakes in the church basement. I thought I should let everybody come and express their sympathy like that. I mean, it's only right after all.”

I didn't see the sense to what she was planning. Why rush at this point? But who's going to argue with a grieving daughter? Whatever it takes, I said to myself.

“By the way,” Dolly turned in the middle of the narrow front walk, “Ernie Henry sends his condolences, if you haven't talked to him yet. Said to say how sorry for your loss he and his mother are. But maybe you've already heard from him?” Dolly waited.

The woman's face turned a brilliant red. She shook her head. “Nothing yet, but I expect everybody will come to the service we're …”

She stopped talking and looked hard toward a car pulling into place behind mine at the curb. “Why, speak of the devil. Here's Jos­lyn Henry now. Poor soul. She's probably as distraught as I am.” Amanda smiled wanly and leaned against the doorjamb.

As we watched, an unhappy-looking Joslyn Henry got out of her car, head down. She came through the gate and started up the walk, almost running into us.

“Miz Henry,” Dolly said, putting a hand up as if she were going to tip her hat.

“I was just over to your place,” I said with false heartiness.

Joslyn Henry, tall and straight, stopped abruptly, looked up, and frowned at me as if she couldn't place who I was. “What for?” she demanded.

“I needed some information about Ruby Poet. I heard you two were friends and I wanted some background for a story I'm doing …”

Joslyn Henry waved a hand, dismissing me. She spotted Amanda on her porch and pushed on past. “I'll talk to you later, Emily. First I've got to see Amanda.

“Amanda,” she called toward the woman on the porch. “There's something we have to discuss …”

“Come on in, Miz Henry,” Amanda trilled, cutting her short. “I was hoping to see you.”

“Well, there's something you need to know …”

“Come right on in, now.”

Joslyn Henry was up the steps and into the house before another word could be said. The door closed behind them.

Dolly and I looked at each other. In the car, Dolly underlined Joslyn Henry's name in her notebook. We definitely had to have a talk with her, find out what had upset her.

“And Pastor Runcival, too,” Dolly said, writing down his name again. “Gotta talk to him.”

“We'd better divide 'em up,” I said, glancing at the list of people. “Or we'll never get through it. And we don't know how the state police are doing. Maybe they're way ahead of us.”

Dolly fixed me with a stern look and adjusted her hat firmly to her small, oblong head. “This isn't a race, Emily. We're not in competition. No contest, remember? You said that yourself. But if it's between them and us, people will want to talk to us.”

“Like Joslyn Henry just did?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

I picked Pastor Runcival and Joslyn Henry from our list. Dolly got Mary Margaret Murphy and Flora Coy. We came up with a set of questions for each of them.

“Don't forget we're talking about almost a month ago,” Dolly reminded me. “That's about when she was killed. So ask them what was going on back then. What they remember involving Ruby Poet. And Pastor Runcival, you ask him where he heard about the women, and what he said, and if anybody in his church was especially upset over them.”

“Should we wait for Joslyn Henry?” I asked.

Dolly made a face and shook her head. “Nah. We'll get her tomorrow, when she's settled down. She was sure upset about something, don't you think? By tonight, tomorrow, maybe then she'll be ready to talk to us. It's more than her friend dying, I'd say.”

“More like she was intent on something,” I said.

Dolly looked thoughtful. “Better to wait until later,” she said.

Fine with me. I'd had enough of bearding lions for one day, and waiting seemed like a good idea at the time.

THIRTEEN

Directly across the street
from the Poets' house, The Church of the Contented Flock sat like an orphaned chick beneath tall maples and taller pines. The yellow, bluntly squared-off, wood building had a peak at the exact middle, with a plain brown crucifix nailed at the highest point. There was something forlorn about the little church, a rundown look to it like an old A-frame back in the woods.

Pastor Runcival raked leaves on the front lawn. He wore a dark blue crewneck sweater and jeans. Very casual, though his wispy brown hair was combed back with almost painful precision, each hair in perfect alignment with the hair next to it. A cheap toupee, I thought, hoping it wasn't one, not liking the vision in my head of this small man with stooped shoulders and tight mouth also cursed with baldness.

I strolled over to introduce myself and watched the disappointment on the small man's face as he realized he didn't have a new believer, only a reporter wanting a quote or two about Ruby Poet.

“Haven't seen you around before, have I? A Catholic?” He leaned on his rake, and sniffed. He eyed me speculatively.

I shook my head.

“Pentecostal? Methodist? Presbyterian?” His tight face got tighter as he scrolled through possibilities. I shook my head at each. Finally, he gave up when he'd ticked off every acceptable church he could think of.

“Well, Miss Kincaid. What can I do for you?”

I explained about helping Deputy Dolly Wakowski look into Mrs. Poet's death.

“Have you spoken to Amanda?” he motioned impatiently toward the Poet house. His round face, behind small round glasses, labored into a narrow smile. “She'd be the one to ask.”

