Hmm. “How about,” I said thoughtfully, “eschatology?” Maybe Hartley had a unique take on ‘til death do us part.
“What about it?”
“Anything about it.”
“Well, that’s not very helpful.” His eyes had turned icy.
“Mitchell, please. I really must go—”
“Look, Goldy, I’m really sorry about your policeman. I just—I want to tell you something. But don’t say you heard it from me, okay?”
Of course, I was immediately interested. “Don’t say what?”
“Ted Olson had, like, a double life. He … well, I saw him in a restaurant on Colfax, down in Denver near the Diocesan Center. He was with a woman. I knew it was him because of that fancy Mercedes he always drove around. Then I heard he was having an affair, that the bishop was about to discipline him. They’d found some letters or something.”
This was Mitchell Hartley who had avidly told Boyd about a heated argument between Father Olson and Canon Montgomery? What was he trying to do here? I asked, “Who was Olson having an affair with? Did your source know that? What did the woman look like? Not that it’s against the law to have lunch with someone. Even if she is a woman.”
He ignored my flippancy. “She had on a scarf and sunglasses. That’s all I remember. I tried to talk to Ted about it once.”
“And what did he say?”
“He acted like I’d hit him.”
“You weren’t trying to talk about what he was going to ask on the exams, were you? I mean, since he’d flunked you once already.”
Mitchell Hartley’s blue eyes darkened; he scraped one large, scuffed shoe across the gravel and pivoted to walk away. Over his shoulder he said harshly: “I thought Ted Olson was someone I could rely on. But it was revealed to me that he was not.”
10
I heaved the stolen books and files into my van. Boyd thought Schulz knew the whereabouts of something, something perhaps belonging to Father Olson, a something the killer needed. And now that model candidate for the priesthood, Mitchell Hartley, was making more accusations, this time about illicit affairs, some letters, and what God had spoken in his ear. I sat for a moment in my van and tried to think. What would Tom be asking? What would happen if you had a letter or some letters, say, or needed to know where something was? What good would having that something do? I had a sudden image of Tom being interrogated, and Boyd’s suspicions about something else going on. That’s why the killer is keeping him alive.
When I went back into the church, Zelda Preston and Lucille Boatwright were engaged in a spirited conversation that ended abruptly with my appearance. Before I could figure out a reason to ask them about the Hymnal House keys, Marla sashayed up to my side. In the parking lot, I hadn’t noticed that her hair had returned to its normal willful tumult, despite the fact that it was held here and there by barrettes covered with tiny flowers fashioned of green and pink silk. Outside of the pew, I now also had a chance to admire her fashionable floral-print chiffon dress, which clung in thin folds around her ample body. Tiny rows of appliquéd pink flowers adorned the neckline and hem. Marla always dressed according to the season. This was obviously the couture statement for spring.
“Well?” she demanded sotto voce. She pressed her fingers into my forearm. Her rings sparkled with pink diamonds and pale emeralds. “What did Boyd say? Have they found him? Did they figure out what that note meant?”
“No news. They did find the car that he was transported in.” I didn’t tell her the car belonged to the diocese. “Listen, Marla,” I said earnestly, “you didn’t tell anybody about that note Schulz left, did you? I don’t think Boyd would approve of anyone else knowing about it.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could speak, Bob Preston strutted over and assessed us. With difficulty, he wriggled his hands into his double-stitched denim pockets and rocked back on his cowboy-boot heels. It was clear that the church was one of Bob’s domains.
“I feel so bad about hanging up on you yesterday, Goldy! So to make it up to you, Agatha and I would like to take the town’s prettiest caterer out to brunch. After the ten o’clock service.”
“Gosh, Bob,” said Marla, “don’t mind me.”
He didn’t. I consulted my watch. Nine fifteen. I was becoming oddly popular. Bob Preston either didn’t know or wasn’t worried about the police coming back to Aspen Meadow to question him. Before I could respond, and just as Marla was saying a warning “Uh-oh,” under her breath, Zelda Preston and Lucille Boatwright approached us.
