ChoirMaster

by Michael Craft

  Mary cannot be more than ten or twelve years my senior, so it troubles me to realize that the mind is so fragile at our age, that dementia is so indiscriminate, that it can strike such a good and kindly soul without warning.

  None of this, however, negates the possibility that Mary could be swayed to step forward as a major donor, though the cat does present obvious complications, having warned her, and I quote, “Hold on to your wallet.” If I am unable to appeal to Mary’s faith, would it be ethical to appeal instead to her vanity? Her ego? Perhaps she would find it gratifying to serve as honorary chair of the St. Alban’s pledge drive.

  Any thoughts you can offer will be most gratefully received.

  Yours in Christ,

  The Rev. Joyce Hibbard, Rector

  St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Dumont

  Following is the bishop’s response to Poopsie.

  From: The Rt. Rev. Stuart P. Wiggins

  To: The Rev. Joyce Hibbard

  Dear Mother Hibbard,

  Sweeten the deal. Make her an offer she can’t refuse.

  Yours in Christ,

  The Rt. Rev. Stuart P. Wiggins, Bishop

  Episcopal Diocese of Central Wisconsin

  •

  I was perplexed by the undertones of Curtis Hibbard’s email. What had motivated him to share this communication with Marson? Was the whole thing merely a pretext for setting up another social rendezvous that would include me, described as Marson’s “young man”? And what were we to make of Joyce Hibbard’s approach to her bishop? Her suggestion, coupled with his response, amounted to collusion—a disturbing exploration of schemes to invade Mary Questman’s wallet.

  Mister Puss, who had warned of such conniving, now rode in my car as I drove toward the edge of town on Perkins Road.

  Earlier that Sunday, I had made an appointment to meet Kayla Weber Schmidt’s husband, Tyler Schmidt, the metal artist, who would be working in his welding studio that afternoon. I’d had no difficulty finding him on the Internet, so I texted that Glee Savage had spoken highly of his art, which was true. I also mentioned that, as an architect, I might find use for one of his pieces in a current design project, a half-truth at best. He told me to drop by anytime after two.

  Tooling along Perkins Road, I watched for various landmarks described by Tyler, who’d warned me that the farm could be difficult to find. Passing the intersection of a quiet county highway as I left the city limits, I felt confident of my bearings. Up ahead, I saw a sign for a secluded picnic area Tyler had mentioned, and checking my watch, I decided to pull in for a few minutes, since it was not yet two o’clock.

  The picnic area was a tiny county park, designed to take advantage of the view from the shore of a small body of water, Meteor Lake, which was not much bigger than a pond, but perfectly round, the imprint of a celestial intruder from eons past. That long-ago cataclysm was belied by today’s tranquil setting. Though it was an ideal Sunday afternoon for a picnic, no one else was present as I rolled into the gravel parking lot. Where were they? Had they been misguided by the patchwork of rural byways? Though seeking serenity, were they now lost and late and wandering?

  Well into my third year of living in Dumont, I had never even heard of Meteor Lake. But there it was—blue and placid, deep and cold—the focus of an improbable landscape framed by my windshield.

  Mister Puss began to purr as I clipped the leash to his harness and opened the car door. Jumping to the ground, he followed at my heel as I strolled past the weathered wooden tables and continued through the lush May grass to the shore. The tendriled branches of a willow moved in the breeze, rippling the surface of the water. High in a birch, a hidden bird chattered and pecked, drawing the cat’s radar gaze. I heard the lowing of a cow at some distance, across the lake and beyond a berm that was crested with the shining barbs of a wire fence.

  Reaching down, I picked up Mister Puss and cradled him like a baby in my arms. “What do you think?” I asked him. “A little slice of heaven?”

  He looked up at me, purring, squinting into the sun.

  Back on the road, a few minutes past two, I spotted the country mailbox stenciled WEBER SCHMIDT. The historic farm, like Meteor Lake, was hidden from view. A bank of maples with a lower hedge of wild honeysuckle, resplendent with starry white blooms, screened the homestead from the street, allowing a mere glimpse of an opening where the driveway entered beneath a natural arch of the trees.