“Just came from there,” I said, smiling my best good-girl-trying-to-be-liked smile. “Naturally she's upset about what happened to her mother, and she wants whoever did this caught right away …”

“As do we all.” The pastor leaned harder on his rake and slowly bobbled his head. “As do we all. Never heard of anything so cruel. But then, there's evil loose in the world. Let in by our media. The TV and you newspaper people, of course. Report it all the time. Give it the form it's been hunting. Think about it.” He bent closer to me, the rake a staff between us. “Before the printing press, what was there? News didn't spread. It was contained; wasn't copied and magnified. We'd all be better off without too much information. You have to take responsibility, you know.” He was nodding and motioning with his rake—though not a hair moved on his bouncing little head.

Hmm—an attack I wasn't prepared for. I thought as fast as I could and stammered a lame, “What about the persecution of Christians? The Sack of Rome. What about the Middle Ages, horrible executions …” I tried desperately to come up with more from my meager store of historical knowledge. “All without the help of a single newspaper to spread the word.”

Pastor Runcival bent backward, then forward again, fixing me with bright, arrogant, little eyes. “Before the printing press—we knew nothing of any of that.”

“But your own Bible …”

“We don't rely on any book at the Church of the Contented Flock. We're ‘Content' in our secure and direct knowledge of God. Think of the confusion brought by the printed word.”

“What about school—the kids?” I was too astounded by this Luddite view of the world to do more than grab for words.

“Ah, yes, education.” He nodded wisely. “A necessary evil. Because of the state. If I had my way, well, the children would all be taught at home, by their parents and the church. Their heads wouldn't be filled with ideas that pull young minds in a million wrong directions …”

“Everybody in your church believes the way you do?”

“Well, not yet. Not all. But they're coming to it.” He smiled and dipped his head a time or two. “Many find it difficult to undo what years of education have wrought.”

“And Mrs. Poet?”

“Misguided woman. A constant source of regret to poor Amanda. Amanda, contrary to most of nature, was the child trying to lead the mother, rather than the other way around.”

“Amanda's got newspapers all over her house. I was just there.”

The reverend brushed that aside. “An aberration. We all have our failings, though we keep trying. We keep trying, my dear. Perfection is not within the scope of man. Only striving. We strive, therefore we are.” He smiled and passed a hand over his pasted hair.

I think, therefore I am …

I figured the man had to have read a book sometime to know René Descartes. Hypocrite? I wondered. Or a man simpler, and wiser, than I was capable of comprehending.

“I heard you'd preached against Mrs. Poet and some of her friends. Maybe your sermon set off something. There are other ways of spreading evil. Ill-considered words, that sort of thing.”

The pastor's face moved into an expression of deep distaste. “Don't try shifting blame to God's people, young woman. Old business. That was way back, oh, over a month ago now. I'm sure my little chide to the women had nothing to do …”

He smiled a nervous smile. A contrite smile. So, he did have a conscience. I wasn't saying anything he hadn't already taken up with himself. I thought about hair shirts and knotted whips then thought, instead, of how we all try to get along, make a place for ourselves in the world. This was the reverend's gnawed-out niche. Who was I to attack the man for finding his own place?

“The police are looking into all angles,” I said by way of sympathy. “Could have been any number of things …”

“As well they should look into it,” he agreed, then began slowly raking leaves again, his head down, eyes averted. “Poor soul probably got lost. You know, at that age …”

“She was dismembered.”

“Animals, no doubt.”

I didn't go into my not-in-my-garbage-can speech. No use. These people, like so many others I'd met before, would have things as they wanted them to be. I was tired of demanding intellectual honesty from anyone.

“What was it you preached against?” I pressed, as much as I felt I could.

“You're with the newspaper, you said. I don't give answers that might appear in print.”

“I'm also helping the local police in their investigation.”

“Really?” His eyebrows shot up.

“We're determined to discover who committed this terrible crime …” I had nothing against shrugging on self-importance if it helped. I didn't know this man from … well, from Adam. Maybe he was an ecclesiastical murderer—if there was such a thing. Maybe he'd killed Ruby Poet because she read the
Northern Statesman
, and then slipped her head into my garbage can as a warning to a reporter. And threw her arm on my porch …

Much as I didn't care for this self-puffed person, I wasn't picking up desperate murderer from him.

“As are we all,” the pastor said yet again, and shook his head with exaggerated sorrow.

“If you could just think back. What were the women doing that you objected to?”

“Hmm.” The gigantic pile of leaves between us stirred. He stopped raking, grew thoughtful, his faded eyes looking off. “What I objected to at the time was the fact that some of our leading citizens, th
ese very women, were taking up a form of religious practice that was in no way in line with the teachings of our church. Or any church, for that matter. From what was being said around town, it sounded like Druidic practice. All that dancing in the woods, holding ceremonies out there at Joslyn Henry's on Pagan feast days. A number of my parishioners came to me with complaints about what they'd heard.”

“Did you ever witness the dancing?”

“Of course not, but I was told what was going on.”

“By whom?”

“I'd rather not say. Shall we simply say it was brought to my attention? More than one person, now that I think about it.”

“Surely you can say who complained? It would help.”

He shook his head again.

“Anyone express their unhappiness with the women about anything else?”

