Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

If you wonder what all this has to do with the funeral of Billy Baldwin, I’ll tell you now. I’ll swear to the Almighty I saw Billy stoned — I think to death — on the veranda of the Red Lantern the night Big Mary and Nancy said he died at home after coming down from Lookout Point.

I woke up sudden that night and looked out my window. It was moonlight, cold and past midnight. A dozen or so women of the town passed under my window, silent except for their whispering feet. I knew where they were headed. There had been shenanigans, and as soon as I could get there I followed them and lay down in the hollow alongside where Billy Baldwin’s car was parked. The women were standing like statues beneath the steps, tinted pink from the light of the Red Lantern sign. I heard the commotion upstairs and saw lights going on. I heard Billy yelping and scrambling down the stairs, Nancy after him, yelling and beating at him as he plunged outdoors, naked as birth and his clothes in his arms. The women blocked the steps and picked up stones from the walk which they handed round among them. Then out from a side door came Clara, wispy as a ghost in a negligee the likes of which no woman of Webbtown had ever seen before. The women stood, stones in hand, until Clara went down the steps and got one too. Billy by then was on his knees, pleading with them, and one of the women took Nancy away. Clara threw the first stone and Billy went down in the barrage that followed. Didn’t move even when Clara went back up the steps and kicked him like he was a dead calf. The women picked up more stones and flung them at Clara. They hissed at her like snakes. When she made it into the inn I took off and never looked back.

After the funeral nobody, even at Tuttle’s Bar and Grill, where most of the men hung out, ever mentioned Billy. I felt things were hanging in a kind of delicate balance, but I could’ve felt that way because of what I’d seen. I didn’t know for a fact about Prouty or Reverend Barnes, but I was pretty sure I was the only man in town to know what really happened to Billy. It bothered me a lot at first, but after a while I got to thinking maybe I dreamt the whole thing. I sure liked it better that way.

There was a thaw in early January. It made the three-mile exit off the interstate almost impassable. I’d just come up from the town and waited on the veranda when a car and trailer pulled up in front of the Red Lantern. Both vehicles looked as though they’d had a long and hearty life. Which was more than I could say for the driver. He got out of the car and scraped his boots at the bottom step. He was tall and thin as a string bean, the eyes of a zealot, I thought. I’d seen his like among mountain preachers. His smile was practiced, on and off. His clothes were a dusty black, a topcoat that flapped open, trousers tucked into his boots. He tipped the brim of a high-crowned hat, and the first words out of his mouth were, “Are you a Christian?”

I didn’t like him asking that. “I am when I have to be,” I said.

But he took my words at their best value. “I’m the Reverend Isaiah Teague, but I’m not a prophet. I’m only a poor evangelist.” He offered his hand and I took it. I could feel the bones.

“I’m Hank,” I said, hoping it would be enough to get him on the road again. I didn’t offer him the hospitality of the inn. To tell the truth, I was afraid if I let him in, I wouldn’t be able to get him out, and Clara would kill me. I was glad I hadn’t been too hospitable when next he asked me if I knew of a lady named Mary Toomey in the town, and where he’d find her.

I looked at my watch. “I think you can find her at this hour at the bank.”

“She works at a bank?” he questioned and nodded approval.

“She’s president of the First State Bank of Webbtown.”

The smile came and went, and so did he.

Before he was out of sight, Clara came out to me. “What was that all about?”

“Looking for Big Mary. He’s a clergyman of some sort.”

“They know now where the money is,” she said. Which was more or less what I’d thought of him myself.