“How are you, Goldy?” asked Zelda. Her voice was filled with concern. “Poor dear. Did you get the casserole?” Unlike Lucille, Zelda did not dress in understated, expensive outfits. Her faded turquoise knit dress, with its sloping shoulders and hemline from a decade past, screamed thrift shop. A single strand of not-exactly-antique glass beads decorated her throat. Her face was a wrinkled mass of worry. “You haven’t mentioned it since you came to church.”
“I’m … hanging in,” I told her, “thanks. And thanks for that lovely orange afghan, too. So thoughtful of you, when the weather’s still so cold—”
Her concern turned to puzzlement. “Afghan? I use electric blankets. Goodness! But at least my lasagne arrived safely.” Her gaze drilled into the guitarists arriving for the second service. “I suppose I should be leaving.”
“Oh,” I begged hastily, “please stay. I really want to talk to you about …” How to say, about whether you had the car and Hymnal House keys? About the guitar music petition you were battling over with our murdered priest? “About … lasagne. And the Halt the Hootenanny petition.”
Marla groaned.
Lucille Boatwright narrowed one flinty blue eye at me. Because I was divorced, because I was commonly engaged in food service, and probably just because I existed, Lucille did not like me. She would be suspicious of me if Mother Teresa were giving me a kiss. Now she bristled inside her dark gray double-breasted wool suit with its armory of tiny, ornate gold buttons. I thought she was probably still assessing where Schulz had run off to, abandoning me at the altar. Tahiti. Borneo. But instead she announced, “We had fifty signatures, but Father Olson wasn’t interested. So we took it to the bishop.”
Marla giggled. Incredulous, I choked. “You did what?” These two dutiful women in their sixties had bypassed their rector and taken their petition directly to the bishop? That kind of authority-flaunting behavior would have been unthinkable during old Father Pinckney’s time. “What happened?” I demanded.
“That’s what we don’t know,” Lucille replied defiantly, as if I were painfully dumb. “The bishop’s office says they formally replied to our request to halt guitar music. But of course we never heard from Olson on the matter. You know that man would have misplaced his tax return. He probably never even filed, and now that he’s dead, the IRS will come looking and the church will to have to pay—”
“Ah, Lucille,” interjected Zelda sweetly, “you musn’t get yourself upset talking about the music again—”
Behind us, Bob Preston snorted.
“Well,” I said desperately, “why don’t you stay and we can talk more about it after the next service?” Then I remembered that I had agreed to join Bob and Agatha for brunch, because I wanted to milk them for information. “Zelda, I’d really love to hear you play the organ again—”
“Ha!” cried Zelda. Her nostrils flared. She looked like a poodle refusing to eat what had been set before her. She gestured significantly at the musicians testing their tambourines. “There’s no way I’m playing that blather they call music at the next service. I am a professional.”
Trying with a remarkable lack of success to suppress more laughter, Marla overdiligently smoothed down the pleats of the green-and-pink dress and announced, “I’ll talk to you about lasagne, Goldy. When it comes to pasta, I am a professional. I just don’t do cookies.”
I shot her an exasperated look and lightly touched Zelda’s arm. “Please … wait. Was it someone fr
om the Altar Guild who left the afghan for me?”
Zelda stared at me, her miserly mouth drawn into pinched folds. “Oh, poor Goldy, how should I know?” She patted my hand and turned to Lucille. “People think I know everything about this parish, and I’m always the last to know anything. Come along now, Lucille, we must get you back home to rest.”
Lucille pointed her dimpled chin in my direction. “Do they know what happened to your fiancé?” she demanded brusquely. Recalling her suspicious interrogation of first Arch and then Boyd, I pressed my lips together and shook my head.
I said, “We’re all hoping for good news.”
“I see.” Lucille raised one pencil-thin white eyebrow. “Did they figure out that message he left? We’ve put it on the prayer chain, you know, that the police will be able to decipher it. We’re going to discuss it at prayer group tomorrow.”
