I couldn’t see how the girls were occupying themselves while Father Casey, the pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas, droned on at the altar, but I was staring at a stained glass window that depicted St. Joan of Arc getting burned at the stake and recalling how Aunt Jane May had told us that the fierce and sudden heat enveloping the town had been Satan’s doing. At the time, I had filed that away as just another one of her endless “Mark my words” warnings, but I was beginning to believe her.
Those attending the nine o’ clock Mass that Sunday were slippery with sweat and sliding off kneelers left and right. And oh, how the poor choir suffered in those heavy red robes. Their harmonious pleas for salvation drifting down from the loft had sounded unusually authentic before the heat got to one of the sopranos. Aunt Jane May called down to Doc to come quickly and bring his smelling salts, but no sooner had he finished ministering to seemingly always pregnant Mrs. Ellsworth when old Mr. Woolty went woozy in the Communion line and knocked a couple of people standing behind him onto their keesters. After the church ushers helped everyone get recombobulated, Doc stepped up to the altar and suggested to Father Casey that before anyone else succumbed to the heat, he better wrap things up.
Our pastor’s cheeks looked like stop signs and his vestments clung to his pot belly, so he readily agreed to Doc’s suggestion to cut the Mass short. But before he dismissed us, he made his way to the lectern to deliver what he promised would be a few parish updates.
“There will be a school uniform sale on Friday, a paper drive this Saturday, and if you haven’t heard yet, an emergency town meeting has been called for seven o’clock this evening. The president of our Ladies Auxiliary,”—our pastor grinned at Mrs. Mulrooney, who was sitting next to her vile thirteen-year-old daughter Brenda in the pew across from ours—“has brought to our attention a matter of utmost urgency. The topic of tonight’s meeting will be ‘Broadhurst: Are Our Children Safe?’” There was some grumbling among his flock and a few of them raised their hands, but Father Casey wisely deferred to the experts. “Mayor Kibler will moderate the meeting, and the sheriff and Doc will be present as well, along with Doctor Cruikshank and Nurse Holloway from the hospital. They’ll address your concerns and answer any questions, and I expect each and every one of you to attend.”
The girls and I already knew about the rumors Mulrooney was spreading about Hopper, so that came as no surprise. But calling for an emergency meeting to discuss his transfer was, and we were about as pleased with that news as we were with Aunt Jane May’s forbidding us to ride over to Mud Town after the sun set.
Because when even Viv’s conniving mind couldn’t come up with one good reason why she’d forbid us to cross the tracks after dark, we did what we so often did. We ignored her warning. We also paid no mind to the one she’d issued about staying away from Broadhurst. We’d been riding over to the mental institution every afternoon, so about the last thing we needed was Aunt Jane May keeping closer tabs on us, which we could count on if things went sideways at the town hall that night.
She’d think she was keeping us safe because, like most of the folks in town, she didn’t understand, the way the girls and I did, that the Broadhurst patients posed no danger, and that would include Hopper. If he did get transferred, the child killer would be locked up on the third floor of the hospital with the other criminally insane patients who’d never feel the sun on their skin or breathe fresh air again.
Frankie, Viv, and I were taking turns kicking an empty Campbell’s soup can down the block on our way home from church and bemoaning the meeting the president of the Ladies Auxiliary had called for that night.
“I don’t get it,” I said to Frankie. “How come, do ya think, Mulrooney is trying to make everyone believe that if Hopper gets moved to Broadhurst he’ll escape and strangle some kids?”
“Yeah,” Viv said and gave the can a kick that landed halfway down the block. “Since when did that turd turn into the patron saint of children?”
As if she’d already given the matter a lot of thought, Frankie said, “I don’t think Mulrooney is tryin’ to keep kids safe from Hopper. I think she’s got an ulterior motive.”
Viv bobbed her head in enthusiastic agreement, but when Frankie hopped forward to give the soup can a swift kick, she whispered behind her hand to me, “What’s an ult … what she said?”
“An ulterior motive is a secret reason for doin’ something,” I whispered back.
Viv nodded, squared her shoulders, and said, “Yeah, I got some ideas about what that so-and-so is secretly up to, too, but age before beauty, Frankenstein.”
Frankie smiled at the nickname, then said, “I heard Brenda Mulrooney telling some little kids at the park yesterday that they better let her win at hopscotch or her mother’ll put ’em in jail after she becomes mayor.”
“And you believed her?” Viv let loose with a deprecating guffaw that’d usually be directed at me. “She’s as full of it as her ma is.”
Frankie shrugged. “It’s a free country, so think want you want, but I figure Mulrooney’s gonna start saying that if Mayor Kibler was in his right mind, he’d be as worried as she is that kids could be murdered by Wally Hopper.”
“And then she’ll start tellin’ everyone that the mayor should’ve been the one to call for an emergency meeting instead of her and that’s proof he’s over the hill and … and she’d be the best person to replace him,” I said, finally catching on. “Oh, poor Bud. He’ll never see it comin’.”
We had a soft spot in our hearts for the man who dressed like Count Dracula and gave out all-day suckers on Halloween, and would say, “Why, hello there, Small Fries,” whenever he bumped into us. But not everyone regarded Bud Kibler as highly as we did. When he’d been spotted around town mumbling to himself with his barn door open and his silver hair looking like he’d stuck a fork in an electrical socket, there was talk about his arteries going hard on him. Talk started by none other than Evelyn Mulrooney.
Viv raged, “I wouldn’t put it past her to start telling everybody again that Bud is goin’ feeble, and on top of that our summer is gonna get all screwed up. After she gets everyone worked up over Hopper, grown-ups are gonna start watching our every move and—” She was so frantic that she swallowed her Juicy Fruit and it got lodged in her throat. After I smacked her hard on the back and the wad came flying out, she picked it up off the sidewalk and stuck it back in her mouth. “If Mulrooney gets to be mayor … she’s gonna act like the goddamn Queen of Sheba!”
“Simmer down,” Frankie told her. “I only think all of this has something to do with Mulrooney runnin’ for mayor. We need proof. Since the whole town will be gathered at the emergency meeting tonight, I bet that’s when she’ll reveal what she’s got up her sleeve.”
“You mean what she’s got up her sleeve besides her flabby arm and the revenge she came up with for Auntie after the sheriff shot her down at Delson’s,” Viv groused.
After Widow Mulrooney had completed the requisite year of mourning for her husband, Herbert, who’d been kicked in the head by a cow at Camp’s Dairy, she packed away her black mourning dresses, shook out her spring frocks, and informed our uncle, the sheriff, at Delson’s Coffee Shop that she’d be willing to attend St. Thomas’s May Day Mixer with him. He thanked her for the invitation, told her he was flattered, but, “I’ve already asked Jane May.”