Fallen Angels (26 page)

Another astounding insight from Lulu LaBelle.
“Yes, I got the same impression.”

“Didn’t like Mrs. Everett. She seemed like a
real snob. Like she’s judging everyone and finding them beneath
her. Not like Sister Emmanuel at all. Or her husband, either, for
that matter.”

“No, she isn’t, is she?” I said, then chewed
thoughtfully for a moment. “It’s difficult to imagine Mr. and Mrs.
Everett as a couple, isn’t it? Yet Mrs. Pinkney says he adores
her.”

“Bet she doesn’t adore him so much,” opined
Lulu.

“Hmm. Maybe so. Maybe that’s why she seems so
sour.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Lulu dipped an egg
roll in soy sauce and bit off a chunk.

“I wonder why she’s so involved in the
church. She certainly doesn’t seem to have embraced the same joy
and love in the message Sister Emmanuel preaches that her husband
has.”

Lulu shrugged. “Some folks are just like
that. They do what they think’s their duty. Won’t even admit to
themselves they hate doing it.”

I considered my mother for a moment. “I think
you’re right. For example, I don’t think my mother ever does
anything she doesn’t want to do, but she makes sure she doesn’t
enjoy it, so that makes it all right.” I narrowed my eyes at Lulu,
who was forking up some rice. “Did that make any sense?”

“Yeah. I have an aunt like that. Devil of a
woman, although she devotes all her spare time to that little
Baptist church in Enid.”

“Enid, Oklahoma?”

“Yeah. Me and Rupert used to have to go to
church three or four times a week ’cause of Aunt Ruth. You’d have
thought she hated the both of us from the way she treated us, but
she claimed to be doing the Lord’s work.”

“Sounds awful,” I murmured. Aunt Ruth also
sounded a good deal like my own mother and Ernie’s father, although
I didn’t say so to Lulu.

“It was. I like Sister Emmanuel’s God a whole
lot better than Aunt Ruthless’s. That’s what me and Rupert used to
call her, Aunt Ruthless.”

I smiled at the name. “It certainly is
interesting to learn about people’s early lives, isn’t it? Ernie
told me his family was religious like that. Like your aunt
Ruthless, I mean.”

“Oh, shoot. Really? Poor Ernie.”

We both burst out laughing. Poor Ernie,
indeed.

Chapter Fifteen

“I’m telling you, Mercy, that damned church
doesn’t have anything to do with anything,” Ernie growled at me the
next morning when I told him about my foray with Lulu to the
Angelica Gospel Hall the prior morning.

“Blast you, Ernie Templeton! Why do you
have to throw cold water over every idea I have? For heaven’s sake,
you and the police have already ruled out everybody else in the
case. Do you
want
to be
convicted of a murder you didn’t commit? That’s what it sounds like
to me.” To say I was indignant would be an extreme understatement.
I stood before his desk now, my fists on my hips, glaring at him,
glad I was dressed in one of my suitable-but-not-flashy working
outfits. It was easier to be on one’s dignity when one was soberly
clad.

Ernie’d come ambling into the office around
nine o’clock, flung his hat at the rack in his office, and didn’t
even bother to pick it up when it hit the floor. He’d taken his
suit coat off and it hung at an ungainly angle on the rack. It was
beginning to look to me as if my boss was losing hope and spirit,
and his attitude irked the dickens out of me.

Ernie sighed and began running his hands
through his hair, a habit he’d adopted since the murder of that
pesky Chalmers woman, and which seemed to be almost perpetual with
him by this time. “Ah, shit,” he grumbled.

“And don’t use foul language in front
of me, either! In fact, the more I think about it, the more I
believe that the answer
has
to be connected with that church. Everything else has turned
out to be a big, fat blank, including the two Misters Chalmers and
that ratty Mr. Pinkney. Have Phil or O’Reilly even bothered to talk
to Sister Emmanuel?”

Looking up at me with one of his more cynical
grins, Ernie said, “Yeah. Phil himself talked to the lady of God.
Says she’s crazy as a loon, but not murderous, so I think you’re
all wet about the church angle.”

“Oh! The two of you ought to . . . to go soak
your heads!” I said, and then I turned and marched out of the
office, furious.

