"When someone asks me."
"That's a pretty smug answer," said Nancy between bites. "You'd better be careful though. It could happen."
"Hmmm," I said, in what I hoped was a non-committal fashion.
"You've been going with her for what? Four years? Five?" Pete, always an ex-officio member of our staff meetings, at least as long as breakfast was on-the-house, pulled up a chair and jumped into the conversation. "I think you should go ahead and pop the question."
"This advice from a three-time divorcé?"
"I love getting married. What can I say?" Pete waved to his new waitress-in-charge, Noylene Fabergé, who was still buoyant with last week's unexpected promotion. She scurried over with a full coffee pot and began to refill the half empty mugs.
"What do you think, Noylene?" asked Pete.
"'Bout what?" said Noylene, her eyes glued to the task at hand.
"'Bout the Chief here getting married."
"You're getting married?" Noylene looked up suddenly and the stream of coffee, originally intended for Dave's cup, went straight into his lap.
"YOW!" yelled Dave, leaping to his feet. "SON OF A …" He stopped short and looked around at the startled customers. "Well…son of a gun."
"Nice save, Dave," said Nancy, not even cracking a smile.
"Dadgumit," he muttered, looking down and blotting at the stain on the front of his Dockers with his quickly disintegrating paper napkin. "Dadgumit, dagnabit, and crud! This is my only pair of clean pants." We all pushed our napkins dutifully across the table.
Noylene was around the table before Dave had hit his feet, having put the coffee pot down, readying her cleaning rag for the task at hand. "I'm so sorry," she said to Dave, squatting in front of him. "Here, let me help."
"As much as Dave might enjoy that, Noylene," said Pete, "you'd better let him take care of it himself. People are starting to stare."
Noylene took the hint.
"That's quite a blue streak, Dave," I said, grateful for the interruption that had changed the direction of the conversation. "We don't want to offend any of Pete's customers though. Can you tone it down a little?"
Dave looked sheepish and continued blotting.
"Let's get back to your upcoming marriage proposal," said Nancy.
Noylene was suddenly back on track, her serving gaffe momentarily forgotten.
"Are you gettin' married? You know, I'm thinkin' about getting into the wedding business myself. I could do the hair, the flowers, the bridesmaid dresses…everything! And I'll prob'ly be openin' a salon…"
"Stop gushing, Noylene. I'm not getting married."
"I think you should reconsider," said Pete. "Meg is the best thing that ever happened to you, that's for sure. You don't want her getting away. And Noylene would be more than happy to help."
"She's not getting away, and I don't want Noylene's help. Now let's change the subject please. Here's breakfast."
Megan Farthing and I had been together for the last four years. We had met just after she'd moved to town to take care of her mother, and we'd been something of an item ever since. She was a savvy investment counselor and had taken charge of my small fortune quite handily. She is divorced, a few years younger than me, well-versed in music and the arts, a pretty darn good soprano and the town beauty. But I didn't think that marriage was in my future. Like most men comfortable in their current situation, I get extremely nervous when talk turns to nuptials—anyone's nuptials. It gets certain people thinking.
Collette, another of Pete's serving minions, came up to the table with a tray full of food including pancakes, scrambled eggs and country ham, grits, cinnamon buns, another basket of biscuits, toast and gravy, all served "family style." I noticed that all talk of marriage was curtailed as the entire group attacked the food and turned its attention to more important matters: that is, who was going to get the last pancake? My money was on Nancy.
"We can get more," I said, as Nancy fixed Dave with a murderous eye.
"It’s the principle of the thing," growled Nancy. "I'm a girl. He should give it to me. It's the polite thing to do." She aimed her fork in his direction.
"Fine," said Dave. "Just take it."
"I'll get some more," said Collette. "Just give me a minute. I don't even have the tray unloaded yet."
Pete sighed. "You guys are like piranhas. These free breakfasts are costing me a fortune."
"Send the bill to the department," I said. "We can afford it thanks to the parking tickets we're handing out."
