The Last Suppers

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Good idea. “Tom!” I called weakly. My voice echoed from the cold, wooden walls. “Tom!”

  Nothing.

  I continued forward into the semidarkness, focusing my flashlight on the dusty wooden floor a yard in front of my shoes. Every few steps, I lifted the beam to the old organ. Its dull metal pipes rose toward the ceiling like prison bars. Once I shone my flashlight all the way up to the pitched ceiling. Hanging from the barn beams were not bats, but dusty embroidered banners from parishes whose organists had attended the music conference for many years. From the teas I’d catered in this space, I knew there was a closet behind the organ that served as storage for music and educational materials. This closet was opened for the July and August conferences of choir directors and Sunday School teachers. After I checked it we would go underneath the stage to check the dank stone basement that was used to store old church files. Neither sounded like much fun.

  “Mom?” The beam of Arch’s flashlight shone weakly in my direction.

  “Over here. You were talking about what kind of party you were going to have when you grow up.”

  “Okay. I’m moving up onto the stage.” The beam of his flashlight disappeared.

  “Are you worried you won’t have a party this year?” I asked, slightly louder.

  “Sometimes I think I’m too old for that kind of stuff.” His voice was muffled. From his shaded, moving light, I knew that he was checking behind one of the stage’s heavy velvet curtains. “I would like a cake, though,” he announced when he emerged. His small voice echoed. “Maybe a little family party. Are there dressing rooms or anything back here, any place where Tom could be? Maybe he’s gagged.”

  I stopped walking. “Flash your light along the wall.” He did, and revealed nothing but dusty paneling. With false cheer, I said, “What do you want for birthday presents?”

  His voice was both earnest and fierce. “Tom Schulz back, Mom, what do you think? Did you look behind the organ?”

  “I’m about to.” I swallowed, ignored the pounding in my ears, and walked briskly to the organ. Going behind a large instrument, into a dark space where who-knew-what could be lurking, was intimidating. The keys and pipes were covered with cobwebs. I’d been bitten once by a poisonous spider. It wasn’t fun. I shuddered and came around behind the pipes. A pile of chairs stood in front of the closet door. I put my shoulder to the middle of the stack and strained hard to push it out of the way. The chairs didn’t budge. I took a deep breath and tried again. They made an unearthly scraping noise. They also moved an inch.

  “Gosh, Mom,” came Arch’s horrified cry. “What are you doing?”

  I put my shoulder against the chair-pile and shoved. If Tom Schulz was in this closet, whoever had put him in there was extremely strong. I pushed again, then stopped to rest. I pulled the bench around to use as a lever. I groaned and heaved my weight into it. After a moment, the bench and the pile of chairs scraped in an arc away from the door. The thought of Tom trapped in the closet gave me the strength to pick up the organ bench and smash the doorknob. Both disintegrated in the process. By the time Arch and I finished with this place, they’d need a federal grant for renovation.

  I grabbed the flashlight with one hand, stuck the fingers of my other hand through the hole made by the missing doorknob, and yanked the door outward. I took a deep breath of dusty air and flashed the light into the window-less closet space.

  Lining the walls were floor-to-ceiling shelves spilling over with yellowed papers and booklets. The smell of mold was dreadful. Except for dust devils and intricate spiderwebs lining the corners, the room was empty. Disappointment congealed heavily in my chest.

  “I want to tell you what kind of cake I want,” said Arch’s distant voice. I came out of the closet in time to see his flashlight shining huge and scarlet in back of the stage right curtain.

  “What?” I directed my beam up on the stage just as Arch’s shape emerged from behind the curtain. His footsteps echoed across the wood.

  “Pepper-mint!” His light wobbled against the ceiling. “Agh!” A loud cracking noise, like wood breaking, made me momentarily lose the grip on my beam. I refocused it shakily on the area where Arch was. Or had been. The stage floor was collapsing beneath him.

  “Help!” my son shouted.

  “Oh! Lord help us!” came the cry of a woman from the floor below.

