Holy Mayhem

by Pat G'Orge-Walker

Genres: Christian Fiction; Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Pat G'Orge-Walker injects healthy doses of humor into her faith-based fiction tales of church-going folks and their many adventures. Holy Mayhem stars down-on-their-luck cousins Patience Kash and Joy Karry as they attempt to turn themselves into crime-solving, miracle-working private detectives. Their first cases are doozies - someone's stolen a precious family Bible, and church funds have disappeared without a trace. And as these two amateurs work to solve these mysteries, they manage to stir up all manner of trouble in the congregation.

Release date: October 24, 2011

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

“How long have you been out of work, Mrs. Karry?”

Joy squirmed in her seat as she answered the unemployment benefits interviewer. “It’s been about three weeks now.”

She’d prayed a lot in the three weeks since her lay-off. Despite the warm weather that day, she’d worn a heavy blue cotton dress and a long-sleeve jacket. With her Christian upbringing, she’d never appear in public with her flesh exposed, no matter how hot it got. Hell was hotter, she’d always say.

She didn’t quite feel comfortable with her interviewer. He was as slow as a turtle with arthritis; he even spoke slowly. He was also pasty-colored and wore a ridiculous cheap blond toupee, slicked down to appear more costly. What was worse was that human turtle had made a ludicrous assumption about her. After all, she’d spent time and effort to fill out the mountain of forms using flawless penmanship, and he had yet to take a peep at it.

“It’s Miss Karry,” Joy said slowly, fighting to keep from chewing on her bottom lip that poked out. “It says it right there on the first page that I’m a single woman.”

“Of course you are,” the interviewer replied after scanning her slowly up and down, side to side, like an MRI machine. He pushed his glasses further down upon his small yet freckled hooked nose, as though to get an even better look. “Forgive me,” he replied, frowning. “I don’t see how I could’ve made such an assumption that you’d be married.”

“Excuse me?” Joy’s hand remained in her lap, but she could feel the blood pulsating through it as it struggled to morph into a fist. She wanted to knock him out, then maybe pray him back.

The interviewer, obviously used to threats real and imagined, didn’t respond further. Instead, the man finally began thumbing through Joy’s paperwork. Silently, like the wolf in the Three Little Pigs fairytale, he huffed, puffed, and appeared ready to blow away Joy’s peace of mind.

Joy’s dark moon-shaped face began sparkling with perspiration at the same time, dampening her curly raspberry wig du jour. While the interviewer contorted his face, she’d slid both hands under the weight of her heavy pocketbook, using it much like a paperweight, hummed her hymns, and whispered her prayers. She also thought about Patience and wondered how she might be faring two cubicles over, also applying for the unemployment benefits.

Though they shared the same home, the two hadn’t been the same since the afternoon Joy came through the door to say she, too, had been laid off. The sudden shopping sprees, restaurant-hopping several times a week, and their beloved QVC shopping network were things of the past.

Two cubicles over, Joy’s cousin Patience Kash sat as still and stiff as a statue. Being thin as a rail made her appear that way no matter how she sat. She swept aside her long brown hair she normally kept hidden under a scarf; today the tresses peeked out as though they wanted to be a part of whatever was going on. She’d also worn a long pink skirt and matching top with sleeves stopping at the elbow. Her shoes, pocketbook, and even her cell-phone case were pink. She loved being coordinated and could care less if folks thought she overdid it at times.

Patience squirmed in her seat, making just enough noise to gain attention. She placed one hand under the chin of her elongated mocha-colored face while her thick glasses perched precariously on the tip of her pointy nose. She peered over her glasses at the young black man going over her paperwork slowly with a pen. He pointed the tip of his pen line by line, and seemingly word by word, as though he were reading a novel.

Waiting for the man to finish his methodical read, she looked at the paneled frosted-glass cubicle, toward where Joy had gone. She said nothing but began to remember, as she’d done almost daily since her lay-off, how things were when she worked.

“I’m almost finished,” the young interviewer finally told Patience. “I’m just trying to find one more item.”

