On Main Street, sitting primly on a bench in front of the Dairy Queen, I saw Kylie Burke and I almost pulled in and talked to her. But she looked so happy just then and I imagined her head was filled with all sorts of hopes and blissful fantasies about her life ahead with Chad. It’s funny how love can do that to you like nothing else. You put your hand on fire just once and you know enough never to do it again. But you listen to the same person make the same empty promises again and again, and you still come back. And back. And back. And there’s always the friend who knows the couple (they always live in Des Moines or Cleveland or somewhere like that) that went through exactly the same thing you’re going through-all the bunco and pain and humiliation and degradation-and you know what?
It was worth it because today these two are The Happiest Couple In The World. They have seventy-three children and eighteen dogs and eleven cats and they live on love. They don’t need groceries, they don’t need cars, they don’t need baths. Who needs that stuff when you’ve got Love, and we’re talking capital-letter
Love here, of course. So maybe if you can just hang in there just a little longer you’ll be exactly like this couple-maybe just like Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher who look, I have to say, as if they’re living on Love for sure-and then all this suffering and shame and emotional sucker-punching will be well worth it. She was probably thinking stuff like that. Because that’s the sort of thing I used to think about the beautiful Pamela Forrest when she’d give me just enough hope to hang on for another couple weeks. But in the end it’s us, isn’t it?
We could walk away anytime if we had the pride or common sense we should have. And yet we cling and hope. And have those happy-scared moments like the one Kylie was probably having now when the object of our affection throws us another sunny bit of hoke and hope.
A visitor waited for me in my client’s chair.
When he turned around, I said, “Lesbo Lummoxes. About really lazy lesbians.”
“Not bad,” he said.
“I was kidding.”
“Gee, McCain, so was I. I suggest a title like Lesbo Lummoxes, the editor probably wouldn’t ever give me any more work.”
As I walked around the desk to my chair, I said, “How about Lesbo Laundromat?”
“Lesbo Laundromat?”
“It’s where all these lesbians go to wash their clothes.”
“See, McCain,” Kenny Thibodeau said patiently, “this stuff isn’t as easy as it looks.”
“I guess not.”
“Are you by any chance a frustrated writer, McCain?”
“Yeah. Sort of, anyway.”
“I thought so.” Then, quickly: “Not to change the subject but I have some info for you.”
“Info?”
Even on a boiling day like today Kenny was decked out in black. He wasn’t in mourning.
He was just honoring his place in the ranks of the Beat Generation. “I told you I’d play detective and I did. I’m going to write this private-eye novel.” Then: “Guess who was caught breaking into Courtney’s rectory last night?”
“Who?”
“Dierdre Hall.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“I have my ways.”
“C’mon, Kenny, how’d you find out?”
“My aunt is their cleaning woman.”
“Ah.”
“She stopped by my mom’s place and I was there.”
“Cliffie know this?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think. He didn’t know as of earlier this morning, anyway.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because my aunt hadn’t told him yet.”
“Why?”
“She doesn’t like Cliffie. She goes to the Lutheran church and he stopped them from playing Bingo one day.”
“Didn’t Mrs. Courtney turn her in?”
“Mrs. Courtney doesn’t know.”
“Wasn’t she home last night?”
“Oh, she was home, all right. With her bottle. Aunt Am was in the basement.
Courtney’s lawyer had asked her to start taking an inventory of everything that belonged to the church and everything that belonged to the Courtneys. Mrs.
Courtney says she plans to move back east very soon.”
“What’d your aunt do with Dierdre?”
“Just told her to go back home. She said the kid was pretty bad off. Crying and stuff.”
“She didn’t say why she was breaking in?”
“Just said she was looking for something. But wouldn’t say what.”
A sad, not-unfamiliar scenario was starting to take shape. B-movie, maybe. Or one of Kenny’s paperbacks.
“You told anybody this?”
“Only you, counselor. I’m working for you, remember. I figure it’s a trade-off.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll need to ask you a lot of questions about law while I’m writing. I try to make my books as authentic as possible.”
