Lethal Lineage

by Charlotte Hinger

  “What do you remember about him?”

  “Nothing. He was just a man.”

  “Clothes? Age? Hair color?”

  “It was Communion, Lottie. The Holy Eucharist. I try to keep my mind where it’s supposed to be. On the Blood and Body of our Lord. Not on the people next to me. Shame on you!” She fished her handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed at her eyes and began to weep. “You’re poking and prodding around at me like I’m on a witness stand.”

  Alarmed at the high color staining her parchment skin, I patted her hand. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean you were supposed to remember everything. It’s just that I’m surprised, that’s all. Nobody else mentioned this.”

  She sniffed. “No reason why anyone would. Only reason I remember as much as I do is because of what happened. I do remember that the person on the other side of him had already gotten up to go back to their pew and I was still there because I have trouble getting up and down. But I can still kneel if I set my mind to it. I wanted to kneel.” Her voice shook.

  “Edna, thank you for mentioning this man. Anything at all you might remember could be important. Anything.” I tried to keep my voice gentle, encouraging. I didn’t want her to sull up. I waited. Carefully now, I asked, “Clothes? Anything at all? Hair?”

  “Well, he was dressed normal. I would have noticed right off if he wasn’t. It’s a real caution nowadays how some of the young folks parade around half naked. Skinny little tops with shorts out of old jeans or those shameless skirts. No respect a’tall. Back in my day, the priest would have sent us right straight home.”

  Dressed normal? What was normal? I needed to know. “So he wasn’t that sort of person?”

  “Lawsey no, I’d of remembered if he was. Had on a tie and a jacket. No point in wearing a tie without a jacket.”

  “Is he here, Edna?” I held my breath. It would simply be too good to be true.

  “No, I don’t think so, but like I said, I just didn’t pay any attention to the man after Reverend Mary dropped the chalice. You know what it was like.”

  I nodded. Dark confusion from that moment on.

  “That bishop fellow, that person the Diocese sent out to give us a dressing down and remind us we’re little better than no-count idol worshipping pagans out here, he sashayed back to the altar and made this show of re-consecrating wine. Most of us were watching him and trying to figure out what we were supposed to do.”

  “So this stranger went on back to his pew?”

  “Yes, and I finally managed to get up so another person could take my place, and of course Reverend Mary hightailed it out of there to the changing room and the Lord High Executioner went back to serving the folks.”

  I remembered very little myself after Mary dropped the chalice.

  “Anyways, I think that man gave her a heart attack,” Edna said. “It can happen.”

  Elmira waved at us to come on over. I helped Edna stand up and walk over to the table where the other three land donors sat. We prayed. I spoke. My adorable niece blushed and smiled when the gathering applauded her confirmation.

  Edna picked at her food, then stood and gripped her walker with her distorted arthritic hands and sobbed her way back to Elmira’s car. I escaped to my kitchen.

  Inside the house, I tried to still doubts popping up like mushrooms and apply a little logic. Reverend Mary had died in a windowless room locked from the inside. There could not possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, be any foul play involved. And despite Edna’s insistence, one simply could not “give” a person a heart attack.

  I poured a cup of coffee from my own personal pot. Keith wouldn’t go near the “vile stuff” and neither would his daughters. Tough. If I liked it the consistency of motor oil, it was my privilege.

  Jolted by caffeine, I made a gut decision that put things into play I couldn’t call back. I picked up the phone and called Sheriff Sam Abbott.

  “Sam, I know this sounds strange. Not just sounds like, is strange, actually. I want to treat the church like a crime scene and I want you to go over there by yourself. Just you. People will notice if I leave here. If you find anything, I’ll come over in a flash. Not that there’s likely anything to find. But Edna Mavery just told me something strange that I want to follow up on.”

  “You’re not giving me much to go on, Lottie.”

  I told him what Edna had heard.

  “And she’s what? Eighty-eight? Eighty-nine?”