“No rush,” Patience replied with just a hint of cynicism, and then she smiled. She understood how looking for things was a tedious task. After all, there were always two things she could never find during her time in Robbery and Homicide: her spare glasses and a typo.

For the next thirty minutes the cousins sat inside separate cubicles. Each gave their interviewers an earful of what happened when they worked at the precinct and their hopes for any future employment.

In the beginning, they revealed, they’d taken whatever tests came their way in their efforts to obtain their ultimate dream job. Both wanted to become detectives. “If our godson Percy LaPierre can become a superstar detective, so can we. After all, snooping is in our blood,” they’d each told their interviewers.

They also conceded that their dream had never happened.

Five of their ten years at the precinct they’d spent taking and passing written police tests, scoring higher than most. Unfortunately for them, their dismal failures at the physicals brought the test scores down to almost zero.

Joy’s problem: too short, too overweight, and too knock-kneed. Co-workers talked about Joy behind her back, calling her “Joy the neat-freak, who can’t run fast enough to clean up crime.”

Patience also suffered physical setbacks. Skinny Minnie weighed more, and Patience couldn’t see two inches without her glasses, let alone see a crime.

Finally, the head of the Pelzer Police Department’s Human Resources told the cousins to throw in the towel. “Y’all might as well stop taking and failing these physicals. Y’all need to stick to cleaning toilets and typing reports. Leave the crime-solving to the professionals.”

The interiewers each told Joy and Patience they’d hear from unemployment within two weeks and wished them good luck.

“I don’t need luck,” Joy replied. “I ain’t worried. God’s got this all under control.”

Patience told her interviewer the same.

“We know that faith without work is dead,” Joy later told Patience. “No matter what we told those interviewers, we need jobs.”

While Joy and Patience waited to hear from the unemployment interviewers, they continued worshiping, racing off to prophecy services, telling any who’d listen that God would see them through. Yet, in reality, dreams die hard. So while they waited on the Lord, the cousins relived their real-life failed detective dreams from the comfort of their living room sofa. While thumbing through their Bibles for clarity and gorging on handfuls of popcorn and donuts and drinking coffee, they watched television.

With their imaginations in free fall, they set about solving crimes by watching their favorite Law & Order episodes, the NCIS television series, and Murder, She Wrote, as well as any movie of the week with a mystery theme.

The cousins weren’t alone in their love of anything crime-related. They had their beloved, neurotic dog, Felony, constantly wagging his stumpy tail. He’d lay spread between them on the sofa.

Around Pelzer, and anywhere the dog went, Felony’s appearance caused jaws to drop or tongues to wag. He had the features and temperament of so many breeds: long floppy ears like a beagle, pot belly like a bull dog, and short stumpy legs like a dachshund.With a stubby tail like a boxer’s added to the mixture, he looked like a Doctor Frankenstein–type experiment gone wrong.

Doggy heaven for Felony was watching an old television episode of The Thin Man. Felony wagged both his stubby tail and tongue, excited each time the phobic dog, Asta, was in a scene. As long as Felony’s favorite china bowl overflowed with warm, buttered popcorn (though it sometimes caused him to release a loud and foul-smelling mutt-gas when Joy massaged his fat belly) he was good.Woe to anyone trying to interfere with that mutt-pup’s personal space.

At their home church, Mount Kneel Down Non-Denominational Center, Joy carried on her missionary work. “You know, I’m beginning to see things the Lord’s way,” she told Patience over breakfast one morning. “I can use this spare time while I find another job to continue to do God’s work and see if there’s anything needing investigating along the way.”

“How you gonna do that?”

“Well, let me see. I can read folks’ mail that ain’t up to snuff to do it themselves. I can straighten out closets for them that can’t do that, either.”

“Joy, what if you come across something you shouldn’t?”

“I’ll investigate. What’s the point of finding dirt if ya can’t dig into it?”

Patience then decided she’d do her thing, too. She’d come to the same conclusion as Joy: perhaps God had changed her assignment. Part of Joy’s acceptance of her early retirement situation was to try to become president of the missionary board. The only thing standing in her way was the possible reelection of Mount Kneel Down’s current missionary president, Sister Boodrow.

