Chapter 17
With Rodney at her side, Kate set about canvassing the houses in the area. And it seemed as if nobody saw anything.
Most had been at work. Now they were just curious, wondering what was going on at the church. She refrained from giving too many details.
If they hadn’t seen anything, didn’t see any vehicles at the church, either didn’t attend the church or weren’t active in the church at all, then she just kept moving. She wondered if anybody had seen anything at this point. Even Rodney was starting to give her side looks.
Rodney noted, “It’s amazing that nobody ever sees anything.”
“I know,” she muttered. “Where are the older men and older ladies who used to just sit by the window, being nosy neighbors?” Kate sighed. “It seems as if everybody’s buried in their TVs or their smartphones or something.”
“Or something,” Rodney replied, “as in our deceased studs.”
“I know,” she muttered, “but it’s really not great when it comes to getting information about them.”
She came to one of the houses right at the corner. She knocked, and a woman, mid-forties maybe, opened the door and stared at her. Kate quickly identified themselves of them and held up her badge.
The other woman frowned with instant concern. “Oh my, I hope everything’s okay.”
But her gaze was bright and inquisitive, and it gave Kate hope. “We’re looking into any disturbance around the church today. The parking lot, any vehicles racing past, anything at all that looked suspicious.”
“When you say suspicious,” she began, “I don’t know about that. I mean, I live here obviously, and I’m home all day, but I can’t see very much from here. The church is around the corner.”
“Yes, but the back entrance to the parking lot is right here.”
“Yes, yes, of course it is,” she confirmed. “And I do sometimes see vehicles coming and going, but it’s not a regular occurrence.”
Kate nodded. “So, you haven’t seen anything that caught your attention today?”
The woman shook her head. “Nothing comes to mind.” Then she clued in and her eyes widened. “Oh my gosh, please tell me nothing bad happened at the church.”
Kate grimaced. “I can’t say that because unfortunately there’s been a murder.”
“At the church?” The woman stared, the color fading from her face, as she whispered, “Please, not Father McCain.”
Kate’s eyebrows shot up, and she slowly nodded. “I’m sorry, but it was Father McCain.”
“No, no, no, no,” she cried out in horror. “He’s such a good man. He’s been so good to this community.”
Kate nodded. “And I’m sorry. I know it’s not news any of us wants to hear, which is why I’m out here right now, asking if you saw anything today.”
“No, no,” she replied. “I haven’t seen anything along that line in a very long time. I don’t even know what I’m saying. I haven’t seen anything period. I mean, that’s just awful,” she muttered.
“And when you said, in a long time?”
“It’s just …” She shook her head. “I don’t want to get anybody in trouble.”
Kate agreed. “I hear you, but just no time to be worrying about that right now. We have to act fast to get any information we can. May I ask you some questions?”
“Sure, ask away, and I’ll tell you anything I can.”
“Did you know Father McCain?”
“Yes. I used to clean the church, and I used to volunteer to help on some of the Sunday school events and stuff, until my husband got very sick. Since then I’ve just been home more than out lately.
” She glanced out the door and around her front yard.
She opened the door wider and let them in.
“My husband was sick for a long time, but there were also some other good reasons why I just didn’t feel quite the same about the church anymore. And I know that’s probably confusing.”
“So, there was some incident at the church?” Rodney asked, redirecting her.
“Oh, there absolutely was something. It was maybe a year or two or so ago now. It was difficult for a lot of people around here. Father McCain was quite perturbed by the way some of the women acted. He didn’t understand it, and I’m not sure I did either,” she shared.
“Maybe you could go back to the beginning and give us a little more detail,” Rodney suggested.
She looked at him and smiled brighter, maybe noticing the hunk of a detective, but then she frowned and looked uncomfortable.
“It’s fine,” Kate told her. “I know you don’t want to get anybody in trouble, but we really do need to know what that incident was, just so we can understand it, so it isn’t impacting every conversation we have as we interview folks in the neighborhood.”
“Oh, yes, I see what you mean,” she noted. “Yes, that would make sense.”
