Murder in the Choir (The Jazz Phillips Mystery Series) (9 page)

I glanced at my watch. The morning was getting away from us but there was time to look over the outhouse by the community center before my interview with the reverend. I took Kruger across to the porch and showed him the bloodstains there and on the ground. Then, from the porch, I pointed out the privy behind the shrubbery.

“Why are we checking this out?” Kruger asked as we walked through the center and out the back door.

“Mostly to be thorough,” I said. “As you will see, there are some prime spots for a sniper down here. Some of them offer a better shot than the shop, and we don’t know it was the shop for sure. I’d say we’re ninety-seven percent sure, but we could be wrong.”

Kruger nodded. Being thorough is something the FBI understands and drills into all its agents. With most of them, it takes, but many of us remember their lab scandal from the nineties. “Look at that!” Kruger said, pointing to the traditional half moon cut into the outhouse door.

“Traditional country art,” I told him.

“No, not that. On the outside of the moon.” He pointed. The light was much better than the evening before, and I could see a faint smudge at the lower edge of the moon cut. “Looks like it might be gunpowder residue.”

“Could be,” I said, taking out a set of reading glasses. Trifocals are a fact of life for me these days, even though I have perfect vision beyond arms length. “Your eyes are a lot sharper than mine.”

Kruger didn’t say anything, but he seemed to appreciate even that faint praise. Working with Spinks must be hell on earth, I thought. I took out a pen knife and carefully opened the door with the blade, holding it wide enough we could both look in.

Unlike the privy behind the blacksmith shop, this one had seen plenty of use. There was a powdering of lime on the floor by the half empty sack and two fresh rolls of toilet paper hung on nails on one wall. There was also a can of insecticide, probably for spiders. Privies attract flies, and flies attract black widows. Throughout the deep South, their stings are still the cause of too many deaths every year.

“Crime Scene is going to love us for this,” I said, closing the door and taking out a roll of yellow tape.

“At least they’re privy to what we have,” Kruger said with only a hint of a smile.

“Better watch that,” I grinned. “Play on words is a serious character defect.”

“I know, but it’s an art form, too. A pun is its own reword.”

I looked at Kruger. “You know, Lonnie is the only other special agent I’ve come across with much of a sense of humor.”

“And they banished him to Arkansas,” Kruger said without thinking. Then he realized how that might sound. “No offense,” he said. “That was not intended to put down your state. I love it here. Truly.”

We walked a few steps in silence. Then Kruger said, “Look, I really mean it. I do love it down here.”

I dropped into the patios of deep delta Arkansas. “Nah awfense takin’, Mistuh Kroogah. Long ago we learnt to make allowances for the mental shortcomins’ of owah Yankee visitors. Gene pool depletion, don’t ya know. All the good uns move South.”

Kruger laughed. Nor was he being unduly worried by my response. A single remark taken the wrong way can wipe out years of good work and can have a drastic effect on an agent’s career. I suspect that’s why they’re so serious.

I told him about my appointment with the pastor and we crossed the park to the church. The door was locked and no one answered my knock, so we sat on the steps to wait. They were still damp, and after a moment I could feel moisture soaking through my pants. I looked at my watch and saw I was five minutes early.

I tried the door again a few minutes later, but there was still no response. I sat down again and Kruger and I continued talking. At a quarter past the hour, I decided I had misunderstood where the pastor wanted to meet and suggested we try the parsonage.
 

The parsonage sat about a hundred feet behind the church. As we walked there, I said to Kruger, “Remind me to ask you how a nice boy like you ended up in the FBI.” He was still smiling when I knocked on the door.

A large, unsmiling woman answered my knock. I handed her one of my cards and introduced Kruger who showed her his identification card. I told her I had an appointment with the pastor at eleven. She told us to wait and disappeared into the house, closing the door behind her.

I looked at Kruger. He seemed to be listening intently, so I said nothing. We waited for two full minutes before the woman returned. “He is not available right now,” she said. “Something came up.” Her face was impassive, but there was no question we were being dismissed.

“I can wait,” I told her. “Or we can come back a little later if that’s convenient.”

“He is not available at all today,” she replied. Her face was still a mask, but I could tell she was lying and not liking it a bit.

“This is a murder investigation,” I told her. “I need to talk to him very soon. I can get a warrant, if necessary.”

She started to close the door, but Kruger blocked it open with his arm. “This is an FBI investigation, Ma’am. Is the pastor here?”

“No!” she said, throwing her weight behind the door and slamming it. We heard the dead bolt slide home.

We looked at each other, then turned and walked away. “What do you think,” I asked Kruger.

“She’s lying,” he said. “I could hear her talking to someone in back. It was a man with a strong voice.”

“You have sharp ears,” I said. “All I could hear was a murmur. Could you tell what they were saying?”

“Yes. He told her what to say, but she didn’t like it.”

“So the pastor told his wife to lie,” I said. “Any suggestions?”

Kruger shrugged. “Well, it is an FBI investigation and she lied to a federal agent. Some places that would get her arrested.”

“That doesn’t sound like your style,” I told him.

“Spinks would,” he said. “Think we ought to send him to see her?”

“You have a wicked mind,” I told him. “But no, we’ll take him at the water hole at dusk.” Kruger looked at me in question. “He can’t stay inside forever,” I continued, nodding to the outhouse behind the parsonage. “I’ll ask Dee to have someone bring him in when he comes out to use the john.