Later that evening, Joy continued sharing her thoughts. “You know what, Patience?”

Patience stopped peeling the potatoes she intended on fixing for their meal and wiped her hands on her apron before joining Joy at the kitchen table. She would’ve continued her chore but Joy’s excitement of God’s new direction had already spilled over from breakfast right on through lunchtime, and now it didn’t appear she had any plans of waiting for supper to continue.

“That Sister Boodrow still is a big problem with my wanting to become missionary board president.”

“That’s a shame, too, Joy. I know you’re much more of a Christian than that supposedly turned-around stripper.”

“I most certainly am.That’s why I don’t trust the woman’s instincts about morality. She ain’t fit to lead the missionary board, and I don’t care how long she been leading it.”

“So what are you gonna tell the folks the next time that you ain’t already told them the last three times you tried to uproot the heffa?”

Each time Joy had pled her case before the church board, she’d only said she had a better vision for the missionary board, but without giving details. It wasn’t easy, because she also needed to convince someone on the church board making the final decision to give her a chance. Preferably someone Sister Boodrow hadn’t bedded. In order to do that, Joy needed to step up her missionary game.

Joy’s opportunity came one Friday afternoon. Out of the blue, the telephone rang, and Patience answered it before Joy could.

“Praise the Lord, may I speak with Sister Karry? This is Deacon Campbell Whistle.”

Patience mouthed the words Deacon Campbell Whistle.

Joy sucked her teeth at the mention of the man’s name. Almost two years ago, from the moment she’d first laid eyes upon him, Joy’s third-eye—what she called her Spirit of Discernment—had begun twitching. It hadn’t taken her long to understand why that third eye went on alert. In her opinion, Deacon Whistle was a pasty-looking, self-righteous, middle-aged skeezer. He’d claimed he was a retired investment banker with a lot of cash. To Joy, money didn’t equal class.

Most of her mistrust came about when he began coming to church service only twice a month. She’d seen him on several occasions lurking around the pastor’s study and inside his private office. Of course, he’d only dallied around the pastor’s study whenever Rev. Stepson was too ill and couldn’t make it to service.

“That man just wants to see that all his money is working and doing the will of the Lord,” Patience would always tell her when Joy complained. “After all, he is the church’s largest investor and tithe payer. And whether we or the pastor like it or not, the church board did make Whistle a temporary head of the finances—although they done gone ahead and made him permanent now.You might need to make nice with him ’cause he does okay the auxiliary positions, too.”

She took a deep breath to keep a measure of Christianity in her voice as she answered his call.

“Hello.” Joy’s single word was as stiff as she’d hoped it would be. Her greeting of “Praise the Lord” was reserved for her fellow Christians.

“I’m sorry to learn of your lay-off ”—he suddenly began wheezing into the telephone like a hairball was stuck in his throat—“and that it’s taken me so long to acknowledge your situation. It is not how I connect with the saints of God in the pastor’s absence. However, I understand from our First Lady Stepson that you are planning on campaigning for missionary board president again. Is that right?”

“Yes, I am.” Joy took pains to keep from laughing at his struggle to sound extra relevant as he wheezed and snorted.

She quickly decided she’d need to adopt a more Saved-Christian tone. “I believe I can bring another Christian view; especially the one God keeps giving me in His and mine constant conversations.”

“Do you converse with our Lord often?”

“I most certainly do,” Joy replied. She wanted to brag about her prayer and fasting habits, but now wasn’t the time.

“That’s good to hear, Sister Karry. Another reason for this phone call is to have you come by the church this afternoon so we can discuss your Christian view.”

She didn’t know what to make of the added little extra something when he imitated the way she’d said Christian view.Was he snorting, choking, or being sarcastic? Whichever, she’d soon find out when they spoke in person.