I turned venomously toward Marla, who shrank back in mock horror. Her plump, bejeweled fingers sheltered her face. Bob Preston guffawed. “You might as well have put it in the Post.”
Trying to keep anger out of my voice, I asked Lucille what time the prayer group meeting was scheduled. This was one meeting I needed to attend, if for no other reason than to shut everyone up. But I hoped that I wouldn’t need to, that they would find Tom before then.
“Now, Goldy,” warned Lucille, “you know we take our praying seriously.”
“So do I. And, I was wondering, are we praying for anyone with the initials V.M.? Or does that stand for Virgin Mary or something? I mean, since you know what was in Tom’s note, have you studied it?”
“Virgin Mary? What in the world—”
“Initials, then. Praying for anyone named V.M.?”
Lucille huffed, “Except for Victor Mancuso, I don’t know. Perhaps it would be good if you did come, dear, you could remind us to ask.” She touched a row of silver curls, then seemed to have an inspiration. “Would you like to bring some lunch? Just for about eight people. You’re so good at that! And it’ll help you get your mind off your other troubles. Fish for Lent, of course. Do you have any?”
“Fish?”
“No? Well,” Lucille confided, “how about shrimp?”
I said, “Oh, sure,” in a sarcastic tone that was clearly lost on her before she breezed off with Zelda. Well, I’d certainly been busy. After the service I was going out for brunch with the Prestons; tomorrow, I was making lunch for the entire prayer group. Nothing like food to quell anxiety.
“Now don’t be mad at me,” Marla began defensively. She kept her voice low. Bob Preston had moved off but was nearby, button-holing a fellow Kiwanian. “You never said that note was a secret.”
“All right, all right,” I conceded. “Listen, I know how you can make it up to me.”
“But I didn’t do anything.”
“You’ll like this, I promise. It’s your kind of thing. I need to know more about whether Father Olson was having an affair. Please, it’s important.”
When Marla had finished registering astonishment and was muttering that she’d be delighted, I spotted Father Doug Ramsey out of the corner of my eye. Leaving Marla, I moved unobtrusively in the direction of our late rector’s assistant, the purported ecclesiastical intelligence agent.
“Need to chat, Father D.”
Unfortunately, I startled him; his first tentative sip of hot coffee splashed down the front of his white alb and stole.
“Oh, dear, I’m sorry,” I said.
His delicate, triangular face was more rueful than his voice. “Don’t worry about it,” he said uncertainly. “I can sponge it out.”
I said I was mixing together some muffins between the services, and could we sponge out the stains in the kitchen and chat? There were some things I was wondering about, things the police had said to me about him and the bishop.
Doug Ramsey did not immediately reply. His doleful brown eyes fearfully roamed the room. I followed his glance and saw Mitchell Hartley chatting reconcilably with Canon Montgomery while Bob Preston regaled some newcomers. Agatha gave her mother-in-law Zelda a tentative hug as she departed, then stood uncomfortably next to her husband. She had taken off the dour black coat and wore a light orange outfit the color of a Creamsicle. I knew the Prestons’ orientation was of the charismatic sort, and that coming early for the second service meant Bob would have more of a chance to draft folks into Bob-projects. The narthex was nearly empty, and the service was not due to begin for thirty minutes. Still, Father Insensitive Ramsey seemed oddly nervous. Interesting.
“Where do you want to talk?” he said under his breath.
“In the kitchen,” I whispered back. “No one will suspect. If we go outside, people will wonder what it is we’re being secretive about.”
“Oh, Lord, that’s not what I want,” he said with a gulp. He ran his fingers through his black ringlets.
I smiled at him. “If we go in the kitchen, people will think we’re doing dishes. They’ll avoid us like one of the plagues that struck Egypt.”
Without further ado, I strode purposefully into the church kitchen, which was empty. Doug Ramsey reluctantly followed. I silently offered a clean, wet sponge to him, and he dabbed at his alb.