  Driving in slowly, I saw the house to the right and the barn to the left. From the tone of Glee’s description, I expected the house to resemble a dilapidated pioneer shack, but instead, it exhibited some serious design integrity—an artful blending of neoclassical and Greek Revival motifs—which had been meticulously restored. The barn, of course, was far more utilitarian, and because its original purpose was now nil—the land was no longer being farmed—the hulking space had been sensitively updated and repurposed as the studio of a working artist. I hung a left.

  A pickup truck was parked near a side door to the studio. I parked behind it and got out of the car, telling Mister Puss, “There might be dogs. Pay attention.” His eyes swept the surroundings on high alert. Somewhere beyond the buildings, from a neighboring parcel, I heard a cow and wondered if it was the same one I’d heard from the other side of the lake.

  The door had no bell or buzzer or any kind of sign, so I rapped on the window pane, but there was no response. The cat looked up at me. I shrugged, then opened the door and stepped inside, calling, “Hello?”

  “In here,” replied a muffled voice from the space beyond the small room where I stood, which seemed like a mudroom or an indoor porch. From the connecting doorway, I heard a steady hiss, a radio playing hard rock—softly, which seemed odd—and the squawk of a child. But no dogs.

  With Mister Puss in tow, I walked through the doorway and into the wide-open interior of the barn proper. “Tyler? It’s Brody Norris.”

  The radio clicked off. From behind a partial wall hung with tools and whatnot, Tyler Schmidt stepped toward me, removing a welder’s mask. From the other side of the wall, a toddler sprang forward and clung to his father’s overalls as they neared.

  “Hi there, Brody,” said Tyler with a smile, setting aside the mask and offering his hand, which I shook. It was heavy, callused, and manly, despite Tyler’s lean frame, fair complexion, and younger years; I had learned from his website that he was twenty-five.

  “Hey!” he said, eyeing Mister Puss. “Who’s this? What a beautiful cat.”

  “Kitty!” said the child, squatting for a closer look.

  “This is Mister Puss. I’m looking after him for Mary Questman,” I explained. “And who’s this little guy?” I was well aware that he was the same monstrous four-year-old who’d thrown a tantrum at the parish meeting.

  “This is Aiden,” said his dad. “Aiden? Stand up and say hello to Mr. Norris.”

  The boy refused, focused solely on Mister Puss, whom he approached on hands and knees. “Kitty!”

  Mister Puss backed off. The boy screamed.

  Tyler pulled Aiden up off the floor, wrapped his arms around the boy’s shoulders, and gently rocked him, calming him. “Kayla’s working with a bunch of volunteers all afternoon, so I have a ‘helper.’” Tyler winked at me.

  While I hadn’t planned on the kid being there, any annoyance I might have felt was outweighed by relief, knowing that Tyler’s wife, the abrasive preservationist, would not appear.

  Tyler said, “Let me show you around.” Taking his boy by the hand, he led me, with Mister Puss following on his leash, around the partial wall and into Tyler’s work area.

  Having been an architecture student in college, I had known many artists-in-training and had frequently spent time in the disarray and seeming mayhem of their studios, so I felt that I was entering not only familiar territory but also sacred ground—this was where Tyler’s creativity flourished, where he made magic out of nothing but ideas and vision and brute strength and fire. A welder’s torch hissed, standin
g at the ready to rearrange molecules of iron, sending off a wisp of white smoke that bore the broiled atoms of unknown elements, reminding me of an acrid incense. Mister Puss sneezed.

  And the offspring of Tyler’s artistry stood all around us. Towering totems of steel—and stone and bolts and thick, rusted cable—had sprung from the depths of his imagination and now rose like giant, eyeless sentinels keeping watch over nothing. And everything.