“Authentic? I thought you’d never met a lesbian?”
“Well, authentic except for the lesbian parts, I guess.”
“But aren’t most of the parts about lesbian stuff?”
“What are you, a critic? You want me to keep working or not?”
“You’re right, Kenny. Sorry. And this is very useful information. Thanks.” Then I said, “Lost Lesbians.”
“Lost? Where’re they lost?”
“Africa? Some desert somewhere?”
“It just doesn’t ring right, McCain.
Sorry.”
“Lesbian Locksmiths?”
He shook his head in pity. “Sorry, McCain.”
There was no answer at the Halls’. I tried front and back doors, I peeked in windows.
I checked backyard, garage, nearby alley.
Why would Dierdre have broken into the rectory last night? Looking for what, exactly?
Kenny Thibodeau’s aunt was a nice-looking sixty-year-old woman who lived in a friendly-looking little white house on a nice shady corner of a dead-end street. She was on her haunches gardening when I pulled up. Her graying hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her white U of Iowa T-shirt and jean cutoffs made her seem much younger than she was.
Her son had gotten into some speeding trouble several times during the past few years and I’d represented him in court. She greeted me with a raised trowel. “Morning, McCain.”
“Morning, Am.”
“Plug your ears.”
“My ears?”
“These old bones make a lot of noise when I have to stand up.”
“You’re a doll and you know it.”
“I used to be a doll. A long, long time ago I was a doll. Here we go.”
Her bones did sort of crackle arthritically.
She wiped the back of a hand across her forehead.
“I bet Kenny told you about Dierdre.”
“Yeah.”
“If you want to know what she was looking for, I don’t know.”
“You’ve seen her there before?”
“Oh, sure. She was one of the Reverend’s regulars.”
“Regulars?”
“He counseled people. I know you didn’t care for him but he did a lot of good.
I mean, he was sort of stuck-up and a snob and everything. But he saved half a dozen marriages I know of and he got four or five men to quit drinking. Got them into Aa.”
Every time you try to hate somebody, they go and do something honorable. The inconsiderate bastards.
“And he counseled young people, too, huh?”
“Five or six of them on a regular basis. The Beaumont boy? All the trouble he used to get in? He’s been walking the straight and narrow for the past eleven months. Every time I see his mom, she breaks into tears over the Reverend. Says he walks on water and can do no wrong.”
“You ever hear any scuttlebutt about his counseling sessions?”
“What kind of scuttlebutt?”
She was about to answer when the mailman appeared in his pith helmet and blue uniform walking shorts and shirt. “There’s a nice cold glass of lemonade in the refrigerator for you, Deke.
I guess you know where to find it.”
“Thanks, Am,” Deke said. “You’re a lifesaver. As usual.” He nodded and left.
“They’ve got a lot tougher job than most people think. When my husband got laid off at the plant back in ‘ec, he started being a substitute carrier. You never saw so much leg trouble and back trouble and arm trouble. It looks a lot easier than it is. So when it gets real hot, I leave lemonade for Deke in the fridge. He just goes inside and gets it.
Even if I’m not here. And I have hot cocoa for him in the winter months.”
“You’re the one who walks on water.”
“Oh, yes,” she laughed. “I’m one holy person. That’s why Fred and I sit up in bed some nights reading Playboy and giggling over the cartoons.”
Deke had just set a record for lemonade-guzzling. He was back outside, waving good-bye, going on to the next house.
“What were we talking about?” she said. “Oh, yes, scuttlebutt. No, not really.”
“Anybody ever get mad at him about his counseling?”
“A couple of husbands who thought he was taking their wives’ side.” She smiled. “You know how men are, McCain. You have the misfortune of being one yourself. Here they were happily running around on their wives, and getting stinko in the process, and they deeply resented this minister telling them that they were at fault for their unhappy marriages. Why, the nerve of that man!”
“Were they mad enough to kill him?”