By gum, if the police and Ernie had given up
on discovering the real killer, Mercy Allcutt was on the job. The
more I thought about it, the more it made sense that, given the
alibis proven for the two Misters Chalmers and the horrible Mr.
Pinkney, the only logical place to look was that wretched church.
That’s where Mrs. Chalmers had been spending all her time and
money. Shoot, she’d even sold jewelry and then claimed it had been
stolen, just to slip the loss by her husband. And he claimed not
even to care if she was involved in the Hall. What’s more, after
talking to him twice, I believed him.

I also believed his son hadn’t cared enough
about his father’s money to take the life of his father’s wife. He
was fond of his father, and his affection showed. Besides, he was
living on money of his own through his trust fund, something with
which I could identify. Which might be considered unfortunate,
since I was attempting to make my own living. Abysmal job I was
doing of it, too. However, the younger Mr. Chalmers clearly didn’t
share my sentiments, and I believed him when he said he didn’t
covet his father’s money.

Susan the maid and Mrs. Hanratty the
housekeeper clearly weren’t guilty parties. They’d been horrified,
terrified, and downright shocked when they’d come home to discover
the body of their mistress at the foot of the staircase.
Occasionally my ears still rang from the decibel level of their
discovery, in fact, and I didn’t believe either woman had strength
of character or wit enough to do that good an acting job.

There was always Mrs. Pinkney, but I
couldn’t believe her to be guilty of such a ghastly crime. Heck,
she was still in a tattered emotional state about Mrs. Chalmers’
death. In fact, as I’ve already mentioned, I got the distinct
impression she rather wished her husband would be discovered to be
the perpetrator because she was so annoyed at his shenanigans and
his opposition to her church attendance. I thought about Lulu’s
assessment of the woman.
Lost
was a good word to describe her. Small wonder she clung to
the church as if it were a lifeline.

That church . . .

Something was odd about that church, and it
wasn’t Sister Emmanuel. She had converts by the thousands, but I
got the impression—not that I’m always right about people—that she
honestly believed the message she preached so eloquently. Her
church was all about uninhibited joyfulness combined with religious
fervor and a total rejection of evil, as personified by scarlet
women, gamblers, thieves, and so forth. It was the uninhibited part
that made my Boston soul withdraw with something of a sneer from
the Angelica Gospel Hall, but it was that same part of her message
that drew people like Lulu and Mrs. Pinkney and Mrs. Chalmers to
her.

“Bother.” The whole mess was making me feel
crazy.

At that moment the front door opened, and who
should walk in but Detective Phil Bigelow. I didn’t even try to
smile at him. I was too angry.

“Phil,” I said in a stony voice that reminded
me of my mother.

He took off his hat and walked over to stand
in front of my desk, placing one of his hands on one of the chairs
I’d placed there so that clients wouldn’t get too close. “Listen,
Mercy, we’re doing everything we can to find out the murderer of
that woman.”

“So Ernie thinks. I don’t share his opinion.
Or yours. And you know as well as I do that O’Reilly is just
longing to pin the murder on Ernie.”

Phil winced. I suppose my statement had been
bald and merciless—unlike my name—but I didn’t care. I was still
furious, darn it.

“Mercy.” Phil sounded almost desperate.
“Ernie’s my best friend. Do you think I
want
him to go to prison for such a heinous
crime? I’m not going to allow O’Reilly to railroad him,
either.”

“I don’t know what you want, Detective
Bigelow, but
I
aim to clear
my boss’s name. And I don’t trust your precious Detective O’Reilly
any farther than I could toss a . . . a grand piano!”

Ernie appeared, looking disheveled, at his
office door. “Don’t even bother talking with her, Phil. She’s sure
that damned church is involved in the case somehow, and once
Mercy’s mind is set on something, it takes a crowbar and a
blowtorch to get it unstuck.”

I rose regally from my office chair. “Fine.
If that’s what you think, that’s just fine. I’ll just go out and do
some snooping on my own then.”

“Hey, Mercy, don’t you have to work until
lunchtime?”

I guess Ernie thought he was being cute.

Turning to glare at him, I said, “So fire
me.”

Then I grabbed my hat and handbag and barged
past Phil and out into the hallway. I heard a faint “Mercy!” as I
headed down the hall to the staircase, but I didn’t stop in my
progress. I didn’t know which man had said my name, either.

