A Dirty Shame (15 page)

Jack and I rode in silence to Reverend Oglesby’s house. A case like this one could really get to you, not only because it affected people you cared about, but because we’d reached that point where it didn’t seem like the good guys were going to win after all. I watched as the Reverend’s house passed us by, and I turned to Jack.

“Where are we going?”

“This is the direction he ran every morning,” Jack said, slowing the cruiser as the road turned into one lane. The curves were treacherous at high speeds, and it was the type of road that flooded easily. “The worse the road gets, the less traffic and neighbors there are. No one out here owns a white Cadillac. We did a thorough check. But according to Vaughn, there was one out here at six in the morning when Daniel Oglesby went running Saturday, so the person in the car was either visiting someone and just leaving or they were up to no good.”

“A secluded area like this,” I said, “It’s prime space for kids looking to party, but I can’t see any of them driving daddy’s Cadillac out here for that. And we would’ve gotten reports of more traffic in the area.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed.

We drove past three different houses that showed no sign of anyone being home. Most people were still at church, and wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours yet.

Jack turned off the road into a rutted driveway overgrown with weeds, and I saw a neat little box of a house, almost identical to Reverend Oglesby’s. Only this one was painted the color of watermelon and trimmed in vibrant green. Hanging baskets of clashing flowers hung from the tiny porch, and there was an old, rust red pickup truck in the driveway that looked like it wouldn’t make it down the block, much less start.

“Sweet mother of God,” I said. “My eyes.”

“Martinez got to interview the lady who lives here,” Jack said. “He said the inside was worse, but she was sharp as a tack and entertaining as hell. Martinez asked her about the afternoon Oglesby went missing—she wasn’t able to tell us anything because she was at her daughter’s for lunch, but Martinez didn’t know to ask her about the Saturday morning before he went missing.”

I got out of the cruiser and followed Jack up to the porch. He rang the bell, and I stifled a laugh as I heard a woman yell, “Fuck off,” from inside.

“It’s the police, ma’am,” Jack said, his lips twitching. “I need to speak with you for a minute.”

“Hold your damned horses,” she said. “Can’t an old lady watch her shows in private? It’s Sunday morning for Christ’s sake.”

I saw a shadow pass over the peephole, and then what sounded like a dozen industrial grade deadbolts being unlocked. The door creaked open and I looked down into the face of what had to be the oldest human being I’d ever seen in my entire life. She barely came up to my waist, and her thick white hair was piled on top of her head to give her a few extra inches in height. I’d never seen a person with as many wrinkles as she had, and all I could think was that I’d have to use a hell of a lot of putty and plumping agent when she finally passed on.

“I’m Sheriff Lawson,” Jack said, showing her his badge. “And this is Doctor Graves. She’s the coroner for King George County.”

“I know who she is,” the woman said. “Runs the funeral home. Are you here looking for business, girlie? I’m not dead yet.”

“No, ma’am. I’m here in an official capacity to assist Sheriff Lawson.”

She gave us both a shrewd look. “Looks like you’ve been assisting him in unofficial capacities as well. I miss sex,” she said with a sigh. “It’s one of the many things that sucks about getting old.”

I felt the heat rush to my face, but Jack was as calm as ever. “Can we come in, Mrs.—”

“It’s Miss,” she said. “Miss Pilcher. I never got married. Men are a pain in the ass, and the ones of my generation more so. I figured I’d rather be single than have to ask a man’s permission to wipe my ass.”

She stood back and opened the door wider, and I followed Jack inside. I had to imagine that living to the century mark would give you plenty of time to amass a collection of useless things and keepsakes, but I hadn’t been expecting wall-to-wall cuckoo clocks. They ticked in a frantic rhythm, each trying to outdo the other, and I hoped to God we made it out before the hour struck. Where there weren’t clocks, there were photos. Hundreds of them.

And then I remembered what Jack had said about Miss Pilcher having a daughter. I must have had a confused look on my face because she turned and pointed out a photograph to me.