  14

  My body felt impossibly cumbersome as it clattered over to the stage. I jumped up three steps, tripped, then crab-crawled to the place where the boards had given way. Arch had fallen through. I knew he was alive because I could hear his surprised voice half-talking, half-crying. I directed my light downward and peered through the hole of jagged boards to a whitewashed stone room lined with gray file cabinets. Arch was struggling, a knot of dark sweatsuit and long legs, on top of Lucille Boatwright, a wide and clumsy apparition in expensive-looking dark slacks and matching sweater. She was moaning, and her outfit was being ruined by the rolling action she was making on the dusty floor. I speculated wildly. Was Arch’s back broken? Would the phone up at Hymnal House be connected? Would Mountain Rescue be willing to send an ambulance for Lucille Boatwright two days in a row?

  “Arch! Are you okay? I’m up here! Are you hurt? Don’t move if you feel anything’s broken!”

  “I hate this place, Mom!” he shrieked. Sweat prickled coldly over my body at the relief of hearing him respond. “This whole place is just so old!”

  Poor kid. He was embarrassed and trying to cover it up with anger. Making a huge effort, he untangled himself from Lucille. Recriminating questions crowded my brain. Hadn’t Lucille heard us in the barn? Why didn’t she let us know she was down in the file room? Would the neighbors come running when they heard the commotion?

  As I stared helplessly from above, my eyes gradually adjusted to the fact that there was more light in the basement than there was in the barn. A fuzzed stripe of dim grayness from the cloudy afternoon sky filtered in through the small basement room door that Lucille had left open. On the table was a tin-colored, battery-operated camping lamp that looked too new and expensive to belong to the conference center. It cast a metallic glow over the once-white masonry walls and the crowded row of file cabinets. With his knees drawn up, Arch leaned against one of the cabinets and vigorously rubbed his shins. One of the drawers in the adjoining cabinet was open. Next to it, a small stack of drab-colored files lay in a neat pile on a massive oak table. Groaning, Lucille rolled over on her side. She grasped the leg of the table and struggled to get to a sitting position. I knew the woman well enough to know that as soon as she was standing, she would set about scolding Arch. I needed to help him get out of there; I needed to protect him. I scrambled off the stage and out the barn doors. Slipping on wet pine needles, I skidded down the small slope to the basement and through the door of the storage room. The two were still seated on the filthy floor; both looked dazed.

  I came in close to Arch’s face, which was liberally smeared with dust. His glasses were askew. “Can you move? Are you okay? Oh, honey, talk to me.”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Just leave me alone, okay?”

  “My goodness gracious, land sake’s,” Lucille huffed. Disconcerted, she tried to get control by brushing ineffectually on her filthy green outfit. Her silver hair was disheveled; dust covered her everywhere. The physical surprise of the fall made her seem more elderly, and there was a wild look in her eyes. The Mace. Oh, Lord. I offered her my hand. She took it without compunction and jerkily cranked herself to a standing position, breathing heavily.

  Arch groped to straighten his glasses. His fingers slid back over the floor. He picked up the Mace canister and then something small and round, which he examined close to his lenses. “Are you all right, Mrs. Boatwright? Did I get you with the Mace?” He made a gargling noise, and I was afraid he was going to be sick. “Looks like you broke your necklace.”

  “Arch, please, hon, stand up.” Clutching his finds in two tight fists, he again refused my hand and
struggled to stand up next to me. His cheek was scraped, and his sweatsuit was covered with thick stripes of dust. But mercifully there was no blood.

  “Did the Mace hurt you?” I asked Lucille. I didn’t quite have the courage to ask, What the hell are you doing here?

  “No, but that is dangerous stuff, heaven knows. Now, your son. How is he?”

  We both looked at Arch, who avoided our gaze. He was mortified, but not in pain. He’d had a fright, and probably should take some aspirin and go to bed for the rest of the day. Of course, neither of these was likely. I looked up at the broken ceiling. It appeared that the wood had rotted through. This place needed renovation more than the church office, no question about it.

  “Lucille? Are you hurt? I am so sorry this happened. I can’t believe the conference center doesn’t have somebody check these floors before they rot!”