He thought a moment.

“Any fanatics in your church the sermon might have set off? You know, somebody who would kill an old woman because of her
beliefs?”

The parson pursed his lips. “No one in my church. We don't have that kind of parishioner in the Church of the Contented Flock. We are simple people with a simple faith.”

“If you think of anything, or think of who complained to you about Ruby Poet and the others, I'd appreciate a call. Emily Kincaid, out on Willow Lake Road.”

“You in the book?” he asked with a straight face, not considering what he was saying.

I nodded but couldn't hide my silly smile. “Yes, I'm in ‘the book.'”

“Maybe some Sunday you'd like to stop in for services.” The parson was all brightness and light now that the inquisition was over. “We're got a lively group here. If I say so myself, I do preach an interesting sermon. You should give us a try. Might lead you to a more honorable profession.”

I promised that one day I might do just that. Sure thing, I thought. I'll give up the evils of the written word—soon as he got a decent haircut. I left Pastor to his raking.

Joslyn Henry hadn't come out of Amanda Poet's house while I was talking to the pastor, so there was nothing more for me to do but go home. It wasn't hard to talk myself into it. I had research on the Survivalists to do that evening, and I wanted to make lists of what I'd learned so far about this Poet business to share with Dolly. Anyway, I was tired of talking to people who weren't really interested in talking back to me.

As I drove past Murphy's Funeral Home, I saw Dolly's patrol car parked at the curb, behind a black, shining hearse with Murphy's Funeral Home inscribed on the door in small gold letters. I hoped she was getting more information than I was. So far, we seemed to have nothing but a group of people who all loved sweet old Mrs. Poet, or at least were only concerned about her soul, and wouldn't harm a hair on her head. Notwithstanding, that the head was loose and very, very dead.

Simon's yellow SUV was parked down next to my house when I got back. I now had a dog, I imagined. Something to care for me and love me unconditionally. And if he ever ran after another female I'd get him fixed, I pledged as my first act of dog ownership. I was telling myself all of this while parking and waving to Simon and his girlfriend, Gloria, the waitress I knew from EATS. They were down by Willow Lake, romping in the ferns with my new puppy.

The first to notice me was the little dog, who came happily bouncing up the path, tongue lolling out of his black and white face, paws barely touching the earth as he leaped into the air and hit me squarely in the stomach.

The dog had grown in the two days since I'd last seen him. What I hadn't noticed when Simon held him on his lap were his huge, shaggy feet.

I righted myself and held the squirming animal down with one hand on the flat of his head as I greeted Simon, then Gloria, who looked different out of her waitressing outfit. She was in jeans and a long purple sweater, her brown hair caught back in a ponytail. We talked while the dog leaped around us in circles, yelping and carrying on, though he was being ignored.

“I knew you couldn't turn him down,” Simon grinned and shouted over the noise.

“Is he always this … happy?” I asked, one eye on the wild figure leaping and flipping in the air.

“Just like this.” Simon nodded as if it were a good thing.

I asked them into the house for a Coke or a cup of coffee, and we traipsed back up the sand path with the dog running circles around us.

In the house Dog settled down; even seemed a little cowed by four walls and a roof. Timidly, he sniffed each piece of furniture and nudged up my rugs with his nose. Gloria helped me find a water bowl for him—an old plastic container—then we sat at the counter to talk dog food and the responsibilities of pet ownership.

I shouldn't have gotten too deeply into the discussion. I should have noticed that Dog was walking funny, but I didn't, and Gloria and Simon were busy looking over my house while discussing the finer points of doggie raising. Dog squatted in the middle of one of my better carpets; one my dad said came from Turkey, and left me a pile of steaming shit.

Simon laughed and Gloria admonished the puppy with a few sad mews and clucks. I got paper towels and scooped the pile into a plastic garbage bag that I set outside the door, all the while gagging and holding my nose. I got a rag and some spray cleaner, and did the best I could for the carpet.

First thing was going to be toilet training. I thought some kind of litter box, but Simon said I had the wrong animal. I had to train Dog to go outside to do his business.

“You can keep him on the screen porch when you're not here,” Gloria said. “Little puddles and stuff won't hurt the wood out there.”

I looked at the size of the dog, growing before my eyes, and speculated on the size of those puddles and piles. OK, I told myself. It's my fault that I don't know anything about caring for him. I'd learn. He'd learn. And we'd live happily ever after. I figured it was kind of like a marriage. First was attraction—when everything seemed OK. Then came living together, and reality. And finally came acceptance, or at least sufferance.

“So,” Simon said from his stool at my counter, after Dog had fallen into a sleeping stupor in the living room. “You and Deputy Dolly learn anything about what happened to Miz Poet?”

I smiled an inscrutable smile.

As if I would inform the town criers of our progress.

“Gloria said she told you about Pastor Runcival, and that sermon he preached last summer. Everybody knew who he was talking about. A bunch of harmless old ladies. No devil worship and stuff like that going on, from what Ernie told me. Just some ladies taking to the woods and baking cookies and having a kind of party out there.”