"Hey, look at this," said Dave, holding up a cinnamon bun he had placed on a saucer. "This roll looks just like the Virgin Mary."
"Let me see that," said Noylene, her coffee and hostess rounds bringing her back to our table.
"You stay away from me with that coffee pot."
"Relax, honey. I just want to see the bun."
Dave tilted it up so we all could see it, the sticky glaze holding it firmly to the plate.
"My God. It does look like someone," said Pete. "I don't know who exactly. It could be just an old woman with a head scarf."
"Be serious," I said. "Why would just any old woman show up in a cinnamon bun? It has to be the Virgin Mary."
"I think it looks more like Jimmy Durante in drag," said Nancy.
"Maybe it's a sign," said Noylene.
"A sign of what?" asked Nancy.
"I dunno," said Noylene with a puzzled look. "But whatever you do, don't eat it."
Chapter 2
It was a Friday--not a T.G.I.F. Friday where you don't get anything done because you're too excited about the opening of fishing season and you've got a new rod from Orvis sitting on the davenport, three fresh-tied flies, and a tub of night crawlers wriggly enough to be deacons at a discernment weekend--but rather that kind of Friday that you dread to see come to an end, knowing that your sister-in-law has four tickets to the Junior Ballet (that gawd-awful Giselle) and one of them has your name written all over it.
"Kit," I barked, "you have those pictures yet?"
"Not yet, boss. They probably won't show anything you didn't already see."
"I was thinking we could sell one or two to the daily rag and make this month's nut. Our bank account is emptier than a housefly's bladder."
"That ain't ethical, Boss."
Ethics don't buy the stogies, I thought as I lit one up and picked up the phone.
"Marilyn? The bishop call yet?"
"Nope."
"How about the hymns? Did I pick them out already?" I knew the answer.
Marilyn snickered. "Not unless you did it in your sleep --as usual."
"Very funny." I chomped on my cigar. The fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost. Ordinary time. Usually I could come up with hymns faster than Granny Pearl on You-Pick-'Em Sunday, but today I was as stumped as the three-legged pig whose owner loved him so much, he vowed "I just can't eat a pig that cute all at once."
I flipped through the hymnal. It was tough being in the doghouse every week and this hymnal had some real hounds. Sure, they were all nice and singable when you were sitting in a music conference with a bunch of professionals, but try some of these mutts at home and they'd be barking like the cheerleader squad at St. Mary Margaret's.
"Shall I just use the ones from last week?" asked Marilyn amiably. "And the week before that? And the week before..."
"Yeah, whatever," I interrupted. "It's the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. I doubt anyone will notice."
"The bishop will notice. He's standing right here."
If I had been paying attention, I might have noticed Marilyn's intonation change from her no-nonsense secretarial clatter to her sickly sweet stick-a-communion-fork-in-your-neck voix de pudding, but I wasn't and I didn't.
"You misunderstood," I chirped. "The hymns are 435, 623, 15 and 238. In that order." I thought at least a couple of the numbers sounded recognizable. "Type it up." I hung up the phone.
"Still want that cup of joe?"
It was a voice that was familiar, but no
t too. I looked up and measured her like an undertaker at a nursing home. Her hair was short, her legs were long and the rest of her fell somewhere in between. It was the "in-between" I was interested in.
"I'm Starrbuck. Starrbuck Espresso. But you can call me Starr. I brought you some coffee."
"Of course you did, Kitten."
* * *
"May I read it yet?" asked Meg.
"Not yet. You're too critical. Your negativity will stem the tide that is my creative impetus."
"No, it won't. I promise. Just let me see the first chapter."
I gave no indication I was giving in.
She shrugged. "I'll see it Sunday, anyway."
I was in the habit, for better or worse, of putting the finished chapters into the choir members' folders before the Sunday morning service. I had found out later that these chapters had been making the rounds of the locals in St. Germaine. Not that I minded. I thought some of the prose was pretty darn good. Well, if not good, then not extremely bad. Or, if extremely bad, at least bad on purpose.