  “Well, my dear … Honestly! There I was, one minute,” she gestured helplessly toward the file cabinet with a shaky finger, “and then he, why, I thought the whole place was caving in—” She swallowed. “I suppose we should notify someone of this. And then be leaving, of course. This is a dangerous place, no situation for a child—”

  “Let me see if the police have arrived,” I interjected. “If you’re sure you’re all—”

  But she was not all right. She took one step and cried out in pain. Her aristocratic face crumpled. “The spray bottle didn’t get me, but my ankle is twisted,” she announced stoically.

  “Stay with Mrs. Boatwright a few minutes,” I quietly ordered Arch.

  He nodded sullenly. I vaulted up to the barn. No Sheriff’s Department, inside or out. When I arrived back at the storage room, Arch was handing a seated Lucille Boatwright the last of the beads from her broken necklace, which she held in a piece of crumpled paper in her palm. She awkwardly folded the paper and put it into her purse, next to the neat pile of folders in her lap. In my absence, she had managed to smooth her hair and her clothing. Because of her injured ankle, I felt obligated to suggest that I drive her home in the van before finishing what I’d come for. She insisted that we all go back to her house to get cleaned up. I told her I had to stay at the conference center to do some looking around.

  “For what?” Lucille demanded in her customary regal manner. “There’s nothing here.” She gave me a look that said, I am always right and am seldom disobeyed. I glanced at the files in her lap. A faint pink wash of color climbed her cheeks.

  “I’ll tell you all about the church’s filing problems when we get back to my house,” she said in crisp defense. “But my ankle is turned. I can drive my car, I simply cannot walk to it. I need to be brought to it.” She pressed her lips together and with rusty effort added, “Please.”

  At that moment, Investigator Boyd stuck his head through the door of the storage room. His eyes took in the broken ceiling, the mess on the floor, and our forlorn trio. He swore under his breath.

  “What is going on here? You three all right?”

  He seemed satisfied by the simultaneous cacophony of assurances he got from us.

  “We’re going through the conference center,” said Boyd. He wagged a finger at me. “We got permission. That’s we, not you, got it?”

  “Aye, aye,” I said agreeably. “Lucille, please give Arch and me a few moments to make space for you in the van.”

  Disheartened, Arch packed flashlights into the back of the van while I tried to start the engine.

  “Arch, you realize the noises we heard probably came from Mrs. Boatwright opening the file cabinets, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He paused. “You never did tell me what all this stuff was back here,” he said with a sulk in his voice. There was the sound of rustling papers. “Gosh, Mom, don’t these files belong to Father Olson or the church or something? Y’ever heard of ‘Thou shalt not steal?’”

  “Chill out, buster.” The engine refused to turn over. I turned the key again and pumped the gas. “Officer Boyd told me to look through anything that would help figure out that note, and this is all I have. You want to find Tom, don’t you?”

  He tsked over the reluctant whine of the engine. After a moment, he said, “Father Olson always said, ‘Y’have to wrap your faith around you, like a blanket.’ I think he said somebody famous said that.”

  The engine almost caught and then died. I sat back, infinitely frustrated, and ran Arch’s remark through my brain. I said, “Sounds like Linus. And I don’t need a blanket, I need my van to start.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t need a blanket either. So I asked him, if I had faith that the mean kids at school would stop picking on me, would that be like having a blanket? And he said the only behavior you could control is your own.”

  I twisted the key and the engine turned over. Maybe the only power you could control was your own; those built by the auto industry belonged to fate. Anyway, Olson certainly had been capable of giving the right answers about behavior. At least for others. “Sounds as if Father Olson made you think about faith, anyway.”

  Arch snorted. “Hate to tell you, Mom, but I think about Jolt cola, and that doesn’t mean I have any.”

  “Arch!”

  “Just kidding.”

  I gave up. The van skidded loudly over the wet gravel by the outside bench where Lucille Boatwright was sitting primly with her files and her purse. I put my head on the steering wheel and murmured to Arch, “Just cover up the stuff back there and help Mrs. Boatwright into the van, will you?”

