"Let go of me?" Ruby Bee yelped. "That guide's yelling at us to keep off the grass. The last thing I need is to be arrested for trespassing at Graceland. We'd be the laughingstocks of Maggody if somebody caught wind of it, and God only knows what Arly'd say."
Paying her no mind, Estelle kept going until they arrived at the curved brick wall and fountain. More than a dozen folks were lingering in front of the graves, some looking thoughtful and others honking into handkerchiefs and wiping away tears.
She stopped behind a stone column and peeked back at the yard. The bald man was not in sight, although this didn't mean he couldn't be skulking by the shrubs at the corner of the house, or even creeping behind the garden in order to nab them before they reached the circular drive.
Ruby Bee yanked herself free and rubbed her arm. "What's gotten into you, Estelle Oppers? I was looking forward to seeing all of Elvis's glittery costumes and his gold and platinum records. If we go back, that guide'll bawl us out for cutting across the lawn."
"Stop whining and look at the graves," Estelle said, keeping an eye on the sidewalk. "Afterward, we can go back to the visitors center, have something to eat, and do some shopping. Elsie made me promise to get her one of those paintings on velvet if they don't cost an arm and a leg."
Ruby Bee hesitated, then sighed and said, "I reckon that's okay with me. Let me sit down and catch my breath, then we'll be on our way."
Estelle stopped peeking around the column. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"As sure as Elvis is buried yonder."
Considering Cherri Lucinda's theory about his present whereabouts, Estelle felt a flicker of doubt.
5
Although Reverend Hitebred could divine the persistent presence of satanists from a pink barrette and a couple of rubber bands, it seemed he couldn't tell time worth a damn. I'd been parked in front of his church, watching turkey buzzards drift overhead and listening to a staticky country music station for a good half hour before a car pulled in next to me.
A solidly built woman climbed out of the driver's side and came around to my window. I estimated her age to be somewhere between mine and Ruby Bee's, although closer to the latter's. Her brown hair, coarse and streaked with gray, was pulled back in a ponytail, her face devoid of makeup, and her coat the veteran of many winters. She approached warily, as if she suspected I was a member of a coven.
Somewhat sorry to disappoint her, I rolled down my window and said, "I'm Chief of Police Hanks from Maggody. I was supposed to meet Reverend Hitebred at eleven."
"I'm Martha, his daughter," she said in a flat, almost inflectionless voice. "Old Miz Burnwhistle decided that this is the morning she's going to die, so she called my father to go read the Bible and pray with her. She's been doing this about once a month for the last three years. She usually has a miraculous recovery before her soaps come on at noon, although last month she gurgled and wheezed right up until time for the Oprah show."
"And your father trots to her bedside every time?"
"She's ninety-eight years old and liable to get it right sooner or later. Besides, it gives my father something to do besides flipping over rocks in search of satanists." She gave me a faint smile. "The members of the congregation are all too terrified of him to do much in the way of sinning, and we don't get too many hymnal salesmen out this way."
I got out of the car and leaned against the fender. "What do you think about these purported trespassers?"
"You sound just like one of those cops on television. Do they teach you to talk like that?"
"Not until the second year." I gestured at the door of the church. "Any new evidence turned up in there? More paper clips and cigarette butts, for example?"
Martha shook her head. "No, and my father came over at the crack of dawn this morning to snuffle around on the floor like a bloodhound. I could tell when he sat down at the breakfast table that he hadn't had any luck."
In that she'd failed to answer the more significant question, I tried again. "Do you believe that someone has been entering the church at night?"
"There haven't been any broken windows or scratches on the locks, and my father and I have the only two keys. He keeps his on a ring clipped to his belt. Mine's in a drawer at home except when I'm using it."
"Has either of you ever given your key to a member of the congregation? It only takes a few minutes to have a copy made."
She thought for a moment. "I've never had call to loan mine out, and I can't imagine why my father would. He won't admit it, but he likes the idea that nobody can get into the church without calling on him. He makes 'em wait, too, just so they won't forget it."
"How often is the building used?"
"Services on Sunday mornings and evenings, prayer meetings on Wednesday evenings. Weddings and funerals by reservation only." She looked at the front of the building, and then at the low gray clouds. "My father's hardly competing with Methuselah, but he's getting on in years. The most foolish things have become real important to him. Food has to be cooked just so, shoes have to be lined up on his closet floor, books have to go back on the shelf from the exact place they came from. Otherwise, if you'll excuse the expression, all hell breaks loose."
"Are you saying these satanists are just another of his obsessions?"
"Maybe," she said, shrugging. "Anyway, I don't see what you can do, unless you want to set up a cot in the office and sleep over every night. You can come to the house for breakfast. It wouldn't be any trouble to fix another serving of oatmeal. No coffee, though. We don't believe in artificial stimulants." Again, the faint smile. "I used to sneak into town and buy a bottle of Dr. Pepper from the machine at the gas station. When my father caught me, you'd have thought from the way he carried on that it was whiskey."
"We're not quite to that point in the investigation," I said. I took a small notebook out of my pocket and wrote down the telephone numbers of the PD and my apartment. "If you see any suspicious activity inside the church, call me. I can be here in less than twenty minutes."
She took the piece of paper, glanced incuriously at it, and folded it into a tiny rectangle. "Why don't you come to one of our services, Chief Hanks? You might find it interesting."
"If I get a chance," I said, then got back into my car before she could press me for a commitment. Martha was still standing next to her car, her hands in her pockets and her face tilted toward the sky, as I drove down the driveway to the county road. I supposed I might have been as impassive as she if I'd spent my life under the dour scrutiny of the Reverend Edwin W. Hitebred.
But I doubted it.
Brother Verber sat on the couch in the rectory, which, in spite of the fancy nomenclature, consisted of a mobile home parked in the yard of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. He was marveling at the depth of depravity right there on the TV screen. Why in heaven's name a woman would go in front of a camera and tell the whole country how she'd had a lesbian affair with her husband's sister was beyond comprehension, he thought as he refilled his glass with sacramental wine and leaned forward to catch every last disgusting detail. Nothing like this had been covered in his correspondence course with the seminary in Las Vegas, and he figured sooner or later he'd be called upon to confront this particularly mystifying perversity. Surely he owed it to the Lord to be forewarned before he went into battle with of Satan hisself.
What was downright disturbing, he reflected as he idly scratched the tip of his nose, was that this woman looked so normal. Why, if he'd seen her at the SuperSaver, thumping melons or flipping through a tabloid at the checkout counter, he never would have suspected she was one of "Them." He'd heard tell of a book where a woman had been obliged to wear a scarlet A, so everybody'd know right off the bat that she was an adulteress. Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. There were three or four high school girls who might think twice about lying buck naked with a boy on a blanket next to Boone Creek if they knew they might end up with a scarlet W nestled between their ripe, sassy breasts.