"Fine," I said, knowing I'd get no peace until the unjust criticism was leveled. I handed Meg the top page of the story. Although my missives were very short—less than a page—I thought they were clever beyond words. My entire novelette would be under thirty pages. Yes, it was short and sweet, but I wasn't making a career out of this. It was just my way of relaxing. I braced myself for the onslaught.
"Not too bad," said Meg. "In fact, you're getting better."
"You think so?"
"Absolutely. So good, in fact, that you should start your real novel. I'm sure it'll be splendid."
"I don't know. It might take me a couple of years to finish it."
"Really?" she asked, pseudo-innocence dripping from her treasonous lips. "That long?"
"Aha! I see right through your tricks." I snatched my paper back from her hand. "I am, after all, a trained detective. Nope. No way. This shall be my masterpiece."
"Ah well. No one can say I didn't try."
* * *
She swayed delightfully up to my desk like a Polynesian palm tree on a couple of good-looking stumps, her Miss-Middle-America walk defined by her high-heels, a little grace, a lot of practice, and the taffeta clinging to her curves like plastic wrap and rustling like a cockroach in a sugar-bowl.
"The girl you found. She was my sister."
"I see the resemblance," I said, lighting another cigar and thinking of last Thanksgiving.
"I'll pay you to find out who did it."
That sounded like a deal to me. The bishop would pay me. Starr Espresso would pay me. If I could get a couple more people to pay me, I could take the rest of the week off. Suddenly the phone rang. I picked it up. It was another dame.
"Yeah?"
"Vee vant you to find out who killed her."
I recognized the accent right away. She worked for the feds--undercover, of course--and I'd had that pleasure more than a few times. It was Alice. Alice Uberdeutchland.
"How're you doin' Alice?"
"Cut zee small talk. Vee vill give you two hundred a day plus expenses."
I took a long drag, put my feet up on my desk and blew a smoke ring that hung above Starr's head like a smoggy halo. Then I smiled.
* * *
"What's the scoop on the new guy?" I asked.
The staff meetings at St. Barnabas were different from our staff meetings for the police department in that we didn't have a full breakfast—just coffee and donuts. The "new guy" I was referring to had come into the congregation like a whirlwind and was hard to miss. He'd been attending services for a couple of weeks and had met almost everyone in the congregation, shaking hands and kissing babies like a seasoned politician.
"His name is Rob Brannon," said Georgia. Georgia Wester was one of the Lay Eucharistic Ministers and on the Worship Committee. The other people at the table were Marilyn, Father George and Carol Sterling. Our Christian Ed director, Brenda Marshall, was absent from the conclave. Brenda was a very emotional and hug-oriented woman. I had thought she might resign after our interim priest left, but she'd decided to stay on—at least for the time being.
In some Episcopal parishes, it's traditional for the entire staff to write letters of resignation as soon as a new priest is hired. Usually, but not always, the letters are refused. Sometimes, they're kept on file for a couple of months to see how all the personalities work out. Father George had decided to keep them all on file. The scuttlebutt around St. Barnabas was that Princess Foo-Foo (as Megan had nicknamed Brenda) was on a short leash and currently absent because she was attending a conference on Puppet Ministry that she had scheduled prior to Father George's arrival.
"Rob's been a visitor here since he was born," said Carol. "His grandparents have passed away, but his family's from St. Germaine."
"The name's familiar," I said. "Ahh. Robert Brannon, as in the Robert Brannon whose name is on at least three of the stained glass window memorials?"
"That's the family. I think Rob is Robert Brannon the fourth. His great-grandfather was one of the founding members of St. Barnabas."
"And is he back to stay?" Father George asked.
"It seems so," said Georgia, holding her now empty cup out to me for a refill. I obliged.
"Well, he's on my list for a visit. I'll try to see him sometime this week."
Father George Eastman had come to St. Barnabas in the early summer. He had interviewed just after Easter and had been well received by almost everyone. His wife, Suzanne, was a good alto and had joined the choir the first week they'd arrived. During the five months George had been at St. Barnabas, things had run smoothly. Compared to the last two priests, he was literally a godsend. The atmosphere of St. Barnabas felt as if a huge cloud had been lifted. The whole congregation could feel it. He had his quirks, but I liked him. We got along just fine.