  Arch muttered, “Did you ever hear of Watergate?” But before I could reply he had rustled around and then gingerly jumped out. We drove Lucille to her silver car, which was the pristine, sleek Park Avenue in the church parking lot. She insisted she could drive, even with a sprained left ankle. Because I was anxious to know why she felt she had to ferret through church files on a Sunday afternoon, and why she had parked at the church lot instead of Brio Barn, I acquiesced to her insistence that we come over for a bit. My van chugged and popped behind the Buick to Lucille’s Tudor-style home in the Aspen Meadow country club area. Refusing help, she limped ahead of us into the marble entryway, past polished cherry buffets, tables, and a magnificent étagère featuring animal figurines made of ivory. Arch made appropriate cooing noises until Lucille took him by the elbow and led him to the bathroom to get cleaned up. She disappeared herself for a few moments, then reappeared with the green outfit sponged clean of its dust.

  “I settled Arch in front of the television with a soft drink,” Lucille said with that characteristic lift of her dictatorial chin. “I didn’t want him to hear how disorganized that church is.” She led me into her kitchen, a vaulted-ceiling, ultraclean space with tall cabinets of glowing light-blue laminate and a brick-colored tile floor. I had a sudden, blinding realization: that Lucille wanted, as I had with Frances Markasian, to protect Arch from hearing what the church was really like.

  I waited while Lucille ladled Droste cocoa and sugar into her gilt-edged Royal Crown Derby china teapot, then mixed the two together with cream. Whisking with her free hand, she expertly poured steaming milk into the pot and set it aside. I wondered what she’d done with the files. In her usual highly ordered fashion, she slowly brought to her cherry kitchen table two cups, saucers, and spoons, sugar cubes in a Waterford bowl, cream in a matching pitcher, and finally a small plate with butter shortbread. As she poured the hot chocolate, another, more painful thought assailed me: I realized how much Schulz would have enjoyed chatting with Lucille about English bone china, ivory figurines, Queen Anne cherrywood, and the merits of Scottish shortbread.

  “If Arch doesn’t like what’s on TV, he’ll come to see what we’re doing,” I warned. “I’m sorry you were hurt, Lucille, but isn’t it dangerous for you to be down in that file room in Brio Barn? I mean, it’s so decrepit!”

  She shook her rows of silver curls and gestured for me to drink my hot chocolate. While it’s hot, she seemed to be saying. “I was looking in the file storage area because that man Olson was such a
pig. I mean, Father Pinckney would never—” I made a tiny, impatient throat-clearing noise. Lucille plunged ahead. “You just don’t understand, Goldy. Olson was ruining our church. He was taking it in a direction, I mean, with those charismatics—”

  “Whoa, Lucille!” I set down my cup. “We were talking about files, and then you made the leap to ruining the church. Please explain how you got from one to the other.”

  Lucille reached up to smooth the base of her neck, and with a sudden jerking motion of her wide, age-spotted hand, realized her necklace was not there. She sipped her hot chocolate and seemed to be struggling with where to begin her story.

  “We used to be a family. Our congregation, you know. Maybe there were things that didn’t work, like the annual giving, but we all got along. It was tragic that Father Pinckney had to retire. He loved everybody, you know that’s true.”

  Actually, I knew it had not been true. Pinckney had pastored his little clique; the genuine pastor-to-all had been Ted Olson. But disagreeing on points of view wasn’t going to get Lucille’s motive for shuffling through file storage on a Sunday afternoon.

  Her voice rose. “Now it’s like we’re two separate churches,” she shrilled. “The charismatics pushing against the old traditions, destroying everything with their guitar music and their huggy-kissy, trying to take over everything, even the Altar Guild. You know what we called Olson?” When I shook my head, she said triumphantly, “Father Touchy-Feely. And of course he only cared about them, you know that.”

  Again, I did not. But lucky for me I’d majored in psychology and could pull out the Carl Rogers routine on command. I said, “You felt he didn’t care about you.”

  She sipped the cocoa, shook her head, and looked at my cup. “Now, drink that while it’s hot, Goldy. You know it’s not going to stay warm forever.”

  Lucille was incapable of getting more than two sentences out without giving a command. But I obliged anyway. The chocolate was marvelously hot and creamy. And it smelled wonderful. I set my cup down delicately and commented, “You didn’t feel appreciated.”