“Of the two I’m thinking of, one got a divorce and moved up to the Twin Cities. And the other one finally saw the error of his ways. He’s one of the ones who went to Aa. And he still goes, too. Things’ve worked out pretty well for him, in fact.”
“You ever hear any scuttlebutt about Dierdre Hall?”
“Well, I don’t know if this is scuttlebutt or not but there was a pretty angry argument there one night.”
“Between Dierdre and the Reverend?”
“No. Between Sara and the Reverend.”
“What happened?”
The phone rang. “Wouldn’t you know? I’ll be right back, McCain.”
She went inside. I watched butterflies, bees, horseflies, robins, dogs, cats… that parade of beings we share the planet with even though we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re the only ones who matter to the history of this nowhere little world.
She came back bearing lemonade. Handed it over.
“Boy, this is good,” I said.
She was the picture of the perfect housewife.
Except her lemonade was so sour I felt my cheeks puckering inward and my sinus passages starting to drain. No wonder Deke had made it out of there so fast. He knew what was waiting for him. He poured it out in the sink and fled.
“Homemade,” she said.
“Mmmm,” I said.
“Extra lemons and no sugar,” she said.
“Mmmm,” I said.
But intrepid detective that I am, I carried on with my questions. “You were telling me about the argument between the Reverend and Sara.”
“Oh, right. Well, she just burst in the rectory door one night and ran down the hall and burst into the study where he has his counseling sessions. And started screaming at the Reverend.”
“Was Mrs. Courtney home at the time?”
“No. She was out somewhere. She’s in a lot of clubs and groups. You know how it is for a minister’s wife like that.”
“So what happened inside?”
“Well, the first thing Sara did was to send Dierdre home.”
“Did Dierdre want to go?”
“No. She was yelling at her mother pretty loudly.”
“Could you figure out what they were arguing about?”
“Not really. The Reverend got very angry and told them to keep their voices down. He knew I was somewhere in the house.”
“Did Dierdre leave?”
“Uh-huh. She slammed the front door very hard.”
“How long did Sara stay?”
“Probably another twenty minutes.”
Her phone rang again.
“You’re a popular lady.”
“Oh, yes, I’m thinking of running for president next time.”
“I’d vote for you.”
She glanced at my glass. “You hardly touched your lemonade.”
“Oh. Sorry. I’ll finish it now.”
“I’ll get the phone.”
“I need to leave, anyway. Thanks for talking.”
“My pleasure, McCain.”
I made sure she didn’t see me dump the glass on the far side of the front porch. I set it on the steps and walked to my car.
You always think of burglary as a nighttime occupation.
But I didn’t want to wait for night. Things were starting to come clear to me, at least as far as the relationship between Dierdre and Reverend Courtney were concerned. I wondered what Dierdre must have been looking for when she broke in. I also wondered what else there was to learn about Courtney. The most promising place to look was his office in the rectory.
Church and rectory were built into the side of a piney hill. A tranquil, natural setting.
Anybody who pulled up in a car could be seen, however, from the street that fronted it.
The first thing to do was to walk up to the front door and ring the bell and see if anybody was inside.
I rang. Chimes echoed inside. No response. I knocked. A tabby cat with one injured eye viewed me skeptically from his perch on a low-hanging branch. No response.
I checked the adjacent garage. Empty.
I drove up on top of the hill. A small grocery store sat there. One of the few left, now that the supermarket chains had discovered our little burg. I parked way over on the edge of the gravel drive so the store folks couldn’t see me, went inside and bought a pack of Luckies and a pack of Black Jack gum, and then went back outdoors.
Three pairs of tandem-bike riders went past. I figured them all to be about twelve or thirteen. They were at that group-dating stage when you got to hide the crush you had on a girl by going out with a mixed assortment of equally terrified boys and girls. They went inside the store and got soda pop, the girls much more in control of themselves and the situation than the boys, the boys all seeming younger and more callow than the girls in fact, and then they were on their tandem bikes again and rolling down the hill.
Nobody in the parking lot. Nobody driving by to see me.
