Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 09 (12 page)

“Now, Mr. Hope, would you care to explain?” I said.

“Call me Malachi,” he said in an unsuccessful attempt to evoke a sense of camaraderie. He gave me a minute to respond (I didn’t), then sighed and said, “Norma Kay Grapper has been writing me letters once a month for the last ten years, asking for spiritual guidance. I always tell my most loyal followers that I’ll meet with them for a private counseling session should the opportunity arise.”

“That happen often?”

“Not if it can be avoided,” he said dryly “I’d forgotten that Norma Kay lived here, so it was a bit of a surprise when she told me who she was.”

Deciding he was not going to fly across the room and attempt to throttle me, I risked sitting down behind the desk. I’d have thought he would have been a garrulous witness, eager to dominate the exchange with long-winded speculation, but it looked as if getting information out of him was going to be like pulling dandelions out of sun-baked ground. “When was that?”

“Friday morning. Chastity supposedly came here to shoot baskets baskets with some local girls. I needed to speak to her, so I drove over and ended up talking with Norma Kay. She was overly emotional, I’m sorry to say, and I deeply regretted my presence.”

“Was that the last time you spoke with her?”

He sat down on a bench and rested his head on the wall. “She wanted to schedule a counseling session, so I told her to call Thomas. She did, and according to him, she was almost hysterical. He made it clear he could do nothing until Monday morning and promised to call her back. That was the end of it until earlier this evening, just before the revival. Were you there?”

“No, Mr. Hope, I was not.” And damned if I was going to apologize, either.

“I didn’t think so,” he said with a small smile. “Anyway, Norma Kay asked one of the ushers to deliver a note to me. In the note, she begged me to meet her here at midnight to discuss something of a critical nature.”

“So you came here at midnight?”

“I wasn’t going to come, but I started feeling guilty about her waiting for me in some dark, deserted building. I arrived about ten minutes late, came inside, and found her in the office, bawling her eyes out.”

When he failed to continue, I said, “Why was she doing that?”

“Now that she’s beyond caring, I don’t suppose there’s any reason to bring up the issue of confidentiality, is there?” he murmured, wincing as he glanced at the door to the gym. “She was having an affair with a local man. She’d been trying to end it for some time because she knew it was sinful, but he refused to leave her alone. She was also terrified her husband suspected something was going on. He doesn’t sound like an amiable person.”

“No, that he’s not,” I said as I found a very dull pencil and wrote “12:10” on a scrap of paper. “Who was the lover?”

Malachi shrugged. “She didn’t mention his name, but I would imagine in a town this size … Anyway, she carried on for a while, moaning about her sin and begging me to absolve her. I finally told her that her only chance to find inner peace was to break off the affair, confess to her husband, and put her excessive energy into charitable work. I even offered to let her do some office work for us during the week, although I wasn’t sure how Seraphina and Thomas would feel about that. When I left at 12:30, she was much calmer and seemed resolved to take my advice.”

I dutifully scratched “12:30” on the paper. “You left her here by herself? Wouldn’t it have been chivalrous to escort her to her car and make sure she got home safely?”

He stood up and came over to the desk, his face distorted with anguish. “Don’t you think I realize that now? Of course I should have insisted that she leave at the same time! I suggested it, and when she said she had work to do, I offered several times to wait until she was ready to go home. She remained adamant that I leave. I drove back to the RV and watched for headlights in her driveway. I finally came back to make sure she was all right.”

“The door wasn’t locked?”

“No, but when I left the first time, she walked with me to the exterior door and locked it behind me.”

I heard cars arriving outside the gym. Leaving Malachi to assess his guilt, I went to meet Harve and whichever deputies he’d brought along.

“Hanged herself, did she?” Harve said, gazing at the body. “What’s that she used?”

“A cord,” one of the deputies volunteered.

I pulled Harve aside and gave him a summary of what Malachi had told me. We agreed further interrogation could wait while we dealt with the corpse. It was time for photographs, fingerprints, telephone calls, and a visit from McBeen, who was a long cry from Marcus Welby. In fact, he was rumored to be the crabbiest county coroner in the entire state.

Lucky us.

