Monday, May 1
When I got to work Monday, Eric Chen was wearing a necktie. By all appearances a new one. By all appearances one hundred percent silk. I grilled him about it as soon as I got back to my desk with my tea.
He did not like being grilled. “I just felt like buying a tie,” he said. “And if you’re going to buy a tie you might as well wear it.”
I knew what the tie was all about. It was about Aubrey. “I think maybe you’re trying to get my job,” I teased. “Next week it will be a sports jacket and the week after that a three-piece suit. Week after that I’ll be out on my keister.”
Eric loosened the ill-shaped knot under his chin. “You’re crazy, Maddy.” He knew I knew why he’d bought the tie.
I enjoyed my tea while Eric continued his computer background checks for Aubrey. He was trying to find someone in that church directory with a reason, no matter how far-fetched, to poison the Rev. Buddy Wing.
Our investigation of Buddy Wing’s murder was puttering along on three parallel tracks. I say our investigation because by now Eric and I were completely seduced by Aubrey’s obsession to free Sissy James. Let me take some of that back. I was seduced by her obsession. Eric was seduced by something else. Anyway, the investigation was puttering along on these three tracks:
The first was to prove that Sissy didn’t kill Buddy Wing. The second was to prove that Tim Bandicoot was a creep, so Sissy would come to her senses and confess, on the record, that she didn’t do it. The third thing was to identify other suspects.
I was searching the map cabinet with Sylvia Berdache-looking for some pre-1950 city zoning maps for some story or the other-when Eric suddenly yelled, “Hello!”
I was bent over the bottom drawer and it took me a few seconds to straighten up. Eric was smiling like a birthday party clown and motioning for me with both hands. I was happy to let Sylvia search by herself. Before going to Eric’s desk I circled by my desk to pick up my mug. He kept smiling and motioning until I got there. “Find something, honeybun?” I asked.
He pointed to a name on the screen. “Wayne F. Dillow, 1144 Summerhill Lane, Hannawa. Complaints. Restraining order. Conviction for breaking and entering.”
“Does not a murderer make,” I said.
“Yeah. But all these charges. Pretty pathological guy, wouldn’t you say? And a member of the flock.”
“Which church directory you working from?” I asked.
He grunted, “Huh?” and I explained that Aubrey had gotten two church directories from Guthrie Gates, a current one and one that was three years old. He used his thumb to mark his place and looked at the cover. It was the one for the current year. “So he’s still a member,” I said.
I watched over Eric’s shoulder as he e-mailed Aubrey. GOT A NIBBLE , his message said. I wrote Dillow’s name and address on the back of an envelope from Eric’s wastebasket and went to the old filing cabinets to check the D drawers. There was nothing on Wayne F. or any other Dillow. Eric had better luck. Scanning the on-line obituary files, he found a Dorothea Louise (nee Pauley) Dillow. She died in 1997 at age fifty-seven. She was a member of the Heaven Bound Cathedral. She was survived by her sons James of Hannawa and Howard of Duluth, Minnesota; her husband, Wayne; a sister, Edna Lynn Scarberry of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Five minutes to four, Aubrey hopped out of the elevator and sped to her desk like an angry ostrich. She typed furiously for about an hour then strolled to Eric’s desk like a happy swan. “What’s the nibble?” she asked. She was absolutely delighted that Eric found a church member with a criminal record. She kissed his cheek. They went out to supper. I turned down their half-hearted invitation to join them and went home.
Tuesday, May 2
The next day Aubrey got the police records on the charges against Dillow. She also called his wife’s sister in Knoxville.
Wayne and Dorothea Dillow had been members of the Heaven Bound Cathedral since 1974. According to the sister, Dorothea was more religious than Wayne-not unusual-but he was faithful enough to go along with her tithing to the church. In 1996, Dorothea started passing blood. Her doctor told her she had a cancerous kidney. Wayne begged her to have the surgery. But Dorothea had watched God cure thousands of people of their terrible afflictions through his gifted servant Buddy Wing. So she joined the healing line at the next Friday night service and walked across the stage and told the Rev. Wing of the evil growing inside her. He put his hand on her belly and told the cancer to leave. “Out, foul flesh,” he commanded. “Out! Out! Out in the name of Jesus- uh.”
After Dorothea’s funeral, Wayne stopped going to church. Stopped tithing. Then he started calling Buddy Wing at home, late at night. That Buddy felt almost as bad about her death as he did was of no consolation to Wayne F. Dillow. That God worked in mysterious ways was of no consolation either. When Buddy one night suggested that perhaps Dorothea’s faith wasn’t strong enough, that perhaps that’s why the cancer came sneaking back, Wayne called him a murderer. Call after call he called him a murderer. When the pastor no longer answered his phone, Wayne showed up at his door. Pounding on it. Screaming, “Why Buddy? Why?”
Buddy Wing repeatedly complained to the police and the police repeatedly warned Dillow to stop his harassment. Dillow didn’t stop. Wing got a restraining order. Dillow ignored it. Wing had Dillow arrested. Dillow bailed himself out and went right back to Wing’s house. He broke out a window and crawled inside. He screamed, “Why, Buddy? Why?” up the dark stairs.
Dillow was charged with breaking and entering but Wing begged police to reduce the charges to trespassing. Dillow was fined $250 and served a month in jail.
The strange thing, the sister in Knoxville told Aubrey, was that after six or seven months Wayne started going back to the church, started tithing again. He had regained his faith.
“Why am I suspicious?” Aubrey asked as we leaned against my car in the parking deck after work.
“I know I couldn’t go back to that church,” I said.
“Unless you wanted to get even,” she said. “Then you might. Then you might sit there week after week swallowing your anger, biding your time, waiting for that right opportunity to see if Buddy Wing could heal himself.”
“So Wayne F. Dillow goes on the list of suspects?” I asked.
“You bet he does.”
She talked me into going to Speckley’s for supper. That’s where she told me she was on the cusp of having sex with Eric. “If he plays his cards right, maybe tonight,” she said while I winced. She also told me of her plans to ambush the eyebrow woman. “You’ll come along, won’t you?” she asked.