The Last Suppers

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “Does Bob have any idea where you are?” I asked when we disembarked from my van.

  “He thinks I’m here. At the vigil.”

  “Ah. Do you know how to get into the office?” Around us, snowflakes continued to fall.

  “The keys are on top of one of those log panels beside the office door,” she replied promptly. “Lucille always teaches all of us how to get into the priest’s office.”

  “Who’s ‘all of us’?”

  “It’s supposed to be just the Altar Guild, who are supposed to keep it confidential, but—”

  “Never mind.”

  The lights were dim in the parish itself. Flickering light from the vigil candles played against the windows. I couldn’t remember if it was liturgically advisable to have a vigil, much less a funeral, before Good Friday during Holy Week. But the charismatics in our parish loved vigils more than they cared about liturgical appropriateness. And people couldn’t time their dying.

  We stepped carefully over the yellow police ribbon. At the office entrance, Agatha reached up and snatched the key, then fumbled momentarily with it before unlocking the door. She pushed it open and reached in for the light, then wove her way over the illuminated mess. When we came into Olson’s office, she pointed to the bulletin board on the floor, with its disheveled array of notes. Slowly, we pulled out thumbtacks and gathered up the notes with numbers that had landed on the floor. Diocesan Center. Altar Guild. Organist.

  “Here’s one,” said Agatha. “Roger Bampton.”

  “I wonder why Ted would need to call him.”

  “Oh, you know, Roger was having copies of his blood tests framed for Ted. Roger called it ‘his first miracle.’ Ted was pretty excited about it. He told everybody. I don’t know what happened to them, though. I know they were calling back and forth—”

  “Eureka!” I read, “Alexander Graham, 555-6363.”

  Agatha wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t sound like anyone in our parish.”

  I said, “You don’t have a son who loves codes. That’s for Alexander Graham Bell, honey.” I thought for a moment. Go to a pay phone, or try to plug in the phones here? Out at Olson’s house, the vandal hadn’t realized that just whacking a phone and pulling it out of the wall was not enough to destroy it. “Would you go see if you can plug in the secretary’s extension? Then if you’ll take notes on his messages, I’d appreciate it. I might miss something.”

  “But it’s supposed to be confident—”

  “Too late for that now.”

  Agatha clamped her mouth shut and minced into the outer office. She fussed with the secretary’s extension while I plugged in Olson’s smashed phone and got a dial tone. I sat down at the desk, whacked my foot on a pile of plumbing pipe, and cursed. I dialed first the 555 number, which was indeed the right US West messaging service, then dialed the church number, then pressed the buttons for P, R, A, and Y.

  The first message came on. It was Agatha.

  “Hi, it’s me calling Thursday night. Sorry you have that society meeting tomorrow during the day. I’ll miss you! Let’s talk after the wedding on Saturday, plan something else. Love you.”

  In the outer room, I heard Agatha stifle a sob. I couldn’t stop the electronic message and didn’t want to. The voice mail beeped with another message.

  “This is the diocesan office. Please pick up your photocopies of the General Ordination Examinations by Friday afternoon so that your committee can begin its work next week. Call if there’s a problem.”

  Another beep. Lucille Boatwright said, “I just think it’s terrible what you’ve done to Zelda. This never would have happened in Father Pinckney’s time. In Father Pinckney’s time, I never would have had to speak into one of these infernal machines, either!”

  There was a long beep, as if Lucille had somehow messed up even while disconnecting from the infernal machine. The next voice was Bob Preston’s.

  “I know what you’re doing.” In the outer office, Agatha gasped. Her husband’s voice was low and threatening. “I’m going to spill the beans on you to the bishop. You think they want to face another lawsuit in this diocese? You’re dead in the Episcopal church, Olson. You’re finished.”

  Good God. There was another beep. “Sorry about the blowup at the meeting, old friend, especially after you’d brought that coconut last time, which was such fun. You are part of the communion, I didn’t mean what I said, guess I just got carried away, you know how I do. Listen, you forgot to pick up your exams. I’ll bring them out to your house to read Saturday morning before the wedding you’re doing for that Goldy woman on the committee. Tomorrow then, nine o’clock?” Canon Montgomery disconnected.

