I'll Give You Something to Cry About

By Ken Harmon

No one out-suffers Mrs. Grace Geneva - not lepers, or pilgrims, and certainly not the poor excuse for sickly in little Carpenter, NC. That the top of the prayer list is no longer Mrs. Grace purview upsets her to no end, and when a string of suspicious deaths dispatch the competition, the old girl connives to keep the murders unsolved. She knows how, too, since the local coroner is a hopeless, hapless, and hexed mama’s boy who will never amount to anything. Just how Mrs. Grace raised him. Bless his heart.   

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Harmon
• Release date: May 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835836872

Book preview

Ken Harmon

I'll Give You Something to Cry About

UUID: d40cbaae-07a9-4eda-bfd1-c0f02bf5b92c

This ebook was created with StreetLib Write

http://write.streetlib.com

Table of contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Epitaph

Cover Design

by

Jon Buckley

JONBUCKLEY.COM

for my sister

Also by Ken Harmon

The Fat Man - A Tale of North Pole Noir

Alas, Pulp Yorick - The Jester's Hat Always Rings Twice

The English Major Mafia

Scrooge & Marley Detective Agency

1

In Carpenter, NC, it was common knowledge that in her younger days, Catherine Pettigrew had more pricks in her than a second-hand dartboard. But when The Cancer attacked in her sunset years, Catherine’s scarlet was whitewashed into something akin to a lullaby. The Cancer, The Sugar, The Slow Aneurysm were curses from The Almighty, vengeful scourges so powerful that their very names were whispered. If The Whatever was catching, you didn’t want it to hear you and come looking for you. That was just inviting trouble. Even though the Klan fizzled in Carpenter, the tongues wagged, because young Catherine Pettigrew ruined every spare sheet in town, seeing her looking more curdled than the Devil’s buttermilk reminded everybody just how awful getting smited could be. Hearts softened and folks forgot the blistering Catherine gossip of yore. Instead, they discussed her condition at length and shook their heads at how The Cancer was ransacking her once beautiful carcass. If Catherine had been sent packing by a jealous lover or from the bite of a copperhead while shucking the corn of every Tom, Dick and Harry out behind the Pettigrew mausoleum, her death would have been expected and most would have thought that she got what she deserved. Respectable Carpenterites would not have even gone to the funeral for the free food.

But watching the vivacious and bright Catherine wilt like meringue at an August picnic caused many to spare Catherine the rod. Seventy-seven was too young, and Catherine flew to the top of the prayer list with what was her anticipated angel wings on early loan. Folks in Carpenter grieved for Catherine, winced at her pains and shared her suffering. And when Catherine took a turn for the better, they rejoiced. The prayers and medicine were working and, while not cured, Carpenter would get to keep their now beloved Catherine for a few months or more. They upped their petitions to God and marveled at the bonafide miracle happening in their midst. It was a better sign from Heaven than those yahoos on the news that found a picture of Jesus on a ham.

So when they woke one Tuesday and heard that Catherine Pettigrew had passed on in the night, Carpenter suffered a collective kick to the gut. They trolled past her casket, humbled and shaken. The shock of the sudden loss made Catherine Pettigrew’s service especially mournful. But worse than Danny Whitesides’ rouge job on Catherine’s death mask (the undertaker’s cataracts were clearly acting up again), worse than the fact that the church hospitality women ran out of paprika for the deviled eggs ( and deviled eggs aren’t worth a thing without the paprika!), and even worse than how Mrs. Keever was nimbly fingering the funeral organ like she was playing the seventh-inning stretch at the fast-pitch ladies’ softball games was the racking, open-wound, down-right pitiful, heartbreaking mourning of Miss Grace Geneva.

Miss Grace was, in Carpenter vernacular, eat up with grief. She camped at the edge of the family receiving line, clouds of used Kleenex at her feet, heaving tears as if ending a drought depended on it. Miss Grace’s shoulders trembled like a wet kitten, which couldn’t be doing her back one bit of good. And everyone knew Miss Grace’s back had been giving her trouble since roughly about Deuteronomy. The Pettigrew family had to lean in to hear condolences over Miss Grace’s wails. Her cries were loud and rumbling, like a mix between a kettle drum and that lion from the Wizard of Oz movie.

What am I going to do? Miss Grace would ask as folks looked at Catherine Pettigrew in the box. She was my friend and now I don’t have her no more! What am I going to do? And since there was no answer to such, the Carpenter citizenry could only pat Miss Grace’s quaking shoulders and tell her, It will be alright. You’re going to be fine. Don’t go on so. Catherine wouldn’t want you to. It will be alright.

Miss Grace would smile feebly at such charity and nod that what they said might be true, Lord willing. The mourners would shuffle off, heartsick that they could not do more for such a sweet, little old lady. It must be hard to be near the end of your path and watch friends pass away, dropping one by one, like petals off a rose. Poor Miss Grace, they said. Bless her heart.

