Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

would brighten up Selmer.
    The parsonage of Matthew’s church was a neat small house that sat above Mollie Drive in Selmer. It wasn’t lavish, but the one-story structure was cozy looking, built of brick, with four white columns in front and multipaned windows with black shutters. The home had a good-sized lot, but the Winklers’ lawn and shrubs showed signs of neglect; apparently neither of them had the interest or the time to worry about landscaping. The grass was raggedy, with raw patches of dirt, and there were no bulbs in bloom.
    Matthew, thirty-one, was the youth minister at the Fourth Street Church of Christ, and Mary, thirty-two, appeared to be the perfect preacher’s wife, supporting him in all of his church duties. In this denomination, the husband’s role is far more important than the wife’s. Matthew made all the decisions, while Mary, if not actually obeying him, deferred to him in all matters.
    Quiet, sweet-voiced, Mary fit her role well. On Tuesday, March 21, she began her first day as a substitute teacher at the Selmer Elementary School. Although the pay wouldn’t be much, it would help their budget. Unless they are television evangelists, preachers don’t make large salaries, and Matthew and Mary had three little girls to raise: Patricia Dianne, eight, Mary Alice (called Allie), six, and Brianna, who had just had her first birthday.
    It would have taken a very large salary, however, to solve the Winklers’ financial woes. They were deeply in debt, both with their credit cards and because of an unfortunate business move.
    Media reports would refer to the Winklers as the “perfect all-American family,” but that is standard boilerplate journalism. People who live next door to serial killers always refer to them as “the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet,” or they say knowingly, after the fact, “I always thought there was something creepy about him.”
    Reporters never describe a family hit by violent tragedy as “a rotten, dysfunctional, family”—even when it is. They thrive, instead, on positive descriptions so they can counterpoint that image more effectively with whatever disaster has struck the family down.
    So couples viewed from the outside are invariably described as “loving, happy, and devoted.” Nobody really knows what goes on behind closed doors, and it doesn’t matter at all if those shut away by walls and drapes are factory workers, doctors, lawyers, or preachers. All of these occupations have been populated from time to time by men and women whose lives suddenly erupted in scandal.
    Even so, a minister, his wife, and his children—a family moving in a world that is shaped by the church they serve—are expected to maintain a façade. That may be why any number of “PKs”—preachers’ kids—turn out to be wild and rebellious. They are so often teased by peers that they act out to show they’re just like anybody else.
    The preachers themselves have an equally hard row to hoe. It’s not easy for those who are supposed to teach by example to maintain a serenity that can often mask dissension and worries. And when they do have problems, ministers and their wives don’t have the luxury of confiding in members of the congregation. The people Matthew Winkler preached to wanted to believe in him, and they wanted to see Mary as a loyal, devoted, and contented wife.
    For a long time, the Winklers were able to be the couple that their families and their congregation wanted—even though they moved frequently (every time Matthew was called to a new church)…even though Mary suffered a miscarriage in 2003—between Allie’s birth and Brianna’s…even though they sometimes worried about money…and even though they had serious disagreements about the sexual part of their union.
     
    Matthew Winkler was a handsome, dark-haired man, six feet one inch tall. He had been extremely good-looking in college, when he attended Freed-Hardeman University, in Henderson, Tennessee. Now he was thick around the middle at 235 pounds, and he had lost his clean chin line. But he was still attractive, and he hadn’t lost his charisma. He was definitely the kind of preacher young people could identify with, and probably a few of the teenage girls in his congregation had a crush on him. His younger church members called him “Wink”—after his last name, and not because he was in any way a flirt. There was never even a whisper that he wasn’t faithful to his wife…or that she