I started my hike down the hill. The great thing about pine is the smell. The bad thing about pine is the way it stabs you. There was a vague path that wove its way down to the valley. The trees were thick enough here to cool the temperature by several degrees. I used to play Indian in places like these. I always wanted to be the Indian, never the cowboy, never the cavalry. Indians, at least in movies made by white guys, always knew neat stuff, all about caves and how to track mountain lions and how to communicate with smoke signals and pieces of stone smoothed to shine like mirrors.
Who wouldn’t want to be an Indian?
I was sweaty, piney as a porcupine, and irritable by the time I reached the backyard of the church. At least the grass had been mowed recently and smelled good.
I had my trusty burglary picks with me-taken in trade from a thief I’d managed to keep out of prison-anda good thing, too. This place was locked up tighter than Jimmy Hoffa’s secret bank records. It took me longer to get inside than I’d hoped, thus increasing my chances of being seen. A raccoon sat at the tree line observing me with the kind of wry look only raccoons, of all God’s animals, can summon. He seemed to be under the completely mistaken impression that I was some kind of idiot.
Air-conditioning. I just stood in it and let it cool me, balm me, dry me. All I needed was a glass of Aunt Am’s lemonade.
Courtney had a lot of the Great Books on his shelves. I suspected he’d actually read them. His den was English manor house with fireplace, leather wingback chairs, antiques, and a really first-rate collection of smoking pipes. Not a corncob among them.
Since Cliffie had no doubt searched this office, I felt sure that it was worth searching again. Cliffie could overlook a corpse sprawled across a desk.
I spent a good twenty minutes looking. I went through the desk; I went through the books, making sure they weren’t false fronts hiding a safe or slot behind them; I got down on my hands and knees and made sure the floor was flat, no trap doors, no insets, no safes.
As I was getting up, I realized that I hadn’t checked the in-out tray on his desk. An oversight worthy of Cliffie. I had some luck.
There were four envelopes hand-addressed in a forceful male script. Blue ink. I read them. Letters from Courtney thanking various members of his flock for favors they’d done the church.
There was a letter folded in half, too. I opened it. It wasn’t a letter, though. It was a crude layout for a leaflet.
Why The Jews Favor Kennedy
It was the same creed as always. The Jews wanted to be on the Supreme Court so they could outlaw all the good Christian principles this country was founded on-including letting colored people marry white people (i.e., big black hands soiling virginal white female flesh)-and Kennedy would happily appoint Jews because they would see to it that he was able to serve not just two terms but three or four. The way Fdr did.
There was something else folded into the flyer. A check written on the personal account of Reverend Courtney and made out personally to Parnell, the printer. No businesses were named.
Looked completely and unsuspiciously like a personal transaction.
“He wasn’t very fond of either Jews or Catholics,” she said from the doorway. “But then we all have our little failings, don’t we, Mr.
McCain?”
She would have made a good cover model for Manhunt detective magazine just then, a fashionably dressed widow holding a silver-plated. 45 in a black-gloved hand, a veil covering the cold, attractive face. A Raymond Chandler wet dream.
The laugh was pained. “When you came right down to it, he wasn’t all that crazy about Protestants, either. But he came from five generations of ministers, so he bowed to family pressure and went to divinity school.”
“He really believes all that stuff about Jews secretly running the world?”
This time the laugh was bitter. “His one true love-the girl he fell in love with his freshman year in college-fell in love with a Jewish graduate student. He hated Jews ever since.”
“You hate a whole group of people because of one guy? Sounds like he had a few mental problems.”
“More than a few-and that’s probably why he was such a good counselor, which he was. He could identify with the people he helped. He genuinely cared about them.”
“Enough to get one of them pregnant,” I said.
I wanted the satisfaction of seeing what was going on behind the veil. All I could hear in response was a tiny, harsh breath. “Did Sara Hall tell you?”
“No. I just put a few stray pieces of information together. Dierdre broke in here looking for something.”