The bless your heart was a balm to Miss Grace, the tonic that kept her going. And it was rough going, indeed. Not a single one of her 79 years had been easy. Folks were not sure just how much sunshine was in Miss Grace’s life before she arrived in Carpenter back in 1965, but they wouldn’t have put money on any odds more than a partly cloudy life. She came to town that autumn single, 24-years old, and with a young son in tow. The boy had a mouthful of a name, Addergoole Senter Geneva, and no visible promise of living up to it. Miss Grace did the boy no favors by shortening Addergoole to Addy, practically gelding him before he got out of kindergarten. A quick reconnaissance with the Britannica at the Carpenter Public Library told the town’s nosey parkers that Addergoole was an Irish name that meant between two fords. Irish, they surmised, was probably code for Catholic, so they thought Miss Grace Geneva had some nerve bringing her pretty, young, bead-swinging self and her bastard son into the group that was planning to build the Bethlehem Lutheran Church. However, they adopted a Judge not, that ye not be judged mindset, except in small groups where one could whisper and speculate on the sins of others while God was busy with orphans way the hell off someplace.

But as the weather cooled, hearts thawed, and Carpenter’s female cabal decided that young Miss Grace was harmless enough. Grace got herself a job at the accountant’s office and made a good, simple life for herself and Addy. She certainly wasn’t snaking into Bethlehem Lutheran and inspiring a lot of coveting thy neighbor’s britches like that little hussy Catherine Pettigrew with her short skirts and go-go boots. That girl caused all the husbands to suck in their paunches so much that they walked like cripples who just got the magic touch. The ladies of Bethlehem Lutheran thought the men’s gaits might be false advertising, causing prospective parishioners to think that Pastor Doug Benzmiller was fixing things with alter calls and the laying-on of hands, and that was clearly not the case. Pastor Doug was two generations removed from the Fatherland, and he worked church like a dairy farm. You fixed yourself and made it quick. There was a church to build.

No, the ladies decided, young Miss Grace was doing her part to help, despite a possible past allegiance to Rome. She brought treats for bake sales, sewed choir gowns, doing anything she could do to help the young congregation raise money for a new building. And the ladies noticed that she always wore one of two dresses every Sunday, so she could not be, like Catherine Pettigrew, coming to church simply to cast her bread on the river of Lutheran men. Though, after a while, anyone with eyes in their head could see that Miss Grace had become smitten with Mitch Popper. Folks later said, as a point of fact, that when she set her cap for Mitch Popper was when Miss Grace’s streak of tribulation in Carpenter really and truly commenced in earnest.

Mitch Popper was the high school’s music teacher, a flutist-for-hire, and the closest thing to what Carpenter figured a eunuch to be. He wore a whistle around his neck for maintaining classroom authority, but the very blowing of it was a strain – a condition that stymied making a living as a career flutist, too. If someone was going to go to the trouble of orchestrating an event that required flute playing, you certainly didn’t want to pay good money to watch the veins in Mitch Popper’s receding hairline bulge out while he puffed through some Beethoven something or other. (In truth, many of Carpenter’s young boys cheerfully sacrificed time in the woods or with balls and gloves to watch Mr. Popper play, as there was always a chance that some random note would cause the flutist’s vein to explode and his brains would gush out like John F. Kennedy’s.) Mitch Popper was a fussbudget, an artist, and a ticking brain bomb, making him the de facto pet to the elder ladies of Carpenter. They insisted that Mitch Popper be the choir director for the new Bethlehem Lutheran Church, though they did suggest he leave his whistle at home. When the charter members would finally manage to actually build a church, they did not want to have to worry about Mitch Popper’s brains staining the new parquet floor.

But Pastor Benzmiller would not wait until a church was built proper. He wanted a place for his congregation to congregate during construction. And while Jesus did insist that He would indeed be where two or three were gathered in His name, the Good Shepherd probably did not expect His sheep to gather in the showroom at Tutterow Ford.

Pastor Benzmiller’s new church gave Ronny Tutterow the excuse he was looking for to vamoose his wife’s attachment to the high-falutin’ Presbyterians. Ronny found the Presbyterian pews and sermons uncomfortable and was looking for a change. He signed on early with Pastor Benzmiller’s call to build a new Lutheran church, but soon realized he’d gotten more than he bargained for. Pastor Benzmiller put Ronny to work, writing checks, chatting up customers, and attending countless meetings. And when Bethlehem Lutheran finally managed a quorum of souls to worship together, Pastor Benzmiller pointed out to Ronny that the showroom at his dealership wasn’t doing anything Sunday mornings.

