Paul Rafael said his department now believes that “the real shooter” is Darren Yoder, a 38-year-old home improvement contractor.
Yoder was arrested at his Marlboro Ave. home yesterday morning.
According to Chief Rafael, McGinty not only uncovered information about an alleged affair between Reddincoat and Yoder’s wife, high school cheerleading advisor Carolle Yoder, but also located a hunting cabin in Coshocton County where detectives Saturday recovered a pair of blood-splattered overalls and a. 45 caliber pistol.
SEE SHOOTER PAGE B5
I read the rest of our stories on the murder: the release of the irate father; Yoder’s arraignment and not guilty plea; his trial and conviction. Then later in the afternoon when things eased up, I rummaged through our stacks of Gazettes -we keep a year’s worth of all the little newspapers around us-and found Aubrey’s own stories on the murder.
I could see why Aubrey got the police reporter job here. She was not only a good writer, she was a digger. She had that healthy cynicism a reporter needs and can’t be taught. I was looking forward to our visit to the cathedral on Saturday.
Chapter 3
Saturday, March 11
Wouldn’t you just know it that one of those damn late-winter snows pushed down across Lake Erie Saturday morning. It had been a pretty stiff winter and the city was out of road salt. So we all had to fend for ourselves, including Aubrey and me. All the way to the Heaven Bound Cathedral she apologized for the heater in her old Ford Escort not working. “Soon as I’ve got $2,900 in the bank I’m buying an SUV,” she said.
“How much you got saved so far?” I asked, knowing reporters are always pipe-dreaming about new cars.
“The saving starts just as soon as my Visa gets under control.”
We came up behind a city bus. It covered our windshield with slush. When Aubrey turned on her wipers, the one on my side only smeared the slush worse. The one on her side flew off. “What kind of SUV you thinking about getting?” I asked.
“A bright yellow one,” she said.
We turned onto Shellborne Street and started to wind into the city’s South Ridge neighborhood. Mercifully, the street already had been plowed and the Escort climbed bravely. For a mile or so the street was lined with abandoned storefronts and rundown apartment buildings. But as soon as we passed McKinley Park the neighborhoods became more prosperous. This part of town was built in the early Sixties when the city was still growing. There was street after street of tidy ranches with attached garages. We passed a Kmart and a strip of auto dealerships. The Heaven Bound Cathedral was on the right.
The entrance was guarded by two cement angels, frozen out-stretched arms welcoming us in. The parking lot was massive, and except for five or six cars, empty. The morning’s snow had been pushed into neat mounds around the light poles.
The Heaven Bound Cathedral was one of Hannawa’s most recognizable landmarks, a three-sides wedge of glass and serious-looking beige brick. Huge neon crosses rose from all three corners. A pretty ugly building in my opinion.
“It looks bigger on television,” Aubrey said.
The sidewalks had been sprinkled with blue de-icing pellets and we made it inside without incident.
For a while we just wandered the halls. There were JESUS DIDN’T SMOKE-WHY DO YOU? signs on every wall. In one hallway we found a long bulletin board thumb-tacked full of Polaroids-new members, Sunday school classes, family outings to various campgrounds and amusement parks. Buddy Wing was in every photo, smiling wide under his huge head of heavily sprayed hair.
We came to a set of wide oak doors. Raised bronze letters told us it was the BROADCAST CHAPEL. We peeked inside. This chapel was big enough to hold a Miss America pageant. We heard a pair of hard shoes behind us.
It was a security guard. He was tall and chubby. There was a sadness about him, the kind you see on a lot of middle-aged men as they plow along through a life loaded down with failure. His high cheekbones and protruding ears gave away his Appalachian ancestry. And so did his voice. “Might I be of assistance?” he asked.
Aubrey immediately shook his hand. “We’re from the Herald-Union. We’ve got an appointment with Guthrie Gates.”
“Thought as much,” said the guard. He led us off, at a pace that would make a Galapagos turtle proud.
I was surprised that Aubrey had made an appointment. “I thought we were just snooping?” I whispered.
Aubrey didn’t care a whit about the security guard’s Appalachian ears. “Guthrie Gates is the associate pastor,” she said loudly. “He’ll probably be named full-blown pastor pretty soon.”
“Already has been,” the security guard said.
I knew what Aubrey was doing. She was playing dumb. It’s an old reporter’s trick. Ask a direct question and people get scared and tell you nothing. Wheedle them into volunteering information and they’ll just blab and blab.
“I hear he’s very good with kids,” Aubrey said to me. “He’s got like three or four of his own.”
The security guard politely corrected her. “Oh, no, ma’am. Guth’s not even married yet. But he is good with the kids. That’s for sure.”
“And I hear he grew up in the church,” Aubrey said to me.
“No ma’am. He came to the cathedral just a year before I did, seven years ago now. He’s like family though.”
Aubrey filled her voice with apology. “Of course. I was thinking of that other guy, Tim Bandicoot. He’s the one whose parents were members of the Clean Collar Club.”
“That’s right-but Tim’s no longer with our church,” said the security guard.
I was surprised that Aubrey knew about the Clean Collar Club. They were the five families back in the Fifties that invited Buddy Wing to stay in Hannawa and start a congregation. Until they could scrape up the money to rent their first little storefront church, they met Sunday mornings at six in a Laundromat, over on South Canal Street. Nobody came around to wash their clothes at that hour and it was almost a year before the owner caught them celebrating the Lord’s Supper around the folding table.
We passed yet another JESUS DIDN’T SMOKE-WHY DO YOU? sign and I made some crack about the church not being very brotherly toward the tobacco industry.
“Pastor Wing was firm about cigarettes,” the security guard said. “He lost both his daddy and his wife to tobacco. But it ain’t just the cancer. It’s the weakness. Pastor used to call smoking a manifestation of spiritual sloth. I was hooked a long time myself before he healed me of the habit.”
We reached the church offices. The security guard rapped on the door respectfully. I heard the lock unclick. A thirty-something man welcomed us in. He was thin and unathletic and not very tall. He had too much hair and a ridiculous necktie. He couldn’t decide if he should smile or not.
Maybe Guthrie Gates had been named pastor but he hadn’t moved into Buddy Wing’s big office. That room, with its long wall of windows looking down on the parking lot, remained exactly as Wing left it on the night he was poisoned, or so Gates whispered as we padded by. The door was open so people could look inside, but a metal folding chair kept anyone from entering. On the chair rested a huge arrangement of plastic white roses.
