Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [98]
“But Melvin worked for Doug Collins. Doug attends your church and is your fellow elder. Did you try to talk to him about not hiring Melvin, especially since Doug has a young daughter?”
BD still hadn’t turned around.
I gave him a minute before I said, “Mr. Hoffman?”
He spun and glared at me. “Who do you think told me I oughta practice Christian forgiveness?”
My stomach plummeted like I’d swallowed a
length of log chain. “Doug did?”
“No. His wife, Trish, did. She told me spreadin’
rumors was the devil’s work. That everyone deserved a second chance no matter what they’d done in the past.”
Jesus. Trish couldn’t be that fucking stupid, could she?
“Did Doug Collins know? I mean, as far as you know, did Trish ever tell him that you’d warned her 347
about Melvin?”
BD returned to his chair and picked at his greasestained fingernails. “I don’t know if I should . . .”
“Should what?”
“Is all this gonna go in your report?”
I shrugged. He’d tell me or he wouldn’t. Cajoling him would only make me look suspect.
“Around that time, something else happened at our church with me and someone else. I tried to explain it wadn’t what it looked like. Doug wouldn’t listen. He lashed out and made a stupid decision. I guess I wanted to prove to him how damn dumb that decision was, so I tried to tell him what I’d told Trish about Canter. Then he accused me of tryin’ to retaliate by comin’ between him and his wife. Big mess din’t need to be made bigger. I let it go.”
“I’m strictly looking for facts, but I did talk to someone and they’d made mention of a rumor about you and the church secretary? What was her name again?”
BD’s face flushed red as his toolboxes. “Beth McClanahan. We wadn’t doin’ what folks said we was. She was cryin’ and on her knees prayin’. I was helpin’
her.”
Right. The old on-the-knees excuse.
“Beth lost her job in the most humiliatin’ way. I tried to quit the elders’ council and leave the church, after they fired her. ’Course they wadn’t gonna let me do that since I give ’em so much money every year. 348
Sweet Lord Jesus, if anyone knew why she’d been cryin’ . . .”
“Why?”
He cut me a dark look. “Keep her out of this. She’s a good woman. Been through a lotta bad stuff in her life and she don’t need no more.”
Perfect example of how fourth-and fifth-hand information turned into personal speculation. Dale told me BD begged for forgiveness, but I’d bet Sunday’s collection plate it wasn’t for himself but for Beth McClanahan. I figured she wouldn’t talk to me since my father canned her biscuits, but maybe if BD was a buffer she’d consider it. “Would Beth talk to me?”
“Why?”
“To see if she had any dealings with Melvin Canter.”
BD’s gaze fell back to his coffee cup.
“She does have a job someplace around here?”
A moment of quiet, then he asked, “How’d you know Beth’s been workin’ here for me?”
I blinked. I hadn’t known.
“She’s a good secretary and I needed office help.”
Getting off track, Julie.
“What did you and Doug Collins fight about at Bevel’s Hardware?”
His mouth went hard and flat.
“Deputy John said you didn’t file charges.
Why?”
“To prove to Doug I can turn the other cheek.”
349
Great. One-upmanship Jesus-style. “Did you overhear the fights Doug and Melvin were purported to have at Chaska’s?”
BD shook his head.
“So you don’t know what they were fighting
about?”
Another head shake.
“BD, do you have any idea why Melvin Canter is dead?”
“No.” His head hung so low I strained to hear him and he was a mere three feet from me. “And may Christ our Lord and Savior have mercy on my sinner’s soul, because I can’t find sorrow in my heart that he is.”
A chill rolled through me. I stood and offered my hand. “Thank you for the coffee. If I think of anything else I’ll be in touch.”
As I drove home I wondered if he realized I’d never given him my name.
Something weird was going on with Beth
McClanahan. Probably be worth it to run a background check on her. I called Trish. I hadn’t talked to her since Martinez’s shooting.