August Moon (14 page)

I quickly ducked behind a tree and peeped out. The front door swung open, and a female figure stood in the doorway, backlit. A man came behind her, nuzzled her cheek, and took off down the wheelchair ramp and toward me. I concentrated on becoming one with the tree, my face pressed tight enough against the bark to leave a pattern. I dared not move, even to pull my head behind the oak, so when the man walked five feet from me on his way out the driveway, I could see his face clearly. It was Les Pastner, owner of Battle Lake’s Meat and RV, and the local, crazy-as-a-two-headed- coot militia leader.

I stayed as still as a word on a page when Les passed, and the rustle of wind through leaves covered my shallow breathing. This was good, because the more I tried to control my breathing, the more impossible it became to get air. My breath was coming out in horsy pants. Les continued down the driveway, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his camo pants, and headed out the way I had just come.

When I could no longer hear his boots shuffling down the dry road, I took a deep breath and slid down the tree. If Mrs. Meales’ sister was the one I saw so empty but intense at the Creation Science Fair, and if this was her house, what was Les doing here? He had been affectionate with the owner of the house, and I knew for a firsthand fact that he was as well balanced as a triple-scoop ice cream cone based on a few memorable run-ins we had had in July. Did that make her certifiably crazy too?

I heard a rustle behind me and spun, expecting to see an army of militia men advancing, their beady eyes glowing under greasepaint, glued-on branches sticking out of their shoulders and heads. I didn’t see anything except moonshadows and flitting leaves.
It was only a squirrel
, I told my cowardly heart.
I’m the only person in this forest.
I decided that was one person too many. I turned to creep back the way I had come, my plan being to stick deeper into the woods so I didn’t inadvertently run into Les. I made it five whole feet before my ankle was garroted in a whip-hot grip, and I was flung ass to stars, my flashlight falling from my pocket to the warm ground below.

This booby trap had
Les Pastner written all over it. I knew because the sapling the rope had been tied to didn’t have the recoil strength to lift me off the ground and dangle me in the air, like the rope traps you saw in the Tarzan movies or Looney Tunes cartoons. When I had stepped into the circle of rope, releasing whatever contraption had been putting pressure on the tree, it ricocheted upright, yanking my feet out from under and giving me one hell of a rope burn, but otherwise leaving me unharmed with my foot about two feet off the ground. I tried to undo the knot at my ankle with my hands, but it was too tight.

I was accosted by a surprise party of panic when I couldn’t immediately find my spider knife. Had it gone flying with my flashlight? Was all the circulation getting cut off from my foot? Would I have to gnaw it off and crawl to safety? Then I found the knife, nestled warm and tight between my skin and waistband. I flicked the blade, slid it delicately underneath the ankle noose, and wiggled it until it was facing toward the rope. I sawed slowly, hyper-aware of the razor edge of the blade and the fact that I was a sitting duck if Les heard my tussling and returned. I panted anxiously, feeling my heart beat rapidly against the tourniquet on my ankle. My knife cut through the rope like it was shredded wheat, and I massaged around the hot and raw skin underneath, listening for any movement around me. The woods were quiet. On a whim, I used the rope to pull the sapling toward me, cut the rope off at the tree end, too, and threw the fifteen-foot line over my shoulder. Better Les think he had misplaced his booby trap than know someone had been caught in it.

I limped back to my car, the journey taking twice as long because I couldn’t use the road or put all my weight on my left ankle. I didn’t spot Les, and I sincerely hoped he didn’t see me. Once in my Toyota, I breathed out the jittery weight of a near catastrophe. I was a weird mix of angry and relieved—mad because I had walked into a trap like a dumbass, and thankful because I had gotten out. As I drove home, I wondered who the trap had been set for. Les was well-known for his militia ways; had he indoctrinated his girlfriend into the lifestyle? And was his girlfriend Sissy, Naomi Meales’ sister? I wasn’t any wiser for my trip. In fact, my spying goal had been completely thwarted, and more mystery laid on top of it.