  “Eighty-seven, I think, and I took that into consideration.”

  “She might have misunderstood or misheard period and displaced the sound. Could have been some kid in a pew smarting off or just whispering to a classmate. I’m pretty sure those very words were used in an old movie.”

  “I agree. I’ll be honest Sam, I don’t think there’s any way in hell this was anything but a natural death, but I want you, not me, looking at it with fresh eyes.”

  There was a long pause followed by a groan. It was March Madness. I could just picture him in front of the television, the Sunday paper scattered around the recliner. Plenty of Budweiser in the fridge. Ready to cheer Kansas University through the second round of playoffs.

  Sam’s only son had been killed in Vietnam so he didn’t have any family outlets. I hated to take this small pleasure away from him. Especially since I was the one officially on duty today.

  But I could count on him being a pro. If he’d started drinking already, he would order me to go back over there in his place. Despite the fact that he was long past the age when most people retire, he is as effective as he looks. Hollywood couldn’t have come up with a better model for the old time sheriff.

  Sam’s silver grey hair just touches his collar and his mustache is full and impressive. He has sharp clear eyes and an aristocratic Roman nose. With his square-shouldered military bearing, he looks the picture of wisdom and integrity. Which in fact, he is.

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Sorry, Sam. Even though there’s no way in hell…”

  “This could be anything but natural causes,” he said, finishing my sentence for me. “You would just feel better.”

  I laughed. “You’ve got it. Come by here first and pick up the key to the anteroom. Visit a little and grab a bit to eat so folks won’t think there’s anything wrong.”

  “Which of course, there isn’t, which is why I’m on my way there.”

  Chapter Six

  Twenty minutes later Sam drove into the yard. After he’d chatted up a few people and made a pass through the food tables, I called him into the kitchen. “Who’s on dispatch today?”

  “Betty Central.”

  “Damn it. I was hoping it was Troy.” The new deputy, Troy Doyle, wasn’t as nosy as Betty.

  “Bad luck, but just in case, I have to check in as ‘on duty.’ I want it on record.”

  “Just in case,” I muttered. Well, true, if he found anything wrong, he couldn’t pretend he’d decided to go over there on a whim.

  “I’ll tell Betty I’m going to run by the church and make sure everything got locked up.”

  “OK. And make sure you double-check the anteroom. That’s where we found the body. She was still in her vestments and wearing a dress and a cotton slip so they absorbed all the body fluids. I didn’t see a trace of blood.”

  Through my window, I saw children dash in and out among the cedars. Getting filthy. Getting sticky. This should have been a fine day. “Sorry,” I said again.

  Sam nodded. “After I’m done, I’ll pick up Betty and she can drive Mary’s car back to the office.”

  “OK. After you look around I’ll vacuum and clean. Maybe tomorrow. See what you think or find and the coroner rules.”

  And perhaps I would ask a priest to do whatever it is they do to chase out evil spirits, although I doubted that a full blown exorcism was called for.

  “Try to calm down, Lottie. I’ll take over duty today. You’re off and I’m on.”

&nbs
p; ***

  He was back in a hour. “Nothing, Lottie. A few things left in the pews. Mostly just trash. Used Kleenexes, a couple of ball point pens, a pacifier, and a handkerchief with a crocheted edge. So we know nothing until we get the medical opinion.”

  “That’s a relief. As for the pens and the hanky, I’ll start a little lost and found box.”

  “She was a good woman,” he said.

  “The best. She will be sorely missed.”

  He slapped his hat on his head and started toward his car.

  “Want me to take care of notifying her family?” I called after him.

  He stopped. “Oh shit. No, the coroner will do it. Try to get on with what’s left of the day. If you can.”

  I shuddered. I had a feeling our brave little church wasn’t going to survive this tragic beginning. St. Helena was tainted. Invaded by a dark angel now hovering over the building and the congregation.