Ronny Tutterow wasn’t keen on the idea at first. Opening the place for a few hours on Sunday would mean lights, heat, and by now he knew what kind of operator the pastor was. Nothing from the offering plate would be coming Ronny’s way. (Would they use a hubcap for the offering plate? Ronny wondered as he tallied up what this little spiritual quest was going to cost him.) Ronny also knew that his stable of salesmen were charlatans. Their lack of scruples helped Tutterow Ford be a top dealership, so Ronny often looked the other way on many of their shenanigans. The boys also kept a cache of well-thumbed, smut magazines in their desks for days when no one was kicking the tires. They called their magazines parts catalogs and were none too careful about keeping them hidden. The last thing Ronny needed was some Lutheran battle-axe snooping around on a Sunday morning and seeing just how easy it would be for Miss October to catch pneumonia. Ronny knew if he cracked down on his boys too much, they might pack up and go sell Chevys. Instead, Ronny decided to convert the boys, offering bonuses to those who came in on Sunday mornings to push the Ford Fairlanes and Mustangs and Town and Country wagons off to the side and set up folding chairs in the showroom. The boys happily obliged because they soon discovered that Fords were apples in Bethlehem Lutheran’s Eden. Lutheran hymns were tuneless slogs in the first place, and Mitch Popper’s choir leadership wasn’t helping. So while the hymns droned, many worshipers were seen putting a covetous eye to the Ford lineup, and they couldn’t resist the temptation help to peek inside a vehicle during the sharing of the Peace. Ronny Tutterow’s infidel salesmen would then amble over and offer a bite of forbidden fruit in the form of skilled chin-wagging about bucket seats or four-in-the-floor or enough horsepower to outrun the ponies of the Apocalypse, which was usually what closed the deal. As fishers of men for the church, the salesmen couldn’t even find the water, much less bait a hook. But as fishers for Ronny Tutterow Ford, very few got away. Sales practically tripled while Bethlehem Lutheran was under construction and Ronny felt blessed – except when Pastor Benzmiller put the squeeze on for a bigger tithe. Nothing got past that pulpiteer.

As Christmas approached, the Bethlehem Lutheran brain trusts decided to put on a holiday pageant to raise money and boost awareness that their building would be finished later that Spring and that all were welcome. The program was called The Road to Bethlehem. Mitch Popper was in charge and Miss Grace happily volunteered to be his Girl Friday. Folks noticed how well those two got along. Grace Geneva seemed to relax Mitch Popper to the point where one nearly forgot about the bulging vein in his forehead, it was subdued so. There was talk that Mitch Popper might possibly give up living with cats, make an honest woman of Miss Grace, and theirs would be the first wedding in Bethlehem Lutheran Church.

In The Road to Bethlehem, Mitch Popper staged the big moments of the birth of Baby Jesus in the Ronny Tutterow Ford showroom. They did face the challenge of having to incorporate various Ford vehicles into the story as Ronny could not roll cars in and out of the showroom every night. So they improvised. Herod’s palace was a Ford Crown Victoria. Herod shouted decrees from the luxurious front seat, and slaves polished the hubcaps. Mary and Joseph journeyed to Bethlehem in a Mustang, which was like a donkey with chrome. At least both had four on the floor. The shepherds camped at a Town and Country Wagon, complete with ersatz wood side-panels to symbolize their rustic and humble station. For the manger scene, animals and wise men all crowded into the bed of a Ford pick-up, creating a kind of tailgate party for the Baby Jesus. Instead of weenies, there was myrrh. Audiences would amble from vehicle to vehicle and watch how Christ came to Earth. Ronny Tutterow also appreciated the fact that, subliminally, it was also suggested that the House of David was a Ford family from way back. You just couldn’t buy that kind of advertising.

Little Addy Geneva was a bit of a faraway fella and at the age of testing limits. Addy tended to go where his curiosity led him, and more than once he was found playing in the parts department while Miss Grace was busy helping Mitch Popper rehearse The Road to Bethlehem. To try and keep an eye on him, Miss Grace assigned Addy to the I n Excelsis Deo choir. Addy and other children were put in a dark corner, dressed in robes, and given halos crafted out of coat hangers and tinsel. Each child also held a foil pie pan that had a Christmas light duct taped to it. When the shepherds looked to the sky for the heavenly host, someone plugged in the string of Christmas lights and the bulbs in the foil pans illuminated the angel children with the brilliance of high-beams on a semi. It was a dazzling sight and the beauty of it was marred only by the fact that every single, solitary time the lights were plugged in, little Connie Percy screamed like a kitten run through a cheese grater. No one could soothe Connie’s fears, though one of the shepherds quietly offered to use his staff to relieve the little brat of a few molars.

But the second night of the performance, Connie Percy was not the problem, though her constant, nerve-grinding disquietude did contribute to the tragedy that later became legendary.

