"Okay. I fed Lou for you and gave her fresh water."
It gave me a warm feeling that he would think to do that, but I didn't pause to examine it. "Thanks."
He bent to kiss Aunt Ruby's cheek, and she blushed.
"Now, go on with you. We need to get going or we'll be late. The pastor's wife always takes the hymnals out of our pew if we're not early." She glanced at me ruefully. "Itisa joyful noise, Tess, don't you worry."
I sighed.
Then I drained my coffee mug, grabbed my purse, kissed Lou on the top of her head, and we left. I locked my door on the way out, something I'd never bothered to do before Jack's uncle Jeremiah's dead body had been dumped at the back door of my pawnshop.
Small town life had been getting more and more dangerous, and I wasn't talking about the cutthroat pecan pie competition at the upcoming Swamp Cabbage Festival, although we'd all wondered for years exactly when and where Mrs. Lee (she'd owned a restaurant in Tampa for forty years, before she retired) and Mr. Charpentier (he was French and a chef, as he so often told us) would come to blows.
"Is Uncle Mike meeting us there?"
"No, he's feeling a little bit under the weather too, and Bonnie Jo is off her feed, so I told him to stay home and take care of himself and her. He'll be glad to see you. You always had a way with that horse."
I loved Bonnie Jo. I'd told her all my secrets when I was a child missing my mother and not understanding why my father wouldn't come home. It hurt to think she might be failing. She was a very old horse, after all.
She dug out her keys. "Should we drive together? No, on second thought, I'll meet you there, because I need to stop at the office for a minute or two after church," Aunt Ruby said, bustling out to her car.
Oh, boy.
I really needed to tell her about the box.
Not now, though. After church. Maybe I'd follow her to City Hall and tell her in the privacy of her new office, so her shrieks wouldn't terrify the kids in Sunday school.
I sighed. The Big Book of Southern Manners held no chapters on ways to tell your aunt that somebody had left a human finger on your doorstep.
I climbed in my new Mustang (early birthday gift from my grandmother the banshee) and drove the five miles to church, hoping God had some answers for this dilemma, because I was fresh out.
* * *
Iloved our little church. It had been built in 1844 by a family of Domovoi—Slavic house spirits—who'd been escaping persecution in New England. For some reason, even though Domovoi were generally about three feet in height, one of their nephews or grandsons or something had almost been six feet tall, so it was a normal-sized building. The family had moved back to Russia sometime in the 1920s, after a dispute with a police officer about whether or not Prohibition applied in Dead End, according to a plaque on the front of the church. The plaque had a bullet hole in it, which lent it a certain credibility.
The church itself was one-story, painted white, with stained glass windows and a tiny bell tower, whose bells were ringing to call us to services now.
Pastor Nash, who was in his early forties and reminded me of a shy chipmunk with his inquisitive stares and slightly pronounced overbite, stood on the front porch, chatting and shaking hands and welcoming people. I was almost positive I caught him flinching when he saw me, but he was a man of God, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Hello, Pastor."
"Welcome, Tess. Mayor Ruby is already inside."
I put my hands behind my back to avoid touching him and leaned in to whisper a few words.
"Psalm 100, Pastor.Joyful noise."
His eyes widened, and then he burst out into a true belly laugh. He was still laughing and wiping his eyes when I moved past, my spirits already lifted. I really needed to make it a priority to attend church more often.
Aunt Ruby was in the front, chatting with friends, or so I thought until I got closer.
"Mayor Callahan, you need to do something about that stop sign on the corner of Daffodil Drive and Tulip Lane. Those Peterson boys keep shooting at it," Mr. Haraldsson demanded.
Aunt Ruby put her hands on her hips. "Olav, I've known you for fifty years. If you call me Mayor Callahan again, I'm going to tell your mama."
He winced. "I'm sorry, Ruby. Don’t do that. She's still mad about the goldfish I put in the water glasses at her fancy dinner party back in 1973. Swears Odin himself will punish me for that one."
It was incredibly hard for me to imagine the serious and slightly pompous president of Dead End First National Bank being afraid of his mama, but I enjoyed the visual my imagination painted for me. Especially when I remembered the ordeal he'd put me through when I bought my house. I'd spent a solid week compiling those documents.