  I was speechless. Glee had described Tyler’s work as “pretty good.” While even faint praise from Glee qualified as a ringing endorsement, I felt she had sold him short. Tyler’s phantasmic metal abstracts, some of them twelve feet high, had a timeless, visceral appeal in a singular style that defied categorizing. What’s more, they had obvious potential as inflection points to modern architecture—I could think of several such projects currently in the works, including a “perfect house” being built over a waterfall.

  “Tyler,” I said, “we need to talk.”

  We got comfortable in a corner of the studio that might be described as Tyler’s lounge—or man cave—a retreat from the actual work of producing his art, where he could think, relax, refresh. The coffeemaker was gurgling. The boom box, silent. Mister Puss snoozed in my lap as I sat in an old stuffed chair, talking to Tyler across a low makeshift tabletop supported by five-gallon paint buckets. Little Aiden scrounged around the periphery of the space, exploring scraps of metal, lumber, and abandoned tools. “Careful,” Tyler admonished the boy.

  When we had finished discussing my enthusiasm for the totems and what it might cost to acquire one, maybe two, we drifted into more personal topics. I said, “My husband and I are living in a downtown loft—an old haberdashery on First Avenue. It’s exciting to find a new use for buildings that would otherwise be shuttered and forgotten. But then, you know all about that, living here with Kayla.”

  “That’s, uh, putting it mildly. She has passion, I’ll give her that. It’s her life.”

  I noted, “And your life, your passion, is out here—with your art.”

  “Right.” He paused. “We have an understanding. We love each other. We have a kid—he’s challenged and challenging, and sure, we love him, too. But love and passion aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

  “They’re not,” I agreed. “It’s nice if they align, but it doesn’t always happen.”

  Mister Puss stretched, stood, and hopped down from my lap. He wandered behind my chair, still tethered by the leash I held.

  Tyler continued, “So Kayla does her thing, and I do mine. And basically, she makes this possible.” He gestured broadly toward the whole setup in his studio. “She’s five years older, with a steady career. From the start, we sorta joked that she’s my ‘patron.’ She likes to call the shots.”

  This came as no surprise to me. What surprised me was that he readily acknowledged it. I ventured to ask, “Because Kayla is so passionate about historic preservation, I’m wondering how she’s been affected by the debate at St. Alban’s. Does she ever talk about it?”

  “Well, she can’t stop talking about Clem Carter. In our household, he’s affectionately known as Bulldozer Boy, plus a few expletives that—”

  The heavy sound of metal sliding was followed by a crash and clang behind my chair that shot through the cement floor. Mister Puss screeched a death yowl that brought me to my feet as he tried to escape, practically yanking the leash from my hand, but my grip held tight, as did the clip on his harness. Aiden was bawling, then screamed as his father shot over to him and lifted him from some harmless rubble. But Mister Puss was still sprawled and clawing at the cement, mere inches from where a six-foot I-beam had chipped the floor and raised a cloud of dust.

  When I lifted the cat in my arms, he had a wild look in his eyes, and his heart was beating so fast I truly feared that something vital would burst inside him.

  “I need to get help,” I told Tyler as I rushed toward the door with the cat.

  Aiden was still screaming.

  “Brody, I’m sorry,” yelled Tyler. “Let me know if—”

  But I was already dashing through the mudroom and out the door, crunching across the gravel to my car.

  In the quiet of the closed car, I sat with Mister Puss in my lap, stroking him gently, whispering worried words, soothing him. His frantic pulse eased. Soon, he was purring. I pulled him up to my chest, as if burping a baby. With a soft laugh, I told him, “I think we both had an awful scare.”

  I’m fine.

  “Hope so. But I want to get you in to see Dr. Phelps first thing in the morning.”

  I chipped a nail. I’m fine.

  I pulled out my phone, started the car, and drove out onto Perkins Road, heading back toward Dumont on that unsettling Sunday afternoon. Glancing at the phone, I punched the vet’s number. At the tone, I left a long message. Mister Puss clung near my ear, purring.

  Put down the damn phone and drive.

  Chapter 10

  On Monday morning, I awoke at daybreak, eager to have Mister Puss checked out by Dr. Phelps, but it was far too early; the veterinary office wouldn’t open till nine.