  In the outer office, Agatha shrieked. Then there was a dull thud.

  “Agatha?” I said. There was no response. In my hand, the phone beeped again and another message, this one from Doug Ramsey, began playing back. I pressed the dial-tone button desperately. “Agatha?” I called. There was still silence from the outer office. I jiggled the button and prayed for a dial tone so I could call 911. Still the message from Ramsey droned on.

  “Help!” I called. My voice sounded feeble.

  “No one will hear you,” said Canon Montgomery as he stepped into Olson’s office. His white hair was askew. His face was scarlet. In his hand he was holding a collapsible baton, the kind available at police-supply stores. Only this one, I was fairly sure, was the one that had whacked me in the back by Olson’s house, when I had discovered the one thing Olson’s killer had left out there: a photocopied paper that was his excuse for being there in the first place. The one who would Bring the tests to Read was the Judas.

  “They’ll catch you,” I said angrily. “You will never—”

  “Shut up.” He was dressed all in black, except for his snowy-white clerical collar, which didn’t go with his flushed toadlike face and his hand gripping the weapon. “Where are the blood tests? You must know. I know he told someone—”

  “What?”

  “I know Olson was lying,” he growled. “I—”

  “Where’s Tom Schulz, you son of a bitch?” I screeched. “Olson called Tom before the wedding because he was afraid of you. And well he should have been.”

  He laughed. It was a horrible gritty laugh that made my stomach turn. I glanced quickly around the ransacked office. From grimy windows to the shelves of books to the floor, where the tangle of pipes from the renovation lay in an unattractive heap, there was no way out.

  “Where is Tom Schulz?” I demanded again.

  Canon Montgomery shook his head. “You know, I could have destroyed Olson. I mean, fix it so he’d be defrocked. He had monkey business with that woman out there, he had questionable money transactions with the pearls and all this sudden giving. Driving a Mercedes. Pah!”

  “But you killed him.” Stall, I thought frantically. Do anything to keep him talking. So that someone will have a chance to see you or hear you. “And Mitchell Hartley, too. He must have found out something.”

  “No great loss, Hartley. He didn’t even want to turn me in! He just wanted to tell me he knew I’d picked up Olson’s exams, and that they’d found one page out at Olson’s house. Hartley wanted to pass the exams in exchange for his information. We had a meeting last Friday. Olson and I fought over his idiotic miracle claims. He stomped out, and unfortunately I was seen by Mitchell Hartley picking up Olson’s set of exams and the diocesan vehicle keys. Saturday, when I was out at Olson’s, your cop friend was listening to Olson spill his guts. I know he told him where the blood tests are. Too bad.”

  He was insane. There was no doubt about it. I said, “You just couldn’t stand him having that kind of power, could you? After he’d been your protégé?”

  “People were worshiping him,” Montgomery snapped fiercely. “I was trying to protect the church. And how fortunate he didn’t give my name in that note. Then when the police find the bodies of you and that other woman, they’ll suspect me even less. It’ll just look like another burglary—”<
br />
  I eased my hand under the desk, where one broken pipe was resting against the side of the file cabinet. “You’ll never disprove the miracle, you know,” I told him with as much aggression as I could muster.

  “Oh?” He lifted his peaked white eyebrows and smiled sourly, as if we were discussing disputed theological points. “Why is that?”

  “Because the blood tests are in the computer, you beast. Down at the pathology lab. Even if you destroy one set, there will be endless documentation. It’s like the message you left. You can’t get rid of it by axing the phone machine. The information is stored.” I had a sudden vision of Lucille Boatwright complaining about the phone machine. “You couldn’t operate the fax machine, and you couldn’t destroy messages by breaking an answering machine. You and your generation just don’t understand technology!”

  With that I jumped up, pipe in hand, and slammed it into the window next to Olson’s desk. Panes broke, but the frame held.

  “Help!” I shrieked. “Help!”

  Montgomery turned quickly and sprinted for the front door of the office.

  “Hey!” I yelled after him. “Where’s Tom Schulz?”