“It would’ve destroyed him. He started to come undone the last six months-ever since he started sleeping with her. And then when she got pregnant -anyway, she’d written him some very foolish letters. That’s why she broke in here. She wanted them back.”
“And you started drinking again.”
I said it without judgment. Merely a statement.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Believe it or not, I still loved him. He had a difficult life. Spiritually, I mean. Good and evil. It was a constant struggle.
He never learned to forgive himself.”
It’s always instructive to hear somebody else talk about a person you don’t like much. How could you both have the same person in mind? A minister who would take advantage of a teenage girl? A man of God who would pay for hate mail and condemn an entire group of people because he lost a girl? How could this possibly be the same man she was describing in terms of a John Donne-ish torment with his demons?
But you know something, it was quite likely that both portraits were true. We’re heroes or villains depending on who’s talking.
“He had one thing, anyway.”
“What’s that?”
“A good wife,” I said.
The bitter laugh again. “Oh, yes. Such a good wife that I passed out at a dinner party the night the dean of the divinity school gave a party for his best students. And one time-at his first church assignment-I tripped and fell walking down the aisle to the front of the church. Dead drunk.
And a lot of traffic accidents, Mr.
McCain. Thank the Lord I didn’t hurt anybody. I wake up in cold sweats sometimes, thinking I’ve run over a child-” She was crying now.
I went over and took the gun from her. No bravery on my part. It was pointed at the floor by now anyway. I slipped it into my trouser pocket. She came against me in a rustle of black organdy. She slid her arms around my neck. I eased her hat and veil away and let her weep.
When I felt my groin starting to react automatically to the pressure of her body against mine, I helped her across the floor and eased her down on the couch. I took her pumps off and got a pillow behind her head. There was a bottle of spring water on a small sidebar.
I poured a glass and held it to her lips.
She drank. “Thank you.”
I went over and sat down in one of the leather wing chairs and lit a Lucky.
“I need to ask you some questions.”
“I’ll try to answer them.”
“What was he doing out at Muldaur’s church the night Muldaur died?”
“Muldaur was blackmailing him.”
“What? Are you sure?”
She nodded. Put the back of a hand to her head.
“In my purse outside the door there are some aspirin. I have a terrible headache. Could you get me those, please?”
I got them, lifted her head the way I would have a sick person’s, and put the aspirin on her tongue.
“You’re giving me communion, Mr.
McCain.” She smiled. She was a good-looking woman.
“I guess I missed my calling.”
I went over, rescued my cigarette from the ashtray, and sat down again.
“What did Muldaur have on him?”
“The way I understand it-and this may not be exactly correct-is that Muldaur and one of his friends were out hunting for snakes one afternoon. There’s a small fishing cabin near where they were. The cabin was owned by an old man who belonged to our church. When he passed on, the widow insisted that John take the key to the cabin and use it whenever he liked. He took Dierdre out there several times-he’d gotten very stupid about her, he told me; he said he hadn’t felt lust like this in years-” The smile again, sweet, self-deprecating. “Which isn’t exactly what a wife wants to hear.”
“I don’t imagine.”
“But I didn’t blame him. All the hell I’d put him through with my drinking-we’d quit being lovers a long time ago. Or he had anyway. I was more like his sister or his daughter than his wife-at least as he saw it-somebody he was obligated to take care of. That’s not uncommon among alcoholic spouses. They stick by the alcoholic but the romance goes and rarely ever comes back.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. Then, “Could you please tell me a little more about Muldaur?”
“Well, he was a piece of work, wasn’t he? The snakes. And blackmailing people. And sleeping with women in his own congregation.” She caught herself. “I guess except for the snakes, I could be describing my husband, couldn’t I?
That never occurred to me before just now. That my husband and Muldaur were similar in that respect. They were both men of the cloth who’d seriously violated their vows. If Muldaur ever took any vows.”
“Why did your husband have Sara Hall with him that night at Muldaur’s?”