Bored, Addy put down his foil pie plate and wandered off, no one thinking twice that a little angel boy was overseeing various scenes of the Christmas story. It was when Addy ventured into the cab of the manger scene pickup that he lit the fuse to catastrophe. Children are fascinated by buttons and knobs, and Addy was no exception. The result of this fascination was that Addy released the parking brake and shifted the manger truck into drive. The showroom floor, it was soon discovered, was not particularly level, and before you could say ‘Merry Christmas’, the entire manger scene started to roll. Mary, Joseph, the wise men, and an assortment of barnyard animals panicked and vaulted out of the truck bed like it was the Hindenburg, enabling the pickup to gain speed. Whether it was out of some deep-seated deviltry or just simple-mindedness, Addy steered the manger pickup directly toward the I n Excelsis Deo choir. When Connie Percy saw the grill of the truck barreling toward her, she released a shriek and her bladder. The I n Excelsis Deo choir turned into a chaotic mob, children dropped the pie pans and lights and bolted for sanctuary. When the puddle of Connie’s urine reached the live Christmas lights, the inferno commenced. There was a spark, a crackle, and the smell of hot pee. In a flash, the discarded tinsel halos and cotton used to simulate clouds erupted into flame. The manger pickup truck then rolled through the showroom window just behind where the I n Excelsis Deo choir had just stood with a thundering crash of glass and metal. The fresh air gave the flames some giddy-up, and a rack of brochures went up like hellfire. Shepherds clutched their chests in pain, children wailed, salesmen scrambled to save their porn from the flames, and Ronny Tutterow swore like a pirate at all of it. The scene looked a lot more like the Second Coming than the First.

When it was discovered that Addy was to blame for the whole fiasco, the vein in Mitch Popper’s brow returned and stayed like a tattoo. Miss Grace Geneva’s Hell-spawn had not only ruined The Road to Bethlehem but her chances of sharing the nuptial couch with choir director as well. Mitch Popper looked at Miss Grace like she just blew burped in a flute recital, never forgiving her for producing such a wayward child. If she could be so careless with Addy, how would she treat his heart? Mitch Popper was an artist after all.

Tragedy and cursedness followed Miss Grace every day after that, it seemed, and now, years later, she had lost her friend, Catherine Pettigrew. How much heavier a cross would the poor old woman have to shoulder?

Much more, it would turn out. For the medicine and prayers for Catherine Pettigrew had truly been helping. The miracle was that The Cancer really had been weakened and tamed. Unused to losing, the disease was then forced to sit back and enviously watch a sly poison silently snuff the life out of its victim.

In truth, Catherine Pettigrew was murdered.

Bless her heart.

2

A recent ghoulish trend in Carpenter was to memorialize their dead with car stickers. The back glasses of vehicles featured decals with ornate script that read like tombstones:

In Loving Memory of Timmy Willis

1977-2001

Frieda Cartwright

1934-1989

Now with the angels

Eddie Abernathy

1966-1980

Lightning Did Strike Twice

Some designs were illustrated with praying hands or a rose, others were adorned with artistic curlicues to suggest an airy and whimsical flight to the hereafter. There were even a few decorated with the rock n’ roll hand sign or a Jolly Roger to suggest that, even in death, that particular soul would sure as hell not spend Eternity kissing some cherub's ass.

As Carpenter’s coroner, Addy Geneva knew how many of them had died. With every commute, the automotive memorials triggered a rote catalog of disease and affliction so the boy who had turned The Road to Bethlehem into a dead end was never, ever really away from death. That cloud of doom along with his mother’s chronic hypochondria understandably sapped Addy into something of a dunce until you got to know him, though very few made the effort. Addy was viewed as a stooped, woebegone dullard who, quite frankly, surprised everyone when he displayed the aptitude to help solve the Barbecue King murder years ago.

Addy had managed that triumph despite his mother’s repeated predictions that Addy would never amount to much. Miss Grace stoned her son to death with cotton balls. Cotton like, the cotton I had to pick in the field when I was a little girl to put food on the table, Miss Grace told Addy anytime he had asked for a quarter as a boy. No matter what subject Addy breached with his mother, she had a tale of sorrow to go along with it.

Look at the train, mommy.

I remember when a train cut off the legs of a man who fell asleep on the tracks, she said. He was drunk. If I ever catch you drinking, mister, I’ll die.

Can we have a dog?

And get rabies? I had rabies once and we couldn’t afford all of the shots. I still have a little limp from it.

Mom, I’d like to be a doctor.

I don’t think you’d be able to fix my back.

Despite these and many similar exchanges, Addy grew and did indeed study medicine, but was quite certain he wanted nothing to do with patients. He knew all too well how women like his mother could grind a general practitioner