The appointment to meet at the Mount Kneel Down Outreach Center, right next door to the main church building, was set for three o’clock that afternoon. Joy had no intention of being late, but she also had to decide what she’d wear. She planned on walking through the door already looking the part of a missionary president. But she’d still carry her Bible and a can of mace in case he wanted her in another sort of missionary position.

After showering, she dusted her body with lilac talcum powder. Lying across her queen-size bed, lifting her sagging breasts up to where they rested upon her collarbone, she grabbed a large feather duster. After dipping it, she dusted extra powder under her breasts. Once the dusting was complete, she shimmied, pushed, stuffed, and prayed her way into an expensive body-shaper corset. The material felt like something a NASA scientist would design; supposedly it was her size and guaranteed to redistribute her fat.

The weather wasn’t too hot, but the humidity was high. Joy chose a bright yellow muumuu with brown circles dotting its bodice and long sleeves. Since Patience had gone to run a few errands, she wasn’t there to tell Joy the dress made her look like the sun with planets orbiting about it.

Normally, Felony would’ve curled up at the foot of the bed, staring as she put on each piece. He’d have jumped around, barked his approval, or growled his displeasure. At that moment, though, she supposed he was outside terrorizing the neighborhood—or he may have passed out from growling.

It didn’t matter. In Joy’s mind, she looked good.

Before rushing off to the church’s outreach center, Joy left a note for Patience explaining where she’d gone. She drove with the A/C blasting, imagining how a soldier driving through a desert felt, braving the hot sun in bumper-to-bumper camel traffic.

Joy arrived and the reception area was empty. She was certain she had the time right. Perhaps he was running a little late.

Fifteen minutes passed, and she grew anxious for Deacon Whistle to show up. As much as she wanted the missionary president position, she wasn’t happy waiting around for him.

Joy was in the middle of reciting scripture, trying to keep calm, when she happened to look down the hallway from where she’d sat. Suddenly two doors away, she spotted the shadow of Deacon Whistle’s potbelly looking like a mountain lying on its side. It was so big it protruded over the pastor’s study’s doorsill.

“Ahem!” Joy almost shouted the warning as she pretended to clear her throat. She didn’t care what tone her voice had; she was way past annoyed.

She stood up this time, with her hands on her wide hips, a huge pocketbook dangling from one wrist.Tossing aside her good manners and caution, she called out louder. “Listen, Deacon Whistle, time is passing.You called and set up this appointment for three o’clock. It’s almost three-thirty!”

Deacon Whistle stuck his head all the way out of the doorway.The deer-in-headlights stare told Joy she’d surprised him. Two seconds later, when Sister Boodrow stuck out her head, too, hair tussled, with several of her top blouse buttons unbuttoned, it was Joy’s turn to be surprised, sorta.

Fornicating right next door to God’s House, she thought. She then quickly dismissed the thought, hoping she was wrong. She felt set up; particularly since she hadn’t expected to see Sister Boodrow, her competitor, at this meeting, offering show-and-tell for extra credit.

Instead of speaking, Deacon Whistle shook out his pants leg that appeared crooked and quickly regained his composure. He stood fully in the doorway to the pastor’s business office. Sister Boodrow stood about a couple of inches behind him, yet she still looked as though she were at his side. Another few seconds passed before he nodded Joy’s way and Sister Boodrow stepped forward, closing the study door behind them.

Stopping briefly to turn, he placed a peck on Sister Boodrow’s cheek saying, “Thank you so much, Sister Boodrow. Your assistance and offerings in our church matters are well appreciated.”

Sister Boodrow didn’t reply. She hurried toward the stairs, disappearing so fast she looked almost like a blur.

Joy plopped back onto the chair. She balled her fists, turning in her seat and fixing her large brown eyes upon Deacon Whistle’s stubby T.rex dinosaur arms as he walked towards her. She leaned forward, anxious to hear his weak excuse for an obvious sham of a meeting.

“Please come with me, Sister Karry, into the pastor’s office.”

Joy followed Deacon Whistle inside the pastor’s private office. She didn’t like it before, when he and Sister Boodrow were inside there, and she wasn’t feeling comfortable meeting inside it, either. The entire church knew that if the pastor wasn’t in his private business office, then no one should be in there. There’s no excuse for this, Joy thought. There’s other rooms available.