At the home front, I tossed the rope into a shed, watered my “I think I can, I think I can” vegetable garden, dumped fresh ice cubes in Luna and Tiger Pop’s water dishes, and fell across my bed, still wearing my spy clothes. I sat up long enough to point the fan on my face to keep the hot air circulating, and I dropped into a restless sleep. It was peppered by dreams of floods, locusts, and Winnebagos driven by lasciviously grinning pork links.

___

Saturday announced itself bright and hot as a klieg light. Tonight was the August Moon Festival, and I had a lot to accomplish before then. Sane or not, the Meale family had become my new obsession, replacing mourning and drinking and moping. They had marginalized my library and my friends, and had some crazy business going on at the New Millennium Bible Camp, and I didn’t want to leave the town in their hands. Where had they come from? Why had they left that place? Was that truly Naomi Meales’ sister living out on Hancock Lake, and was she the same woman I had seen at the Creation Science Fair? If so, what was the connection between her, Les, and the crazy Jesus warriors I had seen at the New Millennium? Between some Internet searching and a friendly visit to the Senior Sunset, I was confident I could pick up some leads.

I had an unsavory task on my list, as well. I was going to talk to Sarah Ruth and squish whatever bad vibe had developed between us. That would require an open and honest discussion, which wasn’t my forte, but I would do it for the sake of the library.

No biking for me today. It was too much work and my ankle was still sore from the rope burn. I was in the library by eight a.m. and in front of the computer. I started by Googling “Pastor Robert Meale.” The first hit was the New Millennium Bible Camp’s home page. It was a stylish page that made the camp look like a fun summer getaway for God-lovin’ kids. On its pages, groups of teens canoed on Spitzer Lake, splashing each other with paddles and laughing. They also held hands around a campfire, singing, I had to believe, “Kumbaya.” There was even a photograph of the outdoor pulpit and horseshoe seating down by the lake, but it wasn’t underwater. In fact, the lake didn’t start until several feet behind the setup in the photo. That was an oddity. Battle Lake hadn’t had a drier summer than this in half a century, and the pulpit was currently in at least six inches of lake. Had the scene been Photoshopped to make the camp look more appealing?

I scoured the site for any other strange photos, or some indication that the camp was training Jesus’ warriors for the Apocalypse, but found nothing other than a short bio on Robert Meale. It said he had graduated from the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary and found a home at the Our Father Lutheran Church in Statesboro, Georgia, before heeding God’s direction to start Christ’s Church of the Apocryphal Revelation outside of Clitherall the previous year.

That he had begun as a Lutheran surprised me. I tracked down the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary site. On the seminary’s home page, I chose the “Graduates” link, and opened up all the graduating class links starting with 1970. If Pastor Meale was around fifty or fifty-five, as I guessed, that would be around when he’d graduated. Each year’s link offered a grainy, black-and-white buffet of mustachioed white men in wide-collared suits. If I had a nickel for every thread of polyester on those men’s backs, I could buy a small island.

I was getting bored by the time I got to the class of 1977, but I dutifully ran my fingers over the names on my screen until, voila! Robert Meale. The gray shades of the photo were unable to hide the odd mix of arrogance in his smile and insecurity in his eyes, protected behind his enormous, shop-teacher glasses, the ones he still wore today. I eyeballed the rest of the graduates, seeing only about three guys I’d trust my cat with on a long weekend, let alone my immortal soul. I was about to click out when my vision snagged on the last man on the yearbook page. His eyes were friendly, and familiar. Harvey Winter, current pastor of Nordland Lutheran in Battle Lake, Minnesota.

I bit my lip, trying to recall our conversation word for word. Pastor Winter had been generous in his assessment of the Meales, and when I had asked if he had met them, he had said that they had introduced themselves when they first came to town. I had to give Pastor Winter props. Not only had he graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, he had also apparently graduated from the Mira James School of Non-lying Half-truths. I didn’t know where the connection between Pastor Winter and Pastor Meale fit, but it stunk like fish guts.

I exited the Seminary page and Googled “Statesboro Georgia newspaper.”
The Herald
appeared. Their webpage was standard newspaper layout except for the “Worship” and “Worship Directory” links at the bottom. Since when had church become news? Both those links led to recent information and had no mention of Meale. I went into the news archives and searched his name. Still nothing, except for a mention of a missionary trip to Mozambique he headed in 1985. I was losing hope and grabbed for a piece of printer paper and stubby library pencil. Sometimes distracting myself with doodling allowed an idea to escape past my common sense filter.