“You’re wondering about my daughter,” she said, smiling. Her false teeth were large and blindingly white. “She was an accident of course. Birth control in my day wasn’t as reliable as it is now. I’m pretty sure her father was a travelling salesman. Or maybe one of the Rockefellers. I could never be sure. I was an outcast, being unwed and pregnant, but I’d rather be an outcast than a hypocrite.”

Jack nudged me as we followed her down the hall, and I peeped into a little sitting room with a giant screen TV and Playstation 3. My eyes got wider as I saw what we’d been interrupting on Miss Pilcher’s Sunday morning. Miss Pilcher had exotic taste in porn. I could only be thankful she had it muted. I looked over at Jack and he waggled his eyebrows at me, and I shook my head no at the unspoken question. I wasn’t ready to add dirty movies into our repertoire just yet.

She led us into a tiny kitchen with bright yellow countertops and clean white appliances. The cabinets were painted lime green and there were parrots painted into a jungle of leaves on the wall by her kitchen table.

“I’ve got fresh coffee if you’d like some,” she said. “I can’t drink it because it makes my teeth fall out, but I’m so damned cold all the time I just carry a cup around to warm my hands. Getting old sucks.”

Jack and I both declined the coffee and sat in the tiny wooden chairs at the table. Miss Pilcher had to boost herself into hers.

“I knew your parents,” she said, looking at me. “Not well, of course. I went to buy a plot and a burial plan about twenty years back. Thought I’d have to use it by now, but I’m still here, so it turns out I made a good investment. Inflation and all that. They were assholes, if you don’t mind me saying. Are you an asshole too?”

I blinked slowly and felt my lips twitch. “No, ma’am.”

“Well, you don’t look like one, but you never know. Sometimes assholes can be deceiving. I’ll let you do my funeral then. I’m sure it’ll be any time now. Are you going to ask me questions, Sheriff, or are you just going to sit there and think about how you’re going to get into Doctor Graves’ pants?”

“I can do both, Miss Pilcher,” Jack said with a smile.

“I like you,” she said, cackling. “I’m assuming this is about that poor Reverend Oglesby. I talked to the police about him Friday. I told the officer I was off visiting my daughter, so I didn’t see the Reverend that day. It’s terrible that something like that can happen so close to home. I knew as soon as he moved here he’d have a hard road ahead of him. Being gay in these parts is difficult enough, but being a preacher on top of it would never have ended well.”

“You knew Reverend Oglesby was gay?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. I have a keen eye and I’m very observant. I also like to sit at my front window and watch the neighbors with my binoculars. Sometimes I get tired of watching porn. They don’t make the storylines as good as they used to.”

“Hmmm,” I said.

“And sometimes I’d see that man that has the antique shop visiting,” she said. “He was real sneaky about it, but I’m sneakier. I’ve got long-range binoculars.”

“I want to ask you about the morning before Reverend Oglesby went missing,” Jack said, getting things back on track before she told us more than we wanted to hear about Vaughn. “Did he make his usual run that morning?”

“Sure did. Like clockwork that boy was. And he wasn’t hard to look at either. If he hadn’t been seeing that nice antiques man, I would’ve made a play for him myself. Gay men make the best lovers, you know. They’re very in tune with the body.”

Jack nudged me under the table when I snickered.

“Did you see any cars go by that morning?” he asked.

“Oh, sure. Bucky Dew had the early shift at the gas station and he left a few minutes after five-thirty that morning. He lives in the yellow house on my left. There was an old hatchback that had broken down sometime the night before, and it was pulled off to the side of the road. Olive green and ugly as homemade sin. Someone stopped to get some things out of it before the tow truck came to cart it away.”

My eyebrows went up, and Jack sat forward. “Do you remember what the car looked like when it stopped next to the hatchback?”

“Sure, boy. I’m not senile. It was a white Cadillac. One man inside, but I didn’t know him. It just looked like they were transferring their belongings from one car to the other.”

“Was this around the same time Reverend Oglesby was making his run?”