"You'd better visit him," smiled Marilyn Forbis, the church secretary. "He's already joined. I received his letter this morning. He also turned in his pledge card."
I was impressed. His pledge card? In the Episcopal church, pledge cards were as rare as hen's teeth—at least before Thanksgiving when the screws were tightened.
"We have a vestry election in a couple of weeks," Father George said. "I've read the procedures. Is the nominating committee in place?"
We all looked at Marilyn. She nodded and flipped a couple of pages before settling on the correct document.
"There are four retiring members, so they'll make up the committee. Meg Farthing, Katherine Barr, Carol…" She nodded toward Carol. "And Malcolm Walker."
"How long has Malcolm been Senior Warden?" asked Father George.
"Four years," said Marilyn. "He should have left last year, but we were in transition, and we thought it would be wise to keep the leadership in place. We didn't have an election last year."
"Will Billy Hixon remain as Junior Warden?"
"He has another year, but I've heard rumblings that he might like the job of Senior Warden instead."
"Could he do it?" asked Father George, turning toward me.
"Sure," I said with a shrug. "I don't know why not."
Father George looked at Georgia, then to Carol.
"Yeah," said Georgia.
Carol nodded. "I guess so."
* * *
After the meeting, I made my way up to the choir loft to look at some music. St. Barnabas was an old church—old for this part of the country anyway. It was built in the traditional shape of the cross, the choir loft and the organ being in the back balcony. I had just settled in for an hour of practice on the Reger Ein feste Burg Fantasie when JJ Southerland came up the stairs and stuck her head though the doorway.
"I have some vittles for you in the kitchen if you want some lunch."
I grinned at her. "Are you here cooking every day?"
"Almost." JJ pulled the errant strap of her white painter's overalls back onto her shoulder, adjusted her baseball cap and gave me a smile. "I'm working on tonight's church supp
er anyway. You coming?"
"What are you making?" I was always wary of JJ's cooking. Sometimes it was a delicious pâté de foie gras. Sometimes it was pâté de possum. And you never knew which it would be.
"I don't know yet, but it could be good. Billy and John are grilling."
"I don't want to miss that. Give me about an hour, and I'll come down and give it a taste."
"Well, the real reason that I came up is that there's a huge rat in the pantry, and we can't get it out. Would you bring your gun down and teach it some manners?"
I reached under the organ bench and pulled out my 9mm Glock. "Let's go then."
* * *
The rat in the pantry was pretty big, and it had been living on the largesse of the kitchen committee for so long that it was too fat to move very quickly. There were three choices as I saw it. Shoot it, trap it or poison it. Shooting it was the fastest. Once the deed was done, I got it out the door and into the dumpster as quickly as I could. I didn't want to leave it for JJ because I wasn't altogether sure where it would end up.
"Thanks," said JJ, standing at the stove and pushing her current concoction around the blackened frying pan with a fork. "Grab a plate."
I looked over her shoulder. She had some sausages, onions, garlic and green peppers sizzling dangerously close to culinary perfection.
"It smells great. No wonder the rat didn't want to leave."
"Well, I've known about him for quite some time. But, live and let live I always say. That is, until he got into my potatoes."
I filled my plate and took it back with me to the choir loft. I didn't even care what kind of sausage this was and, by all accounts, it was probably best not to know. I'd heard that JJ stuffed her own.
* * *
An hour later, I was satisfied with the prelude for Sunday, had locked up and was walking back toward the police station when I heard a man's voice.
"Hayden! Hayden Konig!"
I looked across the street and saw Rob Brannon coming out of the Ginger Cat, obviously his choice for lunch judging from the napkin with which he was still busy wiping his mouth. It looked to me as if he'd seen me from the window and jumped up to catch me before I'd passed by.
The Tenor Wore Tapshoes (The Liturgical Mysteries) Page 2
