Page 62 of A Fabulously Unfabulous Summer for Henry Milch

“Oh, yeah. So did the church know?”

“I don’t think so. I doubt they did much in the way of vetting. And… he never gave them much information.”

I thought about all the paperwork I had to fill out just to sell coffee drinks, so I asked, “But they were paying him, weren’t they?”

“He was paid through an LLC.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a simple kind of corporation. They paid his company then he paid himself.”

“Did he make a lot of money?”

“No. It’s not a normal kind of thing. He claimed to do music gigs on the side, but no one remembers him doing any. Mostly, I think he lived off Ivy Greene.”

I think he realized he was a being a bit too chatty because he stopped and asked, “Do you have any other revelations?”

“So, it might not have been an addict caught in the midst of a robbery. It might have been a drug deal gone wrong.”

He smiled at me.

“And that’s what you’ve thought since the start, isn’t it?”

“I don’t want to hear you’ve been nosing around the local drug dealers, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. I mean, I just said I was done, right?” I hesitated a moment, then said, “Hessel blackmailed Sue Langtree and Reverend Wilkie out of their positions.”

“They were boning, huh? I kinda thought that.”

“No, they weren’t, but it doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? I thought you came here to tell me what you know.”

“Yeah, but this could hurt someone if it came out.” I don’t know why exactly, but there was something about Bekah Springer that made me not want to see her get hurt.

“Murder is like that. People get hurt.”

I decided to give him part of the truth. “They helped a particular person get an abortion. That’s what Hessel blackmailed them with.”

“So they still have a motive.”

“They do, but… then what about the drug connection?”

“Let’s stick to what you found out and not what you think, okay?”

“Ivy Greene is the one who called 911.”

“I know that.”

“Why? Why was she the one to call?”

“She sent her son over to check on Hessel. When he found the body, he called his mother. She called 911 from their house.”

That seemed like a fairly reasonable explanation, but it still bothered me. I wondered if he’d checked all the phone records. Or had they told him? But then I reminded myself I was done with this. I didn’t need to know.

“Reverend Hessel claimed to have family in the area but then later denied it. Do you know if he has family nearby?”

“The only family I’ve found is in Wisconsin. They’re estranged and haven’t spoken to him since the mid-nineties. He was probably lying. Shocking, I know.”