“They were going to talk to Muldaur. We aren’t wealthy. Muldaur was getting $500 a month from my husband and it was breaking us. That’s about what he makes for a monthly income. All our clothes and his fancy cars… they came from a trust fund I inherited. But that’s about gone now. He’d raided our pathetic little savings account to pay Muldaur as it was.”
“What about the sportscar?”
She rolled over on her side, watching me.
“Do you suppose I could have a cigarette?”
“Sure.”
I got a fresh one going the way Robert Ryan would have and carried it, along with an ashtray, over to her. She sat up on an elbow, inhaled deeply.
“He didn’t want me to smoke.”
“It’s not good for you.”
“Yes, I notice you don’t smoke.”
“I’m down to three cartons a day.”
“I’m surprised.”
“About what?”
“Y. I sort of like you. And all the time I thought you were just this grubby little creep that worked for Judge Whitney.”
“I have that right on my business card. Grubby little creep. At your service.”
Another deep inhalation. “What were we talking about?”
“About how your husband could afford a sportscar.”
“A gift from the last church.”
“Ah.”
“They didn’t find out until after we’d left that he’d been seeing three or four of the choir women on the side.”
“I see a pattern here.”
“Oh, it was definitely a pattern. Same as my drinking was-is-a pattern. Life is patterns, Mr. McCain.”
“Yeah, I’ve kinda noticed that.” Then: “You never did tell me what Sara Hall and your husband were doing at Muldaur’s church the night he was killed.”
“They were going to beg him to stop blackmailing my husband. We were running out of money and she was afraid Muldaur would tell somebody about my husband and Dierdre. And then eventually the whole town would know she was pregnant.”
“They really thought Muldaur would back off?”
“Last-ditch effort.” A long trail of smoke. “As I said, we didn’t have much money left. And Sara was terrified of what Muldaur would do.”
“You know a guy named Bill Oates?”
“No. Why?”
“I saw him arguing with his wife the night Muldaur died. And then I saw him in Muldaur’s trailer very early in the morning later on. Made me curious about his relationship with Viola Muldaur.”
“You think he might have killed Muldaur?”
“He looks like a possibility.”
“Anybody else?”
“Y.”
“Are you kidding?”
She sat up. The leather sofa made a lot of noise.
“Afraid not.”
“Why would I kill my husband?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“And did I also kill Muldaur?”
“Probably. But that’s the trouble I’m having with all this.”
“Do you ever read Nero Wolfe?”
“All the time.”
“You know how he always makes those astonishing leaps of deductive logic?”
“I wish I knew how he did it. The question is-who would have a motive to kill both your husband and Muldaur?”
“Are you saying that you’ve eliminated me?”
“Not necessarily.”
“But why would I have killed Muldaur?”
“Look at the time sequence. Maybe you were so sick of Muldaur blackmailing your husband that you killed him with that poison.”
“That makes sense I suppose-may I mooch another cig, by the way?-but if I killed Muldaur why would I turn around and kill my husband?”
I brought her another cigarette. She lit it from the butt of the one she was finishing.
When I was seated again, I said, “You kill Muldaur. Everything looks good for a day or so.
And then your husband tells you he wants a divorce. Or you find that he’s sleeping with another one of the choir ladies again.
You could have a lot of motives. Especially if you were on the bottle again. Alcoholics aren’t very rational when they’re tipping a few.”
“Very neat. Nero would be proud of you.”
She sure did enjoy cigarettes. She smoked with great erotic enthusiasm. My groin was starting to make itself felt again.
“The only thing wrong with it is that it isn’t true, Mr. McCain.”
“So say you.”
“So say I.”
I stood up. Stubbed my Lucky out.
Walked to the door. “I need to go.”
“I could always tell Cliffie you broke into my house.”
“I could always tell Cliffie your husband was a blackmailer.”
She smiled. “I guess that’s a good point.”
Then: “I’m curious.”
“What?”
“A minute or so ago-were you looking at me-sexually?”
“Boy, what a question.”
“Well, were you?”