  The office door banged closed. I leapt up and charged out to the secretary’s office. My back shrieked with pain. Agatha was slumped over the desk, moaning. At least she was alive. I had to go after Montgomery.

  By the time my eyes adjusted to the darkness and the swirling snow, Montgomery was on the flagstones. He was running toward the columbarium site. The parking lot and the road were just beyond it.

  “Don’t!” I yelled. Then I ran, faster than I had ever run before, damn my back. I was desperate to catch Montgomery. He could not get away. He could not disappear without telling me where Tom was.

  Montgomery halted at the edge of the columbarium ditch. He couldn’t; seem to decide whether to go around the site or through it.

  “Stop, stop, please stop,” I howled, breathless from pain and exertion. I was twenty feet away from him.

  He dropped to his knees and peered into the pit. I thought he was trying to figure out how deep the excavation was.

  I gasped for breath and called out, “No matter what happens to the blood tests, some people are going to believe.” I was at the bottom of the excavation. Montgomery jumped back up; his white hair looked eerily fluorescent. I yelled, “You can’t stop people from wanting to think God was … working through Olson. Please. Please stop.”

  “You want a miracle?” he shrieked. “You’re going to need one to find Schulz.”

  “Please don’t, please wait,” I pleaded as I started to scramble up the side of the hillock of dirt. Montgomery, watching me, backed away. “Wait!” I yelled. He spun around and looked again into the ditch, as if trying to judge if he could jump across. “This is an unstable spot,” I begged. “Please don’t …” He whirled back and stared at me, or at least in my direction. Snow fell softly all around him. His thin white hair and his clerical collar glinted in the light from passing cars.

  “I’ll never, I’ll never …” his voice boomed before he fell backward, into the deep, dark pit.

  “No!” I screamed. My feet sank into mud as I clambered to the top of the embankment. Below, I could see a blur of clothing, Montgomery jerking, off-balance in the frigid water of the ditch.

  “Wait for me to help you,” I yelled, already feeling helpless. I slid down the side of the bank. Damn Lucille Boatwright and her damn unapproved, uninspected columbarium project. I took a deep breath and waded into the water. It was like ice. I felt my legs for an instant, and then they were numb. I tugged at Montgomery’s clothing, at his heavy body. He had gone limp. How was that possible? Above us, on the other side of the bank, a car stopped. Someone had come in from the road. People who had seen us fall from the top of the embankment were yelling down at us.

  I rolled Montgomery over and cried at the sight of his face, which had gone from red to an ominous white. “Where’s Schulz? Where is he?”

  His eyes bulged, but there was no response. I shook him and tried to drag the water-logged body over to the side of the ditch, but he was too heavy. His hands gripped his chest. They were locked there. Damn it, I knew he’d had a heart attack. He needed CPR, and fast.

  “Hey, lady, get out of that water. You’re gonna die of hypothermia!” A fat man in a plaid wool jacket grabbed my shoulder and pulled me up. His friend tugged on Montgomery.

  “Aaugh,” I cried. I was so cold. Montgomery wasn’t going to make it. And no clue as to where Tom Schulz was. My love, my Tom, would die, wherever he was. The police would never find him. I would never see him again.

  “Gotta get you into some dry clothes, gotta get you a blanket!” the man who had rescued me insisted. “Hey, girl! What possessed you? I hate to tell you, but I think that religious guy is dead. At least he went fast.”

  When we came through the church doors, only Doug Ramsey and Roger Bampton were praying in the back pew. I hadn’t seen Roger since the whole brouhaha over him had erupted. Now three people had died—Olson, Hartley, and Montgomery, because no one could accept what appeared to be unexplained.

  “My heavens, what in the world, did you fall into the creek?” cried Doug Ramsey as he scrambled out of the pew. “On your way to the vigil? Did you get lost?”

  “Just get her some dry clothes from the Outreach box,” ordered Roger Bampton, taking charge of me. He was a short bald man, with a wrinkled face and age spots on his hands. He seemed awfully ordinary looking to be the center of so much controversy. “Take those clothes off right away,” he ordered, then handed me one of Agatha’s afghans from the library couch. As he walked out of the library, he said, “They’ll chill you to the bone.”

