I lowered myself into the corner of a fat moss-green loveseat. “The both of us,” I said.
She studied me quizzically and lowered her full hips next to me. I think she was afraid I was going to faint or be sick or something.
I pulled down one of the yellow pillows from the top of the loveseat and cradled it in my lap. I started telling her the biggest string of lies I’d ever told in my life. “I do need a sofa,” I began, “but I’d also like to talk to you. You see, I’m Marcie Peacock’s grandmother-she was one of the Kent State students working for you at the cathedral the night the Reverend Wing died.”
Elaine started hugging her clipboard the way I was hugging the pillow. “And?”
“Well, she’s scared to death. The newspaper is digging into the whole thing again, it seems, and they think maybe one of the students is the real killer. Apparently the paper has some proof that the woman who confessed really didn’t do it. That reporter has my Marcie simply frantic.”
A sympathetic smile stretched across Elaine’s wide German face. “You know, your Marcie is the first African-American student we’ve ever hired.”
I could have just died. Elaine Albert had recognized me the moment I walked in. I apologized and tried to explain myself. Why she didn’t toss me out I don’t know. Maybe it was my obvious agony. Maybe she wanted to see what kind of information she could wheedle out of me. “I am genuinely concerned about those students,” I said. “Once the paper starts running its series, they are going to come under suspicion.”
“Along with a lot of people,” she said.
As we sat on that sofa and talked, I was not the least bit afraid that she might be the real murderer. And it wasn’t because she’d passed the lie detector test the police gave her. There was just something about her. A strange mix of icy confidence and serenity. If she’d wanted Buddy Wing dead for some reason, in my estimation she was the kind of woman who’d just pull out a pistol and shoot him.
Anyway, Elaine told me all about the college students who worked there-not about them individually so much-but about the kinds of jobs they did and where they would be at any given time before, during and after the broadcasts. She didn’t believe for the world one of them poisoned Buddy Wing.
“What about someone disguised to look like a college student?” I asked.
“It gets pretty crazy back there,” she said. “Sure.”
I actually bought the sofa we were sitting on, $885, yellow pillows included. “Does it surprise you that Sissy James may not be the killer?” I asked as we walked to the door.
“After your visit here today,” she said, “nothing surprises me anymore.”
I went home and said good-bye to that scruffy beige monstrosity in my living room. Then I called the newsroom. “Aubrey,” I said. “You’ll never guess who sold me a new sofa.”
“I can’t talk. They just found Ronny Doddridge, deader than a doornail.”
Friday, June 16
Ronny Doddridge was the big-eared security guard at the Heaven Bound Cathedral. Aubrey and I had encountered him on our first visit there. He had showed us the way to Guthrie Gates’ office. On our second visit he’d showed us the door. Because it was a suspected suicide, Aubrey’s story was only nine short paragraphs:
Cathedral security guard found dead after 9-1-1 call
HANNAWA -Police responding to a 9-1-1 call early yesterday morning found the body of 47-year-old Ronald “Ronny” Doddridge in his home on the city’s near east side.
Police said it appears Doddridge made the emergency call himself before taking his own life. The West Virginia native had worked as a security guard for the Heaven Bound Cathedral since 1992.
Neighbors said Doddridge was not married and lived alone in the small, frame house he rented on Pulver Court.
Police said Doddridge died of a massive head wound. A 9 mm Smith amp; Wesson semi-automatic pistol was found next to his body, they said.
Police spokesman Lt. Benjamin Wiley said dispatchers received the 9-1-1 call at 3:22 AM Thursday. The caller, believed to be a middle-aged male, repeated three times that “A man’s been shot,” then hung up.
Dispatchers traced the call to Doddridge’s home and officers arrived on the scene at 3:55 AM Wiley said Doddridge’s body was found on the kitchen floor.
Wiley would not confirm that a suicide note was found, al-though a neighbor told the Herald-Union that officers responding to the 9-1-1 call told him they had found a note pinned to Doddridge’s bathrobe.
The Rev. Guthrie Gates, pastor of the Heaven Bound Cathedral, issued a statement calling Doddridge “a good and decent man who took great honor in serving the Lord.”
Aubrey was too busy to go to Speckley’s for lunch. So we walked up to the Mr. Hero in the Geisselman Building. The temperature was in the eighties and that meant the downtown sidewalks were as hot as a waffle iron. We shared a foot-long ham and Swiss with brown mustard and tomato. We both bought pink lemonades. We sat in a window booth with closed Venetian blinds.
My stomach was so queasy I was just nibbling my half of the sandwich. “I have to tell you, Aubrey,” I said, “this Doddridge thing really scares me.”
She was chomping like a horse. “You don’t think it was suicide? Come on-just by looking at him you could tell there was a lot of bad stuff going on inside his head.”
“That’s exactly my point, Aubrey. Maybe he knew something about Buddy Wing’s death. Or had some strong suspicions he was sharing with others at the church. And maybe that worried the real killer. Somebody clever enough to poison Wing the way he did, and pin it on Sissy with all that evidence, easily could’ve made Doddridge’s death look like a suicide.”
“And you think maybe the murderer will keep killing. Ronny Doddridge. Aubrey McGinty. Dolly Madison Sprowls, maybe?”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
She dismissed my fears by taking another enormous bite from her half of the sandwich.
“I’d think it would cross yours, too. You’re being followed. Your car windows have been-”
“And I’ve been slapped around and threatened. But this really looks like an honest-to-God suicide.”
“You’re awfully nonchalant about all this.”
“What I am is awfully hungry,” she said.
I let the subject drop and watched her chew. She was not only hungry. She was exhausted. She’d spent all morning trying to follow up on the Doddridge story, with little success. The police were still freezing her out over the ruckus her stories on the chief’s reorganization plan caused. I’m sure whatever information she was getting was coming from disgruntled officers far down the food chain, information that had to be checked and double-checked. “Any idea what the suicide note said?” I asked.
“I can’t confirm it yet,” she said, “but Doddridge apparently apologized to the congregation for not protecting Buddy Wing better.”
I wrapped my half of the sandwich and wedged it into my purse. I’d try to eat it later. “This is all getting so complicated.”
Aubrey took a long, noisy drag on her lemonade. “So, Maddy, tell me about that new sofa.”
Chapter 16
Thursday, June 22
On Tuesday, the county coroner ruled Ronny Doddridge’s death a suicide. On Wednesday, Aubrey came back from police headquarters with a copy of the suicide note. It was written directly to the Reverend Buddy Wing:
Dear pastor,
I am so sorry I let you down. Surely I am going down to hell where I deserve to be. When the devils came back to get you I was hiding like a school boy to smoke a cigarette, as I am sure both you and Jesus already know. I was born no good and remain so.