“Now that you mention it,” she said, pursing her lips in thought. “Daniel jogged by and the white car left, and I stopped watching because I saw Joanie Neddler next door sneaking back home, wearing the same clothes she’d left in the night before. Mr. Neddler’s been away on business all week, so I knew she’d been up to no good. Also, her dress was on backwards, which is never a good sign.”

“What time did the tow truck come?” I asked.

“Let’s see,” she said, closing her eyes as she thought back. “I’d already watched The Price is Right. Idiots, all of them, that morning. And I’d finished the crossword puzzle in the paper. So I’d say around ten o’clock. Maybe ten-thirty.”

“Did you recognize the tow truck?”

“Oh, sure. It said Murphy’s Auto Shop right across the side. It’s where I take my truck to be serviced. The owner’s an asshole, but he’s a damned good mechanic.”

***

Thirty minutes later we were back on the road and headed home to Bloody Mary.

“You know,” I said. “I want to be just like Miss Pilcher when I grow up.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re already there, babe. I knew she reminded me of someone. Though I don’t know what your current movie viewing habits are.”

“My tastes don’t lean to Sunday morning orgies, if that’s what you’re wondering. And unfortunately, religious guilt stays with you no matter how far you stray from the church, so I can’t see it happening any time in our future either.”

“Damn,” Jack said. “I was hoping.”

“Where are we headed now?”

Jack turned off the Towne Square, and he made a slow pass-by of Murphy’s Auto Shop. The building was locked up tight, but that wasn’t saying much. Every business in Bloody Mary was locked up tight on Sunday.

“Something was going on there,” Jack said, idling in front of the shop. “Something that doesn’t have anything to do with what we originally thought was a hate crime. It’s a distraction, and it’s working. They’re trying to make me split my attention, when what I need to be doing is digging into that auto shop. We’ve got two cars abandoned by the side of the road, and George goes to collect both of them. The first time, there’s the white Cadillac that’s somehow connected. The second time, George ends up with a bullet in his brain. Add in the tattoo on George’s arm and Reverend Oglesby’s sexual orientation, and we have two crimes that are too coincidental to be anything other than connected. Let’s go pay another visit to Doc Randall.”

Jack had just put the car in gear when his phone rang. He put it in park again and answered, “Sheriff Lawson.”

I let Jack’s conversation drone on in the background. There was something important I was missing. Something that nudged the edges of my memory, but I couldn’t quite get a grasp on it. I looked at the auto shop again and tried to replay the scene from the time I’d arrived. I needed to look at the picture I’d found inside George. Maybe that would shake something loose.

“That was Agent Carver,” Jack said once he hung up. “He’s halfway here. I’m supposed to meet him in an hour and bring him up to speed. I’ll make sure to take him with me when I go pay a visit to the mayor. Maybe he won’t threaten to fire me in front of a fed.”

“It doesn’t bother you?” I asked. “Having to turn over everything to him?”

“Not really,” he said. “Ben’s a good guy. He’ll let me take the lead on Oglesby and George, but I know he’s about to have a mess on his hands and a shitload of paperwork. And it’s going to be a nightmare trying to make charges stick. He’ll shut them down for a little while, but they’ll resurface again.”

“The law sucks.”

“Yeah, sometimes it does. But we’ll keep plugging away at it, and maybe someday it’ll make a difference.”

That was one of the things I loved most about Jack. Deep down he believed in right and wrong, and that good would always triumph over evil. He’d been in the trenches, first in the military and then during his time on the SWAT team, and nothing he’d seen or experienced had clouded his views. Maybe that’s why I’d had such a hard time believing he could really love me. I’d always lived by shades of grey. And maybe I thought he’d eventually get tired of trying to make me the good guy.

Jack drove through a Burger King and ordered us a couple of burgers and something to drink other than coffee. I was feeling a little twitchy, and I realized I’d been living on caffeine since coming back to Bloody Mary. I was feeling full and ready for a nap by the time we parked in front of Doc Randall’s house.