The air conditioner whirred, and I felt an icy draft hit my bare calves. This inspired me to sketch a picture of a cow grazing in a field, twin calves at her side. I drew cartoonish daisies and some sprigs of grass around them. All my drawings featured big oak trees that looked more like sloppy broccoli, and this picture was no exception. I was itching for crayons and so hopped off my swiveling stool, grabbed some from the children’s section of the library, and returned to color the grass green, the cows black and white, and the daisies yellow. I used the brown crayon to color in the trunk of the tree and add a fence around the field, enjoying the warm and waxy scent of Crayolas. Behind the fence, I drew a road, and on it was a pickup truck barreling toward the field. It was going to make the cows leave. Why would someone want the cows to leave?

Duh. Of course. Leaving. Why had the Meales left Statesboro? Robert Meale had started there immediately out of the seminary and appeared to have stayed for well over two decades, according to his bio. I returned to
The Herald
web page, my heart skipping with anticipation. I checked the archives for local news from June, which is approximately when the Meales had moved out of Georgia, give or take a couple months. I found little of interest. I then checked the July archives, and was disappointed to find that a local $3 million lottery winner named Judah Nelson was the biggest news. I was about to give up when the August archives offered me a headline to make my heart freeze like a power line in a January sleet storm.

“The Bodies of Two Statesboro Girls Found”

The bodies of Eliza Hansen and Paula Duevel, both 17, were found today, two miles apart. Both teens, missing since August 11, were shot in the back at close range. Neither girl knew each other, and the police are searching for a connection and a motive in their deaths.

I read on, but
it was hard through the tears blurring my eyes. It was the reference to their parents that got me. Both sets of families had been searching since the girls had gone missing, and a photographer had captured the agony of Mrs. Duevel when she discovered that her daughter had been found, dead. Her husband was holding her up, and her mouth was open in a silent scream. The photograph made me think of my mother, and how it would crush her if she lost me, too.

My mom had been a dinner-on-the-table-at-five-every-night kind of mom, reliable and ever-present. She had been a part-time seamstress all through my childhood, specializing in sewing on badges and names on letter jackets and sports uniforms. She worked from home. I was never sure if it was so she could keep an eye on me or keep an eye on my dad. For the first time, I wondered what else her life could have been if she hadn’t been saddled with an increasingly drunken husband and bullheaded daughter. It was strange to think of my mom like that, a person separate from me.

I turned back to the article and forced myself to read. The one fact that stuck with me, other than the manner of death, was the appearance of the girls. They were both 5'6" and around 120 pounds, both brunette, and both in their late teens. The physical description almost perfectly matched that of Lucy Lebowski, our dead cheerleader. And, other than the age, Alicia Meale.

The front door donged open, and I looked up guiltily. Sarah Ruth. I swiped the tears from my eyes, logged off the computer, and crumpled up my cow drawing before she made it to the front desk. She slid a glance at me, but didn’t stop.

“Morning, Mira. I’m just going to go hang up my purse and umbrella in back.”

I felt prickly, the tension hanging between us thick and murky like headcheese. I caught a whiff of her as she walked by and was struck by a familiar and masculine undertone to her scent. Where had I smelled that before? And more importantly, “Why do you have an umbrella? It hasn’t rained in weeks.”

“My neighbors assure me that the August Moon Festival tonight is guaranteed to bring a thunderboomer. I always like to be prepared.” Her tinkly laughter was genuine, and I relaxed slightly. At her interview a little over a week ago, Sarah Ruth and I had hit it off right away. Maybe we were both just going through an adjustment period, me moving out and her moving in. I would talk to her and get to the bottom of this, but not right now. Personally revealing conversations were always better conducted in the afternoon.

The door chime went off again, and Mrs. Berns strolled through the front door, wearing her ultra-white old lady tennis shoes, a white unitard, and a swim cap over her bony head. Apricot hair straggled out from underneath. She had the short end of a Power Rangers beach towel pinned around her neck. “Today’s the day!”

I grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter and blew out the last of my grief. “What day, Mrs. Berns?”

“The day me and the superhero have our first date. Do you think he’ll wait until it’s dark to take me for a fly?”

“Hunh?”

“Oh. Maybe you don’t know.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and put her arm around me conspiratorially. “The gentleman taking me to the August Moon Festival tonight? He’s a superhero.”

“Weston Lippmann? He’s the curator of a tick museum.”

Mrs. Berns tsked. “In a cape? Carrying a laser-beamer?”

“What’s a laser beamer?”

“Kinda like a flashlight, but for superheroes. I saw it up beneath his cape when I was hiding that mangy ferret under a table. He carries it in back, tucked in his pants. It’s small and black. Only saw it for a flash. Come to think of it, it might have been a truthenator.”

It occurred to me that Weston might have been carrying a gun, but the idea was too ludicrous. He was a tick curator who wore a cape. Plus, as a native Minnesotan, Mrs. Berns had been around enough guns to recognize one. “Or it might have been a flashlight, or nothing at all. He wears the cape because he doesn’t want birds to poop on him. He doesn’t carry a laser-beamer or a truthenator. He’s a tick museum curator.”

Mrs. Berns nodded. “Probably best you don’t know the truth. You’d give it up too easy if they caught ya. You’ve got the constitution of a newborn. What’re you crying about today, anyhow?”

“It’s allergy season. My eyes water.”

“Two facts don’t make a truth, Mira. I’ll be in back dusting.”

“Fine.”

“Kennie Rogers is looking for you, by the by. I ran into her at the Turtle Stew,” Mrs. Berns said over her shoulder. “I think she was heading over here next.”

Shit! I’d told her I’d come over to her house yesterday morning to look at her great new invention that she wanted me to get in on. “I’m starving. I think I’ll take an early lunch.”

“Thought so. I’ll keep an eye on that moody Sarah Ruth.”

That moody Sarah Ruth was standing beside Mrs. Berns when she said that. I ducked outside and let the two of them work it out. Or not. I stepped into the blazing day, my hair wilting immediately. Waves of fire wafted off the pavement. I walked through the wall of heat, taking the long route back behind the old granary, so I wouldn’t run into Kennie. Including my stop at Olson’s Oil in town, it took me twenty minutes to get to the Senior Sunset and I was sweating like a stripper when I arrived.

The nursing home was built in the 1950s and looked like a cross between a bomb shelter and a high school. The drooping flowers skirting the building did their best to offset the institutional feel, but it was an uphill battle. I ignored the front door and came around to the backside, where I was happy to see a fishing line coming down off the roof.

“Hey, Curtis! You catching anything?” Curtis had lived at the nursing home for twelve years, and he’d been fishing off the roof for just as long. Never mind that there was no water down here, just a neatly manicured lawn, some deck chairs, and a tiny garden plot that I tilled for the residents. His roof-fishing was a harmless pastime, and the nursing home staff usually turned a blind eye to it. Most thought Curtis was a couple face cards short of a full deck, but I knew better.

He peeked over the roof, his bright eyes shaded by the brim of a fishing hat. “Nah. Too hot. The fish like shady, rainy days.”

“I brought you something. Wanna come down and see?”

“Might as well.”

Five minutes later, Curtis Poling was beside me in the shade of a basswood tree, smoking one of the cigars I had picked up for him. He was a rakish, good-looking old guy with cobalt eyes that didn’t miss a beat. Between him and Shirly Tolverson, another nursing home resident, nothing happened in this town, past or present, that they didn’t have a line on.

“Hot day,” I remarked.

“Yup.”

“You think the Festival tonight will bring rain?”

“If not tonight, then soon. You feel heaviness in the air, makes it hard to pull a full breath?”

I inhaled through my nose. He was right. I couldn’t fill my lungs. “Yeah. What’s it mean?”

“It means we’re in for one fury of a storm. I haven’t felt that thickness in the air for weeks.”

“The farmers’ll like that.”

“Not if it comes so fierce that it tears through their crops. But that’s farming. It’s always a gamble.” The small talk out of the way, Curtis graciously led us both to the heart of my visit. “Damn shame about that Lebowski girl.”