  I did as directed. I was shaking violently, too cold to cry. Doug Ramsey, whose inclination to exaggerate had thrown me off base (“The whole committee’s here!” when Montgomery had not been, and “Women waited for Olson,” when it was only Agatha), thrust his long, thin arm through the door of the library and dropped a man’s sweatshirt and some bell-bottom jeans. When I’d put them on, I came out, and Roger Bampton offered me a cup of tea. My rescuer had just been informed by his friend that Montgomery was dead. Roger Bampton had called the police.

  “Somebody needs to go check on Agatha Preston,” I stammered. “She’s hurt. In the St. Luke’s office in back of the church.” The man who had brought me into St. Luke’s shook his head and took off in that direction.

  “We were just here at the vigil, which I wanted to be sure was conducted in orthodox fashion,” said Ramsey, who was incapable of keeping quiet in moments of crisis, “and we heard the racket in the parking lot, and then you came in, and then this news about Montgomery! Lord! I just don’t know what to say, don’t know what to do … In a way, you know, it’s like the original Easter vigils, when the catechumens were kept underground, naked, until they could come up on Easter morning and be baptized and get their new clothes, although this is hardly the right time of year to be baptized in a ditch, much less the ditch beside a columbarium site, and of course you were christened long ago, I’m just saying—”

  “What?” I yelled. I grabbed Father Doug Ramsey by the lapels of his black suit. Kept underground. Father Doug would know this, he was an expert on the liturgy, as was Canon Montgomery, who always asked about the history of the Eucharist. Montgomery, who’d just happened to be close by Agatha and me when we were dialing on the church office phone. The church office, where there was a whole underground space being dug out for new plumbing. “Quick!” I cried. “Help me.”

  Father Doug Ramsey pulled his chin into his neck. “Now what?”

  “We have to go look at the church office, where they’ve been doing that renovation. Underground!” But I was already moving quickly, running to the hallway by the Sunday School rooms.

  Doug Ramsey yelled after me, “Do we have to do it right now?”

  Roger trotted along behind me as I dashed, barefoot, down the hallway past the choir room, through the side d
oor, and up the icy steps to the bunkerlike office building. The man from the creek was helping Agatha up. She seemed to be stunned, but I didn’t stop to determine her condition. Instead of turning left to go into the office, I darted right and flipped the switch of the dim bulb hanging in the area that was being renovated.

  I swallowed. The large space was dark, stripped to the walls. I walked across a board that had been put down across the subfloor to the far side of the room, then turned on another dim bulb in a room that was torn out to its framing. Beyond that was only a small tunnellike space where the pipes had all been ripped out.

  “Here,” said a panting Roger Bampton behind me. Bless him, he seemed to be reading my mind. “You’ll need this. I’ll be right behind you.”

  I switched on the flashlight he thrust at me. My light flickered over a sleeping bag, and some provisions. I eased myself down to the entrance of the dirt tunnel. Earth fell on my face and got in my eyes. My clenched hands banged against the remaining shafts of pipe. I had heard that same noise when I was looking around Olson’s trashed office. I flashed my light ahead. I rounded a turn and sent the beam as far in as it would go.

  It was another tunnel. My beam reflected off of something. Coming closer, I saw that it was the missing chalice, paten, and ambry from Olson’s house. I reached out to touch the cold metal, then lifted the lid on the ambry. But I already knew what I would see when I shone the light inside: the pearl chokers, glistening and lustrous in the narrow shaft of light. Only Montgomery would be able to figure out that Olson had kept the pearls of great value in something he valued equally: the sacramental vessels.

  I slogged ahead into the blackness. There was another turn in the tunnel. I remembered placing my scrolled intercession in the hand of a statue. I prayed now, hard. I believe; help thou my unbelief. My flashlight beamed through the shadows.

  There. At the end of the dark dirt cylinder, tied to a chair, was a motionless figure. Tom Schulz. Slowly, he lifted his head at the light and squinted. He was gagged.