  Although I put zero credence in the old ‘nine lives’ adage, I had to marvel that Mister Puss seemed none the worse for Sunday’s brush with death, which still left me pondering, with a measure of guilt, whether the leash had saved him from being crushed—or had restrained him from his instincts to flee. While a different adage assured me that all’s well that ends well, I knew that if the leash had been six inches longer, I would be grieving this morning rather than sitting in my kitchen petting the cat and enjoying coffee with my husband.

  “Well, well,” said Marson, passing me a section of the paper, “Glee got her interview with Yevgeny.”

  “What a minx,” I said, looking at her column. “She gave no hint of it Saturday.”

  Inside Dumont

  Yevgeny Krymov still tight-lipped

  about surprise visit to Dumont

  By Glee Savage

  •

  MAY 23, DUMONT, WI — Only four days ago, dear readers, I shared with you some tantalizing news regarding Yevgeny Krymov. A living legend whose fame extends far beyond the rarefied world of ballet, he had not only arrived unexpectedly in Dumont but had also hinted he might grant us an interview. I am delighted to report that a last-minute change in his schedule allowed me to sit down with him for a relaxed conversation on Saturday evening, during which he proved to be every bit as charming as he is talented.

  Your nosy culture-hound first inquired about the reasons for Mr. Krymov’s visit. What could possibly bring him to Dumont?

  He replied, “Miss Savage, your reputation precedes you, even in Big Apple. I had been longing to make your acquaintance. When Curtis Hibbard, my old friend, invited me to visit his wife at church job, I say, ‘Oki doki!’ And here I am.”

  Finding this explanation dubious, though flattering, I pointed out that he had already been in Dumont for six days.

  He said, “But only tonight, we sit down for talk at last.”

  Sensing that further probing of the nature of his visit would be futile, I shifted the topic to his illustrious career. Going back to the days of his defection…

  I tossed the paper aside; the cat pounced on it. “Well, that was a big nothing. I wonder why Yevgeny is being so secretive.”

  Marson asked, “At lunch with Joyce, what was she saying about him?”

  “She said Curtis had planned on driving Yevgeny to Appleton—something about the conservatory—but they apparently never went. In Glee’s column, she mentions a ‘last-minute change’ in Yevgeny’s schedule that freed up his Saturday evening. At least that part makes sense.”

  But little else made sense. While chauffeuring Mister Puss toward the vet’s office on the outskirts of town, I wondered not so much about the purpose of Yevgeny’s visit, but rather, about the tangle of emotions he may have felt regarding David Lovell.

  At our dinner party, Yevgeny had lusted after David at first sight, instantly losi
ng interest in me, preferring to spar with Curtis Hibbard for the choirmaster’s affections. By the end of the meal, however, the dynamics had changed. Curtis had used a ticket to hear Renée Fleming (Yevgeny’s ticket) as bait, intended to influence the outcome of the race to bed David. And David bit. Which left Yevgeny slim chances of either hearing the diva or bagging the boy. A stinging setback, surely—but did it measure up to a motive for murder? If so, to my thinking, Yevgeny’s target would more logically have been Curtis, whose demise would free up Yevgeny’s options with David; it would also allow them to hold hands while basking together in the glorious strains of the diva doing Beethoven. Or was I overestimating the lure of fifth-row center?

  Driving out of town on Perkins Road, as I had done the day before, I again came to the intersection of a quiet county highway. Today, however, instead of whisking past it, I turned north on it.

  Trundling along the rustic road for a few minutes without another vehicle in sight, I then saw, up ahead, the folksy wooden sign with bent-twig lettering that announced I’d arrived at the practice of James Phelps, DVM. I slowed the car and entered the gravel parking lot.

  A split-rail fence separated the gravel from a small, mussy lawn. A path down the middle led to the quaint building, clad in shake shingles, weathered long ago to a silvery gray. Mine was the only car in the lot. I checked my watch—right about nine. In the stillness of the car, I rubbed Mister Puss behind the ears, which always got him purring. I asked, “Ready?”