Marcie's Murder (27 page)

Betty shook her head. “She was
born in
Bluefield.
Her parents are both dead.
She had o
ne older brother who died when they were little
.
N
o family here at all that I’m aware of. Just Billy.”

“All right.” Hank moved around the end of the counter. No other customers had come into the store; there was still just the three of them. He debated for a moment whether or not to ask
the
question
he still hadn’t asked her
.

Sometimes
asking
a question actually
gives
away more
information than
it
gets
back. Sometimes that’s what
you want
to do,
put
information
into play, have it
circulate
around
simply by asking about it,
in order
to see where it end
s
up. This wasn’t one of those situations, though. He wanted to ask the question because he wanted to know what Marcie would have done
, but h
e didn’t want the entire town talking about the facts of Marcie’s case, so he weighed the pros and cons in his mind for a moment
before
making
his decision.

“Did you know Marcie was pregnant?”

Betty was in the process of sitting down in the armchair next to
Louise
. She froze in place, her bottom four inches from the seat, her eyes locked straight ahead, her mouth slightly open. Then she blinked and sat down.

“Oh,
G
od. No.”

“What would she have done about it?”

“
My
lord. She must have been extremely upset.” Betty
ran her fingertips under her eyes to wipe away tears that were forming
. “
What do you mean?
I don’t understand your question.
”

“What would she have done about her pregnancy?”

“You mean
w
ould she have had an abortion?
” Betty leaned back in the armchair and looked away.
“
Since she wasn’t supposed to have any more children
, I
guess
it
’s a very good question. I really don’t know.”

“Was she a religious person?”

“Not
that I’d say
. She and Billy attended
Stanley
Baptist like a lot of other people around here. After Lucy died they saw the minister a few times for counseling, but Marcie thought he was a dope and didn’t bother after that. Would she have
had
religious objections to abortion, is that what you’re asking? Probably not.”

“So an abortion would have been an option for her, in her mind.”

“Boy, I really don’t know.” Betty
sighed
heavily
.
It rattled in her chest.
“She’d have seen it as saving her own life at the expense of her child’s life.
” She took a breath, pinching away the wetness beneath her right eye.
“
After what she went through with Lucy, I imagine it really shook her up.
S
he
probably
decided to have the baby and take her chances.” Betty
shook her head slowly
. “That would have been her atonement. It makes a crazy kind of sense.”

“This monastery in Burkes Garden,” Hank said. “You said she went there for
an
infected tooth. Likely to have her cracked jaw examined, given the timing. Would she have gone to the free clinic for her pregnancy as well, do you think?”

“
She could have
. What about her doctor
in Tazewell
?
”

Hank shook his head.

“
How far along was she?”
Betty asked.

“Three months.”

“
Oh,
no
.”

Louise
Coffee leaned forward and patted Betty’s knee. Then she looked at Hank. “People sometimes go to the clinic when something happens they don’t want other people to know about. The people there respect your privacy.”

“They don’t perform
abortions, do they?” Hank asked
.

Louise
shook her head. “Young girls, they sometimes go there if they get in trouble, and the brothers help them through it.
Older women, young girls. When the baby
is a big problem
.
They have a
psychologist, or a psychiatrist, I don’t know which
, who comes and
listens and helps them understand what they need to do.”

Hank frowned. “But they’re a Christian brotherhood.
Wouldn’t t
hey be strictly anti-abortion
?
”

“What I hear is, if the girl decides she wants an abortion and won’t change her mind, they send her to a doctor in Richlands who’ll talk to her about
it
. Then, if it has to happen, it happens with this doctor in Richlands.”

“I find
it
hard to believe that they
’
d refer women to an abortionist.”

Louise
shrugged. “It’s what I heard.”

“Who’s this psychiatrist or whatever, Mrs. Coffee? What’s his name?”

“I don’t know, I just heard about
her. It’s a her, not a him
.”

“What about Brother Charles Baker, the abbot there
?
Do you know him?”

Louise
smiled. “Sure
,
I know him. He’s a very nice man.”

“
Louise
, you’re such a darling,” Betty said through her tears. “You have at least a hundred clients
,
and I swear you have something nice to say about each one of them.”

Louise
chuckled. “Maybe not all of them.”

“What about Brother Charles
?
” Hank prompted. “Do you deal with him a lot?”

“Sure,”
Louise
replied. “I’m one of the vendors at the fall festival
in Burkes Garden
every year. Are you coming? It’s next Saturday.”

“I might, if I’m still here. What kind of
person
is he?”