“Yeah, I guess I was.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s been such a long time since I felt a young man’s eyes on me that way. The proper alcoholic wife of a minister doesn’t get a lot of looks like that. I lost fifteen years when I saw your eyes settle on my breasts and legs.” Tears touched her eyes and voice. “It felt so good.”
“My pleasure,” I said. “You’re a very good-looking woman.”
A teary laugh.
I thought of going over there to give her a reassuring hug. But given the moment, that was probably a very risky move.
I said good-bye and left.
There were two people I wanted to talk to.
Reluctant as I was to go back to Muldaur’s place-my ankle, since you’ve probably been worrying about it, the considerate people you are-hurt only at certain angles. I just wasn’t sure which angles those were. So I’d be moving along just fine and then I’d step down just so and-one of life’s little mysterious games.
The top of Muldaur’s shabby trailer had been painted silver and shone like a mirror in the stabbing rays of the sun. I decided not to take any chances with men with shotguns bursting out the door. I brought my own. 45, which was the gun my dad carried in the war.
I knocked several times. No answer. No dog bark. No human voice. No radio blare. No Tv drone. I took this to mean, in my worldly way, that probably nobody was home or that if somebody was home, he or she didn’t plan to come out.
Then I heard the singing. Sweet and high and mountain-stream pure, no affectation, no straining for effect, a simple, sincere young girl’s voice singing one of those old hillbilly hymns you could catch on “Grand Ole Opry” or “Country Jubilee” every once in a while.
My assumption at first was that it was a record or a radio. But as I turned I realized that it was coming from the church. I let it pull me, eager to hear it more clearly, and moments later I stood in the cooling shadows of the old service garage, listening to Ella Muldaur sing.
Ella stood in the center of the platform, a radiant hill child in a tattered blouse and faded jeans. Viola sat in the chair next to her, dressed in a pair of overalls and a blouse.
“Oh, I have talked to Jesus,
And He said He will show me peace.
Oh, I have talked to Jesus,
And He promised me no more grief.”
Her voice was skilled and knowing enough to convey both the promised peace and the grief of the present time.
No wonder Viola was crying, as she had been that first night I’d seen them here on the altar.
She held Ella’s right hand as the girl sang and swayed in joy and sorrow to the melody. And for that moment I was able to put aside all the hip, modern ways I’d been taught to feel about our quest for purpose and meaning and to simply share in our need to understand our place in the cosmos.
Cave paintings dating back thousand of years illustrated the desperate need mankind had always felt in seeking such an explanation. It almost didn’t matter if you believed in a god-force or not. The need to bring some meaning to the spectacle of human history was primal.
And so gentle and soothing when put into song by this girl.
They were so caught up in Ella’s singing they didn’t even seem aware of me at first.
And then she was done. And I felt banished from celestial comfort. I was no longer elevated by my humanity but doomed to it. It was not in heaven I stood but in an old garage that smelled of car oil and filth.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Viola said.
“I’m here to see Ella.”
“Ella? What for?”
I was only halfway up the aisle. I stood in place.
“The other day she said she had something to tell me. I’m curious what that was going to be.”
“I shouldn’t’ve said that, mister,” Ella said.
“That’s the most beautiful singing I’ve ever heard.”
“You should not praise the Lord’s music,”
Viola snapped. “Only the Devil wants worldly praise. Ella sings beautiful because her soul is beautiful. Ella is the purest of us all. She is God’s favored child.”
“Ella’s old enough to speak for herself,” I said.
“Please, mister, you’re gonna get me in an awful lot of trouble. And besides, all I was gonna say was that my daddy, he got sick even before he came to the altar that night.”
“You hush, girl!” Viola said. “We don’t talk to this man.”
“Yes, Mama!”
“Now, you leave, McCain. Or I’ll have Bill Oates spend some more time with you.” She grinned. “He told me how he done you pretty mean the other night.”
“You don’t seem very interested in finding the man who killed your husband, Mrs. Muldaur.”
“All I’m interested in is you gettin’ out of my sight.”
Not much I could say to that.