Then I got out the eggs, evaporated milk, oil, and premeasured flour I’d brought and said, “First of all, I’m wondering who has access to the set of keys to Hymnal House and the Episcopal camps vehicle.”
He scowled. “That’s what the police want to know about the bishop? For heaven’s sake! They keep that set of keys down at the diocesan office in the winter. For special events, someone from the parish goes to get them. Why on earth do you need—?” He cast another anxious glance around. “Don’t you think I should be doing something out here? So it won’t look suspicious.”
“How are you at lining muffin tins?” I thrust a box of paper cupcake liners at him and gestured at the muffin pans.
“Uh—”
“Okay,” I continued briskly, “why do the police think you’re the bishop’s spy?”
“Ack!” His face turned bright pink. For once he wasn’t able to think of some long set of words to justify and amplify his response. “Well, I—” he began finally as he opened the box and shook out a tower of pastel liners. He stopped and looked at them as if they were cockroaches. “You know I was hired by Father Olson—”
“Cut the crap, Doug. Why did the bishop recommend you for this post?”
He held a pale blue liner between the very ends of his index finger and thumb. After a moment’s hesitation, he dropped it in a cup, inspected it, did the same with a green one, then a pink. At this rate, the tins would be ready by sundown. He said, “How did you know the bishop recommended me?”
Did this pompous dork think people in this parish didn’t talk? Rather than explain, I merely revved the electric mixer through the eggs, oil, milk, and sugar, and waited for an answer.
“You know, Goldy,”—drop, drop—“er, some strange things have, or had, been going on in this congregation, and Father Olson,”—drop, drop—“Ted, was never one to be terribly communicative with the bishop’s office. I mean, he didn’t even go to deanery meetings, and then when diocesan convention rolled around—”
He stopped abruptly when Bob Preston vaulted into the kitchen. Preston, seeing we were engaged in domestic activities, beat a hasty retreat.
“Doug, why don’t you go a little faster?” I suggested lightly. “Why did the bishop need you to spy?” I said brusquely when Preston was safely out of earshot. “The service is going to start in twenty minutes! Do you want to tell me, or do you want to tell the police and four newspapers? ‘Priest held for questioning over secret role in parish’ ought to look real good in The Denver Post, not to mention The Rocky Mountain Episcopalian.” I angrily dumped the flour, baking powder and salt into the batter and began to beat furiously. “Time is a problem here for the man I’m supposed to marry. But, since I don’t have too much to do now that he’s been kidnapped, I’ll certainly have time to phone each of the
newspapers personally.”
Doug Ramsey gave me a helpless expression, then began to drop paper cups in the pan again. “Goldy, don’t threaten me. You know I’m under the bishop’s discipline—”
I swirled in the vanilla and almond extracts, which turned the thick batter golden and fragrant, and then the poppy seeds, which gave it an inviting, speckled appearance. “Why does the bishop need a cleric to report back to him from St. Luke’s in Aspen Meadow? What was he afraid of?”
“That people were worshiping Olson, that’s what!”
“What?” I stopped the beater and gaped at him.
“You heard me.” He shook with frustration. The muffin tins dropped out of his hands onto the counter just as the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone through the windows. Doug’s alb turned brilliant white. His anger shimmered out in all directions.
“Worshiping him how?” I demanded.
ALMOND POPPY SEED MUFFINS
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1¾ cups (13-ounce can) evaporated milk
¼ cup milk
2 cups vegetable oil
3 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
½ cup poppy seeds
Preheat the oven to 325°. Line 30 muffin cups with paper liners. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, evaporated milk, milk, and vegetable oil. Sift together the baking powder, salt, and flour. Gradually add the flour mixture to the egg mixture, beating until well combined. Add the extracts and poppy seeds, stirring only until well combined. Using a 1/3-cup measure, pour the batter into the muffin cups. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
The Last Suppers Page 13
