I was flabbergasted. “You know about the doughnuts?”
Gates closed his eyes and motioned for the eyebrow woman to resume her rubbing. “Since Tim Bandicoot started that temple of his, it’s been like the U.S. and Red China between our congregations. Everything they do gets back to us. Everything we do gets back to them.” He sat silently until the eyebrow woman was finished, then checked himself in the mirror. He smiled with satisfaction. I watched his eyes shift in the mirror, to the knees peeking from the hem of Aubrey’s churchy dress. “Wasn’t I open and honest with you, Miss McGinty? Wasn’t I respectful and friendly?” He checked his watch and clicked on a small speaker box on the make-up table. The choir was already singing. “Time to go,” he said. He stood and pulled a plastic bottle of mineral water from the side pocket of his suit coat. He unscrewed the cap and took a small, quick sip. Then he smiled at us, calmly, neck veins back in place, and said, “You’re welcome to stay for the service, if you think it might do you some good. But you are not welcome to come back. Or call me. Or talk to any member of this congregation.” He gave us a quick “God be with you” and left. The security guard pointed to the door with his chin. As we left, I poked Aubrey in the arm and pointed back into the room. The eyebrow woman was sitting in the chair, nervously lighting a cigarette.
The security guard followed us to our car. Aubrey and I hardly said a word to each other until we reached Swann’s, Hannawa’s legendary drive-in restaurant where all the car hops are muscular college boys. The minute you pull into a slot and click your headlights they run to your car-not walk, but run like they were on a football field-and take your order. We both ordered double-cheeseburgers and fries. They have forty-seven different flavors of milkshakes. Aubrey got a large butterscotch-banana. I got a small strawberry.
I watched Aubrey watch the carhop trot inside with our orders. “So,” I asked her, “what did we learn today?”
“Well,” she said, “we learned that sad-sack security guard isn’t the rube we thought. He recognized us when we pulled in and followed us. What we don’t know is whether it was on his own initiative or whether he was under orders from Guthrie Gates.”
“What difference does that make?” I asked.
“Remember what he said, Maddy: ‘I thought it might be the two of you.’ He didn’t follow us because we were strangers trying to sneak in and poison somebody. He followed us because it was us.”
“That doesn’t mean Gates has something to hide,” I said. “There are lots of innocent people who hate the press.”
Aubrey liked that. She laughed. “The first time we went to the church, Gates was as nice as pie. This time he couldn’t control himself. He was really p-o’d. And what was that U.S. and Red China stuff?”
“It’s no secret those two churches don’t like each other,” I said.
“Aren’t you being a wee bit charitable? They’re at war. They spy on each other. Gates knew about the doughnuts.”
“Yes he did,” I said. “It gave me the willies when he said that.”
“He wants us to be afraid. He wants us to believe that both churches are full of crazies. He’s warning us to back off. What’s done is done. Let Buddy Wing rest in peace.”
The carhop was running toward us with our food. I rolled down my window for the tray. “And let the real killer rest in peace?”
Aubrey impatiently reached across me for her bag of fries. “But we’re not going to let the real killer rest in peace. At least I’m not.”
I handed her a cheeseburger. I had the willies again. She was telling me things were going to get dangerous. I could stop tagging along if I wanted.
Aubrey peeled back the bun and delicately removed the onions. She looked for a place to put them. “Did you notice he was carrying his own bottle of water? I don’t think he’s merely being trendy, Maddy.”
I let her put the onions in my hand and then dumped them on the window tray. “You think he’s afraid somebody will poison him next?”
Aubrey nodded while she took a bite. “Or maybe he just wants people to think he’s afraid somebody will poison him next.”
“So Guthrie Gates is still a suspect?”
“Everybody is still a suspect.”
“Including Sissy James?”
This bite she shook her head. “I don’t see any way she could walk around there without being spotted. Even in disguise. Tim Bandicoot either. I think they’re out.”
I watched her eat and she watched me eat and we giggled at how messy the cheeseburgers were. “So, did we learn anything else?” I asked.
Aubrey squinted at me. She knew I had seen something she hadn’t.
“The eyebrow woman,” I explained. “She lit a cigarette. I poked you, remember?”
“And?”
“Jesus Didn’t Smoke-Why Do You?”
“Ah-the signs. They’re fanatical against smoking.”
“Yet she lit a cigarette,” I repeated. “I’d say either she’s the killer or she’s one of Tim Bandicoot’s spies.”
“Because she lit a cigarette?”
“Because she forgot the rules, Aubrey. Because she was so frightened or nervous, or something, that she just had to have a cigarette.” I reminded her of something the big-eared security guard had said during our first visit: “Smoking was a manifestation of spiritual sloth.”
I watched Aubrey draw the thick butterscotch-banana shake up her plastic straw. It seemed like she was having trouble fitting a new suspect onto whatever list she had in her mind. Finally she said, “So you think we should talk to this woman with the eyebrows?”
“Yes, I do.”
Chapter 9
Monday, May 1
When I got to work Monday, Eric Chen was wearing a necktie. By all appearances a new one. By all appearances one hundred percent silk. I grilled him about it as soon as I got back to my desk with my tea.
He did not like being grilled. “I just felt like buying a tie,” he said. “And if you’re going to buy a tie you might as well wear it.”
I knew what the tie was all about. It was about Aubrey. “I think maybe you’re trying to get my job,” I teased. “Next week it will be a sports jacket and the week after that a three-piece suit. Week after that I’ll be out on my keister.”
Eric loosened the ill-shaped knot under his chin. “You’re crazy, Maddy.” He knew I knew why he’d bought the tie.
I enjoyed my tea while Eric continued his computer background checks for Aubrey. He was trying to find someone in that church directory with a reason, no matter how far-fetched, to poison the Rev. Buddy Wing.
Our investigation of Buddy Wing’s murder was puttering along on three parallel tracks. I say our investigation because by now Eric and I were completely seduced by Aubrey’s obsession to free Sissy James. Let me take some of that back. I was seduced by her obsession. Eric was seduced by something else. Anyway, the investigation was puttering along on these three tracks:
The first was to prove that Sissy didn’t kill Buddy Wing. The second was to prove that Tim Bandicoot was a creep, so Sissy would come to her senses and confess, on the record, that she didn’t do it. The third thing was to identify other suspects.
I was searching the map cabinet with Sylvia Berdache-looking for some pre-1950 city zoning maps for some story or the other-when Eric suddenly yelled, “Hello!”
I was bent over the bottom drawer and it took me a few seconds to straighten up. Eric was smiling like a birthday party clown and motioning for me with both hands. I was happy to let Sylvia search by herself. Before going to Eric’s desk I circled by my desk to pick up my mug. He kept smiling and motioning until I got there. “Find
