Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

wasn’t faithful to him.
    Mary was both pretty and plain, if such a thing is possible. At five feet one, she was a full foot shorter than Matthew, and she weighed 150 pounds, although no one would have guessed she was that heavy. She carried it well with good posture, despite her full bosom. She had dark brown hair, cut in a short bob that wasn’t particularly flattering to her round face. Her high, rounded forehead gave her a resemblance to actresses Wynona Ryder and Christina Ricci. Her skin was lovely, she had even features, and she was very pretty when she smiled. She didn’t wear much makeup, which was to be expected of a preacher’s wife, and her preference in clothes was for something tailored rather than ruffled. Mary dressed in solid colors and often wore black and white.
    Her place was always just behind Matthew. He was the one who stirred church members with his sermons, while she taught Sunday school to toddlers.
    Matthew was usually smiling in his photographs, while Mary wasn’t. But then, maybe it’s easier to view her that way in retrospect, knowing what happened.
    Staff members at the Selmer Elementary School noticed that Mary Carol Winkler seemed nervous—even upset—on March 21. Apparently, her distress wasn’t due to her starting a new teaching job, but because of something else. Coworker Kacey Broadway noticed that Mary was talking a lot on her cell phone while she was at the grade school and that she paced nervously in the hallway as she did so. Some of the teachers complained about it. Once, Kacey thought that Mary was actually crying. She didn’t ask her any questions; that would be invading Mary’s privacy.
    Later that Tuesday, around four, Matthew was seen walking the Winklers’ dog in the city park. He wasn’t needed at the church that night.
    A bank officer in Selmer would recall talking to Mary several times on the twenty-first, and attempting to get a commitment from Mary that she and Matthew would come into the bank to discuss a puzzling overdraft in their account. Lots of families get into minor trouble when they don’t keep up with their checkbook entries.
    Other than that, there were no ominous forebodings that signaled trouble in the Winkler home. That would change the next day—March 22. Mary didn’t go to work, and their older daughters didn’t go to school either. They were expected at softball practice at school later in the afternoon, but they didn’t show up. When neither Matthew nor Mary was present at Wednesday-night services, church members began to worry. They were always at church on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings unless they called to say they were ill or had other pressing reasons not to attend. But they hadn’t phoned in, and calls to the parsonage went unanswered.
    Dr. William “Drew” Eason, who was both an elder in the congregation of the Fourth Street Church of Christ and a family friend, was concerned enough to drive to the Winklers’ Mollie Drive home shortly after 7:30 P.M. No one answered his knock, and the front door was locked. At 9 P.M. Dr. Eason returned, accompanied by three other church elders. They found a key hidden in a fishing tackle box, unlocked the door, and walked into the silent house, calling out for Matthew and Mary.
    None of their worries could have prepared them for the shock they experienced when they entered the master bedroom.
    Matthew was there, lying on his back on the floor between the four-poster bed and the bathroom. He was entangled in sheets, blankets, and pillows from the bed. The bedside table and a lamp with an elephant base and a tiny flame-shaped bulb were wedged between his still form and the closed bathroom door. It looked at first glance as though he had gotten out of bed, tripped, and fallen, grabbing at the table and the bedclothes as he collapsed heavily.
    Dr. Eason moved closer, however, and saw that there was pink-tinged white foam coming from Matthew’s nose and mouth. His eyes were open, but he was dead.
    What Drew Eason saw could not be real; it was as if the men had walked into a nightmare, one that didn’t compute with what they knew about their pastor.
    It was twenty minutes after nine when Eason called Selmer Police chief Neal Burks’s office to report that Matthew Winkler was dead and that his wife and children were missing. Burks and his men responded and realized almost at once that they would need help. They alerted detectives from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
    Roger