“Could I speak with Reverend Pressley?” a woman asked. Her voice sounded dry and weathered.
“I’m sorry. He’s out. Can I take a message?”
“Who’s this?”
“I’m visiting with Reverend Pressley. He’s making hospital visits this morning. Any message for him, ma’am?”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him that Inez Stillman called.”
I wrote her information on a pad next to the phone.
“Anything else?”
“No, just tell him that I hope his cousin is feeling much better. He hasn’t said anything about her, has he?”
“Not to me, ma’am.”
“And one more thing. Could you tell him I called to thank him for those delicious pralines he brought back from his trip?”
Something like an electric tingle began at the base of my skull. It was a signal that I’d long since learned not to ignore.
“Pralines, ma’am?”
“Yes, he brought them to me to apologize for canceling our dinner. He picked them up while visiting his sick cousin.”
“Of course,” I said. “Reverend Pressley didn’t say exactly where his sick cousin lives, did he?”
“I think he mentioned someplace in Louisiana. Isn’t that where they make the best pralines?”
“So I hear. Do you still have the box the pralines came in?”
“Certainly. They’re so rich, I may be a month finishing them.”
“As it happens, I’m from Louisiana, and I’m always on the lookout for good pralines. Could you check the box and see where he bought them?”
“Just a moment.”
I tried to keep my breathing and pulse from racing, as the electric tingle became a buzz that filled my head.
At the very best, Quincy Pressley had withheld information from me.
I didn’t like to think about the worst.
“Here it is,” she said, as she got back on the phone. “The box is from the Allons Praline Factory. That part is in English. Then the rest is words I don’t recognize. The first is R-U-E. Then D-E, and after that is C-H-A-R-T…”
“Rue de Chartres,” I said, in a practiced French accent. “What about the rest?”
“The next line is spelled V–I-E-U-X, and C-A…”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Stillman. I know the rest.”
“Now how on earth can you know the rest? I haven’t spelled it yet!”
“I know it anyway. I’ll be sure to pass your message on to Reverend Pressley. And you enjoy those pralines, you hear?”
I racked the receiver and stared at the wall for a few moments.
I knew the Allons Praline Factory, and I knew Rue de Chartres.
Vieux Carre was another name for the French Quarter in New Orleans.
Where I lived.
Where Katie Costner had been murdered.
And, as I had just discovered, where Quincy Pressley had been only a day or so before I came to Prosperity.
Perhaps, I tried to convince myself, it was all a coincidence. Maybe Quincy really did have a sick cousin. Maybe he had simply neglected to tell me he had just returned from New Orleans.
I had to know more.
Among the many dubious talents I have acquired over the years is the ability to toss a desk without leaving any evidence that I’d been there. I quickly went through his drawers. Quincy kept his desk in meticulous shape. It didn’t take long to find his bank and credit-card statements.
Within minutes, I discovered a set of used air tickets indicating that he had flown to New Orleans two days before Katie Costner was murdered, and had flown back the day after the killing. They were sitting on top of a manila envelope, the only two items in the top right drawer of the desk. I opened the manila envelope, looked at the contents, and knew almost everything I needed to know.
Circumstantial, maybe. On the other hand, it meant that I had to confront Quincy with what I’d found.
And I needed to make a telephone call.
Quincy returned from the hospital around lunchtime. I waited for him in the living room, with the canceled ticket stubs in my hand.
“Hi, Pat,” he said. “Hope you weren’t too bored.”
“Not at all,” I said. “You had a call.”
“Oh? From whom?”
“Inez Stillman.”
I thought I saw him freeze, for perhaps half a second.
“Lovely woman,” he said. “Pillar of the church.”
“She likes you, too. She asked me to give you a message.”
“What is it?”
I lowered my voice, and tried to sound menacing.
“She loves the pralines.”
This time he did come to a full stop, his back to me. I think I saw his shoulders rise and his chest expand in an exhausted sigh. When he turned toward me, slowly, I could see the concern in his eyes.
“You have something to say?” he asked.
“Just a question. Why?”
Quincy shrugged and sat in the wing chair that had been placed perpendicular to the sofa.
“That’s a pretty big question,” he said. “It implies that you think you know something.”
“Let’s say that I’m about ninety-five percent certain that you killed Katie Costner. Can we start with that?”
“Sure,” he said. “You can’t prove anything, of course. I really do have a sick cousin in Louisiana. She provided me with an excellent reason to go to New Orleans. I’d been waiting for some time for an excuse.”
I held up the manila envelope I had found.
“This is a report from the private investigator you hired to find Katie.”
“Yes. Her mother’s request. Susan was all alone after her husband died. She knew she was sick, and she wasn’t inclined to do much about it. She asked me to find her daughter. She wanted Katie to come back to Prosperity for the funeral when she died. I hired that investigator. He did a very thorough job. Doesn’t prove I did anything.”
I laid the envelope on the sofa.
“I’m not a cop,” I said. “I’m not in the proof business. I know you did it, and you know you did it. I only want to know why.”
Quincy stood, slowly.
“I think I may have a sherry. Could I interest you in one?”
“No.”
He crossed to the small cabinet in the front room, opened it, and poured a bit of amber liquid in a cordial glass. He returned to his seat and took a sip.
“I came to Prosperity, oh, thirty years ago, only a few years after I was ordained. I felt a calling. I wanted to work in a small town, where I could make a real difference. I wanted my service to have meaning.
“There was a young man who came to me. He brought his wife. They were having…” He waved his free hand in the air. “… marital difficulties. The man was depressed. The woman was frustrated, and unsatisfied. They were on the verge of separation and divorce. The woman wanted a child, very badly, and it didn’t appear that she was likely to have one.
“I was in this very room one day, preparing a sermon, when the wife came to my door. She was crying. She was frightened that her husband might be considering leaving her. I tried to comfort her. I offered her a sherry,” he said, holding up the glass. “She accepted it.
“We talked at length. When she left, I felt that I had done a good thing. I liked that feeling. It was the reason I came here, to do good things.
“She returned several days later, again seeking comfort. I did what I could. After a few weeks, she visited every three days or so. Then she offered to volunteer in the church. I needed the help, so I accepted.”
He took another sip from the cordial glass.
“I have no desire to go over the more sordid details. I’ll simply say that we became much closer than we should have. I regretted it, certainly. I am a man of the cloth, after all, but I am also a man. A… very weak man, it seems. The wife came to me after a few months, almost shaking with excitement. She said there had been a miracle and that she was going to have a baby. She believed that this child would mend the torn fabric of her marriage.”