“Have a seat, Sister Karry.”

Joy didn’t sit right away. She watched him; he didn’t even look embarrassed but was acting as though everything was just fine. She quickly looked him up and down, further showing her disapproval. And when he returned her stare with a questioning one of his own, he appeared to look old.

She’d thought he was in his late forties or early fifties, but now she wasn’t certain. At that moment, there was something odd about him that she hadn’t noticed over the past few months. It was probably because she’d never fully trusted him or looked at him eye-to-eye when he often appeared inside the church kitchen offering his unwanted help and advice.

What white man brags about how good he cooks collards and makes fresh deep-dish peach cobblers, talking the King’s English one minute, slapping high fives with the deacons the next? she thought.

No sooner had she thought those things than she realized what it was about him that she couldn’t cotton to. This white man often acted a little too “black.” He didn’t seem to do it on purpose, and that bothered her. She didn’t know enough about him to figure out where he’d gotten his “hang-out” card. She didn’t know much about him at all. That bothered her, too.

Joy was just about to rebuke herself from thinking such a thing when Sister Boodrow rushed back through the door.

She still didn’t say a word to Joy. She began looking toward the floor instead. “I couldn’t find my car keys—”

Joy thought she’d seen a set of keys lying on the floor a moment ago. She reached down, picked up the keys, and held them in the air. “Are these the keys? You must’ve dropped them when y’all was in here blessing them and calling on the Lord.”

Sister Boodrow snatched the keys from Joy’s hand without saying so much as a thank you. And just that quick, she turned and raced out the door.

I can’t believe these heathens were bouncing around in both these offices.

He appeared to be reading her thoughts, but not wanting to explain anything because he couldn’t. Suddenly one of Deacon Whistle’s blue eyes began wandering, as though looking for something over his shoulder.

“Just give me another moment, please.”

Deacon Whistle, ignoring that she hadn’t sat yet, adjusted a brown and tan striped tie that appeared crooked. With no discernible emotion other than a shaky hand, he pushed aside strands of sparse, dark brown hair.

Suddenly his hands became a blur, quickly gathering a few papers scattered on the pastor’s cluttered desk. The papers looked as though they’d been swept aside for something more urgent. Finally, he took a seat behind the small gray wooden desk as though he owned it.

“Thank you, Deacon Whistle.” Slowly laying her huge pocketbook on her lap by its strap with its wide metal clasp toward him like a shotgun, she added, “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to get here on time.” She stopped, allowing her words to settle before she continued. “I certainly didn’t intend to bust up your meeting with my competition, Sister Boodrow.” She turned her head aside, not caring if he knew she’d been sarcastic.

Lines drawn, Deacon Whistle and Joy went on with their meeting, which lasted less than thirty minutes. During that time, Joy calmed down enough to lay out her vision. She wanted to bring the church and the community closer by interaction rather than just preaching. There was a need for further outreach, she explained.

A half hour later, it was obvious to both that the meeting needed to end, each well aware their minds wandered trying to figure out each other’s real thoughts—such as, about what had or hadn’t happened in the pastor’s private business office.

Joy had also brought with her a few quickly typed bullet-point suggestions. He asked her to leave them with him, and he promised to get right back to her.

With the meeting over, Joy returned to the parking lot. No sooner had she used the remote to unlock her car’s door than she heard her name.

“Sister Karry, Sister Karry!”

Joy turned around, a wide smile replacing the look of concern she’d carried from the meeting. “Hi baby,” Joy stretched out her arms, pulling in the young woman and almost smothering her. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in so long.”

The young woman, twenty-eight-year-old Reign Stepson, was the only daughter of Rev. Lock and First Lady Deborah Stepson. A real beauty, with a sassy short haircut and Barbie-doll shape—unlike the fake troll, as Joy always called Sister Boodrow.