Kruger looked at me gravely. “Could stir up a hornet’s nest. Think he knows something?”

“I think he knows a lot,” I said. “I think he is trying to avoid lying.”

“So he gets his wife to do it for him,” Kruger murmured.

“As the Good Book says, he will have hell to pay for that,” I grinned.

Just at that moment we heard a loud crash and the sound of broken glass coming from the parsonage. “Sounds like it’s already started,” I said.

“Hell hath no fury like a wife thwarted,” he laughed.

A highway patrol car and the Crime scene van was parked by the road in front of the blacksmith shop when Kruger and I returned. Ben Weaver, the lead technician told me they were just about to head home from a case in Hope when Casey called to divert them here. “He told us to take shots of everything we could but hold off going into the shop until he got here,” Weaver said. “He wants to see that for himself first. Anything else you want done?”

“Well, there’s the space between buildings, but I want his take on that, too. I guess you could start with the outhouse there,” I told him. “I don’t think Casey would mind your going over it. There’s not a lot there, but you might find some hair. Be sure to take some shots of the scratches in the ground there before you go inside.”

“The outhouse?” he asked, looking to see if I was pulling his leg. “I’d rather dig up four graves than do one outhouse.”

“Well, there are two, actually,” I told him. “One here and the other over by the community center.

“Two?” Weaver screamed. “Well, joyful rapture!”

“It’s a shitty world,” I told him. “Think of it this way. It saves you a lot of digging.” It was all Kruger could do to keep from laughing.

3. A Loose Canon on Deck

A deputy arrived not long after the crime scene van, and the highway patrol took off. Dee asked the deputy to keep watch on the community center privy and the space between the blacksmith shop and the other building until the technicians were done. Before going to the parsonage, Kruger and I had taped off a large area around the community center privy, so it would take them a while. The deputy nodded and found a bench in the park that allowed him to keep both in sight. I didn’t like the fact he took a thermos and hunting catalogue with him. I would not have tolerated that at the CID, but I said nothing. After all, he was the sheriff’s deputy, not mine, and we needed as much cooperation as he was willing to give.

There was not much more we could do in Oak Grove until the crime lab team was done. We arranged a meeting with Spinks and Kruger at the cafe in Nashville to go over the case and left. Spinks said he would be right behind us, but walked into the store. I didn’t like it, but there was nothing I could do. I hoped all he was going after was a cold drink or a pack of gum.

I filled Dee in as we drove and he agreed with my assessment of Kruger. He also told me the scuttlebutt that Spinks had been transferred to Little Rock after he created a major mess in Boston. “Lonnie told me Spinks has enough political pull to keep from being sent to Butte, Montana,” Dee said. “But he damn near got fired.”

“I hope he doesn’t take Kruger down with him,” I said. “Kruger is pretty sharp.”

Dee nodded. “I’ve run across him before. He does good work.”

The lunch hour was over by the time we got to Nashville, but there were a couple of local businessmen lingering over their coffee. We took a table at the back of the dining room and, when the waitress came out of the kitchen, told her there two more joining us. She nodded and brought us water and coffee. Then she went back into the kitchen. I could see her through the pass-through. She lit a cigarette and stood smoking it under the stove hood, chatting with the cook.

We talked about the case for a while, but I was aware of time passing. The businessmen paid their tab and left, and I looked at my watch. We had been there for thirty minutes already and there was no sign of Spinks. “We did say to meet at the café and not at the sheriff ’s office, didn’t we?” I asked Dee. He nodded. I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was. Despite our agreement, Spinks was going his own way.

“Well, there’s not much we can do about it right now,” I said. “I’ll call Lonnie later. We might as well go ahead and order.”

We were finished eating and working out a game plan for the next couple of days when the door to the café opened and Spinks came in with his partner. Kruger looked embarrassed, but not Spinks. Spinks walked with a swagger, and when I saw the snide smile on his face, I knew we were in for some bad news.

“We thought you were right behind us,” Dee said. “Did you have car trouble?”

“No,” said Spinks. “We were rounding up a prime suspect. Two of them. We’ve been over at the jail booking them.”

“Oh, really?” Dee said in a dangerous tone. “Care to share who you brought in?”

Spinks laughed. “Sure. Albert Jones and Luther Adams.” Kruger looked like he wanted to dig himself a hole and pull it in over his head. “Adams confessed.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Dee swore. He looked like he wanted to tear off Spinks’ leg and beat him to death with it.

“Sorry to steal your thunder,” Spinks said. “We didn’t have much choice once Adams told us he did it.”

“Why did you arrest Pastor Jones?” I asked.

Spinks shrugged. “Take your pick. He lied to Kruger, and when we arrested Adams, he tried to interfere. So I busted his ass. Obstruction of justice.”

“Just for the record,” I said, “the pastor did not lie to Kruger. His wife did. And as for Luther’s alleged confession, what he was confessing to was apparently a hunting accident that happened years ago. He confessed to us yesterday, but we haven’t had a chance to check it out.” I looked at Kruger. “I’m surprised you didn’t straighten him out about the pastor.”

Kruger shook his head. “I did.”

Spinks broke in. “You’re just sore you didn’t make the bust,” he sneered. “Jones told his wife to tell you and Kruger he wasn’t there. Kruger heard him.”

“Correct me if I am wrong,” I said to Kruger. “The pastor told his wife to tell me he was not available. Period. He did not lie to Kruger. She did, but he did not.”