"That’s outside the town limits. Have you contacted Mr. Mull?"
"No signal on his phone, either. I sent a black-and-white up there to check it out, even though it was county jursidiction. Officer found an overturned vehicle, but it wasn't Emerland's. Belonged to a man named DeWalt. No sign of any people on the premises, though. Just the truck. I ran the plates, and it checked out as Mull's."
"Something sounds fishy. I presume you're still searching.”
"Yeah, but we've only got three men-I mean, officers — on duty. Two are keeping watch downtown over all the setups. Everybody else has the night off because of having to patrol Blossomfest tomorrow."
"Call in a couple. I'll authorize the overtime. Who else is missing?"
Virginia hoped this didn’t turn into an epidemic. Most missing persons showed up the next day with a sheepish grin and a hangover, or sometimes were traced to motels that rented rooms by the hour.
"A Mrs. Tamara Leon," Crosley said. "Teaches down at Westridge. Her husband says he hasn't heard from her all day. He tried the university and all their friends, but nobody's seen her. Whereabouts unknown. Plus there's a high school kid. But he's a regular. Likes to take little trips, if you know what I mean. Drugs."
Virginia allowed herself a sigh of relief. At least those two were nobodies. She wondered if there was a connection between them and Emerland. It seemed unlikely.
"Concentrate on Emerland, and keep an eye out for the other two. But they're strictly back burner for now.”
"Yes, Mayor," Crosley said. "Oh, and there's one more thing."
She listened as Crosley explained the case of the mysterious Melting Man, the one that had "disappeared," leaving behind only some dirty clothes and a Red Man cap. By the time he had finished, Virginia decided that she was definitely going to have to find a new police chief.
"I'm not in the mood for games, Chief. Call me if you get something."
"But I saw it… uh… good night, ma'am."
She hung up the phone and thought for a moment. Three people missing in one night, when Windshake usually might expect one every six months. Something was going on that was beyond her control. She hated that feeling. She wondered if it would dampen Blossomfest, then decided it wouldn't. She wouldn't let it.
She went to check on Reggie, to make sure he had made his eleven o'clock curfew. Surely he understood how important this weekend was to her. She almost wished his father hadn't died, but he'd been deadweight anyway, holding her career back. The only thing he'd ever done right was giving her Reggie.
She could see from the dark crack under Reggie's door that his lights were off. She knocked lightly. He was old enough to have his privacy respected. He didn't answer. He must have already been asleep.
"Sleep well, my angel," she whispered, and then headed for her own bed.
Nettie hummed "Amazing Grace" at her desk in the church vestry. She felt as if she were glowing, like the Madonna in those Renaissance paintings. She hadn't felt so wonderfully alive since she had gotten saved at age fourteen. Now she had been saved again, this time from loneliness and unrequited attraction.
Maybe it’s even… yeah, you can say it: LOVE.
The day with Bill had been wonderful, her wildest fantasies come true. He had touched her, held her, taken her. His smell clung to her skin, a strong and masculine odor of sawdust and clean sweat. She tingled under her dress as she thought back on their tumble in the clover.
She was having a hard time concentrating on the computer layout she was doing for Sunday's church program. She'd push her mouse to drop in a clip-art Jesus and then her mind would take off and Jesus would end up over in the birthday announcements. And when she typed "Windshake Baptist Welcomes Blossomfest Visitors," the event came out as "Bosomfest" and then "Blosomfset." She would be here all night if she wasn't careful, and she didn't plan on being here all night. Because Bill was coming to her place later, before he started his volunteer shift providing security for the Blossomfest arrangements.
She was high, brushing God's clouds with her mind. She thanked the Lord a thousand times for bringing Bill into her life and heart. She was afraid that Bill would feel guilty afterwards, that he would think she was some kind of wicked woman out to sap his strength and turn him from God. But when their eyes had finally opened after that searing hot explosion, they had looked at each other for a full minute without speaking. Then Bill said "I love you" in his deep, honest voice, and she could tell he meant it.
She replayed the words like a reel-to-reel tape, over and over. And she was still hearing them when Preacher Blevins’s feet crept across the floor. She spun in her swivel chair to face him. She wasn't going to let him sneak up and put his hand on her shoulder again.
He looked down on her, his lightbulb head brightened by his beatific smile. "Burning the midnight oil for the Lord, Nettie?"
"Finishing up the program, is all," she answered, watching as his dark vulture eyes did their cursory crawl over her body.
He grinned his beaver grin that now seemed sinister instead of friendly. "Fine, my child. Fine. Ought to have a big crowd this week. And next week, with Easter coming up. It's an important time for the Lord."
Nettie wondered if the preacher knew that Easter had originally been a pagan fertility holiday. Thinking of fertility made her glad she was still taking birth control pills, even though she hadn't had a sex partner in over a year. In the heat of the moment, neither she nor Bill had mentioned condoms. Nor, heaven forbid, disease. She found herself blushing, thinking of rubbers in church.
"Your cheeks are pink, my child," the preacher said, stepping close so that he was standing above her. "What thought is in your head that brings the devil's shade?"
"Oh, just a minor sin, Preacher. Hardly worth feeling bad about, but when you're in the House of the Lord-"
The preacher raised a beneficent hand. "I know, child. We humans are weak. We fall short of the perfection and glory of God."
He touched her knee with a hot, moist hand. His breath smelled of copper and blood, a hunter's breath.
Bill’s love gave Nettie courage. She decided it was time to confront him. "Preacher-"
He leaned closer. "Tell me your sin, my pretty one."
She arched back in her chair, trying to shrink away from his leering face.
"My sin is silence," she said, her teeth clenched. "I didn't speak against something I saw was wrong.”
"But the Bible says ‘Judge not, lest you be judged also,’" he said, lowering his voice. The rafters settled in the vast quiet of the empty church, as if the night was pressing heavily upon it.
She hesitated, wondering how to put her doubts into words. "It's about the money, Preacher."
"Money?" His eyes shifted like well-oiled ball bearings.
"The missing money. Only one person had access to it before I started working here. Only one person could have taken it."
"I told you, child-"
"I'm not your child, either. I'm a child of God, and you're a far sight from God."
"What are you talking about?" His face creased with confusion, breaking its practiced calm.
"It has to be you taking the money, Preacher. There are just too many discrepancies to laugh them off as honest mistakes. I've discovered ten thousand dollars that have fallen through the cracks just in the last year."
"Oh, my child, my child, the devil has put lies in your sweet little head, cast visions in your bright eyes," Armfield Blevins said in his smooth preacher voice.
She heard the slight sibilance of snakiness in his delivery. God, had she been blinded by this deceiver all along? Had they all?
"I've been hoping that I was wrong,” she said. “But I can't fool myself any longer. It's eating me up inside.”
She drew back as he smiled at her. Blevins’s hand clutched her knee as he loomed over her, his form somehow made larger by the way he seemed to soak the shadows from the corners of the vestry.