—==(O)==—

Long about sunrise, I knocked on the Grappers’ front door. Blistering heat would descend by mid-morning, but now it was nippy enough to make me wish I’d grabbed a jacket when I left my apartment. I stuck my hands in my pockets and turned around to look at the scruffy yard and neglected flower beds. Down the road a piece was a weathered house set among scrub pines, weeds, a pile of busted chicken crates, and tires (traditional landscaping in Maggody). Parked in front was a dark pickup truck with a well-stocked gun rack across the back window. After a moment of reflection, I remembered it was the Jenks place, currently occupied by the prodigal son. The door opened behind me. “Who are you and what do you want?”

I gave Bur a minute to recognize me, identified myself when he didn’t, and then said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news, Mr. Grapper. May I come in?”

“Hell, no. I ain’t in the mood for company. State your business and be on your way.”

“Your wife’s body was discovered in the high school gym.”

My blunt recitation gained me entry to the living room, although not an invitation to sit down. I did so anyway, waited until he’d taken a seat across from me, and studied his face for any flicker of emotion whatsoever. When none was forthcoming, I said, “She was hanging from the basketball goal. Her body will be sent to the state lab in Little Rock to determine if it was a suicide. Someone will notify you as soon as we hear anything.”

“Suicide?” he said, curling his lip in surprise. “Why would she go and do a fool thing like that?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Was she upset these last few days, acting strange, refusing to talk to you—anything like that?”

“She’s been acting strange for ten years. But as for these last few days—yeah, she was all the time creeping around the house at night, mumbling to herself, forgetting she had clothes on the line, burning food in the oven, things like that.”

“Do you have any idea what was bothering her?”

“That preacher up on the hill,” he said without hesitation. “The day he arrived was when she took a turn for the worse. A couple of times I caught her out on the porch, wearing nothing but her bathrobe, staring up that way and saying his name over and over like she was praying. It liked to drive me up the wall, her carrying on that way. I told her I wasn’t gonna put up with it anymore, but it didn’t do any good. You’d have thought he was the goddamn Messiah come to Maggody!”

It did not seem the moment to mention who’d discovered her body. The emotion that had been missing when I’d told him the news was now evident; I decided to find out if it went any deeper than Boone Creek in July. “You and Norma Kay went to the revival last night, didn’t you?”

“It was all her doing. I ain’t one for sitting on a bench all night while folks gabble about being saved. Reminded me of the fans at the ball games, all squealing like hogs at a scalding.”

“Did you happen to notice if Norma Kay spoke to one of the ushers?” I asked delicately.

“Spoke to several of ‘em on account of them being on her team. I don’t know any of their names, though.” He stood up and gestured at the door. “You’d better go so I can start calling her family up in Kansas about the funeral.”

“I’ll let you know when the body can be released,” I said as I obediently rose. I was halfway to the door when it occurred to me I was no longer a high school student without a hall pass. “I have a couple of more questions before I go, Mr. Grapper. We’re trying to get a clearer picture of what happened last night. What time did you and your wife leave the revival?”

“About ten o’clock or so.”

“And you both came straight home?”

He nodded impatiently. “I settled down to watch the news, but Norma Kay was flitting around the house like a damnfool moth. After a spell, she said she was going over to the gym to do some work.”

“What time was that?” I asked, wishing I’d brought the stubby pencil and scrap of paper.

“Maybe eleven. I watched a movie for a while, then went on to bed about half an hour later, assuming she was capable of locking up when she got back.”

“You weren’t worried about her being there by herself so late at night?”

“I didn’t like it, but she swore she always kept the gym door locked while she was in her office. She wouldn’t have unlocked the door unless she was expecting someone.” He gave me a such a pugnacious look that I expected him to drop into a boxer’s stance and cock his fists at me, but instead he shrugged. “But she wasn’t, of course. Anybody who says otherwise is a damn liar. Norma Kaye knew better than to cheat on me.”

I suppose I should have asked to search the house for a suicide note, but it didn’t seem likely that she’d have come back to the house to leave one on the kitchen table or taped to the refrigerator. Her office seemed a more feasible location, although the crime squad had searched it carefully and come up empty-handed. “I’ll be back later,” I told Bur seconds before he slammed the door in my face. I climbed in my car just as the sun flashed over the treetops. I yawned so hard I came close to dislocating my jaw and drove back to the high school.

