sinner.”
Aubrey took a doughnut oozing raspberry. “And your congregation? Do they know how weak and sinful you are?”
“A few. I suppose they all will after you’re done with me.”
Tim Bandicoot clearly was trying to manipulate Aubrey-make her feel guilty if he could manage it, at least a little sympathetic if he couldn’t-but Aubrey wasn’t falling into that trap. “We went to see Sissy at Marysville,” she said.
“I heard.”
Aubrey had her doughnut clenched in her teeth while she dug in her purse for her notebook. “I get the impression Sissy loves both you and the Lord about the same.”
When she couldn’t find a pen, Bandicoot gave her the Bic from his shirt pocket. “I hope that isn’t the case,” he said.
What a nifty little Kabuki dance that was. By pulling out her notebook at that very touchy moment, Aubrey was openly challenging his rectitude. She was telling him that the questions were going to get really tough now, and that from now on everything would be on the record, that anything he said would be judged in the court of public opinion, and maybe even a court of law. And Bandicoot, by handing her his Bic the way he did? Well, you didn’t have to be a theologian to interpret a Jesus-like act like that.
“There are those who don’t think Sissy did it,” Aubrey said.
Bandicoot answered slowly, watching her scribble his quotes as he talked. “There are those who think she didn’t, those who think she did. There are those who think I put her up to it. There are those who think I did it myself, and framed her. There are those who think somebody else did it.”
Aubrey tapped the Bic on her nose. “Who do you think did it? There was a lot of physical evidence supporting Sissy’s confession.”
“I don’t want to believe she did it. But I don’t know.”
“How about somebody like Guthrie Gates?”
“I absolutely do not think Guthrie did it. He loved Buddy too much.”
“Interesting. You’re absolutely sure your rival didn’t kill Buddy, but not so sure about the woman you were screwing?”
If Tim Bandicoot was going to pop his cork and beat us to death with a folding chair, that was the question that would do it. He just smiled sadly. “Sissy has a lot of problems. I’m sure you know all about that stuff.”
Aubrey nodded as sadly as Bandicoot smiled. “How about you? Did you love Buddy too much to kill him?”
“I did love him. I just didn’t agree with some of his-”
He couldn’t find the right word. Aubrey could: “Theatrics?”
“I wouldn’t call them theatrics. He truly believed in those things. I didn’t.”
“You’re putting a pretty mild spin on it, aren’t you? Your break with the Heaven Bound Cathedral was pretty nasty. And very public.”
Bandicoot took several slow sips of coffee. His chocolate eyes, for the first time, focused squarely on Aubrey’s blue eyes. “It was your paper that made it very public. But I could have handled it better. I caused a lot of pain.”
Aubrey now turned to the murder itself, wondering how someone could have moved through the Heaven Bound Cathedral unnoticed, filling Buddy Wing’s water pitcher with poisoned water, painting a poisonous cross on his old family Bible. “Sissy told police she pulled her coat collar up around her ears and walked right in. Did her dirty business and walked right out. Given what you know about the Heaven Bound Cathedral, do you think that’s possible?”
Bandicoot shrugged. “I suppose anything’s possible.”
“The police talked to a lot of people who were there that night. Nobody saw her.”
“I’ve read that.”
“But that doesn’t prove she wasn’t there.”
“I guess not.”
“Nor does her saying she was there prove that she was.”
“I guess that’s right.”
“Now let me ask you this,” Aubrey said. “Could anybody else from your flock-including yourself-have walked around the cathedral without wearing a disguise?”
“No more than Satan could have.”
“How about with a disguise?”
“Satan maybe. I doubt anyone else.”
The Krispy Kreme box was empty when we left Bandicoot’s storefront church. Aubrey’s car was still out front. “You know,” she said as we pulled away, “we never should’ve pigged out on those doughnuts.”
“Don’t I know it,” I said. “We’ll have to fast for a week.”
Aubrey U-turned through an abandoned Sinclair station. “Screw the calories. Think about who gave us those doughnuts. A man who, maybe, poisoned Buddy Wing twice. Maddy-we have got to be more careful.”
Even after all those Krispy Kremes Aubrey wanted to go to Speckley’s for lunch. The place is as busy Saturday mornings as it is weekdays, so we had to wait in line. Aubrey bought a Herald-Union from the box outside and read it standing up. I got a menu from the counter and looked for something light that might counteract any slow-acting poison. When we finally got a table-in the smoking section-I ritually ordered the meat loaf sandwich and au gratin potatoes as usual. Aubrey got a house salad and tomato soup.
I started our debriefing session: “Tim Bandicoot was nice enough, wasn’t he?”
“Too nice.”
“Think so? Other than the doughnuts I don’t think he spread it on too thick.”
My appraisal angered her. “These TV preachers manipulate people for a living. They get perfectly sane people to jump up and down and roll around on the floor and then hand over the grocery money. And when they get caught with some bimbo in a motel room? They simply trot out their God’s already forgiven me-won’t you? shtick and everything’s hunky-dory until the next time they get caught. Remember Jimmy Swaggert? ‘I have sinned! I have sinned!’ I think we just got Swaggert-ed, Maddy.”
I wasn’t so sure. Tim Bandicoot had seemed sincere to me. “He told us he didn’t want forgiveness,” I said.
“Shtick. He gave me his Bic for christsake. What was that all about?”
“You needed a pen?”
“That was my shtick. I’ve got a purse full of pens.”
The waitress brought our food. Aubrey used her little finger and thumb to fish out the curls of raw onion from her salad. She deposited them in the ash tray. “Did you hear what he said when I told him we’d been to visit Sissy at Marysville? ‘I heard.’ How did he hear? Who told him?”
“Sissy?”
“Of course, Sissy.”
“So they’re still communicating.”
Aubrey filled her mouth with Romaine lettuce. “So he’s still manipulating.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe Tim Bandicoot was the icky egomaniacal murderer I thought going in, before the Krispy Kremes, the chocolate-brown cow eyes and that big dose of contrition. “So where do we go from here?”
“Shopping.”
Chapter 8
Sunday, April 23