“Okay, so could you tell us a little more, please?”
“Father McCain used to have these counseling sessions for women before they went through their marriage ceremony.”
“What kind of counseling?”
“You know, the relevant scriptures, respect for the husband, and all that good stuff,” she said. “I think to a certain extent they still do them, although I don’t think he does them quite the same way anymore. I know he was a little perturbed by how it ended up back then.”
“How what ended up?” Rodney asked.
She stared at him and continued. “So, a few women were in the group, and one of the women knew the fiancé of another one. And the woman in question was infertile and had known about it for a while, I guess, but she hadn’t told her fiancé.” She sighed, shaking her head.
“So, the one woman who knew the fiancé claimed that he deserved to be told, that the infertile woman was damaged goods. I think that is how she put it. The prospective husband didn’t have any idea, but he really wanted a family, and it wasn’t fair of her to marry him without giving him the opportunity to know what he was getting into.
Anyway, that didn’t go over well, as I’m sure you can imagine. ”
Kate and Rodney remained silent, all in an effort to keep her talking.
“It didn’t go over well with a lot of the women who were against what was going on.
But the argument between the two women, who both knew the fiancé in question, just got more heated.
One told the other that it’s none of her business, and she was jumping the gun.
The other one said that she was just being a liar and trying to get a husband by hook or crook. ”
“So, there was a physical fight?” Kate asked.
“Oh, not at first. Initially it was a war of words, and it very quickly went downhill.”
“I can imagine,” Rodney noted, drawing a look from Kate. He just shrugged and added, “You get into a catfight like that, it can get pretty ugly.”
“Exactly,” the woman confirmed, with a heavy sigh. “So, it ended up getting physical, and this upset a lot of the ladies in the counseling session that day. I know that one got quite concerned over all the drama. It got so bad,” she added, “that the police were called.”
Kate stared at her. “I don’t think I’ve seen any report in relation to that.”
“No, and I’m pretty sure that Father McCain would have done everything he could to keep it off the record, if possible,” the lady shared. “Again, I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers, but his pants were on fire for a while there.”
“Sure,” Kate replied impatiently. “Go on.”
“So the one woman who knew the fiancé told him.”
Beside her, Rodney whispered, “Crap.”
“Exactly, and that caused him to, well, … understandably he was upset, and he broke up with her. But she had also been working with Father McCain quite a bit over the years to get her infertility … rectified. The church does believe in miracles, and they believe in all kinds of things being fixed without medical intervention.”
Kate glanced at Rodney and saw her confusion reflected in his expression.
The woman continued. “I know that Father McCain was of the opinion that, if she would relax about it all and just not get so worked up, it would possibly fix itself. Anyway he always said that, If you just believed strong enough, hard enough, everything would be fine.”
“Good God,” Kate whispered.
Rodney shot Kate a sharp look at the word believe.
“So, what happened after that?” Kate asked.
“I’m not exactly sure what happened after all of it,” she said. “I heard the fiancé broke it off and went on a bender, ended up dying from an accidental overdose. His addiction was really bad by the end of it all.”
Kate was in complete shock. She sat back and stared at her. “Was that man Kurt Conner by any chance?”
Her eyebrows shot up, and she squealed, “Yes, that’s exactly who it was.
” She smiled and added, “He didn’t live all that close to here, but he knew the two women from our church.
I don’t know at what level,” she noted. “I don’t know how close they were.
So, that was part of the accusations coming from the poor infertile woman who got jilted because she felt that her relationship had been intentionally sabotaged by the other woman.
That led to the idea that maybe there was more to it than just meddling, which made it all uglier still. ”
She sighed, then added, “Now, I don’t believe that there was necessarily anything hostile toward Father McCain, but things were very rocky for quite a while. Naturally people took sides, so the whole church experience had a bad taste for a while, let’s put it that way.”
She looked out the window, checking the neighborhood, and then her gaze landed back on Kate. “I don’t think he particularly saw it as a happy ending, but, when things calmed down, I’m sure he felt things were at least good enough and better now that everybody would be over it all.