Harve was standing in the parking lot, looking as gray and tired as I’m sure I did. I pulled up beside him and said, “Her husband didn’t burst into tears, but he was never in danger of winning any awards for sensitivity. For all I know, he may have been puking out his guts by the time I reached the county road.”

“You know him?” asked Harve as he fished a cigar stub and a book of matches out of his shirt pocket.

“He was the head coach when I was in high school, and a real bastard. He screamed obscenities at his players, bawled out their parents if they interfered, insulted the school board, and went out of his way to be rude to the students. He was not your basic beloved father figure.”

Harve struck several matches until he got the stub smoldering to his satisfaction (and my dismay). “If he was so gawdawful, why didn’t they fire him?”

“His teams always made it to at least the quarter finals of the state tournament and won more often than not. I wasn’t around when he finally retired, but Ruby Bee wrote me a letter about how he socked a referee or something along those lines. I gathered his retirement wasn’t altogether voluntary.”

“What about his wife? Was she sleeping around?”

“I don’t know, Harve,” I said as I fought back another yawn. “I’ll see what I can find out. As Malachi Hope implied, it shouldn’t be all that challenging to find out if she was having an affair. There’s not a nook or cranny through which the grapevine fails to curl.” The yawn came despite my efforts. Once I’d recovered, I said, “McBeen say anything else before he left?”

Harve ground out the cigar stub. “He said there was a bruise on her cheek that she’d tried to cover with makeup. There wasn’t any makeup in her purse or in a desk drawer, so we can assume it happened earlier.”

“Yesterday?”

“McBeen will let us know when he sees fit. In the meantime, keep nosing around and see what you can dig up about this so-called affair. I let the Hope fellow go home a few minutes ago. Give him a little time to get hisself cleaned up, then drop by to run through his story several more times. Also, see if anyone can confirm his coming, leaving, and then coming back. Something about it smells fishier than a johnboat.”

Rather than launch into an argument about who was better equipped to head the investigation (I have one gun, three bullets, and a radio that works only during lunar eclipses), I drove home to shower, brush my teeth, and tap into the grapevine over biscuits and grits.

—==(O)==—

“Dahlia, my love bunny,” gasped Kevin as he read over the shopping list she’d thrust at him. “Cookies? Orange soda pop? Three pounds of pork chops? Ten pounds of potatoes? This ain’t on your diet. You know what the doctor told you.”

“I don’t have diabetes anymore,” she countered with a blissful smile. “You heard what Malachi Hope said last night, dint you? I’m cured, so there’s no reason to keep nibbling carrots when I can eat real food. Why don’t you sneak away later this morning and bring home the groceries? I was thinking I’d make a chocolate cake with fudge icing while I listen to my soaps. We kin have some after supper.”

Kevin winced as she continued to gaze at him like a cow in a field of lush clover. “I heard what Malachi Hope said,” he began timidly, “but you still got to ask the doctor before you commence to eating pork chops and chocolate cake.”

“Malachi Hope put his hands on my shoulders and prayed to Jesus to make my diabetes go away; then he told me loud and clear that I was cured.” She lumbered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “You believe in Jesus, doncha?” she continued. “He’s not going to lie. As soon as Malachi said I was cured, the diabetes disappeared just like drops of water in a hot skillet. I could feel the tingle, and that’s good enough for me. Why doncha get some bacon, too? I think I’ll fry up some for lunch.”

He crumpled onto the couch and tried not to groan as he looked down the list that covered one whole page. There wasn’t so much as a leaf of lettuce or a single radish anywhere on it.

Kevin believed in Jesus, having been baptized in Boone Creek on his fourteenth birthday, but he had some doubts about Malachi Hope.

—==(O)==—

Eula Lemoy lifted her feet to inspect her ankle. It was definitely less swollen, she decided as she took a sip of tea and a nibble of toast. Here she’d been spending forty dollars every month for two years on pink pills to keep her blood thin, not to mention the ordeal of blood tests and having to sit in the waiting room half the day just so the mealymouthed doctor could tell her to keep taking the pills.