  In fact, even if nothing else had happened, the ruinous sermon had set us up for failure. Western Kansans don’t like to be scolded. We just don’t. We don’t like Eastern Kansans or outsiders coming in with high-faluting plans for our part of the state like we somehow lack the brains to manage on our own. The longer I live in Western Kansas, the more I become like the people who have always lived here.

  ***

  After the long day finally ended I poured a merlot and joined Keith on the patio. Some of our relations were staying in the motel in town. Josie was staying at our house. Unaffected by our family’s superstition about the spare bedroom, she’d retreated there about an hour ago trying to ward off a headache.

  Keith reached for my hand and we both lay quietly side by side in the recliners on our patio. It was a rare warm evening for March but the weather likely wouldn’t hold because it never did. There’s a cedar windbreak on the north and west sides of our house. It’s intended to thwart blowing dirt and snow, but tonight the thick trees felt oppressive.

  Nothing bloomed. The branches of our cottonwood trees formed dark silhouettes. No stars twinkled through the smothering layers of soiled clouds. It was too early in the year for our buffalo grass to green up, so there was a sparse brown cast to our yard. Dried up. Like the whole miserable day. Even the cedars had the dry blue cast they have before they become fully green.

  But it’s comforting just to be next to Keith even when he doesn’t say a word. I squeezed his hand. He’s six foot two and big-boned. A lifetime of hard work has kept his body solid. He looks younger than fifty-eight. The back door slammed and Josie came out holding Tosca. She carefully set the little dog on the ground, and I decided a worthless little Shih-Tzu was exactly what I needed.

  “Come to Aunt Lottie, sweetheart. Come over here.”

  Tosca looked at Josie as though she were asking permission. Josie laughed. “It’s OK, baby. My sister needs a little therapy.”

  “Headache better?” Keith asked.

  “No. I’ve given up on it, that’s all. I’m too wired to sleep and that probably would do me the most good.”

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you had to go through this,” I said. I was tempted to add “again” but Mary’s death wasn’t nearly as traumatic as last fall’s ordeal because of her involvement as a consultant for Carlton County.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Lottie,” she said quickly. Too quickly. Like whether it was my fault or not, the whole county was clearly crazy.

  Keith beckoned toward an extra chair. “I would give up my recliner, you know. You don’t have to wrestle me for it.” He sighed. “It’s been one hell of a day for all of us.”

  “Did Tammy get herself back together? I was so busy taking care of the stuff I needed to do with the body…” I stopped. That sounded cold. Real cold. I tried again. “…with Reverend Mary’s body that I neglected all my duties as a hostess.”

  “That’s understandable,” Josie said. Then Tosca abandoned me, leaped down, and then onto my sister’s lap as though she had coddled me long enough.

  Keith got up and went into the house and came out with another bottle of wine and a bottle of his own home brew. “Don’t know about you two but I need another round. At least one more. Then I want to hear about everything from beginning to end.”

  “I hardly know where to start.” But Keith and I had reached an agreement. He wanted to be informed of everything going on connected to the sheriff’s office. There’s nothing illegal about telling a spouse everything, it’s just that in the beginning, I didn’t want to worry him. Secrecy had been a disaster.

  In our new arrangement there would be no secrets on my part and in return he would not make sarcastic remarks or try to make me give up my badge. There were limits to the type of information available to historians. Now, as a law enforcement officer, I had access to detailed databases. It was the best of both worlds.

  “I want to know about the whole day,” he said. “What in the hell went on, exactly? People coming here from the church looked like they’d been at an execution even before word got around about the death.”

  “Lottie and I discovered the body and most folks had left by then,” Josie began.

  “But even if that hadn’t happened, that asshole had no right to talk to us like we were worms,” I said. “It’s the sermon that started it all.” I took a sip of wine.

  “Lottie told you about the dropped chalice?”

  “She did.” It was too dark to see his eyes, but Keith is a devout Catholic and he understood the tragedy of the spilled Blood.