“Shy. Quiet. Very polite.
S
mart, too. Two years ago he sat with me for an hour at my booth at their festival
,
and I taught him to say some things in Seneca. I
talk
Seneca better than Mingo, even though I’m Mingo. Nobody talks in Mingo anymore.”
Louise
waved her hand. “Anyway, I was saying I taught him some Indian talk. The next time I saw him
,
he talked to me back in Seneca and used words I hadn’t taught him. I couldn’t understand
how he could do that
until he told me he’d
sent away for books
and was teaching himself more Seneca.”

Hank raised his eyebrows. “Interesting.”

“Couldn’t
talk it
worth a damn, though,”
Louise
grinned. “I could hardly tell what he was saying, he had the words all wrong. So I taught him better pronunciation. Now I can understand him.”

“They’re celibates out there, aren’t they? Like Catholic priests?”

“I don’t
think
so,” Betty said. “I’m pretty sure there are two or three married couples. I think it’s a matter of personal choice.”

“Is this Brother Charles a cult leader type of guy? Does he tell them all what to do?”

“I can maybe answer that question better than you,”
Louise
said, looking at Betty. “They have like a council that does all their business. The council votes on everything. I know because I have a little partnership with them
for a couple of my products
. I had to talk to their council about it and wait until they voted. Brother Charles signed the papers with me, but it was the council that made up their mind
s
on doing the business. I don’t know about religious stuff, I go to a different church than them.”

“
What about
Marcie? Did she kno
w Brother Charles?”

Betty looked at
Louise
and shrugged. “Hard to say. She might have.”

“I didn’t know Mrs. Askew much,”
Louise
said. “Not good enough to know the answer to that kind of question.”

“
I appreciate the help you’ve given me,
Mrs. Coffee,
” Hank said.
“You have a good day, now.”

“Maybe I’ll see you on the weekend.”

“Maybe you will.”

Betty walked with him to the front door. “I’m sorry if I was a little hostile at first.
”

“That’s all right. I understand.”

She looked at him. “You might, at that. You sure you’re a cop?”

“Very sure.” Hank paused with his hand on the door. There was no one visible outside on the sidewalk, and
Louise
was rocking in her rocking chair, looking up at the ceiling pensively. “You asked me earlier if Billy had been responsible for Marcie’s injuries. Do you think he
’d be
capable of
that kind of violence with
her?”

She grimaced. “I’m not sure. I was upset, I guess. He’s a hotheaded guy sometimes, and I know he’s hit a few people, you know, criminals or whatever. But now that I’ve calmed down, I’d have to say that I doubt it. I really believe he loved her.”

“Could he have lost his temper about the pregnancy? Hit her despite himself?”

“Or strangled her?” Betty looked at him. “Is that what you’re asking?”

Hank stared
back
.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“What about Brother Charles? He strike you as the kind of guy who’d get sexually involved with a married woman and knock her around
and
maybe panic and kill her when he found out she was pregnant with his child?”

Betty stared at him. “Him?
I doubt it
.”

“No?”

“
I doubt it
.”

“But maybe Billy
.
”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Maybe he did, after all.”

21

Because
Hall
was driving, and because he was driving like someone’s grandmother all the way back from Tazewell to Harmony, staying in the right-hand lane and keeping the speedometer needle dead on the speed limit, Karen had plenty of time to stare out the window and think about things.

Karen was not a person who indulged in introspection or self-analysis. There were a lot of things she put out of her mind and kept out of her mind.
She saw herself as
a law enforcement professional first and foremost, and she worked hard
to
keep her attention between the lines and on the playing field.
Her personal relationships, whether with family, friends, or lovers, came second to
her
responsibilities as a police officer.
That’s
who she was, and
Sandy
wouldn’t have it any other way. As an FBI field agent who was being talked about as the next Special Agent in Charge of the Glendale office, Sandy was also a full-focus professional
who kept things in perspective and gave the job whatever it asked of him.

How would they make out as a married couple? Karen found herself asking that question on a regular basis, and it bothered her. She wasn’t the kind of person to second-guess herself. She’d decided to marry Sandy, she’d gotten over that hump
,
and it was
now
a done thing. She’d admitted she loved the little bastard, she knew without a shadow of
a
doubt that he
was crazy about her
, and the situation
didn’t need any more analysis than that
. They got along well together, they were a fit,
and
their personalities were different enough that they complemented each other nicely, end of story. The sex was great and she knew that he would remain faithful to her for the duration.
He was that kind of guy.
For
her part, while
passion was something she liked to throw herself into whenever she was with him, and while she
doubted
the sexual attraction would ever diminish, sex didn’t rule her life and wouldn’t interfere with their relationship no matter what.