When I got to the lobby, Lulu asked, “Where
you going, Mercy? You look steamed.”

“I am steamed,” I declared. “Ernie and
Phil Bigelow are such . . . such
men
!”

I saw Lulu’s eyes widen. “Uh-oh. Sounds like
you guys had a little disagreement.”

“A
little
one? I swear to heaven, Lulu, if I don’t
take charge of this case, Ernie will swing. Or go to prison for the
rest of his life. Neither Phil nor he seem to have the slightest
interest in the most important aspect of the death of Mrs.
Chalmers! And that man who’s supposed to be in charge of the case,
that Detective O’Reilly, hates Ernie’s guts!”

“Golly. I thought Bigelow was in charge of
the case.”

“No. Unfortunately, one of Ernie’s bitterest
enemies has that privilege. And I’m darned sure he doesn’t care any
more than Ernie or Phil do about what seems to me to be the most
glaring aspect of the case!”

“They don’t?” Lulu paused in the act of
filing her nails and glanced up at me, standing rigid before her,
my handbag under my arm and my fists clenched. “Well, that Bigelow
character did try to pin a murder on Rupert, so I believe it about
him. And I don’t know O’Reilly, but I’d believe anything about an
L.A. copper. But Ernie? Shoot, Mercy, it’s his life that’s at risk
here. Don’t you think he wants to find out who the real killer
is?”

I sagged a trifle. “I’m sure he does, but he
seems to have lost heart, Lulu, and that worries me. A whole
lot.”

Lulu shook her head. “It’s hard to imagine
Ernie losing heart. He’s so . . . I dunno.
So . . .”

She couldn’t come up with the right word, so
I supplied a few of my own. “Nonchalant? Insouciant? Casual?”

“Um . . . I’m not sure what those two first
words mean, but you’re right about the casual part. I can’t imagine
Ernie caring a whole lot about anything.”

Her words gave me pause, and I sank into the
chair in front of her desk. “He doesn’t care that his life might be
in danger?” I thought about the unsettling notion.

“Well. I don’t mean that, exactly. It’s just
that . . . I dunno.”

“I think I know what you mean,” I said.
“Ernie gives the impression that he’s a devil-may-care man of the
world. He wants everyone to think he’s jaded and cynical. What I
think is that he cares too much. He puts on that casual air, but
you do know he quit the police department because he couldn’t stand
the corruption there, don’t you?”

With a sniff, Lulu said, “I can believe that.
About the corruption, I mean.”

“And if he truly didn’t care about anything,
the corruption wouldn’t bother him, would it?”

“I suppose not.”

“And he considers Phil Bigelow about the only
honest copper in Los Angeles.”

“I
don’t
believe that,” Lulu said, still in stout
defense of her innocent brother whom Phil had locked up the prior
month.

“Well . . . I don’t know. I think he’s as
honest as he can be. Whatever that means.” The idea of Phil Bigelow
manfully attempting to maintain his integrity in the face of
monumental police corruption gave me pause.

Was Phil truly an honest man in a dishonest
profession? How could he stand it? I don’t believe I could. On the
other hand, while I didn’t know a single thing about Phil’s
background, I know mine was grounded in the fundamentals of
Bostonian propriety and, therefore, not particularly tolerant of
any digressions therefrom. But did Phil really tolerate the
misdemeanors—perhaps even the felonies—of his fellow policemen
without objecting or trying to make such behavior cease? How could
he?

Then again, what else could he do? Maybe
being a copper was the only thing he knew how to do. Maybe he had a
family to support. I didn’t know much about Phil personally. I
suppose he could quit and take up the profession of private
investigator. If he had a family, he probably wouldn’t dare do
that. Knowing how little income Ernie’s private investigation
business produced, it was difficult for me to imagine competition
from dozens of honest coppers who quit the force because of
corruption in the L.A.P.D. Heck, there weren’t enough straying
husbands and wives or fraudulent insurance claims in the entire
city of Los Angeles to keep a whole army of private eyes in
work.

I sat in the chair, slouched in a position of
which my mother would never approve, and thought dismal
thoughts.

“Where were you going in such a hurry,
Mercy?” Lulu asked at last.