Jeff Abbott: Do Unto Others

The First Baptist Church of Mirabeau is one of the ugliest buildings that’s trying to be pretty that I’ve ever seen. It’s built of beige brick with purplish windows, smeared with white to give the windows a marbled effect. I’ve seen birdshit that exact color. Even God would call this church ugly. It sat on the corner of Alamo and Heydl Streets on the south side of Mayne. Like most churches in town (and there aren’t many-the Baptists, Catholics, and Methodists have just about everyone covered), First Baptist has an announcement sign, with a black felt background with big white letters that stick into the felt. Each sermon here gets treated like a blockbuster summer movie, at least for its one week of fanfare. Tamma Hufnagel knelt in front of the announcement board as I pulled up. A box of letters rested in her lap and she was posting the theme for next Sunday’s sermon. I opened my notebook on my lap and reread Tamma’s verse, which was Numbers 32:23: Be sure your sin will find you out. Whoa! Sounded juicy. I wondered what sin mousy Tamma could have committed in Beta’s eyes. Dancing? Playing cards? I only knew Tamma Hufnagel to say hello, but I did know her husband a sight better. Brother Adam Hufnagel’s preaching wasn’t exactly fire and brimstone; more like a light grilling. I’m surprised Beta tolerated such slackness on his part. My dealings with Brother Adam on the library board had been polite if distant. He’d been Beta’s biggest supporter in her censorship stances but had tried to get her to soften her hysterics. He hadn’t fought too hard when Beta got punted from the board; I think he knew it was a losing cause, and he didn’t want to put his own position in jeopardy.

He was a real smooth talker, who could make you feel like Jesus was just around the corner, so you better run the dustrag over the furniture to get it spiffy for Him. I got out of the car and approached Tamma Hufnagel. She watched me as I walked toward her. For some reason I felt uneasy. Tamma’s pretty in a plain way: reddish brown hair, green eyes, with a slim, almost boyish figure. Her nose is snub-shaped and looks as though it belongs on another face. Her hair, which would have looked better let down, was pulled tightly back into a bun. She wore a plain white polo-style shirt and a denim skirt, long and modest. I guessed she was about my age but was trying to look twenty years older, maybe to catch up with her husband. The only softening of her face was the scattering of girlish freckles across her nose and cheeks. Those freckles were like a memory of summer. I remembered hearing she wasn’t a local girl; I’d been told she came from Giddings or one of the other predominantly German and Wendish communities in east-central Texas. “Hello, Mrs. Hufnagel.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, as a schoolgirl might. “Hello.”

“I guess you’ve heard about Miz Harcher.” She nodded and bit her thin lip for a moment. “Chief Moncrief phoned us. She was a prominent member here, you know. He wanted to know if we knew her next of kin.

We gave him her niece’s name.” I wasn’t expecting such a detailed explanation. “I’m sure you must be very upset.” Her answer was a gesture toward the sermon board. It read MAKING PEA. I was sure more letters were needed. “You know that I found her in the library?” I wondered just how much Junebug was telling folks and I decided to start with the basics. She nodded. “He said someone had”-here she swallowed deeply, her thin throat moving like a snake under water-“bashed her head with a baseball bat.” “That’s true. You know, Mrs. Hufnagel, I didn’t agree with Beta as far as books went, but I’m sorry she’s dead. I didn’t wish that on her.” “Of course you wouldn’t!” “Who do you think might’ve killed her?” I asked, and Tamma Hufnagel stood abruptly, the box of plastic letters tumbling from her lap and spilling across the grass. I glanced down wondering if anything interesting was now spelled out on the lawn. “I don’t know!” she gasped. “Why are you asking me?” “Mrs. Hufnagel, please. I’m asking because you knew her and you knew the people that knew her. She was killed in the library, or at least her body was left there. There must be a reason. It was a terrible shock to me and I just want to know what happened. If she was killed there, it means she was there after hours with someone.” I put my hands on Tamma Hufnagel’s arm and she froze. I stared into her face. “Listen to me, Mrs. Hufnagel. Beta had a key. Either she met someone there or someone lured her there.

She hated that library and I’d already warned her to stay away. But somehow she got a key.” I paused. Tamma Hufnagel stared at the grass, shaking her head. She knelt by the letter box, carefully pulling her skirt around her legs so I didn’t even see a flash of calf. “I’ve made a mess,” she said, and began gathering the letters. I knelt next to her and helped her pick the little plastic vowels and consonants out of the lawn. I offered a palmful to her; she took the letters from my hand, touching the plastic extrusions on the letters and not me. I thought I’d made her uncomfortable when I touched her. She sorted the letters into the box. “I don’t know who would have wanted to kill her.” She shrugged. “Yes, she was difficult sometimes. I think she believed she had been specially touched by the Lord.” She looked skyward, but no answer was forthcoming on the accuracy of her statement. “I really didn’t know her well. What was your relationship like with her?” I tried to sound conversational rather than interrogative. She glanced at me, ran a thin tongue over thin lips, then went back to putting letters into the board, MAKING PEACE w. “We got along okay. She was a woman of… strong convictions. She had very definite opinions about the church. About God.” She searched for a letter in her palm. “And about morality.” “Did you ever disagree with her?” “Well, of course we did. It is Adam’s church, after all.” She shrugged. “She liked to be in charge of everything: the rummage sale, the bake sale, the tent revival in the summer-” “The book burnings,” I added in a miffed tone. Tamma paused. “You know that Adam and I didn’t agree with her about her attitude toward the library. Well, not entirely. We don’t approve of every book you keep, but that’s neither here nor there. We certainly didn’t want to see the place shut down.

Remember at the library board meetings, Adam tried for compromise regarding your views and Beta’s views.” “I appreciate that, Mrs.

Hufnagel.” It took every fiber of my being not to disclose what I thought about censorship and her holier-than-thou attitude. I wondered again what sin she’d committed in Beta’s eyes. I was tempted to mention the list, but I decided not to. Let Junebug do that. “I wonder, did you ever see my mother with Miz Harcher?” “Your mother?”

The question surprised her. She gave me a long, cautious look. “No, not that I remember. Your family’s not Baptist, are y’all?” There was disapproval in her voice, but I ignored it. She decided to be forgiving, since my mother was losing her mind. “You know, we have a healing service on Tuesday nights. You could bring your mother and see if Adam could help. And we’ll add her to our prayer list.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or say thank you. Mama had always taught us that saying thank you was as automatic a response as breathing, even when faced with the impossible. If Adam Hufnagel could drive the neurological demons from my mother’s mind, I’d drag her down here, let Brother Adam lay hands on her, and dance with a snake in my mouth. I decided on politeness. Medicine hadn’t done much yet for Mama; and including her on the prayer list was kind of Tamma. “Thanks. Maybe we will come.” “Prayer heals, Jordy.” We were now on first names. “Acts of God do happen here.” “Really?” I asked. “And have they happened to you? Have they made you free of sin?” Tamma Hufnagel stared at me.