“I’m doing well,” Reign replied, struggling to extricate her small, redbone frame from Joy’s grasp. The light green above-the-knee skirt she wore had begun climbing towards a place she didn’t want shown to the world. “I’m back in town for a few days and thought I’d surprise Daddy. He’s still not looking that well to me lately; I think he’s working too hard. Is he upstairs in his office?”

Joy took her time responding. If she told Reign that the deacon had been up there showing Sister Boodrow why some of the abominations in the book of Deuteronomy weren’t all that bad, there’d be trouble. If she didn’t say something and it got out she knew about it, there’d be trouble. So Joy simply replied, “No baby. He’s not up there.” She let it go as that and began questioning Reign.

“So, are you and Lil P stopping by the house? You know my godson don’t come around as much when you ain’t in town. When are you two gonna come out of just being engaged and tie the knot? Y’all need to give me some grand-god babies and third cousins! Has the television station WPAK made you their lead investigative reporter yet?”

Joy knew exactly what she was doing. The only way to avoid one problem was to create an even greater one. Like an automatic machine gun, Joy’s verbal-questioning technique pelted Reign, soon causing the young woman to speed up her good-byes, sending her and Joy speeding off in separate directions.

Several hours after Joy’s meeting with Deacon Whistle, she’d just begun fixing dinner when Patience arrived home.

“Chile, sit down!”

“What’s wrong?” Patience’s skinny bottom had barely sat before Joy raced over with one hand on her hip and a hot food mitt on her other hand.

“I’m about to quote you chapter and verse from what thus sayeth that lying demon Whistle!”

For the next several moments, Joy gave a detailed account of her encounter with Deacon Whistle and Sister Boodrow.

The only interruption came from Felony’s growls for attention that went unanswered as the cousins chatted nonstop. The dog, unaccustomed to being ignored, began lifting one of his hind legs. It was a warning that he was only one piss squirt away from dousing the carpet, or some other dirty deed.

“Felony, don’t you do it!” Patience warned once she’d spotted his lifted leg.

Patience raced to the door to let him out. Instead of putting Felony on his leash or at least securing the gate so he couldn’t go further than the yard, she just slammed the door behind him.

It was a miracle Felony made it outside with urine still inside his bladder. She’d slammed the door so hard it’d nearly decapitated Felony’s tail stump.

Once she realized what she’d almost done, Patience reopened the door and called out to Felony. “Sorry about that.”

Her apology was a bit insincere, but for now Joy was about to get to what she’d said was “the good part” about what’d happened earlier with Deacon Whistle. Patience wasn’t about to miss one piece of the story.

“You got to be kidding.” Patience followed Joy out of the kitchen and down the hallway and into their living room. She was clawing at her invisible chest, begging for more sordid details. “That shameless liar didn’t even try to lie his way out?”

“He couldn’t,” Joy hissed. “That reptilian demon turned almost as neon red as Sister Boodrow’s cheap wig when she came back. She burst through the door yapping about she’d left her car keys in there. I don’t know why some folks won’t believe that every good-bye ain’t gone?”

“Mercy, Father.” Patience jumped up off the sofa, grabbing a handful of tissues to wipe away tears from laughing so hard. “So what did she say when she saw you sitting there?”

“That scandalous heffa didn’t say nothing to me. What could she say, after ignoring me before?”

“So what did you do?” Patience had gone through the tissues in one pack and was opening another, laughing, wiggling, still crying so hard her skinny body looked like a letter S.

“I did the Christian thing,” Joy said as she snatched the pack of tissues from Patience’s hands. “As I handed her the car keys I told her, ‘I guess these must be the keys y’all must’ve blessed earlier when you was in here calling on the Lord.’ ”

“Bwaaa-ha-ha, Lord, please help me.” Patience wanted to join Felony outside; she was about to tinkle on herself from laughing.

Joy then mentioned she’d seen Reign, but didn’t want to start trouble when Reign had asked if her father was in his office. “I had to think fast on my feet,” Joy bragged. “But I got her and Lil P’s number when I wanna get rid of them quick. I mentioned babies and Reign folded like a cheap made-in-Japan fan. She couldn’t get away . . .