  We both tried to reconstruct the morning. Each of us filling in details the other hadn’t noticed.

  “Did you see Tammy’s face?” Josie asked.

  “No. I was too preoccupied with worrying about Mary being stripped of her credentials.” Then I told them about Bishop Talesbury’s bizarre ritual after the service and his cutting around the blotch of wine.

  “Jesus Christ,” Keith muttered.

  “Exactly.”

  He laughed. “And that carpet is where?”

  “Still in my car. He told me to burn it, but I’ll bet I can’t do that just anywhere. Does your church have something special they use when things like this happen?”

  He got up and switched on the circle of decorative pole lights surrounding the semi-circle of our patio. “Something isn’t right here.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. Having served on various parish committees throughout his life, Keith was well-grounded in the Catholic Church’s canons.

  “I mean something just isn’t right.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know. I don’t even know who to ask about some of the details. But until my copy of the Episcopal church’s canons gets here, I’ll do whatever your church says.”

  “OK. I’ll dig out our canons tomorrow, but I’ve never heard of anyone cutting out the carpet.”

  This was beyond me. I hadn’t even given the church, my faith, a thought for many years until last fall. After that life threatening experience, I’d resolved to get some of it back. I was paying for this effort with this ecclesiastical mess.

  Tosca gave a little growl and leaped from Josie’s lap. A rabbit darted into the hedges. Being considerably larger than the dog, the bunny was the only thing all day that gave us a reason to laugh.

  “Yeah, Tosca. Atta girl.”

  “Oh lord,” Josie laughed. “She’s picking up bad habits and will start terrorizing our neighbors.”

  Tosca came charging back like she personally was responsible for banishing critters from our yard and leaped onto Josie’s lap despite my attempts to lure her onto mine.

  “Fickle,” I teased. “Momma’s girl.”

  A car turned up our lane. To our credit, none of us cussed, but we were clearly not in the mood for visitors. Even friends. We were a bottle away from getting a handle on the evening.

  “Who is it,” I asked.

  “Can’t tell from here,” Keith said.

  “Time for me to go to bed. Rea
lly.” Josie got up and headed toward the screen door.

  “Oh sit back down. Someone probably forgot something or it might be somebody needing directions.”

  But it was Sam.

  Chapter Seven

  He got right to the point. “The coroner can’t find Mary Farnsworth’s next of kin. He wants to notify them right away. He’s also going to need instructions as to the disposition of the body.”

  “What about an autopsy?” Keith asked.

  “Don’t need their permission for that. That’s standard procedure for an unattended death, but her people need to know.”

  “Her purse is still in my car,” I said. “I was going to take it to the office tomorrow morning. I’ll run get it.” I rose and headed for the Tahoe and came back with her keys, her purse, her cell phone, and the small plastic bag she’d left on the table. “Couldn’t Dr. Comstock find everything he needed online? There should have been emergency contact information.”

  “Not according to Comstock. He supposed I’d gotten in touch with the family, and I thought he was on top of it, so this is a royal screw-up. Just awful.” His face tightened.

  I tried to think. I hadn’t been around Mary all that much, but when I was she hadn’t mentioned family. I always remember when persons do. Part of my work at the historical society is to record family histories, so I have a second antenna out for these stories. Of course, there wasn’t any reason for her to talk about her family. When I was in her office, it was usually an emergency. Some kid needing foster care immediately.

  “She’s the only supervisory person out here. There’s no boss to call. Except on a state level and those offices won’t be open until tomorrow morning. In fact, I think she just kept a skeleton support staff after the budget cuts.”

  “Beer, Sam?” Keith asked. “Might as well while you get this sorted out.”

  “Can’t. Not till midnight. Then I get to turn this whole mess over to your wife. For twenty-four hours. Day was ruined anyway. KU got shut out of the playoffs.”

  “Sorry you had to drive all the way out here,” I said. “You could have called.”