“That’s for sure. You know her family?”

“Good people. Her dad’s a potato and dairy farmer out in Clitherall, one of the last ones doing it independently. He owns 160 acres, free and clear.”

“How about her mom?”

“Farm wife. I think she’s a substitute teacher, too. Lucy was their only child. I heard she was set to go off to college in the fall.”

“That’s what I heard, too. Do you know what church they went to?”

He trained his eyes on me, taking inventory. I held perfectly still. “You want to know if they went to that church out by Clitherall? At the Bible camp?”

“Did they?”

“Hard to say. They’d always been Nordland congregants, but they might have been checking out a new church. The funeral’ll be at Nordland, with Pastor Winter.”

“What do you know about Pastor Winter?”

Curtis cackled. “Are you interviewing me for a story, or just being nosy?”

“Just being nosy.”

“Then you better nose around with Ida. She goes to Nordland. Knows Harvey Winter and his family. He’s from this area originally, you know.”

“I didn’t. Mind if we go track down Ida?” Curtis stubbed out his cigar and led me into the cool shade of the nursing home. As always, the smell set me back a step. It was medicinal and syrupy and got in your hair. We went down the long central hall, cosseted with bland pictures of flowers, and found Ida in her room, her bejeweled reading glasses perched on her tiny nose. She smiled to see me while flirting outrageously with Curtis. I had noted his Elvis-like spell over the senior set on previous visits. I filled Ida in on what I was after.

“They don’t come any nicer than Harvey Winter. His family was one of the first settlers in Battle Lake, you know. Of course, he got around some as a boy, but look what he went on to make of himself.”

“What kind of ‘getting around’?”

“The usual, for back then. Drinking, drag-racing, and getting a little too familiar with the local girls. Nothing that landed him in jail or a wedding chapel. I do remember his parents being worried, but then he went off to seminary.”

“Do you know which seminary?”

“Some place in Wisconsin. I remember because he started out Wisconsin Synod. It wasn’t for him, though. Nordland’s an ELCA church.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to keep the stress at bay. Harvey Winter was from Battle Lake. He was a troublemaker as a kid but went off to seminary. The same seminary as Robert Meale, it turns out. Robert Meale moves to Statesboro, Georgia, where he runs a church for a couple decades. When two teenagers are shot in the back in Statesboro, he packs up his family and moves to Battle Lake, the hometown of his wife’s sister. Here, he finds that his old classmate Harvey Winter is also running a church. Shortly thereafter, a teenage Battle Lake girl is shot in the back. How did it all come together? More importantly, who had killed Lucy, and why?

“What do you two know about the New Millennium Bible Camp?”

Curtis and Ida glanced at each other, and Ida spoke first. “Nothing good, just rumors.”

“What kind of rumors?”

Curtis spoke up. “That group’s just a little too evangelical for this area. That’s all. Supposedly, the minister’s wife talks in tongues.”

I sniffed. “That’s no rumor. I saw her do it, though I’m not so sure it was anything mystical. It seemed like regular speech, but garbled. But if they’re too evangelical for this area, where are they getting all their customers? The place was full up during their Creation Science Fair.”

“There’s always enough people looking for a place to belong.”

“Speaking of, you guys know what Les Pastner has been up to lately?”

“The usual. Running his store and bitching about the government, trying to make everyone forget he’s a short guy with no friends.”

“Not even a girlfriend?”

Curtis ran his hands through his wispy white hair. “Funny you should mention that, and in the same breath as the Bible Camp. Seems Les is dating the sister of the wife of the pastor out there. Everyone knows that. Ever since Les ran for mayor, he’s felt the need to spread the details of his personal life. Says the public has a right to know, but I ask, what about the public’s right to not care?”

Cha-click. A tiny piece of the puzzle fell into place. There wasn’t enough there for me to see a pattern, but I was getting close. “She live out on Hancock Lake?”

“Yes she does.”

“Thought so. I really appreciate your time, both of you.”

Ida clasped my hand. “You come visit whenever you want. It gets boring here.”

Curtis goosed her and winked. “You say that, you make a man feel ashamed.”