Paula exited the church, thinking once more of the minister who had reassured her over the false fire alarm. She returned the incident to the mental hook from which it kept falling, and looked across the churchyard to see Colt perched on a low stone wall with his crutches beside him.
He lifted his head at her approach. His scarred demeanor was impossible to read. Not so with Joy. Her lilting voice and sparkling laughter carried on the light breeze.
“What’s so funny?” Paula asked.
“Dad. His tummy’s rumbling like a volcano.” Joy linked arms with Colt. “He thinks he can walk back to the lodge….”
“Walking’s part of my therapy. Doctor’s orders. It’s only a block and a half,” said Colt.
“…but I told him you’d give him a ride. You will, won’t you?” Joy talked right over him.
“Sure, no problem.” Sensitive to Colt’s reserve, Paula took the initiative and asked, “Would you like to stop for lunch first?”
“Food, food! Please, Dad? I’m starving,” cried Joy.
“I guess we had better feed you, then,” Colt yielded.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park had been so designated by Roosevelt in 1940. The verdant, awe-inspiring beauty of the place was evident throughout Gatlinburg, nestled as it was amidst forested mountain slopes. The locals, no less tenacious and enduring than the craggy boulders strewn along creek beds and campsites and forest trails, capitalized on their down-home heritage. “Hillbilly” was their bread and butter. They spelled it out in neon on everything from hotels to hoedown halls to mom-and-pop restaurants.
Paula parked the car at one such country affair set in the heart of the strip. Mismatched tables painted in a bold checkerboard pattern were scattered over the scuffed wooden floor. The hostess seated them at the wide front window. Stiffly starched curtains framed a view of the street. Crowded and comfortable, the place exuded a rustic charm that was as relaxed and informal as the freckled waitress who took their order. She soon returned with enough food for a family twice their size.
“How’re we doing, folks? Need anything?”
“Just coffee, thanks.” Colt nudged his empty cup into position at the edge of the table.
The waitress poured Paula a fresh cup, too, and gave Colt the check. The apron from which she withdrew it was decorated with a child’s handprints, done in finger paints.
Joy indicated her apron. “Look, Mom! Hand prints.”
“I see.” Smiling, Paula asked the waitress about her apron and learned that her children had made it for her.
“A treasure, isn’t it?”
Paula chimed agreement. The waitress hurried away. Joy told Colt, “Mom’s quilting me a treasure, too.”
Surprise flickered in Colt’s gray gaze. “I didn’t know you sewed,” he said to Paula.
“I learned in 4-H. But it was Mom and Gram Kate who taught me to quilt,” said Paula. “Say grace for us, would you, Joy?”
Joy did so. But over breakfast she returned to the subject of the quilt and with minimal input from Paula, explained how at her first birthday party family and friends had dipped their hands in fabric paint and left their prints on individual quilt blocks.
“We’re calling it Helping Hands.”
“Good choice,” said Colt. “I wish I’d been on board to help.”
“It’s not too late,” piped Joy. “Mom can teach you to quilt. Can’t you, Mom?”
Seeing through Joy’s thinly veiled attempt to throw them together, Paula raised her coffee cup with a noncommittal, “Finish your breakfast, Joy.”
“I can’t. I’m stuffed.” Pushing her chair back, Joy patted her tummy, then cocked her head. “Hear that? The jukebox has stopped yodeling. Who has change?”
Colt retrieved a handful of coins from his pocket. Joy thanked him and sped off to the jukebox. Watching their buffer go, Paula felt the sudden silence eating away at her hard-won ease.
Colt was looking after Joy, too. “She was cute about the quilt. Is she helping you with it?”
“Are you kidding? She can’t sit still long enough to thread a needle.”
“She’ll outgrow the wiggles one of these days, don’t you think?”
“But will I live to see it?” quipped Paula.
Colt chuckled, and went on to confide his own interest in quilts, an interest that had begun when he had reviewed a book about quilts and the underground railroad.
“It’s been a couple of years, but the book is still fresh in my mind,” he said.
“What was the title again?”
“Hidden in Plain View,” replied Colt.
At his response, the very thing that had been eluding Paula for days fell into place. She gave a shout. “That’s it! He was hidden in plain view! The same idea Detective Browning had for us here in Gatlinburg. How could I miss it?”
Colt blinked at her outburst. “I beg your pardon?”
“The minister coming off the elevator!” cried Paula. “He blended right in!”
Colt scratched his head. “You have lost me now. What minister? What elevator?”
“At the hospital last week!”
Joy returned before Paula could explain further. She divided an anxious glance between the two of them. “I heard Mom clear across the room. You aren’t arguing, are you?”
“No. Just talking,” said Paula quickly. “Aren’t you going to play a song?”
“I can’t find any I know,” claimed Joy.
Colt pushed back his plate and pulled out his wallet. “Then go pay the tab for us, would you please?”
Joy held out her hand for the money, then trotted away on her errand.
“Now, then. About this minister?” Colt prompted Paula when they were alone.
Paula strained forward, confiding, “Maybe I’m obsessing. But my subconscious keeps offering up this pastor guy, as if I’ve missed something. Know what I mean?”
“Sure. Happens enough, you learn to listen,” said Colt, nodding. He sat forward as well, narrowing the distance between them. Hands locked together on the table just inches from her laced fingers, he suggested, “Let’s go over it together. Start at the beginning.”
Encouraged, Paula related to the best of her memory her encounter with the man in the hospital elevator. “His Bible and clerical dress, even his parting ‘Peace’ was what you’d expect from a minister,” she said, winding to a close. “But the timing was such that I’m now asking myself what if he was just pretending to be a minister? What if he was…”
“The guy who accosted Joy?” Colt anticipated her suspicions.
“Exactly!”
“How about her description? Did it fit the guy you saw?”
“What there was of it, yes. But Joy was badly frightened. Her description was broad, you could shape it to fit almost anyone,” admitted Paula.
“The man you saw, was he wearing a name tag?”
“He had on a pass that signified he was clergy. As for a name…” Paula paused. She drummed the table with her fingertips, then opened one hand, gesturing her uncertainty. “If so, the name didn’t register with me. Why?
What have you got there?” Paula asked, as Colt withdrew a card from his wallet.
“Walt’s pastor’s calling card. He came to see me at the hospital the same day Joy was there. I was asleep. But he left this.”
Paula’s fingers brushed Colt’s as the card changed hands. “Pastor Reed Custer.” She read the name. “I remember now. Joy brushed against your table, and a card fell to the floor. Is this the same one?”
“Must be,” said Colt.
Paula processed this new information. Frowning, she voiced her growing confusion. “So was elevator man a thug in disguise? Or a minister making hospital calls? Will we ever know?”
“Maybe, by process of elimination.”
“My goodness! You’re right. Has anyone talked to Pastor Custer?”
“Not that I know of,” said Colt.
“We should call him, then. He could have seen something in the corridor that no one else saw. If he was at the right place at the right time, anyway,” added Paula.
“Exactly,” said Colt.
“But let’s not say anything to Joy unless it becomes relevant,” cautioned Paula. Seeing Joy coming their way, she lowered her voice and explained, “She’s subject to nightmares, and I’d rather not rehash it unnecessarily.”
“I’ll call Walt’s pastor as soon as we return to the lodge,” agreed Colt.